Ohio school shooter is sentenced, is also straight evil

[strawman]

Fuck the criminals.

But sixpackshaker, don't you know that it's not their fault? This poor child didn't choose to murder the other students, he is merely a meat robot, and is acting out the programming that our culture gave him. The children brutally killed by him weren't victims at all - they are sacrifices to the US Gun God, and we revere and worship their valued contribution to furthering the cause of our Gun Culture.

Right, Charlie Don't Surf?

 

[Gilgamesh]

I don't know anything about Frank or his macro-level opinions, but it's incredibly possible for someone to be a police officer and still fail to see the big picture in issues like these.

He was also in the military, but I'm sure your opinions are backed by much more life experience than both those things he has.



With Chaz gone, Charlie has really stepped up in the entertainment department I have to admit.

 

[Azurephoenix]

I don't know anything about Frank or his macro-level opinions, but it's incredibly possible for someone to be a police officer and still fail to see the big picture in issues like these.

Hey Frank... I think Charlie Don't Surf just gave you a compliment.

 

[Charlie Don't Surf]

I don't know how you're construing that it isn't his fault. He's still a bad person, he still deserves a long, long prison sentence. I don't see what's so absurd in my statement that the NRA's wet dream America made it easier for this bad person to kill several people at once.

 

[Bowielee]

But sixpackshaker, don't you know that it's not their fault? This poor child didn't choose to murder the other students, he is merely a meat robot, and is acting out the programming that our culture gave him. The children brutally killed by him weren't victims at all - they are sacrifices to the US Gun God, and we revere and worship their valued contribution to furthering the cause of our Gun Culture.

Right, Charlie Don't Surf?

I know you're being snarky, but there are many aspects of behavior that are motivated by situational factors, including anti-social behavior. I'm not saying to blame it all on society, just that it's foolhardy to assume that it's not a major factor.

 

[Frank]

He was also in the military, but I'm sure your opinions are backed by much more life experience than both those things he has.



With Chaz gone, Charlie has really stepped up in the entertainment department I have to admit.

No, I'm the popo that wasn't in the military. I was a fat nerd (this almost literally was my profession) before becoming a member. I'm still a nerd, as I am reminded by coworkers constantly, just less fat.

 

[Necronic]

I find myself agreeing with Charlie more in this thread than any other. All of you seem to have value systems that are based entirely on your personal views in a situation.

I'm against the death penalty. Unless I'm not.
I'm against Cruel and Unusual Punishment. Unless I'm not.

Here's the thing. You either believe in the absolute rights of prisoners. Or you don't. There isn't a middle ground. It doesn't matter what the person did. JUSTICE IS BLIND. This statement works both ways. To have a free country you must also have a completely dispassionate justice system, something I'm glad we have.

I'm glad that he'll get life in prison. I hope that he is not abused, for the same reason I hope that NO prisoners are abused. Because this isn't me acting out some six-steps-removed self-righteous revenge fantasy.

 

[Gilgamesh]

I find myself agreeing with Charlie more in this thread than any other. All of you seem to have value systems that are based entirely on your personal views in a situation.

Opinions are based on personal views because it's your own ideas creating your position. That's why they're opinions. Facts are different.

 

[Eriol]

To have a free country you must also have a completely dispassionate justice system, something I'm glad we have.

I get less and less certain of this all the time, since blind justice seems to have less and less resemblance to justice in any form, and with no justice, I can't see freedom as what we have either, unless it's just the freedom to live in fear, which isn't freedom as we probably want it. I see your points, and most days I agree with your whole post, but sometimes... I just don't. Maybe that makes me a worse person. Or a better one. Or something. But I can't see discarding feelings as a good thing. Sometimes we have to, but maybe sometimes we really shouldn't.

 

[Bowielee]

I get less and less certain of this all the time, since blind justice seems to have less and less resemblance to justice in any form, and with no justice, I can't see freedom as what we have either, unless it's just the freedom to live in fear, which isn't freedom as we probably want it. I see your points, and most days I agree with your whole post, but sometimes... I just don't. Maybe that makes me a worse person. Or a better one. Or something. But I can't see discarding feelings as a good thing. Sometimes we have to, but maybe sometimes we really shouldn't.

Are you sure that you're not confusing vengeance with justice? That seems to be a common thing.

 

[Dave]

Are you sure that you're not confusing vengeance with justice? That seems to be a common thing.

Why can't it be both?

 

[Eriol]

Are you sure that you're not confusing vengeance with justice? That seems to be a common thing.

No, I'm talking about rapists getting less sentences than people who commit copyright infringement (and very little of it at that), and a greater focus on the rights of the perpetrators than the safety of the public at large (let alone the victims).

 

[Azurephoenix]

As a parent myself I am totally horrified by this shooters actions. Parents should never have to bury their children... especially due to the murderous actions of a sociopathic shit sack. And the bullshit he's put them through during the sentencing? The things he's said to them? He's lucky he didn't get throttled to death in the courtroom.

Give the asshole life in prison. Solitary confinement. No chance of parole. He deserves worse in my opinion but that should at least keep him from taking more lives.

 

[Bowielee]

Why can't it be both?

They seldomly are the same.

 

[DarkAudit]

Send him to Supermax. He gets a shower, a toilet, three meals a day, and an hour outside. That's it. No TV, no radio, no newspapers, no mail. No human contact of any kind until the day they take his corpse out of the cell and chucks him in an unmarked hole in the ground.

 

[strawman]

I know you're being snarky, but there are many aspects of behavior that are motivated by situational factors, including anti-social behavior. I'm not saying to blame it all on society, just that it's foolhardy to assume that it's not a major factor.

Well of course society impacts the individual, and this is intentional.

Yes, we need to change society and our own culture to root out problems within it that ultimately harm us as a society and individually.

There are, however, people who do not wish to participate in society according to the rules. Some are harmless. Some are not. Society has a self interest in excluding harmful people from itself.

Sometimes these harmful people are fully and completely a product of society. This is cyclical society destruction, and we have to work really hard to get rid of those teachings and concepts that produce such people. But they are rare.

Then there are people who would not fit into society even if society didn't harm them with poor teaching and concepts.

Some people, and I suspect Charlie Don't Surf is one of them, believe that the latter group do not exist. That a human newborn is essentially a blank slate, and if the correct programming is taught then they will never have a desire to hurt another human being, or society.

While I believe that the environment, teaching, upbringing, etc has a huge role in a human's desires and motivations, I believe that humans have inborn desires and motivations and are distinctly different from other humans at birth, and its upon that foundation that society must build.

Further, each of us is very different chemically, and while some of this is environmental (you are what you eat, breathe, and absorb) some is genetic. There are some who suffer from significant mental health problems who may not ever be able to adapt to society, even with medical help.

This persons behavior doesn't suggest, to me, a problem that is any less than a mental disease. I'm sure those around him recognize it, but he probably showed enough understanding to refuse psychological counseling, and he himself chose to plead guilty without asking for a guilty by reason of insanity plea which is probably what he actually deserves.

He is sick. He has no interest in being helped.

So all we can do is take his note to society, inscribed in the blood of others, as a sign of his desire to live separately from us.

And he will, until he gets help, or he dies.

 

[Charlie Don't Surf]

It's really fucking easy for those people that don't fit into society to go on mass murder rampages when assault weapons and just firearms in general are so prevalent in society.

 

[Tress]

Do you think all guns should be completely banned? Where do you draw the line in restricting citizen access to dangerous weapons/materials?

 

[Azurephoenix]

It's really fucking easy for those people that don't fit into society to go on mass murder rampages when assault weapons and just firearms in general are so prevalent in society.

So what? If he had killed three people with a sharpened piece of rebar then it would be any different? What if he had burned the school to the ground while people suffocated to death inside? What if he chose to poison people? You are so hellbent on this firearm kick that you fail to realize there are other ways of taking lives and for people with malicious intent they will find a way.

 

[Covar]

Charlie lives in a world where all men are rapists just waiting for the opportunity, and anyone who kills people with firearms are just poor victims of the NRA and their collective wet dreams.

 

[Bowielee]

Well of course society impacts the individual, and this is intentional.

Yes, we need to change society and our own culture to root out problems within it that ultimately harm us as a society and individually.

There are, however, people who do not wish to participate in society according to the rules. Some are harmless. Some are not. Society has a self interest in excluding harmful people from itself.

Sometimes these harmful people are fully and completely a product of society. This is cyclical society destruction, and we have to work really hard to get rid of those teachings and concepts that produce such people. But they are rare.

Then there are people who would not fit into society even if society didn't harm them with poor teaching and concepts.

Some people, and I suspect Charlie Don't Surf is one of them, believe that the latter group do not exist. That a human newborn is essentially a blank slate, and if the correct programming is taught then they will never have a desire to hurt another human being, or society.

While I believe that the environment, teaching, upbringing, etc has a huge role in a human's desires and motivations, I believe that humans have inborn desires and motivations and are distinctly different from other humans at birth, and its upon that foundation that society must build.

Further, each of us is very different chemically, and while some of this is environmental (you are what you eat, breathe, and absorb) some is genetic. There are some who suffer from significant mental health problems who may not ever be able to adapt to society, even with medical help.

This persons behavior doesn't suggest, to me, a problem that is any less than a mental disease. I'm sure those around him recognize it, but he probably showed enough understanding to refuse psychological counseling, and he himself chose to plead guilty without asking for a guilty by reason of insanity plea which is probably what he actually deserves.

He is sick. He has no interest in being helped.

So all we can do is take his note to society, inscribed in the blood of others, as a sign of his desire to live separately from us.

And he will, until he gets help, or he dies.

It's extremely easy to say that there's something inherently evil in an individual, but that is a bit over simplistic. If you truly believed that, I'd be curious to know what would keep one of your children from becoming someone like this?

In decades of experimentation, the one thing that holds true in human beings is that we have a serious bias in regards to what our own, and other people's capacity for horrifying behavior is.

Sure, it's easy to just say that this particular kid is evil, but in doing that, you're dismissing the dangerous cocktail of situations that led to him becoming this monster.

 

[Frank]

Charlie has stated multiple times that the only use a gun has is to murder scoffing at any explanation and even going so far as to say that I deserved to die the time my grandpa shot a bear that was between the tent my brothers and I were in and the house he was in because we were in the bear's natural habitat. His stance on guns is black and white extreme to a silly degree.

 

[Charlie Don't Surf]

So what? If he had killed three people with a sharpened piece of rebar then it would be any different? What if he had burned the school to the ground while people suffocated to death inside? What if he chose to poison people? You are so hellbent on this firearm kick that you fail to realize there are other ways of taking lives and for people with malicious intent they will find a way.

If you honestly don't think that guns make it much much easier to take lives, you're a moron.

 

[Azurephoenix]

If you honestly don't think that guns make it much much easier to take lives, you're a moron.

If you think that guns are the only way for violent people to take lives, you're a moron.

 

[strawman]

It's extremely easy to say that there's something inherently evil in an individual, but that is a bit over simplistic. If you truly believed that, I'd be curious to know what would keep one of your children from becoming someone like this?

In decades of experimentation, the one thing that holds true in human beings is that we have a serious bias in regards to what our own, and other people's capacity for horrifying behavior is.

Sure, it's easy to just say that this particular kid is evil, but in doing that, you're dismissing the dangerous cocktail of situations that led to him becoming this monster.

I don't think this is an all or nothing argument. I'm not saying that society didn't play its role in this person's decision to kill people.

Nor am I saying that this person was born this way, had no choice, and that nothing could have changed their path through life.

I am saying that you can't completely blame society for his choices, and you can't completely blame his genetics or inborn traits and motivations.

The answer lies somewhere inbetween.

When Charlie and others read this, and think "it's society's fault" I believe they are wrong, and that's the only point I'm trying to make.

Society needs to change to better support everyone, but to lay the blame of every bad thing a person does at the feet of society demonstrates a stunning lack of intelligence.

And it gets under my skin, but ultimately it's my fault for rising to his barbs.

Not society's fault.

 

[Charlie Don't Surf]

If you think that guns are the only way for violent people to take lives, you're a moron.

I've never even come close to implying such. Just that banning guns would make it harder for people to be murdered in swaths. And probably to be murdered period. Those hypotheticals have an astronomically higher degree of difficulty than pulling a trigger just a few times to fire off dozens of rounds.

 

[Azurephoenix]

I've never even come close to implying such. Just that banning guns would make it harder for people to be murdered in swaths. And probably to be murdered period. Those hypotheticals have an astronomically higher degree of difficulty than pulling a trigger just a few times to fire off dozens of rounds.

Agreed, but assuming you take guns out of the equation... what's left when heavily sociopathic people lose their cool? It's just frustrating to discuss when you are so strongly fixated on one problem (for what it's worth Charlie I do believe that your laws on firearms in the USA need to be tightened up to some degree).

Also, improvised explosives and incendiary devices are not nearly as hard to manufacture as you might think.

 

[sixpackshaker]

Blame his dad, he had the genetics, and he abused the little twerp...

 

[Bowielee]

I'm not essentially even saying society. Situational factors can be collective (media, social mores, etc...), or they can be completely individualized (personal trauma, abuse, neglect, etc...). I'm not saying that it's an all or nothing situation either. What I'm trying to get across, is that what needs to be looked at is what in this individual case caused this behavior.

Another thing that I'd like to point out is that this kid and all school shootings are outliers (regardless of the media trying to portray it as an epidemic). Many more people are murdered by guns on a daily basis than these instances, but that is largely ignored due to people not being able to wrap their heads around that level of massive violence.

 

[Charlie Don't Surf]

Also, improvised explosives and incendiary devices are not nearly as hard to manufacture as you might think.

it always seems like whenever one of these people has their bigger master plan or explosives set at their apartment or whatever, the explosives part never goes off and never really hurts anyone.

the shooting people with guns part always works really well though

 

[Dave]

2/3 of all gun deaths are suicides, not homicides.

 

[Bowielee]

I know I'll probably get in trouble for this, but STFU Charlie.

It's really hard to have a rational discussion about this with you riling everyone up with your hyperbole.

 

[ElJuski]

You can be entirely sympathetic and understanding of the mental conditions of the accused while still be able to dole out justice. It's just as inane to type out some pithy "leave him in a hole and have him buttraped" comment as it is to whine about the cruelity being layed upon the convicted.

In other words, this is yet another tiresome Halforums thread that goes absolutely nowhere.

 

[GasBandit]

Even if Charlie's views on guns had any rhetorical merit, which they don't, he seems to be under the impression that the nation with the highest level of gun ownership per capita can put the genie back in the bottle. Let us know when you've found that magic wand that makes criminals obey gun control laws, Chuck.

 

[Bowielee]

Even if Charlie's views on guns had any rhetorical merit, which they don't, he seems to be under the impression that the nation with the highest level of gun ownership per capita can put the genie back in the bottle. Let us know when you've found that magic wand that makes criminals obey gun control laws, Chuck.

Or even non-criminals... just sayin'.

I've said it before, and I'm certain I'll say it again. Gun control laws in this country are nigh useless because the gun culture that drives it will ensure that they won't be enforced anyway. What needs to change is the fetishization of guns and gun violence.

In other words, gun violence is a symptom, not a root cause.

As you said, good luck with that.