School Shooting in Connecticut - Multiple Fatalities

[Occupied Deutschland]

More because the media has a bad habit of jumping to conclusions and using improper terminology when it comes to guns and crime.

Therefore, bias, therefore, you're right. Cool shit, bro.

You notice I didn't say that did I.

There's not much of ANY unbiased (popular) reporting about guns and crime. The closest perhaps being the studies that show the US has 2.7 firearm homocides per 100,000 people.

I wasn't asserting I was right, simply that the media has a poor track record on this.

[Gaveo]

So sad... May the victims rest in peace.

[Ausdrucksvoll]

i live in Portland OR and I thought that the clackmas shooting would be the biggest this holiday. Guess not. RIP all who died.

[Ifreann]

So with this shooting, does anyone else think that homeschooling would be a better approach to education?

Not generally, no.

[Frisivisia]

You know what I'm tired of? The pro-gun "car" metaphor. We get it, people die from car-related injuries, and we don't ban cars. But, unlike guns, cars aren't made to kill things. They're made to transport people quickly and deaths do, unfortunately, result from this. The positives outweigh the negatives for cars.

For guns, though, there is no equal defense. A gun is never a tool of "self-defense," because its only purpose is to kill things. You don't fix things with guns, you don't heal things with guns, you don't go anywhere with guns. Guns only cause death. That is what they are designed to do. Quit acting like it has some greater purpose outside of that; quit pretending that God wanted you to own a semi-automatic tool used only to maim and kill other living things. This school shooting is tragic, yes, but it's a by-product of our gun culture. Much like the shooting in Florida from a few weeks ago. Much like the multiple shootings in the summer. In fact, much like the number of gun homicides that occur in our country every day.

You know what else causes only death? Cigarettes. Ban those first, they kill tens of thousands more people a year than firearms.

You have a right to kill yourself. You do not have a right to kill others.

[The Merchant Republics]

What would possess a man to shoot children? Ever?

God save us, a world where a man feels justified to shoot school children is a sick one indeed.

As always, gun control and more guns is offered as a solution, but let's be serious, these rare events have little to do with guns either way, it's about mental health.

The very same cases have occurred in nations without high access to firearms with similar fatalities, machetes, swords and hatchets to my memory have all been used in similar events. The unifying factor is the mind of the perpetrator, mentally ill and largely untreated.

Prove that this has little to do with guns. Source that melee weapons have contributed similar numbers of casualties.

To my memory, friend. I can't recall the names of the massacres or their fatalities, I simply recall reading about them. One with a sword, one with a hatchet and one with a machete. Again, to my memory the highest death count was a rather staggering 34.

Prove that it did. Come on now, you should know better than to ask me to prove a negative.

But allow me to respond nonetheless, this has little to do with guns because as of today, somewhere near 160+ million Americans were in possession of a weapon and did not fire it towards another person. 160 million people today had a gun and did not kill anyone, of those I'd wager less than 1% had ever fired their weapon at another person.

1 person today, had a mental breakdown and shot a weapon which he should not legally have, at defenceless children. A few more people in the history of the United States have done the same, the rates of gun ownership have remained high in the US from the very beginning, while the rates of these shootings mostly correlates with the rise in mental health disorders.

[New South Plymouth]

Today's events are truly tragic and reminded me of the Dunblane Massacre simply because of the ages of the victims. I'd like to believe that such a thing will never happen again, but as in previous shootings I'm sure no real effort will be made to prevent them.

[Frisivisia]

Therefore, bias, therefore, you're right. Cool shit, bro.

You notice I didn't say that did I.

There's not much of ANY unbiased (popular) reporting about guns and crime. The closest perhaps being the studies that show the US has 2.7 firearm homocides per 100,000 people.

I wasn't asserting I was right, simply that the media has a poor track record on this.

1) Being facetious is a thing.

2) Source dem claims, friend.

[Bafuria]

Don't know about melee weapons, but kerosene and matches have killed a similar number of people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Land_fire

That's one example.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daegu_subway_fire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartford_circus_fire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Kuwait_wedding_fire

[The Zeonic States]

You know what I'm tired of? The pro-gun "car" metaphor. We get it, people die from car-related injuries, and we don't ban cars. But, unlike guns, cars aren't made to kill things. They're made to transport people quickly and deaths do, unfortunately, result from this. The positives outweigh the negatives for cars.

For guns, though, there is no equal defense. A gun is never a tool of "self-defense," because its only purpose is to kill things. You don't fix things with guns, you don't heal things with guns, you don't go anywhere with guns. Guns only cause death. That is what they are designed to do. Quit acting like it has some greater purpose outside of that; quit pretending that God wanted you to own a semi-automatic tool used only to maim and kill other living things. This school shooting is tragic, yes, but it's a by-product of our gun culture. Much like the shooting in Florida from a few weeks ago. Much like the multiple shootings in the summer. In fact, much like the number of gun homicides that occur in our country every day.

You know what else causes only death? Cigarettes. Ban those first, they kill tens of thousands more people a year than firearms.

...Great now i am going to lose my cancer sticks and my guns this day just fucking sucks all those kids and now this

[Occupied Deutschland]

You know what else causes only death? Cigarettes. Ban those first, they kill tens of thousands more people a year than firearms.

You have a right to kill yourself. You do not have a right to kill others.

Second-hand smoke doesn't kill others? Is what people in favor of cigarette bans would say here.

[Jocabia]

Ah, but it is. It always is. We have a very short memory. The shock and outrage passes and we go back to complaining about gas prices and whether or not some General is cheating on his wife. There will never be more people focused on this problem than immediately after a tragedy of this magnitude. It would not be good to use this tragedy to implement bad solutions, but definitely finding good solutions is the absolute best thing we can do at the moment.

Tragedy tends to fray political opinion out to the extremes, and by the time we become clear-headed again, no one cares anymore.

Because all of the reasonable people are saying, "Fuck, we can't talk about this. Someone might think I'm callous for trying to solve the problem so future parents won't have to mourn their children."

We'll solve the problem when reasonable people stop avoiding talking about it just to appear reasonable.

[Frisivisia]

Prove that this has little to do with guns. Source that melee weapons have contributed similar numbers of casualties.

To my memory, friend. I can't recall the names of the massacres or their fatalities, I simply recall reading about them. One with a sword, one with a hatchet and one with a machete. Again, to my memory the highest death count was a rather staggering 34.

Prove that it did. Come on now, you should know better than to ask me to prove a negative.

But allow me to respond nonetheless, this has little to do with guns because as of today, somewhere near 160+ million Americans were in possession of a weapon and did not fire it towards another person. 160 million people today had a gun and did not kill anyone, of those I'd wager less than 1% had ever fired their weapon at another person.

1 person today, had a mental breakdown and shot a weapon which he should not legally have, at defenceless children. A few more people in the history of the United States have done the same, the rates of gun ownership have remained high in the US from the very beginning, while the rates of these shootings mostly correlates with the rise in mental health disorders.

Prove it, source it, prove it, source it. Making baseless claims is bad.

[Torisakia]

So with this shooting, does anyone else think that homeschooling would be a better approach to education?

Nope. Homeschooling usually results in emotionally and socially unready children, and usually involves quite a bit of indoctrination on religion and politics. There's no room for the kid to think, just parent's mind to child's.

What would you rather have? Your child emotionally and socially unready? Or your child killed in a school shooting because of all the violence public schools have?

[Libertarian California]

It seems like there are a lot of school shootings in the US. What's up with that?

I've been thinking the same thing. Why are there more this year than usual?

Prior to this year, the only shootings that come to mind are Virginia Tech and Columbine.

But this year:

Aurora Theater
A shooting at a Christian college in California
The Sikh Temple shooting

[Northern Dominus]

Eventually yes, but not on the exact day, not while there are people out there in a lot of pain that could use the support of their extended American family right about now.

We're not all American.

Instead of standing on the dead bodies to make a goddamn point...

Like you're doing? And you are. You're using this tragedy to excoriate us for not behaving as you think it proper.

Or they can take all that energy, those thought processes, and maybe write an email expressing their heartfelt condolences to the families affected, let them know that they're not alone and Sandy Hook isn't some island in the wake of this tragedy. All are more productive and far more helpful than ballyhooing about who's right and who isn't at the moment.

Why are we posting on an internet forum instead of being productive? Why are you?

Also, e-mail who, exactly?

Extended human family then, good enough? Because I refuse to believe that when tragedy strikes that the effects are felt just in a country or regionally-sized bubble of some kind.

And maybe I am falling into the same trap as the other politicized white noise, but in my defense at least I'm coming down on the side of dropping any pretense and taking care of people who are really vulnerable right now.

As for the email...maybe one to the editor of the Newtown Patch would be a good place to start:
http://newtown.patch.com/
Or the Newtown Bee
http://newtownbee.com/SiteMap.aspx

I'm sure there are other ways but newspapers are generally a good place to start.

[Frisivisia]

You have a right to kill yourself. You do not have a right to kill others.

Second-hand smoke doesn't kill others? Is what people in favor of cigarette bans would say here.

That's why we regulated it. That's why you can't smoke in restaurants anymore. That's why there's the smoking section at the airport. And due to that, second-hand smoking deaths have gone down. Regulation is what we need with guns. We need more.

[Jocabia]

Nope. Homeschooling usually results in emotionally and socially unready children, and usually involves quite a bit of indoctrination on religion and politics. There's no room for the kid to think, just parent's mind to child's.

What would you rather have? Your child emotionally and socially unready? Or your child killed in a school shooting because of all the violence public schools have?

Given that one is much more likely than the other, I'll take my chances on the second one, frankly.

[Yes Im Biop]

You do realize that he was using Automatic Rifle's Last i heard, Those are very, very , very regulated.

Obviously not enough if this guy was able to get ahold of them.

You can't regualate the black market,

An AR-15 with a select fire lower receiver costs upwards in 15 grand, It takes over 3 month';s for it to be approved, and you will now be on the FBI Watch list. As well as having a 200 dollar tax stamp and a thorough background check to get said licenses I can't see how the reg's could get much tighter.

[Ifreann]

You know what I'm tired of? The pro-gun "car" metaphor. We get it, people die from car-related injuries, and we don't ban cars. But, unlike guns, cars aren't made to kill things. They're made to transport people quickly and deaths do, unfortunately, result from this. The positives outweigh the negatives for cars.

For guns, though, there is no equal defense. A gun is never a tool of "self-defense," because its only purpose is to kill things. You don't fix things with guns, you don't heal things with guns, you don't go anywhere with guns. Guns only cause death. That is what they are designed to do. Quit acting like it has some greater purpose outside of that; quit pretending that God wanted you to own a semi-automatic tool used only to maim and kill other living things. This school shooting is tragic, yes, but it's a by-product of our gun culture. Much like the shooting in Florida from a few weeks ago. Much like the multiple shootings in the summer. In fact, much like the number of gun homicides that occur in our country every day.

You know what else causes only death? Cigarettes. Ban those first, they kill tens of thousands more people a year than firearms.

No one who has ever smoked would say that cigarettes only cause death.


Hey, this is fun. I get why people do it now.

[Salandriagado]

You have a right to kill yourself. You do not have a right to kill others.

Second-hand smoke doesn't kill others? Is what people in favor of cigarette bans would say here.

Smoking in the company of others without their consent: damn right it should be fucking illegal.

[Gun Manufacturers]

Until you are pumped full of lead by the owner as you are trying to leave. Let me put it this way, if someone where to break into your house in a home invasion, and you are upstairs (assuming your house has two stories) would you feel safer knowing you had a shotgun to protect you or would you feel safer knowing that while the invaders have a handgun that they got in Mexico, you have a wooden baseball bat to protect you?

Where are all these random home invasions taking place that you NRA'ers always bring up?

Cheshire, CT.

[Frisivisia]

Nope. Homeschooling usually results in emotionally and socially unready children, and usually involves quite a bit of indoctrination on religion and politics. There's no room for the kid to think, just parent's mind to child's.

What would you rather have? Your child emotionally and socially unready? Or your child killed in a school shooting because of all the violence public schools have?

The chance of your kid getting shot in a school shooting are slim to none. That's not a real concern.

[Common Territories]

This event was terrible. I may not be a parent but even I know that this was heartbreaking. Why a maniac had to target kids was messed up let alone to kill others in cold blood. I hope the bastard enjoys his stay in hell for his sins. May the victims rest in peace and the families involved have the help they need to get through this travesty. No one should have to go through such pain. No one.

[Frisivisia]

Where are all these random home invasions taking place that you NRA'ers always bring up?

Cheshire, CT.

One example. That's an anecdote.