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http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/02/15/uni...ing/index.html
So, yet another one has happened... Comments, thoughts? Is this becoming a trend, or can we stop it by reversing whatever happened in these last two decades during which this kind of thing has started to become common?
You already know the answer: Teh guns R eval.
And the guns suddenly got more evil in the last two decades, than they were before? :inquisitive:
I'm not very surprised. This seems like everyday news by now.
Very sad. Here is an eye-witness, chilling stuff. Screw these emo-nazi's.
http://www.dumpert.nl/mediabase/4199...onverslag.html
It was St. Valentine's Day. I'm sure many others have contemplated doing the same thing.
I can think of two reasons:
Mass media sensationalism. Every time this happens, it's blasted on the news for days afterward as self proclaimed experts pontificate on the cause. And then every other loser sees it and sees the attention the killer gets. I bet we'll soon have an indepth look at the recent past of the killer.
A society that's changed. One that increasingly finds fault with and blames society, less sacredness of life, and more toleration for suicidal/emo/goth/the world is against me feelings. I can't quite put my finger on it, so this part is really quite rough.
That's not to say these attacks didn't occur 40 years ago, they just happened much less often.
CR
Hm, there's too much news coverage, true. But perhaps also another type of influence from mass media should be blamed - the way mass media encourages all people to build up unrealistic dreams, and the way mass media depicts getting world-wide attention as the goal in life and the greatest thing that can happen to you. Then, people are met with reality and can't take the fact that life for most people is much worse than these unrealistic dreams, and that life has also gotten much tougher in the latest 2 decades, especially for the lower and middle classes. 2 decades ago, people didn't watch nearly as much TV with reality shows etc that glorify world-wide attention and similar. Perhaps it is time TV channels should start taking responsibility and show less of this crap TV? After all, not many would be sad if programs like American Idol and so on would be removed from the tableaus. Notice something else? What was the first thing the woman "eye-witness" in that linked recording did after the event? Phone mass-media, to get attention! No call to the police, as would have been the right thing to do as a citizen (because at that time, she could have no way of knowing for sure he wasn't alive having left the scene and trying to get away), but a call to the news, to get her voice recorded and played out in the news... That just goes to show how attention-seeking people are being taught to be these days.
I think it is because kids just aren't allowed to fend for theirselves today, the moment there is a conflict all sorts of gears are set in motion, talk, finding eachother you get it men raised by women. There is nothing wrong with moderate use of violence, hard to die from a few hits on the head or even a stab with a knife unless someone is very unlucky. Sort of a soft tyranny that leads to excesses such as this.Quote:
Originally Posted by Crazed Rabbit
Oh, yes, that is true. There is certainly a glorification of publicity, no matter where it came from, in today's society, and that is a large factor I would think.
CR
That's not to say these attacks didn't occur 40 years ago, they just happened much less often.
I thought that "i hate mondays" girl was the one who started the school shooting craze ? (documentary on BBC said so :P)
i don't think this can be blamed on emo or goth way of living as the people who are a bit messed up to start with are attracted to emo/goth style.
Some random thoughts:
There is nobody on Earth as dangerous as a person who is convinced he is a victim. Once he's made that leap, decided that the world is unfair and against him, nothing is taboo, nothing is too much, no action is unjustified. Admittedly, feeling victimized is an essential part of the teenage years, but there's a major difference between occasionally feeling put-upon and making victimhood central to your identity.
I think a majority of the school shooters fall into this category; not all, mind you -- some are true psychopaths, such as Klebold and Harris. But sociopaths are rare, whereas people who think they've got the biggest sob story of all time are common as dirt.
So take your extreme example of early adult victim mentality (please!), and look at what feeds into his head. America has a peculiarity that I've noticed many times -- because we are a land of opportunity, and because anybody has the potential to be as successful as they like, there's a particular pressure on all of us. If anybody can be as rich as Bill Gates, why aren't you? If anybody can be President, why aren't you? Why are you failing in class, why aren't you popular, why isn't your family wealthier, why aren't you higher on the totem pole?
The vast majority of Americans make peace with this concept, either through logic, rationalization, acceptance, or what-have-you, but a tiny minority cannot. They cannot accept that their inherent limitations, not to mention luck, prevent them from rising any higher right now.
Last thought: As firearm fans point out, guns are the great equalizer. A 110-pound woman can hold her own with a 250-pound ex-con if she has a gun. A granny can chase off a thug if she has a gun. Guns level the playing field in a direct and final manner.
So add it up -- take the tiny percentage of teens/young adults who completely go over to the Dark Side of victimhood. Add in the unbearable (for them) pressure of a meritocracy. Finish the stew with a simple, deadly equalizing tool, and hey presto! You've got a good formula for school shootings.
I think this goes some small way toward explaining why school shootings are a predominantly American trend.
Hm, I think you make a few fallacies. One of them, being "meritocracy". No country in history, except the administration of Genghis Khan's hordes, has ever implemented meritocracy.
No, the problem is too high expectations combined with too low capabilities of fulfilling them. It's the relative distance between the two, not their absolute values, that matter. Raise expectations, and you must raise the level of reality to or you will increase the violence. Lower the life quality of reality, and you must lower expectations too, if you are to avoid an increase in violence.
All these views "it's 100% society's fault" and "it's 100% individuals feeling like victims" are one-sided, and dangerous, as they fail to attack the problem from both sides. If you choose the latter option, you need to silence the entire debate on improving real-life living conditions. If you choose the former option, you will encourage victimization feelings in the people that lie in the danger zone. Both risk increasing the gap between expectations fed by mass media, and what reality has to offer.
This the the third(?), there have been one in germany and also in finland just recently. There is more to it, I think I got it nailed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemur
As someone who's been where these shooters have been (at one point me and a good friend were only weeks away from acting out on our desire when something major came up that changed our minds) i can sympathise with them. The world is a harsh cruel place when you feel that everyone is a dick and no one cares.
in b4 party van takes me away
Well I have no sympathy at all, if you can't handle it just open your wrists and bleed or look for a high building and see if newton was right, and make sure not to drop onto someone of make a mess on the floor. Zero sympathy for these people, your problem is just that, your problem.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mikeus Caesar
Edit: 5 dead, they must have felt that the comfortable bliss that was their being here on this clay was worth the lives of 5 other people, and just because things didn't go as they wanted, 5 people. How incredibbly self centered can you be?
I think we got that part by nowQuote:
Originally Posted by Fragony
:inquisitive:Quote:
Originally Posted by Fragony
You shouldn't be able to read this, ah well. Don't you think that when you are a bit dissapointed in life and want to end it it's rather selfish to drag 5 down with you without at least asking? You must feel rather important if you feel you have the right to unwillingly let them aid your rightious cause.
I think it's pointless to discuss morality, because morality is a vague concept. If you look at individual actions and what goals a society should have, it's obvious that it should be the goal of society to avoid this action, i.e. that this action is morally despicable, and that you should form your policies around a strategy of making sure to avoid this and other actions which belong to this group of despicable actions. But if you use the morality point of view of looking at a chain of causes and effects, there's another moral judgement which no human being is fit to make because they can never know the entire chain and can only speculate. Then there's the moral implication of just saying "the man is evil period", and denying that there's a chance that part of the cause in the cause and effect chain could have been easily removed, or even worse: advocating an increase in such causes. In short, it's rather pointless to discuss morality when something like this happens.
Fragony, I think you're shadowboxing with yourself. Nobody is arguing that this shooting is anything but monstrous. What a few of us are trying to mull over is why they keep happening. You've expressed your disgust with the shooter multiple times; good, we get the point. Shooting people for no reason bad. We get it. We agree with it. All of us were there before you started hammering on it.
Let's just mosey to the two obvious questions:
- Why do these shootings keep occurring?
- Can/should anything be done to lower the frequency of these atrocities?
-edit-
Why, because the act is so self-evidently immoral? I can see that. If we want to get a handle on the problem, we need to look at causes, symptoms, ways to spot someone who's on the edge of going postal. I certainly think the anti-gun hysteria in schools isn't helping at all. You read about kids being suspended for drawing a gun or pointing their finger and going "bang"; I don't see how that helps anything.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rodion Romanovich
Already said why I think they are happening;
I think it is because kids just aren't allowed to fend for theirselves today, the moment there is a conflict all sorts of gears are set in motion, talk, finding eachother you get it men raised by women. There is nothing wrong with moderate use of violence, hard to die from a few hits on the head or even a stab with a knife unless someone is very unlucky. Sort of a soft tyranny that leads to excesses such as this.
edit, nothing
That's basically saying that everything's the perpetrators fault, and that he/she seeks reasons to act out in an attention-seeking manner (attention they'll never experience since they'll be dead anyway). Bur aren't the perpetrators products of their time and society? What exactly do you mean by "finds fault with and blames society"? Is society all good and people who can't handle it bad guys?Quote:
Originally Posted by Crazed Rabbit
Interesting theory... can't say that it's very insightful though. Ah, heck, I'm not even touching that one, there's just too much behind it to explain what's wrong with that statement (study of gender etc).Quote:
Originally Posted by Fragony
And you don't think that way of thinking would make theses "emos" (as CR so fittingly named them) get even more pissed off with life? Yeah, your lack of sympathy will probably repay itself with more dead people - good thinking.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fragony
1. Because society is society, systems are systems. Societies and systems create outcasts/extremists/rebels/opposers to the norms and so on. And in the cases where the shooters are mentally ill: because there will always be mentally ill people. We don't know if some guy named Aethelsten went postal with an axe in York in 846. Maybe he did, such events weren't written down to be remembered. It's difficult to tell if these school-shootings (or just random killing sprees) are a psychological product of modern society or not.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemur
2. Yes and no.
According to you it is immoral, yes. Not to me. So morality is a very vague concept, according to me it exists only in one's mind, which renders it useless and even futile.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemur
Answer to the why is IMO "yes", and to the rest, "I agree".Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemur
Another ugly thread.
I think I stated my opinion on this before and don't plan to repeat it.
Well, to make it short, sometimes it's actually a nutter and sometimes it's a beta-(fe)male who is pretty angry at all the alpha-(fe)males around her/him for sometimes valid reasons. It's nature's way to show alpha-(fe)males they're vulnerable as well.
People are influenced by the society in which they live, but I don't buy the line that they're nothing more than products of society, automatons at the mercy of outside forces. Ultimately, yes, it's the perpetrator's fault. Saying something along the lines of 'society made him do it' is basically blaming the victim.Quote:
Originally Posted by Innocentius
Ajax
Ok, this guy was mental right? The story says he stopped taking his meds and had been behaving "erratically". So how on earth did he get guns? The article makes it sound like he legally purchased them- diagnosed mental patients should not be buying guns. This looks to be the second time in recent memory that such a thing has happened with tragic results.
Ah, but according to various advocates for people with mental health issues, they should be allowed to buy as many guns as they want because of the right to bear arms.
These people deserve to burn in the deepest circle of hellQuote:
Originally Posted by Xdeathfire
etc, etc, etc,....
There was a long and colorful rant but I decided to save the mods some work.
Last I checked, the states that restrict gun purchases based on mental health all do so based on court-ordered treatment. So unless a person has been in contact with the legal system, there's no bar to buying a gun. People who go on anti-depressants or lithium or what-have-you are not barred anywhere from owning guns. So the dude behaved "erratically"? What does that mean, exactly? And so he went off his meds? Were the meds ordered by a court? If not, there's no issue.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xiahou
The Virginia Tech shooter was a completely different matter. The kid had been sent into treatment from court; he should never have been allowed to purchase a firearm. That was a clear lapse of enforcement.
Good points. We've not heard if this shooter's condition ever landed him in the courts. :bow:Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemur
There should be a law that anytime this happens, the media must forever preface the shooter's name with "The pathetic impotent loser known as... "
Who knows, might even dissuade someone.
colt 45's should be standard issue to college students when theyre in class.
No a better gun should be given , then again if they all had guns in class would it lead to more or less shootings .Quote:
colt 45's should be standard issue to college students when theyre in class.
Surely 4 school shootings in one week is sufficient under existing laws .
But at least they had some variety , one university , one tech college , one high school and one junior high ,...damn get them youngsters to work , they missed out on doing an elementary school shooting ....oh well maybe next week eh .
Yeah, and 50 bullets so they have enough ammunition to kill all the maniacs that are after them and trying to kill us all :balloon2:Quote:
Originally Posted by Jkarinen
Alsorespwn pointsautomatic ammunition dispensers so they can get more once thedeathmatchattack of the evil killers has started.
On the plus side, that makes the job of army recruiters easier.
No one colt 45. with one round
Thats all you need, we dont need anymore major school shootings. If I was there just bam headshot!! then I'd be like "Yeh, I'm that good..."
If the media was restricted to saying "and in other news, there was a school shooting today in _______. Check to make sure your kids are safe if you're in that region. And now to Bob with the weather..." it would probably get rid of most of the attention-seeking murderers.
Hmm, turns out a friend of mine had a friend who was there when the gunner attacked. Luckily he's ok.
And an excellent analysis of the situation Lemur.
I was talking with someone recently about the violent, often famous, events that have happened around me here in San Diego. I was surprised the long list I came up with once I started.Quote:
Originally Posted by LittleGrizzly
I was a schoolmate of Brenda (I hate Mondays) Spencer. Her shooting spree happened 5 minutes distance (by car) from my house. I saw the emergency vehicles from my school bus.
I was a friend and schoolmate of a girl who was picked up near my home when she ran out of gas and was murdered.
An Eagle Scout, who had gone to my junior high school, axe murdered his family, burned the house, and committed suicide, 3 minutes from my house.
One of my close friends was stabbed to death at a party, mistaken for his jerk brother. 1 minute from my house.
The same scenario happened to my cousin's friend and neighbor, though with a gunshot through the door as he answered it. 10 minutes from my house.
A multiple high school shooting happened a few years back in Santee, 10 minutes from my house.
In the same year, another multiple shooting at San Miguel High School, 15 minutes from my house.
(Edit: it was the same month and the school's name is Granite Hills).
Many years ago a man walked into a McDonald's in San Ysidro and shot a bunch of people, then himself. 25 minutes from my home.
Before I'm accused by you guys, I did none of these. My city is known for its relatively low crime rate, especially the neightborhood I grew up in. But headline-making murders are a regular occurrance here.
The US has far, far more multiple shootings and peacetime rampages than any other nation on Earth, in fact, more than all of them combined, I'd say. I put this in the long "negative" column when people ask me if I love the US. I'd say there's something fundamentally wrong with this country, wouldn't you?
Perhaps. Why do our people seem to partake in this sort of senless murder? I dont know. Maybe it is the way our young men are raised to be stoic emotionless men which cuases much more problems than just these shootings. The acceptence of violence as a regular an occurnce. A gnereal detachment from the sancatity/gift that is human life. Personally I blame the lack of socialzation. In the last 50 years actually going out and talking to people has been severly diminshed and now people seem to lack simple social skills and even worse they are ridculed for it. We just need to sit and talk things will change oh how they will chNGE.
Well it's also somewhat bigger :idea2:Quote:
Originally Posted by Tachikaze
RussiaQuote:
Originally Posted by Fragony
and canada areis some what bigger but how often do they get school shootings?, Russia makes the dam AK47 you'd think they'd have more (Any russians to confirm this please?), but of course they under yuris mind control!
WARNING: Very Dodgy joke under spoiler!
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
We are bigger, smaller population thank God, but we do have our share of school shootings. Toronto is turning into LA and Vancouver has a serious gun problem as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by Abokasee
We need some serious law & order happening.
In the UK our population is roughly a 1/5 of USA's and iirc we haven't had a school shooting here for years!
Last one i remember was a good 3-5 years ago somewhere up in scotland and it was some middle aged guy rather than a student.
so this leads me to a question, rather than a statement, is it the availability of guns that is the problem ? so if UK had as many guns we'd have roughly a school shooting for every 5 you have.
Or is there something different about US kids/students to uk kids/students ?
we have pretty much the same culture, watch the same movies play the same games listen to the same music, and even most of your tv makes it over here.
If we think about various factors that lead to people doing these kind of things, low self esteem, bullied, upbringing, potential future life and access to guns.
In the UK we have plenty of people who are bullied have low self esteem and think thier futureless, i can only guess upbringings would be similar so is it just the access to guns which is the cause of all the school shootings in USA or is there some other US only factor i have missed ?
Note: California has more gun control than most of the United States.
Overall nationwide murder and violent crime are dropping.
In Britain, as I understand, the opposite is happening.
I think Tachi is far off in his claim the US has more shootings than the rest of the world combined.
50 years ago in the US, High school kids would bring guns to school to go hunting afterwards, have the school hold them during the school day.
It's not gun availability. It's society, and I think the best remarks on it were in the first page of this thread.
CR
Easy access to guns doesn't help, but there are a myriad of cultural factors involved as well, including, of course, the gun culture itself.Quote:
Originally Posted by LittleGrizzly
Life has become too crowded, too fast, too focussed on immediate gratification, and kids today, who are far more exposed to the real world than kids were in my day, see (more of) the violence and corruption and lies and deceit and profiteering going on all around them by the same people who are telling them to behave themselves. Kids simply don't trust anyone anymore. Worst of all is the endemic failure of people in authority to take responsibility for their actions. Kids see this very clearly. Mix this with overburdened parents and a general lack of discipline and respect for themselves and others and you have the fuse ready to light. Also, more people means more mental illness and less the means to deal with it adequately.
The easy availability of guns is simply the match to the fuse.
Be it the US or Canada or elsewhere, it's the same pattern I think.
Husar here make a joke of it. But it can be truth.Quote:
Originally Posted by Husar
I mean, are people influenced by videogames?
The last year, I saw this documental "Bowling for Columbine". Michael Moore shows how are guns placed in society.
But, two months ago, I saw "The Videogame era", a serie of documentals about the life of the videogames, and they point out that the kids who shot in Columbine were playing teh old Doom.
Now, I invite you to discuss videogames and shootings.
I think that Lemur, SFTS, and Beirut are all correct in their analysis of these shootings.
Well done on winning your debate on gun control CR, but please don't use Britain as a data point proving your argument. In Britain, gun-related crime is fairly insignificant, certainly where bystanders or others who don't own guns are concerned. There is some gun crime between gangs, but we don't really care about that as long as it doesn't spill over. The real hardcore who get their hardware illegally know where the profits and safety margins are, and they don't involve guns, except when fighting for turf.Quote:
Originally Posted by Crazed Rabbit
Note: California has more gun control than most of the United States.
Overall nationwide murder and violent crime are dropping.
In Britain, as I understand, the opposite is happening.
I think Tachi is far off in his claim the US has more shootings than the rest of the world combined.
50 years ago in the US, High school kids would bring guns to school to go hunting afterwards, have the school hold them during the school day.
It's not gun availability. It's society, and I think the best remarks on it were in the first page of this thread.
I don't disagree with most of this but what i am paying paticular attention to in this topic is school shootings, even if you were to call the equivilent in the UK stabbings we still don't have kids go into school and try and knife a bunch of people before taking thier own life, we tend to have individual students stabbed (mostly outside of school) but no-one goes in and just does some random killing.
Thats is why i ask what is the reason for this ? all i can think of is the availability to guns and reasons linked to this, we don't tend to have serial killer teens who go into thier school (anywhere near as much even considering population difference, i can't actually think of one of the top of my head)
Now we have teens commit violent crime, stab kids outside school and rarely inside school, they are perhaps of a similar personality to the kids who stab other kids over here, so what is the difference apart from the guns ? (im not putting it down to the guns but i am asking what is the difference if its not the guns then)
None of your points actually address this... yes crime may be rising in UK and dropping in US but US still is the one with problem, society is pretty much the same in UK or US but the US is still the one with the problem.
California's extra gun control doesn't mean too much in the case of school shootings (as i guess the students werent criminals before the shooting and they probably had thier parents guns ? though cr's comment on kids taking guns in makes me wonder where they thier guns) besides even if California had a total ban on guns it'd be alot easier to smuggle across C's state border than get them into the UK
50 years ago in the US, High school kids would bring guns to school to go hunting afterwards, have the school hold them during the school day.
This would make it seem that gun availability hasn't increased but maybe society has changed since then, but the UK has changed with the US an the UK doesn't have these problems, so still i am looking for the difference apart from guns as to why US has this problem and UK doesn't, all your point states is that you didn't have the problem before.
Thats all well and good but i am trying to figure out why US has this problem but not the UK.
think Tachi is far off in his claim the US has more shootings than the rest of the world combined.
If were talking specifically school shootings i would say its a pretty rare event in europe, not sure of other continents.
Easy access to guns doesn't help, but there are a myriad of cultural factors involved as well, including, of course, the gun culture itself.
Of course but the UK is subject to all these factors, except the gun one.
Life has become too crowded, too fast, too focussed on immediate gratification, and kids today, who are far more exposed to the real world than kids were in my day, see (more of) the violence and corruption and lies and deceit and profiteering going on all around them by the same people who are telling them to behave themselves. Kids simply don't trust anyone anymore. Worst of all is the endemic failure of people in authority to take responsibility for their actions. Kids see this very clearly. Mix this with overburdened parents and a general lack of discipline and respect for themselves and others and you have the fuse ready to light. Also, more people means more mental illness and less the means to deal with it adequately.
The easy availability of guns is simply the match to the fuse.
So if we have all these problems which create the fuse (and the bomb for sake of this analogy) In US and UK ect. surely it is best to remove the availability of matches as that is the difference between UK and US less matches.
Does that mean Beirut that you think the reason for school shootings in US and not UK is guns ?
Guns are part of the equation. You can't shoot someone without a gun.Quote:
Originally Posted by LittleGrizzly
Guns are not the problem, but they are certainly part of the problem. You can't have a kid bring a high-capacity semi-automatic handgun to school and say that gun itself is not a problem. But violence does not require a gun, a gun simply makes violence easier, certainly if one is intent on doing violence to many people quickly.
There are many schools that have problems with violence that does not involve guns. Bullying, beatings, sexual assaults, these things happen all too often at schools everywhere. Violence is violence. The difference is gun violence changes it from one against one, or many against one, to one against many. Also, of course, there are fatalities involved. But that one person dies and another suffers physical and/or emotional scars from other sorts of violence can be a moot point to the person who has been hurt and continues to suffer, possibly for years.
Was trying to get at that earlier because I believe the way we handle that leads to excesses such as these. We just have to let that 'happen', it will be there anyway for the rest of their lifes, but that rather innocent social behaviour is too much repressed, kids will be kids so let them be it. Saying in Holland, a cornered cat makes odd jumps.Quote:
Originally Posted by Beirut
But!!! The people who go to shoot people have ways of getting guns. So how do you solve a problem when Person A has a gun and you don't? Person B has to be owning a gun to. Like My da always saidQuote:
Originally Posted by Pat Karinen
There might be a thousand ways to stop school shootings. Arming the students and staff is not one of them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jkarinen
The end is nigh. Legalized handgun carry at school.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/02/20/cnn...l#cnnSTCOther1
Absolutely, without question, one of the most idiotic, asinine, uncivilized, backwards, brick-headed, blisteringly stupid things in existence.
The funny thing about your over-reaction is that this isn't a new regulation- it's been allowed for some time and the kids* haven't been blowing each other away. It's almost as though normal, law-abiding citizens don't become criminals and go on killing sprees just because they carry guns- weird, I know.Quote:
Originally Posted by Beirut
*I know I said "kids" but these are adults- it's worth pointing out that the school in question is a University.
The question in my mind is: What's so "idiotic, asinine, uncivilized, backwards, brick-headed, blisteringly stupid" about it?
edit:
It's interesting to see that, according to their graphic, many other states do allow or are considering allowing it as well. They say Utah is the only state to allow it at all Universities, but I'd challenge them to point out the law where it's illegal in Pennsylvania. Concealed weapons licenses in PA have legal preemption over all municipal/local laws within the state and the only restrictions on the license are for federal property, courthouses, and k-12 schools. :shrug:
This argument about guns in school is too old to revisit for me, but I back what Beirut has said.
On the question of how widespread mass shootings are in US schools, why don't we have a challenge? Research how many shooting sprees have happened in the US and the rest of the world.
Here are the lists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_...able_Shootings
Notice something?
By the way, there are five in the first half of February of this year, all in the US.
Brilliant, Utah knows what its dong. I agree with it entirely. Beirut taking away guns only keeps the 'Victims' from having a fighting chance. If you were in a room with 999 other people, some guy walks on stage and whips out a gun. Every one in the room other than you is unarmed would you be that thousandth and final way to prevent the masacare? and imagine equiping all those students with pistols then even if you still believed that you couldnt fire the round, one of the other 999 students would. Guns don't cause school shootings, they atribute to the shooting part, but that could all be prevented by giving all the other students guns. I mean if some guy wants to go on a killing spree but he knows every one around him carries a gun, he will get one two or three shots off before he drops, thats alot better, in my opinion, than 30shots and on his last bullet offing himself.
Everyone won't have a gun, or his/her gun with him/her, or out of the holster etc. etc. If you move in with an SMG into a classroom where they're teaching arithmetic, I think you'll get a bodycount larger than what a 1st grader can count to just by the element of surprise, even if everybody "has" a revolver. So, equip all with SMGs, you may say. Good idea, then the school shooter comes with a machinegun or home-made explosives, and you're back where you started... or in an even worse position.
Yep. And let's look at the most gun-hungry countries, like switzerland for example, what a terrible place with these mountains and fresh air and sadly the swiss. If it is a cultural thing in america, would banning guns prevent them from grabbing mommy's kitchen knife, good luck banning that one and enjoy a good meal. What is the problem if it is just laying there, if you ever need it it is because you need it. If you trust someone enough to allow him to have a knife then why not a gun?Quote:
Originally Posted by Jkarinen
5% of the world's population, 70% of the world's school shootings.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fragony
And that summarise the problematic part of the American gun culture IMO. The one were "everyone" with a gun finds the need to defend themself with guns against "evil" people.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jkarinen
But that's more gun violence than school shootings.
I think you can find it that the school shootings works more as an outward suecide, while I guess that type of people normally focus it inwards.
Mixing together some things I've red, I'm simply going to throw out a theory:
The pressure Lemur mentioned together with the feel that everyone, including you, can succeed the American dream style, creates a conflict when the darker parts of reality hits. This then creates the feeling that it's the world/school that has the "blame" (as because you can succeed, it has to be the people around you that makes you fail) instead of you/your tormentors (that I guess is the common case).
That's baloney and you've provided no evidence to support that. Besides being unauthoritative, your Wiki link only lists what it calls "notable" shootings.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tachikaze
Further, your initial claim was "The US has far, far more multiple shootings and peacetime rampages than any other nation on Earth, in fact, more than all of them combined"- that doesn't even pass the smell test.
But if we count away the third world and moderately industrialized countries, what do we get then? Third world should be counted out because some of them have wars as counterpart to school shootings, and in moderately industrialized countries the school shooter types can't afford a gun (edit: didn't some guy in Russia a while ago run inside a school with a knife and kill 5, for example?). How much worse is the US than say the rest of the western world, including Western Europe, North America and the richest South East Asian countries? That would be a more interesting piece of statistics, I think. Even more interesting would be the total number of murders with all types of weapons compared between these regions, since the choice between say shooting a few, running over a few with a car, or stabbing some may also be cultural, and frankly unless you're trying to make a point in a gun control debate it's not interesting what weapon the murderer had, but rather the murder frequencies etc. But that too is statistics which shouldn't be overrated. The best would be to simply measure mental well-being, i.e. some kind of "potential for becoming a school shooter" measurements, but as usual with the most interesting measurements can't be made in scientifically certain ways, but belong mostly to the field of philosophy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tachikaze
I think that even though not thoroughly statistically supported, the whole idea of the combo of simultaneously raising people's goals and lowering their capability of achieving them so the gap between these increases, is a quite accurate theory on what causes these things, and how to prevent them. As mentioned, guns aren't the entire explanation, although in a country where you can hardly get hold of a gun, a killer too has problems getting them as an advantage, but with the disadvantage that you can't easily get a gun for hobbies and sports.
That's a lot, but what about guns
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ironside
Maybe every american should go what I went through. I hit the harsh reality of the american populace about 7 years ago. My mom 'Kidnapped' my siblings and I we went from homeless shelter to homeless shelter for a good 8 months. Twas the worst time of my life. Then my dad picked up his end, brought us back and I've been living the 'american dream' on a budget ever since. The problem is people who do lay the blame on every one else. Blame yourself for your screw ups and you will be a happier person. My favorite historical figure said
I live by that, if people learned from their mistakes then they'd never want to kill again, they would be to busy actually living instead of being emo Sons A *female dogs*. To succeed by killing, makes no sense. To succeed by failure does.Quote:
"Success is only measured by how high you bounce when you hit rock bottom"
Why don't you compile a list of "non-notable" shootings and see if the ratio changes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xiahou
As far as your second comment about your olfactory ability, I have been watching the news since the late '60s and shootings such as these come from the US far more often than anywhere else. Are there incidents in parts of the world that don't get reported? Perhaps, but that's just speculation. The numbers are so unbalanced towards the US, that it would take an awful lot of secrecy to raise the rest of the world figures up to put the US in the normal range.
Frankly, I think five "notable" school shootings in two weeks, and that anyone would propose arming students in defense, are the signs of a psychotic nation that needs a drastic changes.
What's the saying? "Link or it didn't happen." If you can't back up your arguments, don't ask me to do it for you.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tachikaze
Do you remember what country you live in? And you're actually surprised that most US news would be US centric? Just because you didn't hear about it on TV or in the US papers doesn't mean there weren't homicidal shooting sprees elsewhere. To use anecdotal US media reports to draw the definitive conclusion that there are more multiple shooting incidents in the US than the rest of the world combined really strikes me as unwise.Quote:
As far as your second comment about your olfactory ability, I have been watching the news since the late '60s and shootings such as these come from the US far more often than anywhere else. Are there incidents in parts of the world that don't get reported? Perhaps, but that's just speculation. The numbers are so unbalanced towards the US, that it would take an awful lot of secrecy to raise the rest of the world figures up to put the US in the normal range.
"Notable" is a subjective word and therefore largely meaningless if you're trying to talk about shooting statistics in general. But, I'm not at all surprised you think the nation you live in is psychotic. ~:handball:Quote:
Frankly, I think five "notable" school shootings in two weeks, and that anyone would propose arming students in defense, are the signs of a psychotic nation that needs a drastic changes.
5? I've only heard of the NIU shooting recently. Of course, I get the majority of my news from the .Org so that number might be correct. These things do seem to go in spurts. Idiot 1 sees idiot 2's 24/7 news coverage and decides that he wants that too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tachikaze
Also, as an avid hunter and a US teenager I would like to say that arming students, and for that matter teachers, is a stupid idea.
I don't know about that. Let's take it as a given that we're going to continue to be an armed society -- there's no realistic way that's going to change anytime soon. Let's also take it as a given that crazy people will be able to get their hands on guns.Quote:
Originally Posted by woad&fangs
Allowing some students and teachers to carry concealed would be one of the only practical ways to stop/slow down a school shooter. Once a shooter is engaged by another armed person, their focus shifts to that person exclusively. If nothing else, this allows a lot of people to get away.
I'm not so convinced this is a bad idea.
Xiahou, do you have any evidence that the frequency of school shootings in the U.S.A. is not anomalous?
How exactly would we be able to decide which of the "some" get to have concealed weapons at school?Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemur
I know that I could pass any bs test they put together, but I also know that I'm not a person that you would want to have a gun at school.
Those who had the wherewithal to apply for, get screened for, and receive a concealed carry permit. Safe to say, based on the usage levels among the rest of the population where this is permitted, that the final number would be well below 50%.Quote:
Originally Posted by woad&fangs
I wasn't picturing anything complicated ...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tachikaze
How about this, we try arming everyone first, then if it doesn't work, we ammend the constitution to ban guns everywhere? What say you?
It isn't nuclear warfare
I was just thinking about getting a concealed permit and then I realized that I live in NY.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemur
Heh, everything's illegal in New York. Body armor is illegal, concealed carry is illegal, pepper spray is illegal ... it just goes on and on. I figure they would make Ginsu knives and kung-fu illegal if they could figure out how to enforce it.
No- I haven't even looked. It's not my argument to make. I think it's quite possible that the US has more school shootings than many other nations- we have more shootings in general than many other nations. However, if someone wants to make an outlandish sounding claim that we have more than the rest of the world with its 6 billion+ people combined, I expect something more than anecdotes to back the claim up.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemur
I could also see a possible deterrent effect. Would-be shooters wouldn't know who's carrying a gun, they would just know that it's possible that any number of people are. If these sick whackos thought their 'blaze of glory' shooting spree is likely to get nipped in the bud by a classmate, they might be less likely to try it in the first place. It may not be a complete coincidence that so many shooting sprees seem to occur at places where people are typically disarmed- then again, maybe it is. :shrug:Quote:
Once a shooter is engaged by another armed person, their focus shifts to that person exclusively. If nothing else, this allows a lot of people to get away.
You haven't backed up anything. You have provided no evidence that my arguments are wrong. If you don't like my data, provide better.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xiahou
Yeah, give A lefty Canadian too much coffee and tell him kids are carrying handguns to school and watch the language flow, eh? :hippie:Quote:
Originally Posted by Xiahou
But then again, I still think it`s an insanely and outrageously stupid thing to do.
(Breathe in...)Quote:
Originally Posted by Xiahou
School is for learning. It is for the dissemination and consumption of knowledge. Not only technical, but because of the social environment, it teaches people how to interact with other people, often people of different social and economic backgrounds. School is a melting pot and building ground for future generations. It is the genesis of social movements. It is all about the betterment of the next generation and of society as a whole. This isn`t just a lefty bong song, it`s fact.
Having young people carrying handguns into this environment is utterly anathema to what the environment itself is meant to foster. It`s like having a KKK church, or a grocery store full of poisonous food. Having someone carrying a handgun in a place of learning is sending the idea that hostility and danger and the ability of each person to kill another person at will are on the same social level as learning and social interaction. If you want to carry a gun at school, go to West Point of a police college. But to have handguns on the belts and in the bags of the students and teachers is a horrible admission of failure and impotence in the face of the worst aspects of society. If security is needed, there are others ways to deal with it. Guns in school is not an option.
(Exhale...)
Faulty. You made a claim that was not backed up by facts. Until it is backed up by facts it is just rhetoric.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tachikaze
If you wish it to be considered as fact, provide evidence of your claim, otherwise it is just an outlandish and unbelievable statement.
The burden of proof lies with you.
We would become a much more polite society if gun laws were less restrictive in public places. The lack of guns in the public sector is arguably having a corrosive effect on respectful interpersonal relationships.
In an ironic twist, nuclear weapons may have made the world a safer place. Even the biggest bully country would have to tread lightly around the smallest nerd country.