The NRA implies why "other factors" aren't the issue

[_Some Schmo]

So what about my question,

lets start with the graphic nature of our movies and TV...that glorify killing or those that do so, and again in a very real time graphic nature. Do they contribute to the problem, and basically "seduce" with ideas to those like the kid that just shot up the school...even if glorifying the gun he chose to use?

That's the free market, baby (not to mention the 1st Amendment). If people keep watching those shows, others will keep making them. And there isn't a direct correlation between watching violent movies and engaging in violent crimes. Are you going to take away our movies so you can have your guns?

I choose not to watch movies like that, by the way (not so much as a market statement, but because I generally find them tedious). I imagine the people who are "seduced" by them aren't like me when it comes to guns, however. There's a predisposition involved, if a desire to kill exists at all.

[_Markk]

That's the free market, baby (not to mention the 1st Amendment). If people keep watching those shows, others will keep making them. And there isn't a direct correlation between watching violent movies and engaging in violent crimes. Are you going to take away our movies so you can have your guns?

I choose not to watch movies like that, by the way (not so much as a market statement, but because I generally find them tedious). I imagine the people who are "seduced" by them aren't like me when it comes to guns, however. There's a predisposition involved, if a desire to kill exists at all.

Both are protected by the constitution, both are driven by free market, both have restrictions, and we all have a choice to buy the product. That s a given.

My point is do they contribute to the reason why folks kill...whether with any weapon aside. Why not ban some of the graphic violence, that by the way I am guilty of watching?

[_Morley]

Markk, I think Dean Robbers has made it pretty clear that he did not want to derail another thread but was happy to discuss the issues here.

Most people favor reasonable gun legislation because that would indeed be helpful, or at the very least responsive. The primary message of the NRA is to arm more unqualified people.

So what about my question,

lets start with the graphic nature of our movies and TV...that glorify killing or those that do so, and again in a very real time graphic nature. Do they contribute to the problem, and basically "seduce" with ideas to those like the kid that just shot up the school...even if glorifying the gun he chose to use?

No. TV and movies are not the problem.

[_Kishkumen]

Any kind of radical solution will change the system fundamentally. Reasonable measures to decrease harm are the best you can probably expect, whether that is limiting access to violent images or limiting access to deadly weapons.

[Guest]

I went to school and worked in Canada for the better part of a decade. Anglophone Canada shares much of the same culture as the US. They see the same movies and watch a lot of the same TV. They play the same computer games. Their gun violence statistics are much, much lower.

The difference: They have more restrictive gun laws.

[_Some Schmo]

My point is do they contribute to the reason why folks kill...whether with any weapon aside. Why not ban some of the graphic violence, that by the way I am guilty of watching?

If you watch these movies, then you know first hand and can answer your own question. Do these movies make you want to kill anyone?

The only movies that make me want to kill are musicals.

[_Kishkumen]

I went to school and worked in Canada for the better part of a decade. Anglophone Canada shares much of the same culture as the US. They see the same movies and watch a lot of the same TV. They play the same computer games. Their gun violence statistics are much, much lower.

The difference: They have more restrictive gun laws.

I am willing to give it a try! The right to bear arms is not, according to Supreme Court, a boundless entitlement to own any kind of weapon you want and carry it wherever you want. Only gun cultists believe that.

[_honorentheos]

Taking Markk seriously for a moment, let's allow that there is more at issue than just the physical availability and presence of guns that are behind the disproportiante amount of gun violence in the US compared to other highly developed countries.

So, is there evidence for Markk's claim since he won't provide it himself? A recent Forbes article took on the same question to make it easier than having to look up actual studies...anyway.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2 ... 01aa8e67f3

It's relevant for Markk to note that Justice Scalia, the liberal bastard, cited actual studies when considering this in 2011 in Brown v. EMA:

Writing the majority opinion for the court, conservative Justice Antonin Scalia noted that California's attempt to regulate violent video games was largely based on research by Dr. Craig Anderson. 
However, much of that research is not only inconclusive, it shows that whatever aggression spikes children experience after playing a violent game are almost indistinguishable from other types of media, including Saturday morning cartoons.

"Even taking for granted Dr. Anderson’s conclusions that violent video games produce some effect on children’s feelings of aggression, those effects are both small and indistinguishable from effects produced by other media," Scalia wrote. "In his testimony in a similar lawsuit, Dr. Anderson admitted that the “effect sizes” of children’s exposure to violent video games are “about the same” as that produced by their exposure to violence on television. And he admits that the same effects have been found when children watch cartoons starring Bugs Bunny or the Road Runner, or when they play video games like Sonic the Hedgehog that are rated “E” (appropriate for all ages), or even when they “view a picture of a gun.”"

In other words, one of the most conservative Supreme Court Justices found California's attempt to regulate violent video games not only a waste of time but a clear First Amendment violation.
Scalia and the court's decision is based not just on first principles, but on the available data. Since the 2011 decision, many studies have been released that continue to back Scalia's opinion on the issue.

Wait a minute. What did Scalia say?

And he admits that the same effects have been found when children watch cartoons starring Bugs Bunny or the Road Runner, or when they play video games like Sonic the Hedgehog that are rated “E” (appropriate for all ages), or even when they “view a picture of a gun.”"

...a picture of a gun?

Like, say, all the gun culture NRA crap may be just as significant as playing Call of Duty?

Could gun cultural be this missing puzzle piece that Trump and the NRA are talking around that explains, for example, why countries like Japan that watch just as much violent media and play just as violent or more violent video games have significantly less gun violence?

For instance, the United States is the only country with this level of gun deaths and mass shootings, but it is not the only country in which people play video games. There are fewer mass shootings, fewer school shootings, fewer homicides and fewer suicides in every single other industrialized nation by an order of magnitude. Somehow these nations pull this off while their citizens engage in video gaming and pornography without also killing one another at unimaginably high rates.

So, we have both a cultural difference in the US tied to an availability issue in the US when it comes to guns.

Want to talk about that, Markk?

[_honorentheos]

On other threads, Markk repeatedly brings up "other factors" -- contributions to mass shootings beyond the physical gun itself, and so here is a thread for that conversation. I feel on the other threads, this changes the subject. I'm not saying this is intentional, but either way, it's not the topic of my thread on erroding civil liberties.

I don't agree, Gad. It's inherently about speech and trading other people's liberties to preserve a few people's access to AR-15s. Sounds like eroding civil liberties to me.

[_Gadianton]

When I first brought it up, you said it "was complicated" and basically implied it was pretty much off the table for discussion and not an issue . You also said, and I para phrase, you were not in favor of messing with the 1st amendment, but agreed that there are factors there that can lead to messing up our youth.

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.