Ongoing US Mass Shooting Thread

[Hemi-Cuda]

[direwolf]

Post from Dan Rather this morning.

It's a day later and I am seething. How do you, as a journalist, write the same story over and over again? How do you as a human being look at the faces of more dead children and teachers, hear about what might have been, and not say this has to stop? How do you as a politician continue to mouth empty words about "thoughts and prayers" and reach your hand out for the blood-soaked money of the NRA?

I have nothing more to say that hasn't been said countless times before, that I myself haven't said countless times before. My heart is broken, and it will be undoubtedly be broken again. My mind shutters at the craven futility of a political establishment that, at least for now on the national level, is completely fine with doing nothing of any real consequence.

The unimaginable can, with enough frequency of experience, become imaginable, and then commonplace, and then no big deal? Time to move on? Well not me. I mark each of these tragedies as acts that diminish our nation and our humanity. I believe, in the end, the vast majority of my fellow Americans feel the same way.

I don't know what the solution is. We need to try many things. We need to understand that not all will succeed. But gun violence, and not just school shootings, is a public health scourge of epidemic proportions. It is a real and present danger to the security of the United States and its people. And it seems that the first step for any treatment of this plague will have to come at the ballot box.

[photon]

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

Clearly the solution is to arm children as they arm military men. If they all had guns, they'd be as alive as the troops.

[PsYcNeT]

https://twitter.com/user/status/997996130318217216

[PsYcNeT]

Great piece by Frum in the Atlantic.

https://twitter.com/user/status/998177239534637056

[snootchiebootchies]

This chart is from a few months ago but it's definitely the guns. You have to intentionally deceive yourself to ignore the overwhelming data.



https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/07/w...rnational.html

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Clearly the solution is to arm children as they arm military men. If they all had guns, they'd be as alive as the troops.

If I were a betting man, I’d wager this outcome occurring before any meaningful gun control laws are enacted.

[calgarybornnraised]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Clearly the solution is to arm children as they arm military men. If they all had guns, they'd be as alive as the troops.

Might as well make it the 4 R’s, Reading, Writing, Arithmetic and AR’s. Start them young like in preschool or Kindergarten.

[direwolf]

Idiots like this are why sensible gun reform will never happen in the U.S.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/20/us/te...ngs/index.html

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick on Sunday said school shootings aren't happening because of an issue with guns. Rather, he blamed the tragedies on a litany of other reasons, including abortions and violent video games.

"We have 50 million abortions. We have families that are broken apart, no fathers at home. We have incredible heinous violence as a [video] game, two hours a day in front of their eyes. And we stand here and we wonder why this happens to certain students."

"We have to arm our teachers. ... If another person has a gun, the best way to stop that person is with another person with a gun. But an even better way is four people with a gun to stop that person."

[HockeyIlliterate]

Dan Patrick is a disgrace.

Someone should ask him how many more school shootings there might be if there weren't 50 million abortions because, well, I'm sure that not all of those 50 million fetuses were going to grow up to be saints.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by HockeyIlliterate

Dan Patrick is a disgrace.

Someone should ask him how many more school shootings there might be if there weren't 50 million abortions because, well, I'm sure that not all of those 50 million fetuses were going to grow up to be saints.

There have been many studies that actually show the opposite, a higher abortion rate correlates to a lower crime rate, unwanted and badly parented children being massively more likely to become criminals

[EldrickOnIce]

Originally Posted by direwolf

Idiots like this are why sensible gun reform will never happen in the U.S.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/20/us/te...ngs/index.html

Teachers in Texas are already eligible to carry firearms in schools. Maybe Patrick thinks they should be forced to carry

[CroFlames]

It's so Trumpesque to throw out half assed suggestions at a presser to solve complex problems like gun violence.



"Ya, just like, reduce the number of doors in a school of 1,400 kids, and ban all violent video games from kids who come from a home with no father. I base these solutions on nothing but my benevolent genius pseudo research. And God."


Voila, utopia.

[DuffMan]

Definitely not the guns

[CroFlames]

@ Duffman

That is an unfair comparison. The combined populations of those countries is only 434 million, and NONE of those countries have a violent past.

Nice strawman.


/sarcasm, just in case.

[Red Slinger]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

@ Duffman

That is an unfair comparison. The combined populations of those countries is only 434 million, and NONE of those countries have a violent past.



Nice strawman.

France, Germany, GB and Japan don't have violent pasts?

That said, I think you're correct in your underlying premise that violence is deeply ingrained into the DNA of modern American culture. However, some of the reasons for that, IMO, is the obsession with guns, political backing of the NRA and bald-faced procurement of government by weapons manufacturers.

[OMG!WTF!]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

@ Duffman

That is an unfair comparison. The combined populations of those countries is only 434 million, and NONE of those countries have a violent past.

Nice strawman.


/sarcasm, just in case.

So 288 to 5 then?

[DuffMan]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

@ Duffman

That is an unfair comparison. The combined populations of those countries is only 434 million, and NONE of those countries have a violent past.

Nice strawman.


/sarcasm, just in case.

Also, other countries don't have the Ritalin problem that the US does, which leads to school shootings according to Oliver North, the incoming NRA president.

Originally Posted by Oliver North

"They've been drugged in many cases. Nearly all of these perpetrators are male, and they're young teenagers in most cases, and they've come through a culture where violence is commonplace," he said. "Many of these young boys have been on Ritalin since they were in kindergarten. Now, I am certainly not a doctor, I'm a Marine, but I can see those kinds of things happening."

[CroFlames]

My attempt at humor failed.