another mass shooting

[_subgenius]

....thus stacking one more body on the teen suicide pile and increasing that statistic.

Why? Because mental illness is the WHY.

Clearly the liberal, and some conservative faithfuls, have no interest pursuing non-partisan realities. Without a point of contention many posters here are left without a sense of self, without a sense of purpose.
In other words, they really don't care about a single other life, or even a dozen lives...they only care about their own life inasmuch as it can be defined by ego.
Your insight into what is truly the issue that is a "silver bullet" permeates so much of our society that it is baffling why "the village" has not attacked it with the same vigor that it attacks public restroom usage.

[_honorentheos]

Calling out mental illness as the root of the problem and the place society needs to focus on solutions is the domestic equivalent of declaring a war on terror. To Fox News listeners and other non-critically thinking types the propaganda sounds accurate, while to those pulling the strings it has the desired trait of lacking clarity making any real solution impossible to achieve while allowing the appearance of effort to plaster over the real and targetable issue.

Addressing access to firearms and the current lack of responsibility by gun owners for how their firearms get used is targetable, achievable, and will be effective. It has all the traits dumbasses hate.

[_EAllusion]

It was a hoax with crisis actors.

Heh. The argument here is that she's a paid crisis actor, but the proof is that her looking down means she's reading off of a script. So the big media conspiracy went through the trouble of hiring an actor to play a person involved in a school shooting, but didn't go to the trouble to hire someone who could memorize a few lines off script for a few seconds.

The casting director clearly needs to be fired.

[_honorentheos]

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.

We need accountability. We can make laws that hold gun owners accountable for how their firearms are used. People who are interested in staying out of jail and not being charged as part of a felony murder case will not need to be forced at the end of a pointy stick to keep their weapons and ammo separated and locked up. Lack of accountability leads to sloppy behavior.

[Guest]

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.

The NRA has been as effective in destroying the ability to have rational public dialog on this issue as right-wing conservative talk radio has (irrepairably?) polarized the political debate. Gun culture, as defined by the NRA now, includes mythologies and norms that are feed by the attempts to discuss rational gun control measures. But it's reaching a point that the cost of this approach means the majority of Americans are left without room for dialog when tragedies happen. Gun rights is known to be the single strongest predictor of one's political position. The NRA has made the fear of gun control that powerful. The blowback, though, is that opposition to gun accessibility is becoming just as important to those who are sick of reading about preventable tragedies where the obvious problem is being protected by a sick minority.

Gun rights advocates who are smart will realize that finding common ground in the middle sooner rather than later is in their best interest.

[Guest]

Clearly the liberal, and some conservative faithfuls, have no interest pursuing non-partisan realities.

Oh, so this time you're going to go with mental illness and not video games? Anything to take focus off of the actual reality which has already been demonstrated to be the only common denominator: easy access to firearms.

Without a point of contention many posters here are left without a sense of self, without a sense of purpose.

Yes, it is almost as sad as being a self-designated troll.

In other words, they really don't care about a single other life, or even a dozen lives...they only care about their own life inasmuch as it can be defined by ego.

So Republicans care about lives so much that they block legislation that makes it more difficult for the mentally ill to obtain firearms, but at the same time their argument is that those committing these crimes are mentally ill. So what was your solution again?

Your insight into what is truly the issue that is a "silver bullet" permeates so much of our society that it is baffling why "the village" has not attacked it with the same vigor that it attacks public restroom usage.

Yeah, it isn't as if the mental health angle has ever been discussed on the Left before, huh?

What you and apparently Jersey Girl haven't understood is that focusing on the primary cause (easy access to guns) doesn't mean you're negating other underlying factors that contribute. But let's focus on what we can change, not what we cannot. This kid wasn't mentally ill. Jumping to that conclusion using the shooting as only evidence is just circular reasoning. Murder is not a symptom of mental illness. He had no history of crime or violence nor was he ever bullied. Pretending this could have been stopped if only he had received more hugs and acceptance is wishful thinking. Same is true for the Parkland shooter who was himself a bully among bullies. If you say we have to "see the signs" and do something to stop it beforehand you're being naïve. There are quite literally dozens of kids at our local school who exhibit the same "signs" as this kid. You'd have them all... what? Forced into counseling and further stigmatized as everyone would see the school views them as potential killers?

Probably all of them will grow out of it and move on, never to become violent criminals. But your idea is to focus on this "silver bullet" and pretend the ubiquitous nature of guns in this country has nothing to do with anything because the reality is YOU care nothing about the loss of young lives and are far more worried about scoring political points.

[_honorentheos]

I love how "silver bullet" is being use to describe something impossible to address while deflecting away from the far more simple and identifiable factor these tragedies have in common.

What a tool you are, subbie.

[_honorentheos]

What you and apparently Jersey Girl haven't understood is that focusing on the primary cause (easy access to guns) doesn't mean you're negating other underlying factors that contribute. But let's focus on what we can change, not what we cannot. This kid wasn't mentally ill. Jumping to that conclusion using the shooting as only evidence is just circular reasoning. Murder is not a symptom of mental illness. He had no history of crime or violence nor was he ever bullied. Pretending this could have been stopped if only he had received more hugs and acceptance is wishful thinking. Same is true for the Parkland shooter who was himself a bully among bullies. If you say we have to "see the signs" and do something to stop it beforehand you're being naïve. There are quite literally dozens of kids at our local school who exhibit the same "signs" as this kid. You'd have them all... what? Forced into counseling and further stigmatized as everyone would see the school views them as potential killers?

Probably all of them will grow out of it and move on, never to become violent criminals. But your idea is to focus on this "silver bullet" and pretend the ubiquitous nature of guns in this country has nothing to do with anything.

Well said.

[_EAllusion]

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.

The NRA has been as effective in destroying the ability to have rational public dialog on this issue as right-wing conservative talk radio has (irrepairably?) polarized the political debate. Gun culture, as defined by the NRA now, includes mythologies and norms that are feed by the attempts to discuss rational gun control measures. But it's reaching a point that the cost of this approach means the majority of Americans are left without room for dialog when tragedies happen. Gun rights is known to be the single strongest predictor of one's political position. The NRA has made the fear of gun control that powerful. The blowback, though, is that opposition to gun accessibility is becoming just as important to those who are sick of reading about preventable tragedies where the obvious problem is being protected by a sick minority.

Gun rights advocates who are smart will realize that finding common ground in the middle sooner rather than later is in their best interest.

Regardless of how you feel about it, there's extensive public support for gun control measures that would make Democrats happy - such as significantly expanded background checks. What prevents that from happening is not that the NRA has effectively stonewalled public sentiment. It's that elected Republicans do not agree with popular sentiment and have the power to resist it because their resistance does not affect their prospects of getting elected.

[_honorentheos]

Regardless of how you feel about it, there's extensive public support for gun control measures that would make Democrats happy - such as significantly expanded background checks. What prevents that from happening is not that the NRA has effectively stonewalled public sentiment. It's that elected Republicans do not agree with popular sentiment and have the power to resist it because their resistance does not affect their prospects of getting elected.

While I completely agree with this, EA, I think the base conditions are evolving and election cycles are coming that will be seismic in their impacts on this issue. The point being that until recently, the passion for this issue has been a motivating factor for one side. The passion, in the form of disgust and outrage that anyone would be willing to trade the lives of children for what to the left appears to be ego-driven proxy-penis worship, is catching on. Only the future knows how many election cycles it will take to see elected officials in with primarily failing NRA grades. But I think the days of the one-sided passion for this issue are over.