Gun Tragedy, 5th grader suicide

[reprise]

originally posted by Impy Timpy
There's no easy solution here to the problem. Saying guns are to blame is incorrect because he'd simply use alternative means (perhaps with more destructive power).

I didn't say that guns were to blame for this incident. I simply questioned whether an average 12 year old was likely to be able to come up with an alternative method of causing harm to multiple others easily and unnoticed. For that matter, when cornered would any of those other options have allowed him to so easily end his life?

Whatever my personal feelings about the gun culture which exists in the US, this is one thread in which I have not played the "well what do you expect..." card (yeah, the father would have been hung, drawn and quartered in NSW, but this didn't happen in NSW).

 

[ImpyTimpy]

That's why I'm saying he more then likely would have come up with means to end his life and take others with him. If using bombs he might've even managed to injure/kill enough students before he could be stopped or he'd kill himself...

The internet is abundant with recipes to make high powered explosives out of household items.

Or to put the argument another way - where there's a will, there's a way.

I didn't say that guns were to blame for this incident. I simply questioned whether an average 12 year old was likely to be able to come up with an alternative method of causing harm to multiple others easily and unnoticed. For that matter, when cornered would any of those other options have allowed him to so easily end his life?

Whatever my personal feelings about the gun culture which exists in the US, this is one thread in which I have not played the "well what do you expect..." card (yeah, the father would have been hung, drawn and quartered in NSW, but this didn't happen in NSW).

 

[evildave]

Question: If these avoidable deaths were due to, say, an immunisable disease like mumps or chickenpox, would anyone contend that such immunisation should be witheld on the basis of a legal code, like "it's in the US constitution that we can have mumps"?

Zep

Well, if we want immunization and disease statistics, I can certainly provide you those as well. It gives a nice perspective to compare these trivial numbers against.

According to the World Health Organization...

Pneumonia: Kills over 2,000,000 children a year
Diarrhoea: Kills 2,000,000 children a year
Measles: Kills 800,000 children a year
Malaria: 700,000 children die in a year.
Malnutrition: Contributes to 800,000 children dying a year.

Do you think deaths from diarrhoea (the runs) could be avoided, perhaps? I think so.

Here you cry your crocodile tears about, oh, a few hundred American kids who kill themselves and each other (with guns), and we've got well over SIX MILLION other kids who die of downright trivially preventable causes.

I suppose the fact that they live in other places besides the U.S. makes their lives less worthy of debate somehow?

Then we still duck the Motor Vehicle mortalities. Any way you cut it, it dwarfs all other categories as a cause of death and injuries.
http://www.childstats.gov/intnl/pdf/health5.pdf

BAN CARS

 

[a_unique_person]

Alas, it's time for the WISQARS link again.

What *ACTUALLY* kills 12 year olds in America? Of ALL of the 12 year old children who died....

Unintentional Injury 259
Malignant Neoplasms (cancer) 110
Suicide 43
Congenital Anomalies 42
Homicide 38
Heart Disease 19
Chronic Low.Respiratory Disease 17
Cerebro-vascular 12
Benign Neoplasms 8

Breakdown of unintentional injuries:
MV Traffic 147
Drowning 28
Suffocation 14
Other Land Transport 12
Fire/burn 11
Firearm 9

Breaking down suicide:
Suffocation 26
Firearm 11
Poisoning 3
Fall 1
Other Spec., classifiable 1
Unspecified 1

Breaking down homicide:
Homicide Firearm 22
Homicide Other Spec., 4
Homicide Suffocation 4
Homicide Unspecified 4
Homicide Cut/pierce 2
Homicide Fire/burn 1
Homicide Other Spec., classifiable 1

Banning cars would be the most sensible thing to prevent the deaths of 12 year old children. The numbers say it all. Prosecuting parents who don't have their kids in seatbelts with attempted (or successful) murder should be done routinely. 42 kids from all types of firearm deaths, and 147 just for motor vehicle accidents. Ban cars.

Naturally, if all the guns disappeared today, the "suffocation" category in suicides would spike up a bit. They're already over twice as likely to hang or suffocate themselves than shoot, so let's ban rope and plastic bags.

Accidents are the major cause of death in 12 year olds, but as they get older, other reasons increase.

However, what should also be considered are preventable causes, acceptable risks, and other causes.

We can't ban cars, our society is now dependent on them. Given the number of cars used every day, the death toll due to them is remarkably low, although other western countries have managed to get the road toll rates lower than the US.

Accidental deaths do happen, but we don't want to stop our kids taking reasonable risks when playing, that is, climbing trees and keeping fit are, in the long run, going to make the population as a whole healthier and happier.

Disease is being worked on, however, as you have noted, cancer is one tough disease to crack.

Guns, however, are not essential, nor a part of the human condition.

 

[John Harrison]

Guns, however, are not essential, nor a part of the human condition.

Those that have successfully defended their lives with a firearm would probably disagree with you on this one.

 

[DavidJames]

"Those that have successfully defended their lives with a firearm would probably disagree with you on this one."

And those who have innocently died as a result, well, I guess they wouldn't be able to disagree with you either

 

[Mr Manifesto]

Much as I don't like guns being too freely available, I have to say that in this case probably not much could have been done.

The first thing to look at is, how many children have killed themselves with guns? (I only read the first page of this debate and the same point seemed to be getting repeated so excuse me if it has already been answered).

As said previously, young people are in fact killing themselves more often. Paracetemol is usually the method of choice- which is why the EU took measures to try to prevent it. I have also heard of eight year olds hanging themselves on clothes lines.

It may be in this case that we have to look at the why rather than the how.

But I still don't agree with American gun laws. Not that it is my problem as I live in Australia.

 

[Mr Manifesto]

Ah-ha. So someone has actually given stats on gun suicides. Looks like most children die from suffocation when it comes to suicide. Well, I can't be wrong about the paracetemol- they are obviously choking themselves to death on the pills!

 

[John Harrison]

And those who have innocently died as a result, well, I guess they wouldn't be able to disagree with you either

I would be interested in seeing the number of innocent people shot in this manner each year.

 

[bignickel]

The only thing I got reading the article was that we had a potential Columbine that terminated itself too early to do much damage: an amok.

The amok is trying to commit suicide. However, he rarely can do himself in. The amok instead kills multiple people in an attempt to get the authorities to kill him. If the amok believes that the authorities won't kill him, he usually will try to kill himself at that point (ie Columbine).

The amok meme originated in Malasia or thereabouts, where the young man in question would grab a machete and start hacking randomly at people. The people in the village would yell "Amok! Amok!", and everyone would grab a spear, long fork, or pole. Once the amok was pinned to the side of a tree or wall, they could stab him with spears until the amok was dead.

How the amok meme got to America in the 90's is anyone's guess. Before the amok meme, there were only 2 courses for troubled teenagers in school: A. Live through it. B. Kill themselves. The amok meme offered a different way to handle 'B', which seemed to suit a certain group of troubled teenagers filled with rage (who years before would have just done themselves in). Once a few amok incidents occured in American, the news media picked it up, and distributed the meme thoroughly, thus insuring more incidents and a well-entrenched meme.

Once here it seemed well nigh impossible to get rid of it. However, once the 911 meme filled popular imagination, the amok meme pretty much faded from view.

Hopefully the 911 meme has enough currency left in it that the amok meme will stay out of view for a few years more.

 

[Checkmite]

That's why I'm saying he more then likely would have come up with means to end his life and take others with him. If using bombs he might've even managed to injure/kill enough students before he could be stopped or he'd kill himself...

The internet is abundant with recipes to make high powered explosives out of household items.

Or to put the argument another way - where there's a will, there's a way.

Just out of curiosity, how many kids who've committed homicide/suicide have used bombs? The Columbine pair tried; the bombs were duds however. Any other instances?

 

[Cinorjer]

When something like this happens, we all want to make logical sense out of it. Whose fault is it? The parents? The gun manufacturers? The school officials? The classmates who picked on the fat kid? The friends who heard the kid talking about killing himself and didn't go to the adults? How about video games or violent TV? SOMEONE has to be blamed! Let's line up the usual suspects, ending with society in general.

Look, no one but the kid knows what was going through his mind, but it wasn't normal thinking. He made a choice to kill himself, and given the amount of weapons he had with him, he was at least considering killing lots of other people. This is NOT normal behavior. Not even for a kid that is being picked on. Not even for a kid that has "emotional problems." I was picked on all through my school years, even beat up from time to time. I lived in a home where guns were readily available, and went hunting a lot. Never once did it even occur to me, to take one to school and start blowing people away. In my deepest funk, I never considered blowing a hole in my own head. Kids have stress in their life, and learn to deal with it.

Something went wrong in this kid's mind. It's not going to make sense. The parents are torturing themselves right now, wondering if it's their fault. Whose fault is it? Ultimately, the kid who killed himself.

 

[ImpyTimpy]

I have no idea actually. I know there have been accidental killings of teenagers playing with explosives but suicide? Not sure. Then again, I suppose we only have to look towards places like Palestine for answers.

Cheap shots aside, I'm not arguing that teenagers use bombs to kill themselves, I simply provided an alternative means to injure many people other than guns. Like I keep saying, where there's a will, there will be a way.

Just out of curiosity, how many kids who've committed homicide/suicide have used bombs? The Columbine pair tried; the bombs were duds however. Any other instances?

 

[Zep]

Well, if we want immunization and disease statistics, I can certainly provide you those as well. It gives a nice perspective to compare these trivial numbers against.

Missed the point, mate. It's the principle of the thing. I'll repeat my question:

If these avoidable deaths were due to, say, an immunisable disease like chickenpox, would anyone contend that such immunisation should be witheld on the basis of a legal code, like "it's in the US constitution that we can have chickenpox"?

I've no doubt that preventable diseases would be dealt with summarily by medicine, even if the US constitution was an ass in this regard.

However now substitute the word "guns" for "chickenpox" and "gun-control" for "immunisation":

If these avoidable deaths were due to, say, a controllable disease like guns, would anyone contend that such gun-control should be witheld on the basis of a legal code, like "it's in the US constitution that we can have guns"?

So why is the response to THIS so significantly different??

Here you cry your crocodile tears about, oh, a few hundred American kids who kill themselves and each other (with guns), and we've got well over SIX MILLION other kids who die of downright trivially preventable causes.

I suppose the fact that they live in other places besides the U.S. makes their lives less worthy of debate somehow?

The USA has all the medical facilities and resources in the world to deal with these diseases in other countries, to make a really sizeable dent in this six million deaths per year. But what does it do instead?? Marches into other countries with GUNS! Not medicine, GUNS! What does THAT say to the world???

And perhaps you might also care to have a thought for the parents and families and friends of these "few hundred American 12-year-olds who kill themselves". What about the 13-year-olds? And the 14-year-olds? And so on?? Talk about trivialising the situation! Sheesh!

Zep

 

[John Harrison]

I'm not in a position to dispute the numbers, so I'll take them as valid. But this is a generalisation in the extreme. We are not talking about "what kills all 12 year olds this year", we are talking about the availability of guns to kids to DELIBERATELY hurt themselves and others with.

So let's look at the results for DELIBERATE harm by selves or others:

Suicide 43 (firearm 11, suffocation 26, others 6)
Homicide 38 (firearm 22, others 26)

Now let's total that up:

Firearm involvement: 33 out of 81 incidents, 41%

So two out of five deliberate deaths of 12 year olds are due to firearms, according to this data.

Question: If these avoidable deaths were due to, say, an immunisable disease like mumps or chickenpox, would anyone contend that such immunisation should be witheld on the basis of a legal code, like "it's in the US constitution that we can have mumps"?

Zep

Mumps? Chickenpox? Are you actually trying to make a cogent point, or just rant, because disease and firearms really can't be compared.

 

[Drifterman]

I think that this is an incredibly sad tragedy, and we must be thankful that this disturbed child only harmed himself and no-one else.

I believe that guns are but one factor in these violent crimes and tragedies. However, they are a factor that is more under our control than the others.

This is an approximation from memory (if anyone can provide data, it would be appreciated):

Japan: Miniscule gun ownership, miniscule violent crime rate = few firearm murders
Switzerland: Very high gun ownership, low violent crime rate = few firearm murders
UK: Low gun ownership, very high violent crime rate = few firearm murders
USA: High gun ownership, high violent crime rate = astronomical firearm murders

If firearm penetration reached the same levels in Britain as they are in the USA, the British would have a bloodbath on their hands.

I am open to challenges on this (as I am on everything!)

My greatest problem with guns is fear of them. If I lived in a gun owning society, then I would be more fearful than if I lived in a non- gun owning society. I would not have the luxury of being able to insult those who I deem worthy of insult. An armed society may be a polite society, but it is also a fearful society. Freely carried firearms greatly increase the risk of impulse killing.

A gun's purpose is to project power. It has no other purpose. Sometimes it is the power to inflict injury or death, sometimes it is the power to put food on the table. Nevertheless, it is all about power. And those who have spent the most time or money on firearms will always be able to project their power to a greater extent. Hence the US/UK military victory in Iraq.

If you possess a gun, then you have the ability to impose your will on me. If I also possess (and am carrying) a gun, then I have a short window of opportunity to engage you in a game of chicken. However, because you have had more practice than I with a firearm, and you have the element of surprise, my attempt to defend myself will have escalated the situation and increased the chances of bloodletting.

The Libertarian in me doesn't want my freedom impinged upon by others carrying efficient, specifically designed killing machines.

 

[John Harrison]

If you possess a gun, then you have the ability to impose your will on me. If I also possess (and am carrying) a gun, then I have a short window of opportunity to engage you in a game of chicken. However, because you have had more practice than I with a firearm, and you have the element of surprise, my attempt to defend myself will have escalated the situation and increased the chances of bloodletting

I've seen this theory quite a bit but it doesn't stand up to the evidence in the US regarding the increasing gun supply, increasing concealed carry permits and decreasing firearm homicide rates.

The Libertarian in me doesn't want my freedom impinged upon by others carrying efficient, specifically designed killing machines.

A Libertarian against firearm ownership? That's a first. How exactly does that fit in with the Libertarian philosophy?

 

[Psi Baba]

When schools everywhere starting installing metal detectors and hiring security guards after Columbine, I saw this as a knee-jerk reaction and a way that the school boards could feel like they were doing something to prevent school shootings rather than facing the real problem which is the social and psychological issues of outcast students. While, metal detectors are not a panacea, I suppose it's not a bad idea to have then in place anyway. My question is, how in Ed's name did this kid just walk into a school with "two handguns, three rifles, two shotguns and ample ammunition!"

 

[Zep]

Mumps? Chickenpox? Are you actually trying to make a cogent point, or just rant, because disease and firearms really can't be compared.

Then you aren't trying very hard. In a post above I explained myself. I'm doing a simple comparison of attitudes to constitutional legalities. I hoped I was showing that the USA has some sort of a mental block about controlling guns simply because of a vague constitutional ammendment "allowing" them, and also purely because the subject seems to be such a touchy one there.

Sheesh! The rest of the world grew up about this years ago...

Zep

 

[a_unique_person]

Japan: Miniscule gun ownership, miniscule violent crime rate = few firearm murders
Switzerland: Very high gun ownership, low violent crime rate = few firearm murders
UK: Low gun ownership, very high violent crime rate = few firearm murders
USA: High gun ownership, high violent crime rate = astronomical firearm murders

If firearm penetration reached the same levels in Britain as they are in the USA, the British would have a bloodbath on their hands.

I have tried to make this point before. I think it is worth repeating.