Newtown - the case for seeing the photos

NOVA said:
True....very true.....people need to understand the horror of war....the horror of being a victim....and the horror of being a slave to those that will become our oppressors.
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Was the horror of war the reason!
You'd get a pass from me?
 
Mott the Hoople said:
I feel the same way about war journalism and photography. People should see the reality of their decisions and not some sanitized version of it. I don't care if it upsets some niave housewife in Peoria or pisses of some redneck in Tuscaloosa. They're the ones who need to see the reality.
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They don't seem to suffer from squeamishness in Thailand, their newspapers are full of photos of road accidents and crimes of violence. I have some Thai police friends and they have no problem posting gory stuff on Facebook.
 
tekkychick said:
Hmm, Rune, not sure why your comments were posted off of my post. I realize I haven't been here long; therefore, I haven't had a chance to discuss everything I would want in terms of better control of guns.

I absolutely think we need to invest more in mental illness; Unfortunately, I didn't see any politicians introducing bills about that; if they had, I would have supported them. Yes, mental health care access MUST be part of the solution - but it's just a part. I also supported the background check bill - background checks need to be universal, accurate, and fast. And of course not all mass murderers use guns - we can look at the Boston bombings for that, caused by pressure cookers. But the pressure cookers killed 3 people; the guns at Newtown killed 27 people (28 adding on the mother). I prefer to focus on those weapons that cause the most destruction. And yes, the planes on 9/11 caused a lot more - but we have cracked down on that avenue of destruction.

I have never said we can eliminate all violence. We have had mass murders always - in the US, you can look back to the early 1900s to see mass murders (do a search - you'll get to the wikipedia article that lists them). But looking at countries that control guns better - they have a lot fewer mass murders (not zero - but fewer). I think our country can do better than we have been doing; I think we can demand more respect for human life than we have been doing; I think we can value those mowed down by guns more than we do. Perhaps you feel less optimistic about our country than I do.

As far as your last four questions - don't know where you're going with them; we could do a whole lot of word-spewing around those four topics. I imagine it would just bore the readers of this forum if I tried to tackle them here. But I'm sure over time we'll hit most of them in one thread or another.
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Have no time this morning, will reply later.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
Good point but still my point, regardless about messer Moore view on the issue, is that we tend to go from one extreme to the other. Instead of trying to find common ground and common sense solutions.

I'm always cautious and skeptical when ever I watch a Moore documentary. Documentaries are supposed to be an objective portrayal of facts. Moore though has a point of view in which in his films it has been well documented that he has manipulated people, facts and situations in order to emphasize the point of view he is making. Not exactly what I consider to be either honest, objective or truthful. Still and all I find his films hugely provocative and informative. I would caution anyone not familiar with his films to be skeptical about Moore's point of view and to verify for themselves the veracity of his point of view in his films. Having said that I don't consider Moore either a polemicist or a propagandist or even an issue advocate as much as I consider him a partisan social critic.
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One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to good.
Edmund Burke

Yea, the insurance cartels were so skeptical of Moore's SICKO, they spent millions of policy holder's premiums trying to smear Moore, discredit his documentary and even set up a front group to attack Moore.

Wendell Potter is former Vice President of corporate communications at CIGNA, one of the United States' largest health insurance companies. In June 2009, he testified against the HMO industry in the U.S. Senate.

hqdefault.jpg


In advance of my appearance with Michael Moore on Countdown with Keith Olbermann tonight on MSNBC (8 and 11 p.m. ET), I would like to offer an apology to both Moore and his archenemy, the health insurance industry, which spent a lot of policyholder premiums in 2007 to attack his movie, Sicko.

I need to apologize to Moore for the role I played in the insurance industry's public relations attack campaign against him and Sicko, which was about the increasingly unfair and dysfunctional U.S. health care system. (I was head of corporate communications at one of the country's biggest insurance companies when I left my job in May 2008.) And I need to apologize to health insurers for failing to note in my new book, Deadly Spin, that the front group they used to attack Moore and Sicko -- Health Care America -- was originally a front group for drug companies.

APCO Worldwide, the PR firm that operated the front group for insurers during the summer of 2007, was outraged -- outraged, I tell you -- that I wrote in the book that the raison d'être for Health Care America was to disseminate the insurance industry's talking points as part of a multi-pronged, fear-mongering campaign against Moore and his movie.

more
 
Mott the Hoople said:
Good point but still my point, regardless about messer Moore view on the issue, is that we tend to go from one extreme to the other. Instead of trying to find common ground and common sense solutions.
... I would caution anyone not familiar with his films to be skeptical about Moore's point of view and to verify for themselves the veracity of his point of view in his films. Having said that I don't consider Moore either a polemicist or a propagandist or even an issue advocate as much as I consider him a partisan social critic.
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I think that's a good nuanced look. And for all issue films, not just Moore's, I think it's important to verify for oneself if what the film, video, article, etc. says is true.

And in terms of the center - I agree at times the extreme sides of any issue can pull us off balance. On the other hand, sometimes it takes extremism to get the center to move. There are many positions the women's movement advocated that were considered extreme at the time that now are seen as middle-of-the-road, as an example.

I live in California, which is considered to have some of the toughest gun laws. Yet in general law abiding people are able to get guns. Yes, they have to pass background checks even if not buying from a dealer; yes, they can only buy so many guns within a time period; and yes, we still have our tragedies. And yes, it's hard to tease out the many factors, but it does seem that even as gun ownership goes up, gun deaths are going down
http://sbcoalition.org/2013/03/californias-gun-laws-are-saving-lives/

So my rough position is that let's extend California laws to the rest of the country, adding on increased funding for mental health and funding for a huge educational series of PSAs - like we did for tobacco - getting people who own guns to store them safely and to be careful how they use them. I'd also like trigger locks or some other way to keep unauthorized users from shooting a gun, but I know that's probably not feasible in the short term.

BUT - whether you agree with California laws or want something less strict, right now NOTHING will be done federally due to the NRA. Even the recent background check bill couldn't get through, and it was a pretty mild reaction to the violence over the last couple years. The NRA blocks funding for the CDC to even study gun violence - it seems to me, if we don't study it, we can't know for sure where it comes from, and therefore any laws may miss the point or not be as effective as they could be.

NPR recently ran a story about the ATF doing traces for guns used at crime scenes. Pretty appalling. Seems to me law-abiding gun owners would agree that the system cold be more efficient.
http://www.npr.org/2013/05/20/185530763/the-low-tech-way-guns-get-traced

If we had a decent background check system, then those who are legitimately able to own guns would get approved a lot faster.

But nothing can get done due to NRA and like-minded groups/people. And that's why (to get back on topic) I think releasing the pictures of Newtown may be useful, per Moore's piece. To remind us that everyone - gun owner or not - wants to reduce the carnage.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2012/12/gun_death_tally_every_american_gun_death_since_newtown_sandy_hook_shooting.html

At any rate, I apologize for letting some of the posters pull me off-topic and hope I wasn't too abrasive in my answers.
 
tekkychick said:
Hmm, Rune, not sure why your comments were posted off of my post. I realize I haven't been here long; therefore, I haven't had a chance to discuss everything I would want in terms of better control of guns.

I absolutely think we need to invest more in mental illness; Unfortunately, I didn't see any politicians introducing bills about that; if they had, I would have supported them. Yes, mental health care access MUST be part of the solution - but it's just a part. I also supported the background check bill - background checks need to be universal, accurate, and fast. And of course not all mass murderers use guns - we can look at the Boston bombings for that, caused by pressure cookers. But the pressure cookers killed 3 people; the guns at Newtown killed 27 people (28 adding on the mother). I prefer to focus on those weapons that cause the most destruction. And yes, the planes on 9/11 caused a lot more - but we have cracked down on that avenue of destruction.

I have never said we can eliminate all violence. We have had mass murders always - in the US, you can look back to the early 1900s to see mass murders (do a search - you'll get to the wikipedia article that lists them). But looking at countries that control guns better - they have a lot fewer mass murders (not zero - but fewer). I think our country can do better than we have been doing; I think we can demand more respect for human life than we have been doing; I think we can value those mowed down by guns more than we do. Perhaps you feel less optimistic about our country than I do.

As far as your last four questions - don't know where you're going with them; we could do a whole lot of word-spewing around those four topics. I imagine it would just bore the readers of this forum if I tried to tackle them here. But I'm sure over time we'll hit most of them in one thread or another.
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Except the background check bill didn't do anything beyond eliminate private sales.
 
007 is a BOG MAN said:
Except the background check bill didn't do anything beyond eliminate private sales.
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Private sales still happen in California; they just have to be done through a licensed dealer; there's a small charge added to it.

Not saying it's perfect; but we couldn't even get the mild one through.
 
007 is a BOG MAN said:
Yes, we should all hope for the day when logic reason and facts give way to emotions and feelings in arguments over fundamental rights.
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a fundamental right to do what?


To arm mentally ill people?


To allow nutters to buy guns so they can blow holes in people smaller and weaker than them?


what is it you think you are defending here??



You know who likes to make their decisions free of human emotion?

sociopaths.


We are not full functioning human beings without emotions.


Im sure your hero Adam Lanza thought he was very cool to be able to walk in school and blow huge holes in the heads of little kids without feeling a thing.


sociopathy is NOT where human kind needs to find its inspiration.


Human emotions are what made us intelligent beings.


Human emotion is what makes us decent to each other.


why do you think the world is better without the very thing that makes human kind KIND?
 
tekkychick said:
Private sales still happen in California; they just have to be done through a licensed dealer; there's a small charge added to it.

Not saying it's perfect; but we couldn't even get the mild one through.
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Yeah, a "small charge" of up to over $150 dollars. But it's not that bad of an idea, nothing at all like a poll tax is it?
 
tekkychick said:
BUT - whether you agree with California laws or want something less strict, right now NOTHING will be done federally due to the NRA. Even the recent background check bill couldn't get through, and it was a pretty mild reaction to the violence over the last couple years. The NRA blocks funding for the CDC to even study gun violence - it seems to me, if we don't study it, we can't know for sure where it comes from, and therefore any laws may miss the point or not be as effective as they could be.
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Yeah, the 3 USSC decisions have nothing to do with it....
 
007 is a BOG MAN said:
Yeah, a "small charge" of up to over $150 dollars.
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http://oag.ca.gov/firearms/pubfaqs#13

Firearms dealers are required to process private party transfers upon request. Firearms dealers may charge a fee not to exceed $10 per firearm for conducting a private party transfer.
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There are some other fees, so (From same source)
For a private party transfer involving one or more handguns, the total allowable fees, including the DROS, safety, and dealer transfer fees, are not to exceed $35.00 for the first handgun and $31.00 for each additional handgun involved in the same transaction.
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Poll taxes were related to voting. I see this more as a sales tax or license fee. I have to pay a fee to the DMV every year to keep my car tag current. That's not a poll tax, it's a license fee. And $10 for the paperwork doesn't seem too high to me.

You may be opposed to all fees; that's fine. But it seems to me using the words "poll tax" is somewhat inflammatory. But that's just my opinion.

If you don't want to pay the transfer fee you can, of course, buy a new gun.

And again, I've gotten off track... terribly sorry!
 
tekkychick said:
Hmm, Rune, not sure why your comments were posted off of my post. I realize I haven't been here long; therefore, I haven't had a chance to discuss everything I would want in terms of better control of guns.

I absolutely think we need to invest more in mental illness; Unfortunately, I didn't see any politicians introducing bills about that; if they had, I would have supported them. Yes, mental health care access MUST be part of the solution - but it's just a part. I also supported the background check bill - background checks need to be universal, accurate, and fast. And of course not all mass murderers use guns - we can look at the Boston bombings for that, caused by pressure cookers. But the pressure cookers killed 3 people; the guns at Newtown killed 27 people (28 adding on the mother). I prefer to focus on those weapons that cause the most destruction. And yes, the planes on 9/11 caused a lot more - but we have cracked down on that avenue of destruction.

I have never said we can eliminate all violence. We have had mass murders always - in the US, you can look back to the early 1900s to see mass murders (do a search - you'll get to the wikipedia article that lists them). But looking at countries that control guns better - they have a lot fewer mass murders (not zero - but fewer). I think our country can do better than we have been doing; I think we can demand more respect for human life than we have been doing; I think we can value those mowed down by guns more than we do. Perhaps you feel less optimistic about our country than I do.

As far as your last four questions - don't know where you're going with them; we could do a whole lot of word-spewing around those four topics. I imagine it would just bore the readers of this forum if I tried to tackle them here. But I'm sure over time we'll hit most of them in one thread or another.
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Again, Do you understand the basics of factual debate?
 
Rune said:
Again, Do you understand the basics of factual debate?
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I don't think she's trying to debate with you. Do you actually have some kind of point? Or are you just so pissed off that someone dared to bring up the fact that these little children were shot to pieces because of your psycho laws and the crazy paranoid right-wing, anti-government propaganda that made the shooter's mother a gun hoarding survivalist?
 
Thanks, Sierra. I wasn't planning to respond to Rune's latest question anyway since it seemed totally out of context and irrelevant to this thread - and I'd already answered it when Nova re-queried it. But I like your answer.
 
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