[onoway]

It was disconcerting to hear the news report that this was the second worst school shooting in American history, as though there was some sort of importance to that statistic. I wonder sometimes if the media has a role in the seeming acceleration of nutjobs rampaging through crowds of innocents.

The other day there was an interview with the actor who plays the serial killer who acts as a good guy by day and kills at night. The interviewer pointed out there is a convicted serial murderer in Canada who said he had been "inspired" by the show and taken the character as his model. It's worrisome to think that some crazy person hungry for some sort of fame however gained might now be "inspired" to try to beat the record of most children murdered at one go.

It's appalling and very very sad that children now have to be trained in such things as how to behave in lockdowns as a normal part of school life. If the education system is broken in terms of academic achievement it seems that both the education system and society in general is entirely broken when such training and scans for weapons at school doors is considered normal.

Another event almost equally unbelievable happened in BC a few days ago; a teenager at a party passed out on the kitchen floor, another "guest" poured accelerant on him and lit him on fire while a third "guest" videoed the whole thing. The teen is alive, but with massive burns. The police said that videos showing kids setting themselves or others on fire are readilly found on the internet. (I took their word for it.)

It may be a truism that every generation says that they don't understand the next one but surely somehow we have gone seriously astray somewhere. Seems to me that teaching kids how to behave in lockdowns, scanning for weapons at school doors and providing counsellers for kids after calamitous events is like treating cancer with aspirin.

[mike777]

Another event almost equally unbelievable happened in BC a few days ago; a teenager at a party passed out on the kitchen floor, another "guest" poured accelerant on him and lit him on fire while a third "guest" videoed the whole thing. The teen is alive, but with massive burns. The police said that videos showing kids setting themselves or others on fire are readilly found on the internet. (I took their word for it.)-----------------
----------------


wow what a terrible story.


btw where were the parents/adult who owned the kitchen? Is there some crime here by the parent/adult or only a civil lawsuit?

[hrothgar]

 mike777, on 2012-December-15, 16:12, said:

btw where were the parents/adult who owned the kitchen? Is there some crime here by the parent/adult or only a civil lawsuit?

It took place in a hotel

[kenberg]

My childhood and adolescence was easier. Thank you, parents.

[barmar]

The shooter in Newtown yesterday is not a kid, he's a 20-year-old man.

You can't really blame the TV shows that people like this say "inspire" them. Most people who commit acts like this are mentally ill, and almost anything can trigger them.

[awm]

It does seem like these tragedies happen more often and are more deadly now than they used to be.

Not sure if that's due to more crazies, deadlier weapons, something about the modern media "inspiring" this kind of thing, or just more complete news coverage. But it's sad, and would be nice to find a way to fix it.

[barmar]

 awm, on 2012-December-15, 22:00, said:

It does seem like these tragedies happen more often and are more deadly now than they used to be.

They interviewed a reporter from "Mother Jones", who has been doing a study on mass shootings over the past 3 decades. He said that there have been more in the past decade than previous ones. Here's their timeline:

http://www.motherjon...ings-map?page=2

On the other hand an AP story claims mass shootings are not increasing in frequency:

http://www.nydailyne...ticle-1.1221062

[onoway]

 hrothgar, on 2012-December-15, 17:25, said:

It took place in a hotel

according to the police here (where it happened in Kelowna) it was a house party. The victim is 18 so it's quite possible that the house was owned/rented by young adults and no parents were involved at all.

It's unlikely there will be a lawsuit. Canadians don't automatically leap to sue quite as often as people do in the States. Since the two men have been charged and are likely to be spending a good deal of time in jail or some such, a lawsuit would probably not prove very profitable to anyone but the lawyers anyway.

Quote

The shooter in Newtown yesterday is not a kid, he's a 20-year-old man.

You can't really blame the TV shows that people like this say "inspire" them. Most people who commit acts like this are mentally ill, and almost anything can trigger them

Well maybe it's true that almost anything could do it, but the point is that frequently they have said exactly what it was that triggered them. There is even a term for it "copycat killings".

Perhaps without the movie, or video or TV show they would not have been "triggered" at all. Some people can handle different types and degrees of stress and stimulation which are simply entirely beyond other people's ability to cope.

There has been a huge (and growing) rise in the incidence of autism, which I understand involves an inability to adequately filter and manage stimulation. Autism is one end of the spectrum, from his comments I suspect Barmar might be typical of those on the other. What happens to those who are on the vulnerable end but aren't clearly autistic? What if those people already have problems with social interaction? (As apparently the shooter did)

It may be difficult for most people to understand but some sorts of stimulation which give them a pleasant buzz may compel a physical reaction/behaviour in others. If that is combined with antisocial images/behaviour they relate to and there are weapons handy..it could lead to the sort of thing that happened. It's impossible to know but it is a possibility.

It seems facile to suggest media has no role to play, especially media which is consciously designed to affect people emotionally.

[kenberg]

I think that it is and will remain impossible for me to understand why someone would or even could shoot six year old children. If I understand it correctly, the father of the shooter first learned of this when reporters caught up with him to ask about it. I would quit my job before I would ask a guy if he has any comment about his son shooting a bunch of children. A different level of brutality of course, but there are things that I can do and things that I cannot do.


I don't think it is productive to try to answer how someone could do this. Rather we should ask how social structure can be strengthened in general.There are many wasted lives, many tragic episodes, and of course many lives that while not wasted are lives of, as Thoreau put it, quiet desperation. Making things better might well reduce the incidence of mass murder, or maybe it won't because something like this is just so godawful nuts, but at least it would make things better.

[blackshoe]

Robert Heinlein said "put too many animals in too small a box, and all of them will go insane. Man is the only animal that voluntarily does this to himself." In another thread here, I think, I noted the prediction that by 2030 most people in first world countries, at least, will be living in cities. I also note that all my life there's been a lot more talk about violence in cities than in small towns (although even the latter seems to be increasing). Perhaps we shouldn't choose to live so close together.

What's that old saying? "I love mankind — it's people I can't stand."

[ArtK78]

One of these days the people, or enough politicians, will finally say "Enough!" and stand up to the NRA and enact bans on hand guns and assault rifles.

Unfortunately, things seem to be going in exactly the opposite direction. Even the Supreme Court's most recent pronouncement on the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution supports the right of individuals to bear arms (as opposed to "a well-regulated militia").

As far as I am concerned, anyone who doubts the connection between the easy availability of guns and these mass shootings is nuts.

[Aberlour10]

 ArtK78, on 2012-December-16, 11:35, said:

One of these days the people, or enough politicians, will finally say "Enough!" and stand up to the NRA and enact bans on hand guns and assault rifles.

If there exists the unwritten list for the congressmen with 10 "things" absolutely necessary for them to stay in US Congress..."Don't mess with the NRA" is surely in the TOP3 of it

In 2 weeks this tragedy will be out of the headlines, in 4 out of the most heads, nothing will happen, nothing will be changed.

[awm]

 Aberlour10, on 2012-December-16, 12:50, said:

If there exists the unwritten list for the congressmen with 10 "things" absolutely necessary for them to stay in US Congress..."Don't mess with the NRA" is surely in the TOP3 of it

Not necessarily true of all politicians. Dianne Feinstein (one of my senators here in California) introduced the assault weapons ban in the 90s. At the time, very few people thought it would pass. It did. Now, 18 years later, she is still in the senate (in fact we just re-elected her by a landslide). She plans to introduce a new assault weapons ban (the old one expired during the Bush years) on the first day of next year's congress.

Will it pass? Odds don't favor it. But they didn't favor it last time either.

I'd say the problem is that we don't have enough Dianne Feinsteins in the congress.

[Fluffy]

 awm, on 2012-December-15, 22:00, said:

Not sure if that's due to more crazies, deadlier weapons, something about the modern media "inspiring" this kind of thing, or just more complete news coverage. But it's sad, and would be nice to find a way to fix it.

Not sure if you meant this with more crazies, but just increasing the population will get more cases of almost anything, overpopulation gets also another effect.

Oh, and increasing atheism is not helping also IMO. Religion is a good last resort against things like this.

[Cyberyeti]

 Fluffy, on 2012-December-16, 16:10, said:

Not sure if you meant this with more crazies, but just increasing the population will get more cases of almost anything, overpopulation gets also another effect.

Oh, and increasing atheism is not helping also IMO. Religion is a good last resort against things like this.

Some religions are a good last resort against this sort of thing, the Taliban and followers of various cults might arouse different thoughts.

[blackshoe]

 ArtK78, on 2012-December-16, 11:35, said:

One of these days the people, or enough politicians, will finally say "Enough!" and stand up to the NRA and enact bans on hand guns and assault rifles.

Unfortunately, things seem to be going in exactly the opposite direction. Even the Supreme Court's most recent pronouncement on the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution supports the right of individuals to bear arms (as opposed to "a well-regulated militia").

As far as I am concerned, anyone who doubts the connection between the easy availability of guns and these mass shootings is nuts.

Anyone who thinks that someone bent on violence will forego that violence simply because he lacks "easy availability of guns" is nuts.

In Heinlein's The Number of the Beast (Fawcett Columbine, 1979), which postulates a "multi-verse" of universes with at least in some cases similar time lines, there is a discussion amongst several characters during which one of them, a Venerian (i.e., from the planet Venus) dragon named Sir Isaac Newton (see Between Planets, Scribner's, 1951) asks "how did your 'noble experiment' go?" One of the humans replies "Prohibition? We repealed that long ago." Sir Isaac replies "No, no, I was referring to your form of government." My point being that our form of government is not likely to last much longer, and while I deplore all the violence perpetrated in this world, I think the repeal of the Second Amendment would be another nail in our freedom's coffin.

BTW, the Supreme Court is correct that the right to bear arms is a right of individuals.

[hrothgar]

 blackshoe, on 2012-December-16, 16:59, said:

Anyone who thinks that someone bent on violence will forego that violence simply because he lacks "easy availability of guns" is nuts.

I don't recall anyone making that argument.I have, however, seen a lot of people comment that their ability to kill large numbers of people in a short amount will be negatively impacted. As a practical example, there was a school attack in China last week. A nut job armed with a knife went into a school and started stabbing people. 22 people were slashed.

Notice my use of the word "slashed". Very different from the word "killed"...
That's the difference between a knife and .223 round.

[Cyberyeti]

 hrothgar, on 2012-December-16, 17:38, said:

I don't recall anyone making that argument.I have, however, seen a lot of people comment that their ability to kill large numbers of people in a short amount will be negatively impacted. As a practical example, there was a school attack in China last week. A nut job armed with a knife went into a school and started stabbing people. 22 people were slashed.

Notice my use of the word "slashed". Very different from the word "killed"...
That's the difference between a knife and .223 round.

Yup, also picking up a chair/hockey stick/other random object can give you some protection against a guy with a knife, not so good against an assault rifle.

[awm]

It's not realistic to ban gun ownership in the US, nor is it necessarily desirable.

The thought is that guns should be treated more like how we treat automobiles. Owning a gun should require some minimal degree of training in its use and should not be allowed to felons, the mentally ill, or people on the terrorist watch list. A registration of guns so we can easily track who owns which firearm (much as we have license plates on cars) might be a good idea. If someone wants a gun for sport hunting or for self defense, that seems pretty reasonable. However it's not clear why a semi-automatic or an assault rifle or armor-piercing rounds would be necessary for these purposes, and banning (or at least having a higher bar in terms of training/qualification for) these weapons doesn't seem crazy. And the constitution does say well-regulated militia after all, which implies that some degree of regulation is permitted.

In fact a substantial majority of NRA members seem to agree on some of these points. It's true that these killings should be blamed on the person who pulled the trigger (and not on the gun) but making it more difficult for loonies to get weapons of mass destruction seems like a decent idea too (hey didn't a Republican president recently start a war on the same excuse?)

[hrothgar]

 awm, on 2012-December-16, 18:00, said:

The thought is that guns should be treated more like how we treat automobiles. Owning a gun should require some minimal degree of training in its use and should not be allowed to felons, the mentally ill, or people on the terrorist watch list. A registration of guns so we can easily track who owns which firearm (much as we have license plates on cars) might be a good idea. If someone wants a gun for sport hunting or for self defense, that seems pretty reasonable. However it's not clear why a semi-automatic or an assault rifle or armor-piercing rounds would be necessary for these purposes, and banning (or at least having a higher bar in terms of training/qualification for) these weapons doesn't seem crazy. And the constitution does say well-regulated militia after all, which implies that some degree of regulation is permitted.

There are all sorts of weapons that are banned. Case in point: You can't just go out and buy a fully automatically weapon. People accept that there are goalposts, the only question is where the get drawn or shifted to.

Personally, I favor very strict regulations:

1. People can own whatever they please, up to an including fully auto weapons, but these need to be stored / used at a firing range.
2. Pump shotguns and bolt action rifles are fine off a firing range, however, magazine sized should be strictly limited.

I think that the risks associated with hand guns far outweighs the benefits.