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School shooting: but don't mention guns!

I have to wonder why republicans want to make it easier to get a gun than it is to vote.
 
LTC8K6 said:
But I don't see or agree with that, and I am very much civilized, thank you.

Removing my guns from me would require passing a law. That would take my guns away from me. Guns that have never shot at anything other than tin cans and paper and other typical recreational targets. Guns that have done nothing but provide fun and entertainment to me and my friends and family.
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it's about keeping your toy?
 
I've weighed in on this question several times...
There are no easy answers.
In this case, (so far as the latest reports are saying), this is a 20 year old fellow who is in some way connected to the school principal. (Son? Not told yet)
As well, we can consider that he is insane.
At 20, in most states, he is not able to legally obtain a handgun. Where did he get them? Steal them from his home? We are not told yet, but with younger individuals that's often the case, they take advantage of unsecured weapons at home or at a friend's.
Has the individual displayed warning signs of potential violence? We don't know yet. Is he under the care of a psychiatrist?

Many of the people who decide to "go out" in the midst of a spree killing or rage killing or whatever you call it display little or no problems before hand. They often already have weapons, obtained legally and normally while they were still sane.
Something goes bad. Depression, psychopathy... Whatever. The ideation of going out in a blaze of glory and taking a bunch of people with you is there... It's a cultural meme as I've talked about before.
Charles Whitman, the guy at the Lubey's, the "going postal" shootings, Virginia tech... Those get the big headlines and the CNN coverage that just further ingrains the idea into society, and it resonates with a certain type of disturbed individual.
We've had several cases locally of homicide/suicide where the disturbed person kills the entire family and then themselves.
Dave Alvin does an old folk song about a guy who did the same back in the 1800s. There is something in this sort of ideation....

How to prevent or stop or control it? You've got me. If you could make all firearms vanish somehow, it might lessen the incidence, but there are other ways...People are inventive.
Gun control? What would you do differently? If a person buys firearms legally and then some years later becomes homicidal.... If a person is having homicidal ideation it's often secret....Unless the fellow has been committed to a mental-health hospital legally there will be no record of this, and patient confidentiality will often prevent a physician from coming forward.
All you have to do is sign... "No, I am not under the care of a psychiatrist".

Unfortunately, we don't often get to study these people. They normally suicide at the scene. When they don't, it's pretty obvious that they are insane. They may be tried legally in many cases, as was the fellow in Arizona, but there's no doubt he was a violent paranoid schizophrenic.
 
thaiboxerken said:
I have a hard time believing this guy would've killed people if he didn't have access to guns.
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You know that people have been killing each other long before guns were available and kill often without guns. What intimate knowledge do you have about this guy that leads you to believe he would have not killed if he didn't have access to guns? Have you actually met him?

Ranb
 
LTC8K6 said:
But I don't see or agree with that, and I am very much civilized, thank you.

Removing my guns from me would require passing a law. That would take my guns away from me. Guns that have never shot at anything other than tin cans and paper and other typical recreational targets. Guns that have done nothing but provide fun and entertainment to me and my friends and family.
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I think there should be a middle ground. Nobody rational is talking about going into every house and taking owners' guns away. But something needs to be done. SOMETHING.
 
Ranb said:
You know that people have been killing each other long before guns were available and kill often without guns. What intimate knowledge do you have about this guy that leads you to believe he would have not killed if he didn't have access to guns? Have you actually met him?

Ranb
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I have as much to go on as the opposing argument. Also, difficulty of task discourages many that would do the task if it were easier.
 
LTC8K6 said:
But I don't see or agree with that, and I am very much civilized, thank you.

Removing my guns from me would require passing a law. That would take my guns away from me. Guns that have never shot at anything other than tin cans and paper and other typical recreational targets. Guns that have done nothing but provide fun and entertainment to me and my friends and family.
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That's right. The law would not interested in your amenity, but the safety of everyone.
 
LTC8K6 said:
Why should I have to?

I can't sit and try to hit tin cans at 100 yards with my Marlin model 60 and CCI Stingers on a Saturday afternoon because a mentally ill person went off and shot up a school?

It doesn't make sense.
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We should make heroin and meth illegal too. That will prevent all of the senseless overdoses and deaths those things cause.
 
Just the price of doing business?

LTC8K6 said:
But I don't see or agree with that, and I am very much civilized, thank you.

Removing my guns from me would require passing a law...Guns that have done nothing but provide fun and entertainment to me and my friends and family.
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If, hypothetically, it could be conclusively established that there would be less mass killings of children, and fewer murders and suicides overall in the U.S. if all handguns were removed from society, would you voluntarily give up your guns and be willing to find a new hobby.

Or would that void be too difficult for you to fill? I'm partial to golf, myself.
.
.
.
 
thaiboxerken said:
it's about keeping your toy?
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Is there some reason for the attempts to get a rise out of me?

Guns are not toys.

But that's not the point, is it?

I went through background checks to buy my guns. I got the handgun permits to buy the handguns. I don't have anything other than a single speeding ticket on my record.

I have done what was legally required and I legally own my firearms.

I have two permits now to buy two more handguns.

I went to the police and gave them my info, and waited several days, as required.

Why can't I shoot my guns at targets on the weekend?

Is it because some nut went off, or what?

Is it because you think I will eventually?
 
Here in the UK there have been several of these incidents now and guns are not freely available here. I am not sure of the position in Norway but they just had Breivik rub out 70+.

A question that arises is what has happened to or in these societies that produces these extreme events? Maybe I'm wrong but weren't they unknown before Colombine or thereabouts?
 
thaiboxerken said:
What's the gun crime rate in the UK?
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You were quoting Ben Adams, who lives in the USA; I don't know if you were aware of that.

A little investigoogle finds a BBC page which states
BBC said:
In 2010-11, England and Wales witnessed 388 firearm offences in which there was a fatal or serious injury, 13% lower than the previous 12 months. In Scotland during the same period, there were two fatal and 109 non-fatal injuries during the same period, a decade-long low.
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These numbers include injuries, not just deaths. The UK has roughly a fifth of the population of the USA, so an equivalent number in the USA based on that would be 2,495 - that's deaths and serious injuries.

Again according to the BBC, in 2009, which is the latest year for which figures are available, there were 31,347 firearms deaths in the USA. That's just deaths, and is over 12 times higher than the rate per capita in the UK which includes injuries. If we excluded injuries from the UK rate, or added injuries into the USA rate, the USA rate per capita would be even higher. I hope that answers your query, though I recognise that the figures I have found so far aren't comparable because the UK rate includes serious injury and the USA rate only includes deaths.
 
Ranb said:
You know that people have been killing each other long before guns were available and kill often without guns. What intimate knowledge do you have about this guy that leads you to believe he would have not killed if he didn't have access to guns? Have you actually met him?

Ranb
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The gun is designed primarily to be cheap, efficient, convenient and reliable as a tool for killing people. You can also use it for recreation.
 
It's a tragedy. I don't think any regulation can prevent this. But maybe it can make it harder .. less probable .. just a bit.
Armed teachers ? Not sure about that .. but metal detector and armed guard at the doors ? You bet ..
 
Quad4_72 said:
We should make heroin and meth illegal too. That will prevent all of the senseless overdoses and deaths those things cause.
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Legalizing drugs reduces overdoses and drug-related deaths.


Or was your post ironic?
 
Polaris said:
It should be obvious - and it is obvious to a number of posters here and in the (gag, puke) blogosphere - that the common factor in the mass shootings is that the shooters are mentally ill, to say the least. That to me seems like the best route for the discussion to take: how to keep weapons out of the hands of the insane, and beyond that how to treat the insane in the first place (and reduce the stigma, if not eliminate it).
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The most obvious common factor in mass shootings is the gun.
 
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