Shooting at LGBT nightclub in Florida, 20 injured

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It's not just about better detection or better access to care. You can improve those things all you want, you can even mandate screenings for everyone. Until there's access to better care and widespread de-stigmatization of mental illness, the problem is going to get worse, not better.

Similarly, making this about gun control is a gross oversimplification. People who want to commit crimes with guns don't give a crap about the law. For people with terroristic leanings especially, getting your hands on a firearm is always going to be painfully easy compared to learning not to act like that.

European gun laws didn't do the folks at Bataclan or Charlie Hebdo much good. They haven't protected a lot of French and German women, either.

I don't care much for guns. They frighten me. We don't own one. We're damn well going to, but we do not, and have not, because even a .22 scares the crap out of me. My kids have capguns... and no caps to go BANG in them. That's how much I like the damn things. We're going to have one anyway. Why?? Because society is going to s**t, human nature has always been s**t, and government on all levels has already demonstrated its inability to protect the populace from sh***y behavior. Ergo, it is incumbent upon us to protect each other and ourselves.

If it's going to come to that, I'd rather make it a firefight than a shooting range. I'm tired of feeling helpless, and apparently a lot of LGBTQ folks feel the same way.

At the end of the day, acceptance and tolerance have to be taught, and normalized, and that will result in less of this crap. But that's going to take a very, very, very long time. In the interim, I think it better for decent people to have some defensive capacity.

Also, please bear in mind that tolerance doesn't mean they like you, or are obligated to pretend they do. Tolerance doesn't mean not objecting to your lifestyle, or not saying things that upset you and hurt your feelings. It doesn't mean they can't preach that you're infidel, or hell bound and damned, or whatever other BS they want to spew. Tolerance means live and let live, in almost the strictest and most literal sense of the phrase (don't kill people or criminalize behavior that does not directly harm anyone else). And that's all it means.

No it is not an over simplification. If there are no guns, then the criminals could not get guns no matter what. If there were fewer guns, then it would be harder for criminals to get guns. Why do we need to make it as easy as possible for criminals to get guns?

The argument that we should have no gun control because criminals will still get guns is the single dumbest argument ever made in the history of humankind. By the same argument, we should have no laws against anything, because criminals don't obey the laws anyway. Either we do away with all of our laws, or stop making that argument agains gun control. Logical fallacies like that argument only go to show the lack of intelligent of pro gun people.

Ever learned about an "improvised firearm"? Even Wikipedia.org mentions how author Harlan Ellison described "the zip guns used by gangs in 1950s New York City as being made from tubing used in coffee percolators or automobile radio antennas, strapped to a block of wood to serve as a handle. A rubber band provided the power for the firing pin, which is pulled back and released to fire. The use of such weak tubing results in a firearm that can be as dangerous to the shooter as the target; the poorly fitting smoothbore barrel provides little accuracy and is liable to burst upon firing."

In other words, humans will always have access to firearms.

Even if you leave out the improvised firearm, and disregard the IED, how in the world do you propose to get rid of every gun on the planet?? Do you this IS is going to surrender them in a rational and docile manner?? Do you think the Christian Dominionists, American paramilitary types, and drunk deer-huntin' rednecks are going to surrender them in a rational and docile manner?? How about the inner-city thugs??

Hell, plenty of Joe Citizens are going to resent it and either become radicalized paramilitary types or sell them for a little cash to the highest (illegal) buyer. Likely to be one of the jackasses listed above.

It's a nice idea. Eutopian and beautiful and comforting. A world where the bad guys are toothless and we're all safe.

But it ain't real, or realistically achievable.

Having laws is a little different. A society needs rules by which it is governed, or anyone can and will do whatever they want, and exact retribution in whatever way they want. Without laws, there are no more law-abiding citizens (the majority of us, which prevents it all from collapsing into anarchy). Most of those people, sadly, follow the laws because they believe they will be caught and don't want to accept or endure the penalties. Very few people, most of them either idealists, moralists, autistics, or all of the above, truly desire to follow to rules, or do what is right, because it is the right thing to do and good for everyone.

Those who think they're too slick to be caught, who are too crispy to think it through or too impulsive to care, and those who believe they are above the law, well, they're always going to break the law. Whatever the law is.

But it's nice to know that they are, in fact, breaking a major law (yes, actually, I do think that a lot of the stupid ones governing, say, what people put into or do with their bodies consensually in the privacy and confines of their own homes without harming anyone else other than maybe the loved ones who stand to lose them to excessive use of chemical substances, ought to disappear) and will, in fact, be punished should they survive their destructive behavior. That law enforcement will, eventually, be along to do something about it all. How many people walked out of Pulse alive because someone did eventually show up and handle it?? That something more than my speed on a trigger and the capacity of my magazine protects me if I decide not to wait around and instead defend myself from thuggery myself.

I'd probably share your point of view if I still believed that Help in the form of Law Enforcement is going to arrive in time to save my skin (and the skins of my kids). I don't care about my crap-- there's more at the store. I won't condone shooting over a video game system and a hi-def big-screen. There's more at the store. I don't know if I'd shoot over the threat or possibility of rape. I've known victims, and I've known survivors, and they have pretty good therapy for that. Even HIV isn't the death sentence it was 30 years ago, and I guess a child conceived out of rape can be aborted, or looked upon as light brought forth from the pits of darkness.

In defense of my life?? I'm not totally sure. There's days when I'd probably welcome my murderer as the Lord's angel sent to answer my prayers.

In defense of my kids?? You bet. In a cold minute, regardless of whether the law forgives me or not. I become one bloodthirsty American conservative. For anyone directly and deliberately threatening the lives of my kids, if I have the chance, it's die dammit die.

As if people having unlimited access to military grade firearms to commit mass murder is not anarchy.

This gun nut logical fallacy is the reason terrorists in the US cannot fly on an airplane, but they can buy all the firearms they wish.

Please go and watch Jim Jefferies videos that I posted. He covers all of this and a lot more.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-1 ... 1-year-low

Where's the anarchy?

Where is the anarchy? Are you f*****g serious? What is more anarchistic then every mentally incompetent fool, being able to mow the group of people of his choice down with assault rifles? The US is totally slipping into anarchy. Gun anarchy.

Thank you.

Yeah that was a sad tragic event...

It makes me think about us aspies too, as we may get marked as a group in the future, since hatred has been always part of the human nature.

No doubt this is a religious related attack, whether the shooter was deranged as well matters less, because mass killers tend to be...

I think freedom of speech and expression has become too much out of control in western countries.... America, Europe, etc all those get torn from the inside just because people have the right to express their radical opinions, and in times of crisis extremists buy the crowd essentially. Every religion in its extreme is bad, (also extreme dedication to atheism btw) I actually can't think of something I would like to have excessively besides health. The problem remains when religious activists that believe in dying for the name of their god actually have access to guns and fire-arms, more so if they are armed in the first place.

Thus, I don't believe strong leadership and slight limitation/censorship to certain seemingly democratic laws would hurt manage the situation, again, because with all the immigration, ISIS, economy, wrong people getting into positions of power and even allowed doing so (seriously, WTF is with that video of shiite muslim preaching on US soil to murder US citizens because of their sexual orientation?) is bad.

Those states mentioned WILL never regress into dictatorship, which is probably the worst fear because democracy has been there since.... forever... people are used to their freedom, nobody is going to take the power from the people as long as the authorities balance each other.

For those of you who are asking as to why is ISIS allowed to continue to exist, mhmm they are always looking for new volunteers to take 'em out, so if you have spare time and know or want to learn how to handle a gun join the Kurdish resistance.

Stonewall Shooting Sports of Utah was the LGBT group I founded years ago. They are fantastic people, like the Pink Pistols chapter, too!