Thoughts and Prayers: The Game | Hacker News Reader

Thoughts and Prayers: The Game

thoughtsandprayersthegame.com

15 pointsdrewblaisdell20 comments

In terms of mass shootings, if you look at Mother Jones there have been 472 deaths since 1999 due to mass shootings. According to the CDC, from 1999 to 2014, there were 486 deaths due to dog attacks.

This site is purely an emotional response. What is dangerous is that many of these appeals to emotion can easily be deployed to advocate for such things as banning encryption software, and more pervasive monitoring of all electronic communications.

It sounds like you're suggesting we should be indifferent to premeditated murder because an animal kills people too. I don't see how that follows. Can you please expand on your reasoning for clarity?

It's possible for there to be both too many deaths from mass shootings and too many deaths from dog attacks. The prevalence of one has no bearing on the tragedy of the other.

It's quite possible to have too many deaths from both. However, it is also the case that the currently blaśe attitude about the (marginally) more lethal one is incongruous with the currently alarmist attitude about the other.

Yes. But mass shootings are not the only ones that would be prevented by sensible gun restrictions. Its true that the currently increased focus on the issue is due to an emotional response. But that doesn't mean that it's a bad idea.

And every day for the last half century an average of 92 people have died in car accidents in the USA. Every day for the last 10 years about 20 refugees have died somewhere in the world. But its all eclipsed by a madman somewhere. All about visibility I guess.

We are constantly making efforts to improve automobile safety. Driving a car requires a license, which can be revoked. We're making efforts toward self-driving cars, because humans aren't competent to drive them. It's a silly comparison.

Madmen are part of the human condition. Violence is part of the human condition. Guns are not part of the human condition, and we could do without them if we so chose.

I agree that we shouldn't make policy based on rare events like what happened in Orlando. But there are a lot more deaths due to guns than that.

I'm not denying that guns may be a useful tool. But whether they provide a net benefit to society, make us safer, etc, that's well up for debate.

> Guns are not part of the human condition, and we could do without them if we so chose.

Could we really do without them? No guns for madmen, sane people, kids, death squads, adults, spies, sportsmen, militia men, soldiers, police officers, swat teams, special forces, or concentration camp guards?

Humans lived without guns for vast majority of our history. So obviously, yes, we can live without them.

From 2001 to 2010, 119,246 Americans were murdered with guns, 18 times all American combat deaths in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - Stanley McChrystal

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/17/opinion/home-should-not-be...

That is correct. However, the vast majority of those were not mass shootings and involved handguns rather than "assault rifles".

In terms of what we could do to get that number down, there is probably more evidence that aggressive stop-and-frisk would do more to reduce that number than banning assault rifles(see NYC experience).

However, even if there is evidence that stop-and-frisk would reduce the number of gun murders, there are still serious Constitutional issues mainly in that the vast majority of people stopped are innocent. In the same way, the vast majority of guns and gun owners will never be involved in any crime. Thus any tightening of gun laws will affect far more innocent people than actual criminals.

Yes, and the number of car fatalities has fallen over the decades because automobiles and drivers are regulated. So why shouldn't guns be?

I am not sure what your point is about the refugees, but there is a lot being done to help those people and money being spent on the problem.

And you do realize this is not "a madman somewhere". These is a heavily armed madmen about once every other month.

There are massive research and regulatory efforts aimed at making cars safer, at least. We don't even attempt to do anything about the guns. Note that if you look at all gun deaths rather than just mass shootings, the number is similar to cars.

What are they trying to get at here? A bit too subtle for me.

Whenever there is a mass shooting, segments of the general public respond with "thoughts and prayers" -- you can see this on your Facebook feed, or in any run-of-the-mill news article. People make statements like "thoughts go out to the victims in Orlando..."

In the linked game, if you tap "think" and "pray" a few times, you eventually get an option that says "ban assault weapon sales." The point of the game is that thoughts and prayers are ineffective at reducing shootings. The author proposes banning assault weapon sales instead.

I think OC was being sarcastic.

Also "thoughts and prayers" are the standard political response from GOP senators and congressmen. Many think they should do their jobs and pass legislation to help keep the public safe, like is done in the automobile industry for instance. Thoughts and prayers haven't helped...ever.

Why isn't "increase mental health care" an option in this game?

Maybe they can make an expansion pack with two new options. 1) Increase Mental Health Care, and 2) Pass Reasonable Gun Laws.

As long as you use my definition for 'reasonable', I'd press that button.

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