Active shooter at Texas elementary school

[steross]

T Why does everyone kneejerk to taking guns away from law abiding citizens but refuse to even entertain a discussion about the ways we are brainwashing and programming the minds of these mass shooting perpetrators. If we really care about these murdered kids we need to look at all the reasons that lead to these atrocities.

It might have to do with the fact that those movies and videogames are just as easily available in other nations where these acts hardly ever happen but guns are not as easily available. How do those items brainwash only American mass shooters but not foreign mass shooters? Why did America have a much higher rate of these shootings before videogames were common?

What you are calling "kneejerk" looks like an objective look at data to me. If everywhere was dealing with these issues, your argument would make sense. Being that this is an American phenomenon, we should look at what is different in America, not blame things that are worldwide but act like they only have an effect here. BTW, I like guns far more than violent videogames. But, I just don't think gun advocates make compelling arguments when it comes to the facts of this situation.

And, maybe the answer is that you cannot combine easy access to firearms with access to violent videogames. Maybe the combination is the issue. Well, then we are going to have to decide if we want to further limit the first amendment or second amendment.

 

[OSUPsych]

Maybe you're right but it's at least a debate we haven't had multiple times like gun control. We all know every argument that both sides are going to use on that one. Maybe a different debate to discover if and where common ground might be found will be beneficial.

Plus I actually think mental health is by far the most important discussion to have about this. I doubt that the mere availability of guns is the thing that is breaking these kids mentally. Regardless of anything we do or don't do about guns, we need to find out what is causing this and address it. Because guns aren't the only things that can be used to cause mass casualties.

I sincerely don't mean this as dismissive, but just because you haven't tried to deeply understand the issue doesn't mean that it's not a discussion that comes up constantly with legislatures or even in the news. Schools and relevant policymakers and researchers have been working on bullying for decades. I've personally been involved in advocacy efforts for mental health for years, even meeting with legislators and other policymakers. I remember a specific interaction with a "it's mental health not guns" legislator where we were advocating for maintaining a specific mental health training and service program. His response was that the government had to "tighten its belt". This was shortly after Sandy Hook. Now, if this latest shooting really is the last straw and people are willing to invest now, I will gladly jump on the opportunity.

 

[OSUgradndad85]

Maybe you're right but it's at least a debate we haven't had multiple times like gun control. We all know every argument that both sides are going to use on that one. Maybe a different debate to discover if and where common ground might be found will be beneficial.

Plus I actually think mental health is by far the most important discussion to have about this. I doubt that the mere availability of guns is the thing that is breaking these kids mentally. Regardless of anything we do or don't do about guns, we need to find out what is causing this and address it. Because guns aren't the only things that can be used to cause mass casualties.

I think the chart subject that LS1 posted earlier is also worth exploring further and discussing, basically our culture since the birth of social media.

 

[steross]

Plus I actually think mental health is by far the most important discussion to have about this. I doubt that the mere availability of guns is the thing that is breaking these kids mentally. Regardless of anything we do or don't do about guns, we need to find out what is causing this and address it. Because guns aren't the only things that can be used to cause mass casualties.

I don't have the data but an educated guess would say that the majority of gun rights advocates are also against having a public health care system. But, they are also saying that our current system is failing at mental health care as the source of this issue. Meanwhile, the other nations with public health care systems seem to be keeping this mental health problem in check since they do not have the same problem with mass shootings.

Sounds like gun rights advocates should start leading the charge to have a universal and comprehensive public health care system. If they are saying that mental health care is why other coutnries have controlled this issue, why would they not advocate to create a similar system here?

 

[Pokit N]

That article is 3 years old. The homicide rate is at a 25 year high.
View attachment 95793

Gee what happened in 2020 that made murders skyrocket...Gosh I can't remember.

 

[steross]

Gee what happened in 2020 that made murders skyrocket...Gosh I can't remember.

I simply updated what he posted because it isn't accurate now. Why the need to respond so rudely and sarcastically?

You may not "remember" but I can assure you, I do. It still keeps me awake at night sometimes, in fact.

 

[steross]

Positioning an armed guard at schools, how confident are we that it will fix the problem if multiple police officers didn't stop this?

https://apnews.com/article/uvalde-texas-school-shooting-44a7cfb990feaa6ffe482483df6e4683

UVALDE, Texas (AP) — Frustrated onlookers urged police officers to charge into the Texas elementary school where a gunman’s rampage killed 19 children and two teachers, witnesses said Wednesday, as investigators worked to track the massacre that lasted upwards of 40 minutes and ended when the 18-year-old shooter was killed by a Border Patrol team.

“Go in there! Go in there!” nearby women shouted at the officers soon after the attack began, said Juan Carranza, 24, who saw the scene from outside his house, across the street from Robb Elementary School in the close-knit town of Uvalde. Carranza said the officers did not go in.

 

[Pokit N]

I simply updated what he posted because it isn't accurate now. Why the need to respond so rudely and sarcastically?

You may not "remember" but I can assure you, I do. It still keeps me awake at night sometimes, in fact.

sorry to be sarcastic

The summer of 2020 is a good reason why I personally am very reluctant to want to give up any gun rights.

 

[Pokit N]

Positioning an armed guard at schools, how confident are we that it will fix the problem if multiple police officers didn't stop this?

https://apnews.com/article/uvalde-texas-school-shooting-44a7cfb990feaa6ffe482483df6e4683

UVALDE, Texas (AP) — Frustrated onlookers urged police officers to charge into the Texas elementary school where a gunman’s rampage killed 19 children and two teachers, witnesses said Wednesday, as investigators worked to track the massacre that lasted upwards of 40 minutes and ended when the 18-year-old shooter was killed by a Border Patrol team.

“Go in there! Go in there!” nearby women shouted at the officers soon after the attack began, said Juan Carranza, 24, who saw the scene from outside his house, across the street from Robb Elementary School in the close-knit town of Uvalde. Carranza said the officers did not go in.

It's unbelievable, and yes it does make me question what difference it would make if the guards do nothing but stand there.

 

[kaboy42]

No one is going hunting with it and it's unreliable for self defense.

This is 1000% false and tells me of your experience with this "platform" of rifle.

Many, many, MANY people hunt with it as a modern "sporting" rifle... in multiple calibers. They are THE platform for hog hunting and varmint hunting. As for self-defense, at home, again... WRONG. Because of the ease of use of the platform, the flexibility, the multiple calibers, the ease to train/learn with, again... MANY utilize this platform for home self-defense.

My son started his rifle/gun (safety) "training" with me with a bb-gun, progressed to a single shot .22lr rifle, and then progressed to a .22lr AR, and then to .223 AR. The same way my Dad introduced me. He's 19 and has thousands of rounds at the range with the AR... but probably less than 200 rounds with a pistol/handgun. It was just safer and easier to teach him this way than to put a short barreled handgun in his hand.

 

[steross]

I've never really studied international mass shootings, but I've always heard that this issue is largely unique to the US. Even in other countries with high levels of civilian firearm ownership, our mass shooting numbers are much higher.

The chart I posted above shows that the overall number of mass shootings in the US are largely unchanged over the past few decades, but the number or high profile mass shootings like school shootings have been increasing. Why do you believe we're seeing this increase?

In my mind, the most logical reason is that these people want to gain fame as they check out of this life. Mass shootings and social media provide that opportunity. I could be wrong though. I don't have a real firm understanding of why people choose to commit these heinous acts.

Definitely the noteriety issue has always been present but is definitely worse now with social media and not just regular media. I am a big advocate of No Noteriety and have donated to them in the past. Copycating probably plays a huge part. That is why you no longer see teen suicide reported in the local paper. We have known about this effect for centuries.

An excerpt from one of my favorite books, Influence by Cialdini:

The story of the Werther effect is both chilling and intriguing. More than two centuries ago, the great man of German literature, Johann von Goethe, published a novel entitled Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (The Sorrows of Young Werther). The book, in which the hero, named Werther, commits suicide, had a remarkable impact. Not only did it provide Goethe with immediate fame, but it also sparked a wave of emulative suicides across Europe. So powerful was this effect that authorities in several countries banned the novel. Professor Phillips’s own work has traced the Werther effect to modern times. His research has demonstrated that immediately following a front-page suicide story the suicide rate increases dramatically in those geographical areas where the story has been highly publicized. It is Phillips’s argument that certain troubled people who read of another’s self-inflicted death kill themselves in imitation. In a morbid illustration of the principle of social proof, these people decide how they should act on the basis of how some other troubled person has acted. Phillips got his evidence for the modern-day Werther effect by examining the suicide statistics in the United States between 1947 and 1968. He found that within two months after every front-page suicide story, an average of fifty-eight more people than usual killed themselves. In a sense, each suicide story killed fifty-eight people who otherwise would have gone on living. Phillips also found that this tendency for suicides to beget suicides occurred principally in those parts of the country where the first suicide was highly publicized and that the wider the publicity given the first suicide, the greater the number of later suicides. If the facts surrounding the Werther effect seem to you suspiciously like those surrounding the influence of suicide stories on air and traffic fatalities, the similarities have not been lost on Professor Phillips either. In fact, he contends that all the excess deaths following a front-page suicide incident can be explained as the same thing: copycat suicides. Upon learning of another’s suicide, an uncomfortably large number of people decide that suicide is an appropriate action for themselves as well. Some of these individuals then proceed to commit the act in a straightforward, no-bones-about-it fashion, causing the suicide rate to jump. Others, however, are less direct. For any of several reasons—to protect their reputations, to spare their families the shame and hurt, to allow their dependents to collect on insurance policies—they do not want to appear to have killed themselves. They would rather seem to have died accidentally. So, purposively but furtively, they cause the wreck of a car or a plane they are operating or are simply riding in. This could be accomplished in a variety of all-too-familiar-sounding ways. A commercial-airline pilot could dip the nose of the aircraft at a crucial point of
takeoff or could inexplicably land on an already occupied runway against instructions from the control tower; the driver of a car could suddenly swerve into a tree or into oncoming traffic; a passenger in an automobile or corporate jet could incapacitate the operator, causing a deadly crash; the pilot of a private plane could, despite all radio warnings, plow into another aircraft. Thus the alarming climb in crash fatalities we find following front-page suicides is, according to Dr. Phillips, most likely due to the Werther effect secretly applied.

Cialdini PhD, Robert B.. Influence (Collins Business Essentials) . HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

 

[Bowers2]

I have zero idea of why Obama would bring up George Floyd instead of focusing on the pain of Uvalde parents.
https://twitter.com/barackobama/status/1529555038246428672?s=21&t=JDmCIkup39OD6QixWpxUMQ

Yesterday was the anniversary of the Floyd killing.

 

[steross]

sorry to be sarcastic

The summer of 2020 is a good reason why I personally am very reluctant to want to give up any gun rights.

I honestly think very few want to completely take your rights to a gun away. Nowhere near enough to make it happen. But, if it could stop at least some of these horrific acts, you still wouldn't be willing to give up "any" gun rights? Seems as long as there is no compromise, we are going to cause these tragedies to happen. And, while I fear the small possiblity of severe civil strife occurring, having completely unfettered access to firearms isn't worth the cries of those parents in my opinion. Did you watch that video posted earlier?

 

[OSUgradndad85]

Yesterday was the anniversary of the Floyd killing.

That's indeed a fact, however, was it so critical of an anniversary that he was compelled to try and direct our attention back on Floyd?

 

[LS1 Z28]

But 33% of them involve AR's.

Totally hot take here. In no way am I saying we need to ban handguns or rifles and shotguns used for hunting. If you want personal protection or look forward to deer season I'm all about it. As a kid my preference was duck hunting but I spent plenty of time in a deer stand so this isn't someone wanting to ban guns.

The thing about an AR, it wouldn't have been banned in 1994 so it's not defined as an assault rifle. But we have a generation or two who grew up playing video games with cool weapons and it looks cool. Heck, when I was a kid bb guns looked like standard rifles. You pump you shoot and it was fun. A few years ago my former BIL and I were in a local sporting goods store and the bb guns we saw looked like assault rifles but they shot plastic bullets instead of lead or copper. I thought it was funny at the time because the guns looked way more lethal but were way less likely to shoot out an eye. But a generation of kids grew up shooting them because they looked cool and yesterday a kid who probably had one when he was 10 killed a bunch of 10 year olds with a gun he thought was cool.

Again I'm not a person that wants to ban guns but maybe we stop making this one. It really serves no purpose other than it looks cool. No one is going hunting with it and it's unreliable for self defense. But it is slick looking. If you own one privately that's fine. Stop making them and it becomes more valuable in your collection, but that also means you aren't likely to sell it to a kid who wants to do something stupid.

It doesn't solve the problem but it keeps kids with issues from getting their hands on one.

Everyone seems to have different statistics based off of different criteria, but I think your numbers are a little high. This link shows that only 16% of mass shootings have involved assault rifles, and not all of them were AR-15s.

I'm not a gun expert, but it's my understanding that the AR-15 is the most popular rifle in our country. There are over 20 million in circulation. There is a coolness factor, but they're also highly customizable. There are a lot of similar guns that would step in to take its place if it were banned.

As I mentioned earlier, it may be prudent to raise the minimum age to purchase an assault rifle from 18 to 21. It's kind of odd that an 18 Y/O can purchase and AR-15, but they can't buy a six shot revolver.

One last note, the 2A had very little to do with hunting. It's primary purpose was to allow our citizens to protect themselves from enemies foreign and domestic. Our founding fathers wanted our citizens to have more power than our government.

I understand that change is needed, I just hope the change we settle on has a minimum effect on lawful gunowners.

 

[PF5]

I seriously do Not understand why anyone would be against stricter gun control...it will not affect the good ole law abiding ones who just want a pistol for self defense, rifle for hunting, etc...if stricter gun control could maybe cut in half or a third of mass shootings isn't that enough?!
Personally, I own no guns, but I used to have two hunting rifles and a pistol...don't hunt anymore and just never used the pistol, so sold them...buuuuuutttt, I'm thinking about getting at least a pistol cuz our world is so Effed up!!!!

 

[TexanCowboy]

https://www.startribune.com/texas-g...w-increasingly-violent-friends-say/600176290/

An article from the Star Tribune about the mental downspiral the gunman went through. As many have said, mental states of these kids are what drive them to such heinous acts. Bullying is a real problem that has really exploded via social media. Yes, Facebook came out in the mid 2000's, but it was limited to an older age bracket until the 2010's. Here is a good interview from Nate Burleson on CBS with some children on the affects of phones and social media. It just so happened that this story came out the same day of the shooting, strange coincidence.

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/kids-on-the-pressures-of-having-a-cell-phone-social-media-at-an-early-age/#x



I really hope there is an anti-bullying push here, because it would help the mental state of many people in the younger generations. As I look back on my school days, there were definitely times I am not proud of and wish I would have handled differently. I was in school from the late 90's to 2010 and can honestly not recall any type of anti-bullying campaign or in-service that was presented to the student body.

 

[PF5]

depends on who you talk to about this stupid @$$ murderer, but I read in another story where 'friends' said he was not bullied, but was 'the bully'...who really knows...

 

[OSUPsych]

depends on who you talk to about this stupid @$$ murderer, but I read in another story where 'friends' said he was not bullied, but was 'the bully'...who really knows...

Most often bullies have been or are being bullied themselves, at least according to the school psych data I'm familiar with

 

[TexanCowboy]

depends on who you talk to about this stupid @$$ murderer, but I read in another story where 'friends' said he was not bullied, but was 'the bully'...who really knows...

Either way, addressing bullying would have helped. People who are bullies are usually the victims in some other situation, and they do not know how to respond in a constructive manner.

I'd be curious to read the story you're referring to if you have a link.

Texas Anti Bullying Coalition page:
https://www.txabc.org/