another mass shooting

[_Jersey Girl]

This is something being talked about a lot and governments have been trying different ways to better address these problems.

I'd like to see information about that. Got any?

[_Jersey Girl]

How about you make one at the same time as I do? Compare notes.

Honestly? I already said that's a red herring in my view. Kids use violence to express themselves at different levels for a plethora of reasons. I think the entire idea that this is where the solution space lies is crazy talk.

Gun culture and changes in the relationship with guns is not exactly an easy change, either. But the people advocating for protecting the 2nd amendment are the ones best positioned to tackle that issue and aren't in favor of trying to make the problem about everything other than firearms. That's BS.

Listen, I don't particularly give a damn about the 2nd amendment. If it were abolished tomorrow I wouldn't lose sleep over it.

Are we as a society trying to make this all about the guns while ignoring the presence of untreated mental illness in our youth?

[_Jersey Girl]

When the NRA gets behind laws that hold gun owners accountable when their weapons are used to commit crimes you can start in on arguing who else needs accountability or that access is a non-issue. Until then it's just deflecting from the obvious.

Another thing I wouldn't mind seeing disbanded tomorrow is the NRA. To date, no NRA member has committed a mass shooting so there is that.

I do think that since we cannot force weapons owners to secure their firearms that gun owners should be made to carry high priced liability insurance as a way to force their hand in securing their weapons. And if/when that happens, then the NRA can stick it.

I do recall seeing video of Trump telling those in his meeting that they were afraid of the NRA. Hasn't seemed to provoke anyone to action.

[_Jersey Girl]

Were the access to guns taken away from potential mass shooters, the bodies would only continue to pile up on the suicide side of the stats.

I'm curious where you picked up this idea, Jersey Girl? Male suicide rates have typically been higher than female rates due to the higher use and access to firearms by males when they attempt suicide while suicide attempt rates have historically been higher for females. The idea that taking away guns would lead to an increase in suicides seem detached from reality. I don't generally think you are detached from reality so this line of thinking is a puzzle.

My feet are too firmly grounded in reality, honor.

We're not talking about suicide rates as a whole. We're talking about methods of suicide on the part of our youth. In this case, male youth.

You misunderstand what I stated or I failed to state it with clarity. Without access to weapons, male youth resort to primarily to hanging themselves. Also on the list of methods is using the emissions from their vehicles to poison themselves. I'm sure overdoses hold a place on the list of methods.

What I am saying (once again) is that in the case of mass shootings, the guns are the HOW. They are not the WHY.

If the kid who perpetrated this current shooting had no access to his father's weapons with no way to violently act out his inner rage externally, he likely would have eventually taken his own life by some other method, thus stacking one more body on the teen suicide pile and increasing that statistic.

Why? Because mental illness is the WHY.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

I'm at the point where I just feel that pro-gun Americans have made peace with our situation simply because their philosophy is firmly rooted in the right to self-defense by firearms. To them there's not much middle ground to be had with people like myself who are willing to give up their guns and have them destroyed.

While I'm at peace for having rid myself of my weapons after Parkland, I'm under no delusion that others would never, under any circumstances, give up their guns without a civil war happening.

The only way we're going to make headway on this issue will be through cultural change, and hopefully the psychological need for having weapons in hand or available to most anyone changes. I'm not too hopeful, though.

- Doc

[_Hawkeye]

It was a hoax with crisis actors.

[_Hawkeye]

Apparently the kid was a football hero who was into fashwave, wore trench coats in summertime and became enamored with Nazi symbols and Donald Trump. https://heavy.com/news/2018/05/dimitrios-pagourtzis/

In October 2016, Pagourtzis was noted as playing “a huge role” in a 14-0 victory for the Santa Fe JV football team. While in 2013, the Galveston County Daily News listed Pagourtzis as an honor student at Santa Fe Junior High School. Speaking to the Daily Beast, a teammate of Pagourtzis’, Rey Montemayor III, said, “I played football with him for three years. People on the news said he was bullied a lot. I never seen him being bullied. I never bullied him. He was cool to me. I lifted with him a couple of times.”

“He was quiet. He did keep to himself. That’s pretty much it. I know he was quiet and everything but any conversations we had in the locker room or in the field or after games, he never struck me as that person.” He added that the suspect “was a really cool guy.”

... The Instagram account followed only a few pages and all were connected to guns or President Donald Trump...

According to his Facebook page, the Father, Antonios Pagourtzis “likes” Dana Loesch, the conservative political activist and spokesperson for the National Rifle Association. In the wake of the Parkland school shooting in February 2018, Loesch publicly defended the NRA’s stance on assault rifles.

Let the hair fire begin.

Subs, you go first.

[_Some Schmo]

I'm not sure how we can address the mental illness issue in this country when 40% of it supports Drumpf. The problem is way too big.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Heading out, but before I do this is a great post and worth the read:

https://np.reddit.com/r/politics/commen ... ?context=3

tl;dr - School shootings have become the norm, the cat is out of the bag, and I believe gun owners will deflect forever.

- Doc

[_DarkHelmet]

It was a hoax with crisis actors.

Of course it was. The alt-right crisis actor conspiracy theory people are the new Westboro Baptist church. They are sociopaths. Trolling people who are grieving the death of loved ones is not the behavior of mentally healthy people.