Trump plans meeting with video game makers to discuss gun violence
- Thread starter HeadClot
- Start date
Well... sort of...
There is a fine line between letting people do things for political reasons, like paying less/more tax, and letting a guy own a tool which gave him the ability to blow his head off outside the presidents house yesterday.
Theres Politics and there is protecting the public - even from themselves.
What have computer games got to do with it? Potentially nothing. If it were found every killer in the US has a fetish for Origami or Nike shoes, would the libraries be stripped of Origami books and all the Nikes impounded for use by the military? Likely not.
Thats a question: If Video Games make killers, do the military use them for anything else other than simulation training? Is there a PlayStation in every barracks, an Xbox by every bunk?
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Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I will not accept simple answers to complex problems. I will not let the government control every facet of my life unless I explicitly agree for them to do so. This isn't a political "side", its the essence of being a citizen in my country and the overarching powers of the constitution. I really wish I could somehow share what that means, because it became glaringly apparent that there is a huge group of people with this mindset that their political parties of government were the supreme law. This is pushing the line of incomprehensible to me. My English girlfriend had no idea what the Magna Carta was or why it was so important. These documents were created to govern government. Wanting to reinterpret or rewrite these documents for political power is unacceptable. Every time something like "video game violence causes more violence" is touted as common sense reform from a political party, it sickens me. We have game rating systems, so what now, people want to ban the creative freedom of companies and individuals now? You see how stupid that sounds? If all the evidence points to video games causing violence ( improbable, but you know, for the sake of argument) I still think it would be absurd to outright ban them if that is what's suggested. The same thing with weapons.
When I was in paramedic school I pulled up to a scene where an 8 year old had hung himself from a tree. You want to ban peoples access to electrical cord to solve the problem? How about finding out what made the kid want to kill himself in the first place and building a society around actually helping people. One day when I was in the ER we had a homeless guy come in completely shredded from an alligator. He was homeless and crazy and sleeping next to a lake. He needed help, he didn't need anyone to ban alligators. Society doesn't (always*) need the parent of government, we need the helping hand of government. This is coming from someone who literally had the government as their parents. I was a ward of the courts until I was 18 because my grandparents never adopted me.
( told you I wasn't going to post in the guns good or bad thread anymore, so I'm using this loophole when I should probably keep my mouth shut and stop rambling. But here I am lol. Once I get coffee and feel less miserable I wont want to argue anything anymore)
I literally see no problem with this. Working in the hospital we had an active shooter in the building, turns out a husband went to his wives room where she was in a vegetative state due to a stroke and shot both her and himself. It may be illegal to kill yourself but at least he had the means to do so. I'm not saying I agree with his actions, but I do not believe anyone should have the right to disallow me or anyone else to exit this world on our own accord.
When I was in paramedic school I pulled up to a scene where an 8 year old had hung himself from a tree. You want to ban peoples access to electrical cord to solve the problem? How about finding out what made the kid want to kill himself in the first place and building a society around actually helping people. One day when I was in the ER we had a homeless guy come in completely shredded from an alligator. He was homeless and crazy and sleeping next to a lake. He needed help, he didn't need anyone to ban alligators. Society doesn't (always*) need the parent of government, we need the helping hand of government. This is coming from someone who literally had the government as their parents. I was a ward of the courts until I was 18 because my grandparents never adopted me.
( told you I wasn't going to post in the guns good or bad thread anymore, so I'm using this loophole when I should probably keep my mouth shut and stop rambling. But here I am lol. Once I get coffee and feel less miserable I wont want to argue anything anymore)
So... I'm a little lost here... how do you think video game gun violence caused any of the above? Was the husband inspired by GTA? Did the 8 year old play a little too much Manhunt? Did the Alligator play too much Rockstar Presents: Table Tennis?
Because thats the topic in this thread: Censoring video games because they are a gateway to atrocities.
I appreciate your points and usually I love a good derail, and have even caused a few myself to myself, but on this occasion if you'd like to continue the Guns. Good or Bad? topic please post in that thread :slight_smile:
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The kid played too much grand theft auto obviously, and the homeless guy spent too much time on cabellas big game hunter. Glaringly obvious.
I banned myself from that thread. I think I might ban myself from this one too. :P
Aww no, stick around! :)
You don't have to keep yourself out of threads, your view points are just as valid as anyone elses. The discussion in that thread has moved on, no one is talking about banning guns, just what means and methods can be used to keep the wrong weapons out of the wrong hands. Too much agreeing to disagree has gone on. Now we can try and get some action, just a little compromise from both sides and I reckon it'll happen and there will be a marked improvement.
Yeah, but at the end of the day I'm not in a position to have my mind changed towards much reform. I'll lay out my position here right quick and be done with it, because it doesn't matter unless I vote, and I don't (such is my right, I am a servant, I will let the people ultimately decide while I sit in the background and bitch. I am thinking of supporting the NRA though.)
I support things like banning bump stocks and anything that increases the firing rate to automatic levels. I tread so lightly on the mental health reform because I myself have a mental health diagnosis and although I feel completely sane and rational, others may not see it that way. Generalized anxiety disorder is super common among a large part of the population, would I also be arguing against their rights as well? I don't know.
If I felt it was common sense to give up my freedoms for the security of the rest of the population, I would do so in a heartbeat. But again I hesitate to accept simple answers to a complex problem. I think Kids should be able to own their own weapon at the age of 10 with their parents consent and a a bunch of government oversight for both the parents and child. Restrict the weapon to bolt action or low capacity semi automatic. Obviously I would have to sit and think long and hard about the intricacies of it all, but that's a general idea.
I do not believe banning any guns would work, because I know I myself and many others would become criminals by simply not handing over our weapons. You really have to understand our country would break out into civil war, small groups of civilian militia would be organized and guerilla warfare would be the norm until something was done. I'm not joking or being farfetched. It happened recently (on a small scale compared to what I'm talking about) when we had that large occupation of federal land by a militia just a few years ago when the feds tried to take a farmers livelihood or something and people were like fuck you government. The federal government didn't do anything because they knew it would turn into bloodshed. When I talk passionately about people having an unalienable right that supercedes the law of government, people hold this right above their own life.
I'm all for strict background checks if we can actually take it seriously. Just because it's on the books doesn't mean it gets enforced as planned.
I do not believe in extra taxes or permits or restrictions.
If you have a criminal record of violence, and with a judges determination, I think you should have a period of your life where you are not allowed to purchase of be in posession of a firearm. I do not believe in restricting such persons indefinitely, so maybe after 10 years you can go through a process to have these rights re-instated. What that process would be, I haven't the slightest clue.
Ammunition should be as free and accessible as buying candy from Wal-Mart or Tesco. Department of homeland security should stop buying the ammunition to create a false scarcity, to me that's fucked up and an example of the government being fucking shady. They may have done this for legitimate reasons, but I'm skeptical.
I believe I should be able to take my gun to any state and be subject to the same laws everywhere.
If we want to protect schools, I think I have an idea but who am I to say it's correct. I do not have children in school. I would love to see more competent school officers with m-4's. After being in the military and having our security forces patrol through crowded public places made me feel safe once I got over the initial shock factor of seeing someone casually walk around with a burst capable high powered weapon.
I'm sure I could bring up more points, and I really do like expressing my views and discussing / arguing with others in a somewhat civilized way, but in the end It's kinda pointless for me as I just like hearing myself talk. So it's a venting session for me and that's just dumb when I could be focusing my time and energy elsewhere. It's ultimately all up to the people who vote to discuss this, and since I don't vote, my opinion literally doesn't matter. I'm not out to change minds, because I myself do not wish to have the will of others imposed on me.
Also as I might have said before, If I were to really get serious and express my views (which ill never do) I would need several pages to fully lay it all out. I was raised from the age of 7 on a private gun club. My uncle was the president. I have heard these discussions all my life and still don't have any clear and simple answers.
But yeah. This is my last post in this thread because I've once again spoke my mind. Reading it back it feels absurdly pointless to express my position when I'm not really open minded enough on the topic to justify spending time arguing it with anyone. It's not really fair or productive.
Thanks once again for your views and experience. I don't think what you are saying is pointless, it's valuable experience that everyone can use to make a better informed decision, and even in your own words in several places you are willing to make a compromise for the good of everyone like in regard to bump-stocks etc. If everyone can compromise, those on both sides, something may actually happen this time to make the country a safer place while retaining the Second Amendment rights.
I personally don't think censoring computer games is going to do the slightest thing based on my observations on Australia and their mass shootings and computer game censoring history, however whats the harm in compromising and reining it in for a year? If mass shootings drop, well who knew and who saw that coming? If mass shootings don't drop, abandon that strategy and try something else.
The only thing we have to stop doing is doing nothing.
:slight_smile:
Politicizing this conversation, or turning it into a partisan agenda is not going to help resolve the problem. It's not Left vs Right. Not Liberal vs Conservative, not Democrat vs Republican. As soon as politics becomes involved in this conversation, everyone has lost.
EXACTLY.
Yes there is.
It's really hard to put something like guns in balance people want them gone and people want them around for various reasons. You can't make both parties happy one thing is for sure is guns are not going away all they can do is try to put more restrictions on them so they end up in the right hands. raise the age to own a gun or put a restriction that if you are X age you have to keep it at a gun shooting range and kept there with supervision. People have a lot of issues right now going on in their heads if we didnt have guns they would do other things like stab little kids in the dark on holloween or something sick and twisted. it wont ever make sense so id have to say guns are not the problem it's people in general.
Radegast74
Space Marshal
I know! Take for example, Reagan....for years we thought he was bumbling along on his way to senility, when in actuality...check this out:
Guys, lets put the brakes on this before we start getting too political.
Bernie 2020.
End of thread.
Bernie 2020.
End of thread.
Post 35 is a good post to end on.
Which is a shame because this is post 36.
Which is a shame because this is post 36.
CrudeSasquatch
Space Marshal
American jokes not available in my country.
AWWWWW I HAD A REAL ZINGER LINED UP!
O.K. DAD
Radegast74
Space Marshal
Probably because it would lose something in the translation?
ZING(er?) ALL THE THINGS!
Hillary lost! Get over it! :grinning:
CrudeSasquatch
Space Marshal
My Geiger counter says 0.0, so obviously Hillary lost. :D