Another obvious kneejerk reaction; assign blame to the gun.
well the gun helps, does it not???
i am sure nothing would have happened if the kid went up to the other one and just yelled "BANG BANG!!!!!!!".....
A knife would have done the same thing, so would a bat, so would countless other items. The point is a gun is merely a tool. The person is a murderer. The person is at fault, not the gun.
Gun bans don't work, not to mention they are unconstitutional. Should a student have a gun is not the question, he should not have had it in school. The article doesn't mention the specific gun either so I cannot comment on if he legally owned it.
People need to stop using tragic situations to promote their political agendas.
Can someone in middle school legally own a gun even? :shock:
Oh and as far as other countries having less gun crimes, please site examples for conversation sake. I'm sure most do but comparing populations should be noted as well.
Well when you compare countries you don't compare entire populations but you compare per so many people, usually per 100,000 people... So the population is irrelevant.
Gun Deaths - International Comparisons Gun deaths per 100,000 population (for the year indicated):
Homicide/ Suicide/ Other (inc Accident) USA (2001) 3.98/ 5.92 / 0.36
Italy (1997) 0.81/ 1.1/ 0.07
Switzerland (1998) 0.50/ 5.8/ 0.10
Canada (2002) 0.4 / 2.0/ 0.04
Finland (2003) 0.35/ 4.45/ 0.10
Australia (2001) 0.24/ 1.34 0.10
France (2001) 0.21 / 3.4/ 0.49
England/Wales (2002) 0.15/ 0.2/ 0.03
Scotland (2002) 0.06 / 0.2 / 0.02
Japan (2002) 0.02 / 0.04/ 0
Data taken from Cukier and Sidel (2006) The Global Gun Epidemic. Praeger Security International. Westport.
Keeping in mind i've just done a quick search, but this site seems to have cited their sources so I didn't search any further.
thanks for the kneejerk reaction to defend the murder weapon... :roll:
I don't think he was "defending the weapon", which in any event is not a sentient entity and is therefore incapable of owning the guilt or responsibility in this situation. I believe in some reasonable gun controls (just so we're clear), but his point was that the genuine causes of this murder lie not with the tool itself but elsewhere. I agree with this point.
Oh and as far as other countries having less gun crimes, please site examples for conversation sake. I'm sure most do but comparing populations should be noted as well.
Well when you compare countries you don't compare entire populations but you compare per so many people, usually per 100,000 people... So the population is irrelevant.
Gun Deaths - International Comparisons Gun deaths per 100,000 population (for the year indicated):
Homicide/ Suicide/ Other (inc Accident) USA (2001) 3.98/ 5.92 / 0.36
Italy (1997) 0.81/ 1.1/ 0.07
Switzerland (1998) 0.50/ 5.8/ 0.10
Canada (2002) 0.4 / 2.0/ 0.04
Finland (2003) 0.35/ 4.45/ 0.10
Australia (2001) 0.24/ 1.34 0.10
France (2001) 0.21 / 3.4/ 0.49
England/Wales (2002) 0.15/ 0.2/ 0.03
Scotland (2002) 0.06 / 0.2 / 0.02
Japan (2002) 0.02 / 0.04/ 0
Data taken from Cukier and Sidel (2006) The Global Gun Epidemic. Praeger Security International. Westport.
Keeping in mind i've just done a quick search, but this site seems to have cited their sources so I didn't search any further.
thanks for the kneejerk reaction to defend the murder weapon... :roll:
I don't think he was "defending the weapon", which in any event is not a sentient entity and is therefore incapable of owning the guilt or responsibility in this situation. I believe in some reasonable gun controls (just so we're clear), but his point was that the genuine causes of this murder lie not with the tool itself but elsewhere. I agree with this point.
Can we all agree that gun violence requires BOTH a gun and a person to pull the trigger?
thanks for the kneejerk reaction to defend the murder weapon... :roll:
I don't think he was "defending the weapon", which in any event is not a sentient entity and is therefore incapable of owning the guilt or responsibility in this situation. I believe in some reasonable gun controls (just so we're clear), but his point was that the genuine causes of this murder lie not with the tool itself but elsewhere. I agree with this point.
Can we all agree that gun violence requires BOTH a gun and a person to pull the trigger?
Certainly. Without the gun, said violence would be of some other sort. I think the fundamental issue pertains to whether having greater access to guns actually leads to more violence, or a greater level of violence relative to what would be there without access. This is actually a very hard question to answer, even though many people who dislike guns find it super-easy to jump to an "obvious" conclusion.
how in the world did a thread about someone getting murdered at a school morph into a discussion about prayer in school and the need for grandparents to be involved in a kid's life? can we PLEASE try to stay on topic here??
does anyone have a link about this story? i would like to read up on it because i am curious about the facts in this case, not people's hypotheses on why bothering god via prayer in school could have prevented it, or that the bullet was in some way not responsible for anything....seeing a sign with the ten commandments is not going to make people pause and think about their actions, its just like how every quarter mile there is a speed limit sign on the highway, people see them and just ignore them and do whatever speed they want to do anyway...[/quote]
Thats my point some follow the rules (values, morals) some don't....but if they don't know what the rules are What Then?.....Don't know about the rest of you but I do the speed limit
“We the people are the rightful masters of bothCongress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.” Abraham Lincoln
thanks for the kneejerk reaction to defend the murder weapon... :roll:
I don't think he was "defending the weapon", which in any event is not a sentient entity and is therefore incapable of owning the guilt or responsibility in this situation. I believe in some reasonable gun controls (just so we're clear), but his point was that the genuine causes of this murder lie not with the tool itself but elsewhere. I agree with this point.
Can we all agree that gun violence requires BOTH a gun and a person to pull the trigger?
no we can't, because according to some people the gun can not bear any of the blame....people kill people, NOT the gun... :roll:
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
how in the world did a thread about someone getting murdered at a school morph into a discussion about prayer in school and the need for grandparents to be involved in a kid's life? can we PLEASE try to stay on topic here??
does anyone have a link about this story? i would like to read up on it because i am curious about the facts in this case, not people's hypotheses on why bothering god via prayer in school could have prevented it, or that the bullet was in some way not responsible for anything....seeing a sign with the ten commandments is not going to make people pause and think about their actions, its just like how every quarter mile there is a speed limit sign on the highway, people see them and just ignore them and do whatever speed they want to do anyway...[/quote]
Thats my point some follow the rules (values, morals) some don't....but if they don't know what the rules are What Then?.....Don't know about the rest of you but I do the speed limit
what are you even talking about? so posting the ten commandments is posting the only rules? i can guarantee you this, if a person wants to kill someone, showing them the "thou shalt not kill" commandment is not going to stop them...
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
Can we all agree that gun violence requires BOTH a gun and a person to pull the trigger?
no we can't, because according to some people the gun can not bear any of the blame....people kill people, NOT the gun... :roll:[/quote]
I don't know why you're using the eye-rolling emoticon, dude ... Its a true statement. A gun without someone pulling the trigger sits on a rack somewhere or in some redneck's truck, totally harmless. I get your point, I think: Without guns, there'd be no gun violence. Granted. That doesn't mean that just holding a weapon suddenly draws up or manufactures all these homicidal urges, however. I think sometimes that the issue of gun control gets oversimplified, to the effect of "no guns = no violence", which is false. Its almost as if a total gun ban would magically convert all these homidical individuals into flower children. Underneath a proximal cause like weapon access are all kinds of psychological and sociological causes of violence, and if you ask me, fixing these is going to be the only way to reduce overall violence levels.
I don't know why you're using the eye-rolling emoticon, dude ... Its a true statement. A gun without someone pulling the trigger sits on a rack somewhere or in some redneck's truck, totally harmless. I get your point, I think: Without guns, there'd be no gun violence. Granted. That doesn't mean that just holding a weapon suddenly draws up or manufactures all these homicidal urges, however. I think sometimes that the issue of gun control gets oversimplified, to the effect of "no guns = no violence", which is false. Its almost as if a total gun ban would magically convert all these homidical individuals into flower children. Underneath a proximal cause like weapon access are all kinds of psychological and sociological causes of violence, and if you ask me, fixing these is going to be the only way to reduce overall violence levels.
yeah guns don't kill people....the same way the guillotine did not kill people...the same way the iron maiden did not kill people..
i don't know how you can argue that without a gun school shootings would not happen, because without the gun, no school shooting. how difficult is that to comprehend?
someone said stabbings would be more frequent, but as a student of psychology it is much easier for people to stand back and shoot than it is to get right up on someone and stab them. stabbing is much more of a personal way to kill someone. same as asphixiation. many times when you kill out of hate you strangle or stab people, not shoot them. that is just the way it happens usually. anybody can pull a trigger, it takes a special person to stab someone and take a life that way....look at the studies during WWI and WWII where soldiers could shoot and kill and detatch themselves from the situation and get over it, but it was much more difficult to get over killing someone with a bayonette or in some other hand to hand situation...
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
If you're indeed a student of psychology, gimmesometruth, it should not be hard for you to concede that 1) violence has intrapsychic and social causes, 2) that violence is determined by a complex set of variables and cannot be reduced down to a simple unicausal explanation like access to firearms, and 3) while guns do create psychological distance in a military context, statistics show that physical assaults with knives, blunt objects, and fists/feet are FAR more numerous than shootings, even in a "gun culture" like the U.S.
Thats my point some follow the rules (values, morals) some don't....but if they don't know what the rules are What Then?.....Don't know about the rest of you but I do the speed limit
I grew up in an atheist household... I've yet to kill someone, yet to steal.
And I'd like you to answer my other question. You said that there's been more school shootings, and tied in the fact of the removal of prayer in 1962. The march on Washington happened in 1963. Therefore, could one logically assume (from what you said) that this is because prayer was removed from schools?
Believe me, when I was growin up, I thought the worst thing you could turn out to be was normal, So I say freaks in the most complementary way. Here's a song by a fellow freak - E.V
what does race have to do with it when it is usually the white kids that go into schools and start shooting people??
While its true that most school shooters are White or Asian, the increases in gun crimes that have been observed (off-and-on) since the early 90s have been driven largely by the so-called inner city youths that unsung was referring to. I prefer a sociopolitical explanation to a racial one, given that skin color should have absolutely nothing to do with violent behavior, logically-speaking.
If you're indeed a student of psychology, gimmesometruth, it should not be hard for you to concede that 1) violence has intrapsychic and social causes, 2) that violence is determined by a complex set of variables and cannot be reduced down to a simple unicausal explanation like access to firearms, and 3) while guns do create psychological distance in a military context, statistics show that physical assaults with knives, blunt objects, and fists/feet are FAR more numerous than shootings, even in a "gun culture" like the U.S.
i am not arguing against that. i am talking about in general, without access to handguns this crime would not have happened.
yeah so punches and getting in a schoolyard fight rarely causes a death. in this case, the gun was what caused the kid to die. period, end of story. people have violent urges, but if the kid did not have the gun would the victim still be alive today? i would say yes.
did the gun contribute to this crime yes or no??
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
what does race have to do with it when it is usually the white kids that go into schools and start shooting people??
While its true that most school shooters are White or Asian, the increases in gun crimes that have been observed (off-and-on) since the early 90s have been driven largely by the so-called inner city youths that unsung was referring to. I prefer a sociopolitical explanation to a racial one, given that skin color should have absolutely nothing to do with violent behavior, logically-speaking.
is this the same logic you apply to isreali killing palestinians in such disproportionate numbers, that the guns and bombs and airplanes and tanks have nothing to do with it??
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
what does race have to do with it when it is usually the white kids that go into schools and start shooting people??
While its true that most school shooters are White or Asian, the increases in gun crimes that have been observed (off-and-on) since the early 90s have been driven largely by the so-called inner city youths that unsung was referring to. I prefer a sociopolitical explanation to a racial one, given that skin color should have absolutely nothing to do with violent behavior, logically-speaking.
is this the same logic you apply to isreali killing palestinians in such disproportionate numbers, that the guns and bombs and airplanes and tanks have nothing to do with it??
Weren't you just the guy scolding people for dragging this thread off-topic?
i am not arguing against that. i am talking about in general, without access to handguns this crime would not have happened.
yeah so punches and getting in a schoolyard fight rarely causes a death. in this case, the gun was what caused the kid to die. period, end of story. people have violent urges, but if the kid did not have the gun would the victim still be alive today? i would say yes.
did the gun contribute to this crime yes or no??
Of course. It was a gun crime, and like someone else said earlier in the thread, who actually opposes the idea of keeping guns out of kid's hands? I don't. I do believe in gun laws that work, including safe storage laws, the need for gun permits before a sale is completed, etc. What I don't believe in is the simple argument that guns are the main problem here. Guns have NO power to create a kid who is so distressed and pissed off that he decides to go shoot up a school. Sure, I am on board with the idea of making guns less available to these sorts of kids. This would save lives. I also think that these people need clinical help, too. Taking away the gun would save lives (a hugely important goal) but you'd still be left with 1) a disordered kid and 2) the social circumstances that promote the creation of more disordered kids.
i am not arguing against that. i am talking about in general, without access to handguns this crime would not have happened.
yeah so punches and getting in a schoolyard fight rarely causes a death. in this case, the gun was what caused the kid to die. period, end of story. people have violent urges, but if the kid did not have the gun would the victim still be alive today? i would say yes.
did the gun contribute to this crime yes or no??
Of course. It was a gun crime, and like someone else said earlier in the thread, who actually opposes the idea of keeping guns out of kid's hands? I don't. I do believe in gun laws that work, including safe storage laws, the need for gun permits before a sale is completed, etc. What I don't believe in is the simple argument that guns are the main problem here. Guns have NO power to create a kid who is so distressed and pissed off that he decides to go shoot up a school. Sure, I am on board with the idea of making guns less available to these sorts of kids. This would save lives. I also think that these people need clinical help, too. Taking away the gun would save lifes (a hugely important goal) but you'd still be left with 1) a disordered kid and 2) the social circumstances that promote the creation of more disordered kids.
how do you explain that so many times that nobody including parents and teachers knows that the kid is "disordered" until after he/she blows some of their fellow students away?
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
how in the world did a thread about someone getting murdered at a school morph into a discussion about prayer in school and the need for grandparents to be involved in a kid's life? can we PLEASE try to stay on topic here??
does anyone have a link about this story? i would like to read up on it because i am curious about the facts in this case, not people's hypotheses on why bothering god via prayer in school could have prevented it, or that the bullet was in some way not responsible for anything....seeing a sign with the ten commandments is not going to make people pause and think about their actions, its just like how every quarter mile there is a speed limit sign on the highway, people see them and just ignore them and do whatever speed they want to do anyway...[/quote]
Thats my point some follow the rules (values, morals) some don't....but if they don't know what the rules are What Then?.....Don't know about the rest of you but I do the speed limit
what are you even talking about? so posting the ten commandments is posting the only rules? i can guarantee you this, if a person wants to kill someone, showing them the "thou shalt not kill" commandment is not going to stop them...
i can guarantee you this, if a person wants to kill someone,if they don't have a gun they will find something else to do the job....
“We the people are the rightful masters of bothCongress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.” Abraham Lincoln
how do you explain that so many times that nobody including parents and teachers knows that the kid is "disordered" until after he/she blows some of their fellow students away?
Have you ever assessed someone with a clinical depression? One of the hallmarks is social isolation. These people feel completely alienated, and they may also feel that no one can be trusted to help them even if they do speak up. Many school shooters are powerless individuals with long histories of being bullied and socially rejected. Of course they often keep their difficulties to themselves, which is itself a huge part of the problem. And for the record, there often ARE warning signs. The Virginia Tech shooter was even seeing a therapist at one point, and had been accessed on an inpatient unit! People ignoring these signs probably ups the danger level dramatically.
Weren't you just the guy scolding people for dragging this thread off-topic?
yes i was. now are you gonna answer my question or not?
I responded to your other post. The Israel-Palestine issue doesn't not warrant a response here.
is it because you can't go thread after thread for days defending isreal and applying that same logic here, that it is the people and not the weapons responsible for the deaths? that would be an indictment on isreal then would it not?? you can't have it both ways reborn...you are more cerebral than that...
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
i am not arguing against that. i am talking about in general, without access to handguns this crime would not have happened.
yeah so punches and getting in a schoolyard fight rarely causes a death. in this case, the gun was what caused the kid to die. period, end of story. people have violent urges, but if the kid did not have the gun would the victim still be alive today? i would say yes.
did the gun contribute to this crime yes or no??
Of course. It was a gun crime, and like someone else said earlier in the thread, who actually opposes the idea of keeping guns out of kid's hands? I don't. I do believe in gun laws that work, including safe storage laws, the need for gun permits before a sale is completed, etc. What I don't believe in is the simple argument that guns are the main problem here. Guns have NO power to create a kid who is so distressed and pissed off that he decides to go shoot up a school. Sure, I am on board with the idea of making guns less available to these sorts of kids. This would save lives. I also think that these people need clinical help, too. Taking away the gun would save lifes (a hugely important goal) but you'd still be left with 1) a disordered kid and 2) the social circumstances that promote the creation of more disordered kids.
how do you explain that so many times that nobody including parents and teachers knows that the kid is "disordered" until after he/she blows some of their fellow students away?
Because no one is paying attention to them....to busy with there own life maybe....or maybe they were never taught the value of life and respect for others (parent or child)....
“We the people are the rightful masters of bothCongress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.” Abraham Lincoln
how do you explain that so many times that nobody including parents and teachers knows that the kid is "disordered" until after he/she blows some of their fellow students away?
Have you ever assessed someone with a clinical depression? One of the hallmarks is social isolation. These people feel completely alienated, and they may also feel that no one can be trusted to help them even if they do speak up. Many school shooters are powerless individuals with long histories of being bullied and socially rejected. Of course they often keep their difficulties to themselves, which is itself a huge part of the problem. And for the record, there often ARE warning signs. The Virginia Tech shooter was even seeing a therapist at one point, and had been accessed on an inpatient unit! People ignoring these signs probably ups the danger level dramatically.
you don't need to tell me about clinical depression and i agree with you here. but the gun was necessary to kill the kid in this case. there usually are warning signs but people either a) fail to recognize them, or b) decide to ignore them since the kid's business is not their own.
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
is it because you can't go thread after thread for days defending isreal and applying that same logic here, that it is the people and not the weapons responsible for the deaths? that would be an indictment on isreal then would it not?? you can't have it both ways reborn...you are more cerebral than that...
Thanks, I think. Anyhow, if your goal is to get me to admit that the Israelis are responsible for all those Palestinian deaths, you got it. Its the Israelis. Their weaponry wouldn't work without people behind the helm. That's really not all that different from what I said numerous times in those very Israel threads. You've got me pegged (along with yosi) as some sort of crazed Zionist bloodmonger, and yes, I am reluctant to keep arguing that issue because you guys have already made up your minds about my character.
you don't need to tell me about clinical depression and i agree with you here. but the gun was necessary to kill the kid in this case. there usually are warning signs but people either a) fail to recognize them, or b) decide to ignore them since the kid's business is not their own.
Bingo. So, we 1) try to keep guns out of kids' hands and 2) improve outreach services and mental health awareness and boom ... We've got ourselves a prevention program. I have no qualms about keeping guns away from kids. I just feel that the mental health issues need to be addressed as well.
you don't need to tell me about clinical depression and i agree with you here. but the gun was necessary to kill the kid in this case. there usually are warning signs but people either a) fail to recognize them, or b) decide to ignore them since the kid's business is not their own.
Bingo. So, we 1) try to keep guns out of kids' hands and 2) improve outreach services and mental health awareness and boom ... We've got ourselves a prevention program. I have no qualms about keeping guns away from kids. I just feel that the mental health issues need to be addressed as well.
now we are getting somewhere. my only problem with that is how are you going to pick up on the mental issues without screening everybody from kindergarden on? i would not be opposed to it, but logistically and costwise it could be considered prohibitive, but if we could do it and prevent these kinds of shootings i would be all for it. but what about the people that make it all the way through school and go shoot up their place of employment just the same?
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
is it because you can't go thread after thread for days defending isreal and applying that same logic here, that it is the people and not the weapons responsible for the deaths? that would be an indictment on isreal then would it not?? you can't have it both ways reborn...you are more cerebral than that...
Thanks, I think. Anyhow, if your goal is to get me to admit that the Israelis are responsible for all those Palestinian deaths, you got it. Its the Israelis. Their weaponry wouldn't work without people behind the helm. That's really not all that different from what I said numerous times in those very Israel threads. You've got me pegged (along with yosi) as some sort of crazed Zionist bloodmonger, and yes, I am reluctant to keep arguing that issue because you guys have already made up your minds about my character.
it was a compliment by the way, but i just found it difficult to believe you could take that same position in both instances. i was just trying to prove the point that without said weapons, there may be deaths, but just not in as great of numbers and with possibly fewer instances of violence.
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
Comments
Gun Deaths - International Comparisons
Gun deaths per 100,000 population (for the year indicated):
Homicide/ Suicide/ Other (inc Accident)
USA (2001) 3.98/ 5.92 / 0.36
Italy (1997) 0.81/ 1.1/ 0.07
Switzerland (1998) 0.50/ 5.8/ 0.10
Canada (2002) 0.4 / 2.0/ 0.04
Finland (2003) 0.35/ 4.45/ 0.10
Australia (2001) 0.24/ 1.34 0.10
France (2001) 0.21 / 3.4/ 0.49
England/Wales (2002) 0.15/ 0.2/ 0.03
Scotland (2002) 0.06 / 0.2 / 0.02
Japan (2002) 0.02 / 0.04/ 0
Data taken from Cukier and Sidel (2006) The Global Gun Epidemic. Praeger Security International. Westport.
Keeping in mind i've just done a quick search, but this site seems to have cited their sources so I didn't search any further.
I don't think he was "defending the weapon", which in any event is not a sentient entity and is therefore incapable of owning the guilt or responsibility in this situation. I believe in some reasonable gun controls (just so we're clear), but his point was that the genuine causes of this murder lie not with the tool itself but elsewhere. I agree with this point.
Thanks for posting.
Can we all agree that gun violence requires BOTH a gun and a person to pull the trigger?
Certainly. Without the gun, said violence would be of some other sort. I think the fundamental issue pertains to whether having greater access to guns actually leads to more violence, or a greater level of violence relative to what would be there without access. This is actually a very hard question to answer, even though many people who dislike guns find it super-easy to jump to an "obvious" conclusion.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
I don't know why you're using the eye-rolling emoticon, dude ... Its a true statement. A gun without someone pulling the trigger sits on a rack somewhere or in some redneck's truck, totally harmless. I get your point, I think: Without guns, there'd be no gun violence. Granted. That doesn't mean that just holding a weapon suddenly draws up or manufactures all these homicidal urges, however. I think sometimes that the issue of gun control gets oversimplified, to the effect of "no guns = no violence", which is false. Its almost as if a total gun ban would magically convert all these homidical individuals into flower children. Underneath a proximal cause like weapon access are all kinds of psychological and sociological causes of violence, and if you ask me, fixing these is going to be the only way to reduce overall violence levels.
yeah guns don't kill people....the same way the guillotine did not kill people...the same way the iron maiden did not kill people..
i don't know how you can argue that without a gun school shootings would not happen, because without the gun, no school shooting. how difficult is that to comprehend?
someone said stabbings would be more frequent, but as a student of psychology it is much easier for people to stand back and shoot than it is to get right up on someone and stab them. stabbing is much more of a personal way to kill someone. same as asphixiation. many times when you kill out of hate you strangle or stab people, not shoot them. that is just the way it happens usually. anybody can pull a trigger, it takes a special person to stab someone and take a life that way....look at the studies during WWI and WWII where soldiers could shoot and kill and detatch themselves from the situation and get over it, but it was much more difficult to get over killing someone with a bayonette or in some other hand to hand situation...
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
And I'd like you to answer my other question. You said that there's been more school shootings, and tied in the fact of the removal of prayer in 1962. The march on Washington happened in 1963. Therefore, could one logically assume (from what you said) that this is because prayer was removed from schools?
While its true that most school shooters are White or Asian, the increases in gun crimes that have been observed (off-and-on) since the early 90s have been driven largely by the so-called inner city youths that unsung was referring to. I prefer a sociopolitical explanation to a racial one, given that skin color should have absolutely nothing to do with violent behavior, logically-speaking.
yeah so punches and getting in a schoolyard fight rarely causes a death. in this case, the gun was what caused the kid to die. period, end of story. people have violent urges, but if the kid did not have the gun would the victim still be alive today? i would say yes.
did the gun contribute to this crime yes or no??
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Weren't you just the guy scolding people for dragging this thread off-topic?
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Of course. It was a gun crime, and like someone else said earlier in the thread, who actually opposes the idea of keeping guns out of kid's hands? I don't. I do believe in gun laws that work, including safe storage laws, the need for gun permits before a sale is completed, etc. What I don't believe in is the simple argument that guns are the main problem here. Guns have NO power to create a kid who is so distressed and pissed off that he decides to go shoot up a school. Sure, I am on board with the idea of making guns less available to these sorts of kids. This would save lives. I also think that these people need clinical help, too. Taking away the gun would save lives (a hugely important goal) but you'd still be left with 1) a disordered kid and 2) the social circumstances that promote the creation of more disordered kids.
I responded to your other post. The Israel-Palestine issue doesn't not warrant a response here.
how do you explain that so many times that nobody including parents and teachers knows that the kid is "disordered" until after he/she blows some of their fellow students away?
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Have you ever assessed someone with a clinical depression? One of the hallmarks is social isolation. These people feel completely alienated, and they may also feel that no one can be trusted to help them even if they do speak up. Many school shooters are powerless individuals with long histories of being bullied and socially rejected. Of course they often keep their difficulties to themselves, which is itself a huge part of the problem. And for the record, there often ARE warning signs. The Virginia Tech shooter was even seeing a therapist at one point, and had been accessed on an inpatient unit! People ignoring these signs probably ups the danger level dramatically.
is it because you can't go thread after thread for days defending isreal and applying that same logic here, that it is the people and not the weapons responsible for the deaths? that would be an indictment on isreal then would it not?? you can't have it both ways reborn...you are more cerebral than that...
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Because no one is paying attention to them....to busy with there own life maybe....or maybe they were never taught the value of life and respect for others (parent or child)....
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Bingo. So, we 1) try to keep guns out of kids' hands and 2) improve outreach services and mental health awareness and boom ... We've got ourselves a prevention program. I have no qualms about keeping guns away from kids. I just feel that the mental health issues need to be addressed as well.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."