Take away their fame. These events are rare, so while eliminating gun-free zones is a good idea, it likely wouldn’t have any effect on the attention seeking nutcases who commit these atrocities.
KarenOctober 6, 2015 5:55 am
In the poll, I voted “other” with the comment “all of the above”, but I agree with libertynews that the media sensationalism is one of the largest parts of the problem.
I feel terrible for the pain and loss of the victim families and communities, but really the numbers of mass shooting victims is miniscule in the grand scheme of things. More people die daily in car accidents, or from medical errors, or from simple accidents at home. If a local school burned down and a number of the students died, it’d be hot local news, but it’d never go national or worldwide.
With free speech and free press, I have no idea what the solution would be to keep media from giving sick individuals notoriety status and encouraging other glory seekers.
davidOctober 6, 2015 7:08 am
I think we need to keep in mind that these shooters may be badly sick, but by and large they are NOT ‘crazy’. They plan what they are going to do, they buy body armor, they choose ‘gun free’ zones instead of police stations because they want their intended victims unable to resist – they even write books or manifestos to explain what they are thinking. They are not at all irrational. So we need to address what will deter somebody who is rational but severely distorted. Ghengis Khan might have ordered the entire family killed immediately, but that wouldn’t be considered PC today – meaning I’ve got nothing to suggest other than my first sentence.
MamaLibertyOctober 6, 2015 10:50 am
David, I have to wonder just what you consider to be “crazy.” How do you define it? How can any harm to innocent others be considered “rational?”
A real, and so far intractable problem is that any person MAY become irrational and that there is no reasonable or equitable way to even begin to predict who, where or why it might happen.
There is no way to reliably deter such irrationality, or prevent it from happening – no matter what “laws” are passed, or how many “mental health” interventions there are. Trusting mental health “professionals” is very dangerous in the long run, clinging to a weak and slender reed in a tornado at best. Besides, guess who orders all the mind altering drugs these nutters always seem to be taking?
Millions of people are sick, without ever contemplating murder. Being sick is no excuse for being evil…
LarryAOctober 6, 2015 1:18 pm
Train all high school students in the proper use and handling of firearms
All else is temporary. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.
But imagine a college administrator telling a stadium full of freshmen who know how to shoot they were going to be disarmed for the next four years.
Imagine the disaffected loner learning discipline thorough participation in shooting sports.
Imagine a generation raised on the idea they are responsible for their own firearm safety.
I take the long view.
…by and large they are NOT ‘crazy’. They plan what they are going to do, they buy body armor, they choose …
There are people who are mentally ill because they’re too good at planning.
davidOctober 6, 2015 4:08 pm
Mama Liberty – crazy would be unable to plan to kill and buy supplies in advance, unable to write a coherent (even if totally ‘out there’) manifesto, not seeking out gun-free zones where the shooter will meet no real resistance, etc.
These guys are completely rational about what they are doing – wrong as it is. But ‘crazy’ usually indicates a disconnect from reality somehow, yet these guys plan like they’re landscaping your backyard.
Maybe ‘possessed’ would be a better way to explain this particular distortion?
LarryAOctober 7, 2015 9:01 am
crazy would be unable to plan to kill and buy supplies in advance, unable to write a coherent (even if totally ‘out there’) manifesto, not seeking out gun-free zones where the shooter will meet no real resistance, etc.
Go see A Beautiful Mind. John Nash was a brilliant mathematician who won the Nobel Prize, yet lived most of his life as a paranoid schizophrenic. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0268978/
There are lots of people who are very intelligent and sometimes too organized, but who are “disconnected from reality” in other ways.
davidOctober 12, 2015 7:40 am
LarryA – I would suggest that if you are successfully managing a mental illness, you’re mentally ill, but not ‘crazy’. Millions of people manage to live with PTSD or depression without killing anybody, a few don’t manage to manage it. Now, that is admittedly my own way of thinking about the subject, but that distinction may be something we as a society could ‘work with’ in terms of finding some prevention of these shootings.
But I think Mama Liberty is right – there may be NO way to successfully predict (thereby prevent) who will do these things, or when, or even what specifically. Or there is, but only by those closest to them.
Recall that the Batman Shooter’s mother was alleged, when the police wanted to talk to her about her boy, to have said “What has he done now?” or something to that effect. She didn’t know what he would do, but apparently knew the boy wasn’t ‘right’. Lanza’s mom probably knew too, but that nutty f#*k killed her just to get the guns, so we’ll never know. Loughner’s folks new he was in need of treatment and monitoring. And the Roseburg killer’s mom probably knew there was something off with her kid too. But again – predicting mass killings? I don’t even know if most parents are able to think that way about their own child.
Take away their fame. These events are rare, so while eliminating gun-free zones is a good idea, it likely wouldn’t have any effect on the attention seeking nutcases who commit these atrocities.
In the poll, I voted “other” with the comment “all of the above”, but I agree with libertynews that the media sensationalism is one of the largest parts of the problem.
I feel terrible for the pain and loss of the victim families and communities, but really the numbers of mass shooting victims is miniscule in the grand scheme of things. More people die daily in car accidents, or from medical errors, or from simple accidents at home. If a local school burned down and a number of the students died, it’d be hot local news, but it’d never go national or worldwide.
With free speech and free press, I have no idea what the solution would be to keep media from giving sick individuals notoriety status and encouraging other glory seekers.
I think we need to keep in mind that these shooters may be badly sick, but by and large they are NOT ‘crazy’. They plan what they are going to do, they buy body armor, they choose ‘gun free’ zones instead of police stations because they want their intended victims unable to resist – they even write books or manifestos to explain what they are thinking. They are not at all irrational. So we need to address what will deter somebody who is rational but severely distorted. Ghengis Khan might have ordered the entire family killed immediately, but that wouldn’t be considered PC today – meaning I’ve got nothing to suggest other than my first sentence.
David, I have to wonder just what you consider to be “crazy.” How do you define it? How can any harm to innocent others be considered “rational?”
A real, and so far intractable problem is that any person MAY become irrational and that there is no reasonable or equitable way to even begin to predict who, where or why it might happen.
There is no way to reliably deter such irrationality, or prevent it from happening – no matter what “laws” are passed, or how many “mental health” interventions there are. Trusting mental health “professionals” is very dangerous in the long run, clinging to a weak and slender reed in a tornado at best. Besides, guess who orders all the mind altering drugs these nutters always seem to be taking?
Millions of people are sick, without ever contemplating murder. Being sick is no excuse for being evil…
Train all high school students in the proper use and handling of firearms
All else is temporary. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.
But imagine a college administrator telling a stadium full of freshmen who know how to shoot they were going to be disarmed for the next four years.
Imagine the disaffected loner learning discipline thorough participation in shooting sports.
Imagine a generation raised on the idea they are responsible for their own firearm safety.
I take the long view.
…by and large they are NOT ‘crazy’. They plan what they are going to do, they buy body armor, they choose …
“I’m here because I’m crazy, not because I’m stupid.”
http://www.experienceproject.com/stories/May-Be-Crazy-But-Im-Not-Stupid/1183435
There are people who are mentally ill because they’re too good at planning.
Mama Liberty – crazy would be unable to plan to kill and buy supplies in advance, unable to write a coherent (even if totally ‘out there’) manifesto, not seeking out gun-free zones where the shooter will meet no real resistance, etc.
These guys are completely rational about what they are doing – wrong as it is. But ‘crazy’ usually indicates a disconnect from reality somehow, yet these guys plan like they’re landscaping your backyard.
Maybe ‘possessed’ would be a better way to explain this particular distortion?
crazy would be unable to plan to kill and buy supplies in advance, unable to write a coherent (even if totally ‘out there’) manifesto, not seeking out gun-free zones where the shooter will meet no real resistance, etc.
Go see A Beautiful Mind. John Nash was a brilliant mathematician who won the Nobel Prize, yet lived most of his life as a paranoid schizophrenic.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0268978/
There are lots of people who are very intelligent and sometimes too organized, but who are “disconnected from reality” in other ways.
LarryA – I would suggest that if you are successfully managing a mental illness, you’re mentally ill, but not ‘crazy’. Millions of people manage to live with PTSD or depression without killing anybody, a few don’t manage to manage it. Now, that is admittedly my own way of thinking about the subject, but that distinction may be something we as a society could ‘work with’ in terms of finding some prevention of these shootings.
But I think Mama Liberty is right – there may be NO way to successfully predict (thereby prevent) who will do these things, or when, or even what specifically. Or there is, but only by those closest to them.
Recall that the Batman Shooter’s mother was alleged, when the police wanted to talk to her about her boy, to have said “What has he done now?” or something to that effect. She didn’t know what he would do, but apparently knew the boy wasn’t ‘right’. Lanza’s mom probably knew too, but that nutty f#*k killed her just to get the guns, so we’ll never know. Loughner’s folks new he was in need of treatment and monitoring. And the Roseburg killer’s mom probably knew there was something off with her kid too. But again – predicting mass killings? I don’t even know if most parents are able to think that way about their own child.