Ongoing US Mass Shooting Thread

[MrMastodonFarm]

Resolute is killing it in this thread, metaphorically of course. If he had an actual gun the body count would be much higher.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by nfotiu

I'm not American though. I've lived here for 15 years, and I guess I am a little apathetic towards gun control, especially as it relates to mass shootings. I guess I'm also a little more tolerant of other people's cultures and beliefs too.

Semantics man, I remember you saying you were born in Canada, but I considered living there for 15 years as being a part of America, and your attitude is exactly representative of too many Americans when it comes to gun control.

You just nailed it in your own post. The bolded is exactly what Canadian RESIDENTS get frustrated with coming from American RESIDENTS.

[Bobblehead]

But it all seems to go hand in hand with a culture of fear and distrust.

The whole 2nd Amendment was in place to allow a militia for form if needed and overthrow a corrupt government.

Now people want to be able to have guns to protect themselves.
Entrench more laws to make it easier to obtain and carry guns, ostensibly to protect themselves.
The fear of terrorism has stripped a huge number of personal liberties.
People don't trust the police, for a variety of reasons.
Fear, fear, fear.
I don't trust my fellow man, so I need to protect myself since no one else can or will.
So more people are afraid, so more people arm themselves, so more people have guns, so there is more reason to be afraid. Rince and repeat.
And it is just a vicious cycle and I don't see any way out.

It isn't gun ownership, per se.
But the fear behind why people feel they need to own guns.
And I although I think it will scare a lot of people silly to need to give up their guns, I honestly believe that initial fear would pass and overall fear would decline.

But that is just my rambling thoughts from watching this escalate for decades now.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

The reason these become rallying points is because our society only really functions if we learn from our past mistakes to mitigate or prevent repeats.

Well, no, they work as rallying points because our brains are not properly evolved to process meaningful sample sizes as such, so one girl getting shot is much more impactful than 9,000 gun homicides per year. In this case, your argument, which seems pretty practical, is "if a tragedy can spur change for the better, who cares what the underlying reasons are - good results are good results".

Which isn't always true in the case of knee-jerk reactions to statistically irrelevant events like this one, but at least where it is we might as well make the best of it, I guess?

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by nfotiu

I'm not American though. I've lived here for 15 years, and I guess I am a little apathetic towards gun control, especially as it relates to mass shootings. I guess I'm also a little more tolerant of other people's cultures and beliefs too.

You are more tolerant of a culture of mass shootings....WTF?

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by nfotiu

That's a more thoughtful response, but not one I necessarily agree with. That type of thinking has also led to invading Iraq, the Patriot Act, Kindergarten teachers being armed, and many other bad decisions.

That type of thinking has led to building codes that prevent entire cities from burning, quality standards for water supplies, airplanes that are much harder to crash, cars that absorb and redirect energy in a crash rather than just letting the human body take it all , etc.

My personal opinion is just that unless you can get the number of guns here from 300 million to about 100 million, then there probably isn't a lot of point, because the really the only way to reduce the number of gun deaths is to significantly reduce the number of guns.

Agreed. But that is the entire point of this debate. Not just about outlawing various types of weapons, but also encouraging a change in attitude that will result in fewer guns in circulation.

No, it's not easy. But convincing people to quit smoking isn't either, yet concerted efforts have been made and which have significantly reduced the percentage of the population that smokes.

Implementing laws that make it harder for some people to get guns, or to attempt to say make it harder for mentally ill people to buy guns may make people feel better that they think they made a difference and did something, but in reality, it likely doesn't make anyone all that much safer. Not saying I am against anything like that, just think it is a waste of time, money and political capital.

"Too hard, don't try" is the excuse a defeatist takes to avoid making an effort. You are also looking at the situation too narrowly. You are viewing it as a case of laws only - and even then, laws that target only specific 'undesirables". This only works if society changes. And that only happens if the populace stands up and opposes the pro-gun lobbies. As Bobblehead has noted with the posting of those articles, the NRA worked very hard to change how people view guns. It will take no less effort to reverse that thinking.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by jayswin

Semantics man, I remember you saying you were born in Canada, but I considered living there for 15 years as being a part of America, and your attitude is exactly representative of too many Americans when it comes to gun control.

You just nailed it in your own post. The bolded is exactly what Canadian RESIDENTS get frustrated with coming from American RESIDENTS.

It's not that I'm anti-gun control (I'm not), I just put mass shootings in that same category as terrorist attacks, shark attacks, and plane crashes as things that get too much attention and generate way too much fear when they have such an insignificant chance of happening. Putting in policy for a country of 300 million based on something that impacts what about 100 lives a year at most, is not always a good idea.

I'd be more inclined to move from my apathetic stance if the talk was about policies designed to address more common acts of violence such as poor people dying at the hands of other poor people and domestic violence.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Well, no, they work as rallying points because our brains are not properly evolved to process meaningful sample sizes as such, so one girl getting shot is much more impactful than 9,000 gun homicides per year. In this case, your argument, which seems pretty practical, is "if a tragedy can spur change for the better, who cares what the underlying reasons are - good results are good results".

Which isn't always true in the case of knee-jerk reactions to statistically irrelevant events like this one, but at least where it is we might as well make the best of it, I guess?

Granted. Spectacular examples make for spectacular results.

But accumulation of incidents over time spurs change as well. A basic example of that is when cities fix up road intersections that are known for being dangerous. The back access into Chestermere from Highway 1 being a local example - every time there is an incident there, the calls to fix it grow. As that support grows, the pressure to do something grows. Inevitably, it will be fixed. It is sad that more people will die before it happens, but each new tragedy brings new calls and new pressure to finally make change.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by nfotiu

It's not that I'm anti-gun control (I'm not), I just put mass shootings in that same category as terrorist attacks, shark attacks, and plane crashes as things that get too much attention and generate way too much fear when they have such an insignificant chance of happening. Putting in policy for a country of 300 million based on something that impacts what about 100 lives a year at most, is not always a good idea.

I'd be more inclined to move from my apathetic stance if the talk was about policies designed to address more common acts of violence such as poor people dying at the hands of other poor people and domestic violence.

The US averages more than on Mass Shooting a day:

http://www.businessinsider.com/us-av...per-day-2015-8

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

Granted. Spectacular examples make for spectacular results.

But accumulation of incidents over time spurs change as well. A basic example of that is when cities fix up road intersections that are known for being dangerous. The back access into Chestermere from Highway 1 being a local example - every time there is an incident there, the calls to fix it grow. As that support grows, the pressure to do something grows. Inevitably, it will be fixed. It is sad that more people will die before it happens, but each new tragedy brings new calls and new pressure to finally make change.

My point is that in my view, at this stage in our development as a species this tendency to react spectacularly to what you describe as "spectacular examples" (I totally disagree with that description) is probably, overall, a bad thing. In other words, our negative reactions to events that are statistically unimportant relative to larger trends produces wrong behavior less often than helpful behavior.

So on the whole I wish we'd stop doing this. However, if we are going to behave in this manner and have these sorts of reactions simply because of the way we're wired in an evolutionary sense, this is an opportunity to take the good with the bad. So I'm a bit conflicted here about whether this should be the sort of thing we should be jumping on to prompt change.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by nfotiu

It's not that I'm anti-gun control (I'm not), I just put mass shootings in that same category as terrorist attacks, shark attacks, and plane crashes as things that get too much attention and generate way too much fear when they have such an insignificant chance of happening. Putting in policy for a country of 300 million based on something that impacts what about 100 lives a year at most, is not always a good idea.

I'd be more inclined to move from my apathetic stance if the talk was about policies designed to address more common acts of violence such as poor people dying at the hands of other poor people and domestic violence.

But you realize that mass shootings are just the climax of a much larger problem though, right? They're certainly not on the same level as shark attacks, in any way shape or form, including numbers.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by jayswin

But you realize that mass shootings are just the climax of a much larger problem though, right? They're certainly not on the same level as shark attacks, in any way shape or form, including numbers.

That's where I completely disagree. The spree killings are a completely different issue. The demographic is different, the motivation and root causes are completely different and while the mass killings are increasing the murder rate in the US is half what it was.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

My point is that in my view, at this stage in our development as a species this tendency to react spectacularly to what you describe as "spectacular examples" (I totally disagree with that description) is probably, overall, a bad thing. In other words, our negative reactions to events that are statistically unimportant relative to larger trends produces wrong behavior less often than helpful behavior.

Case in point, a handful of child abduction cases leads to tens of millions of kids not being allowed to play outside unsupervised.

[Flacker]

Originally Posted by nfotiu

That's where I completely disagree. The spree killings are a completely different issue. The demographic is different, the motivation and root causes are completely different and while the mass killings are increasing the murder rate in the US is half what it was.

So, no more room for improvement then?

The homicide rate is still astronomical for a developed first-world nation. It should be an embarrassment, but Americans just seem to take it in stride.

[hwy19man]

It is heartbreaking. http://abcnews.go.com/beta/US/police-find-wig-shawl-gun-virginia-shooters-car/story?id=33365470

http://abcnews.go.com/beta/US/wdbj-mornings-newscast-air-slayings/story?id=33358302

[SportsJunky]

Flanagan was a part time escort the media is reporting.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by SportsJunky

Flanagan was a part time escort the media is reporting.

Source?

[SportsJunky]

I was starting to doubt it too actually. I haven't seen it reported by any trusted media outlets. This is the best that I've found:

http://www.people.com/article/shoote...ce-paid-escort

[Coach]

I hope it's not being reported anywhere because it really has no relevance to anything. Like, at all.

[T@T]

Originally Posted by nfotiu

That's where I completely disagree. The spree killings are a completely different issue. The demographic is different, the motivation and root causes are completely different and while the mass killings are increasing the murder rate in the US is half what it was.

When was this "was" your talking about?

It must have been really bad because you still have 7x the gun murders per capital than Canada,11x the gun suicides and 20x the accidents. do you need to be pistol whipped to understand there's a problem or are you happy with rolling the dice that it hasn't effected your family yet?

At some point every American should stand up and say: Guns are no good.