Fun Stuff > CHATTER
North Illinois University Shooting
KharBevNor:
No, "Seven dead, including the shooter" is simply correct. There aren't any degrees of dead. The dead are dead and, as Voltaire says, to the dead we owe only the truth.
Besides which, I personally could argue about the shooters not being victims, but you obviously have no capacity for rational detachment, for whatever reason, so I won't.
RedLion:
I mean we don't count, to my knowledge at least, suicide bombers in the list of causulties,
No, they oftentimes do, though not always. If a bunch of people die in a suicide attack, the bomber is usually included as one of the dead. If one or two are killed, the bomber is usually left out.
Regarding the issue of the 2nd Amendment--the thing is, it's prefaced by the phrase a well-regulated militia, it's not just "EVERYONE GETS GUNS, YEE-HAW!!" Let's also remember that at the time, "arms" meant muskets that had a rate of fire of--at best--3 shots per minute. I sincerely doubt that the writers of that amendment would condone the notion of people being able to walk into a store and buy an AK-47.
Also, it really bugs me when conservative groups, seeking to look anywhere else to put the blame than on the readiness of guns, point at videogames and movies. Those things don't change a person to the degree where they one day wake up and decide they want to go shoot some of their peers. It probably is a bit desensitizing, but not to a dehumanizing degree. Even the most hardened FPS player or Horror fan can still be disgusted by high levels of gore and violence in some things, showing that aversion towards brutality can't just be winnowed out of a personality unless there's something more serious deep down inside that person.
calenlass:
RedLion, whether your interpretation of the second amendment and the term "militia" is right or not, it is the interpretation of it that tends to divide the USA on the issue of gun control. So while you may be right about it, please don't declare it as fact because it is still an interpretation, and as such someone might take offense to it and start a flame war. (That is the politics Jeph wants us to avoid.)
RedLion:
Oh I wasn't trying to state it as fact--that's why I said "I sincerely doubt," not "I totally and incontrovertibly know."
calenlass:
--- Quote from: RedLion on 15 Feb 2008, 16:27 ---it's prefaced by the phrase a well-regulated militia, it's not just "EVERYONE GETS GUNS, YEE-HAW!!" Let's also remember that at the time, "arms" meant muskets that had a rate of fire of--at best--3 shots per minute.
--- End quote ---
(This is what I meant. Interpreting contemporary context for the Constitution is never easy and highly disputed and everyone has their own skewed opinion.)
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