Karma? ~ ~ Sooz

YouTube Gun Channel Founder Shot Dead
by Steven D
Thu Jan 10th, 2013 at 08:53:51 AM EST

I am truly sorry that Keith Ratliff was apparently murdered by a gunshot to the head. For those of you who do not know of Mr. Ratliff, he was the founder of FPSRussia, one of the top ten channels on YouTube. FPSRussia had received hundreds of millions of page views for the videos that Mr. Ratliff produced and in which he sometimes appeared. Those videos featured the use of high powered firearms.

Here is a video by The Young Turks about Mr. Ratliff's murder:



Agents for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation stated that Mr. Ratliff was found at his place of business in Franklin County, surrounded by numerous firearms, some of which he manufactured himself.


No known motive has yet been established for his murder. He leaves behind a wife and two year old son. My condolences to his family.

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2013/1/10/85351/3553

Imagine that.
A gun nut killed by a gun.

Karma for what?

I just said to another person today that heaven forbid if my husband were murdered, I would never get on the internet again so I wouldn't have to see the gleeful posts and articles. Almost like he somehow deserved it.

Whether you like guns or not, they are legal and this man didn't do anything illegal. Or anything to make him deserve to be murdered. Karma?

It isn't about "legal".
It's about logic and common sense.
It's about "the more guns there are out there the more people get killed".

I'm with you on this one M.

Yep. Kiddies get massacred but gee, don't take my guns away even though no one is suggesting that.

It is kind of weird though. Our military are some of the best trained gun users in the country. Many are gun enthusiasts. Yet, they get killed in gun fights. No one posts their deaths gleefully and as KARMA.

I don't think most people ARE suggesting that. But I really don't know what they are suggesting. You don't seem to suggest much. You just denigrate and insult those that are different than you and that you don't understand.

Ratliff was known as an outspoken gun advocate. In a message posted to Twitter on Aug 11, 2012, he wrote: "I went to the movies with my pistol in my pocket the whole time I was praying that somebody would try to pull a Batman!"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/0 ... 39284.html

I don't understand that and I don't see how anyone can RESPECT IT!!!!!

I didn't research him. I didn't know that. I don't respect it. It doesn't mean he deserved to be murdered.

There is not one single person that speaks out on guns that I agree with or want speaking for me. That doesn't mean there aren't thousands of people just like me, in the middle somewhere.

MP, I'm sorry you interpreted my "karma" question as suggesting I was saying he did anything illegal or that he deserved to be murdered or that I was "gleeful" ~ that's not how it was intended and, frankly, you jumping to that conclusion about me is surprising ~ I found it ironic that a guy who makes his living selling/making guns would be murdered with one ~ I'll be more careful with words in the future ~

Sooz

Part of the reason we don't understand you is because gun owners are not of one variety.

People carry guns for different reasons. This guy wanted to shoot someone. Legally. Others want them for self protection, to hunt, to target shoots, or to protect their property.

I don't think he deserved to be murdered. I don't think anyone said that he did.

Wayne LaPierre and the NRA ARE suggesting that and NRA members keep sending in their dollars that keeps them saying exactly that.

The NRA doesn't speak for me, or any other gun owner I know.

It really surprised me. I get his death is news, but the karma thing threw me for a loop.

Sooz, to me karma means someone getting what they deserve. Maybe you meant irony? I apologize for jumping to conclusions.

The NRA doesn't speak for me, or any other gun owner I know.

He speaks for over 4 million gun owners.

I don't agree.

There are 50 million gun owners in America.

If you are a member of the NRA Mr. LaPierre does indeed speak for you.

We don't know what happened. It seems to me likely someone he knew or he was surprised. People get surprised, even some of the best trained people get surprised.

4/52? he speaks for less than 10% of gun owners, yet you hold him up as some god? No, I don't belong to the NRA and he doesn't speak to me.

The NRA has too much of a hold on things. My husband belongs to the NRA because the State of Ohio requires him to in order to have his job. I think that is stupid and so does he. And, yes, he could choose to not do this profession, but he has weighed the pros and cons and decided the good he can do outweighs the bad of having to pay them a yearly membership. He does not think the NRA speaks for him.

You think it is so because it makes it easier for you to put people in little boxes, so you can dismiss them altogether.

I've been reading, and will post today, that the NRA is rapidly losing credibility by overplaying its hand ~ the original ideology of the NRA was laudable, but it has been perverted by the likes of LaPierre ~ and there is apparently an inter-group "positioning" war going on between the NRA and a few other, growing, more extreme [if you can believe that] groups like Gun Owners of America ~

For me personally, I see great danger in labeling people indiscriminately ~ but I also see the connection of people to organized groups ~ and then there are the exceptions, as MP explains why her hubby is a member of the NRA ~ we can never truly know what is in anyone else's heart or what might be the "final straw" that makes someone snap ~

Again for me personally, I think far too many are misreading/misinterpreting the 2d Amendment ~ but I'm a realist so I also don't see any possibility of banning or confiscating all guns ~ and that personal conflict is why I see it as imperative that the responsible gun owners work with officials to craft meaningful regulations that have a core principle of "public safety" ~ the NRA flatly refusing to consider any regulation should, in my opinion, remove them from the table ~

Sooz

4/52? he speaks for less than 10% of gun owners, yet you hold him up as some god?
Say, what?

No, I don't belong to the NRA and he doesn't speak to me.
That's what I said.

You said there were 4 million members for the NRA, there are 52 million gun owners in America.