Empathy, the Left, and the Shooting

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

19 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

SCOTUS just hammered a wooden stake in the heart of the gun control vampire that keeps trying to suck the blood out of American freedom.

 

And look what the DOJ just did.

That is not only unprecedented, it is grounds for dismissal and impeachment of everyone involved in promoting this at the DOJ.

The DOJ falls under the Constitution. It is not a separate power unto itself. It cannot interpret the Constitution in carrying out its functions differently than SCOTUS, nor make up its own set of individual rights.

Watch what happens with this one.

The bad guys just gave MAGA a huge present for cleaning out the swamp once MAGA takes over.

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

Surprise, surprise.  4th of July mass shooting.  Call for gun control.

 

Democrat Illinois Governor Pritzker Calls For Gun Control Following Mass Shooting at Highland Park Fourth of July Parade

WWW.THEGATEWAYPUNDIT.COM

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Illinois Governor JB Pritzker (D) on Monday immediately called for gun control following a mass shooting at a July 4 parade in Highland Park. New video When mass shooting unfolds in #HighlandPark during a...

Ellen

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Ellen,

And a crazy triggered by the Deep State.

Just look at the dude (story here) .

This Deep State policy of triggering crazies to do mass shootings so the media (and crony establishment politicians) can "change the narrative" to, say, take the heat off Biden, push gun control, and things like that needs to have the entire force of a MAGA administration come down on those actors like a ton of bricks. Those assholes need to be in prison.

Highland Park is where the rich folks live, so let's see if they are both rich and stupid as they grieve. Something in my gut is telling me they are not as gullible as the Deep State would like them to be. And nothing pisses off a person more than killing his or her family members.

I expect a few to spout off promoting gun control, so let's see what happens. But I suspect this operation is going to backfire big-time on the Deep State bad guys.

And, of course, I feel awful for all those people who got killed and wounded.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Now he's in custody.

BREAKING: Highland Park Shooting Suspect Bobby Crimo III Taken Into Custody After Brief Police Chase (VIDEO)

WWW.THEGATEWAYPUNDIT.COM

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The suspected Highland Park shooter has been taken into custody following a brief police chase. Robert “Bobby” Crimo, 22, was named as a suspect approximately one hour before being apprehended...

It is what it is...

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Evil Idiot once went to a Trump rally dressed as "Where is Waldo?"

That got the mainstream press and gobs of lefties saying he was a Trump supporter.

As it turns out he was far more to the left than he ever was toward MAGA. In fact, when he want to that Trump rally, he was mocking MAGA people.

BREAKING EXCLUSIVE: Information Uncovered Overnight Shows Highland Park Shooter, Bobby Crimo, Is Tied to Socialists, Progressives, Antifa and the Occult

BREAKING EXCLUSIVE: Information Uncovered Overnight Shows Highland Park Shooter, Bobby Crimo, Is Tied to Socialists, Progressives, Antifa and the Occult

WWW.THEGATEWAYPUNDIT.COM

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Police arrested Robert ‘Bobby’ Crimo III’, age 22, yesterday following the shooting in Highland Park, Illinois.  Crimo killed six and injured over 20 more individuals at the 4th of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois.  On...

 

Regardless. I don't think he was making a political statement. I think he was and is bat-shit crazy and the people who manipulated him are doing the politics.

His social media presence showed he was just ripe for some rip-righteous behavioral science to set up powerful triggers in his brain. So, if you go mucking around in his recent past, I almost guarantee somebody showed up and did just that. After they switched the triggers on, I bet this person or persons are no longer around.

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

On 7/4/2022 at 7:22 PM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Ellen,

And a crazy triggered by the Deep State.

Yeah, that's part of what I meant with the facetious "Surprise, surprise."  I would have been actually surprised if there wasn’t at least one mass-shooting spree somewhere or other in the country on the Fourth.

Ellen

[Robert3750]

On 6/13/2022 at 2:59 PM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

For me, people should be able to purchase bazookas and military-grade weapons.

Even a tank if they want.

I serious.

 

Here's my reasoning. I don't trust my neighbors to own weapons without some kind of restriction on them. My neighbors end up being the ones who run government and that institution owns a lot of weapons. So I want to own my own weapons just in case my neighbors in the government go power-mad. Let reality, not any manmade law, be the restriction on them. People who own their own weapons shoot back when shot at.

Michael

Michael,

The right to keep and bear arms is not only in the Constitution, but follows from Objectivist principles.  Recall one of the most vehemently stated parts of Galt’s speech from AS:

 

“Whatever may be open to disagreement, there is one act of evil that may not, the act that no man may commit against others and no man may sanction or forgive. So long as men desire to live together, no man may initiate—do you hear me? no man may start—the use of physical force against others.”

 

This principle applies whether it’s one man or a group of men, even a group calling themselves a government.   Nowhere does the Galt statement say “well, initiation of force is ok to prevent initiation of force”.  He says you cannot initiate physical force.  Full stop.  Period.  Now let’s look at someone buying a weapon:  Was force initiated in its manufacture?  No.  Was force initiated in its purchase?  No.  Does the mere fact of possessing it initiate force?  No.  So how can government initiate ANY force to disallow its possession?  Answer:  It can’t, if one accepts the initial premise.  I couldn’t care less what Rand may have said about the issue.  If she bought into the idea that government can restrict gun ownership, she violated her own vehemently stated principle.  BTW, this issue is what soured me on listening to Yaron Brook.  He was asked about gun control, and he started prattling on about the evils of guns (based on his experiences in the Israeli military), and how private ownership and use of them constituted a failure of government.  It seemed to me that he had a view of government as being some sort of perfectly objective, perfectly capable, omnipresent protector that ideally should be the ONLY entity allowed to use force for ANY reason.  I was shocked at how soft he was on the issue.  But even he was forced to concede that an individual has the right to defend himself.

[Peter]

3 hours ago, Robert3750 said:

  If she bought into the idea that government can restrict gun ownership,

How about Nuclear weapons?

[Robert3750]

2 minutes ago, Peter said:

How about Nuclear weapons?

How would a scenario of private ownership of nukes even arise?  For what rational purpose?  Sold to or built by whom, from components provided by whom and for what reason?   It's reminiscent of Leonard Peikoff being asked what if someone privately, "legitimately" owned the entire earth?   Why would the entire earth population turn it over to him?

[Peter]

13 hours ago, Robert3750 said:

How would a scenario of private ownership of nukes even arise?

I hope you are right. This was discussed, I think on this forum, years ago. Someone who was tech savvy was going over the various ways to build a nuke in their garage. The good news is that if terrorists were trying to build "the bomb" they are probably dead from radiation poisoning. And there was that rumor that the small country of Israel had seven or eight nukes and that was years ago. So, if they have them . . . .     

[Robert3750]

32 minutes ago, Peter said:

there was that rumor that the small country of Israel had seven or eight nukes and that was years ago. So, if they have them . . . .     

What does the Israeli government's possession of nukes have to do with private ownership of them?  Do you define private ownership as "ownership by an entity other than the U.S. government"?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

On 9/6/2022 at 8:52 PM, Robert3750 said:

Now let’s look at someone buying a weapon:  Was force initiated in its manufacture?  No.  Was force initiated in its purchase?  No.  Does the mere fact of possessing it initiate force?  No.  So how can government initiate ANY force to disallow its possession?  Answer:  It can’t, if one accepts the initial premise.

Robert,

To show you the complexities of NIOF, what about bomb making materials?

Everything you just said applies to bomb making.

Now how would you like to live next door to a guy who makes high-impact bombs with hair triggers for a hobby and parties hard?

Don't say people like this don't exist. They do. We all know dumbasses who like to live dangerously.

 

btw - We have discussed NIOF to death on OL. It comes around once in a while.

I'm not in favor of deducing reality from principles, but instead of formulating principles from observed reality. In the case of guns, I think threat assessment has to be in the mix in some form. But in general, I am against gun control in any form. Good people are responsible the vast majority of the time.

In specific cases where the threat level goes through the roof, I am in favor of preemptive action to neutralize it. I don't want to wait until large scale death and destruction occur if they can be reasonably prevented.

For example, in the Waco disaster, based on threat level alone, I would have neutralized the weaponry of the FBI if there were a procedure to do so. 

But ditto for preemptive intervention had anyone noticed the Las Vegas shooter a few years ago arming himself to the teeth in a Las Vegas hotel among tourists.

I know it's not popular to say this in O-Land, but common sense is your friend.

Michael

[Robert3750]

8 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Robert,

To show you the complexities of NIOF, what about bomb making materials?

Michael,

I think the best known example about how you can’t control bomb making was the Oklahoma City bombing.  No one thought of fertilizer as being bomb material.  I saw that the  3-D printing of guns was addressed in a thread on here, highlighting just how absurd gun control is.  The fact is that no one, not the State or anyone else, can know everyone’s intentions, and no one who cares about freedom would want it to.

 

8 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Everything you just said applies to bomb making.

Sure it does.  Of course, people don’t buy ready made bombs.  There are no bomb shows.  There's no National Bomb Association.  People don’t keep a bomb on their nightstands to guard against break-ins.  Women don’t carry bombs to defend against a would be rapist.  People don’t hunt or target practice with bombs.  In fact, I’d say that carrying a bomb is itself a threat of initiated violence.

 

8 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Now how would you like to live next door to a guy who makes high-impact bombs with hair triggers for a hobby and parties hard?

I wouldn’t, assuming I know what he’s up to.  I don’t think that’s an issue of initiation of violence, but a safety issue.  I mean, you could also ask “how would you like to get on a plane with obvious cracks in the wings and a drunk pilot?”, or “Would you rent an apartment next to the guy who doesn’t get his gas leak fixed?”   These can be seen as violations of property rights.

 

8 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

We all know dumbasses who like to live dangerously.

That’s fine, as long as they don’t endanger the life of others.

8 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

btw - We have discussed NIOF to death on OL. It comes around once in a while.

As I would expect!

8 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

I'm not in favor of deducing reality from principles, but instead of formulating principles from observed reality

I think that was the approach that guided Rand in the first place.

 

8 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

For example, in the Waco disaster, based on threat level alone, I would have neutralized the weaponry of the FBI if there were a procedure to do so. 

I don’t think it makes sense to say “take the guns away from a police agency”, but rather “disallow improper use of their weapons”, of which Waco was an example.

 

 

8 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

But ditto for preemptive intervention had anyone noticed the Las Vegas shooter a few years ago arming himself to the teeth in a Las Vegas hotel among tourists.

It seems to me that in a society that followed the NIOF principle, being armed to the teeth could easily be seen as a violation of the hotel’s property rights, and action could be taken on that basis.  I also don’t think it makes sense to say “the government can restrict gun ownership because a few people could intend to initiate violence with them”.

 

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Robert,

Your form of writing is what I used to call candy-striping.

I find it does not work well for written discussions.

Frankly, I'm interested in ideas and sparks to trigger ideas. Remarks like, "that’s fine, as long as they don’t endanger the life of others," and "As I would expect!" and "I think that was the approach that guided Rand in the first place," and so on don't do anything to stimulate my intellectual curiosity. 

In short, what you think of this sentence or that from one of my posts doesn't matter to me--like it has no value to me at all.

I am interested in ideas. If that does it for you, present ideas. I'm all ears. But candy-striping?... ugh...

I mean, write what you want. But don't expect much reaction from me if all you do is quote sentences from me and issue short opinions on them. 

 

That sounds like a blow-off, but it isn't. And I know experience doesn't fall from the skies. So here's a short explanation that may be of use to you. (If not, just leave it.)

From doing forums for a long time, here is the best way I can put it. In O-Land, people are often not aware of the WIIFM principle when they trade. (What's In It For Me.) So they present something they find valuable to someone who couldn't care less about that thing, then wonder why they aren't getting across.

An exchange of ideas is the same--trade-wise--as a sale in a supermarket. It follows the same requirement that two interested parties are needed, not just one.

Also, there's another requirement. Ideas require more thought and presentation than simply blurting out short opinions. If blurting out short opinions is your system of discourse and that does it for you, I suggest you find others who find value in that. I don't.

Blurting short things happens in banter and I do banter myself. It's fun. It's play. But I am aware that banter is not a discussion of ideas.

You sound like you've got a good mind, so I'm not saying anything about that. I just can't stand candy-striping.

 

 

If you are interested in going deeper, there's a cognitive issue, not just a normative issue. Actually there are several cognitive issues, but I'll only give one--it deals with short term memory. The sweet spot number-wise for dealing with issues in a discussion is 3 to 4. One and two are OK, but they are not the sweet spot for grasping an idea. Ditto for 5 to 7, although these only work well when the interest level in each issue is high. You can push it to 9, but when doing the higher numbers, chunking usually kicks for the brain to process them and remember them. There is a lot of literature on this. If you are interested, here is a link to the article that started it all: The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information. Once again, if you are not interested, just leave that stuff here. I have a feeling a few other readers will be interested, so it's not wasted space and mental effort.

Michael

[Peter]

3 hours ago, Robert3750 said:

The fact is that no one, not the State or anyone else, can know everyone’s intentions,

Exactly. I was thinking in terms of the danger of one person owning a bomb to somewhat larger countries owning a bomb. Does the population of a country matter as concerns the possible detonation of a bomb? So, what are the odds of one person or a small country from using “the bomb?” Is it greater than the U.S. (once again) using the bomb? Obviously, one person owning the bomb, in secret or not, is probably scarier and more threating than a whole country having one . . . or is it? That’s about it.

From Bing. Israel’s population 9.05 million (2019) · About equal to the population of New Jersey. Palestinian Territory, occupied - 4.17 million (2013). North Korea - 25.67 million (2019)