Massive School Shooting at an Elementary School

[DGFone]

The only sad fact here is that this is somehow supposed to be a response to an argument about gun control.

It's suggestively racist, very off-topic, and logically flawed, all at the same time.

It's "suggestively racist" because you somehow inserted skin color into the equation. As for the logic, I don't know where your stance on this comes from, seeing how many times I linked to you the definition of the word, and considering that you tried to use a mathematical argument against me which was flawed at the core...

All I can say for any "racism" is to stop making assumptions, people. But that's not why I am posting now.

And now why did I bother to bring it up in the first place? I don't know about you, but it had to do about this topic (which didn't start out as gun control, BTW), and here is how:

When I was forced to 'discuss' this with Regulus, neither he nor I ever mentioned the dreaded G word of "gun". What I can summarize the whole thing as is that I used the wrong word, and I am the only guy here who thinks that if two words mean the same thing, then they can be interchanged at will. Apparently not, and even if two words mean the same thing, one is a mortal sin to use, and the other is not. And before you tell me that only I think this way, I asked my math teacher today if the two words mean the same thing, and he agreed without a blink of an eye. I dunno, could be a mathematical sort of thought process. If A=B then B=A, you know?

Back to guns: Never did I nor Regulus ever mentioned the word gun. When I asked him what creates crime, he said inequality (which is what I meant in the very beginning). Inequality. Not guns.

If guns never existed, crime would still happen until the heat-death of the universe while humans are still around, because try as we might, we will never achieve true inequality. It's biologically impossible, short of everyone being clones. At the same time, should somehow everyone be clones, and they all had guns, crime rates would be very low.

Guns are not the problem. They are the scapegoat.

You want less people to die? Don't ban guns. Tackle crime as a whole. Don't treat the symptoms, cure the disease.

[Regulus]

Ok......

So what do you guys think of Azdgari's suggestions?

- Limiting legal clip size to 10 (ideally 5 but I think that would be a tough sell) is reasonable.
- More thorough background checks and waiting periods are reasonable.
- Closing the gun show loopholes is not "reasonable", it's a no-brainer.
- More regulation on transfer of guns is reasonable: Your average citizen, without any sort of permit or authorization, should not be able to sell guns. It destroys the point of background checks and undermines basic security.

I think they are both reasonable and possible to pass in Congress.

I'd also say that banning lethal ammunition should be added, but I'm okay with this. It's several steps in the right direction.

[Azdgari]

Don't treat the symptoms, cure the disease.

That's not very good logic.

...makes the same kind of criticism about sensible gun laws as does the NRA .... that if a proposal such as making assault weapons and large capacity clips less available or makes background checks more effective is not perfect, then it is not worth pursuing. Of course "bad things" will still happen even if we enact reasonable gun legislation, but it would be good if we could, as a nation, take some steps to reduce the number of those "bad things."

What do you do until you cure the disease? Treat the symptoms to make the disease more manageable.

[DGFone]

Don't treat the symptoms, cure the disease.

That's not very good logic.

...makes the same kind of criticism about sensible gun laws as does the NRA .... that if a proposal such as making assault weapons and large capacity clips less available or makes background checks more effective is not perfect, then it is not worth pursuing. Of course "bad things" will still happen even if we enact reasonable gun legislation, but it would be good if we could, as a nation, take some steps to reduce the number of those "bad things."

What do you do until you cure the disease? Treat the symptoms to make the disease more manageable.

Excuse me... WHAT? I'm sorry, I know you mean well, but seeing as I suffer from a chronic disease, let me tell you straight up, from experience:

NEVER TREAT THE SYMPTOMS.

You might stop a symptom temporarily, but in the end, unless you take care of the source, it will come back to haunt you. Either through the symptoms coming back and you won't be able to treat them anymore, or another different symptom will emerge. And I do hope you won't have to experience what it's like to have both new symptoms and the old one be active at the same time.

I repeat: To stop gun crime, banning guns is the wrong solution. The proper solution is to tackle the problems that create all crimes.

[DGFone]

I may stand with some of your points, but this ''disease'' is not like the flu. It's like cancer. Cure it or die.

Exactly! You don't cure a disease by treating the symptoms. After all, ask a cancer survivor: what was more important? Killing off the cancer cells, or taking pain killers?

Same with crime. Take away the guns, the crime will remain, and guns will be replaced by something else. Don't want people to die from guns? Make it highly undesirable to commit a crime in the first place.

[DGFone]

Wait...... we agree......

How could this happen?

I do also find it weird/funny how I say something that 99% of people here disagree with, and the one guy to actually understand what I said, let alone agree with, is you.

[OuRaion]

Wait...... we agree......

How could this happen?

I do also find it weird/funny how I say something that 99% of people here disagree with, and the one guy to actually understand what I said, let alone agree with, is you.

IT'S A MIRACLE!

[Azdgari]

I may stand with some of your points, but this ''disease'' is not like the flu. It's like cancer. Cure it or die.

Exactly! You don't cure a disease by treating the symptoms. After all, ask a cancer survivor: what was more important? Killing off the cancer cells, or taking pain killers?

Same with crime. Take away the guns, the crime will remain, and guns will be replaced by something else. Don't want people to die from guns? Make it highly undesirable to commit a crime in the first place.

Still bad logic, still don't agree. You should kill cancer cells, and you should take pain killers! In our sickness metaphor, you're a patient who refuses painkillers, antacids, etc and says "Don't touch me until you can instantly cure me!"

[DGFone]

I may stand with some of your points, but this ''disease'' is not like the flu. It's like cancer. Cure it or die.

Exactly! You don't cure a disease by treating the symptoms. After all, ask a cancer survivor: what was more important? Killing off the cancer cells, or taking pain killers?

Same with crime. Take away the guns, the crime will remain, and guns will be replaced by something else. Don't want people to die from guns? Make it highly undesirable to commit a crime in the first place.

Still bad logic, still don't agree. You should kill cancer cells, and you should take pain killers! In our sickness metaphor, you're a patient who refuses painkillers, antacids, etc and says "Don't touch me until you can instantly cure me!"

Did you even read the quote? It sums up exactly what I'm saying and I don't want to repeat it. Incidentally, you're not the only one with crappy medical luck, and I took all the painkillers and suppressants I could get, thanks. Correct me if I'm wrong, but chronic implies incurable, doesn't it? So you will never do anything about your disease ever because its incurable, right?

No, what I meant is that if you can prevent all crimes, you won't need to ban guns -there's no crime anyways.

If you can prevent cancer, why need the painkillers?

[Azdgari]

You can't prevent cancer. That's the point. Great analogy, actually. Crime is a cancer, gun violence is a tumor. We can't cure cancer: at least not yet, and not in the foreseeable future. But we can work on this particular aspect, or tumor, and even though it is not a panacea, it's doable and will have a considerable impact.