Nashville School Shooting

[eider]

I wasn't living in the UK you twit

I just know bulldust when I see it, is all.

[eider]

In Texas they allowed trained teachers to carry firearms.

Yes.... why not?.... and the school, education dept or teacher might consider taking out all-risks third party insurance.

[Diogenes]

Showing a picture of it would be an attempt to engender an emotional reaction. e.g. if I were to start posting pictures of bullet riddled bodies of children killed in mass shootings, rather than just talking dispassionately about the immorality of gun culture leading to mass shootings, that would be attempting to engender an emotional reaction.

I quite doubt anyone on the Left, you included, actually cares about the "immorality of gun culture leading to mass shootings" as that would entail some level of care about death, which distinctly is lacking from the Left who openly champions it from abortion to government-assisted suicide. It's why gun control advocates routinely dismiss Chicago gun violence as it's inconvenient.

If you wish to be dispassionate, we could easily agree that bad people will do bad things irrespective of the law, and dispassionately discuss if that fact should be used to curtail the rights of law-abiding citizens who enjoy guns or those who use them for self-defence. The Left is incapable of dispassionate gun control discussion similar to the way the Right is incapable of dispassionate abortion discussion. If the children had died in the womb, you wouldn't have cared. If the teachers had died in a nursing home after a Democrat governor had forced the home to take COVID postive patients like Cuomo did, you wouldn't have cared. The deaths were convenient to your ideology and they useful.

[Ronson]

I quite doubt anyone on the Left, you included, actually cares about the "immorality of gun culture leading to mass shootings" as that would entail some level of care about death, which distinctly is lacking from the Left who openly champions it from abortion to government-assisted suicide. It's why gun control advocates routinely dismiss Chicago gun violence as it's inconvenient.

If you wish to be dispassionate, we could easily agree that bad people will do bad things irrespective of the law, and dispassionately discuss if that fact should be used to curtail the rights of law-abiding citizens who enjoy guns or those who use them for self-defence. The Left is incapable of dispassionate gun control discussion similar to the way the Right is incapable of dispassionate abortion discussion. If the children had died in the womb, you wouldn't have cared. If the teachers had died in a nursing home after a Democrat governor had forced the home to take COVID postive patients like Cuomo did, you wouldn't have cared. The deaths were convenient to your ideology and they useful.

I think the Left just likes to champion whatever underdogs are trendy at any given moment, and especially if they are a tiny minority. I doubt many of them have any empathy.

[Starlight]

I quite doubt anyone on the Left, you included, actually cares about the "immorality of gun culture leading to mass shootings" as that would entail some level of care about death, which distinctly is lacking from the Left who openly champions it from abortion to government-assisted suicide.

I would generally say the left values life a lot, lot, lot, more than the right does. For that reason, the left tends to be anti-death penalty, anti-war, anti-gun, wanting healthcare for everyone, etc.

Pretty much the only exceptions to the left's strong pro-life values are the ones you mention, where entities without developed minds (rocks, plants, fetuses etc) aren't viewed as part of the moral sphere and so aren't subject to those pro-life values, and euthanasia, which is a rare case where the left does let another strongly held value (freedom of self determination) trump its strong pro-life mindset.

It's why gun control advocates routinely dismiss Chicago gun violence as it's inconvenient.

Chicago is so close to red states that have lax gun laws that Chicago can't stop guns flowing in from those states. But analysis of data across the country shows that gun laws do work to reduce gun violence in general.

If you wish to be dispassionate, we could easily agree that bad people will do bad things irrespective of the law

I don't really agree with that statement at all. Even utter criminals will follow most laws most of the time in their daily lives. Laws can be written in ways that are better or in ways that are worse, and just saying some people will choose to be criminals is not a serious argument as to why better laws shouldn't be made rather than worse ones. We have laws against murder, theft, arson etc: You could argue we shouldn't have those laws because "bad people will do bad things irrespective of the law", but that's just not a good argument for why we shouldn't have laws against doing bad things such as murdering other people.

There are rare cases where particular laws against something just don't work well at all in practice, e.g. Prohibition. The experience in many states and countries was those laws ended up making the situation worse, because people still drank, it encouraged smuggling and empowered organized crime etc. So you could suggest, I guess, that that might happen with guns. However, I would say that there's zero evidence to suggest it would. Internationally we've seen countries successfully introduce tighter gun laws and restrictions without any such problems or blowback. And the US has tighter gun laws in some states than others, and has had tighter gun laws at some times in history federally, and those have typically worked reasonably fine without triggering Prohibition-style negative consequences.

The data across the US, among different US states, and the data internationally across different countries, pretty consistently shows that tighter gun laws do work to reduce gun deaths and gun violence. So we know such laws work. So the "bad people will break the law anyway" claim doesn't really fly when we know the laws work effectively.

and dispassionately discuss if that fact should be used to curtail the rights of law-abiding citizens who enjoy guns or those who use them for self-defence.

Sure you can do a simple pros and cons if you like. Con of having so many guns: Massive gun deaths. Pros of having guns: A few people get some enjoyment out of them. But they equally could pick literally any other hobby in the world and get an equal level of enjoyment out of that, so removing one possible hobby from the million available, isn't much of a downside for the world. So the maths works out pretty simply in favour of massively restricting guns.

The Left is incapable of dispassionate gun control discussion similar to the way the Right is incapable of dispassionate abortion discussion.

Totally not true. The left dispassionately points to the data about how deadly guns are. And the right just puts their hands over their ears and refuses to have a discussion.

If the children had died in the womb, you wouldn't have cared.

Correct because they wouldn't have been sentient beings with a developed and functioning mind, in the same way as I don't care plants dying. Beings lacking minds are outside the moral sphere, or to the extent that they have limited minds (animals, late term fetuses) are in the moral sphere in proportion to the extent of mental development and function.

If the teachers had died in a nursing home after a Democrat governor had forced the home to take COVID postive patients like Cuomo did, you wouldn't have cared.

What sort of bizarre claim is that? Of course I would care. Cuomo's policy was awful, he was an awful governor who handled covid awfully, and I'm glad he's gone.

The deaths were convenient to your ideology and they useful.

Is that really how you think? I can only presume you're projecting your own thought patterns onto me and hence your statements are giving us an insight into your depraved logic, since that's sure not an idea I hold or would ever express.

[Starlight]

I think the Left just likes to champion whatever underdogs are trendy at any given moment, and especially if they are a tiny minority.

Support for underdogs is an inherent part of leftist politics, just as support for the elites is an inherent part of right-wing politics. That's fairly basic political science theory.

[Ronson]

Support for underdogs is an inherent part of leftist politics, just as support for the elites is an inherent part of right-wing politics.

To a degree. You tend to exaggerate that point, however. In fact, there are as many, if not more, elites getting protection from the Left these days.

[Diogenes]

I think the Left just likes to champion whatever underdogs are trendy at any given moment, and especially if they are a tiny minority.

I don't think it's about supporting a trendy underdog. It's more about subversion of what they consider "traditional". Trans individuals will be discarded once they are not ideologically useful, just like lesbian, bisexuals, and gays were supplanted by trans. That's why so called "TERFs" is an interesting dynamic as they're leftists but resisting the trans push.

[Starlight]

Trans individuals will be discarded once they are not ideologically useful, just like lesbian, bisexuals, and gays were supplanted by trans.

In what sense has the left "discarded" LGB people?

[seer]

In what sense has the left "discarded" LGB people?

Well they certainly have discarded feminists. You know those horrible TERFs...

[Diogenes]

I would generally say the left values life a lot, lot, lot, more than the right does. For that reason, the left tends to be anti-death penalty, anti-war, anti-gun, wanting healthcare for everyone, etc.

I would say the Left gives the pretense of valuing life. This is not a thread to extrapolate on the Left's pretenses. Even the whole "Black Lives Matter" is a farce.

Pretty much the only exceptions to the left's strong pro-life values are the ones you mention, where entities without developed minds (rocks, plants, fetuses etc) aren't viewed as part of the moral sphere and so aren't subject to those pro-life values, and euthanasia, which is a rare case where the left does let another strongly held value (freedom of self determination) trump its strong pro-life mindset.

Very nice of you to dehumanise foetuses. The Left's support for "self-determination" is a facade. It's funny how "my body my choice" was suppressed during Covid.

Laws can be written in ways that are better or in ways that are worse,

Ah yes, writing-of-the-gaps

We have laws against murder, theft, arson etc: You could argue we shouldn't have those laws because "bad people will do bad things irrespective of the law", but that's just not a good argument for why we shouldn't have laws against doing bad things such as murdering other people.

The intent of laws is not to prevent crime. Judicial theory is another topic.

There are rare cases where particular laws against something just don't work well at all in practice, e.g. Prohibition.

Drug laws don't work. Pro-choice advocates wailed in regard to "back alley" abortions. A lot of laws "don't work well" in practice.

Internationally we've seen countries successfully introduce tighter gun laws and restrictions without any such problems or blowback.

Other countries don't have gun rights as part of their basic laws.

The data across the US, among different US states, and the data internationally across different countries, pretty consistently shows that tighter gun laws do work to reduce gun deaths and gun violence. So we know such laws work. So the "bad people will break the law anyway" claim doesn't really fly when we know the laws work effectively.

There are multitudes of differences among the states and internationally especially as the effectiveness of gun bans.

Sure you can do a simple pros and cons if you like. Con of having so many guns: Massive gun deaths. Pros of having guns: A few people get some enjoyment out of them.

Interesting how you leave out self-defence.

Totally not true. The left dispassionately points to the data about how deadly guns are. And the right just puts their hands over their ears and refuses to have a discussion.

Life is deadly. Living around humans is deadly. If the end goal wasn't a gun ban, there would be room to talk,

Correct because they wouldn't have been sentient beings with a developed and functioning mind, in the same way as I don't care plants dying. Beings lacking minds are outside the moral sphere, or to the extent that they have limited minds (animals, late term fetuses) are in the moral sphere in proportion to the extent of mental development and function.

Who is to say humans have minds at all? Perhaps we're all just philosophical zombies shuffling around and merely responding to stimuli as if life is just one large Chinese room?

What sort of bizarre claim is that? Of course I would care. Cuomo's policy was awful, he was an awful governor who handled covid awfully, and I'm glad he's gone.

Then you're in a minority as the Dems care more about sexual harassment than forcing Covid patients into nursing homes.

Is that really how you think? I can only presume you're projecting your own thought patterns onto me and hence your statements are giving us an insight into your depraved logic, since that's sure not an idea I hold or would ever express.

You jeep using the word "depraved", I don't think you know what the word means.

In what sense has the left "discarded" LGB people?

We both know that's not a serious question.

[Mountain Man]

Support for underdogs is an inherent part of leftist politics, just as support for the elites is an inherent part of right-wing politics. That's fairly basic political science theory.

It depends on what you mean by "right-wing politics". Most conservatives I know are in favor of everyone being treated equally with no one group being granted special privileges.

Of course the irony of today's Democrat party is that they are among the wealthiest elites in the country who go to great lengths to protect their riches and power, but they have idiots like you conned into thinking they are champions of "the little guy".

[Starlight]

Very nice of you to dehumanise foetuses.

To say their brains are not yet developed is an accurate biological description, not dehumanization. It is probably why surveys have found that biological scientists are among the most supportive of abortions of any group.

The Left's support for "self-determination" is a facade. It's funny how "my body my choice" was suppressed during Covid.

The left has a number of different values. In some situations those values conflict, and tradeoffs then need to be assessed. Life / public health, is a strong value of the left. Self-determination is a strong value of the left. During a pandemic, because the disease was highly transmissible, the actions of one person could kill many others. Therefore the situation wasn't as much about self-determination as euthanasia is (where your own choice doesn't kill others), and public health was generally viewed as being the priority value in the situation. It wasn't exactly complex logic.

Drug laws don't work.

I generally agree. I am a political empiricist: i.e. I favor whatever sets of laws and policies are demonstrated as having the best outcomes. Therefore my starting point in politics is always about identifying countries where things have worked best and copying them. e.g. in general the very left-wing & liberal nordic countries tend to be happiest, so that's my default optimal political position. In the case of drugs, the US has shown us what policies don't work well with its endless drug war, and Portugal has recently shown us what policies can work really really well via its recent legalizations to deal with its drug issues, and the resultant success of that.

Pro-choice advocates wailed in regard to "back alley" abortions. A lot of laws "don't work well" in practice.

Indeed. And I am all about preferring ones that work in practice to ones that don't, rather than basing laws in ideology or in armchair thought-sessions.

Other countries don't have gun rights as part of their basic laws.

Indeed most do not. Nearly all of the countries that used to have constitutional gun rights have since removed them because the effects of those laws were terrible and they wisely based their law changes on empirical evidence of what worked and what didn't.

A look at the history of the US interpretations of the 2nd amendment shows that for much of US history it was considered largely irrelevant and was not regarded by SCOTUS as being a reason to declare gun control laws unconstitutional. The modern conservative creative reinterpretation of it that gives everyone a right to a gun only became law in 2008 when the activist far-right SCOTUS declared it so by 5-4 majority. It could be equally undeclared by any subsequent non-insane SCOTUS.

Interesting how you leave out self-defence.

Multiple studies show that owning a gun increases the danger to the gun owner and their family. Guns are far more often used in suicides than to save lives. With suicide attempts in general, people who survive them usually come to regret them rather than repeat them and hence generally go own to live full lives. Unfortunately, guns, as a suicide method, tend to be highly highly effective compared to other suicide methods people use, and so people using a gun for suicide usually don't live to regret it. It's very sad.

Life is deadly. Living around humans is deadly.

Generally not so much in other countries that don't have as many guns.

If the end goal wasn't a gun ban, there would be room to talk,

Do you understand that in countries where guns are "banned", you can still get guns if you have a legitimate use for them (eg hunting)? What gets banned is having them without a license, having types of guns unnecessarily powerful relative to the legitimate use, having them not locked up tight when out of use, and carrying them around in public. I am not aware of any country in the world in which guns are completely and utterly banned.

Who is to say humans have minds at all?

Cogito ergo sum. I know at least one human has a mind.

Then you're in a minority as the Dems care more about sexual harassment than forcing Covid patients into nursing homes.

There's a lot that happens in NY politics that doesn't meet my standards.

We both know that's not a serious question.

Indeed, as we both know that the left hasn't abandoned LGB people in any way at all and that it was a huge whopper on your part to pretend they had. It was only 4 months ago that the Respect For Marriage Act, enshrining same-sex marriage rights in federal law, passed the House with of 100% Democrats voting for it.

[Ronson]

It depends on what you mean by "right-wing politics". Most conservatives I know are in favor of everyone being treated equally with no one group being granted special privileges.

Yup. That's the majority, mostly the middle class. However, Leftists will argue that the established system inherently favors white Christian males over everyone else, and that they need to equalize that. I get it, but more government and more regulations isn't the answer.

Of course the irony of today's Democrat party is that they are among the wealthiest elites in the country who go to great lengths to protect their riches and power, but they have idiots like you conned into thinking they are champions of "the little guy".

I don't know if there are more Leftist elites than conservative ones, but they are definitely noisier and politically energized.

[Mountain Man]

I don't know if there are more Leftist elites than conservative ones, but they are definitely noisier and politically energized.

One of my favorite sources of news and information describes our current political system as "two wings of the same bird". They might technically be opposite from each other, but they are not opposed and flap in unison to keep the body in the air.