what they should do is to make music and art education compulsory. make every citizen have to learn to play an instrument, any instrument.

I think this would helpthe mental health state of the country, the violence, the feeling of disenfranchised people, and bring much joy to everyone's lives.

jon boy, do those stats include 18-19 year olds, who are actualy adults?


Note that the CDC child gun death figures are typically half of the figures that the gun control lobby publishes. The difference is in the definition of a child. The gun control lobby counts young adults that are 18 or 19 years old as children, but they do not count 20 year olds as children. You can choose from one of two possible reasons, depending on your level of cynicism: 1. The standard CDC age groups used to go from 0-19, 20-39, etc and the gun control lobby couldn't figure out how to select a custom age group. 2. Counting 18 and 19 year olds as children doubles the number of so-called child gun deaths, and more child gun deaths means more support for gun control.
In 1999 there were 1776 gun deaths in the 0 through 17 age group and 3385 gun deaths in the 0 through 19 age group. By subtraction we find that there were a whopping 1609 gun deaths in just the 18 through 19 age group. Historically the 18 through 24 age group is the highest crime-committing group. At age 18 part-time drug dealers leave school and become full-time drug dealers. Despite the propaganda from the gun control lobby, criminals in general and drug dealers in particular are the group of so-called children most likely to be shot by their fellow criminals. You can verify this by reading the local gun death news stories in any city newspaper. School shootings are so rare that every one gets national television coverage, but drug dealers are shot so often that they are barely mentioned in their local newspaper.

i guess you can argue the definition of a child all day, people still get blown away for no reason.

That would be ideal but sadly Rob, not everyone is like this. The majority of people aren't interested in making any artistic statement or doing something as productive as creating music or art. Like I said though, it's an ideal thought.

^Yeah, I've found most people want just to get rich/laid and only use music as background for fun times with friends.

And even then, I'm not sure that even if everyone could play an instrument they'd produce something listenable. Best case scenario is a utopia in which the arts flourish, but it's more likely we'd end up with some sort of karaoke on musical instruments...

i think that mainly has to do with cultural differences: failure is not at all accepted in japan, and this leads people to seeing suicide as their only way out a lot quicker...

when your business fails in europe or america, it is embarassing and humiliating at most, but it's not like the ultimate shame in your life, ith no solution.

oh and suicidal people really need help. they get in a condition where they seem to be stuck in a tunnel and all they see is the end of that tunnel (death) as the only solution to their problems. it is impossible for them to see any other way to fix things. my uncle had been going through a depressed phase, and one event (his partner going away after a fight) tipped him over the edge and left him unable to see the circle of family and friends around him, ready for him (they were there, and they were at his funeral too, all 800 of them). all he could think of was death as the solution so he got a shotgun and blew his brains out in the bathroom. no one had a chance to save him, and it left a huge group of people behind with an enormous feeling of sadness and guilt. another talented and nice guy lost: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NP0uGOvuVsU

(my uncle is singing on the right, on the left is his friend who posted this video. he killed himself earlier this year, not being able to cope with his best mate leaving like that, and left behind a wife and two young children)

firing a gun is fun as fuck so i'm gonna buy one and shoot it at inanimate objects. would i ever shoot someone? it depends, and hopefully i'll never have to find out. as for laws i could give two shits right now, laws are jokes anyway. oh, statistics are a joke too.

Well, I give up. It's a cultural thing, unfortunately your cultural thing feeds an industry that feeds the cultural thing back even more, and then feeds an endless cycle of power/death/horror that is witnessed by other poorer nations.

I'll get back to it when I develop ploesj powers of saying what I'm saying without sounding like a total bitch.

But I'll leave you with some questions:

Is everyone fit to have a gun?
Do a few hours of traning, no criminal background and not being admitted into a mental home make someone worthy of having something in their hands that put others at risk?

It's insanity.
That's even easier than getting a driver's permit, no? Doesn't that seem odd?

Question 1: No. But I think the number of folks fit to carry one no doubt greatly outnumbers that of those unfit. Again, most people don't want to kill someone...

Question 2: If that's truely the case, like so many have said, we shouldn't be allowed to own cars. More people die by automobile accidents each year than guns...not even worth looking up the statistics on that one it's so obvious....

No offense, but I think you just enjoy having something to bitch about.I can relate some days.

No offense part two: Should someone who has openly stated having emotional/mental issues in the past be an authority on this issue? I think "yes", for yr own life. maybe it's crazy for you to own one, not everyone else.

the pro gun people keep coming up with silly comparisons like cars kill people too and etc. cars take you from place to place, guns are made for shooting things. maybe you just have a really stupid blind spot? thats how it seems anyway. i am sure the deer population can be kept in check some other way.

Not with all the wilderness around here, no way. + deer meat is super tasty.

says the one who adores charles manson.

I must be completely crazy, yes.

I mean, I'm so crazy I trust facts and numbers over personal views. That's how crazy I am.

OOOOOoOooOOOh....

Charlie isn't in a mental hospital...again, please get your "facts" straight.

have you ever fired a gun before knox?

KNox knows a lot about guns, she's read the statistics. She doesn't need to fire one.

The psychology of owning a firearm is interesting.

How many buy a gun just to have some outlet to prove their quasi-individuality? Like buying a pack of cigarettes once you turn 16. Sway's all about that, isn't he.

Again, never have owned a gun, but see what you are getting at. I DID buy into buying cigarettes (at 19...) because I liked the effect they had on me while drunk. This slowly became a full blown addiction. I must admit, even before smoking I thought it was cool in some strange symbolic way. Definately very sexy. I remember seeing some of the older girls smoke when in middle school, a mouth watering image of "I don't give a shit". Course at least some of 'em did, that's why they started smoking to begin with.

But guns, nah man. I have fired a rifle on a few occcasions. Didn't do much for me, but I can see it having the same stress relief benefits on some as I get out of playing my guitar. 'Course, i think my guitar offers a sense of "quasi-individuality". Almost any decision anyone ever makes sans shitting/eating/sleeping does.

Kinda like a strange friend of mine who likes to take her laptop into the restroom and take pics of herself while pissing. Totally pointless, but still...sexy.

Guns are def. sexy in that "I'm not gonna take any shit" kinda way. Course it can be more about the image, but....at the same time, I ain't thinking about breakin' into their houses. Best of both worlds, ya know?

Oh, the joys of replying before someone finishes modifying their posts.

Guess pbradley changed his mind + decided most start smoking at sixteen (as opposed to 18) as a method of quasi-individuality. Boy, I almost thought he wasn't cool for second there, glad he changed it.

Actually I was thinking of the legal age to purchase cigarettes in California.

Which is 21, so I was way off.

FOR REAL?!?! That shit's crazy, man....18 here...21 for booze. I guess some things are good about the south.

I disagree. The difference I find is the intention to implicit and explicit individualtity, the latter being 'quasi-individuality.' Perhaps it's because you view all individuality as explicit that you think I mean 'any decision anyone ever makes' but that's not what I mean. Purchasing my guitar, for example, was not intentionally an explicit gesture of individualism.

But, it still was regardless. Unless of course you had no intentions/fantasies of ever letting anyone (sans yourself) hear you play yr instrument.

I see where yr coming from (I think)...things just don't work like that in my mind.

I could have sworn it was 16 or 18 when I was around that age.

It really wasn't because buying a guitar wasn't a big thing around the people I knew. A few of my friends owned guitars, so did my brother. There was nothing explicitly individualistic about it.

And, no, I'm not that bothered to have anyone else hear me play. In the rare occasion that I do, it's for the song's sake and not my ego's.

Hence "Sway's all about that, isn't he."

Loud 'n clear.

But clearly ya cared enough once upon a time to take enough action to actually start a myspace page for yr music. I dug yr stuff....I just have a hard time believing it was all for the song's sake. I'm not saying it wasn't, at all, but everyone wants others to like (and sometimes even hate...) what they do. Art is about the overall individual/audience experience. I mean, unless of course you have no interest in taking credit for what you do? Would you not mind if I stole one of yr songs and made millions off of it? If you say "no", + honestly don't mean it, there is more ego involved than you would have me believe. If you say "no", and do mean it, you're probably one of the most beautiful people to ever walk the planet. If you say yes....yr argument is invalid.

No. Of course nothing I can say can prove that I'm sincere but I don't mind that.

And the reason I made a myspace was more as an effort to 'complete' the songs more than anything. A song can be 'in writing' for as long as I live unless there is some way to take it away from me, thus the need to publish. After that, they're old. I've moved on. Share them, sure.

Without guns there would be no gangsta rap. Without guns life would suck.

Maybe, in some instances. There's your hunter who is keep alive a tradition, the paranoid who keeps a gun because he's afraid of the government, and then I think there are those who buy them for the coolness factor. There seems to me to be a very limited uses of a gun in America today. I think the explicit individualism may be one possible reason for owning a gun (or smoking, for that matter) but certainly not the only one.

But then there's the consitutional argument, but that's the stock argument that obscures all the real reasons one would buy a gun.

I can appreciate that, even though I feel it moves slightly away from what I was getting at. Really, this can go no where anyways....just like the ongoing gun debate....

There can be no right and wrong when there are pros and cons to both sides (I suppose this sums up the whole gun thing for me....). I just, again, stand closer to the side of the fence that happens to be pro gun.

A happy ending??????

What I dislike is that the liberal platform has become more gun friendly than in the past but in the way of seeing gun ownership as a less important issure than others rather than out of principle. That was largely my opinion about guns before that shift. So now I feel like I'm towing the party line, which sucks.

Yes, I've fired guns before. No, I don't feel the desire to own a gun and don't really understand the appeal to. As for gun related deaths, I'm skeptical that gun control could make a substantial impact on those numbers. I think there are other, more obscure influences over those. Even further, I'm now living in country on the other side of the world. It's an apathy sandwich with cynicism sauce.

Gotta love this way of thinking...

Go talk to the people of New Orleans who, after the hurricane/flooding and the complete disregard by the AUTHORITY/powers-that-are-supposedly-protecting-our-security had to get on top of their houses/businesses and hold Old West style standoffs with looters and hardened criminals escaped from the local jails, PROTECTINGTHEIR LIVES AND PROPERTY.

It just takes ONE act of "god"/nature to destroy the thin veneer of society and rules and law that we all choose to live by.

It can happen anywhere.

When Hurricane Ike hit Houston, my area of town (near downtown and some iof the city's worst neighborhoods) was without power/electricity for 6-15 days straight.

That is 1-2 weeks without police protection, alarms ssytem working etc.

would have loved a gun then

and the title of this thread is quite misleading

there is no PRO-GUN "movement" in USA.

gun ownership is a right given by the Constitution of the country.

what exists is a concerted effort by many people who fear government intrusion into our personal lives fed by the ANTI-gun movement.

That is the only thing that should be called a "movement" because they are the ones trying to change how it is, to change the constitution or run circles around it.

according to nik, that was a lie made up by the media.

haha

never, but this thread made me go check out the guns at wal-mart yesterday.

then i picked up a hunting license booklet, they keep them by the guns-- i have a fishing license (don't do it much, cuz i hate sweetwater fish, but eh). however, the prospect of having an elk in the freezer is truly mouth-watering. then again it's not easy so i might start with quails and turkeys or something along those lines.

i guess americans really are like this then:

just for the record assless chaps are comfortable.

Just like the Greeks were a sefaring nation and it shows in all their modern culture, the US (a young nation still) was a nation of explorers, settlers, loners, misfits. It still shows.

so yes, many americans were like yosemite sam.