Chuck Norris blames Virginia tech shootings on "our graphic slasher media"

[Sukerkin]

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was released in 1974. So much for the "good old days" theory.

Aye, I know. Then there was the Exorcist and Rosemary's Baby, of course. Plus Friday the 13th and Halloween. Not so rosy back then, then. I was thinking more of the Chuck type films as people were attempting to wield the hypocrisy brush because he critiqued slasher movies having been an action star.

Apples and oranges. Still working, sorry (hence any failures of reason can be blamed on substation control systems ).

 

[tellner]

What a smarmy hypocrite. He's made a tremendously lucrative career out of kicking the crap out of people on screen. And then he condemns violence in the media.

Reminds me of an old limerick...

She was raised in a bleak institution
And grew up in great destitution.
She married, the *****,
A man old and rich
And roundly decries prostitution.

 

[DavidCC]

Probably if someone had attempted that. It would've been akin to 9/11's Flight 93 passengers rushing the terrorist on the plane.

yeah something like that. It's happened on other airplanes since then too, passengers put down hijacking.

Sure, if we can guarantee that we can overcome that one big inhibitor... fear of dying.

Think for a moment David... you're sitting in your classroom and then some guy comes in and starts shooting... you're now finding yourself on the floor because that (should) be your first reaction... hit the floor. Same with everyone else.

Oh, you are correct... but what got me was a report I heard that may not be true, which is that he was ordering people around at gunpoint. Yeah I agree with you, him standing at the doorway and firing away doesn;t really give much of a chance to do anything. But him walking me out into the hall within arms reach of me, trying to pay attention to and control a group of people... that's a different scenario. Which may not have even happened here. So I don't want to get too hung up on the specifics of when someone could have used which technique or something. Everyone did what they had to do and I wouldn't judge them for it.

How many of those students and faculity were trained martial artists and how many have been trained to charge a gunman while under live fire and how many of them might have been combat trained under the same conditions. I'm thinking none of them.
It's right to feel angry that it seems that no-one did ANYTHING except cower on the floor and wait to be shot or jumped out the window to save their own necks. But I (and I believe nobody else) can say for 100% certainty that we would've done anything at all.
As I've said in an earlier post, nobody knows what (exactly) they'll do in any given situation.

A more important point I wanted to make was that Martial Artists maybe should be addressing this to their students and fellow Artists - if you were there, could you have been the one to stop it. Does your training give you the ability (mental and physical) to even make that decision in that situation, or are you going to be helplessly hiding, all your hours of training going to waste.

I'm speaking abstractly, I don't know what went on in that building so I'm not judging these victims. I'm talking about going forward, what can I do that will make this a safer place? Teaching people that they can stand up for themselves and giving them the skills to do so seems like a pretty important contribution. So why don't we get Ron Chapel and Larry Tatum and John Bishop etc etc on Larry King and Glenn Beck etc etc and get the message out there.

Oh and just one more thing... if Norris was really concerned about how media portrayals of violence has/is affecting our young people then he needs to stop creating shows like Walker: Texas Ranger ... eh?

If Walker, Texas Ranger, had been there he'd have stopped the guy. With round-house kicks. I don't think Norris is hypocritical at all, he plays good guys using (bloodless non-lethal) violence as a last resort to stop the bad guys. If you can't see the difference between that and "Saw" then you need to get some perspective maybe.

 

[Sukerkin]

I don't think Norris is hypocritical at all, he plays good guys using (bloodless non-lethal) violence as a last resort to stop the bad guys. If you can't see the difference between that and "Saw" ...

That's kind of the point I've been trying to get across (in between wrestling with SQL trying to bandage an ORACLE database back together) - it's what I meant by apples and oranges.

 

[jks9199]

Well I'll tell you what I think about Chuck Norris - I think if one person had imitated Chuck Norris the number of victims might be a lot less. I am surprised people are not talking about Martial Arts and self defense - it's all "gun control" "concealed carry" etc.

if one old old man had the guts to stand in the way so others could escape, wasn't there one 20-something guy (or girl) here who had the guts (and youthful vigor) to do something more than run for their life?

Some a-hole tries to line me up so he can shoot me execution style in the back, he's going to have to shoot me in the FRONT because I'm not going to let it go down like that. He's going to have to earn the right to shoot me.

Not one martial artist among the 30+ dead? or at least not one who thought their training might have some purpose? If one person tried to kick the gunman's head in don't you think he would have gotten some help?

It reminds me of an old saying "We train in the hopes that one day we might make a difference".

Did nobody try to resist him? He wasn't a trained shooter, it probably took him 10 seconds to re-load or more...

I don't know for sure becasue I've never been in that situation, but I don't think I could have jumped out a window knowing that there were helpless people still there waiting to be shot.

According to one report I read in today's paper -- Cho fired nearly 200 rounds in around 10 minutes. He was spraying a fair amount of lead around pretty fast -- and he'd planned ahead well enough to chain the doors. I think it's a safe bet he practiced changing magazines quickly. (In fact, I think it's a safe bet that he was pretty gun-obsessed over the past few months... but that's just a guess.)

Even accounting for that -- it's hard to move beyond the initial shock and astonishment that "this is happening!" (I think someone was quoted saying how it didn't seem real at first...) when you're confronted with violence on that scope. Moving into the danger zone is even harder. And, often, people are waiting for someone else to show them what to do.

One more factor to consider... Most of the kids in the classes were in their late teens or early twenties. Columbine happened 10 years ago, when many of the students were just starting school. Certainly while most were in early elementary school. What have kids been taught and conditioned to do during an active shooter scenario for the last 10 years? Take cover, hunker down and hide. So... what'd they do when they encountered one as an adult? Took cover, hunkered down, and hid, and, tragically... Died. I'm torn between pushing kids to be active resistance in a situation like that and trying to be as safe as possible; I don't have an answer yet, but I think it's got to be a good compromise between the two.

 

[Carol]

According to one report I read in today's paper -- Cho fired nearly 200 rounds in around 10 minutes. He was spraying a fair amount of lead around pretty fast -- and he'd planned ahead well enough to chain the doors. I think it's a safe bet he practiced changing magazines quickly. (In fact, I think it's a safe bet that he was pretty gun-obsessed over the past few months... but that's just a guess.)

Even accounting for that -- it's hard to move beyond the initial shock and astonishment that "this is happening!" (I think someone was quoted saying how it didn't seem real at first...) when you're confronted with violence on that scope. Moving into the danger zone is even harder. And, often, people are waiting for someone else to show them what to do.

One more factor to consider... Most of the kids in the classes were in their late teens or early twenties. Columbine happened 10 years ago, when many of the students were just starting school. Certainly while most were in early elementary school. What have kids been taught and conditioned to do during an active shooter scenario for the last 10 years? Take cover, hunker down and hide. So... what'd they do when they encountered one as an adult? Took cover, hunkered down, and hid, and, tragically... Died. I'm torn between pushing kids to be active resistance in a situation like that and trying to be as safe as possible; I don't have an answer yet, but I think it's got to be a good compromise between the two.

I read a news article stating other students saying that something was going on but they couldn't figure out what. They said it sounded like hammering on the walls. From personal experience as I just learned how to shoot last year...it becomes much easier to distinguish a gunshot sound from another loud "bang" if you've fired guns on the range and gotten familiar with what to expect. Hearing processed Foley gun sound effects in movies or TV is not the same thing.

If the students could not identify the threat, they cannot be expected to mitigate the threat.

 

[jazkiljok]

Here's the article he wrote.

In it he partially blames society for the Virginia Tech slayings by blaming our "Graphic Slasher Media"...
meanwhile.......
go ahead and rent Chuck's movies:
"Missing in Action"
"The Hitman"
and
"Forced Vengeance"

or any of the others. :uhyeah:

The irony can be pretty......ironic.


Your Brother
John

i once watched a chuck norris movie. made me want to beat strangers up with my feet.

 

[jdinca]

Blaming popular culture for the actions of a phycopath is just a way to pacify the masses. If you have something external (like movies) to blame, you feel like you have more control over the situation (ban the movies!), and thus the world is a little less scarry. Case in point: Columbine. Do you remember that the media reported that the killers were "loners"? Years after the fact, students from Columbine had something completely different to say. The killers from Columbine weren't loners at all, they had lots of friends. We were told that these kids were loners so that we would have the false sense of security in thinking that only those "wierd" kids could do something like that.
In my parent's neighborhood a few years back, a mentally ill teenaged boy got a hold of a gun and shot the town sherrif in the face. It was not highly publicized (relatively speaking), and what do you know, no one blamed popular culture. If it had made national news, the good bet is that people would be talking about the possible connection to video games, TV, music, yada, yada, yada.

You're putting more import on my statement than I think I implied. I am in no way saying that pop culture is to blame for the problem. This guy was a whack job from day one and there are people who will be in counseling for years because they saw it and didn't go far enough to deal with it.

I am saying that what happens in society IS directly associated with its culture. Video games, music, movies don't instigate (usually) violent behavior but it does make it part of the culture and to those on the edge, it can push them a little farther towards the act.

There was a mass murderer interviewed in jail recently. He said that he had just expected everybody to get up after he had shot them, just like a video game. His mind didn't associate what he was doing with the reality of what he was doing. Violent video games didn't make him do it but it did appear to alter what was obviously an already altered view of reality.

 

[JBrainard]

You're putting more import on my statement than I think I implied. I am in no way saying that pop culture is to blame for the problem. This guy was a whack job from day one and there are people who will be in counseling for years because they saw it and didn't go far enough to deal with it.

No worries, dude. I was just inserting my two cents into the debate.

I am saying that what happens in society IS directly associated with its culture. Video games, music, movies don't instigate (usually) violent behavior but it does make it part of the culture and to those on the edge, it can push them a little farther towards the act.

You have a good point. A society that is obsessed with violence (Rome, the USA) is going to tend to be more violent in general. The problem is that you can't change culture itself. That is unless you (not you personally, Jdinca) think that social engineering is a good thing...
:barf:

There was a mass murderer interviewed in jail recently. He said that he had just expected everybody to get up after he had shot them, just like a video game. His mind didn't associate what he was doing with the reality of what he was doing. Violent video games didn't make him do it but it did appear to alter what was obviously an already altered view of reality.

Well, if a dude is delisional enough to believe that nothing bad will happen when he shoots people, then his choice in video games is the least of his problems.

 

[jdinca]

You have a good point. A society that is obsessed with violence (Rome, the USA) is going to tend to be more violent in general. The problem is that you can't change culture itself. That is unless you (not you personally, Jdinca) think that social engineering is a good thing...
:barf:

No, I don't like the thought of social engineering. Who gets to decide what the end product is? I think that political correctness is an exercise in social engineering and, quite frankly, it pisses me off. Cultural change takes time and has to come from the masses. I think we're in the midst of a significant cultural change right now. It'll be interesting to see how far it goes. I just hope it doesn't go too far.

Well, if a dude is delisional enough to believe that nothing bad will happen when he shoots people, then his choice in video games is the least of his problems.

Ain't gonna get no argument here!