This isn't a failure of the background check system. The standard background checks would flag this if they were allowed to. This isn't a case of "gun nuts wanting more guns", this is a case of "snowflakes wanting to protect everyone". Medical issues are not allowed to appear on background checks by law. The idea was to protect people from hostile employers, i.e "Walmart doesn't need to know that I was hospitalized for PTSD when I was 18". Unfortunately this also shields seriously ill people from any scrutiny. Combine that with our love of handing out mood suppressing drugs to any kid that sneezes, and we have a recipe for disaster. I work for a public school, I have seen first hand what these kids look like once they start "treatment". If you put the lot of them on the set of The Walking Dead, i'd have a hard time telling the difference between them and the zombies.
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Madden Tournament Shooting Survivor Files Lawsuit against EA and Venue
- Thread starter Megalith
- Start date
This isn't a failure of the background check system. The standard background checks would flag this if they were allowed to. This isn't a case of "gun nuts wanting more guns", this is a case of "snowflakes wanting to protect everyone". Medical issues are not allowed to appear on background checks by law. The idea was to protect people from hostile employers, i.e "Walmart doesn't need to know that I was hospitalized for PTSD when I was 18". Unfortunately this also shields seriously ill people from any scrutiny. Combine that with our love of handing out mood suppressing drugs to any kid that sneezes, and we have a recipe for disaster. I work for a public school, I have seen first hand what these kids look like once they start "treatment". If you put the lot of them on the set of The Walking Dead, i'd have a hard time telling the difference between them and the zombies.
that 10 days is a mandatory background check. a thug in Chicago with a felony can find a buddy within a day. yes the people that you least desire to have a weapon know the right sources to get one. sort of the point i was making about regulation is a fantasy with the sheer numbers of weapons on the street.
OK I just read the article. I don't see how EA pays a dime for this, but there might be a valid case against the pizza joint. Article says it's already been shut down by the fire department for permit/code violations, they made renovations inside the building since the last fire inspection. Having 100's of people in a tiny bar/restaurant without viable means of exit is a problem.
"On Wednesday, Jacksonville fire inspectors shut down Chicago Pizza. A city code violation report says the restaurant didn't have a permit to hold the "Madden NFL 19" tournament. Also, The Florida Times-Union reported that the restaurant's last approved building layout was submitted in 2009. Fire inspectors said the layout was altered without approval to create the GLHF Game Bar, the room where the tournament took place."
It isn't clear to me from that article what type of event this was (if it was sponsored by EA, it doesn't sound like it), but if it's just something the pizza place threw together then that's a problem. Yeah the mall could be liable too for lacking enough security, but if they weren't part of the event, I can see how they might not be very liable.
I saw this in a different article. Still not very clear to me how much EA is liable at this level. This was not a "EA Major" event/
"The Florida tournament was one of four feeder tournaments awarding $5,000 in prizes and more importantly, two spots in the Madden Classic final scheduled to be held in Las Vegas in mid-October. That title awards $25,000 to its winner, and is but one of four "EA majors" hosted by the game's developer, Electronic Arts."
https://www.tampabay.com/ap-explain...d-ap_nationalf9fe667f89d94b58bc2cae77a51b11b7
I feel bad for the guy who got shot, and his friend that was killed. But who is really to blame other than the shooter, who killed himself? Sue his parents? I don't know. How the guy legally got a gun with a huge police + medical background is a whole other conversation.
"On Wednesday, Jacksonville fire inspectors shut down Chicago Pizza. A city code violation report says the restaurant didn't have a permit to hold the "Madden NFL 19" tournament. Also, The Florida Times-Union reported that the restaurant's last approved building layout was submitted in 2009. Fire inspectors said the layout was altered without approval to create the GLHF Game Bar, the room where the tournament took place."
It isn't clear to me from that article what type of event this was (if it was sponsored by EA, it doesn't sound like it), but if it's just something the pizza place threw together then that's a problem. Yeah the mall could be liable too for lacking enough security, but if they weren't part of the event, I can see how they might not be very liable.
I saw this in a different article. Still not very clear to me how much EA is liable at this level. This was not a "EA Major" event/
"The Florida tournament was one of four feeder tournaments awarding $5,000 in prizes and more importantly, two spots in the Madden Classic final scheduled to be held in Las Vegas in mid-October. That title awards $25,000 to its winner, and is but one of four "EA majors" hosted by the game's developer, Electronic Arts."
https://www.tampabay.com/ap-explain...d-ap_nationalf9fe667f89d94b58bc2cae77a51b11b7
I feel bad for the guy who got shot, and his friend that was killed. But who is really to blame other than the shooter, who killed himself? Sue his parents? I don't know. How the guy legally got a gun with a huge police + medical background is a whole other conversation.
With this kind of logic, we can never pass legislation to limit something that harms our society. Other societies have banned certain firearms and then implemented ways to get them off the streets. Individual states in the United States have done so, as well. This is not an issue of logistics, but rather politics and will power. Do we want to endeavor to make our society more safe or don't we? Some people will fall on either side of that line, but neither can rely upon the faulty logic of, "it's already here so we can't do anything about it."
Regulation is not a fantasy. What people do is point to faulty regulation as evidence of the regulation itself being faulty rather than the implementation. When my computer overheats, I have to think about the causes and then generate some possible responses. Sometimes it's more fans, sometimes it's different fans, I guess in some instances it might be less fans but that's never been the case yet. I don't anyone who, upon seeing their computer overheat, believes that less fans is always the answer but when it comes to firearms less regulations are *always* the answer to some people.
Both the California and Chicago examples illustrate the implications of faulty regulation--not examples of regulation itself being at fault. California is surrounded by states with relatively lax gun controls (highlighting the need for stronger federal controls) and Chicago is surrounded by municipalities and counties with relatively lax gun controls (highlighting the need for stronger state control). Neither are examples of gun regulation being the problem, but rather being ineffective. The problem for people who use them as evidence that regulations don't work either miss or ignore the fact that they are illustrating how the regulations aren't working and indicative of what would need to be tweaked to make them more effective rather than scrapping them and adopting a defeatist attitude about one of the most dangerous elements of US culture.
Ask how many gun owners are willing to turn in their guns. You won't find many., especially all the ones on the street illegally by. Non-registered criminals. What you call a "defeatist attitude" I call "attitude based on a realistic point of view." Go ahead and outlaw guns outright, everywhere. its not going to keep weapons out of people's hands. You can get killed with a butter knife, a box cutter, a pocket knife, a pair of scissors or the latest trend in Eurpoe - getting run over by a truck.. I'd rather have the option to protect myself than call and wait for someone to show up and hopefully save me while valuable seconds tick away. The odds are much better for our survival if someone armed with good intentions is close by rather than waiting for the cops to show up five minutes later at best.
Your computer example is a really poor analogy of a complex problem. You offer arguments to the contrary with no solution. While our government can't fix anything due to stalemate - I'm going with what works. Do we need AR-15s and other assault weapon? I don't think military weapons ha e a place in civilian hands. Handguns for personal protection? Absolutely. As soon as a you have a better solution -let me know, I am all ears.
And here we are again, arguing about gun ownership and 2nd amendment rights, instead of asking the real questions. Like, what lead a teenager to think that killing two people and himself was a logical response to losing a video game. The gun isn't some magical artifact that whispered in his ear and told him to do things. He decided to kill people on his own.
An infantile, reactionary response just to losing a silly video game.
People were murdered and a young boy took his life because he had easy access to firearms. You can ignore that fact, but it doesn't mean the fact goes away. People will discuss it without you and come up to solutions without your input so long as you continue to not participate in the solutions that society arrives at.
If my computer malfunctioning is a complex problem. It might be less complex than whether and what to do about firearms in the United States, but that doesn't mean it's a useless example. Once again, you simply ignore out of hand any example that might illustrate a possible pathway to a solution and throw your hands up and say nothing it working, no one is doing anything, and therefore nothing will continue to be done.
As an aside, the analogy wasn't about firearms access or control but rather about certain people who refuse to engage in problem solving behavior. It's an example of how to solve a problem, not a solution of a problem. The fact that you can't differentiate the two is illustrative that you're in the group I'm referring to who refuses to put on their thinking cap as was told to us all in grade school.
So you're saying the only thing that prevents people from murdering each other after losing a video game...is that they don't have access to firearms? If guns had already been banned and magically removed from everyone in the US, this kid would have just gone about his day as a normal, decent, human being?
The point was clear to anyone who doesn't want to engage in debate shenanigans--easy access to firearms in the United States has a direct relationship to the ease of murdering people. When angry, mentally unstable, criminal, or any other reason that would otherwise push someone towards a murder can easily access firearms, that makes the entire society less safe. I'm sure you can sit around and think of all the ways someone can kill someone--but that won't change the fact that as long you, and others, have such easy access to firearms the likelihood of that murder coming to fruition increases.
I appreciate you puttinge me in "that group". I never considered my self a member of any group. Perhaps you have never been a victim of robbery, someone pounding on your door yelling obscenities and you fearing for your family's safety. Maybe I need a solution NOW while you all sit around waiting for a solution that has evaded us since the beginning of the human race. With a deadlocked congress, it's not going to happen for a long time. Yes people were murdered. The weapon could have been a truckload of fertilizer and fuel oil.
You simply Ignore the fact when humans want to terminate with extreme prejudice, it can be anything from a rock to sarin gas on a subway and everything in between. Blame the human attitude that has a predisposition for murder. Blaming the weapon avoids arriving at a solution COMPLETELY - so time to put your thinking cap on. Maybe that's why we are where we are at. Focusing on the weapon instead of the real issue of mental health in this case. But is is an exception, not the rule. In Chicago, it's gangs. It's always something. At least I am analyzing the situation instead of labeling you and dropping you into "that group".
Big talk on thinking, solutions and offering no real analysis. Where is your input other than "it's the guns, stupid!!" Your analysis fails. It's not guns, it's a societal issue, a human issue, a mental health issue, a gang and drugs issue, a legal issue, a constitutional issue..
I have my solution. Good luck on waiting for yours.
I have been on both ends of firearms and bullets.
Not that it matters since I don't have to have shot at people or been shot at to understand the difference between trying to kill someone with a rock versus a gun.
That said, when I was younger, I used to get into a lot of physical fights. I didn't start them, just grew up in an area with a lot of gangs and bullies and had to defend myself and others. Even when trying to kill someone, as in thinking it's your life vs. theirs, it's remarkably difficult to take a human life with one's hands. Not just because it's hard to overcome society's programming against taking lives, but also because the human body is extremely resilient regardless of how many times you bounce someone's head against the sidewalk or twist their neck to snap it like in the movies (more like a rubber band, FYI). People who take lives have to overcome a lot of social mores to do so, which is why it doesn't happen very frequently, professionals have to be extensively trained (not just in targeting, but in actually doing the deed) and they don't tend to fair well after even a justified shooting, and I personally/professionally consider civilian murderers to be mentally unstable.
I agree with an earlier member's observation that a lot of people who get bent out of shape in these topics don't seem to have the faintest idea what it's like to carry a firearm and use it. That last step is something that almost all people in the United States will never have to do, despite the disparity between our country's and the entire rest of the developed world's firearm violence, so it's not a big deal. But it does mean that it's difficult to have evidence-based conversations with people who firmly believe their anecdotal experience trumps objective data.
The fact of the matter is there is no incentive for me to try and have the conversation you're trying to egg me into having with you--presumably so you can troll harder. I already suggested that we start by defining the problem (a necessary prerequisite for considering applicable solutions), but that was met with trolling so there is no reason for me to believe that spending more time with you and a few others discussing this topic is going to lead to any kind of constructive conversation. Sadly, I can do better with my freshman class, which is about 200 students most of whom wanting to go into some form of law enforcement. In my day to day live, I engage with various members of the public and appropriate professions. From top to bottom we recognize the problem(s) and are analyzing solutions. Your position is a minority one, even among the general public, and recognized as extreme. As I wrote earlier, if you want to exclude yourself from the conversation that's your choice but the responses to these kinds of incidents are going to swing too far if extremists continue to drive their heads into the sand. It's getting very close to the general public being fed up with these types of spree murders.
Incidentally, why would you think the "problem" is formed by all of those aspects you listed but deliberately excluding guns? Someone uses a gun to kill multiple people and you listed seven different reasons for it while excluding the gun itself. I didn't put you in any particular group. Your own statements in this thread out your bias. There is no rational reason that it wouldn't be all of those things--including the gun.
EA pays because it is cheaper to settle than to spend millions fighting a lawsuit. The lawyers know this.
I've already defined the problem a lot better than you. You're trolling presumptions are incorrect and insulting. You claim to want a rational discussion, yet throw out insults and talk down to people. That's called hypocritical. Obviously, you feel threatened by my point of view and are extremely defensive about it. So as far as having a rational discussion - that's not possible with you.
As far as trolling - This conversation is over for me. Got your wish? Have fun debating yourself.
How's that for trolling?
Weapons aren't deadly. Cars aren't deadly. People are deadly and can use anything to be deadly with.
Hurricanes are deadly, Tornadoes are deadly, even black widows are a deadly. But we do not call to ban Hurricanes, Tornadoes, or spiders, we tell people to either prepare for them or get out of the way since we have no ability to stop storms or spiders.
Since storms are deadly, the illogical thing to do is take the car or shelter away from people, since they cant get away or prepare to ride it out. Since people are deadly, the illogical thing to do is take the guns away from people, so that they can't run from a deadly person with a gun nor confront the deadly person with a gun.
So do spoons make people fat?
Flogger23m
[H]F Junkie
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Don't forget your permit, your ID, your two utility bills, your ammo permit, the fees, the state background checks which are different from the federal ones, the gun lock, be sure you never got into a verbal argument with your significant other on record and I believe as of now ensure your asshole co-workers who don't like you didn't falsely report you as a threat which they can do with practically zero proof or accountability. What else am I forgetting? Hard to keep up.
Dion
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People will do anything for money.. Even when they are wrong.
BloodyIron
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Not able to read everything at this time, but your points are reasonable. I just don't think the public has enough info to determine if EA had enough info to react to the "potential" (in this case real) threat. They may have, but as an outsider, I can't really be sure.
From what I understand, it was in a mall. I could be wrong here though. If that were the case, shouldn't the mall be the first one responsible for the safety of anyone inside it for things like this? I'm not saying EA or the venue/host is off the hook, but I don't think they're the only ones involved here.
One thing I think we can both agree on is this whole situation is shit. It saddens me that gaming events like this have turned into such a disgusting outcome. And I'm talking about the resorting to violence as a solution thing.
From what I understand, it was in a mall. I could be wrong here though. If that were the case, shouldn't the mall be the first one responsible for the safety of anyone inside it for things like this? I'm not saying EA or the venue/host is off the hook, but I don't think they're the only ones involved here.
One thing I think we can both agree on is this whole situation is shit. It saddens me that gaming events like this have turned into such a disgusting outcome. And I'm talking about the resorting to violence as a solution thing.
Terrible analogies do not an argument make. What is the primary purpose of a firearm? to kill .... is the primary purpose of a spoon to make people fat or does your analogy fail right off the bat? The correct analogy would be “If guns kill people, then spoons feed people."
Primary purpose ... it's really as simple as that.
As to the nonsense of hurricanes, tornadoes, and spiders ... can you really not see the difference between those and firearms? Really? ... really?
A buddy said something like that to me over the weekend and I asked him if alcohol makes people drunk or if people make people drunk?
He responded that no one talks like that...I said, "exactly."
ManofGod
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- 12,864
Yes, it is people that kill people, not the gun. Anything can be used to kill someone else, the object is not the reason something happened, it is what the person did with it that matters.
While true that generally anything can be made into a weapon, none match the lethality of firearms. Firearms have the sole purpose of raising the stakes to lethal status. If you are actually trained in firearms, this should have been the first lesson you learned before even picking one up.
Silly truisms aside, any professional who has either fired a gun, had a gun fired at him or her, interacted with someone who has been shot by a gun, or even fired at by a gun, knows first hand the devastating impacts that firearms can and will do to a human body and mind. Whether one is in the armed forces, law enforcement, a prison setting (where the truism that anything can be made into a weapon actually means something--unsurprisingly, however, guards use a firearm against a shiv), a civilian, or the medical community, *guns* are the danger not "people." The argument that a gun is no more or less lethal than any other inanimate object in US society is hollow. Understanding the lethality of firearms doesn't reduce anyone's personally responsibility for wielding one and harming another human being--it's not an either/or fallacy as you've tried to construct.
Currently the public is relatively sane--demanding action from politicians in regards to some kind of conversation about the violence and death toll that is bombarding the news and endangering our nation's youth. Keep spouting silly truisms that ring hollow to anyone who doesn't share your agenda and the public will ignore your input when those laws are enacted.
You're barking up the wrong tree, bud. I have never advocated banning anything, least of all guns. I thought you were done responding to me? Did you unhide my response just to argue a straw-man?
Moderates are not being driven to the NRA. That's a thinly veiled attempt to flip what I wrote, what is actually happening on the ground among the public, that the overwhelming majority of the US population supports strengthening gun regulations.
We have government paralysis because of the money advocates pour into our system. It's a total disconnect from what the public is demanding. The general public is very clear that they don't desire this paralysis so it's certainly not caused by the public.
Moderates are not being driven to the NRA. That's a thinly veiled attempt to flip what I wrote, what is actually happening on the ground among the public, that the overwhelming majority of the US population supports strengthening gun regulations.
We have government paralysis because of the money advocates pour into our system. It's a total disconnect from what the public is demanding. The general public is very clear that they don't desire this paralysis so it's certainly not caused by the public.