The latest school massacres

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by DanaC

But having a gun and having a fucking vagina are not the same thing.

I agree, however to me they're equally as dangerous.

Originally Posted by DanaC

To stay fully armed against the highly unlikely and wholly hypothetical possibility of the government going to war against its own people seems kind of bizarre to me.

Yeah those are nut cases. They are small but vocal, I put them in the same drawer with second coming zealots.

[eta] I suspect a lot of that is down to a different history. Not least the history of law enforcement. The reason we only have specialist units of police that are armed, with the majority of police unarmed is something that comes from the way in which law enforcement developed here during the early days of police forces.

Our history is much different, in that large swaths of the country had no police, or just a US Marshall who covered thousands of square miles, self defense was a necessity. We also have a history of hunting, first for subsistence, then mostly for sport but still tradition. (A friend in north Jersey sent me a picture of a Bobcat in her yard, today.)

...for the same reason we have, for most of the early modern and modern periods, had relatively small standing armies except in times of war. Because standing armies swore their loyalty to the monarch, we have always tended to have quite a large 'militia' component to our land forces.

I wonder about that since we've moved from citizen solders to professionals. Where is their allegiance?

Originally Posted by Griff

The root cause of these events isn't guns. It is a lack of empathy. Empathy developed by having real connections with people. A friend was telling me today about something the teaching staff of the school she used to work at started doing after Columbine. Every Fall they would put every kid in the schools name on a 3x5 card on a wall. The teachers would put a check mark by every kids name that they felt they had a relationship with. They took away all the names of kids with a connection to staff and focused on the remaining kids the rest of the year slowly trying to build emotional connections with every one of them. This was a huge multi-year effort, but I think much more useful than pointing fingers left or right.

I think that's big step to better results. Reminds me of this teacher.

[sexobon]

What caliber will it be?

[it]

You actually can use policy to impact culture.

Let's imagine a scenario where one of the states requires to pass some actual training before getting a gun license. Early on there would be a big hoopla about gun control and whether it's constitutional.

But if it stands, then over a few months you are going to have a new rising group of gun owners with an exclusive club mentality - they feel like they earned it, where gun owners in other states did not. This can be a potent viral strain to infect american gun culture with - remember how the american republicans defended the patriot act and phone tapping and so on? If you don't have anything to hide, you have nothing to worry about. Much the same can happen here internally - within the NRA culture - if you don't want the tests it's because you don't think you can pass.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

In 2013 there were 8,454 homicides with a gun. Cops estimates 80% of those are gang/drug related, which are mostly in urban slums. Other people have a 0.000530%, or 1:188,700, chance of being killed with gun. Each year you statistically have a greater chance dying falling down stairs 1:180,000, or riding a bicycle 1:140,000.

See the problem? Numbers can be manipulated to support any position. Gun violence is something most people only see on TV news. It couldn’t happen here in my safe town/city. When it does, it’s a horrible thing, until the media assails you with the next horrible thing.
...

That pretty much negates the claim that people need guns to protect themselves. The chance they'll need to protect themselves is very slim.

If anyone in the "I accept carnage so that I can have all the guns I want" camp offered ANY ideas for ending mass shootings that didn't include gun control laws, I would listen.

My question to all the conservatives who, in the last two days, have said "we have to fix the mental illness problem", is will you increase taxes on the wealthy to finance the programs?

[sexobon]

And that's why we have school massacres, because kids today can't refrain from agenda drift. Interesting demonstration.

[it]

Back off the poor guy, he just had his first time and now your rubbing it in his face that he didn't go again? That's mean.

[classicman]

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[it]

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[classicman]

#FAIL
ALL THE BETTER TO FIT RIGHT IN YOUR TITLE SAKE FROM LEAKING

[it]

Originally Posted by classicman

#FAIL
ALL THE BETTER TO FIT RIGHT IN YOUR TITLE SAKE FROM LEAKING

It's an established relationship:

[Undertoad]

If you guys are done? Here is a phenomenal Malcolm Gladwell article which tells us all we need to know about how school shootings come about.

It's very long so I will sum up what this thread needs to know.

1. IT'S NOT GUNS
2. IT'S NOT (VIOLENT) CULTURE
3. IT'S NOT BAD PARENTING
4. IT'S (MOSTLY) NOT MENTAL ILLNESS
5. IT'S NOT ANYTHING SOLVED BY POLITICS

[Lamplighter]

I doubt that they are done yet.

UT, you've told us what it is NOT.
Now tell us what it IS...

[xoxoxoBruce]

Read the article, it's not simple enough to explain in a paragraph.

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Read the article, it's not simple enough to explain in a paragraph.

I usually do, but it's UT's posting and it would be very easy to follow up with sarcastic replies...
... it's NOT ABOUT PEPPERMINT CANDY CANES
... it's NOT ABOUT... etc.

I'd like to know first what UT thinks it's about that motivates him to make this post in this thread.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Still looking gift horses in the dentures, eh.