Sniper News

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2346921.stm

Anyway, eye witnesses say the guy is hispanic and in his early 30s.

I certainly don't think he's sensible enough. He'd be so busy dancing to La Vida Loca while trying to find third gear he'd probably crash it.

I live 5 minutes from Richmond, Surrey, and can report that the duck scarer who's been terrorising area wildfowl has also been apprehended. Hurrah!

Mark C - did the Richmond wildfowl terrorist use the Four Sprung Duck Technique, I wonder?

Joking aside, if this is the sniper, then - phew. It is more than a little tempting sometimes (when you're miles away and safe) to wish the perpetrator continues to outwit the police, assuming (s)he wants to that is. But this guy needs help, and clearly the sooner he is off the streets and getting that help the better. Sorry if I'm stating the bleedin' obvious.

Shooting passers-by.

(sorry)

Actually, none of anything in this paragraph is obvious.

you too.

Fine you are being honest, but this is exaclty why the world is such a fucked place right now.

I'm sure lots of people have been morbidly fascinated by all this, but none of us has seen him as a hero, I'm sure. Let's just hope - if this Richmond guy isn't the right one - that the sniper's caught soon, eh?

On the contrary. Black humor is probably an important means of coping with stress.

!!!!!!!

I don't see why this is so - as I said, just cause I don't *feel* it, doesn't mean I'm not capable of my head thinking it would be best if he/she were caught ASAP.

there's an obvious difference between saying "i don't care for the people who were already killed" and "i want more people to be killed". you are saying the latter -> g is OTM

Around 9:30 this morning a person was shot at a (Sheetz) gas station - convenience store in Opal, Virginia. (45 miles from DC, and about 90 miles north of Richmond). This is at the intersection of Rt. 29 and Rt. 17, also near Rt. 28 and several secondary roads. Schools are now on total lockdown. Rural area, easy getaway.

The person shot was flown out by MedStar helicopter to a Fairfax hospital. They have set up another command post, brought in the dogs and are, again, blocking traffic and searching cars. Helicopters and planes joined the "search" at 10:30 am. It took them at least 40 minutes after the fact to set this up.

As if he'd wait around for them...uh huh...

They are treating this the same way as the other sniper incidents, but are not reporting it on the news at this time. Rather they are talking about the note left in the woods in Ashland, and the van stopped in Richmond.

This is the third such incident (in THIS area) that has occurred since last week. Road blocks, feds, dogs, helicopters, etc. But no mention of it on the news. I would wager that nobody living outside Fauquier County will hear of this.

Why are they keeping some of these shootings quiet?

If I actually *knew* the victims and their families, or felt like I knew them through something like a sensitive TV documentary, then my empathy would be naturally raised and there would need to go through this mediated process.

(also, as you kind of said earlier, if empathy worked perfectly in the first place, then all the world's ills would have been sorted out long ago, but it doesn't, and we kind of have to strategise intellectually to make up for that)

It'd just seem strained and false to be all "oh gosh, it's terrible someone stop it now", I enjoy reading about it in the papers each day - it's good to have something replacing Big Brother.
I'm wary of people who feel great waves of sympathy for someone who they never knew - take the recent spate of kid killing over here in England, kids die every day so why the intense grief over a certain few? For myself and the people I know the Sept 11 happening was just some impressive fireworks on a massive scale - any sympathy for the American people would just seem fake. We didn't exactly laugh, but we certainly didn't sob. My gran died of cancer last month, did New York weep for her?

This whole sniping rampage is the kind of killing I'd love to embark on if I had the balls - picking off random members of the public becomes much more appealing after spending 2 hours a day using public transport.

No link yet, and I have a feeling this won't be reported.

Someone I know works at a local (weekly) newspaper there, and has access to a police scanner, and her next door neighbour is a deputy
sheriff. I heard about this from her.. Apparently the local police have been told to shut up about this, but no-one knows why.

Perhaps they are embarrassed by their inability to apprehend
this person, and they are trying to give a false sense of security. Maybe there ARE several people doing this.

Of course, the possiblity remains that these shootings are unrelated to the original sniper ... but the feds, dogs, helicopters, roadblocks and searches are continuing at this time, as if that was the case.

I don't know what's going on in Richmond, but I doubt
it's the same person(s) unless they drove south at 300 mph.

As for everyone wanting to be a part of it: Sure. I've spoken with many people who claim that their podunk homebase is some sort of terrorist target ("Yeah, well we got that Tyson poultry farm down the road a piece, and you just know how much it would fuck everything up should the nation's chicken supply get interupted."). I think that this is natural. There's such a distance created by seeing something on television or reading about it, as opposed to actually being there. To have your experience unfiltered. This is now a premium.

But to make this leap that I somehow want these killings to continue just because I don't have anything personally at stake... that just seems ridiculous to me. Yeah, there is no direct sense of empathy when a random person is killed, but that doesn't mean that I'm ambivalent about something happening. And some deaths are more wrenching than others. For example: in Long Island yesterday a man was backing out of his driveway and accidentally ran over his 2 year old son. Can you imagine that? I read that and I felt like puking. Could there be anything worse as a father? But I don't know this man and I never will. Even if a person's death is mitigated by a stream of commercials and Paula Zahn blathering on about it, there is humanity there that you shouldn't lose sight of.

And Ian: Glad you enjoyed the "fireworks" on 9/11. I know what you mean about people not empathizing with the death of your grandmother, but maybe we can turn the narcissism a bit and see that this isn't exactly the same thing?

This has not been released yet, as far as I know. I'll keep you posted as and when I hear more, if you like.

I kind of empathise with N., but I reckon he's already got a respectable [ahem] total.

The Washington sniper is in some ways realizing everyone's dreams by grabbing his fifteen minutes of fame and then some. His/her victims, on the other hand, appear to all intents and purposes to be a bunch of poor slobs who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I'd be lying if I claimed to inexplicably be able to empathize with them and not the sniper. Or that after september 11th I suddenly felt more for a bunch of dead stock brokers than I had before.

And I don't think that this is bad or wrong. What's far more frightening, at least to me, are the people who are so desparate to identify themselves as one of the good guys that they'll do and say anything to prove it and don't stop to wonder why such things are happening.

You are far more frightening my friend. ARe you still in high school?

The 'wanting it to continue' thing is something I understand too - I think it's in the way the media reports these stories, makes them seem exciting, adrenalises you as a viewer/reader. So after 9/11 for instance these two narratives were being constructed by the media, and narrative 1 was al-Qaida strikes again and something incredibly terrible happens somewhere else, while narrative 2 was that there is an exciting showdown and glorious victory over al-Qaida, and of course neither of these things happened with any great speed. But the media consumer eg me dreaded narrative 1 happening but also kind of wanted it to happen so there would be More Story. Now I'd prefer not to have felt like that but I did. I'm not sure how I could change that. I think part of the problem is that as a fairly well-off Westerner you get incredible power over your entertainment environment but very little power to stop bad things happening, so to cope with that you process the bad things that don't affect you as quasi-entertainments AT THE SAME TIME as you're worrying and fretting and thinking with yr rational brain.

And it's the same thing with the Sniper. You're reading the news and every day is "town lives in fear" or "sniper kills someone". So in this case my More-Story urge was towards something new happening - a dramatic capture or vital clue, not more deaths. But that impulse was actually just as un-empathic and 'bad' as N's, it just happened to agree with my intellectual response ("catch this bad person").

In 25 years a film is going to be made about this person and the film will present them as evil but hugely intelligent and charismatic and the audience will be encouraged to want/not want them to be caught. N etc. are just experiencing that in 'real time'. There will also be people who think the film is exploitative and wrong. G etc. are experiencing *that* in real time.

*raises hand*

For this reason, I can't watch 95% of all recent movies, because they always have at least one scene that involves a fictional innocent passerby getting singled out and horribly killed, and I can't absolutely stand it.

G I do intellectually think those kind of films are exploitative and wrong myself so it wasn't a criticism.

I think the motivations in this case are going to be pretty boring actually, especially if that tarot card was left by the killer.

I'm not sure why I'm empathising more. I go to big supermarkets and petrol stations in a car a lot, maybe? Or maybe I'm just getting more empathic in my old age.

g. i think it's fair to call people on this sort of insensitivity, but don't you think you're being a bit histrionic and over-eager to accuse?

no no no - that's mean to say. i know what you're all saying about half-wishing for bad news sometimes. but isn't that impulse maybe kind of just an innate human way to deal with adversity - you kind of picture the worst to guage whether you could handle it and the ted nugent part of your brain says "yeah! ~ bring it on!" even though your regular brain doesn't really feel that way at all?

Could you explain this a bit more? I honestly don't understand this... My first reaction when I hear that some psycho is randomly shooting and killing people, whether it was here (which it is, for me, admittedly) or London or Seoul or Antarctica, is "God I hope they stop that motherfucker, pronto."

(While we're at it, I also don't quite understand the talk about needs for sensitive TV documentaries to empathize with the loss of life, or arguments comparing this to film when IN REALITY people are getting shot at)

Hope I sound overly preachy, here; more befuddled, because some of the comments I've read here (apart from the ones that I'm assuming are obvious trolling) are frankly rather disturbing to me...

"...don't..." :)

apologies if this is off base; i'm at work so can't really go back and reread threads and am therefore basing this on first impressions.

empathy is diluted by distance, but to different degrees in different people (eg some ppl will be bothered by tales of how someone died 1,000 years ago and others will just shrug): it's worth being self-aware enough to recognise in yrself when it does begin to peter out a bit, and that this may be a problem area for you

*a doctor who bursts into tears at the suffering his patients and their relatives are going through is actually not much help to them; a doctor who doesn't understand it all isn't either — the classic built-in human coping mechanism for being face-to-facve with grief and pain and loss day-in day-out is gallows humour, a much better release than stoicism

Why?

Or that after september 11th I suddenly felt more for a bunch of dead stock brokers than I had before.

Yeah, because everyone who died on 9/11 was a stockbroker, and all stockbrokers who died on 9/11 were definitely evil bastards who deserved it.

Jeesh...

i don't think i've ever felt of a horrible story "i wish this wd continue", but the news generally makes me so crazy with not-entirely-reasonable allergy-related rage that i hardly EVER watch or listen any more

i can kind of imagine momentarily feeling it, though, the way the thought goes through yr head on a high building "i cd just jump off" OR "i cd just push that bloke off"

However, I feel that's considerably different than saying I think it's a "funny story" though, or that I wish it would continue because hey it's interesting, or that gee I can kind of relate to this sniper guy because he's getting his 15 minutes and fuck the police, etc.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm saying that the media presents events as narratives, and that human beings respond to narratives in a certain way - they want the story to continue or conclude in a satisfying fashion. For a lot - most - people the knee-jerk desired conclusion is that the sniper gets captured. For some people the knee-jerk desired conclusion is that the sniper keeps going and then gets captured.

*Everyone* on the thread is agreeing that beyond that knee-jerk reaction they want the sniper to be stopped, so they ARE then taking "personal responsibility" for their knee-jerk reactions and suppressing them. They're also taking "personal responsibility" by admitting to them.

Being self-aware enough to admit that the media influences your reaction to things is not the same as attempting to shuck off blame onto "the media". Especially as it's entirely "the media's fault" that anyone outside of the immediate vicinity of the shootings has even heard about them.

(NB at least 4 or 5 posters have come in on g's side - he's not being 'tag-teamed')

There's a serial rapist currently on the loose in Surrey and some south London boroughs - he's been responsible for 12 or 13 attacks over the last year or so. I assume you don't want him to keep 'outwitting' the police, even as a first response. But why not?

I've been thinking about this as well. (I have to admit I have also joke to myself about having a March Against the Sniper.)

My initial reaction is that I want to see the sniper caught. On the other hand, one reason I have been paying more attention to this story than I usually do for stories of this sort, is the relatively novelty of having a sharp-shooter attacking people from a distance; except that I am identifying more with the law enforcement position (how do you track down someone killing people that way?). Still, part of my interest is a relatively cold, intellectual interest in the unusual circumstances.

However, the whole "news as entertainment" issue both interests me and disturbs me. When I looked at the front pages of all the papers on September 11 2002, all I could think of was not the scale of the destruction or the lives shattered or the global aftermath, it was photo editors sitting in darkened rooms going "we've used that one before... nah, not that one, the explosion's not big enough... oooh that one's nice, you can even see a couple jumping out of a window holding hands, do you think we could have a little close-up of that?"

Likewise, surely it's enough for us to know that 150+ people died in the Bali bombing last week. Do we really need to gorge ourselves on stories of how some bloke had just proposed to his girlfriend and she'd said yes and they'd gone out to celebrate and they were only in the Sari club because they were two minutes too late to get into their first choice bar and both died, or whatever? I know we don't, but somehow I find my eye drawn towards these stories, the seeming terrible randomness of them (more so than on 9/11, when these were people going about their daily routine), and its something that I'm not comfortable with at all.

N. - the Two Towers - did you want the toll to be really high, because then it would have been more impressive, spectacular, epochal? And, if so, were you disappointed by the initial estimations of 50,000 bleeding down to 17,000 then eventually resting at 6,000?

the coverage of news events on TV makes me abit crazy too. i can't bear to watch because i usually think there's always something wrong.

N: you made a statement but didn't clear it up. i think Tom has and his first post was v good.

Any high profile gun crime story will always drag out a slightly superior attitude in Britain anyway - its a bit of "we told you so" story in that respect (hiding the relief factor - which is probably incorrect these days anyway - of it couldn't happen here). There is also the idea over the last thirty years of the rehabilitation of the sniper as a respected and skilled army role - whereas previously it was seen to be cowardly and ungentlemanly.

Finally to go right up to Tom's movie anaolgies - who is being exploited in violence exploitative films? Surely we are, and we choose to be.

My personal theory on this - there is so much death/destruction/inhumanity in the world today, and we are constantly bombarded with emotive images/descriptions of it that we all have to develop coping mechanisms. Some people feel the need to go out and do something, some people give money, some people ignore it completely, some people hide in humour, some people feel empathy and feel the need to express this(g?)etc etc. All N did was be honest and he shouldn't be condemned for it, it's his coping mechanism and he's entitled to it!

The shooting occurred on a busy road, which has now been cordoned off by police.

Several shootings in the area have been attributed to a sniper operating in the Washington area".

the story continues...

I was thinking about this in light of the WTC attacks a few months ago, and I'm sure this formed a major part in the sick thinking of the terrorists themselves (which manifested itself in other ways, not least the date of the attack, of course). The nation they wanted to destroy was obsessed with TV and movies and big pyrotechnic explosions. They would give them the biggest TV moment ever. And it will be interesting to see, next time one of these '100 Most Memorable TV Moments' polls is carried out, whether the moon landing will be at number one, as it always is, or the sight of that second plane slicing into the WTC.

Well actually more like 2800. But the answer is yes, with the same rider added above: I didn't *really* want these people to die, but as Robin Lacey said above, "there is certainly the desire for the situation to escalate,get more dramatic,etc". Yeah, maybe its a sad indictment of how boring my life is that I feel enlivened by a BIG story happening involving lots of deaths. But these macabre thoughts can coexist with my sitting in front of the TV on Sep 12 crying and crying. Thoughts, attitutes and emotions can be complex. This has nothing to do with any 'they were a bunch of stockbrokers' stuff.

As for Tom's question about the serial rapist. No, I straightforwardly wish him to be caught as soon as possible. I don't have any cognitive dissonance on that. Partly it's cause I can never see rape in my mind as a joke. I've written about this before. I don't know why there is this difference between murder and rape. Maybe because murder (esp. sniping) can be imagined as such a 'clean' act, a simple prop in a story. Maybe because I've been desensitised to murder by years of Tom and Jerry cartoons etc. Maybe because rape feels closer to home because of something to do with bodily invasion. Maybe it's male guilt. I don't know. Murder is broadly speaking, a worse crime than rape but that doesn't seem to matter in this regard.

I should also say that I by no means find anything amusing in *all* accounts of murder. Less still titillating. I'm not one of those people who pores over 'true crime' annuals. There's just something about the sniping thing that is bizarre and interesting. It's not that I sympathise with the sniper as some people above seem to. I have no repressed urge to pick off strangers myself. I find him a ridiculous figure. Although this is probably not what he's like at all, I imagine this demented, angry person spitting under his breath, about all the useless, boring people with their boring lives, and how they don't deserve to live, like the sniper in 'The Jerk'. Yeah - that's it: I blame Steve Martin.

And from reading other message boards and talking to friends, people are increasingly seeing this from a film perspective. Not just that they are seeing an arc, but filtering this whole ordeal through the eyes of a Hollywood scriptwriter. Inventing background stories. What sparked this. Trying to find connections between these killings a la "Seven" or something.

Make Morgan Freeman play the Montgomery County chief of police, Harrison Ford the veteran FBI agent and John Malkovich the sniper and you've got a Jerry Bruckheimer blockbuster. Which is sad but true.

I think you can up to a point distinguish between a serial shooter and a serial rapist. N. makes some fair points, and I agree with Tracer upthread to some extent too: the motives of rapists are pretty much always the same and never empathetic. The difference with the sniper is that we do not know at this time what (he thinks) his motive is, we can only speculate. This is part of the fascination.

A comparison I would draw is with the murder of Jill Dando, a crime that went unsolved for a long time. During the time we were free to speculate on the motive and anticipate the killer getting away with it, there was a certain attraction in the case. Once it emerged that the guy who was convicted was basically just had an unhealthy personal obsessed with Dando, it became impossible to have any empathy with him.

Tom's first post was a good one, and may explain some people's reactions. However, my reactions might well be the same without the effects produced by the way the news media are filtering this particular story.

(Yancey's post was sent while typing this)

we are used to seeing murderers presented sympathetically on television (there are 'often' redeeming factors, mitigation. in columbo, he often likes the murderer, we do too, in law&order the other week, a 13 year old boy kills a man, but we empathize, cuz the man was a bastard, he *deserved* it). we empathize with the reasoning, the urge, becuase the victim was bad. we dont have this with rapists, it isnt empathic, we cannot put ourselves in the rapists shoes.

i know this doesnt connect particularly to the sniper, thats a different type of murder, it would be difficult to depict that sniper emathically, but the tvm/film will depict him as mysterious, calculating, perhaps otherworldy, chilling, an anti-hero that cinemagoers love.

when the victims are simply 'numbers', we focus on the sniper himself, on the acts, on the getaway. its only when the victims are mentioned, who they were, that the focus shifts, and we think about them, about the lives ruined. but television and the newspapers arent doing this much, the focus is on the sniper. obviously because he is still at large, but also because *we* are fascinated by him, we are not fascinated by the victims. so, in a strange way, we identify (not empathize) with the sniper, because thats where the focus is (lack of info on him, means we're trying to imagine the gaps, which we dont know about...

How is getting killed by a gun substantially different from getting killed by a knife?

When the arrests were made yesterday, I did feel slightly disappointed that it would all end in such a mundane way. And it WILL end mundanely, unless the sniper is never caught and continues to shoot people. When we find out who he is it will be mundane. Psychotics are always cliches.

When it comes to many people dying, I am bemused by people who invoke empathy. I can not empathise with the deaths of thousands of people in events such as September 11th. It is pretentious to claim to be able to. Sometimes I can empathise with individual deaths, but I am not sure to what extent this is real empathy (imagining being another), rather than simply imagining myself, or someone I know, being in that situation.

To put it another way, if I was killed in nasty circumstances, and other people far away declared that they could empathise, my ghost would scorn them and protest. No one but me and people who know me, in all my averageness, can understand why it is offensive that I should die. Empathy is extended egoism. Which I am all for, the basis of the social contract and all that, but people ought not to get all prissy about it.

Btw, on the whole gun issue, it's pretty obvious that this sort of thing would be less likely with stricter gun control. Drive-by shootings with bows and arrows? Give me an break.

The most recent high-profile shooting deaths from this area that I remember are a woman who was a passenger in a fleeing car who was shot in the back of the head by a policeman and a man who shot himself in the head after smothering his son and daughter. Gun control wouldn't have changed the outcome of either of these incidents. I'm not opposed to gun control; in fact, I don't see why you should be allowed to own one if you aren't a hunter or part of an enforcement agency. However, I think it's dangerously naive to think that limiting access to guns will somehow magically cause people who don't have a high regard for human life to start caring (beyond thinking, "Since I can't shoot him, I should get all of my friends in the neighborhood together and beat his brains out," like what happened in Milwaukee).

The kiddie mob thing is scary - but it was a mob. None of those kids would likely have had the balls or the ability to beat a man to death single handedly. I recently had to deal with some agressive kids myself and it isn't pleasant. You can't kick the shit out of them unless you want to go to jail, but they are potentially dangerous in groups. I gotta run.

So I suppose the conventional wisdom here is what: that you can empathise as much or as little as you want, but you're meant to at least claim to empathise, or anyway give solemn approval to the empathy of others, or just not say anything at all? (This doesn't sound entirely unreasonable to me, actually.)

Just as nieve is the belief that by banning guns, you'll somehow be keeping criminals from using them. After all, they are *criminals*. By virtue of this fact, they commit crimes. Committing one in order to get a weapon won't stop them if committing a crime is their M.O. anyways. Certainly, as drug laws have never kept drugs out of the hands of people who want them, gun laws will not keep guns out of the hands of people who wish to use them in less than humane ways.

That's not to say you shouldn't have gun laws to make it more difficult to obtain one legally, but the reality is that it won't do too much good.

-Alan

I will reiterate that I think gun control is an excellent idea but I remain deeply suspicious of people who put it forward as a cure for the problem rather than its most glamorous symptom.

Straight out of the NRA handbook, Alan you are as brain washed as a Johovah Witness , and my efforts will probably be as friutful as trying to grow strawberries on the frozen ALaskan tundra in winter.

mass shootings: *hardened criminal ?* or *stressed out loser ?*

criminal gun supply: *your friendly gun store?* or *home burglary?*

criminals: * genius never get caught?* or *dumb eventually caught and weapons siezed?*

purpose of the right to bear arms: * single shot weapon to protect against bears and Indians?* or * give citizens high powered weapons of mass detruction that are never used but sit under bed waiting for a hard day at work and a good time to kill half the neighbourhood or to supply criminals?*

Er Im not making any sense but you get the idea.Alan I dont have the stats but there is plenty of antedotal (sp?) evidence from around the world where tightening gun laws = safer socitey

obv exception being Aust who while banning semi autos did not for some bizzare reason not banning handguns = two deaths. I see they are looking at changing this. "But he could have just as easily used a knife"? Well ok why didnt he?

I love hunting but I dont need a thirty round automatic weapon to kill something. I remain highly suspicious of people with bad spelling and overblown/wrought posts... hmmmm.

Thanks for insulting my intelligence. Now, may I ask, how exactly will further gun legistlation keep people from obtaining weapons? Are you going to go house to house, building to building, searching for them? Face it...violent criminals who want guns will get them, just as easil as anyone who wants heroin can get it.

>>criminal gun supply: *your friendly gun store?* or *home burglary?*<<

Many guns used in crimes don't come from "your friendly gun store". They're purchased privately and illegally.

>>purpose of the right to bear arms: * single shot weapon to protect against bears and Indians?* or * give citizens high powered weapons of mass detruction that are never used but sit under bed waiting for a hard day at work and a good time to kill half the neighbourhood or to supply criminals?*<<

I'm not saying you keep semi-automatic weapons legal. You're putting words in my mouth.

>>Er Im not making any sense but you get the idea.Alan I dont have the stats but there is plenty of antedotal (sp?) evidence from around the world where tightening gun laws = safer socitey<<

Odd, as countries like Germany and Great Britian have been complaining about increases in violent crime recently. There are some countries that have guns outright banned where its done nothing (I believe Brazil prohibits firearms...doing them a lot of good?)

As has been mentioned before, lots of countries have guns. Look at Canada. But for some reason, Canadians don't have our murder rate. I think it has to do more with the history of this country and its "culture" than simply the fact that you can buy a gun.

Look, guns are not the reason crimes are committed. They're simply a tool. People have to have motives in order to use them. Chances are, if that motive includes knocking over a bank, you will go and get a gun, whether it is illegal to do so or not (see: california bank robbers from a couple years back who brandished very illegal AK-47s). You want to get rid of a major motive? Legalize drugs. Almost guaranteed that the murder rate will drop dramatically.

-
Alan

Depends how cheap they would be made after legalization -- one thing the 'legalize drugs' option always seems to leave unexplained is exactly what the pricing and availability would actually be in practice.

also Plinky, i believe no guns were involved in the worst aircraft hijacking and subsequent global catastrophe for 50 years...but as far as petty crime goes then yeah violent crimes would be less common if there were no guns handy

This is the aspect of the gun control platform that I absolutely abhor; the overstatement of the inherent evils of guns removes some of the culpability away from the bastards who actually did the shooting. Extending gun control will cut down on accidental shootings and spur of the moment "I was so mad and I knew there was a gun upstairs..." shootings, but how can it possibly affect crimes that involve firearms which are already illegal? As Alan says, if someone is already breaking the old law to get a gun, why would heshe care about breaking the new one?

I don't wanna get embroiled in a heavy argument here but am I the only person that thinks the whole "you still get violent crimes without guns" argument is totally dud? The amount of damage a rampaging psychopath can cause with a knife/their bare hands is infinitely less than can be caused with a gun, no?

So what you're in effect saying is that the existence of violent crime doesn't bother you, only the degree? We can't cure the psycho, but we can take away his gun so he only kills 3 people instead of 6?

They most certainly are. The reason why drugs cost so much, really, is "transportation". It costs money (lots of it) to get drugs into the US. And there, prices can be dropped or raised to make a profit based on supply and demand.

>>I don't see how they could be more expensive blueski - or else the black market as exists would just undercut them. Am I missing something here?<<

The black market would have a hell of a time doing it. Even then, not many people are gonna want to buy stuff off the street when there's FDA approved junk at your local Eckards, CVS, etc. There is a reason, after all, that people don't illegally run liquor anymore and why your friendly neighborhood street gang (TM) doesn't deal in it.

Not to mention that legalization would give farmers new cash crops.

-
Alan

That wasn't what I was saying, I was just trying to negate the whole

"Look, guns are not the reason crimes are committed. They're simply a tool. People have to have motives in order to use them"

argument without getting into a 4 page rant about the evils of guns.

Perhaps he uses a knife. But what if he goes and buys a gun illegaly? Or goes on the internet and learns how to build bombs out of household materials? You're only taking away one means (purchasing a gun legally) from the cadre of things he can do. You're not solving the problem (the fact that you have a nutcase).

Heavy gun control is so well liked because people treat it like its a magic bullet that will end crime. But you know, those in favor of Prohibition believed that by ridding America of legal liquor and other substances, you'd have the same effect. Neither gets at the root of the problem (whether it be why people go crazy, or why they become alcoholics) and neither really solves it. You ban all guns? Okay, people are still going to go crazy, and they're still very likely to kill using whatever means they can obtain (after all, they're KILLING PEOPLE, why would they care if they have to buy the gun on the street illegally?) The same quite obviously went for prohibition (which has been well documented).

Banning guns is "easy". Trying to figure out why people use them and get rid of it is much more difficult. And as the human race has pointed out so many times over the last 10,000 years, we don't like to do difficult things.

-
Alan

if someone's gonna kill, they;ll get a gun/knife or whatever.

if someone's gonna get a gun with no intention of killing, that's still an extra machine capable of killing someone in circulation.

Way too fucking much. Its why I only smoke up once or twice every 6 months these days. Around here (CT), its cheaper in places to buy smack than weed.

>>but surely no government can contemplate legalising drugs as it would mean they'd have to be somehow cheaper to buy than they are when illegal - i just cant imagine them doing that. but considering a black or grey market will always undercut on anything, is it ridiculous to visualise a scenario where drugs are legal but still cheaper to buy thru the illegal channels? <<

It isn't. But its not going to be as widespread as it is now. Plus, you're more likely to see farmers worldwide who are growing to go multinational rather than sell to the Colombian lords.

Legalization of drugs in the US would basically break the back of most street gangs and severly fuck anyone in the drug trade, because it would annhilate profits and force them to compete against large corporations. It would seriously change politics all over the third world (especially South and Central America), and perhaps even allow nations like Brazil to finally begin moving out of the "developing" stage. It would also certainly make countries like Colombia and Boliva more stable and less violent. Speaking of magic bullets, such legislation would do an incredibly good job at being one.

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Alan

I'd like to see you do in the US. If it were easy....

I think you can follow both arguments to their logical solution. Ban guns whilst at the same time trying to work out why the US is such a violent culture and cure that too. Guns don't have feelings after all - I bet they won't mind so much.

why the hell would anyone want a gun anyway? you can hurt people with those things!

It is easy. Congress passes an amendment to the constitution or 4/5 (or whatever it is) of the state's approve it. Bam. Done. Guns banned. Now that they've been banned, have you removed them? Are you somehow going to stop them from continuing to enter? Of course not. Its impossible.

>>I think you can follow both arguments to their logical solution. Ban guns whilst at the same time trying to work out why the US is such a violent culture and cure that too. Guns don't have feelings after all - I bet they won't mind so much. <<

Perhaps. I'd prefer we work on the latter first and get rid of the former once we've worked on America's psyche. I certainly wouldn't mind living in a country without guns, but I honestly can't see any immediate benefits from it in its current state.

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Alan

Er - so you can hurt people with them. A gun is no defence. The man who wrote the best form of defence is offence was someone who did not know what the word defence means.

(Although being offensive - in its more usual ILE sense - is a good way of guaranteeing that people stay away from you in general).

switzerland is an interesting country that has not been mentioned. i believe it is illegal not to have a gun. ie everyone has them, but the penalties for taking them out of the house without valid reason are severe.

pete, what a great defence for having guns! "why you got that gun?" "so i can hurt people!"

You're right. Many guns used in crimes have been stolen from their rightful owner. Nonetheless, I know if I had someone break into my house, I'd feel a lot better if I did have a weapon in my possession to protect myself (which I don't).

>>I don't think that either Alan C or I have been saying, "Everyone must be allowed to have guns." In fact, I explicitly said I was in favor of stricter gun control laws. We've been saying, "Gun control masks the problem instead of fixing it." Pete's the most OTM in my book. <<

Exactly. Want to get rid of gun shows? Okay. I won't lose sleep over it. Hell, I'm alright with registration of weapons. But I'm not gonna actually believe any such measures will truly make huge waves in terms of changing violent crime in the US.

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Alan

They see it as a violation of privacy.

What? even though this makes you MORE likely to mean you end up dead? you believe that you'll feel safer if you have, in your house, a device specifically designed to make killing a person really easy. ok.

Alan's absolutely right about owning a gun making those in your household more likely to die. There's always this assumption on the part of the owner that a gun provides safety and stability and protection, but in the end it more often just introduces a really volatile element into your household that raises the mortality stakes on everything that happens.

I think I said on another thread that this is basically a policy-versus-rights tradeoff. Assuming a removal of guns could take place in the U.S., we would all individually be a lot safer -- the tradeoff would be that when someone did try to victimize us, we wouldn't have this absolute leverage to protect ourselves. It strikes me as somewhat self-centered and personally concerned not to want to make that trade, and it strikes me as a vicious cycle to want to go in the other direction -- our fear of violence encourages us to arm, our arming encourages violence, that violence encourages fear.

That makes absolutely no sense to me. If I was mad enough at someone to want to cause them physical harm, I would go for a bat or a knife before going for a gun; it's much easier to get your hands on either and both can royally fuck someone up. And I am just not a powerful guy.

It seems to me that the whole concept of "self-defence" has got lost in the mire of the gun control arguement. The defence that I employ must surely be reasonable. F'rinstance I have a burgalar alarm, windows, doors, walls. What I'm not allowed to generally in a suburban neighbourhood is fifty foort tall barbed wire steel walls. If planning authorities can deal with the notion of reasonableness then why not the law?

What is appropriate force for self defence. It certainly isn't mutually assured destruction which is a likely outcome of a gun vs gun scenario. Of course such things rarely get to the Mexican standoff position, instead we just shoot whoever that is crawling around in the darkness. Who just happens to be our five year old daughter sneaking downstairs for a glass o'water not wanting to wake us.

Even a taser probably wouldn't kill her.

i wish i had 'nearly' shot my brother. that would teach not to act like such a prat all the time.

Really? I'm way more passionate than the average person, then. (Not quite analogous, but I did stab someone in the shoulder two or three times with a seam ripper when I was in middle school, in addition to attempting to strangle someone during social studies and the incident I think I mentioned before where I grabbed a kid by the ears and banged his face against the lockers several times before throwing him into his open locker after he passed out pictures he drew of my brother being run over a truck titled "Nigger-killer". My entire life from ages 13 through 16 could be played back as an extended crime of passion.)

I still don't know why people are approaching me as if I was in favor of everyone having guns (unless I'm just being a screaming egomaniac and you're actually talking to someone else).

now i'd buy that for a dollar!

If this guy turns out to be one of those assholes who clogged up Thekla on Fri. and Sat. nights, I hope they hang his ass in a freezer and his balls in a humidor before sticking him in a very small cell with Mitchell Rupe. Bastards.

The trouble always comes when the public want revenge on the first person arrested, even before any real evidence against them - this is particularly unrestrained in child murder cases.

but it will take a few months to bring the case to trial won't it? and if its ppl from another state on that jury then surely their brains would be bombarded with other shit from the media.

I have a feeling that this is why the PD declared the pair "persons of interest" and not suspects -- to lessen the chance of citizens taking care of this themselves, which many were eager to do.

And your point is, David? It's a technical point that I might not have articulated very well. An attempt at 'precis': this PoG evidence here is of a great degree rather than the small evidentiary 'burden' of bringing a case to pay in the court.

God.

Sorry.

wait up, when did they catch the zodiac killer?

(This is not necessarily a good thing.)

TO THE TANK!

Death.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iusIZC8PvRjuCm5Im_c_yzitM93AD9BJIG986

Dead. Pronounced at 9:11 no less.

http://www.inquisitr.com/47199/dc-sniper-john-allen-muhammad-executed-in-virginia/

http://m.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/lee-boyd-malvo-10-years-after-dc-area-sniper-shootings-i-was-a-monster/2012/09/29/a1ef1b42-04d8-11e2-8102-ebee9c66e190_story.html