This kind of opens the door for discussion again:

Virginia Tech killer played no games
http://gaygamer.net/2007/04/warrant_reveals_no_games_in_ch.html

Best regards,

Well the Army must think that video games translate into the real world on some level.

http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,21604004%5E161...5E,00.html

i still firmly believe that these shootings have hardly anything to do with video games or gun control. Anyone can get a gun illegally if they know where to look which is why controlling legal gun sales will not help stop anything. We all love video games and sure they might be a little violent and the language might be a bit excessive but they are certianly not a training exercise in killing like the media makes them out to be. There are plenty of better things to blame like the student's mental health.

Sander,

So this psycopath didn't play games, thats cool from the present perspective.
However, the US Army is giving a point and shoot game to anyone that is recruitable that request it.
Though I disagree with those that say point and shoot games lead to the behaviour, the Army seems to think that it actually trains folks for the same behaviour.
The US Navy is publishing video that states that they need "gamers" to remove people from the front lines. High tech, destruction via remote control.

The US military is not looking for sociopaths, or psycopaths, but they are looking for twitch gamers. Hell I've seen marketing for gamers that say if you like doing it (killing) in a virtual environment, maybe you'd love to do it in person....kinda sick if you ask me.

In my day and age, I didn't shoot, stab, or punch anyone....I just followed orders to destroy whole civilizations, if so ordered...luckily it didn't happen.

Gerritt

P.S. I love persons, it's people that I don't like.

Bobby Phillipps said:

Actually, a person of average intelligence and knowledge would be able to make a gun from things on hand in the typical home.

This is all very basic high-school science level stuff...or at least, it used to be.

The bullet(s) would be the difficult home-brew commodity but some form of explosive-based projectile could be relatively easily fabricated as long as one has pre-manufactured gunpowder. Prisoners with even fewer resources manage to build guns and they're constantly searched and supervised. Internet search on zip-guns if you doubt this.

I'd find it a lot more difficult to make a particular drug, and I know chemistry. There's a higher risk of exposure as you try to obtain the needed chemicals, and more physical hazard and chance of discovery while working with the chemicals.

It's even easier to make a non-explosive-based projectile weapon (e.g. crossbow, spear-gun, or blowgun) that can be just as lethal as a gun in some situations.

And personally, if it's not in the head, I'd rather be shot than sliced open with a large knife. Chances of surviving and not bleeding out until you get to hospital trauma are much higher.

I do agree with the statement about the black market.

Meats of Evil said:
Kevlar won't protect you from almost all rifle rounds, nor some pistol rounds. Nor will it protect against knives, icepicks, etc.

Some of the newer vests are significantly improved and some come with trauma plate inserts that help with this as well.

The cost is about $700 for a high-protection level vest, and guess what? People keep introducing legislation to make owning a VEST by the average citizen illegal as well.


dark41 said:
Actually, a number of states "permit" carrying a firearm concealed or in the open, as any quick and easy internet search of "carry" laws in the US would show.

There are also differences between "concealed carry permit" laws, "ownership permit' laws, and "right to carry" laws. In some states it depends on whether you have a concealed carry permit or not. Some states say if in the car, the guns have to be locked up, others say they just have to be "not immediately accessible" to the driver, and others say they have to be easily visible from the exterior of the car. Loaded or unloaded, varies from state to state. In some states even without a permit, you can wear your loaded pistol in a holster as you walk down the street. In others (like Texas) if you have a concealed carry permit then all parts of the holster, the gun, etc. must be concealed from view and carrying the gun out in the open is illegal...so, the law is more strict for the person with a permit. Go figure.

Even a minimum of research makes claims like "only 1 state in the US" unbelievable, and tends to impugn the validity of other claims.

And so it continues ...

Watches the ostrich with its ass high in the air .. and head in the ground ..

Cheers

BTW. While I heard lotsa votes for "if one of the students there had a gun .... , or guns save the world ... or something similar", I didnt hear anyone second the motion of guns shud be made cumpolsory - THAT would really save the world

Nirmal Kejriwal said:
I'm confused as to the writer's intended reference by that post.

Does the "ostrich" reference represent the perspective of the mostly unarmed, clueless bird surrounded by predators on the savannah, or does it represent the lion that relies also on teeth and claws to protect itself and its cubs?

John,

As always, well stated. The rest of this rant is directed at others......

I just want to point out that it SEEMS that the states and nations in the world that limit the posession of firearms to the Military, seem to be some of the ones that seem to be most prone to Military takeover, or at least the attempt.

I won't go all Charlton Heston, but my RESPONSIBLE ownership of firearms is GUARANTEED by the Constitution of my Country, and I for one would not trade that for the "stability" or "safety" of those that preclude firearm ownership in the name of stability and safety while maintaining the right of the goverment and their armed forces to overpower the majority of their citizens. A paraphrase, if you wish, of Benjamin Franklin.

Back to Gaming, it seems that I recall a couple of games..."Balance of Power", and "Global Thermonuclear War", back in the 80's, made it next to impossible to win any scenario in which nukes were actually used! These simulations/games gave me and many of my compatriots a new viewpoint, though we would still do our duty.

We, the USA, have been at "War" with Iraq for longer than any other engagement in this century. Yet the US and the "Enemy" have each had fewer casualties than a single day's or weeks engagement during some point during WWI, WWII or even Korea or Vietnam.

The major disconnect seems to be between our politicians and the majority of US citizens, in that the majority wants to get out of this "war".

The "point and shoot" type of game, should, according to those that are against them, increase recruitment into the military (anyone thats not a crack addict between the ages of 18 - 42), as it gives them an outlet for the extreme violent behavior that these games engender....but that hasn't happened, has it?
The raw numbers of new recruits are lower. The number of "lifers" has diminished.
Maybe the Point and Shoot games have educated the youngsters out there to the knowledge that even though you can "die" and come back over and over in a game, it is way too easy to die and you only do that once in real life.
Even in the "bad" games, such as GTA, if you knew that your carjack victim was armed as well as you, you'd probably jack fewer cars or prostitutes.

Before video games, we still had Pol Pat, Hitler, Stalin, John Brown and others; it is my hope that through the experience of large scale violence in a virtual form that a VAST majority of players learn the drawbacks to killing on a large scale, and in a free society, their own mortality.

Some of thes viewpoints may seem to be diametricly opposed, but we are a confused and diverse country.

Isn't it just a little crazy that the youth of today, with all of the exposure to violence and sex that hey have available to them, may actually NOT partake in the violence and repression of the past? I hope we can get just a little crazy!

Gerritt






Gerritt

*applauds Gerritt*

john albrich said:
You can make methamphetamine ("speed") out of simple household product as well. As far as narijuana, get a few seed, and move away from town, and you can have a farm.

Most people who manufacture speed do so in their own homes, and the materials are as common as the things found at Wal-Mart

It seems to me that the gangs in the USA have their own little civil wars going on, in large part due to the easy availability of guns.

Maybe these kids are too busy fighting each other to be bothered with joining the military.

How many of these kids play shoot-em-up video games? No idea. But they are definitely in the correct age group. GTA and the likes have been modeled to appeal specifically to this audience.

Anyone in Iraq can own a fully automatic weapon, and in fact many do. It didn't stop the USA from invading them. Then there's the other side, that because Iraq has so many weapons - the USA has not been able to stabilize the region, and probably never will.

Once more for the record, I'm in favor of the right to bear arms. I'm just think there's a lack of common sense in the USA in general when it comes to automatics, hand guns, and carrying loaded weapons in public.

Guns are too easy to get because people have all kinds of reasons why things can't be changed. 1 person who thinks about how to change things has more power than 1 million people who think of reasons why things can't be changed.

Bobby Phillipps said:

Remember we're talking relative simplicity and safety here.

There are a number of ways to make speed, but the more common methods require chemicals like anhydrous ether, crystallized iodine, hydrochloric acid, magnesium, and other chemicals I won't list here. Not exactly household items, and I'm pretty sure you don't find them all at Wal-mart. Some of the chemicals are on law enforcement watch lists, so going out to buy them introduces a much higher level of risk.

In addition, it's a complex process that requires very precise temperature control, precise timing, specialized lab equipment (if you want to do it at all safely) and I wouldn't ever want to try something like that at home. The process vapors are deadly, highly flammable and explosive.


Compared to all that, making a simple gun really is a piece of cake. Right this instant, I wouldn't even have to leave the house to make the gun itself And, I don't have a workshop or anything like that...it's just an average apartment.

The conventional ammunition remains the tricky part, but aside from obtaining assembled ammo just about anywhere, one could also use disassembled fireworks (often sold unregulated on the side of the road in many places) to source the propellant. A cut piece of screw or nail can be the bullet, and you don't have to have a shell casing (think old-style guns and how they work)

john albrich said:
How many speed addicts and manufacturers want to take the time to do all of that measuring, though? Most of them just want as much crank as they can get, as fast as they can get, and get careless with measurements, which at times leads to a meth lab explosion.

And yes, you can get everything you need for speed at Wal-Mart. I've done studies into meth for the purposes of high school and college essays.

However, a lot of stores have a per-customer limit on a lot of the stuff used to make meth, in order to deter meth manufacturers.

Makes one wonder how much of Wal-Mart's profits were from purchases made for the sole purpose of making meth (not Wal-Mart's fault, of course )

dark41 said:
While I'm not going to deny the fact that the availability of guns has an effect on this, I just want to state that they'd still have their civil wars with chains, knives, tire irons, baseball bats, brass knuckles and 2-by-4s with nails sticking out of them.

Guns are just another way to wage the war.

I'm all for right to bear arms as well, but some people just bear arms for all the wrong reasons.

Bobby Phillipps said:

Agreed.

I'd rather take my chances on a drive by with 2x4s and nails sticking out of them.

dark41 said:
I'm sorry, but that just put the funniest image in my head.

dark41 said:

C'mon...just how likely is it that the guy with the 2x4 is going to be doing a drive-by? The comparison is flawed. Funny....but flawed.

If the guy with the gun was moving rapidly, and 30 meters away from me and getting further away every second, but the guy with the 2x4+nails was 1 meter away from me and swinging, I'd rather be facing the moving, distant guy with the gun.

Under those conditions there is no contest as to which is the greater and more deadly threat.

guns dont kill people....guys without girlfriends do

Women of America, do your Patriotic Duty!!!!
Give some to the creeps that hang out on street corners, or the geeky nerd in the Dormitory!

People, please understand that there has ALWAYS been many manners to carry out homicidal actions before and since the introduction of firearms. Yet, if memory serves me (it may not do so well in recent years), most of the most horrific battles where 100s of thousands lost thier lives in a single days action actually predate gunpowder.

Another observation is that in Iraq, where all of the US troops have guns, and according to most reports, a goodly percentage of the Iraqi people, beligerent or not, is that most of our casualties come from IEDs or Improvised Explosive Devices. You can improvise a single shot gun with a piece of wood, a bent nail and a rubber band, or a small piece of pipe, etc., but I'd almost guarantee that most if not all of the members of HWA have everything necessary to make a IED between their kitchen, laundryroom, garage, and vehicle, and maybe a couple of dispossable cell phones if you want to get fancy....and you don't have to be able to aim!

Additionally, it seems to me that given the introduction of gunpowder to most of the world in the 14th century, or the uptake of repeating "firearms" in the late 19th century, and the huge worldwide population explosion of the last century and a half, that taken as a per capita statistic, the rate of homicide, military and civilian inclusive, has actually DECREASED worldwide!

Using a firearm effectively requires skill and training to be used at anything more than "melee" distances (unlike most games....), whereas just about anyone can pick up a baseball bat and shatter a watermelon.

In conclusion: Are there people out there that shouldn't have firearms? Absolutely! Should these people be "out there" where they can cause harm? Thats a more difficult question (see "Minority Report" by Phillip K. Dick). In the instance of the recent College shootings here in the US, the individual had already been identified as "possibly disturbed" by several peers and professors, prior to the incident. So instead of taking firearms away from everyone, maybe we should focus on giving more help to the folks that are being identified as risk, and if necessary isolate them.

After all, as our population grows, the number of sociopaths, and psycopaths will increase as a direct result of percentages and increase numbers, not to mention the additional pressures of population density and diversity. Most serial killers don't use guns...it's not personal enough.

Gerritt