Shooting at CT Elementary School. WTF AMERICA?!

[AFK]

I never got the sense that Obama had any intentions at all to do anything about gun control.  I'm pretty sure on a few occassions he more or less telegraphed that he wasn't going to touch it with a ten foot poll.  I mean really, the first black president coming after the TeaBaggers guns with a Republican Congress?  Yeah, that shit is dead on arrival, and still is.

[Salty]

Am I a total bastard for thinking that the only reason most people care about this is because it could have happened to them? It could have been any elementary school, it could have been the one that you went to, it may as well have been.

Little kids die HORRIFICALLY of stupid, wholly preventable ways every day. But those ways do not upset our day. Those ways are business as usual. This, meanwhile, fills up Facebook with outrage and shock and deep sadness.

Do any of those deaths lessen these? Absolutely not.

Is the shock and horror in people's hearts going to compel them to look at the way we've all been living in an effort to prevent these things from happening? I highly doubt it.

In fact, most people will have forgotten this in about six months, leaving, as ever, the families to grieve alone.


ETA: Ah, nevermind. I fear this subject has scope beyond my ability to take in all the angles and I don't want to shit on people for being emotional.

[AFK]

Well, it IS the second largest mass murder of students in American history, I mean, that's not insignificant.  And yes Alty, that is why people are upset.  When you live in a sleepy little town, not unlike Newton, and you have kids in elementary schools, not unlike this one, and you see this shit unfold, yes, it IS a bit jarring.  In a school which the biggest concern probably centered around collecting enough box tops for the new slide, this is a bit of a to do Alty.

20 little kids were gunned down in a quiet little school, a place they have always been safe.  How the fuck do you NOT get moved by that?

And let's not forget about the kids who didn't die, and will have to go back to that hell hole.  I have one child in that age range, and yeah, I have put myself in those parents shoes, to think about how awful it would be to lose my daughter that young, or if she survived, to think about what she'd go through, having to go back to that school.  It's empathy.  When you have kids, it's something that just happens, though, not all of us take it to Facebook and keep it to ourselves or within our circles offline. 

[Salty]

After some consideration, and the things posted here and elsewhere, I have come to the determination that I have absolutely no problem with the way people are reacting here.

I just wish they would do it more often.

[AFK]

It would be a truly cold and heartless person who would not be upset about the murder of a child, regardless of where they are in the world.  Most humans simply don't have the capacity to have that level of awareness. 

[Salty]

It would be a truly cold and heartless person who would not be upset about the murder of a child, regardless of where they are in the world.  Most humans simply don't have the capacity to have that level of awareness.

Perhaps you're right, and have given me things to consider.

But I don't have to like it.

[Don Coyote]

It's outside of their monkeysphere?

[AFK]

It's biological imperative.  If a human has kids, it isn't, biologically, in their best interests to divert resources to things that don't immediately impact them.  Now, that's not the same thing as not caring, it's just "I have to worry about my little Johnny making it to 18". So I think an incident like this, especially with the media coverage, trips that.  It tripped it for me.  Because, I know my kid's school and I know if some evil piece of shit like that decided they wanted into her school and start shooting kids, they could. 


Because you know this wasn't on any of the radar's of those Newton parents.  They were worried about getting that Transformer in time for Christmas.  About getting Suzy to gymnastics. Make sure you have the shovels out for the winter storm.  A gunman going apeshit in that little school?  Nope, not even a glint of a thought.  Now, holy fuck what exactly IS this world I'm living in?  My kid didn't die today but jeezus can I ever let him leave the house? 


I mean, my stupid divorce feels very trivial right now compared to what these families are going through, and will be going through for a very long time.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I'd also like to say, regardless of where you may stand on the issue: stringent gun control in the USA is untenable.

Any attempts to seriously regulate gun access would inevitably set off the hardcore nativist ideological types, who frequently have some kind of paramilitary training, top end guns and lots and lots of ammo.

You see where this is going?  Martial Law, in some parts of the USA at least.   Ruby Ridge and Waco redux.  And can you imagine the shitstorm that would follow martial law being imposed and agreed to from the White House, or to enforce what would have to be a White House sponsored law?  Obama is already considered a gun-grabber by vast swathes of the right, despite all evidence to the contrary.

Not only  that, but you can't unring the bell. The guns are already out there, and as long as we have a society which promotes criminal behavior, there will continue to be a huge criminal black market in illegal guns regardless of how stringent the gun laws become.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I'd also like to say, regardless of where you may stand on the issue: stringent gun control in the USA is untenable.

Any attempts to seriously regulate gun access would inevitably set off the hardcore nativist ideological types, who frequently have some kind of paramilitary training, top end guns and lots and lots of ammo.

You see where this is going?  Martial Law, in some parts of the USA at least.   Ruby Ridge and Waco redux.  And can you imagine the shitstorm that would follow martial law being imposed and agreed to from the White House, or to enforce what would have to be a White House sponsored law?  Obama is already considered a gun-grabber by vast swathes of the right, despite all evidence to the contrary.

much of the right likes to demonize obama, but the truth is that even though he campaigned in 2008 with gun control as part of his platform, he effectively has done nothing to implement any increased gun control. Positive measures on gun control are political suicide in the USA, and Obama is nothing if not politically savvy.  Huffington post is hardly authoritative, but here's an interesting article on the subject:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/25/obama-gun-control-democrats_n_1112979.html

I expect an increased polarization on Gun control, and demands for increased security for public schools, and a decreased level of compassion towards problems caused by mental illness.

and people will be amazed when they see worse problems crop up as a result of unintended consequences.

Yep. Agree with all of this.

[Bu🤠ns]

  In other news...
http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/14/world/asia/china-knife-attack/index.html

[Suu]

It would be a truly cold and heartless person who would not be upset about the murder of a child, regardless of where they are in the world.  Most humans simply don't have the capacity to have that level of awareness.

I hate kids, I don't like being in the same room with elementary age children and I consider it an omen that I can't have any...

...I cried like a bitch yesterday.

[Patron Saint]

I didn't cry, nor fap (maybe a little), but I did take note that of all the "solutions" to fixing human tragedy put on the board (especially on the usual blather machines), I noticed a whole lot of "Lets make it so only criminals and deranged people can acquire guns" and not a whole lot of "lets fund therapy and mental wellness clinics that would help people get the help they need before they shoot up a school full of kids".

Definitely not a good idea to do that, might fix the system by giving more gifts to the freeloaders.  If people that are mentally ill want to get ahead in the world they can pick themselves up by their own bootstraps like the rest of us... lazy bastards.

[Aidian]

The only real positive I've seen from this goddamned horror unfolding is a sort of conscious push-back by a lot of people about acknowledging the terrible nature of it all while still trying to hold to the premise that, overall, humanity is in a much better place than at many points in history. The "oh fuck this, the world is beyond redemption" mentality that follows any huge crisis is an understandable reaction, but for the first time I've seen, it's being followed by "no, fuck that/those horrible person/people to death and support the thousands of quiet good acts a day that go utterly unacknowledged".

Perspective. We can try to move forward in a manner that trumpets responsibility and numerous small acts of altruism, or focus with cognitive bias on the relatively few, but more emotionally impacting, crises and set up the groundwork for more draconian bullshit.

That said...still doesn't change the fact that this entire setup is fucked. My people who were in Clackamas Town Center are losing their shit PTSD style, too.

[Sita]

In other news...
http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/14/world/asia/china-knife-attack/index.html

That needs to be shown to every single person that keeps saying that it never would've happened if he didn't have a gun.