Here we go again mass shooting edition

[Crockett]

Gunman opens fire in a Louisiana Theater. Likely as not we'll soon hear:
1. "Why can't we have reasonable restrictions on firearms or better enforce our existing laws?"
2. "If others in the theater had been packing heat, the death/injury could would probably be lower."

I don't really want to get into a gun control debate because I don't believe there's a realistic solution based on increase or decrease of weaponry.

I think the answer is in love for self and others, socialization and connection to something larger than ourselves. I have a sad feeling people taking the lives of acquaintances and strangers have no understanding of human life's value.

 

[Mr. Deez]

I think the answer is in love for self and others, socialization and connection to something larger than ourselves. I have a sad feeling people taking the lives of acquaintances and strangers have no understanding of human life's value.

Well said, and I have to wonder why this sort of thing seems to happen a lot in the United States compared with the rest of the Western world. I don't think it's the differences in gun control laws. Though it's difficult to legally get a gun here in Europe (extensive background checks, licensing, ongoing testing, costs, etc.), it's not impossible. Furthermore, they're rampant on the black market. It's not much tougher than getting weed in the US. Furthermore, your European victims are FAR less likely to be armed and far more likely to cluster in crowded areas (pedestrian zones, subway cars, buses, etc.), so if a shooter decides to go ape-****, he can cause a hell of a lot of death before the "Polizei" show up and blow his head off. The point is that if you really want to cause mayhem here with a gun, you can do it. (See the Charlie Hebdo attack.)

Nevertheless, such rampages are very unusual here, and I can't help but think it's the culture, though it's hard for me to put my finger on it. Maybe their mental health services are better or more accessible. Maybe the people here are just less stressed out about money and work. Maybe with with all the good beer and wine, we're all just too mellow to kill. It's hard to say, but there's a definite difference in the culture.

 

[Sangre Naranjada]

Maybe during childhood and adolescence, the European population isn't nearly as over-prescribed on mood altering drugs from big pharma...

 

[huisache]

I've never run across anything bigger than myself to connect to but that is another topic. I have had a lot of contact with people who are mentally ill/depressed and with sociopaths due to one part of my professional life. There is no controlling people who are mad and have easy access to firearms. And we have a religious war going on on a world wide basis that is going to produce more, lots more, episodes like we have seen recently in Tennessee and a few years ago at Fort Hood (soon to be renamed). There are going to be a lot more of those episodes and people are going to want to be armed to protect themselves and others. You can't stop what is coming.

I have friends who are/were school teachers and they are concerned about what happens with the kids in the primary grades who go berserk in class for no observable reasons. Lots of them. What do they grow up to do? The disintegration of the nuclear family is proceeding apace and shows no signs of reversal. This is a disaster now and is going to get worse, inevitably.

As Americans we are not supposed to believe there is no solution if there is a problem. We are the greatest optimists in the history of man. That is why we ascribe bad motives to people like W who have no choice but to pick among a host of bad alternatives as "solutions" to intractable problems. It is going to get worse and there will be repeated instances of hissy fits about the Benghazis in the future.

Every time there is an incident such as the one in Louisiana people rush to ask what can be done. Disarmament is not going to happen. Gun searches at every church, movie theater, school, restaurant, bus and grocery store will probably happen and then we will have to deal with the problem of mass murders in parking lots.

 

[Htown77]

I was told that if the confederate flag came down in Columbia, South Carolina, all our shooting problems would be solved and our wildest dreams would come true.

Instead, Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez shot up 5 marines in Tennessee and John Russell Houser shot up a movie theater in Louisiana within a few weeks.

The president laments "he could not get anything done about gun control" yet did not fire the FBI agent that approved Dylan Roof buying a gun. The president sat on the information that the FBI approved a gun sale to someone that the law did not allow to purchase guns, until an unrelated political goal was achieved (the flag came down). For me, the president lost his rights to advocate for gun control when he had something in his power he could do (fire the FBI agent that approved a gun sale to someone charged with a felony) and he did nothing. He did not mention or admit the FBI failure until a political goal was achieved. The president did not care about better gun control, or even better enforcement of the current laws, in that shooting.

It's as if using a shooting as an excuse to achieve a political goal, does not stop shootings?

Well we could think about figuring out a more effective way to deal with shootings, or we could see if this shooter has a random vacation photo with the Andrew Jackson statute in New Orleans, and start a campaign to eliminate all symbols of Andrew Jackson.

 

[Dionysus]

I think the answer is in love for self and others, socialization and connection to something larger than ourselves.

Yes.

I've never run across anything bigger than myself to connect to but that is another topic.

It could just be human solidarity, a sense of connection to the lives we share this place with. More compassion and less competition.

 

[chango]

I was told that if the confederate flag came down in Columbia, South Carolina, all our shooting problems would be solved and our wildest dreams would come true.

Instead, Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez shot up 5 marines in Tennessee and John Russell Houser shot up a movie theater in Louisiana within a few weeks.

The president laments "he could not get anything done about gun control" yet did not fire the FBI agent that approved Dylan Roof buying a gun and sat on the information, until an unrelated political goal was achieved (the flag came down) that the FBI approved a gun sale to someone that the law did not allow to purchase guns. For me, the president lost his rights to advocate for gun control when he had something in his power he could do (fire the FBI agent that approved a gun sale to someone charged with a felony) and he did nothing, not talked about it until a political goal was achieved. The president did not care about better gun control, or even better enforcement of the current laws, in that shooting.

It's as if using a shooting as an excuse to achieve a political goal, does not stop shootings?

Well we could think about figuring out a more effective way to deal with shootings, or we could see if this shooter has a random vacation photo with the Andrew Jackson statute in New Orleans, and start a campaign to eliminate all symbols of Andrew Jackson.

I've read this post 4 times and I think it makes less sense each time.

 

[Htown77]

I've read this post 4 times and I think it makes less sense each time.

In summary, people only care about finding a real solution for shootings if they cannot use the shooting as a political opportunity to go after something they do not like.

Right now the president of UT is planning to take down the Jefferson Davis statue because of "the tragedy in Charleston" like taking down that statue is going to have any effect on violence in this country.

It's hard to say, but there's a definite difference in the culture.

It's because our culture and media focusses on doing things that solve absolutely nothing most of the time.

Did we spend the month after Dylan Roof talking about mental health or gun control? No we spent it talking about the flag, which absolutely did nothing to stop the next two deranged shooters from obtaining guns and taking innocent lives in Tennessee and Louisiana.

 

[IvanDiabloHorn]

It makes perfect sense. Obama laments lack of gun control and does not fire the agent working in the FBI that did not do his job regarding Roof. Obama does not admit the failure of federal agency or the agent that failed to do his job. A failure that very well might have stopped the senseless murder of nine people by a deranged maniac.
Instead he uses the opportunity to sing Amazing Grace at the funeral and bash the Confederate flag and lament gun control. What don't you understand.

 

[Mr. Deez]

It could just be human solidarity, a sense of connection to the lives we share this place with. More compassion and less competition.

Very true. Though I'm a man of faith, one doesn't have to be to care about something bigger than oneself.

 

[Seattle Husker]

It makes perfect sense. Obama laments lack of gun control and does not fire the agent working in the FBI that did not do his job regarding Roof. Obama does not admit the failure of federal agency or the agent that failed to do his job. A failure that very well might have stopped the senseless murder of nine people by a deranged maniac.

I don't know...the fact that some want to make these mass shootings a political issue like tieing the actions or inactions directly to a single person may also be a contributing factor.

Seriously...get over yourselves. We've got a gratuitous violence problem in America that isn't seen in other Western Industrialized countries to the degree we have here. Incarcerating 25% of the worlds prison population isn't helping, obviously. The solution must be multi-faceted but it seems the political interests of some are too deep seeded to recognize their pet interest is part of the solution. It's gun control (access), mental health, desire for fame, etc. The solution is rooted a bit in ALL of those things but each special interest automatically eliminates parts of the solution that inhibits us from truly solving the problems that ail us.

 

[IvanDiabloHorn]

A single person not doing their job resulted in a maniac obtaining a gun. What is political about that inaction? The question is "Why has that agent not been fired"? Since the agency in charge of background checks did not do their job in the Roof case, another question is "Are gun control background checks being completed timely and properly"? The answers might be step in the right direction. Doesn't seem to be political, more likely exposing a problem that can be solved.

Obama and others lamenting lack of gun control when the gun control in place was not followed and other political agendas pushed that had nothing to do with a maniac shooter are indeed political and solve nothing.

As for the people in prison, there is a reason they are there. Do the crime, do the time. If your parents couldn't raise you properly, I guess it falls to society to correct you. I love Anne Richards. I remember the revolving prison door and crime rate before she came along.

 

[Crockett]

I don't intend to get this down to the level of a gun control debate, because there is a robust under the radar market that makes it easy for anybody with initiative and guts to get a gun. Deez says even in Europe, with much stricter laws than imaginable here, criminals can get their hands on guns. Here is an article from the Atlantic detailing the Dylann Roof fiasco. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/07/dylann-roof-background-check/398267/ Maybe more information is available, but from what the Atlantic's journalists came up with, it wasn't clear whether it was a computer glitch, an error by an analyst or failure of local law enforcement agencies to put information into the system that would prevent him from passing a background check.

 

[Htown77]

Maybe more information is available, but from what the Atlantic's journalists came up with, it wasn't clear whether it was a computer glitch, an error by an analyst or failure of local law enforcement agencies to put information into the system that would prevent him from passing a background check.

And yet neither the president nor the media were focussed on determining how he passed the background check were they? They were focussed on taking a flag down in Columbia, South Carolina.

The solution must be multi-faceted but it seems the political interests of some are too deep seeded to recognize their pet interest is part of the solution.

Explain to me how taking the statues down at UT is part of the solution? How did a Jefferson Davis statue at UT factor into the Charleston or ANY mass shooting?

This is my point. The response was to go after something that was not part of the solution. The response did nothing to prevent the Tennessee or Louisiana shootings. Then we say "why cannot we not solve the problem?"

 

[Crockett]

And yet neither the president nor the media were focussed on determining how he passed the background check were they?

I guess they aren't hyperpartisan enough to attract your attention, but the Atlantic is part of the media and devoted resources to answer the question. Looks like they quoted administration officials who were looking into it. We can argue whether Obama is a good executive, but a good executive doesn't have to personally investigate or hold a press conference on the wrongly issued permit. He he certainly needs people working for him who can figure out what happened and explain it to us.

 

[Htown77]

Where was the attention BEFORE THAT FRIDAY? Where was the attention SINCE THAT FRIDAY? I brought the issue up on this board before that Friday by the way.

Google confederate flag articles and roof gun background check articles and see how many more confederate flag articles there are.

I guess they aren't hyperpartisan enough to attract your attention

I read the BBC. I used to read the washington post. I will check out cnn from time to time. I voted for Obama in 08 and libertarian in 2012. Don't make assumptions....

 

[Crockett]

As far as Jefferson Davis and the Rebel flag, I think the controversy is interesting because we still can't agree about the true motivations of what happend 150 years ago. But the issues should have scant impact on modern behavior or public policies. Approximately half of the controversy comes from their vehement defense.
As long as the printed words on the Davis Memorial are accurate and the memorial is not standing in the way of some compellingly important land use, I got no problems with it remaining on the grounds. But I wouldn't personally give a nickel to restore or preserve it.

 

[NJlonghorn]

I was told that if the confederate flag came down in Columbia, South Carolina, all our shooting problems would be solved and our wildest dreams would come true.

Some people were saying that removing the confederate flag would reduce violence, but that was a tiny aspect of the flag kerfuffle. I never expected removal of the flag to reduce violence. But that doesn't change the fact that blacks in South Carolina should not have to be confronted with a symbol of hate (or at least something reasonably perceived that way) being flown proudly in front of the capitol.

 

[zork]

so, no more gumbo or jambalaya?

 

[Monahorns]

Gunman opens fire in a Louisiana Theater. Likely as not we'll soon hear:
1. "Why can't we have reasonable restrictions on firearms or better enforce our existing laws?"
2. "If others in the theater had been packing heat, the death/injury could would probably be lower."

I don't really want to get into a gun control debate because I don't believe there's a realistic solution based on increase or decrease of weaponry.

I think the answer is in love for self and others, socialization and connection to something larger than ourselves. I have a sad feeling people taking the lives of acquaintances and strangers have no understanding of human life's value.

I agree with your solution.