A couple of months ago a fellow walked into a theatre and started shooting people.
The other day a fellow walks in a mall and starts shooting but luckily his gun jammed and only two people were killed.
Today a man walks in an elementary school in Connecticut. And 27 are dead, including children. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5569025c-4613-11e2-ae8d-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2F3FPan2u
I think something else that would help is maybe some metal detectors at schools
It’s possible that they would work but then hundreds of kids would have to be wanded or go through a security gate and that would take a lot of time considering all the things that kids carry. But doing this also instils more fear into a society already living on fear. Why pass that on to the children as well.
Young Minds find even the fairest things unfair and the easiest things tough so why let an 18years old have a gun.
Some 18 yr olds are very responsible with guns both in the past and today. Long ago guns were meant for two things in society, hunting (to survive) and protection in the wilderness (to survive). Now guns have become a status symbol to many young people and others in their 20’s and 30’s. Young people feel invulnerable so to squeeze a trigger is just part of what they are being taught in movies and video games and by some people who they associate with. Their ability to separate the fiction of movies and video games from real life increasingly has a smaller and smaller line of division.
Laws need to change to scare these people to not do those things.. Maybe Lethal Injection should come back.
The death penalty has changed nothing in the US or other countries. The only thing it has done is at times sent the wrong people to their deaths…..one of the reasons it was eliminated in Britain.
The UN reported that Canada ranks third among the developed western countries (behind the United States and Norway) in the civilian ownership of firearms.
I don’t know where they come up with 3rd, I can’t find a UN stat site, but other sites show Canada as #13 and thereabouts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country
However if you look at gun murders by country in comparison you will find that the US is the highest with the exception of countries where there is massive government and law enforcement corruption and they are mainly the centres for drug trafficking.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/jul/22/gun-homicides-ownership-world-list
Picking that Canadian site which is pro-gun to show gun ownership stats is like asking the NRA for their views and stats on guns.
Perhaps different mentality, education, lower society polarization, immigration policies (while US has been running immigration lottery, Canada has been cherry-picking its immigrants).
A different ‘mentality’ and education would help in the long run. The mentality of the US started out with the ‘wild’ west, something they still revere. Then that moved to the gangster era, something else they still revere. Then there are the wars and that are engrained in the US psyche. Now we have a new era that encompasses all of these.
So what is the difference being as a previous era also promoted the same? I feel the difference is in the US society….less family discipline, more movies and video games (all aimed at young people who are easily influenced) that are based not only on violence but massive violence.
Yet most gun crimes are committed by illegal unregistered firearms. Will tighter gun control prevent them?
‘Most’ probably are illegal but the question is what are the stats on ‘most’? The four mounties that were killed, were all killed by a legally owned gun. Marc Lepine who did the Polytechnique murders used a legally owned M-14. A couple of years ago an OPP officer was killed at the roadside by a well know and respected man who legally owned the hunting rifle. Many other incidents we hear of in the news we rarely find out from the police if the gun was or was not legally owned.
Her statement: maybe the school should have had weapons. If the teachers had been armed, they could have taken out the shooter before he did so much damage.
She’s possibly correct, but if or when the day came that a child got hold of one of those guns and there was an 'accident'……..there would be an equal uproar! Lanza like others with his mindset went there knowing he would die. If he went there and got into a gun fight with others, there is the possibility that the loss might even be greater. When you have concrete walls in halls and in classrooms and tile floors ricochet bullets do as much damage and sometimes more, as ones that hit the target first time.
Guns need to be securely stored so mentally unbalanced individuals and children cannot access them so well.
It would take a lot to pass that in the US, especially in certain States. Any President or Senator who proposed that would see his term end the following election in many States. The way it would lose is based on logic. If someone was breaking into your home….you would have to find the key, then get to the storage cabinet if you could, then unlock the cabinet and take out the firearm. Then if it is made into law as in Canada, you would have to get to another cabinet and unlock it and get out your ammunition. All of this takes time….if…..you can get to the cabinet. When you’re worried about your family and your own well being….time is of the essence.
The US is like Dodge City circa 1870 and Dodge handled the problem by saying ‘no guns in the city’. It was simple and to the point and anyone seen carrying a gun ‘could be’ shot on sight……no questions asked. It solved the problem. But would that happen in the US as a whole….not a prayer!!
Sometimes in life, you just have to realize that horrible things happen. Some situations can be solved for the future, others can’t. It’s unfortunately part of ………life, as it is now.
In some countries crime and guns and murder is much worse. People live in fear on a daily basis. They want to get out of those countries for the sake of their families and themselves, to make a better life. Some go to the US where there is still a gun problem but not near the problem compared to where they came from. Others go to other countries such as Canada. Then the Harper government sends them back.
I wasn’t sure what a school lanyard was because I think of lanyards in the military sense. Few go around the neck except for maybe a whistle.
I suppose it would depend on the age of the children when it comes to if they should have something around their neck or not. Very young children I could see the danger possibilities.
He is less than 15 miles from Newtown.
15 miles out in that neck of the woods might as well be a mile.
Nice of you to do that.
And..............
In another incident, Oklahoma police arrested an 18-year-old high school student on charges that he was plotting to carry out a shooting and bombing massacre at his school, according to the Tulsa World newspaper.
Police said in an affidavit Chavez tried to recruit other Bartlesville High School students to help him lure classmates into the school auditorium, where he planned to chain the doors shut and start shooting them, the newspaper said.
http://www.lfpress.com/2012/12/15/search-for-answers-begins-after-newtown-conn-school-massacre
If you have your sound on for the link above you will probably listen to the 911 call and police communications tapes which seem to be in the background.
Portraits of some of the victims...........
What's happening, when asked was expressed by a psychologist in just a few words on CNN. "Our mental hospital system is broken".
The mental health provided can always use more help. However if one looks at mass killings and serial killers, there are no set rules. Killers have been rich and poor. Some were unknowns who kept to themselves, while others mixed in with society and were known and popular. Then even if there were more mental health assistance, the question is who gets it? How does one determine to should be forced into help and most importantly who decides who is a danger to society? Many psychopaths on the outside are very good at blending in with society….they have been people that no one would have guessed would have gone off the deep end.
So for the most part, we can’t pre-judge who will become the next mass murderer or serial killer. Also in some respects, we’re all a bit ‘crazy’. Some are standing at the corner talking to a parking meter and others are wearing good suits and ordering wars at their own pleasure. There are no rules.
Dysfunctional homes, they’re everywhere, from the home where children are beaten, to homes where children are spoiled rotten. What child from those homes will grow up to be a mass murderer or a serial killer, while children from the same types of homes grow up with compassion and help others better their lives……..no one can tell for the most part who will turn out in any one particular way. We are so far from understanding the human mind it’s light years away, if even then.
When situations like this occur, our natural instinct is to look for fast and easy answers and guess what………there are none. Life is like living in a jungle, actually probably more dangerous, considering we are dealing with human beings who are totally unpredictable compared to other species.
The best anyone can do is live your life and be aware of all around you. Hope for the best but be prepared for the worst. Even then, things are going to happen and that’s ‘life’. In some countries people live amongst danger all the time….mass kidnappings, huge amounts of individual murders, truly corrupt governments and police….this and more is what the average individual has to live with day in, day out. We have it too easy for the most part in N. America and when things happen we don’t know how to handle it.
The link to the Chinese knife attacks. A very rare occurrence that a mass murderer would use a knife. Also in China the gun regulations are some of the most stringent, with private citizens not allowed to own a gun. Illegal possession or sale of firearms may result in a minimum punishment of 3 years in prison, or up to 14 years and with the maximum being the death penalty. Hardly a comparison to the many mass killings using firearms and lately guns which are semi-auto or full-auto rapid fire in the US where gun laws are so lax.
And just to add to this disaster, it seems the Westboro Baptist Church is planning on going to Newtown to picket. If you don't know who the Westboro church is.......look them up.
If they do go, it may be the end of that church.
Lanza had screw loose and if he had no access to guns, he would find another way to serve death.
You have no proof of that. But if you do, I would sure like to hear it.
Switzerland vs Romania - one country where everyone has a gun vs another where no one has and yet there is three times more homicides in Romania than Switzerland. Agree, more of them happen with firearm in Switzerland than in Romania but that worthless statistic, crowbar or gun, what's the difference for the dead victim.
You have to look deeper than just surface statistics to base an agenda on.........
Romania’s turbulent history as well as its drug and alcohol consumption is where your answer is. Also the poverty level and living conditions and poorer education than in Switzerland. It all combines to create a level of anger and frustration and in some cases death. Romania’s unrealistic prices and exchange rates led to widespread corruption, shortages, a black market….all increasing crime and especially organized crime.
According to the INTERPOL data, for murder, the rate in 2000 was 7.44 per 100,000 population for Romania……and 5.51 for USA. For aggravated assault 5.5 for Romania per 100,000 and 323.62 for USA per 100,000.
Switzerland on the other hand has a high rate of gun ownership because it does not have much of a standing army and all men between 20 and 30 are required to join the militia. After their stint in the military they are required to keep guns at home as part of the defence system for Switzerland. They do not learn about guns on the street, or from video games, but from the military where they are taught a high respect for firearms.
Also all weapons acquired from an individual have to be registered. It is a smaller version of what Canada had with a national gun registry. Basically, Switzerland knows where every gun is, even if it changes hands.
Life in Switzerland is also much different than in other countries. It is a stable economy and the low incidence of gun crime in Switzerland is attributed to the fact that Switzerland is wealthy, but also isolated. Social problems associated with gun crime in other industrialised countries, such as drugs or urban deprivation, are not widespread. Swiss men and women learn from an early age to associate firearms with defense of their country and not a history or idiolization of gangs, or the wild west mentality.
I’m sorry micro that the picture you have in your head of what life is suppose to be, is in reality not the way life really is.
I don’t think the US will ever change when it comes to gun ownership, not that I can see anyhow. What can change is the mindset of people and especially the young. I don’t want to sound like my father doing the ‘I remember when thing’, but I honesty believe that both movies and certain video games are changing young people in the US (and other countries) and desensitizing them towards others.
When I was a kid you watched the Lone Ranger and through every show he ‘never’ killed anyone. I watched a movie from 1968 the other night called ‘Once Upon a Time In the West’ and people were killed but it was clean and to the point. These days when you see a movie (and probably in video games as well) they kill someone and then after they are dead, they empty the whole clip in them…..there is conditioning to show that killing is ‘fun’. A few years back I rented ‘Reservoir Dogs’ at the local variety store. I knew it was a pretty violent movie. When I returned it I asked the lady who owned the store who rents this movie….do kids rent it?…….and she replied ‘oh sure’!
Society can’t lay all this violence in front of young people in movies and videos and continually condition, indoctrinate and brainwash them and then say ……’now don’t be non-violent’. It just doesn’t work that way. It’s just a simple case of Pavlov’s dogs.
But in the end we are a species that has amongst us some who are predators in one form or another and………… you have to watch your own back.
What is the point?
The media has three rules:
1. 'if it bleeds, it leads'.
2. Get the best share of viewers and sell advertising.
3. Refer to rules one and two.
