Chaos in USA

[prospector]

"Gun murders involving ordinary US citizens run at approximately 3,000 deaths a year".


," that is Americans killing Americans almost 40,000 per annum."

Something does not add up??
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[boing]

First John, read the numbers again and you will see that your statement about Americans killing Americans at 40,000 a year is totally incorrect unless you want to include Americans killing themselves, as Americans, by suicide in that group.

Since you seem to have trouble with comprehension I will help you. About 24,000 of the deaths are suicides. This is indeed a dreadful figure and I personally find this more distressing than the number of criminal on criminal murders, it tells me there is an enormous failing in the mental health system in the US and most people would readily agree with this. Some people feel compelled to suicide and if a firearm was not available they would follow the same path by other means. Plenty of other means are available, prescription drugs, illicit drugs, razor blades, motor cars and so on limited only by human ingenuity and the depth of their depression. I really do not think you can blame the firearm in these cases unless you are also willing to blame pharmacies and alcohol.

Of the remaining 14,542 murders about 11,500 are estimated to be criminal against criminal and I suppose some people feel this may be bad, young lives ended early etc., but frankly I have trouble feeling much sympathy. These people are otherwise pushing drugs, carrying out violent acts, pimping, stealing, all to the detriment of the community so if they "off" each other without harming anyone else I accept it, as they obviously did, as one of the risks of their chosen occupation.

This leaves us with 3,000 murders in a population of 330,000,000 million. As far as I can interpret this figure includes all other murders, crimes against harmless citizens, crimes of passion, revenge for various reasons. In the US in the year 2018 there were 36,560 deaths in automobile accidents. Clearly both the murders and the automobile deaths are both a tremendous waste of human life but I can't help but notice that every time someone is shot there is a massive outcry but automobile deaths, which actually far exceed true murders by a matter of ten, are accepted as a fact of life (or death). What we do not know is how many of the auto deaths were inflicted on passengers and pedestrians but it possibly exceeds 3,000, this is murder. I will start taking the firearms deaths more seriously when the hypocritical motoring population gets their act together.

I hope that helps John.

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[John Hill]

When an American commits suicide that is an American killing an American.

American criminals killing each other are Americans killing Americans.

'Ordinary' American murders are Americans killing Americans.

I have not commented on motoring deaths as they are outside what I am posting about and that is how accepting you are of Americans killing each other by firearms (or even motoring accidents) compared with your reaction when a few Egyptian and Saudi criminals killed a mere 3000 in 911.

[barkingmad]

It’s reassuring to observe that we’re back to post # 1 in this thread!

Find the ‘eejit’ who started it and take them out and shoot, oops, that was me?

Let’s just reset the body counter and start all over again.

‘Scuse me whilst I change my spots and merge with the background...

[boing]

Sorry BM, I forgot we are dealing with John.

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[TheGreenGoblin]

It’s reassuring to observe that we’re back to post # 1 in this thread!

Find the ‘eejit’ who started it and take them out and shoot, oops, that was me?

Let’s just reset the body counter and start all over again.

Praise the lord and pass the ammunition!

[boing]

Ultimately tribalism is the fall back position for all of humanity. This fallback happens more or less rapidly depending on the pressures but if the pressure is maintained tribalism will eventually arise as night follows day. Some people are tribalist in their day to day lives, others have buried tribalism so deeply that they think it can never re-arise, some are aware that tribalism remains active in them under an assumed veneer of civilisation.

Tribalism is the basis of our group survival for millenia, it will not go away because it is buried too firmly in our sub-conscious. We see tribalism in the military bond, we see tribalism in the police bond, we see tribalism based on skin colour or shared language. We see the value of tribalism because we know that where one man cannot stand a group together can.

When tribalism breaks out into the open it has very few options to ensure its success and the result is never pretty and now our leaders, through ambition and incompetence, are encouraging tribalism for their own ends but they had better be prepared to survive the storm if they succeed.

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[fin]

When an American commits suicide that is an American killing an American.

American criminals killing each other are Americans killing Americans.

'Ordinary' American murders are Americans killing Americans.

I have not commented on motoring deaths as they are outside what I am posting about and that is how accepting you are of Americans killing each other by firearms (or even motoring accidents) compared with your reaction when a few Egyptian and Saudi criminals killed a mere 3000 in 911.

John, sad to say, but a fairly long and healthy respect for you just tanked as a result of this. Very disappointing.

[PHXPhlyer]

Boing:
#682
+1

PP

[John Hill]

When an American commits suicide that is an American killing an American.

American criminals killing each other are Americans killing Americans.

'Ordinary' American murders are Americans killing Americans.

I have not commented on motoring deaths as they are outside what I am posting about and that is how accepting you are of Americans killing each other by firearms (or even motoring accidents) compared with your reaction when a few Egyptian and Saudi criminals killed a mere 3000 in 911.

John, sad to say, but a fairly long and healthy respect for you just tanked as a result of this. Very disappointing.

You have a problem with my post? Is it a fact that lives are not judged as being of equal value but of value according to the nationality and other considerations?

[prospector]

"Ultimately tribalism is the fall back position for all of humanity"

Certainly is in this country, New Zealand. Road blocks established by tribes to protect tribal homeland from the Covid 19 virus

Even though this move was illegal, nothing was done by any authority to prevent this happening..


https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/te-manu-kori ... 9-outbreak

[boing]

John,

The problem with your post is that you can't seem to have a logical thought.

For completeness the statistics generally published in the US record all types of firearm deaths whether the cause is legal, illegal or accidental and this is as it should be because we need the big picture. However the usual criticism made against America is that it awash with violent crime and counting suicides in with the violent crime numbers is a favourite statistical deception used by critics of the US to bolster this image. In the United States, as in New Zealand, suicide is a perfectly legal choice for a person to make, the how or why is a personal choice and firearms cannot be blamed as a cause of suicides although many fatuous arguments try to prove differently. This is why I carefully divide the firearms deaths into suicide, voluntary deaths, and murders, involuntary deaths.

And if an American chooses to use the legal option of suicide who the heck do you think he is going to kill, a Kiwi? But he is not killing another American he is killing only one, himself, and that is his choice as a free human being in a free country.

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[PHXPhlyer]

Boing:
Don't forget the firearms suicide subset of" Suicide by cop"

PP

[boing]

PP

Yes, they may be a significant number of those cases, the trouble is that all of those types of statistics are buried in the final 3,000 or so total and they are never broken out. That sump area contains criminal on good guy figures, sometimes accidental deaths, crimes by the emotionally disturbed, revenge killings etc. All of these numbers are important to understand but we never see them due to understandably poor record keeping and under-analysis of the fine data. My own suspicion is that there are a very great number of mental health issues hidden in the figures but, to put it bluntly, who psycho-analyses a corpse? I think your suicide by cop statistics will be in this mental health area, either mental health or shot while under the influence of drugs.

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[PHXPhlyer]

Boing:
Fully agree about the mental health aspect.

PP

[John Hill]

No matter how you slice and dice the figures there are a lot more people killed each year by firearms than were killed at 911.

You may be happy enough with the firearms toll but then why did the 911 deaths require such a savage revenge on hundreds and thousands (millions maybe) of mostly innocents in far away lands?

[Dushan]

I think the response thou your question can be summed up in a simple phrase "don’t mess with Texas".

[boing]

John,

The "firearms toll" as you put it builds up slowly over a period of time by a number of individual acts. The assailants involved are available to US justice. All neat and relatively simple.

In the case of 9/11 3,000 people were killed at one time in a deliberate act of terrorism by overseas based terrorists (at least the ones that survived) who were rapidly out of the reach of US law enforcement.

Obviously different techniques would be needed to punish the terrorists or those that supported them and there are going to be different consequences.

I personally think that the liberation of Iraq was handled well and it could have been a great success but the reconstruction under Paul Bremer, Rumsfeld and Cheney was an absolute cluster f. that was responsible for all of the problems we have had with the country since.

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[John Hill]

WTF did Iraq have to do with 911 perpetrators?

[John Hill]

I think the response thou your question can be summed up in a simple phrase "don’t mess with Texas".

Like this you mean? https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opini ... 36739.html

Take note of the closing comment about Iran.