How to avoid shootings
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The recent shooting at Sandy Hook, Conneticut, reminded me of the shooting in Winnenden 3 years ago. In 2009, a teenager killed 15 people at a School in southern Germany. It turned out his father owned many guns legally and took him occasionally to a shooting club. The son played frequently shooting games like "Counter Strike". The combination of learning to kill people in virtual worlds and learning to shoot in the real world was toxic for the young troubled teenager. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnenden_school_shooting The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting now seems to be similar: the mother owned many guns legally and used them, she went through target shooting with her son. The son apparently liked violent video games (probably first-person shooter as well). Again the combination of learning to kill people in virtual worlds and learning to shoot in the real world was toxic for the young person and certainly contributed to the disaster http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Hook_Elementary_School_shooting If we want to prevent these shootings happening again, then we must either make it much harder for children to go to shooting clubs and to participate in shooting sport, or we must make it much harder for underage persons to get first-person shooter games. Or both. What do you think? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_sport -J. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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I think this line of reasoning ("using guns and violent games make people go crazy and shoot people, therefore, restricting access (even more) to guns and games will make less people shoot people. ") is balderdash. Correlation is not causation. Guns and games did not make the person troubled. There are many teens/adults who have access to both real and virtual gun sport who do *not* shoot up schools, malls, or post offices. This is demonstrated by the simple fact of the millions of sales of both guns and gun games every year, compared to the lack of millions (or even dozens) of mass shooting murders every year. Likewise, the wild success of Angry Birds did not create a run on slingshots, nor cause a single undesired building demolition. While we're theorizing without rigor, I assert that access to gun sport and virtual violent games provides a healthy outlet for acting out violent feelings, and working out frustrations. Sans guns, we might have had a stabbing, a homemade bomb, or perhaps something else. Note the school mass *stabbing* in China the same day, with 22 people stabbed. Granted, no deaths reported. I guess that's a comfort? See also, the patriarchy, which teaches that violent outburst is an appropriate form of expression--for men. Note that in 30 years, 61 of 62 gun-using US mass murderers have been men. [see Mother Jones, July 2012, for criteria and sources] And that suggests another key point: these incidents are rare: just 62 in 30 years. Each has it's own particular and peculiar circumstances. To pick just one thing they may have in common, then assert that "fixing" that one thing will prevent any future incident is, at best, naive, and in other proportions arrogant, lazy, and disingenuous. Perhaps it's true that there can be no shootings if there are no guns, but that is never going to happen, without a perfect descent into utter fascism. In any case, as long as there are people who want to kill people, people will find a way to do it. So we must look in another direction. Like a way to help people *not* want to kill people. ~~James On Dec 16, 2012 2:08 PM, "Jochen Fromm" <[hidden email]> wrote: ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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In reply to this post by Jochen Fromm-5
The NYTimes has a nice article about this balderdash http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/opinion/collins-looking-for-america.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0 What I found interesting is how the whole can be different from the parts: first-person shooters alone are harmless, shooting clubs or sports as well, but the combination of both can apparently be toxic for troubled teenagers. A bit like a chemical reaction. -J. Sent from Android James Steiner <[hidden email]> wrote: I think this line of reasoning ("using guns and violent games make people go crazy and shoot people, therefore, restricting access (even more) to guns and games will make less people shoot people. ") is balderdash. Correlation is not causation. Guns and games did not make the person troubled. There are many teens/adults who have access to both real and virtual gun sport who do *not* shoot up schools, malls, or post offices. This is demonstrated by the simple fact of the millions of sales of both guns and gun games every year, compared to the lack of millions (or even dozens) of mass shooting murders every year. Likewise, the wild success of Angry Birds did not create a run on slingshots, nor cause a single undesired building demolition. While we're theorizing without rigor, I assert that access to gun sport and virtual violent games provides a healthy outlet for acting out violent feelings, and working out frustrations. Sans guns, we might have had a stabbing, a homemade bomb, or perhaps something else. Note the school mass *stabbing* in China the same day, with 22 people stabbed. Granted, no deaths reported. I guess that's a comfort? See also, the patriarchy, which teaches that violent outburst is an appropriate form of expression--for men. Note that in 30 years, 61 of 62 gun-using US mass murderers have been men. [see Mother Jones, July 2012, for criteria and sources] And that suggests another key point: these incidents are rare: just 62 in 30 years. Each has it's own particular and peculiar circumstances. To pick just one thing they may have in common, then assert that "fixing" that one thing will prevent any future incident is, at best, naive, and in other proportions arrogant, lazy, and disingenuous. Perhaps it's true that there can be no shootings if there are no guns, but that is never going to happen, without a perfect descent into utter fascism. In any case, as long as there are people who want to kill people, people will find a way to do it. So we must look in another direction. Like a way to help people *not* want to kill people. ~~James On Dec 16, 2012 2:08 PM, "Jochen Fromm" <[hidden email]> wrote: ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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But Jochen... now you are begging the question. Even if it is true, as you
argue, that real-life gun training and violent video games cause problems IN
TROUBLED TEENS, the obvious conclusion would be to try to produce fewer
troubled teens! If you fix that, you don't need to regulate legitimate safety
training or entertainment.
I live in central Pennsylvania. Most every student in my classes has been trained in gun use. They grew up in the video-game age, so most have played violent video games. I can assure you I don't feel at risk around any of them. The idea that we should engage in cultural warfare that REALLY DOES go against the fabric of local communities, in the desperate hope to avoid an infrequent and unpredictable tragedy is seriously flawed. Since this discussion has spilled over onto the list, I will add that there really are better ways of talking about these types of events. Eric On Sun, Dec 16, 2012 04:35 PM, Jochen Fromm <[hidden email]> wrote:
------------ Eric Charles Assistant Professor of Psychology Penn State University Altoona, PA 16601 ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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In reply to this post by Jochen Fromm-5
Jochen, et al -
I think that both of the issues you describe (gun access and surrogate violence in youth) are significant risk factors but neither are necessary nor sufficient to explain (or prevent) these kinds of incidents. I am fairly confident that limiting either or both of these factors would likely reduce the number and/or severity of these incidents. But I think this is *barely* the beginning... and may be as much symptoms as causes. The next dozen paragraphs are more of my anecdotal rattlings framing the basis of my opinions. For the impatient, you might jump to the punchline at the end. Or 2/3 of the way in for my musings about individual vs group rights and responsibilities. I come from a culture deeply steeped in the ownership and use of firearms. I do believe the sincerity of many of those who wish to and believe they have a right to (at least in most of the US) own firearms. I also believe that despite that sincerity, there are others whose sincerity is not even a little informed... they are at best "aping" the convenient explanations and excuses for why *they* need to and deserve to own as many guns (and more importantly as much ammunition) of as many types (focusing primarily on concealable, high capacity, rapid firing, human-stopping or armor piercing examples). While these folks will insist that their firearms are "tools", they have all the qualities of "toys", and in many cases, have few qualities of tools. So while I'm sympathetic with the underlying "right to bear arms", various concepts of individual rights and self-defense, I know through extensive experience that most contemporary gun ownership is a self-indulgent (and potentially risky) behaviour. But I also understand that the Pandora's box of personal gun ownership has been open for a very long time and closing it is never going to be easy or without collateral harms. I also have spent decades developing tools and systems for synthesizing experiences (computer graphics, scientific and information visualization, virtual reality, etc.) and believe in the power of inducing new states of understanding and awareness through synthetic "experiences". Watching movies or even reading stories about extreme violence can be very risky, but the immediacy of a computer game makes something that can be experienced in the third person a definite first person experience. That is the very point of it, naturally. VR has been used by the military effectively in everything from skill training (flight/driving/weapons-systems) to mission familiarization/planning (providing perceptual and even kinesthetic memory of a location and a sequence of events) to after-action, debriefing and even PTSD treatment. So it should not be surprising (to anyone?) that first person shooters can make it *much* easier (technically, socially, and emotionally) for someone to carry out the kinds of massacres that we have seen in the last 20 years or so. The US Government Sponsored first-person Shooter "Americas Army" was overtly designed as a recruiting tool, but was also designed to provide a strong "socialization" element, to not only identify potential "soldiers" but to help lead (or even train) them into the desired mentality/emotional-state long before signing up or arriving at boot camp. A classmate of mine, on the Thanksgiving weekend of 1972, shot and killed his elderly parents in their home with his "varmit rifle", a single shot .22 that they had given him several years before to "plink" at the ground squirrels, rabbits, coyotes and bobcats in the rural areas near our homes. This shooting required that he reload several times (manually) to kill them as he did. This was neither high caliber nor high capacity or rapid-fire. I happened to be in the mountains hunting for deer (with a Bow) with a friend while this was happening, and heard about it when I returned. It was a small town and probably all anyone talked about for months. Everyone was very shocked. Bernie was a amiable, well adjusted, thoughtful young man. He was a year older than me and he was in national honor society, played in the school band, and on the school baseball team and worked as a lifeguard at the local public pool. He was neither an overly aggressive nor overly shy young man. He seemed well adjusted. He had two somewhat older sisters who were high performers in many ways, and Bernie was raised somewhat as an only child, at least through his teen years. The best understanding I have of his actions were a consequence of the (relative) stress he apparently felt to perform up to his older sister's standards. His parents were in their 60's which separated them somewhat from our generation, even more than the 30 or 40-something parents the rest of us had. There was no indication of abuse, physical or emotional. Bernie called the Sheriff himself and waited quietly for them to arrive. He described his actions as if he were a third person watching. He described in detail what he did, but claimed he did not know "who that was" who was doing it. As a juvenile (16 years old) he was put into a juvenile detention facility and released when he was 18 with closed records. He apparently passed the mental health standards of the time or else he might have been put into a mental health facility which does not distinguish adolescent from adult in quite the same way as the criminal system. I knew several of our peers who had contact with him after he was released who reported that he was quite normal. 30 years later I encountered someone who had been in limited contact with him who said that he was rather strange but not obviously out of normal range. Unfortunately he had also taken to collecting guns despite his history and apparently being considered by legal standards unfit for gun ownership, even by the US fairly liberal standards. I suggested to the person who gave me this information that it might be a good thing to alert someone in authority. I'd not be terribly shocked if he ended up on the front page of the paper again. Bernie can't be a lone example. He very likely has a growing gun collection and a growing estrangement from his peers. But I could be wrong, I have very little data. Several of the mass shootings have been close to me in one way or another, so they are not abstract to me. When the Columbine thing happened, my girlfriend at the time had a brother with kids just a few years too young to be at Columbine, but lived in the community and were nearby when the shootings occurred, knew some of the victims families, etc. A good friend of mine had a son going to school at Virginia Tech, my daughter lives 1/2 mile from the Denver theater and could have as easily been at the theater that night as not, and I have cousins who live between New Haven and Sandy Hook, I do not know if they have any personal connections with the victims. The small town I grew up in is the county seat of the infamous Catron County, NM where a County ordinance was proposed *requiring* all heads of household to own a firearm. For the most part they were acting in the spirit of local celebrity legend Elfego Baca. It seemed to be an annual occurrence during hunting season for one or another of the local badass elements to end up in a shooting accident, often at the hands of their own family... a cousin or an uncle... maybe not unlike southern Sicily? Frontier Justice well into the second half of the 20th century? I don't glorify gun ownership (or use) but do recognize it as a reality in most of the rural USA and much of suburbia (especially people coming from rural experiences). As wrong-headed as those who have little or no direct experience with gun-ownership or use may find gun-culture, it is painfully clear how deep and wide gun culture is in the US. I feel badly and responsible for our culture exporting this kind of culture (through movies and video games) to other cultures who have a much better literal relationship with their firearms (e.g. Canada, Europe, etc.) I do believe that the depiction and practice of gunplay, especially in the context of killing other human beings (is there much other contemporary use of guns except to either kill or threaten to kill other humans?), is an obvious and huge contributor to the gun violence (singular or massive) in the United States and I presume the rest of Western culture. Yes I know "hunting"... but even in a semi-rural environment in the heart of the old west I find that to be less real and relevant than some might think (not to be entirely dismissed, but maybe discounted somewhat?). Of my friends who hunt, I'd say 3/4 prefer archery over firearms. The licenses are more available and despite modern compound bow technology, it *is* a bit more sportsmanlike than rifles with scopes with ranges on the order of hundreds of yards). The kicker, in my opinion, is twofold: First, how do we draw a line for the implied censorship, whether it be censoring gun ownership or censoring "speech" in the sense of the creation, publication, purchasing, and playing of computer games; Second, even if we figure out what the "there, there" might be, how do we get from "here" to "there"? I'm not saying we don't have to try, and I'm not saying there might not be a path... just that it is much more subtle and hard than many would like to imagine. This may seem academic to those of you who live in Western Europe where the problem of private gun ownership has been mostly settled long ago. It may also seem academic to those who have never lived amongst a gun-culture and who believe it is simply a matter of changing some laws and jacking up the enforcement of them. The USA and I think most of Europe has settled the question of censorship on the extreme liberal side... it seems to be (almost?) never appropriate to limit speech, especially when the speech is "passive" or third person or fictitious or descriptive rather than prescriptive. Perhaps we do use peoples' direct incitement to violence and sedition as an indicator of their intentions or a surrogate for their actions, but it doesn't take much to make such things indirect and therefore only subject to (legal or social) suspicion, not direct reaction. The neo-nazi skinheads might be the best example of groups who have learned how to play right up to that line without going far enough over to get their asses handed to them by the rest of us. In this spirit, I don't know how we can get the violent games out of the hands of teens... perhaps the same way got alcohol, drugs, and tobacco out of their hands (not so effectively)? The movie rating systems already try to deal with this and I would claim to a fairly ineffective level. 80's action-drama TV series such as the A-Team in the US are examples of glorifying contemporary gunplay, even if the bad guys were always very bad and also bad shots. - Steve Footnote to James' response: I think I agree with your point that there is a much deeper problem exposed in this kind of violence. However I still think that there are *qualitative* if not quantitative problems with the US Gun Culture, whether exhibited in our fetish around handguns and assault and sniper style rifles, or in the violence and gore and cold-bloodedness of our movies and our computer games. The arguements (which I think you only reference but not necessarily endorse) about various forms of violent activity (contact sports or computer games) being an important way to redirect or sublimate otherwise natural violent instincts are at least misleading if not very wrong. mil Footnote to Eric's response: I also know lots of young people who were trained in the use of and have access to guns who are also exposed to violent movies and video games. Statistically I feel fairly safe, you are correct that despite the high profile and tragic nature of these events, they are fairly infrequent (but on the increase?), but that does not mean I am not disturbed by the potential in every one of those kids to blur the line between their fantasy lives and their real lives. Oh yeah... and the adults born and raised to this as well... it's not like turning 18 or 30 necessarily removes the risk... though maybe some of the more questionable hormones.
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Why would anyone need an AK-47? We started with muskets but the founding mothers could't dream of what would come. Time for some sort of sanity here.
Now to be clear, I realize prohibition simply doesn't work. But in this case, it might make a difference, small, but none the less.
I don't want a neighbor with a bazooka. Or hand-grenade. I'm fine with well educated gun owners with hand guns and hunting rifles. But do we really want neighbors with ground-to-air rocket launchers?
-- Owen
On Sun, Dec 16, 2012 at 4:26 PM, Steve Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:
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Re: How to avoid shootings
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In reply to this post by Eric Charles
Isn't there a danger of going back to paralysis by analysis...
happens every time (so far). Tell the grieving parents that.
Robert C On 12/16/12 3:37 PM, ERIC P. CHARLES
wrote:
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In reply to this post by Owen Densmore
Owen -
I think this is the conditions too much of the third world where we (and our surrogates) have been meddling are living under. e.g. Palestine, Afghanistan, Somalia, etc... but that is another question all together. Cordingly - >Isn't there a danger of going back to paralysis by analysis... happens every time (so far). Tell the grieving parents that. I think this is one of the risks of being a considered individual or group... and it butts up next to knee jerk reactions. It is actually *hard* to stay on the fence, in my experience. All - I personally would like to see few if any rapid-fire and high-capacity handguns *or* rifles in the hands of most "civilians" and then a major downgrade in the hands of the civil law, then in the military. I think we would have a lot fewer tragic accidents for sure, and probably a few less tragic events like this most recent one if this were the case. But that doesn't mean I see a clear path to making that happen nor think a useful number of people in our culture would agree to those restrictions voluntarily. Sigh! I recently received two handguns when my father passed away. I learned to shoot them when I was young (along with his rifles which went elsewhere). One is the M1917 Colt .45 revolver my grandfather carried in WWI and by my father during infrequent periods where his job with the US Forest Service included a minor law-enforcement aspect. I'm not that eager to simply melt it down, though I deliberately decline to keep any ammunition for it. I've made it through my entire adult life without more than passing contact with handguns and I think I can make it the rest of the way without aiming or firing one. My wife wanted me to disassemble it for her to make it into an art project. For the moment, we have compromised on her using the spare barrel (the original one, which had been replaced when it sustained some minor damage) for a project. We'll see what comes next. Perhaps trigger locks. But that only blunts the overt risk of keeping these two handguns intact... it doesn't exactly address the larger question of gun-culture and related violence-culture. Carry On, Steve ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: How to avoid shootings
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Is it me or isn't it obvious that without campaign finance reform we
won't be able to pass any reasonable gun control laws because of the
NRA?
Robert C On 12/16/12 6:23 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
Owen - ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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I know we have some Aussies on this list who may be able to keep me
honest, but an Australian friend of mine, in response to this debate
and this incident claimed that until 1996, the Australian gun
ownership was not that much different than our own. As the
consequence of a mass shooting at Port Arthur in 1996, their newly
elected PM, (Nationalist?) John Howard organized a massive effort to
change the gun control laws. It is claimed that this, along with
subsequent "gun buyback" efforts, yielded a significant downturn in
gun violence (and completely eliminated gun-massacres?).
Australia has a lot on common with our own "wild west" where guns are *most* popular. Some significant differences, however, include: No Revolutionary War (and the subsequent desire to have a right to bear arms); No Civil War (and a subsequent over-abundance of disenfranchised confederate soldiers practiced in gunplay and seeking glory (or at least a new life) in the wild wild west; and no significant Firearms Industry (as opposed to the US which has perhaps the largest? So yes, the Gun-Lobby has a big play... and campaign finance reform (and other efforts to blunt political corruption?) might help. Is it me or isn't it obvious that without campaign finance reform we won't be able to pass any reasonable gun control laws because of the NRA? ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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And you forgot our genocide? For some reason I imagine that the Australian genocide was less vicious. I hope the Australians on the list will weigh in on that. N From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steve Smith I know we have some Aussies on this list who may be able to keep me honest, but an Australian friend of mine, in response to this debate and this incident claimed that until 1996, the Australian gun ownership was not that much different than our own. As the consequence of a mass shooting at Port Arthur in 1996, their newly elected PM, (Nationalist?) John Howard organized a massive effort to change the gun control laws. It is claimed that this, along with subsequent "gun buyback" efforts, yielded a significant downturn in gun violence (and completely eliminated gun-massacres?). Is it me or isn't it obvious that without campaign finance reform we won't be able to pass any reasonable gun control laws because of the NRA? On 12/16/12 6:23 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
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In reply to this post by Steve Smith
On Sun, Dec 16, 2012 at 09:17:51PM -0700, Steve Smith wrote:
> I know we have some Aussies on this list who may be able to keep me > honest, but an Australian friend of mine, in response to this debate > and this incident claimed that until 1996, the Australian gun > ownership was not that much different than our own. Gun ownership here has always been much less than in the US. I grew up in WA (that's Western Australia, not Washington), and there the highest calibre rifle that was legal was the .303, and only by licensed shooters and farmers. Other people could only own a gun if it were kept permanently at a registered firing range. Automatic weapons and handguns were strictly forbidden. The weapon of choice for bank holdups was the sawn-off shotgun, as there was no other way of getting a firearm small enough to smuggle into a bank discretely. The eastern states of Australia (where I live now), had apparently much more liberal gun laws, which poses a problem, because there is no border control between the states (as you might expect), apart from occasional fruit fly inspections. I was shocked when I moved over here to find police officers carrying pistols, as that wasn't the case in WA (it might be now, though!). > As the > consequence of a mass shooting at Port Arthur in 1996, their newly > elected PM, (Nationalist?) John Howard organized a massive effort to > change the gun control laws. It is claimed that this, along with > subsequent "gun buyback" efforts, yielded a significant downturn in > gun violence (and completely eliminated gun-massacres?). > After the Port Arthur massacre, stricter, and more homogenous gun laws were brought in. I'm not sure if automatic weapons were ever legal, but one of the measures was an amnesty on automatic weapons, with a buy-back scheme that got a lot of these guns out of the community. Port Arthur sticks in our memories as being a once in a lifetime massacre, not once every few years, as appears to be the case in the US. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics [hidden email] University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
On Sun, Dec 16, 2012 at 10:56:44PM -0700, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> And you forgot our genocide? For some reason I imagine that the Australian > genocide was less vicious. I hope the Australians on the list will weigh in > on that. N > > > Sadly, our treatment of the Aborigines was pretty appalling, right up to 1968, when they were finally given the vote and recognised as citizens of our country. And that included mass genocide, in places like Tasmania, and kidnapping of children by the state. It looks like our generation has finally made some effort to apologise, and fix up the mess created by previous generations, but there is still a long way to go before there is true equality between aboriginal and non-aboriginal people. Cheers -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics [hidden email] University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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Thanks, Russ. At least somebody had the grace to apologize. I don't think
the word apologize is in our national lexicon. Can you IMAGINE what would happen if Obama were to apologize on behalf of the nation for our infection, slaughter, displacement, and confinement of indigenous Americans. [shudder] N -----Original Message----- From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Russell Standish Sent: Sunday, December 16, 2012 11:08 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] How to avoid shootings On Sun, Dec 16, 2012 at 10:56:44PM -0700, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > And you forgot our genocide? For some reason I imagine that the > Australian genocide was less vicious. I hope the Australians on the > list will weigh in on that. N > > > Sadly, our treatment of the Aborigines was pretty appalling, right up to 1968, when they were finally given the vote and recognised as citizens of our country. And that included mass genocide, in places like Tasmania, and kidnapping of children by the state. It looks like our generation has finally made some effort to apologise, and fix up the mess created by previous generations, but there is still a long way to go before there is true equality between aboriginal and non-aboriginal people. Cheers -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics [hidden email] University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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In reply to this post by Steve Smith
Russell, et al.,
In fairness, the Port Arthur shooting was far worse that most such events in the US (I don't want to compare specifically with the current one). Also, Australia's population in 1996 was just not quite 18 million. The population in the US is currently over 314 million. Just looking at those numbers, rare events, such as might occur once every 20 years in Australia would be expected to occur annually in the US. This is not to make light of the problem. It is to point out that we are not very rational in determining relative frequencies, and that we often have unrealistic ideas about how controllable people are, practically speaking. Owen, While I agree with you that no one ever has a need for an AK-47, that isn't really the issue. I would love to live in a world in which such weapons don't exist. However, given that we live in a world where they do exist, there are still deep questions about how to restrict who does and does not get them. I suspect that if we were really able to effectively restrict gun ownership in this country, you would still see the occasional crazy person go on a killing spree. You don't need a gun to kill people, and most of the events involve weapons quite limited in comparison to an AK. For the record, I don't own a gun, and I am not against reasonable gun control. I am, however, highly suspicious of snap judgements made in the face of tragedy. Eric On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 01:02 AM, Russell Standish <[hidden email]> wrote: On Sun, Dec 16, 2012 at 09:17:51PM -0700, Steve Smith wrote: > I know we have some Aussies on this list who may be able to keep me > honest, but an Australian friend of mine, in response to this debate > and this incident claimed that until 1996, the Australian gun > ownership was not that much different than our own. Gun ownership here has always been much less than in the US. I grew up in WA (that's Western Australia, not Washington), and there the highest calibre rifle that was legal was the .303, and only by licensed shooters and farmers. Other people could only own a gun if it were kept permanently at a registered firing range. Automatic weapons and handguns were strictly forbidden. The weapon of choice for bank holdups was the sawn-off shotgun, as there was no other way of getting a firearm small enough to smuggle into a bank discretely. The eastern states of Australia (where I live now), had apparently much more liberal gun laws, which poses a problem, because there is no border control between the states (as you might expect), apart from occasional fruit fly inspections. I was shocked when I moved over here to find police officers carrying pistols, as that wasn't the case in WA (it might be now, though!). > As the > consequence of a mass shooting at Port Arthur in 1996, their newly > elected PM, (Nationalist?) John Howard organized a massive effort to > change the gun control laws. It is claimed that this, along with > subsequent "gun buyback" efforts, yielded a significant downturn in > gun violence (and completely eliminated gun-massacres?). > After the Port Arthur massacre, stricter, and more homogenous gun laws were brought in. I'm not sure if automatic weapons were ever legal, but one of the measures was an amnesty on automatic weapons, with a buy-back scheme that got a lot of these guns out of the community. Port Arthur sticks in our memories as being a once in a lifetime massacre, not once every few years, as appears to be the case in the US. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics [hidden email] University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ------------ Eric Charles Assistant Professor of Psychology Penn State University Altoona, PA 16601 ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
On Sun, Dec 16, 2012 at 11:51:07PM -0700, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> Thanks, Russ. At least somebody had the grace to apologize. I don't think > the word apologize is in our national lexicon. Can you IMAGINE what would > happen if Obama were to apologize on behalf of the nation for our infection, > slaughter, displacement, and confinement of indigenous Americans. > [shudder] N > For the record, it was our PM Kevin Rudd, who did it as one of the first things upon being elected: http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=AU&hl=en-GB&v=b3TZOGpG6cM For years, the general public had been calling on the previous PM John Howard to say sorry.... Cheers -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics [hidden email] University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: National Appologies - was "How to avoid shootings"
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In reply to this post by Russell Standish
Nick, et al.,
I have mixed feelings about the notion of national apologies for long-past events. Who is it that needs to apologize? And who will they apologize to? To stick with your example, what has Obama ever done to Bill Baker (current head of the Cherokee Nation)? I have similar feelings when discussion comes up about "reparations" for slavary. The redutio ad absurdum is to wonder when 'my people' will finally get a share of all those tourism dollars that Egypt collects from the Pyramids. Frankly, I think the US owes apologies to many people around the world for recent actions. "We" probably also owe apologies to some Native Americans and African Americans for current discrepancies in treatment (such as the atrocious sentencing rates and durations for African American males). But I have trouble feeling the same way about things that occurred several generations ago... Maybe if I came from a culture with a greater emphasis on ancestry I would feel differently. I could see apologizing on behalf of my ancestors for things done to other people's ancestors. I would be fascinated to know what other people think about this, especially those who have witnessed the effects of such efforts. Eric On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 01:51 AM, "Nicholas Thompson" <[hidden email]> wrote: Thanks, Russ. At least somebody had the grace to apologize. I don't think the word apologize is in our national lexicon. Can you IMAGINE what would happen if Obama were to apologize on behalf of the nation for our infection, slaughter, displacement, and confinement of indigenous Americans. [shudder] N -----Original Message----- From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Russell Standish Sent: Sunday, December 16, 2012 11:08 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] How to avoid shootings On Sun, Dec 16, 2012 at 10:56:44PM -0700, Nicholas Thompson wrote: > And you forgot our genocide? For some reason I imagine that the > Australian genocide was less vicious. I hope the Australians on the > list will weigh in on that. N > > > Sadly, our treatment of the Aborigines was pretty appalling, right up to 1968, when they were finally given the vote and recognised as citizens of our country. And that included mass genocide, in places like Tasmania, and kidnapping of children by the state. It looks like our generation has finally made some effort to apologise, and fix up the mess created by previous generations, but there is still a long way to go before there is true equality between aboriginal and non-aboriginal people. Cheers -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics [hidden email] University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ------------ Eric Charles Assistant Professor of Psychology Penn State University Altoona, PA 16601 ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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In reply to this post by Jochen Fromm-5
Unsubscribe
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I handled this request.
The link in the footer of list emails should now have a corrected link for managing subscription options including unsubscribe.
-Stephen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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In reply to this post by Owen Densmore
Quail hunting?
On Dec 16, 2012, at 4:43 PM, Owen Densmore wrote: Why would anyone need an AK-47? ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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