Mass shooting du jour

[lyra]

As soon as I saw "locking the children in" I thought of The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, where a fire killed many young women who had been locked into that sweatshop on The Lower East Side (where NYU now is) in Manhattan. It led to some of the reforms of The Progressive Era. I don't want to lock children in.

Oh Deb, I didn't mean locked in that way. I mean with doors that open from the inside, but not the outside. It was normal protocol when my kids were in elementary school in the 90's. There was one door you could go in that led directly to the office. You couldn't go beyond that point without a visitor's pass. You had to sign in. This is not a radical idea. I think it could be beefed up a bit. It only offers a bit of security, but as a parent, I'd want some basic things done at my child's school. This is not an answer to the problem by any means, just something that could be done without approval from the NRA.

 

[Arkteia]

Not to worry, HouseCat, no regulation regarding ownership of guns in this country will ever be simple.

Here are two thoughts.

(1) People with anxiety and depression are more likely to kill themselves and possibly close relatives. This happens every.single.day in this country. No one cares. We only care about mass shootings, really, but not enough to actually do anything about it.

(2) I would guess that in most cases law enforcement already knows about people suffering from severe mental illnesses, whether they seek medical treatment or not. They get the phone calls about these people regularly. Of course, then the question becomes what constitutes a mental illness vs. someone having a series of really bad days where they fire guns illegally from their property, threaten people, get put in jail, and then still for goodness sakes DO NOT GET THEIR GUNS TAKEN AWAY.

So, agree. It won't be simple.

One quarter of the population will go through anxiety/depression episode. This does not make them murderers. I think there is something genetic, some markers, some sense of entitlement, we can not measure it yet but it exists.

Worst part about last shooting? I am so used to them that it almost doesn't hurt. Neal targeted kids, and it does not register. It happens daily. Everyone got desensitized to these events. Except for poor relatives who lost their beloved ones in one of these senseless rampages. From time to time I get letters from the parents of the kids killed by Lanza. I understand, they are trying to help something positive come out of their personal losses. But nothing changes.

 

[House Cat]

Not to worry, HouseCat, no regulation regarding ownership of guns in this country will ever be simple.

Here are two thoughts.

(1) People with anxiety and depression are more likely to kill themselves and possibly close relatives. This happens every.single.day in this country. No one cares. We only care about mass shootings, really, but not enough to actually do anything about it.

(2) I would guess that in most cases law enforcement already knows about people suffering from severe mental illnesses, whether they seek medical treatment or not. They get the phone calls about these people regularly. Of course, then the question becomes what constitutes a mental illness vs. someone having a series of really bad days where they fire guns illegally from their property, threaten people, get put in jail, and then still for goodness sakes DO NOT GET THEIR GUNS TAKEN AWAY.

So, agree. It won't be simple.

Ok...where are you getting your thoughts? While it is true that people with depression and anxiety are more prone to suicide, they are not more likely to murder their family members. I am unable to find any statistic that backs your thought. Could you please share your sources?

 

[Loves Vintage]

HouseCat - My thoughts come from my brain. I was inarticulate at best above. I should not post my thoughts on here, clearly, but even more, I shouldn't do so during a busy day at work. I meant to refer to people who commit suicide and who kill a family member or other family members before doing so. I have no source for those statistics either. And, I did not mean that people who are depressed are more likely to kill their family members, although it appears that yes, in a rushed moment that is what I wrote.

In any event, my point was that people use guns to commit suicide on a regular basis and no one gives a damn or wants to take their guns away. The only shooting deaths that get any attention in this country are mass shootings, and even then, only when casualties are high. No one seems to care that depressed people are killing themselves with their guns more frequently than people are using their guns to kill other people. So ain't nobody going to be taking guns away from merely depressed people, because so far, not many people are terribly concerned about their gun ownership or their deaths or the frequency in which this occurs.

https://www.bradycampaign.org/key-gun-violence-statistics

In One Year on Average (all ages)
114,994 people in America are shot in murders, assaults, suicides & suicide attempts, unintentional shootings, or by police intervention.>

33,880 people die from gun violence

• 11,564 murdered
• 21,037 die from suicide
• 544 killed unintentionally
• 468 killed by legal intervention
• 267 die but intent was unknown

81,114 people survive gun injuries:

• 60,041 injured in an attack
• 3,700 survive a suicide attempt
• 16,428 shot unintentionally
• 945 people are shot by legal intervention

 

[Loves Vintage]

http://www.bradycampaign.org/sites/default/files/TruthAboutSuicideGuns.pdf

 

[arkieb1]

I'm sure there are plenty of unbalanced people walking around that have easy access to guns that have never been diagnosed as "mentally ill" just as there are many many people in society that have been diagnosed and treated for mental illnesses that would never shoot anyone.

And therein lies the problem...... it's going to be impossible to label everyone including people who are mass shooters (yes even a few of those will outwit the system) so therefore the only way to reduce gun deaths is stricter regulation of how many and the types of guns everyone can purchase or have access to, in order to protect all of the good law abiding people from all the nutballs out there.

It's a very basic concept people, you take some guns and some of these "so call rights" away from a very rich powerful minority (the gun lobby and people who have to own a lot of guns) and give back the right to live in a safer environment to everyone else.....

 

[House Cat]

HouseCat - My thoughts come from my brain. I was inarticulate at best above. I should not post my thoughts on here, clearly, but even more, I shouldn't do so during a busy day at work. I meant to refer to people who commit suicide and who kill a family member or other family members before doing so. I have no source for those statistics either. And, I did not mean that people who are depressed are more likely to kill their family members, although it appears that yes, in a rushed moment that is what I wrote.

In any event, my point was that people use guns to commit suicide on a regular basis and no one gives a damn or wants to take their guns away. The only shooting deaths that get any attention in this country are mass shootings, and even then, only when casualties are high. No one seems to care that depressed people are killing themselves with their guns more frequently than people are using their guns to kill other people. So ain't nobody going to be taking guns away from merely depressed people, because so far, not many people are terribly concerned about their gun ownership or their deaths or the frequency in which this occurs.

https://www.bradycampaign.org/key-gun-violence-statistics

In One Year on Average (all ages)
114,994 people in America are shot in murders, assaults, suicides & suicide attempts, unintentional shootings, or by police intervention.>

33,880 people die from gun violence

• 11,564 murdered
• 21,037 die from suicide
• 544 killed unintentionally
• 468 killed by legal intervention
• 267 die but intent was unknown

81,114 people survive gun injuries:

• 60,041 injured in an attack
• 3,700 survive a suicide attempt
• 16,428 shot unintentionally
• 945 people are shot by legal intervention

I’m glad I asked for clarification. It isn’t like many here to say such things.

I wish people would give a shit about guns and suicide. My stepdad used a gun for his suicide. It was the main element of the event that I wish were different because it would have given us more time to save him.

The concept that guns can remove the human spirit from the body in less than a second is so beyond my comprehension. Whenever I think on it too deeply, it takes my breath away.

 

[monarch64]

http://wncn.com/2017/11/16/2-accidentally-shot-at-church-during-church-shooting-discussion/

 

[telephone89]

http://wncn.com/2017/11/16/2-accidentally-shot-at-church-during-church-shooting-discussion/

 

[ksinger]

http://wncn.com/2017/11/16/2-accidentally-shot-at-church-during-church-shooting-discussion/

That cracking sound you heard? Yep. My irony meter breaking. Again.

 

[t-c]

As if getting shot or having a friend or family member killed wasn't bad enough...

US gun violence spawns a new epidemic: conspiracy theorists harassing victims
After mass shootings, survivors and victims’ families face a second round of attacks online – and fighting back is ‘like trying to kill roaches with a fly swatter’

Mike Cronk was sitting half-naked on a street corner, hands covered in blood, when the TV news reporter approached. The 48-year-old, who had used his shirt to try to plug a bullet wound in his friend’s chest, recounted in a live interview how a young man he did not know had just died in his arms.


Cronk’s story of surviving the worst mass shooting in modern US history went viral, but many people online weren’t calling him a hero. On YouTube, dozens of videos, viewed by hundreds of thousands of people, claimed Cronk was an actor hired to play the part of a victim in the Las Vegas mass shooting on 1 October.


Conspiracy theorists harassed him on Facebook, sending messages like “How much did they pay you?” and “How does it feel to be part of a hoax?” The claims multiplied and soon YouTube’s algorithm began actively promoting the conspiracy theory.


Two months later, Cronk’s online reputation appears damaged beyond repair. Type “Mike Cronk” into Google and YouTube, and the sites automatically suggest searches for “actor” and “fake”, leading to popular videos claiming he and his wounded friend were performers and that the Mandalay Bay tragedy that killed 58 people never happened.

“It’s awful that we have to go through what we did and then you have a whole new level of attacks on you and who you are,” said Cronk, a retired teacher. “I don’t want negative stuff associated with my name, but how do we stop that?”


As record-breaking mass shootings have become a ritual of life in the US, survivors and victims’ families across the country have increasingly faced an onslaught of social media abuse and viral slander. Bullying from the ugliest corners of the internet overwhelms the grief-stricken as they struggle to cope with the greatest horror they’ve ever experienced.


The cycles of hoaxer harassment are now as predictable as mass shootings. And yet those with the most power to stop the spread of conspiracy theories have done little to address victims’ cries for help [...]
[click this to read more]

 

[Matata]

As record-breaking mass shootings have become a ritual of life in the US, survivors and victims’ families across the country have increasingly faced an onslaught of social media abuse and viral slander. Bullying from the ugliest corners of the internet overwhelms the grief-stricken as they struggle to cope with the greatest horror they’ve ever experienced.

Confession time: I fantasize that all the stupid people who do these despicable things are spayed and neutered to prevent them from raising another generation of stupid people. I was hoping they'd all kill themselves with their guns but that seems to be taking too long. My empathy cup is chipped, cracked and empty at the moment.