“As we think about each (risk factor for violence), we need to keep our empathy. We can’t ever let ourselves get comfortable with this kind of slaughter. Then empathy must drive us to act by raising awareness about domestic violence and violence against people with disabilities. But most of all, as Karen Smith and Jonathan Martinez are laid to rest, we must first imagine, then act to create, an America in which there are fewer and fewer guns.” – David M. Perry in After San Bernardino shooting, we need more empathy, fewer guns [via cnn.com]

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73 COMMENTS

  2. I consider myself a very emphatic person, maybe a closet bleeding heart, that makes me want to see more vulnerable people arm themselves and prepare themselves mentally to do what no one else can do for them.

    • That’s pretty much where I be at, yo. Seriously, when most people talk about protecting themselves from physical danger, they mean hiding and waiting for the danger to pass over. (Hey, I made a Passover joke.) Then I think: if only there was some kind of portable tool or device that could be used to stop an assailant. Ah, but there just isn’t anything. Too bad. 8~)

      As the Israelis say: pray for peace, prepare for war.

    • The so-called liberals restrict empathy to a narrow range of approved responses. Yet empathy is part of what makes me want to see MORE guns in our society, not less.

      Every time one of these school shootings happens, I feel it. I have children, so I know what it’s like to worry about their safety and fear for the future.

      The key difference is, like just about everyone else here on TTAG, I have a strong protective instinct. As a father, it’s part of my job to stand between my family and any threat to their lives. So my reaction goes past “somebody should shelter me and my children from the bad people” and includes a “why didn’t somebody shoot that evil fucker in the face when he showed up” component.

      That’s my empathy. I feel the pain of innocent victims and grieving parents, and I want to stop it at the source.

      • This guy’s a poster boy for the Anti-critical Thinking League. He notes that the disabled are twice as likely as the abled to be victims of violence but apparently has no clue why. Like, maybe because they’re defenseless? And they’d be equally defenseless with or without guns. He notes that black women are disproportionately victims of domestic violence and blames that on ‘lack of access to resources and distrust of authorities who should provide protection.’ The only resource they need access to is a firearm because the authorities are going to be across town at the doughnut shop while they’re being beaten to death. Assuming that is if they can get their phone out and explain their situation to the 911 operator. Total disconnect with reality. Our nation’s university system is a good place for this little snowflake to hide out.

    • That’s not how they think. They think they can eliminate all guns. So let’s argue on their premise and still show the fallacy.
      What will be the next tool of choice for the killers? How about all the ones most killers are using right now?

      “If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns” makes a cute meme, but it misses the fat pitch thrown right down the middle.

      • Serious? Yeah, right. While the pirates are drinking rum and chasing wenches, the ninjas are scuttling their ships and kidnapping their captains.

  9. I have not one iota of empathy for the Cho Seung Huis, Nidal Hassans and Dylann Roofs of the world, only 200gr. .452 GoldDots.

  10. Hey Doogie, the 80s called, they want their earring back. George Michael is dead. It’s time to move on.

  11. This is an easy one. Two ways to approach it.

    Substitution:
    Cars kill more people than guns everyday. No cry for less cars?

    Replace cars with a host of other things like heart attacks, diet, pools, etc.

    Reality:
    With terrorism (foreign and domestic) very much a reality and on the rise, this is the time you choose to try to further disarm Americans?

    Wow.

    • Actually, hardcore collectivists don’t like cars either, since like guns, they give the individual FAR too much autonomy.

      They prefer for the all powerful state to have total control over your ability to simply live, never mind travel. It goes without saying that they don’t couple absolute authority with the slightest hint of a duty to either protect or transport you, having removed the right to do those things for yourself.

        • More like walking, bicycles, and public transportation. But not cars, not even self-driving cars; cars are a “inefficient” since they transport fewer passengers per fuel consumed per mile traveled.

        • I know a guy who is exactly what you describe. He hates private vehicles that are under the control of a human being. His little utopia is basically where everyone has an Uber or Lyft account, and they can summon an autonomous vehicle at a moment’s notice, and of course, those vehicles are tracked and logged. He feels cars under the control of humans cause “too much” carnage on a yearly basis.

          The irony is, he’s not really keen on shared public transit, since that would mean he’d have to subject himself to poor people (he’s wealthy) and (gasp!) maybe crazy homeless folk.

          The collectivist wants to take all individual control away from the individual. Automation makes it easier, since people are lazy. Hell, I wouldn’t mind a robot car to call my own, but I sincerely hope I can control it myself at any given moment, and also disable all tracking and log features.

  12. Another we we we guy!

    If everyone in this country was required to offer their opinion only and could only make statements that are theirs alone, all this nonsense and bullshit “we” would put an end to lies and misrepresentation.

  15. I’m sure empathy will protect him in his communistic hellhole when the non-gun-armed thug kicks down his door and beats him to death with bare hands. It’s laughable who intellectually stunted this kid is. Because the violent multiple felon couldn’t have simply stabbed the two victims with a plain kitchen knife or hell even a screwdriver.

  16. Removing guns will not change human nature. It will just remove one tool humans can use, whether for good or evil. It’s the empathy (or whatever) that needs to be worked on first.

    Soft thinking and cries for empathy aside … at least this one understands that there is something that has to be done other than (well, in his mind in addition to) just eliminating a class of tools.

    • What he seems to want is a world controlled by large, strong men armed with clubs and edged weapons.

      We tried that.

      It was called “the Dark Ages”.

    • Exactly the point he completely misses. Violence has existed throughout the known history of man, whether that is in territorial battles, during the commission of crimes, intentional murder, domestic violence, whatever. Violence is hardwired into our DNA. And when it comes right down to it, our society today is less violent than life in the Dark Ages, as someone mentioned, or at the height of the Roman or Greek civilizations. The Egyptians engaged in war, and murder was a form of dynastic succession, as it has been (probably) in all royal families. And even Otzi the Ice Man was killed with an arrow fired from behind and above him, high up in the mountains.

    • If so, you can thank the progressive social justice movement.

      They have taken the very thing that binds humans together and turned it into a poison arrow aimed right at the heart of Western society. They’re the most vile segment of humanity on the planet. Hell, even ISIS/Daesh are just standard-issue medieval barbarians; tribal violence writ large. SJWs are poisoning human nature itself.

  18. I am doing my best to help out. I am buying as many guns as I can afford in order to give them a good home, off the cold streets.

  20. The pos husband would have killed his wife some way or another. Aided and abetted by “security” who let him traipse in and kill her and a child. Nothing whatsoever to do with “less guns”.

  22. We need to outlaw murder!

    If only our politicians would get off their lazy asses and finally put an end to this nation’s long and sorted history with murder!

    With one simple legislative act, Congress can finally put an end to the scourge of murder in the US.

    Yes, with such a bill passed and signed by the President, we can finally have peace in our time and put an end to this horrendous nightmare plaguing our nation!

    Just say “no” to murder!

  24. Empathy? You keep using that word. I do not think it mean what you think it means.

    If you eschew violence, and you’re truly empathetic, it’s not hard to see that the vast majority of people around you are *also* not impulsively violent. Having access to a gun will not make those people more aggressive or inclined to attack or murder anyone.

    You can only reach the conclusion that we need “fewer guns in America” if you *lack* empathy. You have to project a deep mistrust onto everyone you don’t know in order to assume that preventing them from accessing a gun means preventing violence. If you view those around you as fellow Americans, neighbors, mostly reasonable people who are more interested in just getting by than making trouble, then it really doesn’t matter if they have guns.

    So, go ahead–be more empathetic. Care more about domestic violence and threats against the disabled. If it bothers you so much, arm up and stand between the ones you want to protect and those who would do them harm. You stand a better chance of making a real difference than you do by “raising awareness” and wishing guns away.

  26. A friend of mine has a wife who’s an anti she mostly has a difficult time understanding that firearms are inanimate. One night they were awoken by the sound of breaking glass. They called the police and hid in their room petrified. Turns out the police took over 30 mins to respond partly because they had the wrong apartment building at first. Turns out it was just some dishes that fell but they got spooked never the less.

  27. No do an america white out nfa act, forbid states assault weapon bans, statewide stand your ground law and zero off places and legalize all drugs for adults !

  28. I’m aware of domestic violence using many tools, and disabled people who can’t protect themselves without one.

    Why ignore the people hurt with fists n sticks? Why insist that disabled people not be even things up. It seems like as long as they’re not shot, empathy-guy there doesn’t care what happens to them. Sad.

  30. My wife hates guns, but tolerates my having them. But being totally disabled and generally confined to a wheelchair when we go out, she is happy that I carry. She recognizes that she is a target, and that she could do nothing to protect herself if attacked.

  33. Every time these nincompoops open their mouths more guns are sold.

    If they REALLY want to reduce how many guns there are they would shut up, buy up cheap used ones and melt them down.

  34. The problem here is that, by their nature, risk analysis is cold hearted and risk management is cold blooded. Feelz simply don’t have a place within these disciplines.

    Trying to inject emotions into objectively based tasks is a fool’s errand. It may not create failure every time but it greatly increases the chances of failure. When you fail at dealing with real, honest-to-God risks the results are often lethal and that’s where we end up all emotional with the “slow singin’ and flower bringin'”.

  35. Actually, we must first imagine, then act to create, an America in which there are fewer and fewer Birkenstocks.

  36. “Creating An America With Fewer Guns”… one Constitutionally empowered law abiding citizen gun owner at a time.

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