Quote:

---

In the sentence "a deeply troubled teen shot up a school with a legally purchased firearm", I'm much more likely to focus on the "deeply trouble teen shot up a school" and not the "with a legally purchased firearm"

---

We also know these things are assessed backwards. Something happens, and we try and quickly piece together why because we have to beat the other guy to the story. So, a complex individual is reduced to a soundbite or some caricature.

There's 10s of thousands of "deeply troubled teens" who don't shoot anyone. We know from human nature that some "deeply troubled teens" might have shot up a school given the right set of circumstances, but that they were avoided. (they didn't have access to guns, they had someone to talk to. Someone told them it was stupid and they listened, insert any number of things here...all the way down to, the feeling passed and they decided to play video games instead)

Quote:

---

There is a time and place to talk about these things. Overly emotional rants on the internet do nothing but stir up arguments.

The families I presume will become advocates of some solution when this settles down. For now I would imagine the shock is so large that they can't do anything really but mourn.

---

on the surface, I 100% agree with you.

That said, it's been brought up many times when it would be appropriate...only to be ignored out of "out of sight, out of mind".

diehard03 said:

---

Quote:

---

Since we are not in an ideal world, I am curious as to what everyone thinks should be done, if anything, by government?

---

For School Shootings? Nothing about guns themselves. I would change how we cover them in the media, as i think that's the problem.

For General gun violence and Suicides? There probably needs to be access restrictions here and creative ways of dealing the illegal gun trafficking problem.

School shootings are the red herrings of the gun conversation.

---

What do you mean by saying media coverage is the problem? I can understanding not approving the way its covered, but it hardly seems like 'the problem'.

School shootings are a small number of gun related deaths. But I think they serve as a reminder of how easy it is for someone to wreak massive havoc on the most innocent and vulnerable. I don't think its fair to call them red herrings. Maybe fair to say we spend a disproportionate amount of time focused on them.

Despite your wishes, you aren't god. Don't presume to tell someone what they do or don't believe.

https://bnonews.com/index.php/2022/05/student-caught-with-ak-47-rifle-texas-high-school/

"A student has been arrested after he was caught with an AK-47 rifle outside his high school near Dallas, just a day after one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history."

The best description I've seen is that school shootings are something like a slow moving riot. The propensity to riot is probably distributed like a bell curve. In normal life the majority of people will not pick up a rock, throw it through a window, and loot a store. There are some that will do it for any reason or no reason. Then there are people on the other side who simply will never riot no matter what. Then distributed on that curve are people who will riot in different circumstances, who require more or less of a push.

The problem is part of the equation of whether a person riots or not depends on if others around them are rioting. So the more people riot, the more people who normally would not riot begin to riot.

This is the thrust of the "media coverage" angle. By showing someone "rioting" you're taking a person who would not, and giving them impetus. Especially when the notoriety factors in.

schmendeler said:

---

Macarthur said:

---

There's no single thing to point to but it is clear that we have a sickness.

This is being reported as the gun dealer that sold the gun to the kid in Uvalde. If you don't see this as a part of this sickness, you need to do some soul searching.

---

Violence and the possibility of violence is fetishized in this country it seems.

---

Luckily the r&p is immune to this fetishizing. I mean except for the Rittenhouse thread.

The most disturbing thing I have heard out of this is that the parents were asked to bring in DNA samples so they can identify the bodies due to how badly they were shot up.

Not sure I believe that but if so, one family being willing to have an open casket funeral would change the conversation like Emmett till's open casket funeral change the how seriously we took lynching

https://www.instagram.com/tv/Cd9a74pgmdv/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

Pretty sure Daniel defense is the manufacturer of the gun not the guy that sold it

Duncan Idaho said:

---

The most disturbing thing I have heard out of this is that the parents were asked to bring in DNA samples so they can identify the bodies due to how badly they were shot up.

Not sure I believe that but if so, one family being willing to have an open casket funeral would change the conversation like Emmett till's open casket funeral change the how seriously we took lynching

---

Oh, it's true. Multiple outlets reported this.

Quote:

---

What do you mean by saying media coverage is the problem? I can understanding not approving the way its covered, but it hardly seems like 'the problem'.

School shootings are a small number of gun related deaths. But I think they serve as a reminder of how easy it is for someone to wreak massive havoc on the most innocent and vulnerable. I don't think its fair to call them red herrings. Maybe fair to say we spend a disproportionate amount of time focused on them.

---

We've pushed the bolded statement into the publics conscience through our media coverage, and that's why we keep getting school shootings. That's what I mean by the media coverage is the problem - the disproportionate amount of time keeps the cycle going. Buffalo is already slipping in the publics mind.

this seems like a good faith representation

Quote:

---

Because high restrictions that don't actually have any meaningful effect on the outcome are counter-productive. It has nothing to do with responsibility. Most of the measures proposed by gun control advocates are some combination of irrational fear of scary-looking things, wishful thinking, punishment for political opponents, and sincere attempts at correcting the problem.

Part of the issue is I don't think everyone here is negotiating in good faith. The other part is I don't trust most people to make an effective action. This thread has plenty of evidence of the latter.

A big reason I am suspect is because we have thousands and thousands of people being murdered every year and it doesn't seem like anyone cares. People are, as evinced by their actions, content to let young men in inner cities murder each other. Or to let people kill themselves. People are similarly ambivalent to the comparable deaths caused by drunk driving. You don't see larry culpepper or schmendeler making impassioned rants or asking why we're so complacent with so much death in those cases.

I completely understand these events are shocking, and I genuinely can't imagine going through that as a parent. I really can't. But that doesn't drive me to throw rationality out the window. And it doesn't motivate me to make my life more difficult or cumbersome one iota to do something that will do nothing but make people feel better because we did something, anything.

---

I can understand an argument of objecting to grandstanding or that there are no good proposals out there...but you seem to be saying that there are no possible proposals that can be tolerable you.

I guess also...you don't believe that suicides would decrease if we made handguns much harder to get? You think that every single one of them will just move onto to the next method? I am sure that survivors of suicide attempts or people that got help would disagree with you on that. (ie, that they would be dead today if they had a gun)

I'm also not sure why Larry or anyone else needs to make an empassioned speech. Whether they are grandstanding or not, the principle question to you is whether you're willing to inconvenience yourself to potentially save someone's life. Is this not at odds with your personal ethics? What if you're wrong about the impact it could have on someone's life?

(edit: note: I only ask because this logic seems at odds with what your normally bring here, and I don't think you accept this of others)

You seem hellbent to shove that position onto me. I am not saying and have not said that there are no possible proposals. Propose one, and let's discuss it. I might have missed it but I don't think there has been one proposed on this thread, just a vague assertion that it's blatantly obvious that this is a quantity of guns problem. I think that's demonstrably false.

Proposals which are tolerable to me will be ones which will address the problem and which are feasible or at least possible. Legislation like the assault weapons ban fails the former; calls to ban guns fail the latter.

Yeah, handgun ownership increases suicide risk by a lot. What's your proposal to address that?

Quote:

---

the principle question to you is whether you're willing to inconvenience yourself to potentially save someone's life. Is this not at odds with your personal ethics? What if you're wrong about the impact it could have on someone's life?

---

It bothers me not at all to inconvenience myself to save a life. What bothers me is inconveniencing myself in such a way that won't save someone's life. You seem to be missing that. The issue is the efficacy and practicality of the solution.

There is a simple truth here that the uncountable and utterly overwhelming majority of people will never, ever, ever take a gun to school and shoot a bunch of kids. If whatever thing you do makes it harder for them to do anything, but doesn't actually prevent a person who is not in that category from obtaining a gun and shooting a bunch of kids, it's a waste of time and energy.

Here, think about it this way. I don't know if you own a gun, and for the purposes of this conversation it doesn't matter. I am going to charge half of the people in this country an extra five cents per gallon of gas they buy in order to prevent school shootings. Are you in favor or against this? I mean, surely you must be for it, right? After all, the principle question to you is whether you're willing to inconvenience yourself to potentially save someone's life. Don't your personal ethics demand it?

Zobel said:

---

this seems like a good faith representation

---

Yeah, idk if you're sarcastic here or not. But there are thousands of dark posts over there in the last 24+ hours, and the God-guns connection is more than an undercurrent. It's remarkable to decry the spiritual condition of America on one hand, yet on the other allow oneself to be completely shrouded from any possibility of discussing any other reason for why our number of school shootings is 100x higher than the rest of the world. It's like people can only see spiritual darkness in others and not in themselves.

For the record, I'm pretty sure that I could defend myself against the government with fentanyl better than I could with a gun. Do I get to have my own supply of fentanyl?

It was completely sarcasm. And I'm plenty critical of the prevailing tone on f16.

One problem is that since our country is fifty fifty split on red blue nearly everything becomes a red blue distinction. There are very few people who are sometimes red and sometimes blue. You can pretty decently predict most positions a person has based on one.

At any rate there are plenty of good discussions to be had on the topic. The problem largely seems to be that they aren't happening.

94chem said:

---

Macarthur said:

---

Seems like a bold strategy to blame the school for the school shooting.

Outside the school, Ted says the massacre only happened because a back door at the school was unlocked. pic.twitter.com/hcyhJrrRpB

— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) May 25, 2022

---

What a twit. Same shallow false religiosity as his daddy, slightly above average intelligence, perpetually strident without a single ounce of statesmanship. Yeah, I vote for him because the alternative is just repugnant.

---

That is nuts that the door was unlocked. But just one thing among many that contributed to this.

Amerie Jo Garza's father, a med aide, says he found out she was one of the victims when he arrived on the scene and was helping another little girl covered in blood. She told him her best friend had been shot. When he asked her name, she said his daughter's. There aren't words. pic.twitter.com/CEH2JuseHw

— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) May 26, 2022

If Beto said that you wouldn't care

Quote:

---

You seem hellbent to shove that position onto me. I am not saying and have not said that there are no possible proposals. Propose one, and let's discuss it. I might have missed it but I don't think there has been one proposed on this thread, just a vague assertion that it's blatantly obvious that this is a quantity of guns problem. I think that's demonstrably false.

Proposals which are tolerable to me will be ones which will address the problem and which are feasible or at least possible. Legislation like the assault weapons ban fails the former; calls to ban guns fail the latter.

Yeah, handgun ownership increases suicide risk by a lot. What's your proposal to address that?

---

You're making this way more granular than I intended. The specifics don't need to be ironed out - we aren't here to pass any legislation on the R&P board. we all know the devil is in the details, but that shouldn't distract us.

I was just asking about whether the concept high restrictions - and to clarify - a high difficulty standard to pass to obtain a weapon (or outright ban) would be amenable to a high responsibility gun person...and your post seemed to indicate that it wasn't. If i missed you on that, then that's on me.

I don't have a solution to the handgun thing - but I don't think I think have to have one to it be something we should consider. It's obvious that anything that done on the "gun side" is meant to be more of a symptom cure to buy time to solve the root cause.

Quote:

---

It bothers me not at all to inconvenience myself to save a life. What bothers me is inconveniencing myself in such a way that won't save someone's life. You seem to be missing that. The issue is the efficacy and practicality of the solution.

There is a simple truth here that the uncountable and utterly overwhelming majority of people will never, ever, ever take a gun to school and shoot a bunch of kids. If whatever thing you do makes it harder for them to do anything, but doesn't actually prevent a person who is not in that category from obtaining a gun and shooting a bunch of kids, it's a waste of time and energy.

Here, think about it this way. I don't know if you own a gun, and for the purposes of this conversation it doesn't matter. I am going to charge half of the people in this country an extra five cents per gallon of gas they buy in order to prevent school shootings. Are you in favor or against this? I mean, surely you must be for it, right? After all, the principle question to you is whether you're willing to inconvenience yourself to potentially save someone's life. Don't your personal ethics demand it?

---

I'm not missing it. I'm just not sure what's convincing you that certain actions won't save a life. There seems to be this recurring theme that these shooters were 100% going to kill lots of people and there have been zero people ever who were dissuaded by the lack of availability of firearms.

As far as your example goes, the reasonable person will choose on the inconvenience level, as you would. Low inconvenience level to high efficacy is a no brainer for any one of almost any ethic. Unless I am not getting you, you are choosing the "no inconvenience because I have determined that all known proposals are 0% efficacy". I don't think this is a reasonable position.

Macarthur said:

---

There's no single thing to point to but it is clear that we have a sickness.

This is being reported as the gun dealer that sold the gun to the kid in Uvalde. If you don't see this as a part of this sickness, you need to do some soul searching.

---

Proverbs 22:6?

Ramos was an American, but that was not the source of his problems...

Details emerge on Texas school shooter Salvador Ramos' behavior

Forget specifics, is there a general idea, or anything other than "ban guns" or "have fewer guns" or "make it harder to get guns"? Because none of those are practical or effective suggestions.

Quote:

---

a high difficulty standard to pass to obtain a weapon (or outright ban) would be amenable to a high responsibility gun person...and your post seemed to indicate that it wasn't.

---

yeah, because that is not effective. how do you stop a person with no history of mental illness from buying a gun? we already have laws preventing the mentally ill from buying guns. I know you don't want to get granular, but this high level is pretty much "make it harder on the people who do the right things, and make no attempt whatsoever at addressing the problem or improving the situation."

Quote:

---

I don't have a solution to the handgun thing

---

ok. when you do, then we should have this discussion. until then, what is the point?

Quote:

---

I'm just not sure what's convincing you that certain actions won't save a life

---

what certain actions?

Quote:

---

As far as your example goes, the reasonable person will choose on the inconvenience level, as you would. Low inconvenience level to high efficacy is a no brainer for any one of almost any ethic.

---

my example is that your gasoline price should increase by 5 cents per gallon to prevent school shootings. You for or against? why or why not?

it's not a gotcha, because if you say "because its not clear to me that will help prevent school shootings" that is how i feel about most proposals.

what is a low inconvenience and highly effective proposal to prevent school shootings?

Quote:

---

Unless I am not getting you, you are choosing the "no inconvenience because I have determined that all known proposals are 0% efficacy". I don't think this is a reasonable position.

---

For the second time, I am not saying and have not said that there are no possible proposals. Apparently "way more granular than you intended" means any specificity whatsoever.

schmendeler said:

---

Ol_Ag_02 said:

---

We're violent because we don't emphasize that all life is precious and that every single man, woman, and child is created in the image of God.

---

Ok, now do Europe.

---

oh you dont watch the news and see the slaughter if innocence in europe on places like ukraine or yugoslavia.. last hundred years europe has been the most bloody place in the world except for mao in china

Quote:

---

The only one being binary here is you

---

Lol no. You're the one camped out on "nothing going to stop everything so nothings effective" side.

And the same w your abortion example…find the worst example of how evil my opponent is and that will show how awful their position is