The Arizona Shooting [Split From Comic Discussion]

snavej · Post by **snavej** » Mon Jan 17, 2011 4:50 pm

Moderator Note: This was originally part of the discussion of the first 12 issues of IDW's Ongoing, but as it's both gone wildly off topic and more than a bit offensive it's gotten spun off. As there's a potentially worthwhile debate to be had on what happened this will stay open for now, but if it goes all Raoul Moat it'll get close.

Bumblebee gets critically injured by lone gunman [in IDW's Transformers comic] who is somewhat deranged: a bit similar to the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in real life, Arizona, early January 2011 (open air event, unexpected attack). The coincidence is a little spooky.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Mon Jan 17, 2011 6:40 pm

snavej wrote:Bumblebee gets critically injured by lone gunman who is somewhat deranged: a bit similar to the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in real life, Arizona, early January 2011 (open air event, unexpected attack). The coincidence is a little spooky.

Yup. Nobody's ever been shot at by a deranged gunman before. Which is lucky, because considering the Alternators-like set-up of treaties in Europe during 1914, a lone gunman taking a pop at Archduke Franz Ferdinand could have triggered a massive conflict and cost hundreds of thousands of lives.

It's almost like the Bumblebee shooting was influenced by the many, many public assassination attempts that happened before anyone knew who Giffords was. Apart from that it can't be because they apparently didn't exist.

Sorry if that doesn't make much sense, I think I've just given myself concussion from the facepalm required by such a colossal amount of stupidity as that in the quoted post.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Mon Jan 17, 2011 8:49 pm

There was an absolutely hilarious interview with Keanu Reeves on BBC Breakfast this Saturday where he was there to do a light bit of PR fluff for his new romantic comedy film but the interviewer suddenly decided they were a serious news journalist and decided to press him hard on what he thinks about the idea the use of guns in The Matrix trilogy has inspired real life massacres from Columbine to the one the other week.

It wonderfully started with "Now, as you know this is amongst other things an actual news show, and as you're an American I have to ask..." and got worse and worse and he kept pushing the point despite Keanu clearly finding it inappropriate for the interviews general point of talking about a comedy bank robbery film.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Tue Jan 18, 2011 1:13 pm

Snavej, if you don't want people to point out how stupid your posts are, the answer is to make them less stupid (they don't even have to be particularly smart, just somewhat less stupid than the gubberish you spout above).

Please do not use the Report Post function to try and get you out of situations caused by your own deeply, deeply ignorant postings. If you hadn't posted such half-baked nonsense, I wouldn't have accused you of posting nonsense.

I can probably come up with some sort of diagram if this is proving difficult.

snavej · Post by **snavej** » Tue Jan 18, 2011 1:55 pm

Diagram - that would be interesting. Everyone is stupid and ignorant about many things, so we're all in the same boat. My main point was about the timings: only a few months apart. I was thinking about other unintentional 'predictions' that have happened before. I'm not going to go on and on; I just find it mildly interesting, though inexplicable.

Post by **Blackjack** » Tue Jan 18, 2011 2:19 pm

Who is Gabrielle Giffords? Never heard of him. Or his assassination thing. Don't try linking the Wikipedia page at me. I know how to use the internet.

I don't know, a lone gunman shooting at someone talking in public has happened about fifty or so times in real life, and that's not counting comic-book stuff. Like, oh, on top of my head, Marvel's Civil War thing. And that one point with Lex Luthor when he ran for presidency. And Galvatron shooting Starscream when he's talking in front of his public.

The fact that Bumblebee was shot at the same time as some random congressman... a coincidence? I don't think so. Not even interesting.

If you post something that's stupid, and someone else calls on it... well, using the Report Post thing just makes it worse, you know? Everyone posts something stupid at one point or another and have been called on it. Just because someone points out that whoops, what you were writing was stupid... at least Cliffy was being civil.

snavej · Post by **snavej** » Tue Jan 18, 2011 3:11 pm

Saying things like 'stupid' and 'ignorant' is very broad-brush and insulting. It's all about personal opinion and taste, about what is worthwhile and what is not. Getting brickbats for saying one or two things smacks of Big Brother (not the TV show), thought control, repression, etc. Transformers and some related topics are supposed to be about fun (well, assassination might not be fun but speculating on coincidences can be). I wouldn't call reporting abuse 'getting out of' anything, I'd call it 'trying to do something about it'. We're not writing a reference book here, just chatting. My posts won't usually be comprehensive, authoritative works. Like most people, I don't have that much time. If I said 'stupid' or 'ignorant' to someone face-to-face, they wouldn't like it at all. There are other, nicer ways to say things.

Post by **Warcry** » Tue Jan 18, 2011 3:35 pm

snavej wrote:Saying things like 'stupid' and 'ignorant' is very broad-brush and insulting.

Not if you've said something stupid or ignorant. And don't kid yourself -- what you said was both. Comparing a shooting that killed six people and left thirteen others injured to the trite, temporary comic-book 'death' of a fictional character before the blood has even been mopped up is so disrespectful and inappropriate that I would have assumed you were trolling if your entire posting history didn't consist of you drawing silly comparisons between things that are completely unrelated. You posted something stupid and people have every right to tell you that you posted something stupid as long as they're civil about it, and Cliffy was being civil.

snavej wrote:If I said 'stupid' or 'ignorant' to someone face-to-face, they wouldn't like it at all. There are other, nicer ways to say things.

Maybe, maybe not. But if that's your standard, try comparing the shooting to a story about make-believe robots when you're face-to-face with someone from Tucson and see how well that works out for you.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Tue Jan 18, 2011 3:45 pm

snavej wrote:Saying things like 'stupid' and 'ignorant' is very broad-brush and insulting. It's all about personal opinion and taste, about what is worthwhile and what is not. Getting brickbats for saying one or two things smacks of Big Brother (not the TV show), thought control, repression, etc. Transformers and some related topics are supposed to be about fun (well, assassination might not be fun but speculating on coincidences can be). I wouldn't call reporting abuse 'getting out of' anything, I'd call it 'trying to do something about it'. We're not writing a reference book here, just chatting. My posts won't usually be comprehensive, authoritative works. Like most people, I don't have that much time. If I said 'stupid' or 'ignorant' to someone face-to-face, they wouldn't like it at all. There are other, nicer ways to say things.

You are a pretentious piece of dirt, and if you were half as intelligent as you think you are you'd be dangerous. If we were face to face, I would have knocked three of your teeth out by now.

Your post was thoughtless as outlined above by Warcry and mind-bogglingly stupid as outlined by me.

Hotdog Divebomb · Post by **Hotdog Divebomb** » Tue Jan 18, 2011 4:45 pm

Warcry wrote:I would have assumed you were trolling if your entire posting history didn't consist of you drawing silly comparisons between things that are completely unrelated.

Ergo his entire posting history is trolling and he should be banned!

OH MY GOD I WAS JUST WATCHING THE GREEN HORNET AND THERE'S A SCENE WHERE A CAR CRASHES AND IT'S REALLY SIMILAR TO THIS BIT IN ACTUAL LIFE WHERE A CAR CRASHED!!!!

Though the bit in actual life stole it from one of my fan fics. I'd include a link so you could read it but I'm not a twat.*

* I'm a prick. For the record.

snavej · Post by **snavej** » Tue Jan 18, 2011 6:49 pm

'...entire posting history didn't consist of you drawing silly comparisons between things that are completely unrelated...'

Not true. Surely I would have been banned by now otherwise.

Thoughtless - you can look at it like that but it is very hard to respect all the dead all the time. There are plenty of much more thoughtless people and things out there. (Why did they let Jared Loughner have a gun?!)

Stupid - a valid point considering text is non-sentient, as far as I know.

Post by **Denyer** » Tue Jan 18, 2011 7:07 pm

snavej wrote:Surely I would have been banned by now otherwise.

Even genuine full-out trolls we've tended to keep as pets for a while.

Whilst I agree with this some people on any side of the debate not unreasonably find recent killings a charged subject.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Tue Jan 18, 2011 7:48 pm

snavej wrote: Thoughtless - you can look at it like that but it is very hard to respect all the dead all the time. There are plenty of much more thoughtless people and things out there. (Why did they let Jared Loughner have a gun?!)

So you're saying that we shouldn't respect the dead in this instance because they let Loughner have a gun? Even though none of the people shot gave him his gun? Yes, that is a stupid viewpoint.

You'll also note that I also compared you to a deeply dim BBC newsreader but you didn't report my post. I can recall at least one prior occasion where several people have pointed out the flaw in your argument only for you to just complain about Cliffy's reply, suggesting to me you're the one with issues here.

About the only good thing I can say is at least this time you didn't try and claim the whole thing was nicked from one of your fan fics.

Now, I do think there's a worthwhile discussion to be had about the shooting- Whereever you stand on the American right to bare arms the type of gun he used isn't for hunting or self defence (unless you're expecting to be burgled by the Terminator), it's for shooting the crap out of as many people as possible as quickly as possible, there's basically no reason for a private citizen to own something like that. Not to mention some of the bonkers reaction to it from various politicians.

So unless there's any huge objection in the next half hour I'll split the last few posts into a GD thread to discuss the shooting and it's fallout. Though any dim opinions will likely be called on.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Tue Jan 18, 2011 8:13 pm

You know that bit in ROTF where Prime just bursts through the wall and shoots everything? I'm proper cheered up now, so much so that not even more bollocks from our resident Daily Mail columnist can piss me off.

Sir Auros · Post by **Sir Auros** » Tue Jan 18, 2011 10:32 pm

I don't think this is going anywhere productive, so let's just drop it.

LOCKED