31 Dead In University Shootings

[analog]

Haggis wrote:

You want to break it in yourself? Get a lobotomy.

I think that was the thrust of Eisely's passage.

[barfle]

I doubt that any of the leaders of the World's Main religions set their principles by the use of weaponry.

It seems as though Haggis recently posted the lyrics to The Battle Hymn of the Republic, with a reference to a "terrible swift sword."

[Serenity]

Despite the hymn envisioning God with a sword, Jesus Christ did not carry a sword with him. Why not? When his apostles would pull weapons for protection he specifically instructed them to put them away.

Buddha did not carry a weapon or use any weapon against anyone.
Lao Tzu did not carry a weapon nor use one against others.
Confuscious did not carrry a weapon nor use it against others.
The Dalai Lama does not carry a weapon nor encourage others to use one.
Does the Pope carry one? I don't think so.

[Haggis@wk]

25 years murder-free in 'Gun Town USA'

“Prior to enactment of the law, Kennesaw had a population of just 5,242 but a crime rate significantly higher (4,332 per 100,000) than the national average (3,899 per 100,000). The latest statistics available – for the year 2005 – show the rate at 2,027 per 100,000. Meanwhile, the population has skyrocketed to 28,189.

By comparison, the population of Morton Grove, the first city in Illinois to adopt a gun ban for anyone other than police officers, has actually dropped slightly and stands at 22,202, according to 2005 statistics. More significantly, perhaps, the city's crime rate increased by 15.7 percent immediately after the gun ban, even though the overall crime rate in Cook County rose only 3 percent. Today, by comparison, the township's crime rate stands at 2,268 per 100,000."

[Haggis@wk]

I doubt that any of the leaders of the World's Main religions set their principles by the use of weaponry..

If you're including Islam as one of the "World's Main religions" you're wrong.

Despite the hymn envisioning God with a sword, Jesus Christ did not carry a sword with him. Why not? When his apostles would pull weapons for protection he specifically instructed them to put them away.

Buddha did not carry a weapon or use any weapon against anyone.
Lao Tzu did not carry a weapon nor use one against others.
Confuscious did not carrry a weapon nor use it against others.
The Dalai Lama does not carry a weapon nor encourage others to use one.
Does the Pope carry one? I don't think so.

I don't know about Buddha, Lao Tzu, or Confucius but Jesus was murdered by an army of occupation, the Dali Lama was run out of his own country and the Pope has had Swiss Mercenaries on his payroll since the 1500 and the Palatine Guard and Noble Guard until 1970.

None of which matters and begs the question, “What’s your point?”

That “men of peace” can exist without resorting to violence? Possibly, although history has shown time and again those “men of peace” tend to be most successful when they’re fortunate enough to be surrounded by people willing to use violence to defend themselves.

During WWII Gandhi used to encourage people to let the German kill them; that’ll show those mean ‘ol Germans!

I certainly don’t object to pacifism, I encourage it in all my enemies

[jamiebk]

I doubt that any of the leaders of the World's Main religions set there principles by the use of weaponry.

Serenity...are you kidding? History is replete with religious wars...all in the name of the domination of one's own religion. It is certainly so today with the "Jihad". Weapons have changed, but they are still being used to advance one religion over another.

I was just referring to Jesus Christ, Buddha, Confuscious, Ghandi, etc., not the people that use religion as an excuse.

So, If the leaders were pacifists and the followers are still going to war over religion anyway...what does that say? I don't disagree that Jesus Christ, Buddha, Confuscious, & Ghandi, did not carry weapons...but many surely did in their name.

[Serenity]

It was argued, in light of the VT massacre, that maybe citizens should not be restricted the right to carry firearms. My point, is that I do not believe that letting people carry firearms will solve the problem and will increase the likelihood of someone firing their weapon, whether they meant to or not. It would be like the Wild West where everyone had a shooter and placed their hand on their gun when someone looked kind of funny at them.

I do include Islam as one of the World's Major Religions (#2) and I do believe it is a religion of peace; I am not wrong. It is when followers use religion to push their agendas by use of force that causes war; just like the Crusades armed people in the name of Christianity.

[Haggis@wk]

I do include Islam as one of the World's Major Religions (#2) and I do believe it is a religion of peace; I am not wrong.

Well, if you are “not wrong” you're certainly not historical. Mohammed urged his followers to spread Islam by the sword and lead an army till the end of his life doing just that. He was even ordering assassinations from his deathbed.

Muhammad was a military leader, laying siege to towns, massacring the men, raping their women, enslaving their children, and taking what was once the property of others for his own. On several occasions he rejected offers of surrender from the besieged inhabitants and killed those whom he could take prisoner. He even inspired his followers to battle when they did not feel it was right to fight, threatening them with Hell if they did not, promising them slaves and booty if they did. Muhammad allowed his men to rape traumatized women captured in battle. Neither did he leave a clear line of succession, resulting in internal war after his death and a jagged schism that has left Shias and Sunnis at each other’s throats to this day.

Need some quotes?


"I have been ordered by God to fight with people till they bear testimony to the fact that there is no God but Allah and that Mohammed is his messenger, and that they establish prayer and pay Zakat (money). If they do it, their blood and their property are safe from me" (see Bukhari Vol. I, p. 13).

From the Koran

2:216, Fighting is prescribed for you, and ye dislike it. But it is possible that ye dislike a thing which is good for you


9:5, But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem.

Maybe you meant some other Mohammed who founded another “Religion of Peace™”?

Kind of like an Islamic version of “The Life of Brian”?

[Serenity]

Never mind. I see you have a strong anti-islamic bent, judging by your last four posts and several threads in The Debate Team targeting Middle East topics. For someone who has studied Middle East politics extensively, I find it disturbing that I have not read in your posts something good about muslims, something with a positive slant, something that would break the typical stereotype and fear Westerners have and lead people to reconsider their views and be more open to other ideologies.

[Haggis@wk]

Never mind. I see you have a strong anti-islamic bent, judging by your last four posts and several threads in The Debate Team targeting Middle East topics. For someone who has studied Middle East politics extensively, I find it disturbing that I have not read in your posts something good about muslims, something with a positive slant, something that would break the typical stereotype and fear Westerners have and lead people to reconsider their views and be more open to other ideologies.

If you define historically accurate and verifiable facts as "stereotype" then you got it in one.

I encourage you to start a list of "something good about muslims, something with a positive slant, something that would break the typical stereotype and fear Westerners have and lead people to reconsider their views and be more open to other ideologies." so we can discuss their merits. Maybe you can start another thread so as not to take away from this one?

It seems we have something in common. I've lived, "studied Middle East politics extensively" and/or fought in the Middle East since I was 10. I know Moderate Arabs and Radical Muslims; they are not always the same. I loved living in Libya and hope that someday after kadhaffi I can take my wife and show her Leptis Magna and Sabratha. I recently found all of my father's slides and have started to scan them. I'll post them on my website (at least the non-family nice views of Libya ones)

To make sure we are on a level playing field let me know which English language version of the Koran you're using. I have the Pickthall's that my mother bought in Tripoli in 1957. I also have Bell's and can borrow a copy of Arberry's but I prefer Pickthall's simply because it was the first one I read.

I haven't really looked at any recent translations so if you have something later let me know and I'll go get a copy. To be truthful, I'm very wary of the later translations since most of those were after the Saudi's began to “homogenize” some of the harsher verses so I'll probably be a tad skeptical of any translation after the 60's.

Unless you are able to read from the original? I confess I don't read Arabic so I'll be at a disadvantage.

Let me know.

[dai bread]

My view of Islam is highly coloured by the young NZ-born Indian man I worked with many years ago. To be brief, he was the best helper I ever had; a very fine gentleman, and yes, I would have allowed my daughter to marry him. (She wasn't nearly old enough at the time).

We discussed religion occasionally, though not in any depth, and he left me with a high opinion of Islam as a pragmatic religion whose followers were as good citizens as any others.

We lost touch when I changed jobs and he left for Wellington to become an Imam.

My view has taken a hammering lately. However, the original colour is still there, and I am not prepared to write off the whole religion.

I have met and worked with other Muslims from time to time, and they have all been decent people.

That said, I must add that they have all been Indians or Indonesians. I have never met an Arab national, though I have met many people of Arab (particularly Lebanese) extraction.

[Haggis@wk]

My view of Islam is highly coloured by the young NZ-born Indian man I worked with many years ago. To be brief, he was the best helper I ever had; a very fine gentleman, and yes, I would have allowed my daughter to marry him. (She wasn't nearly old enough at the time).

We discussed religion occasionally, though not in any depth, and he left me with a high opinion of Islam as a pragmatic religion whose followers were as good citizens as any others.

We lost touch when I changed jobs and he left for Wellington to become an Imam.

My view has taken a hammering lately. However, the original colour is still there, and I am not prepared to write off the whole religion.

I have met and worked with other Muslims from time to time, and they have all been decent people.

That said, I must add that they have all been Indians or Indonesians. I have never met an Arab national, though I have met many people of Arab (particularly Lebanese) extraction.

The Guardian

”I will spell this out, because it has not been broadly assimilated. The most extreme Islamists want to kill everyone on earth except the most extreme Islamists; but every jihadi sees the need for eliminating all non-Muslims, either by conversion or by execution. And we now know what happens when Islamism gets its hands on an army (Algeria) or on something resembling a nation state (Sudan). In the first case, the result was fratricide, with 100,000 dead; in the second, following the Islamist coup in 1989, the result has been a kind of rolling genocide, and the figure is perhaps two million. And it all goes back to Greeley, Colorado, and to Sayyid Qutb.”

Dai,

Actually you made the point I’ve posted on repeatedly. The Islam your friend represented and the Islam I recall growing up has been radicalized.

Strict adherence to any set of religious principals result in dichotomies and anachronisms. If that strict adherence is based on a set of religious principals that make the Old Testament appear tame then the result has to be violence.

In the centuries following Muhammad’s death Islam…..”moderated”? I’m not sure if that’s the right word. Regardless, the more violent portions of the Koran gave over to the more peaceful portions that are, no less than those stressed in the Bible, instructions on how to live and how to treat others much as Christians did/do.

Beginning is the 50s and 60’s people like Sayyid Qutb and the Muslim Brotherhood began the radicalization of Islam, based primarily on strict interpretation of the Koran and a return to the Caliphate. Qutb was the first Muslim thinker who paired prosletizing with a return to religious fundamentals into to a radical, sociopolitical ideology.

He essentially said that the Muslim world was no more and society had returned to a pre-Islamic, pre-Mohammad state known as Jahiliyya, or “ignorance of divine guidance" because of the lack of sharia law. Because of that all non-Islamic countries were illigitimate.

He also said Muslims should resist all forms of democracy or, really any form of government. Qutb’s own remarks are: “This religion is really a universal declaration of the freedom of man from servitude to other men and from servitude to his own desires.”

Finally, his way to reach this “freedom of man from servitude to other men” was through proselytizing and violence, Jihad.

Sayyid Qutb's ideas about martyrdom changed the world and were the driving force behind Atta and his associates

''Those who risk their lives and go out to fight," he says, "and who are prepared to lay down their lives for the cause of God are honorable people, pure of heart and blessed of soul. But the great surprise is that those among them who are killed in the struggle must not be considered or described as dead. They continue to live, as God Himself clearly states.”

That essentially give radical Islamicists, or certainly the Qaedists, “cover” for violence and most radicalism in the Islamic world is based upon Qutb’s conception of martyrdom. Almost every prominent radical and strict Islamic adherent today can trace his (certainly not her!) conversion or conviction back to Qutb.

It’s hard for people like you and I to understand people like Qutb and all his bizarre ideas, even harder to understand how people can take him and his ideas so seriously. But that they do is undisputable.

I’ve noted before that there is no Islamic “pope” to set the definitions for Islam and has had no reformation. That leaves the definitions of Islam in the hands of anyone who wants to claim that distinction.

I have noticed one thing that people like Qutb and Marx have in common. That is their philosophies are always right but so frail that no honest discussion about them can ever be permitted.

[piqaboo]

That is their philosophies are always right but so frail that no honest discussion about them can ever be permitted.

Yup.
Back in the 70's I was taught a little about a few different religions, where and how they started and grew. Islam was described as spreading originally by "convert or die", often with the option delivered while a sword was held to one's throat.
And now its so confidence in its strenght that its adherents cant be exposed to other points of view lest they be tempted away. huh?

There's somethng to Ms Boo's tongue-in-cheek suggestion of grade school firearms safety training. Familiarity breeds contempt, or at least demystifies

Only the intent to fire up Shapley was tongue in cheek. We have mandated driver ed now - not always gov't funded, but often enough (mine was). Firearm safety could be rolled into a general lifeskills course (used to be called home ec at the high school level).

More appropriately would be to make family education part of qualifying to own/buy a gun. Then one would have to pay for the course of ones choice. 'Cause it may not be my kid who finds and plays with my gun...
Many years ago our neighbors were having a large outdoor party. Someone found a gun in the iceplant (one of the kids). They brought it to an adult, who passed it around, and some one pointed it and went to fire it, all in good fun. Another smarter or more paranoid adult yelled and stopped that happening. It turned out there was a bullet ready to rock and roll, in an otherwise empty gun. That would have right spoiled an otherwise successful party....

[Shapley]

The NRA has a firearm safety program that is used in many elementary schools, and it has been well received. It is the Eddie Eagle program. The make the program material readily available to those schools wishing to employ it.

[Shapley]

It turned out there was a bullet ready to rock and roll, in an otherwise empty gun. That would have right spoiled an otherwise successful party....

A lot of people, even experienced shooters, mistakenly believe that a semi-automatic firearm is unloaded if the clip is removed. Firearms safety classes teach that you always treat any firearm as if it is loaded.

Of course, it's bad manners to point, in any case, and that includes pointing a firearm....

[Haggis@wk]

It turned out there was a bullet ready to rock and roll, in an otherwise empty gun. That would have right spoiled an otherwise successful party....

A lot of people, even experienced shooters, mistakenly believe that a semi-automatic firearm is unloaded if the clip is removed. Firearms safety classes teach that you always treat any firearm as if it is loaded.

Of course, it's bad manners to point, in any case, and that includes pointing a firearm....

"Squeaky" Fromme made the same mistake in reverse when she tried to assassinate president Ford in ’76. She had learned to fire a .45 ACP at a range . Her instructor always assumed she was too weak to chamber a round so he always did it for her and handed her the pistol. She either forgot or was confused when she went to fire it. She placed the clip in, cocked it and pulled the trigger when Ford went by. She kept repeating, “Why didn’t it work?” as the Secret Service led her off.

Incidentally, My former boss at Texas Instrument, now the Federal Security Director at John Wayne Airport, Skip Williams, was the head of Ford’s security detail. He told me that they grab Ford and almost carried him into the Governor’s office in Sacramento. Jerry Brown was Gov. then and they charged into his outer office and went immediately into his private office without saying anything to anyone all while brandishing automatic weapons in all directions. He said the look on Brown’s face was priceless.

[analog]

Kids with no exposure to guns are of course fascinated by these mysterious powerful things. If their parents recoil at the word it only reinforces the allure.

I believe kids should be taught early the etiquette of constant awareness where the muzzle is pointing, and the reflex to first thing verify an empty chamber. Mine were.

Remove the mystery.

[analog]

Actually you made the point I’ve posted on repeatedly. The Islam your friend represented and the Islam I recall growing up has been radicalized.

Thanks for that post Haggis, it let me understand better how you got to where you are. My total experience with mideasterners is like Dai's, one Arabic kid in my calculus class forty years ago and an Iranian engineer I worked with at the power plant. Both were fine individuals with plenty of common sense.

I realized some elements were working to start a mass movement in Islam but I really expected it to fizzle, like our abortion clinic bombers. That it continues and the good majority of rational Muslims does not appear to be shouting it down is worrisome. That needs to happen before they create a significant war machine.

Perhaps the outfall of this will be that Muslim Reformation. That'd be a happy ending.

[dai bread]

Thanks, Haggis, for a very illuminating post. (A lamp post? )

I think we expect too much when we ask mainstream Muslims to deal with the radicals. I don't recall the Catholics doing much about the IRA, and Paisley's church kept such a low profile that I don't even know which one it is. I'm still amazed that that man wasn't defrocked.

[piqaboo]

We werent even allowed to point our toy guns at anyone. Not cap guns, not solid-cast versions. No nada uh uh no way. My dad got rather fierce on the subject of etiquette. I wonder now if he was afraid someone would shoot us in response to our toy. Its happened since then, tho not to his kids.