School shooting: but don't mention guns!

[Dancing David]

This is actually incredibly easy:

1, Anyone who's receiving mental health services for a psychotic or behavioral disorder is registered with the Feds.

Oh really? And how many people who go on rampages is that?

So you want 1-2% of the population to be registered. Or just those that get treatment, rather unfair isn't it.

How exactly, have you heard of HIPPA?
And how many psychotic people are actually responsible for handgun violence and massacres?

Please do tell and cite your data.

Behavioral disorders?
Are you sure that is a rather large category of things, so what do you think you mean by that.

I am curious.

2. Any firearms purchase requires a Federal background check.
3. If the person is on the mental health registry, Fed returns "rejected" notice, no other information given to gun dealer.
4. As in all similar situations today, failed applicant is permitted to personally request the details of the rejection for himself.

All based upon no science, no data, no evidence.

 

[Dr.Sid]

If you wanted to kill some one, you would have no other options? You would give up because, why?

Well it's either amount of guns, or americans have more murdering maniacs then the rest, and nothing will help them. I would try it. Rest of the world can live with licenses for guns, why can't you ? Maybe it would save 1 life.

 

[Checkmite]

I agree.

But how did they get the mom as a teacher thing wrong? It's not like the school was big. They probably listed all their teachers on their website for goodness sake.

How freaking hard would it have been to check if the mom was a teacher?

You know it's funny, but at this point I don't know whether the mom being a teacher actually is wrong yet. As far as I know, this particular fact has not been addressed by the police.

But look at how much was built off of it - first it was him "going directly to his mother's classroom", then once the police confirmed his mother had been killed in her home, it was "he killed his mother at home then headed directly for her classroom at the school" which doesn't even make sense. Now it's "he headed directly for these people he had an altercation with a few days ago"; but how can this be the entire truth either? One of the very few things I can say we do know for absolute certain is that 20 children were killed, most of them shot over and over again. I'm sure he didn't have an altercation with the first graders that he felt had to be satisfied.

 

[lionking]

In Canada, gun ownership is legal and requires a license yet the majority of firearm related murders are committed by unlicensed people with illegal possession of an unregistered hand gun.

Do you have a cite for this?

 

[Dancing David]

Anyone who has been prescribed any sort of mind-altering drugs, particularly those whose manufactures warn may potentially cause suicidal thoughts, should not be permitted to possess weapons. The very fact that the drug was prescribed is an indication that the person's mind is abnormal. This really seems like nothing but common sense to me.

Oh so now you are going to go off a black box warning and make me unable to own a gun?

Wow and on what basis is that Senor Draconian?

A guess a surmise?

What is the reason for the increased risk of suicide, do you actually know?

 

[Dancing David]

As I said about a million pages ago, I have a diagnosed mental illness, and I have been prescribed psychoactive drugs, although not for several years. Continuing to dismiss such acts as just something that people with mental illnesses do not only further stigmatizes such people, but it ensures that a lot of people will fail to report their own symptoms, hindering their chances of treatment.

Bravo, true words.

 

[Dancing David]

It doesn't have to be a public list; as I described above. For instance, the gun dealer will never know whether the application was rejected for a felony conviction or a mental health issue; he will only know it was rejected.

And your scientific basis for your now broadened scope is what?

Psychosis and taking a medicine that has a black box warning on it?

How many people in this category commit massacres and gun violence exactly what data?

 

[jimbob]

If you wanted to kill some one, you would have no other options? You would give up because, why?

How many of those ways are easier and require less planning than taking your mother's gun? And it's not someone being killed, it's several people.

And there is the effectiveness of using a tool designed for its function compared to something that is bodged together. Stricter gun control at least means that potential spree killers have to also manage a more complex plan, which is more likely to fail or be spotted, or be beyond the capability of some potential killers - probably a higher proportion than the general population.

In much of the rest of the world, the lone nuts find it harder to get hold of such effective weapons, meaning that any mass killings require more planning, and probably can't be acts of impulse.


There is also significant difference in the rate of killings, especially mass killings between the US and Europe. Breivik was an isolated case, these killings are part of a pattern.

 

[Dancing David]

I think the number 1 thing we could do to lower gang related gun violence (which is most of our nation's gun violence) is to decriminalize and strictly regulate drugs. Drugs are the fuel that powers street gangs. Take away their product,and they lose much of their motive and ability to do gun violence. Sure they would still do prostitution and some other things, and there would still be shootings, but the earning potential would be much less and there would be less motive to protect territory so strictly.

Yes and register all firearms so the illegal trade to Mexico and elsewhere stops.

 

[Dancing David]

You're half right. It's not "US gun culture", it's "US culture" which happens to have guns in the mix. There is demonstrably a very distinct cultural difference between Americans and Europeans, and propensity to violence is most of it. Gun laws and gun ownership is a symptom, not the driving force behind this difference. I'll leave it to the anthropologists, sociologists, and psychologists to say WHY.

I wonder is this true, is there more battery per capita in the US?

 

[Checkmite]

Oh really? And how many people who go on rampages is that?

So you want 1-2% of the population to be registered. Or just those that get treatment, rather unfair isn't it.

How exactly, have you heard of HIPPA?
And how many psychotic people are actually responsible for handgun violence and massacres?

Please do tell and cite your data.

Behavioral disorders?
Are you sure that is a rather large category of things, so what do you think you mean by that.

I am curious.


All based upon no science, no data, no evidence.

You'll have to forgive me for proposing an hypothetical solution without a 100-page fully-vetted and peer reviewed study to back up my suggestions.

As I have already indicated, it is simply my understanding based on memory that several of the recent massacres were perpetrated by people who were receiving mental health services, many of them since they were children. I was under the impression that many of these same people were able to legally purchase firearms which they then used for their rampages. I could be wrong; I don't think that I am though.

Of course, feel free to point out the disadvantages of this hypothetical suggestion, with the caveat that I may not agree that those disadvantages exist or are actually disadvantages. After all, aren't we supposed to be having a "discussion" here?

 

[Dancing David]

Do I need to explain why I feel that people taking mind-altering substances are not appropriate candidates for owning machines designed solely to kill people?

Yes, it seems rather superstitious, why should I be denied a right to bear arms?

Even at my most anxious and obsessive I was not at risk for harming others. So please explain your strange belief and the basis for it.

Do you include alcohol BTW?

 

[Dancing David]

No, you are not. The Constitution and the people who wrote it are practically deified in the US, so much so that a person who becomes aware that this one or that one owned slaves or was a wife-beater for instance, they consider themselves cleverer and more enlightened than the average American. The US Constitution was designed with a mechanism for changing it when parts of it became less useful over time; this full implications of this fact are usually lost on most people.

And it can always happen, which is why Prop. 8 in CA was so wrong, an end run on a State's Constitution.

As well as some nonsense about reviving the moribund ERA (federal), which I would support a new go at.

Or those who wish to allow religious indoctrination in the class room or ban gay marriage. Federal.

 

[lionking]

I wonder is this true, is there more battery per capita in the US?

Yes, I wondered this too. Violence is often (sometimes anyway) a feature at European football matches, yet I don't hear of violence at US sports matches.

 

[Checkmite]

And your scientific basis for your now broadened scope is what?

Psychosis and taking a medicine that has a black box warning on it?

How many people in this category commit massacres and gun violence exactly what data?

How many individuals arrested for DUI actually caused a fatal accident or property damage?

What is the hypothetical percentage below which you would suggest revisiting the illegality of drunk driving?

 

[Autolite]

Do you have a cite for this?

Try a search using the name "Dr. Gary Mauser". He's a Canadian professor who has published studies on this sort of thing. He'll give you the straight dope on the criminal use of firearms here in Canada...

 

[Travis]

I am denied the right to own a gun (in California). I have no problem with it.

 

[Checkmite]

Even at my most anxious and obsessive I was not at risk for harming others.

How can you possibly know this for an objective fact?

Of those arrested for DUI who did cause a fatality or property damage, are you under the impression that they knew they would most likely cause an accident and deliberately went driving anyway, or is it more commonly the case that they were operating under the assumption that they "knew how much alcohol they could drive safely on"?

 

[Ziggurat]

How can you possibly know this for an objective fact?

Of those arrested for DUI who did cause a fatality or property damage, are you under the impression that they knew they would most likely cause an accident and deliberately went driving anyway, or is it more commonly the case that they were operating under the assumption that they "knew how much alcohol they could drive safely on"?

That they caused an accident doesn't mean that they were most likely to cause an accident. Drunk drivers are ad significantly higher risk of causing an accident, but the risk is still often much less than one. It's precisely because people can usually get away with driving drunk that it's so common.

But you're making the wrong comparison anyways. Lots of people know that they will drive after drinking. Whether or not they can accurately estimate their intoxication level (or whether they just accept the risk), I don't think that many people are actually surprised by their choice of driving or not driving after drinking. And that is the step which has intention, since almost nobody chooses to get in an accident. So if you know that you won't drive after drinking, then you're probably right.

 

[dafydd]

Yes, I wondered this too. Violence is often (sometimes anyway) a feature at European football matches, yet I don't hear of violence at US sports matches.

Isn't it lucky that European football hooligans don't have easy access to firearms.