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Quote from proletaria

Our prisons are currently too full of marijuana offenders to house all the true dangers to society, sorry.

Pretty much, yeah.

Our antiquated drug laws are a huge part of what ultimately leads to violent crime in the U.S.

Not to say users aren't committing many violent crimes, but the drug lords who fight for supply and territory do commit many violent crimes.

This also brings me to what I do find offensive about sensational stories like this theater massacre. And that's that people in urban areas, decaying cities live in some of the worst crime ridden areas of all and a lot of that crime stems from poverty and ridiculous drug laws. But it's not really news that some poor neighborhoods are getting shot up all the time over drug dealers fighting for real estate.

We're so fascinated by the random shooter who was seemingly normal and had a good life going for him. And yeah I'll admit I'm fascinated by it also, but only to a point. Beyond that point, I really don't think there's a lot to learn in terms of societal behavior by the killing spree of this guy. I mean, even suicide bombings happen frequently enough that we have begun to find sociological explanations for them and have even dispelled the myth that suicide bombers are not necessarily insane as opposed to just extremely socialized. But a lone shooter like this, there is a deep psychological explanation for his behavior perhaps, or maybe there is not that even.

What I'm saying is I think it's overestimated in what there is to learn from this incident. Yet the media will plug it into their overextended news cycle and bring in analysts and pundits and just as I knew they would, they will politicize and sensationalize what happened. And I think that's offensive just because there are other incidents of gun violence, such as those connected to gang violence and the drug trade. And we understand the patterns and the solutions to these kinds of deaths by firearms, only they happen more over time and not all at once in a nice bundle of a news story.

I mean, sure enough, it seems much of this conversation has devolved into a gun control debate. But like I said, gun violence is a symptom of a much larger problem such as poverty or outdated drug laws. We all remember prohibition. Well none of us were alive during that time, but we were all taught about it. They could've done all the gun control in the world during that time and still people would've been getting gunned down like crazy. And why? Because there was money to be made in bootlegging. And because people had to fight over product and territory because they could not do it by legitimate means. It's no different today with the war on drugs. And that's one of the real causes of gun deaths each year.

So if you restrict guns more, you're kind of applying a treatment, but that's still ignoring the fundamental problem. There are still too many incentives connected to owning a gun (legal or otherwise). Even regular middle class folk who live in the suburbs, they own guns a lot of the time out of fear. They feel they must protect themselves because their neighbor's house or car was broken into and now they're scared. Most property crimes are caused by people who need money for drugs or they are simply in poverty and they're resorting to a life of crime to help sustain themselves.

So poverty, drugs, these are the things I see leading to all the violence in this country. But Americans are tired of that conversation. And no politician wants to decriminalize drugs or lessen the mandatory sentencing laws for drug offenses because that makes them appear soft on crime. And being soft of crime doesn't get you reelected. And unfortunately, poor people don't really vote that much.

Yeah for that money you can build a decent PC if you're not counting the monitor. Are you looking to build a custom PC (recommended) or just buying one from like Best Buy or something?

If you wanna build your own I can give you a complete breakdown on hardware.

edit: Sorry I did just read that a bit more carefully now and I see you are willing to build a custom one so let me look at some things and I'll give you an idea of what you can get for what.

He actually looks like a lot of the Mos I go to school with.

Quote from Razzputon13

Batman movies do.

No, you're thinking James Cameron movies.

Right? I mean at least wait till the end credits just start.

Yihuu! I'm active!

Quote from Daemaro

You can't possibly find logic in the actions of someone who is acting completely illogical at the time. It's just a senseless act of violence and I don't think it points towards anything necessarily.

Mm hm. There's nothing political about any of it. It's just insanity.

Also, many of these shooters who have massacred people in this way had no prior convictions or any signs they were a danger to society at all. This guy who shot up the theater was apparently in or about to start his PhD in neuroscience so by all accounts he was a productive citizen just going to school earning his degree. Now, as we examine his profile as the story progresses, we may find there were indeed warning signs, but they are likely to go beyond people saying, "Yeah, that guy gave me the creeps sometimes." And it's not like when you do your background check before purchasing an assault rifle that they ask, "Have you ever gave someone the creeps before?"

Like, gun control is a good thing. But, it's actually not the solution to these problems here. As to why I might think gun control is a good thing is actually not even part of this argument. I say that though cause I think most people would agree that no amount of gun control was likely to have stopped what happen in that movie theater. There are many externalities to the things we accept in daily life. We wanna have our guns? Then we gotta accept this sort of thing may happen from time to time. So you wanna try and stop it from happening through more stringent gun laws? Well, you might actually. But it just depends on how determined that person is to get the gun. And we also know that an outright ban of guns wouldn' make guns go away. It just means they would exist in a black market which the existence of causes all sorts of problems on its own just the same way the market for illegal drugs do.

Quote from Razzputon13

I think we should all be able to carry weapons.

If that had happened in Texas the headline would have read: "Armed man shot by movie crowd after opening fire in theatre"

Yes, I'm sure all the Texans would've been saved in a dark movie theater cause if they have permits to carry guns like that, well then they must all be expert marksman and trained to respond in a calculating way to being shot at. LOL

But see? It's hard to talk about these incidents without eventually someone just saying how they should/shouldn't have the right to own or carry a gun. But I don't think that's the point here.

Quote from zeroRooter

Actually on the topic of gun laws it definitely wouldn't hurt to have stronger regulations against hand guns

Yeah definitely wouldn't hurt, I agree.

But my problem goes back to what I was saying earlier. That the majority of gun violence in the U.S. and Mexico is a result of gangs and organized crime who benefit from the sale of illegal drugs. Work toward taking away their market share of drugs and thus their financing, and the statistics of gun violence would drop like crazy.

However, greater gun control in the end may do very little to deter that crazed lone gunman who's set on shooting a bunch of innocent people for no reason. That's all.

Quote from Yousend

What I'm saying is that some unstable people might see this, think "Oh, I might be heard if I do something crazy like this" and go ahead with some evil doing that they might not go through with if it didn't get such media attention. Like they should mention it, but not give the attention they might be looking for.

It is hard not to give the incident a lot of attention. That is a lot of people dead from a single man. But people also move on past these stories surprisingly fast. I mean, when Virginia Tech happened people talked about that like crazy for two weeks and then sort of just forgot about it. That's our collective attention span to things like this. But again, I'm not sure the motive here is to get attention. Maybe it is, I don't know. But I don't think a potential gunman seeing this story would necessarily conclude that yeah, I can get a lot of attention too if I do the same thing!

But I do get your point. There are lots of people everyday who do not even dangerous things, but really really stupid things and I hate that they get any press coverage at all. But they do regardless.

As per the futility of debating the existence of God on the internet, I'll just reassert this fact: Star Trek is the only true religion.

Quote from Yousend

Not to nitpick, but terrorism is anything that creates fear, technically you could consider all the news reporting on that attack terrorist.

Well we all understand the fundamental meaning of the word terrorism. But in the context of this conversation the distinction is relevant.

Quote from Yousend

But back on topic, unless it's an organized group doing this kind of thing, we shouldn't need to be informed of this, this can only lead to people thinking they might get the "recognition they deserve" if we acknowledge them.

Not sure what you mean by that exactly. Like, are you saying they shouldn't even report on this? Or by informed do you mean we just shouldn't look more into what is seemingly there. Cause yeah I'd agree in the sense that we shouldn't politicize this incident or try to make in into anything that it's not.

I personally don't think the gunman had the motive of being recognized though or anything like that. And I'll especially hate if people try to apply Joker's lame logic here in this discussion as well since the gunman claimed he was the Joker.

Yeah, and it just bothers me the way both the right and left will capitalize on this incident. The left saying, "See? We need more gun control!" And the right saying, "The Dems will use this as a chance to take away your precious guns! But we won't let them!"

I mean, yeah that would be fucking scary if shootings were in fact becoming a regular pattern. But the last major domestic shooting we had like this was....2009 I believe? When that military guy shot up a lot of people on the military base. There was Virginia Tech of course, too. And sure, these stories totally stand out above all other headlines, but they remain the exception. So I just hate how people use these kinds of incidents as a rallying cry for political causes.

But there's nothing to make of this other than the fact that this was a crazy fucker with a gun. And yes, we can also make the argument that gun control would have prevented him from doing as much damage cause if he had only a single pistol then obviously he couldn't kill as many people. And while that is true, I also believe people will find ways to get what they want and find all sorts of ways to kill lots of people no matter what.

That said, I'm personally in favor of gun control but I don't think advocating gun control means you're anti-gun. I just think we need a policy that more accurately reflects the times we live in instead of relying wholly on an archaic document as a justification to be armed to the teeth. The longer we rely on the wording of the Constitution as the sole basis for our laws, the more out of touch those laws become as the drafters of the Constitution simply could not envision the kinds of problems our country would have today.

I'm just all for having an open discussion about this and examining the policies of guns and gun control from a less partisan point of view and more from a simple public policy view based more on relevant and recent data. But people instead invoke this holy document that is just so infallible supposedly clear as day for making all our laws and we need to move beyond this silly reverence we have for the Constitution. Yeah, I get it. It's a brilliant document and it always will because it was really visionary for its time. But it just doesn't have the same relevance it used to.

Most gun violence that occurs every year is attributed more to gang violence which is attributed more to the sale of illegal drugs. That's where all your deaths by firearm are racking up every year. It's all just violence over drugs. And that's where I get politically charged about it. I think no matter what you do anywhere, it's hard to stop this sort of thing from happening. So gun control isn't going ultimately stop the madmen bent on shooting people up.

But the kinds of gun violence that do have a more identifiable pattern, such as that associated with gang violence, we know the solutions for those problems. Politically, however, our leaders are too afraid to make those changes cause we're afraid doing a thing such as legalizing a drug leads to a slippery slop where society becomes completely amoral. And voters are too stupid to not be idealistic for a second and try to view problems in a more pragmatic way.

Instead of thinking "People will always do drugs so how can we reduce their impact on society," they instead think, "Drugs are wrong and should be illegal no matter what." Right now Mexico is riddled with gang violence, all who thrive on the sale of illegal drugs, and all who drop tons of bodies each day using guns. That's because there is profit in what they do. You take away their abilities to make profits of such a thing, and gun violence would drop like crazy.

I don't know. That's a pretty general statement. Most people don't wanna be padded down at airports let alone movie theaters. And we don't wanna have to change the way we live just cause of an incident like this. Though large in scale, it still remains an incident I think. But some may find that public shootings are becoming something of a pattern; that there is a sociological explanation developing for them.