Gadianton wrote:
Markk, in my post above which I admit may be a few sentences too long and I think others missed my point as well, I distinguish between stop-gap solutions for incidents and tackling broader environmental factors for problems. I do maintain media violence is "off the table" for the discussion of putting out fires -- for tackling incidents of gun violence directly. There is a 1 to 1 irrefutable causal connection between the presence of a gun and a mass shooting. The relation between violence in movies, music, media and video games and real violence let alone mass shootings has no clear connections, they *possibly* -- I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt -- are environmental factors that swirl and brew along with other factors until a "perfect storm" condition is triggered. We have to send firetrucks to fires (the incident) prior to dealing with the subset of potential factors such as arson psychology that contribute to the perfect storm (the problem). Perfect storms involve many variables that interact sometimes in counter-intuitive ways, and we must deal with incidents directly first. There obviously isn't a clear line in the sand between incident response and management and problem management, but incident response and management considers only the most direct variables, and THE most direct variable in this case is that a gun designed to kill a large number of people, did in fact, kill a large number of people.
I'm all for considering the possibility that violence in media contributes to the problem, I'm not agreeing that it does contribute -- there is just as much reason to believe violence in media and fantasy world help people avoid being violent in the real world. But while we're solving the horribly complex human propensity of violence, let's take away your guns.
That's the implicit message of the NRA when they advertise gun safes. It's a much longer discussion to understand how old kids need to be and what the proper level of gun education is, and how to deal with neighbor kids and their upbringing and on and on. You're not going to figure all that out let alone fix it any time soon, therefore, the bottom line is taking away the guns (putting them in a safe). The national discussion right now can be summarized by the opening sentences of that NRA ad for gun safes.
For me, and many, this is a cop out. People ignore the reason, to focus on a band aid, that in most cases will not do a thing (the AR-15) argument.
Billions upon Billions are spent every year on marketing and advertisement...Millions and Millions on research on how to get folks to buy their product. If one just throws out that movies, music, and social media (Y Tube as an example) as a possibility that leads folks to to things like this... again a cop out and are in denial.
We as a nation assimilate kinda like supply and demand does in our system. Too many are okay to throw our rights away for one freedom, yet would not dream of giving up a right for another. Prohibiting the 1st amendment is out of the question, just as the 2nd was years ago...but today it is an option.
And, I haven't thought this through, it just crossed my mind, but is the Media/Screen Actors Guild... the same as the NRA in being champions for protecting their respective rights?
I have been reading on prohibition (interesting google search)...and it really did work...suicides were down, alcoholism and related disease down (big city crime up)...but we as a nation chose we wanted to drink, more than not.
I have more on this point but need to run...more later, and thanks for the conversation.
