Okay, so it isn't the guns

[The Blue Flower]

When do we stop glorifying violence? The Dark Knight is a very violent film. We buy our tickets and get our popcorn and settle in to be entertained by violence. What a weird juxtaposition, for the Aurora killer to pop out beside the screen and show us what violence really is. It's anything but entertaining. Who knows where the next conversation about reasonable regulation will go? After so many massacres, maybe, once again, it won't matter. But like everything else, real change begins within us.

[Edweird]

1. Humans in general like violence. They are violent by nature.

If you want people to stop going off the deep end we need to enter the 1st world - Universal health care, controlled immigration, corporate regulations, higher wages/better standard of living - all that horrible 'socialist' stuff. You can't change nature, but you CAN change their circumstances.

[flamingdem]

4. I call BS again. Other cultures don't output this level of violent entertainment

that's our crappy corrupt money grubbing culture doing that.

We need a change, civility before it's too late

[Edweird]

8. Of course you do, despite all evidence to the contrary.

You're entitled to believe whatever you wish. Here's something for you to chew on:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

Here is, again, proof that your "USA is the worst" nonsense is nothing but made up BS.

You might want to consider doing a little traveling outside the US.

[flamingdem]

10. You still have no answer to 10 thousand USA deaths from guns vs. 46 in England

We are out of the norm many times over.

[Edweird]

15. What, exactly, does that have to do with violence being human nature?

I've already shown you that the UK is the most violent nation in Europe. It's even more violent than South Africa which leads the world in intentional homicides. So, less people get killed - show me where fewer assaults, beatings, attacks and what-have-you occur. I am talking about violence in it's entirety - you are hung up on one specific metric which only tells a tiny part of the story. Humans are violent by nature - it is not specific to American 'culture'. You cannot refute that.

[flamingdem]

16. Consume the fact of 40 odd gun deaths vs. 10,000 and get back to me nt

[Edweird]

17. It has nothing to do with my statement that humans are violent by nature. NT

[Tejas]

2. My parents beat respect for human life into me.

Spare the rod, spoil the child, next thing you know he's landing on a carrier deck acting like he's a hero.

[geckosfeet]

3. Part of the problem there is that most people have simply not experienced

real violence. Movies, tv, video games - they are entertainment. Shooting video game screens, or watching a movie is not real violence. It may be glorifying it, and it may serve to desensitize people somewhat, but it is quite different from havin real violence done upon your person, or watching helplessly as someones lifeblood spills out of them.

[PDJane]

5. Yes. This is it.

We see people being shot and stalked and beaten and abused so much that we are desensitized...unless it happens to be someone we love who is being abused. We lack empathy, in too many cases, because the victim is someone else. An 85-year-old gets knocked down and gassed at an occupy protest, and the response of too many is that she deserved it. A black man is beated and drowned by the police, and he asked for it. Migrants die of thirst in the desert, and they shouldn't have been there anyway, one less of 'them'.

I don't understand it, seriously. It seems to me that this is just insanity.

[suston96]

6. Nicely said, Blue Flower....Hope I can quote you.....NT

[The Blue Flower]

19. please do

thanks

[mother earth]

7. Everyone is being desensitized to violence, it's everywhere, even real events in MSM.

When you add the lack of two parent child-rearing homes rampant today, drug and alcohol use, stress...it's a recipe for disaster. It's showing not only in violence, but substance abuse and crimes of all kinds.

[Moostache]

9. No.

I cannot go with anyone on the path of blaming the violence of a film for the actions of a lunatic.

Bullets and the guns that propels them killed people last night in Aurora, CO.
Your anger in the violence of a film is like being mad at flames that kill people in an arson attack.
The film was not responsible, nor were the stars, the director, the crew nor was the motion picture industry itself.

MILLIONS of people see violent images and films every day. ONE lunatic carried out violent acts that are more attributable to the ease with which he can obtain the instruments of death than the images of it.

Viewing "Saving Private Ryan" did not lead to anyone re-enacting the storming of Omaha Beach...
Viewing "Braveheart" did not bring back torturing people on the rack or drawing and quartering...
Viewing "Pulp Fiction" did not bring on a rapid increase in homosexual kidnappings and rapes...
Viewing "The Amazing Spiderman" did not lead to an increase of child abandonment...
Viewing "The Dark Knight" is NOT, I repeat NOT, causing MILLIONS of viewers to have violent outbursts.

One deranged individual carried out acts of unspeakable horror; but in a sane society, we would NOT be debating the images on a screen, but rather the BULLETS IN THE GUNS - NOT GUN, BUT GUNS, PLURAL, AS IN MORE THAN ONE, AS IN SHOTGUN, HANDGUN AND SEMI-AUTOMATIC RIFLE.

You want to create a safer society, start with an outright ban on hand guns and all but single shot bolt action rifles for hunting.
Increase the price of a bullet from a few dollars per BOX to several thousand dollars EACH. Make the act of loading up enough ammunition to shoot 71 people prohibitively expensive.

[Lizzie Poppet]

11. Say what a great idea!

Prohibition worked so well with alcohol and drugs.

Oh, wait...

[bhikkhu]

12. You'll have to create that safer society in some other country

...as this one guarantees us the right to bear arms, and there really aren't any unsettled challenges left to that right. In the US, you can have guns because the constitution says so, and we may as well get used to it. There are plenty of examples of how to get along fine with high gun ownership - Switzerland has no problems, for example.

[Igel]

18. Form over substance.

You confuse making violence harder to carry out with making society safer and saner.

Take a study about a decade ago in the Pacific NW. It looked at knife violence. Now, you might object, "I'm talking guns and bullets." But I'm talking "society." That's your goal--a safer society, right? Because if your goal is just "banning a tool" then you're not into society and morality but just tool regulation.

So this study looked at Vancouver BC and areas adjacent to it in US the. It found a remarkably large difference in stabbings, both fatal and non-fatal. Canada had far low incidence of knife violence. The US had far higher incidence. Even when they controlled for things like SES or ethnicity, the US was more violent.

The point is that guns kill, like knives kill. Both are metal. Both need human agents to wield them, or to set booby-traps using them. Both rip through human flesh and sever arteries and veins, disrupt the functioning of internal organs. And yet while neither are sufficient by themselves, instead of trying to focus on the "why" people focus on the much easier "how"--it's something they can enact a law against. In some cases they can blame the inanimate object instead of the people involved. It's like the grown-up taking a knife away from a child, but condescending when a grown-up rushes over to another and says, "Oh, that's dangerous, I can't let you have that!"

Gun laws save lives only in that they take away weapons from the obviously inferior. They do nothing for eliminating the problem or even dealing with the problem, but instead focus on the symptoms. For some, that's okay--it's a nice exercise of power with the threat of government violence behind it. It's a utilitarian view, not one deeply rooted in a principled view of human liberties.

[turtlerescue1]

13. After attending 34 homicide vigils

if its not the guns, and the shooters are all deranged, then it must be those who make the guns.

[eShirl]

14. We need to retroactively evolve into a more peaceful species.