O/T feel sick inside - CT Elementary shooting

[conor912]

How about this for an argument?

You want to know why there are more and more shootings? It's because of the way the media reports it. Flip on the news and watch how we treat the Batman theater shooter and the Oregon mall shooter like celebrities. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are household names, but do you know the name of a single victim of Columbine? Disturbed people who would otherwise just off themselves in their basements see the news and want to top it by doing something worse, and going out in a memorable way. Why a grade school? Why children? Because he'll be remembered as a horrible monster, instead of a sad nobody.

CNN's article says that if the body count "holds up", this will rank as the second deadliest shooting behind Virginia Tech, as if statistics somehow make one shooting worse than another. Then they post a video interview of third-graders for all the details of what they saw and heard while the shootings were happening. Fox News has plastered the killer's face on all their reports for hours. Any articles or news stories yet that focus on the victims and ignore the killer's identity? None that I've seen yet. Because they don't sell. So congratulations, sensationalist media, you've just lit the fire for someone to top this and knock off a day care center or a maternity ward next.

You can help by forgetting you ever read this man's name, and remembering the name of at least one victim. You can help by donating to mental health research instead of pointing to gun control as the problem. You can help by turning off the news.

[packs]

People are mentally ill in this country and they obviously are feeling like they're out of options. Being driven to kill random strangers and as many as you can at once is a pretty good indicator that these people feel ostracized from society and are now so angry with being the outcast that they are determined to kill society at large.

Mental illness does not make a person "evil." I'm so tired of seeing people like the shooter in Newtown and the Aurora shooter labeled "evil." They are mentally ill. If the country had a stable healthcare system that encouraged treatment rather than making healthcare so expensive that people seek it out only at extreme moments in their lives, and then are turned away as people who don't need help or "are just blowing off steam" I believe that these people could get the help they need.

I'm not making excuses for this kind of behavior. But it doesn't boil down to "good" people and "bad" people. And if you take a gun out of someone's hand you're putting something else in it. You need to find a way to keep them from wanting either if you're going to solve anything. Let's see mental health services encouraged. Let's make it easier to access mental health professionals. Let's stop labeling anyone who has special mental health needs "crazy." Let's stop making them feel like they aren't a part of our lives.

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by packs

People are mentally ill in this country and they obviously are feeling like they're out of options. Being driven to kill random strangers and as many as you can at once is a pretty good indicator that these people feel ostracized from society and are now so angry with being the outcast that they are determined to kill society at large.

Packs, that's not how their thinking works. First, they don't generally believe they are mentally ill, so they aren't angry over being 'out of options'. With young men, the first big manic break typically manifests itself as irrational anger, thus the violence. The irrational anger can certainly be directed at a person or people, and have some basis in their pre-break reality, but it is a product of the illness itself, not a response to our reaction to it.

Originally Posted by packs

Mental illness does not make a person "evil." I'm so tired of seeing people like the shooter in Newtown and the Aurora shooter labeled "evil." They are mentally ill. If the country had a stable healthcare system that encouraged treatment rather than making healthcare so expensive that people seek it out only at extreme moments in their lives, and then are turned away as people who don't need help or "are just blowing off steam" I believe that these people could get the help they need.

I'm not making excuses for this kind of behavior. But it doesn't boil down to "good" people and "bad" people. And if you take a gun out of someone's hand you're putting something else in it. You need to find a way to keep them from wanting either if you're going to solve anything. Let's see mental health services encouraged. Let's make it easier to access mental health professionals. Let's stop labeling anyone who has special mental health needs "crazy." Let's stop making them feel like they aren't a part of our lives.

Thanks for this well-thought out post. The response I always get when I present such an argument, is that "we can't fix everyone". No, we can't fix everyone, so we don't attempt to fix ANYONE? Hard to imagine where society would be if we took that approach to everything we do. But I do understand - people feel that our resources would be better spent somewhere else. I can't argue with that logic, as there's always a trade-off, and we might have some more wars coming up.

[vintagetoppsguy]

Originally Posted by steve B

That's the big question.

Western europe has a range of gun laws.

I worked for a machinist from Switzerland. One day we were talking about the differences between here and there.

One thing that amazed me was that all men able to serve a brief time in the military. I think 1-2 years. Followed by a long period of being considered a reserve. The guys on reserve, and remember this is nearly everyone is required to have their issued weapon available. That means a fully automatic machine gun in nearly every home. They don't have much in the way of problems, and I'm convinced it's a matter of training and attitude with the attitude aspect being more important.

Steve B

As I'm reading back through this thread, it reminds me of the same rhetoric as the Aurora thread - nothing new. Everyone has their opinion and nothing anybody says is going to change the way the other side feels. However, the post I quoted above really stood out to me. Is it true, or was Steve given false information? I decided to check to out for myself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_pol...in_Switzerland

It's there in black and white. You can choose to read it or not. Doesn't this take the assault rifle blame out of the equation? Sure it does. Because if there are more assault rifles in the homes of the Swiss than the US, why don't they have these types of problems? I would like to see someone answer that!!!

[yanks12025]

Do you guys know over 16,000 children die everyday because of starvation, yet not one word is mentioned on the news.

[oldjudge]

David--not a game, just an attempt to diffuse a ridiculous argument. That argument costs countless lives while the First Ammendment arguments do not.

Peter--pity. Maybe a future Supreme Court will interpret it differently.

Brock--and your point is that we should ignore the guns because children are also starving?

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by oldjudge

David--not a game, just an attempt to diffuse a ridiculous argument. That argument costs countless lives while the First Ammendment arguments do not.

Peter--pity. Maybe a future Supreme Court will interpret it differently.

Highly unlikely.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by conor912

How about this for an argument?

You want to know why there are more and more shootings? It's because of the way the media reports it. Flip on the news and watch how we treat the Batman theater shooter and the Oregon mall shooter like celebrities. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are household names, but do you know the name of a single victim of Columbine? Disturbed people who would otherwise just off themselves in their basements see the news and want to top it by doing something worse, and going out in a memorable way. Why a grade school? Why children? Because he'll be remembered as a horrible monster, instead of a sad nobody.

CNN's article says that if the body count "holds up", this will rank as the second deadliest shooting behind Virginia Tech, as if statistics somehow make one shooting worse than another. Then they post a video interview of third-graders for all the details of what they saw and heard while the shootings were happening. Fox News has plastered the killer's face on all their reports for hours. Any articles or news stories yet that focus on the victims and ignore the killer's identity? None that I've seen yet. Because they don't sell. So congratulations, sensationalist media, you've just lit the fire for someone to top this and knock off a day care center or a maternity ward next.

You can help by forgetting you ever read this man's name, and remembering the name of at least one victim. You can help by donating to mental health research instead of pointing to gun control as the problem. You can help by turning off the news.

I agree that the coverage is beyond excessive, and while it's impossible to know, it may well play into the next mentally ill person's mindset who plans one of these. I thought it was particularly inappropriate today that the media intruded on the funerals of these unfortunate victims.