primary school shooting

[Blaidd Drwg]

edit:

forget it. the issue is too raw yet. everyone is just grinding metal if they think it's ripe for discussion.

"You want to know why. This may sound cynical, but here's why.

It's because of the way the media reports it. Flip on the news and watch how we treat the Batman theater shooter and the Oregon mall shooter like celebrities. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are household names, but do you know the name of a single *victim* of Columbine? Disturbed
people who would otherwise just off themselves in their basements see the news and want to top it by doing something worse, and going out in a memorable way. Why a grade school? Why children? Because he'll be remembered as a horrible monster, instead of a sad nobody.

CNN's article says that if the body count "holds up", this will rank as the second deadliest shooting behind Virginia Tech, as if statistics somehow make one shooting worse than another. Then they post a video interview of third-graders for all the details of what they saw and heard while the shootings were happening. Fox News has plastered the killer's face on all their reports for hours. Any articles or news stories yet that focus on the victims and ignore the killer's identity? None that I've seen yet. Because they don't sell. So congratulations, sensationalist media, you've just lit the fire for someone to top this and knock off a day care center or a maternity ward next.

You can help by forgetting you ever read this man's name, and remembering the name of at least one victim. You can help by donating to mental health research instead of pointing to gun control as the problem. You can help by turning off the news."

[I'd Hit It]

A fucking assault rifle?? This is sheer madness

Not that it matters because the kids are just as dead, but two pistols. .223 was left in the car. It isn't the tool it's the man using it. Some Chinese guy stabbed 22 kids yesterday as well. Largest mass murder in NYC pre-9/11 was committed with a plastic container of gasoline.

At least the Chinese kids lived. And turns out the .223 was the main weapon. Multiple times. Hollow-point bullets. All legal.

Why is it necessary for semiautomatics to be legal? What do they contribute aside from allowing crazy people to kill many people very fast? Or for gang fights. And I would bet that 99% of legal semiautomatic gun owners only encounter gang fights during Rambo wet dreams.

[Gav]

Is there any verification of someone's mental health history before being allowed to buy a gun in the US?

[I'd Hit It]

Is there any verification of someone's mental health history before being allowed to buy a gun in the US?

It depends state to state, mostly not. Most of these shooters never end up in the mental health system anyway, and the ones who do (like the Aurora killer) do not find it an impedance to buying weapons.

[Grandpa's Spells]

Is there any verification of someone's mental health history before being allowed to buy a gun in the US?

No. There are laws designed to keep mental health records up to date, but it's not really done.

That said, stricter mental health laws would not have helped. The shooter used guns his mother had collected.

[milosz]

Why is it necessary for semiautomatics to be legal? What do they contribute aside from allowing crazy people to kill many people very fast? Or for gang fights. And I would bet that 99% of legal semiautomatic gun owners only encounter gang fights during Rambo wet dreams.

This isn't the way our government works. Necessity is irrelevant.
Why should semi-automatics be illegal is the question. What overriding, unquestionable public good is there in criminalizing them?

quick points:
Over the same time frame as Australia's big ban, their homicide rate declined at the exact same rate as the US homicide rate.
Drunk driving deaths equal firearm homicides in the US - if the public good is served by banning guns, logically it would also be served by banning booze. After all, as long as people have access to cars and alcohol, they're going to kill people.
Texas and California have near-identical rates of violent crime and homicide.
Gun suicides should not be included when talking about gun control. Suicides use whatever tool is available - other methods pick up the slack when guns are unavailable.
Gun control short of complete confiscation is ineffectual - and we have ~200 million guns in private hands with little or no record of where they happen to be. How do you find and take all of them without pissing all over the 4th Amendment?

[Protobuilder]

I haven't read through most of the previous four pages but the most common comments I have seen elsewhere online have been:

1). something, something, something to do with the school being a gun-free zone and something, something, something about if everybody were packing, there would be no gun violence.

2). If there were prayer in school this wouldn't have happened.

Put this kind of thinking in a culture that flat out glorifies violence putting you on the cover of every magazine if you kill enough people, have mental health issues taboo, strip comprehensive health education programmes down to nothing and toss in guns that are easier to buy than bicycles and what do you expect? Yeah, I suppose that I am an advocate of "gun control" but even discussing such an issue without addressing the underlying causes of why people commit such acts is insane.

I have 1,000:1 odds that any kind of meaningful legislation will come out of this and 3:1 of a similar shooting in the next half year.

[Yes, I'm drunk]

At least if you're an atheist you don't have to get upset about this. It's simply evolution in action. It's not even about the weak and the strong. There is no 'right', there is no 'wrong'. There just is, but no justice.

We're merely animated clumps of meat. Who gives a shit?

Eh? Atheists?

[syaigh]

This will turn into a religious debate as well, I'm sure.

All I know is that I can't sleep. I think about those babies. And how scared they must have been. And how their parents had to go home and see the handprints they left on the windows, the little messes here and there, maybe some presents under the Christmas tree that will never be unwrapped. And it hurts deeply. And I can't imagine if it had happened to me personally. But it did happen. And it will hurt all of us for a long time.

[Shafpocalypse Now]

What syaigh said...the overwhelming empathy with the bereft parents is something I had to shut down. I'm wondering how many parents will make their own lives because of this

[tough old man]

My daughter counted all the kids in her classroom and said she didnt want anything to happen to her friends.

[Batboy2/75]

Norway and Sweden have all of the laws gun grabbers say they want the USA to have and more. Those laws did nothing to to stop gun related murder sprees in which just as many people were killed.

Ineffectual guns laws are passed, they don't work, which leads to calls for tougher gun laws, and next thing you know, you have calls for total bans. What tougher gun laws would have stop this evil fuck? He stole the weapons from his mother, who probably would have passed the " sensible" gun checks gun grabbers say they want. What then? Criminals don't follow rules. Thy don't fill out forms. They steal or buy the guns they need on the black market.

The only way you are going to put a dent in these crimes is a total ban and gun confiscation. I know it, and the gun grabbers know it. So let despense with the sensible gun law bull shit. The gun grabber lobby will use these events to push their agenda, not gun owners. Do you see me or the NRA pushing for looser gun buying laws when these events happen? No; all you see is gun owners pointing out the obvious, tougher gun laws do not work to keep guns out of criminals or evil peoples hands. These tough gun laws do nothing, but disarm law abiding citizens.

Unless you are talking about a total ban and confiscation, these proposed laws will do jack squat. Something that is not only tyrannical, unwise, a violation of our unalienable rights, but also wouldn't stop all gun violence. Even then, it might reduce the frequency of these types of murders, but it won't eliminate them. However, the goal of gun grabbers is total ban and confiscation. Make no mistake, that is the plan.

What people can't wrap their heads around is that their are evil people, the equivalent of human crocodiles, out there. These human crocodiles will rape, maim, and murder without a minutes remorse. Instead of criminalizing guns, we should be trying to ID these people. In almost everyone of these cases these evil fucks had some sort of contact with the social and or mental services.

[nafod]

So here's my thinking on this catastrophe.

Those twenty kindergarteners or first graders spent the last moments of their lives running around their school room in terror, watching their classmates get gunned down until they got shot. They were slaughtered. I've got little kids, I know how they think. They probably thought in some way they were being punished. I know they wanted their mom or dad Right Now. Instead they got to look into soulless black eyes. I hope it was quick for them, I hope they shut down from fear before the perp put his Bushmaster AR15 lookalike "varminter" .223 round pipper on them and squeezed one off from his 20 round magazine, sold as "good for hunting prairie dogs and coyotes". They were all shot multiple times.

As adults we collectively failed them.

Putting on my post-mishap investigator hat, it all has to be in play. You have to look at every single link in the chain, any of which if it had been broken would have stopped this. That includes
- better mental health care
- better awareness of mental health issues related to going postal. TV ads, teaching in schools, whatever, just like with suicide prevention. These things broadcast themselves.
- reduced access to the weapons of choice for shooting up kindergarteners, movie-goers, and mall attendees. It's obvious what those are
- better protection at the point of attack. Schools with bulletproof glass, armed guards, teachers trained and packing heat, regular "duck and cover" drills for K-12. Safe rooms, maybe with firing slits. Man trap entries.
- less masturbating over gunnery. More movies and TV shows celebrating killing with forks. It'll be slower and help can get the quicker
- beats the fuck out of me. I actually don't expect anything to change. We just live in a dark, cruel world.

Anyone who immediately says "it's not X" has an agenda. It all needs to be in play, all needs to be examined. It breaks my heart that as a society we collectively let those kids die this way.

[Grandpa's Spells]

Over the same time frame as Australia's big ban, their homicide rate declined at the exact same rate as the US homicide rate.

Mass shootings dropped to zero. Not endorsing the same laws here, just disagreeing that nothing can be done. If the problem was just shot kids, 391 Chicago Public School kids were shot last year. It's the mass killings that shock people.

Texas and California have near-identical rates of violent crime and homicide.

Local regs are not particularly effective.

Gun suicides should not be included when talking about gun control. Suicides use whatever tool is available - other methods pick up the slack when guns are unavailable.

False, owning a gun ups your chance of suicide.

The only way you are going to put a dent in these crimes is a total ban and gun confiscation. I know it, and the gun grabbers know it. So let despense with the sensible gun law bull shit. The gun grabber lobby will use these events to push their agenda, not gun owners. Do you see me or the NRA pushing for looser gun buying laws when these events happen? No; all you see is gun owners pointing out the obvious, tougher gun laws do not work to keep guns out of criminals or evil peoples hands. These tough gun laws do nothing, but disarm law abiding citizens.

Unless you are talking about a total ban and confiscation, these proposed laws will do jack squat. Something that is not only tyrannical, unwise, a violation of our unalienable rights, but also wouldn't stop all gun violence. Even then, it might reduce the frequency of these types of murders, but it won't eliminate them. However, the goal of gun grabbers is total ban and confiscation. Make no mistake, that is the plan.

This is exactly right. Unless you are going to do something like ban and confiscate everything but low-cap bolt guns, pump shotguns, and revolvers, nothing else is going to make a difference. It would be better if people discussed that than pass another PITA law that won't affect anything.

[Gene]

Over the same time frame as Australia's big ban, their homicide rate declined at the exact same rate as the US homicide rate.

Mass shootings dropped to zero. Not endorsing the same laws here, just disagreeing that nothing can be done. If the problem was just shot kids, 391 Chicago Public School kids were shot last year. It's the mass killings that shock people.

Mass shootings did NOT stop in Australia. They were always much more rare in Australia than the US.

Port Arthur massacre - In 1996, armed with two semi-automatic rifles, Martin Bryant killed 35 people around Port Arthur and wounded 21 before being caught by police the next day following an overnight siege.

Monash University shooting - In October 2002, Huan Yun Xiang, a student, shot his classmates and teacher, killing two and injuring five.

Monash happened six years after Port Author's bullshit laws.

Unless you are talking about a total ban and confiscation, these proposed laws will do jack squat. Something that is not only tyrannical, unwise, a violation of our unalienable rights, but also wouldn't stop all gun violence. Even then, it might reduce the frequency of these types of murders, but it won't eliminate them. However, the goal of gun grabbers is total ban and confiscation. Make no mistake, that is the plan.

This is exactly right. Unless you are going to do something like ban and confiscate everything but low-cap bolt guns, pump shotguns, and revolvers, nothing else is going to make a difference. It would be better if people discussed that than pass another PITA law that won't affect anything.

The "Sporting purpose" test, Troy? The Nazis did that in 1937. Sen. Tom Dodd inserted the Nazi language into the GCA f1968. See http://jpfo.org/filegen-a-m/GCA_68.htm

Once you start Gradual Incrementalism it tends to continue. Ban the "scary" guns first. Then ban the 50 BMG "sniper weapons". Then ban the "Saturday Night Specials". Then pass a Chicago style "Tax" that keeps the poor from owning firearms. Ban the really accurate sporting rifles that are still used for sniping.

Sooner or later you're end up like Washington DC, a ban on anything that shoots.

If the NRA draws the line at Semi-Automatic firearms that "look" scary we can keep the more conventional stuff, too. Reason isn't slow motion surrender.

[Fat Cat]

Acknowledge the presence of a supernatural force for evil in the universe.

[climber511]

Years ago I read this little article – wish I could find it again – but I’ll try to paraphrase it somewhat here.
Joe Blow uses machine gun to kill some people.
Senator Foggybottom stands up and says machine guns are no damn good – and so machine guns are banned – gathered up and destroyed..

Joe Blow uses a handgun to kill some people.
Senator Foggybottom stands up and says hand guns are no damn good – and so hand guns are banned – gathered up and destroyed.

Joe Blow uses a bow and arrow to kill some people.
Senator Foggybottom stands up and says bows and arrows are no damn good – and so they are banned – gathered up and destroyed.

Joe Blow uses a knife to kill some people.
Senator Foggybottom stands up and says knives are no damn good – and so they are banned – gathered up and destroyed.

Joe Blow uses a rock to kill someone.
Senator Foggybottom stands up and says rocks are no damn good – and so they are banned – gathered up – crushed to dust and destroyed.

Joe Blow uses his hands to choke and kill someone.
Senator Foggybottom stands up and says people are no damn good – and so they are banned – and an ironclad birth control policy implemented.

The End

I wish I could find the original article – it was much better written than this of course but maybe we can see the point anyway.

[tonkadtx]

At least the Chinese kids lived. And turns out the .223 was the main weapon. Multiple times. Hollow-point bullets. All legal.

You are correct. The news was reporting two handguns all day.

The only thing that would ever work would be a total confiscation of firearms and I would be dubious of even that. Forget about the Constitutional issues for a second; we can't keep drugs out of our porous borders - smuggling would be rampant; and I know at least three people (two engineers and a mechanic) who could probably make a firearm from scratch if they wanted to.

I also find it interesting that a lot of these shooters seem to be taking or skipping anti-depressive/anti-anxiety meds. All of which seem to have suicide warnings.

[nafod]

Years ago I read this little article – wish I could find it again – but I’ll try to paraphrase it somewhat here.
Joe Blow uses machine gun to kill some people.
Senator Foggybottom stands up and says machine guns are no damn good – and so machine guns are banned – gathered up and destroyed..

Joe Blow uses a handgun to kill some people.
Senator Foggybottom stands up and says hand guns are no damn good – and so hand guns are banned – gathered up and destroyed.

Joe Blow uses a bow and arrow to kill some people.
Senator Foggybottom stands up and says bows and arrows are no damn good – and so they are banned – gathered up and destroyed.

Joe Blow uses a knife to kill some people.
Senator Foggybottom stands up and says knives are no damn good – and so they are banned – gathered up and destroyed.

Joe Blow uses a rock to kill someone.
Senator Foggybottom stands up and says rocks are no damn good – and so they are banned – gathered up – crushed to dust and destroyed.

Joe Blow uses his hands to choke and kill someone.
Senator Foggybottom stands up and says people are no damn good – and so they are banned – and an ironclad birth control policy implemented.

The End

I wish I could find the original article – it was much better written than this of course but maybe we can see the point anyway.

So you are arguing that we should legalize flamethrowers and MANPADs? That there are no limits?

[Gav]

I'm curious to know what you Americans think the reason is for the USA being the king of gun deaths. Obviously guns are just pieces of metal so banning them or not is irrelevant.

Is your society sicker than others? I really don't know what to think.

One thing I will say is, if you take this forum for example, you lot are always talking about guns. The rest of us never do unless something like this event crops up.

I can't for the life of me grasp why a middle aged, female elementary school teacher would want/need three guns. One maybe for self protection, but three?

[climber511]

Years ago I read this little article – wish I could find it again – but I’ll try to paraphrase it somewhat here.
Joe Blow uses machine gun to kill some people.
Senator Foggybottom stands up and says machine guns are no damn good – and so machine guns are banned – gathered up and destroyed..

Joe Blow uses a handgun to kill some people.
Senator Foggybottom stands up and says hand guns are no damn good – and so hand guns are banned – gathered up and destroyed.

Joe Blow uses a bow and arrow to kill some people.
Senator Foggybottom stands up and says bows and arrows are no damn good – and so they are banned – gathered up and destroyed.

Joe Blow uses a knife to kill some people.
Senator Foggybottom stands up and says knives are no damn good – and so they are banned – gathered up and destroyed.

Joe Blow uses a rock to kill someone.
Senator Foggybottom stands up and says rocks are no damn good – and so they are banned – gathered up – crushed to dust and destroyed.

Joe Blow uses his hands to choke and kill someone.
Senator Foggybottom stands up and says people are no damn good – and so they are banned – and an ironclad birth control policy implemented.

The End

I wish I could find the original article – it was much better written than this of course but maybe we can see the point anyway.

So you are arguing that we should legalize flamethrowers and MANPADs? That there are no limits?

Lord no - not at all. Just showing the futility of trying to control these things and the knee jerk responses by politicians and the news media. People were (and are) killing each other with things other than guns is all.

[syaigh]

Well, I don't know who's to blame. But someone is.

Sounds like Momma is a bit of a whack job with her assault rifle collection. Sorry, but I don't see the need to own a weapon that is really only good for killing a whole lot of things at once unless you intend on killing a whole lot of things at once. And apparently took her emotionally disturbed/mentally ill son to the shooting range. Maybe she felt it would empower him. Mommas often think there must be some magic bandaid to make their babies all better, but guns usually aren't the bandaid.

So, you have a perfect storm of momma with bad judgement, an affinity for instruments of death, and a child who was most likely a complete sociopath. Could anyone else have known what was going on there? Probably not. Sounds like big brother wasn't involved, who knows about dad. And since the divorce, she probably wasn't sharing with him either. Who knows, maybe the assault rifles were intended for daddy.

Can we police whackjob secretive parents doing stupid shit at home? I don't think so. If we could, there would be a lot less child rape, child abuse, and child murder in general. I don't have an answer other than there is evil in the world and when given a gift-wrapped opportunity to express it, well, its going to happen. Maybe if momma only had knives she would have been sliced to ribbons and that would have been the end of it. I don't know, but I think its a lot easier to shoot a gun than kill someone with a knife. Maybe it would be less likely.

Who knows. I don't for sure.

[___________]

Fucking whacked out.
I'd love to see a list of the medications this piece of shit was on.

[baffled]

I'm curious to know what you Americans think the reason is for the USA being the king of gun deaths. Obviously guns are just pieces of metal so banning them or not is irrelevant.

Is your society sicker than others? I really don't know what to think.

One thing I will say is, if you take this forum for example, you lot are always talking about guns. The rest of us never do unless something like this event crops up.

I can't for the life of me grasp why a middle aged, female elementary school teacher would want/need three guns. One maybe for self protection, but three?

I think you'll get a number of responses but here are the thoughts off the top of my head, which I may come back and change at some point:

1) Is our society sicker than others? I think so. A lot of reasons, but when Scarface is a cult hit in your society, especially among poor, minority youths, you've got some 'splaining to do.

2) This forum is a little different than normal society. We're (as a society) not going to give up our guns any time soon (nor should we, in my opinion), but finding gun nutters in everyday life isn't as easy as here. Everyone knows a few, but it's not like Americans are just walking around and trying to resist masturbating over handguns or anything.

3) Middle aged and female has nothing to do with it. I don't know the whole story, and if someone has the details I hope they'll post them, but a lot of people have guns for a lot of reasons.

People get guns because they like them, they're paranoid, they have had a break in or assault happen against them, they live in a dangerous area with little to no police presence etc.

[Kraj 2.0]

1) Is our society sicker than others? I think so. A lot of reasons, but when Scarface is a cult hit in your society, especially among poor, minority youths, you've got some 'splaining to do.

The thing is, these mass killings rarely occur at the hands of poor, minority youths. They're almost always carried out by well-off white kids. Maybe raising your kid in a bubble and segregating them from any kind of hardship and suffering isn't the best way to instill human values and respect for fellow human beings in them. A kid who gets the shit beaten out of him when he's bad and has to go hungry at times because he's poor knows a lot more about love and compassion than some retard who lives in fairy tale land where mommy and daddy throw gifts at him and let Mr. Playstation babysit so that they can chase the American dream and compete with the Jones'.