

Moment of Silence - gbog

This is titled "a National Moment of silence".<p>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.
======
duck
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.

[1]: [http://www.causes.com/causes/807161-stand-with-sandy-
hook/ac...](http://www.causes.com/causes/807161-stand-with-sandy-
hook/actions/1716727)

~~~
theorique
It dishonors the memory of the murdered to politicize their deaths.

~~~
GiraffeNecktie
If fixing the problem that caused their deaths is "political" I don't think
the murdered would mind.

~~~
marknutter
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.

~~~
GiraffeNecktie
If it takes a discussion with people taking opposing viewpoints, let's get
started. Now.

~~~
davidw
But please _not on Hacker News_. Thanks.

~~~
rdl
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.

------
rdl
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.

~~~
gbog
> 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?

~~~
rdl
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).

~~~
gbog
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?

~~~
thaumaturgy
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.)

~~~
gbog
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.

------
jgrahamc
And if it had been titled "International Moment of Silence" some other person
would have commented that it wasn't an international event.

~~~
cconroy
...and _presumptuous_ too.

~~~
gbog
Sure, what about "A Moment of silence"?

~~~
taybin
Because then there isn't a sense of community with other people/sites doing
the same thing.

------
Tichy
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.

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quomopete
Can you accept the fact, however, that this is not about you?

------
irahul
Erm. I can guess this moment of silence has something to do with the recent
shooting, but why is this submitted without any context?

~~~
hooande
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.

~~~
dhimes
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.

------
Luyt
_"I am not born member of the US "Nation", and feel excluded by this
wording."_

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.

~~~
gbog
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.

~~~
taybin
boo fucking hoo.

------
xutopia
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.

~~~
jack-r-abbit
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!"

------
tokenadult
Direct link to the link from the Hacker News homepage overlay (provided by a
third-party service):

[http://www.causes.com/causes/807161-stand-with-sandy-
hook/ac...](http://www.causes.com/causes/807161-stand-with-sandy-
hook/actions/1716727)

Submission of that (almost simultaneously with this submission here) for HN
discussion:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4952794>

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lucb1e
What is this about? I'm assuming something with the recent shooting, but where
does the submission cite from?

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taybin
Why is "nation" in scare quotes? How would you prefer it to be worded? What is
the matter with you?

~~~
gbog
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.

~~~
taybin
You are cordially invited to get over it.

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pfortuny
I was surprised by the banner, in what in another context I would say a
positive way, even though I am not from the US. Thanks for the idea.

------
wogg
I thought this was supposed to be a moment of silence. Hacker News posting is
not silence, despite requiring no audible speech.

