The latest school massacres

[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...

[Happy Monkey]

From the article, it does seem to have something to do with mental illness, but not necessarily an illness that can be detected until it's too late (though there was an anecdote about a potentially concerning, in hindsight, reaction to hunting).

Also, it tied into the original Dawkins concept of memes (though not by name); ie, contagious thoughts that can take hold in particular people's brains.

It's hard to say what the course of action is in that scenario. Never report on mass murder?

[xoxoxoBruce]

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

[Undertoad]

Right, the article did such a fine job developing the point, it's really hard to sum it up. It's not exactly copycat, not exactly hero worship. And there is a social element, so strong that these guys are actually kind of going against their own norms when they end up in it. Like a slow-motion gang or a slow-motion riot.

One danger is that they go beyond guns. The article details this one shooter, caught before he could put everything into action. He had a storage locker with several pounds of ingredients to build powerful explosives. When they asked him about it:

"Sometime before the end of the school year, my plan was to steal a recycling bin from the school and take one of the pressure cookers I made and put it in the hallway and blow it up during passing period time. . . . I would detonate when people were fleeing, just like the Boston bombings, and blow them up too. Then my plans were to enter and throw Molotov cocktails and pipe bombs and destroy everyone and then when the SWAT comes I would destroy myself.”

One of his goals was to correct the mistakes Klebold and Harris made in building their explosives. But this kid also had guns:

In his bedroom, he had an SKS assault rifle with sixty rounds of ammunition, a Beretta 9-mm. handgun, a gun safe with an additional firearm, and three ready-made explosive devices. On the day of the attack, he would start with a .22-calibre rifle and move on to a shotgun, in order to prove that high-capacity assault-style rifles were unnecessary for an effective school attack.

[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.

[Lamplighter]

This posting is from the Weird News thread where it was not really appropriate

Originally Posted by Undertoad

...
First we have to decide on murders versus deaths.
I think murders is the thing we really care about.
We are not trying to work out the detail of all the bad things that might go wrong in the world.
The deaths number includes suicides and accidents and criminals killed by cops.
...
As far as ghetto goes, it is not a manipulation.
The number of gun murders in the ghetto is at least 10 times higher than
in your worst Walmart Texan nightmare. Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight breaks it down for us.
He rudely breaks it down by black homicide victims in the US
(19.4 per 100,000) versus white homicide victims (2.5 per 100,000).
That's not exactly it, because that's not exactly the ghetto.
And black non-ghetto neighborhoods are not a problem anyway.
This is not a racial thing.
It is a ghetto thing.
...

UT, this is the part of your post I question most. I agree setting priorities is necessary;
but saying gun-murders vs gun-deaths are “the thing we really care about”
… ”in the ghetto” and “And black non-ghetto neighborhoods are not a problem anyway.”
make your statements highly subjective and political.

What is your basis for excluding “gun deaths” ?
And what do you mean by “It is a ghetto thing” ?

Regarding the link to Nate Silver, he is actually using homicide rates, not numbers of homicide victims.
Using homicide rates in different countries is an apples-and-oranges distraction to slice data
thin enough that the US does not appear to be an outlier among other countries !
How is that even relevant ?

But with respect to numbers of homicide victims, the differences in population sizes
of the three major US ethnic groups yields a different perspective.

Whites : 318,857,056 X 77.4 % X 2.5/100k = 6,169 deaths = 36% of all homicides
Blacks : 318,857,056 X 13.2 % X 19.4/100k = 8,165 deaths = 47% of all homicides
Hispanic: 318,857,056 X 17.4 % X 5.3/100k = 2,940 deaths = 17% of all homicides

These numbers of homicides speak for themselves.

[Undertoad]

I shall quote you on that

"Blacks are only 13.2% of the population and yet responsible for 47% of all homicides" - LL

To dismiss rates is below amateurish and puts you in that ^ position

You are arguing statistics with wizard Nate Silver, infamous NY Times predictor of Obama's electoral outcomes, you may be a little out of your element

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

...
You are arguing statistics with wizard Nate Silver, infamous NY Times predictor
of Obama's electoral outcomes, you may be a little out of your element

Yes, I know who he is and have been familiar with his data/argument for some time.
Now please tell me how his comparison of gun-homicide rates in other countries is relevant to the US.

And pushing statistics based on rates or % can be hazardous.
Just be aware that the wording in your post was imprecise and misleading.

I agree with you that rates are higher among the smaller Black population.
I would hope you agree that the numbers of homicide victims in White
and Hispanic populations are large, but not 10 or 12 or 20 times higher.

If you have already decided you are willing to ignore thousands of other deaths, that's your choice.

.

[Lamplighter]

This is a bit ridiculous ... it appears UT and xoB have had a knee-jerk reaction
to my use of the word "concealed". So, let's try again.

With respect to "intimidation" of a spouse/S.O./child/neighbor,
we are talking about situations where one person is using a gun
to dominate/threaten/force a family member.
... obviously... without actually firing the gun !

Such intimidation often leads to concealment or denial of actual physical abuse.

Law Enforcement, Public Health, Social Workers, Lawyers, Medical Professionals, and family members
know this is happening, but have not had a "legal" means of intervening.
Various formal and informal groups have attempted to prevent this kind of abuse via legislation.

The NRA campaigns vigorously to stop such efforts as being "anti-gun" legislation.
But the NRA was NOT successful in California and the Governor has now signed 3 bills into law.
Here is an article describing Assembly Bill 1014, the Gun Violence Restraining Order (GVRO) Law.

California’s New Gun Violence Restraining Order Law
Posted October 30, 2014

On September 30, Governor Jerry Brown signed California AB 1014,
a new law that allows family members and law enforcement officers to seek
a Gun Violence Restraining Order (GVRO) against people who pose a threat to themselves or others.

The GVRO law addresses this glaring problem by allowing concerned family members,
as well as law enforcement officers, to obtain a Gun Violence Restraining Order,
which is modeled on California’s effective domestic violence prevention laws.

If a judge determines someone to be a risk and issues a GVRO, that order will:
• Temporarily prohibit that person from purchasing or possessing firearms or ammunition
• Allow law enforcement to temporarily remove any firearms or ammunition already in that person’s possession
• Include procedures to allow the person have his or her guns and ammunition returned

This is the NRA’s take on this law:

Assembly Bill 1014 authorizes a family member or law enforcement officer to file
for a restraining order against you to have your firearms forfeited.

.

[xoxoxoBruce]

So anyone who rejects your assertions is knee jerking? Why not eliminate the knee and ing.

Where are the statistics in this "intimidation"? Oh that's right, they keep statistics on facts, not rumors, unproven allegations, and possible.

California's new legislation is a feel good law. In most places even an unproven allegation of abuse causes the cops to seize all guns in the house and you'll play hell trying to get them back. She, "He said he would go get the gun and shoot me". He, "No I didn't". Bam, he's out of the house, and the gun(s) are gone.

Now "Law Enforcement, Public Health, Social Workers, Lawyers, Medical Professionals, and family members can act on their suspicions, with no complaint from the suspected abused? The NRA, unfortunately, are against everything, reasonable, or in this case unreasonable, or not.

[DanaC]

The intimidation issue is a bastard. The authorities are damned if they do and damned if they don't on that one. In the US and in the UK there has been, historically and unfortunately continuing into the present in many areas, a tendency not to act until serious or fatal violence erupts and there's a victim to carry out. Case after case of victims, mainly but not exclusively female, reporting intimidation and threat by partners or ex-partners, with sharp escalation and multiple attempts to seek help and police have done nothing. Then the victim, or victims are gone and there is an enquiry to see what more could have been done. Every time those enquiries start up it seems they find the same thing: warning sign after warning sign, reports of mild violence or serious threat dismissed or simply not acted upon, victims intimidated into silence and support authorities simply dropping away and not pursuing the case, victims and concerned third parties filing reports that were ignored, little to no attempt to seriously enforce stay away orders where they've had them.

On the other hand, an absolute assumption that the woman is right and the man is a threat puts an awful lot of power into the hands of the vindictive in an argument.

[xoxoxoBruce]

I agree with you that rates are higher among the smaller Black population.
I would hope you agree that the numbers of homicide victims in White
and Hispanic populations are large, but not 10 or 12 or 20 times higher.

Color and ethnicity are not the determining factor, being poor and forced to live in a high density crime ridden neighborhood, (can you say ghetto, boys and girls) increases the chance of being a victim by an order of magnitude. That speaks to the risk, it does not say it doesn't happen everywhere.

When the waves of immigrants came through Ellis Island, they typically sought there own kind in NY City. Also typically, they were poor and forced into that exact type of neighborhood I'd call a ghetto, and suffered high crime rates including murder, until they could manage to flee to the wide open spaces. Once there, the suffering wasn't gone completely, but decreased substantially.

So add economics to mental health, and a slew of other causes that some do-gooders wish to ignore for the convenience and easy slogans of a simple ban all guns campaign. When guns are gone, altering the lives of millions, and shit still happens, they'll find a new boogie man to chase.