Murders and Shootings

Fuse_sl said:

How many would you consider to be an unacceptable number?

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When people have a statistically higher chance to be killed in a mass shooting, than struck by lightning, I'll start to become uncomfortable.

Rare sighting...a sane opinion on the shootings from an evangelical.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philoso...-james-dobson/

Tuco_sl said:

1. I'm no child psychologist, but kids tv shows have tons of social queues.

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Not just about getting them, it's about the need to process information over social cues. See the difference? If most children's shows have a limited amount of social interaction they can teach (And they do.), but a large amount of information--then more exposure to such shows will increase the need for information processing, even if the shows all have social interaction. Remember, before this last generation, once Sesame Street was done, a child either watched normal TV, or hung around mom and learned. Now a child can literally sit and watch information based learning programming ALL day--and they often times do.

Think about your normal TV--it's a lot heavier in terms of social interaction, because...hey, that's drama. And if they hung around mom/dad/bro/sister (Whatever) I doubt those people are going to be teaching them what a square looks like or how to cross the water by finding a bridge on Dora's journey, right? But children's TV is a constant stream of this and it's on 24/7 in many homes.

2. There's a massive # of diagnosis of autism before kids start using computers that frequently.

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Two things, direct use doesn't have to be an indicator. Technology is everywhere and information is more accessible than ever. Children are exposed from the time they can spend time with mom and dad, while mom and dad try to do other things.

Secondly, it's not all about environment. Information has become more and more widely available every generation since the printing press was invented. These last three generations have seen exponential growth in the availability and totality of information stored. And I'm not saying there is "more" information today (Though there is)--I'm talking about stored information in forms with the ability to disseminated easily to other people. For an example of this, look at the amount of pictures that exist now, compared to when the first instant camera was invented. We can literally communicate with images now, they are so easy to manipulate.

Heck look at this board for example. Attaching images to convey meaning is practically a method of communication on it's own. Do you think that happened a generation ago? Think people had conversations and then attached pictures that referenced their talking points in funny/odd/interesting ways? I don't think people realize just how massive the change in communication has been, and it didn't start with this generation--it started with the one before us, actually--it continued with us, and now we have children.

Heck to continue with this--think of Youtube. You know what you did if you talked with your friends about a movie scene that was awesome just 15 years ago? Yeah, you just talked. Because unless you went to the movie store (Remember those?), got the VHS, and fast forwarded to the part, you couldn't show them. Now it's like 10 seconds, and you can show them nearly anything, I mean I get really annoyed when I can't find even a mundane/small/arcane clip of something on youtube, I just expect it to be there. And think of the massive social difference it takes in explaining and acting out a scene for them (If you were really dramatic) vs typing into youtube and conveying the information directly. Me and my friends actually did the whole VHS thing with demon knight because we thought the dance scene was funny....It took us an hour to get the video, find the scene. Lets see how long it takes me to show you the scene....10 seconds, it even auto completed the search for me. Information--it's become more accessible and you can be exposed to a great deal more of it now at much younger ages.

3. If there's such a dramatic correlation between using electronics that don't show social situations and autism I'd imagine it'd be exposed by characteristics of children rather than the total # of autistic kids.

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Again, no need to drop the social cues. It's just amount of information vs social cue learning--the amount of information has *dramatically* increased. And how would we know if it's a characteristic in children? Expression of less social behavior is just now being studied, and some people hypothisize that it's lead to numerous things, like the precipitous drop in teenagers getting their licenses, for example (Which back in my day...12 years ago...my license was absolutely needed for social life.). And I know it's anecdotal but my kids take to the computer, gaming and online much easier than I did. I remember fumbling around in AOL chat rooms, asking how to make the big ASCI pictures, thinking I was neat that I found a macro program. My son can write web pages at 12, and when someone asks him how he is doing, he sends them a picture to show it, rather than talking to them. The difference in how things work is staggering.

I think we're often times blind to the changes because they've happened so gradually for us. I don't even remember a time when talking on a message board was impossible. It seems ancient when there was a time I couldn't flip on my phone and video chat with my wife, or send a picture of anything I wanted--or had a freaking camera I carried around ALL the time...But all of these things are advents of the last 15 years, they ARE new and they are radical. There used to be a saying "If only I had a camera"--you know, because not everyone carried their own micro computer with a camera in their pocket.

And like I said, this was just a preliminary study that found autistic children have an easier time communicating with pure information, and that there is a statistical relevance in the number of them that come from information heavy parents who use a lot of technology. The rest is just a hypothesis about brain changes...I don't know, it makes a lot of sense to me but maybe that's because I watch Mad Men and marvel that even if I traveled back 50 years with my smart phone, I'd have almost alien powers if I could still connect to the modern internet.

(And anecdotal, people in previous generations who absorbed a lot of information, like people on the genius level, had a far higher incidence rate of being social awkward, as far as I know--right? How hard is it to believe that the absorption of mass information, even though it might not be relevant like relatively, heck it might only be thousands of lolcats and movie quotes, is doing the same to all of us because there is just so much of it--how many times have you caught yourself getting lost in youtube, TVtrops, Wikipedia (Or wookiepedia) just absorbing information? It happens so often now, we might not be Einstein gobbling up information about the universe but we are gobbling up information more voraciously than our parents, even if it's junk food.)

mkopec_sl said:

More kids die from playground accidents in school every year. You gonna ban schoolground play equipment too? How bout bycicles, know how many kids die on bikes a year? Ban bikes?

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Of course not, but we do make playground equipment reasonably safe and we take reasonable precautions to keep kids on bikes safe, my whole point is I dont think we take reasonable precautions with firearms in this country.

There is a reason we don't buy our kids switchblade johnny or bag 'o glass.

Just because tragedies happen dosen't mean we shouldn't look at ways to prevent them where we can.

Fuse_sl said:

Of course not, but we do make playground equipment reasonably safe and we take reasonable precautions to keep kids on bikes safe, my whole point is I dont think we take reasonable precautions with firearms in this country.

There is a reason we don't buy our kids switchblade johnny or bag 'o glass.

Just because tragedies happen dosen't mean we shouldn't look at ways to prevent them where we can.

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I think what most people are saying is that we shouldn't less passion rule our rational response. Like I said, I'm more in danger from being struck by lightning, than dying in a mass shooting. So taking steps to prevent mass shootings seems...silly. We'd save more lives by taking steps to reduce the need for violence in this country, like say, ending the drug war or reducing poverty. But those are rational and unglamorous steps, and so they are boring (not to mention they only mostly save those pesky blacks.)...Instead the left touts gun control, because it's easier and it symbolizes their stance on anti-violence. It's really not that different from the Right's abortion stance--largely symbolic "pro-life" rhetoric, that is far less effective than if the republicans actually did something to help mothers or reduce poverty, which would ACTUALLY lower abortions and improve life.

Araysar_sl said:

The current overdiagnosis of autism, etc. is extremely well documented.

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Just because you say it doesn't make it true.

Lithose_sl said:

I think what most people are saying is that we shouldn't less passion rule our rational response. Like I said, I'm more in danger from being struck by lightning, than dying in a mass shooting. So taking steps to prevent mass shootings seems...silly. We'd save more lives by taking steps to reduce the need for violence in this country, like say, ending the drug war or reducing poverty. But those are rational and unglamorous steps, and so they are boring (not to mention they only mostly save those pesky blacks.)...Instead the left touts gun control, because it's easier and it symbolizes their stance on anti-violence. It's really not that different from the Right's abortion stance--largely symbolic "pro-life" rhetoric, that is far less effective than if the republicans actually did something to help mothers or reduce poverty, which would ACTUALLY lower abortions and improve life.

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I dont disagree with most of this. There is no reason we can't fight a problem on multiple fronts though. I dont think gun (or abortions) should be banned. That would quite possibly create more problems than it solves (in either case).

That dosen't mean there are things that can be done.

In my state you can get a CCW permit by attending a 4 hour class and sending in $65. That is fucking retarded.

I think part of the problem (speaking of emotional reactions) is the 'guns dont kill people' people think that gun control means taking away thier guns which puts alot of people on the defensive and precludes any rational discussion.

Fuse_sl said:

In my state you can get a CCW permit by attending a 4 hour class and sending in $65. That is fucking retarded

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Please explain how it's retarded? Show me examples of people with CCW permits committing crimes with those permits.

Araysar_sl said:

But what the hell would a guy who helped co-author DSM-IV know about mental illness.

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I don't know. I'd guess less than the people who are responsible for the DSM-V and its expansion and refinement of Autism diagnoses.

Gavinrad_sl said:

Please explain how it's retarded? Show me examples of people with CCW permits committing crimes with those permits.

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It's retarded because CC is a gigantic responsibilty and I think people should have to demonstrate they are prepared for and capable of handling that responsiblity. I would also be uncomfortable with people obtaining drivers licences as easily as CC permits.

As for examples, there are plenty. Just google concealed carry homicide.

Here's one for you.

http://www.csgv.org/issues-and-campa...ers-in-florida

Fuse_sl said:

It's retarded because CC is a gigantic responsibilty and I think people should have to demonstrate they are prepared for and capable of handling that responsiblity. I would also be uncomfortable with people obtaining drivers licences as easily as CC permits.

As for examples, there are plenty. Just google concealed carry homicide.

Here's one for you.

http://www.csgv.org/issues-and-campa...ers-in-florida

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I only see one death on that entire page where it was actually related to the gunman having a concealed carry permit, the one where the dude was in church and too fucking stupid to realize he had a round in the chamber. Definitely the kind of guy who shouldn't have been trusted with concealed carry, but hardly an indictment of the entire system. A handful more seem like situations where if they didn't have a permit, they possibly wouldn't have been carrying the gun, which is also a valid argument against concealed carry. The majority of those incidents are garden variety murders where the perp happened to have a permit but it wasn't relevant to anything.

You should read More Guns, Less Crime by John Lott. The dude is a total right-wing nutjob, and in that particular book he tries to claim that concealed carry lowers crime rates. He utterly fails to show causation between concealed carry and lowered crime rates, but he did accidentally demonstrate thatconcealed carry does not increase crime rates either.

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I should also say that a 4 hour class and 65$ does seem too easy for a concealed carry permit, I was mainly playing devils advocate.

Gavinrad_sl said:

I only see one death on that entire page where it was actually related to the gunman having a concealed carry permit, the one where the dude was in church and too fucking stupid to realize he had a round in the chamber. Definitely the kind of guy who shouldn't have been trusted with concealed carry, but hardly an indictment of the entire system. A handful more seem like situations where if they didn't have a permit, they possibly wouldn't have been carrying the gun, which is also a valid argument against concealed carry. The majority of those incidents are garden variety murders where the perp happened to have a permit but it wasn't relevant to anything.

You should read More Guns, Less Crime by John Lott. The dude is a total right-wing nutjob, and in that particular book he tries to claim that concealed carry lowers crime rates. He utterly fails to show causation between concealed carry and lowered crime rates, but he did accidentally demonstrate thatconcealed carry does not increase crime rates either.

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I should also say that a 4 hour class and 65$ does seem too easy for a concealed carry permit, I was mainly playing devils advocate.

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And I have no problem with people having CC if they have been properly trained and vetted. What that training and vetting entails is where the discussion should be, but I'm pretty confident the process would need to be more involved than it currently is.

Araysar_sl said:

LOL

"expansion and refinement " = overdiagnoses. Exactly what he was talking about.

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So he's right and every single doctor involved with the DSM-V is wrong, because Araysar said so.

Araysar_sl said:

so who's the autie in your family?

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You, alright?! I learned it from watching you!!