The 294th mass shooting this year in the U.S.

[JaneSmith]

There has been another mass shooting, this time at a college in Oregon. 13 dead, 20 wounded, shooter dead.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/10/01/2015-274-days-294-mass-shootings-hundreds-dead/



But with so few days between shootings, I guess there will never be a good time to talk about the gun problem in the U.S.

 

[random_thought]

Wow, that graphic is hard to look at

 

[kenny]

I'm sure they all just had guns to defend their families.

Clearly the answer is to sell a gun to every US citizen, age 0 to 125.
Let em pack their gun at school.

 

[JaneSmith]

Oregon is a conceal carry state, with college campuses included.

 

[Laila619]

The reason this happened is because none of the other students had their own weapons. Everyone should conceal carry, this is the wild west after all.

So ridiculous. Yet another senseless mass shooting. But guns aren't the problem, right? This is 'Merica! You can't take my guns away!!!!1!

 

[momhappy]

^Yes, it is a concealed carry state (college campuses included) but each school has discretion as to whether to permit concealed handguns inside buildings, dormitories, event centers, and classrooms. Private colleges and universities may still prohibit weapons throughout the entire campus including grounds. I believe that the community college where the shooting took place did not permit concealed carry (as of 3/2015). Many shootings/mass shootings occur in places where the shooter knows that concealed carry is not allowed (for obvious reasons).

 

[momhappy]

The reason this happened is because none of the other students had their own weapons. Everyone should conceal carry, this is the wild west after all.

So ridiculous. Yet another senseless mass shooting. But guns aren't the problem, right? This is 'Merica! You can't take my guns away!!!!1!

Guns are PART of the problem. In order to alleviate the problem, you have to address ALL of the issues, not just one of them. The other piece to the puzzle is crazy people. If you take away all the guns, we still have crazy people, so how do we fix that? I'm all for trying to make change, but that means we need to somehow address a very complex problem (not just guns).

 

[Laila619]

The reason this happened is because none of the other students had their own weapons. Everyone should conceal carry, this is the wild west after all.

So ridiculous. Yet another senseless mass shooting. But guns aren't the problem, right? This is 'Merica! You can't take my guns away!!!!1!

Guns are PART of the problem. In order to alleviate the problem, you have to address ALL of the issues, not just one of them. The other piece to the puzzle is crazy people. If you take away all the guns, we still have crazy people, so how do we fix that? I'm all for trying to make change, but that means we need to somehow address a very complex problem (not just guns).

I know! If we take away guns, we'll just have mass knife stabbings, or mass baseball bat smashings.

Maybe since we do have crazy people, and that won't ever be fixed (not with all the broken homes and violent crap on TV), we should, you know, not make guns accessible to them?

I just don't understand how we can't figure it out like other countries have. Canada and Australia got rid of all their guns, and surprise, they don't have mass shootings. Why can't America do the same?

 

[Matata]

The national news reported in comforting terms that several federal agencies are on their way to Roseburg to learn as much as they can about the killer. For what? What else can we learn that we have't already learned from the all the other mass shootings? How did that knowledge lead to significant change in gun laws in the US? Does anyone believe that whatever the motive, it will change anything? Good gracious, if Sandy Hook failed to make change, what will it take?

Now comes the outrage. Now comes the rhetoric: IF the campus had armed security officers; IF everyone one campus was armed; Guns don't kill people. Then comes the amnesia, right after the funerals, until it happens again.

 

[Kaleigh]

When is this going to end???

 

[Dancing Fire]

[quote="Laila619|
I just don't understand how we can't figure it out like other countries have. Canada and Australia got rid of all their guns, and surprise, they don't have mass shootings. Why can't America do the same?[/quote]



Because we already have too many illegal guns on the street.

 

[packrat]

It is impossible, 100% not possible, to take away all guns. There are people who are not good people who make a whooooole lotta money on illegal firearms in this country, people from this country and from across borders and ocean, and those people are not going to give them up willingly, and the people who buy from them are not going to just put their heads down and kick the dirt and say aw shucks, I guess I won't do bad things anymore. We can argue back and forth till we're blue in the face, but them's the facts Jack. Pretty Mary Sunshine will turn hers in and Jerk McGangbanger and his pal Druggie McDruggerson are gonna laugh their asses off. We have righted ourselves into a corner, and that's where we're going to stay. We have the right to refuse pretty much anything, not matter how beneficial it is to us--so you can't fix crazy either. It should be hard to own a gun, yes...but should be impossible for those that don't deserve/respect it-and therein lies the rub. It is a false sense of security to think that my turning my firearms in is going to prevent gun deaths.

The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, we have this discussion often. (in the world in general, not specifically just "we" here) I have seen some good ideas, but none that anyone has the balls to implement. Well..I do, but, yanno, I'm not in charge.

 

[Laila619]

It is impossible, 100% not possible, to take away all guns. There are people who are not good people who make a whooooole lotta money on illegal firearms in this country, people from this country and from across borders and ocean, and those people are not going to give them up willingly, and the people who buy from them are not going to just put their heads down and kick the dirt and say aw shucks, I guess I won't do bad things anymore. We can argue back and forth till we're blue in the face, but them's the facts Jack. Pretty Mary Sunshine will turn hers in and Jerk McGangbanger and his pal Druggie McDruggerson are gonna laugh their asses off. We have righted ourselves into a corner, and that's where we're going to stay. We have the right to refuse pretty much anything, not matter how beneficial it is to us--so you can't fix crazy either. It should be hard to own a gun, yes...but should be impossible for those that don't deserve/respect it-and therein lies the rub. It is a false sense of security to think that my turning my firearms in is going to prevent gun deaths.

The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, we have this discussion often. (in the world in general, not specifically just "we" here) I have seen some good ideas, but none that anyone has the balls to implement. Well..I do, but, yanno, I'm not in charge.

But how did other countries do it? I am genuinely asking, because I am mystified. Somehow, it worked for them.

 

[Niel]

Tell me how many mass shootings AUS and the UK Have had this year?

 

[Cluless]

This is so sad.

Laila, we(Canada) may have less but we sadly we still have.

http://montreal.ctvnews.ca/quebec-story-of-the-decade-dawson-shooting-sept-13-2006-1.465746

 

[packrat]

the other countries don't have a country bordering them to the south bringing them in. The other countries have a different culture and mindset all around, seems like, to me. Maybe the people who live in other countries are actually held responsible for things rather than baby talked and force fed victimization. We have a HUGE and I mean HUGE lack of respect for our fellow man and for life in general. Our answer to everything is to rabble rabble rabble and get everyone completely enraged and foaming at the mouth rabid against people we don't like, encouraging the very acts we're saying we want to stop.

 

[lulu]

I have watched three popular television shows tonight, all of them featuring nonstop guns and shooting. Throw in violent video games and I'm putting some of this on the influence of the media. Mentally healthy people won't be influenced but those with mental health issues are.

 

[momhappy]

The reason this happened is because none of the other students had their own weapons. Everyone should conceal carry, this is the wild west after all.

So ridiculous. Yet another senseless mass shooting. But guns aren't the problem, right? This is 'Merica! You can't take my guns away!!!!1!

Guns are PART of the problem. In order to alleviate the problem, you have to address ALL of the issues, not just one of them. The other piece to the puzzle is crazy people. If you take away all the guns, we still have crazy people, so how do we fix that? I'm all for trying to make change, but that means we need to somehow address a very complex problem (not just guns).

I know! If we take away guns, we'll just have mass knife stabbings, or mass baseball bat smashings.

Maybe since we do have crazy people, and that won't ever be fixed (not with all the broken homes and violent crap on TV), we should, you know, not make guns accessible to them?

I just don't understand how we can't figure it out like other countries have. Canada and Australia got rid of all their guns, and surprise, they don't have mass shootings. Why can't America do the same?

I'm not going to get into a debate about guns. It's a complex issue, with a complex solution. Crazy people will always find ways to harm other people.
I'm sad to hear of yet another mass shooting

 

[JaneSmith]

I found the archived page of the 4chan thread that may or may not be some of the shooter's final postings. Seems like a gross MRA. I won't be surprised if many or all of the victims are female. Most of the commenters there use the language of women hating and 'alpha male' hating.

Warning, graphic descriptions of violence and bigotry at this link.
https://archive.moe/r9k/thread/22785073/

 

[kenny]

When is this going to end???

When we're all killed by guns, which apparently will be any day now.

 

[diamondseeker2006]

It is impossible, 100% not possible, to take away all guns. There are people who are not good people who make a whooooole lotta money on illegal firearms in this country, people from this country and from across borders and ocean, and those people are not going to give them up willingly, and the people who buy from them are not going to just put their heads down and kick the dirt and say aw shucks, I guess I won't do bad things anymore. We can argue back and forth till we're blue in the face, but them's the facts Jack. Pretty Mary Sunshine will turn hers in and Jerk McGangbanger and his pal Druggie McDruggerson are gonna laugh their asses off. We have righted ourselves into a corner, and that's where we're going to stay. We have the right to refuse pretty much anything, not matter how beneficial it is to us--so you can't fix crazy either. It should be hard to own a gun, yes...but should be impossible for those that don't deserve/respect it-and therein lies the rub. It is a false sense of security to think that my turning my firearms in is going to prevent gun deaths.

The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, we have this discussion often. (in the world in general, not specifically just "we" here) I have seen some good ideas, but none that anyone has the balls to implement. Well..I do, but, yanno, I'm not in charge.

This is true. Good people need to have guns to defend against the ones who will have them illegally. The stories are not popular in mainstream media, but there have been many tragedies averted by legal concealed carry people in the right place at the right time.

Yes, absolutely have background checks and don't issue licenses until they are done. That will deter (or postpone) some of the crazy people like the guy who did the Charleston church shooting. The system failed in his case as he shouldn't have been given a license. But as packrat said, the criminals just aren't going to turn theirs in and I surely don't want them to be the only ones with the guns.

 

[JaneSmith]

Everyone can just stop with assuming every shooter is crazy. It furthers the stigmatization of mentally ill people who are themselves more likely to be the victims of violent crime than perpetrators.
Shooters can be angry, bigoted, feel entitled or owed something, or may be seeking notoriety or entrance into a gang.

The latest news story I know of involving an armed citizen trying to aid a victim of a crime is horrendous. A man was getting carjacked, and another guy tries to intervene by drawing his gun and shooting at the carjackers, but he hits the driver in the head. Gun guy then picks up his casings and flees.
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/09/texas-good-guy-with-a-gun-shoots-carjacking-victim-in-head-then-runs-away/
All hail the second amendment, another member of the well-armed militia has prevented tyranny.

 

[jordyonbass]

It is impossible, 100% not possible, to take away all guns. There are people who are not good people who make a whooooole lotta money on illegal firearms in this country, people from this country and from across borders and ocean, and those people are not going to give them up willingly, and the people who buy from them are not going to just put their heads down and kick the dirt and say aw shucks, I guess I won't do bad things anymore. We can argue back and forth till we're blue in the face, but them's the facts Jack. Pretty Mary Sunshine will turn hers in and Jerk McGangbanger and his pal Druggie McDruggerson are gonna laugh their asses off. We have righted ourselves into a corner, and that's where we're going to stay. We have the right to refuse pretty much anything, not matter how beneficial it is to us--so you can't fix crazy either. It should be hard to own a gun, yes...but should be impossible for those that don't deserve/respect it-and therein lies the rub. It is a false sense of security to think that my turning my firearms in is going to prevent gun deaths.

The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, we have this discussion often. (in the world in general, not specifically just "we" here) I have seen some good ideas, but none that anyone has the balls to implement. Well..I do, but, yanno, I'm not in charge.

But how did other countries do it? I am genuinely asking, because I am mystified. Somehow, it worked for them.

Anyone who still wanted a gun here understood that stringent restrictions was really for the best. Nobody needs an automatic or semiautomatic firearm here and they're only for protection from wild animals when you're in the outback.

Nobody in Australia who robs someone with a firearm generally wants to kill them as armed holdups with firearms happen all the time with no fatality I can recall at the moment. The only people who generally get shot by crimimals are other crimimals.

I think this boils down to a number of issues; population density causing higher amounts of mental illness, the ease of access, the culture around firearms, people employing the constitution amendment without understanding why it was written, fear of everyone else as they already have a gun - and that's off the top of my head.

Don't get me wrong here, I'm for people having guns if they REALLY need them. I hunt pigs here in the outback and we carry firearms for protection from wild dogs and in case our hunting dogs cannot hold a large boar. We usually fire a few rounds when we first arrive to test the accuracy of the rifle but after that we put on the safety and it doesn't come off the entire trip unless we have an emergency situation. It's just a different culture here as nobody has a gun for 'protection'.

 

[Rhea]

Tell me how many mass shootings AUS and the UK Have had this year?

This year?! If we have one every decade we're shocked and dismayed. And we have knives, cricket bats, violent tv, and video games! We have mental illness, crazy people, terrorists, and some mad people in the general population. The UK is a much smaller, but also much denser country, so I have no idea how it's managed here.

Our last major shooting was in June 2010 and 12 people died as the result of a loan gunman. The two guns used were legal, contrary to popular belief we do have legal firearms, they just aren't weapons which can kill masses of people without reloading. They were a shot gun and a rifle. Previous to that was 14 years prior with Dunblane in 1996.

 

[the_mother_thing]

Everyone can just stop with assuming every shooter is crazy. It furthers the stigmatization of mentally ill people who are themselves more likely to be the victims of violent crime than perpetrators.
Shooters can be angry, bigoted, feel entitled or owed something, or may be seeking notoriety or entrance into a gang.

The EXACT same thing can be said for lumping all gun owners into the same pool.

This is a very sad, senseless, cowardly incident for sure, and my heart is first & foremost with the victims who are forever physically and mentally traumatized by this coward's lack of respect for the lives of others; not on counting gun statistics before the victims were even out of surgery.

The blame lies squarely on the individual who committed the crime; not on the lifeless, otherwise inanimate object he used to commit his act. I am tired of people blaming guns like they just hop out of a holster, mosey on up to some random location, and take lives for lack of anything better to do in the course of that day. I am tired of people saying how guns take innocent lives, yet they hold pro-choice banners a moment later in a disgusting example of hypocrisy. I am tired of people comparing the U.S. to other countries' crime rates when those countries do not have the same drug, border and crime issues, framework, etc as ours. And I am absolutely positively disgusted by our president who will let NO tragedy pass by without capitalizing on it in a disgusting attempt to further his political agenda before having even a fraction of facts. IF our president truly gave a rats backside about "gun control", he would have easily done something about it when his party had control of the house and senate. But he didn't. So don't buy into his divisive, agenda-furthering, votes-garnering rhetoric further padded by the left-leaning media outlets. His home state and city of Chicago is a perfect example of how ineffective strict gun laws are - period!

To make this into another gun debate is avoiding the cold hard truth about individual mental health & criminal conscience that is THE living, breathing, decision-making-capable common denominator in all of these tragic events ... something else our president made a promise to address then conveniently forgot once he moved to Pennsylvania Avenue. If I came on here making generalizing comments about everyone with mental health issues like some people do guns, I would face a backlash of comments and probably the banhammer. It would be nice if people could afford the same respect to those who choose to legally and responsibly effect our constitutional rights to protect our families vs falsely generalizing guns as the source of the problem when it's the person/people who should be on the receiving end of our outrage.

 

[ame]

This tweet says it all for me.


And I don't believe for a second it is the president not giving a rip about the gun control debate. It's Congress. They are all bending over for the NRA.

 

[the_mother_thing]

This tweet says it all for me.

I wonder how that same person feels about abortion, which preceded Sandy Hook.

 

[ame]

This tweet says it all for me.

I wonder how that same person feels about abortion, which preceded Sandy Hook.

I am pro-choice, and have no issue with a woman's right to choose. You have no idea what is going on in that person's life or why that pregnancy is being terminated nor is it your business. But it is your business that her procedure is done safely by a licensed and well trained doctor who won't get blown up on their way to and from work by someone who somehow believes that bombing people somehow makes them better than a doctor that performs abortions.

But someone walking into a school with a gun they purchased with the express intention of knowingly mowing down a room full of kids is a completely different story. Mental illness or not. And let's be real: that is some form of illness.

Everyone thinks they're somehow some better religious person than the next.

 

[the_mother_thing]

This tweet says it all for me.

I wonder how that same person feels about abortion, which preceded Sandy Hook.

I am pro-choice, and have no issue with a woman's right to choose. You have no idea what is going on in that person's life or why that pregnancy is being terminated nor is it your business. But it is your business that her procedure is done safely by a licensed and well trained doctor who won't get blown up on their way to and from work by someone who somehow believes that bombing people somehow makes them better than a doctor that performs abortions.

But someone walking into a school with a gun they purchased with the express intention of knowingly mowing down a room full of kids is a completely different story. Mental illness or not. And let's be real: that is some form of illness.

Pro-choice or Mental illness with a goal of shooting children - end result is the same: DEAD CHILDREN. Why condone one and not the other? You could argue that you don't know what's going through the mind of a mentally ill killer or someone with an ax to grind, so by all means, don't infringe on their rights either!

Let's be really real - anyone who can take a life at any stage has a form of mental illness.

FTR - I am NOT 'for' anyone committing a crime with a gun or any other tool they choose to use in the taking of life. My point is to be okay with one and not the other is IMO a demonstration of pure hypocrisy.

 

[the_mother_thing]

PS - my comments are NOT religion-based, rather, logic & common sense based. Discussion of religion on PS is a no no.