Healthcare Plan Misinformation Video-induced Debate

Remove all ads!

Chandos, my point is that articles like those you linked don't show anything close to a complete picture. According to the CDC, in 2006 (latest year they have statistics for) 4,827 people just between 15 and 24 died of violence-related firearm injuries. That's an average of 402.25 per month. So, as sad as it is that 53 people died in a month, it's not the whole picture, and it doesn't mean much of anything in the long-term.

What I'd like to see is something like this, only for mass-murder cases. From the looks of things, gun deaths in total have actually gone down substantially from around 1994 until now (back to about what they were before then). Simply stating that X people were shot this year in mass murders doesn't tell us anything about a trend over time. Likewise, citing a bunch of specific examples, but by no means a comprehensive list, even over time, doesn't say anything, because it isn't a comprehensive list. For all we know, there could have been 10 times as many cases in 2006 that just didn't make your list for whatever reason.

I'll agree that violent crimes need to be addressed in the US, and I'll agree that the "The liberals want to take all our guns" versus "The Conservatives want to rule by the gun" debates don't really help anything. I'll even agree that our politicians (on both sides) need to change tack if we're going to see any serious improvements. I don't see, however, any real evidence that the rate of mass shootings has changed from the past.

 

...tap...tap...tap-pity, tap-pity, tap...tap.

Again, let me repeat - I was speaking of gun violence in a specific sense. The homicide rate in the US has little to do with what I'm refering to. People are shot for all different kinds of reasons. Besides, the link you provided only runs through 2005, which was 4 years ago, so it has little to do with recent violence.

That's fine if that's what you want to see, but it has little to do with my comments.

Again, that has nothing to do with the point you were trying to make, which was that there has not been a "recent uproar over gun violence." Obviously there was. Again, you are tap dancing around my point.

 

Yes, well, the CDC only has statistics up to 2006 unfortunately. I looked, but couldn't find anything more up-to-date than that. Also, as I said, I know that this isn't exactly what you were looking for, but it's the type of data that's useful. If you could provide that for the kind of cases you are talking about, then it would be useful.

You say 'obviously there was', and yet provide no evidence to that point. As I said, your citation of a couple specific examples doesn't prove anything other than that it happens. Unless you are going to try to tell me that what you provided was a full and comprehensive list of all such cases in US history (in which case I'll have to call BS), it doesn't say anything about a change over time.

It's like if I were to write that, in the above paragraph, I wrote 'said', 'me', and 'couple', so obviously I used more words with the letter 'e' in them than without. That's no evidence of anything and BS logic. You'd have to count up all the words in the entire paragraph of each type to make any claim.

 

It would - that I can agree on. Let me ask you question: Why would someone even make a "joke" like that in the first place? Why would a bunch of good ole' boys sitting around with guns, suddenly bring Obama into the conversation, for no good reason? I realize you would be only guessing, but give it a shot (no pun intended).

 

To fit in? To express their displeasure with what they consider a ridiculous extreme? It's not that uncommon. You ever hear someone propose something (as a joke) that's unrealistic/offensive and another respond (laughing) with "Over my dead body"? It's that kind of thing.

 

I don't see why Obama would even be a topic in any of that except maybe this:

I think there may be a link between some of the rash of mass shootings in recent years and people who feel they don't "fit in" - The VA Tech shooter (which is the worst mass shooting in US history), and the shooter in upstate NY (that happened during the Spring) have that in common. Now I'm going to give this a try:

But certain mass shootings, just as certain comments, have a particular "cultural resonance" to them (a term a read about). There is an intersection of societal, political and cultural (particularly racial), maybe economic issues involved in some of these shootings, just as in the comment about "hunting Obama," who does not "fit in." And in every case the shooter either killed himself or was killed by the police, so they will never be able to tell us for themselves- and that is an interesting common factor they share.

Obama is black (and an "uppity" black for daring to be prez, as I have been told by some people here in Texas), Harvard trained, from a big urban center (Chicago), maybe not even an American, maybe a Muslim, maybe whatever else can be dreamt up to keep him from "fitting in" and being a "legitimate" president. The bottom line is "he's not one of them." I've heard people from your neck of the woods talk the same way, NOG, so I know you have heard it too.

I'm not saying any of these people are going to run out and shoot him, only that a "joke" like that says more about those telling it than it does about the subject of the joke itself -- at least in my opinion.

 

Chandos, I have heard (a very few) statements to the effect that Obama is an "uppity n****r". Most of them were in jest. Maybe 2 were serious (and those people were out there already).

I disagree with the Obama connection there. It isn't that Obama 'doesn't fit in', it's that they severely oppose him in some manner or another. That's not a 'doesn't fit in' issue, it's a direct opposition. Also, note that the people you are reffering to in the shooting cases aren't even the ones who made fun of those that don't fit in, but were actually those that don't fit in themselves. So, unless you're worried about Obama going on a shooting spree, I don't see the connection.

 

As I commented, "jests," or jokes like that, say more about the person telling them than about the subject of those kind of morally bankrupt and biggoted comments.

So you are saying that those people make jokes about "hunting" him just because they don't agree with him? Wow, that says a lot for them.

But they saw themselves as different than from the "others." The solution: break out the weapons (see the "opposition" above). That is the crux of the issue. There is a better solution, and we can begin to change this by changing the dialogue -- in my opinion.

 

Let me make that more clear (as re-reading it I see I didn't make the point I meant to). They were jests by black people. I don't think they were fueled by bigotry itself, so much as a cultural history of bigotry.

Hey, I never said it was tasteful, just not anything to report to the FBI. Anyway, as has been mentioned Letterman joked about sports stars raping a little girl. It wasn't intended that way, though. That's the nature of most gaffes.

But in those cases, it wasn't opposition that fueled it (there's plenty of that in every segment of high-school life), but isolation. These were the people that didn't fit in anywhere.


I'd also like to say (and I've mentioned this somewhere else before, I know) that I understand exactly what (at least many) of those people went through, and how they thought (can't say for sure about those with mental problems and the like). It is the isolation and complete lack of hope that does it. It is looking forward to the future and seeing nothing but more pain and suffering, all forced on you by willing and eager participants, with nowhere else to turn. I'm not saying for even half a second that it was right, but I do understand it. It's a very dark place, and one that the wolf hunters don't seem to be anywhere close to.

 

The ones I heard were NOT by black people, but by your typical trailer park whites. And they weren't "jests." IMO, there is a racial component to some (not all of these comments), about shooting and hunting down Obama. If you have not heard any in the Tide Water area, I'm very surprised. I've heard a lot of them come from there, and most of them are very similar to the ones I have heard in Texas. What a surprise that is.

 

Chandos, there aren't a whole lot of 'white trash' types around here. We get the big-city types, the drug types, the 'black trash', the Navy (HUGE crowd there), the college people, but not so much the 'white trash'. You'd have to go further out toward Appalachia for that. Maybe in Pungo.

Anyway, for it to mean anything, you'd have to show that the politician making this comment, or the random person he responded to, were racist in this manner. Otherwise, it's just guesswork.

 

Yeah, actually there are. What big city? Norfolk, Chesapeake, Portsmouth? Those are pretty small towns. I've spent time in all of them and I'm pretty familar with that area. Yeah, they have their share of "white trash."

 

You think Norfolk is a small town?! Try again, Ragusa. It's one of the biggest ports on the east coast. Now, it's not NY City, but it's a big city nonetheless. Pretty much the rest of Hampton Roads is suburb to Norfolk, with a few of the cities having their own little 'downtown'. Virginia Beach doesn't really have a downtown, though; we're just one huge suburb.

 

I wrote nothing about Norfolk, NOG.

 

Norfolk isn't much more than 200,000 people, and that's really small for what you describe as a "major port." It does have a large naval base, which has some pretty cool ships parked along its harbor. But the city itself is really rather small; Portsmouth is rather small has well. Virginia Beach did seem to be a very large suburb, but really there's nothing there I would consider, "The Big City." And I haven't run into many "big city types," in that area. The area strikes me as just a sprawling suburb, and a good portion of the older parts a bit run-down.

In fact, we have to be in Chesapeake next month because my wife's brother and his wife are having a baby, and my wife wants to go. So I will be in Norfolk and Chesapeake sometime in October, but only for a few days.

Houston is the fourth largest city in the US. Yes, we have a fairly large amount of "big city types" but even as large as this city is, we still have large amounts of "trailer park types" as well, especially in the suburbs.

The only reason this came into the topic is because you are denying that you have not heard many racial remarks about Obama made by white people. In fact, you went out of your way to suggest that you have mostly heard racial comments made by blacks. I know better than that.

 

Ragusa:
Yeah, I keep confusing you and Chandos. You need to stop making similar arguements in similar topics. You're tag-teaming me!

Chandos:
Hampton Roads, as a whole, is the 5th largest metropolitan area on the East Coast, right after the Miami area. It has what is commonly called the "world's greatest natural harbor". The port is ranked only second nationally for export tonnage, behind the Port of South Louisiana based. Combining both export and import, we're third nationally, behind that one and Houston. We have the largest naval base in the world, as well as bases of mixed sizes for, I think, every other branch except the Coast Guard, and there may even be one of those. We also have one of only a few ship yards in the world capable of re-fitting and even building supercarriers and nuclear subs. Officially, the Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News, VA-NC MSA has a population of about 1.7 million, the 33rd-largest metropolitan area in the United States. Read up a bit.

Basically, think of Norfolk as one big Down Town area (with a bit in Newport News as well), and the rest of Hampton Roads as it's suburb.

This:

is complete BS. Even if you assume (and it's a stretch, given what you've said) that you are more familiar with this area than I am, to say that you "know better" about what I've heard is ridiculous. Even if you bugged my phone, you couldn't make any concrete conclusions on what kind of stuff I hear.

 

Dude, I've been to Norfolk, because the airport is there. It's not much of a "downtown," and I guess that is my point about it not being a "big city." Big cities have large urban centers like Chicago, New York, or Los Angeles. If you had said all along that your area is full of "suburbanites" (since it's mostly a giant "suburb," we would not be having this completely, (and mostly useless) off-topic rant.

I guess have never considered "suburbanites" as anything close to being "big city" types.

Maybe you don't get out much.

 

Chandos, Norfolk International isn't anywhere near the downtown. If that's your experience of Norfolk, no wonder you call it a town. Drive down Granby St or Tidewater Drive. Go see the Harbor Park or Nauticus.

Now, yes, the entire area is much more spread out than NY or probably Houston or Dallas, but it's a city nonetheless (surrounded by other cities).

 

Been there.

In other words, I've seen the entire area, including downtown from the air.


NYC, alone is five counties - Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, The Bronx and Staten Island (and that doesn't count its burbs).

OK, I had to look it up. Norfolk is not even in the top 25 metro-areas:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_metropolitan_area

 

No, it's 33rd. I already said that.

And Hampton Roads is dozens of cities and counties.