Have you read the emperor wears no clothes by jack herer, USA locks up more percentage of its population than anywhere else in the world. Did prohibition work, other than the basis for a few gangster movies

??? Gang violence isn't inspired by hate?
Drug violence is often inspired by fear but most gang shootings are revenge related and revenge is very much inspired by hate. Sometimes not hatred towards the victim but towards what the victim represents.

Nearly all gun violence is inspired by some type of hate but there are instances where the hate is not personal. For instance a sniper taking out as many 'targets' they can. A madman taking out as many people as possible in a spray of bullets. A Kid killing anyone between him and his target and him and his escape.

No, I'd say its inspired by money. And don't u get bummed a lot in american jail, so to help stop that you have to join s gang, which is racially segregated and dont you have to do something bad to someone to 'prove yourself' . so being raped would inspire fear and hatred.so you might go in for something relatively minor, and come out with ties you can't ever break and had to make to survive. 80% of Americans in jail are ethnic minorities. That surely tells a tale.

We have a lot of gang violence up my way and one thing is for sure.. they hate other gang bangers. They hate anything that is not their " brand".

We had a guy a few months ago. A college guy, smart, working his way thru college and out of the bad area he lived in with his mother and father. And he had the misfortune of wearing a blue shirt to throw the garbage out one night.

He was shot dead on the sidewalk because he was wearing blue.... now that is pure hate.

By a member of the Bloods.. 3 were arrested.. no remorse shown....

We have a lot of gang violence up my way and one thing is for sure.. they hate other gang bangers. They hate anything that is not their " brand".

We had a guy a few months ago. A college guy, smart, working his way thru college and out of the bad area he lived in with his mother and father. And he had the misfortune of wearing a blue shirt to throw the garbage out one night.

He was shot dead on the sidewalk because he was wearing blue.... now that is pure hate.

By a member of the Bloods.. 3 were arrested.. no remorse shown....

Tom

what I mean was Gangs are inspired by money, power and greed, yes they hate, but hate isnt their motivating factor.

Money and power is.

Some folks like the Aryan brotherhood who are inspired by hate is what Im comparing it too.

Black Gang bangers are not motivated by killing white folks unless they get in their way of making money or a turf war

that is what I mean.

By that reasoning no rich person would participate in gun violence.
Yet rich people kill with guns too.

we have 2 full generations programed by media both film and games to key spraying them bullets and start back over there if you get whacked.
it is time, past time to change the programming

Yeah, I understand what you're saying. However, thinking on this at the point of sighting and squeezing the trigger even money, power and greed is not going to allow you to kill someone you love, in most cases.
The person pulling the trigger knows they are trying to end someone's life.
What greater display of hate is there?
I want your money and power. Since you won't give it to me, I'll kill you and take it. I hate that you have it and I don't. I hate it so much that I will take it from you by force, killing you in the process. Its the only way to be sure you won't take it back from me in the future.

My kids grew up with that same programming but they also understand it isn't real life. Most people can make a distinction between real life and fantasy because someone has taught them how.

tom that makes your kids part of the minority. they had actively involved caring parents teaching them. and unfortunately a very small minority

Just heard a shooting in Noblesville, Indiana. A seventh grader wielding two hand guns. When they can't obtain an AR15 they'll use something else. Bombs, cars, trucks, etc. When will we stop looking at the guns as the killers and find help for these disturbed people?

I own a hand gun and obtained a carry permit. So far I have "never" carried my weapon. This Noblesville, Indiana event occurred close to home and I'm having second thoughts about carrying.

Another question: this all seemed to have ramped up in 1999 at Columbine. What has happened to our society that has triggered this?

In Oklahoma City, Oklahoma yesterday a guy shoot several individuals at a restaurant. As the shooter left the restaurant he was confronted with a civilian who possessed a concealed weapon. The citizen shot the assailant and is being heralded as a hero. Had a citizen not had a weapon more people would have been shot.

Of course, the anti-gun people have no comment on this incident. The democrate's in congress are strangely silent. What they want is to deny guns to all citizens. When this happens only the drug lords, gang members, criminals and mentally disturbed will obtain guns illegally and all of the gun laws in the country won't stop them.

of course you wont hear a damn thing Dave, the Clinton News Network will dismiss as an outlier or whatever excuse they will come up

The Trump Super pac station aka Fox News will give it a few seconds of coverage assuming Hannity can fit it between Trump praises and the People's republic of MSNBC and RT wont say a damn word about it.

But guess what WE KNOW guns saves lives and those citizens will honor that hero.

God bless him.

That's true and its sad because its true...
I think we can all do much better than we are.

yep and until we do this thread has run it's course. there is nothing need to add to either side as long as focus remains on the wrong thing

Good Question!

In the case of the 7th grader, I'm not so sure it is a mentally unstable condition. Could be...
More likely it resulted from poor parenting.
Vital lessons were not successfully taught for the child to live in harmony with society.

The Oklahoma City incident was mental instability. Some type that may or may not be identified as a predisposition to anti-social behavior. People can be anti-social but still sane. Acting on decisions that are based on defective reasoning from some inadequacy in their judgement. Left to their own devices, they pop to insanity thinking they are being rational in their assessment of whatever has them miffed. They are not weighing their options rationally.

While true, brainstorming a problem does go on and off track in its process because we are not computers.

I truly believe that sometimes solutions are found from random input.
While this thread may be off course right now, it may still yeild insight to the nature of the human mind concerning such issues.

i agree tom my point is this thread is aimed at the wrong thing. and while slides off topic can bring insight it is still pointed in the wrong direction. and if we stick to the topic and only the topic there is no new reform or common ground on the gun laws them selves. just the same two polarized sides.

better to let this thread die and try to identify and address the real problem. which is why are these people doing these things and how can we fix that

The way I see it is this thread give an avenue for discussion that inspires participation.
Even the most jaded one-sided reply prompts replies.
Threads like this are more than the current replies.
Its the over-all enlightenment that changes mind-sets.
Sadly, this is a limited participatory audience.
However, if something discussed in this thread cause someone to transpose those ideas to other social networks the meme can spread.
Its not about who said what, its about changing the thinking of society.
That can't be done in one thread on one social website but it can set the seed for change that spreads.

One can concentrate on the one-sided opinion replies or they can concentrate on the replies that make sense to solve the problem.

To identify any solution, the more info you have on a problem gives clarity to its nature.

The whole reason for a 'Gun Control' topic originates in social structure and how people see guns, use guns and what happens when guns are used for anti-social reasons.
We have to know why guns exist, why people buy them, why people keep them and why people use them for us to determine which controls are needed to arrive at a solution to the perceived problem.

There is obviously a problem with guns.
Its obvious that many people know there is a problem with guns.
What is not obvious is how we fix that problem with guns that works for society as a unified whole.