http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2012/12/03/or-they-could-just-shoot-him Comments On: Or, They Could Just Shoot Him... by Goldy en-us Copyright 2013 The Stranger. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, The Stranger readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact The Stranger. webmaster@thestranger.com (The Stranger Webmaster) Wed, 19 Jun 2013 00:00:01 -0700 Wed, 19 Jun 2013 23:15:00 -0700 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Posted by cracked]]> Fri, 07 Dec 2012 12:16:37 -0800 The Stranger
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdo…
Posted by Matt from Denver]]> Wed, 05 Dec 2012 11:47:53 -0800 The Stranger
Violentacrez most definitely victimized young girls. He used their photos without their permission for the purpose of humiliation and masturbation. Tell me how they aren't victimized by that?

Woody Allen was not stepfather to Soon-Yi Previn. For one, he and Mia Farrow never married. They didn't even live together. For another, she always regarded Andre Previn to be her father. In her view, Woody was just someone shacking with her mother.

Violentacrez was trying to hide what he was doing from an employer who most likely would not approve of the association with his actions. Bob Costas gave his opinion in the full context of his job. I don't know if he warned his superiors about it, but it seems likely that it would have come up first.

I for one never called for either man to lose his job. But I accept that the differences between the situations dictate different responses from their respective employers, not least of which is the immorality of the actions of one and the utter lack of immorality of the actions of the other. (Remember, legal ≠ moral.)
Posted by Matt from Denver]]> Wed, 05 Dec 2012 07:41:52 -0800 The Stranger
Ok, so you lack the cognitive ability to note the distinction between victimizing children, and simply acknowledging that a certain political belief exists. The guy was fired because his actions were found to be so horrid by basic social standards (which you are completely clueless about) that his employer thought his presence would hurt the company.

And it would have, because unlike you, most people side with the victimized party and not the pedophile. But you keep defending the right of the pedophile to stay hidden. But you are probably also stupid enough to believe that the guy was just trolling and not attracted to the underage girls he was publicly sexualizing every day.

You are too stupid to even realize that Reddit is not private. Even middle schoolers know this. Actually, how old are you? I would feel bad if you were actually twelve years old or something.
Posted by Theodore Gorath]]> Wed, 05 Dec 2012 05:47:31 -0800 The Stranger
"But you need to grow up and realize that if you publicily sexualize and victimize underage girls, the public has a right to reject you."

Somehow it's OK when Woody Allen marries his stepdaughter, Bratz push Barbie off the shelves, and yadda, yadda, yadda... If the sexualization of young women is the problem, then violentacrez certainly didn't start it, nor (as you pointed out) did he make money off of it. People do make scads and scads of money of it, and it bothers me a lot. As I've mentioned, I have a daughter and I want her to have role models like Marie Curie, not Nicole Ritchie.

But if someone were to take a photograph of my daughter when she's a teen in a public place and post it on the internet and say they found it sexually attractive, I'd be creeped out, but I wouldn't think a crime had been committed or that my daughter had been turned into a victim but that action.

Your argument is still boiling down to "I want people I don't like to get fired and people I do like to keep their jobs."

I do believe that people engaged in speech in a private domain (like Reddit, for example) do have a right to privacy (and that we benefit from it) and people moving around in the public sphere do not have a right to control images of them that have been captured lawfully and in public. You're going to have to deal with the fact. But it's also irrelevant, I'm not defending violentacrez I'm pointing out your double standard. Bob Costas has opinions that anger some people and when he voiced them those people called for his job. Violentacrez displayed completely legal images and voiced opinions people didn't like and they got his job.

I think that's a shitty way to deal with things. "Say or write something that pisses them off, and they'll demand that you be denied your livelihood. Typical." If it's good for the goose, it ought to be good for the gander.
Posted by dwightmoodyforgetsthings]]> Tue, 04 Dec 2012 13:29:49 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Matt from Denver]]> Tue, 04 Dec 2012 12:54:16 -0800 The Stranger
Also: "I was trying to illustrate that if a total ban wouldn't have prevented that poor woman's murder, then whatever half-assed solution you're providing surely wouldn't have prevented it either."

First of all, that wasn't really what you were "trying to illustrate," you're backpedaling. Second of all, how do you know a full ban wouldn't have prevented it? How do you know a partial ban wouldn't have prevented it? You're assuming a lot here.

Yeah, there are still murders with guns that happen when guns are illegal. But a lot less of them - which implies that a lot of people who might commit those murders if they were legal decide they don't want to go to the trouble of acquiring an illegal object to do it. You have no way of knowing which category this murder falls into. And yet, while accusing us gun-control advocates of "assuming" that, you guys keep assuming that this case MUST fall into the "would happen even with strict gun laws" category.
Posted by Whoop Di Doo]]> Tue, 04 Dec 2012 12:07:26 -0800 The Stranger
There is a difference because holding a political opinion is different from victimizing underage girls.

Do you understand that distinction? From your argument, I do not know if you are capable of understanding the difference between having an idea, and victimizing a human. If you are not able to understand this distinction, please stop reading now.

Look, I understand that you want to live in a world where pedophiles are protected so that the can continue to prey on young girls. I know you want to continue doing whatever you want and hiding like a coward behind a computer. You want the ability to act and speak without consequences, just like any toddler.

But you need to grow up and realize that if you publicily sexualize and victimize underage girls, the public has a right to reject you. That is my argument. You do not get to do horrid, despicable things publicly and then claim that no one has a right to judge you, and you are free of consequences because you acted through a computer. Only a small child could believe that.

Besides, your whole argument rests on the idea that someone posting on a public website has every right to ironclad privacy, but a young girl has no right to privacy at all, and can have sexualized images of her posted for the world to see. So the victim deserves no privacy, and the victimizer deserves privacy. It is a self-contradicting argument, and takes a level of cognitive dissonance/plain stupidity that is staggering.
Posted by Theodore Gorath]]> Tue, 04 Dec 2012 11:37:52 -0800 The Stranger
Of course most lefties aren't calling for a total ban on firearms.

I was trying to illustrate that if a total ban wouldn't have prevented that poor woman's murder, then whatever half-assed solution you're providing surely wouldn't have prevented it either.

And therein lies the fallacy.
Posted by CPN]]> Tue, 04 Dec 2012 10:56:11 -0800 The Stranger
Basically your argument is "It's OK when it happens to people I don't like." Just admit that and we can move on.
Posted by dwightmoodyforgetsthings]]> Tue, 04 Dec 2012 10:48:50 -0800 The Stranger "Seriously, what is going on here?"

Simple. I've asked for you to demonstrate your understanding of the case by proposing a law that would have prevented Belcher from murdering his wife with a gun AND that would pass in the USofA.
And you are getting upset that your fantasy world does not match the real world.
So now you are attempting to retreat to generalities in order to "win" this argument.
Posted by fairly.unbalanced]]> Tue, 04 Dec 2012 10:43:12 -0800 The Stranger
Truth:

gun nuts here: the constitution says you can't regulate gun availability and/or use regulation of availability to reduce the amount of gun violence, and even if you could it wouldn't make any difference. Want laws enacted like that in Florida making it illegal for a private doctor to even discuss firearms with a patient.

people wanting a discussion about what regulations or laws could reduce gun violence: There are too many of these senseless killings with guns and we want to talk about doing more with policy, education, regulation, and/or laws to try to reduce the amount of killings.
Posted by cracked]]> Tue, 04 Dec 2012 10:12:46 -0800 The Stranger
@53- I don't know any reasonable person on the left who holds that view.
Posted by Chris Jury]]> Tue, 04 Dec 2012 09:51:22 -0800 The Stranger
Please read my comment @ 31. WE DON'T KNOW THE STORY BEHIND THE MURDER. Once we DO, and if it turns out that Belcher had a history of abusing Perkins, that changes the entire story. It becomes one where guns are irrelevant.

The only crimes that serve your argument are ones where someone, in the heat of an intense argument, suddenly grabs and shoots a gun because it's there. One where there wasn't any back story where the murderer had been thinking about it for some time. It may turn out that that's what happened here - a heated argument, a convenient gun, and immediate remorse. But... WE DON'T KNOW.
Posted by Matt from Denver]]> Tue, 04 Dec 2012 07:16:39 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Stranger'sWorstNightmare]]> Tue, 04 Dec 2012 06:06:12 -0800 The Stranger
That asshole got fired because his employer did not want to keep a hateful, misogynist, pedophile on his payroll. Free speech does not mean freedom from consequences. No one is impeding his freedom of speech. Anonymity is not a right.

As usual, your arguments are misinformed, poorly constructed, and brazenly self-serving.
Posted by Theodore Gorath]]> Tue, 04 Dec 2012 05:55:03 -0800 The Stranger
Both sides need to stop masturbating and state their real positions. As a left-wing Seattle liberal and owner of a shitload of guns that my fellow lefties find very scary, let me paraphrase the two sides as I see them:

LEFT:
A TOTAL BAN ON FIREARMS WOULD HAVE PREVENTED THAT INNOCENT WOMAN'S MURDER.

RIGHT:
NO LAW COULD HAVE PREVENTED THAT PSYCHO FROM KILLING HER.

That about sum it up??
Posted by CPN]]> Tue, 04 Dec 2012 00:33:59 -0800 The Stranger "Would this football player have killed the woman and them himself without a gun? Maybe, but it'd be pretty unlikely."

No.
That is your opinion and it is unsupported by any evidence in this case.
But you will not accept that.

"To troll with your 'Too Soon' bullshit and this continuing failure to grasp a basic premise is either a show of complete stupidity or blatant intellectual dishonesty."

Again, you seem to be missing the point.
That was addressed to the claims that if the USofA had gun control similar to other countries (England in my example) then Belcher would not have killed his wife.
But you won't be able to understand that.
Because you keep confusing "gun control" with the specifics of this case.
They are not the same.

Now, the test of whether you understand is whether you can state a SPECIFIC law that, when passed, would have prevented Belcher from murdering his wife with a gun.
But that law must be possible to pass in the USofA.

Otherwise you're just getting upset that I'm pointing out that your fantasy world isn't the same as the real world.
Posted by fairly.unbalanced]]> Mon, 03 Dec 2012 23:31:57 -0800 The Stranger
Would this football player have killed the woman and them himself without a gun? Maybe, but it'd be pretty unlikely. Will there be gun murders in places where guns are hard to get a hold of? Sure, but it seems like there are 'generally' a lot fewer of them, as well as many fewer accidental deaths (.01 vs .23/100k). To troll with your 'Too Soon' bullshit and this continuing failure to grasp a basic premise is either a show of complete stupidity or blatant intellectual dishonesty.
Posted by Chris Jury]]> Mon, 03 Dec 2012 22:57:51 -0800 The Stranger Posted by watchout5]]> Mon, 03 Dec 2012 22:11:06 -0800 The Stranger "Only children deal in absolutes, you fucking child."

Nice.
When your position is shown to be invalid you resort to personal attacks.
Yet you are the one refusing to qualify your statement rendering it an absolute.
Which you then claim it isn't.
You claim: "So I would say gun control works."
But you deny: Gun control GENERALLY works.
Because there is no evidence IN THIS SPECIFIC CASE that Belcher would NOT have used a different weapon to murder his wife.

Why don't you try again when you can address the actual arguments instead of stating absolutes that have already been refuted. Okay?
Posted by fairly.unbalanced]]> Mon, 03 Dec 2012 21:23:14 -0800 The Stranger
It is rare to kill someone with a single blow of an object or single stab of a knife, especially with no training. Often multiple stabs or blows will not fatally injure the victim.

There are so many scenarios and combination of scenarios that make it less likely that anyone would have been killed that day without the presence of a gun. For example, he shot her in front of a witness, his own mother. If he had had a knife or blunt object, isn't it likely his mom would have tried to intervene? Yes. Also, the victim can run from a knife, or even defend herself. The gun nuts love this part, that the only way to defend yourself from a gun is to get the drop on your "assailant" with a "faster draw" - of a gun!

This argument that it would have happened anyway is sick and ignorant.

The gun nuts want no regulation, but that isn't enough for them. They also want us to AGREE that the price is worth it and that we can't do anything to stop any of the killing - even if we allowed more regulation, rather than less and less regulation like we are doing now. For the gun nuts to brag about how every death is worth it and unavoidable is psychologically twisted. The more these ideas become ascendent the more psychologically damaged our society will become. Costas is right to be troubled by what the dominant regulatory and legal frameworks are asking him to accept as a citizen.
Posted by cracked]]> Mon, 03 Dec 2012 21:08:30 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Chris Jury]]> Mon, 03 Dec 2012 20:38:47 -0800 The Stranger I think you missed the point.
The point was that even with the kind of gun control that they have in England this kind of thing STILL happens.
So claiming that gun control (which won't be passed anyway) would have prevented THIS SPECIFIC INSTANCE is wrong.

"So I would say gun control works."

You left out the word "generally".
Gun control GENERALLY works.
Because I just gave you a very specific example where it did not.

Not to mention, AGAIN, where it is politically feasible to pass gun control legislation.
Which is not the USofA.
Posted by fairly.unbalanced]]> Mon, 03 Dec 2012 19:39:53 -0800 The Stranger
they had 0.46 per 100,000 residents as opposed to 10.27 per 100,000 in the US- that means 22.37 times more likely to be killed by a gun. Oh, wait, it gets worse. of those 0.46/100k, 0.33 are suicides, 0.07 are homicides, and 0.01 are accidental deaths. In the US we are at 4.14/100k Homicides, 5.71 Suicide, and 0.23 accidental. So in terms of actual external threat posed by guns, you are 54.63 times more likely to be killed by a firearm (considering accidental as an external threat and not your own raw stupidity). So I would say gun control works.
Posted by Chris Jury]]> Mon, 03 Dec 2012 18:57:51 -0800 The Stranger