25 People Dead, Mostly Children, at Connecticut Elementary School Shooting

So an individual with a mental illness was able to procure weapons that his mother had registered under her name.

I am not arguing about the need for gun control, it is not happening in American society that much is clear, I am arguing about the mindset in American society.

The reality is that American society loves their guns and feel anything that goes against that is an infringement on their rights.

You want to know the difference between guns and knives.

26 people killed by this lone gunman, including 20 children.

In China, "a man stabbed 22 children at a primary school.
Fortunately, none of the victims, including one adult, in the attack suffered life threatening injuries.

That is the difference between a gun and a knife in such mass attacks.

Give that man in China a gun and lets see what the results would have been.

 

So the answer is to take guns away from law abiding citizens so criminals are the only ones who have them? That makes no sense fam. This is definitely tragic but its far from the norm. More small kods die from drunk driving and small pieces to toys but that stiff isnt being outlawed. Maybe more barriers to owning guns are needed but I dont thinktaking away our ability to protect ourselves against thoughs who might break into our homes and harm our families is the way

 

I got the gist of it all Tarshi.

Its a mentality in our society where people think firearms are a normal part of life.

So whether we have a sole maniac or an organized militia, when they go off the deep end for whatever reason they have the easy and convenient metnod of firearms to undertake their tragic actions.

And ordinary folks are left to pay lip service to the victims and their families, but then it soon goes back to the same state of affairs once the story dies down.

Only a few days ago a man killed 2 and himself in a shooting with a semi-automatic rifle in an Oregon Mall and now this story.

 

And yet the majority of Americans do not own guns!
That is the reality if you really want to look at reality.

 

Gun ownership is saturated in many parts of American society, as long as Americans are unwilling to address that then those who are troubled will continue to have the easy access to firearms to resolve their emotional issues as they see it.

I just wonder what the results would be had this "mentally disturbed" person as you suggested didn't have easy access to 3 weapons (2 pistols and an automatic rifle) all legal and registered to his mother.

I guess what we are then saying is that this is unavoidable since there is nothing that can be done short of getting rid of guns.

Remember all these acts in school shootings are with weapons that were legally procured, often from parents, friends, etc.

Its not like they are knocking over arms warehouses and depots for their stash.

That is the troubling part, legal weapons are being used in these school attacks and they are pretty easy to obtain as in the Virginia Tech, Columbine shootings, etc.

 

Yeah it should be stated a segment of American society.

I have even seen some of these folks on television talking about their arms collection. prepping for doomsday, civil unrest, militias, etc.

I think the ease of access to weapons if one desires it is the telling aspect.

It is not as easy in New York City, but head down to say Virginia and voila it becomes a whole lot simpler to procure them.

 

The deal is America loves its guns and if the stories we have seen with all the shootings in suburban schools that still haven't changed anything then it tells us where we stand as a nation on this issue.

If the children of some of these folks are dying and they still won't argue against guns because they possess them and feel it is an inalienable right, then where does that leave us, right where we started I suppose, square one.

You are not taking my gun, no way, no how, hell no, I don't care why.

There seems to be a tacit acceptance of society that on occasion these kind of incidents will happen.

 

In August a kid in China killed eight people and wounded five with a knife because he had a problem with his girlfriend. CRAZY finds a way. If not guns then home mad fire bombs if not that poison of not that some other method. People intent are harming others wi find a way. And btw the people doing school shootings are mentally disturbed so its not about gun control its about better mental health detection and treatment. Like I said millions own guns in this countryband most of the killing ia done by those who have them illeglly

 

I hear what you are saying here GQ, however if a person is sick and twisted enough to shoot kids (or anyone for that matter) such a person would find a way to find a gun no matter how hard they were to find due to new gun control laws. Whenever I hear the call for more gun control laws, I think of the fact that Prohibition did little to nothing to slow alcohol consumption and made millions in ill gotten gains for criminals like Capone.

I don't know what the answer is to the gun violence we see here in the U.S., but i'm not sure that more laws will help all that much.

 

So banning guns will stop gun violence GQ?
Damn I wish theyd ban drugs so people would stop doing it
I wish theyd ban drunk driving and prostitution too

 

But that is the gist of my sentiments bro.

With so many who own weapons, it only takes one person to go off the deep end and lash out and feel if I am leaving this world let me take innocent people with me.

You and I both know a gun will beat a knife any day of the week.

Whether the guns are owned legally or illegally they start on a chain somewhere and works it way through the system.

The key is not legal or illegal but ease of access.

How many who are listening to this story tonight on their local news and probably has a gun that is accessible by a family member, whether its their parents, friends, or whomever.

It only takes one person with whatever issues to lash out and we have the results like we see today.

Now we can say that person should seek mental help, but my take is what if he never had access to such a deadly form of weapon.

Truth is I would have rather this sick individual been in that classroom with a knife as opposed to two pistols, would have saved some of those children in all likelihood compared to the slaughter of innocents.

An equivalency cannot be formed between a gun and a knife. Two totally different ballgames in killing effectiveness on a large scale.

 

truth is, it will not stop gun violence, but it certainly will make it less frequent, as it has here. situations like the one that just happened wouldn't happen as he wouldn't have access to a gun, because his mother wouldn't have a gun.

 

Guns saturate our society so of course it will be easy to get access to one if one so desires.

This guy had easy access to weapons even though he was mentally disturbed allegedly.

I keep mentioning the ease of access because that is the key.

With a proliferation of firearms in this nation, any and every nut can live out their twisted killing fantasies on such a tragic scale.

 

Thats pressuming he wouldnt just get an illegal gun. For me to get a dirty gun in Yonkers right now would run me 350. So all I need is 350 and I have a death machine

 

Then I suppose we will have to live with the consequences of our society.

Would you admit TDK that every gun starts out as a legal weapon somewhere along the pipeline.

A gun isn't illegal from the point of manufacture, it becomes so at the point of individual ownership.

So illegal or legal is a matter of semantics once it is out and about in society it does the same damage if it winds up in the hands of those who perpetrate crimes for whatever reasons.

The guns in this tragedy and many of the weapons used in other notorious school shootings were obtained through legal parameters.

 

You remind me of a problem when I first took economics. What keeps so many millions of drivers from colliding into one another all the time? Self interest. Crashing into others would not serve my self onterest. So while there are those who are crazy enough to do thatself interest prevents wide spread massacres on a regular basis.
And like I said before crazy people have easy access to other instruments of death and will use them if guns arent available. As the population grows so will the number of crazies and the frequwncies of incidents. Its not guns its the people. Btw sorry for the dreadful typos. One a new tablet havent figured everything outbyet.

 

Youre right its not the instrument its how its used but if it werent guns it would be something else. People were killing by the thousands long before the invention of gun powder brotha

 

See this is my contention though TDK, its not the matter of legal or illegal, it is the matter of proliferation of weapons in our society that makes it so easily attainable in such circumstances.

That 350 would likely have started somewhere legally and had its serial number filed off and is now illegal, but it entered the system legally.

I look at it as supply and demand as with drugs, without the ravenous need for drugs in American society the Mexican cartels wouldn't be chopping up body parts to protect their lucrative access to the American market.

It is because of the desire that the issue exists.

Mexican cartels aren't trying to traffic drugs into Guatemala and Belize because their is no lucrative market and demand for it there.

Likewise guns proliferate American society because their is a rampant desire for it, even the most high tech, automatic weapons that go above and beyond protecting one's home. Why is that.

 

The impending zombie apacolypse :shrugs:
I see what your saying but the genie is out of the bottle fam. What can we do that wont redult in law abiding citozens left defenseless. Chicago is a good example of a city with strict gun laws but high violence rates because of illegal guns

 

Oh I'm well aware of that.

Personally I don't feel American society will ever adopt tough gun laws, it will not happen because ownership of firearms is entrenched in American society from the earliest days.

Be it the Founding Fathers vs the British, be it Lewis and Clark, be it the Scots-Irish in the South, be it migrating pioneer families heading out West, be it the cowboys of the Wild West era, be it to the choice of weapon for fighting them Indians.

It is engrained in American society and is here to stay. I'm not naive to think it is going anywhere.