Guns Don't Kill People, People Kill People

ZHawke, it should have said murdered, not died, and isn't true but might have made people look it up. Many people think of themselves as skeptics, but are only hypocrites if they only question what the "other side" says, but takes what they either want or expect to be true from their side. In the movie World War Z one scene Brad Pitt's character is asking why they built a wall around the city, and believed there were zombies before seeing them. The man explains "if 10 men agree that something is true, it is the duty of one of them to take the opposite side." That is true skepticism.

HEARTLESS wrote: ZHawke, it should have said murdered, not died, and isn't true but might have made people look it up. Many people think of themselves as skeptics, but are only hypocrites if they only question what the "other side" says, but takes what they either want or expect to be true from their side. In the movie World War Z one scene Brad Pitt's character is asking why they built a wall around the city, and believed there were zombies before seeing them. The man explains "if 10 men agree that something is true, it is the duty of one of them to take the opposite side." That is true skepticism.

Apparently you may have missed the emoticons? Truth is, I knew there was something amiss, that something might be missing from your post. That's why I posted the way I did - not to demean you, but, rather, to try and add a little humor into the situation. Evidently, you missed that part?

As George Carlin so famously said, "Question everything"!

It doesn't matter, really, whether we're skeptics or not. What matters is whether our opinions can be backed up with factual data. There are an awful lot of opinions floating around in these forums. To me, opinions mean nothing if they have nothing to substantiate them. It isn't so much a level of skepticism as it is a motivation some people have...or not...to be factually accurate in making their assertions.

If you were to have cited your assertion, I might have given it a whole lot more credence right from the get go. As it is, you still haven't given a citation. Therefore, I question your assertion. And, I followed your wish that someone would look it up. I did, and I'm not so sure you're going to like the results.

This report, Mexico 2014 Crime and Safety Report: Ciudad Juarez from the U.S. Department of State sheds a little more light on your assertion:

The Department of State assesses crime as “critical” in Ciudad Juarez. 530 persons were murdered in Ciudad Juarez in 2013. This is a substantial improvement over the 730 murders reported in 2012 and the 1,900 murders reported in 2011. 429 persons were murdered in Chihuahua City in 2013, a slight improvement over the 437 murders reported in 2012. A significant majority of homicides in Juarez and Chihuahua City are drug cartel related; however, there have been cases in which innocent people are caught in the line of fire, or mistakenly targeted. A significant majority of homicides in Juarez and Chihuahua City can be considered “drug-related”. As a major drug trafficking corridor, the state of Chihuahua has been contested by two major Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs) for years. With more availability of drugs in Juarez, drug use has also increased locally.

Good thing someone questioned you, eh?

Even this report doesn't go into "how" the murders were carried out. We can assume, by virtue of the fact the report talked about innocents being caught in the crossfire, it's talking about guns, but we cannot be factually certain on this. So, I must ask the same question once again: from what? I've complied with your wish for someone to look it up. The stats don't appear to match your assertion....not even close.

I'm not sure what point you were trying to make.

My error, only the first sentence was directed to you, I failed to space the other as a general statement.
In regards to my point, our esteemed President is an absolute liar and attempting to manipulate public opinion when he states "we are the only modern nation with this problem."

HEARTLESS wrote: My error, only the first sentence was directed to you, I failed to space the other as a general statement.
In regards to my point, our esteemed President is an absolute liar and attempting to manipulate public opinion when he states "we are the only modern nation with this problem."

But how does that relate specifically to this thread? Even more importantly, comparing death statistics to see which one is the worst just doesn't compute with me - at least not when taken in their very raw context. There are simply way too many other factors that need to be considered.

For example, the State Department report attributes most of the murders in Ciudad Juarez to drugs. I know drugs have also been talked about as causative in the U.S., too. But there are so many other causatives that need to be considered here that do not apply abroad.

Whether one agrees with the President on this or not, the fact is he's calling for some kind of action to help address this insidious problem here in the U.S. That's a whole lot more than I can say for way too many gundamentalists (by this I mean the extreme pro-gun advocates) who appear to want two things:

1. Roll back existing laws restricting guns and gun ownership, and,
2. Maintain the status quo with regard to anything and everything else related to guns and gun ownership.

As to the manipulation of public opinion on the issue of gun violence, is that not also a prerogative of pro-gun advocacy groups, as well?

ZHawke wrote:

HEARTLESS wrote: My error, only the first sentence was directed to you, I failed to space the other as a general statement.
In regards to my point, our esteemed President is an absolute liar and attempting to manipulate public opinion when he states "we are the only modern nation with this problem."

But how does that relate specifically to this thread? Even more importantly, comparing death statistics to see which one is the worst just doesn't compute with me - at least not when taken in their very raw context. There are simply way too many other factors that need to be considered.

For example, the State Department report attributes most of the murders in Ciudad Juarez to drugs. I know drugs have also been talked about as causative in the U.S., too. But there are so many other causatives that need to be considered here that do not apply abroad.

Whether one agrees with the President on this or not, the fact is he's calling for some kind of action to help address this insidious problem here in the U.S. That's a whole lot more than I can say for way too many gundamentalists (by this I mean the extreme pro-gun advocates) who appear to want two things:

1. Roll back existing laws restricting guns and gun ownership, and,
2. Maintain the status quo with regard to anything and everything else related to guns and gun ownership.

As to the manipulation of public opinion on the issue of gun violence, is that not also a prerogative of pro-gun advocacy groups, as well?

It comes down to truth vs lies. The far Left/Progressives justify the means to reach the desired end, even when lies are required to get there. We are not the only nation with a violence problem, but when a solution can't be found, redirect the efforts to punish law abiding gun owners, because they hate guns and gun owners.
Now you can redirect to justify more lies.

HEARTLESS wrote: It comes down to truth vs lies. The far Left/Progressives justify the means to reach the desired end, even when lies are required to get there. We are not the only nation with a violence problem, but when a solution can't be found, redirect the efforts to punish law abiding gun owners, because they hate guns and gun owners.
Now you can redirect to justify more lies.

That, quite simply, is a pretty sad perspective when one comes right down to it.

I'm not so sure anyone here has ever said the U.S. is the only one with a gun violence problem. It's when that mantra is used to justify doing nothing that those who would advocate doing something, anything, to try and help address this issue that "persecuted" gun owners push back by using the "lies" accusation to get their way.

Gun owners are not "persecuted". Nor are they in any danger of being "persecuted". You won't be able to convince me that gun owners ARE being "persecuted" because they are NOT being "persecuted".

In threads past, here and elsewhere on social media, I've seen comparisons being made all the time to which massacre was the worst, be it a school massacre, a post office massacre, an office building massacre, a movie theater massacre on ad nauseum. My question is, what constitutes "worst". Random shootings? Domestic violence shootings? Murder/suicide shootings? What? What constitutes "worst"?

Should those "worst" incidents be compared to other "worst" incidents? If so, how so? How can they be used to best advantage? To try and do something to address what's going on? To try and maintain "status quo"? To try and denigrate one side or the other on the issue of gun violence for their respective stances?

After Columbine, almost everyone was putting it forward as being the worst school massacre in U.S. history even though it wasn't. Time went by and the furor swirling around this massacre gradually died down. The references to it gradually changed along the lines of clarifying that it was the worst school shooting in U.S. history even though it wasn't. In the end, does it really matter which was worst?

Truth is, for those directly affected, there is no "worst" other than their own. To me, that perspective puts these kinds of tragedies at a very human level because it also takes it out of the realm of "mass" incidents and includes those incidents that happen on a day-to-day recurrence.....to families just like everyone else's family.

That, that right there, is what the ongoing discussion SHOULD be about in my opinion. Comparisons can be useful if used correctly. Comparisons can be useless if used to maintain the status quo.

ZHawke wrote:

HEARTLESS wrote: It comes down to truth vs lies. The far Left/Progressives justify the means to reach the desired end, even when lies are required to get there. We are not the only nation with a violence problem, but when a solution can't be found, redirect the efforts to punish law abiding gun owners, because they hate guns and gun owners.
Now you can redirect to justify more lies.

That, quite simply, is a pretty sad perspective when one comes right down to it.

I'm not so sure anyone here has ever said the U.S. is the only one with a gun violence problem. It's when that mantra is used to justify doing nothing that those who would advocate doing something, anything, to try and help address this issue that "persecuted" gun owners push back by using the "lies" accusation to get their way.

Gun owners are not "persecuted". Nor are they in any danger of being "persecuted". You won't be able to convince me that gun owners ARE being "persecuted" because they are NOT being "persecuted".

Listen to Obama tell us we are the only modern nation with this problem, then read the blog BS put forth by "gun expert" Jim Wright.

Since we have pretty well established that an inanimate object is incapable of any action its self, start talking criminal acts and violence, not gun violence.