Portland high school shooting - one student dead, as well as gunman

[Chewy]

Just wanted to point out that the title says that the gunman is dead but the op says that he is being held without bail.

As for you buggers living in fear, try living in a country where the a fucking frog will kill you as soon as look at you.

In any event, I'm offended at the blatant racism going on in here as you're all clearly excluding everyone outside of the UK, Ireland and the US.

[Daz]

I don’t necessarily feel the need to add my two cents, because Porky rather eloquently did so for me. But I can’t help myself, so here we go anyway.

It seems like some of the comments I read were made by people who've never been in a position where their life was threatened, nor have ever been in a position that makes them solely responsible for the well-being of another person. I'm sure I just put my foot in my mouth with that statement, and will get responses from people who've actually been victims of violent crimes, and have five kids haha.

I think the problem I have here is the tone. No, I never have been in a position where my immediately family and loved ones, or a person I’m responsible for is put in life threatening danger. And I’m bloody glad of that. I’m bloody glad I live in a country where I don’t have to worry about any old person could be wandering around with a gun and could start shooting at the drop of a hat. We’ve seen three shootings in America take place in a month, and in some instances, it makes certain people want to get a hold of more guns to protect themselves from these so called maniacs, which only contributes to the problem even more. As Porky said, it’s a vicious cycle, which is what I abstractly pointed out to Locke in the previous thread with the neighbour argument.

Suggesting that everyone should feel safe enough to go without owning a gun just because you personally do, is one of the most arrogant statements I've ever read. It's nice to be idealistic and contend that the possibility of having to defend one's family isn't high enough to warrant owning a gun, but who the hell are you, or anyone else, to make that call? I especially loved the home-invasion scenario Daz created, as if there's a set of guidelines "most" intruders adhere to.

In the same respect, who the hell are you to suggest or even infer that opposite? It’s not arrogance to feel safe without owning a gun. I am safe without a gun. I’m safe because I know the general population and law abiding citizens aren’t walking around with them, have no access to them and statistically, the chances of a crime being committed with one is very, very slim, because you can’t buy one in a supermarket. As Porky says, you can’t on one hand acknowledge the gun problem in your country, whilst obliging and giving a pass to those who wish to own one.

I especially loved the home-invasion scenario Daz created, as if there's a set of guidelines "most" intruders adhere to. "Nah, don't worry. He's probably one of the "regular" criminals; not one of those "bad" ones. I'm sure he's unarmed and has no intention of causing me harm. He only wants to steal some stuff. I'll just call the police and slip out the back door."

The condescension really isn’t necessary. Let’s be honest, if someone is legitimately breaking into your home (and as Porky points out, what are chances statistically) you’re not going to be thinking clearly, especially if as you say, you’re responsible for the other people in the house.

He may just be trying to steal something. He may not want to harm anyone at all. It might just be idiot kids or it may even be someone you know. My point in the previous thread was you just don’t know. And when you add a gun into a situation like that, where you’re not thinking clearly, adrenaline is pumping and you don’t have time to sit there and think about the consequences of your actions, something bad is likely to happen.

Suppose he is armed. Suppose he does intend to harm you. Suppose the nearest cop isn't right around the corner. Call it a product of gun culture, call it whatever you want. I call it reality. Unfortunately, we live in a world where unimaginably horrific things happen to people, and suggesting that those who react to that reality by arming themselves are "retarted" is a statement I take issue with. Also, the point of having a gun handy in the event of a break-in isn't necessarily to shoot the intruder; can you think of a more effective--and immediate--way to scare one off? If anything, a gun in that situation could be an ideal way of preventing any kind of physical altercation between the intruder and homeowner.

If my view was idealistic, then this is just blatant pessimism. A gun might be handy if someone breaks into your house. But surely investing in better locks and a better security system would be a less paranoid and ultimately less dangerous solution. A weapon should never be an option.

Yes, supposes the intruder is armed , I fail to see how adding another gun to the mix will help. As WestCoastVibes says, his fathered scared an intruder off by firing into a wall, that’s very fortunate for him, and I’m sure WestCoast was thankful his father had a gun at hand because of it. But what if it went the other way. What if there was a second person in the house he wasn’t aware of, and if they did mean to do harm as you say, then firing might only have rankled them further. What if they disarmed WestCoast’s dad and that story didn’t have a good ending.

You just don’t know.

And that was my point to Locke. Guns were designed to do harm, there’s just no way around that point. You may have a problem with one statement, well I have a problem with this statement “Unfortunately, we live in a world where unimaginably horrific things happen to people, and suggesting that those who react to that reality by arming themselves…”

It implies I don’t live in a reality, and evidently I do. I live in a reality where ordinary citizens have died in your country this past month alone, because someone was able to get hold of a gun. They weren’t criminals until the act was committed. Hell, most of them were students. They weren’t trying to break into someone’s home where your loved ones and the people you are responsible for sleep. Most, if not all, of these shootings took place in public, in schools. And I know if the guns weren’t there, weren’t available, people en masse would still be alive. There is a gun culture in America, and it is absolutely terrifying to me that people will continue to defend their right to own one when this stuff happens, and use baseless paranoia and oxymoronic arguments like “I own them to protect myself from people who do have guns.”

The mind bending lack of logic behind that is scary to me and I fear it’s the logic that a lot of Americans use when making the decision to purchase a gun.

[War Daddy]

What about guns used for hunting animals and used for sporting events?

[Westcoastvibes]

This is always going to be a back and forth argument that will never end.

Neither side involved is going to just say "you win". There is always going to be a what if rebuttal to every point brought up and we can't just make every gun in america disappear magically. Some people keep a baseball bat in a closing, some keep a knife in the bedroom, some keep a handgun in a nightstand and some have a shotgun/riffle in the closent. Its how it is, human nature is fight or flight, some are more willing to fight and others more willing to flee. Criticizing a person for either because its not who you are is wrong.

[PorkChop]

This is always going to be a back and forth argument that will never end.

Neither side involved is going to just say "you win". There is always going to be a what if rebuttal to every point brought up and we can't just make every gun in america disappear magically. Some people keep a baseball bat in a closing, some keep a knife in the bedroom, some keep a handgun in a nightstand and some have a shotgun/riffle in the closent. Its how it is, human nature is fight or flight, some are more willing to fight and others more willing to flee. Criticizing a person for either because its not who you are is wrong.

I feel that this whole post has missed the point, but I won't go into why.

After all that's happened on this board for the past few days it's probably smart to leave it here. We can save this debate for another day, probably next week at this rate, when there's another mass shooting.

[SortaCreative]

I heard somewhere that there have been 45 school shootings since Sandy Hook?

[Everlong]

I heard somewhere that there have been 45 school shootings since Sandy Hook?

74, actually. Even worse. That's about 1 per week.

[SlightlyJames]

DAE people with guns are retards?

[HFX]

What about guns used for hunting animals and used for sporting events?

I agree with you on that. If you're a responsible owner then regular long guns should be no real problem. Most hunters/sport shooters I know are extremely safe with their weapons. They keep them locked up when not in use, they know how to use them safely and they have to go through the trouble of getting their gun license to even own them. Of course I live in Canada.

[prophet]

I heard somewhere that there have been 45 school shootings since Sandy Hook?

74, actually. Even worse. That's about 1 per week.

That's a horrifying statistic!

[Hanley!]

I heard somewhere that there have been 45 school shootings since Sandy Hook?

74, actually. Even worse. That's about 1 per week.

Makes me feel nervous for my brother who's a teacher and recently moved to the US. Anything bad happening to him is still unlikely, but it would have been a lot less likely over here.

[Camstud]

I heard somewhere that there have been 45 school shootings since Sandy Hook?

74, actually. Even worse. That's about 1 per week.

That is a truly terrifying statistic.

I heard somewhere that there have been 45 school shootings since Sandy Hook?

74, actually. Even worse. That's about 1 per week.

Makes me feel nervous for my brother who's a teacher and recently moved to the US. Anything bad happening to him is still unlikely, but it would have been a lot less likely over here.

He should buy a gun. Case closed.

In all seriousness though there's not much for me to add because a lot of it has already been said. I'm with Porky, Hanley and Daz here, there is a vicious cycle and absolutely no part of me feels like I need a gun to protect myself. That is the point which America should be aiming to reach, obviously not overnight. They do not even seem to be taking any steps towards it though.

I have a question: Why is it that so many Americans are against any kind of gun-regulations? What are the possible negatives of having mental health checks, and generally making it a lot less easy for anybody to own a gun?

[SKS]

Scary stuff, it's a shame that a school shooting could be considered normal in the United States because they happen so often.

As for the whole gun debate, it's a never ending argument that is unsolvable. It just boils down to your own personal feelings/opinion. Tons of crimes happen around the metropolitan area, a few weeks ago a mother was stabbed to death by her ex husband, and this occurred pretty damn close to me in a few streets over. I've never felt the need to own a gun, but I don't think people that do are necessarily wrong. I don't go out afraid of getting shot, I figure if it happens then it happens.

I think everyone was misinterpreting what Locke said in the original thread though. He said he owned a gun for his own protection but it was collecting dust because he hasn't had to use it. There's a difference between owning a gun for your own protection and actually having to use it. I wouldn't be against keeping one as a precaution as long as the person was trained on how to use it and kept it in a safe place. Not everyone that owns a gun is automatically some crazy maniac gunslinger. The problem is when it lands in the wrong hands.

@camstud

People don't want their rights taken away from them, it's basically right wingers IMO. Mostly people from the South that want their guns and bibles and blah blah are the ones most extreme about it. Because it's "against the Constitution/Bill of Rights" to deny someone the right to bear arms. That being said I don't like the idea of every Bible thumping redneck having a hold of a gun. If you're responsible about it, aren't fucking crazy, and know what the hell you're doing, then I don't really see a problem with having one. Like I said before, I think the problem is how it gets into the hands of the crazy ones.

[Everlong]

Why is it that so many Americans are against any kind of gun-regulations? What are the possible negatives of having mental health checks, and generally making it a lot less easy for anybody to own a gun?

EDIT: Warning, essay incoming, but I promise I stay on track, haha.

Political posturing, mostly. Most reasonable people are in favor of tighter regulations, regardless of what side you're on. Like me personally, I'd never be in favor of an all-out ban on guns, but I definitely think we need to take a long hard look at the way we sell them and regulate them.

I'm not sure how familiar you are with American politics, but basically there are two main parties that control the legislature: Democrats and Republicans. Democrats tend to be more liberal/left-leaning, Republicans tend to be more conservative/right leaning. However, over the past 10-15 years or so, the distance between Democrat and Republican in terms of how the parties are represented in congress has grown greater and greater.

When candidates run for congress (or governor, president, etc.), they first have to pass through a primary stage in which they run against other candidates from their own party. This is the most common way parties determine their candidates. Voters can choose to vote for either a Republican or Democratic candidate at this stage. The Republican and Democrat with the most votes win their party's nomination, which means they face off against each other in the main congressional election. The winner of that election becomes the Senator for that person's state, or a Representative for that person's district.

The inherent flaw in this structure is that the campaign approach changes drastically between the primaries and the actual election. In the primaries, candidates on both sides are trying to appeal to either Democrats or Republicans, not to a general majority. Therefore, they're more likely to take hardline stances to appeal to the more hardcore voters in their party that they need to appease to get a nomination. This is where the Tea Party (a far right/Libertarian Republican group that advocates for minimal federal government control and focus on state legislation/individual liberties) has had so much success in recent years; they take extreme stances, which appeals to people who are likely to vote Republican in primaries. These stances are likely to include very conservative gun stances, which would mean minimal federal interference in gun ownership and regulation.

Once a person wins his or her primary election, their strategy suddenly has to shift to appeal toward the masses, meaning their stances for that period get watered down. Everybody pretends to be a moderate at this stage to improve their chances of actually getting elected to office. Then once they're actually in office as a congressperson, whether that's as a Senator or a Representative, they for the most part are batting for their party's team. As the divide between Democrat and Republican continues to grow wider and wider, the parties are basically opposing each other out of principal to try to be the "winning team" rather than because they actually have any interest in doing what's best for the general public.

To give you a bit more insight on where the whole gun issue stands in this and why it seems that opposition to regulation seems to be growing louder recently, that probably has a lot to do with the rise of the Tea Party and neo conservatism. The Tea Party was basically born as a response to new taxes being introduced by various local jurisdictions. It took its name from the Boston Tea Party before the Revolutionary War, which was a famous American protest against British taxation in the colonies. The movement grew around the country, and soon became more of an anti-big government movement than an anti-taxation movement. Tea Partiers fell more in line with far-right Republican or Libertarian beliefs (probably more very conservative Libertarian), so if they were going to have any chance at getting into congress or getting Gubernatorial/Presidential nominations, they'd have to run as Republicans because the general public is hesitant to vote for third-party candidates.

So basically, the Tea Party movement hijacked the Republican Party, making the party's stances over the past eight or nine years start to seem significantly more conservative than ever before. The Republican party historically has not been as far right as it is now, and that's a direct result of both the growing animosity/disparity between the two major parties and the rise of the Tea Party.

With the Republican party really basically being under Tea Party control, more of their hardcore far right views have made it into the mainstream. This is probably why you seem to be hearing far more about opposition to any gun regulation than you ever have before. In the past, there probably would not have been as much opposition from the Republican party to making some reformations to gun laws, but the party is basically under control by a group of extremists right now, which makes it hard to accomplish anything.

Sorry for the rambling post, but I hope this helps you understand the issue a bit better.

[AkydefGoldberg]

74 school shootings, fucking hell.

No-one should have to go to school and not return home, no matter where in the world you are.

These high prominent shootings are awful and rightly so but also need to take into account the gang shootings and murders which, sadly don't get prominent news because they occur so regularly but it's an area that needs highlighting. It seems inevitable that once you join a gang, owning a gun, shooting a gun, hurting someone with a gun, killing someone etc and it's a vicious circle.

[Enygma]

Hang on Locke left?

[ShaneOfan]

Hang on Locke left?

yeah