School shooting Florida

[Foolmewunz]

It's always shocking to find out that young criminals enjoy a hugely popular genre of video games.

The Great Mashed Potato Conspiracy redux?

 

[quadraginta]

Not to mention swimming pools.......

Which, it should be pointed out, might not even register on the metal detectors at the school doors.

 

[Stacko]

Exactly what kind of mental illness are talking about here?

One that exclusively makes Americans way more murderous than other first world countries.

 

[Cain]

All you have do is ask around ... it's not rocket science.

You're not familiar with millennials. Adorable.

The librarians on campus are available by text because students (technically adults) are too shy to speak on the phone or in person. To librarians.

 

[Bob001]

In Canada if you say dumb things on the net ... they can come and take all firearms in the residence ... does the FBI have that power?

You're kidding, right? No, the FBI doesn't have that power.

 

[William Parcher]

The defense attorneys are saying that Cruz is autistic.

 

[Craig B]

Briefly, the original Castillians were Visigoths..Germans who moved into Spain after the collapse of the Roman Empire, took over, and formed the new Aristoracy...

That explains it. "Castilians" are thought of as blond supermen, while other Spanish people are presumably Judaeo-Moorish mongrel sub humans, according to that concept. Neeedless to state that it is nonsense. The Kingdom of Castile, along with other kingdoms, evolved well after the Muslim invasions, in lands recovered from them, and contained a mix of peoples, not all of them blond Goths.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

The defense attorneys are saying that Cruz is autistic.

It's going to be a collateral tragedy if in trying to get Cruz a lighter sentence they paint autism as a dangerous disorder.

The other tragedy is why this kid couldn't have been helped before he started shooting. He should have had help a decade or more from the looks of it. I wonder if his brother still needs help?

 

[smartcooky]

The reason that the US has so many mass shootings and the UK doesn't, in my opinion, is that the US has easy access to weapons. You can go into any Walmart in the US and buy guns and ammunition off the shelf, assuming you have the right paperwork, which by all accounts is easy to get.

Tesco or Sainsburys don't have gun counters in the UK and you sure as hell can't buy an AR-15 or a handgun anywhere. I kind of like things that way.
(and yes there are a bunch of guns *very* similar to an AR-15 or a "lengthened" handgun that are legal to purchase in the UK, but they are hard to get hold of, the paperwork is a serious PITA and they are eye wateringly expensive)

Eye-watering and a PITA is right

It took me just short of 12 months and a whole crapload of paperwork for me to import my Savage M12, and all up, it cost me about NZ$4000 (about $3,600 for the rifle, and another $400 for the other stuff such as freight and a private firearms import licence)

Edited by Agatha: 

Edited part of post more suited to split thread

Could it possibly be that our gun control laws work? That by and large the people that would perpetrate mass shootings here don't because it's damn hard to get hold of the 'right' guns in this country?

And as always, the argument you will get from Americans is

"B b b but.... mu'h guns, mu'h rights!"

I have three guns (well, two rifles and a shotgun). I love my guns, and I enjoy shooting them and using them and maintaining them. I also recognize that there is a greater good; that as a member of the human race, I have to own and use my guns under a set of laws that is set up to minimise gun crime in my country. So, I have to jump through a few hoops to buy guns and keep them in my home... that is the price I am prepared to pay.. the price of freedom.

Unfortunately, in America, they have a different price of freedom... its measured in dead schoolchildren. IMO, it is utterly irresponsible (and utterly stupid) to insist that your personal right to have free and easy access to guns outweighs the greater good of the community you live in. If countries like England and New Zealand and Australia can have the collective intelligence to understand that it is a good thing to have restricted access to guns, there is no reason why 300,000,000 citizens of the USA cannot do the same. The problem is that free ownership of guns is a drug, and America is an addict.

 

[Darat]

I don't think there's a causal relationship but it's very hard to deny there's a correlation; school shooters really seem to dig FPS games.

School *kids* really seem to dig FPS games, that's why they sell so well.

 

[Darat]

Which, it should be pointed out, might not even register on the metal detectors at the school doors.

And let's be honest a determined kid could smuggle bits of a swimming pool into school day by day.

 

[This is The End]

I don't think there's a causal relationship but it's very hard to deny there's a correlation; school shooters really seem to dig FPS games.

That would be like saying "19 year-olds in chess club really seem to dig FPS games".

Or, more accurately, "Boy these school shooters sure seem to like to eat breakfast. They all eat breakfast!!"

In fact, you are much more likely to find a 19 year old in America that skips breakfast than one who has not played a FPS. No, really.

These things have sold hundreds of millions of copies. The vast majority of all 19 year-olds really seem to dig FPS games.

A game in a related genre, Grand Theft Auto 5, has sold over 90 million copies just by itself.

Video games are no more to blame than legal guns.

 

[BillC]

I like that some American constituents are mailing campaign contribution cheques to their representatives with the sum payable of "thoughts and prayers".

 

[This is The End]

And let's be honest a determined kid could smuggle bits of a swimming pool into school day by day.

I know that you know what a bomb is. I also know that you know just how easy it is to make a very big one.

So, in other words, hahaha, great swimming pool joke there...

 

[Bob001]

Eye-watering and a PITA is right

It took me just short of 12 months and a whole crapload of paperwork for me to import my Savage M12, and all up, it cost me about NZ$4000 (about $3,600 for the rifle, and another $400 for the other stuff such as freight and a private firearms import licence)

I note that your Savage M12 is a bolt-action rifle that holds four rounds. Depending on the caliber, it sells for about $400 in the U.S.
http://www.cabelas.com/product/SAVAGE-FV-VARMINT-RIFLE/1994604.uts

The universally available (in the U.S.) AR15-style rifles are semi-auto and can empty 30-round magazines in a few seconds. What would you have to do to get one in NZ?
http://www.cabelas.com/catalog/brow...&CQ_sort=priceLow&CQ_ztype=GNP&CQ_pagesize=90

 

[lionking]

I note that your Savage M12 is a bolt-action rifle that holds four rounds. Depending on the caliber, it sells for about $400 in the U.S.
http://www.cabelas.com/product/SAVAGE-FV-VARMINT-RIFLE/1994604.uts

The universally available (in the U.S.) AR15-style rifles are semi-auto and can empty 30-round magazines in a few seconds. What would you have to do to get one in NZ?http://www.cabelas.com/catalog/brow...&CQ_sort=priceLow&CQ_ztype=GNP&CQ_pagesize=90

Why would you want one in New Zealand?

This question of yours speaks volumes of the toxic nature of the US gun culture. Owning a massive killing machine because you can? Sickening.

 

[MikeG]

.........Video games are no more to blame than legal guns.

Facile bilge. Trotting out slogans, without any supporting logic or evidence, is exactly what the world has come to expect of apologists for the crazy gun culture in the USA. Please say "freedom comes at a price"......

 

[MikeG]

.......commonly and casually available in the U.S., even to 18-year-olds.

Could you explain to me (indeed, to the world) why you can't buy a beer in the USA until you are 21, but you can buy a machine gun as a teenager?

 

[Parsman]

Of course not. Killers enter schools with weapons other than guns.

How often? And how many children do they kill? In the last 5 years have they killed as many people as this gun totting individual did in less than 1 day? Yes if you are determined enough you could probably kill someone with a white board eraser or a marker pen. Guns make it much easier to kill far more people. You don't like that, I get it. But it is a fact.

 

[Bob001]

Could you explain to me (indeed, to the world) why you can't buy a beer in the USA until you are 21, but you can buy a machine gun as a teenager?

Explain or justify? The explanation is that the gun lobby is strong, it donates many millions of dollars to political campaigns, and legislators respond to donors.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...own-a-rife-or-shotgun/?utm_term=.a8e5f21dfc93

Justify? Not so much.

I note that the semi-autos commonly available are NOT machine guns. Civilians can buy machine guns too, but it's a cumbersome process that requires a federal license. The Las Vegas shooter killed 58 people and wounded 500+ with semi-autos that he bought legally.