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School shooting Florida

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Reports state that the shooter's adopted mother died in November. That could have put him into a worsened mental illness. Also it suggests that he is an adopted child and his ethnicity or race cannot be assumed from his name.

He was living with "another family". The gun (AR15 type or style) was his and legally owned. The family he lived with required him to have the gun securely stored within the house and it was.
 
I am a gun owner, who happily owns her gun(and obviously lives in the US), but I would surrender my rights - or at least some of them - for a chance to not get shot going to the movies, or the mall, or school, or hell even McDonalds. The single biggest problem in the US is the me me me mentality that everyone has here. It's all about my rights, screw the rest of you. The selfishness here is really out of hand.
 
3point14 said:
What could possibly have changed?
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Another factor is the publicity these events are getting, both in the normal media and online. Certainly in the case of suicides, in the UK there are guidelines about how they are reported because if they get too much of the wrong sort of coverage there is a real chance of copycats.

ETA: It seems the reporting of school shootings would violate most if not all of these ten points. Given that the likely perpetrators are similarly troubled teens to those the suicide guidelines are concerned with, the media coverage does seem like a factor in the epidemic. That and the easy access to guns, of course.
 
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CNN: By the end of the rampage, 12 people were killed inside the building, two outside and one on the street. An additional two people shot at the school died at the hospital, Sheriff Scott Israel said. An undetermined number of others were injured, officials said.

The suspect used a .223 caliber, AR-15 style firearm in the shooting, which he bought in the past year after passing a background check, a source told CNN's Evan Perez. Kathie Blaine, a cousin of Cruz's mother, said he was adopted and she had never met him. His adoptive mother -- her cousin Lynda Cruz -- died in November of pneumonia while his father passed away years ago, according to Blaine.
 
Norman Alexander said:
Oh, just to add perspective: 17 dead in this killing, only 13 dead at Columbine...and that scored a feature-length documentary.
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I was living overseas when Columbine happened. It was big news all over the world. I was literally living in a mud hutin a jungle, and neighbors came by to ask about it.

Today, it's just another wednesday.

Wolrab said:
I don't believe guns are the issue. Society is very sick today if children have no problem shooting up their school mates without remorse.
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Guns are not the issue? Are you another one who believes he could have "found away" to do this with a knife or a car or a swimming pool or a pillow?

Wolrab said:
If guns are the issue, why didn't we have this problem 40 years ago? Guns were just as available then.
Guns were the same back then but they weren't used to kill classmates.
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Times change, but you are wrong anyway. 40 years ago a person close to me died from gun violence. The murder rate was higher back then, made much easier due to the prevalence of guns.

I do get the impression that semi-auto guns with detachable magazines have become much more prevalent since my childhood. I grew up shooting and hunting. I never saw anyone use anything semi-auto. It was all tubular magazines that required some sort of action between shots. The rate of fire could not possibly have matched what modern mass shooters have, the speed of reloading was also much much slower. All of which works fine for hunting and home protection. Semi-auto rifles existed back then, and some hunters used them, but they were far less common.

We have a problem here and now. The gun freaks have blocked all meaningful efforts at compromise that might effect change. They are running out of time to come to the table.

Nobody is coming for your stupid guns - yet. Keep avoiding responsibility, keep blocking efforts at regulation, and that might change.
 
William Parcher said:
He was living with "another family". The gun (AR15 type or style) was his and legally owned. The family he lived with required him to have the gun securely stored within the house and it was.
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A responsible assault rifle owner then, until yesterday.

It still genuinely boggles my mind that this continues in the US.

I get that Americans love their guns. I can't understand the fascination, but to each their own.

To paraphrase some Jim Jeffries here, the only argument there is for having guns is "WE LOVE OUR GUNS" which to be fair is a solid argument, but it's the only one there is.

In the UK and in Australia there was a mass shooting and the government said. "That's it, no more guns for you" and we said "Yeah OK, fair enough" and we haven't had any mass shootings since.

A few years back Obama was in office, one of the most popular, and best qualified presidents ever. the inevitable mass school shooting happens, and the government said "Hey, maybe we should cut down on some of the guns a little" and the response was "HANDS OFF OUR GUNS!"

I can't get my head around the fact that rather than enact some sensible gun regulations, like for example, more and better background checks, and banning some classes of weapons. (You already draw a line at full automatics, why not move that line a little) or at the very least have a proper debate about it, any time gun control comes up it ends up as a very vocal group of people shouting "DON'T TAKE OUR GUNS!" and nothing is ever done.

How many people need to die before something changes?
 
Ambrosia said:
........I can't get my head around the fact that rather than enact some sensible gun regulations, like for example, more and better background checks, and banning some classes of weapons.......
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-Registering guns and making it an offense for allowing those guns to fall into the hands of children.

-Not allowing anyone under the age of 21 to own a weapon, or use a weapon outside a shooting range.

-Not allow the mentally ill access to guns.

-Allow judges at trials to make orders regarding banning individuals from holding weapons for x years or for life.
 
Nessie - If you claim I'm wrong I'd expect you to follow up with figures proving that I'm wrong, not proving that I'm right.

40 years ago - 1978.

Me: "The US did have this problem 40 years ago"

1970s - 30
1980s - 39

Correct.

Me: "Not as bad as today, but still outrageously more prevalent than anywhere else in the Western world.

2010s - 143

Correct.

Me: "It's a black mark on US society that these are looked back on as 'the good old days' where guns weren't a problem."

1970s - 30
1980s - 39

Correct.

Unless, of course, you're maintaining that an average of 35 school shootings a year is insufficient evidence that guns were a problem.
 
What I think we need to find out is WHY these shootings are occurring at a much greater rate. But you can't make political hay out of that, so it goes little discussed.
 
Ambrosia said:
A responsible assault rifle owner then, until yesterday.

It still genuinely boggles my mind that this continues in the US.

I get that Americans love their guns. I can't understand the fascination, but to each their own.

To paraphrase some Jim Jeffries here, the only argument there is for having guns is "WE LOVE OUR GUNS" which to be fair is a solid argument, but it's the only one there is.

In the UK and in Australia there was a mass shooting and the government said. "That's it, no more guns for you" and we said "Yeah OK, fair enough" and we haven't had any mass shootings since.
A few years back Obama was in office, one of the most popular, and best qualified presidents ever. the inevitable mass school shooting happens, and the government said "Hey, maybe we should cut down on some of the guns a little" and the response was "HANDS OFF OUR GUNS!"

I can't get my head around the fact that rather than enact some sensible gun regulations, like for example, more and better background checks, and banning some classes of weapons. (You already draw a line at full automatics, why not move that line a little) or at the very least have a proper debate about it, any time gun control comes up it ends up as a very vocal group of people shouting "DON'T TAKE OUR GUNS!" and nothing is ever done.

How many people need to die before something changes?
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I'm not sure that's entirely accurate, it makes it sound as though this was imposed on the British people 'from above' when the reality was that there was widespread support calling for tightening of the law and very little opposition to it (other than from Prince Phillip IIRC).
 
P.J. Denyer said:
I'm not sure that's entirely accurate, it makes it sound as though this was imposed on the British people 'from above' when the reality was that there was widespread support calling for tightening of the law and very little opposition to it (other than from Prince Phillip IIRC).
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What I got out of it was that a horrific atrocity resulted in Australians clamoring for control, while multiple slaughters in the US result in gun owners not only asserting that gun availability is not the problem, but that more guns might be the solution. We in the US have a pathetic, stunted, and toxic culture which enshrines vigilante justice and discounts the rule of law.
 
Ian Osborne said:
Has Trump stuck his oar in yet? He's fast enough to demand action when an immigrant steps out of line. No doubt he'll send thoughts and prayers, which will, of course, solve the problem instantly.
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Oh, yes.
So many signs that the Florida shooter was mentally disturbed, even expelled from school for bad and erratic behavior. Neighbors and classmates knew he was a big problem. Must always report such instances to authorities, again and again!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 15, 2018
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