The Great ILX Gun Control Debate

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By the way, I'll be much more apt to believe your "cigarette burn" stories as soon as you clarify that your use of "racial epithets" was also factual, instead of some trumped-up argument silencing card.

― John Justen, Thursday, 19 April 2007 07:43 (seventeen years ago) link

Hey, anybody want to lighten the mood and talk about abortion?

― John Justen, Thursday, 19 April 2007 07:47 (seventeen years ago) link

The "racial epithets" thing was pointedly NOT factual. That was the whole point -- to ask the person, "OK, in what situation would YOU feel this white-hot rage? How would it need to escalate so that you would be moved to that same desire for vengeance?"

I mean, the more I reread your posts, the more it seems like you're saying "Ugh, you shouldn't have felt that". To which my reply is:

(1) in some sense, you're right -- my whole point is that my response was out-of-proportion, and I'm really glad I didn't act on it (and that I didn't, for instance, have a handgun on me);

(2) but I think those feelings in general are normal, that most people have, at some point, the desire to kill/destroy/humiliate another human being, for reasons ranging from "road rage" to, say, rape, or racially-motivated violence;

(3) and that, if you think that those feelings, and the transient desire for what the Greeks called peripetia, are somehow unique to me, a reflection of an entirely personal psychopathy...

(4) then I suggest you talk to some rape victims, or victims of racial violence, because -- to put it bluntly -- you're completely fucking wrong. Go ask a Holocaust survivor what he/she might like to do to Eichmann, or Mengele. I cite Holocaust survivors and rape victims because I search -- hopefully not in vain -- for someone of whom you might say, "Well, it's OK for them to feel murderous rage, for them to fantasize about these things". To acknowledge that such feelings, in varying degrees, are a part of being human.

(If you've never felt murderous rage, the desire to completely destroy another human being -- even just for a fleeting moment -- then you're lucky. But being lucky doesn't give you the right to smugly crow about that fact. And you're completely bonkers if you think that it's a "right-wing" trait.)

― lurker #2421, Thursday, 19 April 2007 07:54 (seventeen years ago) link

for reasons ranging from "road rage" to, say, rape, or racially-motivated violence

(that is, being the victim of rape or racially-motivated violence)

― lurker #2421, Thursday, 19 April 2007 08:00 (seventeen years ago) link

Lurker: your intervals explanation clears up your argument for me a lot. When you say you're pro-gun control do you mean more gun control, like some kind of ban, or basically the status quo with waiting periods and background checks?

I'm fine with waiting periods for the reasons you cite. They're also good reason not to procrastinate.

― Kerm, Thursday, 19 April 2007 08:01 (seventeen years ago) link

i think lurker's point is pretty explicitly that he considers himself a normal person

he may want to reconsider! normal people who have backgroundy-checky jobs that involve taking care of other people don't post violent murder fantasies on the internet

― moonship journey to baja, Thursday, 19 April 2007 08:09 (seventeen years ago) link

even pseudonymously!

― moonship journey to baja, Thursday, 19 April 2007 08:09 (seventeen years ago) link

Not feeling "the desire to completely destroy another human being" has nothing to do with luck. It's called empathy, moral reasoning, and normal human function. I'm sorry this hasn't become clear to you yet. I've been angry, even rageful towards other people. That's called emotion. The moment that it becomes something along the lines of what you're talking about it is either overwrought teen stupidity or pathological.

As to your point about suggesting that I talk to some rape victims/victims of racial violence, thanks, I know some, and I talk to them on a regular basis. Oddly enough, they don't seem all that interested in formulating revenge fantasies, because they aren't 15, and they are more interested in the present day than trying to undo the undoable. I'm sure that they would appreciate your attempts to consign them to the position of victimization as definition of personal identity, though.

Still, I have to give you a hand for bringing up the holocaust and italicizing a greek term. A+!

xpost.

― John Justen, Thursday, 19 April 2007 08:12 (seventeen years ago) link

Basically, I think that the status quo should be tightened up a bit, especially with regard to background checks and handguns. But I think there's good reason for saying that a household should be able to have a single-shot rifle or shotgun around -- in other words, something that can be used for hunting, marksmanship, or defense of the home, but that isn't really capable of killing more than one or two people at a time, and that can't be easily concealed. That's my take on it, more or less.

xpost You may be right. Perhaps it's best to keep one's lips sealed, and to pretend that such things are only felt by that shadowy and mysterious figure, the Evil Other.

I prefer, however, Goethe's take on things: "There is no crime of which I cannot imagine myself capable."

xpost

― lurker #2421, Thursday, 19 April 2007 08:17 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah okay it's late and off to bed and all, but seriously, John, I think you're villifying Lurker out of all proportion here: yeah, it's really ugly to experience the kind of white-hot murderous rage that makes you actually start pondering hurting people, but it's also something that happens to plenty of normal people, and it's not THAT psychologically sick in and of itself. All dude is saying is that, having been there once himself, he doesn't want people holding guns when they're in that state -- not because he'd actually have done anything, but because he can remember the jacked-up thinking and decision-making it could lead to. (And again, Moonship, it seems unfair to read that as a murder fantasy, and not just as a ... well, a failed literary attempt to describe what impotent rage feels like.)

And John, it's just semantics if you want to describe anyone who'd weild a gun in a blinding rage "pathological" -- maybe that's a fair description -- but it's like factually demonstrable that a significant number of people really are that "pathological." Meaning not rampaging mass-murderers but like guys who get in arguments with their cousins over poker games and whip out guns over it. I'm not saying that's any more than a small percentage of gun owners, but there are enough that you can't just put it down to widespread mental illness, you know?

Anyway, the only gun-control debate there is how much you want the government to keep the weapons out of the angry hands and how much you want that responsibility left to people themselves.

― nabisco, Thursday, 19 April 2007 08:19 (seventeen years ago) link

Not feeling "the desire to completely destroy another human being" has nothing to do with luck. It's called empathy, moral reasoning, and normal human function.

Not feeling that way all the time, or even regularly = "empathy, moral reasoning, and normal human function", i.e. what you feel, what I feel, and what everyone who isn't a sociopath feels on a day-to-day basis

Claiming to not feel that way for a single second in your life, ever = delusional

Or: fuck you, you dishonest, smug, sanctimonious ass. Thanks for judging me based on something I felt for 10 seconds -- felt and didn't act upon -- when I was in high school.

xpost again, thank you, Nabisco

― lurker #2421, Thursday, 19 April 2007 08:22 (seventeen years ago) link

I understand your interpretation, Nabisco, but the truth is that people that are willing to express sentiments along the lines of what I quoted earlier either scare the fuck out of me or are completely full of shit. I can't help but hope that lurker is full of shit, and I'm a lot happier believing that to be the case.

Also, it is undeniably a murder/revenge fantasy. That's what makes it so utterly fucked up.

xpost No, dude, the minute you decide to graphically describe some scary psychotic episode from your high school experience that involves the desire to sadistically punish your friends "enemies" and use that embarrassing admission in order to prove a point on the internet = CREEPY SCARY TIME.

― John Justen, Thursday, 19 April 2007 08:42 (seventeen years ago) link

Although, you know, if you know where I live and have access to a gun/axe/bomb/car/brick/pointy stick, no harm, no foul, right?

― John Justen, Thursday, 19 April 2007 08:45 (seventeen years ago) link

I understand your interpretation, Nabisco, but the truth is that people that are willing to express sentiments along the lines of what I quoted earlier either scare the fuck out of me or are completely full of shit.

John, if a rape survivor expressed to you the desire to torture and murder her rapist, would you consider that "creepy as fuck"? Would you tell her so?

― lurker #2421, Thursday, 19 April 2007 08:54 (seventeen years ago) link

YES, YOU NUTJOB.

― John Justen, Thursday, 19 April 2007 08:56 (seventeen years ago) link

Well, then you'd be a piece of shit, frankly, for doing so.

― lurker #2421, Thursday, 19 April 2007 08:57 (seventeen years ago) link

I mean, if your work has anything to do with counseling, teaching, or anything helping people, get out. You don't belong there.

― lurker #2421, Thursday, 19 April 2007 08:57 (seventeen years ago) link

(Sorry if that's harsh -- but if you would honestly say that, how can you possibly have the empathy to work with anyone who's been through any kind of trauma?)

― lurker #2421, Thursday, 19 April 2007 09:01 (seventeen years ago) link

Are you suggesting that nurturing vengeful fantasies of torture and murder is somehow a positive stance in counseling?

― John Justen, Thursday, 19 April 2007 09:06 (seventeen years ago) link

I mean, rather than promoting some sort of healing that is based on the individuals self-worth vs. some sort of definition of the self through victimization?

― John Justen, Thursday, 19 April 2007 09:09 (seventeen years ago) link

Jesus, seriously, I'm no counselor, but given the limited amount of info/world view I've gotten about you so far, I hope to god you aren't in the profession.

― John Justen, Thursday, 19 April 2007 09:10 (seventeen years ago) link

A decent counselor will tell the victim that it's normal to have those feelings, and figure out if she means to act on it; if she's not planning to act on it, then the only issue is making sure she's not obsessing over it endlessly. Making her feel ashamed of the feelings, on the other hand, would be an incredibly destructive thing to do, and would encourage her to sublimate her rage in all kinds of dangerous ways, many of which are likely to be self-destructive.

This is basic, Psych 101 stuff. Is this honestly new to you?

xpost Without dealing with and accepting rage, effective therapy is impossible. That doesn't mean you encourage them to define themselves as a victim, but if you communicate the sense that murderous rage is a bad emotion that needs to be suppressed, you'll never get ANYWHERE with a patient. Rage is part of being human -- children express the genuine desire to kill each other and/or their parents all the time!

― lurker #2421, Thursday, 19 April 2007 09:11 (seventeen years ago) link

I mean, seriously, I'm picturing you as having this uber-WASPy background with parents who told you it was never okay to get angry, who punished you for weeks for saying "I hate you" to them once. I hope I'm wrong.

― lurker #2421, Thursday, 19 April 2007 09:12 (seventeen years ago) link

FWIW Lurker I heartily agree with you and you make perfect sense. Jhonen Vasques has spoken of appealing to the monster inside all of us who we need to allow play in our minds on the rare occasion - precisely so we DONT act on them. This is what keeps people sane!

OK I'm going back to being gone now, I just felt the need to support the argument.

― Trayce, Thursday, 19 April 2007 09:23 (seventeen years ago) link

Points, in some sort of order:

A) This is all completely off-topic, and I realize that, and apologize for stringing it out this long
B) You are completely and totally wrong on my WASPy background etc., but I'll give you the benefit of understanding that we're interacting on a message board, which leads to this sort of misapprehension
C) I should have been more specific about the fact that I would never tell someone in said position that their feelings AT THE TIME were "creepy as fuck" but that doesn't change the fact that universal human understanding of the desire to torture and murder anyone is, by definition "creepy as fuck"
D) I think that your ability to argue from a viewpoint of frothing anger/feel comfortable recounting distinct and detailed vengeance fantasies from years ago/use allusions to racial epithets and the holocaust as argumentation points is not terribly well-suited to someone who wants to weigh in as an arbiter of who is qualified to speak to people in times of crisis and counseling
E) Returning to the point at hand, I would rather see Manalishi/Roger etcetera (even in the (hopefully) exaggerated stance he has chosen to take) have access to firearms, in place of you (again, in the (hopefully) exaggerated stance you have chosen to take) having access to them.

― John Justen, Thursday, 19 April 2007 09:41 (seventeen years ago) link

i just actually punched a hole in something in my office reading lurker's post.

i would just like to say that it's really, really fucking creepy and disgusting to me, on a highly personal level, that you're insisting on using rape and sexual abuse victims as part of your little revenge fantasy and that you KEEP BRINGING THIS UP OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

trayce otm.

― the schef (adam schefter ha ha), Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:24 (seventeen years ago) link

altho ha ha joke's on me i just punched something so lurker's insane, disturbing, creepy fantasy proven true??

― the schef (adam schefter ha ha), Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:26 (seventeen years ago) link

lurker i hope you get that new untreatable tuberculosis that's going around.

― TOMBOT, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:37 (seventeen years ago) link

or alternatively maybe you could just die from Tiresome Troll Dipshit With Delusions Of Having Enlightening Points To Make syndrome, then you don't have to acquire anything new

― TOMBOT, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:39 (seventeen years ago) link

nabisco can you give me 5000 words on a couple of topics? I need to explain to some college graduates that "People Get Angry" and "Guns Are Designed For Killing Things"

― TOMBOT, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:40 (seventeen years ago) link

sorry I left my patience in my other pants today

― TOMBOT, Thursday, 19 April 2007 14:42 (seventeen years ago) link

better than leaving your pants in a patient

― remy bean, Thursday, 19 April 2007 15:47 (seventeen years ago) link

whoah this went weird places - oddly I pretty much am in John Justen's (and Ally's!) corner. Nurturing revenge fantasies is never helpful, or healthy, or productive of anything - no matter what the crime or the guilt of the aggressor (cf. capital punishment thread).

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 19 April 2007 16:24 (seventeen years ago) link

(and yes I do have personal experience with people who have been raped/assaulted - given the levels of violence in this world I imagine almost everybody knows SOMEONE this has happened to)

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 19 April 2007 16:26 (seventeen years ago) link

A number of people that I respect reacted very strongly to lurker on this thread. I don't think this anecdote really informs the debate, but, honestly, I don't get the vitriol.

I remember, in high school, seeing a trio of self-styled toughs who went after a friend of mine, making fun of her in the most relentless, cruel, and nasty way. She was a completely harmless girl, never gave anyone a hard time; they were going after her because she was vulnerable, and they got off on making her hurt.

I thought about how nice it would be to pull a gun on those pathetic, piece-of-shit motherfuckers. Make them grovel on the floor, call me "sir", beg for their lives. To turn their arrogance upside-down, to make it so that -- despite the fact that there were three of them, one of me, and any one of them could've beaten the shit out of me -- they were powerless, and I could force them to confront their own folly, to be a hair's breadth away from a death caused solely by their own arrogance and cruelty, and to be spared from it only by an act of mercy that exceeded anything of which they themselves were capable.

Obviously, he didn't act on it. It takes a lot to overcome all the obstacles that keep us from killing or seriously injuring another human being.

This fantasy is elaborate, but it doesn't seem that exceptional to me. For a lot of kids who feel powerless these kind of fantasies are a way of dealing with their feelings of impotence and shame, not to mention justifiable anger.

The point Lurker is missing is the fact that the vast majority of kids don't kill or inflict serious physical harm on others, just as he didn't, so there must be something that keeps this rage in check.

But, yeah, kids should have access to guns only under controlled circumstances. We're already doing that, though imperfectly.

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Thursday, 19 April 2007 16:33 (seventeen years ago) link

it seems exceptional to me in that he's arguing that such fantasies (which he describes in rather disturbingly unnecessary detail) are somehow morally justifiable and potentially actionable. They aren't. They're stupid and counter-productive and simply an indulgence of humanity's worst tendencies.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 19 April 2007 16:37 (seventeen years ago) link

but don't get me wrong I had lots of teenage revenge fantasies too! Teenagers do that.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 19 April 2007 16:38 (seventeen years ago) link

I think it's just posting the fantasy in lurid detail that was a bit of a gross shift in tone for the thread. and then all the weird, defensive, "oh, but you guys would think it was okay if my friend had been raped/was black" and the harping on rape.

― horseshoe, Thursday, 19 April 2007 16:38 (seventeen years ago) link

in my mind i harped on the black

― remy bean, Thursday, 19 April 2007 16:39 (seventeen years ago) link

John, if a rape survivor expressed to you the desire to torture and murder her rapist, would you consider that "creepy as fuck"? Would you tell her so?

YES, YOU NUTJOB.

-- John Justen, Thursday, April 19, 2007 1:56 AM (7 hours ago)

Well, then you'd be a piece of shit, frankly, for doing so.

this exchange is TOTALLY CREEPY AS FUCK.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 19 April 2007 16:41 (seventeen years ago) link

I harped on him being a boring idiot with nothing to add besides being fucked up

― TOMBOT, Thursday, 19 April 2007 16:42 (seventeen years ago) link

as if counselors should be going around encouraging people to nurture violent revenge fantasies. yeah, that sounds like the road to mental health right there for sure yep.

x-post

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 19 April 2007 16:42 (seventeen years ago) link

not to get too boring myself here but posting that shit to the internet to try and make some kind of point IS dumb and fucked up and he got what he was asking for, fair's fair

― TOMBOT, Thursday, 19 April 2007 16:43 (seventeen years ago) link

I mean, when lurker originally posted the revenge fantasy I wondered if maybe I was overreacting by being weirded out, but then, in response to Kerm being weirded out AND RACE NOT HAVING BEEN MENTIONED AT ALL, lurker said this:

Really? What if I told you that she was [insert race here] and they were yelling racial epithets at her -- would it be OK then? Because it's definitely very important to me, you see, that I be indignant for the right reasons. I'll wait expectantly while you tell me what those are.

and that just seems so defensive and from a conversation lurker was having in his head, not a conversation that was taking place in this thread at all.

― horseshoe, Thursday, 19 April 2007 16:44 (seventeen years ago) link

but John Justen has covered this already, better than I.

― horseshoe, Thursday, 19 April 2007 16:45 (seventeen years ago) link

I don't think he was trying to argue that the fantasy is morally justifiable. It's a fantasy. He was trying to argue that it is understandable that one might feel this way.

He does argue that it is potentially actionable, and I agree with you that it isn't, or rather that it may be but in only the most extreme, outlying cases (otherwise, there would be more news stories).

I don't think he was saying that revenge fantasies should be encouraged.

He was being defensive and dull-witted.

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Thursday, 19 April 2007 16:48 (seventeen years ago) link

uh I just quoted a post where he specifically indicates that NOT encouraging revenge fantasies makes someone "a piece of shit".

but yes, let's drop it and move on oy vey

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 19 April 2007 16:50 (seventeen years ago) link

A few quick points, and I'm done:

1) First and foremost, I apologize for bringing up rape, and if that was a trigger for anyone. My intent was to find out if John Justen's problem was that what I felt was with my situation specifically, or with the idea of revenge fantasies, etc. in general, no matter WHO was experiencing them. Look, it was deep in the a.m., and some dude was hectoring me endlessly about something I felt for ten seconds as a kid: I won't claim to have been at my best.

2) I stick to my guns absolutely on this point: people have fantasies like the one I described all the time. That's normal. The problem is acting on them, or obsessing about them. If you think it was inappropriate of me to post it, fine, that's fair enough.

3) Another one of my points: if I could get this riled up, and the wrong didn't even happen to me, how must the people who've actually been wronged (or who think they have) feel? Based on my experiences, most of them have had varying degrees of desire for revenge, and I'm not going to call that desire "creepy" by a long shot: again, it's just normal.

4) Then again, I will say this: I was once accosted/attacked by a gang of people. Didn't really get beaten up, but got the shit scared out of me. You'd think that I'd harbor fantasies against them, but I didn't at the time, and don't now. I think that people often tend to get more worked up over a wrong suffered by someone else -- again, part of the point of my story.

5) I'm glad that Nabisco and Trayce get where I was coming from; I'm sad that Ally and Tombot are infuriated. I wish I hadn't posted to begin with, as it was time we could've all spent doing something with/for the people we love, instead of arguing over this crap.

xpost no, Shakey Mo, I said that judging someone harshly for it, and describing it as "creepy as fuck", was shitty. If you told one of my friends who had been raped that she was creepy as fuck for having fantasies of torturing her rapist, I would think you were an asshole. Sorry, but I'm not budging an inch on that one: torture victims are entitled to imagine turnabout, they're just not entitled to act it out (and probably shouldn't spend a lot of time obsessing about it, which is still miles away from having the thought at all).

― lurker #2421, Thursday, 19 April 2007 16:54 (seventeen years ago) link

Lurker misunderstood John's response and thought John meant that he would not be sympathetic to the pathos of the victim.

Obviously, to the rest of us, John did not mean that.

He really wasn't arguing that John was a piece of shit because he wouldn't encourage revenge fantasies.

But, I agree. I'll drop it.

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Thursday, 19 April 2007 16:57 (seventeen years ago) link

What about the gun control debate?

I have a question, and I know it's probably answered easily-- but what's the upside of allowing people to have handguns? At all? I mean, pretend every handgun stopped working today, so the "bad people have them" argument is lost. What advantages do handguns carry? I'm sure this has been explained upthread, and I'm even sure that I've responded, but I'd love to see a nice little list. Because most of the reasons I've heard have been like "so people can defend themselves" and that. But there are other, less lethal, and easier to use options (like pepper spray... or booby traps)

― Will M., Thursday, 19 April 2007 17:08 (seventeen years ago) link

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