Ongoing Mass Shootings Thread pt 2

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On the above note, I'd love everyone who makes those sorts of arguments to explain to me why the armed guards and police officers who actually HAVE been present at some of these mass shootings weren't able to stop the shooters.

Hell, wasn't there a story in the news recently about two police officers who were killed in the line of duty when they responded to a domestic call at a house?
 
OMFG WE NEED MOAR GUNZ!!!! ARM THE TEACHERS AND THE PRINCIPALS AND THE HALL MONITORS!!! IT IS THE ONLY WAY TO PROTECT OUR CHILDREN!!! NO MORE GUN FREE ZONES THEY ARE JUST KILL ZONES!!!!



Sincerely,

America



Teachers with guns... stressed little teachers... with huge hormonal obnoxious high school students...
 
This depresses me on an existential level. I don't even know what to fucking say.

I'll see you all in a month or so.
 
I simply cannot understand how people refuse to have these assault weapons banned.

I know people who own these weapons and they stayed locked in a closet for years never to be fired. So just in the name of being able to own a assault weapon, they will pretend to look for other solutions even after one incident of mass murder after another takes place.

Just don't get it.

And none of them are part of a "militia" . . so I don't get the 2nd Amendment argument either.
 
I briefly checked into a couple national news programs during dinner and noticed all of the law enforcement officers speaking about how to proceed. Their solution? Increased surveillance of social media and training children to know when to report classmates to the authorities.

I hear so much about gun control as a debate about personal freedoms. What about this makes one feel free? At this point, banning guns seems more in line with personal freedom than letting guns be available to anyone anytime and then crossing your fingers that someone listens to a tip about a disturbed social media presence.
 
You shouldn't be testing for your life at school or work as is. You're hardly at risk.

Mass shootings aren't necessarily even why guns should be banned. Crime in general, non-inclusive, has the disturbing size for reason.

That isn't meant to undermine the tragedy of this or any mass shooting. Bottom line is the amount of people who die in mass shootings should be zero, end of. But to believe you are at risk when you're at school or work... whether it's terrorism or suicide by mass homicide, you're allowing those few people who cowardly used their own life to take the lives of others to have an impact on you when in reality, the numbers show you shouldn't be in fear.
 
He could have knifed all those children to death, too. Or maybe he could have driven a truck full of explosives into the school and killed 17 children that way. He could have karate kicked them all to death as well. Stop blaming the guns!

Remember: people who want to kill 17 people will do so no matter what - whether by gun, knife, pen, sword, cannon, bayonet, musket, +2 battle axe, nunchucks, or golf club. We are powerless to stop these super-human monsters who are intent on taking human life.
 
Apparently, this creep was already on the FBI's radar after someone spotted him on Youtube boasting he was going to be a professional school shooter.

Last fall, a Mississippi bail bondsman and frequent YouTube vlogger noticed an alarming comment left on one of his videos. "I'm going to be a professional school shooter," said a user named Nikolas Cruz.

The YouTuber, 36-year-old Ben Bennight, alerted the FBI, emailing a screenshot of the comment to the bureau's tips account. He also flagged the comment to YouTube, which removed it from the video.

Agents with the bureau's Mississippi field office got back to him "immediately," Bennight said, and conducted an in-person interview the following day, on Sept. 25.

"They came to my office the next morning and asked me if I knew anything about the person," Bennight told BuzzFeed News. "I didn't. They took a copy of the screenshot and that was the last I heard from them."
 
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I hear so much about gun control as a debate about personal freedoms. What about this makes one feel free?

I don't advocate taking any and all guns away from people. But the assault weapons? Yes

It's silly to keep using the "personal freedom" argument to argue against banning assault weapons. No offense.

I could use the same argument to defend against a number of imposed laws, like drinking and driving for example.

Why should I be penalized with a DUI for having a couple of drinks when I can handle myself and others can't? My personal freedoms are under attack!
 
He could have knifed all those children to death, too. Or maybe he could have driven a truck full of explosives into the school and killed 17 children that way. He could have karate kicked them all to death as well. Stop blaming the guns!

Stop blaming the guns?

Jesus.

He didn't use a knife or drive a truck, etc., because those weapons of mass destruction are so much easier to get and use.

Or did you notice?
 
Stop blaming the guns?

Jesus.

He didn't use a knife or drive a truck, etc., because those weapons of mass destruction are so much easier to get and use.

Or did you notice?

I'm pretty sure Irvine was engaging in sarcasm. Here's an example...

Why should I be penalized with a DUI for having a couple of drinks when I can handle myself and others can't? My personal freedoms are under attack!
 
The amount of tax money we spend on military we should be able to afford one soldier per citizen.

BUT NOT THE GOD DAMN ILLEGALS!!

We hear about mental health but every GOP proposal on health ends up cutting those services.

At least the Dems try to do something, even if it may not be the complete solution
 
I'm pretty sure Irvine was engaging in sarcasm. Here's an example...

Ok, well, I hear that argument used so many times that it went by me.

I suppose I can't handle eating breakfast and responding to posts at the same time.

Lesson learned.
 
The Washington Post hired Megan McArdle this week, who famously said we should not ban guns, but should rather train children to gang rush shooters in schools. I shit you not.

Democracy dies in darkness.
 
He could have knifed all those children to death, too. Or maybe he could have driven a truck full of explosives into the school and killed 17 children that way. He could have karate kicked them all to death as well. Stop blaming the guns!

Remember: people who want to kill 17 people will do so no matter what - whether by gun, knife, pen, sword, cannon, bayonet, musket, +2 battle axe, nunchucks, or golf club. We are powerless to stop these super-human monsters who are intent on taking human life.

Comment from Marco Rubio when discussing this latest shooting:

Rubio rejected calls for gun control in an interview with Fox News after the Parkland shooting, saying it was the wrong time to discuss such efforts “because people don’t know how this happened.”

“I think it’s important to know all of [the facts] before you jump to conclusions that there’s some law we could have passed that could have prevented it,” he said. “There may be, but shouldn’t we at least know the facts? I think that we can always have that debate, but ... you should know the facts of that incident before you run out and prescribe some law you claim could have prevented it.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/florida-republicans-apos-offers-prayers-023055099.html

"People don't know how this happened." Um, yes, we do, Rubio. A guy with a shitton of warning signs somehow managed to get his hands on a gun he shouldn't have been allowed to obtain in the first place, and shot up a school. Seems pretty fucking obvious to me. Idiot.
 
All indications are that this Cruz customer is a white nationalist who liked Trump, said he wanted to kill Antifa, and was extremely anti-Muslim. But MAGA Twitter found a photo of a young Hispanic-looking man in a Communist T-shirt and have convinced themselves a) it's him and b) he's an Antifa communist Muslim. I guess because his name is Cruz and MAGA chuds would have no earthly idea about the prevalence of white people in Spain.
 
The Washington Post hired Megan McArdle this week, who famously said we should not ban guns, but should rather train children to gang rush shooters in schools. I shit you not.

Democracy dies in darkness.

If she said that, then it's pretty stupid.

You'll probably disagree with this in general, as someone far to my left - and that's okay. However, on a general note, I actually think that McArdle is a pretty good person to read if you're left-of-center, as a pretty intelligent right-of-center voice. I've been reading her on Bloomberg View for years for that reason. She's no GOP partisan - she comes out very negatively against Trump, and falls closer to Dems on some issues, such as climate change and a lot of social stuff. And a lot of her commentary is not so much anti-left wing economic policy as much as pointing out legitimate tradeoffs in left-right economic debates. Obviously, I disagree with her on plenty of things, and I think that some of what she says is not only wrong but clearly so (e.g. the aforementioned gun thing).

However, given the drivel that most of the American right-wing spits out nowadays, I think she's a pretty good voice for understanding generally-conservative arguments. Maybe you [general usage of the word "you"] don't want to do that, and that's okay. But, in my mind, the American right isn't going away any time soon, and I'd rather read someone like McArdle than, like, watch Fox News, in order to have an idea of conservative thought. And hopefully be challenged by it, even if I don't normally come to agree with it. Full disclosure that I consider myself moderate to center-left, but fall into the camp of never even considering voting for Republicans due to their general disconnect from reality.

To the new of the week, though: the Republicans' reaction to the shooting yesterday has been abhorrent, but no surprise there, right?

This is a difficult topic to break into, but I do have to wonder if the best solution is ideally something beyond what even mainstream Democrats have been proposing: generally heavily restricting gun purchases, even of normal guns, even to "normal" people. I think of yesterday: have we heard that this was any sort of semi-automatic device? I don't think we have, have we? And the guy might have been on the FBI's radar, but would he have legitimately failed a decent background check? The point is, I'm not sure if "background checks" and "restricting semi-automatic weapons" really goes far enough. It makes me wonder if a much more gun-free society, like most of the rest of the Western World, is really the solution here.

Of course, I say this as an upper-middle-class urban-dweller who is legitimately out-of-touch with a lot of the interests of people who use guns, so I suppose there are tradeoffs here. But yesterday gets me thinking in an interesting direction.
 
This is a difficult topic to break into, but I do have to wonder if the best solution is ideally something beyond what even mainstream Democrats have been proposing: generally heavily restricting gun purchases, even of normal guns, even to "normal" people. I think of yesterday: have we heard that this was any sort of semi-automatic device? I don't think we have, have we? And the guy might have been on the FBI's radar, but would he have legitimately failed a decent background check? The point is, I'm not sure if "background checks" and "restricting semi-automatic weapons" really goes far enough. It makes me wonder if a much more gun-free society, like most of the rest of the Western World, is really the solution here.

That's the only real solution, outside of fixing the society, which isn't going to happen any time soon. And you're right, nothing that any mainstream pol has suggested goes nearly far enough. Not by a long shot. "Common sense gun control" is a lie and myth, and about as effective at stopping these kinds of things as thoughts & prayers or the NRA's phantom hero with a gun.
 
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This is a difficult topic to break into, but I do have to wonder if the best solution is ideally something beyond what even mainstream Democrats have been proposing: generally heavily restricting gun purchases, even of normal guns, even to "normal" people. I think of yesterday: have we heard that this was any sort of semi-automatic device? I don't think we have, have we? And the guy might have been on the FBI's radar, but would he have legitimately failed a decent background check? The point is, I'm not sure if "background checks" and "restricting semi-automatic weapons" really goes far enough. It makes me wonder if a much more gun-free society, like most of the rest of the Western World, is really the solution here.

Of course, I say this as an upper-middle-class urban-dweller who is legitimately out-of-touch with a lot of the interests of people who use guns, so I suppose there are tradeoffs here. But yesterday gets me thinking in an interesting direction.

Honestly, at this point, I would be totally fine with this. And I'm speaking as somebody who does live in an area where a lot of people own and buy guns for hunting and whatnot. I know people who own guns.

But yeah. Your description sounds like my dream world right now.

I know the Sandy Hook Promise organization has done a couple ads on this issue-I'm thinking there should be a massive, national-level PSA campaign on this topic in the style of the drunk driving and smoking PSAs we see on TV all the time. The victims and their families can share their stories and we can learn a bit more about all those who've died as a result of these tragedies (all of this being done with the victims and their loved ones' permission, obviously), we can share all the statistics in favor of gun control and debunk any attitudes people have about this topic that don't hold up to scrutiny ("these shootings happen because of lack of God in our society", "a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun", etc.).

Not only would that continue to put a human face on this issue, but it'd also keep the topic in the national discussion on a regular basis, instead of just remain something that we only talk about for a brief time when another shooting happens. And if it happens to change some minds along the way and gets people more on board with some legit change on this issue as well, then fantastic.
 
I’m glad we have such a strong leader who blames the school, parents, and community for this instead of the fact that it’s the guns and the rise of white supremacy groups since he’s taken over
 
Our strong leader also rolled back a rule from the Obama administration that would have made it more difficult for the severely mentally ill to obtain firearms, and has also proposed slashing 625 million from federal mental health programs. And one TRILLION from Medicaid, one of the top sources of insurance for the mentally ill.
 
upon learning that the shooter wears MAGA hats and was a member of a white supremacist group, Rebecca Solnit posted this on FB:

Also, another lively discussion on Aruna d'Souza's post prompted me to say: I guess what strikes me over and over is the entitlement to take another person's (or many people's) life, and though I don't have answers to how that correlates to the majority of mass shooters being white men (and all but one or two being men), it raises questions I hope we keep discussing. It's also striking to me that in theory guns are available to all of us but in practice the people whose identities are most wrapped up in them and who use them this way are white men and how now there's a whole culture built around it. Or maybe there's an old culture that's now expanding and growing more vicious.....
 
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