US: 30 shot at school, China: 22 knifed at school

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Bells,

Yes it is sad, but that is reality, these crazies arn't going to give up there guns unless "pried from there cold dead hands" and they have gotten enough of the voting public to back them up. Armed guards at schools is the best solution we can make in the short term that does not gain the NRA attention.

 

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While I have seen no evidence of the statistics you are referring to, mistaken identity killing isn't an issue of freedom. Perhaps training and competence.

Correct. She had the freedom to do that and as you stated, it didn't work out.

I'll give you an example. If you are any person or group and you want to do harm to a family, are you going to choose the Johnsons (whom are all armed) or the Samsons (who are unarmed)?

That is certainly an opinion that may be shared by some. It still comes back to freedom vs. safety, and the U.S. is founded on the former.

I don't think the people are scared of their government and neighbors. I think they are confident that their government and neighbors will understand that an attempt to harm them will have consequences. It's a warning.

I'll speculate that you are not operating off of the same definition of freedom that the U.S. does. This is the only way to make your assertion work. Clearly define freedom and then demonstrate how gun ownership violates it. I suspect the best you will be able to do is demonstrate a violation of safety.

I think you may be confusing being terrified with issuing warnings. They are very different.

That's not freedom. That's safety.

I would certainly hope so. Specifically it says that the U.S. values freedom over safety. Don't get me wrong, we don't want our children to die (by tragedy or by choice) but at the same time we're not going to sacrafice freedom for safety.

 

This may seem a nit to pick to you, but it's still important. This was not an assault rifle. An assault rifle is select fire (can be switched from semi to full auto). This is not a weapon used by the military around the world. They use real assault rifles, not the civilian versions that do not have the option for full auto. You can call it an "assault weapon" but that's a political designation more than anything else. There are plenty of semi automatic rifles that are not classified as assault weapons. They fire the same ammunition, can have the same magazine capacity, and are just as deadly. As they do not resemble the military versions so much, they stay legal.

 

As someone on Fark put it "The first rule of surviving the end of the world is to survive until the end of the world."

 

i said you responded in an antsy manner to the reference. IOW you were suggesting that the statistical claim was dubious (even though it was referenced. Meanwhile you are making claims about canada having more gun owners than the states in an unreferenced manner

In what way is it incomplete?

You are making the unreferenced (and apparently false if you compare these two links) claim that canada has more gun owners than the states

well until you can reference it, it appears you are simply imagining how things are.
All current data suggests that the states has the most guns, the most household with guns and the most top end guns (large volume cartridges/high powered fire arms) and the most unregulated laws for gun ownership than anywhere else (maybe a few exceptions for countries experiencing domestic political turmoil)

At least I am offering references. You are simply making vague suggestions about things.

already explained how risk factors cause incidents to expand exponentially when the numbers start getting denser.
This is basic OH&S stuff.
IOW availability of top end fire arms + lack of laws governing regulation, training and monitoring = increased number of incidents.

So in this manner 100 guns in canada or some other place with a more functional gun law system that decreases the risk factors surrounding guns doesn't grant the same collateral damage as 100 guns in the states or some other place with an absence of such things (although to find a region that presents a worse rating you have to go to places on the brink or in the throes of civil war).

We could use the same model to explain why 100 trucks in India grants a higher number of road safety incidents than 100 trucks in America

IOW OH&S (regardless whether we are talking about fire arms or motorized vehicles) aims at reducing the probability of incidents by lowering the risk factors that surround them

actually you were in the middle of making (apparently) false claims about canada ...

It also seems that the swiss conscript their general populace as an alternative to having a standing army .. and if you read the link about swiss gun laws, you an see that it is regulated in quite an intense fashion (reduced distribution and heavy monitoring of ammunition that you can't even dream of occurring in the states etc etc)

IOW they have an effective OH&S program that is not limited to entailing the following ....

- military training for the general populace
-restrictions for distribution of ammunition
- after military service, government issues guns kept by such persons are altered to no longer being semi automatic
-limits on the numbers of fire arms a person can own
- strict legal prosecutions against individuals who violate these provisions (just to be clear, I am talking about messing up on the mere formalities of these regulations as opposed to doing something wild like shooting people in public or possessing a blatantly illegal firearm or whatever).

Its the complete absence (and even animosity) of anything remarkably close to this in the states that grants it an exponential number incidents well above and beyond a mere statistical comparison of the number of fire arms between the two countries.

About the fourth time I have pressed this point : the more risk factors you tag to an environment, the higher the number of incidents you get.

IOW the number of guns is simply one bit of data that enters the equation. Ammunition availability, legal regulations and monitoring of who gets to own one, and quality of the firearms available are but a few of the other points that combine with each other to grant exponential figures. In practically all of these, america is at the bottom of the chart ... which in turn grants its esteemed position at being the top of the chart as far as occurring incidents.

I guess the problem we are all having with your statements is that you are refusing to acknowledge the one thing that is actually doable by state authorities to deal with this problem : reduce risk factors associated with guns. Its not experimental social engineering or anything - its simply a model that practically any other country has on the planet that isn't on the brink of civil war.

Sure it would be great is we could socially engineer populations to avoid falling victim to risk factors of guns, alcohol and drugs, motor vehicles, sex and domestic violence, workplace malpractice or whatever else it is we agree paints the ugly portrait of the contemporary so-called civilized world ... but its not going to happen ... why? because these things are not achievable in any immediately actionable manner (or even agreeable for that matter - I mean its not like you have presented a solution to remedying the contemporary situation of humankind .... much less presented a goal for it in any universally agreed upon manner) .

If the bodies that govern and regulate motor vehicles, drugs, crime or practically any other issue (that presents a pressing social ill) proceeded with the attitude of " we should do nothing until we work on the big problem of society at large" it would have them doing nothing.

:shrug:

 

That might be why he didn't make a mistaken identity kill (which was the topic we were dicusussing).

I don't think mentally unstable people should have destructive power of any kind; however, where do you draw the line? Clearly the U.S. has scores of mentally unstable people in all aspects of government for example who send out "kids" to get killed in battles across the world. Most of the U.S. population believes that there are one or more alien life forms that intervene in all aspects of their lives. Find an objective line that separates mentally stable from unstable and we'll talk.

It does, and those are very sad statistics. Clearly there is a competence deficit there.

Slavery was a violation of freedom. That combined with the cotton gin made it possible to enforce freedom using violence.

Anyone whom wants to do you harm of course. Keeping a firearm in your home doesn't mean you have any chance of using it for self defense. You actually have to practice how to do it right and make sure that people know this (a warning does no good if nobody knows about it).

That is neither a definition of freedom nor a demonstration of its violation. It is your opinion and it's very colored by your interpretation of "they're being mean!". Freedom necessarily sacrafices safety. I can warn you that putting your hand on a hot stove will burn you, but I won't stop you from doing it if you so choose.

You are very convinced Americans are scared and we're all part of an incompetence statistic where we get shot in our own homes. Owning guns does nothing to warn people. Having a household that is competent with guns and actually educated how to defend themselves does warn people.

I know you think that makes sense but those statements are not mutually exclusive, which is why I asked you to define freedom clearly. You are very likely operating on an utterly different concept. People are free to own a gun or not own a gun. It's their choice.

There's that pedocracy creeping up again. I was hoping only Asguard was affected by that meme. The significant parts of our debate are:

* You cannot or don't want to understand the American concepts of freedom (I use the plural term because it actually shifts), how they are core values, and how whatever notion of freedom that you have in your mind is very likely alien and incompatible.
* You have been very clear that your personal method to address killing sprees is to violate freedom in favor of safety. This is a more interesting item because it shows that you cannot or don't want to solve problems in the context of a different value system. The "problem" has both objective and subjective components and both have to be correctly addressed to be effective.

 

From the FBI

Firstly that's a prety appaling rate of unsolveds however look at the rates of relationship vs stranger, your arming your own killer

 

And what viable alternative for dealing with existential fears do you suggest?

 

True. But not addressing the big problem of society at large generally seems to lead to unsatisfactory solutions.

It seems that in some countries, such as Switzerland or Canada, the big problem of society at large was never as prominent as in the US to begin with.

Just compare the state of the healthcare systems or the retirement systems in these countries.
In comparison to the Canadians and the Swiss, Americans sure have a lot more to worry about and to fear.

 

government and political engagement

 

The people horrified by mass murder, and who are not packing heat in anticipation of a coming Armageddon or shootout at the Lonesome Corral, would probably just as soon see sweeping gun control legislation. That's one prong of a remedial response. The other overriding concern is the mental health issue, which arises in all cases of homicide. Mental health remediation can't be legislated in the same way. But a long term commitment to acknowledge mental illness as Public Enemy Number One is a feasible response. Gun regulation falls under criminal law. But mental health intervention falls under the administrative laws, and there is a blank slate in that area just waiting for us to carve out a design for addressing this elephant in the room. We need laws--strong laws--that promote mental health in the US, and indeed, throughout the world.

 

For example?

For example?


And on both counts, can you suggest some things that could be begun to be employed right now, in the state that the US, and the rest of the world, currently is in?

 

On the issue of mental health, from a psychologist's blog, on the topic of the recent shootings:



/.../
"One of the scripts, which scarcely needs dusting off as it is brought out so regularly, is the need for increased funding for mental health services. Given what I’m about to say, let me be clear: I do think that mental health services are poorly funded in most countries, and what funds are available are even more poorly managed. Let’s take that as a given.

The assumption, however, is that increased mental health funding will result in lower rates of school shootings and other mass killings. With better funding would come better screening of the population. Individuals at risk of perpetrating events such as these would be identified. Treatment would ensue, and tragic outcomes would be averted. The rate of mass killings would decline.

All of this is possible. But I am not aware of any evidence that any of these assumptions is true. If you survey mental health clinicians, many believe these ideas, and they may well be right. Certainly there is little reluctance for anyone to express these beliefs in the media.

What we seldom hear is the converse opinion, which is also held by many people.

Imagine a world in which the funding for mental health programs is doubled or trebled. My own belief is that this would not have any significant impact on the incidence of mass killings.

That may not be a popular idea, and so I suppose I should have strong evidence to back it up. I don’t. In the absence of clear evidence, it is merely an opinion – just as the belief that an army of clinicians could reduce mass killing is an opinion.

I’m not alone in holding this idea, and others have doubtless thought it through better than I have. But here’s my reasoning, such as it is:

With better funding would come better screening of the population. Cadres of new clinicians would have to go looking for clients, and we would institute mass screening of students, disaffected employees, and other citizens. This seems both unlikely and undesirable. I strongly doubt that improved mental health funding would result in more community screening, and if it did there would be an outcry.

Individuals at risk of perpetrating events such as these would be identifie. The common refrain after events like these is “he was such a nice, quiet boy; I would never have imagined him doing something like this.” This from friends, family, and neighbours. Later it often emerges that there were signs from facebook postings or other online activity. Mental health workers have no magical ability to divine dangerousness, and have access to considerably less information about the people they see than the person’s own family. We might be able to identify people at somewhat higher risk of perpetrating mass murder by looking at specific variables – like the fact that someone happens to be male – but the resulting number of false positives would make this pointless.

Treatment would ensue. Mental health treatment is almost always voluntary. Most perpetrators do not seem to have seen themselves as mentally ill and so would probably not seek out or cooperate with treatment. The very hostility of their acts suggests a belief that the problem lies outside themselves and that they are justified in their rage. As well, the perpetrators usually seem to be middle-class individuals who would already have access to the mental health system if they chose to seek it out (there may be data on this point, and perhaps data that contradict this observation, but mass shooting does not usually seem to be a crime of the impoverished).

Tragic outcomes would be averted. If treatment was provided, the risk of offending would be eliminated, or at least much lowered. This might be true, though there is scant evidence in support. One argument against is the number of instances in which perpetrators (such as the accused in the Aurora theater shooting) were already in some form of treatment. There is a problem with this, obviously: deeply troubled young men are more likely to be in treatment anyway, and perhaps treatment reduces their likelihood of offending without, unfortunately, eliminating it. But we would still need evidence to claim decisively that mental health services reduce risk at all.

So if we can’t troll through the population, if we can’t really identify risk very well, and we can’t control risk should it be found, it’s hard to see how increased mental health funding will eliminate school shootings.

A colleague of mine once observed that mental health clinicians are the ones who chase after the horse after the barn door has been left open. By this reasoning, we would be no more likely to reduce the incidence of shootings than by increasing the number of emergency trauma surgeons.

Why bother making this point? In times of tragedy, it’s always tempting to go for the easy answers. Let’s just increase mental health funding. And mental health clinicians, all too aware of the gaps in service, are reluctant to contradict anything that might result in a more comprehensive and well-funded system.

But this particular problem may not be caused by the lack of mental health care – not much, at any rate. The real culprits almost certainly lie elsewhere: the availability of guns, the aggrandizement of violence in media and its actual practice in the artificial world of video games, a cultural sense of entitlement and rage. And an obsession with celebrity causing some to seek it in the only way a young, talentless male can manage: by destroying the lives of others. A method that is based not on distortion but on an accurate perception of the consequences of amassing a high body count.
/.../

http://www.psychologysalon.com/2012/12/tragedy-and-mental-health.html

(emphases mine)

 

I think you need to read the unbolded portions of your reference for starters. Two, this individual lives in Canada and knows nothing about little if anything about American healthcare. Three, the issue is not about spending money. It is about ensuring people have access to adequate and effective mental healthcare. That access doesn't exist today in the American healthcare system.

An effective solution to the mass murder problem in the US will be multifaceted. We are deluding ourselves if we think there is on magical silver bullet that will cure this ailment. There isn’t. But ensuring access to an effective mental healthcare system is a big part of it. Notice I said effective. Our current mental healthcare system is not very effective. The emphasis in mental health has been in cost containment, not healthcare. We are institutionalizing far fewer people today than in years past in spite of a growing population.

We need to educate more people about mental health - educators, law enforcement and healthcare workers. Those who present a hazard to others need to be recognized and treated effectively. That doesn’t happen today. And contrary to your blog reference, people can be held against their will and treated if they are deemed to be a risk to themselves and others. In California the relevant section of the California Code is 5150. Every state has a similar code.

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?file=5150-5157&group=05001-06000&section=wic

 

There's no such thing as an assault rifle. People get hung up on that term. Militaries use all sorts of weapons; so do mass murderers.

 

The NRA has just stated it is willing to support “meaningful reforms” in order to prevent another Newtown incident. I guess we need to understand what they mean by “meaningful reforms”. If the NRA is serious about reforms, this is a sea change event.


http://www.breakingnews.com/item/ah...pared-to-offer-meaningful-contributions-to-he

http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/17/politics/gun-control-lawmakers/?hpt=hp_t2