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 really dislike how people take a moment of silence and/or a time for prayer, and turn it into something else with the linked article on gun control[1]. Talking about actions is fine, but why can't people understand that those are two different things and shouldn't happen at the exact same time.
This is the first mass shooting in a long time that is sparking action. That's a good thing; the countries' aversion to discussing gun control may be part of the reason we are having a moment of silence to begin with.
I think of it as "let us honor their deaths with meaningful action rather than cheap words".
If everyone agreed on what the fix is, you might be right. But since they don't, and it will likely result in political fighting, it's probably not appropriate to tie it to a moment of silence.
I'd agree generally except that posting an inherently political call to action on the site essentially makes it the natural forum to discuss it.
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.
"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)
Even the NRA is (unsurprisingly) a supporter of 'gun violence prevention'. This moment of silence isn't advocating any specific solution, I don't see the controversy. I think almost every reasonable person can agree with "let's stop gun violence".
It is advocating the specific 3 proposals (100% NCIC checks on all transfers, criminalizing federally straw purchases, and 10rd magazine restrictions and AWB), actually.
(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.)
None of that is mentioned in the linked page or the pledge. What I see is:
>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.
Edit to edit: you're right based on what it says now. I could swear that yesterday there was a more clear link between the two -- I really think it has been edited.
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.
There was a whole week where talking about the issue seemed to be everywhere -- that's a bit different from tying it to the "moment of silence" now. And it should continue over the next weeks/months.
The shooting at Sandy Hook was a horrible tragedy, as were previous incidents at Aurora, Columbine, Virginia Tech, etc. And really any murders anywhere (although I can understand why recent and mass incidents are freshest in the mind.)
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?
You're absolutely welcome to think what you like, but I'd be a bit wary of thinking your view of firearms is just 'common sense'.
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.
So let's imagine that starting today Chinese people are allowed to buy and carry guns. Do you believe the world is a better place, including for those who do not want or can't use guns?
The reason why this is something I don't support is that they are promoting a very specific gun control agenda, which seems to have been essentially randomly generated (or cynically politically generated), vs. either aimed at the specific problem in Sandy Hook or the statistically prevalent causes/factors of gun violence.
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).
All this seem very Byzantine to me (French). Why not adopt laws used in Europe: no guns, except for hunting rifles with permit, cops and a few specifics.
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?
Not that I necessarily disagree with you, but the problem with this in the U.S. is that we are indoctrinated at an early age with the notion that it was the right to own guns that primarily won us the revolution.
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.)
Then this creation myth should be slowly amended, because it is harmful. There is a similar debate in France about the "impure blood" mentioned in the Marseillaise, should we remove it? If proven harmful, I'd say yes.
Our countries are solid enough to allow some adjustment in their necessary creation myths.
As a comment on the implementation, I think if the overlay blocks the web site, it shouldn't provide a link to causes at the same time. That makes it look insincere to me.
The context is that a "Moment of Silence" overlay was placed across many websites at 9:30 am today, organized by Causes. People who were checking hackernews at 9:30 am might want to discuss the experience.
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, somewhat ashamedly, will confess: I was actually irritated by the overlay. I've shared in the grieving...that had to happen sooner than now for me. I have a young child in elementary school, so this has been a big part of my life recently.
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.
Agreed. If I participated in that network of sympathy, I might have learned of the planned 'moment'. I would have participated.
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.
A very badly implemented "moment of silence" overlay appeared on news.yc for a while. Showed up on every page load, blocked access to the content, and could only be dismissed with the mouse.
I don't want to block this banner. I find it interesting to have these "event's overlay".
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.
I hate moments of silence. If we were to say nothing every time there is a tragedy in the world we'd never speak up about how to fix atrocities and organize ourselves to avoid them in the future.
Would be interesting if someone started a "Moment of Screaming" campaign. Imagine if for one minute everybody was just repeatedly yelling stuff like "STOP THE VIOLENCE!"
I consider HN to not be a US only website. When I see the word "national" it applies by default to my own country. When I saw the pop-up, I felt I was not invited.
[1]: http://www.causes.com/causes/807161-stand-with-sandy-hook/ac...