Sauce: i hate it here
“No way to prevent this,” says only nation where this regularly happens.
Only Onion headline I can quote off the top of my head. Never gets old (unfortunately).
Like those kindergartens.
They are getting old? I’m glad they survived!
Fund mental health institutions and make it easier to involuntarily commit people before they buy weapons and go on rampages?
Case after case, you see more red flags than a May Day Parade, but none of it legally actionable or reportable on a background check.
Examples:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uvalde_school_shooting
“Ramos’ social media acquaintances said he openly abused and killed animals such as cats and would livestream the abuse on Yubo.[132] Other social media acquaintances said that he would also livestream himself on Yubo threatening to kidnap and rape girls who used the app, as well as threatening to commit a school shooting.[131] Ramos’ account was reported to Yubo, but no action was taken.[131][133]”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkland_high_school_shooting
“The Florida Department of Children and Families investigated him in September 2016 for Snapchat posts in which he cut both his arms and said he planned to buy a gun. At this time, a school resource officer suggested[92] he undergo an involuntary psychiatric examination under the provisions of the Baker Act. Two guidance counselors agreed, but a mental institution did not.[93] State investigators reported he had depression, autism, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However, psychologist Frederick M. Kravitz later testified that Cruz was never diagnosed with autism.[94] In their assessment, they concluded he was “at low risk of harming himself or others”.[95] He had previously received mental health treatment, but had not received treatment in the year leading up to the shooting.[96]”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Hook_Elementary_School_shooting
"In a 2013 interview, Peter Lanza (Adam’s father) said he suspected his son might have also had undiagnosed schizophrenia in addition to his other conditions. Lanza said that family members might have missed signs of the onset of schizophrenia and psychotic behavior during his son’s adolescence because they mistakenly attributed his odd behavior and increasing isolation to Asperger syndrome.[155][162][169][170][171] Because of concerns that published accounts of Lanza’s autism could result in a backlash against others with the condition, autism advocates campaigned to clarify that autism is a brain-related developmental disorder rather than a mental illness.[172] The violence Lanza demonstrated in the shooting is generally not seen in the autistic population[173] and none of the psychiatrists he saw detected troubling signs of violence in his disposition.[155]
Lanza appears to have had no contact with mental health providers after 2006. The report from the Office of the Child Advocate stated: “In the course of Lanza’s entire life, minimal mental health evaluation and treatment (in relation to his apparent need) was obtained. Of the couple of providers that saw him, only one—the Yale Child Study Center—seemed to appreciate the gravity of (his) presentation, his need for extensive mental health and special education supports, and the critical need for medication to ease his obsessive-compulsive symptoms.”[165]"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Buffalo_shooting
"In June 2021, Gendron had been investigated for threatening other students at his high school by the police in Broome County.[20][60][66] A teacher had asked him about his plans after the school year, to which Gendron responded, “I want to murder and commit suicide.”[67] He was referred to a hospital for mental health evaluation and counseling but was released after being held for a day and a half.[20][66][68]
Gendron told police that he was merely joking; however, Gendron later wrote online that this was actually a well-executed bluff.[65][69] He was not charged in connection with the incident since, according to investigators, he had not made a specific enough threat to warrant further action.[66][69] The New York State Police did not seek an order from a state court to remove guns from Gendron’s possession.[69][70] The mental health evaluation was not an involuntary commitment, which would have prohibited him from buying guns under federal law.[69]"
Sure; maybe it’s also a mental health problem, but it’s definitely 100% a gun problem.
Then I ask this: School shootings simply never happened when I was a kid in the 70’s and 80’s. We had far less regulation*. Any asshole could buy a gun, get it delivered to their doorstep, and they were cheap. Yes, even AR-15s.
This shit all started with Columbine. Want to suicide and go out the most horrific way possible? Shoot up a school!
So no, it’s not the guns. Nothing has really changed on that front. So what happened?
* One exception: Conceal carry laws were nothing like today, far more restrictive. I’m leaving that out because criminals and mass murderers hardly give a shit about carrying illegally. Would that stop you if you were intent on murder? Also, at the same time, the laws around transporting guns generally became more restrictive.
Yeah, it’s a social problem. Recognize that mass shooters are almost exclusively white males. The book Angry White Men by Michael Kimmel does a great job of profiling the person who does this sort of thing and why. There’s a lot that goes into it. Economics, masculinity, school culture, etc.
I feel 9/11 and faux news had something to do with fetishizing guns. Fear mongering kills.
Weren’t the 70s and 80s the peak of violent crime in the US? Including armed violent crime?
Violent crime has pretty consistently dropped for the past century in the US with a small blip in the 90s often attributed to the prevalence of leaded gasoline and the higher propensity for violence that people exposed to it often had.
School shootings still weren’t a big/common thing back then tho so I fail to see your point.
The point is that an all time peak in violent crime and violent gun crime would indicate you’re not disproving gun crime you’re just hiding it in dark numbers that you’re hoping we won’t think matter.
Also that peak is statistically referred to as happening between the 70s and 90s, specifically quadrupling vs rates prior in the 60s and 50s, before declining afterwards, so you were kinda right.
Sorry what context were we talking about? Oh yeah, school shootings. Also that’s still the point; it being a clear relationship. I don’t understand what your point is. You posed a whataboutism. They’re two different arguments.
If you want to talk about gun crime and reform broadly we can. First, in the case of things like mental health checks, how do we decide what makes someone fit to get a firearm? How do we decide who gets to make that decision? How are we going to regulate firearm sales? How do we make it possible for private sales to exist while enforcing background checks and without causing undue burden. Btw you know you already need to get a backhround check to get a firearm except in a few circumstances, right?The American pseudo-left is often frothing at the mouth for reform on this issue and has poorly formed (if any) ideas about what should actually go into place. It doesn’t help that most people are controlled by fear mongering more effectively than facts, especially those that don’t know much about guns.
Another pr9blem people have with gun control regulation is that it allows an authoritarian government to more easily defeat the populace. In every modern war, guerrillas, especially in urban areas, have the upper hand against modern militaries due to the need to project soft power and retain international support. If you think it’s never gonna happen here then you clearly haven’t been paying attention and if you’re gonna be one of those people that goes “bubut the military had bombs and jets” don’t even bother replying as you clearly haven’t been paying attention modern history and the successes across the world of resistance movements.
And it’s all great to say that the 20,000 people a year that die from guns (mostly suicide followed by active gang members engaged in gang violence, both activities prone to causing deaths regardless of accessibility to guns, but likely reduced) are a price that’s worth it to pay but there’s no realistic way that you’re disarming the American populace, only preventing new sales. This means that there will still be a huge amount of guns available for criminals, and as we’ve seen with drugs, banning something that people desire just causes a crime-ridden black market. Not to mention the immeasurable good that they could do against a tyrannical government.
On top of that, you can literally 3d print firearms now. It at least used to take some knowhow but now any scmuck can get into it with just a little bit of searching and a very minor investment. In that way, the cat’s out of the bag, and if the US gun market fails to supply criminals, especially organized crime, we know exactly what they’re going to do.
The key is building up social services in impoverished areas and removing the factors that push people towards crime. Improving our mental health infrastructure and social safety nets such that we have a violent crime rate that resembles other developed nations. Reducing the needless/baseless criminalization and overpolicing of poor and minority communities to reduce the trauma of communities growing up without fathers. Getting a handle on race relations, even between different poc groups, such that gangs become an unnecessary method of association. Not just zeroing in on the scary but useful tool that is the firearm, especially as it is the only true equalizer in society. “God created man but Samuel Colt made them equal”.
Not to mention how they allow women especially to stand up to violence they would otherwise have no chance against. Don’t give me the pepper spray and stun gun bs btw, I pity the person that thinks that will stop a large, angry man. If you’re truly interested in nonlethal means of self defense however, I believe the foaming/gel bear sprays would definitely stop an attacker, but they tend to be quite large and annoying to carry. Also, if you think armed self defense is unnecessary it’s only because you’ve never been in a situation where you wanted or tried to defend yourself but couldn’t. I don’t carry a weapon, but I’ve experienced things that make me feel like maybe I should’ve been and things would’ve gone differently.
Sorry for the long flow of consciousness style comment and I apologize if I attacked you at all I can sometimes get heated abt this subject.
School shootings are a miniscule issue though by the statistics. The problem is that we spectalize them with the 24 hour news cycle because it makes people angry and upset. This spectacle is also exactly the reward these murderers are seeking out. If the news was required to spend a proportionate amount of time on different subjects by how much they negatively impact your health on average (let’s say by how much they reduce the life expectancy of the average person), we should be banning cigarettes, alcohol, and added sugars long before guns. Why are we so focused on the guns? Why aren’t we focusing on reducing our ridiculous overweight and obesity rates? Because school shootings make you sad, like the WWF panda or the aspca commercial. Don’t get me wrong, they get me sad too, but our deeply damaged society is to blame, not guns.
In general yes but this discussion is a out mass shootings.
This discussion is about gun violence. Saying there weren’t a lot of school shootings back then is about as helpful to the root issue discussion as saying that cyberbullying wasn’t an issue before the 90s anyways.
Why doesn’t Canada see a similar per capita rate of shootings despite having more guns per capita than the US?
Maybe because their gun laws are a lot more strict? Kind of proves the point that gun regulation works doesn’t it?
deleted by creator
I’m not against regulations. It’s just something that came up in Bowling for Columbine that I’ve found interesting.
Probably because most of those Canadians actually have a fucking good reason to be armed, IE for hunting, defending against dangerous wildlife, competitive shooting
Cricket cricket
make it easier to involuntarily commit people
Yeah, that won’t ever be abused by malicious actors.
It really is easier to just regulate firearms (not take them away, mind you, just actually regulate and enforce said regulations), but politicians are too worried about pissing off the “but muh freedums” crowd.
not take them away, mind you, just actually regulate and enforce said regulations
Regulations which will do what? Prevent people from getting guns.
Nah, involuntary psych hold definitely needs lower standards to help address the mental health crisis.
We’ve got a plan for most homelessness via housing first plans, but for folks that are homeless because they just can’t function for themselves we do genuinely need improved involuntary hold infrastructure.
We also need vastly improved care facility infrastructure for people who are docile but for whatever reasons medically or mentally incapable of surviving on their own and who don’t have family capable of providing for them.
You know the system’s broken when a common threat to coerce or emotionally attack elders is to put them in an elder care facility.
I honestly can’t believe they haven’t tried to give shooting courses to kindergartners.
Kindergarten? Ridiculous. They gotta be at least 7.
You anti gun people are using the same argument as religious people talking about sex ed. “Should we teach kids how to be safe around guns? No! Just make sure they never ever encounter one!”
The one I linked specifically mentions shooting afterwards for kids as young as 7…
But yes if guns are at home they should be locked (and really locked, like a trigger lock plus a safe that’s set to something besides 1111, holy crap you’d be surprised at how cavelier some people are) and totally inaccessible to kids. Teaching single digit age kids about guns is not a substitute for that, but of course I’m not saying you shouldn’t teach your kids that they shouldn’t touch guns and what they can do.
And teaching kids about guns will not solve the serious gun problems in America. The gun problems unique to America that pretty much every other industrialized nation has figured out already. And it’s a horrible tragedy that stuff like “the heroes program” to teach preschoolers how to deal with active shooters is necessary in this country. All to please gun nuts.
Most gun nuts aren’t too interested in education anyways:
https://www.thetrace.org/2022/01/which-states-require-firearm-safety-course-concealed-carry/
Source for preschoolers in “the heroes program”?
Already in the comment, click the links.
https://www.safekidsinc.com/hero-program-overview
Here’s where it goes through their curriculum per grade level including pre schoolers.
The 'heroes" program is not teaching pre schoolers to use guns, it’s teaching them about active shooter situations.
The other link was the one offering actual gun training (for 7 year olds and up so second graders potentially).
My comment was that it’s sad we apparently need programs to to teach pre schoolers about how to deal with active shooting situations now.
I don’t see the problem with teaching 7 year olds firearm safety. You’re throwing your credibility out the window by including that.
Beyond that though, it is sad, but it isn’t a gun problem. Yes, getting rid of guns would get rid of most shootings. However, it wouldn’t deal with the underlying problems causing these incidents, and it wouldn’t help the vast majority of violence in schools. Also, most school shootings, contrary to popular belief, are one or two people, not mass shootings. When our schools are a home to bullies, sexually abusive staff, racially segregated districts (yes, in the 21st century), economically segregated districts, republican defunding efforts, a loss of teachers especially during and immediately post-pandemic, and racially based gangs that perform regular violence against each other, it comes as no surprise, at least to me, that this violence is occurring. If it wasn’t a gun, it would be another weapon. We need to focus on the actual problems, not the ones that make us sad and grab our attention, especially when disarming the populace gives our already authoritarian police state even more power.
Re read, and stop setting up straw men. I criticized teaching seven year olds to shoot. Not teaching actual gun safety.
I seperately said it’s sad that we have to have the “heroes program” to teach pre schoolers about active shool shooters, because gun nuts don’t allow real gun controls or solutions.
https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1848971668
People from other countries are shocked and horrified by everything in this thread.
And the “well if it wasn’t a gun it’d be something else” yeah guns aren’t necessary to kill but it sure makes it a whole lot easier and faster. I don’t think this guy could have killed 60 people in ten minutes with a knife:
And teaching kids about guns will not solve the serious gun problems in America.
Ok but it’s still a pretty obviously good idea. Will definitely save lives. Children’s lives.
Teaching kids to use guns doesn’t save kids’ lives. If you want to teach em to stay away from guns, that they’re deadly, they shouldn’t touch it and should tell an adult right away go ahead.
Teaching kids to use guns in the name of gun safety is like saying you need to teach them how to drive in case they find some car keys lying around and decide to take it for a spin.
If you want to teach em to stay away from guns, that they’re deadly, they shouldn’t touch it and should tell an adult right away go ahead.
That IS gun safety education.
Also the first rule of gun safety: a gun is ALWAYS LOADED
Stop for one second, re read the conversation, and the link. I’m criticizing teaching 7 year old kids to shoot, not criticizing teaching actual gun safety. That was a straw man you set up to knock down.
I’m only half joking, because at this point the kids might as well be able to fight back rather than us doing fuck all while countless are fed to the golden throne.
The only way to stop a bad kindergartner with a gun, is with a good kindergartner with a gun.
Now in fun colours!
Yes, it’s horrible the gun situation in the US.
But knowing how to stop someone bleeding to death can be useful in other dystopian situations as well. Like industrial accidents from bad management and OSHA/child-labor violations. Or non-gun injuries from abusive adults.
Or just stupid stuff that kids and/or adults do to maim themselves, like avocado knife injuries.
Don’t knock the first aid training.
Do go after the guns.
Republicans, universal gun care and state mandated child control, but only after you’ve suffered 9 months against your will to bring them into this world if you even survive the experience.
A lot of Americans do actually support some gun control measures. A lot of Americans also don’t actually know how insanely hard and effectively the NRA has organized and opposed any remotely reasonable gun control measure. They basically ensure that any hearing on the subject is flooded by their members to oppose it. They just go and many sane Americans don’t.
-
The ATF has no ability to have searchable records of firearm sales. To run a “trace” they need to use fucking microfilm or manually go through literal shipping containers full of receipts that are scarcely legible due to water damage. Article.
-
Measure to impose some reasonable restrictions on the ability to purchase firearms for, say, known domestic abusers: no, because we just don’t fucking care.
I’m not American, but I actually support sane firearm ownership. I look at the lunacy over there and I am almost shocked. I really do think, from hearing about this as much as I do, that many Americans support sane measures. But the NRA is a huge problem. It prevents people from even being educated on this issue.
-
If gunning down little kids with lunchboxes isn’t enough to make you dial the guns town a notch, then nothing will.
Sandy Hook survivors are in high school now and some are getting into activism.
Columbine happened when I was a kid and nothing of any substance has been done since.
Second Amendment: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Pro-2A, for all who want to bear arms:
Rock, Flag, and Eagle!:
Why did you add a comma between “Arms” and “shall”?
Second Amendment: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
It is a direct quote from constitution.congress.gov website.
Source: https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-2/
Theres like an old smudge there, but it doesnt look like a comma to me, and I honestly dont recall a comma there when I learned it but that was years ago.
Thanks for the picture!
It’s grammatically correct, afaict.
America loves their school shootings. If they didn’t, they would’ve done something about it by now.
“Australia Had a Mass-Shooting Problem. Here’s How it Stopped” by Wendover Productions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0aGGOK4kAM
We teachers once has a “stop the bleed” training before school started (high school) a few years ago It was very sobering and traumatizing. We haven’t repeated it but we had to learn about using tourniquets, packing wounds, and stopping the bleeding after a school mass shooting. I’m for it led to teacher turnover.
You give us too much credit.
It’s all so politicized now its just never going to happen. Half the country will literally lose their minds because they’re children who think owning a gun is a god given right
Most don’t even care about rights, god or children, it’s about owning the libs.
The NRA has spent a LOT of money to ensure this.
Who wants to make a trauma triage for tots nonprofit with me? We can gather former military medics to volunteer their time to teach kindergartners how to triage traumatic injuries and gunshot wounds. This could save lives people!
Just imagine, little Timmy could bleed out if we don’t teach little Sophia how to properly apply a tourniquet!
