School shootings

[ga-hvac-tech]

wow. didn't realize I'd be attacked for voicing my opinion.
I'll leave y'all to it, as expressing a one's pov obviously isn't
what this thread is about at all.
this has truly been an eye opening,educational experience.

best of luck.

E_R_LA... do not take it personally... ARP is a ROUGH place. Thin skinned folks do not do well here...

You are as welcome as anyone else... just a lot of 'tuff' conservatives who believe in traditional approaches who hang out here.

[ga-hvac-tech]

As of 12-13-12 there have been 514 murders in Chicago. The city with the strictest gun laws in the U.S.. As a teen in the 80's, we had an armed police officer and metal detectors in high school because of the gang violence, and on one ocassion I remember a shotgun being discharged at a football game after school hours. The high school also had a special place for the problem kids. They were not allowed to integrate with the rest of the school. Profiling works.This shooter from what I read was a goth kid with a personality disorder, so he was already diagnosed with a social disorder. Someone dropped the ball. Who knows, maybe the guns were in the house so his mother had protection from him???
The Amercan populus has no value for life anymore. We value material objects. We play video games in which we kill people and/or commit violent acts against them. We have no consequences for our actions. Our leaders lead by example, and one questions why we are on the road we're on?? Instead of promoting Honey BooBoo, Housewives of Where ever, or any reality show on MTV as real life, maybe the media should focus on things more positive.
We may never be able to stop this type of violence, but there is NO reason we, as a society, can't be prepared for the next time. Sticking a sign in the ground that says "Gun free zone" apparently doesn't work as well as the people in charge of the schools thought it would.
My heart goes out to all those involved...

EXCELLENT post!

This one will go around a few other forums as well as Emails. THX!

[chaard]

E_R_LA... do not take it personally... ARP is a ROUGH place. Thin skinned folks do not do well here...

You are as welcome as anyone else... just a lot of 'tuff' conservatives who believe in traditional approaches who hang out here.

This isn't in the ARP....yet.

[ga-hvac-tech]

This isn't in the ARP....yet.

Correct... however behavior here is more or less ARP behavior.

My mistake for the detail...

[chaard]

Hey timebuilder. I'm gonna have to respectfully disagree with you again.
I'm actually a little peeved that you said we need to go back to the '60's style of treating mental patients.

My aunt had a nervous breakdown when her husband divorced her and took custody of her kids. She ended up in the hospital, drugged and given shock treatment. She wasn't the same for years. She didn't deserve that kind of treatment. All because she had a nervous breakdown.

Btw the shooter had aspergers according to the brother. Should we lock up all kids with autism/aspergers?

[2sac]

My brother was born in 1968, diagnosed with slight retardation and a severe behavior disorder. He also had rickets as a baby, and wore coke bottle thick glasses. My folks took care fo him as best they could and I spent much of my childhood babysitting him. I recall him almost drowning me in the pool. Not because he wanted to, we were just kids screwing around and he just didnt't know when to stop. At the age of 14 after stealing 4 cars if I remember correctly, along with countless other issues, my folks shipped him off to San Marcos TX to a school that dealt with kids like him and could give him the 24hr supervision he needed. My uncle and cousins were in Austin and spent alot of time with him. My grandfather spent months in TX with him and my folks were down there all the time. At 18, the facility he was at could no longer take care of him because he was an adult. The facility near the house had a 10 year waiting list to get in. He was back home for a year before my father found a suitable place for him. The other option was to have him locked up in a state mental facility, and there was no way that would happen. He moved to a catholic run facility in Jefferson WI, and gave them a run for their money. Got into plenty of mishaps and was taken out of the general population and moved to a farm with another kid who also needed 24hr supervision. They took care of the animals. Eventually he had stole another car and management had changed at the facility. The new guy wanted my brother out of there, and gave my father one year to find a place. By now he is 34yo. My dad found a place close to home. A group home that offered the 24hr supervision. He was starting to mellow ou by now. At 35 he had a stroke and passed away.

chaard, If my brother didn't have 24hr supervision, he could have clearly killed himself or somebody else. If someone would have put a gun in his hand, he would have shot it. He had no sense of any consequences. No sense of cause and effect. When I was a kid after doing something bad, he would say to me "Paulie, You always tell me to think twice, before doing something. I guess I didn't think twice" My brother needed to be "locked up" He needed to be separated because nothing good came out of him being around people. You know what's kind of funny. The only place he behaved was in church. He loved going.
My nephew may or may not have aspergers. He's 10 and has been treated for about 5 years now. Looks like his meds are finally dialed in and he's alomst a joy to be around.
As far as locking kids up. If they need it they need it. Sugarcoating things to appease the parents and the public is wrong.

[zxcb]

From another forum, pretty much sums it up:

"You want to know why. This may sound cynical, but here's why. It's because of the way the media reports it. Flip on the news and watch how we treat the Batman theater shooter and the Oregon mall shooter like celebrities. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are household names, but do you know the name of a single victim of Columbine? Disturbed people who would otherwise just off themselves in their basements see the news and want to top it by doing something worse, and going out in a memorable way. Why a grade school? Why children? Because he'll be remembered as a horrible monster, instead of a sad nobody.

CNN's article says that if the body count "holds up", this will rank as the second deadliest shooting behind Virginia Tech, as if statistics somehow make one shooting worse than another. Then they post a video interview of third-graders for all the details of what they saw and heard while the shootings were happening. Fox News has plastered the killer's face on all their reports for hours. Any articles or news stories yet that focus on the victims and ignore the killer's identity? None that I've seen yet. Because they don't sell. So congratulations, sensationalist media, you've just lit the fire for someone to top this and knock off a day care center or a maternity ward next.

You can help by forgetting you ever read this man's name, and remembering the name of at least one victim. You can help by donating to mental health research instead of pointing to gun control as the problem."

[rcamp]

imo guns are not the problem as they are only a tool that has to be used by a person what i think needs to be done is swift and acute punishment for anybody that uses a weapon of anykind in act of a crime. guns are way to easy to get if any person wants a gun then they will get one legally or illegaly. But would a person kill another person if they knew for a fact that they would be hung on the court house steps the day after being found guilty or would they think twice before commiting a crime?

[AStudent]

This is crazy....as long as there have been humans we have been killing each other....there's no way around it....unless we become better people.

As far as weapons.....the constitution was written in a time when nearly every person knew something about guns....they were a necessity. Now a days...not so much. Don't give me that talk about but we have to have firearms to defend against a tyrant government..... when the government is willing to allow anyone and everyone to have tanks, battleships and nukes then and only then will the defense against tyrannical government argument make any sense whatsoever.

I'm for people having guns....it's your constitutional right....stick with that argument, because it's the only one that makes any sense at all.

[timebuilder]

This is crazy....as long as there have been humans we have been killing each other....there's no way around it....unless we become better people.

As far as weapons.....the constitution was written in a time when nearly every person knew something about guns....they were a necessity. Now a days...not so much. Don't give me that talk about but we have to have firearms to defend against a tyrant government..... when the government is willing to allow anyone and everyone to have tanks, battleships and nukes then and only then will the defense against tyrannical government argument make any sense whatsoever.

I'm for people having guns....it's your constitutional right....stick with that argument, because it's the only one that makes any sense at all.

Despite what some think about our Constitution, it was written for ALL time, not merely a time when a lot of people routinely used firearms.

When many citizens in an area of our country carry a firearm LEGALLY, there is far less criminal shooting. When these citizens are not permitted to carry, criminals know they can attack with alacrity.

Someone in that school could have saved many of those kids, IF they had a gun with them, and knew how to use it.

[timebuilder]

Hey timebuilder. I'm gonna have to respectfully disagree with you again.
I'm actually a little peeved that you said we need to go back to the '60's style of treating mental patients.

My aunt had a nervous breakdown when her husband divorced her and took custody of her kids. She ended up in the hospital, drugged and given shock treatment. She wasn't the same for years. She didn't deserve that kind of treatment. All because she had a nervous breakdown.

Btw the shooter had aspergers according to the brother. Should we lock up all kids with autism/aspergers?

Let me expand on my comments, then.

First, all medical disciplines have advanced since then. That's just the increase of knowledge and expertise.

Second, suppose your aunt didn't have a nervous breakdown, and instead, developed a psychosis where she heard voices telling her to kill her family? What result might that have had if she remained free to roam around?

Is there a price to society for taking in sick people and keeping them form harming themselves and others? Sure. That's what the ACLU lawsuit was about.

BUT, that price is preferable to the Columbines, Shopping Mall, and School shootings that we have seen.

I feel for your aunt, and today, she would have been taken in, treated, and very likely, released.


Today's kids with Asperger's are getting treatment, for the most part. From what I know about it, kids with Asperger's don't do things like this, so he may have had multiple personality disorders, along with a psychosis.

[timebuilder]

imo guns are not the problem as they are only a tool that has to be used by a person what i think needs to be done is swift and acute punishment for anybody that uses a weapon of anykind in act of a crime. guns are way to easy to get if any person wants a gun then they will get one legally or illegaly. But would a person kill another person if they knew for a fact that they would be hung on the court house steps the day after being found guilty or would they think twice before commiting a crime?

If the person was you or me, yes.

However, these killers are not you or me. They are psychopaths and sociopaths. They don't have that sense of responsibility, remorse, or caring for others. In fact, they would probably welcome a hanging.

So, punishment is not the answer.

We have to separate out those who would likely cause these harms, and not let them go free until we have a reasonable idea that the normal human protection and social mechanisms are functioning in their minds.

[chaard]

2sac, sorry about your brother.

My point is this is not a black and white issue. My aunt is not mentally handicapped. Never was. But she was treated like a mental patient.

My wife's uncle was mentally handicapped. He lived at home his whole life. He wasn't violent.

Some patients can have violent tendencies, some not. And just when you think one is fine, they do something terrible.

What about anger. A lot of people are normal but have anger issues. Do we test them, sedate them, lock them up?

It's not black and white.