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[SalmonGod]

What I'm telling you is the violent culture directs its praise at one thing: Guns.

I don't really see this at all.  It's obsessed with violence in any form.  In fact, violent culture tends to find guns incredibly boring unless they're used in bizarre ways, like gun-kata type stuff.  You want to see blatant cultural fixation on violence, look no further than the torture porn genre of films (a la Saw) which tends to make almost zero use of guns.  I'd also say that flashy unrealistic martial arts get way more praise or glorification than guns.

[GlyphGryph]

Judging by that chart, doesn't it seem like getting rid of handguns should be the optimal goal?

If anything, the chart indicates the ban you support doesn't seem to have any impact on violence rates at all. That's usually a good reason not to do something, not helping.

Generally, when one makes citations and provides evidence, it's supposed to support your case, not oppose it...?

I feel like you're basing your ideology on spectacle instead of reasons and results, and people basing their beliefs on fear and spectacle aren't the sort of people I trust to have say in policy decisions at all. Ultimately, while something like these school shootings are a tragedy, they aren't actually significant on a larger scale in the same way a lot of less spectacular but far more significant stuff is. It reminds me a bit of the whole 9/11 thing, where a few thousand people dying is somehow justification for killing a hundred times that many.

Even if you're right, you're still wrong. Having happened upon the correct conclusion by chance doesn't mean people should actually do what you say, because there's no way to know it's actually the right conclusion.

Again, I'm not saying gun bans aren't the way to go. But you're doing the opposite of helping the cause, as far as I can tell.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

I'm pretty sure I'm one of the last ten remaining people that still watch Martial Arts movies, honestly. The point is: Look at the top movies of 2012, odds are if it's not an animated film or fantasy, it's about pewpew shooting up folks in your way and kicking ass indiscriminately. I won't go into games because we all know how dominated by the FPS that is.

The whole blaming the violent culture bothers me when there's no one acknowledging what it's promoting in the first place: Gun violence. Americans are not more prone to being mass killers than people in other countries, it's just way easier for people to get their hands on the weaponry to do so if they're so inclined [or, you know, crazy without a support system to help them since we live in a lovely country] [with the conditioning that guns are the tool for the job].

Even if you're right, you're still wrong. Having happened upon the correct conclusion by chance doesn't mean people should actually do what you say, because there's no way to know it's actually the right conclusion.

Again, I'm not saying gun bans aren't the way to go. But you're doing the opposite of helping the cause, as far as I can tell.

I appreciate you accepting that guns are the issue then turning around and not caring about it. I get passionate because a) I have a gun that I bought simply for fear of others with weapons, a combination of being robbed at gunpoint and knowing that any jerkoff can go buy a rifle in Washington b) I imagine my daughter as any of these 15k people shot a year by someone who has easy access to a weapon. The problem is noone has a backbone to stand up to the gun corporations and ask for this proliferation of war materials to the public to be ended.

And, honestly, if you don't see the reduction in crime compared to the decades before the ban, you're blind. [I have a feeling you did not see the late 70's and 80's before we finally smarted up and got serious about violent crime] Parsing words and wishing the graph wasn't right doesn't make it any less correct: The ban did reduce crime across-the-board, handgun and rifle crime, but expecially handgun, which kills the most people by the way.

I do not accept the fact that our country needs to be a warzone because it's 'too hard' to handle the problem.

[Loud Whispers]

What I'm telling you is the violent culture directs its praise at one thing: Guns.

I don't really see this at all.  It's obsessed with violence in any form.  In fact, violent culture tends to find guns incredibly boring unless they're used in bizarre ways, like gun-kata type stuff.  You want to see blatant cultural fixation on violence, look no further than the torture porn genre of films (a la Saw) which tends to make almost zero use of guns.  I'd also say that flashy unrealistic martial arts get way more praise or glorification than guns.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Nah, people find guns awesome. Any violence in general. All national media of all countries seem to like violence way more than it is healthy, even going so far as to deliberately misrepresent facts to make it seem as if the rest of the world is going to shits in a downward spiral of crime.

[PTTG??]

I am not opposed to some gun regulations, and in some cases more strict gun regulations. But I don't think that bans are either good or constitutional.

A well-regulated militia. If the elected representatives of the people banned all guns, then hey, you can still totally have a militia armed with swords.

Bonus- it'll cost less than the guns, and they'll be just as effective as anything a civilian can get in case the military turns on us. What are you going to do, shoot the drone swarms?

[Darvi]

And if you're going to revolt, you might as well do it with style.

[Loud Whispers]

A well-regulated militia. If the elected representatives of the people banned all guns, then hey, you can still totally have a militia armed with swords.

It'd be a disorganized militia, armed with swords. An organized militia under the US constitution is the national guard or the naval militia.

[GlyphGryph]

Parsing words and wishing the graph wasn't right doesn't make it any less correct: The ban did reduce crime across-the-board, handgun and rifle crime, but expecially handgun, which kills the most people by the way.

Wait. Wait a minute. Are you seriously, with a straight face, going to argue that the Assault Weapon Ban lead to a decrease in handgun crime? And that this decrease just so happened to

Seriously, now?

Nothing in your graphs even /supports/ that conclusion, forget about the utter absurdity of it on a basic level and your lack of any coherent argument that could possible result in that conclusion. Again, even on the off chance you were right about your conclusion, and I can't really conceive of a way you could be right here in this specific instance, but even if you were, this would not in any way make your argument any less stupid or wrong.

Of course, this about the same sort of logic as

a) I have a gun that I bought simply for fear of others with weapons

so I've got the feeling this is just an entire topic you are incapable of reacting rationally too.

[Nadaka]

A well-regulated militia. If the elected representatives of the people banned all guns, then hey, you can still totally have a militia armed with swords.

It'd be a disorganized militia, armed with swords. An organized militia under the US constitution is the national guard or the naval militia.

No, an well regulated militia is specifically the body of citizens armed with the best military weaponry of the day. Every white male of fighting age was in considered to be a part of the militia.

[SalmonGod]

I'm pretty sure I'm one of the last ten remaining people that still watch Martial Arts movies, honestly. The point is: Look at the top movies of 2012, odds are if it's not an animated film or fantasy, it's about pewpew shooting up folks in your way and kicking ass indiscriminately. I won't go into games because we all know how dominated by the FPS that is.

The whole blaming the violent culture bothers me when there's no one acknowledging what it's promoting in the first place: Gun violence. Americans are not more prone to being mass killers than people in other countries, it's just way easier for people to get their hands on the weaponry to do so if they're so inclined [or, you know, crazy without a support system to help them since we live in a lovely country] [with the conditioning that guns are the tool for the job].

I don't blame violent culture at all.  I find it pretty absurd to do so, really.  Conflict is the crux of all storytelling and violence is most direct manifestation of conflict.  That's never going to change, even if society becomes as peaceful as conceivably possible. 

I just don't believe that glorification of violence in our culture focuses on guns specifically.  Even Rambo style movies with protagonists gunning down tons of bad guys, it's only nameless mooks that get unmemorably gunned down in blazes of wild gunfire.  Plot-important combat scenes (where core conflicts are resolved and the real glorification of plot victory is served) are almost always hand-to-hand.  And I still hold that there's a growing cult audience for the torture porn genre of films -- the most blatant evidence one can point to of an unhealthy obsession with violence as it is literally nothing but shallow excuses for watching people suffer in bizarre and violent ways, almost never involving guns.  Can also be seen as an evolution of the slasher genre, which also almost never involved guns (called "slasher" for a reason).

[mainiac]

People in plenty of other places manage to watch our violent crap and don't kill each other.

[FearfulJesuit]

I'm starting to feel like this is going to get into the sort of argument territory the OP warned against...

[SalmonGod]

Here have something else to talk about.

[Loud Whispers]

A well-regulated militia. If the elected representatives of the people banned all guns, then hey, you can still totally have a militia armed with swords.

It'd be a disorganized militia, armed with swords. An organized militia under the US constitution is the national guard or the naval militia.

No, an well regulated militia is specifically the body of citizens armed with the best military weaponry of the day. Every white male of fighting age was in considered to be a part of the militia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_defense_force
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Meaning_of_.22well_regulated_militia.22

"1. UNDER THE CONSTITUTION THERE ARE TWO WAYS OF RAISING TROOPS.

(a) Directly under the power of Congress u to raise and support
armies." (Art. 1, sec. 8, par. 11.)

(b) Indirectly under (art. 1, sec. 8, par. 14) the power "to pro-
vide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union,
suppress insurrections, and repel invasions." "

[mainiac]

\
No, an well regulated militia is specifically the body of citizens armed with the best military weaponry of the day. Every white male of fighting age was in considered to be a part of the militia.

Specifically?  Where does it specifically say that?