Another school shooting in the US

[Jambo]

The sheer volume of guns in america and the actual lack of incidents suggests highly that guns AREN'T the problem.

You really think so?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jan/10/gun-crime-us-state

I also don't agree that this latest shooter would have chosen another form of murder had he not had access to a gun. Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn't but it certainly would make things more difficult for him to achieve his goal.

Mental health is an issue that needs loads of support but I don't think there is any question that banning guns would reduce the rate of murder in the US.

 

[kthula666]

Call of Duty Obsession on the Sun page this morning.

*Sigh* and so games get trawled up again.

 

[kedge]

At least there is one consolation and that is the gunman shot himself and ended his life, unlike the coward anders brevik who made a complete mockery of the justice system, mind you then again that's the fault of the soft norwegian laws, he should have been put to death by lethal injection at least, the system is far too soft imho. Unfortunately this will never end under human rulership and guidance, time and time again all known human rulership and guide lines fail and fail miserably. With freedom comes great responsibility and that applies to all. Without the right rules and guidance and self preservation and correct conduct then this is the miserable world/system you have got. Condolence to the family members.

 

[RDM]

At least there is one consolation and that is the gunman shot himself and ended his life, unlike the coward anders brevik who made a complete mockery of the justice system, mind you then again that's the fault of the soft norwegian laws, he should have been put to death by lethal injection at least, the system is far too soft imho. Unfortunately this will never end under human rulership and guidance, time and time again all known human rulership and guide lines fail and fail miserably. With freedom comes great responsibility and that applies to all. Without the right rules and guidance and self preservation and correct conduct then this is the miserable world/system you have got. Condolence to the family members.

I would rather have the Norwegien crime rate and reoffending rate than ours. It seems their "soft" criminal justice system works better than ours and much better than the US...

 

[Something Else]

Call of Duty Obsession on the Sun page this morning.

*Sigh* and so games get trawled up again.

ive been playing gta since i was 10 or so, ive not once decided to go and kill someone.

its easier for the papers to blame a large collective (gaming industry) than pin the blame on the individual

 

[elmarko]

At least there is one consolation and that is the gunman shot himself and ended his life, unlike the coward anders brevik who made a complete mockery of the justice system, mind you then again that's the fault of the soft norwegian laws, he should have been put to death by lethal injection at least, the system is far too soft imho. Unfortunately this will never end under human rulership and guidance, time and time again all known human rulership and guide lines fail and fail miserably. With freedom comes great responsibility and that applies to all. Without the right rules and guidance and self preservation and correct conduct then this is the miserable world/system you have got. Condolence to the family members.

You (clearly) have no idea what you are talking about.

ITT : Ignorant Brit attempts to give the Norwegians advice on its criminal justice system.

In other news, Hitler to give speech against anti-semitism - Ted Bundy on "how to treat a lady" & Dan Quayle's guide to public speaking.

ive been playing gta since i was 10 or so, ive not once decided to go and kill someone.

its easier for the papers to blame a large collective (gaming industry) than pin the blame on the individual

Indeed, games always seem to get the blame - it used to be TV, but games are the new thing to blame.

But the larger problem is - the system, one which creates people so mentally unwell they feel the need to go out & murder a load of kids.

The only ground I'll give these pro-gun people is that guns alone are not the problem, but they most certainly exasperate existing social problems (which the good old USA has by the truckload).

 

[RimBlock]

Very few people argue for guns, most people argue that guns AREN'T the fundamental problem in these situations. Also there are no stats that deal with gun bans in america, therefore none of those stats are relevant.

Sure but guns enable people suffering from the fundamental problem to act in a rash and deadly fashion with out much need for premeditation or preparation.

If guns weren't around easily in the US and this guy still wanted to kill those people he could have done a whole crapload of things to kill all those people, had he gone around with gas cans, or molotov cocktails smashing windows and burning the school, every single person inside might have died, you can lock thick doors and hide and run away from someone with a gun, you can't escape when surrounded completely by fire, and a door won't do anything for you either.

Seriously, gas cans or molotovs ?. Walk around the school and shoot people or walk around with 20+ molotovs lighting them and throwing them after disabling the school fire protection systems quickly enough to block all exits (have you seen a picture of the school). Yes he could have done that but wouldn't it have been easier for someone to tackle him if he had ?.

...and when is the last time you have seen 'thick doors' in schools. Most normal schools are built on a budget with hollow or block board doors.

The problem is these incidents are jumped all over by anti-gun nuts, pushing an agenda, which is irrelevant. The issue here is WHAT PUSHES PEOPLE TO WANT TO MASSACRE PEOPLE, not if guns should be banned, one has NOTHING to do with the other. Anti gun lobbyists as any other lobbyists are jumping all over a terrible situation and making it about THEM, not about the kids and not about the reason behind situations like this..

Gotta disagree. The issue is not just why they do it but why are guns so readily available which enable them to do it on such a large scale with little thought or consideration as to the repercussions. People say and do things 'on the spur of the moment'. Enabling them to do so with a deadly weapon capable of killing so many in a short amount of time from range is something that needs to be looked at IMO.

It is not just about the problem but also the enablement which generates the result. I would not call people who wish to restrict or remove that enablement nuts. I would also think that people looking to remove such an obvious source of potential death whose main purpose is to kill are on the right path.

Of course tightening gun laws or removing guns altogether is not the fix, it is an action to reduce the potential number of reoccurring events whilst people look for a solution to the underlying issues. I find it hard to agree with people saying that nothing should be done about people having access to guns whilst someone somewhere tries to figure out how to spot, diagnose and help these people who may use them to kill others.

NO ONE on earth should be talking about anti gun laws, ban every gun in the states, make some magic machine to find every gun and make it not work....... people will still go mental and massacre people, THAT is the problem and THAT is all that should be being talked about.

Now you are just being silly. I do not recall anything I have read saying that if guns were banned in the US that there would never be any murders.

Getting rid of guns wouldn't have stopped this guy, it would have made him choose an alternate method of murder.

Conjecture. You have no way of knowing that. He may have snapped for some reason but in making your large cache of molotovs or sitting there filling fuel cans rather than shooting his mother and then driving to the school he may have actually decided that maybe this was not the best course of action. We will never know but to claim that it is a fact that removing the guns from the senario would not have stopped him is incorrect.

Trying to find out and change the fundamental reason that america seems so prone to these incidents is the goal, and that problem is being overshadowed by every blinkered person who looks at the gun, not the act, not what happened, just how it happened.

Yes and no. People are trying to do something that will potentially lead to a reduction in risk of this happening again before looking at the underlying issues. The problem with that is the risk that some of the inertia generated to do something will be taken away and not enough people will not have the will to carry it on to the next stage of fixing the issues at the root of the problem.

People still do burn places down in america, people still do go on rampages in cars, people blow themselves up, removing guns wouldn't remove the problem underneath the guns.

Agreed. I don't think most people would disagree.

The sheer volume of guns in america and the actual lack of incidents suggests highly that guns AREN'T the problem. I think they should ban guns but realise its an unhill struggle, half the country wants them, and the industry is huge which means politically its not going to happen.

No, guns are never the problem. Guns are a tool and it is how someone uses the tool that is the problem. The fact is a very effective tool in doing what it is designed to do, kill things, magnifies the effect of the problem.

AFAIK Obama has a awful record on guns and getting almost nothing done in his first 4 years.

Don't know and have no interest in verifying.

Politics in america is run in big business's interest, killing an industry and losing 10k's of jobs.... its a non starter.

As it is in lots of countries. Just look at government decisions and BAE in the UK.

As I read in one article, change would seem to need to come from down up. People have to want to make the change for it to happen. Government alone will find it very dificult to push through any changes without popular support especially with the NRA and industry against them. It just depends on whether the people are willing to do anything tangable or just sympothise for a few days and then turn a blind eye again.

So while half the world discusses getting rid of guns, A, it WILL NOT HAPPEN, B its NOT WHAT CAUSED THIS, and C is stopping people trying to fix what did cause this.

A: Maybe, we will wait and see
B: Agreed
C: Err, huh ?. Again you are coming to a all or nothing conclusion of what must happen. Fix the underlying issues and change US gun law. Why is it not possible to work at doing both.

Sensible people aren't pro gun, they are anti wasting time discussing guns.

Sensible people aren't pro gun, but they understand that removing such an obvious enabler whilst they try to tackle the underlying issue is better than leaving it there for another person to use in the mean time.

RB

 

[kedge]

I would rather have "soft" criminal justice system

You (clearly) have no idea what you are talking about..

Blah blah you pair of softies.

 

[Fr0dders]

The sheer volume of guns in america and the actual lack of incidents suggests highly that guns AREN'T the problem. I think they should ban guns but realise its an uphill struggle, half the country wants them, and the industry is huge which means politically its not going to happen.

Look at the stats of the number of deaths caused by guns.

America does have a gun problem that is unique to their culture. I'm with Michael Moore on this and they are a nation obsessed with them.

There will still be killings, as you say the most determined people will find another way, but there will be many thousands who don't die because the person wanting to commit the crime couldn't find an easy way to do it, and this extends to general deaths, as opposed to specifically school shootings. But you've got to look at the number of school shootings carried out by kids. Most of these wouldn't have happeend had the kids not had easy access to weapons.

 

[Fr0dders]

You really think so?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jan/10/gun-crime-us-state

I also don't agree that this latest shooter would have chosen another form of murder had he not had access to a gun. Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn't but it certainly would make things more difficult for him to achieve his goal.

Mental health is an issue that needs loads of support but I don't think there is any question that banning guns would reduce the rate of murder in the US.

This is the most astounding stat for me:

And the murder figures themselves are astounding for Brits used to around 550 murders per year. In 2011 - the latest year for which detailed statistics are available - there were 12,664 murders in the US. Of those, 8,583 were caused by firearms.

So 67 % of all murders in the US are carried out by firearms.

Of those 12,000 + in the US in 2011, maybe only a single digit number were victims of a school shooting.

So Yes banning the sale of Assault Rifles, and restricting the sale of guns even further isn't going to stop all of these high school shootings, but you have to accept that the ease of availability of guns is contributing to the crime figures in the US.

Call of Duty Obsession on the Sun page this morning.

*Sigh* and so games get trawled up again.

Its sad isn't it. Everybody has their own theory, and most of them revolve around something that is available all over the world. Just like COD, just like Marilyn Manson Music, Just like Quentin Tarrantino movies, yet the problem with gun deaths is exclusively an american problem.

 

[Hagar]

I have seen and handled the Vietnam war era Armalite rifle which I assume is a similar assault rifle to here in .223 calibre. It was at an enlghtened lecture at school in the late sixties where the comparison between the vietcong AK47 and the US Armalite was made.

These are not defensive weapons, they are offensive, they have one use which is to kill as many people as possible in as quick a possible manner.

The bullet tumbles in the air and is inaccurate but it does create spectacular wounds.
You do not keep one for hunting or vermin control, there are far better guns for that.

 

[Fr0dders]

I have seen and handled the Vietnam war era Armalite rifle which I assume is a similar assault rifle to here in .223 calibre. It was at an enlghtened lecture at school in the late sixties where the comparison between the vietcong AK47 and the US Armalite was made.

These are not defensive weapons, they are offensive, they have one use which is to kill as many people as possible in as quick a possible manner.

The bullet tumbles in the air and is inaccurate but it does create spectacular wounds.
You do not keep one for hunting or vermin control, there are far better guns for that.

But there are nutcases in the NRA who see it as every americans duty to defend their home.

They will argue it is not the job of law enforcement, it is your duty as an american citizen to defend yourself. And that entails having an assault rifle for killing people who would attempt to enter your house in the night and potentially kill you if you wake whilst they burgle you. It does happen of course, and we've seen people free'd after they killed people who broke into their house in the UK.

Convincing these people to give up their assault rifles and rely on the law to protect them is going to be a very hard task.

Did anybody see the series Sons of Guns on Discovery ? with the woman in her mid 20s who was bought a Desert Eagle by her dad for self defense ?? This is the sort of people we're talking about.

 

[drunkenmaster]

You really think so?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jan/10/gun-crime-us-state

I also don't agree that this latest shooter would have chosen another form of murder had he not had access to a gun. Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn't but it certainly would make things more difficult for him to achieve his goal.

Mental health is an issue that needs loads of support but I don't think there is any question that banning guns would reduce the rate of murder in the US.

He CHOSE to KILL PEOPLE, he used a gun, the choice came first, the gun didn't make the choice for him, he wanted to kill people, he would have killed people. He may have been more successfull, he may have been less successful its almost certain he would have still tried because ignore the gun, HE WANTED TO KILL PEOPLE, the gun is completely irrelevant to that. Especially as the vast majority of people who do this want to die themselves and kill themselves in the process... IE he wanted to die, it wasn't like a professional hit where a gun from the longest distance possible and getting away without being caught was of concern.

As for guns, if 80% of america owns a gun, and a huge portion of them own LOADS of guns.... and 0.0000001% of the population goes on killing rampages... and 0.0000001% of the population of the UK, Norway, China go on killing rampages, and all countries have varying gun laws but mostly vastly lower gun ownership. The only difference is, in the UK/China its more likely to be a nut with a sword, or burning a building down, etc. The things still happen, the method alters, the decision in each case is the same, some nut decides he wants to go out with a bang by killing as many people as possible then killing themselves.

 

[yer_averagejoe]

He CHOSE to KILL PEOPLE, he used a gun, the choice came first, the gun didn't make the choice for him, he wanted to kill people, he would have killed people. He may have been more successfull, he may have been less successful its almost certain he would have still tried because ignore the gun, HE WANTED TO KILL PEOPLE, the gun is completely irrelevant to that. Especially as the vast majority of people who do this want to die themselves and kill themselves in the process... IE he wanted to die, it wasn't like a professional hit where a gun from the longest distance possible and getting away without being caught was of concern.

As for guns, if 80% of america owns a gun, and a huge portion of them own LOADS of guns.... and 0.0000001% of the population goes on killing rampages... and 0.0000001% of the population of the UK, Norway, China go on killing rampages, and all countries have varying gun laws but mostly vastly lower gun ownership. The only difference is, in the UK/China its more likely to be a nut with a sword, or burning a building down, etc. The things still happen, the method alters, the decision in each case is the same, some nut decides he wants to go out with a bang by killing as many people as possible then killing themselves.

I think you're wrong trying to argue that this guy would have achieved anything on the same scale, had he not had any guns. The guy was mentally unstable and guns enabled him to relatively quickly relieve himself of his rage. Unfortunately, guns are such an enabler that a lot of people were hurt in his wake.

Had he not had access to guns, I don't think the killings would have gone further than his mother, to be honest. He could have stabbed her to death but an large scale attack without a gun would have to be pre-meditated. And I don't believe this was.

I think the key point here is that guns are a weapon of whim. Take that away and you get less killings. Shooting someone is so far emotionally removed from stabbing someone to death that you can't simply interchange one with the other.

 

[elmarko]

some nut decides he wants to go out with a bang by killing as many people as possible then killing themselves.

Which is much easier to do with an assault rifle than it is to do with a sword.

Also you keep missing this key point.

Stop for a moment & consider by standard troops use these weapons instead of swords or arson attacks to kill.

You are also thinking in a very simplistic linear fashion.

Person A wants to go on a killing spree, the ease of getting a gun could easily motivate somebody further (as the time lag required to get a gun would be sufficient for someone who may be in the middle of an "episode" to snap out of it).

You are making a bold assumption by that a choice is made, then the person goes on a killing spree - it's a gross over-simplification at best.

I think you're wrong trying to argue that this guy would have achieved anything on the same scale, had he not had any guns. The guy was mentally unstable and guns enabled him to relatively quickly relieve himself of his rage. Unfortunately, guns are such an enabler that a lot of people were hurt in his wake.

Had he not had access to guns, I don't think the killings would have gone further than his mother, to be honest. He could have stabbed her to death but an large scale attack without a gun would have to be pre-meditated. And I don't believe this was.

I think the key point here is that guns are a weapon of whim. Take that away and you get less killings. Shooting someone is so far emotionally removed from stabbing someone to death that you can't simply interchange one with the other.

Well said.

For most people one requirement of human empathy is proximity, shooting somebody from a distance is going to be far less taxing psychologically than repeatedly knifing a large number of children.

 

[4T5]

I think there's more chance of them arming all the teachers than there is them bringing in restrictive gun laws.

 

[drunkenmaster]

This is the most astounding stat for me:



So 67 % of all murders in the US are carried out by firearms.

Of those 12,000 + in the US in 2011, maybe only a single digit number were victims of a school shooting.

So Yes banning the sale of Assault Rifles, and restricting the sale of guns even further isn't going to stop all of these high school shootings, but you have to accept that the ease of availability of guns is contributing to the crime figures in the US.




Its sad isn't it. Everybody has their own theory, and most of them revolve around something that is available all over the world. Just like COD, just like Marilyn Manson Music, Just like Quentin Tarrantino movies, yet the problem with gun deaths is exclusively an american problem.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr60/nvsr60_03.pdf

This is somewhat interesting, murder's accounted for 0.7% of all deaths in america in 2009, and it was down 0.6% on the year before, murders in 2009, 16k roughly, suicides in 2009, around 36k, with a huge portion done using guns(not sure that is in there, I just know that from somewhere).

Murder rates in the states are, meh, as in they are bad and gun crime is bad, and getting rid of guns would reduce some gun crime. At this point a ban on guns will remove mostly guns from mostly legal places there were in incredibly little danger of being used for crimes.

Think of it like this, 2009, 16k murders, lets guess 2/3rds were also by gun, call it 11k, how many would the 30 or so murders at this school have contributed from a legally owned gun?

Male to female homicide ratios were 3.4:1, black murders vs white murdered 5.4:1. So of the 16k murders 13.5k were black people and of those the vast majority were men. Is every black man murdered in a gang, absolutely not, the severe disparity in the numbers though, is very obviously effected by gang culture. Stats without gang related crimes would be VASTLY different.

But the main problems are, people who go on killing rampages go on rampages for many reasons, because guns are available isn't one of them. Getting rid of legally held guns, would do very very little to remove guns illegally held, by gangs, who are responsible for the VAST portion of murders and gun crimes in the states.

Would if effect the stats, sure, would it effect them significantly, no. Did this crime have anything to do with guns themselves, or everything to do with a mentality unstable person going bat **** crazy.

Gang culture and gun crime NEEDS addressing, but it always did, and it has nothing to do with crazy people going on rampages. This is the problem, politicians are being given an easy way out, ban the M4 copy the kid used, everyones happy, nothing is done about ghetto's, nothing is done about gangs, the murder rate/gun crimes won't change much at all... psycho's will still go on rampages, using other guns, or other weapons entirely and nothing will change.

people need to focus on two separate issues, and not let politics package this up in a "we've identified some stupid reason this happened, will fix this little thing and pretend everythings better" bow and not go after the fundamental issues underneath.

For murder rates/gun crime change in america, you need to battle extreme poverty, attitudes, culture, ghetto's, education and jobs. To battle psycho's going on rampages you need, better parenting, better nets to catch these people, better education, better treatment.

This kid I would be SHOCKED if he didn't display lots of outward signs of well, being a psycho, parents probably should have done something, doctors, teachers. Someone most likely missed something that shouldn't have been missed, a anti-gun law won't change whatever screwed this kid up in his life.

 

[drunkenmaster]

I think you're wrong trying to argue that this guy would have achieved anything on the same scale, had he not had any guns. The guy was mentally unstable and guns enabled him to relatively quickly relieve himself of his rage. Unfortunately, guns are such an enabler that a lot of people were hurt in his wake.

Had he not had access to guns, I don't think the killings would have gone further than his mother, to be honest. He could have stabbed her to death but an large scale attack without a gun would have to be pre-meditated. And I don't believe this was.

I think the key point here is that guns are a weapon of whim. Take that away and you get less killings. Shooting someone is so far emotionally removed from stabbing someone to death that you can't simply interchange one with the other.

Which is much easier to do with an assault rifle than it is to do with a sword.

Also you keep missing this key point.

Stop for a moment & consider by standard troops use these weapons instead of swords or arson attacks to kill.

You are also thinking in a very simplistic linear fashion.

Person A wants to go on a killing spree, the ease of getting a gun could easily motivate somebody further (as the time lag required to get a gun would be sufficient for someone who may be in the middle of an "episode" to snap out of it).

You are making a bold assumption by that a choice is made, then the person goes on a killing spree - it's a gross over-simplification at best.

Who says he snapped, most of the people who do this DON'T snap, plan this kind of thing and then do it. Secondly, you two are thinking too simplistically, tell me this, if you don't have access to a gun, could you incredibly easily, in the UK go a petrol station get a can of gas, walk into just about any building in the uk and set it on fire with hundreds of people inside?

Where have I said guns don't kill people easily, lots of other things do as well and its utterly simplistic and incredibly naive to think just about anyone in the world couldn't kill dozens of people very quickly, very easily with little to no planning. Its the syndrome I mentioned earlier of "if we pretend its really hard to kill loads of people we can PRETEND to feel safe, when we see murders with guns in another country, we blame the guns because they aren't prevalent here and PRETEND we're safe".

The single biggest reason mass murders don't happen frequently is MOST PEOPLE DON'T WANT TO MASS MURDER people, nothing more, nothing less. The ease at which any of us could go bat **** crazy and kill loads of people is utterly terrifying, but most people want to live, don't want to kill random people, aren't that angry and fear the consequences.

When people lose the fear, don't want to live and want to go out in a blaze of glory, there is very little standing between them and lots of people dying. Really, how hard is it to get in your car, go to the nearest most busy street, accelerate then run massive numbers of people down on the pavement? Be honest, its terrifyingly easy, as would be setting fire to your place of work.

Again be honest, would anyone suspect you of carrying in a thermos of petrol as you walked in to work, or a backpack full of litre's of petrol, then went and started a fire blocking every exit?

We like to pretend guns are the ONLY easy way to kill people because its ruddy nice to think that.

Why do people use guns in war? Simple, in war people EXPECT the threat, and don't let the other side get close when possible, its also fairly small on the collateral damage leaving buildings intact and letting you choose who you kill on a case by case basis. Storm a building in iraq, choose to use gun, choose not to kill the kids and women but only the guys holding guns. A molotov cocktail doesn't give you that choice, and destroys a building.

What has that got in common with guys on a rampage? Nothing, they want collateral damage, they don't care who they kill, just body count, people DON'T suspect them, so getting close isn't an issue.

Across a battlefied is it feasable for a soldier to walk over to the other line with a can of gas then set it on fire? How many people not at war expect this to happen? These are utterly and completely different situations you can't compare in any way at all and doing so only highlights how far people are willing to go to pretend how safe they are.

 

[elmarko]

For murder rates/gun crime change in america, you need to battle extreme poverty, attitudes, culture, ghetto's, education and jobs. To battle psycho's going on rampages you need, better parenting, better nets to catch these people, better education, better treatment.

Nobody said this wasn't the case, just that gun prohibition is part of a complex solution, I don't recall anybody implying it's the be all end all.

Besides, the average pro-gun voter in the USA doesn't give two hoots about poverty (so in reality republican ideology in the USA is one of the reasons why the population can't be trusted with guns).

Ghettos, poverty, no social care, gross income inequality are all massive signifier's for violent crime & mental illness - giving assault rifles to a population so unbalanced is comically retarded.

The reason the Nordic regions get to "enjoy" lax gun control laws (compared to the UK) - is due to how well they look after the overall well-being of the population.

I don't think the UK is really mature enough for lax gun control laws either (our murder rates would sky-rocket).

 

[=XDC=FluphyBunny]

Call of Duty Obsession on the Sun page this morning.

*Sigh* and so games get trawled up again.

yeah just read this, its his call of duty obsession and that he lived in a 'bunker' or as we know it, his mums basement.

Complete nonsense as always from the Sun.