horrific, frightening and senseless. We seem paralyzed as a country to do anything about it.
My heart breaks for the useless lost and shattered lives.
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horrific, frightening and senseless. We seem paralyzed as a country to do anything about it.
My heart breaks for the useless lost and shattered lives.
I'm sick to my stomach..........and angry and ashamed that this country can't seem to do anything about it.
In a five year period two Kennedys, King and Malcolm X were all assassinated. If the murder of a president doesn't spark changes other than better Secret Service protection the attacks on Gifford and Scalise won't.
Modest "common sense" policies that would seek to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous, high-risk people are opposed by the corporate gun lobby and Second Amendment devotees. However, the Constitution can be amended... and there is a procedure to repeal any existing amendment.
I was already fed-up with gun violence in April 1999 when the shootings occurred at Columbine. There have been 25 fatal active school shootings in the United States since then.
And, as flowerseverywhere reminded us, gun violence has directly targeted lawmakers ... and "we" sit on our hands.
In the state of Wisconsin, and most likely in every state, there is a 501(c)(3) organization working to counteract the corporate gun lobby, educate the public about gun violence, and lobby for life-saving changes to gun laws. These organizations can be looked up on Bing, Google, etc. by typing Your State + anti + gun + violence.
"We" who do not wish to sit on our hands can get involved and go to work.
I think people who talk about Gun Lobbies and 2nd Amendment devotees are showing their privilege. To address the problem of deadly violence by restricting the means of effective self defense by those living in violent circumstances seems counter-intuitive. Perhaps a deeper dive into the culture of violence would be a better place to start.
Don’t look for answers to come from the televised media. They are too busy monetizing the sensationalism of mass shooting deaths. Don’t look for answers to come from the political oligarchy. They are busy pushing legislation that benefits their donors.
The raw figures are available. Teen suicide is a much larger problem but it doesn’t sell advertising or anything else for that matter. Of all teen homicides, figures I’ve seen show that mass murder accounts for only about 2%.
The answer is in where our priorities are as evidenced by our federal budget. Trump wants to allocate somewhere around 700 billion for the military and defense spending. If you look at the discretionary spending funds they amount to a little over a trillion dollars. Almost 60% is spent on the military and they still don’t take care of soldiers after they come home.
There isnt a magic law that will end all mass shootings. There are some specific things you can do Security wise to lessen the chances. TSA.....was an application of this. You can screen every kid and adult that enters a school zone. But guess what, you have to take some of that military budget and hand it over to education. You can increase mental health care opportunities but guess what....that military budget needs to slide a slice of the pie to health and welfare.
Don’t listen to the lies both sides have developed about gun issues. The US is not the only developed country where this happens. It just happens to be one of the ones that does little to respond to it. No gun restrictions can do anything about the firearms we already have in circulation. The trouble is we are much better at teaching violence than we are at teaching respect.
If you want to join the bandwagon of gun bashing, go ahead it feels good especially after the day of an incident like this. But it does nothing to reduce the responsibility all of us bear for having a purposeful societal focus on stockpiling weapon systems, funding a bloated military and spreading turmoil worldwide at the expense of our own children’s future.
We can mitigate these incidents. We just have to get our money and our efforts headed in the right direction.
As far as the repeal of the second amendment....it’s not about hunting, or self defense....it’s about revolution. It’s the constitutional equivalent to the nuclear option. You’d have to repeal the Declaration of Independence and replace liberty with tyranny.
We can turn this into self loathing if you all want, but I am angry at the assholes, and their sheer audacity, who think they are so important they can take the lives of others with no provocation on the part of victims.Talk about entitled mentality, that is it.
And why is ours the only civilized country in which this kind of thing happens? We're a gold-plated Somalia. And as long as someone at the top of the pile is making money, nobody in power cares. I've grown weary of being disgusted with the turn this country is taking.
Over the past few decades, I think there has been a real lack of teaching/modeling empathy whether by parental example or in school programs. It doesn't help that our culture emphasizes individual success over everything else. I keep wondering why there are so many lost young males especially since the recession. One of the reasons I wanted to volunteer at an elementary school was to see just how we are teaching young children. I was impressed that the kindergarten teacher stresses how the "other" feels in different situations. When DD was in public school, it was all about self-esteem.Quote:
we are much better at teaching violence than we are at teaching respect.
My wife is an aide in an emotional support classroom. I am aghast at the stories she recounts about the violence elementary school age troubled kids are displaying. I am not surprised some of them gain access to firearms and use them. We have a serious problem with responsible firearms ownership, phobia on the one side and infatuation with gun violence on the other. It really is no different than the failed war on drugs. We are proposing the same solutions. Get tough, make new laws and spend more on incarceration for gun offenses. It troubles me that we didn’t learn anything from our making felons out of our neighbors.
I read a book recently about Danish parenting and it is a 180 from how we raise our kids. For the most part, they don't tolerate a violent populace.
I volunteer with a trauma intervention program. In the last couple of years we have seen an alarming increase in teen suicides. There is a great deal of despair and anxiety amongst our youth. I only work one shift a week but it is rare that I don't have at least one suicide per shift, I often have two. Something is very very wrong.
I live not far from where yesterday's shooting happened. Someone at a work lunch today said that this shooting is the fault of "the libtards in Broward County" and that "proper school security" is the answer.
You have got to be kidding me.
This kid who killed his classmates yesterday was in middle school when Sandy Hook happened. If proper gun control had been put into place then, he would not have had the opportunity to buy the gun he used to kill. Could he have snapped and killed? Of course he could have. Would it have been as bad? Less likely. But I suppose those who read the 2nd Amendment without any reference to the "well-regulated militia" do not care about the possibility of lessening the number of dead. After all, if someone wants to kill, they say, that person will find a way to kill. Sure. But why make it so easy for them?
And the "originalists" who believe in following the letter of the Constitution as if we were still in the 18th century who forget that there were no weapons such as these in those times--how convenient of them. Their prayers are noted.
As for those who say it requires an examination of where we are as a culture--okay, fine, let's do that, too. Why is that mutually exclusive with limiting the access to and sheer number of firearms?
I was following a FB thread where someone posted that a good solution to this current crisis is to arm all teachers. What??? Never mind that most teachers will never have the full training required to actually use a gun without killing the wrong people, it makes me wonder why the solution is to up the ante with regard to accepting that we have to assume violence in our everyday lives by making guns mandatory for public servants in schools. To me, that says the violence wins.
Yes, guns are most efficient and effective at killing. I agree with you; that is a fact.
Most knives and vehicles have other uses.
What is a "self-defense free zone"?
In other parts of the developed/Western/wealthy world comparable to the United States, there are many fewer deaths by guns, both homicide and suicide.
If we are going to rehash the lies that each one of us think are facts, we ought to at least cite references to sources so that we can chose who to believe.
According to the National Air Traffic Controllers Assn. There are 87,000 flights daily. Why do we talk about arming teachers? Let teachers, teach. Did we simply arm pilots and stewardesses after 9-11? We only speak of arming teachers because we refuse to invest the kind of money needed to secure our schools. It’s obvious it can be done.
Sadly, the few children murdered yearly, speaking in relative terms ..... are apparently not worth the investment.
Why do we speak of making new laws which criminals and mentally deranged ignore? Because it makes us look compassionate, miserly but compassionate.
Did someone suggest a way to keep the already existing millions of firearms out of the hands of criminals and mentally deficient? I missed it.
Let’s have a parade and show off our weapons?
What has changed since the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s? I don’t remember hearing about school shootings then. And we use to keep guns in our vehicles during hunting season. It would have been strange to not visit someone’s home that didn’t have a firearm of some sort. And yet the teenagers were not shooting up the school when they got upset.
You have just described my growing up years. Our school also had a gun club and a shooting range in basement of the school building. I read somewhere that children have not changed, society has changed; guns have not changed, society has changed. Simpler days? I don't think so, things were pretty hard in the 50's, 60's and 70's and maybe life needs to become hard again. Wish I knew the answer but I think societal issues have become so convoluted there is not one answer and there may not be an answer. The roots to the current problems in our country go way deeper than guns and mental health issues.
I agree that the problems of the U.S. go deeper than one thing..........but having the most guns of any other country in the world just makes matters worse.
In the 70s/80s, I was allowed to have firearms on-campus. I had to check them in at the armory, and check them out when I wanted to go use them. I was allowed to use them on school grounds. I was not allowed to keep them in my dorm room, except temporarily. We even used firearms in the classroom - the “ballistic pendulum” experiment in Physics class was quite impressive.
We need to get big money out of politics--campaign finance reform. That's the only thing that will put a stop to the spectacle of representatives as wholly-owned minions of the Koch brothers, the NRA, big Pharma...the list goes on. We have to reclaim our government.
Also, doesn't the military require that new recruits take a course in weapons management and pass a test before they're allowed to carry a firearm? Why isn't that a requirement for civilians, similar to automobile licensing? It's worth noting that one of the first things Trump did as president was reverse President Obama's regulation restricting the mentally ill from owning firearms...
Just about everything. What a hell on earth we are creating...Quote:
What has changed since the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s?
My understanding was that the general trend in gun violence has been down over the last few decades, despite there being significantly more of them in circulation than in the past. The decline in garden-variety homicides having more than offset high-profile mass shootings. Just one of many examples of how our perception of various risks doesn't align with reality.
The military required me to "qualify" on the M-16 and a 9mm handgun back in the 80s. The lessons I took from that experience were that shooting sports are the ultimate in tedium and that (at least for me) carrying a firearm would be more deleterious than enhancing to my personal safety. So Jane may have a point.
There's a report of shots fired and a lockdown at Highline Community College south of here. Hope it's nothing.
Update: it's apparently nothing.
How many black and hispanic kids have died from shootings in Detroit, Baltimore, St. Louis, Chicago, et. al. since the beginning of the year?
Where is the prepackaged outrage and spiffy news stories about these young peoples’ deaths?
I know, they aren’t photogenic white kids, but still...
bae,
I believe local media in the cities you mention do the job of telling the story of gun violence, although they may not always mention the race of the victim.
For example the Chicago Tribune maintains "Young Victims", without detailing the race of victims.
Thus far in 2018 in Chicago there were 22 shooting victims 16 years old or younger. One of these shootings resulted in homicide.
In the full year 2017 there were 246 young shooting victims in the same age group. 38 homicides resulted.
Perhaps you are being sarcastic when you ask where is the "prepackaged" outrage and "spiffy" news stories. However, if you seek news stories on the pain and loss of life, or op-ed pieces filled with outrage, I sincerely believe you will find many of those in local media. In "Young Victims" you can hover your mouse over each dot to see the news story.
http://apps.chicagotribune.com/news/...young_victims/
Part of it is surely the "shooting fish in a barrel" aspect of it.
I agree that carnage of any kind is unforgivable--especially when committed by those sworn to "protect and serve."
Here’s why I believe, this time it is different. The FBI screwed up. Is it because they were preoccupied assigning assets to the “russian meddling” nonsense? Or are they just that incompetent? In any event, it’s obvious law enforcement has lost much credibility over this new senseless tragedy which we find out could have been prevented. The FBI Director might be looking for a new job soon.
Also, there is a genuine sense of being just plain worn down by the defenders of the literal second amendment without restrictions based on the ability to resist tyranny through armed insurrection. That’s the only argument that insists on ownership of firearms without restriction, otherwise the SC has ruled reasonable restrictions apply.
I believe that a country that once banned semiauto AR15 type firearms can embrace it again in the face of the carnage. It doesn’t matter whether we can reasonably expect it to reduce the frequency or number of deaths in mass shootings or not. It might simply be the cost of buying our forgiveness for a symbolic public transgression. The time is right again. It feels like it to me.
Did you know that the NRA is fractured? There is a rush of members leaving for the GOA. Those that remain are sympathetic to further restrictions, bumpstock bans and broad expansion of prohibiting factors to ownership known as the fix NICS bill. A bill which will authorize domestic sweeping of all social media and internet presence and digestion of factors to add names to the denied purchase list.
In fact, the history of the NRA contrary to popular reporting is that the NRA was responsible for many of the restrictive gun control laws that have been enacted. The leadership of the NRA, board of directors is struggling to keep the moderates in place and fighting against the election of hardliners.
I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the parents of the newly murdered children doesn’t become a force to be reckoned with. That force is growing with each new mass shooting incident.
I would like to hear what the FBI has to say about what they did with the information. Don't you think that it's a thin line.........how far to go containing someone who hasn't acted out any of the potentially bad things they've said online or to "friends"?
I'm thinking that individuals have so many rights that no one (including the FBI) can proceed against them without a law suit, etc. I know some of you will say losing some freedoms isn't worth it, and we just have to let people alone......until they do something "illegal"/deadly.
I know I'm not saying this very well. I just think many of us would be willing to give up a little freedom, in order to stop some of these things from happening. I honestly think it's insane to continue without doing something about it.
Sure WS, the tide may have turned about certain legalities becoming illegal, but in my ‘hood it really does not matter what the law says about who may own which firearms. So these guys who already operate illegally will just jam up the courts more when/if they are caught. They are back out on the streets pretty soon.
Are ya’ll willing to lock up more young black men for longer periods since that is the demographic flaunting existing gun laws?
Skinny, nerdy, white shooters in suburbia are pretty uncommon.
Actually the Texas church shooter was not supposed to own guns because of domestic abuse charges. The system did not communicate that very well and he had quite an arsenal. From some of what I heard people on the inside of these systems say that being short staffed and underfunded is a big factor in getting the arrest records to the proper people so that restrictions can be enforced.