NRA's Announcement of Gun Violence in Schools

[ZeeOSix]

Originally Posted By: HWEaton
What the [censored] is the world coming to?


Originally Posted By: Robenstein
Exactly....its a cultural shift, not the guns.


There is more and more social degradation with every new generation. Guess it's just the way it is. I could be changed if people wanted it to change it, but it would take a lot of effort and probably some freedoms from people to make it happen. IMO, it's a train heading for a blown out bridge. Pretty sad how the world has become.

 

[Tempest]

Originally Posted By: ZeeOSix

There is more and more social degradation with every new generation. Guess it's just the way it is. I could be changed if people wanted it to change it, but it would take a lot of effort and probably some freedoms from people to make it happen. IMO, it's a train heading for a blown out bridge. Pretty sad how the world has become.


There are specific reasons for this, but I don't think that conversation would be accepted here.

 

[d00df00d]

I know, right? Women's lib, the civil rights movement... What has become of us?

Might as well throw in the towel.

 

[Tempest]

Originally Posted By: d00df00d
I know, right? Women's lib, the civil rights movement... What has become of us?

Might as well throw in the towel.

What in this thread would make you go there? Sounds like a rather bigoted statement to me.

 

[d00df00d]

I just have a really hard time with this idea of "moral decline" over the years.

Yes, we have a lot of depressed and disaffected people. Yes, a lot of traditional social structures are evolving or disintegrating, and yes, we should be worried about what is going to replace them. Yes, this is all troubling for the future of our society and nation.

At the same time, while things like racism and sexism still exist, they have been pushed back so hard that even a whiff of them makes most people cringe. Ideas like discrimination, segregation, and fascism are similarly laden with bad associations. We are far from having everything figured out, but we're a dang sight further along than we were even a few decades ago.

In other words, while some things are getting worse, others are getting better. I can see how someone would see the result as zero-sum, but that's the worst I can see. The idea that it represents a net decline -- let alone impending disaster -- strikes me as obviously false.

 

[Tempest]

Originally Posted By: d00df00d
I just have a really hard time with this idea of "moral decline" over the years.

Yes, we have a lot of depressed and disaffected people. Yes, a lot of traditional social structures are evolving or disintegrating, and yes, we should be worried about what is going to replace them. Yes, this is all troubling for the future of our society and nation.

At the same time, while things like racism and sexism still exist, they have been pushed back so hard that even a whiff of them makes most people cringe. Ideas like discrimination, segregation, and fascism are similarly laden with bad associations. We are far from having everything figured out, but we're a dang sight further along than we were even a few decades ago.

In other words, while some things are getting worse, others are getting better. I can see how someone would see the result as zero-sum, but that's the worst I can see. The idea that it represents a net decline -- let alone impending disaster -- strikes me as obviously false.

So people having ever greater amounts of kids out of wedlock, more people living beyond their means, more people not being productive members of society and relying on others, less respect for individual and property rights, etc...

Quote:
Ideas like discrimination, segregation, and fascism are similarly laden with bad associations.

Oh, there is a wide swath of the population that embrace these things, it's all a matter of whom the target is and what euphemism is used to hide it.

 

[ZeeOSix]

Originally Posted By: d00df00d
I just have a really hard time with this idea of "moral decline" over the years.

Yes, we have a lot of depressed and disaffected people. Yes, a lot of traditional social structures are evolving or disintegrating, and yes, we should be worried about what is going to replace them. Yes, this is all troubling for the future of our society and nation.

At the same time, while things like racism and sexism still exist, they have been pushed back so hard that even a whiff of them makes most people cringe. Ideas like discrimination, segregation, and fascism are similarly laden with bad associations. We are far from having everything figured out, but we're a dang sight further along than we were even a few decades ago.

In other words, while some things are getting worse, others are getting better. I can see how someone would see the result as zero-sum, but that's the worst I can see. The idea that it represents a net decline -- let alone impending disaster -- strikes me as obviously false.


It's the continuing rate of the lack of morals. Morals, meaning: The capacity to know what's right and what's wrong ... and to operate in a capacity along the lines of what's right.

Seems with every new generation, there are more people who just don't live very moral. Probably mostly due to bad or missing parenting and toxic peer pressure among the new generation as it grows. Just look at how many young people you see in the news every day committing heinous crimes. I bet statistics show the rate of adolescent crime is way up over the last 30 years (~ 1.5 generations). Just seems like each generation keeps degrading more and more. How many mass shooting murders were conducted by 20 or less year old people before 1980? How many after 1980? I even heard on the news a month or so ago that an 8 year old kid with a gun tried to steal a car from someone at gunpoint. Wow ... stuff like that happening is a big red flag that things are going wrong.

 

[d00df00d]

Let me see if I understand your point. You think there is moral decline because:

1. It seems that way.
2. The news shows lots of scary stuff.

Sound about right? If so... I'm afraid we're going to have to do better than a gut feeling and the hysterics of the news media.


As for statistics, why "bet" anything? Numbers are available. For a start, since you mentioned the past 30 years:

http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2010/06/16/a-crime-puzzle-violent-crime-declines-in-america/

Looks like homicides per 100 people hit a peak around 30 years ago and have come down quite drastically over that time.


...And again, all of this misses the fact that there are other ways in which we have advanced considerably in recent decades.

 

[ZeeOSix]

Originally Posted By: d00df00d
Let me see if I understand your point. You think there is moral decline because:

1. It seems that way.
2. The news shows lots of scary stuff.

Sound about right? If so... I'm afraid we're going to have to do better than a gut feeling and the hysterics of the news media.

As for statistics, why "bet" anything? Numbers are available. For a start, since you mentioned the past 30 years:

http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2010/06/16/a-crime-puzzle-violent-crime-declines-in-america/

Looks like homicides per 100 people hit a peak around 30 years ago and have come down quite drastically over that time.

...And again, all of this misses the fact that there are other ways in which we have advanced considerably in recent decades.


IMO, yes ... it does seem there is a degradation of society in general. And yes, the media may "hype it up" to make it look that way. But most news stations in my area seem to report the facts as much as possible. When you see shootings and police activity reported almost every day, it tells you there are manics running around loose everywhere in a very populated area. Maybe there should be a law that news stations can only report "feel good" news. But reporting the bad news does IMO give people an indication of what's going on in the "streets".

There are many more types of crime besides homicides BTW (drugs, scams, identity theft, rape, prostitution, property theft, etc, etc). Looking at just the homicide data in the link, looks like we are ready for an upswing based on past data. Of course, many factors play into the crime rate as was discussed in the article you linked. But based on just homicide data, it looks like the world is turning into a paradise!

Maybe the decrease in homicides is due to more gun ownership by upstanding citizens ... that theory has been suggested by many researchers.

 

[Mystic]

You never can tell about statistics. It depends on who has control of the statistics and what their goal in compiling the statistics might be. I have seen a lot of agenda driven statistical nonsense. Now d00df00d, you say you have a hard time understanding my posts. Am I saying the Berkeley statistics are deliberately misleading or false? No I did not say that. But I do know that statistics can be inaccurate or misleading. And whoever is compiling the statistics can be agenda driven. You can't necessarily believe everything you read in a book or read online. Sometimes you need to get away from the books and the internet and look at what is happening in real life where you live.

I have lived in the same city for decades. I know for a FACT that murders used to be very rare here and now there are several a year. I don't need fancy statistics from Berkeley to tell me that. I personally know that there are far more murders in this city today then their used to be in the past.

And I don't rely on the corrupt main stream news media for much. Much of the news media appears today to be agenda driven.

I know for a fact that when I was young we could go to a vacant lot and play softball all day long in the summertime, and our parents did not have to worry about us. And today parents are afraid for their children to go someplace out of their sight.

I could name several more examples from everyday life but you will probably rely on your Berkeley statistics. Well, in my city, your Berkeley statistics are not a good fit.

 

[d00df00d]

Originally Posted By: Mystic
I could name several more examples from everyday life but you will probably rely on your Berkeley statistics. Well, in my city, your Berkeley statistics are not a good fit.

I'm really sorry to hear that.

We were talking about the country as a whole, so I responded with information about the country as a whole. I'm sure you understand how an overall trend could go one way while specific examples go the other way.

 

[Mystic]

Real life experiences count for something, d00df00d, as long as a person can be honest with themselves. I have talked to a lot of people, real life people, from all over the country. Very few of them say that things are better. Young people worry if there will be Social Security when they retire. Everybody talks about crime, all the murders, child abductions, etc.

My real life experiences count for me. If you think you can trust any statistics you happen to find on the internet or in a book, you need to do some research into professional advertising. There are people in professional advertising who get paid a lot of money to distort statistics and mislead.

Most people I see on TV who are talking about conditions in their local areas seem to feel that things today are worse than they were in the past. Everybody I meet locally seems to feel that conditions are worse. I don't need Berkeley University to tell me that there used to be 6000 jobs at a local steel mill and now there are about 1000 jobs there. I don't need fancy statistics to tell me the local murder rate is up sharply and that child abductions and child murders are up. Heck, right here at bobistheoilguy.com, with people from all over the country and the world, there seems to be a belief that conditions are worse today then in the past.

Some of the last places I go for my information are the agenda driven news media and the internet. Before you believe anything you read in a book today you have to discover what the agenda was of the writer/writers. I do not automatically believe statistics. Who were the people who compiled the statistics? What were their goals? How did they do their research? Did they sit in a room somewhere at a university and just use somebody else's statistics? Did they do any field research? I am not accusing Berkeley University of anything. But I know for a fact that Berkeley's research does not fit my local area. And my local area is hardly a large city high crime area.

Now d00df00d you are probably a young man. I have lived a long time. I have seen a lot of changes. As you get older you might notice how things have either gotten worse in your area or better. You PERSONAL EXPERIENCE is valuable, as long as you can be HONEST with yourself! I don't lie to myself. I know there has been a sharp increase in the murder rate. I know that child abductions are up.

Even President Obama talked in a speech about how he had now had to attend services for FOUR mass killings at schools, since he had become president of the United States. Does his personal experience count for something?

 

[Trajan]

Originally Posted By: Mystic
Real life experiences count for something, d00df00d


And statistics come from real life experience. Real life experience doesn't have much application outside of the person who has them.

Ever point a loaded and cocked weapon at someone? I have. 11 rounds of .40 hollow points. Finger on the trigger. How does that real life experience count for something to anyone on this board.

 

[supton]

I *think* the Greeks were complaining about the decline of their society. I know I've read that the Romans did complain, though. Nothing new here; every society has complained about its decline.

 

[Trajan]

Originally Posted By: supton
I *think* the Greeks were complaining about the decline of their society. I know I've read that the Romans did complain, though. Nothing new here; every society has complained about its decline.


And society changes over time. Wasn't all that long ago that slaves in this country had no rights, or much of anything else.

 

[Mystic]

Statistics do not necessarily come from real life experiences. You and I could sit in a university room and invent statistics. And I am not talking just about my own experiences. I have talked to people from all over the country who have told me their real life experiences. There are people, especially in advertising, who invent and distort statistics all the time.

Say that the defense department came out with a statistical review to document that they needed X number of aircraft carriers (let us say 15 just to pull a number out of the hat). Before we spent billions of dollars on new aircraft carriers somebody would have to investigate to see if we really needed 15 aircraft carriers.

You cannot automatically accept statistics. You also cannot automatically dismiss real life experiences of thousands of human beings. If we had done something like that we might not have found out about the murder of human beings in concentration camps in Nazi Germany.

Since I am talking about the real life experiences of many people and not just myself I submit those real life experiences have value. And I don't lie to myself so I know for a FACT that there are more murders where I live and more child abductions.

 

[Robenstein]

Originally Posted By: Trajan
Originally Posted By: supton
I *think* the Greeks were complaining about the decline of their society. I know I've read that the Romans did complain, though. Nothing new here; every society has complained about its decline.


And society changes over time. Wasn't all that long ago that slaves in this country had no rights, or much of anything else.


Which is exactly why we have to resist the attempts to strip our rights now. For those who think the U.S. Govt wont ever turn on its people there are a bunch of Native Americans, Japanese Americans, and African Americans history that disagrees with that notion that the government is the side of its people all the time.

 

[MolaKule]

some interesting info from Forbes article:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara...l-the-gullible/

Quote:
Israel, which can’t afford the weak minded irrationality of American liberals, has learned from all this and its own experience to stop terrorist attacks in its schools by arming its teachers. That has worked spectacularly to shut down terrorist attacks in Isreali schools, without a single accident or misuse of guns.

 

[d00df00d]

Originally Posted By: Mystic
Now d00df00d you are probably a young man. I have lived a long time. I have seen a lot of changes. As you get older you might notice how things have either gotten worse in your area or better.

I'm glad to hear that you've lived a long time. May you live a long time more.

I should also give you kudos for being perceptive, because it certainly seems plausible that you're a lot older than I am. I don't know anyone my age who is capable of such long, rambling, presumptuous lectures.

As someone who has done real scientific research, I am well aware of the skepticism that must be applied when hearing about things from others. Let me get right to the point: while I don't trust any source 100%, I find a real research institution a lot more credible than barely-coherent posts on the Internet touting gut feelings and hearsay.

I'm assuming that your posts were intended to contribute meaningfully to the discussion, and that you weren't just trying to dismiss me as naive and ignorant. If that's the case, I appreciate the sentiment.

 

[d00df00d]

Originally Posted By: MolaKule
some interesting info from Forbes article:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara...l-the-gullible/

Quote:
Israel, which can’t afford the weak minded irrationality of American liberals, has learned from all this and its own experience to stop terrorist attacks in its schools by arming its teachers. That has worked spectacularly to shut down terrorist attacks in Isreali schools, without a single accident or misuse of guns.

Israel is in a slightly different situation from the US with respect to deadly threats, don't you think?