The Second Amendment

[VOR]

I think you're getting closer to the truth (at least as I see it) about addressing the real issue. Society is becoming less and less stable and it's because of the people. People are wigging out more and more frequently.

One generation ago, murder rampages were an absolutely shocking rarity. It isn't so nowadays.

I see it as two specific problems:

1. Gang activity: this is mostly an unappetizing side-dish to our failed war on drugs. The drug underworld is directly and indirectly responsible for a very high percentage of our per capita murder rate. I find the solution very tasteless but simple and effective: legalize them. This same scenario played out in our history once before during the prohibition era, but apparently history has taught us nothing. We can't even collectively recognize the symptoms of a disease we cured less than 100 years ago.

2. Popular culture and the fast food phenomenon: Western culture and America in particular has gotten technologically spoiled. We want what we want exactly how we want it and we want it now. When we don't get it, it's fashionable to assume a "don't take any crap" attitude and more often than not escalate a petty situation to the brink of violence or beyond. (Example: road rage.) This is a more complex issue than #1 and is a disease with many contributing factors, the greatest of which is impatience. (We even get PO'd when our pr0n doesn't download fast enough.) Add to this popular tough-talking cultural icons born from the entertainment industries and symptoms of overcrowding in urban areas and you have one very short collective fuse that essentially makes otherwise normal people flip out as a stress reaction. I'm not going to address the issue of legitimate metal illness because the percentage is negligible.

A cure exists for number one provided we have the moral courage to admit failure and move on.

Number two is only going to get worse and is precisely why I will never again follow a  job into a sprawling urban cesspot. My family's safety means more than that to me.

[ravells]

I couldn't have said it better myself, VOR - I think you're spot on.

I would just add to the cultural bit the following tropes that are peddled on media: 'get rich quick' and 'having stuff makes you happy'.

Ravs

[Dago]

Originally posted by ravells
 I don't have the figures so I don't know what the ratios are.

What's odd, is that as a whole the States has a large proportion of people who do carry guns and a very high level of gun crime compared to say, Italy. Yet Canada (so I understand) has a higher level of gun ownership per person and yet much lower gun crime than America. (I'm not sure about the figures, but I'm reasonably certain that they're right having been cited on these boards a few times many years in the past).

It's possible that Canadians taken as a whole just have a society that is less pre-disposed to violence than Americans? I don't know....just guessing.

Ravs

We have more minorities.

[lasersailor184]

Originally posted by VOR
I think you're getting closer to the truth (at least as I see it) about addressing the real issue. Society is becoming less and less stable and it's because of the people. People are wigging out more and more frequently.

One generation ago, murder rampages were an absolutely shocking rarity. It isn't so nowadays.

Ummm.

BULL****.
BULL****
BULL****
BULL****

What the hell is up with all this crap?  Why do people immediately forget history at the 10 year mark?  Why do we always think that the worst things that could possibly happen are now?

[ravells]

Dago said: we have more minorities.

meaning exactly what? That it's the minorities that are commiting the crime?

Any minorities in particular? If so....why?

Ravs

[VOR]

Laser, back in the day people remembered the names of the killers because it was such a shocking event. Jack the Ripper, Lee Harvey Oswald, Charles Whitman, Bonnie and Clyde, Charles Manson.

Nowadays you have to do some extraordinary or particularly twisted in order to stand out from the herd of nutcases: Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy. Without looking it up, do you remember the name of the original "Postal" employee that shot up his post office? The fellow that shot up a McDonald's in 1984? Were you even out of diapers back then? Just how much history have you experienced outside of a textbook?

Or more recently: who was the mall shooter? Remember his name?

Here's a good exercise for you: Google "Post Office Shooting" and count the different events that have happened in the last 20 years. How many do you specifically recall? I don't recall very many, personally. They blend in because of the volume of events, which is supportive of my ideas.

In summary, *you* are full of ****.

[Chairboy]

I call bullcrap on "the world is more dangerous now".  The media is just more sensationalist.

[Dago]

Originally posted by VOR
Laser, back in the day people remembered the names of the killers because it was such a shocking event. Jack the Ripper, Lee Harvey Oswald, Charles Whitman, Bonnie and Clyde, Charles Manson.

Nowadays you have to do some extraordinary or particularly twisted in order to stand out from the herd of nutcases: Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy. Without looking it up, do you remember the name of the original "Postal" employee that shot up his post office? The fellow that shot up a McDonald's in 1984? Were you even out of diapers back then? Just how much history have you experienced outside of a textbook?

Or more recently: who was the mall shooter? Remember his name?

Here's a good exercise for you: Google "Post Office Shooting" and count the different events that have happened in the last 20 years. How many do you specifically recall? I don't recall very many, personally. They blend in because of the volume of events, which is supportive of my ideas.

In summary, *you* are full of ****.

Dont forget Richard Speck, that one freaked me out as a child growing up just outside Chicago.

[VOR]

I call BS on your chart.

Murder and other felony crime statistics move alot like the stock market. Your chart's timeline begins at the start of a peak trend in 1972 which miraculously plummets with shoot-em-up games being the apparent savior of Western society. I don't buy off on the idea of PC entertainment reversing a 30 year anti-empathic crescendo. Games are fun, but they aren't positive life-changing experiences.

Current felony crime rates are stable and have been since about 1998-1999 following a peak in the late 1980s. This put the 2005 murder rate on par with the 1970-71 rate at around 17,000. By comparison, there were a little over 9000 reported homicides in 1960.

So, it goes up and down in the near-term, but long-term displays an indisputable climb. If it had a ticker code, I'd buy it.

So, back to my original idea: changes in society and the booming drug trade are more responsible for felony crime stats than firearm ownership across the board. They're the real culprits here...or I mean WE are the real culprits here.

[Toad]

Originally posted by ravells
Dago said: we have more minorities.

meaning exactly what? That it's the minorities that are commiting the crime?

Any minorities in particular? If so....why?

Ravs

If you divide England into two groups, the ~91% white Englishman group and the ~9% minorities group, to which group would you statistically attribute most of your murders?

[Chairboy]

VOR, if the data from the Department of Justice is incorrect, or is being displayed incorrectly, perhaps someone should say something?

[Dago]

Originally posted by ravells
Dago said: we have more minorities.

meaning exactly what? That it's the minorities that are commiting the crime?

Any minorities in particular? If so....why?

Ravs

From the FBI statistics for 2004:

Murder Offenders                        
by Age, Sex, and Race, 2004                        
      Sex          Race          
Age   Total     Male       Female   Unknown     White     Black  Other   Unknown
Total     15,935   10,262   1,130         4,543     5,339     5,608     271      4,717
 

Funny, blacks number maybe 13% of the population, but killed more than any other race?


Murder Stats

Yeah, it's un-PC to point out a truthful reality.

[Charon]

Crime in general is publicized more today, that's for sure. Our overall homicide rate today is about on par with the 1966 at about 5.6/100k. In 1950 it was 4.6 /100k. You really see the numbers start to rise in the 1960s with the late 1960s and 1970s being much steeper. It peaked at about 10/100k in 1980. The real drop off back to where we are at today started in 1994.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0873729.html

Where homicide in general is concerned (looking back to 1900) you can see the peak impact of prohibition and the "serious" war on drugs. You can see the rise of the Narco gangs and then their maturity and increased stability. The state of the economy, employment and age demographics also come into play in notable fashion.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/hmrt.htm

However, the kind of suicide in a blaze of glory/Go Postal on all who pissed me off kind of thing is relatively new. VOR is dead on. These events used to be rare. Now, statically out of a population of 300 million they are still exceedingly rare compared to lightening deaths etc. -- but more common in general terms than they ever were. I would say it's a combination of cultural glorified revenge violence like you find in much Hollywood fare (movie and TV) starting about with the Action Hero stuff of the 1980s. Firearm violence is now MTV stylized, the 40 cal equivalent of a Bruce Lee movie.  And then there is the guaranteed 24 hour media circus these losers know they can expect. Fame at last.

Charon

[Serenity]

This country was made for bibles, with guns. I say the 2nd ammendment stays. We all should have the right to bear arms (Except convicted crimminals, for obvious reasons) to protect ourselves, or just go hunting!

[storch]

some people just miss the point.  we all have the right to bear arms.  the very first tools man ever created were arms.  some governments want to go against nature and claim the right exclusively.  some sheeple allow them to.