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Colorado gun sales up after cinema killings

RadicalModerate said:
Call the Aurora police, call off the investigation. Let Capt Dan Oates know that muciti thinks that nothing needs to be learned or understood from the tragedy.

Wrap it up, boys. Let's go home.

Lol, c'mon man. Really?
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by all means. feel free. any money spent on anything more than determining this piece of ****'s innocent or guilt and execution is a waste.
 
muciti said:
A good way to solve humanities problems would be to eliminate these guys causing these problems. I havent seen anyone, not one person on this thread or any other until you claiming god did it. I thought I have been very clear. God didnt do this shooting.
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You didn't read my post properly. I didn't mention anyone claiming that God had a hand in this shooting (although some politicians and organizations have). I said that blaming it on "evil" is similar to other situations when people claim "God did it" for things they don't understand.

One person was to blame for this shooting. 1. uno. thats it. No more. And that person should be given a trial and then promptly executed unless it cannot be proven that he pulled that trigger. That is all there should be to it.
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The problem is that you continue to state that argument without defending it and just assume that it's self-evident. The other problem is that your argument isn't defensible because in order for it to be accurate, his actions would have had to exist in a vacuum where the will is the only cause of behavior. His actions don't exist in such a place, so your statements are incorrect.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
Because then you introduce the "anti-liberal" thought of personal responsibility; if a criminal is simply held responsible for their crime, then there is no "root cause" to launch massive liberal social programs to "fix". If a person is actually responsible for their own actions, then you can not justify rewarding INDIVIDUAL (educational, social and economic) failure with welfare, you must make it seem that SOCIETY has somehow that failed the individual, then you can "fix" it with a liberal social program.
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Spoken like a god!
 
ThePlayDrive said:
What you're describing does not line up with reality. Actions do not exist in a vacuum. They, like everything, have causes. If you don't think his actions were caused by anything, then you aren't operating in reality. Now, whether those causes could have been altered is up for debate.


I don't know if he will say anything that will help. However, if we find out what caused his actions and if his life shares preventable patterns with those who have committed similar crimes, then his words might help us in the future.
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how could his words help anyone? what insight could he possibly provide? and even if he does have something to say why should anyone listen?
 
Jerry said:
As unstoppable as the lone-wolf terrorist, because they're virtually undetectable. Yes, long ago I accepted the fact that the world will never be without crime. Try as we may, we will never be able to prevent 100% of all crime. Sometimes the bad guy is very smart and knows how to play the system, and he get's through. When he does, the citizen needs to be ready.

There is nothing which could have been don to prevent this crime, **** happens. What could have been don, what should have been don, is an armed theater audience returning fire to minimize the crime, hopefully killing the assailant in the process.

We don't need your nanny-state socialist bull**** policies. We need a strong, vibrant, responsible gun-culture. This is what all evidence demonstrates lowers crime. Save you bull**** for some 3rd world warlord America hasn't killed yet.
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Have another beer and watch Rambo again, Jerry.
 
RadicalModerate said:
Just to be clear, I was differentiating between two lines of thought; I was addressing the info in the OP that guns sales were up. IMO that's an overreaction to the situation, and also think that if we're discussing ways that provide any possibility of reducing actions like Holmes', increasing armed citizens would be near the bottom of the list.

I prefer a discussion of mental health over a discussion about arming citizens, but keep in mind I don't think just one thing is the problem.
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To me, the increase in gun sells seems like a fairly normal reaction to a perceived threat (not saying it's realistic, just that it's nothing abnormal).

I don't think that increasing the arms that citizens owns, or decreasing the number of arms owned, has any effect whatsoever on the type of situation we're discussing.
 
I think the best we can do as a society is to see the objective warning signs and react to those. As another poster said in another thread, we have 300 million people in this country. If even .00001 of that number are capable of this kind of mayhem, that's 3,000 people at any given time. We can't have mental health professionals monitoring an entire society, offering help, categorizing them as high-risk, to zero in on a possible 3,000 people. **** happens. People go off the rails. As a society, we need to accept that.

Having said that, there are behavior patterns that probably can be identified -- buying 6,000 rounds of ammunition on the internet is probably one of them. Buying multiple guns within a certain time period might be another. Taking flight lessons and not caring to learn how to land. (!) (I don't know, I'm just guessing.) Interviewing this guy and his friends to see what he said to whom when. Alerting all of us for danger signs that signal the actual behavior. But trying to predict who's likely to go nutz by labelling hundreds of thousands (maybe millions) of people as being high risk? I think that's ridiculous.
 
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ttwtt78640 said:
Because then you introduce the "anti-liberal" thought of personal responsibility; if a criminal is simply held responsible for their crime, then there is no "root cause" to launch massive liberal social programs to "fix". If a person is actually responsible for their own actions, then you can not justify rewarding INDIVIDUAL (educational, social and economic) failure with welfare, you must make it seem that SOCIETY has somehow that failed the individual, then you can "fix" it with a liberal social program.
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Eh, there are three main accepted influences in behavior: genetics, environment and the will. Many liberals, like myself, put a lot of emphasis on environment when it comes to behavior. We also see genetics as being a significant influence. However, we usually don't see the will as a significant influence since we usually see it as a primarily determined by genetics and environment. Because of that, you often see us focusing on society/genetics and what both have done to impact people's will.

Conservatives, on the other hand, focus primarily on the will. Because of that, they often focus on personal responsibility and how people have chosen to use their own will rather than how other people may have influenced their choices.

Now, instead of choosing to challenge the generally liberal idea that society has the primary impact on behavior and defend your belief that the will has the primary impact and that we should therefore choose to focus on personal responsibility rather than environment, you've chosen to act like a hackish fool and resort to insulting those who think differently than you by distorting their position. Fail.
 
MaggieD said:
Having said that, there are behavior patterns that probably can be identified -- buying 6,000 rounds of ammunition on the internet is probably one of them. Buying multiple guns within a certain time period might be another. (I don't know, I'm just guessing.) Interviewing this guy and his friends to see what he said to whom when. Alerting all of us for danger signs that signal the actual behavior. But trying to predict who's likely to go nutz by labelling hundreds of thousands (maybe millions) of people as being high risk? I think that's ridiculous.
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To the bolded: not the case. Some people who buy guns, also trade in guns frequently. Now, if you are saying that someone who buy 1000 units of the same or similar models at one time, you may have a point.
 
muciti said:
how could his words help anyone? what insight could he possibly provide?
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I don't know why you keep asking me the same questions when I've answered them already. If he sheds light on the causes, then we may be able to prevent them in the future. That's how solving problems work.

and even if he does have something to say why should anyone listen?
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For our own safety...
 
ThePlayDrive said:
The problem is that you continue to state that argument without defending it and just assume that it's self-evident. The other problem is that your argument isn't defensible because in order for it to be accurate, his actions would have had to exist in a vacuum where the will is the only cause of behavior. His actions don't exist in such a place, so your statements are incorrect.
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No my statmeents are not incorrect. This guy can probably come up with a **** load of excuses as to why he did it. He was tired of controlled, he was angry at the governement, his girlfriend broke up with him, his puppy died, his favorite tv show was cancelled. There is no excuse he is going to put out there that millions of others have not dealt with as well. It is no excuse.
 
ThePlayDrive said:
I don't know why you keep asking me the same questions when I've answered them already. If he sheds light on the causes, then we may be able to prevent them in the future. That's how solving problems work.


For our own safety...
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Removing him from this planet would be for our own safety. The problem that needs to be solved is this guys existence.
 
muciti said:
No my statmeents are not incorrect. This guy can probably come up with a **** load of excuses as to why he did it. He was tired of controlled, he was angry at the governement, his girlfriend broke up with him, his puppy died, his favorite tv show was cancelled. There is no excuse he is going to put out there that millions of others have not dealt with as well. It is no excuse.
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Someday they may be able to identify a gene marker or a brain pattern that makes people more high risk than others. And, even at that, it would be a dangerous way to predict behavior. Let's face it. There is no way to predict behavior. Subject one person to a series of identical events as another person? Probably two very different outcomes. It's hindsight alone that makes us say, "His actions were quite predictable."
 
ThePlayDrive said:
Eh, there are three main accepted influences in behavior: genetics, environment and the will. Many liberals, like myself, put a lot of emphasis on environment when it comes to behavior. We also see genetics as being a significant influence. However, we usually don't see the will as a significant influence since we usually see it as a primarily determined by genetics and environment. Because of that, you often see us focusing on society/genetics and what both have done to impact people's will.

Conservatives, on the other hand, focus primarily on the will. Because of that, they often focus on personal responsibility and how people have chosen to use their own will rather than how other people may have influenced their choices.

Now, instead of choosing to challenge the generally liberal idea that society has the primary impact on behavior and defend your belief that the will has the primary impact and that we should therefore choose to focus on personal responsibility rather than environment, you've chosen to act like a hackish fool and resort to insulting those who think differently than you by distorting their position. Fail.
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WRONG. The "fail" is injecting tax money to reward that "failure" rather than doing anything to alter the situation. We KNOW that single parent "families" are a MAJOR part of the problem, yet they are the FIRST priority of our major "anti-poverty" programs; get married, especially to someone with a modest job, and your "help" dries up, leaving you WORSE OFF than before. Delay having that child and you delay getting "qualified" for most aid.

Instead of helping those that wish to ESCAPE the ghetto they are instead actually paid to stay there. To survive outside a city with free (or heavily subsidized) public transit requires an expensive car, yet I am aware of no program to help with that. Most social programs continue to subsidize failure and not to break the cycle of single parent "families", dropping out of school and simply remaining a parasite. Decisions have consequences, some are rewarded (out of wedlock childbirth) others are not, lacking transportation/job training in a rural area.

Much of our free public education does not make one able to get a decent job, but dropping out and starting a "family" pays MORE than finishing that highschool education and getting a McJob, that is insane. I would much rather help those that want to help themselves than to simply reward failure. I would START by making any and all public assistance depend on finishing highschool, performing some public service (or job training) and remaining reasonably sober.
 
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muciti said:
Removing him from this planet would be for our own safety. The problem that needs to be solved is this guys existence.
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Actually, just putting him in prison would keep is safe from him. However, our own safety would be improved if we could prevent others from becoming him, which is the point.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
WRONG. The "fail" is injecting tax money to reward that "failure" rather than doing anything to alter the situation. We KNOW that single parent "families" are a MAJOR part of the problem, yet they are the FIRST priority of our major "anti-poverty" programs; get married, especially to someone with a modest job, and your "help" dries up, leaving you WORSE OFF than before. Delay having that child and you delay getting "qualified" for most aid.

Instead of helping those that wish to ESCAPE the ghetto they are instead actually paid to stay there. To survive outside a city with free (or heavily subsidized) public transit requires an expensive car, yet I am aware of no program to help with that. Most social programs continue to subsidize failure and not to break the cycle of single parent "families", dropping out of school and simply remaining a parasite. Decisions have consequences, some are rewarded (out of wedlock childbirth) others are not, lacking transportation/job training in a rural area.

Much of our free public education does not make one able to get a decent job, but dropping out and starting a "family" pays MORE than finishing that highschool education and getting a McJob, that is insane. I would much rather help those that want to help themselves than to simply reward failure. I would START by making any and all public assistance depend on finishing highschool, performing some public service (or job training) and remaining reasonably sober.
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My point either went over your head or you are engaged in a blatant deflection. Either way, I haven't the time.
 
muciti said:
You cannot make a case that this kid did not understand. his planning too involved. That has no chance of flying.
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I don't have to. The lawyer can.

anyways, if he is deemed unfit for trial, or innocent by reason of insanity, he should get treatment....not a noose.
 
Thunder said:
why would you want to kill someone who commited a crime due to severe mental illness that kept him from understanding his actions?
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IF someone murdered my loved ones I wouldn't give a damn if the murderer understood his actions or not.
 
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