Another Columbine?

[Ahráyeph]

The trouble is that she could be right about that, seeing as the police won't disclose the gunman's identity. It could (and I emphasize : it COULD) be that they don't want to provoke any anti- muslim violence by disclosing the gunman's identity.Of course, that's only one of several possible reasons, but it is a reason nonetheless. And right wing wing nuts like her use that to their further their own cause. Opportunists aplenty; sad but not unexpected...

[markfiend]

Latest reports are that the shooter was a Chinese student in the USA on a student visa, who reportedly went on his killing spree after being dumped by a girlfriend. (Said girlfriend being the first victim.)

OK, he may have been a Muslim, but it's irrelevant to the facts of the case.

In other news, it's all because they've taken God out of the schools.

[Planet Dave]

In other news, it's all because they've taken God out of the schools.

But God is omnipresent, so surely he's still in the schools? Allegedly.

[Dark]

In other news, it's all because they've taken God out of the schools.

So, it’s not God’s fault that there is death and violence in the world—it’s humanity’s fault, because we rebelled against our Creator

Absolute utter bollocks. Look in any edition of the Bible you want. Face it, God kills. And he's not merciful when he doesn't want to be. f**king hell, he DROWNED most of the world. If that's not a violent act of murder, then what is?

Absolute utter bollocks. Like most of what the god squad will be preaching about all this.

[Planet Dave]

In other news, it's all because they've taken God out of the schools.

So, it’s not God’s fault that there is death and violence in the world—it’s humanity’s fault, because we rebelled against our Creator

Absolute utter bollocks. Look in any edition of the Bible you want. Face it, God kills. And he's not merciful when he doesn't want to be. f**king hell, he DROWNED most of the world. If that's not a violent act of murder, then what is?

Yeah, but at least he gave fair warning.

[Doktor Gott]

Well.. Turns out it might be cinema's fault this time..

http://www.maltastar.com/pages/msFullArt.asp?an=11475

Better be careful.. i have that film in my DVD collection too..

So if you hear of someone going postal in London soon, you know where you heard it first...

[markfiend]

I heard one wing nut claim that if more people in the US had guns, armed students might have been able to stop this guy before as many people were killed.

The flaws in this argument are left as an exercise for the class.

[Badlander]

I heard one wing nut claim that if more people in the US had guns, armed students might have been able to stop this guy before as many people were killed.

Or turn the whole thing into an even more disastrous bloodbath. Just picture this : that Korean student starts shooting. Another student, who has a gun, tries to "defend" himself. A third student then hears shooting and thinks there isn't just one killer, but two, and so he also starts shooting to "defend" himself. A fourth student... Etc.
Pretty cool, uh ?

Anyway, it's classic NRA rhetoric. They already used the same argument after Columbine.

But if people are allowed to defend themselves and fire at will, just were does "threatening" start ? Who can you shoot and who can you not shoot ?

The killer would never have been able to kill so many people if he'd only had, say a knife. Or even a sword. Or two. Guns can turn lunatics into bloodthirsty killers. Isn't that just peachy ?

[markfiend]

that Korean student starts shooting. Another student, who has a gun, tries to "defend" himself. A third student then hears shooting and thinks there isn't just one killer, but two, and so he also starts shooting to "defend" himself. A fourth student... Etc.

Yeah, that's exactly the scenario I had in mind too.

[weebleswobble]

I heard one wing nut claim that if more people in the US had guns, armed students might have been able to stop this guy before as many people were killed.

The flaws in this argument are left as an exercise for the class.

Aye some civil defence * tw@t
*baldy bow tied 40+ virgin whose only sexual encounters are being mounted by his rifles

He was deadly serious as well, would that have stopped Dunblane if those poor wee souls were all packing heat?

[James Blast]

I was watching CNN early this morning where there was a special about the shootings. There were two talking heads, one an FBI Profiler who after about an hour into the show, made the point that repeat showings of the killers video could trigger some psychotic types, who entertained such fantasies, into actually carrying them out. Needless to say CNN kept running the footage.

[Pista]

Well.. Turns out it might be cinema's fault this time..

http://www.maltastar.com/pages/msFullArt.asp?an=11475

Better be careful.. i have that film in my DVD collection too..

So if you hear of someone going postal in London soon, you know where you heard it first...

I find that argument a little feeble.
There is a body of people who "kindly" censor the living crap out of everything right?
The people are exposed to ALL of the "worst" things rammed into our faces in films, tv shows etc.
So, blaming film/ tv must mean that this body of people are the most dangerous people alive. Right?

[Doktor Gott]

Well.. Turns out it might be cinema's fault this time..

http://www.maltastar.com/pages/msFullArt.asp?an=11475

Better be careful.. i have that film in my DVD collection too..

So if you hear of someone going postal in London soon, you know where you heard it first...

I find that argument a little feeble.
There is a body of people who "kindly" censor the living crap out of everything right?
The people are exposed to ALL of the "worst" things rammed into our faces in films, tv shows etc.
So, blaming film/ tv must mean that this body of people are the most dangerous people alive. Right?

Personally I just find it laughable, it's denial in its highest form. It's a bit like the fact that the killer is now described as "evil", it's too easy to demonise someone, to make them unhuman, when really this was one very ill person. It could have been anyone, mentall illness is no great distinguisher of class, race or religion.


Nah, my primary concern right now is that it could lead to yet another "video nasty" outburst. Fair enough, a lot of Asian cinema is incredibly violent compared to its Hollywood equivalent, but it operates outwith the moral framework of WASP beliefs and is therefore a hell of a lot more interesting.

One particularly derisory remark about Oldboy that I found in regards to the film itself was this from a New York Times "critic"

"In a Times review, Manohla Dargis wrote that the film’s “body count and sadistic violence� mostly appealed to “cult-film aficionados for whom distinctions between high art and low are unknown, unrecognized and certainly unwelcome.�"


Now, only problem is, this guy is so stuck up his own arse that he didn't realise that it took the Grand Prixe at Cannes in 2004.. Gah!!!

[Badlander]

Needless to say CNN kept running the footage.

I'm pretty sure someone will try to beat the 32-death mark sooner or later.

[boudicca]

No, it's the usual response by society. It doesn't want to look at itself in the mirror. To realise that perhaps, it's the banality of evil that makes it so difficult for us to face. (If one can even talk about evil in the first place, as fine something may be bad or tragic, but calling it evil makes it even more "demonic" and easier to cast off from the image of society as a whole. If any of you have seen the film Downfall you'll know what I'm talking about. It's an horrific film in that it depicts what some would consider to be the most evil men of the 20th century as mere humans, not dark satanic demons. By continuing to do this we lose hope of being able to identify the real reasons for such acts, in other words the marginalisation of people on society, the failure of society to act as a cohesive unit and actually look after its components, i.e watching out for your neighbour. No, we live solitary lives and have little more direction these days other than to eat, consume, breed and die - just as long as you pay the right money to the right company.

I've come rather late to this thread but I have to say to this.

I always find it rather alarming (not to mention plain futile - he's dead!) when the media simply focusses of the "evil" of the individual that carries out actions like these.
Some might see me as an apologist for making any attempt to understand what drove this man to do what he did, or any attempt to place blame anywhere other than squarely with him. The individualistic principles that govern Western society (even those run by governements which are apparently not right-wing) dictate that every man is fundementally responsible for his own actions, and cannot blame "society", persecution, exclusion by others, a f**ked up childhood or whatever else for what they do. And in theory I would probably agree with that, but human beings are flesh and blood, not steel, and while we may have ultimate control over how we react to whatever circumstances we find ourselves in concerning our relations to others, in the face of consistently unpleasant attitudes from fellow humans, it can be extraordinarily difficult for an individual to cope with. A lifetime of rejection, insults, alienation and "f**k off, you're not one of us" will eventually wear a lot of people down.
I don't mean to sum up this guy's motives in that way, I have a feeling his own life will read as a quite complex and disturbing story, but my point is that people can only be expected to care and have a sense of responsibility and decency to other people of they are shown that themselves. And I hate the insinuation that being mentally disturbed or not is purely a matter of personal strength - that those who are are simply weaker than the rest of us. That they're either chemically made of different stuff (great opportunity to market sanity in pill form there), or that they're just evil, irrational.... whatever - there is no logic to the path they have taken, we cannot follow their rationale, however twisted, to try and understand it and pull them back. They are lost causes, no longer like the rest of us.

My father put it very well last night when we were talking about this watching the news, "There but for the grace of God go so many people", and I really think this is true. Who knows how the rest of us would have reacted if we had lived his life? It can be very hard to find a strategy for coping with certain experiences without sacrificing one or another aspect of "normal" psychology... so much of what we poorly and misleadingly (IMHO) describe as "mental illness" is what could also be called "maladaptive"... ie. a person develops a coping strategy for a problem in his life that may make it easier to deal with that particular problem, but has negative consequences on other areas of his psychology.
And that's what we find so hard to deal with - the idea that he didn't have something in his brain that the rest of us don't. We like to think it all comes down to individual weakness or "evil"... the scary thing is it is more to do with random chance - the life circumstances an individual encounters, and whether under those pressures, he manages to avoid making any wrong turns into a mental labyrinth from which he never escapes.

[lazarus corporation]

Well.. Turns out it might be cinema's fault this time..

http://www.maltastar.com/pages/msFullArt.asp?an=11475

Better be careful.. i have that film in my DVD collection too..

So if you hear of someone going postal in London soon, you know where you heard it first...

I find that argument a little feeble.
There is a body of people who "kindly" censor the living crap out of everything right?
The people are exposed to ALL of the "worst" things rammed into our faces in films, tv shows etc.
So, blaming film/ tv must mean that this body of people are the most dangerous people alive. Right?

After hearing some of the killer's ranting on the news today, it's obvious he's a religious nut (there are religious references in his ranting, where he compares himself to Jesus).

I wonder if the body of people who "kindly" censor the living crap out of everything will now call for religion to be banned, just like they'd have done if the killer had mentioned music, computer games or whatever.

[6FeetOver]

A lifetime of rejection, insults, alienation and "f**k off, you're not one of us" will eventually wear a lot of people down.

My father put it very well last night when we were talking about this watching the news, "There but for the grace of God go so many people", and I really think this is true. Who knows how the rest of us would have reacted if we had lived his life?

Exactly. In my case, had it not been for my dear, dear mom's tireless love and support, I'd have offed myself in high school (because I'm not a violent person, and always internalized other people's sh1t), rather than lash out at my abusers who deserved my retribution.

[nowayjose]

Faux News has now identified the Real Culprit:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,266860,00.html

Bet it isn't long until the link to Iran is being made.

[robertzombie]

^^ LOL!

[Badlander]

“Based on what I’ve seen in the news, there’s no doubt that this act was Satanic in origin."

Now that would make a great signature !

[James Blast]

Apart from Eric, did anyone else read post#36?
It's what I was (obviously clumsily) trying to hint at with my opener in post#1.

[aims]

And I hate the insinuation that being mentally disturbed or not is purely a matter of personal strength - that those who are are simply weaker than the rest of us.

Quoted for undeniable truth.

Those who use that argument tend to be amongst the worst conversational brick walls, albeit walls which crumble at any suggestion of subjectivity

[Izzy HaveMercy]

Needless to say CNN kept running the footage.

I'm pretty sure someone will try to beat the 32-death mark sooner or later.

Sometimes it makes me quite mad to know that this footage is shown world-wide, while the PMRC still puts "Parental Advisory" stickers on a Ministry CD.

Double morale? Sensation? Money?

Bastards.

IZ.

[Badlander]

Double morale? Sensation? Money?

Things would be very different if Ministry were supported by the NRA.

[James Blast]

Things would be very different if Ministry were supported by the NRA.

You mean they aren't!?

to pick up on Iz's point, that's what I was alluding to in my opening remark - "the Yanks are culling themselves again"