Originally posted by lorax
Gasho, Jishin, _/st\_ , LAH
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We are going in the same direction.
Gasho, Jishin, _/st\_ , LAH -
I agree the US needs stricter gun controls but have no answers to how the American mindset on firearms can be changed. As for banning guns, I think this will only drive the gun trade under ground. Although such mass shooting have been very rare in the UK, handguns were banned after the 1996 Dunblane school shootings in which 20 died. Twenty plus years on handguns are still acquired and used by criminals and gangs in the UK and shooting still happen but not on a US scale, so a ban made little difference. I wish I had an answer but I don't but these mass killings do seem to be all too frequent and "uniquely" an American disease, which I hope those smarter than I find a solution and find it soon. Such a waste.
Seishin
精 Sei - Meticulous
神 Shin - HeartComment
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Growing up and living in Germany, I can only comment on the situation in the US from my own background. It seems reasonable to me to restrict access to guns; on the other hand, that is how I have been raised in this country, so that's what I am used to and that's probably also a big influence on my point of view. I agree with Lorax that there seems to be an underlying issue or probably even multiple problems adding up. And people will always find possibilities to kill. There have been several shootings here in Germany although it is harder to acquire a gun (at least legally). And if you don't have access to guns, you can use cars, trucks, ...
So, stricter gun controls? Yes, even though it will probably not solve the problem. But it seems to address one of the problematic factors. How you define "stricter" is then up to the Americans. I don't think you can just simply drop from 100 % to 0 % over there in the US. I would also expect the market to go underground, but I don't think you can ever avoid that.
Gassho,
Stefan/Souchi
Sat today for the people affected by this tragedy.Comment
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It is estimated that there are twice as many guns as people in the US.
Gasho, Jishin, _/st\_ , LAH
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This is a complex problem. There are more guns than people in the US. Whatever laws you enact and enforce, the guns are already out there. Gun owners, legal or otherwise are not going to say; OK here's my gun. Does a rural rancher in the west not have a right to carry a gun to protect himself against rattlesnakes and his livestock against coyotes? When new laws are enacted, the gun lobby finds ways around them (bump stocks, gun show loopholes). If I buy a gun then go next door to a clothing store to buy a suit, I will have the gun in my hands faster than I get the suit back from the tailor doing alterations. Does that seem OK to you? The new nightmare is going to be these reciprocal laws. This is where; if one state has license to carry and the state next door does not, you should be able to carry that gun over into the next state because they equate it with a driver's license. The USA is not one country. It's the Northeast and the West coast vs. the south and the midwest. When politicians take 30 million dollars from the NRA can they make fair decisions? I don't have any answers. I'm just sad and tired.
Gassho
Sat Today
JamesComment
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Guns can do terrible things but the argument that guns don’t kill people, people kill people has merit. It’s a very difficult situation.
Gasho, Jishin, _/st\_ , LAH
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I think while, yes, it is people who kill people, guns are particularly effective at doing so. Background checks and tighter controls seem like a good way to go. Proper mental health care also needs to be addressed - I think that's an issue in the UK too. If we had guns over here I'm sure we'd see more of these shootings.
Gassho
Eishuu
ST/LAHComment
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An indepth series/campaign from The Guardian.
One hopes for skillfull means that transcends the either/or of a bird or fish?
Gassho
Jinyo
STComment
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The link below ("A Massacre every day: gun life in American") was written in response to the Las Vegas shootings and touches on many enigmas in the rise of mass shootings in the U.S. The author is a "political" author, but this particular essay raises questions more than it announces answers and seems in the spirit of trying to figure out how to "save all sentient beings" though it doesn't use quite that vocabulary:
Gassho--
Deborah
SatTodayLast edited by Beldame; 02-17-2018, 11:20 AM.Comment
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Time after time, the debate about how to deal with mass shootings always resorts to the labeling and marginalization of the shooter: he's evil; he's mentally ill; he's _______ (fill it in). In other words, he's an outlier. It's a convenient way to immunize ourselves from the killing. We are always talking about the other, never ourselves, and this is why the debate never goes anywhere. We should begin by acknowledging the shooter's humanity. Only when the shootings can be comprehended within the sphere of human action can humans take action limit the harm of this human activity. All views in this debate should arise form a single point: I do this.
Gassho,
Michael
STLast edited by Michael Joseph; 02-17-2018, 12:27 PM.Comment
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Buddhists generally look at both the violence recipients and the violence doer as ultimately victims of anger and divided thinking. There are no "bad people", only people who are driven to bad acts by the disease within.
That said, we need to stop them, and punish them in a system of justice. We also carry responsibility for our intentionally actions, both in Karma and under society's laws.
We need to spend more money on treating those suffering mental health issues.
Possession of automatic weapons and the like ideally (the political reality is a different issue) should be treated like possession of cocaine and heroin. It should a crime merely to have one, let alone sell one.
By the way, I sometimes post the following which shocks people. Now, the following may chase some people away from Treeleaf, because what I am about to say is still too radical. However, we are coming to such a day whether we like it or not:
I am looking forward to the day in which we can identify within the brains of likely violent individuals the triggers of anger and violent acts, and treat criminal behavior by a means other than incarceration and/or before it occurs. We will be able to "flip 'off' the switches" that trigger violence in violent criminal minds. We will be able to "flip 'on' the switches" that gives rise to a peaceful inner nature, empathy for other human beings, love, generosity and the like. (Brain research is showing that it is rarely if ever just a single region of the brain, or single gene or the like, that would be the trigger for any aspect of human behavior, but a complex interaction. Still, I am confident that we can "flip those switches" someday). We will learn what gives rise to a brain that can commit genocide such as in Darfur, or may walk into a school such as Sandy Hook, and we will learn to treat that brain as if it had a disease to be cured ... much as we treat contagious individuals with typhoid even if against their will, all to prevent their infecting others.
When I was a chaplain volunteer for a Zen group in a maximum security prison in Florida a few years ago, I had a small taste of what our prisons are like. Inhumane. Leaving people in horrible prisons is the cruelty.
I hope we can soon hold a solution where, someday, violence can be regulated and controlled within the human brain so these individuals can be returned to productive life. For example, how about an implant that would be able to detect hormonal releases and neurological impulses associated with anger/violence and chemically counter-act them before the person has a chance to do harm? That seems a far cry from the "lobotomy" or other crude drug means as has been attempted in the past (in case some may think that is what I am proposing). I would like to see violent individuals robbed simply of their tendency to extreme anger and violence, leaving the rest of their humanity.
I think the mechanism can be far simpler than we may imagine, and is already being developed. How? It is possible to detect in the blood and nervous system certain chemical, hormonal and other physiological changes associated with anger, aggression and the like. In a violent individual, a devise can be implanted inside the body that, upon detecting such chemical and hormonal changes indicating the onset of an angry mood in the body, would release various mood altering drugs into the body to sooth the individual or otherwise counteract their desire to act upon the anger.
The system to impose such a mechanism would be as we have today: A trial by jury perhaps, with the testimony and agreement of a team of specialist doctors. It is much as we now use to toss people into hell hole prisons for decades or the electric chair. One thing is that the device would likely be removable if some error was made, unlike our situation now in which we are incarcerating and executing some innocents.
Now why do I support the development of such technology which seems so frighteningly "Clockwork Orange"?
It is simply because, as a lawyer and former Zazen prison volunteer (and just someone who follows the news), I know that American's current prison system is dehumanizing, itself cruel and violent, and truly ruinous of lives. It is our prisons that are truly destructive of human rights and dignity. I would like to see a system in which people have a choice whereby, in selecting to have such a device implanted, they can opt to stay out of prison and otherwise be able to have a decent and free life.
Here is one case where it has been done for years, although the methods used until now have been very unsophisticated.
In fact, I am sorry to say this ... but it is only a matter of time, and the technology is around the corner. We had best start talking about the ethics of it all so that (like a gun or a knife) the tool is not misused.
If someone worries that what I propose is somehow an infringement on "human rights", they should think both of the "human rights" of the victims of violent offenders, and the "human rights" of the violent offenders themselves when locked away for years in the squalid hell holes we call our prisons.
Gassho, J
SatTodayLAH
PS - I do not speak as a "Zen teacher" here, let alone the official spokesman for "Buddhist ethics." Opinions will vary on these issues. Many are modern questions posed by our modern scientific knowledge never clearly anticipated in Buddhist teachings. Many Buddhists would completely disagree with my views.ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLEComment
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Jundo,
In general, we are in agreement, especially regarding prisons. I live in Louisiana, which has the largest prison population in the United States, and I've been dismayed at both the conditions of prisons--especially our notorious Angola Penitentiary--and the public's desire to use them to solve every social ill. Furthermore, my son spent several years in prison (manslaughter), so I have what I feel is a personal stake in the prison system. I'm a firm believer in banning military style guns, and though many of my friends as relatives own guns, I never have. Through my post, I meant to point out a serious flaw in the debate regarding gun violence. It's a position that I've developed though teaching literature: I've often asked students to discuss a "difficult" or "unpleasant" character in a story or play (The Misfit in "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" or Iago in Othello), and their first instinct is to label the character as "crazy," which is simply a strategy by which they don't have to deal with the character's complexity or humanity; it makes them uncomfortable to treat such characters as human like themselves. When I listen to and hear the language of the debates surrounding gun violence, I recognize the voices of my students. My view is that minimizing the availability of guns to the potential shooters and minimizing the damage that those guns can do is the most immediately effective way to save sentient beings and minimize suffering, but regardless of how right I think I am, I also believe that the debate should always be framed as "us talking about ourselves," and I just don't see enough of that.
I also want to thank you for the gentle admonishment to open my eyes to the advances in neuroscience that might be able to curb violent behavior at the brain level. I will admit that this idea makes me uncomfortable since I immediately imagine the potential abuses that might occur, but that could simple be my aversion to any challenges to my current view of what it is to be human--whatever that means.
Finally, thank you for your honesty and your compassionate passion. This is a major reason why I take refuge in Treeleaf.
Gassho,
Michael
STComment
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Mental health screens would be difficult to implement. Should it be a questionnaire of 5 minutes or the The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory that is several hours with interpretation? Where do the trained professionals to do this will come from? There is a huge shortage of them. Who decides what is a good vs bad score? These tests can be easily fooled. Development and extinction of conditions aren’t easy to address. Development may occur later after purchase. Tougher screenings may lead to people not being forthcoming resulting in worsening of the problem. A ban on semiautomatic weapons should be implemented but they are extremely common and Americans would not part with the ones they have. A gun can last a very long time if properly maintained. Sales between individuals is impossible to keep track of. Go to Facebook and take a look. Talks about ban are very good for business. They increase sales by 100%. Little progress is made with analysis paralysis that is prevalent in our political system. Very difficult situation. One can only hope.
Gasho, Jishin, _/st\_ , LAHComment
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None of the following is politically feasible, but I will say it anyway (and, pardon, more politics than I usually speak about):
Tax all existing registered guns at an extremely high rate (e.g., $10,000 per year per registered weapon), use the money for the mental health tests, background checks and other gun licensing procedures as well as police budgets.
Mental health testing: One must affirmatively prove sanity and lack of violent tendencies/criminal record with a high standard of proof, not merely a likelihood of its absence.
Ban all sales, gifts or other transfers of automatic and semi-automatic weapons (bump stocks etc.) immediately, including ammo, and make their continued possession illegal. I assume there are records of who purchased them. There is not guarantee that people will not hide their weapons, but treat continued possession like heroin.
But it will never happen. One reason I live in Japan.
... and I repeat, it is not because the Japanese are so peaceful. They have the same kind of violent individuals here as in the US school shootings and Las Vegas. They just can't get guns easily. (Among the worst cases was just last year, in which a deranged individual killed 19 mentally disabled people in a hospital. However, although he used a knife, they were sitting ducks completely incapable of defending themselves. He wanted to kill hundreds.).
Gassho, JLast edited by Jundo; 02-17-2018, 04:05 PM.ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLEComment
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There were a couple of high school kids where I live who said something alarming. The high school was shutdown and nearby middle school went on lock down. I left work as soon as I could and picked up my kids. Some doctors rushed out the office and raced to the school leaving acutely ill patients untreated. It’s a systemic problem. Where can I send my kids to school? Is it safe to go to church? The mall? Kids beginning in elementary school have shooter drills. It’s terrifying. But really, what can I do to make sure my kids are safe?
Gasho, Jishin, _/st\_ , LAHComment
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