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Post by Moose on Dec 14, 2012 19:30:39 GMT
Not good  Hope none of our American friends are affected. |
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Post by Kye on Dec 14, 2012 19:54:44 GMT
How awful. |
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Post by charliebrown on Dec 14, 2012 19:59:50 GMT
Why targeted children? It's so terrible |
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Post by Moose on Dec 14, 2012 20:18:56 GMT
Dunno why target anyone at all |
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Post by Miisa on Dec 14, 2012 20:46:05 GMT
From what I saw before I deliberately stopped reading about this is that it was a family thing that then got combined into a murder-suicide/killing spree-for-fame. Apparently killed his dad at home then drove to the school to kill his mother, killed the kids in her class and a few other people for good measure.
I think the news should just make a conscious decision not to report on these things, but that isn't going to happen.
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Post by Miisa on Dec 14, 2012 20:57:13 GMT
If I ever thought there was a time when the "we need MORE guns, not less or this will happen again"-lobby would have nothing to say it would be here, but alas, they are at it again. They are all over the Facebook posts, and although I have not yet seen a serious suggesting that the grade schoolers should have been armed, I am mightily tempted to ask if that is exactly what they mean.
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Post by tangent on Dec 14, 2012 21:00:03 GMT
I agree with you Miisa. If you look at the statistics, which I have done only briefly, very few murders are done by killing spree and the number of murders is very small compared with the overall violent crime. By far the most aggravating fact is that it has a devastating affect on us because of its nature. If it wasn't reported it would not be horrendous.
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Post by Miisa on Dec 14, 2012 21:10:55 GMT
I am less worried about the effect it has on us as shocked rubberneckers than on other impressionable and possibly a little unhinged minds who are being moulded into the next shooters at this very moment.
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Post by charliebrown on Dec 14, 2012 21:15:55 GMT
I have done only briefly, very few murders are done by killing spree and the number of murders is very small compared with the overall violent crime. By far the most aggravating fact is that it has a devastating affect on us because of its nature. If it wasn't reported it would not be horrendous. What's scary about killing spree is that it is random, I suppose, more random than usual violent crime. |
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Post by Moose on Dec 14, 2012 21:47:13 GMT
I saw a suggestion that the teachers should be armed *rolls eyes*
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Post by charliebrown on Dec 14, 2012 21:54:24 GMT
" Jon Williams BBC foreign editor tweets: Truly shocking: in 2009 (latest yr) 31,347 killed by firearms in US. Almost as many as road accidents."
Shocking indeed.
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Post by charliebrown on Dec 14, 2012 22:00:18 GMT
Incidentally, this also happened today: "China school knife attack in Henan injures 22 children. Man held over China school attack. A man with a knife has wounded 22 children - at least two of them seriously - and an adult at a primary school in central China."
Such is the difference between knife and gun.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 15, 2012 8:38:08 GMT
I'm just shocked. I can't believe someone would just shoot children.
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Post by Alvamiga on Dec 15, 2012 9:29:20 GMT
I think the news should just make a conscious decision not to report on these things, but that isn't going to happen. I went to visit a friend last night and it was on the rolling news channel when I arrived. It was clearly over by then, but they were showing a continuous loop of footage of nothing happening at the cost of anything and everything else that may be going on. I know that something like this is significant but I think they do give it too much attention. Edited to fix formatting |
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Post by tangent on Dec 15, 2012 10:16:24 GMT
I agree it's important but I wonder if it is being given too much attention.
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Post by charliebrown on Dec 15, 2012 15:17:37 GMT
I think it's very important news for the Americans. They should try to stop this kind of tragedy happening again.
I just don't agree with the American gun culture.
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Post by Alvamiga on Dec 15, 2012 18:16:13 GMT
They were listing similar incidents that have happened in America over the last couple of years on the news channel we were watching. It is disturbing how often it occurs with all those guns everywhere! Just the other day, yet another child shot themselves with their dad's gun!
I think they need an amendment that gives them "the right to bear arms responsibly".
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Post by charliebrown on Dec 15, 2012 18:33:26 GMT
As a person grow up in a country where private ownership of guns is almost non-existent, I have not the least idea why so many Americans insist on the right to bear arms. My husband share similar view with me. He think it's about limitless freedom that Americans demand, but I think it's more than that.
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Post by Moose on Dec 15, 2012 18:40:18 GMT
I with Genie .. the idea of private gun ownership seems absolutely bewildering to me, and yet some Americans will defend the right to bear arms ... well I am not going to say to the death . But very vehemently. Why??? Re the Chinese thing, that is terrible too BUT those children are alive (albeit presumably very traumatised). In this country, about fifteen years ago, a man went on a rampage in a nursey with a machete. Again, although there was great injury (especially to the brave lady in charge who protected the children), nobody died. People who say 'but you can kill a person with a baseball bat' are talking absolute rubbish. Nobody ever managed to kill 22 people who had free ambulation with a baseball bat |
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Post by charliebrown on Dec 15, 2012 18:47:03 GMT
Exactly.
There are illegal guns always, but I think illegal guns are more often used in shady business (like mafia, drug dealers etc), and they target mostly people in the business, not just random innocent people, like school children.
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Post by Miisa on Dec 15, 2012 18:58:50 GMT
A lot of it is paranoia and fearmongering, and a surprising portion of Americans have a great distrust of the government, perhaps because they see it as something separate from themselves, likely due to the US political system that reduces the influence of individual votes and any feeling of influencing the outcome and thus being a part of the process.
From the few discussions I have had, I am giving up, it's just pointless to try to reason with people who are clearly taking a super-defensive stance and blocking out reality.
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Post by Moose on Dec 15, 2012 19:32:19 GMT
Yes. The fear of government thing has interested me before. I don't understand it.
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Post by charliebrown on Dec 15, 2012 19:38:06 GMT
I read in this case, the 20 year old gunman used the guns/bullets owned by his mother. I am asking myself: why did she need this amount of arms for?
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Post by Moose on Dec 15, 2012 19:55:29 GMT
God alone knows. Don't know why she needed any at all
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Post by Alvamiga on Dec 15, 2012 20:34:00 GMT
...and had she not had them (and thus he couldn't have used them), would he have still done it!?
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Post by charliebrown on Dec 15, 2012 20:44:08 GMT
It would have been quite different. I had learned to shoot in high school with very old style rifles (part of civil defense course), but I have forgotten how it works now. I wouldn't be able to shoot even if somebody gives me a gun now.
It's reported that the mother was a collector of guns, and she took her sons to shooting lessons. It explains why there is only one survivor, this murderor knows how to shoot to kill.
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Post by Moose on Dec 15, 2012 21:47:03 GMT
Although the full story will doubtless not emerge for a while it does seem to be being suggested that the man had mental health problems (well obviously he had mental health problems, I mean he would not have done it if not, but I mean long term ones). And she kept a house full of guns. Great.
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Post by ceptimus on Dec 15, 2012 23:39:01 GMT
The media could help prevent future massacres by not turning these killers from pathetic nobody losers into (posthumous) celebrities. It would be a good start if we heard or saw in news reports, 'The killer's identity will not be made known to the general public, for legal reasons.'. The same reason is often given for not naming the victims, so why not the perpetrator?
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Post by charliebrown on Dec 16, 2012 0:00:24 GMT
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Post by ceptimus on Dec 16, 2012 0:29:43 GMT
Yes, in the UK there is a total ban on handguns. This means that our Olympic pistol shooters have to go abroad to train, and of course many of them have given up the sport. Criminals still have illegal guns, but many fewer than before Dunblane, and it's much more difficult and expensive for them to buy ammunition.
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Hope none of our American friends are affected.
