House Majority Whip Steve Scalise shot in Virginia

[BigRedBuster]

I am someone with mental illness in my family with multiple people. I know what mental illness is and I have had to deal with it.

 

Now.....the guy is normal.....I've said that.....

 

Now....can we get back to discussing the shooter and how we can stop these from happening in the future with our political rhetoric????

[JJ Husker]

I think like knapp said though, the issue is we're FAR past a world where citizens bearing arms can resist the government. They've got satellites and F-22s. Game over. Hence, even in the general case, our only tools are free speech and civic education.

 

ED -- assassinations are often the work of revolutionaries fighting against their rulers. Is there a rosier version of a Revolutionary war-style uprising where the rebels refuse to try to take out any high-ranking officials of the government they're trying to bring down?

Boy I'm glad the colonies were not inhabited by people with this attitude. Do you think our forefathers felt they had some military advantage over the British?

Not to get too deep in the woods here but satellites and F-22's don't mean squat if push comes to shove. If it is ever required, God forbid, one of the first moves would be to co-opt military resources. Likely many within the military would be sympathetic to the cause.

 

We shouldn't let whatever was going on inside this guy's head become the narrative of reality. Yeah, he may have thought himself some kind of patriot fighting a tyrannical government but that doesn't mean that is what it was. This was clearly some unhinged loon who went off the deep end. Much different than an organized situation of tamping down a tyrannical government. And if you don't think something like that could ever be required, just consider who is in the WH now and imagine he wanted to start forcing his way through Marshall law or some such thing. It doesn't take much of an imagination to see where bearing arms against the government might be needed. But this morning's actions are nothing like that. It does a disservice to the discussion of the issue and relegates the 2nd Amendment to the trash bin of antiquity. I know many gun control advocates would like to see that but let's at least be honest about it and keep the discussion realistic.

 

Edit- My intent here is not to separate this guy from the rest of us or to provide an excuse for what he did. Calling him an unhinged loon is just my take on it and no kind of medical diagnosis. There are likely reasons he arrived at this point. Maybe it was far right propaganda or whatever. Still, what he did is not what normal fully functioning people do. I don't know the correct term for it but I chose unhinged loon and I may sporadically say he was apparently mentally ill. Sorry if it offends anyone but normal, rational, reasoning persons don't go shoot up crowds of people.

[Huskerzoo]

I don't want to beat a dead horse, so I apologize, but I did find an article directly relevant to what I was saying. Here's a quick quote.

 

Again, certain persons with mental illness undoubtedly commit violent acts. Reports argue that mental illness might even be underdiagnosed in people who commit random school shootings.62 Yet growing evidence suggests that mass shootings represent statistical aberrations that reveal more about particularly horrible instances than they do about population-level events. To use Swanson’s phrasing, basing gun crime–prevention efforts on the mental health histories of mass shooters risks building “common evidence” from “uncommon things.”31 Such an approach thereby loses the opportunity to build common evidence from common things—such as the types of evidence that clinicians of many medical specialties might catalog, in alliance with communities, about substance abuse, domestic violence, availability of firearms, suicidality, social networks, economic stress, and other factors.

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4318286/

 

 

I am someone with mental illness in my family with multiple people. I know what mental illness is and I have had to deal with it.

 

Now.....the guy is normal.....I've said that.....

 

Now....can we get back to discussing the shooter and how we can stop these from happening in the future with our political rhetoric????

 

I'm currently doing some research on this, but for lay people a very good resource is: http://www.civilpolitics.org/

 

Specifically: http://www.civilpolitics.org/content/two-evidence-based-recommendations-for-civil-disagreement/

 

1. Improve inter-personal relationships – There is a rich psychological literature on how positive contact between groups increases the likelihood that greater cooperation and less demonization across groups will occur.

 

2. Emphasize cooperative goals vs. competitive goals – In most conflicts, the extremists on each side will seek to emphasize the enduring intractable nature of a conflict.

 

 

My research group is looking at identifying and exploring shared values and what we find threatening about others views. If y'all wanted to I could create a separate thread and show you how that works.

[Moiraine]

My goodness there are some strange interpretations of how to protect from a tyrannical government going on in here.

I picture something like the Revolutionary war when I think of it.

Lone gunmen gunning down congressmen on a ball field seems to be severely twisting the sensible intent for a certain agenda.

And your interpretation of posts is strange.

 

Would it be wrong for a North Korean citizen to shoot their leader?

 

We (most) all agree this isn't close to the same situation as that and that this guy is likely mentally ill. But I think that is part of the intent of the 2nd amendment. It's probably more to do with defending one's home from a tyrannical government but killing a tyrant could be considered protecting one's country.

[Landlord]

Do you think our forefathers felt they had some military advantage over the British?

 

 

Yes. Guerilla warfare vs the antiquated rank and file approach of the British, familiarity with their homelands, and a deeper conviction and belief in their cause (how much of the British army was made up of Hessian mercenaries and other for-hire men?), at the very least.

 

 

That's a bit of a side tangent regardless. Point is, as a society, we need to be able to have honest conversations and research into A) the things that happen internally inside people who commit acts of violence like this that might lead to this sort of behavior, and B) the things that happen socially and within the culture and environment around all of us that make our culture prime for things like this to keep happening. If we want to shut down one side or the other, we're doing all of ourselves a disservice.

[DrunkOffPunch]

I think like knapp said though, the issue is we're FAR past a world where citizens bearing arms can resist the government. They've got satellites and F-22s. Game over. Hence, even in the general case, our only tools are free speech and civic education.

 

ED -- assassinations are often the work of revolutionaries fighting against their rulers. Is there a rosier version of a Revolutionary war-style uprising where the rebels refuse to try to take out any high-ranking officials of the government they're trying to bring down?

Not really. You're talking about objects created to fight wars, not control a populace. At some point in time the hypothetical tyrant will have nothing to rule over besides crumbled cities and graveyards. All the bloodshed will cause civil unrest. You'll essentially end up in a civil war. Take away the guns and your options are obedience or death. North Korea is a prime example.

[BigRedBuster]

Have to admit, there is part of me that wishes this guy hadn't been killed. I think the issues behind him doing this would have been discussed more than now that he is dead.

 

 

Usually, I wouldn't say that about this type of situation.

[Moiraine]

Have to admit, there is part of me that wishes this guy hadn't been killed. I think the issues behind him doing this would have been discussed more than now that he is dead.

 

 

Usually, I wouldn't say that about this type of situation.

 

That thought went through my head too.

[JJ Husker]

 

Do you think our forefathers felt they had some military advantage over the British?

 

 

Yes. Guerilla warfare vs the antiquated rank and file approach of the British, familiarity with their homelands, and a deeper conviction and belief in their cause (how much of the British army was made up of Hessian mercenaries and other for-hire men?), at the very least.

 

 

That's a bit of a side tangent regardless. Point is, as a society, we need to be able to have honest conversations and research into A) the things that happen internally inside people who commit acts of violence like this that might lead to this sort of behavior, and B) the things that happen socially and within the culture and environment around all of us that make our culture prime for things like this to keep happening. If we want to shut down one side or the other, we're doing all of ourselves a disservice.

 

 

I agree with this. My intent was not to shut down a side of the discussion. It was meant to keep the actual intent of the 2nd Amendment in focus and try to prevent it from becoming a casualty through improper use and for a certain agenda. And please don't think I necessarily want to shy away from gun control discussion as it relates to this. In my mind, gun control is not synonymous with the 2nd Amendment. Personally, I think we need to maintain the right to bear arms but that may not equate to the right to bear ANY arms we choose or the right for anyone (meaning people who clearly shouldn't have guns) to bear arms. But yeah, I do believe one of the arguments in favor of people being allowed to have guns is the tyrannical government issue. That is why it bothered me to see it being misapplied in this case.

[RedDenver]

I think like knapp said though, the issue is we're FAR past a world where citizens bearing arms can resist the government. They've got satellites and F-22s. Game over. Hence, even in the general case, our only tools are free speech and civic education.

 

ED -- assassinations are often the work of revolutionaries fighting against their rulers. Is there a rosier version of a Revolutionary war-style uprising where the rebels refuse to try to take out any high-ranking officials of the government they're trying to bring down?

I want to say I am NOT advocating violence. The most powerful weapon either side has is speech, even more powerful for the government than the military.

 

But the idea that just because a government has an advanced military means that it can't be overthrown by force is way too simplistic. If you were a revolutionary, one of the best things the government could do to help you would be to bring in the military. How many service men and women are going to go along with that vs how many will refuse or even join the revolt? And how many people in the population will join the revolt just because the military is now involved? And no matter how advanced or accurate the weapon systems may be, they're only as good as the information trying to identify who is on which side - and that information usually changes over time - which means the government is going to kill innocent civilians, and that's going to drive up the number of people revolting. Just imagine if F22's dropped bombs on revolutionaries in Austin or Berkley or Lincoln.

 

And we have recent examples in Afghanistan and Iraq where this is playing out. The US has been at war in Afghanistan for over 15 years and is losing ground to the Taliban. Look at the IRA in the UK for decades - they couldn't be put down by force.

 

Not to mention that the revolutionaries don't have to actually attack and kill directly. Unlike the foreign wars we've waged, the revolutionaries would already be within the US. Thousands of people with crowbars or bolt cutters could cripple the infrastructure.

[TGHusker]

He was a terrorist.

 

A freedom fighter, to some.

A member of the Alt Left it appears.

[RedDenver]

 

He was a terrorist.

 

A freedom fighter, to some.

A member of the Alt Left it appears.

 

I think actually shooting people goes beyond even the alt-left or alt-right.

[zoogs]

How many service men and women are going to go along with that vs how many will refuse or even join the revolt?

I imagine many won't.

 

 

Whatever became of the dissenting army units? What happened to the government and the democracy movement?

 

And those were peaceful protesters. Revolutionaries using their arms -- they would quickly and successfully be denounced as criminals. That's another reason (aside from technology) that this wouldn't work. The vast majority of the population is going to have strong inclinations to side with the government regardless of how authoritarian it is.

[NM11046]

I don't want to beat a dead horse, so I apologize, but I did find an article directly relevant to what I was saying. Here's a quick quote.

 

Again, certain persons with mental illness undoubtedly commit violent acts. Reports argue that mental illness might even be underdiagnosed in people who commit random school shootings.62 Yet growing evidence suggests that mass shootings represent statistical aberrations that reveal more about particularly horrible instances than they do about population-level events. To use Swanson’s phrasing, basing gun crime–prevention efforts on the mental health histories of mass shooters risks building “common evidence” from “uncommon things.”31 Such an approach thereby loses the opportunity to build common evidence from common things—such as the types of evidence that clinicians of many medical specialties might catalog, in alliance with communities, about substance abuse, domestic violence, availability of firearms, suicidality, social networks, economic stress, and other factors.

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4318286/

 

 

I am someone with mental illness in my family with multiple people. I know what mental illness is and I have had to deal with it.

 

Now.....the guy is normal.....I've said that.....

 

Now....can we get back to discussing the shooter and how we can stop these from happening in the future with our political rhetoric????

 

I'm currently doing some research on this, but for lay people a very good resource is: http://www.civilpolitics.org/

 

Specifically: http://www.civilpolitics.org/content/two-evidence-based-recommendations-for-civil-disagreement/

 

1. Improve inter-personal relationships – There is a rich psychological literature on how positive contact between groups increases the likelihood that greater cooperation and less demonization across groups will occur.

 

2. Emphasize cooperative goals vs. competitive goals – In most conflicts, the extremists on each side will seek to emphasize the enduring intractable nature of a conflict.

 

 

My research group is looking at identifying and exploring shared values and what we find threatening about others views. If y'all wanted to I could create a separate thread and show you how that works.

Please do Huskerzoo - I'd like to learn more in a separate thread.

[teachercd]

Have to admit, there is part of me that wishes this guy hadn't been killed. I think the issues behind him doing this would have been discussed more than now that he is dead.

 

 

Usually, I wouldn't say that about this type of situation.

I am with you...I am glad he is dead...just wish it was in about 30 days.