February 17, 2008 -
In the wake of Thursday's tragic shooting at Northen Illinois University, a state legislator was quick to defend guns while attempting to shift blame for the rampage to other targets - including video games.As reported by the Chicago Daily Herald, Rep. Robert Pritchard (R), whose legislative district includes the NIU campus, said:
[Gun control] doesn't seem to impact the kind of gun violence that goes on. I think we need to broaden the discussion to include what other factors are weighing on these kind of deranged individuals.
I think video games is a part of the problem, television, movies. Just a whole culture of violence.
Comments
@darknessdeku: How long would that mall attack last if everyone was trained and armed?
While what you say of police training is true, even that is a matter of perspective. One could argue that the whole point of said training is not to make them more effective in harming others, but rather to enable them to prevent or reduce harm initiated by others.
As for having no "need" for protection, as I said above, firearms are used thousands upon thousands of times per year for just that. Of dozens of surveys and studies carried out on the subject, the generally agreed upon average is about 708,000. The rabidly anti-gun Clinton administration's Justice Department estimated the number to be 1.5 million times per year in 1994. In a vast majority of these incidents (75% or more, IIRC), armed defenders are able to fend off an assailant merely by presenting the weapon. In the remaining situation where shots are fired, most are either "warning shots" or result in wounding. According to the FBI, there are normally between 150-200 self-defense shootings which end in fatality per year.
I'm not trying to sound like a jerk, and I say this respectfully, but you have no idea whats going on out there.
1. Obama's plan will put us 845 billions dollars MORE over the budget then we already are. And he will most likely win.
2. Gold is going up and and the dollar is going down. So now we have to pay more for everything. And on a side note. The government took the USA off of the gold standard in the 60's. Which means money is not based on gold any more, its based on...nothing. So you know that $10 you have in your pocket? It's not REALLY worth anything. It's just paper with a $10 on it. It's an illusion. But for some reason we still use it to trade. Strange...
3. Interest rates are going down, good huh? no not really, because the price of bonds have gone up. You see, the more people that buy bonds, the
Interest rate goes down, but the price of the bond goes up. People are storing there money in bonds so to speak. How come? well look above. We are heading into a depression, which the government is trying to stop.
4. The government is sending out rebate checks to help stimulate the economy. They want you to spend the money. What they really should do is give tax cuts to small businesses. So they can expand and make more jobs. The government is just going to buy us a little time, and will end up making the whole thing last longer, like they did the first time around.
So there, thats just the government, I could go on and talk about terrorism, the borders, but ill stop there.
"It depends, are they knocking at your door and have you alerted proper authorities? If they are shouting it from another country, it is not an slight against you, it is an attack on your country which is a result of negative choices made by your country in the first place.
haha."
9/11. There I win. And they have stopped 20 or so attacks (that we know about) on this nation. So please don't tell me your one of those idiots that thinks 9/11 happened because we where in iraq when we where not in iraq. And please tell me you did not watch loose change.
All I am saying is that if you are 'pre-planning' to fail, you will. If you hand someone a gun and say "shoot me when I screw up", of course you will screw up! Do they really thing, small-time Buisness-man McGui is really going to take out the next Government official who decides he is going to go rouge? It is more likely he is going to turn that gun on someone else rather than having your own Government need to be overthrown.
@illspirit
Good to know those facts. Thank you :)
Unfortunatly I still feel the world could potentially cleaner and safer place without them. Also that study is strictly for self defense, it doesn't take into account the many who are hurt by people who purchase guns with intentions of hurting others. If it were better screened, maybe those 150-200 instances wouldn't have happened. I know my "regulation" idea is completely unconstitutional and nearly impossible. I just think if we lived in a world where we all worked toward one goal and a greater benefit for all, it would be ideal. Rather than blowing out innocent's brains and blaming it on video games.
"All I am saying is that if you are ‘pre-planning’ to fail, you will."
Take the firewall down on your computer. Your just planning for someone to hack in. Don't get your car checked out, your just plaining for it to break down. Don't put money into a retirement fund, your just planning to not have any money.....idiot.
Link: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs08/hosb0308.pdf
Statistics for America are hard to come by it seems, but it is worth noting that in 2006/07 for Washington DC ALONE, there were 169 gun related deaths.
Link: http://mpdc.dc.gov/mpdc/cwp/view,a,1239,q,561242,mpdcNav_GID,1523,mpdcNav,|.asp
That means there were 3 times a many gun related deaths in Washington DC than the WHOLE of the UK... Now tell me that gun control doesn't work!
While I would love to give you some up to date statistics for the whole of the USA, I cannot find any recent ones. The best I can come up with is 1999/2000...
"In 1999, there were 28,874 gun-related deaths in the United States - over 80 deaths every day."
Further more...
"In 2000, 75,685 people (27/100,000) suffered non-fatal firearm gunshot injuries."
Link: http://www.gun-control-network.org/GF01.htm
That means that over 100,000 people suffered at the hands of guns... in a population of about 3,000,000. Thats about 3% of the population.
Again I say, Do you think that America DOESN'T have a gun problem??? Personally I think these school shootings are the tip of the iceberg and merely hint at a general endemic problem. Clearly having a population that can "defend itself" isn't working.
why do people keep electing these guys?
If there was a magic button to make firearms (and the ability to make them) disappear, I might be inclined to press it myself. But, then again, I could probably hold my own in a sword fight or something against an an equally armed attacker. Whereas women, the elderly, and such would be at the mercy of larger/stronger opponents when it comes to melee weapons. Not to mention the odds of a single person against a group of thugs..
As for the number of people on the other side of the gun in those studies: According to the FBI's 1994 crime report, there were 16,305 homicides and 528,575 assaults/robberies involving firearms. Using the average of studies (which spans a time before and after the violent crime peak in '93) which places defensive gun uses at ~708,000, that leaves us with roughly 150,000 more defensive uses than criminal. If we use the lowest number, pushed by the gun-ban lobby, of 108,000, that would still be more than the number of murders.
Likewise, only ~60% of homicides and ~45% of robberies involve criminals with firearms, so there is a large gray area there where citizen would be up against a knife or something regardless of gun laws.
The UK is moving towards sharia law. Those deaths in the US will look like nothing soon. Besides, doesn't the UK have like tons of riots from the Muslims? I know they where setting cars on fire and all that. If anyone needs guns right now its the UK. By the way, under sharia law, if you ware finger nail polish, they got off your finger...or maybe it was your hand. Not sure, but hey, at that point, who cares?
"what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure. "
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."
-- Benjamin Franklin
Apples and oranges are different colors. ;)
Yes, 59 people were shot to death in the UK last year, but only 47 were in 1996, which was the year before the ban! If the gun-control was so successful, that number should go down, not up. Likewise, non-fatal attacks with handguns rose from 279 in 1996 to 1,024 in 05/06, only falling slightly to 792 last year. Even excluding the largest number, that's still more than a 200% increase. And, again, if gun-control works, why did it go up after the ban?
Most up-to-date US crime stats can be found here: http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm
Those stats from the gun-control group include accidents, suicides, shootings by law enforcement, and probably people who tripped over a gun and hit their head. In 2006, there were just 10,177 homicides involving firearms. And this is down from a peak of 16,305 in '94, "despite" adding over 2 million privately owned firearms per year.
Oh, and, funny you should mention DC as if that proves something. They ban *all* functional firearms. It's easier to legally purchase in gun in England than it is in DC..
How dare you try to scapegoat the shooter when really it was video games that are responsible. I mean any idiot could see that the violent video games convinced this poor soul to kill people. They hypnotised him to kill people then kill himself so he can't say what really happened. We're not going to get anywhere if we continue scapegoating the killer and not focuse on what mundane insignificant stuff he may have done in his free time.
I mean his cracked mind may have been influenced by video games, you know the ones that stimulate a war, kinda like the one we're in right now. His mind couoldn't handle the obviously fake world of {insert video game here} and so he cracked.
Oh and of course the guns may have pointed themselves at him and demanded he kill people, then the guns pulled the trigger on the kid anyway. Those damn guns.
I live in a city near Toronto. I don't see news reports of murders, rape, or terrorist threats on Canadian soil. If you come to metropolitan Canada, good luck finding a gun. I know there are still violence in my city, but nothing worse then a couple of stab wounds.
Removing guns does a lot. Besides, most people who are killed in there household (where people could get their gun to 'protect' themselves) are killed by their own gun. So wouldn't it be safer if you didn't had a gun for the murderer to kill you with?
I heard about the argument about how some countries has ton of guns, but near to zero shootings. My defence is good, that country doesn't have a problem. However, America has many people that would use guns in a crime. They are to many untrustworthy people to allow guns to be easily accessible.
If you give scissors to one classroom of first graders, and they all behave, that's just fine. But if a good chunk of another class of first graders are using that scissors to stab people's eyes out, you would remove the scissors from the classroom. Even if you only give it to the good behaving kids, a violent kid could come by, steal the scissors, and start stabbing.
how stupid does that sound....
thats like saying " eating junk food lots of junk food and exercising will make me a healthy person."
are people so blind that they themselves cant see, or hear what going on??
Now, I'm not trying to take a stance on gun control by saying this, but really, statistics like that aren't a whole lot of good. What about countries like, say, Switzerland, which maintain heavily armed neutrality? Pretty much everyone there has firearm training and access to at least 1 firearm.
There are more violent crimes, period, in the U.S. than the UK. There are more violent crimes in the U.S. than a lot of developed countries. The level of gun "control" in the States can't help with violent crimes, I'm sure, but I don't think if gun ownership in the U.S. became illegal over night it would really change much.
No one stick themselves in a mugging situation, it just happens, and you need to react without thinking.
If so, I'll gladly support it.
he rewrote history that day, plunging all of mankind into a downward spiral of death so disturbing Lucifer himself wept.
Why doesn't JT go directly to the source... the one who create the games; the developers, the company, the game desingers etc etc. instead of going on news events and repeating the same story that "we" all are tired of hearing...
go to japan and talk to capcom about resident evil, or go to washington talk to valve about counter strike.
im shure they'll have something to say on the matter.
does anybody here agree with me??? that fine and ok if dont agree opinions are never wrong.
We still, however, have video games :P
Except for Dark Sector which is a really anticipated game compared to Manhunt 2 and other banned games in Australia.
ps: its easier to get an illegal gun than you think.
and I think your an ignorant prick. so that makes us about even.
He has, in fact he's tried to sue game companies numerous times because he claims they were responsible for some killing. His record so far is 0-5 I think.
Oh and he's also tried empty threats which the companies haven't responded to.
no you have no idea what you are talking about
like i keep saying ive never said BAN
ive said place tougher restrictions. which FACTUALLY works.
oh and as for your
''@jcoit
So, umm, shooting ranges are only for practicing murder then? That’s funny, I could have sworn target shooting was an Olympic sport. And I suppose the tens of thousands of other pistol, rifle, and shotgun competitions held every year are my imagination too? ''
umm then why exactly does that mean YOU NEED a gun? surely they can be kept under lock and key AT THE GUN CLUB AND/OR TARGET RANGE.
"Smoking gun Says:
February 17th, 2008 at 9:11 pm
@jcoit
Do Muslims shouting “Death to America” count? "
*sigh* i dont even know wher to start. now who is generalising. Just to put into perspective your idea of 'constant state of attack'.. try doing this..
check how many deaths have been caused in the past 10 years from islamic terrorists
now check how many deaths arise from smoking and/or alcohol in the last 10 years.
yeah its actually a pretty darn small number isnt it. Its just the way the media constantly renews and pushes this climate of fear upon people.
He says after an extensive trial of strict gun-control measur- oh wait.
''The UK is moving towards sharia law. Those deaths in the US will look like nothing soon. Besides, doesn’t the UK have like tons of riots from the Muslims? I know they where setting cars on fire and all that. If anyone needs guns right now its the UK. By the way, under sharia law, if you ware finger nail polish, they got off your finger…or maybe it was your hand. Not sure, but hey, at that point, who cares?
''
um now who hasnt got a clue what reality is like.. where do you get these ideas? we are NOT moving toward sharia law (in facft recent events have shown the HUGE opposition for ANYTHING like that)
and muslim riots all the time... what..? really you have a very narrow stereotypical view of muslims. perhaps you should do some research
"The UK is moving towards sharia law. Those deaths in the US will look like nothing soon. Besides, doesn’t the UK have like tons of riots from the Muslims? I know they where setting cars on fire and all that. If anyone needs guns right now its the UK. By the way, under sharia law, if you ware finger nail polish, they got off your finger…or maybe it was your hand. Not sure, but hey, at that point, who cares?"
Um, no they aren't, they (the archbishop of the church of england) were talking about the financial side of sharia law (banking, etc for Muslim communities), in order for more integration, not having peoples hands chopped off.
No, the UK doesn't have large riots, i think you are referring to immigrants in France (not just Muslims) rioting over poor living conditions.
Explain to me why they need guns in the UK? So racist skinheads could start shooting middle-eastern migrants?
Actually Sharia is open to interpretation, its not a static set of codes, and is open to interpretation, im sure westernized Muslims aren't going to stone people for committing adultery.
"The UK is moving towards sharia law."
No, it isn't You are just totally taking out of context something that the Archbishop of Canterbury said in order to make an extreme and STUPID statement. He has roundly been mocked and ridiculed for his comments as there is no way Sharia law will make it into UK law. However what he was trying to imply is that Muslims could have their own law to govern such things as divorce.
It amazes me how much ignorance and biggotry there is amongst people whenever they hear the word Muslim...
"Those deaths in the US will look like nothing soon. Besides, doesn’t the UK have like tons of riots from the Muslims? I know they where setting cars on fire and all that."
Yes because all Muslims go around rioting in the UK on a regular basis... *rolls eyes*
"If anyone needs guns right now its the UK. By the way, under sharia law, if you ware finger nail polish, they got off your finger…or maybe it was your hand. Not sure, but hey, at that point, who cares?"
Another strawman argument straight out of the Jack Thomspon playbook. HEY EVERYONE WE NEED GUNS OR THE MUSLIM EXTREMISTS WILL GET US!
... I guess some people DO beleve eveything they see on Fox News huh?
http://richarddawkins.net/article,2232,n,n
And as for the riots. I was asking a question, maybe it just seemed like a lot because the news plays it on a loop for a week.
There are other matters on the UK, but quite frankly, I can't remember them completely, it must have been a wile ago. So ill shut my mouth about it.
By the way, I have done research on the Muslims, Heres some quotes from there peaceful book.
“To participate in Jihad in Allah’s cause” (Al Bukhari vol. 1:25)
Sura 2:187-189 “And kill them wherever ye shall find them, and eject them from whatever place they have ejected you; for civil discord is worse than carnage:…..
Sura 9:5: “And when the sacred months are passed, kill those who join other gods with God wherever ye shall find them; and seize them, besiege them, and lay wait for them with every kind of ambush: but if they shall convert, and observe prayer, and pay the obligatory alms, then let them go their way, for God is Gracious, Merciful.”
Sura 9:39 “If you do not fight, He will punish you severely, and put others in your place”
Sura 5:51: “O you who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors: they are but friends and protectors to each other….
War is prescribed to you: but from this ye are averse.” (Sura 2:212).
“Hadith, the body of traditions relating to Mohammed and now supplemental to the Koran: He (Abu Hurayah) reported the messenger of Allah as saying: The last hour will not come before the Muslims fight the Jews and the Muslims kill them, so that Jews will hide behind stones and trees and the Stone and the tree will say, O Muslim, O servant of God! There is a Jew behind me; come and kill him. The only exception will be the box-thorn for it is one of the trees of the Jews. (Sahih of Muslim, quoted by Israel and the Prophecies of Al Quran by Ali Akbar, Bismi Publishers 1992, p.44)”
P.S. I was not saying all Muslims where causing riots. I was just saying there where Muslims rioting.
"Apples and oranges are different colors. ;)
Yes, 59 people were shot to death in the UK last year, but only 47 were in 1996, which was the year before the ban! If the gun-control was so successful, that number should go down, not up."
And Gun control and outright bans are apples and oranges too. The gun ban was over the top and a knee jerk reaction to children being shot in Dunblane. However he have had gun control in this country for a LONG time before 1996.
"In 2006, there were just 10,177 homicides involving firearms. And this is down from a peak of 16,305 in ‘94, “despite” adding over 2 million privately owned firearms per year."
Okay lets do some maths shall we? UK has a population of about 70 million. They had 59 deaths due to guns. US has a population of 300 million. They had 10,177 deaths due to guns. Even if you factor in the population differences, the UK has 0.84 deaths per million and the US has 33.9 deaths per million. That is over 40 times as much.
"Oh, and, funny you should mention DC as if that proves something. They ban *all* functional firearms. It’s easier to legally purchase in gun in England than it is in DC."
Is it as easy to smuggle in guns to England as it is to DC though? I would suggest that bringing a gun in from a state where it is legal to DC is incredibly simple.
There is more to gun control than isolated bans and there is more to the reasons that the US has a gun problem than people owning guns, but the fact remains that is if you didn't have them so easily available to you, you couldn't use them as prominantly.
*A lot of stuff about Sharia Law refusing to acknowledge all the people stating that what the Archbishop said was abotu Divorce and financial matters and not the wholesale introduction of such laws into UK law. Not to mention that he was completely wrong and the opinion of 1 man doesn't make a fact... Something Smoking gun should have learnt from JT on this very website*
You can quote as much as you want from Sharia Law. It doesn't help your argument from ignorance.
"P.S. I was not saying all Muslims where causing riots. I was just saying there where Muslims rioting."
And then used the fact there were riotting Muslims to project an image that we should all be scared of Muslims and need guns to protect ourselves. By your logic we should all be equally scared of residents of Los Angeles because they had riots once, even though this was clearly about protest and race relations.
"check how many deaths have been caused in the past 10 years from islamic terrorists
now check how many deaths arise from smoking and/or alcohol in the last 10 years."
I would, but I can't find any that account for all the people that have had there face taken off with piano wire, and then had there head cut off because they believe in another God. But I have talked to people in Israel, and when they go out to buy food, they bring machine guns. Seriously, not kidding. Also mohammed carried out 27 invasions. So I think its a little higher then you think.
Do you happen to know the context of those quotes? Or did you just grab them off the internets? I can do the same thing to Judaism or Christianity...
I thought I made it clear that I did not know about the UK stuff and that I was wrong for the most part.I don't see where you are going with this. Your arguing with me about something I'm not longer arguing about. And all those quotes but for one was from the qur'an, you know the one they all read? the one they believe?
I'm not scared of Muslims, and I hope you would not be as well. I used the fact that there where riots to show that there where riots. Just some corrections.
Yes I do, and like I said, Mohammed led 27 invasions, and killed mostly Jews. He practiced what he preached.
I'm sure they do that in Israel, in settlements on land they stole using religious reasons! I mean how would you feel if someone invaded your land, land that had been settled by your people, and you could do nothing. So excuse me for not caring that some Israeli's have to be armed to get food, or endure rocket attacks.
You seem to be forgetting how many Palestinians die each year from helicopter attacks and airstrikes each year...
I'm sure you'll find piano wire wielding Islamic militants make up a tiny fraction of Islamic believing people, just like protestants and catholics that kill each other for belonging to different sects in Northern Ireland.
27 invasions... meh. I'm sure the Catholic Church never carried out that many... /sarcasm
"And all those quotes but for one was from the qur’an, you know the one they all read? the one they believe?"
You ever read The Bible? I suggest you look upi your Leviticus before you cast aspersions on a people based on random quotes from their religious texts. Bear in mind that the US is run by Fanatical Christians.
Because according to your philosophy, the Bible has told all Christians to:
Kill anyone who tells you to convert to another religion (Deuteronomy 13:1-5)
Kill the inhabitants of any town then sack it, if even one person living there tries to convert another to a different religion. (Deuteronomy 13:13-19)
Kill all Gays (Romans 1:24-32)
So quit your idiocy dullard.
And it says this (full verse below) he is to be put to death, because he preached rebellion against the LORD God. Today we no longer do this under Jesus the Messiah and have not done any such thing 400 years before Islam.
"1 If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a miraculous sign or wonder, 2 and if the sign or wonder of which he has spoken takes place, and he says, "Let us follow other gods" (gods you have not known) "and let us worship them," 3 you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. The LORD your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul. 4 It is the LORD your God you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and hold fast to him. 5 That prophet or dreamer must be put to death, because he preached rebellion against the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt and redeemed you from the land of slavery; he has tried to turn you from the way the LORD your God commanded you to follow. You must purge the evil from among you."
"Kill all Gays (Romans 1:24-32)"
your own words catch you in a lie, why do you purposely not put the verse here? does not Islam kill the gays, or take theives hands off, be honest. does it not tell the faithful to kill infidels. maybe you have interpreted this verse by your own perspective?
well the verse in the Bible does not teach that we kill them. pay attention to what it actually says.
"24Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
26Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
28Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them."
I'm not going to go point for point since your credibility and ability to present something accurately is lost.
the 56% of Palestine taken by the Jews in 1948 was inhabited by 500,000 Jews and 438,000 Palestinians, leaving 46% for 818,000 Palestinians; this includes spoils of war. 1.2 million called Palestine home. 750 000 were displaced.