What will we conclude from the CT school chootings?

[Little-Acorn]

Whenever something like this happens, we always go through the usual "Oh my, why did he do it, what caused him to do it, what could we have done to prevent this" litany. Every time. I suppose it's only natural to think those things after some horrible tragedy like this.

But wondering what we could have done to prevent it, doesn't mean there WAS anything we could have done.

Seeing this thread just now, was the first I've heard of this event, and I know nothing about it except what's in the posts preceding this one.

But I can probably predict how things will go - since they have gone this way for every other mass murder like this.

The shooter's motives will be analyzed... and it will be found that he didn't really have any "normal" motives. He didn't hate the thirty or forty people he shot. He didn't even know most of them, perhaps didn't know any of them at all.

It will be found that he was a loner who was unhappy and a little weird, but not obviously homicidal. And/or his girlfriend jilted him last week. Or that he got a reprimand on his job. Or got a speeding ticket in his car. Or that he just got back from Iraq where he was greatly stressed. Or that his parents he was living with (if he was) suggested that he get off his duff and get a job. Or he got up two mornings ago, saw a green tree with a red bird in it, and decided from that to go and kill a bunch of people. Or some other thing happened that people can point to as the "trigger" that set him off.

And nobody, but nobody, will point out the fact that the thing that "set him off", is something that happens to various people every day, by the thousands or millions across this country... and none of THEM got a gun and started blasting away at everyone in sight. Not even the loners who were unhappy and a little weird... of which there are lots, in this country of 300 million people.

Why did he do it? Because there was something broken inside his head.

Not something that caused him to lurch around, drooling and babbling and slapping himself. But something that remained pretty much hidden, until a "stimulus" that hundreds of thousands of people get every day, happened to him this time. And the broken thing inside his head caused him to react very differently from the way everyone else has reacted over the eons.

What could have we done to prevent it? Not a damned thing. Because we don't have a "broken thing detector". Nothing else could have foretold that he would do this.

Even if we did have a "broken thing detector", it would probably register on 10% of the population, or more... the vast majority of whom will still never shoot anybody. What we don't know about the inner workings of the brain, would fill books, volumes, encyclopedia sets... if we knew enough about it to write them, which we don't. The "psychologists" we will see on TV for the next several weeks, are completely ignorant of what was wrong with this guy... and the honest ones will tell you that straight out. But those aren't the ones who will be on TV.

Well, that's what will happen over the next weeks. And a few people will say that if we make some laws about certain things, we will have "done something about it"... with no particular reason to think they will have any actual effect on the next guy with a broken thing inside his head.

Here we go again. As we did last time, and the time before that, and the time before that.

Useful result: ZERO. Just like last time, etc.

[aboutime]

Agreed, Little-Acorn. Every time something like this happens in a nation where more than 350,000,000 Million people live. The standard seems to turn out...just as you have said above.

It will be the news for weeks. The same people will appear, and be heard. All of which will, predictably...blame the ease that guns are made available. But NEVER will we hear, or put down the increased use of DRUGS...of all kinds. Prescription...and Illegal that have been distributed across this nation. And, let's not forget. Two U.S. States have recently opened the door AGAINST the so-called War on Drugs by making Marijuana legal.
Combine that freedom to experiment with drugs legally, with the endless Physician, prescribed Mental health drugs from Psychiatrists and WE WONDER WHY SOMEONE WOULD TAKE A GUN TO INTENTIONALLY KILL 5 YEAR OLD CHILDREN?????

The problem IS NOT the guns. The Problem is the PERPETUATION of IGNORANCE, STUPIDITY, AND THE RELIANCE ON BLAMING OTHERS for Americans who choose to be STUPID. Then we wonder WHY?

[jafar00]

The problem IS NOT the guns. The Problem is the PERPETUATION of IGNORANCE, STUPIDITY, AND THE RELIANCE ON BLAMING OTHERS for Americans who choose to be STUPID. Then we wonder WHY?

So, take the innocent guns away from all the people and you minimise the risk that a crazy person gets one and walks into another school.

[DragonStryk72]

So, take the innocent guns away from all the people and you minimise the risk that a crazy person gets one and walks into another school.

uh, no we don't. What that does is strip the victims of said psychopath of the means to defend themselves.

He could have just as easily used his handguns that he had on him, or used explosives or arson. What, are we gonna outlaw matches now? I mean, a random nutball could get a hold a bic, and kill everyone single person in the school.

[Thunderknuckles]

Why did he do it? Because there was something broken inside his head.

Here's another question. Why are these "broken heads" predominantly young, white males?

[Little-Acorn]

So, take the innocent guns away from all the people

How?

[aboutime]

How?


Little-Acorn. Notice how jafar so easily tells us to take away guns, but fails intentionally to NOT MENTION sharp items that can be used for BEHEADINGS?

Whenever I hear this kind of twisted logic. I am reminded of that famous scene from "INDIANA JONES and the TEMPLE OF DOOM". Where Indy is standing in the street, looking at a Huge Arab looking man with a HUGE Machete and walking towards Indy.

Indy looks at him...stares at the man, and appears really scared for his life until....He reaches into his Holster, pulls out his gun an SHOOTS the huge man Dead.

Moral. Never go to a gunfight with a Knife.

So now. Maybe jafar can tell us what difference it makes to the VICTIMS of guns, or machete's if they are ALL DEAD?

[Abbey Marie]

So, take the innocent guns away from all the people and you minimise the risk that a crazy person gets one and walks into another school.

I'm so glad there are no illegal drugs on the streets. :rolleyes:

[Abbey Marie]

Here's another question. Why are these "broken heads" predominantly young, white males?

Interesting question. Two days ago, a couple of young black males in Philly shot and killed another black male because he was a Chicago Bulls fan. Were their heads "broken", or not?

[Voted4Reagan]

So, take the innocent guns away from all the people and you minimise the risk that a crazy person gets one and walks into another school.

Take away all the innocent guns and explosives away from the Palestinians and you wont risk them going into Israel and blowing up Schools and Pizzerias.

you going to call for that??

I doubt it

[Kathianne]

Interesting question. Two days ago, a couple of young black males in Philly shot and killed another black male because he was a Chicago Bulls fan. Were their heads "broken", or not?

Seems though that these mass shootings, whether schools, theaters, or malls have been committed by young, white, affluent men; with the exception of Laurie Dann who was all those things, other than female.

Angry poor males seem to go after individuals, with innocents too often taken by poor marksmanship, being in the 'wrong place, at the wrong time,' often their own bedrooms or living rooms.

Why the differences?

[mundame]

Here's another question. Why are these "broken heads" predominantly young, white males?


Whoa, good question.

If blacks are doing large mass murder in their ghettos, it isn't getting much publicity here in America. There is some serial killings with big numbers, but not this sort of mass murdering. Of course it happens constantly in Africa, as we read from time to time, mostly Muslim/other religious murders.

The Orientals are doing a lot of mass murder, of course. Here (Cho, Virginia Tech, and a number of others, have done exactly this type of school shooting here in the USA) and in China right now they are having a run on what they call "rampage killings" including 22 school children killed the same day as the Connecticut killings by a man with a knife. The crazed killers usually use knives there and in Japan.

It may be that whites and Orientals are simply more violent genetically. I have heard this opined --- memorably by a Swede who was clearly by his large build heir to the Viking violence. Blacks didn't fight back effectively, ever (except Haiti in 1792) and so they made good slaves. There is a violence difference in racial populations, I think; American Indians were incredibly violent and that is why their names are still used as sports mascots; no one ever used black names for sports teams. They were overwhelmed by a larger and also-violent immigrant population, us, but they did fight, and they do have mass killings still on the reservations that are very like what we saw yesterday.

[mundame]

I think we are going the wrong way to think about this issue when we say it's incomprehensible, evil, impossible to understand, extreme madness, etc.

The first rule for improv is always say yes. Don't resist the line you are given: always agree to it and develop it.

So how about if we say this is normal?

There certainly are a great many such mass murders, especially of easy prey like small children and women around the world, and there will be more before Christmas, I bet. If there are so many, why do we say it's not normal?

Okay, school shooting and mall or restaurant shootings are normal. How? Well, it's common throughout history for soldiers/warriors to kill out ALL the population of the area they are attacking. The Mongol Horde gave cities a choice: give in totally to the Mongols, or be killed 100% including all animals. And they meant it, too, as is famous in history, such as the pyramid of 12,000 skulls built outside Baghdad; Iraq never recovered after 1250 AD. When the Roman legions got resistance in Gaul, they killed EVERYone, entire villages and farms, babies, girls, everything alive. Tacitus, no fan of this practice, said "They create a wilderness and call it peace." In the Rape of Nanking, the idea was for Japanese soldiers to rape and kill as many as they possibly physically could given the time constraints. We know Hitler's soldiers lined up hundreds and thousands in front of large graves and machine gunned them in: we have the photos. Now we use drones and missiles and that's easier, but it still kills indiscriminately, and I don't think anyone cares, because killing out a population is pretty much what war is about, or used to be. Some American soldiers still do it the hard way: the sargeant on trial now for running into a village in Afghanistan and killing all the women and children present. The American Marines in Iraq who did the same thing, just went through the houses machine-gunning all the toddlers and their mothers because there had been an IED in the road.

Why do we say this is an aberration when it's so common in history, and now?

"Man is man's wolf" says a Latin proverb, and I think it's evolutionary: we are evolved to take over the resources of other groups if we possibly can, and the way soldiers are gotten into the mood is to rev up the rage, and then they'll "Kill them all, let God sort them out," as Simon de Montfort said in the 13th century before his men killed thousands of Cathars, including the children, in southern France.

Some young males who are crazy get into this rage state without a war on and exercise their rage in the usual way, killing out as many humans as possible, and as it's easier to kill small children and women, they usually go for schools and malls to get a bigger kill count.

So this is normal, and it's not about guns, they do it with knives in China, machetes in Africa, the Vikings used battleaxes and the Romans used short swords. It's about the killing rage that has evolved in us and that some young men let loose on their own communities and their own relatives.

There is nothing at all we can do about this.