Apparently the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is NOT a good guy with a gun

The topic was the heroism of the woman who talked down a would-be mass murderer.

It's alright if a thread goes a little off-topic as long as the members understand that the conversation needs to return to the original subject matter at some point.

 

Well, let's see:

But we don't know what agenda he purports to know.

And you have this insight into my mind, how?

What gun debate is this?

Perhaps you should look at who posted what. Here's a hint: It was not me.

So you admit you don't have a clue what I said in the OP? So can we count you as going by all the knee jerk comments that other people made rather than what I actually said? Ever dawn on you to just ask me?

 

Firstly, I highly recommend you look up "conversational implicatures"

I don't profess to know Cogito's agenda, but the words he wrote out, "I" felt summed up the thread.

Unfortunate you should think too deeply into what I said,. Sure, I passively aggressively said "perhaps", but the fact remains one-up-man-ship was had.

What Gun debate is this? I refrain from responding impertinently this time, but when you employ so provocative a title which appears laced with sarcasm regarding a very controversial issue in the United States you are, unwittingly or otherwise, entering a forum of gun discussion. However, please excuse my brief reading where you stated this is "not a gun debate thread". Naivety aside, I clearly failed to ready this and was swept away in the moment and I apologize for that.

And I did look at who started the religious angle, perhaps you should check yourself in fear of making more baseless assumptions if that is your prerogative.

In your final retort you clearly miss my use of ignorance to establish a point. But we can't blame you for that.

Forgive me for not using direct quotes, but I imagine you know what I refer to with each line.


I'm beginning to like this thread more and more ^.^

 

Ginger just likes to share interesting stories. Where's the harm in that?

All her title is saying is that violence can be stopped without the use of arms. And that's exactly what the story proves. Agenda or not, her position here is harmless. She's stating a fact, and providing the evidence behind it. It's a catchy title, no doubt, and can be interpreted as loaded. But that's what writers are supposed to do.

What's more interesting, are the various interpretations by forum users over the implications of the event, and how it can be used in arguments spanning gender, religion, and gun regulations.

 

That is actually exactly what I was getting at in my other posts. It was my failure for not reading the exact post from her saying "this is not a gun debate thread", regardless that only makes one of my comments redundant.

 

None.

Holy shit. Someone takes what should not have been a political thread, but did go political, and managed to swing it back to the forum's Prime Directive: Writing.

Very interesting indeed.

 

I don't see how you can claim this thread was not intended to be political. Her statement was, 'See? The NRA is wrong and here is proof.'

Anyone who thinks that that kind of verbiage won't begin a political discourse is naive.

 

This is where you and I differ JJ. I don't look for political motive and agenda in everything. And when it is present, I am more than able to ignore it because frankly, it bores me to tears. Regardless, read my post again. I said "should not have been a" not "was not intended to be a". You've misquoted me to give force and fire to your abortive segue

I am many things, JJ, but naive is not one of them. I won't play your game of semantics here in your use of the third person to avoid direct reference. Watch yourself.

 

I said naive, there were a dozen other adjectives that I could have used. I chose the high road.

Again, you made a statement: '...what should not have been a political thread...' You are stating that according to you, the thread should not have discussed gun control, which would be the definition of 'political' even though she asserts the inaccuracies of the NRA.

Now you backtrack and say that you don't 'look for political motive and agenda' and that you ignore political overtones.

Well, you can choose to 'not look' or 'ignore' political undertones, that doesn't mean they're not there and in this instance, the political nature of the thread was obvious.

 

Well color me naive or color half the people in this thread as having shoulder chips. I'm going with the latter since I have more insight into the OP than anyone else. If I was naive about anything, it was about the weight of the shoulder chips in this forum.

I didn't have a gun debate agenda, I had a, 'wasn't this fantastic' agenda. I had a, 'the world is not all bad and horrid' agenda. I had a, 'not every bad guy with a gun is a hateful person' agenda.

Yes, the title says LaPierre was full of it. He was, and clearly this is an example providing evidence he was. And if anyone wants to debate guns within the topic of the thread, that only goes as far as to LaPierre's nonsensical claim that teachers and school personnel should all be armed. Which, for those that recall the quote correctly, they should recognize the context was discussing, not gun control laws, but saying arming school personnel was the way to best address the problem of school shooters.

For those of you who need a refresher:

That's not a call for changing gun laws, it's a call for arming teachers, claiming that is the only alternative.

If anyone wants to have a gun in their house because they are more worried about the boogeyman than they are about the data that says that gun is more likely to be the source of their gunshot, that's their business. It's their home. It has ZERO to do with the thread topic.

If anyone thinks they need to run around the neighborhood all Zimmerman-like with a firearm, that's sad, but I hold no illusions. The world is full of people like that and the rest of us are best off accepting the fact and acting accordingly, taking our own safety measures with that in mind. Again, nothing in LaPierre's comments in context or in my OP is about this topic.

NOTHING in my thread title or OP said one word about gun laws. And, by the way, the post about the OP hero's god beliefs was nothing more than a personal attack on my atheism. Again, nothing to do with anything I posted.

So, now that that's been cleared up, anyone still interested in the thread topic? Or should I just ask the mods to close it?

 

You can cutsie with the winks and smileys all you please. The road you are actually taking is the one that draws my less than amicable attention. That is a fact.

I'm not playing this game with you. I'm not engaging you in this mode of reductive prattle. I am speaking to you as a mod. And what I have to say I have already said.

 

Oh, so you are free to have a discussion as a regular member with those you agree with, but when someone holds you to task for your own words, you use your position of authority to silence dissent. Understood.

I won't answer Ginger's post because its a long post ranting about gun laws, the NRA and Zimmerman all while claiming not to have a political agenda. Amazing.

 

When you put it that way, it doesn't sound like Ginger was being THAT political.

 

Way to completely ignore my post and only confirm your bias.

Not the first time, and not a surprise.

 

Again, words which you misquoted and twisted to give you your segue. Please put the martyr's robe back on the hanger, back on the rack. It's such a played look.

 

This is what the topic should be, ignoring the political themes in the thread title. I guess in a perfect world...

 

I saw this thread and immediately thought, "Oooh, Looky! Another GC vs JJ (or IP) battle." I could have resisted, but I was bored, so I bit. But the twinkle, twinkle doe eyed innocent act is more unbecoming than the moth-eaten martyr robe.

Can one's intent not be presumed based on previous actions?

 

No, especially not when one draws assumptions from only a few observed interactions.

Yes, I'm a liberal, of the Progressive variety and for the record, that is capitalist, not socialist as Progressives have been falsely accused of being. Yes, I'm an atheist, I've not made that secret. I speak my mind, clearly that is obvious within a few posts.

How do you go from that into concluding the half dozen false things that have been asserted about this thread?

 

To address the OP, the woman (and everyone else in the school) was very lucky. I think this is actually the first time I've ever heard of someone talking a gunman out of killing people. Most of the time these things don't end so well. Regardless of whether or not you believe in God or gun control, you have to admit that a lot of luck was involved, and I'm grateful for that.

 

The only thing I asserted was my belief that the original post contained political notions and reading Ginger's post it is even more abundantly clear this was the case.

I never had a problem with the political underpinnings and only expressed disagreement when someone claimed it had none.

 

Hooray, an on topic post (yours too 123456769) tries to rescue the thread.

Here's the thing I thought was so great (and it is in the OP but was ignored), this woman really cared about the kid, it showed. So the luck was in the kid crossing paths with such a caring person. She didn't look at him as some horrible person, she treated him like I imagine she treats all the kids in that school. How cool was that?

 

Then what do police negotiators do for a living?

 

I had never heard of it, either.

I haven't read Dawkins' sarcastic post yet (and for the record, I have mixed feelings about him; half the time, I think he is brilliant, and the other half of the time, I agree with Lemex that he is too smug for someone whose knowledge of science is far lower than that of many religious folk), but based on Emily Watson's own Youtube video on the incident, it's best summarized in the following manner;

*Guy politely and respectfully shows interest in a woman.

*Woman demonizes man for being creepy, insensitive and daring to "sexualize" her, whatever the hell that even means.

Modern feminism; it's a mental disorder.

 

It's not Emily Watson, it's Rebecca Watson. But you're close about the rest of the story except the part about generalizing something meaningless you call "modern feminism".

 

Strange; why did I confuse her with a middle-aged British character actress?! My apologies to Emily Watson. Rebecca Watson was the name of the harpy.

Great post, and that was indeed my whole point. I wasn't trying to show that any view was "correct", only how incredibly lame cherry-picking single incidents to support one's political biases is. So I wrote a completely identical post to the OP, except I linked to a different story, and came out with the opposite conclusion.

The OP didn't quite get this.