>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
...
I see the buzzards have already started repeating talking points from KOS & HuffPO without even waiting for the body to get cold before trying to wrest a tragedy so it fits into the political fetters forged by years of personal bias. There's little evidence of anything so far except a lone gunman and a sad, tragic attack where 6 human beings died.
Quite honestly, to try and make this about Palin or anybody else shows a similar sort of hate-driven mental outlook to what was motivated the waste of skin pulling the trigger. Those of you guilty of such hate-driven bias really need to take a good long hard look in the mirror. When the first thing that you think of is not, "What an awful human tragedy" but instead "How can I squish this event into my political worldview?" then you have truly lost an important part of yourself. Those of this ilk need to take some time off from hating the 'other guy' and try to piece back together whatever scraps of humanity are left in you.


I don't blame Palin, she is a self-serving money whore. I blame the rhetoric. I hear tyranny over taxes. Well, a tyranny rapes its people, mutilates opposers, burns chuches... Yet, the talk is that America is headed there. What else are sheeple to do but pull out guns? And reload?

I blame wealth and the hate it causes.

...

I see the buzzards have already started repeating talking points from KOS & HuffPO without even waiting for the body to get cold before trying to wrest a tragedy so it fits into the political fetters forged by years of personal bias. There's little evidence of anything so far except a lone gunman and a sad, tragic attack where 6 human beings died.

Quite honestly, to try and make this about Palin or anybody else shows a similar sort of hate-driven mental outlook to what was motivated the waste of skin pulling the trigger. Those of you guilty of such hate-driven bias really need to take a good long hard look in the mirror. When the first thing that you think of is not, "What an awful human tragedy" but instead "How can I squish this event into my political worldview?" then you have truly lost an important part of yourself. Those of this ilk need to take some time off from hating the 'other guy' and try to piece back together whatever scraps of humanity are left in you.

More info
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1345386/Gabrielle-Giffords-shot-Congresswoman-fighting-life-Arizona-gunman-identified-Jared-Loughner.html

There's another video on the sift here

>> ^Bloocut:
How long has it taken for world citizens to forget JFK and his brother Bobby's offings and the more than apparent conspiratorial nature of these events?-Took about 30-

It seemed conspiratorial at the time, but eventually the emotional effects wore off and it could be approached objectively. The theories requiring a second gunman weren't properly disproven until decades later.

I think the same is true here. Lots of people are still really wound up about this so they're less likely to accept evidence that conflicts with their beliefs. As time moves on, more people will be willing to accept more thorough examinations of the events.

That was incredible. They looked like a bunch of amateurs...

1. They should have assaulted from multiple angles
2. They should have distracted the gunman prior to gaining entry
3. They should have made entry *much* quicker and used surprise and VoA
4. They should learn how to use a sledgehammer properly (and not drop it inside!)
5. They should know you don't arm everyone on the team with full-sized M4s! Pistols and compact subguns are a much better option when storming very confined spaces (like buses, trains, aircraft, ships)
6. They need to improve their aim and practice throwing a lot more (on that note, why throw in a glowstick and not something like, I dunno, a flashbang?!)

That was such a poor display it would almost be funny if it was a training run. Unfortunately it wasn't and people lost their lives, which just makes it sad and frustrating.

Remind me never to go to the Philippines.

Okay... But at 21 feet and closing at that speed a good shot should be able to put 4-6 bullets into him.

He MIGHT be still standing by the time he makes it to the gunman and he MIGHT be able to still deliver a killing blow but he is DEFINITELY going to die before long himself.

Also, BOTH of the blows he managed to inflict were non life threatening, they would have stopped at the bone, the target didn't make any move to block the knife cuts or dodge and the terrain was perfect for the knife weilder (even a park bench or a bush in the way screws the 21 foot rule... As if it needed more problems).

>> ^demon_ix:
Most of the violence against protesters comes from the Basij, as I understand, which is a sort of government-sponsored militia. An army without government responsibility.


From what little I understand, they are basically poor working class, indoctrinated into believing they are in a class/morality war with the more affluent urbanites. There is a few hundred thousand of em IIRC, generally outfitted with motorbikes and clubs.

Nope, no terrorist attacks in the USA 2000 - 2008. Though there was quite a bit of state sponsored terrorist attacks in Iraq from 2003 on.

April;30 0 0 United StatesElettsville, Indiana The Earth Liberation Front (ELF) claimed responsibility for causing over $500,000 in damages to construction equipment in Elettsville, Indiana. Fourteen pieces of logging and construction equipment were destroyed by the perpetrators, who filled gas tanks with sand, cut fuel and hydraulic lines and set a tractor-trailer filled with wood chips on fire. Graffiti found at the scene read, "Go develop in Hell," "ELF" and "This machine is evil." The equipment was being used for a state-run project to build a four-lane highway in the area. In their written statement, the group writes, "the government and developers are mad with greed and there will be no limit to what they destroy until we take away the profit from their schemes."[48]

# United States United States, September 11: Attacks kill 2,997 , and many more later from exposure to toxic dust in a series of hijacked airliner crashes into two U.S. landmarks: the World Trade Center in New York City, New York, and The Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. A fourth plane, originally intended to hit the United States Capitol Building, crashes in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, after an apparent revolt against the hijackers by the plane's passengers.

# United States United States: Anthrax attacks on the offices the United States Congress and New York State Government offices, and on employees of television networks and tabloids.


# United States United States, May: Luke Helder injures 6 by placing pipebombs in mailboxes in the Midwest. Motivation to protest government control over daily lives and the illegality of marijuana and promotion of astral projection

# United States United States, July 4: An Egyptian gunman opens fire at an El Al ticket counter in Los Angeles International Airport, killing two Israelis before being killed himself.
# Israel

United States United States, October: John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo conduct the Beltway Sniper Attacks, killing ten people in various locations throughout the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area from October 2 until they are arrested on October 24.


March 3 0 9 United States United States: Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, an Iranian-born graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, drives an SUV onto a crowded part of campus, injuring nine.


July 28 1 5 United States USA:A woman was dead and five others were hospitalized this afternoon after a shooting at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle building in downtown Seattle by a man who declared he was "angry with Israel."[10]

August 30 1 16 United States United States: An Afghani Muslim hit 19 pedestrians, killing one, with his SUV in the San Francisco Bay area.

October 26 2 United States A pair of improvised explosive devices are thrown at the Mexican Consulate in New York City. The fake grenades were filled with black powder and detonated by fuses, causing very minor damage. Police investigate the connection between this and a similar attack against the British Consulate in New York in 2005.[105]


July 27 2 7 United States Knoxville, Tennessee. Knoxville Unitarian Universalist church shooting, Jim David Adkisson kills 2 people and injures 7 in Knoxville, Tennessee.

17 1 4 United States Dalton, Georgia An explosion at a personal injury law firm in downtown Dalton, Ga., injured four people, including at least one lawyer, and resulted in the death of the apparent bomber in what a federal law enforcement spokesman described as a suicide attack.[212]

December 12 2 2 United States Woodburn, Oregon. Woodburn police Capt. Tom Tennant, and Oregon State Police bomb technician Bill Hakim were killed, and Woodburn Police Chief Scott Russell was critically injured after a bomb exploded at the West Coast branch of Wells Fargo in Woodburn. Customer Service Manager Laurie Ann Perkett was taken, and later released from the hospital after being hit by shrapnel. The explosion happened just before 5:30 p.m. while Hakim and Tennant were trying to open the bomb, which Hakim felt confident was not a bomb. Officers were on the scene investigating a bomb threat called in to the bank at 10:19 a.m., when the explosion occurred. Joshua Turnidge and his father, Bruce Turnidge were charged with the murders.[314]

Hard to tell if it's real or fake. They make sure to stay in camera range for most of it, that's always helpful. Also I wondered why the gunman didn't seem to track the guy as he walked around the counter, as he was an obvious threat, instead he focused on the woman. Maybe he was a dumb nervous kid or maybe it was staged. It would help if there was more info, like where this supposedly happened so you could look for a news report. Whoever wrote the description for this ("The clerk coolly gets up from his perch near the register") sounds like he writes for John Bunnell, that annoying guy who narrates Wildest Police Chases.

If it's fake at least it's not as badly done as that one video where the guy points a gun at the clerk and the clerk's dog bites his arm, then the clerk hoists the dog over the counter to chase after the guy. The "robber" puts his gun arm across the counter sideways, pointing his gun at the wall, so the dog can easily bite into his forearm. I can't believe anyone wouldn't see that as a fake.

Another interesting bit, what seems to get the skater throwing punches is when the gunman starts pointing the gun at the kid behind him as he's saying, "That your brutha'? (brother) Huh? That your brutha'?". Threatening someone else with the gun seems to be what causes the skater to snap.

edit- watching it again, actually he grabs the guy's wrist while the gun's no longer pointing at him. It's probably "do or die" at the point at not giving up control of the gun.

*BREAKING NEWS*a mysterious teenager has positioned himself on top of the local mall with a high powered rifle.amongst the chaos of rifle fire are screams from the lone gunman "I am NOT squirrel boy!" and statements something pertaining to not being gay,nor in love with remotes.back to you jim.

>> ^quantumushroom:
These fking animals just "happened" to be Muslim. Their barbaric "faith" had nothing to do with their being psychotic killers.

QM is totally right...religion makes people irrational and potentially dangerous. His extreme take on his faith (whether Islamic or something else) was probably the catalyst for this behavior.

>> ^newtboy:
RedSky- can you really tell me with all due certainty that gun ownership makes people safer and doesn't empower the criminal who is almost guaranteed to catch the victim without a gun just conveniently in reach? Can you really tell me without a shadow of a doubt that the whole notion that guns make people safer, a very parochially American view is not manufactured propaganda by the US gun industry to serve their own financial interests with a complete indifference to the death of their own countrymen?
I can tell you with certainty that legal gun ownership makes people safer and doesn't empower the criminal as much as outlawing gun ownership does. The criminals, as you say, have many ways of buying guns illegally which are not affected by gun laws, these methods do NOT disapear when guns are made illegal, unless there is a magical way to make all guns disapear.
I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that having the law abiding portion of Citizens armed against the non-law abiding, well armed portion makes the law abiding portion safer. (ask any police officer if he's safer with a gun or without) If there truely were a way to remove ALL guns, that might not be true. I do not know of any such magic.


I cannot know either for certain, because social policy and effects cannot be tested in a controlled experiment as in science. I can though, examine statistics and try to discern conclusions. That is why I phrased my conclusion without certainty, while assertions which aren't based on any theory or data are merely unsubstantiated opinions.

I never claimed guns would disappear. Supply though would significantly dry up over time, and as a result prices would rise. Not to mention the mere conversion to illegality would introduce a significant barrier to entry for the aspiring petty criminal or mentally unstable gunman who with no prior history of crime, probably wouldn't have the contacts to acquire a firearm, at least without considerable difficulty. Again, would guns disappear from organised crime? Of course not, but the cost of their activities would certainly rise at least in the long term.

As for police officers being safer with guns. Yes, duh. You know what else would make them feel safer? Reducing the gun ownership rate per capita.

"But there is no way to perform a double blind test, what the fuck do you tell the shooter? It's impossible. How can you adequately mimic the behaviour of a psychopath? Any person you send in to do that job will do it unflinchingly and with as much speed and clinical precision as their skill would allow."

Simple answer for this one... Take one of the students, even one of them with gun experience and tell them to enter the room and shoot as many people as possible... a realistic goal for a killer. Don't tell them another person in the room has a gun. Once they are hit once or the gunman gets hit, trial over. Do this a few times with a few groups, then compare it to a like study where no one in the room except the gunman has a gun. Look at the numbers and you've got a good study. Science gods appeased. Demonstration valid... and still scary.

"* Guns are used 2.5 million times a year in self-defense."
To be fair, that number is likely an overestimate:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/t1h35xg532770p26/


The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Vol. 86, No. 1 (Autumn, 1995), pp. 150-187 http://www.jstor.org/stable/1144004?seq=2 :
"...research has consistently indicated that victims who resist with a gun or other weapon are less likely than other victims to lose their property in robberies and burglaries. Consistently research has also indicated that victims who resist by using guns or other weapons are less likely to be injured compared to victims who do not resist or who resist without weapons."
"With regard to studies of rape, although samples typically include to few cases of self-defense with a gun for separate analysis, McDermott, Quinsey and Upfold, Lizotte, and Kleck and Sayles (citations in linked article) all found that victims who resisted with some kind of weapon were less likely to have the rape attempt completed against them."

I found that in ten minutes... Apparently ABC had fewer than 10 minutes to look?

Here's a book I found but can't yet vouch for, still:
http://books.google.com/books?id=B1TqrNK3OkAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=gun+personal+protection+evidence&lr=&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0

Since we're all using anecdotal evidence about whether or not guns make a difference, here's some from this week.

http://www.wsls.com/sls/news/local/article/troutville_man_who_shot_intruder_says_911_tapes_are_accurate/33207/

You can find plenty of cases like this in casual news searches. I've had similar problems in my neighborhood over the last year alone where home invaders were scared off by homeowners with firearms. It's true that people without police/military training are not likely to be Rambo in high stress situations like the one demonstrated in the sift. Hell, even with training there is still a large element of chance when sitting in what is essentially a shooting gallery while you're ambushed by a gunman that has the draw on you. However, I don't think that makes a compelling argument for writing off concealed carrying.

Now for some real evidence. The Lott study from the University of Chicago contains plenty of real data on crime deterrance and firearms. Studies done in Florida showed crime dropped significantly after concealed carry laws were enacted. Also, of the crimes reported in Florida between 1987 and 1994, only 18 were attributed to legally licensed owners (of which there were over 220,000). There is a documented connection between decreased homicides, rapes, and assaults in states where citizens can legally carry firearms. Facing a serious risk of death while attempting a burglary or robbery tends to deter people. If that knowledge still isn't enough to stop them, then bullets get the job done quite effectively.

http://www.mtssa.org/lott.htm