The American mass shooting thread

[DexterTCN]

...while banning guns is easy...

There certainly seems to be a mental health issue, I agree.

 

[Mapped]

I've not been involved in this thread, but just came across this and thought it was some satire, but doesn't seem to be Fucking mentalists

http://www.salon.com/2012/12/15/gun..._the_blood_of_little_children_on_their_hands/

 

[phildwyer]

There certainly seems to be a mental health issue, I agree.

Haha, touche. Of course I didn't mean "easy" so much as "facile."

But still and all, banning guns is far easier than making Americans sane, and I don't think anyone could deny it.

 

[frogwoman]

there've been quite a few of these shootings in germany as well though in the last couple of years and also in finland iirc although less deadly. worth exploring I think the sociological factors that lead to these shootings occurring, like phil and dylans i am not convinced by a simple "lol those americans and their guns" explanation. this probably isn't the thread for it though but i'm happy to start a new one

 

[Delroy Booth]

while banning guns is easy

yeah dead easy

 

[Gingerman]

Yeah... how dare anyone claim these so-called "rights"... rights are bad, down with rights...rights are wrong...

 

[toggle]

What an unscrupulous and sanctimonious prick you truly are.

Seriously, you're trying to deny that mental health was the issue here? Tosser that you are.

says the man who has clearly tried to use this thread to promote his completely unsupported pro gun agenda

 

[savoloysam]

Much will be made of his mental health nothing will be asked of why society makes people like this.

 

[Miss Caphat]

really? 'cause I've heard it be asked several times already. on this thread even.

 

[savoloysam]

 

[Miss Caphat]

sorry, that was a little snarky

I just mean, it has been discussed...it just doesn't seem to go anywhere because people have so many different theories on what the root problem is

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

He's a fucking knob. He was tweeting last night that anyone with a history of mental health problems is at risk of going on a shooting spree.

I think that overstates the case by a long shot; but I suspect that those with a history of mental problems are more likely to do it than those with no history of mental problems.

 

[Blagsta]

http://www.mind.org.uk/help/research_and_policy/dangerousness_and_mental_health_the_facts#Key facts

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

A single homicide and a spree killing are two different things.

 

[Blagsta]

Yeah... how dare anyone claim these so-called "rights"... rights are bad, down with rights...rights are wrong...

Yeah , how dare people want the right not to be gunned down!

 

[Blagsta]

A single homicide and a spree killing are two different things.

Wow, you're a quick reader!

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Your stats seem to indicate that it's way more likely for a person without mental problems to commit a single homicide than it is for a person with mental problems. One conclusion: murder is a species of normal behavior.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Wow, you're a quick reader!

Yes, it's true.

 

[Blagsta]

Your stats seem to indicate that it's way more likely for a person without mental problems to commit a single homicide than it is for a person with mental problems. One conclusion: murder is a species of normal behavior.

I'd agree. Murder is normal human behaviour.

I certainly think its a possibility that the young man who did this was mentally/emotionally distressed in some way. Is this the same thing as being mentally ill? Murderous fantasies are normal. Is it "mental illness" that is the only difference between people who keep these things as fantasy and those who act out? What do we mean by "mental illness"? Having a specific diagnosis? Being mentally/emotionally distressed? Doing these types of things? I don't know.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

I'd agree. Murder is normal human behaviour..

In that case, there's something wrong with the definition of 'normal'.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

I'd agree. Murder is normal human behaviour.

I certainly think its a possibility that the young man who did this was mentally/emotionally distressed in some way. Is this the same thing as being mentally ill? Murderous fantasies are normal. Is it "mental illness" that is the only difference between people who keep these things as fantasy and those who act out? What do we mean by "mental illness"? Having a specific diagnosis? Being mentally/emotionally distressed? Doing these types of things? I don't know.

Taking a gun to an elementary school and killing 20 children, after shooting and killing your mother at your house, is more than a murderous fantasy.

Once again: if the level of detachment required to look into the eyes of first, your mother, and then, one after another, twenty children under ten - listen to them scream, watch them bleed and writhe - if that level of detachment from human feeling doesn't constitute a mental or emotional disorder, then there's something wrong with the definition.

 

[Blagsta]

In that case, there's something wrong with the definition of 'normal'.

Read some history books and try and argue otherwise.

 

[Blagsta]

Taking a gun to an elementary school and killing 20 children, after shooting and killing your mother at your house, is more than a murderous fantasy.

Once again: if the level of detachment required to look into the eyes of first, your mother, and then, one after another, twenty children under ten - listen to them scream, watch them bleed and writhe - if that level of detachment from human feeling doesn't constitute a mental or emotional disorder, then there's something wrong with the definition.

Are soldiers mentally ill?

 

[Maurice Picarda]

I've not been involved in this thread, but just came across this and thought it was some satire, but doesn't seem to be Fucking mentalists

http://www.salon.com/2012/12/15/gun..._the_blood_of_little_children_on_their_hands/

Why do nanny statists like Pratt always suggest that authority figures like teachers and school counsellors are armed, while they wouldn't countenance allowing children to have guns? If every one of those kids had been issued with a firearm then this shooting would never have happened.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Are soldiers mentally ill?

I think it's situational. Activities that become normalized during wartime often aren't acceptable during peacetime. Even then there can be differences. WW2 vets, although many were traumatized etc, in general came away from that war in a different condition and frame of mind when compared to Vietnam vets, where there wasn't widespread acceptance of and approval for their actions.

We might be coming to the same conclusions from different perspectives. Imo, a propensity to violence is part of the human motivational repertoire. I believe that our society's attempt to deny that fact is wrongheaded, just as it's wrongheaded to try to ignore the human sexual impulse. I'm not saying that it should be ok for people to kill in order to work off some steam; but that cathartic activities should be recognized to have utility in channelling that violent impulse away from being acted out in daily life. I think the Japanese have a better understanding of this than we do.

Getting back to your point: yes, it's possible for otherwise mentally 'normal' people to kill, but depending on the circumstances, certain types of killing will more often be within the province of the mentally or emotionally unbalanced.

 

[Spymaster]

@ phil,

does the UK have stringent anti gun laws ?

Yes. And it recently has been the scene of numerous massacres involving guns.

A sensible person would conclude that anti-gun laws are not effective in preventing such incidents.

That's not the case though is it?

Semi-automatic long weapons were banned in the UK after Hungerford in 1987, and handguns banned after Dunblane in 1996.

Since then we've only had 1 shooting rampage killer; Derek Bird, who used legally held weapons (a shotgun and .22 rifle). I suppose you could include Raoul Moat at a push though his victims, apart from Rathband, were known to him so he wasn't really a "random shooter". Moat used a shotgun too.

Whilst it's impossible to say how many, if any, lives have been saved by these laws (which I DO think are unnecessarily restrictive, btw), it's also impossible to draw the conclusion that you want to, that strict legislation has a negative, or no effect.

It's also reasonable to suggest that had Bird or Moat had access to assault rifles and .45 autos instead of shotguns and bolt action .22's the death tolls would likely have been far higher.

 

[weepiper]

The guy in this instance may well have had other mental issues but I really dislike the way the media is focussing on the fact he had Asperger's. Great, now anyone with Asperger's is tainted by association, despite the fact that there is no evidence to show that they are any more violent or unpredictable than anyone else in the general population. Quite the opposite in reality as they are often obsessive about rule-following and order. Yes they may be more prone to outbursts or getting upset over 'trivial' things but it doesn't manifest itself as violence to others any more than in someone who doesn't have Asperger's.

 

[dylans]

Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that a society that routinely murders children as part of its foreign policy, breeds lunatics who murder children at home.

There is nothing more cynical and puke inducing than watching Obama, the man who routinely orders drone attacks on innocent civilians, a man who is dripping in the blood of innocent kids, a man who excuses and justifies Israel's mass murder of Palestinian children, crying crocodile tears while speaking of the deaths of these kids.

The container is filled with the humming of computers. It's the brain of a drone, known as a cockpit in Air Force parlance. But the pilots in the container aren't flying through the air. They're just sitting at the controls.

Bryant was one of them, and he remembers one incident very clearly when a Predator drone was circling in a figure-eight pattern in the sky above Afghanistan, more than 10,000 kilometers (6,250 miles) away. There was a flat-roofed house made of mud, with a shed used to hold goats in the crosshairs, as Bryant recalls.

When he received the order to fire, he pressed a button with his left hand and marked the roof with a laser. The pilot sitting next to him pressed the trigger on a joystick, causing the drone to launch a Hellfire missile. There were 16 seconds left until impact.

"These moments are like in slow motion," he says today. Images taken with an infrared camera attached to the drone appeared on his monitor, transmitted by satellite, with a two-to-five-second time delay.

With seven seconds left to go, there was no one to be seen on the ground. Bryant could still have diverted the missile at that point. Then it was down to three seconds. Bryant felt as if he had to count each individual pixel on the monitor. Suddenly a child walked around the corner, he says.

Second zero was the moment in which Bryant's digital world collided with the real one in a village between Baghlan and Mazar-e-Sharif.

"...Bryant saw a flash on the screen: the explosion. Parts of the building collapsed. The child had disappeared. Bryant had a sick feeling in his stomach.

"Did we just kill a kid?" he asked the man sitting next to him.

"Yeah, I guess that was a kid," the pilot replied.

"Was that a kid?" they wrote into a chat window on the monitor.

Then, someone they didn't know answered, someone sitting in a military command center somewhere in the world who had observed their attack. "No. That was a dog," the person wrote.

They reviewed the scene on video. A dog on two legs?
"

 

[Spymaster]

Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that a society that routinely murders children as part of its foreign policy, breeds lunatics who murder children at home.

There is nothing more cynical and puke inducing than watching Obama, the man who routinely orders drone attacks on innocent civilians, a man who is dripping in the blood of innocent kids, a man who excuses and justifies Israel's mass murder of Palestinian children, crying crocodile tears while speaking of the deaths of children.

Your posts on this thread had been ok up to this one.

Do you really think that a thread about the massacre of 20 odd kids is the place to be pushing your anti-US agenda, no matter how tenuously you try to link it up?

Shame.

 

[dylans]

Your posts on this thread had been ok up to this one.

Do you really think that a thread about the massacre of 20 odd kids is the place to be pushing your anti-US agenda, no matter how tenuously you try to link it up?

Shame.

Emotional intimidation all round. NRA types make the same accusation of those who raise gun control. Accusing them of cynically politicising a tragedy. Those in favour of gun control make the same accusation of people like Phil who are bold enough to defend the second amendment. You make the same accusation of people like me or Michael Moore who point to the tendency of a society built on Empire and massive violence to breed violence domestically.

I remember watching "bowling for Columbine" (which presents a brilliant and elequent case for the kind of internalising of violence that I was pointing out) when Moore links the violence of columbine with the fact that Littleton produces weapons of mass destruction. He was faced with the same kind of emotional intimidation too. Just to recall Moores point

Moore conducts an interview with Evan McCollum, Director of Communications at a Lockheed Martin plant near Columbine, and asks him:
"So you don't think our kids say to themselves, 'Dad goes off to the factory every day, he builds missiles of mass destruction. What's the difference between that mass destruction and the mass destruction over at Columbine High School?'"
McCollum responded:
"I guess I don't see that specific connection because the missiles that you're talking about were built and designed to defend us from somebody else who would be aggressors against us."

Really, this idea that we should not ask obvious and important questions following a national tragedy does the victims of such tragedies no favours and is nothing but a pathetic form of emotional bullying. You should know better