Another spoiled little man goes a US gun rampage (six people murdered in Santa Barbara)

[nessa239]

Don't want to derail too much and this is possibly discussed on one of the more Aspie-focused threads but there was a TV programme on the other day about drama therapy for people with autism, where roles are rehearsed, various common situations are basically 'experienced' in advance in a safe environment. It was just about one particular case (it was Horizon, I think - it covered other topics too), but it was really helping this autistic lad out with his confidence and abilities in navigating the social waters.

There was also a high-functioning woman who was describing how she had developed a battery of social responses for the various encounters she has day to day, which is pretty similar to how I deal with things (the 'small interactions' at least).

I think working on strategies is a better bet than just abandoning other people altogether. Bloody planet is infested with humans so love 'em or loathe 'em, it's bloody hard to ignore them.

People don't take to me whatever I do - I have malocclusion of the jaw and this makes my face look slightly different and this compounds the effect of the Aspergers so I feel I'm f-ked both from a looks as well as personality direction. At least Elliot had relative good looks.

 

[maomao]

I have malocclusion of the jaw and this makes my face look slightly different and this compounds the effect of the Aspergers so I feel I'm f-ked both from a looks as well as personality direction. At least Elliot had relative good looks.

That's just an overbite/underbite isn't it? I'm sure your looks are fine. I'm Aspergers too and fixating on what I perceived as me being ugly just made my problems socialising a lot harder to deal with when I was younger.

 

[nessa239]

That's just an overbite/underbite isn't it? I'm sure your looks are fine. I'm Aspergers too and fixating on what I perceived as me being ugly just made my problems socialising a lot harder to deal with when I was younger.

Yes, my teeth don't meet and face looks longer than average. My looks are a source of ridicule and amusement to a lot of people and it's given me a major complex. I have nothing in common with most people anyway as I'm not a social person. If anyone had cause to go on a shooting spree it's me!

 

[maomao]

Yes, my teeth don't meet and face looks longer than average. My looks are a source of ridicule and amusement to a lot of people and it's given me a major complex.

I have no way of persuading you otherwise but I think you're quite young and you'll hopefully feel better about the way you look with age and wisom. And I do know exactly how you feel.

I have nothing in common with most people anyway as I'm not a social person.

And yet you are drawn to discussing current affairs online with people. I gave up on things like parties and pubs a long time ago because I just don't have the resources to enjoy them but I enjoy the company of close friends and family and form emotional bonds with people. There's more than one way to socialise.

 

[nessa239]

I have no way of persuading you otherwise but I think you're quite young and you'll hopefully feel better about the way you look with age and wisom. And I do know exactly how you feel.



And yet you are drawn to discussing current affairs online with people. I gave up on things like parties and pubs a long time ago because I just don't have the resources to enjoy them but I enjoy the company of close friends and family and form emotional bonds with people. There's more than one way to socialise.

I'm 48 - not young, just immature in attitude due to never mixing with a peer group.

Yes I can discuss things online as it's not about how I look

 

[maomao]

I'm 48 - not young

Lol. Sorry.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I see, so when you said above that trying to attribute blame to a single factor was a fool's errand, what you were doing with this:



Was demonstrating something a fool might say. I agree that a fool might say that.

I think that you're mistaking the statement "People become spree-killers over just about anything, from perceived slights, to getting short-changed", an explanation that reasons are varied and can be set off by virtually anything, for a proposal that a single factor is always the cause. The two are entirely-different propositions, as everyone else appears to have grokked (i.e. they haven't conflated one with the other).
I'll try to put it simply for you:
The "activating factor", the event that lights the blue touchpaper for a spree-killer's spree can be anything.
The root cause of a spree-killer's murderousness is never a single factor.

is that simple enough, or do you want to play more games?

 

[8ball]

is that simple enough, or do you want to play more games?

THE IRONING!! IT BURNS!!

 

[ViolentPanda]

At least one of the guns was bought legally.

Just did some checking.
Some of Rodger's weapons were shotguns.
In California you can buy a shotgun over the counter (including semi-auto shotguns,which is what he bought), and take it away the same day. There's no statutory waiting period (2 days in CA, IIRC) for shotguns.

 

[ViolentPanda]

THE IRONING!! IT BURNS!!

Yes, you chuntered that out yesterday too. Repetition doesn't make it truer, just more embarrassing for you.

 

[Dr_Herbz]

Just did some checking.
Rodger's weapons were shotguns.
In California you can buy a shotgun over the counter (including semi-auto shotguns,which is what he bought), and take it away the same day. There's no statutory waiting period (2 days in CA, IIRC) for shotguns.

You might want to check your sources. The 3 guns were 9mm semi automatic handguns. 2X Sig-Sauer P226 and a Glock 34

And it's a 10 day waiting period.

 

[8ball]

Yes, you chuntered that out yesterday too. Repetition doesn't make it truer, just more embarrassing for you.

Well, let's see whether weltweit thought he was talking about simplistic causes in his question asked in #990.
You could probably just reply to one of your doubtless dozens of PMs of support to summon him.

 

[ViolentPanda]

It really is. He blames feminists for Rodgers killing people. Not Rodgers himself. Feminists.

That's because he's either trolling, or is a deeply-disturbed example of...well...not "humanity", but a living organism, anyway.
Either way, he's about as useful as a used condom.

 

[ViolentPanda]

You might want to check your sources. The 3 guns were 9mm semi automatic handguns. 2X Sig-Sauer P226 and a Glock 34

Already had (but cheers for the fact check anyway!), which is why I amended to "some of". Apparently he bought and owned 3 semi-auto shotguns too, so even without the pistols, he would still have had more than enough fire-power (semi-auto shotguns aren't restricted to three rounds, as happens here) to do what he did, and probably would have killed more, given the relative short-range accuracy of a smoothbore shotgun over a handgun.
Is it wrong for me to want to know if he held his pistols "gangster-style", or in a Weaver-type grip?

 

[ViolentPanda]

The four handguns Thomas Hamilton used to kill the children at Dunblane were all legally held.

As were the majority of Michael Ryan's weapons, used in Hungerford. Even the "assault rifle" (which was a .22 non-auto copy of an AK47 that had to be cocked after each shot).

 

[8ball]

It really is. He blames feminists for Rodgers killing people. Not Rodgers himself. Feminists.

I don't think it makes it less repugnant, but I think he's pushing people's buttons rather than actually believing that.

He was just trying to make people as angry as he possibly could. At least he's achieved his lifetime wish of getting banned.

 

[ViolentPanda]

What worries me most about America's gun laws is the lack of a central database. This lad going to 3 different gun shops to buy guns should have been a red flag, and if there had been a central database that the police had access to, there's a good chance this could have been avoided.

While on the subject of guns... A friend of mine was a member of a gun club and owned a lot of guns. We used to call him Tackleberry. He invited me to the gun club one evening and it scared me that some of these people were allowed to purchase guns. It was like a scene from Full Metal Jacket.

When I used to use the British Rail range, most of the blokes were perfectly normal, a lot of them lived in the 'burbs or the sticks, and kept a .22 pistol or rifle for pest control.
When I used the BT gun club, on the other hand, it was often pretty full-on Weirdo Central though.

 

[ViolentPanda]

And if it had been any other police force in england he'd have lost them years ago.
He got to keep them simply because he'd complain long and loud and cause a horrendous amount of work for a very small police force.

Unfortunately not true. If it were a fault confined to a single police force, there would have been a fair number fewer shooting deaths (murders and suicides) in the UK than there have been. Michael Ryan wouldn't have been able to do what he did if his police force's licencing dept hadn't been overwhelmed.
Fact is, most police forces used to see firearms licences as a bit of an inconvenience. I suspect that some still do.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Why would any normal person need this much?:

I used to have 5 13-round mags for my Browning Hi-Power. If you do competition shooting you need to be able to reload quickly. If you have to load each mag with ammo as you shoot, it's a real arse.

 

[likesfish]

I have a friend gave up trying to convince his licenceing person that 7.62mm nato and .308 are interchangeable and accepted the extra 1000 rounds he could keep

Sussex advertised for someone to do firearms licenceing work no knowledge of firearms was neccesarry

 

[ViolentPanda]

Aye. I've noticed in discussion around this event (not on this thread particularly but elsewhere in the media) that a lot of people are quite scared to admit that there are aspects of our society that can drive people mad. Kind of explains why people like to blame neurological conditions, and 'mental illness' as if it was some sort of organic, inherent brain defect.

Thing is, it's easy, and it suits the desire of the media to place blame, to home in on a single factor, and construct an explanation around that. it makes their job easier than having to talk at length about how each individual will react to the same stressors differently - how two people with identical upbringings will probably choose different paths. it's easier to say "he was nuts" or "he was an Aspie" than to say "he was the sum of a host of different factors and influences, and he reacted to them in an atypical way".

 

[spanglechick]

I used to have 5 13-round mags for my Browning Hi-Power. If you do competition shooting you need to be able to reload quickly. If you have to load each mag with ammo as you shoot, it's a real arse.

But you could get a different hobby.

If tiger-riding were an olympic sport (bear with me, here), and people got lots and lots of fulfillment out of it, and britain was really good at it, but every so often, say something like 0.001% of the tigers escaped and ate a bunch of people, would you really campaign for the right of people to keep tigers just for their enjoyment of that hobby?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Was Rodger sexually abused as a child, either by family members or strangers?

Did he suffer any physical, or severe emotional abuse?

How do you know, one way or another?

As you'd have noticed, if you'd actually read the post you replied to, I made clear that I was commenting on what he said in his youtube vids, nothing else.

 

[8ball]

If tiger-riding were an olympic sport (bear with me, here), and people got lots and lots of fulfillment out of it, and britain was really good at it, but every so often, say something like 0.001% of the tigers escaped and ate a bunch of people, would you really campaign for the right of people to keep tigers just for their enjoyment of that hobby?

With our equivalent laws I guess it's perhaps more like at least the tigers have to be kept in a locked compound.
I'd want to see if there was a way to stop them escaping before saying someone couldn't enjoy their hobby.

 

[ViolentPanda]

But you could get a different hobby.

If tiger-riding were an olympic sport (bear with me, here), and people got lots and lots of fulfillment out of it, and britain was really good at it, but every so often, say something like 0.001% of the tigers escaped and ate a bunch of people, would you really campaign for the right of people to keep tigers just for their enjoyment of that hobby?

Well, I don't see tiger-riding as an equivalent hobby, or as something I'd even like to try (my mum is a bit obsessed with tigers, and would probably nail my bollocks to my ears if I tried to ride one!). Would I change my hobby if my government decided that handgun ownership was to be made illegal? Well, I actually did, and while I don't believe that the government went through the mechanics of the issue properly, I don't think that the legislation was particularly an over-reaction, and I've always been in favour of a strict licencing regime, in order to minimise such instances as the subject of this thread. I also believe that anyone who argues that the way to minimise firearms deaths is "more firearms", is a few sandwiches short of a picnic.
Unfortunately, in the US things are a lot more complicated than here, because of the dual-level laws (state and federal), and the massively-powerful pro-firearms lobby. I'd love to see much stricter licencing across the board, but as long as organisations like the NRA are able to "bung" money to political candidates, it won't happen.

 

[Idris2002]

THE IRONING!! IT BURNS!!

"I only wanted to answer the phone".

 

[spanglechick]

With our equivalent laws I guess it's perhaps more like at least the tigers have to be kept in a locked compound.
I'd want to see if there was a way to stop them escaping before saying someone couldn't enjoy their hobby.

fair enough. but if people were semi-regulalrly smuggling tigers out under their macintoshes and setting them loose in shopping centres and maternity hospitals?

 

[spanglechick]

Well, I don't see tiger-riding as an equivalent hobby, or as something I'd even like to try (my mum is a bit obsessed with tigers, and would probably nail my bollocks to my ears if I tried to ride one!). Would I change my hobby if my government decided that handgun ownership was to be made illegal? Well, I actually did, and while I don't believe that the government went through the mechanics of the issue properly, I don't think that the legislation was particularly an over-reaction, and I've always been in favour of a strict licencing regime, in order to minimise such instances as the subject of this thread. I also believe that anyone who argues that the way to minimise firearms deaths is "more firearms", is a few sandwiches short of a picnic.
Unfortunately, in the US things are a lot more complicated than here, because of the dual-level laws (state and federal), and the massively-powerful pro-firearms lobby. I'd love to see much stricter licencing across the board, but as long as organisations like the NRA are able to "bung" money to political candidates, it won't happen.

the actual specific analogy is irrelevant. does the enjoyment of a hobby, any hobby - hunting animals, shooting targets, synchronised-swimming-with-hand-grenades - trump public safety?

People like hunting, they like target shooting... other people like driving cars at 200mph. tough.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I have a friend gave up trying to convince his licenceing person that 7.62mm nato and .308 are interchangeable and accepted the extra 1000 rounds he could keep

Sussex advertised for someone to do firearms licenceing work no knowledge of firearms was neccesarry

Yep, a lot of it about. I still get pissed off when the media talk bollocks about firearms, 'cos it's not like it's the hardest thing in the world to do a tiny bit of research!

 

[ViolentPanda]

the actual specific analogy is irrelevant. does the enjoyment of a hobby, any hobby - hunting animals, shooting targets, synchronised-swimming-with-hand-grenades - trump public safety?

People like hunting, they like target shooting... other people like driving cars at 200mph. tough.

As I thought I'd made clear, I favour public safety every time.