Mass Shooting

[Murph]

The transvestite murderer did not attack one site because it had too much security.  Gun Free zones, etc are horrors waiting to happen.  

[Murph]

1 minute ago, Skywalkre said:

Murph, you know this is from the babylonbee and didn't actually happen... right? 🙄

Yep, but sadly, satire has become the truth.

[Angrybk]

Again, it’s pretty much a “the people have spoken” thing. Americans like having guns, including ARs. 

[Skywalkre]

4 minutes ago, Murph said:

Yep, but sadly, satire has become the truth.

Except... it's not.  I haven't seen anything remotely approaching that in all the coverage of this incident.

I have a friend who's a high school teacher who I happened to be talking to the day after Nashville.  This was the first time I've been able to talk to him about one of these shootings so close to the incident.  I simply asked what he was thinking.  This was his reply:

Quote

What I've been thinking about for a few weeks: That America is among the wealthiest, most abundant countries in world history and our politics is more focused on creating petty grievances than actually addressing our problems.  

Your post made me think of his comment.  In all the coverage I've seen of this, from several sources many of you would call left leaning, there's been nothing remotely approaching sympathy for her because she may have been trans like your post or that tweet from a nobody that Ivanhoe linked to.  This is entirely an issue you all are looking to create when everyone else is focused on the tragedy of more kids being killed in their school...

[Skywalkre]

16 minutes ago, Angrybk said:

Again, it’s pretty much a “the people have spoken” thing. Americans like having guns, including ARs. 

Right.

For me it's more about having an honest discussion... which basically seems impossible with guns.  Heh... honestly, it feels like it's easier to talk about abortion in this country than it is guns.

This problem impacts both sides of the 'debate'.  I was watching an interview last night with the president of Brady and this was the first exchange:

Quote

Q - The assailant, as we heard in that report, legally purchased seven firearms, three of which were used in the murders, according to Nashville police, as this person was being treated for an emotional disorder.

This person's parents didn't know that the guns were in the house. How do we solve for that? What piece of legislation, what policy would have prevented this from happening?

A - Extreme risk protection laws.

Actually, 19 states and the District of Columbia have passed those last year. President Biden sign the bipartisan Safer Communities Act to give funding to states and to incent other states to pass these laws.

Why is that relevant? Because what that says is, as a law, if you have someone in your household who's at risk of doing themselves harm or others, you can seek a protective order from the court to remove all firearms. And, in some states, that also means that person is put into the background checks system.

So we need that kind of law. Tennessee does not have that law. So, when I hear what the parents are saying, it breaks my heart. I think they tried and did what they could. But Tennessee does not offer them other solutions that they should. And they must, because this is far too frequent in our life today.

And we need all of the tools that we can amass to stop gun violence.

Except... her answer probably wouldn't have changed anything about Nashville.  I'm disappointed the host didn't press her more on her answer.

It was reported that the parents only thought she had one gun and sold it.  She kept the others hidden.  What happens in states where those laws exist?  You execute a search warrant to tear this person's home apart looking for more?  Even then she could have easily snuck them out (she easily snuck them in) and hid them.

Being thrown on the background check system temporarily sounds more reasonable... except she'd apparently been buying these guns long before she was in treatment.

Too many times I've seen discussions after these incidents where proponents for more gun control say "we need to pass a law that does x" but where x would have had no effect on the mass shooting that just happened.  It's sometimes comical how disparate the proposed changes are to what transpired to bring about the discussion.

Edited March 29, 2023 by Skywalkre

[Angrybk]

21 minutes ago, Skywalkre said:

Right.

For me it's more about having an honest discussion... which basically seems impossible with guns.  Heh... honestly, it feels like it's easier to talk about abortion in this country than it is guns.

This problem impacts both sides of the 'debate'.  I was watching an interview last night with the president of Brady and this was the first exchange:

Except... her answer probably wouldn't have changed anything about Nashville.  I'm disappointed the host didn't press her more on her answer.

It was reported that the parents only thought she had one gun and sold it.  She kept the others hidden.  What happens in states where those laws exist?  You execute a search warrant to tear this person's home apart looking for more?  Even then she could have easily snuck them out (she easily snuck them in) and hid them.

Being thrown on the background check system temporarily sounds more reasonable... except she'd apparently been buying these guns long before she was in treatment.

Too many times I've seen discussions after these incidents where proponents for more gun control say "we need to pass a law that does x" but where x would have had no effect on the mass shooting that just happened.  It's sometimes comical how disparate the proposed changes are to what transpired to bring about the discussion.

I just don't think it's up for debate anymore and I think a lot of Blue Staters like me don't realize that.

My boss/good friend is an ex Marine who lives in the Dallas burbs, Iraq War vet who saw some shit, who's very happily married and has four daughters he completely dotes on. He's smart as hell and a great leader. I talk to him about school shootings, why it's so fucked up that they have pink AR-15s in gun stores in Texas and the gun stores are the size of California CostCos, etc. He's very much in the "no I have to teach my kids to shoot so they can fight back" sphere. I think there's not going to be any comity. I mean maybe he's right, I dunno.

Edited March 29, 2023 by Angrybk

[rmgill]

51 minutes ago, Skywalkre said:

The majority of research is funded by the government in this country.  You dry up a source of Fed funding, you effectively dry up the research (which was the point of the Dickey amendment). 

FOR THE CDC. FOR GUN CONTROL RESEARCH. 

If you want to study gun violence as a proxy for gun control, sure. No you can't do that. 

What part of "shall not be infringed" is unclear? 

Perhaps we should have a federal agency studying the effect of misinformation in the context of how they can limit speech and see how that works for violating the 1st amendment. 

 

51 minutes ago, Skywalkre said:

If Rs don't want to get good data on what's happening, that's fine.  They then can't turn around and say "oh look, there's no data so no issue" like you just did.  🙄

Sure, when you mischaracterize the point it looks great. This isn't NBC and you're not Brian Williams. 

51 minutes ago, Skywalkre said:

Mass shootings happen in R states, too, which have some of the most friendly gun rights laws.

Right, which points to some other issues as causative factors. It's not a single variable issue, as much as the left would like it to be. 

51 minutes ago, Skywalkre said:

No one said lax gun laws led to a rise in mass shootings.  We're merely pointing out how the notion that 'more gun control has led to more mass shootings' is basically hogwash.

That's what's in the media right now. MightyZuk in fact postulated that very issue above, assault weapons are easy to get so therefor more mass shooting deaths. So, double hogwash. 

If we dig into multiple nation data, including Europe you find nearly as many mass shootings per capita as in the US. More in some cases. 

 

[rmgill]

44 minutes ago, Angrybk said:

Again, it’s pretty much a “the people have spoken” thing. Americans like having guns, including ARs. 

One of the things I always like to ask gun control proponents is how are they going to make the guns disappear. Short of a magic wand, how does that actually work? And then, as a thinking exercise, explain all the side effects and unexpected impacts/counter intuitive effects that will happen? 

A proxy for this is illegal drugs. Similar regulatory scheme. We can't find drugs anywhere right? There's no black market at all for them right? Before pot was sorta kinda legalized it was hard for kids to get right? 

[rmgill]

14 minutes ago, Angrybk said:

I just don't think it's up for debate anymore and I think a lot of Blue Staters like me don't realize that.

My boss/good friend is an ex Marine who lives in the Dallas burbs, Iraq War vet who saw some shit, who's very happily married and has four daughters he completely dotes on. He's smart as hell and a great leader. I talk to him about school shootings, why it's so fucked up that they have pink AR-15s in gun stores in Texas and the gun stores are the size of California CostCos, etc. He's very much in the "no I have to teach my kids to shoot so they can fight back" sphere. I think there's not going to be any comity. I mean maybe he's right, I dunno.

Monsters exist. You can pretend that they don't. But they do. We've seen plenty in the US and more over seas. Marines know this. 

We have firearms so that we can fight those monsters. 

[rmgill]

36 minutes ago, Skywalkre said:

For me it's more about having an honest discussion... which basically seems impossible with guns.  Heh... honestly, it feels like it's easier to talk about abortion in this country than it is guns.

I'm quite able to calmly discuss this. AND I'm able to respond to many of the standard tropes of gun control because I used to think they were valid. I spent time arguing a position more extreme than you. I can probably go out on usenet archives and find some of my old posts. 

I gradually realized that any gun control scheme was doomed to failure and would cause more harm than good among the very people it supposedly was protecting. 

36 minutes ago, Skywalkre said:

This problem impacts both sides of the 'debate'.  I was watching an interview last night with the president of Brady and this was the first exchange:

Except... her answer probably wouldn't have changed anything about Nashville.  I'm disappointed the host didn't press her more on her answer.

Bog standard issues with the control argument. Try going and talking to Million Mom Marchers directly. I have. When I pressed the speaker in the after event conversational Q&A on the difference in police response time and crime rates in high vs low crime areas, her response was that she lived in a nice safe neighborhood and the local police knew who she was so she had great response time. 

Not a very good example for someone like me who thinks that all citizens should enjoy similar protection of the law in practice. 

36 minutes ago, Skywalkre said:

Being thrown on the background check system temporarily sounds more reasonable... except she'd apparently been buying these guns long before she was in treatment.

Yep. you get into sticky territory here with mental health. The current demarkation point is voluntary treatment vs involuntary treatment. When it steps into involuntary treatment then you can see a suspension of civil rights. 

We have however, as a matter of the basis for our free society, this radical idea that the government cannot suspend your civil rights indefinitely with out particularized findings of guilt or significant mental illness that manifests as involuntary commitment.  There's VERY good reasons for that. 

36 minutes ago, Skywalkre said:

Too many times I've seen discussions after these incidents where proponents for more gun control say "we need to pass a law that does x" but where x would have had no effect on the mass shooting that just happened.  It's sometimes comical how disparate the proposed changes are to what transpired to bring about the discussion.

That was what led me, 30 odd years ago to flip my position on gun control whole sale. 

[Mighty_Zuk]

5 hours ago, rmgill said:

What if they're Israeli Citizens?

If they're Israeli citizens then all that applies to Israeli citizens applies to them. This means that probably very close to 100% are non-eligible to carry a firearm because they have not completed a rifleman qualification since they were not conscripted.

5 hours ago, rmgill said:

Oh. I asked if the laws STOP the Pally Militants from obtaining guns and using them. Do the _laws_ stop them or do aggressive defensive measures attempt to intercept them and put them down?

Yes, the laws are quite effective. By limiting the eligibility of firearms primarily to those who exhibit a true need for them, e.g. self defense vs terrorists or crime, the black market potential for firearms is also reduced.

5 hours ago, rmgill said:

No, I'm trying to get you to think about the larger issue of where firearms exist in your society and what sort of place they present. If you lived not in Israel, but in say Alaska, or any of the US western states where critters could be a threat you'd have a different view. 

The larger issue is already whether guns should be banned or permitted, whereas I deliberately tried to steer away from that because I have no opinion on gun ownership rights. I do think, however, that there may not be sufficient preventative mechanisms for misuse of firearms.

[Murph]

1 hour ago, Skywalkre said:

Except... it's not.  I haven't seen anything remotely approaching that in all the coverage of this incident.

I have a friend who's a high school teacher who I happened to be talking to the day after Nashville.  This was the first time I've been able to talk to him about one of these shootings so close to the incident.  I simply asked what he was thinking.  This was his reply:

Your post made me think of his comment.  In all the coverage I've seen of this, from several sources many of you would call left leaning, there's been nothing remotely approaching sympathy for her because she may have been trans like your post or that tweet from a nobody that Ivanhoe linked to.  This is entirely an issue you all are looking to create when everyone else is focused on the tragedy of more kids being killed in their school...

No, I have no sympathy for murdering thugs.  They all deserve to assume room temperature.  Bravo to the cops who smoked HER.  If more criminals died hard, then there would less crime.  A dead criminal has a 0.0% recidivism rate.

 

A very true headline, even it if is the Bee:  https://babylonbee.com/news/fbi-vows-to-get-to-the-bottom-of-what-christians-did-to-provoke-attack

 

Also this makes criminals go to the soft targets:

[Murph]

I LOVE headlines like this: 

 

 

A buddy who is still working at my old agency called me last night, and started the conversation with: "Guess what your old buddy Justin just did?"  My response was: "He beat the crap out of a three year old again?  Answer, not this time, but he beat the crap out of the baby momma.  I sent him to jail for beating the crap out of the three year old who had asked for a glass of water...

So, NO, I have NO sympathy, or compassion towards criminals.

 

[Stargrunt6]

1 hour ago, Murph said:

No, I have no sympathy for murdering thugs.  They all deserve to assume room temperature.  Bravo to the cops who smoked HER.  If more criminals died hard, then there would less crime.  A dead criminal has a 0.0% recidivism rate.

 

A very true headline, even it if is the Bee:  https://babylonbee.com/news/fbi-vows-to-get-to-the-bottom-of-what-christians-did-to-provoke-attack

 

Also this makes criminals go to the soft targets:

Also no need for a trial for a dead criminal

 

[rmgill]

2 hours ago, Mighty_Zuk said:

If they're Israeli citizens then all that applies to Israeli citizens applies to them. This means that probably very close to 100% are non-eligible to carry a firearm because they have not completed a rifleman qualification since they were not conscripted.

That's your system. It might work for a tiny country like Israel. Good luck with that with a nation the size of the US. 

2 hours ago, Mighty_Zuk said:

Yes, the laws are quite effective. By limiting the eligibility of firearms primarily to those who exhibit a true need for them, e.g. self defense vs terrorists or crime, the black market potential for firearms is also reduced.

Given the state of war you're in, that sorta works. 

2 hours ago, Mighty_Zuk said:

The larger issue is already whether guns should be banned or permitted, whereas I deliberately tried to steer away from that because I have no opinion on gun ownership rights. I do think, however, that there may not be sufficient preventative mechanisms for misuse of firearms.

Not putting violent criminals in prison is part of our problem. 

[Stargrunt6]

Interesting that the press ignores the racial angle of this tragedy. Hmmmm....

To out a fine point on it:

A leftist white woman did murder a working class black man.

https://nypost.com/2023/03/29/fundraiser-for-slain-nashville-custodian-gets-350k-in-one-day/?utm_source=NYPTwitter&utm_medium=SocialFlow&utm_campaign=SocialFlow

 

[rmgill]

That narrative cannot be mentioned. In the victim hierarchy a trans woman is higher than a black man or christian children. 

As to the blame game....
 

 

[Murph]

54 minutes ago, Stargrunt6 said:

Also no need for a trial for a dead criminal

 

Saves the taxpayers a LOT of money.

[DKTanker]

4 hours ago, Skywalkre said:

Except... it's not.  I haven't seen anything remotely approaching that in all the coverage of this incident.

Are you kidding me?  Your governor's press secretary was just today forced to resign because of her sympathizing with Audrey Hale.
This is the tweet she posted in hours after Audrey Hale's mass murder event.  Long enough for her to collect her thoughts.  Even Keith Olbermann took umbrage with it, probably for her saying the quiet part out loud, but he did say something.

 

[Mighty_Zuk]

1 hour ago, rmgill said:

Not putting violent criminals in prison is part of our problem

Potentially also killing the shooter may be a problem in itself. No shooter expects to actually make it out alive. So if they die, they don't really see themselves losing anything. 

In Israel, terrorists are given long prison sentences to prevent them the martyrdom they seek.

Obviously most US mass shooters aren't Shahids. But is there any psychological common ground that could be used against them as a deterrent? 

And I just recently heard an explanation about the system of private prisons in the US. Sounds like a very counter-productive method that only increases crime.

[DKTanker]

Apparently her writings, her manifesto, wherein she outlines her motives, will never see the light of day.  Nashville PD will keep it under wraps as part of a forever investigation.

[Murph]

IF the FBI does not "confiscate" it and bury it along with Hunter Bidens laptop.  We cannot upset the narrative after all.  

[Ivanhoe]

4 hours ago, rmgill said:

Yep. you get into sticky territory here with mental health. The current demarkation point is voluntary treatment vs involuntary treatment. When it steps into involuntary treatment then you can see a suspension of civil rights. 

Given the long history of violence from the American left, I think it would only be fair to have a conservative POTUS sign an executive order precluding the issuance of driver's licenses (Waukesha), ownership of guns (James T. Hodgkinson), and presence on airline no-fly lists for all registered Democrats. 

It's simply a mental health thing. Right?

 

[Ivanhoe]

51 minutes ago, Murph said:

IF the FBI does not "confiscate" it and bury it along with Hunter Bidens laptop.  We cannot upset the narrative after all.  

How about Ashley Biden's diary? 

[Ivanhoe]

1 hour ago, Mighty_Zuk said:

Potentially also killing the shooter may be a problem in itself. No shooter expects to actually make it out alive. So if they die, they don't really see themselves losing anything. 

In Israel, terrorists are given long prison sentences to prevent them the martyrdom they seek.

That's fine, but "wait and see" tactics result in Uvalde, not Nashville. Sacrificing dozens of innocent lives to enable virtue signaling is not going to be preferred in red states here. 

Obviously most US mass shooters aren't Shahids. But is there any psychological common ground that could be used against them as a deterrent?

No single silver bullet. In the US, any attempt to develop a psych map of offenders so that deterrent methods could be employed will run aground on the rocks of racial politics. 

And I just recently heard an explanation about the system of private prisons in the US. Sounds like a very counter-productive method that only increases crime.

AFAIK, arguments against private prisons are based on assumptions of rational self-interest on the part of habitual violent felons, and that habitual offenders weren't already sociopaths before they went in. Rather strangely, none of the bleeding heart types ever offer to house career criminals in their homes as an alternative to prison.