What do you think needs to be done

[ilovelamp]

To stop this madness? I can't stop thinking about the kids & their families. :-(

I'm still absolutely shocked.

How do we stop this kind of stuff from happening again??

I'm going to drink a few beers. I need to stop looking at the news. I've been watching/listening all day...

[nsl]

Gun control. Actual fucking gun control.

[beans]

its so fucking complex at this point. Its just so many different things contributing. idk. As a school shooting survivor I can't even believe we are still doing this, that nothing has changed. i am having a hard time with this all. I am actually working on my dissertation for my doctorate in psychology... trying to think what I can do with regards to this to help. Its sad. there is no simple answer. I really wish there was.

[meltoine]

Dec 14, 2012 21:47:43 GMT -5 nsl said:

Gun control. Actual fucking gun control.

What, Exactly, though? These guns were bought by and registered to the man's mother, a perfectly reasonable human being with no mental illness, history of crime, or other red flags. For that matter, the shooter himself had no signs of mental illness or criminal history that we know of. Everyone I see shouting "gun control!" is talking about making it harder to get weapons so people like this will get weeded out, I just don't see how any of those measures would have been effective in this particular case.

I absolutely believe that automatic and semi-automatic weapons should be illegal for regular citizens to own. Military and law enforcement who use them as part of their job should have them, and they should stay at the office when the individual is off duty.

I don't think banning handguns is the answer. There are already so many smuggling operations inn this country. Outlawing handguns would just push them into the black market and give even more power and money to the gangs and cartels that run the smuggling operations.

All that to say I really have no idea.

[ilovelamp]

Beans- I didn't know you were in a school shooting. I'm so, so sorry.

My cousin survived a school shooting, also. I know he still struggles with it all the time. *Sigh*

[beans]

Yeah, I went to Columbine. Its definitely a life long thing to deal with. I have been crying all day that these babies will have to endure what I have been through. They're just so so young.

[beans]

Its not just the guns. I mean, I would love to say it is. It is so simple to say that. Its so so much more. Its like a way of life, its a "thing" in our culture. People look at these glorified (in the deranged people's eyes) shootings and truly honestly believe this is the best way to deal with shit and they will be infamous. Which, of course, they do in fact become. And thus leads to more impressions of notoriety for people who may want to go out in a blaze of glory, humanity be damned.

Its not just about guns. Its about crazy psychopaths who *plan* to go in a school and shoot tiny five and six year olds and kill them. gun control doesn't fix that thinking. We can't just take away the guns and call it a day, kwim? first of all, thats never gonna happen. People who want to do crazy ass things are going to find a way. Like meth is illegal. heroine is illegal. people do it.

There are so many complex issues at play here. its not just one thing that needs to change. Its many things.

I truly feel like society needs to shift for this to not be ok anymore. Now how that should happen or what that would look like, I have no idea.

[ilovelamp]

Just today there was a man that went into a Elementary school in China and stabbed 22 children. Apparently there has been a string of stabbings recently over there for the past few months. One in 2010 that killed 20 kids and injured 50.

[amaristella]

I don't know. Honestly. Because in my mind if you take away guns, all the guns, then you could still feasibly have someone show up somewhere with a home made bomb and accomplish nearly the same thing. It might put a damper on the people who do these things at a moments notice, but it wouldn't stop all of it. At the end of the day the best I think that anyone truly can do is to be vigilant about their surroundings.

[amaristella]

Dec 14, 2012 22:19:40 GMT -5 ilovelamp said:

Just today there was a man that went into a Elementary school in China and stabbed 22 children. Apparently there has been a string of stabbings recently over there for the past few months. One in 2010 that killed 20 kids and injured 50.

Oh, interesting that you mention that. My dad grew up in China and way back in their history at some point they had different types of weapons prohibited. Whenever gun control was brought up my dad would always tell us that if you take away guns, people move on to knives. If you take away knives, they will pick up rocks. The weapon is only the mode by which the violence is committed.

I'm not saying that I think ordinary American citizens need to be allowed to own assault rifles. I'm just saying that I don't think that banning all guns will make the problem go away.

[beans]

Dec 14, 2012 22:36:23 GMT -5 amaristella said:

I don't know. Honestly. Because in my mind if you take away guns, all the guns, then you could still feasibly have someone show up somewhere with a home made bomb and accomplish nearly the same thing. It might put a damper on the people who do these things at a moments notice, but it wouldn't stop all of it. At the end of the day the best I think that anyone truly can do is to be vigilant about their surroundings.

I get what you're intending here, but really thats pretty minimizing. Five year olds are supposed to be aware of their surroundings in kindergarten??? I mean that school had a protocol. They had just installed new security things and changed protocols. His mom worked at that school so they knew him. I mean, being aware of shit is always good, and I am very vigilant about doing so myself, but if awareness of your surroundings is supposed to stop mass shootings, uh, fuck that noise, its not going to do shit. Sorry, I am not trying to start fights.

[beans]

Dec 14, 2012 22:51:05 GMT -5 Stan said:

Dec 14, 2012 22:19:40 GMT -5 ilovelamp said:

Just today there was a man that went into a Elementary school in China and stabbed 22 children. Apparently there has been a string of stabbings recently over there for the past few months. One in 2010 that killed 20 kids and injured 50.

All I'm going to say in this thread is that all 22 of those children stabbed survived and will be going home to their parents at some point. The kids shot today will not be. This is about mental illness, without question, but we do live in a culture where guns are accessible easily and fairly quickly, where people feel the need to own guns for "protection". Where this person's mother felt that. And her own guns were turned against her and 25 others. Babies and adults.

And Beans, I love you.

That's all from me on this subject.

I love you back Stanny poo.

:-( to the rest of your post.

[amaristella]

I'm sure that I didn't really frame that right. I'm not saying that I feel like five year olds should have to worry about a gunman busting into their classroom. Believe me I've tried to deal with that idea today, as has everyone else. I feel like for me that it's far too soon to really judge what happened today and be able to say what specifically could have been done to prevent this exact incident. What if it turns out that there wasn't anything?

So, I guess that I wasn't really answering the question that was asked, but more of a general question of what can normal people reasonably do to try and stop similar things from happening.

[Dory1988]

If people want guns they will find a way to get them and the people that will have them will not be the kinds of people we want to have them.

[basilosaurus]

The "they'll just build bombs"is patently absurd. For one, it's not as easy to do successfully, and it requires a lot of preparation. But secondly bomb elements are tracked and restricted to a huge degree more than guns. If you buy a shitton of fertilizer, someone's going to know.

What gun control means to me is that there is zero reason that a private citizen should have a rifle that can shoot 6 rounds a second. I don't care your criminal record or mental stability. Just, no. Also, no to having the 5 guns the mom apparently had.

[brandienee]

I agree with Beans and Meltoine (and sibil too). There is absolutely no reason that the average citizen should have access to Automatic Weapons. Those are meant for far more destruction than just protecting your household and hunting. And I also agree that our country needs to really do something about the mental health system. I am not just saying that as a blanket statement, I just have absolutely no idea where to start.

[Dory1988]

I grew up around guns. My uncle and grandfather took my cousin and I hunting. My husband hunts and has since he was a child. We both enjoy shooting and will probably inherit my family's guns since my cousin has no interest in them. They bring back memories of my uncle since that's one of the few chances I had to spend time with him. No one is going to tell me how many of my family's guns I get to keep or make me choose which ones mean the most to me because I'm only allowed to have 'x' amount. I also enjoy shooting recreationally. I may not have automatic weapons or have any desire to have them but why should those of us law abiding citizens be punished because some person who clearly has some very deep issues can't control himself?

ETA: I know the primary concern is automatic weapons but there are people throwing around limits on amounts you can own and private ownership of handguns which I also enjoy shooting recreationally. That's what I'm speaking to. I definitely think modified and automatic weapons are problems.

[Dory1988]

I also want to add how I'm surprised no one mentioned how the media is making this guy into a household name. Instead killing himself and no one knowing about it this is all we'll talk about for months. You think these criminals don't know this when they commit their acts. They're dying for attention and everyone is giving it to them.

[amaristella]

I already said that guns and bombs are different because of the time element. People have successfully used bombs to blow things up in the US before. It's not something that has never happened. That's part of how we learned that we need to track the commonly used ingredients and thankfully all of the incidents that I've heard of recently have the word "attempt" associated with them. Underwear/shoe bombs, etc.

What makes this case different is that at the moment it seems senseless because nobody seems to know an actual reason why the guy did what he did. And nobody could have predicted it either. As a society I think that it's more difficult for us to grapple with because it makes sense to us why someone would crash a plane into the Pentagon. There's (an extremist) line of thought going on there, but it's one that we feel we can follow and effectively try to prevent. When it's a seemingly random and senseless act of violence it's a lot more difficult to sit down in an organized fashion and lay out exactly needs to be done to prevent the same thing happening again.

I, personally, am in favor of gun controls, but well-thought out controls designed for maximum effectiveness. Knee-jerk ideas such as needing to limit the number of guns that a person owns might not be the most effective method. If the law limits you to three, someone invariably will do something terrible using only two. Maybe we need to compare different guns laws in different states and see where we're lacking. Personally, I believe that if a parent has a gun next to their bed in a house where small children live they better fucking have a trigger lock or similar device on that gun. Perhaps it would make it less effective as a home defense weapon, but to me nobody should be allowed to take that chance. If you have older children in your house who are aware of your guns, maybe you need to make it difficult for them to know how many guns you have, where they are kept, and restrict their ability to piece together everything that they need to shoot it. But things like that, common sense, are much more difficult to legislate than the number and type of guns someone owns. You can require gun safety classes. You can even require gun owners to sign stiff contracts and impose penalties for anyone found to be in violation, but it still won't guarantee 100% compliance.

And for what it's worth, I both agree and disagree with the notion that banning guns only makes them available to the wrong people. I think that initially that would probably end up being mostly the case and that's the reason why some people would say that they're against such laws. They want the problem to be solved now. But over time, say 5 or 10, even 20 years down the road I think that you would gradually see a reduction in the number of even illegal weapons that are owned. And I do think that statistically you would start to see a difference being made.

So what really needs to be reassessed and will eventually make it into law is what specific portions of individual (gun) freedoms are American citizens willing to give up in order to ensure their own and public safety. For me personally, I'm fine with never being allowed to own an automatic rifle, but I still want to be able to own a rifle for recreation the same as I have an interest in cross bows.

[beachy]

I think gun control is part of the solution, but not even close to being the only solution. I think gun laws need to become handled at the federal level instead of state, and I think there should be a federal database to track gun purchases and ownership. I also agree that the general public have no need for automatic weapons. However I do not at all agree that the number of weapons you can own should be controlled, nor owning them at all.

However, for the most part changing the gun control laws will only affect the responsible gun holders, not the criminals or those who intend to do harm. There are so many guns on the black market and that will only get worse if the laws are changed. Drugs are illegal but clearly that doesn't stop people from buying, selling, making and using them, and there has definitely not been a decline in use after many years of them being illegal.

I absolutely think the media and us as the general public play a large role in this continuing. I like that CNN has said they will not repeatedly use the shooter's name to give him any fame, but obviously once that name is out there people know it, can find it, and can use it. There is a statement going around on FB that is said to be from Morgan Freeman (although I read it's actually not from him), but I think it's entirely true. As with any horrible tragedies, be it natural disasters, shootings, etc., we as the general public are fully engrossed in the coverage it because of empathy, curiosity, anger, or whatever other reason. These otherwise no name people decide to end their life, and instead of doing it quietly they choose to go out in the eye of the public, and will forever go down in history. I fully admit I'm guilty of it too, and after all these years can easily name the Oklahoma City bomber and Columbine shooters, but not a single victim in either tragedy.

[beans]

Dec 15, 2012 22:27:36 GMT -5 Dory1988 said:

I also want to add how I'm surprised no one mentioned how the media is making this guy into a household name. Instead killing himself and no one knowing about it this is all we'll talk about for months. You think these criminals don't know this when they commit their acts. They're dying for attention and everyone is giving it to them.

Trust, this is a rant I have had since Columbine happened.

[beans]

Dec 16, 2012 9:24:32 GMT -5 beachy said:

I fully admit I'm guilty of it too, and after all these years can easily name the Oklahoma City bomber and Columbine shooters, but not a single victim in either tragedy.

this just makes me so sad on so many levels. :-(

I'm probably stepping away from this for at least a while.

[amaristella]

I found this in a Fark thread last night. I just wanted to introduce it here since it's the first that I've heard about it. The fact that I've not heard much of anything about it causes me to wonder if it's making any sort of difference in Florida, hopefully positive? What do you guys think?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_Mental_Health_Act

Part of me feels that it is a nice idea because it helps to deal with emergency situations but still fails to deal with many of the larger issues which likely exist in the system.

[iluvmytxrgr]

I'd like to point out that I can easily make a bomb out of items that are in my kitchen and out door shed, have it finished in less than 2 hours and it's all done with items that are perfectly legal for me to have. I'm not talking some little coke bottle/MRE heater bomb, either.

[iluvmytxrgr]

I've seen so many people wanting to limit the size of magazines. So what's the difference between someone having 5 ten round magazines and 10 five round magazines? 1.5 second reload time? Seriously. That's how long it takes me to eject a magazine and reload another. I can do it while moving and acquiring another target. It isn't enough of a delay for me to be stopped while doing it.
I get the argument. I really do. In some ways, I kind of agree with it. However, it doesn't mean it will stop these things from happening. Besides, .223 rounds aren't just used in assault type riffles. My 14 year old hunts with a .223 riffle. He also attends shooting competitions with that rifle.. How are you going to differentiate between an avid hunter/competitor and the mad man?
My point with the bomb is, if you limit one way, they'll find others. A person intent on killing people will kill people. The manner in which he does it doesn't matter to him, 9 times out of 10. You take away one way and there will always be another.

[basilosaurus]

Dec 19, 2012 19:52:50 GMT -5 iluvmytxrgr said:

I've seen so many people wanting to limit the size of magazines. So what's the difference between someone having 5 ten round magazines and 10 five round magazines? 1.5 second reload time? Seriously. That's how long it takes me to eject a magazine and reload another. I can do it while moving and acquiring another target. It isn't enough of a delay for me to be stopped while doing it.
I get the argument. I really do. In some ways, I kind of agree with it. However, it doesn't mean it will stop these things from happening. Besides, .223 rounds aren't just used in assault type riffles. My 14 year old hunts with a .223 riffle. He also attends shooting competitions with that rifle.. How are you going to differentiate between an avid hunter/competitor and the mad man?
My point with the bomb is, if you limit one way, they'll find others. A person intent on killing people will kill people. The manner in which he does it doesn't matter to him, 9 times out of 10. You take away one way and there will always be another.

Remember the Tuscon shooting? The guy was taken down while reloading. I'd say that's a pretty good evidence for increasing the frequency someone needs to reload.

[Jam]

I know I suck for bumping this, but I have been gone quite awhile and am just now reading most of these posts.

Beans, I'm sorry for what you went through. I honestly think about that day very often, especially on 4-20.

I agree with everything you've said. It's basically a paraphrased version of what I've been saying IRL to people. There are so so so many factors that play into stuff like this and a big one (IMO) is the way we glorify and turn these people into "celebrities". It's sad to say that this is becoming cliche.

I really wish the names of the assailant wouldn't be released and that we'd stop plastering their faces and name across the TV for days and annually when the anniversary of these tragedies hits.

We had a birthday celebration for H the next day, but the only thing I could think about was this. It's just terrible that it could get this far.

I'm so on the fence about how I feel about this whole gun control thing. A big part of me is defensive because I want to protect our rights and the 2nd amendment. It's almost like my brain clicks there by default. However, when I think about it. Like REALLY think about it- it's entirely way too easy for people to get their hands on these things. I think that there should be a background check and mental health screen for every person that resides in the same household REGARDLESS of who the weapon is registered under. I think it should be a 30-45 day waiting period in between that time. Assault weapons? Yeah, I really don't know why a regular civilian owns one, but I'm not opposed to military or police owning one. I'm not concrete on how I feel about the whole thing one way or another, but I do know that this is not okay and that it needs to stop.