Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

These are both organizations that will never be called to duty. In fact, they will never be called to drill, unless we make a big deal of that dependent clause of the 2nd. Can you see this is absurd on its face?

Actually I see that mandatory "militia" (it'll prolly be phrased differently and have a more expansive role and mission) service as the only way that we'll see universal healthcare instituted without constant attempts to remove it by the next 2 or 3T. Unlike places that are more culturally homogenous, the only way to make more conservative elements comfortable enough to pay for eachother is to provide a common and continued institutional regimine by which they all see eachothers value.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

The GOP pols have arranged for a toothless ATF, just as the National Rifle Association wants. You tell me what is "soft on crime".

Gotcha. It's the other team's fault.

Originally Posted by Chas'88

I was talking with ASB'65 and BookishXer lately. ASB'65 especially was trying to understand why there was such a visceral reaction to the idea of guns being taken away. She made the comment that they were reacting as though they were mothers being ripped from their children or something along those lines. And then I think we hit upon what could possibly be a contributing factor to all this violence--not the cause, but definitely a contributing factor.

That is the personalization of the firearm. It's as if a firearm were a living object meriting affection.

This Saeculum, and the one prior, we've been slowly taking away various physical activities which fulfilled our natural instincts that we have as predatory animals. One of those instincts I have to say is quite frankly to kill. It simply just comes from being a predator. It used to be that we'd go out and hunt for our food and this satisfied our instinctual need. When there came to be too many people around and not enough food, we fought and killed one another over the limited resources--depleting our populations usually enough to deal with the more limited food supply. Now as we evolved from the Hunter-gatherers and formed bare bones societies, hunting and wars between people continued, but simply got bigger--and there began to develop classes of people who didn't need to hunt or make war, and the solution a lot of our ancestors came up with to channel aggressive tendencies in peacetime was sports.

But not all of us hunt. We eat meat, so we are predators at the least by proxy -- and as such we are as much predators as tigers. OK -- house cats, but they may be even more bloodthirsty than tigers. Domestic cats seem to kill for the thrill of it. Dogs are as cunning, aggressive, agile, and for their size as voracious, strong, powerful, as any other large carnivore. They recognize us as peers -- as killers. They find us useful.

If anyone thinks of fishing as a non-violent activity... pulling a fish out of a lake so that it can end up in a frying pan is as brutal as shooting a deer for its venison -- or butchering livestock.

OK -- so we are "the other Big Cat" or the real Big Bad Wolf of Nature. But hunters and fishermen, let alone workers in slaughterhouses can usually compartmentalize their lives.

Human beings are predatory animals. What happens when you put a predatory animal inside a cage and lock it? Speaking from experience with Dogs and Cats, they go insane. I once had a dog that upon immediately going into the crate for the night would not keep quiet for the rest of the night and would violently gnash her teeth and scratch at her crate. Another dog started to twist the bars until she snapped them on her nightly cage. The cats became more ornery and clawed as well. However once I started to let them go outside--and have a largely free reign of the house--(let the cats kill a few mice or two, the dogs chase and kill a few rabbits), all of a sudden they were right as rain, and rather sweet and affectionate.

Predators are extremely territorial. Let them get the confidence that they control a large range and they are happy. Dogs seem to like long walks. But just think of it -- the ultimate fear of most people is being shoved into a prison cell, and claustrophobia is one of the most common fears. Little boys do not dream of working in a cubicle in an office; they dream of being cowboys.

This past Saeculum especially we've been building very comfortable cages for ourselves and locking ourselves up in them. Some have found outlets for the primal desire for physical prowess/killing through exercise, sports, home repair, hunting, exploring/traveling, etc. Some kind of physical activity that fulfills our need to be physical creatures. We don't need to hunt in order to gather food anymore, but the physical activity that came along with that can be substituted through other means and the adrenaline rush of killing something can be supplanted through winning a game of football, dancing, or some other means. But not everyone does these things anymore, and it's taking a toll. Also, what prey tell is the worst cage in our society? That's right, prison. Is it any wonder that people sometimes come out worse than when they went in?

Yet we fail at it -- don't we? So long as we can see outside we may tolerate a moving automobile. It is just hard to imagine that any of us could ever be happy having to climb into a container a little larger than a coffin that contains a mattress so that we could sleep cheaply between shifts of work. Just think of all the dogs who scale, vault, burrow under, or knock down fences. We aren't that different.

Think about most of the shooters in these shootings, who have they been largely? Young Men--those who would've been out hunting in the old hunter-gatherer societies. In Medieval times dealing with young Knights (who were anything but chivalric--well, they defined chivalry as killing, fighting, raping, [especially if you were a peasant--expect to get trod all over by a Knight] etc... the Code of Chivalry was actually an attempt to "tame" them--jousting and tournaments were other ways), eventually people began to grow tired of dealing with unruly knights so they decided to put those desires to good use in the crusades so that the Knights would stop attacking their own people and channel their aggressive tendencies to "good use".

Now this is not to say that everyone is this way, or that it's the primary cause of these things, but I'd say it's a good contributing factor.

It's something we have to live with, humans being a predatory animal and all. Now I'm not saying the solution is to neuter the more aggressive members of our species, but I'm sure we can find outlets to let people channel out their aggression--because they need to. And we're going to have to find some way to recognize potential shooters before they become shooters and find some way to get them to channel their aggression in healthy ways--because it doesn't look like the ones who do are doing so on their own. Until Trans-humanism swoops in to delete these instinctual needs, we're going to need to find a way to do that. We have to accept the fact that as long as we're humans some of us are more predatory than others and need outlets that are appropriate if we're to function. Does that mean we're always going to be successful? No. Does that mean as long as there are guns out there and there are people who don't have those predatory needs fulfilled that there will be gun violence? Yeah IMO.

We are going to continue to swing clubs (whether baseball bats, golf clubs, or hockey sticks), kick and throw balls, chase, tackle, and pin. We get excited by aggressive driving.

Also I think violent video games & violent movies are about the same as watching a bullfight or gladiator games--in that they give a superficial satisfaction to the instinct, but they don't replace the physical half of the instinct and that's where the danger comes in.

But some of us find catharsis!

As to why people get upset over the disappearance of guns--well, they're more predatory than those who are trying to get rid of the guns. It's like telling the cat: "I'm going to de-claw you" or "trim your claws". Every cat I've had hates either experience and gets rather depressed and a bit more violent and manic when that happens. Hunting is how those people cope with not using their predatory skills every day, other people play sports or exercise, so of course they're going to react in a hostile manner to the suggestion of taking away the guns--because it's almost like taking their arms or legs from them. IMO the need to "defend from a hostile government" isn't so much the reason and more of an excuse. And I'd argue that those who do argue that argument probably have a lot of Scot-Irish ancestry in their blood--or at least some kind of Celtic ancestry, and that comes from centuries of living on the edge of society and spent repelling foreign invaders who "organize" themselves in a different manner than they're used to. A people who lived for so long amongst vast wilderness that the individual survival instinct desire by now is simply bred into them. After all, let's not forget that these are the same people who decorated their homes with the heads of their enemies in Roman times. And we all know how the British adapted... they collected the heads of the animals they hunted and decorated their homes with them.

Thus said Chas after walking/exploring/patrolling the perimeter of his territory, satisfying his Celtic blood.

~Chas'88

Those claws make a cat a cat. Cats need them for climbing and for defense. Dog claws, I can attest, are similarly nasty.

As for the Scots-Irish -- they came on the scene as enforcers for the British Empire, and when the British no longer needed them they found their way to the Appalachians and turned in turn on the British in the 1770s and on the Confederacy in the 1860s.

Originally Posted by Weave

Legally the Militia according to US Code is "The "militia" was provided for in Section 10 of the United States Code (often abbreviated USC). The Code is the list of all the laws that are written by the federal government. Section 10 USC 311 reads:
"All able-bodied males at least 17 years of age…and under 45 years of age who are or have made a declaration to become a citizen of the United States." Additionally, another provision allows for a "reserve militia" (as opposed to the "ready militia" described above), that includes women, children and the elderly. " www.saf.org is the source...

Nothing but an excuse not to pass necessary regulations and bans such as Obama has proposed. Not relevant to any actual reality.

This is the kind of stupidity you get when you pass laws hastily because "we must do something now."

Gun control proposals have been around for decades. It is the decades of inaction on this and so many other issues that is the stupidity, and which makes America a declining nation.

"ETA the original study"

whatever that means; yes, I know now, but why be obscure.... "EDIT" is at least recognizable English. Just a quibble since I was put down for wondering what it meant.

Still, I agree with the post. Yes indeed; good point. I would add though, that our tolerance of gun proliferation and our numbness to ever-greater mass shootings and murders is also desensitizing. Those who are not awakened by the mass murder of 20 children, certainly are desensitized in a greater degree than those who work in or around a slaughterhouse, etc. Those who are saying "enough" now, are waking up. I don't see anyone here who is awakening, who was not already awake; does anyone? All I see posted is the same old positions being taken. Desensitized people. And some libertarian ideological excuses playing a role, no doubt. Ideological buttons are a good way of avoiding issues.

If the Republicans can tear themselves away from introducing any more "Repeal ObamaCare" or "Personhood" bills, I have the key for them to score a knockout punch in the gun-control debate:

Introduce a federal version of Florida's iconic "10-20-Life" law, which mandates a minimum 10-year prison sentence for the simple act of bringing a gun to a crime scene, which becomes 20 years if anyone is physically threatened with the gun, and life in prison if any shots are fired, irrespective of whether said shots even hit anyone.

Then, any Democrat who votes "No" - as the vast majority of them would - is exposed as having some other agenda besides fighting crime; and if the Republicans still can't resist the temptation to fiddle with the Constitution, they can propose a constitutional amendment that would nullify two Supreme Court decisions from the 1970s: Woodson v. North Carolina, which banned the practice of making a particular category of murder (e.g., cop-killing) subject to a mandatory death penalty; and Coker v. Georgia, forbidding the execution of non-murderers such as serial kidnapper-rapist Caryl Chessman.

Then "10-20-Life" could become "10-20-Death."

Originally Posted by Copperfield

And when did that experience take place again?

I worked with the military almost every day for 10 years, and only ending that involvement in that last few months. My active service dates to the late 60s. How about you?

Originally Posted by Kepi

Actually I see that mandatory "militia" (it'll prolly be phrased differently and have a more expansive role and mission) service as the only way that we'll see universal healthcare instituted without constant attempts to remove it by the next 2 or 3T. Unlike places that are more culturally homogenous, the only way to make more conservative elements comfortable enough to pay for eachother is to provide a common and continued institutional regimine by which they all see eachothers value.

I doubt the militia is the right tool. Personally, I opposed the Vietnam War, but supported continuation of the draft. The military is one of the very few institutions that is capable of putting people from all places and backgrounds together in a unit, train them and have them act cohesively. Perhaps its time to revisit that idea, and expand it beyond the Army into other non-military groups like AmeriCorps.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Gun control proposals have been around for decades.

Then why not dust one off and send it. At least it would have had some minor amount of review. Instead, the chicken little attitude was so strong, that they did shoddy work.

Another law-abiding citizen being persecuted:

http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news...d-arsenal?lite

The law enforcement officials said the case appears to illustrate some of the gaps in current background checks for gun purchasers that President Barack Obama has proposed closing as part of his package of executive actions and legislative proposals released this week aimed at curbing gun violence. Schmidt was charged with murder and felonious assault in 1989 after killing a Hispanic man and shooting two others with a semi-automatic pistol during a traffic dispute. He later pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to 10 to 25 years in prison. Federal officials were not immediately able to provide information on when he was released from prison.
Despite a federal law that prohibits convicted felons from buying firearms, Schmidt was still able to acquire his stockpile – though authorities don’t yet know how he acquired them. Federal agents have been trying for weeks to trace the weapons, but officials said they have so far made little progress. This could indicate that Schmidt purchased his weapons from private dealers or gun shows, where background checks are currently not required, one official said. But he also could have obtained them on the black market.

Originally Posted by Chas'88

And I seem to recall you've made mention of a hunting rifle in your possession that you want to keep... and are protective over.

Serious question now though: Did the study have a control group of people who behaved in a violent manner to begin with to see if exposure or non-exposure to more violence had any effect on their violent tendencies? It could be that they had inadvertently chosen people who already had a higher rate of violent tendencies.

~Chas'88

Good question. I'll look to see if I can find the article.

EDIT: Rani already found it.

I think the guy who was arrested in Ohio was a dedicated Malcom X follower.

Originally Posted by Weave

except most would agree with my side of the argument and would join the rebellion...

i seriously doubt that. most people are fed up with the extreme side of the gun culture.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Do you agree that the militia, as referenced in the Constitution, was intended to be a home guard? If so, why do we need one today? Even the PTB in WW-II ignored the militia in favor of Civil Defense, because CD was not a hostile force in any way. Even though the demand for troops was massive at the time, and the possibility of invasion was not zero, we ignored activating the militia. In my opinion, this was because they would have been dangerous to civilians and cannon-fodder to opposing troops. It that was true then, imagine how true it is today.

From a few pages back...

Originally Posted by B Butler

This isn't to say that the modern national guard isn't entirely adequate to serve our current needs for a reserve military force. I don't think anyone truly wants to go back to giving the entire adult male population full military training. (In old New England, one brought one's musket to church so one could do militia drills after the service. Times have changed.)

Still, it seems plausible to require members of the militia who keep and bear arms to receive training in the use and storage of said arms. Militia members who disregard such duties night properly be disciplined.

The founding fathers weren't as dumb as some people seem to think. They left proper hooks in the Constitution for responsible keeping and bearing of arms. Some of these hooks are long unused, but are still on the books. The NRA is intense about weapons rights, but seem to have forgotten the duties associated with said rights.

Again, I don't see a need for a current militia as a military force. Still, the militia way back when was the only mechanism for enforcing the law. Police forces came later. If people are going to be using weapons to enforce the law and in self defense, some training in doing so seems prudent, and Congress has the explicit power to require that training.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Slaughterhouse 1,100: The Emotional Impact of Killing Animals


ETA the original study.

Sport hunters and fishermen are mostly hobbyists. Hunting and fishing are vacations from the dullness of civilized life. The slaughterhouse is again The Jungle as Upton Sinclair saw it. It's not the blood and guts. Surgeons, cops, and soldiers see that themselves but they at least recognize the unreality of their world. Surgeons who perform heart surgery recognize the bloody patient as someone intended to go from a wreck to someone passable. Cops have the role of deterring violence. Soldiers generally don't linger among those who fell to the bayonet charge. Slaughterhouse workers see more of the same.

The worst thing, worse than the physical danger, is the emotional toll. If you work in the stick pit [where the hogs are killed] for any period of time– that let’s you kill things but doesn’t let you care. You may look a hog in the eye that’s walking around in the blood pit with you and think, “God, that really isn’t a bad looking animal.” You may want to pet it. Pigs down on the kill floor have come up to nuzzle me like a puppy. Two minutes later I had to kill them. . . .I can’t care.

Pigs are smart. When we are gone they will likely take over our role, and they would have dogs as enforcers and pets. Just recall Animal Farm by George Orwell. If the tables were turned they would be raising us to be slaughtered, and they would see us trying to snuggle up to them like puppies in their slaughterhouses. I would not ay the same of dogs -- if you do nothing stupid around those monster predators you will not get hurt even though a large dog is built to be a man-eater. Orwell may not have been familiar with pigs as might a farmer, but surely he asked farmers about pigs. He attributed to them the worst human characteristics (projection) but as an author one can get away with that.

Cattle and sheep are stupid. They would be wolf food, bear food, or big-cat food if we weren't around, and they would fare badly without us especially with so many large predators that are no longer tame. Pigs don't need us. Maybe the ancient Hebrews got it right about pork and modern orthodox Jews (and Muslims) have it right -- that butchery of pigs has a harmful effect upon a civilization in a way that butchery of cattle, sheep, and poultry isn't. Dogs were off limits, too, as meat.

...

The study shows that slaughterhouse activity is not an attractive industry for a community that wants some dignity. Industrial organization with large numbers of young, ill-paid, often immigrant workers with dangerous work does not itself create a social menace; contrast metal pressing and commercial laundering which do not entail the death of anything else as a normal part of the process. Places with much reliance upon metal pressing or commercial laundering would be less violent than places with mass slaughterhouses.

Originally Posted by Bad Dog

Another law-abiding citizen being persecuted:

http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news...d-arsenal?lite

The law enforcement officials said the case appears to illustrate some of the gaps in current background checks for gun purchasers that President Barack Obama has proposed closing as part of his package of executive actions and legislative proposals released this week aimed at curbing gun violence. Schmidt was charged with murder and felonious assault in 1989 after killing a Hispanic man and shooting two others with a semi-automatic pistol during a traffic dispute. He later pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to 10 to 25 years in prison. Federal officials were not immediately able to provide information on when he was released from prison.
Despite a federal law that prohibits convicted felons from buying firearms, Schmidt was still able to acquire his stockpile – though authorities don’t yet know how he acquired them. Federal agents have been trying for weeks to trace the weapons, but officials said they have so far made little progress. This could indicate that Schmidt purchased his weapons from private dealers or gun shows, where background checks are currently not required, one official said. But he also could have obtained them on the black market.

Wow, Im shocked, shocked that a convicted felon was able to get a firearm...how unusual...of course there is no evidence at all that he aquired the firearm at a gun show, most likely he got it from another criminal who of course violated the law selling it to him.

And since you are so into showing irresponsible gun owners here is a good case of why guns are needed...

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local...ntruder/nTm7s/

Originally Posted by Weave

except most would agree with my side of the argument and would join the rebellion...

Wrong. Cops and soldiers are trained with discipline that includes respect for what their weaponry can do. Police forces try to weed out prospective cops who "want to plug someone". They want people who seek to exhaust all alternatives to using deadly force or have alternatives to deadly force denied before they use it. Military forces have rigid discipline -- of course one needs that if a bunch of young people with firearms are not to become marauders. Police and soldiers have tests for 'reasonableness' for their use of weapons -- rules of engagement. Pull a gun on a cop -- and die. Call a cop a "pig", and you go unmolested. Be the neighbor of someone who has a conflict with the Bloods or Crips and your house may be fired into as a warning to your neighbor.

The argument for "Second-Amendment remedies" fails. Most of the people who have weapons to be turned in who fail to turn in such weapons would be either political extremists, militarized cults, or urban gangs for which the police and military have little use. About all that I would find in common between the urban gangs and the US Marine Corps is that they are largely armed young men. The Marines have the discipline to avoid firing wildly into crowds; I can't say that of the Bloods and Crips.

A "well-disciplined militia" is one that fires its weapons only when absolutely necessary, and then only for purposes deemed necessary by the political system.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

I worked with the military almost every day for 10 years, and only ending that involvement in that last few months. My active service dates to the late 60s. How about you?

So what you really meant to say was that your direct experience with the "institution" took place a half-century century ago.

Originally Posted by Copperfield

So what you really meant to say was that your direct experience with the "institution" took place a half-century century ago.

... and apparently, yours is non-existent.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

... and apparently, yours is non-existent.

Honestly, half-century-old experience isn't any different from none at all, except that the guy with the half-century-old experience is going to be much more unjustifiably confident of his wrong suppositions. At least the guy with none at all is in the position of knowing that he doesn't know.

Originally Posted by Copperfield

So what you really meant to say was that your direct experience with the "institution" took place a half-century century ago.

Except that he said it ended a few months ago.

Originally Posted by The Rani

I'd say that those who can hear about children being murdered or animals being torn apart alive without becoming upset are equally desensitized to violence.
Those who participate in either kind of act are also equally desensitized, to a much greater extent than those who simply hear about them and look the other way. The connection between cruelty to animals and violence towards humans has been extensively documented.

I certainly agree, and I think the resistance to doing something about gun violence is an example of being desensitized too.

Originally Posted by '58 Flat

If the Republicans can tear themselves away from introducing any more "Repeal ObamaCare" or "Personhood" bills, I have the key for them to score a knockout punch in the gun-control debate:

Introduce a federal version of Florida's iconic "10-20-Life" law, which mandates a minimum 10-year prison sentence for the simple act of bringing a gun to a crime scene, which becomes 20 years if anyone is physically threatened with the gun, and life in prison if any shots are fired, irrespective of whether said shots even hit anyone.

Then, any Democrat who votes "No" - as the vast majority of them would - is exposed as having some other agenda besides fighting crime; and if the Republicans still can't resist the temptation to fiddle with the Constitution, they can propose a constitutional amendment that would nullify two Supreme Court decisions from the 1970s: Woodson v. North Carolina, which banned the practice of making a particular category of murder (e.g., cop-killing) subject to a mandatory death penalty; and Coker v. Georgia, forbidding the execution of non-murderers such as serial kidnapper-rapist Caryl Chessman.

Then "10-20-Life" could become "10-20-Death."

As bouncer pointed out, capital punishment is just another example of the spiral of violence, and the comparative barbarity of American culture.

We already have laws against murder. What we don't have are laws that control the manufacture and sales of guns. Dangerous and defective products should not be allowed without proper regulation.

@ Marx&Lennon - While I agree something like the Americorps would be where I envision most of the active effort taking place, when I look at the challenges the nation is facing, one of the biggest ones is the size and cost of our standing military. I think we're going to need to scale it back quite a bit, but people used to having a standing military that can fight massive foriegn wars on to fronts are disinclined to do so. My guess is this will lead to the adoption of a Swiss style system for a saeculum or two. I'm not thinking an active militia as much as I am a scenario where we send everyone through a boot camp issue everybody a selective fire rifle, and they have to show up once a year for inspection.

I see the value in an actual service componant, such as a 2-4 year term renewing infrastructure and preforming a lot of basic government services, and I definitely see both of these things as a means by which universal healthcare coverage via a single payer system would actively be accepted with little ability to marshall shennanigans against it. However, I think the militia componant will have to be there to ensure longevity, as to prevent "what have you done for me lately?" style thinking.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Except that he said it ended a few months ago.

No, he said he (until recently) "worked with" which as I am sure he well knows is a lot different than being a solider.

But then not a day goes by that I don't work directly with and speak with current and former members of the US military. Nam stories can make for an okay historical record, these stories also happened a full 2 and a half turnings ago. That military is not this military just like that time is not this time.