How to prevent killing sprees

[Ed Ames]

1) Those are not the two factors in killing sprees. You've made the mistake of accepting an anti argument as a premise of yours. Killing sprees have occurred without ANY guns at all. Swords, knives, rope, bare hands... all have been used.

I won't address "crazy" except to say that everyone is crazy to someone these days. Saying someone is crazy is a sign of social disrespect, mistrust, and lack of common ground more than a diagnosis of actual mental illness. You, as someone who wishes to own guns, are de facto crazy to people who disrespect, mistrust, and can't see the point of view of people who own guns.

The real factors in killing sprees are 1) perceived social injustice -- this can be a result of mental illness (paranoia) or of conditions that an unbiased observer would agree was unjust; 2) lack of alternative means of redressing the injustice -- this is typically due to a perceived lack of political or social standing which can be real (see Ireland, Iraq, America, et cetera) or imagined (Cho); and 3) A perception that the consequences are acceptable to attain the results -- again, this can include carefully reasoned cost benefit calculations or psychopathic disregard for life.

The problem is that the ability to make those decisions and do those things is not only part of human nature, it is good... it is survival positive. US citizens are better off because a bunch of people centuries ago said "screw it, I can't get justice without violence so I'm going to start killing until I have justice, period."

The problem today, in my not at all humble opinion, is that people in the 1st world have all been raised in a very just and very fair society but our biology has us set to respond to injustices... so in the backs of our brains something is looking for injustices and when it can't find anything big it latches onto the little things everyone else considers trivial. So people get angry about people who use cellphones in public, or people who drive SUVs, or people who.... do anything at all... and without any safe release some of those people will blow up and start shooting. Politics pushes that, always looking for injustices and teaching people to notice where they have been wronged, without actually providing much relief.

Good luck solving that.

 

[ilbob]

shoot back.

 

[Slamfire]

Rampage killings have been around for a very long time. An interesting read is the New York Times series on it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/10/us/the-well-marked-roads-to-homicidal-rage.html?pagewanted=1

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/11/u...ation's rampage killers over 50 years.&st=cse

The frequency of rampage killings increase as the media publicity increases. But rampage killings never go away.

 

[ilbob]

Nope, not possible as long as evil is present.

Bingo.

One of our problems is as a society we have started to pretend there is no such thing as evil. I suspect that is because liberals often associate the concepts of good and evil with religion, and they fear and hate religion, probably because deep down in their hearts they know there is something to it, even though they openly deny it.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Would arming everyone be any better? Probably not. Criminals still commit crimes. They have for thousands of years regardless of laws.

Actually, allowing those good citizens who want to be armed to carry weapons has reduced violent crime.

Can you eliminate violent crime completely? No -- but you can give the victims a fighting chance, and the odds are some of the criminals will be either deterred or have their murderous carreers truncated.

 

[kludge]

There is one factors in killing sprees -- A) People.

FIXED.

Ban people. Problem Solved.

9-11 was a killing spree; not one gun involved.

Vigilant people, aware of their surroundings, having the mental preparedness and willingness to act, in the right place at the right time can prevent prevent almost any "killing spree."

What we need is more people like that so the we can cover more places and more times.

 

[TexasRifleman]

Actually, allowing those good citizens who want to be armed to carry weapons has reduced violent crime.

No question. All I was saying that arming EVERYONE wouldn't be any better. The absurdity of the arguments that include "everyone" or "noone" is pretty clear.

Arming law abiding citizens? Absolutely.

If you argue for arming "everyone" you get the "you'd arm felons and 4 year old children" nuttiness.

That's why the anti's always phrase their questions with terms like "any", "all", "none" etc. You can always find an exception. If your respond to their set-up questions they will do the "Aha! You want to sell nukes at Wal Mart" stuff.

 

[Jim K]

One group came up with the answer to the guns aspect.

Their "simple" solution was to search every home in the country and execute every one in a home where a "gun, a bullet, or a gun related object" is found. They descibed this as "a first, sensible step toward real gun control."

Naturally, killing two hundred million American citizens was described as "necessary to save lives."

Are these people even sane or are they so obsessed with the need to have all the power that they have gone completely off the tracks?

Jim

 

[jfh]

addendum for NYTimes articles

SlamFire1's link is to a series of articles the Times did in April 2000. The second article is the one about 'Rampage Killers;' I had to use the Times search function to get to it.

Here is the search link to that second article. (Perhaps another link is available, but I can't find it.)

Jim H.

 

[woodybrighton]

gun control not realistic in the states lots of legit reasons to own guns massive number of weapons out there huge resistance to change. banning semi auto hand guns even if possible still plenty of ability to commit mayhem with a rifle and a tall building

mental health profile people who go off the deep end and start shooting then try to figure out a way to reach said indivduals before they got postal.

b have lots of armed citizens around could at least keep the carnage down.
gun free zones without armed guards and strong fences really really bad idea

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Here is the key, from the New York Times:

James Davis, whose co-workers had nicknamed him Psycho, warned his colleagues at a tool warehouse in Asheville, N.C., ''If they ever decide to fire me, I'll take two or three of them with me.'' His employers did fire him, and feared he would respond with violence, but despite his threats, they failed to protect his co-workers when Mr. Davis returned to take his revenge.

No one is going to protect you. Protect yourself.

 

[BADUNAME30]

Switzerland solved this issue.EVERY Military aged man is armed.

 

[Ed Ames]

A rather obvious but aparently easily forgotten fact: paranoids are sensitive to being singled out.

If you start profiling and using 3rd party judgments (e.g. a shrink's report) to restrict someone's civil liberties without even due process through the courts you create a situation where a borderline group defined by their heightened sensitivity to being singled out unjustly will, because they are in that group, be singled out and dealt the injustice of reduced civil liberties.

One of the recent shooters (domestic call, killed responding officers) illustrates the results perfectly.

Restricting civil rights is an injustice, and injustice without remedy causes extreme responses including these sprees...sometimes you've got to take a risk to be safe.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Switzerland solved this issue.EVERY Military aged man is armed.

A better example would be Israel. After the school massacre at Ma'alot, they armed the teachers -- and put an end to that nonsense.

 

[Blackbeard]

You start with at least two flawed premises from the get-go.

A. Most importantly, that's it's possible or even DESIRABLE to completely eliminate killing sprees.

I believe I said I don't think it's possible. It is certainly desirable to eliminate killing sprees, unless you happen to think that random people need to be pruned now & then. The question is what would it cost us to eliminate them, and is the cure worse than the disease?

I agree that no proposed solution is better than the problem. Of course it's a hard sell to get people to accept occasional massacres as a cost of freedom.

 

[Blackbeard]

Nope, not possible as long as evil is present. Before cars, people got killed by horses, before guns by knives, before knives by clubs and rocks. More obedience of God's laws and more prayer will help.

Belief in God and Christian morals won't end killing either. Mental illness can make one believe that God is instructing him/her to kill. Remember Andrea Yates, the woman who drowned her kids in the tub because she thought they were posessed by demons?

 

[Blackbeard]

GUN-CONTROL PROPONENT: While we can't realistically hope to end all crime, we can at least reduce the number and degree of casualties by limiting the firepower available to all, and therefore limit what is realistically available to most criminals.

The question was whether it is possible eliminate killing sprees without infringing on anyone's rights. Limiting our selection of weaponry is most certainly an infringement. I'm looking for new ideas, not tired old arguments.

 

[Ed Ames]

[Is it] possible to eliminate these killing sprees without infringing on anyone's rights?

Depends on why they are happening. If you take my behavioral model approach as correct a necessary step to reducing these sprees is to stop infringing on rights. Even a uniformly applied rule is not uniform if only certain groups care... a universal ban on firearms has no impact on some (they didn't own before) and huge impact on others; a universal edict that everyone must eat pork or salute the flag or anything else will likewise single out specific groups even though the wording is general and the rule applies to all.

If we stop forcing our collective will on individuals we will reduce the motivation for many of these attacks... but there is no eliminatinmg them.

 

[Deanimator]

1. Don't REWARD mass murderers. They want to be treated like rock stars, and usually are. STOP DOING IT. Only a retard lives in grizzly country, leaves a trail of pork chops from the woods up to his back door and pretends to be surprised when Gentle Ben shows up for lunch. The media makes sure that malignant narcissists are rewarded with attention for destructive behavior, and at the same time make CERTAIN that other malignant narcissists learn how to earn their "reward". If you want to abridge my 2nd Amendment rights for something in which I played no role, abridge your own 1st Amendment rights FIRST for taking part DIRECTLY in the process of mass murder. Stop acting as PR agents for mass murderers.

2. Don't provide them with large pools of helpless victims. Anybody who's more afraid of being accidentally wounded by somebody stopping a shooting spree than they are of being murdered execution style by a mass murderer is an imbecile. It's been shown that mass murderers intentionally avoid places where they are likely to get into a gunfight. They want to kill, others and finally themselves. They don't want to BE killed by others.

 

[MD_Willington]

Honestly, even if we had no guns at all, nothing, nada zip...

We would still use something else to destroy each other, even if it was the hands we were born with.

 

[Lou McGopher]

Why does God allow school killings. God replies: Don't blame me, I've been kicked out of the schools for years.

Please explain church shootings.

We have at the same time cut our essential services to address mental health and social resources. With the economy getting worse and worse, we also cut these services and wonder why we have a rise in killings.

As a nation, we're spending more on this stuff than at any previous time in our history.

Where were the school shootings before the govt was spending any money on these services at all?

 

[CountGlockula]

Answer: Law abiding citizens open carrying their firearm weapon of choice (AKs, AR15, shotgun, Glocks, etc.) everywhere.

 

[basicblur]

Massad Ayoob's latest e-mail/blog

If you want to read the entire thing, click the link below.
Notice below that researched studies showed 25% of mass murder sprees are ended by private citizens.

http://backwoodshome.com/blogs/MassadAyoob/
One of the topics that inevitably cropped up was response to mass murders in schools and other public places. Among us was Ron Borsch, instructor at the Southeast Area Law Enforcement Academy in Ohio, who has been an advocate of “sole response” entry into such situations by the first responding officer. Though controversial in law enforcement, his theory was validated recently by the courageous 25-year-old cop who entered a mass murder scene only a few weeks ago at an old folks home, and stopped the killing with a single bullet from his Glock .40 service pistol coolly and expertly delivered to the gunman’s chest.

Borsch’s impromptu discussion revealed the fact that some 25% of mass murder shooting sprees he has researched were ended by armed private citizens. This led in turn to a discussion of the Israeli Model, in place since the Maalot massacre of schoolchildren decades ago, in which teachers and other school personnel were trained and discreetly armed with handguns, which has proven famously successful ever since in Israel. Across the ten-member panel AND the dozens of police instructors attending the discussion, not a single voice was raised against that concept, and many spoke enthusiastically in favor of it.

 

[Blackbeard]

We would still use something else to destroy each other, even if it was the hands we were born with.

Granted, but we're really talking about spree killings here -- it's rather hard to strangle 30 people and then yourself. While you're busy strangling the first one the other 29 run away.

 

[Blackbeard]

1. Don't REWARD mass murderers. They want to be treated like rock stars, and usually are. STOP DOING IT. Only a retard lives in grizzly country, leaves a trail of pork chops from the woods up to his back door and pretends to be surprised when Gentle Ben shows up for lunch. The media makes sure that malignant narcissists are rewarded with attention for destructive behavior, and at the same time make CERTAIN that other malignant narcissists learn how to earn their "reward". If you want to abridge my 2nd Amendment rights for something in which I played no role, abridge your own 1st Amendment rights FIRST for taking part DIRECTLY in the process of mass murder. Stop acting as PR agents for mass murderers.

This is perhaps the best point yet. If these crimes didn't receive nationwide attention then it would never occur to mose people to do it. I wish someone in one of these hearings on "gun violence" regarding the threat of mass shooting would bring this up. Put a muzzle on the ABC nightly news and see how they like it! When they object we counter with, "well if it saves one life, it's worth it."