Gunmen in the News- Theories

[Skarekrow]

Where do I say we shouldn't here?

Being an advocate for freedom and the right of a person to own firearms here in the US. I see why the NRA fights against all forums of gun control. If you allow an inch, they take a mile. Also what level of mental health justifies not allowing someone the ability to own a weapon? Since patients records are confidential, would it help anyway?

I see both sides of this. In the end though I think it simply comes down to society and the fact that in a world full of this many people, some go bad and theres little we can actually do about it.

Not to disagree, but... well, actually... yes... to disagree. Guns make it too easy to kill people. It's like seeing two identical cars parked on a city street - one with doors locked and keys on the owner, and the other unlocked with keys in the ignition. Which do you think will be stolen first? Unstable, sociopathic, psychotic people will find the easiest means at their disposal to act on their desires. Why on Earth would you want to make it easy on them to play their delusions out with a gun?!

I have to second Lerxst…I am not for NO gun rights whatsoever…but we make it easier to get a gun than we do a drivers license…they are both potentially fatal to another human and/or yourself. Some basic checks should be in place. Yes, it could be a slippery slope, but the status quo of doing nothing is not working too well.

 

[sassafras]

Whenever I see a news story repeated and sensationalized over and over again like this, with the same pattern, (here's the problem, here's the only solution, next month, solution not adopted, here's the problem ten times worse, here's that only solution I told you about again) I stop and think about the media layer over our society and how it makes us forget how life is really not all that pre-packaged and 'neat' and remember that there's no such things as coincidences. (except, when you point that out, or anything that sounds like a 'conspiracy theory' the immediate assumption is that you're throwing in your lot with the people who believe in shape changing lizard people and ancient aliens... But I digress)

i've been watching this gun control as a safeguard against mass shooting situation from afar for quite some time, and while I would normally agree with stricter controls, background checks and other reasonable sanctions offered by the law to run a neat and organized society, there is something about the way this is all being pushed on our society that is not sitting well with me. This, combined with looser privacy laws and increased surveillance in recent years (read the fine print on your phone and cable contracts, and compare them to the print outs you had even just 5 years ago) and all the 'reasonable' reasons for these things, really gets my hackles up. For me, I have always followed the age old adage that you always have to ask yourself 'who benefits?' from every manufactured mass push toward an action. Experience has taught me it's never the common man or the masses... Never as a first order of business. You need to only look around at that for proof.

Something smells really fucking rotten about this all.

 

[just me]

I like to spend my money on explosives, gasoline, fuses, and the likes. Their cheap. The Joker

Maybe those that aren't familiarized with guns should leave us in the south alone.

 

[Kanamori]

Whenever I see a news story repeated and sensationalized over and over again like this, with the same pattern, (here's the problem, here's the only solution, next month, solution not adopted, here's the problem ten times worse, here's that only solution I told you about again) I stop and think about the media layer over our society and how it makes us forget how life is really not all that pre-packaged and 'neat' and remember that there's no such things as coincidences. (except, when you point that out, or anything that sounds like a 'conspiracy theory' the immediate assumption is that you're throwing in your lot with the people who believe in shape changing lizard people and ancient aliens... But I digress)

i've been watching this gun control as a safeguard against mass shooting situation from afar for quite some time, and while I would normally agree with stricter controls, background checks and other reasonable sanctions offered by the law to run a neat and organized society, there is something about the way this is all being pushed on our society that is not sitting well with me. This, combined with looser privacy laws and increased surveillance in recent years (read the fine print on your phone and cable contracts, and compare them to the print outs you had even just 5 years ago) and all the 'reasonable' reasons for these things, really gets my hackles up. For me, I have always followed the age old adage that you always have to ask yourself 'who benefits?' from every manufactured mass push toward an action. Experience has taught me it's never the common man or the masses... Never as a first order of business. You need to only look around at that for proof.

Something smells really fucking rotten about this all.

You're being silly if you think ancient aliens aren't fer reel. And they're shape changing because they can change memories and alter perception... kinda like hypnotism, or making a robotic leg move... unless our eyes aren't actually hooked up to our brains... now that's left field.

 

[casie]

here in Australia, we make it extremely difficult to own a gun and impossible to legally own the most dangerous kinds of firearms if you're just a regular civilian. We have not had a single gun massacre since 1996. Pretty happy with the ban and would happily campaign for the ban to continue.

 

[sassafras]

You're being silly if you think ancient aliens aren't fer reel. And they're shape changing because they can change memories and alter perception... kinda like hypnotism, or making a robotic leg move... unless our eyes aren't actually hooked up to our brains... now that's left field.

Interestingly enough, you're the third person that made that exact same joke (or reasonable facsimile) albeit not in a rep comment.

Clearly, aliens.

But seriously, all dismissive jokes aside, this whole mass killing, gun wielding maniac trend as of late is fucking weird. It may not be the fluoride in our tap water, but something keeps triggering these asshats...or there's a reason the media is sensationalizing these incidents and breeding copy cats. Something is terribly wrong. This is what we need to talk about. It's not the guns. What's creating the mad men that use them this way?

 

[Kanamori]

Interestingly enough, you're the third person that made that exact same joke (or reasonable facsimile) albeit not in a rep comment.

Clearly, aliens.

But seriously, all dismissive jokes aside, this whole mass killing, gun wielding maniac trend as of late is fucking weird. It may not be the fluoride in our tap water, but something keeps triggering these asshats...

To what end would they be causing mass shootings? If they wanted us dead, we would be, and I doubt that they feel terribly threatened by gunpowder weapons (i.e. the shah era Iranian and Columbian incidents, as well as Malmstrom). The fluoride has been there longer than mass shootings, as have all of the same guns. It would be interesting to see a graph of prescription rates for things like SSRIs and Adderall/ampehtamines/uppers though. Obviously, society probably has something to do with it, and perhaps the rise of treating people as less than human, besides the ease of getting guns, which is one way of allowing for the violence, but guns are not these people's impetus. If anything really sinister is going on, it's people with alien tech, or inspired by it anyway. But hey, if you go for the lowest hanging fruit, everything will definitely get fixed.

I'm too sheltered to follow internet memes, and I never knew there was a show about ancient aliens until a couple of weeks ago. My following of aliens and cold fusion is one of those happy -- but, not so coincidental -- coincidences.

 

[Lerxst]

I like to spend my money on explosives, gasoline, fuses, and the likes. Their cheap. The Joker

Maybe those that aren't familiarized with guns should leave us in the south alone.

South?

 

[sassafras]

To what end would they be causing mass shootings? If they wanted us dead, we would be, and I doubt that they feel terribly threatened by gunpowder weapons (i.e. the shah era Iranian and Columbian incidents, as well as Malmstrom). The fluoride has been there longer than mass shootings, as have all of the same guns. It would be interesting to see a graph of prescription rates for things like SSRIs and Adderall/ampehtamines/uppers though. Obviously, society probably has something to do with it, and perhaps the rise of treating people as less than human, besides the ease of getting guns, which is one way of allowing for the violence, but guns are not these people's impetus. If anything really sinister is going on, it's people with alien tech, or inspired by it anyway. But hey, if you go for the lowest hanging fruit, everything will definitely get fixed.
.

I dunno about alien tech, or how they could directly or indirectly cause mass shootings nor am I prepared to explore the extent of my adherence to theyisms concerning government conspiracies. However, I am by nature extremely wary of the media and politics and the billions of dollars being dumped into what it takes to alter public perception. And in turn, the billions of dollars pumped into the pharmaceutical industries. And the education system, that has been steadily worsening over the years while the methods of target advertising have been getting increasingly more and more sophisticated. As has surveillance. The limitation of personal privacy. I don't have a neat little theory to tie it all up and explain it to the layman without being tempted into tipping into Saturday morning cartoon villain logic.. And really, I don't even have an answer for myself...

But there's definitely a sense of being 'trained' to think and behave in certain ways. It could very well be just a side-effect of the society we live in (too much prescription drugs, too much tv, as you suggested) but there's no denying that the way the system is set up, it's also pretty tempting for the people in positions of power not try their hand at yanking the puppet strings... Even if it's just today's run-of-the-mill greedy power brokers taking advantage of the way the ball is rolling to help things along for their own ends for a giant clusterfuck of agendas. I mean, why the fuck wouldn't they take advantage? They won't hesitate to roll over starving children in third world countries, but they'd draw the line at manipulating the masses on their home turf?

however way you paint it, my point echoes the one you made above (bolder for emphasis) it's not the guns getting people crazy. There's a common thread here, somewhere, and we're not talking about it. The gun control thing is a bandaid, even if it is not a goal in of itself.

 

[Kanamori]

I dunno about alien tech, or how they could directly or indirectly cause mass shootings nor am I prepared to explore the extent of my adherence to theyisms concerning government conspiracies. However, I am by nature extremely wary of the media and politics and the billions of dollars being dumped into what it takes to alter public perception. And in turn, the billions of dollars pumped into the pharmaceutical industries. And the education system, that has been steadily worsening over the years while the methods of target advertising have been getting increasingly more and more sophisticated. As has surveillance. The limitation of personal privacy. I don't have a neat little theory to tie it all up and explain it to the layman without being tempted into tipping into Saturday morning cartoon villain logic.. And really, I don't even have an answer for myself...

But there's definitely a sense of being 'trained' to think and behave in certain ways. It could very well be just a side-effect of the society we live in (too much prescription drugs, too much tv, as you suggested) but there's no denying that the way the system is set up, it's also pretty tempting for the people in positions of power not try their hand at yanking the puppet strings... Even if it's just today's run-of-the-mill greedy power brokers taking advantage of the way the ball is rolling to help things along for their own ends for a giant clusterfuck of agendas. I mean, why the fuck wouldn't they take advantage? They won't hesitate to roll over starving children in third world countries, but they'd draw the line at manipulating the masses on their home turf?

however way you paint it, my point echoes the one you made above (bolder for emphasis) it's not the guns getting people crazy. There's a common thread here, somewhere, and we're not talking about it. The gun control thing is a bandaid, even if it is not a goal in of itself.

Alien tech, because to change one's perception is mind-control-lite... moving robotic limbs, the full blown thing... they, and I'm referring to aliens, have rules against the whole 9 yards on beings other than themselves. I'm referring to aliens, because, no matter how you cut it, beings not from here, are here and they didn't get here with petrol or chemical rockets. The major governments of the world are not ignorant of this fact, but it's hidden for the masses, even the majority within the governments, or at least the knowledge is given away sparingly. I'm not advancing any particular "conspiracy theory" but I will say that Gould's Gold, the Ides of March, and the Gulf of Tonkin were definitely conspiracies, and you'd be silly to think they've ended or won't happen again. History is rife with, and made of, conspiracies. Again, that isn't to say that anything in particular is an example, but that to rule it out would be premature. The sudden obsession with shooting sprees, either reporting or committing, is something. I can't rule out higher rates of prescription drugs which aren't so benign as they originally appeared, but all of the other factors besides from mind control from someone, almost certainly human, have been here before and haven't resulted in mass shootings. Has the media or society in general really changed enough to account for the mass shootings in the last decade? To me, it seems that all of the same things have been here for that long which leads to something unseen being the cause.

 

[say what]

Interestingly enough, you're the third person that made that exact same joke (or reasonable facsimile) albeit not in a rep comment.

Clearly, aliens.

But seriously, all dismissive jokes aside, this whole mass killing, gun wielding maniac trend as of late is fucking weird. It may not be the fluoride in our tap water, but something keeps triggering these asshats...or there's a reason the media is sensationalizing these incidents and breeding copy cats. Something is terribly wrong. This is what we need to talk about. It's not the guns. What's creating the mad men that use them this way?

I agree with this 100%! Why are these people choosing to do this?

Canada has pretty strict gun regulations- it's not like you can just get a gun here. Sure, you can own them, but it's quite the process. I almost feel like the emergence of such an incident in Canada suggests that it's not just gun control behind it. Moreover, I hate to sound rude, but Canadian media is much different than American media. While there was a lot of coverage, it was about what was happening, and less about sensationalizing it. Or so I felt. The coverage of it, to me, was much different than the coverage I see of these things happening in the States.

I don't know...it seems to me that we need to be asking more questions.

It was interesting, the eye witnesses in Moncton said that saw the shooter before it all happened, all said that looked like he was gone, just some where else. That just made my skin crawl. It's like he just blanked out.

I'm all for 'the simple answer is likely the correct answer' ...but I don't know...I'm not satisfied with the simple answer - he was just mentally ill.

 

[casie]

I think that it is disturbing that some people believe that a conspiracy is a more likely cause of mass murders than cultures of violence, patriarchy, racism, class warfare, and mass disregard for mental health.

 

[Skarekrow]

I think that it is disturbing that some people believe that a conspiracy is a more likely cause of mass murders than cultures of violence, patriarchy, racism, class warfare, and mass disregard for mental health.

I find it very disturbing that we still have those who feel that we don’t need any sort of background checks into who is buying these guns…they could be anyone…good bad or otherwise…and yet we have this whole swath of America that fights against it tooth and nail. It’s like that comic I posted…kind of like fighting having airbags and seat belts in your car - stupid.

 

[sassafras]

I think that it is disturbing that some people believe that a conspiracy is a more likely cause of mass murders than cultures of violence, patriarchy, racism, class warfare, and mass disregard for mental health.

Who says it isn't the cause?

 

[say what]

I don't think it's conspiracy, but rather asking what can we do to prevent this. We focus largely on gun control, but I don't think it's as simple as having access to a gun or not...what makes someone want to use it?

There's clearly external stressors impacting these individuals- what are they? And why aren't we spending more time trying to figure this out. If asking these questions and wanting to know why people are driven to the point where they seek violence on innocent individuals is 'crazy conspiracy' than so be it. I'd rather ask the questions than just drone on without thinking about it.

I read an article about the 'warning' signs for the Moncton shooter, and one of the signs they suggested was 'pro-gun' and 'anti-establishment' promotion. I gotta say that this bothers me, that's pegging a lot of people as having 'warning signs' for mental health issues.

 

[casie]

Oh, I'm sorry if I accidentally left the impression that my post was directed towards anybody here. I am also worried about opinions like that, [MENTION=10252]say what[/MENTION], because they pass the buck on an issue which definitely needs our attention.

 

[say what]

Side note: I don't feel bad for wanting to know 'why' this happened, 'why' did he want to do it. I think it's a natural response to a horrific and frightening event. I think that I would be able to digest the 'he was just mentally ill' if there weren't 3 more incidents within 5 days that were the same. Saying they're all 'mentally ill' and having that be the end of it, just doesn't sit well.

How could we have helped them? How can we still help them? What lead them to this point? Grouping them into a category of mentally ill only exacerbates the problem and the fight to destigmatize mental health.

 

[sassafras]

Given today's media, culture comes manufactured and comes pre-packaged. With one hand, it tells us ostensibly that violence is wrong, racism is wrong, sexism is wrong, we shouldn't rape, kill, harm, hate people. Yet, with the other, it bombards us with imagery that glamorizes all of the above.

Rather than look at the cause of the rise in mental health problems,we're encouraged to take pharmaceuticals to heal psychological hurts like they're physical ailments. That's a bandaid.

Rather than address the rise of violence against women and cultivate a culture that teaches men not to rape, we teach our girls to avoid being raped. That's another band aid.

Rather than address the cause of racism and sexism that is deeply imbedded in our culture, we promote affirmative action programs that only aggravate the problem by polarizing and creating a new 'other' culture. Again, bandaid.

Rather than address the needs of children struggling with school and strengthening the education system, we cater to the lowest denominator and lower standards for all. Once again, another band aid. Instead of pouring money into learning how we learn, we pour money into how to better advertise to our children and hold their attention in trivial pursuits.

I could really go on...

I say go for the gun control. Make it stricter. But don't let it put you to sleep that we've somehow solved the problem.

 

[Eventhorizon]

I think we all agree things like these shouldnt happen however we disagree with how to stop it. Conversations that have taken place before and never solved. I do believe though that if you think about it logically removing emotion from the thought process, the answer becomes a clear one though perhaps not pretty.

 

[say what]

mass agoraphobia...that's my solution.