I'm f'ing outraged!!!!!

[HollyBerri]

'Swiss Army Assault Rifles'?

In every home?

Eeeeep!

Errrr, Paddy, I think you must be talking about 'Batman and Robin', with Arnold playing Sub-Zero, but I don't know why, since that was a pretty useless movie and what it could have to do with this I have no idea....

Certainly, people can change.... but they can change just as well after suffering the consequences of their actions as before (in order to avoid those consequences)....

I do believe that people (even children, in this case) are responsible for themselves and should receive the full brunt of community rage and grief, not tempered by "age" or "mental infirmity"... Let's face it, it's a given that a person who would do such things is quite ill. Unless you grew up with a serial killer/rapist for a mentor, it is not as if you learned it from your parents, after all.

But as to children, certainly there should be some penalies for the immediate family group as well. What always infuriates me is the question, "What of everyone who was <u>right there</u>?" What of the people who saw this person every day: the neighbors, the teachers, the parents? It's not as if they did not know something was wrong-- people always <u>know</U>.

But it's always "someone else's problem". Yeah, well, let's see how long that attitude holds when you too are punished for the actions of your children, when you are punished for not sharing your concerns and information with the community.

I'm not eager to live in a society where members are summarily killed or maimed for transgression; I'm well aware that the road to fascism is very very short. But I'm even more alarmed by the degradation of the genepool as these lunatics are allowed to live, and breed, and influence the unstable.

The animal in me understands perfectly the phrase, "Kill 'em all; Let God sort 'em out." It is His job, after all. Or what does 'Vengeance is Mine, saith the Lord' mean then, anyway?

---------------------
Holly

[Gurm]

I've posted on this before. There are townships in Texas, USA where everyone not only owns a gun but carries it on them at all times. They haven't had a violent crime of ANY SORT in 10 years. No robberies, no shoplifting, no rape, no murder, no fistfights, no NOTHING.

So it can work.

- Gurm

------------------
Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[Chris B]

Gurm... No it cannot work. From what i can read from your post, what you are talking about is small towns in the middle of nowhere where a gun is more a tool than it is a weapon. Many of these people need a gun... people i the big cities don´t!!

And even if it could work... why in the world would you argue FOR such a thing ?
How about figuring out a more constructive solution so that nobody would have to carry a weapon! (not that I have any bright ideas myself). Isn´t that the REAL way to solve this problem ?

Chris B

[Dilitante1]

Gurm has a point, where there is the strong chance that an individual is carrying a weopon for self defence, dont you think it is a strong deterrent? I have read about the town and the effects to crime are well documented. Crime stats have dropped to nil. As much as it seems to be the solution, it unfortunately is not. Some/most communities across the country/world have too many issues to even try this.
I do feel that there needs to be a stronger deterrent than what the system of justice now shows. My home state wants to ban the death penalty rather than investigate changing the current law (hanging). People who commit crimes only have a vague sense of what the penalty might be. I feel that PUBLIC EXECUTIONS are the ultimate deterrent. For hundreds of years the public was allowed to witness the death penalty of serious crimes. Nowadays, it is behind closed doors (secretive) and not much of a lesson for those who may commit the same types of crimes.
Another issue is that the laws (worldwide) need to be enforced. Many societies dont put forth the effort to curb crime, only to push the rules they feel they have the time to. In the states we have tons of rules for gun crimes, but the president chooses not to enforce them and then pushes to create more rediculous laws to outlaw evey type of gun whether it has a legitimate use or not.

(end of rant)

-Dil

[CHHAS]

Well, after having cooled off for a while, I've done some thinking.

Personally, I'm all for the death penalty. If someone does something to deserve it, he should die.

The big question is, what do a society do, when it decides not to use the death penalty ?

Try to follow me here. In the case I mentioned, we have 7 young boys, who deserves a long, long sentence, no doubt about that.
However, if you put a 16 years old boy in prison for 10-15 years, it's not going to give him any chance to mature, quite the opposite, the only thing he'll learn in prison is how to be a criminal. He'll get criminal friends and rolemodels.
When he'll get released at age 30, he's spent over half his life in prison, there's just no way he can make it in the 'normal' society.

So what do we do ? Let him rot in prison forever ? Well, it would be fair, but if we won't kill him, we'll probably not keep him locked up forever either.

A mild sentence, while grossly unfair, might just be the only way to teach young offenders to be good citizens. This requires a hell of a lot of effort on society's part, we need to remove the youth from his environment, and give him rolemodels that can teach him right from wrong, something his parents obviously haven't been able to.

I think society has a responsibility to care for the people, if you put a 16 years old boy, who due to lack of proper raising doesn't know right from wrong, in prison for 10 years, you're giving up on him. He doesn't have a chance, why not just kill him then ?

Now, this may sound like I'm defending the bastards, which I most assuredly am NOT.

I'm just caught between thinking kill the f**kers, and thinking what did we, as a society, do wrong for them to think that it's ok to do this, or just not case about whether is was right or wrong ?

I'm seriously considering whether or not I want to bring children into this world, right now I wouldn't be able to say to my future son or daughter: 'Look my boy/girl this is Denmark, be proud to live here'.

[This message has been edited by CHHAS (edited 29 May 2000).]

[Vlip]

Well Jorden I don't know what your definition of real army is, but it's a fact that our army isn't a standard one. We don't have a professional army, here (almost) every grown up male citizen gets trained as a soldier. We still have all the equipment a modern army should have. So don't know what you mean by real.
That's still not the problem here.

I'm far more concerned about these people taking the easy way and saying "Just kill 'em". That's not a solution, never should a society kill his own people.

Gurm:
Don't make me laugh, we could do that to, take a village in deep mother Switzerland, where everybody knows everybody, give them the order to take their rifles with them when they go out and see that in fact nothing happens! Great! Nothing would have happened anyway.
Now take a real city and do the same. And I'd bet that a lot of people whould get killed!
And honestly do you really want a world where each time you have to go buy an apple at the grocery store you need to take your rifle with you?
Do you honestly think that everybody is able to handle such a dangerous tool?
How many people would get killed by accident (not everybody is able to aim right with them), would you call that collateral damage?

Dilitante:
Public execution?
Do you really want to return to the french "terror"? Where head where falling publicly in front of the people? That's primitive and absolutely not compatible with human rights. Before complaining about the others bestiality, you should look yourself in a mirror! Read Dostoievski's book "Brothers Karamazov" [not sure about the title, it's translated from the french one], where he speaks about his trip to the public place where the Csar had ordered his execution. Only these chapter should make you think twice to the bestiality you want to apply.
Yeah they are awefull, yes they did horrible things, yes they don't earn to live. But this doesn't allow you to be as bestial as them. If the society kills his own people, do you really think that would be a good example for your kids?

Would anybody be able to go to a public execution with his son/daughter, watch it and tell him/her "I'm proud of my country?"
I would not be able to say such crap.
I'd have the feeling that I'd have regressed in history!

The sad thing is that I do not have a solution to this problem. I still want to be able to look at me in the mirror in the morning and tell myself: I'm a human and I don't allow anyone to kill anybody if I can stop it.

Vlip

P.S: Holly, sorry for the "swiss army assault rifle". I was quite mad at some of those posts and got carried on. So I didn't see the heavyness (and unusefullness) of this sentence. I just wanted to say that those guns are not little "toys" but real M16 like guns. Please excuse me.

[This message has been edited by Vlip (edited 29 May 2000).]

[Jorden]

That was exactly what I meant, Vlip, but pardon me for my poor choice of words

Real had to be professional, and maybe all-day / all-time army.

I thought I read in a Tom Clancy novel (not a good reference I take it), that the Swiss don't have a professional army, but when it comes to taking up the arms, in case of a foreign invasion, every man (and woman?) is capable of defending Switzerland, because they have their weapons and complete equipment at home. Bar the tanks and other heavy machinery ofcourse.

You still do have those Swiss Assault Forces? (or what are they called, operating in the same way as the SAS and Seals).

Jord, straying off topic maybe, but sorry for that.

[Joel]

When interviewed criminals stated that their two greatest fears were:
1) Getting caught.
2) Confronting a gun owner.

Joel

What do you think should happen to the two men who kiled 5 and wounded 2 Wendy's employees because they didn't want to leave any witnesses alive? They bound their hands, taped their mouths shut, had them knell on the floor and then shoot them in the head excution style all for a mere $2,300.00. I personally don't like the idea of my hard earned money being used to support their asses the rest of their lives when I see local school systems having to make personel and other cuts due to lack of money.

And let's get off of this America vs the rest of the world bullshit. This is a world wide problem.

[This message has been edited by Joel (edited 29 May 2000).]

[Vlip]

Well in this case we effectively don't have a real army.

We still have our "famous" Territorial Grenadiers (SAS like troops) and our even more "famous" Heavy Grenadiers (specialised in urban assaults).
Even took the time to find a link with photos of them: http://www.mypage.bluewin.ch/territo...ere/isone.html
It's in german but the photos speaks from themselves.

For the woman chapter: Yes woman can but need not apply to the army. The only limitation is they are not allowed in any "Combat troops". Why? Don't ask me!
And yes we all have the complete equipment, including ammo, and no I don't have "my" tank in my garden ;-)

Vlip, off topic to speak to Jorden ;-)

P.S: Don't take the "famous" wrong, but they are still indeed famous in Switzerland (not always for good, but still).

[This message has been edited by Vlip (edited 29 May 2000).]

[This message has been edited by Vlip (edited 29 May 2000).]

[Vlip]

Joel:
Yes it his indeed a world wide problem, but it's a fact that the US suffer more of it that we do.
That's not a critic just a constatation.
I know what I speak about, I lived 6 months in the US, that helps to understand few things.


And for your story, that's also really sad, but don't let money get in that debat. It's not about money but how do you think human beings should be treated by society.

Vlip

[Joel]

Oh your right. Living in the US for 6 months makes you more of a expert than someone who has been living here for 40 years. Now don't get me started. It only seems that we have more problems because we have a higher population and it is more widely publicize. That's what happens when you are a world leader. We have populations in some of our smaller states that are greater than some foriegn countries.

Joel

[Vlip]

Oups la, you misunderstood me.
I didn't want to say I was more an expert than you. Just that I did live there few months and that I did understand few things down their (inbetween, I consider US like my second home after Switzerland, I like it a lot, even with those problems). I never wanted to say I understood US more than you. That's still better than criticizing US without ever having put a foot on it, isn't it?

But for your higher population and more widely publicized arguments. They are plain rubish to me. Your population is not so much higher than the european continent one, and our horrible stories are still making a lot of noise in our countries. Don't you dare believe we start to read US news before reading european news just because you're one of the most powerfull nation of the world.
I still affirm that european countries have less problem than you have.

And I never said that there weren't any place in the US where there isn't any problem.
I wasn't speaking about states or cities problems but nationwide (if not worldwide) problems.

So cool down and excuse me if my sentences weren't good enough to avoid you misunderstooding me

Vlip

[Jorden]

We have populations in some of our smaller states that are greater than some foriegn countries.

How about cities, Joel? Comparing NYC to The Netherlands, I think we're on par

But it is a worldwide problem. Not only guns, though. Think of the countries where people slaughter eachother over land, money and whatnot, with knifes, axes and whatever they can find (stones!).

If you want to erradicate all weapons from the face of the earth, would you throw in your cutlery as well?

A-bombs and the likes are considered weapons of mass destruction, but look at any country not capable of getting these weapons: They kill many a thousands on a yearly base without any of the above.

Ever since our ancestors found out that you kill someone else with a stone, weapons have been made. And more gruesome: used.

I don't think we'll (humans) ever be able to do otherwise.

Jord.

[Vlip]

Thank you, Jorden, for saying the truth, even if it is a sad one.

Vlip

[Joel]

Sorry I misunderstood you. I just get tried sometimes of listen to ppl trying to blame the US for the rest of the world's problems. I think the number one thing that needs to be done is we have got to stop being so easy on criminals. We have got to start executeing the law of the land and stop looking at a person race, money, or who they know in determining justice. Justice is suppose to be blind.

Joel