The wussifying of America

[homesick_american 1]

Last month the federal appeals court overturned the law banning gun ownership in DC since 1976.

ETA Rich, some argue this ban helped reduce the high crime rate in DC. It is still high, but it has been higher.

But it was higher everywhere in the late 1980s-early 1990s. The number of homicides per year in Dallas has dropped by almost 50% while the city itself has grown by much less than that amount...and Dallas is violent!

[Ban Hammer 13,637]

Last month the federal appeals court overturned the law banning gun ownership in DC since 1976.

ETA Rich, some argue this ban helped reduce the high crime rate in DC. It is still high, but it has been higher.

But it was higher everywhere in the late 1980s-early 1990s. The number of homicides per year in Dallas has dropped by almost 50% while the city itself has grown by much less than that amount...and Dallas is violent!

maybe due to cch?

[Caladan 19]

Mostly due to the rash of drug arrests in the early 90s, I think. Pittsburgh's crime rate dropped like a stone after some of the major arrests occurred, and started climbing again five years ago.. because the prison sentences are up.

[slim 1,533]

There is also more than a hint of blame the victim mentality in this thread. As if somehow the victim must take some of the responsibility for his victimization. Theoretical debate over what people should do in situations like this belittles the tragedy and suggest nothing productive to adressing the larger problem.- even accidentally or indirectly.

I am addressing the larger problem here. I'll attempt to clarify my.

Once again, I am not saying anyone in VA did anything wrong (or right) or their actions were anything less than heroic. What I am saying is that if we as Americans would condition ourselves to fight impending violent death with our own violent actions, then we may fare better in scenarios such as the one that took place at Virginia Tech.

The actions of the gunman are comparable to those of suicide bombers, hijackers, and others who are intent on causing as much death and/or destruction as possible before their own deaths, or during the commission of an act which they know will cause their own deaths.

What happened at Virginia Tech was not a hostage situation. So, to compare that to the seige in Moscow or any other hostage taking scenario is impossible. To compare it to daily violent crime such as theft, murder, rape, etc., is also not possible. Those crimes are motivated by desire for monetary gain, retribution, etc. This was a completely different scenario, one that was extraordinary, and one that was perpetrated by a person who was not mentally on the same page as the rest of us. He was intent on causing as many casualties as possible, and did it by systematically shooting anyone he could.

In a scenario such as that, survival instincts kick in. But as many of the posters have pointed out, the first instinct when confronted by danger is to flee or hide. This cannot be changed.

What can be changed is what happens shortly thereafter. We in the developed world have been trained to "accept" what is happening and to not take responsive violent action against someone, even in a life threatening situation. That is what needs to be changed.

The original intent of this thread was not to debate whether more guns or less guns are needed, whether the students and faculty at Virginia Tech did the right thing, or whether we're wussies or not. It was started to point out the facts of the recent deadly incident and those of the past, and to conjecture that in the future, we're heading toward events such as this that will be more frequent and more deadly due to our worsening distaste for violence in general, our denial of it's existence, and our absolute unwillingness to fight violence with the only effective means we have. More violence.

Those of you out there saying we don't need to fight back, we're not heroes unless we help people jump out of a window or barricade a door, etc., what you're failing to take into account here is this incident took place inside a room full of people. A single man walked into a room and started firing a gun at people. Did he shoot all 20+ people simultaneously? NO! He shot them one after another. So, what was the last person in the room doing while the others were getting shot?

Patiently waiting their turn???? Attempting to flee? Thinking about throwing their chair at the gunman?

The truth is, none of us will know what was going on inside the heads of everyone there. What I'm arguing here is that if we were to change our societal perceptions of what was "acceptable violence" then situations like this would seldom occur (which they already do occur very rarely) and casualties at the outcomes would be far fewer because we would be "trained" to accept the fact that it really is OK to kill someone when you're defending yourself from being killed by them.

I'm not going to get into the semantics debate of if it's right, if it's not right, whatever. I'm going to say right now, it is perfectly OK to defend yourself by any means necessary when an armed man walks into a room full of people and starts shooting them one after another. If we as a society would accept that fact, and stop denying that a violent act will stop another violent act, then we're on the path to reducing the number of people killed in incidents such as this.

[homesick_american 1]

maybe due to cch?

Since you're making the assertion, why don't you demonstrate to me using hard facts that the crime drop in Dallas was caused by your nugget of post hoc ergo propter hoc logic?

[SteveLaura 0]

A single man walked into a room and started firing a gun at people. Did he shoot all 20+ people simultaneously? NO! He shot them one after another. So, what was the last person in the room doing while the others were getting shot?

Patiently waiting their turn???? Attempting to flee? Thinking about throwing their chair at the gunman?

The last person in the room - assuming, of course, that they knew that they would be the last one - was probably trying to hide, I would imagine. If they tried to jump the gunman, as you seem to be suggesting, they wouldn't have been the last one to be shot. They would have been the next one.

[almaty 19]

being a hero gets you one thing, dead

[Robor007 0]

Slim...like many other posters here, I really don't understand your point. Sometimes people have to play smart...

As for the posters who believe more people should carry guns with them in case anything happens they can defend themselves...here's an insight --- I'm from Hong Kong, China, a city where no citizens is allowed to own guns. And you can find that in research, Hong Kong is one of the cities in the world that has the lowest crime rate. So...is that saying anything?

Apples and Oranges. You are comparing a city to a country. I've been to HK and it doesn't compare demographically to the US in any respect. Poverty= high crime in the USA but not Hong Kong. Guns are banned in Washington DC but it has the highest crime rate in the USA.

And Washington DC is a city surrounded by a country filled with 300+ million guns.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

There is also more than a hint of blame the victim mentality in this thread. As if somehow the victim must take some of the responsibility for his victimization. Theoretical debate over what people should do in situations like this belittles the tragedy and suggest nothing productive to adressing the larger problem.- even accidentally or indirectly.

I am addressing the larger problem here. I'll attempt to clarify my.

Once again, I am not saying anyone in VA did anything wrong (or right) or their actions were anything less than heroic. What I am saying is that if we as Americans would condition ourselves to fight impending violent death with our own violent actions, then we may fare better in scenarios such as the one that took place at Virginia Tech.

The actions of the gunman are comparable to those of suicide bombers, hijackers, and others who are intent on causing as much death and/or destruction as possible before their own deaths, or during the commission of an act which they know will cause their own deaths.

What happened at Virginia Tech was not a hostage situation. So, to compare that to the seige in Moscow or any other hostage taking scenario is impossible. To compare it to daily violent crime such as theft, murder, rape, etc., is also not possible. Those crimes are motivated by desire for monetary gain, retribution, etc. This was a completely different scenario, one that was extraordinary, and one that was perpetrated by a person who was not mentally on the same page as the rest of us. He was intent on causing as many casualties as possible, and did it by systematically shooting anyone he could.

In a scenario such as that, survival instincts kick in. But as many of the posters have pointed out, the first instinct when confronted by danger is to flee or hide. This cannot be changed.

What can be changed is what happens shortly thereafter. We in the developed world have been trained to "accept" what is happening and to not take responsive violent action against someone, even in a life threatening situation. That is what needs to be changed.

The original intent of this thread was not to debate whether more guns or less guns are needed, whether the students and faculty at Virginia Tech did the right thing, or whether we're wussies or not. It was started to point out the facts of the recent deadly incident and those of the past, and to conjecture that in the future, we're heading toward events such as this that will be more frequent and more deadly due to our worsening distaste for violence in general, our denial of it's existence, and our absolute unwillingness to fight violence with the only effective means we have. More violence.

Those of you out there saying we don't need to fight back, we're not heroes unless we help people jump out of a window or barricade a door, etc., what you're failing to take into account here is this incident took place inside a room full of people. A single man walked into a room and started firing a gun at people. Did he shoot all 20+ people simultaneously? NO! He shot them one after another. So, what was the last person in the room doing while the others were getting shot?

Patiently waiting their turn???? Attempting to flee? Thinking about throwing their chair at the gunman?

The truth is, none of us will know what was going on inside the heads of everyone there. What I'm arguing here is that if we were to change our societal perceptions of what was "acceptable violence" then situations like this would seldom occur (which they already do occur very rarely) and casualties at the outcomes would be far fewer because we would be "trained" to accept the fact that it really is OK to kill someone when you're defending yourself from being killed by them.

I'm not going to get into the semantics debate of if it's right, if it's not right, whatever. I'm going to say right now, it is perfectly OK to defend yourself by any means necessary when an armed man walks into a room full of people and starts shooting them one after another. If we as a society would accept that fact, and stop denying that a violent act will stop another violent act, then we're on the path to reducing the number of people killed in incidents such as this.

Perhaps I'm not the only one wondering why (despite the assertion made in your OP post) that you are now claiming to not be relating this directly to the events that took place the other day or indeed on 9/11. What point you are trying to make here if not criticising the people involved based on their actions or lack thereof? However you present it there is an implicit criticism behind your words that those disasters should not have been as terrible as they were. It seems a little contradictory IMO, and very easy to say when you're clinically detached from the events.

As another poster pointed out previously, contrary to the assertion made above - that "worsening distaste for violence in general, our denial of it's existence, and our absolute unwillingness to fight violence with the only effective means we have" - we live in a society that celebrates violence in various forms of the media but which doesn't experience it directly.

Quite simply - violence isn't a part of everyday life for very many people. However you look at it. I don't go out of my door expecting to be mugged or worse, and really why should I? I'm not going to go around living in fear of "might-haves" when there's absolutely no reason to.

So I'm really mystified what you're really saying here - I mean how does a person train themselves to handle violence in a context where none should exist (like a plane, or indeed - a classroom)? Is there an answer to that?

Point is - in any extreme situation you will always get people who flee, people who are paralysed with shock and people who fight tooth and nail. This has and will always happen. It's not new - and the implication that we live in some sort of pacifist "Demolition Man" society is frankly ridiculous.

Edited April 20, 2007 by erekose

[ivona 0]

What can be changed is what happens shortly thereafter.

What shortly thereafter? Time intervals we're talking about here are measured in seconds, not increments of half an hour or more as you seem to imply. One minute you're sitting in class, the next you hear something strange going on outside but don't know what it is, before you can put things together the guy is at the door shooting his way in. Next second, the classmates next to you are lying dead on the floor in the pool of blood.

With all due respect, I don't think you are willing to perceive what kind of shock series of events like this can cause in a person.

A single man walked into a room and started firing a gun at people. Did he shoot all 20+ people simultaneously? NO! He shot them one after another. So, what was the last person in the room doing while the others were getting shot?

Patiently waiting their turn???? Attempting to flee? Thinking about throwing their chair at the gunman?

Again, you are talking as if he had weapons that take 15 minutes to reload after a shot is taken. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but he had rounds. Now, I'm sure someone here knows better then me how many bullets a round has and how many can be shoot out in under a minute, respectively. In a small room, filled with people even if you had never fired a gun before, if you just open fire until the round is empty, chances are 95% of those bullets will hit someone.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

It was a semi-automatic pistol with a high rate of fire. He could empty a whole clip in mere seconds.

[almaty 19]

and not hard to reload a clip..

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

and not hard to reload a clip..

On the news the other night they demonstrated it at a firing range - it was really quite frightening. There's probably clips on youtube. Hail of bullets would be about right.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Slim...like many other posters here, I really don't understand your point. Sometimes people have to play smart...

As for the posters who believe more people should carry guns with them in case anything happens they can defend themselves...here's an insight --- I'm from Hong Kong, China, a city where no citizens is allowed to own guns. And you can find that in research, Hong Kong is one of the cities in the world that has the lowest crime rate. So...is that saying anything?

Apples and Oranges. You are comparing a city to a country. I've been to HK and it doesn't compare demographically to the US in any respect. Poverty= high crime in the USA but not Hong Kong. Guns are banned in Washington DC but it has the highest crime rate in the USA.

And Washington DC is a city surrounded by a country filled with 300+ million guns.

And Hong Kong is in a country where they execute prisoners to sell their organs to South Korea. I'll take the USA thanks.

[Trompe le Monde 1,107]

How does that happen when Hong Kong doesn't have the death penalty?