Shooting at CT Elementary School. WTF AMERICA?!

[Junkenstein]

I'd say there's substantial sentiment against more firearms in the UK from the general public. The relatively rare shootings that occur here are big news stories for good while. There's pretty much no high profile support for a more liberal regime either.


Anyway, over here you're more likely to be stabbed than shot.

[zen_magick]

There seems to me to be no easy answer with guns in the U.S. It's a part of our culture I can remember the rite of passage of going to hunter's safety classes before getting my first 22 rifle for my twelfth birthday. In the Midwest this was the common tradition but note the use of education before ownership.

I also had a lengthy talk with a fellow grad student from AZ who thought maybe a response would be to make ammunition harder to come by. His idea was that non-lethal rounds could be had for everyone but legit ammo would require a legal hunting license, or some other equivalent permit. While a somewhat probable idea it does nothing about the about of ammo out there already and the fact that rounds aren't all that complicated to make.

Gun control isn't the problem as I see it. For me it seems that the entire collapse of a mental health care system needs to be brought to the forefront of the issue. Despite the news screaming about guns for decades the FBI has recorded the number one murder weapon is the common household knife (even the poorest of the poor have kitchen utensils).

The worst aspect of all these incidents is that they will continue to happen and I hate to buy into the thought that over prescription of heavy duty anti-psychotic drugs for extended periods of time plays a major role in it all. Money over proper treatment - the drugs have a place to stabilize people so that actual therapy can be used but this seems to limit the amount of profit so nvm.

As I already said, I can't seem to find an answer to fix it. And things never have a simple answer those usually come to us from simple people with an agenda paying for their views.
 

[Junkenstein]

Is it just me or is the whole mental health care act just a bit of bullshit?

Yes, I do think it is important. However placing that above the actual discussion (Guns) is reframing the debate to the ideas that only the mentally unbalanced commit violent crimes.


My wildly impractiacal solution ignoring the arms in circulation is that every new owner should have a required level of training and pass a william tell style test. Fail the test, go to jail. Can't find anyone to volunteer to hold the apple, well shit you're not passing.

[Cain]

So to look at it from another perspective, what keeps the UK from liberalizing their gun laws?  I know that inertia is part of what keeps guns nearly unregulated in the US and nearly non existent in the UK, but I assume it is more than that.

The UK put in gun control much earlier, due to the percieved threat from Communists and similar.  That passed more easily because guns don't have such a place in our national discourse as they do in the American one.  Britain's strong military tradition was a mostly Naval one, too, and this military power and independence were associated with the Navy - where handguns of any kind are not especially effective.

In particular, the last piece of gun control legislation took place after the Dunblane Massacre, an incident not too dissimilar to Sandy Hook, barring the shooter in question was a former Scout master with pedophilic tendencies.*  However, gun control had already been on the agenda in previous years due to the ongoing terrorist risk in the UK from Irish elements, and was already fairly strict by US standards at the time of the killings.

In many parts of the UK, a gun also seems like unnecessary overkill.  Our crime rates are much, much lower than those in the US, and have been dropping at a comparable speed to the US crime rate.  The reasons for that are many and varied, but it does mean people feel they don't need to rely on a gun for protection.  The demand isn't there for it as much.

*And some interesting connections...which have been sealed.  According to The Guardian, one sealed police report deals with his actities in Loch Lamond, five years earlier and allegedly links Hamilton to senior figures in the Scottish political establishment.  The Sunday Herald further revealed that a letter from George Robertson, an MP formerly residing in Dunblane but by then was the Secretary General of NATO, to Hamilton was also sealed.  All sealed evidence will be kept secret for 100 years.  This is probably a case of powerful people wanting to hide or otherwise play down their earlier interactions with a murderer...but given how it has been handled, the calls of "coverup!" are not unjustified.

[Cain]

And on another subject entirely, let's talk about the exploitation of child murder for the purposes of fame!

On Tuesday, Ingrid Michaelson visited the set of Good Morning America to breathlessly bleat her way through the heartwarming song made famous by Glee (and perhaps some other stuff). Accompanying her were 20 Sandy Hook students: one live child, presumably, to represent each dead one.

Michaelson is a pop star. Pop stars are generally known to be horrible. Until now, though, her horribleness has consisted entirely of being so sweet and smiley and chirpy and syrupy that there is nothing you could crave more fervently than to scoop out her larynx with a grapefruit spoon every time "The Way I Am" starts playing in a coffee shop or a dog food commercial or a shitty CW show or any one of my more perversely satisfying nightmares.

Singing "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" with Sandy Hook survivors should win her a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award for Utter Fucking Horribleness. Not only does she deliver a rendition of the song as cloying as all her other dreck—she involves children who should not be given this kind of crass exposure so soon after such a traumatic experience.

Even worse, a recorded version of the song—produced by Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth of Talking Heads, who should know better—has also been released as a downloadable single. True, the proceeds go to charity, namely the Newtown Youth Academy and the United Way of Western Connecticut. Michaelson, Frantz, and Weymouth—platinum-selling artists all—could have simply and silently cut a check. Instead, they trotted out the youngsters with bells on.

Michaelson probably has no ill intent. Nor do Frantz and Weymouth. That doesn't change the fact that their actions have only added to the platform of misery fetishism and grief porn that our culture has erected in an effort to accommodate and cope with a new, hard fact: When we as a nation aren't singing together, we're slaughtering each other.

The survivors of Sandy Hook are being used, and society is telling them that's normal. They're being pushed, prodded, poked, probed, and made to perform in every corner of politics and the media, in hopes that their pain can be modulated into something melodious in the ear of the beholder.

Indeed, thanks to Michaelson's poignant, blood-streaked version of "Somewhere Over The Rainbow," the children of America have fresh hope. They may now pray that something as exciting as a mass shooting will happen at their school. That way they can appear on national TV, warble with a pop star, and get psychoanalyzed by George Stephanopoulos between celebrity interviews and cooking demos.

[zen_magick]

Is it just me or is the whole mental health care act just a bit of bullshit?

Yes, I do think it is important. However placing that above the actual discussion (Guns) is reframing the debate to the ideas that only the mentally unbalanced commit violent crimes.


My wildly impractiacal solution ignoring the arms in circulation is that every new owner should have a required level of training and pass a william tell style test. Fail the test, go to jail. Can't find anyone to volunteer to hold the apple, well shit you're not passing.

In my own weird view, yes, only the mental imbalanced commit violent crime that is why things like Boot Camp are necessary to enable soldiers to commit murder. First break them down mentally then rebuild them in any horrific way you see fit. [This is also what happens to inner city youth] The history of psychology is plagued by this notion of rebuilding or breaking the psyche look into it and see that the first cases of multiple personalities were done intentionally by psychologists even Jung mentions it.

Violence for self-preservation such as hunting or protecting ones kin is not the same as all violent crime yet guns get the blame when its the people behind them that pull the triggers.

The mental health care system in America was systemically disabled and now it is entirely a chemically driven profit business. I live in CO and the guy that shot up the movie theater was banned from his campus because his shrink called in a warning. That same shrink by law should have reported him to the authorities for a 72 hour hold and is now being sued. Its a question of how many people ignore the RED FLAGS over and over till this shit happens.

So the mental health aspect is not bullshit and just try disarming America it can not be done. This country is way to big and from coast to coast it is armed, just saying...

[Pope Pixie Pickle]

Is it just me or is the whole mental health care act just a bit of bullshit?

Yes, I do think it is important. However placing that above the actual discussion (Guns) is reframing the debate to the ideas that only the mentally unbalanced commit violent crimes.


My wildly impractiacal solution ignoring the arms in circulation is that every new owner should have a required level of training and pass a william tell style test. Fail the test, go to jail. Can't find anyone to volunteer to hold the apple, well shit you're not passing.

In my own weird view, yes, only the mental imbalanced commit violent crime that is why things like Boot Camp are necessary to enable soldiers to commit murder. First break them down mentally then rebuild them in any horrific way you see fit. [This is also what happens to inner city youth] The history of psychology is plagued by this notion of rebuilding or breaking the psyche look into it and see that the first cases of multiple personalities were done intentionally by psychologists even Jung mentions it.

Violence for self-preservation such as hunting or protecting ones kin is not the same as all violent crime yet guns get the blame when its the people behind them that pull the triggers.

The mental health care system in America was systemically disabled and now it is entirely a chemically driven profit business. I live in CO and the guy that shot up the movie theater was banned from his campus because his shrink called in a warning. That same shrink by law should have reported him to the authorities for a 72 hour hold and is now being sued. Its a question of how many people ignore the RED FLAGS over and over till this shit happens.

So the mental health aspect is not bullshit and just try disarming America it can not be done. This country is way to big and from coast to coast it is armed, just saying...

bullshit. the mentally ill are more likely to be victims of crime than perps. The "only crazy folks do this shit" stigmatizes the majority of peaceful or only a harm to themselves crazies. There are extreme cases, but they are by and large very very rare.

[Cain]

I agree with both of you.

Most mentally ill people are more of a danger to themselves or more likely to be a victim than anything else.

However, there is no denying there are mentally ill people who pose a danger to others.  Psychotics, those with low impulse control etc.. And the US mental health system is broken, completely.  In the current American climate, there is nothing to stop such a person amassing a large arsenal of weapons and hurting a lot of people.

Would a better mental health system eliminate such crimes?  Of course not.  Would they help prevent incidents, though?  Undeniably.

[LMNO]

Ok, I'd like to show my ignorance and get down to basics.

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Ok.  Great.  But my question is, does the absence of specific types of arms mean that it encompasses all arms?  There's already a ban on fully automatic guns (I think), and there are other kinds of weapons that are illegal.  But could the argument be made that if you have access to some kind of gun, then your rights aren't being infringed?

If this is far too stupid to address, please ignore it.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Is it just me or is the whole mental health care act just a bit of bullshit?

Yes, I do think it is important. However placing that above the actual discussion (Guns) is reframing the debate to the ideas that only the mentally unbalanced commit violent crimes.


My wildly impractiacal solution ignoring the arms in circulation is that every new owner should have a required level of training and pass a william tell style test. Fail the test, go to jail. Can't find anyone to volunteer to hold the apple, well shit you're not passing.

In my own weird view, yes, only the mental imbalanced commit violent crime that is why things like Boot Camp are necessary to enable soldiers to commit murder. First break them down mentally then rebuild them in any horrific way you see fit. [This is also what happens to inner city youth] The history of psychology is plagued by this notion of rebuilding or breaking the psyche look into it and see that the first cases of multiple personalities were done intentionally by psychologists even Jung mentions it.

Violence for self-preservation such as hunting or protecting ones kin is not the same as all violent crime yet guns get the blame when its the people behind them that pull the triggers.

The mental health care system in America was systemically disabled and now it is entirely a chemically driven profit business. I live in CO and the guy that shot up the movie theater was banned from his campus because his shrink called in a warning. That same shrink by law should have reported him to the authorities for a 72 hour hold and is now being sued. Its a question of how many people ignore the RED FLAGS over and over till this shit happens.

So the mental health aspect is not bullshit and just try disarming America it can not be done. This country is way to big and from coast to coast it is armed, just saying...

bullshit. the mentally ill are more likely to be victims of crime than perps. The "only crazy folks do this shit" stigmatizes the majority of peaceful or only a harm to themselves crazies. There are extreme cases, but they are by and large very very rare.

It depends quite a bit on the mental illness, Pixie. The vast majority of mental illnesses are harmless to everyone but the sufferer, but a few are dangerous. A one-size-fits-all answer like "the mentally ill are more likely to be victims of crime than perpetrators" isn't really an answer that works.

It also depends on what you define as mental illness. I could argue that large swathes of society suffer from stress-induced psychosis, and that can make a sufferer very dangerous indeed.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Also the whole "GUNS VS. MENTAL HEALTH" debate makes me sick.

ADDRESS SYSTEMIC STRESSORS INCLUDING POVERTY AND LACK OF HEALTH CARE.

Apparently that approach is too indirect for most Americans to even grasp. "Derp? What does endemic social stress have to do with violence and mass shootings?"

[trippinprincezz13]

And Nigel said probably much better than I would have. Which I've been debating with people crying over the perceived threat to their guns, that these sorts of crimes wouldn't be as much of an issue of the roots of the problem.

That, and it sickens me, that with all the civil liberties issues, poverty, unemployment, poor health and mental health care, poor education system, etc., not to mention, actual rights being stripped away, THIS is what people are whining about. MAH GUNS! 

[AFK]

Here's my hair-brained idea.  Most states have Prescription Monitoring Programs that, crudely and in a nutshell, tip off physicians when one of their patients might be doctor-shopping and diverting pills.  So, you create a Gun Monitoring Program, where whenever someone purchases a gun, data is entered into a system that physicians can monitor.  But, like the PMP's, they can only monitor THEIR patients, and not just anyone who buys a gun.


So if Dr. Smith sees that John, who has been disgnosed with a mental health condition that COULD pose a threat to others, and he sees that John has just purchased a couple of guns and a bunch of ammo, there can be some kind of intervention.


I inow this will make Conservatives and the ACLU itchy, but if we can do it for drugs there is no reason why we can't do it for weapons.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Here's my hair-brained idea.  Most states have Prescription Monitoring Programs that, crudely and in a nutshell, tip off physicians when one of their patients might be doctor-shopping and diverting pills.  So, you create a Gun Monitoring Program, where whenever someone purchases a gun, data is entered into a system that physicians can monitor.  But, like the PMP's, they can only monitor THEIR patients, and not just anyone who buys a gun.


So if Dr. Smith sees that John, who has been disgnosed with a mental health condition that COULD pose a threat to others, and he sees that John has just purchased a couple of guns and a bunch of ammo, there can be some kind of intervention.


I inow this will make Conservatives and the ACLU itchy, but if we can do it for drugs there is no reason why we can't do it for weapons.

What about knives? And ropes and bare hands?

[Sir Squid Diddimus]

Ok, I'd like to show my ignorance and get down to basics.

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Ok.  Great.  But my question is, does the absence of specific types of arms mean that it encompasses all arms?  There's already a ban on fully automatic guns (I think), and there are other kinds of weapons that are illegal.  But could the argument be made that if you have access to some kind of gun, then your rights aren't being infringed?

If this is far too stupid to address, please ignore it.

exactly.
I don't see an argument. I think being able to own a handgun to protect my home is just fine. I don't need a high powered assault rifle for that.
But then I'm not afraid of my big bad government coming to get me for no reason.