School/Mass shootings are now part of our culture.
- Thread starter Ooh-Rah
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They and Parkland. Alternatively, some of them should wash their mouths out with buckshot.
Fuck yeah. That’s a big school. Lots of ground, lots of corners they had to cover. But they got there fast and nailed the bitch. Outstanding.
Expect the manifesto to be dropping in a day or two.
Shooter reached out to someone prior and said (Paraphrasing):
"I don't want to live, I need to die; this will make sense, I've left more than enough evidence behind."
She checked her Instagram. She didn't expect a message from The Covenant School shooter.
Shooter reached out to someone prior and said (Paraphrasing):
"I don't want to live, I need to die; this will make sense, I've left more than enough evidence behind."
She checked her Instagram. She didn't expect a message from The Covenant School shooter.
You're definitely not. I can think of at least two more, of which one is, like you, highly respected here because he can hold rational and thoughtful discourse on issues like this. You're also not someone to whom most people here would ascribe malice in your posts. I certainly don't.
The incel angle is interesting. I could think of only one major incel-specific mass shooting, which was probably the one that most folks think of when they think of incel violence (in fact this is how I learned "incel" was a thing; prior to that I thought that "not getting laid" was "a pretty normal condition for a lot of men when they were young, including me").
I didn't spend a lot of time looking it up, but I didn't find a lot of things that supported the incel argument for a lot of mass shootings. I found a couple, but I also did find an article that tries reeeeaalll hard to shoehorn incel into motivations in other crimes. Example:
OK. So the Buffalo shooter was racist, when we want to use that for political purposes. But in an article about incels, suddenly he's an incel? I mean, I followed that story because I live in NY, and I think it's pretty clear the guy was an outright racist. And of course it's possible to have more than one motivation for a crime. But maybe the reason he had social and sexual problems was because... he's a racist and all-around shitty human being? Correlation does not equal causation...
But even assuming that incels are committing a lot of mass gun violence, "young men who can't get laid, and are mad about it" probably eclipse, by orders of magnitude, the number of trans men in the US. And assuming that the claims in the "trans shooter" meme are also true (I didn't fact-check them), then it seems likely that trans/non-binary men are committing mass gun violence in great disproportionality to their relative numbers, at least over say the last 6 or 7 years.
Inasmuch as correlation does not equal causation with incels, the same should be said for trans perpetrators. It used to be way easier to purchase and keep firearms. I mean, I've bought guns from Wal-Mart in the past, and you could literally order guns through the Sears catalogue. Yet, we had far fewer mass shootings in the past. I think? So if that's true, what has changed? I'm not expert, but I think a combination of a steady rise in mental health issues, a decline in shared values, disintegration of the family unit, a culture of self-indulgence and self-victimization, and mass social media have brought us where we are today.
I don't know what is causing all of this violence. I don't know if incels or trans folk or anyone else is more likely to carry it out (other than to note that most mass shooters are young and male, and most mass shooters you read about in the news are white). I do know that in addition to the enormous grief and suffering these attacks inflict on the families and victims involved, they also give bureaucrats the ability to negatively affect my life and my ability to protect myself, my family, and my property with firearms.
We are all losers in these attacks, no matter if they target a gay bar, a recruiting center, or a Catholic school. My deep empathy for the victims and their families.
Your entire post, well said. But especially your conclusions about the things that contribute to the phenomena of mass shooting.
Aside from Charles Whitman, I can’t recall many mass shootings from the days of my youth. And gun control was never much of an issue until JFK got shot. The RFK and MLK assassinations expanded the gun control argument and the Reagan/Brady shooting really raised it to a significant national issue…but these were single murders.
These mass shooters are suicidal but they’re too chicken shit to just shoot themselves. They have to make some kind of statement in carnage before they leave, they need time to carry it out before the cops arrive. There’s no Hell to burn for eternity in anymore, there’s no consequence for evil, just painless oblivion for them and revenge in lifelong pain for the people they leave alive.
TLDR20
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So I have a serious question, could you buy an AR15 or similar rifle for under the equivalent of $300 anytime before the 2000’s? I wasn’t of an age to do so. And so I don’t remember it.
Edit- I found this -
“Manufacturing figures for AR-15 and AK-style rifles, minus exports, have exploded in recent decades, from fewer than 100,000 annually in the late 1990s—when many of those firearms were prohibited for civilian use under the 1994-2004 federal assault weapons ban—to more than 1 million every year since 2015.
NSSF’s figures include semi-automatic rifles produced for both civilian and police use, but exclude firearms used by the military, NSSF spokesperson Mark Oliva says.”
Devildoc
Verified Military
The cheapest ARs I recall were around $500. Now $500 won't get you an upper receiver.
As I understand, one of the issues the SCOTUS will have to figure out, is that you can't 'illegalize' guns of common use, and the AR is a common use gun. The argument has been struck down at the appellate level, but I think this is the crux of banning them, especially via EO.
Regarding this particular event, I heard on the news on the radio that the person also had plans for a second target, but abandoned it because of the security (based on information LE found). Let THAT sink in. Armed security at a potential target may be a deterrent.
So, we spent $113B on Ukraine thus far.
There are around 100K schools in the US (estimated between like, 90-115K depending on what you call a school and whatnot). There are 450K vets in the country.
What if, and this is gonna sound insane, I know- we use a quarter of that total we spent in Ukraine, around $25B, to pay 4 vets per school about $55k a year to be a full time armed guard? That would be an extremely effecient deterrant, would it not? A vet getting $55k with super reasonable hours would be a good thing, would it not?
Not all vets are created equal, and I still think you would struggle to hire as well, even if you stuck to just combat arms MOS’s.
TLDR20
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I have no interest in banning guns. At all. I’m a gun owner, I’m all for it.
But the good old days are not today. I don’t think the argument that we’ve always had guns like we do today is a good argument.
Devildoc
Verified Military
We homeschool, and I can tell you that not only does the principal carry concealed, all the students have been trained. And despite the guns in the school, there has not been one school shooting.
We COULD make it happen; hiring vets, retired LE, harden the schools, etc., but it's not politically expedient.
Devildoc
Verified Military
To quote a doc, "if I had the answer I'd be working at the Mayo Clinic. Does this look like the Mayo Clinic?"
I don't know what the answers are. I don't think illegalizing a 'type' of gun is the answer. This shooter had been tagged as having "an emotional disorder" which should have precluded him (her, whatever the fuck, I don't care) from having a gun in the first place. And he/she had documentation of a second target, abandoned because it had too much security.
All this is to say, I know there isn't just one answer, there are multiple ways to combat this.
Now the argument about banning ARs is interesting because of the common use language and sales of the AR. Personally, I don't think they could ban ARs based on this, but stranger things have happened. Also a fly in the ointment, she didn't have an AR. It was a Kel-Tec.
Blizzard
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ARs aren't the issue in North Minneapolis. Here, it's gang members simply modifying (illegally) their Glocks to be fully auto. Mass shootings there are a weekly occurrence. Of course, the media doesn't call them that and they don't spark the outrage from politicians the way more sensational shootings do, like the one yesterday. "Mass" shootings nonetheless.
That's because only white kids are victims of mass shootings.
(The above is more or less sarcasm. Don't send hate mail just because your filter's broken.)
Fucking heros indeed. I've participated in active shooter drills as the RTF medic with cops, shots being fired, cops closing in and shooting, it was surreal and valuable training.
This was fucking intense.
The left does not want armed security in schools. My opinion? I believe it's a way to disarm Americans. Safety for our children is the line, folks see dead kids, they are ok with rights being taken away.
The issue of gun related violence is multi-faceted.
If we talk about mental issues, then it's a lack of healthcare that needs to be addressed.
If it's ease of access for people who shouldnt have weapons, then it's a lack of legislative barriers.
If it's soft targets, then it's a lack of security.
The problem is most people think they can throw all their chips into one solution, when it more than likely will take all of those (and more) to reduce.
Hit all of these. Take some of that Ukranian war budget @amlove21 brought up (and DOD budget at large, IMO), and chuck it at school security and mental health services.
If someone wants to try legislation, focus on behaviors and not weapons.
We'll probably never change the culture of violence solving issues, but that'd be a place to start too.
If we talk about mental issues, then it's a lack of healthcare that needs to be addressed.
If it's ease of access for people who shouldnt have weapons, then it's a lack of legislative barriers.
If it's soft targets, then it's a lack of security.
The problem is most people think they can throw all their chips into one solution, when it more than likely will take all of those (and more) to reduce.
Hit all of these. Take some of that Ukranian war budget @amlove21 brought up (and DOD budget at large, IMO), and chuck it at school security and mental health services.
If someone wants to try legislation, focus on behaviors and not weapons.
We'll probably never change the culture of violence solving issues, but that'd be a place to start too.
Devildoc
Verified Military
Watching the fluidity and movement is art. Like good CQB.
Devildoc
Verified Military
Aw, man, there's a LOT of reasons to send you hate mail, not just because we don't understand your sarcasm....
Agreed, and locally the same. In fact, I'd wager that based on the newest definition of 'mass shooting', most are young black males. Three, four kids at a time. Might--MIGHT--make the news.
