[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'C')razy people. No mental health care. No community. Just consumer-shopping ghettos. Who isn't crazy? It's nuts out there.

[onlooker]

Which in turn directs itself at the superficial socialization occurring on the internet where no profound relations are formed, ie. porn and where ones negative proclivities actually can be affirmed by others with similar proclivities. In fact I was watching this program in which a pedophile was revealing that he regularly interacted with other pedophiles on the Net via this chatroom or website. This was a heated discussion if this was a good things. Certainly one can imagine this turning negative if these persons share strategies and information about how to find, lure and even capture minors to engage in their perversions.

[yellowcanoe]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AgentR11', 'T')he problem we have is that we think passing a law of one type or another would result in a change in availability or a change in treating mental illness. Both sides just assume that their idea would actually make something happen.

[dinopello]

Here's the reality about how elementary schools are dealing with the threat.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '�')��Remember that activity when we all get in the closet and pretend we’re not even there, so our principal can’t find us?” I choose my words carefully as I prep my pre-kindergarten students for the lockdown drill scheduled for that afternoon.

What can we do about all these shootings?, teachers ask each other. Lock the doors, we’re told, and assume the worst is coming.

When you’re guiding 4- and 5-year-olds through a drill, your choice of words can mean everything. “Activity,” not “game,” because we laugh during games, and I can’t risk introducing laughter. I don’t say “police,” because some little kids find police officers scary, and I can’t risk introducing tears.

I don’t say “quiet,” because I can’t risk them shushing one another while they are crammed together, practically sitting in each other’s laps. And because it’s not quiet that’s required for this drill, but rather complete silence. As silent as children who aren’t there at all.

My body language here must be just so. Too much smile, and they’ll ask questions and laugh. Too much severity, and they’ll balk, rebel or be fearful. Make a sound with my hands or feet, and they will, too. Tip-toe too slowly, and they will, too. All is well, I must convey, but I am not kidding.

We don’t quite fit, 16 tiny bodies sitting crisscross applesauce, hands in laps, plus two adults. But I nudge my way in, and I begin to work the room, pulling out every teacher trick I know to maintain the silence while we wait.

We hear the echoing footsteps, then the sharp, metallic rattle of the doorknob. I absolutely know that I locked that door not three minutes before, and yet I’m flooded with an absurd relief when our lock holds. The footsteps fall away down the hallway, and we hear the next door rattle, and the next. It won’t be long now.

But it is. Usually these drills last somewhere between three and four minutes. The doorknob rattles, there’s a pause, and then the principal’s voice on the loudspeaker thanks us for our cooperation and excellent readiness, and invites us to enjoy the rest of our afternoon

[GoghGoner]

There has been mass shootings in Germany, plenty of mass stabbings in China, the greatest school killer in history didn't use guns. etc... I don't see much empirical data in this thread. [I would never own a gun]

Kehoe's sign is subjective.





https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Kehoe

[WildRose]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'C')razy people. No mental health care. No community. Just consumer-shopping ghettos. Who isn't crazy? It's nuts out there.

[onlooker]

Thank you Wildrose, for the engaging informative post. I would add to what you said that suicidal patients are apt to quickly change to homicidal given the right stimulus or circumstances. Your analysis paints a picture of a mental health systems that is not adequately addressing the needs of the patients. Where drugs might be making things worse especially if patients do not take them or take them as prescribed. So if suicidal patients are treated in a cursory fashion and are not able to escape circumstances that are making them paranoid or neurotic or something then those patients may inevitably reach a threshold whereby they will act on their impulses in suicidal or homicidal manner.

[WildRose]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('onlooker', 'T')hank you Wildrose, for the engaging informative post. I would add to what you said that suicidal patients are apt to quickly change to homicidal given the right stimulus or circumstances. Your analysis paints a picture of a mental health systems that is not adequately addressing the needs of the patients. Where drugs might be making things worse especially if patients do not take them or take them as prescribed. So if suicidal patients are treated in a cursory fashion and are not able to escape circumstances that are making them paranoid or neurotic or something then those patients may inevitably reach a threshold whereby they will act on their impulses in suicidal or homicidal manner.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('GoghGoner', 'T')here has been mass shootings in Germany, plenty of mass stabbings in China, the greatest school killer in history didn't use guns. etc... I don't see much empirical data in this thread. [I would never own a gun]

Kehoe's sign is subjective.





https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Kehoe

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('GoghGoner', 'T')here has been mass shootings in Germany, plenty of mass stabbings in China, the greatest school killer in history didn't use guns. etc... I don't see much empirical data in this thread. [I would never own a gun]

[dinopello]

On the mental illness angle -

The killer in Oregon flunked out of basic training after a month (unknown reasons) and studied mass killings etc.

I was discussing this with an Australian colleague of mine. He posited that maybe we should relax privacy laws so that maybe the Army would have put his name in a database and the killer's proclivity for mass killings could be tracked so he could be precluded from buying an arsenal of weapons.

My response was - not only will American not give up their privacy like that, but even if they would, that would be a lot easier sell than then banning him from weapons. At first, my colleague didn't understand so I had to explain that gun rights advocates believe that someone who is kicked out of the Army for mental reasons and who even publicly professes admiration for mass killers should still be allowed to buy all the weapons he wants in America.

[onlooker]

@wildrose. Yes I have also heard that professional therapy can be productive in treating such individuals and your opinion being in the field just confirms what I heard. Unfortunately, it seems people are not given this treatment often enough. @dinopello. Accurate description of certain modes of thinking in some parts of the US. Some people see gun ownership as an inalienable right. Thus you see different states in the US with different criteria from the strictest to the most lax in regards to gun ownership. Also, as is all too common in the haste to make money the more unscrupulous will sell guns without performing background checks or doing only a very superficial one.

[GoghGoner]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', ' ')Otherwise we would see a similar frequency level across many different countries and that is clearly not the case with such high frequency levels in the US.

[Apneaman]

High school shooting plot foiled in Northern California, authorities say

"A day before a gunman in Oregon killed eight classmates and his college writing teacher, Tuolumne County sheriff's detectives foiled a plot by students to go on a shooting rampage at their high school near Yosemite National Park, authorities said.

The Summerville Union High School students, all male, had detailed plans that “included names of would-be victims, locations, methods in which the plan was to be carried out,” Sheriff Jim Mele told reporters at a news conference Saturday. The targets included other students and faculty members."

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-m ... story.html

[Apneaman]

GoghGoner, those are not stats, those are examples. Before you go around demanding evidence, you should learn what constitutes it. Stats are numerical.

[GoghGoner]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Apneaman', 'G')oghGoner, those are not stats, those are examples. Before you go around demanding evidence, you should learn what constitutes it. Stats are numerical.

[Apneaman]

Oregon shooting: Statistics behind 'routine' US gun violence

"A list of some of the statistics on US gun violence reveals just how routine mass shootings and other firearm incidents are in a country with nearly as many guns as people.
Over the course of his presidency, Mr Obama has spoken publicly or issued a statement in the wake of 15 mass shootings. But the deaths in Oregon were the 994th mass shooting of his second term alone - since November 2012."

"So many people die annually from gunfire in the US that the death toll between 1968 and 2011 eclipses all wars ever fought by the country. According to research by Politifact, there were about 1.4 million firearm deaths in that period, compared with 1.2 million US deaths in every conflict from the Revolutionary War to Iraq."

"And the statistics bear that out: the number of per capita gun murders in the US in 2012 - the most recent year for comparable statistics - is nearly 30 times that in the UK, 2.9 per 100,000 compared with just 0.1. Of all the murders in the US, 60% were by firearm, compared with just 10% in the UK"

more

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34424385

[Apneaman]

GoghGoner, get real! You cannot throw a bunch of numbers out without comparison and context and say figure it out for yourself to attempt to make a case. LAME

[onlooker]

I found this graph-chart which shows something interesting. with regards to other relatively well off countries, US ranks 6th in per capita rampage shootings. Note that the countries ahead of the US all have restrictive gun ownership laws. So this seems to show that US culture is not necessarily an ugly aberration that is pushing people to commit these atrocities.
http://www.datehookup.com/Thread-1421843.htm

[Cog]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Apneaman', 'G')oghGoner, those are not stats, those are examples. Before you go around demanding evidence, you should learn what constitutes it. Stats are numerical.