School/Mass shootings what's the answer?

[rideold]

In my opinion there are many aspects to the problem Some we know, some we don't, some we can control, some we can't. I've swung full spectrum on this over the years. When Columbine happened here in Colorado I was not a hunter, didn't own any guns and felt that if we just took the tool away then at least the damage would be downgraded. For a while I was with the camp that sees this as a price of our freedoms and we should mourn the dead and move on. Now I'm somewhere in the middle. I get that "mass" shootings are a small percentage of yearly deaths and school related ones are an even smaller portion. The thing about these kind of tragedies is that they are more tragic to the populace than a car accident or a suicide. They are more public and more horrifying (because of the helplessness of the victims in my opinion). In the end I think there are some things we can control better like access to school grounds and some types of fire arms. I also think there are better solutions to how the schools handle an active harmful event. I'd like to see some studies that support that holing students up in classrooms is safer than running like hell. I'd also like to see active harmful training in the schools. Kids need to know more what is possible. Not trying to scare them but educate them. Maybe if more kids were a little scared of it they would speak up more when they see/hear something. Or maybe they would reach out to the kid before they become a gun wielding statistic. Anyway, there needs to be changes on all fronts.

 

[Zach]

Buzz, Faith, family and freedom are not jokes. Cause and affect.

^This.

As much as some of the resident scholars like to pontificate about the reason these acts of evil happen, they are wrong. The more you look to man to answer these evils, the more they will happen.

Most folks asks for prayers after a tragedy, rarely do they look for them before.

Know God, Know peace. No God, no peace.

 

[onpoint]

Keep praying - but I digress....
Lots of folks don't want gun control of any kind. Lots of folks don't want to pay the evil taxman, who could use some of those taxes to better fund mental health care, intervention, prevention.
Lot's of folks see no real way this will situation change. I wonder if lots of folks don't know what empathy - not sympathy - is. Empathy only really comes from having actually experienced something that the empathy is directed towards.
In a lot of ways, this discussion is similar to the "which gun for grizzly protection". But only in the context of who actually has some experience in the matter. This one's a little more visceral.

 

[MTGomer]

How many kids get Ritalin and set in front of a game instead of sent outside to work or play?
How many kids are eating meal after meal of food full of preservatives from a box and not having dinner with their family?
They’re all taught that if someone is mean to them they can’t react, yet schools consistently refuse to do anything about bullying either. So the kid bottles it up inside and eventually bursts. Instead of killing a bunch of people sometimes they ‘just’ kill themselves.

As it shows above, 645k babies were legally murdered in the US in one year. With endless support and encouragement (and funding) from those who want gun control. The vast majority of young people align with a political party that believes abortion should be free and on demand, with no consequence clear through the third trimester. What do we expect? Shooting 18 high school students is no worse than breaking the skull of a baby with forceps and vacuuming his/her brain out through a tube 645,000 times a year. Yet here we are, somehow surprised at the depravity of society.

 

[mtmuley]

I find the lack od give a shit by some on here to be appalling. Maybe you don't have kids, maybe you are so far removed from it that it seems like a story. Not sure but I do know this, the same apathetic attitude expressed by some is the same attitude the gunmen who do this have. I truly think that is what is so offensive to john q. public. It that same attitude that will end up with Uncle Sugar doing away with the second amendment all together. It was a 5-4 vote the last time it was questioned and even then the court ruled that regulation was legal within the context of the law. Gun taxes, mental health exams, purchase limits.........they're coming unless gun owners can figure out how to better handle this. I refrain from using the term fix.

I don't see any " lack of give a shit here". mtmuley

 

[VAspeedgoat]

I don't see any " lack of give a shit here". mtmuley

I hope you're right and I'm wrong. I guess I just interpret some of the responses to be a lack. Maybe empathy, as just mentioned would be a better term

 

[brownbear932008]

Interesting that some here may be in favor of firearms bans and limitations. mtmuley

You are very right. I for one never thought I'd be but I'm leaning more and more that way everyday. But let me be clear mental health and moral confusion is the top factors hands down. But we all know of the three above factors which is probably the easiest to push and pass.
I have been in LEO positions over twenty years. It is easy for us to all say it is this or that problem. It's a very complex issue and I'm not sure what the answer is to be honest. I now work on a federal level where I see and better understand gun violence issue's. It has truly opened my eye's in many ways.
I love our second amendment and like many have had great friends die protecting that right. But like said early in the thread all rights come with limits in some way or another.
My mind began to change after Sandy Hook it seemed. Elementary children died because of an idiot and our inability to keep them safe as a society. We failed them as a nation and as citizens in some way that I don't know and it's sad.
I think if we as gun owners and sportsman don't come up with a solution quick we are not gonna like what is handed to us in the end. It's coming Mark my word people are fed up with it. I don't like or much agree but it's probably a fact.

I am sure of one thing I'm tired of seeing innocent children die and something needs to be done about it instead of the bs of thoughts and prayers. That ain't working!
I have a great friend who worked one whole floor of the Virginia Tech shooting and I just wished everyone could sit and talk at length with him about that nightmare he lives with daily. See the problem here is just like most problems in America lack of sympathy until it hits home. It's not an easy issue and God knows there may not be an answer but we fail as a nation to not at least try to solve the issue in some way. For a very long time we have avoided it,until it snacks us dead in the face.

 

[onpoint]

Good stuff Brownbear932008.
Except I can't find any use for sympathy. We all have experienced sympathy until we forgot about the thing we were sympathetic about. What's the old hard-ass quip, "you'll find sympathy in the dictionary somewhere between shit and syphillis".
When sympathy "hit's home" then it become empathy. Empathy contain an element of the pain of having lived something. Expecting no sympathy whatsoever, and not wanting it, I've lost people I cared about to senseless gun violence - not this, but nonetheless senseless. Most likely not the only one on here, as BrownBear witnessed......
When a shitload of us (sadly more than the shitload that already has...) have a gut load of empathy, maybe.......
I wonder how many that will take, if ever.

 

[brownbear932008]

That is interesting. Seems like we could just make murder illegal. While we are at it, make hard drugs illegal too.

Good point if it was legal and free range like the old west I'd
Be a Billy the Kid by now and have 20 under me. Lol Only thing that stopped me was morals, common sense, and a fear of bubba. Point being laws can't stop all acts we know this but we are fooling ourselves if we think laws don't curtail things in daily life. He'll I'm like anyone else the less the better for me when it comes to gov't intrusion in my life.
But we all better wake the heck up we are a minority in this issue now and that means if we don't attempt to level the playing field on our terms we get hosed like anything else in life. It is a slippery slope but guys if you don't think we are standing on the cliff in an ice storm you better wake up and smell the roses.
BTW I still think Buzz hit it on the head right out of the gate at the end of the day.

 

[onpoint]

"But we all better wake the heck up we are a minority in this issue now and that means if we don't attempt to level the playing field on our terms we get hosed like anything else in life. It is a slippery slope but guys if you don't think we are standing on the cliff in an ice storm you better wake up and smell the roses".

Another vote, if I understand correctly, for us who truly care about our rights as gun owners and enthusiast to get in front of this. What if that means giving an inch instead of losing a mile?
Lotsa' guys on here get all into music threads. How about a thread called "music you hated but it may have made some sense":
The Doors and Jim Morrison - Five to One "They got the guns but we got the numbers".
We may may find ourselves on the wrong end of that one.

 

[Gerald Martin]

Looking to government to solve the problems that are caused by our misguided values in society will only cause more restriction and freedom for the law-abiding citizen. I'm not even talking about the loss of our guns primarily. We live in a materialistic, individualist society and are reaping the logical consequences of choices that have been made throughout the past few generations.

As was mentioned before, the solutions to ending mass killings are rather complex in implementation, but the I would argue the causes are fairly simple. I would wager that if you investigated the lives of the shooters, you would find that the lack of stable home life and dysfunctional role models they observed growing up as they sought to answer questions about the meaning of life played a huge influence on their worldview and the way they answered those questions. Add into that volatile equation a steady diet of TV and video violence that offered as a fast solution to solve problems. Add into the equation, easy to access guns and a lifetime of teaching that their existence is meaningless beyond an existential experience. Add in to equation, isolation from the moderating effects of community based religious instruction that teaches a sense of responsibility to a Creator, our fellow man and the world around us and you see individuals trying to live life in a way we were never intended to live.

The answer is a willing, voluntary, change of heart, empowered by the Holy Spirit. (Gospel of John, chapter 3)

But, since that is impossible to mandate, legislate, or coerce and indeed we should never attempt to do so; until you see a shift in what we value as a society, I'd expect to see more mass killings, not less.

I'd also expect to see more gun regulation and restriction of the rights we now enjoy as gun owners, not less.

 

[belly-deep]

I think a good part of the cause must come from schools. I don’t buy that the shooters pick there targets just because they are “gun free zones.”

They hold an animosity at the school for some reason.

 

[OriginalOscar]

I solicited a couple of qualified responses to the idea of trained-teachers (staff)-with-guns idea. I have LEO's in my life on a daily basis in various capacities - no I am not a habitual offender nor currently in a detention center. I asked two of them, today, about their views regarding this topic. One a Capt. and one a Sargeant in their separate and respective agencies. Both were less than enthused about the idea of another poorly trained, stressed, and armed individual in this equation. One stated that he is actually less than adequately trained for these situations and questioned how a minimally trained/prepared civilian can be anything more than an additive problem in an already bad situation.
Won't pretend to speak for the enforcement community whatsoever - this is just info relayed via a personal comm. with two with whom I know.
I tend to be of the mind that they probably know what they are talking about........

Arming teachers could follow what happened after 9/11 with pilots. My former minions say it's about 40-45% of pilots are enrolled. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Flight_Deck_Officer

 

[Idahoarcheryhunter]

we have around 357 million guns in this country.... they are not the problem plain and simple this kid was bullied in his school had built up a large amnesty towards this school and mentally was not straight. I think this is something that may reside in some of the administration within these schools think about it, we all knew kids that were bullied in schools we went to and had more than likely some sort of mental/emotional distress these kids need counseling and the help required to get these kids mentally healthy. My heart truly hearts for each and every person impacted by these events that take place, no parent should worry that when they watch their kids walk on the bus in the morning that they might not come off of it.

 

[Idahoarcheryhunter]

also.... call me crazy but I think the culture that kids are growing up in now has an influence as well violent movies, video games etc.

 

[Tradewind]

"But we all better wake the heck up we are a minority in this issue now and that means if we don't attempt to level the playing field on our terms we get hosed like anything else in life. It is a slippery slope but guys if you don't think we are standing on the cliff in an ice storm you better wake up and smell the roses".

Another vote, if I understand correctly, for us who truly care about our rights as gun owners and enthusiast to get in front of this. What if that means giving an inch instead of losing a mile?
Lotsa' guys on here get all into music threads. How about a thread called "music you hated but it may have made some sense":
The Doors and Jim Morrison - Five to One "They got the guns but we got the numbers".
We may may find ourselves on the wrong end of that one.

You're kind of on a rant tonight. Just what is your solution/suggestion to all of this

 

[brownbear932008]

Looking to government to solve the problems that are caused by our misguided values in society will only cause more restriction and freedom for the law-abiding citizen. I'm not even talking about the loss of our guns primarily. We live in a materialistic, individualist society and are reaping the logical consequences of choices that have been made throughout the past few generations.

As was mentioned before, the solutions to ending mass killings are rather complex in implementation, but the I would argue the causes are fairly simple. I would wager that if you investigated the lives of the shooters, you would find that the lack of stable home life and dysfunctional role models they observed growing up as they sought to answer questions about the meaning of life played a huge influence on their worldview and the way they answered those questions. Add into that volatile equation a steady diet of TV and video violence that offered as a fast solution to solve problems. Add into the equation, easy to access guns and a lifetime of teaching that their existence is meaningless beyond an existential experience. Add in to equation, isolation from the moderating effects of community based religious instruction that teaches a sense of responsibility to a Creator, our fellow man and the world around us and you see individuals trying to live life in a way we were never intended to live.

The answer is a willing, voluntary, change of heart, empowered by the Holy Spirit. (Gospel of John, chapter 3)

But, since that is impossible to mandate, legislate, or coerce and indeed we should never attempt to do so; until you see a shift in what we value as a society, I'd expect to see more mass killings, not less.

I'd also expect to see more gun regulation and restriction of the rights we now enjoy as gun owners, not less.

Very very well said! I think these are a lot of our major issues at hand here. But these issue's like you said are almost impossible to legislate. It's a culture issue at heart. What scares me is the fact that the firearm industry and regulation is the easy part to legislate with enough push by voter's in some future election ect.
Buy the way this has been one very interesting thread and took up my whole evening and I have learned a lot of great views from other's on the board. I honestly thought when I read the title on no here we go. Very interesting views here I think.

 

[Tradewind]

I think a good part of the cause must come from schools. I don’t buy that the shooters pick there targets just because they are “gun free zones.”

They hold an animosity at the school for some reason.

I think your animosity comment is probably correct. But Let's look at it another way. Would they pick a school if it wasn't security free/gun free?

 

[Idahoarcheryhunter]

I think your animosity comment is probably correct. But Let's look at it another way. Would they pick a school if it wasn't security free/gun free?

I believe some of them would and some of them wouldn't, not trying to dig up old dirt but columbine comes to mind a little bit those kids knew when they went into that school they weren't coming out so a possible armed guard etc probably wouldn't have stopped them from carrying out the attack. Yesterday's events I think it might of, the shooter tried to blend into the crowd to escape so he wanted to avoid capture/ confrontation from law enforcement.

 

[Tradewind]

I believe some of them would and some of them wouldn't, not trying to dig up old dirt but columbine comes to mind a little bit those kids knew when they went into that school they weren't coming out so a possible armed guard etc probably wouldn't have stopped them from carrying out the attack. Yesterday's events I think it might of, the shooter tried to blend into the crowd to escape so he wanted to avoid capture/ confrontation from law enforcement.

good point