<p>I am shaking with sorrow and rage. How is it that we who simply want common sense gun laws in this country remain so utterly powerless? Intparent has the right idea IMO. We absolutely should make it more difficult to legally obtain guns in this country. It is without without question that we should also make it infinitely more difficult to obtain guns illegally in this country. When will we, as a collective consciousness in this country, stop and take an honest, soul-searching look at the zeitgeist that makes it acceptable to hear this kind of news story year in and year out? There is something fundamentally sick in American culture that makes so much room for this type of event over and over again. I defy anyone to tell me that there isn’t.</p>
<p>State Police just briefed reporters. 18 children at the scene, plus 2 declared at the hospital. 6 Adults pronounced dead at the scene, plus the shooter. Shooting all occured in one section of the school, in 2 rooms - probably the mother’s classroom and the office. There was one injury - presumably an adult, because at one point live coverage showed an adult being transported in an ambulance. One adult dead at a “secondary crime scene.” The only identifications made were the Principal, the shooter, and his mother (the teacher).</p>
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<p>I so agree with this statement.</p>
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<p>Does the professor at UA count?</p>
<p>My son was in kindergarten when Dunblane happened. </p>
<p>Now they are saying that the shooter might not have been Ryan Lanza, but might have been carrying his ID. It sounds like it is possible that his younger brother Adam actually did the shooting. And who knows who is dead in the house. Their father?</p>
<p>Beyond the guns, though, it seems something is seriously wrong culturally. I personally think part of it is the media fueled by the omnipresent 24/7 techno-blitz “news”. The huge zeal of the reporting of these events, the power of cable, internet, iphones, etc to carry the story to every corner of the Earth. I think it affects unstable people somehow. </p>
<p>Not much to be done about that aspect. I’d never advocate any controls on free speech or technology to disseminate. But I think it plays a role.</p>
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<p>Exactly, cardinalfang.</p>
<p>Guns are the problem, regardless of whether or not they’re legal. It’s absolutely appalling.</p>
<p>“How is it that we who simply want common sense gun laws in this country remain so utterly powerless?”</p>
<p>NRA.</p>
<p>DocT, thinking about your coworker. Any updates on his child?</p>
<p>So much grief and pain.</p>
<p>I had to google the UA shooting. It didn’t get much publicity. </p>
<p>I don’t think there is anything wrong with “American culture” anymore than there’s something wrong with Scottish culture (Dunblane) or French culture (the shootings at a school there recently), or Norwegian culture (the shootings on the island). </p>
<p>I think there are very sick individuals, mostly men, who are not being treated or for whom treatment would do no good and who should be involuntarily committed who have access to guns or bomb making material or knives (the school stabbings today in China).</p>
<p>I just looked through a list of 61 mass shootings since 1982. </p>
<p>There really is no point in talking about guns. The NRA position is that only owning more guns will stop gun violence. That extends to “if everyone had a gun on them at all times then no one would use a gun” and what I call the “hero fantasy” in which gun owners shoot down the evil doer. As we can see with stand your ground laws, the actuality is unarmed people get shot. </p>
<p>As a note and not that it matters in this particular horror, but the NRA insisted and got a provision added in 2007 after the V. Tech shootings that enables the mentally ill to get gun rights back. The process seems to be that a person petitions a gun friendly judge and gets a permit, as described in the NYT and some other articles I’ve read. And because of the law, the VA had to establish a process for veterans declared mentally ill - 100,000 people - to get their gun rights. So even if you’re declared nuts, you can still get your guns.</p>
<p>So the battle is over. Guns have won.</p>
<p>If that’s true, sewhappy, why are there only two shooting homicides a year in Japan where they have plenty of media but no guns?</p>
<p>I began to weep also when I shared the news and told friends to turn on their TV sets or computers.</p>
<p>Still hard to believe and fathom. Thoughts and prayers with everyone in the Northeast and any classroom environment.</p>
<p>Yes, Doc, any word?</p>
<p>A friend of mine is friends with Ryan Lanza and said a few hours ago on FB that the news outlets had the ID of the shooter wrong. He (Ryan) was posting on his FB page and was understandably upset and was leaving work. I have the sinking feeling that my friend’s friend’s life has just changed in a horrible and unimaginable way. My heart goes out to him and to his family as well as to the victims of this…</p>
<p>Just heard on the news that Ryan Lanza was being questioned in Hoboken but was not a suspect. He was at work in NYC today, according to my friend. Tragedy all around…</p>
<p>Oh, my god. I can’t even express my sorrow about this. Imagine being a 5 year old, sitting in that class and then…
And even those children who got out safely- imagine the memories and PTSD and whatever else.</p>
<p>So- I wrote something about this tragedy and saw a response where the person claimed that a) this shooting was orchestrated by the US government to take peoples’ guns away so that people can’t ‘protect themselves’, b) other things such as knives and cars aren’t banned and c) “Drugs are illegal but the crooks and kooks manage to get them, so it goes for guns.”.</p>
<p>I’m so sick and tired of this. America is the land of opportunity, but due to excess gerrymandering and an undereducated, FEARFUL population, I see change as very difficult.</p>
<p>Goodness. Yes, humans will find a way to kill each other if they want to but the fact remains that semiautomatic and automatic weapons make the task of killing infinitely easier and infinitely more impersonal. Point, pull, shoot. It’s not so easy with a knife. Stronger regulations HAVE to be put into place- gun owners should be required to get yearly mental health checkups or something. Furthermore, semiautomatic and automatic rifles need to be banned. You can’t hunt with them, you can’t participate in competitions with them-their only purpose is to kill, kill, kill.</p>
<p>And as an aside-this list is sobering:</p>
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<p>And I think these are just the “major” (I shudder to use this word) ones. I remember seeing an Onion article, that ‘celebrated the fact that there were no shootings for 1 whole week’ to only hear about a shooting that happened the very next day.</p>
<p>Enough is enough.</p>
<p>I think unstable people are…well, unstable. Back in the '70’s I learned a HS classmate from was in jail for killing his mother and father. No internet, no great access to guns at the time either. Bright person. Totally off the wall in anybody’s book.
Something is maybe wrong culturally but I wouldn’t lay blame on media nor on lack of gun control.
This still seems to be a very personal shooting–shot his dad, mom and then her classroom. It’s too sad at the moment to come to terms with all the factors that may be in play that led up to this.</p>
<p>Add to this the accidental shootings that would not occur if there weren’t so many guns around. Earlier this week in my state a father fatally shot his seven year old son when he was getting into the car with a gun in hand. Of course, he believed it wasn’t loaded. This happens all to often.</p>
<p>It really needs to be a crime to publish the unconfirmed details or pictures of someone.</p>
<p>I know someone with my dad’s exact full name, same age, and lives a few miles away. It could happen to anyone but once that picture is out there, it’s NEVER coming back.</p>