Another school shooting

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chic

chic

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In Parkland, FL. 14 victims. Suspect apprehended. What a tragedy.
 

I`m sitting here watching and just crying. Those poor kids. Cell phone video of the shooting in a classroom through a locked door,kids screaming and getting down. Simply horrifying.
 

Kids can't even enjoy Valentines Day anymore without facing a life and death situation. It just makes you sick.
 
Yes, sigh :(, about 4 hours from where I live...............I feel so bad for those students and what they have to go through. This is just infuriating and senseless. Ugh!
 
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Again, another mentally ill, young, white male, 19. Said to be "troubled" and was asked to leave school at one point.
So proud of his weapons. I also heard he's been showing off pictures of his guns to some people.

On St. Valentines's day and Ash Wednesday, too.

Before the gun battle starts, please let me say I believe there is a HUGE mental illness problem with young males and older too, in this country.

17 confirmed dead, some died at the hospital.
 
So sad, our world is a mess. Is there anything we can do now? Somedays, I just want to go..........................
:sorrow:​
 
My prayers and condolences to the victims and their families, and for the family of the shooter.

I've never owned a gun, but when I was in high school, in the early 60s, in rural Ohio, a lot of kids and some faculty brought rifles and shotguns to school, and left them in their car or truck. My older brother would go hunting (rabbit, squirrel, etc) before school. I never heard of any type of issues with the guns at schools back then.

My point? It isn't that guns, per se, are a problem. But I'm not sure what is. I dunno.
 
Mental / Emotional illness which no one is prepared to deal with or even try to understand what is going on with these young men.

Citizens of Switzerland have more weapons than we do, relatively speaking.

Should the Swiss ban weapons?
 
That really is the question RadishRose.

This article in the Financial Times attempts to address it. The data is 5 years old.

https://www.ft.com/content/200a8746-a7db-11e7-ab55-27219df83c97

I cannot cut and paste so it will be necessary to go to the website but the following points are made:

  • The US has had 90 public rampage shooters who killed 4 or more people between 1966 and 2012. In comparison, the second highest tally was The Philippines with less that 1/5 as many. US is less than 5% of world's population but had 1/3 of mass shootings over this period.


  • Rates of per capita ownership of guns are a significant predictor of mass shootings between countries. The US has more guns per capita than any other country (including Switzerland) and also the highest rate of mass shootings. This points to the answer to your question which is too many guns readily available. The recent Florida school shooting was again an AR - 15, the gun of choice for mass murderers. Perhaps merely banning and confiscating these and similar weapons would have the greatest effect on the mass murder rate.


  • Most Americans do not own a gun. Gun ownership is concentrated. Most gun owners have several guns. The population is fairly evenly divided on the subject of gun control. Support for/against tends to divide along party lines.


  • Mass shootings are contagious. One rampage shooting increases the likelihood of another attack in the next few days.
 
RadishRose said:
.....Citizens of Switzerland have more weapons than we do, relatively speaking. Should the Swiss ban weapons?
Click to expand...

Yes. They have a high rate. The BIG 'however', is that military weapons can be purchased from the government and they are converted to a non-assault weapon. The Florida shooter had an AR-15 with a mess of magazines. Other shooters had variations of the AR-15. They don't have easy-to-obtain assault rifles in other countries. Nowhere in the world are there constant, mass shootings.
 
Thanks for the info, Warrigal.. I personally feel, without any references I admit, that
"Perhaps merely banning and confiscating these and similar weapons would have the greatest effect on the mass murder rate."

"Perhaps" is a big word here. "merely banning"? Having the greatest effect on the mass murder rate? I somewhat disagree with "greatest".

I see two factors that are most important:

1.Cause
2.Means

The Means are the weapons, so if we get rid of them, what about the Cause? It's the cause I believe is some kind of mental illness, some kind of rage, something in the water-whatever- that fills our young men's minds with the passion to kill.

We need to address the Cause just as crucially or even more so, than the means.

Because they will still kill. Maybe just one or 2 at a time instead of 7 or 17, but the cause still has to be addressed.

There are often signs that go ignored. In this case today, the principal banned the suspect from the school grounds, but the Superintendent of Schools claims he never heard of that! Lack of communication.

I've read other kids stating they used to say about the suspect; "If anyone would shoot up the school it would be him". He was a known troubled and violent young man. Everyone ignored him.

I don't know what to do. I'm just a grandmother with no degree in anything. But these guys are sick and something needs to be done to cure them or prevent this madness.
 
retiredtraveler said:
Yes. They have a high rate. The BIG 'however', is that military weapons can be purchased from the government and they are converted to a non-assault weapon. The Florida shooter had an AR-15 with a mess of magazines. Other shooters had variations of the AR-15. They don't have easy-to-obtain assault rifles in other countries. Nowhere in the world are there constant, mass shootings.
Click to expand...

True. But it's not just the weapon, it's a madness or a societal problem. Everybody wants to harp on the weapon without addressing the cause.

That's all the input I have.
 
Another St. Valentine's Day massacre...awful. Shocking but not surprising anymore.
 

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