The Roll-Call of the Deaths at School...

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Neville Briggs
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Re: The Roll-Call of the Deaths at School...

Post by Neville Briggs » Tue Feb 27, 2018 8:20 am

G'day David. It is easy to be misunderstood on these brief comments. I was not equating a gunman to a medical procedure. There seems to an inconsistency in the argument in the US.
Neville
" Prose is description, poetry is presence " Les Murray.

Terry
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Re: The Roll-Call of the Deaths at School...

Post by Terry » Tue Feb 27, 2018 3:34 pm

Hi David
They may insist as you say - nevertheless the blood flows daily to this day,
and though we don't approved, we still tolerate it.

I suppose it's not so much the religions, but the evil people who get control of them.

Sorry if I've got away from your original post; of course we all agree it's horrible.
It doesn't matter what administration is in power it still goes on - not all Democrats are anti guns either.

Terry

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David Campbell
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Re: The Roll-Call of the Deaths at School...

Post by David Campbell » Fri Mar 02, 2018 10:14 am

Yes, Terry, there are a few pro-gun Democrats, but the pro-gun lobby is overwhelmingly located on the Republican side of US politics. That's where most of the NRA money goes. Obama couldn't even get tighter background checks through the Congress because of the power of the NRA-fuelled gun lobby. It's interesting to see that Trump has just been making noises (in a televised bipartisan meeting) about lifting the gun-buying age to 21, expanding background checks, and maybe even looking at a ban on assault weapons. He actually accused a Republican of being afraid of the NRA! But, given Trump's history of backward somersaults, I'd be amazed if he follows through apart from, maybe, a token gesture. The NRA will get in his ear about the votes he'll lose from his ultra-conservative constituents...the backlash to what he said has already begun. Unless the NRA is somehow disempowered, I doubt that anything effective will happen in the gun control debate. And more people will die.

As far as religion is concerned, yes, the blood continues to flow. But that's the nature of religion...it attracts extremists, and always has. It's not so much a case of tolerating it as not being able to do a great deal about it. You can't ban religions, and people will always interpret religious dogma in ways they find appealing. That's a problem when it becomes an obsession, an absolute conviction that they are right and everyone else is wrong...therefore the "unbelievers" have to be eliminated. Human history is littered with horrific examples, and the pattern continues today.

David

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Stephen Whiteside
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Re: The Roll-Call of the Deaths at School...

Post by Stephen Whiteside » Fri Mar 02, 2018 6:11 pm

America's gun laws are horrendous, obviously, but I wonder if that's the whole story.

I found this article on mass murderers in Malaysia two hundred years ago very interesting:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/10/us/r ... llers.html

Perhaps if the perpetrators received no publicity and no notoriety, it would also be very helpful.
Stephen Whiteside, Australian Poet and Writer
http://www.stephenwhiteside.com.au

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David Campbell
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Re: The Roll-Call of the Deaths at School...

Post by David Campbell » Sun Mar 04, 2018 4:47 pm

Trouble is, there's no way such events aren't going to be publicised. And the publicity can, in this instance, actually serve a purpose if it finally leads to some substantive changes in the gun laws...but I'm not holding my breath. I suspect Trump merely offered a carrot to the Democrats because the meeting was televised (a bit of "look at me being president" drama) and he'll walk away from those ideas at a rate of knots.

Cheers
David

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