Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Sen Dan Coats and Cracked are on the same page.

Well I got this in the inbox today.


Response to President Obama's Gun Control Proposals
Today, President Obama released a series of executive actions and legislative ideas as part of his recently announced gun control initiative. As we learn more details about the President’s proposals, I believe we must protect Second Amendment rights and ensure the federal government does not punish responsible gun owners. I will not support legislation or executive actions that would affect gun ownership rights for law-abiding citizens, including any assault weapons ban.The Newtown shooting was a horrific tragedy that had an impact on all Americans but especially every parent, teacher and student, and it is right for our country to reflect on how we can prevent such events in the future. Laws alone cannot eliminate all acts of violence. As Americans we need to examine a culture that increasingly glamorizes violence and determine how we can better identify and address mental illness in our society

So there's that.   If you live in Indiana you might want to contact Coats and give him a notice of support for this stance.  And maybe contact Donnelly and put him on notice for going all ban-happy.

Both can be contacted here.

Now here's the interesting part  Recall that part about "examine a culture that increasingly glamorizes violence"

Well...  of Cracked wrote an article today called The Truth About Guns and Video Games.

And shockingly? He doesn't disagree with the stodgy old Senator.

Yeah.



The solution seems obvious: Why don't we just ban guns? Shit, that was easy. Right?
Well, no: Guns are only the easiest of the final solutions. Bombs are harder, more technical, and less certain. But ban guns, and you'll find bombs will have taken their place. People love to point out that most other First World nations have a near blanket ban on guns, and their murder rates are so far below America's that you need to lean way back from the chart just to see both of our relative positions.
But that's supposing that America is like other First World nations. We're not. Break those murder statistics down and you'll see that the vast majority of them are gun crimes, but not all. Americans murder with everything -- with cars, with knives, with frozen fish -- whatever's at hand, we'll kill a motherfucker with it, because he needed killing and we're a nation of go-getters.
...
Our collective response, as gamers, to the accusation that video games have some connection to real violence should not be: "Nuh uh!"
We need to cop to it, and start thinking of ways to mitigate the consequences.
The first course of action is easy: Don't let the kids see it. Kids are impressionable, and they probably shouldn't be playing violent video games. But we tried that -- we have ratings on all games already, just like every other piece of media. It's just that nobody is really enforcing ours.




And then he follows it up with suggesting a reporting system where if you find someone underage playing a violent video game you can have them booted. 

Now, this is not an endorsement of Mr. Brockway.  I do feel that certain games, movies, and media are inappropriate for children and that what is and is not depends on their age and several other factors and is ultimately parental responsibility.

However, it is interesting to see a counter-culture humor organ like this going "No, it's not guns, but it might be the games." 

A huge part, maybe one of the biggest parts of Gun Culture is safety and responsibility.  Especially when it comes to teaching young people how to shoot.  If you have a friend with kids who owns guns ask about how they've taught them.  Or look into Appleseed.





1 comment:

B said...

But comparing the inner cities to first world nations is not reailstic.

Compare the Inner Cities to third world nations. The inhabitants are similar in culture and education.