The American mass shooting thread

[gosub]

Every cloud, eh?

For the weary White House, Florida shooting offered a ‘reprieve’ from scandals

I wish the kids every success in showing professional politics that they don't know what hit em. That meme of the cycle of deaths bullshit in action repeat...has a date on it and the stock of footage and argument can only go one way


And Trump is in between a rock a hard place

If it was me, First target Dickey Amendment

 

[gosub]

There have already been a few ‘silver-lined clouds’ since.

Lead lined surely.

 

[squirrelp]

See I'd 'like' that, if you didn't appear to be arguing: get rid of the meds and the gun problem goes away

Fair enough. I could present things less abrasively on a sensitive topic.

 

[Ax^]

as long as your take a little effort to read and understand the reason behind an article that is posted on the interwebz,

this should be fine

 

[teqniq]

Fair play to him

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

This will probably come back to bite me but....

We live in a culture that worships men with guns. You can probably think of many off the top of your head—John Wayne, Indiana Jones or James Bond come immediately to mind. They’re all men who get what they want. Women are all eager to have sex with them. They have the respect of their peers and their communities.

Most of the men who commit mass shootings were not those widely admired men. They were men who felt they were owed something, and that the world was not providing what they were owed.

In many of these mass shootings, the desire to kill seems to be driven by a catastrophic sense of male entitlement. In some cases, the perpetrators seemed to feel that if people did not give them precisely what they wanted, then those people did not deserve to live. The only just world, in their minds, was a world they were the center of.

Mass Shootings and Toxic Masculinity — Why Men Are Almost Always Behind Mass Shootings

We have expectations of men, that maybe we shouldn't have.

 

[a_chap]

They’re all men who get what they want. Women are all eager to have sex with them. They have the respect of their peers and their communities.

Excellent point.

I must go and get myself a gun...

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

Excellent point.

I must go and get myself a gun...

I knew I'd live to regret that post.

 

[MrSpikey]

I have done nothing but make a similar point to Michael Moore himself on the nature of school mass shootings.

Your clip shows a filmmaker suggesting a potential reason for one particular shooting, and proposing it be investigated to see if there is any validity to that claim.

That's completely different to:

The evidence is clear - take any of these mass shootings and I will show you a shooter who was on psychotropic medication.

 

[MrSpikey]

I don't know what more evidence you would wish for. All the school shootings are committed by people are all on meds.

So, about your evidence.

The list you linked to claimed it proved that "every mass shooting over [the] last 20 years" had the use of psychotropic drugs in common, a claim you've echoed.

To prove that, it listed just 38 incidents.

Only 21 of those involved guns.

Some of those were suicides, incidents without shots fired, one where the person on medication was likely murdered, others where medication use is implied rather than stated.

How many mass shootings do you think there have been over the last 20 years? Do you think this is a sufficient sample to draw the conclusions you are trying to make?

Or are you using a microscopic sample of events to try and assert a truth that fits your own agenda?

 

[Saul Goodman]

This will probably come back to bite me but....

Mass Shootings and Toxic Masculinity — Why Men Are Almost Always Behind Mass Shootings

We have expectations of men, that maybe we shouldn't have.

For fuck's sake!
Who the fuck (in their right mind) has any sort of expectation for a a man to carry a gun?
I'm sorry but this is obviously a piece of America rubbing off on you. Nobody in civilised worlds expect a man to carry a gun and shoot as many passers by as he can.

 

[Baronage-Phase]

Civilisation ?
Look around you. "The civilised world" exists in only a small area. Vast swathes of the world are in the grip of violence, wars, terrorism and yes.. guns and shooting.
Kids play more war games now than ever before... blowing people's heads off for fun iin very realistic games.
Boys are still learning that guns are part of their life and in some parts of this so called civilised world guns are put in their hands as children.

If you mean western society then the semblance of civilisation has not historically been that lengthy. Where in the world is more than a generation away from a war or a violent (gun using) past?

We live in a fucked up world.
It would be great if it wasn't such a hate filled mess....and it would be great if violence and aggression wasn't part of it.

We are rightly shocked by school shootings in the US and other so called civilised societies... but look around you at the world and see that mass shootings are happening all over the world. We are horrified by the school shootings because we think it is not something that should happen in a "civilised" society. There's very little civilised about American or "western" society There may be more laws and rights but don't think humans are more advanced in the US because of that.

 

[likesfish]

not in the UK because you can't buy a gun at asda and not in a lot of countries

 

[Baronage-Phase]

not in the UK because you can't buy a gun at asda and not in a lot of countries

Obviously ....
But I doubt we would be any different to the US if guns were readily available.
Laws are what keep us gun free and mass shootings free .... that's all.
Not "civility " or "civilisation".
If gun laws changed in the UK and anyone who wanted to have a gun could get one...then the UK would have school shootings too.

 

[Indeliblelink]

Trump pushes for ban on modified guns

 

[Yossarian]

Trump pushes for ban on modified guns

"What's the smallest gun control measure I can get away with?"

"Bump stocks - the thing the Las Vegas shooter used. Hardly anybody even knows what they are and the NRA already said it was OK with increased regulation of them."

"What's that got to do with what happened in Florida?"

"Just go with bump stocks, then you can say you're doing something about guns."

Maybe after the next mass shooting, Trump will suggest that it might be a bad idea to allow a disturbed 18-year-old to walk out of a store
with an AR-15 the day after he is expelled from school.

 

[8ball]

Maybe after the next mass shooting, Trump will suggest that it might be a bad idea to allow a disturbed 18-year-old to walk out of a store
with an AR-15 the day after he is expelled from school.

There have already been another 5.
Sad to say, but would need to be another especially bad one to lead to anything further.

And not using a bump stock either, since that’s been done.

 

[Yossarian]

Three of the ten deadliest mass shootings in modern US history have happened in the last five months, unfortunately, I don't think it's going to be all that long before the next especially bad one.

 

[YouSir]

Obviously ....
But I doubt we would be any different to the US if guns were readily available.
Laws are what keep us gun free and mass shootings free .... that's all.
Not "civility " or "civilisation".
If gun laws changed in the UK and anyone who wanted to have a gun could get one...then the UK would have school shootings too.

There are other countries where you can get guns and where ownership is comparatively high but which don't suffer the same effects as the US. We would have more shootings if guns were widely available, no doubt, but we wouldn't suddenly adopt the entire cultural landscape of the US which makes them so prevalent there.

The 'everyone is the same, everyone would shoot everyone' line of nihilism is just a comfort to gun nuts and right wingers for the most part, it negates any social or cultural problems their society has by making everyone inherently violent. Not to say that anywhere is lovely and pacifist and perfect, but that doesn't make the opposite any more true. Look at the reaction here to Dunblane, our society and culture was disgusted and happy to see change in the laws, for the most part. The fact that we did that while the US is incapable of similar action says something about the differences.

 

[editor]

Total Fucking Idiot Of The Day

24 years old Ricky Rankin posted a photo of an AR-15 assault rifle to his Instagram page, the same type of rifle used in the Florida high school shooting. The caption “I’m thinking about finally going back to school” had the community concerned, so they notified the police, which took him into custody.

Man arrested after posting photo of a rifle on Instagram, captioned "Thinking about finally going back to school" - DIY Photography

 

[Baronage-Phase]

There are other countries where you can get guns and where ownership is comparatively high but which don't suffer the same effects as the US. We would have more shootings if guns were widely available, no doubt, but we wouldn't suddenly adopt the entire cultural landscape of the US which makes them so prevalent there.

The 'everyone is the same, everyone would shoot everyone' line of nihilism is just a comfort to gun nuts and right wingers for the most part, it negates any social or cultural problems their society has by making everyone inherently violent. Not to say that anywhere is lovely and pacifist and perfect, but that doesn't make the opposite any more true. Look at the reaction here to Dunblane, our society and culture was disgusted and happy to see change in the laws, for the most part. The fact that we did that while the US is incapable of similar action says something about the differences.

Where did I say that "everyone is the same?". If there was free access to gun ownership here in Ireland I know that the majority of people would end up with a gun if only to protect themselves from others with guns. And I doubt the UK would be different...but who knows for sure?

I work in a school. We have 220 pupils. Not a big school. We have had a gun incident and two knife incidents since January. All incidents involving teenagers who have behavioural difficulties and can be violent. That's not to say that they would have hurt anyone.. but they had weapons with them in school. And that's not unusual.

And no.. there is no country in the western world with as much freedom to access guns as the US. Show me another supposedly "civilised" country that has gun ownership as a constitutional right and where you can walk into what are essentially grocery shops and buy a carton of milk along with a gun without restriction

 

[editor]

 

[existentialist]

Wrapping themselves in the Tallit

 

[andysays]

Just in case I've got this wrong, does this really mean what I think it means?

a reminder of how quickly an unarmed society can be...

ie the Holocaust wouldn't have happened if Jews in Hitler's Germany all had the right to own AR-15s...

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

I'm sorry but this is obviously a piece of America rubbing off on you.

Oh there ain't no other way
Baby I was born this way
Baby I was born this way
Oh there ain't no other way
Baby I was born this way

Thanks! I needed a good laugh today.

 

[TheHoodedClaw]

 

[CRI]

For fuck's sake!
Who the fuck (in their right mind) has any sort of expectation for a a man to carry a gun?
I'm sorry but this is obviously a piece of America rubbing off on you. Nobody in civilised worlds expect a man to carry a gun and shoot as many passers by as he can.

The point she made is that guns ARE commonly associated with masculinity, or at least a particular strand of it, in the US. She didn't say it was a universal thing. Crikey.

 

[Cloo]

Cracked has done one of its good articles on American issues: How The NRA Lost Its Mind

tl;dr - the NRA began as an educational sort of movement to teach people to shoot that actually backed gun control. Late 70s, the gun-nuts took over and became a lobbying movement, and over the last few decades shifted the reading of the Second Amendment to mean Everybody Gets a Gun to the point where it is now not even debatable by the highest authorities in the land.

 

[squirrelp]

So, about your evidence.

The list you linked to claimed it proved that "every mass shooting over [the] last 20 years" had the use of psychotropic drugs in common, a claim you've echoed.

To prove that, it listed just 38 incidents.

Only 21 of those involved guns.

Some of those were suicides, incidents without shots fired, one where the person on medication was likely murdered, others where medication use is implied rather than stated.

How many mass shootings do you think there have been over the last 20 years? Do you think this is a sufficient sample to draw the conclusions you are trying to make?
...

Dude I'm kind of done quibbling over scientific rigour here.

Check out Psych Drug Shooters – http://www.psychdrugshooters.com for loads more examples. If you can identify a school mass shooting were psychotropic drugs were not involved by all means let me know. I haven't seen one

In case you missed it, here's Michael Moore calling for an investigation. I've had to post it twice already to broadcast it into the minds of everyone else. If you want to keep pestering me perhaps you could explain why Michael Moore is singling out psychotropic drugs as THE REASON why these school shootings are happening.

 

[Cloo]

Interesting if depressing thread here follows from tweet below. Trump has had this meeting with parents and youth who have been in school shootings, which he gives account of. Don't know how selective this thread's account is, but gives impression that attendees were heavily skewed towards those who feel the answer is 'more drills', 'good guys with guns', 'do more about mental health', rather than any kind of gun control. If I didn't know better I'd say the White House was cynically using these people.