Shooting At Seattle Pacific University (2013, wedding, purchases)

[sammy87]

Drugs are illegal, you can still get them anywhere. Illegal Aliens are Illegal, I can find them anywhere. How would guns be any different? Besides creating more unemployment and putting a dent in the economy, gun restrictions do nothing. Mental Health needs a complete overhaul. The Aurora shooter pretty much don't his MD that he was gonna do some damage, but she was under 0 obligation to do or say anything. His files are sealed and she should be held partially accountable if she documented that he was dangerous. Just a few months ago in Pittsburgh a kid stabbed like 2 dozen ppl, are the knives the problem or the kid?

Europe has all kinds of gun violence, the only difference its the underworld that has them all. Pretending that getting rid of guns is cute and fuzzy, but get a dose of reality. Look at Chicago, highly restrictive gun city, yet 30ppl die a month?

[sean98125]

At the very least we should have a tax on ammunition and powder sales to cover the public health costs of gun deaths. We may not be able to have a well-regulated mass of gun owners, but we certainly can make sure that the very real public health and public safety costs of having a heavily armed population are borne by those who bring those costs upon us.

[krieger00]

Originally Posted by Harrier

Seriously?

You are already politicizing this tragedy?

For Pete's sake man, a person's body isn',t even cold yet.

Sadly this happens all the time

CNN’s Michael Smerconish thinks he may have found a “silver lining” to missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 and the 239 passengers who perished: more regulations.
“Is there potentially a silver lining in all of this, that there will be a worldwide cause of action to clean up the oceans and for there to be less polluting, greater fines, more regulation?” CNN’s Michael Smerconish asked during a segment on the missing flight, The Blaze
[LEFT]

[/LEFT]
: smack:

[kaday]

Originally Posted by Harrier

Seriously?

You are already politicizing this tragedy?

For Pete's sake man, a person's body isn',t even cold yet.

Exactly what I was thinking. People are really in shock over here. This happened in my neighborhood. We were told yesterday to stay in our houses lock the doors and pull the shades down as they thought a second gunman was loose in the neighborhood. Sirens were blazing and helicopters were swarming. Some mother sent her son out into this world only to have it violently snuffed out. Horrible.

My kids lost their innocence yesterday. This time it happened here.

What a terrible senseless tragedy.

Let these people grieve in peace.

[valthenya]

Originally Posted by Wilson502

I was using that hyperbolicly speaking. Im in no way referencing communities of ppl with actual special needs. The term is used to describe people who are of far left leanings who want to try impose their fantasies onto everyone else instead of dealing with the real world and how things ACTUALLY are, and not simply resorting to kneejerking and making arguments from ignorance and emotion. Instead of investigating why, *******s rather just use kneejerk reactions to everything as if that solves anything....

Actually ******* is a conjuction of two words: liberal and retard. Liberal being a political opinion of an individual and retard being a real medial cognitive condition as in Mentally Retarded which a lot of the special needs community has as a diagnosis. Slightly outdated use cognitive disability is much better but unfortunately still in use. Find a better word

[PollyGlott]

Originally Posted by valthenya

Actually ******* is a conjuction of two words: liberal and retard. Liberal being a political opinion of an individual and retard being a real medial cognitive condition as in Mentally Retarded which a lot of the special needs community has as a diagnosis. Slightly outdated use cognitive disability is much better but unfortunately still in use. Find a better word

Agreed!
I feel the term "*******" (I've also seen "republitard") to be insulting.
Can't we disagree with peoples' political leanings in a more respectful way???

[PrincessoftheCape]

Originally Posted by PollyGlott

Agreed!
I feel the term "*******" (I've also seen "republitard") to be insulting.

I'm pretty certain people don't use these words with the intent to be complimentary.

--

One very important element that seems to be overlooked with these tragedies is the role played by the media. The rush to sensationalize any 'mass shooting' (even when it turns out to be no more massive than your typical spat of drug or gang-related violence) does nothing but assure that the pattern continues. The drama of these random acts of violence, and the ensuing '24/7' nature of the coverage that follows, hands the bully pulpit to the sad little wreck of a human being that inevitably pulled the trigger, giving him an audience he never would have acquired naturally. And the bigger the incident, the larger and more lurid the coverage becomes.

While I have no idea how we could possibly curb these news frenzies, I have no doubts that if the coverage vanished or even diminished, so, too, would most of these copycat shootings. More telling still, most of the media seems to derive a kind of morbid glee from these slaughters whenever they transpire. I could practically hear the disappointment in the voice of the on-scene KIRO reporter last night when they learned that only one person had died. "Oh poo! You mean we can't stretch this story into a month's worth of news like the Oso landslide? Damnit damnit damnit!"

This is hardly a new trend, of course -- there's been an inclination to sensationalize the hell out of every scrap of news since the yellow journalists of the Spanish-American War era. But because we are so connected these days -- so 'linked and synced up' from every conceivable direction, it becomes impossible to avoid watching, reading, or listening to what's being said. 'Scoop' journalism has been supplanted by a never-ending assault; a veritable telecommunications siege.

How do we reel that in? How to we stop giving these people an audience without stomping all over the First Amendment? Guns have been around in the west for seven centuries now, but mass shootings have only become common in the last couple of decades. It's no coincidence that this is directly linked to the ascendency of CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and the like.

[phlinak]

Originally Posted by PrincessoftheCape

See, the thing about mental illness is that it can come and go, and it's not always the same deal.

On the one hand, you have the absolute lunatics like Sandy Hook's Adam Lanza, who -- it was quite obvious from years before the tragedy -- was completely off his rocker. Then you have depressed and/or narcissistic individuals like Santa Barbara's Elliot Rodger, who was equally crazy, but in a totally different way. Lanza was dissociative; Rodger lonely, envious and angry. Both went on killing sprees. Both planned ahead. But their mental states were as different as night and day.

Lanza, clearly, was insane -- his lifestyle and his crime reek of elements of schizophrenia. He would seem to be the obvious candidate to deny gun ownership to.

But the problem is: he wasn't a gun owner. His mother was (and, I might add, she was an incredibly stupid person, too. Did you know, for example, that she used to do three loads of laundry a day for her son, who would change his socks 20 times from waking until bed? How do you not translate that into committing your kid? How do you ignore something like that?). So, do we start banning people who are related to crazy people from gun ownership? If you know someone who is a little unhinged, do you get put on some kind of a watch list? IE he goes on the 'too close to a crazy roster?'

And what do we do about characters like Rodger? He was removed and socially awkward, but he wasn't an emaciated Sméagol caricature like Lanza. His parents thought something might be wrong, sent him to counseling, and dispatched the police to his apartment. Yet, nobody caught on. Because Rodger was smart, sly, and lucid enough to throw a wan smile and tell a little lie when he had to.

And that's the problem with this trend -- it's exceedingly difficult to nail down. Most of the time, the shooters are:

Young.
White.
Male.
Completely isolated.
Angry/depressed.

But there's every chance that elements of that list don't exactly fit. Look at Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold of Columbine. They were best friends, both were bullied, they were obsessed with violent video games and other domestic terror events such as Waco, and just full of directionless hate. A decade and a half since the tragedy, and we still don't really understand why they did it.

So the problem becomes, what is the solution? Because the moment you start assigning certain 'no gun' cues to people, there are going to be individuals who wind up on some kind of list who don't deserve to be there. Worse, you're going to overlook future mass murderers whose profiles didn't quite fit the ban requirements.

Most liberal lawmakers understand this, which is why -- rather than pursue gun bans on 'mentally ill' people -- they rumble on about taking the whole enchilada. Which only makes gun rights advocates buy more weapons and ammunition.

At the close of the day, the situation can only end in one of two ways: we can attempt to rebuild the concepts of personal honor and the mental welfare institutions that kept these crazed people in check a century ago...

... or someone can try to take the guns, which would be a bloodbath regardless of who came out on top. There is no middle ground.

So, if I understand you, you're saying that because we cannot come up with the perfect solution that all sides will accept, we should just maintain the status quo because it is better that some innocent people should die to insure that some people of questionable mental stability will not get their Second Amendment rights violated, correct?

[valthenya]

(Regarding the "*******" comment) Not trying to be polite to other peoples political bents but polite and respectful to those who actually carry the term retarded. Check out R-word | Spread the Word to End the Word if you don't believe that its hurtful.

[Wilson502]

Originally Posted by valthenya

Actually ******* is a conjuction of two words: liberal and retard. Liberal being a political opinion of an individual and retard being a real medial cognitive condition as in Mentally Retarded which a lot of the special needs community has as a diagnosis. Slightly outdated use cognitive disability is much better but unfortunately still in use. Find a better word

Im fully aware what it is as I tried to break it down for you. You dont need to give me a damn lecture. And I just call it like is, PC or not. Grow some thicker skin.