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The prevalence of these incidents is probably cultural in nature, and we've actually seen similar kinds of things in other societies. For example, the phenomenon of "running amok" in Malay cultures in Malaysia/Indonesia/Philippines. This was something that local and colonial administrators struggled with - someone would take his panga or machete and start hacking at people until he was killed.
This was a cultural response among small but notable percentage of men who had experienced failures in life. The most successful response that came up was to capture the suspects rather than killing them on the spot, then force them to languish alone in squalid cages for months or years before the actual execution. This removed the appeal of "going out in a blaze of glory," since nobody really wants to be chained to a bamboo cage and smacked around by guards every day for months on end.
This would be much more difficult to do with mass shooters, though, since it's far easier to commit suicide with a firearm than a machete.
The US has more mass-shootings and mass-shooting deaths per capita over the past couple decades than any other developed nation but Finland. It's probably just an immutable part of the American "landscape." The US has a lot of mass-shootings. It's just part of the culture, sadly.
What's up with Finland? Why would they have more per capita than the rest of Europe or the US?
What's up with Finland? Why would they have more per capita than the rest of Europe or the US?
We've had two school shootings and one jealousy-motivated mall shooting. In a small country, these tragedies bump up the average a lot. Terrible incidents, but hopefully we can prevent future cases with gun and health policy.
After the school-shootings the gun laws have been tightened up a lot, and were tight even before the shootings. Matti Saari and Pekka-Eric Auvinen had licensed guns, Ibrahim Shkupolli an illegal one.
Most of all murders are stabbings, and the most common method of suicide is hanging, so even if we have a lot of guns in circulation, gun related crime is quite unusual.
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I am surprised, but also not surprised about the fact that people use a gun to kill another person. IF those people who actually did that in order to kill people, and not just vent their frustration, they should have gotten drunk, and kill people while driving drunk. You can then claim insanity and *get away with murder* ...The punishment for committing this atrocious event is rather lenient ... when you are apparently not in full control of your measly informed brain.
Contrary to popular belief, in the USA, a gun is *not* the most common item used in the killing of another person.
Surprised because I wonder why they chose a gun, and not surprised, when I notice what kind of a person does that !
Posters can bombard this thread with lists of high school shootings (nevermind that most of them probably don't meet the criteria of a "mass-shooting," or anything comparable to Columbine or the Connecticut elementary school) all they like, but it doesn't prove (and cannot prove) that tragedies such as the one from today are correlated with some sort of societal deficiency caused by firearms.
So some school shootings are okay?
The list didn't include office shootings, mall shootings, or other shootings (murders).
The list was of schools only, not the largest segment of shootings in the US.
Well crazy people are everywhere. In Norway they have strict control. Yet Anders Behring Breivik killed 70. In the USA killers are attracted to the schools because there is no security plus we post a big sign saying gun free zone. So they know they can do their thing.
So some school shootings are okay?
The list didn't include office shootings, mall shootings, or other shootings (murders).
The list was of schools only, not the largest segment of shootings in the US.
We're never going to persuade some people that guns don't kill. I'm afraid that the recent tragedy notwithstanding, we'll all do the usual crying, vigil attending, invoking angels and devils, not to mention whatever "god" somebody wants to invoke (and, mind you, I'm no atheist) - but nothing will change. The NRA will make sure that gun sales continue at a good clip (sic), and we'll do the same thing again at the next shooting.
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