Moment of Silence
This is titled "a National Moment of silence".
I am very sad for the families and for humanity that such a thing happened, but I am not born member of the US "Nation", and feel excluded by this wording.
I am very sad for the families and for humanity that such a thing happened, but I am not born member of the US "Nation", and feel excluded by this wording.
[1]: http://www.causes.com/causes/807161-stand-with-sandy-hook/ac...
And, the tech community (specifically, Ron Conway) are probably the strongest promoters of this particular program right now, which is interesting given that the tech community has rarely been politically influential. At most it has been able to address things like crypto, CDA, and SOPA/PIPA; minimally effective so far at patents and immigration.
Nothing will be lost by having a sensible discussion and resisting the urge to pass whatever half-baked legislation gets written up the quickest.
(EDIT: I guess that's Demand a Plan, but they're being promoted by exactly the same set of people in all the same places, and Demand a Plan includes the moment of silence, so it seems fair to consider them the same thing.)
>In the coming weeks and months, we must come together around common-sense solutions that will prevent the gun violence that has become all too frequent in communities across the country. We welcome everyone to this dialogue—we want to hear from gun owners who think it's time for a change as well as folks who are still on the fence.
From some quick google searching it seems you are referring to the different "demand a plan" campaign. That was never linked to in this moment of silence.
edit: to your edit, I'm pretty sure it's a different group of people, even if they are related.
Also, they seem to be somewhat more open to gun owners talking to them. I do not remember the "we want to hear from gun owners" line being there.
If I'm misremembering, that's my fault, but if they actually responded to criticism and edited their message/approach to be more inclusive, I'm impressed. They probably have 30-50% of gun owners supporting them anyway, but could get to 70-80% by being rational about specific policies they want.
"It's what the victims would have wanted" turns them into a cipher for your political cause.
(I'm personally an NRA member and about as pro-gun as you can be ... but I'm sure there are many reasonable compromises that gun lovers can make in terms of lawful gun regulation. Our goal can be to ensure crazy people have reduced access to the guns that should only be in the hands of law-abiding sane people)
I think of it as "let us honor their deaths with meaningful action rather than cheap words".
This should be a political debate for or against gun control; it's better to mourn their loss and then to look objectively at policy changes later. Legislation by emotion has turned out horribly in the past. It certainly shouldn't be a time to push a specific legislative agenda.
I don't know. Seen from outside, the gun control issue do not seem to belong to the "political agenda" layer, along who's next for presidential or the latest political sex scandal.
From the outside view, gun control belong to the common sense layer, near "he who stole someone else's money will go to jail" and "tanks are not allowed on highways".
It should even not be called "gun control", but "lethal weapon for sale at the next block".
I hope US citizen are aware they are very different from most other countries in this regard. They may ask themselves if this specificity is an improvement over other laws, and then should be evangelized abroad. Or maybe it is an aberation? Or maybe it is some "cultural exception" (a la Chinese) and then, justified by what specifical traits?
Saying "we need to do something about gun violence" is a much less overtly political message than "we must adopt these specific 3 policy items."
If they wanted to deal with Sandy Hook in specific, enhancing the mental health bars on getting weapons, enhancing safe storage, etc. would be most effective with the least cost. After that, banning semiautomatic rifles and handguns, but this would require constitutional changes. Armed security at schools would be another approach (being endorsed by Senator Boxer).
For Aurora, mental health bars, possibly waiting periods, and possibly preempting local gun free zones would be the specific policy remedy with the least cost; banning semiautomatic pistols and handguns would be the intrusive but effective solution (via constitutional amendment).
For spree killings in general, the low hanging fruit is consensual agreement by the media to not dramatize the killers -- don't ever mention their names, similar to how suicide bombers are handled in Israel. It's not the media/video games/etc. in general, it is specifically how the media treat these incidents.
If they want to deal with statistically prevalent gun violence, they should focus on handguns (80-90%) and the drug war. Rifles and shotguns are essentially irrelevant to that. Domestic violence is another issue, and there have been really strong changes in the past 10 years to address that (confiscating guns over even misdemeanor DV convictions, unless you're the Sheriff of San Francisco.)
Suicide is the other big issue around gun deaths, which I'm not sure you can really address through regulation, but better mental health access would probably be the best solution.
There should be a discussion of what the aims of legislation are (reducing gun crime overall, reducing specific types of crime), and then pick and promote measures which will actually accomplish those.
As far as I can tell, this was just a bunch of things a few mayors (Bloomberg, specifically) already wanted (interstate transport, 100% background check for all sales), and then the magazine ban randomly thrown in.
There is some really low hanging fruit which virtually everyone would support (100% checks on all transfers, mental health bars for getting guns, enhanced penalties for crimes at the federal level involving guns, and per-state changes to gun crime laws).
Or you think all Europe, and most other countries are out of their mind to not allow anyone and his dog to carry a weapon when going to the drugstore?
i.e., any attempt to limit the ownership of firearms in the U.S. is seen as a direct assault upon the brave minuteman militia that rose up to defeat those red coats in glorious battle in 1776. (That last bit was satire, not serious.)
Our countries are solid enough to allow some adjustment in their necessary creation myths.
You know, during some of my family members' lifetimes, my own people were subjected to a genocide by a government who first deprived us of the right to own any weapons.
Just a generation before, the country that perpetrated this genocide was considered one of the best places for our people to live on earth.
Given this, I'm certainly not inclined to trust any particular nation-state, and letting a government disarm me seems a bit on the foolish side.
Are you sure you want that? Because, you know, you shouldn't want something for yourself that you couldn't reasonably want for everyone.
I thought it was a solid gesture, and it brought appropriate attention to the victims and their families. At the same time, it felt like I was being compelled to take part in something with no warning (though the overlay was easy to dismiss). There is no shortage of Sandy Hook coverage on TV and elsewhere on the internet. I'm on hackernews because I chose to read hackernews.
I believe, since their ability to 'spread the word' was limited they resorted to recruiting folks to aid in hijacking unsuspecting folk into their emotional event.
Effectiveness: around zero I would think. The moment was over before I could figure out what was going on. Then: resentment.
But I want to do it on my terms. I don't want some asshole telling me I must pray, or support and argue about gun control, or 'Like' a picture of an out-of-work marine who is hanging out in the school parking lot today.
I can appreciate the gestures, I just don't like the coercion.
If you want to prevent your screen from going black, you can add 'http://www.causes.com/moment_of_silence.js to your adblocker rules.
But I would very much like to point a thing that requires an outside view: the US netizens seem to forget often that many people from other countries use their websites.
http://www.causes.com/causes/807161-stand-with-sandy-hook/ac...
Submission of that (almost simultaneously with this submission here) for HN discussion: