http://abcnews.go.com/US/grandmothe...ol-shooting-plot-washington/story?id=53136502 I realize most people do not care about this story as it doesn't promote an agenda. For the TL;DR people, Grandma discovers journal of her grandsons plot to shoot up a school outside of Seattle. She reports him and saves the day. I have mentioned this in previous shooting incidents of my concern with these shooters trying to find more creative ways to inflict mass casualties. To quote the kid: We need to understand these guys are doing it not because they enjoy killing (like serial killers), but because its their way to becoming famous. We are too busy trying to politicize these shootings and using them for gun debates when there is a much deeper problem at hand. (and i am not trying to discount America has a gun problem). We have shooters chaining doors shut. We have shooters perching from hotel rooms over looking venues. We have shooters using smoke bombs and pulling fire alarms. These attacks are going to get more sophisticated and more deadly. There are a few of you who mocked a couple of these shootings that were interrupted by other people with guns. Its quite disgusting as these shootings could have been much worse. These problems are not going to be solved with a one solution approach. Its a matter of time before these incidents turn into hundreds of killings, if not a thousand.
I'm not asking you this because I agree or disagree. Although I would say I do agree with you to an extent. Why though are these people only wanting to become famous in the U.S.?? There are mentally unstable and deranged people the world over. Are the ones here the only ones with "aspirations to be famous"?
The difference is culture. The culture in America is different than it is elsewhere and it leads to not only the incidents that make up almost all gun crime, but the few incidents of mass shootings too....it's just different aspects of American culture that lead to the different types of gun violence.
stop politicizing everything you filthy commies. I must have imagined those "blood is in your hands" commercial from the trump administration. I agree that they would find other ways to kill. I don't agree they're doing it to be famous.
I think the sheriff dealing with the shooting in Florida makes this point: He also makes this point: I agree with the sheriff... we need to do both... better understand mental health issues and how to treat them, and we need to look at better gun legislation.
These don't seem like mutually-exclusive things. I don't pretend to understand the psychology of somebody who plans, and commits, mass murder, but it seems that it would require apathy toward human life at the very least. "Enjoy" is an odd choice of words because disdain and hatred don't necessarily need to be the other side of that coin. In the cases of Parkland, Newtown, Virginia Tech and Columbine, the shooters knew the facilities. They had a leg up when it came to planning their atrocities because they knew where people would hide and where weak points existed in the buildings/safety procedures. I don't think there's any good way to stop familiarity, so how do we stop planning? One of the confounding things to me is the digital trail that Cruz left. A lot of fingers have been pointed at the FBI and other law enforcement agencies (deservedly so, it seems at this moment), but what culpability do Google and Facebook share? Cruz was posting images of dead animals, that he had presumably killed, to his Instagram feed. This is one of the key behaviors shared by serial killers and, frankly, Facebook has the ability to know what people are posting (see stories about how they can recognize individual faces in photographs posted by third parties and automatically tag you in them) to their feeds. Do the tech companies have a societal obligation to immediately report people who post images of dead animals (provided they fit a pattern, which Cruz seems to have exhibited, and aren't related to hunting) and scan for threatening comments (like Cruz's "professional school shooter" comment on YouTube)? I think the "mockery" is directed toward the idea that it would be easy for a civilian to stop a mass shooting in the heat of the moment. It's is impossible to prove how many lives could be saved in shootings that are all unique situations. The Newtown, Aurora, Virginia Tech and Columbine shooters all wore body armor. Almost all of them were armed with semi-automatic rifles and some, like James Holmes, even planned for potential resistance with smoke bombs. The Las Vegas shooter was out of range for anybody carrying a concealed handgun. Cruz was a former student of the school who, in the immediate aftermath of his murdering, successfully blended in with the student body during evacuation procedures he was familiar with. Those who mock the idea probably do so because it's positioned as a no-brainer solution yet, until the shooting starts, nobody knows what the situation will entail. Will it be full of children who aren't allowed to legally have weapons? Will the shooter be familiar with the building and wearing body armor to stop a concealed handgun that, when compared to an AR-15, has light firepower? Will they be shooting from a distance, mowing down people who aren't carrying weapons capable of reaching the nest? Or will they be shooting into clouds of gas and smoke, unable to see their assailant, as he fires indiscriminately into an area where he knows there is a crowd? None of us know and very few civilians are combat-trained. That is why the idea that more people should have guns is met with derision: it implies that the heat of the moment is inevitable and that people can instinctively act in a way that prevents even more terror. I agree that, hypothetically, some carnage could be stopped by a civilian who knows how and where to fire at a prepared mass shooter. Where I disagree is that we should treat the violence as an inevitable cost of living in the United States.
I mentioned this in the shooting thread: America has ignored this problem for so long kids are beginning to fantasize school shootings. It’s become ingrained in American culture. What a pathetic contribution to humanity.
I strongly disagree with this statement. The overwhelming majority of shooters tend to be social outcasts who are viewed as losers. This is their way of making their mark on society.
This is a very good question, one I find more important than gun control and a blanketed mental health issue (i understand this question falls under this category) It wasn't until a few decades ago did we really start analyzing and categorizing serial killers, despite them existing for hundreds, if not thousands of years. This might be a new category that we need to study.
Yeah, this bothers me. When I go to my kids' schools, I see that they have taken steps on security. They have to buzz you in at the door, and the like. But, I also know these things only work to stop obvious outsiders. If I go looking like a father or, worse, looking like a student, the front desk will let me in. Or some other parent will hold the door for me. And once a shooter gets through the front door like that, it's no longer a question of stopping a shooting, only minimizing damage. Well, at least it can stop of deter outsiders. But, most shooters are not picking unfamiliar targets. They are going after people and institutions they have a relationship with. Ok. I'm not sure how that's actionable. We apparently have a cultural problem in which serial killers are competitive? How do you unwind that? I have no idea where to start on that issue. There are other elements aside from the desire for infamy that can be addressed, and should be addressed since we don't know how to counter a desire for infamy. Limiting access to guns should incrementally reduce incidences and lethality. Expanded access to mental healthcare should reduce incidences as well. But our government is totally paralyzed in doing anything on either score. I'm not sure what good it does to look past the mundane parts that you can fix so that you can get to the real heart of the matter and be unable to do anything about it.
Understand the root of the problem helps us prevent future episodes, regardless of the topic. With serial killers, psychologist can detect this behavior early in childhood and help guide an individual away from potential tendencies. And while we are not going to stop every serial killer before they get started, we can profile their work to help catch them once they start the reckless behavior. When it comes to mass killers, we can approach with the same logic. We can detect potential behavior patterns early and steer people from going into this reckless behavior. With this current shooting in Fl, this guys was already on the radar but it was ignored. Part of that problem is that we do not have an established protocol on how to handle risky behavior patterns, thoughts or actions. We do not have pre-crime methods that some how magically predict if a person is venting in frustration or if they are actually going to go on a killing spree. What do you do with a guy like this? Take away his weapons and wait until he finds another way to obtain them? Lock him up for not committing a crime? Then you have the Las Vegas shooter. These guys will go undetected and only by dumb luck can you catch them before the incident.
I don't disagree. We should be studying the psychology to understand the problem and look for counters. But I object to your characterization of other solutions as politicization. What it sounds like you're suggesting is to not make any changes for incremental benefit but instead wait for the perfectly tailored solution. That sounds like a plan for paralysis. Free markets won't solve this problem and neither will parenting harder. Policy is the only hammer we have it hit it with. Policy solutions unfortunately require politicians doing politics. But the onus is really on them to do something, anything, that plausibly addresses this problem.
Gee, sounds like better funding mental health research and school safety programs would be a good thing to do... https://www.usnews.com/news/busines...ts-trump-focus-on-mental-health-school-safety
I think we shouldn't publish the names of the killers. Give them a codename like "Douchebag McAnus". Photoshop any mugshots to look humiliating. Make these psychopaths the laughing stock of the nation. Don't give them the infamy they seek.
Sorry, but what a terrible and inappropriate time to make me laugh though. On topic, OP, I'll say what I've said before: don't assume so many negative things about perceived adversaries who are actually just your neighbors with many of the same concerns. I was so happy to read of this averted shooting, and I'm as concerned as just about anyone about what's coming. And I admit the complexity of the problem. We already have tons of guns in the country, no matter what anybody legislates moving forward. And we have an increasing mental health problem in the country. About one in nine students matriculating as college freshmen is under some sort of treatment for anxiety and/or depression, according to the counseling services at my school. Campuses are soft targets and the location of a lot of social stress and frustration for young people.
