Fucking Guns

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  • TwilightTwilight Shipmate
    Back on topic. The father of the latest school shooter blames bullying and suggests the bullies deserved it. Anything but blame himself for keeping his guns in an unlocked closet where his depressed son could have easy access.Here.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    Twilight wrote: »
    Oh right, Croesos, this was a politically motivated sit-in to protest black people never being allowed to eat in Starbucks. I feel so silly to have missed that?

    Hey, I'm just trying to correct your abject ignorance of the history of race in America, since you've "never before heard of anyone of any color" doing anything other than leave a restaurant when asked. I'm pretty sure you find the Greensboro sit-ins pretty egregious too, "because business managers have the legal right to ask customers to leave -- for any reason". So I'm not sure why you're parsing questions of racism so closely. Even if the motive is racist it's still okay according to you, since "any reason" is good enough.

    Back on topic, for some reason the news that Stephen Paddock (the Las Vegas shooter, remember that?) seems to have been a conspiracy theorist of the anti-government, worrying-about-gun-grabbers variety doesn't seem to be receive very wide distribution. The LVPD seems to have actively been avoiding releasing that information and only seem to have done so as the result of a law suit.
  • romanlionromanlion Shipmate
    Twilight wrote: »
    Back on topic. The father of the latest school shooter blames bullying and suggests the bullies deserved it. Anything but blame himself for keeping his guns in an unlocked closet where his depressed son could have easy access.Here.

    Where was the bold bit? Could not find this...

  • mousethiefmousethief Shipmate
    Twilight wrote: »
    Oh right, Croesos, this was a politically motivated sit-in to protest black people never being allowed to eat in Starbucks. I feel so silly to have missed that?

    There's quite a bit in this thread for you to feel silly about, if not ashamed.
  • TwilightTwilight Shipmate
    edited May 2018
    romanlion wrote: »
    Twilight wrote: »
    Back on topic. The father of the latest school shooter blames bullying and suggests the bullies deserved it. Anything but blame himself for keeping his guns in an unlocked closet where his depressed son could have easy access.Here.

    Where was the bold bit? Could not find this...

    My link sends me to something else today, but an article I just read in Time said this:
    his son told him he had acted on his own and had spared, “the kids who were the good kids so they can tell his story.”

    I take that to imply that he thought the ones his son killed were the bad kids.

  • Simon ToadSimon Toad Shipmate
    I heard a radio report about the Father's interview with a Greek broadcaster where he was saying that his boy was the victim of bullying at the school. I took this to mean that the Father was distraught and perhaps trying to avoid the death penalty for his child. I'm not going to condemn the bloke.
  • TwilightTwilight Shipmate
    I'm not condemning the boys father. He has every right to defend his son and I'm against the death penalty so I hope it doesn't come to that. What I would like to see him do is, rather than try to defend his son by suggesting that his victims were bullies, would be to defend his son by admitting that he, the himself bears some responsibility for the shooting by keeping unsecured guns in the house. When guns are used by minors to commit crimes I think the owners of the guns should, at the very least, pay a fine for failing to keep the guns away from the children.

    I'm not surprised that you thought I was condemning the father though. On this board where trying to defend Starbucks employees, who we've never met, against charges of racism makes me a racist, then criticizing a man for casting shade on 15 year-old murder victims would constitute "condemning," him.

  • Simon ToadSimon Toad Shipmate
    edited May 2018
    Yeah, I did think you were criticising him and that this could be fairly characterised as condemning him. I regard the words as synonyms, but I don't look to closely at them in general conversation. I suppose there's a difference in emphasis and tone between the words, the latter having a more formal sense.

    Does this expose a difficulty in communication between us? Do we miss shades of meaning because we are from different sides of the planet? I think we probably do, and perhaps we read more than is intended into each other's words as well. I mean, this applies to everyday conversations face to face too, when I think about it. I don't know how many times I've found out later that someone was offended by something I said, and I had no idea. It's probably just me :smile:

    But I didn't mean to step on your toes.

    I personally love the Greeks, and I mean the ones I know and observe here in Melbourne. The way they do things traditionally is so like my own British-Australian family, yet fascinatingly different at the same time. Many have broken the mold of course, but its the mold I find enthralling. I'd like to theorise about this poor Father's motives and mode of thinking, but it would be worth very little at best, and expose me as an incorrigible bigot at worst.

    You seem to get upset at people implying that you're racist Twilight. I reckon the vast majority of people are racist, including me. I crapped on about British racism earlier in the thread, and I'm certain that there's some of that in me, more than just an instinctive recoil and then curiosity at difference. Indeed, what is my fascination with and celebration of Greek-Australians than the other side of the coin of hate? Moreover, those of us with a European background come out of cultures that have been theorising about and actively practicing European superiority since the Enlightenment. How can our attitudes, so much a part of our shared cultural backgrounds, not be at least underpinned by these racist modes of thought?

    Personally, I want to eliminate racism and bigotry from my way of thinking. It's not possible, I know, but I can at least attend to myself and my reactions and critique them. This is second-nature to me. Its a survival skill that I use to try and stay on top of my bi-polar mood swings. So while I'm analysing whether this or that action, thought or feeling is something I need to watch, or to raise with my psych, I can also happily identify other forms of wrongdoing and seek to correct myself where necessary.

    My attitude towards non-conformist Protestantism and faiths on the fringe of Christianity needs adjustment at present. That's on my to-do list.

    So, someone implying you're racist or stating it outright, be pissed off about it for sure. But think about it too. Even the most rabid lefty might have some kinks to iron out, if they have the capacity to examine themselves.
  • Twilight wrote: »
    would be to defend his son by admitting that he, the himself bears some responsibility for the shooting by keeping unsecured guns in the house. When guns are used by minors to commit crimes I think the owners of the guns should, at the very least, pay a fine for failing to keep the guns away from the children.

    Do we know that the guns were unsecured? When people think about security, they don't often think about securing their property against their own family. It wouldn't surprise me to find a lot of homes with guns stored unloaded in locked gun cabinets where the teenage children know the combination for the safe, or know where Mum or Dad keeps the keys. And I'll bet that the gun owners in those cases think they're being perfectly safe and responsible.

  • Alan Cresswell Alan Cresswell Admin, 8th Day Host
    Whereas here in the UK "unsecured" means someone, anyone other than the licensed owner, can get access to them by some means. The licensed owner letting anyone know the combination or location of the keys, even family, would make them unsecured. The husband of a colleague lost his license for not securing his shotgun - it was in a heavy metal box secured to a rafter in the loft (police approved secure gun safe), someone broke in while everyone was out and used a power tool to cut out the lock and open it.
  • Simon ToadSimon Toad Shipmate
    wow - that sounds like an inside job.
  • Alan Cresswell Alan Cresswell Admin, 8th Day Host
    The way my colleague told it (and I've no reason to doubt her) the gun was used a couple of weeks later (after the barrel was cut down) in an armed robbery and recovered when the robbers were arrested - resulting in going to court as a witness to identify the gun. The police reckon that robbers got the gun from someone who specialises in supplying guns to crooks (but the robbers never grassed, so the identity of this dealer is unknown). The dealer put the word around to buy information on who has guns and where - somewhere, someone who knew that there was a gun in the house (and potentially that it was kept in the loft) mentioned it to someone ... and eventually the gun dealer heard of it and hired someone to break in and steal it just before it was needed for a crime.

    One of the easiest routes for criminals in the UK to get a gun is to steal it (or, arrange for someone to steal it) from someone who has a gun at home. Which is why reducing legal gun ownership is an easy way to reduce the number of illegally held guns and their use in crimes.
  • Simon ToadSimon Toad Shipmate
    no argument from me there :)
  • Twilight wrote: »
    My link sends me to something else today, but an article I just read in Time said this:
    his son told him he had acted on his own and had spared, “the kids who were the good kids so they can tell his story.”

    I take that to imply that he thought the ones his son killed were the bad kids.

    That's not outside the bounds of possibility. Being murdered doesn't instantly absolve you of your sins or make you a good person. In some cases it just makes you a dead asshole rather than an alive one. I remember being bullied at school, and if I'd had easy access to a gun at the time then there were definitely moments when I'd have been sorely tempted to use it to end the bastards.

    There are other scenarios where we react with understanding when the victims of abuse finally snap and kill or wound their abuser(s). I see no reason why victims of bullying shouldn't receive the same level of understanding.
  • RooKRooK Shipmate
    I see no reason why victims of bullying shouldn't receive the same level of understanding.

    Understanding, sure. But murder is not something that civilization can tolerate.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    edited May 2018
    There are other scenarios where we react with understanding when the victims of abuse finally snap and kill or wound their abuser(s). I see no reason why victims of bullying shouldn't receive the same level of understanding.

    I don't think a premeditated mass shooting in a crowded space qualifies as "finally snap[ping]". It implies a level of cold-blooded forethought that most people wouldn't associated with the term "snap".
  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    Crœsos wrote: »
    There are other scenarios where we react with understanding when the victims of abuse finally snap and kill or wound their abuser(s). I see no reason why victims of bullying shouldn't receive the same level of understanding.

    I don't think a premeditated mass shooting in a crowded space qualifies as "finally snap[ping]". It implies a level of cold-blooded forethought that most people wouldn't associated with the term "snap".
    Psychologically, I don't think planning one's "revenge" is incompatible with the concept of snapping.
    More to the point, murder is not an acceptable response in our society regardless. Nor is someone who contemplates such a shooting likely to be adequately evaluating the perceived wrongs objectively.
  • RooK wrote: »
    I see no reason why victims of bullying shouldn't receive the same level of understanding.

    Understanding, sure. But murder is not something that civilization can tolerate.

    Such was not my implication.
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    Psychologically, I don't think planning one's "revenge" is incompatible with the concept of snapping.

    I agree with this. People can, on some stupid impulse or other, decide to so some action, and then carry it through for a long time before they think about it again and realize that they're being stupid. I don't see that murder-in-anger is any different.

    The point here, of course, is that when the kid got angry (or whatever he did), he was able to get hold of some guns and go and shoot some people.

    You can fix this in two ways: you can stop people getting angry, or you can stop them getting guns. I think I know which one of these two is easier.
  • RooKRooK Shipmate
    Indeed, functional frontal lobes are a rare commodity for humans under the age of 24. While triggers work regardless of the age of the finger.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    RooK wrote: »
    Indeed, functional frontal lobes are a rare commodity for humans under the age of 24. While triggers work regardless of the age of the finger.

    And yet the vast majority of people somehow reach the age of 24 without having committed a mass murder. I'm not buying the idea that Pagourtzis just snapped and had no idea what he was really doing.
  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    Sh
    Crœsos wrote: »
    RooK wrote: »
    Indeed, functional frontal lobes are a rare commodity for humans under the age of 24. While triggers work regardless of the age of the finger.

    And yet the vast majority of people somehow reach the age of 24 without having committed a mass murder. I'm not buying the idea that Pagourtzis just snapped and had no idea what he was really doing.
    I didn’t say he had no idea what he was doing. I’m certain he did.
    The problem in this situation is the availablity of guns.
    Anyway, mass shootings are statistically irrelevant. Trying to figure out how to prevent those is not without moral merit, but it is insignificant in relation to the number of shootings.
    Fortunately, the answer to reducing both is simple.
    Unfortunately, convincing Americans to impliment it won’t be.
  • RooKRooK Shipmate
    Crœsos wrote: »
    RooK wrote: »
    Indeed, functional frontal lobes are a rare commodity for humans under the age of 24. While triggers work regardless of the age of the finger.

    And yet the vast majority of people somehow reach the age of 24 without having committed a mass murder. I'm not buying the idea that Pagourtzis just snapped and had no idea what he was really doing.

    Now you're just being an argumentative fuckstard for your own amusement. Do you really mean to argue against the idea that young adulthood is a time particularly ripe for regrettable decisions¹? And do you really expect that, after we already clarified with Marv, that anybody is trying to excuse whatshisface on account of impulsivity?

    ¹ If you want to argue the neurobiology, that'll be ...interesting.
  • Meanwhile, another school shooting today. In a middle school. What's next -- kindergarten?
  • There are other scenarios where we react with understanding when the victims of abuse finally snap and kill or wound their abuser(s). I see no reason why victims of bullying shouldn't receive the same level of understanding.
    Can you name a few, because none come to mind. The shooters seem to always be white boys with chips on their shoulders, who play too much video games. I don't recall shootings by LGBTQ kids, black kids, autistic kids, immigrant kids. The people who are really bullied don't shoot people en masse.
  • I suspect that Marvin the Martian is referring to cases such as the recent appeal case (March 2018) (link) of Sally Challen, challenging the murder verdict against her on the grounds that her husband abused her throughout her marriage. There is mention in the article of lenient sentencing of men who use the "shagging and nagging" defence to exonerate their behaviour when they have attacked or murdered their partners.
  • edited May 2018
    Not seeing any comparison to marital or domestic violence situations to someone shooting up a school. Intimate violence has nothing to do with school bullying and disgruntled young men whose parents should be supporting them and parenting them, locking up their guns properly and a society with too easy access to firearms. Not seeing it.
  • RooKRooK Shipmate
    Not seeing any comparison to marital or domestic violence situations to someone shooting up a school. Intimate violence has nothing to do with school bullying and disgruntled young men whose parents should be supporting them and parenting them, locking up their guns properly and a society with too easy access to firearms. Not seeing it.

    Yes, a very impressive demonstration of "LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU". Kudos on fully freeing your inner toddler.

    Nevertheless, your inability to align modes of vilification for purposes of blame assignment doesn't really affect the entirely separate plane of actually trying to solve the root cause of the problems. Which, as you are undoubtedly incapable of conceptualizing, could possible include reaching these people such that they don't need to lash out. I don't have much hope for it, personally, but even I can see that requires some form of compassionate listening.
  • No, isn't about LA LA LA etc. It's about an inapt comparison. Stretching it to breaking if you think that marital abuse between intimate partners and school shootings can be put on the same wavelength because this can be labelled as "bullying" in both situations.

    The individual psychology approach isn't working. This is the blaming on individual mental illness, psycho-social adjustment and the like. There isn't going to be any solution is "reaching out" to people who want to lash out - don't you think it hasn't been what the best and smartest minds in the world have been doing. This is APA's summary for example. The individual factors are part of any consideration, the systematic factors are key. The individual factors are important, but they don't solve the epidemiological occurrences, the public emergency this appears to be.
  • RooKRooK Shipmate
    True: the thing that isn't supported definitely isn't working. But that's moot.

    I'm not exactly hopeful for any particular approach that fundamentally intends to enlighten the aggressors. Because humans suck, on the whole. It seems obvious that the primary pragmatic approach to violence both domestic and public needs to include reduced access to firearms. Because it works.
  • jay_emmjay_emm Kerygmania Host
    edited May 2018
    And another case where a good gun fails to protect in belgium double sympathies for the cops they must be hellish last seconds.
  • I thought of this thread as I recently read Gary Younge's 'Another day in the death of America'. Younge is a black British journalist who lived and worked in the USA with his American wife and kids for a number of years. The book details a day chosen at random, and the ten children and young men of 18 and under who died over that period. This is used as a context to talk about the kind of issues we have been discussing on this thread.

    The book is very, very well written - calm, factual, sensitive and informative. I would recommend it for UK readers trying to understand the US gun situation, and I think it's sufficiently well-done that a US reader would find it neither patronising nor simplistic - though of course a US reader is more likely to be well-aware of the situation in the first place.
  • Simon ToadSimon Toad Shipmate
    Cheers for that Mark. I might pick it up when I finish my current tome.
  • And now, it seems, the best way to deal with the effects of a catastrophic act of nature is to shoot your neighbor.
  • Alan Cresswell Alan Cresswell Admin, 8th Day Host
    Didn't you know that the way to stop a volcano destroying a neighbourhood is a good man with a gun?
  • RooKRooK Shipmate
    Didn't you know that the way to stop a volcano destroying a neighbourhood is a good man with a gun?

    I question your definition of "good", and I am saddened at your sexism.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    Apparently this happened.
    The family of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student David Hogg was "swatted" Tuesday morning, causing police to respond to their Parkland home.

    A call came into the Broward Sheriff's Office claiming a hostage situation at the home.

    Coral Springs Fire Rescue arrived at the scene to find there was no hostage situation and the call was a prank.

    I take issue with the word "prank" in this article. Given what the caller had to hope would happen, or at least know was a very good possibility of happening, "assassination attempt" might be closer to the mark.
  • The comments below the story are terrifying.
  • I didn't like this bit of the report:
    In a phone call with Local 10 News, Hogg sounded off about the prank call, which led to the massive law enforcement presence at his home.

    In my culture, 'sound off' is pejorative.

  • edited June 2018
    Meanwhile, a boy playing with his mother's unsecured, accessible gun accidentally shoots a friend who was visiting at the time.
  • romanlionromanlion Shipmate
    edited June 2018
    Hogg is a gigantic douche, and does nothing to advance the cause he purports to be the spokesperson for. He is 20 or 30 years from realizing what has happened to his life, and what an utter waste of matter he has been in the universe. (If he's lucky)
  • RooKRooK Shipmate
    romanlion wrote: »
    a gigantic douche

    Well, we can't deny your expertise.
  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    romanlion wrote: »
    Hogg is a gigantic douche, and does nothing to advance the cause he purports to be the spokesperson for. He is 20 or 30 years from realizing what has happened to his life, and what an utter waste of matter he has been in the universe. (If he's lucky)
    Even if he were a gigantic douche, he is miles up the ladder from you.
    If any being created the universe, you are enough for them to disbelieve their own existence, for even the most vile deity would not stoop so low as to allow the spawning of something like you.
  • Alan Cresswell Alan Cresswell Admin, 8th Day Host
    romanlion wrote: »
    Hogg is a gigantic douche, and does nothing to advance the cause he purports to be the spokesperson for. He is 20 or 30 years from realizing what has happened to his life, and what an utter waste of matter he has been in the universe. (If he's lucky)
    I've not seen anything to indicate he's "a gigantic douche", or even a common-old-garden sized douche. The same, of course, can't be said of people who make malicious phone calls to the police - I hope there are suitable laws for prosecution for wasting police time and public endangerment, and that those douche bags responsible are identified.

    And, even if he is a douche, he has lost a child as a direct consequence of bloody stupid laws that allow kids access to military grade assault weapons. I'm willing to say any douche-ness is justified in the circumstances. If his campaigning results in one gun not being in the hands of someone who might use it, if it reduces the number of kids shot by just one person then the value of his life is infinitely greater than yours.

  • can you provide any evidence of his douchery? From this distance, he is one of a group of people impacted by a mass shooting of children at their school, and he wants to try and stop that sort of thing happening again. I haven't really followed what the Parkland kids have been doing, but I'm disposed to think well of them. I'm disposed to think that people who disparage them are lunatics.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    What Simon Toad said...except, from what I read in the article, this is one of the kids who survived. David Hogg and other kids have turned activist, to prevent other kids from going through what they did.
    Hogg was not home at the time of the incident and is currently in Washington with his mother to accept the RFK Human Rights award.

    Maybe a little soon to give him an award. OTOH, maybe he'd already been chosen for other reasons.

    Swatting is evil, but it's been a thing for years.
    (frown)
  • Doc TorDoc Tor Admin Emeritus
    romanlion wrote: »
    a gigantic douche

    If being a gigantic douche deserved the death penalty... let's just say there'd be a few blessed deletions around here.
  • RooK wrote: »
    ..... reduced access to firearms ....
    But then how do I put food on the table?

  • Love the cat in that pic FD.

    Judge not lest ye be judged Doc Tor :wink: I rather think you see the worst of us...

    I think that a gamer got killed by the cops after someone swatted him because of a dispute in an online game last year sometime.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    Simon Toad wrote: »
    I think that a gamer got killed by the cops after someone swatted him because of a dispute in an online game last year sometime.

    Link.

    Barriss does not seem to have learned any kind of lesson from his experience.
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