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Banning things won't change anything no matter how much the squealers claim it will. Reality is something that many cannot see.
"And yet those who study mass shootings say they are not becoming more common.
"There is no pattern, there is no increase," says criminologist James Allen Fox of Boston's Northeastern University, who has been studying the subject since the 1980s, spurred by a rash of mass shootings in post offices.
The random mass shootings that get the most media attention are the rarest, Fox says. Most people who die of bullet wounds knew the identity of their killer.
Society moves on, he says, because of our ability to distance ourselves from the horror of the day, and because people believe that these tragedies are "1 of the unfortunate prices we pay for our freedoms."
Grant Duwe, a criminologist with the Minnesota Department of Corrections who has written a history of mass murders in America, said that while mass shootings rose between the 1960s and the 1990s, they actually dropped in the 2000s. And mass killings actually reached their peak in 1929, according to his data. He estimates that there were 32 in the 1980s, 42 in the 1990s and 26 in the first decade of the century.
Chances of being killed in a mass shooting, he says, are probably no greater than being struck by lightning.
Still, he understands the public perception - and extensive media coverage - when mass shootings occur in places like malls and schools. "There is this feeling that could have been me. It makes it so much more frightening."
Most any of these discussions about mental illness and thse rampages revolves around confining people with mental illnesses. Now, leaving aside that there is no causal relationship between the vast majority of these illnesses and homicidal behavior, would someone be a dear and give us a little description of the mechanism by which we will confine people with no criminal history, only suspicions that they might one day commit a crime? Will chronic depression be sufficient to lock someone up? How about schizophrenics who are able to function with their meds? What about veterans suffering from PTSD? How about surviving family members of homicides who are now obsessed with vengeance? What about people who obsessively post on internet forums who demonstrate strong sociopathic tendencies, who frequently speak of people who need to be/deserve to be killed?
Brings to mind the movie "Minority Report".
Fear overrides logic and can cause some pretty drastic changes in society.
It was nice to see the governor of Connecticut --- he was discussing this issue of troubled families who are trying to deal with mental illness and have no where to turn for help.
Sadly the program had him followed by the very gleeful Bloomberg -- a disgusting man trying to exploit the tragedy for his own agenda --- he had no interest in discussing the issue of mental illness. Agenda, agenda, agenda.
We do not know if the Lanzas ever tried to get help for their son. It is not clear that the Lanza family fit the profile of a family trying to deal with mental illness and have nowhere to turn for help. All this talk is putting the car before the horse.
I understand that it's important for people to identify life with one political party or another.
I just don't happen to think that way.
The world is not divided into Democrats vs Repubicans, liberal vs conservative, Christian vs everyone else.
It's a very narrow and myopic viewpoint but there are some that have to categorize life into either one column or another.
You just got done implying that these folks only "claim" to be Christian. In other words, you just violated your admonition in your current post.
For the record, I don't think it's destructive to talk about the issue of people who "claim" to be Christians but do not live according to those principles. I see you people doing this every day. You make no effort to live according the principles Jesus gave to you, so you are among those who "claim" to be Christians, but are, in fact, not Christians. We can agree that if you don't even try to love your enemies, turn the other cheek or love the least among you, you aren't really a Christian, correct?
She had money to buy fancy guns. She got $120,000 from her ex just for being his ex. Surely she could have afforded professional help.
And her husband makes $400,000 a year. What's your point? Everyone knows that getting mental help for kids is far more complicated than just having the money to buy it. Plus none of us knows at this point in time what she may or may not have done to try and get him help. We don't know what the father may or may not have done to try to get him help. Why do you exclude the x-husband from taking some responsibility in this? The shooter was his son, too.
gee, and then she goes and forgets to lock up her guns....
We don't know all the details and never will, but we do know he didn't want to submit to a background check in order to buy fire arms, so there is something there.
Bullcrap. He already stuck his fat head in hours after this happened. Why did he even do that? I didn't see him making a national address after those folks were shot up in portland. I guess he didn't care about them as much or maybe it was because he didn't see that as the crisis he really needed. They got no business running around cordoning off the entire little town so Obama can make his appearance and then leave. If he really cares he can go up there when all the funerals are over and meet the families in private. I doubt that will happen. Instead a media circus will ensue and you'll probably be lapping it up like the rest of his swooning masses salivating and screaming at the TV that we gotta get dem guns.
See? There ya go saying he didn't mention Portland. (And no offense to those there, or to devalue the lives lost, but in the scheme of regular public shootings in America that one was minor).
Told you, he can't win. Well apart from the fact that I don't think many reasonable people share your shameless Obama bashing hay making, as far as this goes.
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