ongoing mass shootings thread

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In fact, between 1982-2012 mass shootings semi-automatic pistols have been used almost 3 times more than rifles, shotguns, and revolvers.

So why not ban pistols before these so-called "assault weapons?"
 
:doh:

U.S. Navy was warned that Washington shooter 'heard voices'

By Phil Stewart and Scott Malone

WASHINGTON/BOSTON (Reuters) - Rhode Island police warned the U.S. Navy last month that Washington Navy Yard gunman Aaron Alexis had reported "hearing voices," raising further questions about how he gained security clearance at the complex where he went on a shooting rampage.

Officials say Alexis, a Navy contractor and former Navy reservist, opened fire at the Naval Sea Systems Command on Monday, killing 12 people before police shot him dead.

The shooting - a mile and a half from the U.S. Capitol and three miles from the White House - sent shockwaves through Washington.

The Pentagon said it would review security at military installations around the world and the White House promised to review standards for federal government contractors.

A Defense Department Inspector General's report published on Tuesday revealed security lapses that allowed 52 convicted felons to gain access to Navy facilities because budget cuts had undermined vetting.

Meanwhile, the U.S. capital paused to remember the victims, aged 46 to 73, who included retirees, parents and a bird lover.

Police in Newport, Rhode Island, were so concerned about Alexis' behavior on a business trip there in August that they alerted Navy police.

Alexis told police he believed people were following him and "sending vibrations into his body," according to a Newport police report.

He told police that he had twice moved hotels to avoid the noise he heard coming through the floor and the ceiling of his rooms, and that the people following him were using "some sort of microwave machine" to prevent him from sleeping.

"Based on the naval base implications and the claim that the involved subject, one (Aaron Alexis) was 'hearing voices,' I made contact with the on-duty Naval Station police," a Newport police officer wrote, adding that he faxed his report of the incident to Navy police.

The Newport police report said Navy police had promised to check if Alexis was in fact a naval base contractor.

Asked for comment, a spokesman said the Navy was looking into the matter, without confirming any details.

In addition, CNN reported that Alexis had contacted two Veterans Administration hospitals recently and was believed to be seeking psychological help.

"Initial reports indicate that this is an individual who may have had some mental health problems," U.S. President Barack Obama told Spanish-language network Telemundo.

"The fact that we do not have a firm enough background check system is something that makes us more vulnerable to these kinds of mass shootings."

The Navy gave Alexis an honorable discharge despite a series of eight to 10 misconduct charges, ranging from traffic offenses to disorderly conduct.

SECURITY CLEARANCE

Using a valid pass as an information technology contractor with a private company, Alexis entered the Naval Sea Systems Command headquarters with a shotgun - bought legally in Virginia - and gained access to a handgun after he started firing, officials said.

He started picking off victims in a cafeteria from a fourth-floor atrium, witnesses said. Eight people were hurt, three with gunshot wounds, before Alexis was killed in a gun battle with police.

A U.S. defense official said a National Agency Check, a type of background check, was completed on Alexis in August 2007 and he was determined eligible to handle "secret" material in March 2008. Such clearances are valid for 10 years, meaning Alexis had no need to renew his.

Alexis' employer said it had enlisted a service to make what appeared to be two standard, employment background checks on him over the past year, finding only a traffic violation while twice confirming his "secret"-level security clearance with the U.S. Defense Department.

"The latest background check and security clearance confirmation were in late June of 2013 and revealed no issues other than one minor traffic violation," The Experts, an information technology company, said in a statement.

Alexis was arrested on September 4, 2010, in Fort Worth, Texas, on a misdemeanor charge of discharging a firearm. He was also arrested in Seattle in 2004 for shooting out a construction worker's car tires in an anger-fueled "blackout" triggered by perceived "disrespect," police said. In 2008, he was cited for disorderly conduct in DeKalb County, Georgia, when he was kicked out of a club for damaging furnishings and cursing.

In each case, the charges were dropped.

People who knew Alexis said they were shocked by the shooting, describing him as a lover of Thai culture who worshipped at a Buddhist temple in Texas, although one acquaintance told reporters he had an unnatural affection for violent video games.

The Navy Yard was closed to all but essential personnel on Tuesday. Military police were stationed at the four entrances, checking the identifications of the employees who were being allowed back in. Other personnel milled around outside, hoping to retrieve cars that remained locked inside the gates.

"I've never ever felt unsafe at this place," said David Berlin, a civilian who works at the Navy Yard as an assistant program manager building weapons systems. "If someone wants to skirt the rules, they can do that, but you trust your colleagues."

(Additional reporting by Mark Hosenball, Deborah Charles, Ian Simpson, and Alina Selyukh; Writing by Daniel Trotta; editing by Christopher Wilson)
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I'm so out of the loop and so on the opposite side of the globe here... but is cracking down hard on ammunition any sort of option?

Like, seriously? Fine, have your guns, have your bunker busting assault weapons, your pistols and rifles, whatever... but regulate the ammo within an inch of its life.

Yes, yes, I know, 3D printers... but mercifully for us all it's relatively early days there (and maybe not without its roadbumps).
 
Irvine511 said:
We dont pay much attention to the 4th amendment
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If "we" Americans weren't so ignorant of what this is, or how to apply it, "we" wouldn't have this problem.

Assuming that our 4th ammendment is being eroded by the government, if that was what you were alluding to.

Owning guns gives people the illusion that they are free. The 2nd amendment is clear cut. I can own guns, look how free I am. The 4th amendment is, like, I dunno a bunch of confusing legal stuff, or something. The 2nd amendment is a lot easier to understand and apply for your average couch-potato American.
 
a multi-faceted problem requires a multi-pronged approach:

What If We Treated Guns Like Cars?
Sep 17, 2013 12:15 PM EDT

In the single year 1965, some 47,000 Americans died in car accidents, as many as died in combat in the entire Vietnam War.

The carnage on the roads inspired Americans to act. Over the next three decades, Americans did three main things to improve auto safety:

1) They improved auto design, by requiring seat belts and other safety technology.

2) They improved road design, with clearer signs and wider highway medians.

3) They cracked down on unsafe driver behavior, especially drunk driving.

It all worked! Auto fatalities have declined and declined and declined. The year 2011 set another safety record: 1.1 auto deaths per 100 million vehicle miles driven. Americans can hope for even greater improvements in the years ahead as cars gain artificial intelligence.

Suppose somebody had argued back in 1965 that the "real" cause of car accidents was drinking. Suppose they had argued that it was useless to improve roads and a violation of automakers' rights to require seat belts—that the one and only thing to do was to crack down on drunk driving. They wouldn't have been wrong about drunk driving. But had they been listened to, much less progress would have been achieved.

Improved gun safety no more requires a gun ban than improved auto safety demanded the outlawing of cars.

Yet this is exactly how the debate over gun safety unfolds. After a mass casualty shooting, gun rights advocates direct our attention to the gaps in the American mental health system. They're right, too! But it is also true that the easy availability of guns enables mentally troubled people to do much more damage than they might in another country where guns are harder to come by. Shouldn't we pay attention to both problems?

Yes, we have to tread lightly with gun regulation: the right to bear arms is constitutionally protected. But the mentally ill have rights too, including the right not to be locked up on the warning of a relative or teacher or co-worker. The Second Amendment does not trump the Fifth Amendment.

But if the easy availability of guns is not the sole cause of horrors like the Washington Navy Yard massacre, the easy availability of guns is the proximate cause of thousands of other less spectacular tragedies every year: the accidents, the unintended shootings, the ordinary arguments that escalate into gun battles.

Gun rights advocates insist that the U.S. faces a choice between the status quo and the repeal of the Second Amendment and mass confiscation of firearms. That is false. Improved gun safety no more requires a gun ban than improved auto safety demanded the outlawing of cars. Gun design could be regulated to enhance safety. Those who wish to own guns could be required to take safety courses and pass a test. Individuals who are found to store their weapons unsafely could forfeit for a time their ownership rights. Persons convicted of drug offenses or drunk driving could be deprived of gun rights in their sentence, as felons now are deprived of the right to vote in many states. The classes of weapons associated with mass casualty shooting could be more strictly controlled. It's not all or nothing, not all one way or all the other way: moderate steps could achieve substantial results. The goal is not to reduce the level of gun violence to zero, any more than it is to stop all auto fatalities. The goal is to enhance safety while upholding legitimate rights. It's been done before. It can be done again.

[url=http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/09/17/what-if-we-treated-guns-like-cars.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thedailybeast%2Flatest+%28The+Daily+Beast+-+Latest%29]What If We Treated Guns Like Cars? - The Daily Beast[/URL]
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i'd also like to see mandatory gun classes, like driver's ed, and gun insurance, like car insurance.
 
Guys...GUYS, it's called an amendment for a reason, no? That means that it can be changed, removed, or improved upon, provided that there was enough political will to do so.

Not sure what it's going take for that to happen, though. Will it be after the next several mass shootings (and make no mistake, there will be many more) and people decide they no longer wish to visit the United States and will take their money elsewhere? It appears to me that only the loss of money, not life, is what spurs people into action, as sad and demoralizing as that is.
 
BoMac said:
Guys...GUYS, it's called an amendment for a reason, no? That means that it can be changed, removed, or improved upon, provided that there was enough political will to do so.
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This would lead to civil war - if it ever got passed - which it won't.

Like it or not - the guns are here to stay. We can't move forward in any meaningful way if people don't accept this.

Now, since the guns are here to stay - how best we can manage them? This is where the reasonable discourse must take place. I believe that once Americans know their guns are safe - they will be open to some new ideas around permits, licensing, tracking, background checks...etc.
 
AEON said:
This would lead to civil war - if it ever got passed - which it won't.

Like it or not - the guns are here to stay. We can't move forward in any meaningful way if people don't accept this.
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They're here to stay because the gun lobbyists have a tight grip on DC. After the Sandy Hook shootings, supposedly 90% of Americans wanted gun regulations and Congress was going to pass some legislations, but it never happened. Lobbyists of all areas have far too much influence in the government, and many Americans don't seem to be aware of that. I read somewhere the lobbying influence is more stronger than it was 20 years ago. That is very telling.
 
Pearl said:
They're here to stay because the gun lobbyists have a tight grip on DC. After the Sandy Hook shootings, supposedly 90% of Americans wanted gun regulations and Congress was going to pass some legislations, but it never happened. Lobbyists of all areas have far too much influence in the government, and many Americans don't seem to be aware of that. I read somewhere the lobbying influence is more stronger than it was 20 years ago. That is very telling.
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As soon as the rhetoric turns to "banning" certain models and "limiting" magazines - and of course the comparisons to other countries - the conversation ends.

But if the focus remains on the mentally ill and their access to weapons - then I think we can see some progress.

Let's face it - someone really needs to be mentally ill to carry out these atrocities.
 
I think considering limiting/banning guns available to the mentally ill falls well short of where we need to be. Lots of reasons, but some being:

1. Does that apply to those who are diagnosed with a mental illness? What about those who haven't sought help or aren't in the system? What's the definition of mental illness that we'll apply to the gun scenario?

2. What about people who don't have a history of mental illness but "snap" in the heat of the moment or are clinically depressed but situationally so, etc?

3. What about those who have no documented history of mental illness but do have a long, documented history of aggression or unstable behaviour?

And even if you take the position that ALL the people who commit mass shootings are mentally ill, those deaths only comprise a small number of the total gun-related fatalities in the USA. The vast majority are committed by criminals, mentally healthy people with no records, domestic abusers, dumb teenagers, etc. and not by a paranoid schizophrenic who finally loses it.

TBH, I don't think you have any hope of any sort of reform. Whoever said that this is just how things are in the US is probably right. Sad, but true.

There are too many guns, too many special interest groups, too many people repeating the "2nd amendment is clear" like lemmings, too many people who seem to be professional contrarians and so on.
 
It's very sad that the OP put the ONGOING title on this one, yet it proves a valid point that these massive shootings represent the going down of US society every minute.
 
I will say, however, that 2-3 mass shootings a year in a country of 300 million people who lack universal health care but have easy access to a wide variety of firearms really isn't that bad.

It is extraordinarily rare. Crime rates have plummeted in most cities to levels not seen since 1960, at least.
 
Irvine511 said:
I will say, however, that 2-3 mass shootings a year in a country of 300 million people who lack universal health care but have easy access to a wide variety of firearms really isn't that bad.
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I agree, and that was sort of my point - these mass shootings, however tragic, are the exception to the rule. So to the extent that we concentrate on mental health laws, it is relevant in this context but that does nothing to address the much wider and more serious problem of people shooting each other in America, on the streets of Chicago, in their own homes, etc.
 
anitram said:
I agree, and that was sort of my point - these mass shootings, however tragic, are the exception to the rule. So to the extent that we concentrate on mental health laws, it is relevant in this context but that does nothing to address the much wider and more serious problem of people shooting each other in America, on the streets of Chicago, in their own homes, etc.
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i agree. the abject horror of this, or the Newtown shooting (which i'm still not over), aren't terribly helpful for overall gun policy. i think they are instructive when it comes to demonstrating how devastating semi-automatics and ammunition can be, and the commonality of mental illness shines a light on inadequacies in the system and brings up tough questions, as well as pointing out the uniquely American gun culture obsessions where rights and cultural resentments have ben conflated. but these cases serve more as a highlighter for deeper changes that need to be made rather than passing a law that, had it been in place, would have prevented said tragedy. it's never so neat and clean as that.

as far as this case goes, i really hope this doesn't get sidetracked into a discussion of security clearances. it's really irrelevant. he could have walked into CVS and shot 12 people.

i firmly place blame on the guns themselves. a gun is a crime waiting to happen. we'll always have mentally ill people. the difference is that in America they can easily get guns that kill many, many more people than sticks and knives.
 
this:

NO TIME TO DESPAIR ABOUT GUN CONTROL
POSTED BY ADAM GOPNIK

So here we go again, right back where we started, or seemingly so—one more gun massacre in America. This time at the Washington Navy Yard, a military establishment where the “schoolteachers” are trained members of the military, many of them armed.

Nothing seems to happen in the wake of massacre after massacre. No legislation, just a preening, self-congratulatory dance among the members of the gun lobby, which wholly owns the Republican Party and too many chunks of the Democratic one: Not even twelve more dead can shake our grip! Yet I don’t detect despair on the side of the sane, though despair might be helpful. “Though we cannot out-vote them we will out-argue them,” Dr. Johnson once said, and it is fortifying, if not comforting, to know that the argument only gets stronger with each new day and each new study. Another one was just published, in that left-wing rag The American Journal Of Public Health, called “The Relationship Between Gun Ownership and Firearm Homicide Rates in the United States, 1981-2010.” It shows the same things that every other scientific, refereed, and peer-reviewed study has shown:

We observed a robust correlation between higher levels of gun ownership and higher firearm homicide rates. Although we could not determine causation, we found that states with higher rates of gun ownership had disproportionately large numbers of deaths from firearm-related homicides.
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The caution about causation, as I have written before, is not a sign of uncertainty but, rather, a sign of proper reserve: correlations are not causes, but they are the strongest evidence we will ever have. This one is about as robust a correlation as exists in the social science.

Now, one can get depressed having won an argument without winning a political fight, but that misunderstands the nature of political fights. Once the argument is won—gay marriage is a fine recent example—the action will go with it, sometimes far more quickly than one expects. The broken consensus is vulnerable to simple aging, at the very least. There are no more grounds for despair about gun control than there were grounds for despair about the persistence of lynching in the face of the fight against that horror. The truth is known, obvious and inarguable. It cannot be said too clearly, and it cannot be said too often: guns make gun violence happen, gun-control laws make it stop. Anyone who says that this is “dubious” or “uncertain” or “as yet undecided” or “up for argument” is a liar or a fool or—well, the third possibility is that he is a true “American exceptionalist”; that is, someone who believes that Americans are so intrinsically, genetically homicidal that the same gun laws that have alleviated violence and ended massacres in Canada and Australia and Great Britain and Europe won’t work here. The only way not to know that is to decide not to know anything. People can do that for a long time, but not forever.

The other argument is that, whatever the truth, all that death is the price we pay for the Second Amendment, which is fixed in place to privilege private gun owners. In fact, as also can’t be said too often, there are grounds for an endless argument about what exactly the Second Amendment does or does not ban. The argument that its preamble—that “well regulated Militia” bit—is meant to define the area of argument seems to many to be decisive. (Ask yourself, If there was no preamble to the Amendment and someone wanted to add it now, would the N.R.A. support or oppose it? It’s obvious, isn’t it?) Only recently has the Second Amendment come to mean a radical departure from previous interpretations.

After there is finally a change on the Supreme Court, the minority in District of Columbia v. Heller, one of the decisive gun-control cases, may well become the majority in some post-Heller case, and the sane interpretation will be restored or rearticulated. That’s the practical way that the American Constitution works. The argument goes on. (The other argument, that guns must be kept in place in order to oppose tyrants, is itself astounding: our children’s lives must be in perpetual danger so that someone can reserve the right to commit violent sedition against our democracy. As Abraham Lincoln said about a similar piece of secessionist blackmail, “That is cool.”)

Getting angry with the people who are actually responsible for the tragedy is tempting, but not helpful. The love of guns, the identification of gun ownership with liberty—these are irrational beliefs, but a rational standard isn’t what’s at stake. Other irrational beliefs—that life is worth preserving at the extreme end of old age, say, or that all children have a right to a high-quality education—are just as irrational, in the sense of being recent and constructed and far from universally accepted.

Jared Diamond’s book “Collapse” is a fine study of why societies persist in obviously irrational, sometimes suicidal, behavior, even when the reality of just how suicidal it is stares them in the face. Why do they continue to deforest in the face of floods, refuse to eat fish even at the price of starvation? Most of the time, he points out, the simple sunk cost of the irrationality helps it persist: we have always believed this, and to un-believe it is to lose our faith in ourselves. Yet sometimes things change. Diamond cites the success story of the Tikopia chiefs who presided over the decision to eliminate pigs from their tiny island, despite an ancient chieftain’s attachment to the destructive animals, and to turn instead to eating shellfish. Passionately held irrational values, even when they are hugely destructive, deserve empathy from all of us, since we all have values that are just as irrational, and just as passionately held. But it’s our job as grownups, not to mention as citizens, to learn the price of our pet irrationality and, like the Tikopians, to undo the animal forces, on our island and in our head, before they finish undoing us.

After the Navy Yard Shooting: Why This No Time to Despair About Gun Control : The New Yorker
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So here we go again, right back where we started, or seemingly so—one more gun massacre in America. This time at the Washington Navy Yard, a military establishment where the “schoolteachers” are trained members of the military, many of them armed.
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There was, I think two(?) MP's that were armed at the scene, one of which he immediately killed and took his weapon. That's not "many." It's actually "next to none." Because unless you're an MP on duty, you are effectively disarmed on base. It's so contradictory. Were responsible enough to fight our nation's wars, handle much heavier firepower than the horrible killing machines civilians can buy, but were not responsible enough to safely carry our own weapons on base? :doh: It's a ridiculous policy that's borderline insulting.

On a side-note, none of the fatalities were active duty, they were all civilian contractors. Im sure many were former active duty, but at any rate there's very little training the Navy would have given them that does much good when someone's shooting at you and you don't have anything to shoot back with. :shrug:
 
While we lament the tragedy at the Navy Yard, we continue to circle around the non-solutions of gun control and mental health care.

If we honestly take a look at what leads to these crimes, we would find a complex picture of a shooter’s motivations. The FBI studied this in the context of the “school shooter”. While not a profile per se, the study did cover an array of factors (under broad categories as family dynamics, school dynamics, social dynamics, etc.). Individually, none of the factors would be so unusual that it would trigger government action at any level. Even combined, the factors do not necessarily mean there is a potential shooter.

Gun control would have little or no effect in these situations. Over two thirds of school shooters don’t buy a weapon. They find a weapon at home or at a relative’s house.

The study does highlight one factor - a perpetrators sense of aggrieved entitlement. Non-dominant males who feel they should be on top of the pecking order and feel bullied by those who are on top of the pecking order.

As Anitram noted, the mental illness label is not easily applied. Unlike a broken leg, there is no clear, definitive line between the mentally healthy and the mentally ill. As little as a month before the shooting, Aaron Alexis visited a VA hospital twice.

"On both occasions, Mr. Alexis was alert and oriented, and was asked by VA doctors if he was struggling with anxiety or depression, or had thoughts about harming himself or others, which he denied," the statement said.
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We must be careful not to establish new laws depriving citizens of certain rights if they seek and received treatment for mental illness. Such laws would have a chilling effect and discourage people from seeking treatment.

We must move beyond the immediate need for simple solutions if we truly want to address this problem.
 
nbcrusader said:
Gun control would have little or no effect in these situations. Over two thirds of school shooters don’t buy a weapon. They find a weapon at home or at a relative’s house.
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Hmm... so you say that with even some gun control in place it's for about 30% of these shooters to have more difficult access to guns. Not counting the situations then where there are no weapons at home or at a relative's house as they also have no weapon due to some gun control.
No, it won't solve all problems, but I'd welcome any reduction. So I take it!

Can this also be extrapolated to all the firearms deaths in the U.S.A.? So that it'll lowers the estimated victims of this year from ~24,500 to about 17,000? I mean, a suicide by shooting yourself might not be reported so easily, but if it can be prevented it's one less death for the statistics. Again, it won't prevent all firearm deaths - something that's not possible at all - but it's a good first step.
 
nbcrusader said:
We must be careful not to establish new laws depriving citizens of certain rights if they seek and received treatment for mental illness. Such laws would have a chilling effect and discourage people from seeking treatment.

We must move beyond the immediate need for simple solutions if we truly want to address this problem.
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While I agree that "mental health" is a very large, ambiguous concept. However, there must be some line where we say, "this person obviously can't be trusted with a weapon until he is better."

In the end - it will probably technology that resolves this issue. As sad as it is - a person's behavior, from video game purchases to web sites visited to book purchases will one day trigger "pre-crime" flags.
 
nbcrusader said:
While we lament the tragedy at the Navy Yard, we continue to circle around the non-solutions of gun control and mental health care.
Click to expand...


Gun control would have little or no effect in these situations. Over two thirds of school shooters don’t buy a weapon. They find a weapon at home or at a relative’s house.
Click to expand...



read this again.

if Adam Lanza's mother hadn't been in possession of a Bushmaster M17S, a semi-automatic, more kids would be starting the 2nd grade this fall in Newtown, CT.

i find the notion of "aggrieved entitlement" very interesting, and would point to the wide availability of guns in the United States -- as opposed to every other Western nation -- that helps translates such entitlement into mass death.

restricting access to guns reduces gun crime. there is no getting around that.
 
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