Mass Shooting at Connecticut Elementary School

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Why would I feel guilt? I didn't pull the trigger. I didn't know the guy.



Guilt about guns. Guilt about participation in a society that glorifies violence and stigmatizes mental health.

I feel it too. We all should.

The difference is that I don't think we're dealing with a criminal. We're dealing with a monster.
 
Guilt about guns. Guilt about participation in a society that glorifies violence and stigmatizes mental health.

I feel it too. We all should.

The difference is that I don't think we're dealing with a criminal. We're dealing with a monster.



Exactly. Look at the PG13 movies. Crazy violence, but show a tit and that gets an R rating. The priorities in this country are way out of wack, but that's a result of its founding.


:up::up::up::up::up::up::up:
 
It's an unending argument because there is no right or wrong position.

No, there aren't. And there are no easy answers.

But it helps for purposes of discussion if you come across like you're at least hearing what the others are saying. And to be fair, you seem to be conveying that better here than you were earlier.
 
No, there aren't. And there are no easy answers.

But it helps for purposes of discussion if you come across like you're at least hearing what the others are saying. And to be fair, you seem to be conveying that better here than you were earlier.

I see what you're saying and I see how I have approached this topic in both forums. I've toned down my rhetoric
 
Sounds like he had a lot of problems based on what people he went to school with, and neighbors and friends are saying. And the brother didn't talk to friends much about him, so he didn't seem to be able to handle his brother's problems.

The family is very wealthy, so I'm surprised nothing was done. Nobody expects thisto happen, but people have to take it seriously. Send him to therapy, then if they feel something even more should be done like putting them in a hospital, then it should be.

Of course we don't know, maybe he was in therapy, but as of now nobody has mentioned that he was.
 
Sounds like he had a lot of problems based on what people he went to school with, and neighbors and friends are saying. And the brother didn't talk to friends much about him, so he didn't seem to be able to handle his brother's problems.

The family is very wealthy, so I'm surprised nothing was done. Nobody expects thisto happen, but people have to take it seriously. Send him to therapy, then if they feel something even more should be done like putting them in a hospital, then it should be.

Of course we don't know, maybe he was in therapy, but as of now nobody has mentioned that he was.

How can you send someone to therapy when they won't go? Once they're 18, they're responsible for themselves
 
No.

You are dealing with a sick individual.

This is no shooting a cheating spouse. This is not murdering someone who owes you money.

This is a deep degree of mental illness. All that you are doing is trying to absolve yourself of feeling any guilt by pulling out a weak "it was a choice" explanation for these actions.

this line of thinking lets the person off scott free

that is my problem with this line of thinking

I believe at some point however disturbed one may be, there are some forks in the road and even a person with some sort of diminished capacity can choose one correct direction instead of every wrong one, at each choice even with diminished capacities there is some free will involved, just giving them a pass, it is the same as saying there is nothing that can be done because some people just go off for no reason, whats to be done :shrug:
 
Anyway. I told myself I wasn't going to get drawn into discussions about this, or even pay attention to the 'net tonight.

Corifail.

Peace to all y'all. Be well.
 
this line of thinking lets the person off scott free

that is my problem with this line of thinking

I believe at some point however disturbed one may be, there are some forks in the road and even a person with some sort of diminished capacity can choose one correct direction instead of every wrong one, at each choice even with diminished capacities there is some free will involved, just giving them a pass, it is the same as saying there is nothing that can be done because some people just go off for no reason, whats to be done :shrug:

I know this isn't murdering hoards of people, but I've seen my mother, in the grip of Alzheimer's, say and do things she would not have even 5 or 10 years ago. It's a mental illness brought on by changes in brain structure. Do I absolve her of responsibility? Absolutely I do.

Neuroscience and brain imaging is a relatively new field, but there have been a ton of studies showing differences in brain structure of the mentally ill vs. normal people. It's even been in the news recently about psychopathy and their brain structures and how they differ from the normal population.

How does that differ from my mom and the tangles and plaque that are taking over her brain?
 
if a person is gone and not functioning that is one thing, but if one is functioning at a diminished capacity that is a different situation.

I took care of two elderly family members until they passed away, and yes their brains did change. They were not themselves, they went from pleasant kind people to sometimes being nasty and mean, but still there was enough left that they knew the difference between right and wrong.

If one murdered the other, I would expect they would have been held accountable and their condition would have been considered at sentencing.
 
Right and wrong is a matter of degrees...my mom has said and done some things that I know she would have considered very wrong a few years ago. Many Alzheimer's patients do get violent with their caregivers, hitting and biting. I'm sure the one thing that prevents escalation from that are the physical limitations that go with the disease. Bottom line, it's one of many illnesses (others being congenital) that drastically change mood, thoughts and behaviour. And yet we don't blame Alzheimer patients.
 
I believe if we start locking up thousands of anti-social 20 year olds with some kind of FB or twitter postings that might sound ? marginally what? The kid's parents and ACLU would be all over it.

And I don't understand the digression into old people losing thier minds. As i said I dealt with that, watched them lose their drivers license, and ability to live on their own. That is quite a different situation then functioning young adults going on killing sprees. We have had quite a few of those lately.
 
I don't think the onus is on some stranger reading a kid's tweet to say that the kid needs treatment for mental illness, but perhaps their loved ones might do better at taking the signs seriously and getting them help?

The digression into Alzheimer's was just to show a common example of "acceptable" mental illness, where the sufferers are not held responsible for their actions. Not all devastating mental illness is as obvious or recognizable, but it exists.
 
I just don't get people's cavalier attitude about guns. These aren't toys. They kill people. We secure the hell out of practically everything else in our lives, why are we so loose with securing our guns? You can still be a "2nd Amendment supporter" :)rolleyes:...) while keeping your gun safely locked up.
 
That's one of our laws if I'm not mistaken - by law you have to keep all guns locked in a cabinet which has to be bolted to the floor and a wall I think. Not sure that applies to handguns though.
 
Charming :happy:

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People who pretend to be Ayn Rand characters on Twitter should be taken as un-seriously as possible.
 
Sandy Hook mass murderer Adam Lanza, 20, 'deeply disturbed kid' - NY Daily News

So let me get this straight. His mom was aware that he was mentally ill but couldn't be fucked to lock up her glock? Are you kidding me? Buy a gun cabinet and a key ring.

I guess some parents can be in denial that their kids can be so ill. :shrug:

The thing that I'm concerned about while reading this article is that people are going to start to think anyone who is quiet and keeps to themselves is a definite psycho. That really is unfair because some people are quiet by nature; not everyone is an extrovert. And if we're saying we should all look for the warning signs in people, we shouldn't stigmatize quiet people.
 
I really don't mean to trivialize mental illness, which, as many of you have pointed out, is a serious, debilitating problem and one of the many issues in need of attention here. My concern, though, is that every time there is a mass shooting like this, the attention quickly shifts away from the guns and to something else that is often made to suggest that guns are not the core problem. For me, guns are absolutely the fundamental culprit here. I think as a nation we need to stop deflecting blame from the deepening, obsessive gun culture in this country. No matter how disturbed this individual may have been, the death toll simply would not have reached the level it did without simple and unimpeded access to guns. The whole "determined people will commit a crime one way or another" argument simply won't fly anymore.
 
I think it's human nature to wonder "why." What drives someone to do something like this? Yes, guns made it easier for him to do it and take out a lot of people with him. But guns didn't make him do it.

And I'm not saying our country doesn't have a giant issue with guns. It pisses me off to no end that you can't even bring up gun control without it being "political" instead of "common fucking sense."

And it pisses me off even more that we live in a country where gun control is a right and health care is a privilege. Thanks to the last handful of years, you can't even discuss health care without it being "political" instead of "common fucking sense."

I think the conversations come out of a place of frustration, because the talk first of course (as it should) turn toward guns. But people just want to know "why." Some people ask why out of despair, because they just don't understand. Others want to know why so we can see what can be done to prevent it in the future (including aspects of gun control).

But yeah. We have a problem with guns.
 
This is mental illness in a country where it's easier to access firearms than it is to get health care

I think that is a very important point. Disclaimer-I know NOTHING about exactly what happened in this situation, but as a general point and seeing the neighborhood they lived in and the house they lived in..I can speculate that it was a fairly wealthy family. So in general they have better access to health care, as far as being able to afford it. I grew up in a marginally well off town and live in one (nothing like this town seems to be, not on that level). And I can say for sure that the old adage still applies. That in general people in those places are far more concerned with what the neighbors think, they will think I'm a failure as a parent, etc. The list goes on and on. It's keep up appearances at all costs sometimes, tragically. Does that excuse it at all? Absolutely not. I have seen it on a personal level. When you combine that with the still existing stigma about mental illness, it equals a recipe for disaster. If your kid had a physical ailment you would have no reason to not get them treatment (unless you can't pay and even then you can try to find an alternative way) and no reason for embarrassment. Mental illness should be thought of in the same way, but it isn't. Again, I don't know what that mother did or did not do and I wouldn't judge her unless I did. These are just general thoughts. He also could have been getting treatment and this still happened. Treatment is no guarantee. Who knows if he was on any medications, any of that.

Who knows if she had these guns for protection from her own son. In that case why so many? I have no idea. Maybe she did keep them locked up and he got the key somehow.

The whole thing is just so painful, not ashamed to admit that I had a cry about it myself.
 
In a South Carolina newspaper, here is everything that's wrong with America in a two-page spread:

Twitter / ChrisJRailey: Paper in SC runs gun ad next ...

Wow, more insanity! It's saying... " Holy shit...HURRY up folks, get your guns before the big bad government takes them away." Did you see the gun sales chart in the last few years and how it's sky rocketed? Nothing like FEAR to make people buy more killing machines. And the cycle continues. Fear breads more fear, violence more violence. You don't need an AK 47 to kill a deer.
This country is whacked. Cori is right... common sense becomes political and sanity is chastised as un-American. Now that IS SICK. I am so tired of this.... Bob Costas is my hero, he's got more balls than any politician for saying what he did. And today IS the day to talk about gun control. Oh but wait...there's that common sense thing again, you know back ground checks and stricter waiting periods. My bad, how dare we turn this in to a political issue, she said with sarcasm. :rolleyes:
 
I recently heard this stat from what I believe to be a reliable source

number of Starbucks in the USA and the entire world is less than number of gun stores in the USA.
 
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