Newtown, Conneticut school shootings (split from newsworthy)

[Pista]

Bloody WTF???


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20730717

[Pat]

Bloody WTF???


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20730717

I'm sure this deserves a topic all of it's own especially since this happened 18 hours earlier.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014334024

Lost for words...

[6FeetOver]

Bloody WTF???


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20730717

Aye. This is my home state, Steve.

[Pista]

Bloody WTF???


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20730717

Aye. This is my home state, Steve.

I know Sinnie.

& I see Fox has done an in depth analysis on the cause

http://gawker.com/5968609/fox-news-blam ... ies-gaming

[Being645]

Bloody WTF???


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20730717

The horror ... ...

I feel very sorry for all those kids and their parents.
Small weapons should not be as freely available as they are in the US.
Of course, s**t like this does happen nonetheless, but maybe not that often.

[Pista]

& if it couldn't get any worse

http://www.examiner.com/article/connect ... -to-picket

[Being645]

& if it couldn't get any worse

http://www.examiner.com/article/connect ... -to-picket

This is just ... ...

[markfiend]

I feel very sorry for all those kids and their parents.
Small weapons should not be as freely available as they are in the US.
Of course, s**t like this does happen nonetheless, but maybe not that often.

The "right to bear arms" enshrined in the second amendment was written when the state-of-the-art firearm, the musket, took around 15 seconds to fire and reload.

American opposition to gun-control is completely alien to my way of thinking. I see guns so infrequently in the UK that it still makes me anxious when I do see one -- and that's pretty much only ever a gun carried by a cop at an airport!

No country in the world has more gun ownership per capita than the USA. It's a tragedy waiting to happen. And it happens again and again and again.

[Being645]

I feel very sorry for all those kids and their parents.
Small weapons should not be as freely available as they are in the US.
Of course, s**t like this does happen nonetheless, but maybe not that often.

The "right to bear arms" enshrined in the second amendment was written when the state-of-the-art firearm, the musket, took around 15 seconds to fire and reload.

American opposition to gun-control is completely alien to my way of thinking. I see guns so infrequently in the UK that it still makes me anxious when I do see one -- and that's pretty much only ever a gun carried by a cop at an airport!

No country in the world has more gun ownership per capita than the USA. It's a tragedy waiting to happen. And it happens again and again and again.

You say it.
Also, IMHO, the legitimacy of owning a gun (or other small arms) does implicate (and support)
a certain legitimacy of killing other creatures in the mind of people ...

[Pista]

No country in the world has more gun ownership per capita than the USA. It's a tragedy waiting to happen. And it happens again and again and again.

Very true. For example, this guy was at least aprehended before he went & did the self same thing
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.1221531

What also gets me is that the US ban on "certain" semi-automatic weapons expired in 2004 & no-one thought to revisit it & re-enforce it for 8 years.
I understand there are hunters who feel they need to plug deer & such like with bullets, but this chap was using assault rifles FFS!
They are intended for one thing & it's not deer hunting.

[lazarus corporation]

Given that the right to own a gun is enshrined in the US constitution in order to prevent domestic tyranny (regardless of its ineffectiveness as a defence against US army tanks, drones, and daisy-cutter bombs) then there will always be many privately-owned guns in the US.

That said, I'd certainly suggest that the US implement (at a national level) a ban on assault weapons, a requirement for safe storage of legally owned guns, and a requirement for background checks on an individual before gun ownership is allowed.

These measures wouldn't prevent every shooting, but they'd prevent some and save some innocent lives, without removing the constitutional right.

[markfiend]

Given that the right to own a gun is enshrined in the US constitution in order to prevent domestic tyranny (regardless of its ineffectiveness as a defence against US army tanks, drones, and daisy-cutter bombs) then there will always be many privately-owned guns in the US.

I know that's what the popular interpretation of the 2nd Amendment is, but what it actually says is this:

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.

Given the "well regulated militia" phrase, it's doubtful that the original intent of the amendment had anything to do with individual gun ownership. YMMV.

Anyway, repeal of the amendment is possible, at least in theory. The Constitution isn't set in stone.

[Pista]

After the Tasmania massacre in 96, the Aussies banned all semi & automatic weapon ownership & launched a buy back scheme for the newly banned weapons.
Firearms related murders dropped dramatically & I don't recall any mass shooting on this scale since then.
Radical, but quite effective.

[lazarus corporation]

Given that the right to own a gun is enshrined in the US constitution in order to prevent domestic tyranny (regardless of its ineffectiveness as a defence against US army tanks, drones, and daisy-cutter bombs) then there will always be many privately-owned guns in the US.

I know that's what the popular interpretation of the 2nd Amendment is, but what it actually says is this:

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.

Given the "well regulated militia" phrase, it's doubtful that the original intent of the amendment had anything to do with individual gun ownership. YMMV.

Anyway, repeal of the amendment is possible, at least in theory. The Constitution isn't set in stone.

Yeah, but it's never going to be repealed - the constitution is carved in the US psyche, which is a lot more immutable than stone. And its that popular interpretation (defence against tyranny) that is accepted by many of the US population.

Realistically, the only practical actions available to law makers in the US are to restrict the type of arms (ban assault weapons - as Pista just pointed out, this worked in Australia and has also worked in the UK), implement safe storage laws (which, if followed, might have prevented this particular tragedy), and enforce background checks.

[markfiend]

Well if we're talking realistically, yeah. I agree.

I'm reading another discussion about this on another site, and someone is advocating mandatory gun-safety classes in American schools. Can you imagine that idea being floated in the UK? I mean, I don't think I've ever even touched a real gun.

Then again, last year (I think?) about ten times as many people were killed accidentally by guns in the US as were killed by guns at all in the UK. So maybe any mitigation is a good idea.

[Pista]

I'm reading another discussion about this on another site, and someone is advocating mandatory gun-safety classes in American schools.

Someone on meth was it?

I was reading about the buy back scheme & the yanks said that a scheme like that would mean them buying back some 40 million weapons.

That's an insane number!! [/i]

[markfiend]

No, seriously.

Also being advocated: all US teachers should have concealed-carry guns so they can shoot back in the event of a crazed shooter coming into the classroom. What could possibly go wrong?

And I think 40 million is an underestimate. Add a zero and you're probably closer to the number of firearms "out there" in the US.

[markfiend]

[Being645]

Also being advocated: all US teachers should have concealed-carry guns so they can shoot back in the event of a crazed shooter coming into the classroom. What could possibly go wrong?

Schools should rather see to long-time bullied and isolated kids. Things like this do not happen out of nothing.

And I think 40 million is an underestimate. Add a zero and you're probably closer to the number of firearms "out there" in the US.

I imagine almost every US citizen = owner of at least one firearm ...
That would be 314.167.15 as of August 2012 ...

[Quiff Boy]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/1 ... 11009.html

[Pista]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/1 ... 11009.html

That's a really good point. But this mother at least had the good sense to actually hide all the sharp objects when Michael took a turn for the worse.
Lanza's mum was a gun enthusiast.
If I was the parent of a mentally ill child, I think I might get the shooters out of the way altogether.
That being said, it does seem that the system is broken in many places. Both in healthcare & gun control.

[Quiff Boy]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/1 ... 11009.html

That's a really good point. But this mother at least had the good sense to actually hide all the sharp objects when Michael took a turn for the worse.
Lanza's mum was a gun enthusiast.
If I was the parent of a mentally ill child, I think I might get the shooters out of the way altogether.
That being said, it does seem that the system is broken in many places. Both in healthcare & gun control.

i actually disagree with her punitive methods, and think she's created a label for him of "problem child", which is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy and making the problem worse... but then it's easy for me to say. it's not me being threatened at knife point by a hysterical child.

[lazarus corporation]

A couple of interesting takes on the subject:

http://www.salon.com/2012/12/17/would_t ... white_men/

http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/the-acce ... rren-ellis

[sultan2075]

I am not a gun person. I don't own one. I don't see the need to own one. I haven't fired a gun since the Boy Scouts took me to a rifle range as a child. Living in Texas, where we have concealed-carry permits, I don't feel the need to own a gun. Most people don't (I can count on my elbows the number of gun-owners among my friends). Our crime rate is, relatively speaking, pretty low.

That said, I think the focus on firearms is a little misguided, for a few different reasons. The most obvious, however, is that weaponry itself is not causative. Interestingly enough, however, many of these poor souls do have something in common besides mass murder. They are mentally ill, many are on various medications for that mental illness, and when viewed in retrospect, it often becomes quite clear that the likelihood of violence was apparent, but ignored.

Those who have set their minds to killing will obtain weapons, either legally or illegally (Anders Breivik, for example, lived in a nation with fairly strict gun control laws, did he not?). Such people do not necessarily need guns, either (Timothy McVeigh, to name one; the Aum Shunryko cult, to name another).

Interestingly, there seems to be a correlation between low Brady Campaign scores (the Brady Campaign is an anti-firearm interest group in the United States; low scores indicate a higher prevalence of private firearm ownership in a state) and low homicide rate (per CDC numbers). Now, correlation is not necessarily causation--it may be that US states which are culturally more comfortable with firearms are also less likely to be breeding grounds for the sort of alienation that leads to such horrific actions.

Additionally, in the United States at least, areas which have the strictest gun control laws in place seem to also have higher rates of crime--Chicago, for instance, has a higher crime rate than Dallas. Texas has looser gun laws than Chicago (our population is also more spread out, though--and, again, correlation is not necessarily causation). My understanding is that violent crime in DC has decreased since the Heller decision, in which the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to firearm ownership even in a federal district (DC is not a state). Were I a mugger, I'd be a lot more comfortable plying my trade in a city or state where concealed carry is illegal, and a lot less comfortable doing so in a state like Texas or Arizona.

Lanza's mother was irresponsible in the storage of the weapons. That seems to be an indisputable fact.

We live in a culture that glorifies violence in video games, on television and in movies, in much of popular music. Some of us (most of us, I would hope) can recognize that these are images on the wall of the cave in which we live. Some of us cannot. And some of us are so deeply disturbed, either psychologically or physiologically, that we feel the need to lash out in violence at others--something that gets easier given how often we engage in virtual violence (again, not all or even most people). We do not give much thought to the affect that such entertainments can have on the impressionable or the fragile--because we (the West as a whole, now) don't give all that much thought to them. I think Being645 is right that isolated and bullied kids are neglected, and that can be a (though not the) cause of such things. Psychological problems are often ignored or downplayed--but they are most often the cause.

Oh, and Markfiend: a militia, in the colonial context, would have been a group of civilians who train and drill to protect their communities. It would not have been a professional military. So yes, the Amendment does pertain to individual gun ownership. The American Founders were generally suspicious of standing armies, and the necessity of such armies was a subject of much controversy during the ratification debates surrounding the Constitution.

[Quiff Boy]

every american should have the right to display bear arms in their home.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RablPaIREkk