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Mass Shooting and Gun Control Megathread

Cream Gravy? said:
Yeah, I’m not a huge fan of red flag laws. Where do they draw the line? Just because someone is a misanthropic loner doesn’t mean they’re crazy. It’s like I said, it may well become the next version of “swatting” people.

I also worry about the focus on “mental health”; again, where is the line drawn? Is someone with ADD or depression “dangerous” or “unstable”? I really doubt it.

Even if mental health counseling was 100% free to me, I’d never use it now, because it’s an excuse to say, “This person should be disarmed against their will,” and falsely claim that they might somehow be “dangerous” just because they want a third party to discuss their issues with.

The stigmatization of those suffering from mental health issues is seemingly getting worse, not better. Shooting up a school isn’t a mental health issue… it’s sheer evil, sheer madness. Yes we need to addrsss mental health… but saying that anyone who is ever given counseling or psychiatric medication is “unstable” is just absolutely fucked up and wrong.

If red flag laws are to be implemented, there should be a strong system of checks and balances to ensure people don’t have their rights infringed without a proper reason, i.e. having at least ten people ranging from friends to family to coworkers testifying against someone to prove they’re actually a danger.
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Well what if 7 out of those 10 people are simply against guns in general and say your a danger just so you can’t get a gun…it’s a really tricky issue
 
Yeah, where the line is with red flag laws is sketchy and subjective. That's probably a big reason some people support red flag laws
 
Las Veghost grower said:
2054 isn’t far away, so we’ll be minority reporting this shit soon anyway
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Lol you beat me to it. I accuse my cat of pre-crimes all the time but he has a history of criminal recidivism >.>


But yeah, I agree, I honestly wouldn't want my family to judge me on such matters. My father is very anti-gun and so are many of my relatives. Their reasons aren't sound and they have no right to decide what rights I should have. I can definitely see why people would be 100% against red flag laws.
 
n3ophy7e said:
Who does have the right to decide what rights you should have?
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I don't know, that's a good question but I don't really have a good answer. I guess I skew very libertarian in some matters, but I understand the need for government. So in the matter of private ownership I feel nobody has a right to decide what anybody else can own. I think that people should be free to do whatever they want in life so long as it doesn't harm others.
 
Snafu in the Void said:
He brings up some good points. I've always been faithful to the "entertainment doesn't cause violence" crowd/studies, but I'm really not so sure when I think about it. These movies and games are so immensely popular that I find it hard to believe a mass shooter HASN'T played or watched them even if it had nothing to do with it.

Violent entertainment has been with us for so long it's engrained in our culture. I don't know if we can really blame it, but it seems almost dumb not to in at least some little way.

I'm surprised he didn't mention this video game mission in which you literally walk into an airport and mass murder hundreds of civilians on purpose:



The uvalde shooter loved this game...
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i think these games and movies definitely desensitize kids to violence and glorify it but what I don’t understand is why the violence isn’t translating to other countries that watch our movies and play our games
do they have a healthier happier culture that keeps the kids from acting out in violence?
China and Japan consume a lot of video games American video games but are part of a more collectivist society is the fact that Americans are so individualistic why the impulse to harm others seen as a more viable option?
 
Cream Gravy? said:
I don't know, that's a good question but I don't really have a good answer. I guess I skew very libertarian in some matters, but I understand the need for government. So in the matter of private ownership I feel nobody has a right to decide what anybody else can own. I think that people should be free to do whatever they want in life so long as it doesn't harm others.
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That's all lovely and dandy but it's not practical is it? Because there need to be laws. So in reality someone needs to decide on your rights.
 
Electrum1 said:
Yeah, where the line is with red flag laws is sketchy and subjective. That's probably a big reason some people support red flag laws
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Cheshire_Kat said:
Agreed. We should be punishing people who break the law, not trying to guess who might break the law and punish them in advance.
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I agree, it is a slippery slope. On the other hand, though, what about these kids who are posting all over social media about their imminent plans to shoot up a school? Certainly identifying this person as someone who shouldn't be able to buy a gun is sensible?

I would be very wary of someone calling in and saying "*insert person* is a danger", and that alone being enough to prevent them from buying a gun or any other ramification for that person. But if they were looked into and there was clear evidence that such a claim was true, then someone calling in about it may have saved lives. If this sort of "call-in" approach were investigated by checking their social media and whatever else was sensible to check, I think i could do a lot of good.

The fact is that a lot of these mass shooters, we look at their social media after the fact, or in retrospect it turns out that many of their classmates had been trying to tell school officials or parents of their concerns, and we say "why didn't anyone do anything about this?" It's stuff like that where I think we should learn from these mistakes and implement some sort of system to make it easier to get reports like these into a system that would intervene, either by preventing gun sales, or involving police, before anything actually happens. I mean let's face it, if someone is posting all over social media that they plan to murder someone, or shoot up a school, that is nowhere near normal, and is really concerning, and should not be ignored. Likewise if someone is telling a bunch of their classmates they're going to kill them, that should not be ignored or trivialized.

I don't think of that as tattling or troubling, it's just sensible in the times we live in.

Back in my school days, we often received bomb threats from kids. Most all of the time, I'm sure it was just done to fuck with people or cause the rest of the school day to let out so they could skip class or something. But we always got evacuated, just in case. Of course, that was shortly after Columbine, back in the days before we had gotten desensitized to school shootings./mass killings.
 
agree, it is a slippery slope. On the other hand, though, what about these kids who are posting all over social media about their imminent plans to shoot up a school? Certainly identifying this person as someone who shouldn't be able to buy a gun is sensible?
I would be very wary of someone calling in and saying "*insert person* is a danger", and that alone being enough to prevent them from buying a gun or any other ramification for that person. But if they were looked into and there was clear evidence that such a claim was true, then someone calling in about it may have saved lives. If this sort of "call-in" approach were investigated by checking their social media and whatever else was sensible to check, I think i could do a lot of good.
The fact is that a lot of these mass shooters, we look at their social media after the fact, or in retrospect it turns out that many of their classmates had been trying to tell school officials or parents of their concerns, and we say "why didn't anyone do anything about this?" It's stuff like that where I think we should learn from these mistakes and implement some sort of system to make it easier to get reports like these into a system that would intervene, either by preventing gun sales, or involving police, before anything actually happens. I mean let's face it, if someone is posting all over social media that they plan to murder someone, or shoot up a school, that is nowhere near normal, and is really concerning, and should not be ignored. Likewise if someone is telling a bunch of their classmates they're going to kill them, that should not be ignored or trivialized.
I don't think of that as tattling or troubling, it's just sensible in the times we live in.
Back in my school days, we often received bomb threats from kids. Most all of the time, I'm sure it was just done to fuck with people or cause the rest of the school day to let out so they could skip class or something. But we always got evacuated, just in case. Of course, that was shortly after Columbine, back in the days before we had gotten desensitized to school shootings./mass killings.
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Totally. If someone self identifies as someone who will commit a crime then at the very least they should get an intervention and help. That would be a good thing. Sometimes these people slip through cracks in the system and don't get the help they need.

Here's a real mind blower Xorkoth: You know that black fellow who shot up the subway? Well he actually spent time in Chicago around my neighborhood. I met him a few times while he was trying to raise some money on the street. Both my wife and I were totally surprised when we saw his picture in the news after he was involved in that shooting, I totally missed any signs of psychopathy when I spoke to him on the street.

But I totally agree with your position.
 
Cream Gravy? said:
I also worry about the focus on “mental health”; again, where is the line drawn? Is someone with ADD or depression “dangerous” or “unstable”? I really doubt it.

Even if mental health counseling was 100% free to me, I’d never use it now, because it’s an excuse to say, “This person should be disarmed against their will,” and falsely claim that they might somehow be “dangerous” just because they want a third party to discuss their issues with.

The stigmatization of those suffering from mental health issues is seemingly getting worse, not better. Shooting up a school isn’t a mental health issue… it’s sheer evil, sheer madness. Yes we need to addrsss mental health… but saying that anyone who is ever given counseling or psychiatric medication is “unstable” is just absolutely fucked up and wrong.
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Don't have a lot to say but I totally agree with this. Having known many people with mental health conditions and having gone completely bonkers insane over the last couple years, people who really have mental health problems generally don't do, like, anything. Their problems take up their focus. Shooting up a school is an entirely different thing and I'm pretty sure you'd have to be pretty focused to actually go through with it. Just my opinion, anyway.
 
Well, I'm just speaking generally. I haven't been as caught up on this recent one as I should be. I kind of became disengaged when it was just non-stop although I also personally have some problems (not enough to really argue it aside from right now though) with the way mass shootings are defined because I looked it up way back when after hearing that there are like hundreds a year and, 'silly' isn't really the right word for this situation but, I do think it's kind of silly that literally any gun violence at all killing more than like three people counts as a "mass shooting" in the databases I've seen. Like, even someone just going to someone's house with a gun to kill one specific person and they happen to get a few others who are in their way too. I get that all the shootings are bad but it also made me feel like the media just wants to use that label as much as humanly possible because it sounds scary.
 
Yeah to me, a "mass shooting" should be applied as a label only to cases where someone starts shooting up groups of people without any reason other than trying to kill random people. School shootings, the Vegas shooter, stuff like that. If someone is trying to murder one or more specific peopleand someone gets caught in the crossfire, or is shot when trying to defend said people, that is of course extremely tragic and unforgiveable, but it's not a mass shooting in the way we think of them.
 
n3ophy7e said:
That's all lovely and dandy but it's not practical is it? Because there need to be laws. So in reality someone needs to decide on your rights.
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Strict libertarianism isn’t practical, no, which is why I don’t exactly identify as libertarian. I get where you’re coming from, but yeah to be honest, I don’t know who should decide peoples’ rights. I would say myself, but 7 billion other people might disagree. I certainly don’t want my rights defined by right or left wing nuts bent on controlling our minds and bodies, but that seems to be the way the wind is blowing.
 
Las Veghost grower said:
Man I saw that movie when I was like 8 and completely forgot about it, gonna have to go back n watch it again but from what I remember it’s pretty much chemical castration or your mind, very likely to happen imo
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Do eet !!!!

It's a slow but impactful movie and well worth the time.

Funny story ... I read the book before watching the movie back around 1974. It was a beat up paperback copy and when I came to the end I noticed that about the last 3 pages of the story were missing so I had to wait until the movie came around in syndication at the cheap $1.00 local small theaters to find out how it ended. ;)
 
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