Thursday, December 06, 2007

The 2nd Amendment...

I was going to talk about Romney and his religion speech, but I wanted to mention something I've always been opposed to which is the right to bear arms. Well not the entire amendment but I think it needs to be updated. I understand people who want to have a hunting rifle in their home. I even understand people who want to have a handgun in their home for protection. I even understand people who take cross country road trips on their motorcycles who need to carry a pistol (or any concealed handgun) for protection. 

This is an SKS Assault Rifle. The one that kid used yesterday at the mall. 














What I don't understand is the right to own Assault Rifles. I mean the name alone is reason enough to outlaw them. Assault? Really? Who are these people who need assault rifles? Are they secret agents working for the government? Are they in the Michigan militia, which has done nothing to save anyone in my lifetime. Are they super cops gone rogue defending our country from bad guys? 

More often than not, it seems the only thing people are buying them for is killing other people, and not while protecting their homes. Instead they're killing people at school or in the Sudan or, like yesterday, in a mall in Omaha. I'm hoping that some future president will have the balls to give a big f-you to the NRA and crazy white folks in middle America who think it's their right to carry assault rifles. 

It is an old, outdated bill. It needs to be modified. It needs to eliminate the sale of anything more than a handgun. It's absurd that I can go out and buy a gun. I understand that people want to take their guns out and go to a shooting range and hit some targets or whatever it is they shoot, so why not have a system where you use the guns the shooting range owns. My solution would be to get rid of all the guns but that's not really feasible. My point is that this country needs to change a lot of it's practices because it seems to be going to hell in a hand basket.

 That's all for now. More in a bit. Finally editing subaru diaries volumes 2 and 3. Both are pretty funny. As always, go big...

-M, p, z & shredder

oh ps - grammy noms out today. I hate the grammys but it reminds me that the year is winding down and I need to do some best of lists. Many blogs on the horizon as I am still jobless and bored. 

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think the real problem is people who play violent video games. Like Halo.

Swami Says said...

I assume you're joking. But for the sake of argument, you're wrong. People either have a propensity to kill or they don't. Growing up in a gang environment, or in a war or any other life where people use real guns is what makes people kill others. That and being insane.

Video games, movies, music - these things have little to no influence over 100 percent of people that are sane. If someone thinks Eminem means it when he says things, then they need to stop taking crazy pills.

Is there any guy our age you personally know who hasn't watch G.I. Joe, The A-Team, TMNT and other "violent" shows, who has killed someone? No. Because they're not crazy and or mentally handicapped.

Anonymous said...

mentally handicapped? sigh...not politically correct any more!

Swami Says said...

Really? What is the PC term. My friend Shawn works for a company that helps them get employment and monitors them, but he calls them his clients.

Mentally challenged? Differently Abled? That one always makes me think they have super powers though...

Anonymous said...

The former American Association for the Mentally Retarded now prefers the terms Intellectually or Developmentally Delayed. I work with a lot of kids with DD and they would punch me in the face if I called them handicapped.
Also, people with DD usually aren't violent unless they have a comorbidity of a behavior disorder such as: oppositional defiant disorder, antisocial personality disorder, conduct disorder, etc.
Just thought I'd teach you someting cuz you said you were bored.

Swami Says said...

Thanks kels. I actually had to look up the word 'comorbidity' which is cool. R

Anonymous said...

I actually was joking. BUT, the assertion isn't per se "wrong." I might agree with you in principle, but the fact is that several professional organizations (American Academy of Pediatrics, AMA, American Psychological Association, etc) have all done studies documenting how violent video games increase kids' propensity for violence. The rationale presumably is that violent video games foster a culture of acceptance, and that the exposure increases the threshold of tolerance, for such behavior; the counter-rationale is that people can differentiate virtuality from reality and that people who are actually affected by video games already have the inherent propensity for violence. It doesn't really matter which side you agree with. I just think it's a little (forgive the analogy) George Bush-ish to simply dismiss those who engage in violene as mentally handicapped or "developmentally delayed" (doesn't that imply they'll eventually catch up?) or whatever the preferred nomenclature of the week is. There's really a myriad of social and psychological factors at work.

Swami Says said...

Agreed.

Ha. He said, "catch up." That's funny, but really, isn't that what it implies? I mean how long is it 'delayed' for?

Brown Guy said...

I'm not defending anything here, but I have to jump in and say that there is a dearth of evidence (whether empirical or otherwise) to suggest that there is a strong correlation between video game violence and propensity to become aggressive or commit grossly violent acts among youth. A great deal of this "research" exists in the form of small-scale surveys or other empirical studies with dubious definitions, variables and control measures. I've pasted a few links below. Decide for yourself.

http://culturalpolicy.uchicago.edu/conf2001/papers/freedman.html
http://scienceline.org/2006/11/20/ask-hsu-videogames/
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050815-5205.html

Anonymous said...

An SKS is not an assault rifle. The definition for "assault rifle" is a rifle that fires smaller rifle rounds (like 5.56mm) fully automatic. The SKS cannot do this. It's just a regular rifle.