School Shootings

[Cecelia]

Obviously the solution is...

To get rid of Ritalin. Because other countries with Ritalin have similar numbers of school shootings.
To get rid of doors. Because other countries have schools with just one entrance and exit.
To get rid of violent video games. Japan is the biggest gaming country, and clearly has the most school shootings.
To put Jesus back in schools, because when Dylan Roof shot up a school in Charleston, zero people died. And when a guy shot a church in Texas, 0 people died there as well.
To send out thoughts and prayers, because obviously that's been working well
To sell more guns. Because that's the problem. Not enough guns.

[The Grand Nudger]

Sometime last November, after the Texas First Baptist shooting, I posted this:

Let's face it; the way I see it, the Republicans have something of a vested interest in keeping mass shootings going. If we have people killing each other with assault rifles, it's a sign of moral decay within America. And, naturally, since the Republicans are all about crowing about moral decay, they can claim they have the cure: the agenda they've already been pushing. And, of course, since restricting sales on guns would likely have an effect on the number of civilian gun massacres America sees every year, it's in their best interest to keep the train rolling, and if they can keep things going by shifting the conversation elsewhere and blame anyone but themselves, it makes it all the better for them. Or it could just be that several jackasstic lines of thinking within conservative thought (such as it is) are converging to create a situation where they just keep happening, the people in power do to something refuse to do anything, and they can just pat themselves on the back for it.

I don't think they're actively orchestrating (or worse, fabricating, because that current trend in conspiracy theorism is fucking stupid, especially when you consider that it's arisen at a time where it's virtually impossible to fake something on this order without being swiftly exposed) these mass shootings, but, seriously, if the Republican Party really did have a vested interest in exploiting massive tragedies like this, that they use them just so they can further their own agendas and sell that as a way out of this, would they be behaving any differently than they are now?

The sad thing is that, at this point, the biggest problem with this line of reasoning is that the Republicans even have an agenda beyond turning America into a Social Darwinist hellhole. Maybe Pre-Trump, it'd be to create a theocracy that's equal parts Gilead and Galt's Gulch, but at this point, they don't seem to even have an endgame.

 I'd say they have a vested interest in keeping people divided on the issue of guns, not on keeping mass shootings going.  They don;t actually need any real evidence of "moral decay" to crow about moral decay anyway - they never did.  As a point of correction, though, restricting sales did nothing to abate gun crime or school shootings.  We tried that.  I can;t say this enough, we need licensing, targeted buybacks, and actual enforcement of existing gun law...just for starters...and I would personal;ly suggest we effect that in reverse order of my listing.

I think that the GOP is rudderless, personally, that might be part of what allows donors with conflicting interests to tug and pull at the party so quickly and so effectively.  Great at gaming the system...but no coherent set of goals or ideals once they have control.  Juxtapose that against the dems...who are shit at the system, and bad at effecting the goals they do have.  

Basically the perfect storm.

The easy hypothetical is that the dems get control of something and ant to reduce gun crime or school shootings. A wonderful goal - they then go about that ass-backwards in ways demonstrably proven by previous experiments to fail and utterly avoiding those things demonstrably shown to be successful (or worse, so glaringly obvious from the data we have that it;s a wonder we've never tried). Someone comes along and tells the necessary rightward parties to this legislation that if they vote yay they'll get primaried. Voila, tanked and tanked, from both angles.

[johan]

Australia is making it work, perhaps we should ask them how they did it.

Are they?

[Silver]

Aren't they?

[Brian37]

EVERY time there's a new school shooting, and the first one should have been indication for change, there is nothing happening except supporters for guns speaking out of their anuses.

How about enacting real change by deciding that enough is enough?

A gun is in no way comparable to a human life.  That's the real crux of the issue.

America is making the gun more important than a human life.

Enough of this madness.

Um no, I really do think Parkland changed things. You would have thought Newtown would have, but I wouldn't give up. The volume of safety groups have grown since Newtown,

Newtown Action

Sandy Hook Promise

Collation to Stop Gun Violence

Moms Demand Action

Every Town For Gun Safety

And unfortunately now "A March For Our Lives" lead by the Parkland students.




The reason it is currently hard to get anything done is because of the laws made by the GOP decades ago which made it virtually impossible to hold the firearm companies  responsible. The age of Reagan's deregulation combined with GOP gerrymandering and the help of the profit lobby NRA have all combined to make it hard to enact safety laws.

But the good thing is even among gun owners, the overwhelming majority want better regulations to reduce firearm violence.

[The Grand Nudger]

The nssf is a profit lobby.  The nra is a wedge lobby.  You really cant kill the target by shooting at someone else. 

Unless you're legit trying to kill the wedge lobby..which is deep..deep irony.

[Silver]

Irony is the fortitude between the mind and the heart.

[The Grand Nudger]

Perhaps...but it does help to separate the head and heart if you want results (especially if the result is ending a motherfucker).  I get the nra hate, I really do.  Guys are collossal assholes.  They aren;t our gun problem, though.  We serve -their- cause when we focus on them rather than our problem.

They get to turn around to their rabid base..and say "see, told you".

[SaStrike]

Perhaps...but it does help to separate the head and heart if you want results (especially if the result is ending a motherfucker).  I get the nra hate, I really do.  Guys are collossal assholes.  They aren;t our gun problem, though.  We serve -their- cause when we focus on them rather than our problem.

They get to turn around to their rabid base..and say "see, told you".

But how to focus on the problem then?

[The Grand Nudger]

Licensing, targeted buybacks, and enforcement of the massive amount of existing laws.  Explain to all the law abiding gun owners, that we have absolutely no interest in their guns. Defenestrate the wedge maintainers. Law and order, all the way.

If you speed, you'll get the max fine.  If your kid grabs your gun and kills his best friend and then himself..it;s "thoughts and prayers" time because we reckon you've already had it bad enough.