This makes me sick - Connecticut Shooting

[Bretimus_v2]

Sourdeez, you say that about the guy in China, but how many of those children are dead? I really have no idea why things like this happens. It sickens me and is a perfect example of the depths of evil that exists within humanity. As a parent who has children that leave home every morning this chills me to the bone.

 

[madster111]

And again, you're blaming the legally armed people for this sort of shit, chris.
Do you think if carrying a gun around is illegal it would've stopped him? He shot a bunch of kids. Clearly he wasn't worried about some fines or a couple months jail, and i doubt he would've cared where he bought the gun from, a shop or a cars trunk at 2am.

Do you think he would have stopped if he couldn't get guns? Explosives are easy to make. Thermite and gasoline. I doubt children know proper self defence techniques to stop someone wielding a knife, either.

You want something to blame? Humanity. So long as humans exist, humans will do evil shit. Mind-altering drugs and the US media doesn't exactly help. It's fine for kids to see people shot, stabbed and burned to death on TV, but as soon as a tit comes out all hell is raised and little johnny is told to go to his room and take more hard drugs to help his 'depression' before jumping on CoD and calling people fags.

Sourdeez, you say that about the guy in China, but how many of those children are dead? I really have no idea why things like this happens. It sickens me and is a perfect example of the depths of evil that exists within humanity. As a parent who has children that leave home every morning this chills me to the bone.

You're orders of magnitude more likely to survive being shot than being stabbed, even with a hollow point. Getting shot sucks - especially if you believe in hydrostatic shock, but if you have the choice of being shot once with a 9mm or being stabbed once with a combat knife, which would you take?


I'd also like confirmation of the victims - is it really 20 kids? Because in general kids can survive shit that would take out a terminator - unlike adults, their bodies have the unique ability to shut of blood flow to damaged parts of the body. If the police were there within, what was it, 20 minutes, how did so many die? What did the ambulance service do? Because it's rare for people to just straight 'die' from getting shot, and kids are no different. The guy had 2 handguns and the police were there fairly fast. There should simply NOT be that many deaths in all this, unless somebody fucked up somewhere and declared 1/2 the kids dead just because they didn't have heartbeats and did their triage in a retarded way.

 

[Sightless]

I'm sad for the shooter and his family. I think it's wrong to make this incident all about guns and control. I'm not going to wear colours to commemorate, sympathize, or show solidarity.

In honesty, how surprised or disgusted are you at this particular incident, in comparison to others, either singular or ongoing? Why is this more or less disturbing?

You know, after so many similar events, so much of my sadness or disappointment comes with the aftermath, the treatment of the situation, rather than (or in addition to) the event itself.

Do you feel like you should be, or will be, doing anything differently, after hearing about what happened today?

 

[MattAY]

RIP. God dammit this is horrible.

Everyone appears to be hit in the gut by this shooting more than any of the others for some reason. So here's hoping they actually approach a solution this time around.

 

[Green_Lantern]

Yes, the 2nd amendment may be outdated, and yes, I do believe that some things involving firearms needs to be regulated more strictly, but to say that getting rid of a person's right to own and use a weapon will all of a sudden stop these things from happening is about as ignorant as can be. It sure doesn't stop Mexico from being one of the most dangerous countries in the Americas and it sure didn't stop Anders Breivik in Norway (I do realize neither country has completely outlawed firearms but they are much more stringent and regulated than in the US). Stripping away a persons ability to hunt and shoot for recreational purposes because some crazy asshole decided to kill his parents and a bunch of kids is about the equivalent of putting a band-aid over a seven inch gash. It's ignoring the real issue at the center of these massacres.

The real issue at the heart of all these is the state of mental health facilities and the ability to get help when needed or even have some just simply see possible warning signs for something like this. Heck even the guys brother yesterday said that there were warning signs, so ehy wasnt he helped out. An average Joe Schmo isn't going to go to the store one day, buy a couple weapons, and show up at an elementary school and start shooting. The people that do these things have real issues that weren't caught and fixed by psychiatrists or even helpful neighbors. States that lose funding are usually quick to close any sort of institution they may have open for these people, because heaven forbid citizens actually pay a higher tax rate for something that would actually help the population. In 2004 it was shown that 8% of Americans suffered from depression, that's 20 million people, and just those that sought help to get out of their holes, I'm sure that number is higher if you every single person not just the ones at hospitals or getting therapy. There seems to be this stigma - especially with males - that you don't need help, you shouldn't talk about your feelings, just "man up" don't be a pussy, which ultimately leads to people hating the ones they should love above all else, which is truly a sad phenomenon.


Outlawing guns is just the quick and easy fix to issues like this, a quick and easy fix that wouldn't actually fix anything. People can get outlawed drugs by just walking down the right street, what's to say the EXACT same thing wouldn't happen with a weapon, because you can't say that and there's a good chance it would happen. Help people get the mental health diagnosis they need and THEN you'll see a decline in these types of tragedies.

 

[Optimus-Crime]

For all the gun murders that go unpublicized, this problem is larger than the events of one day.
An end to gun violence isn't going to happen, there's no band-aid or quick fix and thinking there's an overnight solution to this problem is making a fool of us all. While we're throwing the logistics of bomb making off the wall, people are getting killed by guns, not bombs.
Had Adam Lanza wanted to make a bomb, he'd have made a bomb.

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the Columbine shooters, made pipe bombs. Their bombs injured one student with burns to the abdomen.
Bomb making isn't a constitutional right and illegal firearms sales aren't backed by a 2nd Amendment.
Again, this is a situation where the guns were not obtained illegally. Madster, you're entertaining unlikely scenarios every time you mention bombs, and the numbers prove it.

By most counts, 2977 lives were lost to the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, excluding the 19 hijackers.
Since 9/11, there have been an estimated 334168 gun deaths in America. That's 100 times the 9/11 toll. [as of Jul 21, 2012] link

Those numbers are astounding on their own.

The fireworks analog is fitting because, yes, there are still fireworks related injuries and deaths in states where fireworks sales are banned but they're significantly lower than states where they're not banned. There's no overnight fix (when is there ever?), but you can reduce the murder rate by simply beginning with a ban on assault rifles.

I'm with you on providing better help for those who need it, but you're headed down a slippery slope with this talk of mental health and Sourdeez' mention of psychotropics, because that's the kind of talk used in the defense of a killer. Has all the credibility of the woman who drowns her children, blames bipolar disorder, and gets off free. That's a legal precedent that's already been set, and it's happened time and time again ever since. Copy cat killers.

There are policies and governing agencies already in place to stop gun trafficking, bomb making, but gun ownership is a constitutional right. We shouldn't point to conjecture and the 'what-if' as fact when the numbers have continually proven them wrong.

 

[UghRochester]

RIP. God dammit this is horrible.

 

[Optimus-Crime]

In honesty, how surprised or disgusted are you at this particular incident, in comparison to others, either singular or ongoing? Why is this more or less disturbing?

Do you feel like you should be, or will be, doing anything differently, after hearing about what happened today?

The ages of the victims struck me worse, though it shouldn't. It's not 'fair', for lack of a better word, to those who were older. But, admittedly, it did. And being so near to Christmas just adds to the heartache. I didn't want to hear this news as I was hearing it.
I'm pretty upset about it but God be with the families right now, and if not God, then friends and family.

 

[maca2kx]

This certainly is a tragedy and even though many people are going to voice their opinions about gun control and mental health care those opinions have a place in the discussion. the people using it as an opportunity to soapbox about 'evil' games and neglected gods disgust me.

As a Briton I have a different perspective to many here. Gun legislation in Britain is tight and strict and makes it very difficult to legally own a firearm but there are lots of upper crust and rural farmers who legally own hunting weapons. The only way to legally operate anything semi or fully automatic is to work for the armed forces. Firearms with barrels below a certain size are basically automatically illegal. It shouldn't be a right to own a weapon which has no practical use other than killing people. No one would shoot game with a submachine gun and to see it as a right to wield that sort of firearm because of a rule drawn up before such weapons were invented is insane.

There are so many more factors at play than just gun control but it's not hard to see that making it harder for mentally disturbed or even just younger people to obtain guns would help reduce shootings. Are gun shops required to alert the authorities if someone attempts to buy a gun but is refused? If not perhaps they should be. Illegal guns will always be an issue but that's no excuse to not reduce the availability of legal guns, it's a reason to fight the gangs bringing the weapons into the country.

As long as humanity exists we'll see the evil side of its nature but the good side should always fight back.

 

[Mod-Chip]

My ex-girlfriends lives 15 miles from where that happened. It's chilling to think that I've been that close to the tragedy, and it really makes you wonder about the proximity of being a victim of a senseless lunatic.

 

[LinksOcarina]

RIP. God dammit this is horrible.

Honestly, not much else can be said. We can debate and attempt to cajole each other into going to our way of thinking, but in the end the only change that is going to happen is when everyone agrees that stuff like this can only be curtailed if we begin to change other aspects of our lives.

 

[BlackStar]

As long as humanity exists we'll see the evil side of its nature but the good side should always fight back.

Well said Sam, well said.


If you have the balls to defend a psychopath's right to own a gun then you crazy man, you crazy. People with a clean background could just be someone who hasn't massacred a school or movie theater yet.

Think about it....

Also, the government may take your Guns, but they'll never take your freedom.


Not as good as Sam but I'm not trying for best intelligent award.





I have a baby girl or boy on the way, and now I've gone all soft and this tragedy has hit me deep. :cry:

RIP

 

[Sightless]

The ages of the victims struck me worse, though it shouldn't. It's not 'fair', for lack of a better word, to those who were older. But, admittedly, it did. And being so near to Christmas just adds to the heartache. I didn't want to hear this news as I was hearing it.
I'm pretty upset about it but God be with the families right now, and if not God, then friends and family.

Yeah, Christmas + kids makes it pretty bad, I suppose. I kind of wish violent acts would be treated more equally, though. Not that it's bad or unwarranted to feel sad, or to suggest that violent acts are equal, but like you say about kids vs adults, the attention being paid to once incident above all others feels similarly unfair. Sort of related to the question of the boundaries of obligation, why saving a drowning child next to you is more compelling than saving a dying kid in Manila kind of thing.

Honestly, not much else can be said. We can debate and attempt to cajole each other into going to our way of thinking, but in the end the only change that is going to happen is when everyone agrees that stuff like this can only be curtailed if we begin to change other aspects of our lives.

How do you think those agreements and changes take place? It's a little sad to give up on it now. Some of these people would probably fight like hell for others to step up and say more, to do more.

Figuring out how to deal with these kinds of problems is a balance between treating it as an individual occurrence and seeing it as part of a whole. We don't know that much about the shooter in this particular case yet. While gun control is relevant on a general level, it's not always or often a factor in the cases that have been spotlighted. We don't, and maybe can't, know the reasons why this person did what he did. We don't even know exactly what he did. Maybe it's drugs or what ever, but I really don't think it's possible to (usefully) describe the type of person it takes to kill someone. Psychopaths? Why, because they obviously had the propensity to kill someone? It begs the question, doesn't it? Whatever forces come together to result in incidents like this are not going to be apparent. Certainly continue discussions about the broader issues. I'm just thinking that it's not enough, and that we have to look beyond that in order to understand the problems more fully and comprehensively.

 

[LinksOcarina]

How do you think those agreements and changes take place? It's a little sad to give up on it now. Some of these people would probably fight like hell for others to step up and say more, to do more.

Figuring out how to deal with these kinds of problems is a balance between treating it as an individual occurrence and seeing it as part of a whole. We don't know that much about the shooter in this particular case yet. While gun control is relevant on a general level, it's not always or often a factor in the cases that have been spotlighted. We don't, and maybe can't, know the reasons why this person did what he did. We don't even know exactly what he did. Maybe it's drugs or what ever, but I really don't think it's possible to (usefully) describe the type of person it takes to kill someone. Psychopaths? Why, because they obviously had the propensity to kill someone? It begs the question, doesn't it? Whatever forces come together to result in incidents like this are not going to be apparent. Certainly continue discussions about the broader issues. I'm just thinking that it's not enough, and that we have to look beyond that in order to understand the problems more fully and comprehensively.

Well for one, discussing it on the internet solves nothing. So actually getting out there in the field and pleading cases might work better if you know what to say and what your platform is. Not too many people do that, though.

We can't know the reasons why, but I do want to ask why. Is it preventable? Thats the better question because those forces are not apparent, and never will be, but they are completely individual to this particular case, which no one seems to look at ever. Instead, the scapegoating and the fair-weather politicio's come out against something, then retreat into the woodwork for a while.

The cycle is obvious. That we need to break by getting out there for once as a group. Any organization I look for that does that around here either is non-existant, or too hell-bent on making this a political issue, which it shouldn't be in my opinion.

 

[C_nate]

Being a father myself with a son that is at the age for kindergarten, this story broke my heart.

I'll state upfront that I do not like guns. I do not own a gun and I most likely never will. People will say that a gun is just a tool and they are correct. But it is a tool that has only one single purpose and that is to kill.

Having said that, I also live in Chicago, which you may or may not know has had a problem with guns and shootings that goes back almost as long as the 30+ years I've been alive. Not a summer night goes by without multiple shootings. Seeing as how the majority of them are poor and black this usually never gets the national press coverage that mass shooting tragedies get.

This happens in spite of the fact that Chicago has had, for the past couple of decades some of the strictest gun laws in the nation. So I have seen year after year how banning guns does absolutely nothing to prevent people who want guns from getting and using them. So in that regard, I think Madsters earlier post is 100% spot on.

To me, the main problem is the mind boggling amount of guns in circulation. If the president passed a bill the banned all guns tomorrow, there would still be shootings all over because of the vast amount and readily availability of guns already floating around.

Which is why I can't stand the people who make the argument that what we need to make ourselves safer is even more guns! It's the most asinine argument I've ever heard on the subject.

People defend the amount of guns out there like to use cars as a defense. They say, "Well, there are such and such a number of car deaths out there, lets ban cars." But if you look closer at the numbers you will see something interesting. After 9/11 a lot more people started to drive rather than take a plane somewhere. And as more and more people drove, the number of auto accidents and deaths shot up as well. More cars on the road directly equaled more car related deaths. More guns will equal more deaths as well. Why does the UK or Japan have so few gun deaths? Is it the strict laws or the fact their countries don't have 300 millions guns in circulation?

So the big question is how to prevent stuff like this from happening in the future? And as far as I know, the is not a way. Pass all the gun laws you want. It won't matter because the guns are out there already. People who want them are going to get them and use them, laws or no laws. It was already reported that the guns were purchased legally.

Our country loves guns more than anything else. You can have a movie where the hero shoots 50 dudes and it gets a pg-13 but as soon as he says "fuck" or a tittie flashes on the screen then it gets an R. Logic? You got me...

And every time another mass shooting occurs, more and more people get paranoid and starting arming themselves as well. My cousin (with three young kids of his own) now wants to go out and get a foid card. Soon you will have a bunch of twitchy folks running around ready to draw on their own shadow if they get startled by it along with who knows how many people who are in need of mental help that are already armed and are just time bombs waiting to go off.

All I see is more and more of these incidents happening at greater frequency in the future. I'm not sure there is a way to fix this problem.

 

[Sightless]

Well for one, discussing it on the internet solves nothing.

Don't go all Internet lololol on me. It doesn't have to solve any problems immediately, but at least you're interacting with people. Pleading cases has its place, but if you're one of few on board with it, how useful is it? What you want is for the public to be thoughtful and engaging, not for someone to throw you a commercial.

C_nate, even if banning guns doesn't do much to stop people who want them from getting them, part of what it does is make a statement that guns are not welcome, and that if you want to have them, then it's going to be illegally. I think it's less about the immediate effect of people seeing they're illegal and going ohshit, better not touch those! and more about creating a culture that views them as being undesirable. I'm not advocating that bans go in place, or that that's the way your society should go. I'm just saying that this is one way in which bans could be consequential.

 

[Eyebrowsbv31]

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/ne ... loner.html

" “He just said he was very thin, very remote and was one of the goths,â€

 

[Sourdeez]

Some of you people terrify me more than a average trained citizen carrying a concealed weapon and Im convinced you are more dangerous.

To the others bless you for your thoughts and considerations.

 

[maca2kx]

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4699332/newtown-school-gunman-adam-lanza-a-loner.html

" “He just said he was very thin, very remote and was one of the goths,â€

 

[C_nate]

C_nate, even if banning guns doesn't do much to stop people who want them from getting them, part of what it does is make a statement that guns are not welcome, and that if you want to have them, then it's going to be illegally. I think it's less about the immediate effect of people seeing they're illegal and going ohshit, better not touch those! and more about creating a culture that views them as being undesirable. I'm not advocating that bans go in place, or that that's the way your society should go. I'm just saying that this is one way in which bans could be consequential.

Which is why I brought up where I lived. We've had up until recently a complete ban on hand guns in the city and it was clearly stated that guns were not welcome here. And yet, every year there are hundreds and hundreds of shooting deaths. It did nothing to stop or even slightly slow down gun deaths at all.

As for creating a culture that views guns as undesirable, I think that would be nice in theory but as things are now would be practically impossible. For at least half the country anyway. This is just one issue where I don't see any silver linings.