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[SoundofSilence]

This is so messed up!

This is the sort of reaction that really puzzles me. The desperation to find a motivation lies in a need to rationalize the horror. What appears to disturb people the most is the possibility that there is no reason or logic behind such acts of evil. And yet the course of human history is a profound testament to the lack of reason in the face of madness.

 

[GreatestHits]

...

He was an armed with 23 assault style guns, thousands of rounds of ammo, and guns are not the topic? What?

Exactly. Ban guns and it will be 50 barrels of corrosive acid thrown out the window. It's amazing people think the fix for this is simply banning guns. I wish we did ban guns so we could move onto actually working on these issues

 

[Izuna]

Exactly. Ban guns and it will be 50 barrels of corrosive acid thrown out the window. It's amazing people think the fix for this is simply banning guns

Excuse me?


Gun don't kill people but mentally ill people with guns kill a lot of people.

 

[Mahonay]

Exactly. Ban guns and it will be 50 barrels of corrosive acid thrown out the window. It's amazing people think the fix for this is simply banning guns. I wish we did ban guns so we could move onto actually working on these issues

Lol uh... what?

Asking for gun control is all we're doing. A lot of gun owners agree we need to significantly improve gun control in America.

What the hell is wrong with you?

 

[GreatestHits]

Lol uh... what?

Asking for gun control is all we're doing. A lot of gun owners agree we need to significantly improve gun control in America.

That's cool, I'm on board with them, but there's a more relevant issue here is my point

 

[Mahonay]

That's cool, I'm on board with them, but there's a more relevant issue here

Guns are 100 relevant because he was armed to teeth.

Dude had zero history of known mental health issues.

 

[GreatestHits]

Guns are 100 relevant because he was armed to teeth.

Dude had zero history of known mental health issues.

Well then case closed. Ban guns. Problem solved

 

[SoundofSilence]

Exactly. Ban guns and it will be 50 barrels of corrosive acid thrown out the window. It's amazing people think the fix for this is simply banning guns. I wish we did ban guns so we could mpve onto actually working on these issues

It's not a fix but it's a strong start. It's a bizarrely modern American trait to dismiss all attempts to take remedial action in the face of overwhelmingly ostensible evidence.

 

[Ascenion]

That's cool, I'm on board with them, but there's a more relevant issue here is my point

What is that issue? If it’s the whole evil people are gonna do evil things and you can’t stop them argument then I agree, but we can make it extremely difficult for them to be successful.

If it’s mental health....good luck. There are people in college that don’t believe in it.

 

[Ric Flair]

Exactly. Ban guns and it will be 50 barrels of corrosive acid thrown out the window. It's amazing people think the fix for this is simply banning guns. I wish we did ban guns so we could move onto actually working on these issues

You don't think there should be a process that makes it at least a bit more difficult to obtain an AR-Motherfucking 15 in this country?

 

[Mahonay]

Well then case closed. Ban guns. Problem solved

You're not interested in having a discussion so you can feel free to just stop responding.

 

[GreatestHits]

You don't think there should be a process that makes it at least a bit more difficult to obtain an AR-Motherfucking 15 in this country?

I don't believe I even implied that. I am clearly stating the problem *here* was more about mental health than it was about the accessability of an AR15.

 

[y2dvd]

That's cool, I'm on board with them, but there's a more relevant issue here is my point

Nah the weapon that allows people to easily kill on a daily basis is most relevant here.

 

[GreatestHits]

Nah the weapon that allows people to easily kill on a daily basis is most relevant here.

If you can walk away from this issue with a straight face after culminating like that, fine, but my posts were here to say banning guns is a short-sighted solution

You have evidence that he suffered from a mental health disorder? Let's see it.

Brilliant. No, this might be surprising but no one has evidence. And because there is no evidence we must ban guns. Please stop debating with that type of logic

 

[SoundofSilence]

I don't believe I even implied that. I am clearly stating the problem *here* was more about mental health than it is about the accessability of an AR15

You have evidence that he suffered from a mental health disorder? Let's see it.

 

[Mr. X]

I don't believe I even implied that. I am clearly stating the problem *here* was more about mental health than it was about the accessability of an AR15.

How did you figure out it was his mental health? You should be leading the investigation.

 

[Jackpot]

Exactly. Ban guns and it will be 50 barrels of corrosive acid thrown out the window. It's amazing people think the fix for this is simply banning guns. I wish we did ban guns so we could move onto actually working on these issues

Sure fixes it for other countries.

Also, you can throw 50 bottles of acid 300m in a way that disperses over a large crowd of people? Who needs guns anymore, someone tell the army of this tremendous new weapon!

 

[GreatestHits]

How did you figure out it was his mental health? You should be leading the investigation.

I don't know, it was really difficult, maybe shooting 500 people had something to do with it. This discussion is becoming numbing

 

[MCN]

It's not a fix but it's a strong start. It's a bizarrely modern American trait to dismiss all attempts to take remedial action in the face of overwhelmingly ostensible evidence.

"It won't 100% fix every single problem, so why bother?"

 

[Dubbedinenglish]

I don't believe I even implied that. I am clearly stating the problem *here* was more about mental health than it was about the accessability of an AR15.

Ask yourself why did he go and get bump-fire stocks instead of going through the process to get an automatic weapon? Money wasn’t an issue, time wasn’t an issue... He did it because guns and and bump-fire stocks are so easily available without scrutiny. That is the issue here, someone who was stocking up on firearms could not raise any flags before he killed 60 and wounded ~600 people.

 

[minor effort]

I don't believe I even implied that. I am clearly stating the problem *here* was more about mental health than it was about the accessability of an AR15.

Every country has mental health issues their populations, but not every developed country has the lax gun regulations the United States does.

 

[Mr. X]

I don't know, it was really difficult, maybe shooting 500 people had something to do with it. This discussion is becoming numbing

So the tens of millions suffering from mental illness not killing people, how do you explain that?

 

[Big Baybee]

I don't know, it was really difficult, maybe shooting 500 people had something to do with it. This discussion is becoming numbing

Why was someone you feel has mental health issues able to shoot 600 people?

 

[GreatestHits]

Ask yourself why did he go and get bump-fire stocks instead of going through the process to get an automatic weapon? Money wasn’t an issue, time wasn’t an issue... He did it because guns and and bump-fire stocks are so easily available without scrutiny. That is the issue here, someone who was stocking up on firearms could not raise any flags before he killed 60 and wounded ~600 people.

He chose the tool that would get the job done. Take away the option and he will choose others. I am for more and better gun control. My argument is simply that people will still die over these types of issues until we can address the mental health problem in this individual, not when we ban guns. Gun control is an obvious area that needs improvement

 

[minor effort]

He chose the tool that would get the job done. Take away the option and he will choose others. I am for more and better gun control. My argument is simply that people will still die over these types of issues until we can address the mental health problem in this individual, not when we ban guns. Gun control is an obvious area that needs improvement

Who is advocating for ignoring mental health issues in this discussion? Who?

Yet, you have massive lobbying groups dedicated to ignoring and undoing any regulations among firearms. Which is why we're focusing on gun regulations themselves in this discussion.

 

[Mahonay]

He chose the tool that would get the job done. Take away the option and he will choose others. I am for more and better gun control. My argument is simply that people will still die over these types of issues until we can address the mental health problem in this individual, not when we ban guns. Gun control is an obvious area that needs improvement

How would he have pulled this off without guns? Explain it to us again.

Your Looney Toons scenario of using 50 gallons of acid was already a banger.

No one is ignoring mental health. It's insulting to throw those under the bus that do suffer from mental health on a daily basis, who yet somehow manage to not fire assault rifles into a crowd of people.

 

[RDreamer]

He chose the tool that would get the job done. Take away the option and he will choose others. I am for more and better gun control. My argument is simply that people will still die over these types of issues until we can address the mental health problem in this individual, not when we ban guns. Gun control is an obvious area that needs improvement

Of course.

But less will.

Gun control's goal isn't to take away every death ever. That'd be ridiculous fantasy land. We can't do that and you know it. What gun control proposes to do is mitigate disaster and lower the rate of gun violence on the whole. It's been proved to work in other countries. Gun violence and gun deaths aren't completely gone, but they drop isn't replaced on a 1:1 basis with some other violence. People aren't slinging vats of acid in other countries because they can't have guns. And when/if they do it's really not as effective as an easily purchased gun.

 

[Spirit of Jazz]

https://twitter.com/escofree/status/916602715341557760

"You assumed that me moment it happened based on his race."
"Yes I did!"

Jesus.

 

[Jackpot]

He chose the tool that would get the job done. Take away the option and he will choose others.

Not any tool, the best tool. One explicitly designed for allowing an individual to kill as many as efficiently as possible with minimal training & cost. Why do you think the army's go-to weapon is a gun?

Look at the casualty rates for mass-stabbings vs mass-shootings. Are you really that intellectually stunted that the comparison never occurred to you?

 

[4Tran]

Sure fixes it for other countries.

Also, you can throw 50 bottles of acid 300m in a way that disperses over a large crowd of people? Who needs guns anymore, someone tell the army of this tremendous new weapon!

I think the point is that if you ban guns it'd make it a lot harder for spree killers to kill tons of people. Which is sort of obvious if you think about it, but the US isn't in a good position to enact anything that would be helpful.

 

[GreatestHits]

How would he have pulled this off without guns? Explain it to us again.

Your Looney Toons scenario of using 50 gallons of acid was already a banger.

No one is ignoring mental health. It's insulting to throw those under the bus those that do suffer from mental health on a daily basis, who yet somehow manage to not fire assault rifles into a crowd of people.

This is a specific type of mental health issue. I'm not including people with OCD with my suggestion at the root cause here. It is more difficult to kill this many people without guns, but certainly still possible, and especially with the premeditated intent that happened here. I don't see where we're disagreeing other than I keep saying the root issue here is mental health, not guns.

It's as if you guys have been fighting the NRA for so long that you can't stop reducing a conversation to simply gun control. I've said we need it. My point is it won't stop the killings

 

[Jackpot]

My point is it won't stop the killings

And has been repeatedly explained to you, it sure will reduce them. No other country has mass-shootings like the US.

 

[minor effort]

Not any tool, the best tool. One explicitly designed for allowing an individual to kill as many as efficiently as possible with minimal training & cost. Why do you think the army's go-to weapon is a gun?

Look at the casualty rates for mass-stabbings vs mass-shootings. Are you really that intellectually stunted that the comparison never occurred to you?

I feel like every time there's a big discussion on gun regulation comes with it mental logistics from people trying to convince us a gun's sole purpose is not killing something.

It's as if you guys have been fighting the NRA for so long that you can't stop reducing a conversation to simply gun control. I've said we need it. My point is it won't stop the killings

*sigh*

As it has been pointed out many times over: Nobody is credibly claiming it will stop all killing in this country, but rather reduce it. And if we can't stop all murder in this country, we should work to reduce it.

Why do you think other countries have fewer mass-shootings? Do you think only the US has mental health issues in its population?

 

[Mr. X]

Brown: Isis/Islam
Black: naturally violent
White: what was his motive, what pushed him to this point

 

[DarthWoo]

This is a specific type of mental health issue. I'm not including people with OCD with my suggestion at the root cause here. It is more difficult to kill this many people without guns, but certainly still possible, and especially with the premeditated intent that happened here. I don't see where we're disagreeing other than I keep saying the root issue here is mental health, not guns.

It's as if you guys have been fighting the NRA for so long that you can't stop reducing a conversation to simply gun control. I've said we need it. My point is it won't stop the killings

Strange...it certainly seems to have at least significantly reduced them in every other advanced nation that did exactly that. Not just the mass shootings, but accidental, suicidal, and non-mass-shooting homicidal shootings.

 

[Dubbedinenglish]

He chose the tool that would get the job done. Take away the option and he will choose others. I am for more and better gun control. My argument is simply that people will still die over these types of issues until we can address the mental health problem in this individual, not when we ban guns. Gun control is an obvious area that needs improvement

Please enlighten us on how he’d be able to to inflict the same carnage without a fully automatic assault rifle(s) from hundreds of yards away in a hotel room?

 

[SoundofSilence]

It's as if you guys have been fighting the NRA for so long that you can't stop reducing a conversation to simply gun control. I've said we need it. My point is it won't stop the killings

The NRA has killed and wounded far more people in the last 30 years than ISIS could ever dream of. They fund and enable the sale of millions of weapons every single year and strong arm and financially influence hundreds of politicians to support their agenda. The NRA has a great deal in common with many terrorist organizatons throughout history but any suggestion that they be labelled as such immediately induces wild protests about "America's freedoms" and the 2nd Amendment. The NRA, all of its supporters, enablers and political allies have blood on their hands.

 

[Mahonay]

This is a specific type of mental health issue. I'm not including people with OCD with my suggestion at the root cause here. It is more difficult to kill this many people without guns, but certainly still possible, and especially with the premeditated intent that happened here. I don't see where we're disagreeing other than I keep saying the root issue here is mental health, not guns.

It's as if you guys have been fighting the NRA for so long that you can't stop reducing a conversation to simply gun control. I've said we need it. My point is it won't stop the killings

We're reducing the conversation? You have snapped back with "OK YEAH I GUESS JUST BAN ALL GUNS THEN HUH" several times now.

Also no, carrying out the same kind of attack is not possible with acid instead of guns no matter what crazy ass scenario you conjure up in your mind.

 

[TaterTots]

Ask yourself why did he go and get bump-fire stocks instead of going through the process to get an automatic weapon? Money wasn’t an issue, time wasn’t an issue... He did it because guns and and bump-fire stocks are so easily available without scrutiny. That is the issue here, someone who was stocking up on firearms could not raise any flags before he killed 60 and wounded ~600 people.

Ding ding ding! This is what I've been saying. He didn't have to do anything illegally. It was easily available to him, so why would he do some jank modification to his firearms when he could go out and purchase a bump stock?

 

[GreatestHits]

And has been repeatedly explained to you, it sure will reduce them. No other country has mass-shootings like the US.

That's great. Again ban guns, then we move onto a different discussion of how do we stop someone from killing tons of people by blowing up a facility etc. Guns seem somewhat trivial when we're dealing with disturbed people who will find any way they can to kill as many people as possible. Your effort to reduce the conversation to guns seems to miss the mark in that aspect. But again, by all means, ban guns and see where we're at then

 

[Dubbedinenglish]

We're reducing the conversation? You have snapped back with "OK YEAH I GUESS JUST BAN ALL GUNS THEN HUH" several times now.

Also no, carrying out the same kind of attack is not possible with acid instead of guns no matter what crazy ass scenario you conjure up in your mind.

But what if he builds a trebuchet in the hotel room?!??!

 

[Artdayne]

It's the nature of mass shootings to question what drove someone to do such a thing, because it's so abnormal. Yes, even in the United States they account for a very small percentage of gun related deaths. They are shocking.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/25/us/washington-navy-yard-investigation/index.html

The Navy Yard mass shooter was black.

Still, big questions loomed as to why he did it, as well as whether he'd gotten help or told anyone about his plans.

People looked into Aaron Alexis mental health history and said there were concerns.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/troubled-life-of-minnesota-shooter/

The Red Lake mass shooter in 2005 was Native American.

Investigators are not sure exactly what set Weise off, but fellow students at Red Lake High said they saw what looked, in retrospect, like warning signs.

The Virginia Tech shooter was also left with people asking questions even though he published a manifesto.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=3048108&page=1


Some news accounts have suggested that Cho had a history of antidepressant use, but senior federal officials tell ABC News that they can find no record of him in the governments files on controlled substances. This does not completely rule out prescription drug use, including samples from a physician, drugs obtained through illegal Internet sources, or a gap in computer databases, but the sources say theirs is a reasonably complete search.


Seung-Hui Cho was a Korean American and they were looking into his history to see if he had any mental illness.

I'm not disputing that there isn't a tendency for mass shooters who are Muslim to be considered this way or that there aren't any news publications where stations like Fox News likely do attempt to humanize white mass murderers more so than those that are minorities but people talk like it's this wide spread thing. I really thing it has to do with the nature of mass shootings, they are shocking and lead to a lot of questions.

 

[minor effort]

That's great. Again ban guns, then we move onto a different discussion of how do we stop someone from killing tons of people by blowing up a facility etc. Guns seem somewhat trivial when we're dealing with disturbed people who will find any way they can to kill as many people as possible. Your effort to reduce the conversation to guns seems to miss the mark in that aspect. But again, by all means, ban guns and see where we're at then

I repeat my question: Who among gun control advocates is arguing for ignoring mental health issues in this country?

 

[GreatestHits]

I repeat my question: Who among gun control advocates is arguing for ignoring mental health issues in this country?

I would not in any case know. But there is a consistent mantra in this thread. Ban guns and be done with it. And I feel that is a very disassociative way to address the issue.

 

[Famassu]

Well then case closed. Ban guns. Problem solved

You do understand that 50 barrels of acid is not nearly as effective a way to kill people as something that you can use to rapid fire towards a mass of people in the thousands from a distance, yeah? Like, with acid not only would you have to get close to actually kill a person, you'd have to use quite a lot of acid for a single person to actually kill them. As such, it's impossible to actually carry around 50 barrels of acid by yourself so you'd be extremely limited in the amount of acid at your disposal in such a scenario. By the time you are done with dousing one or two people with enough acid to kill them, anyone in the vicinity would have had time to run away and/or cops, security or just regular joes & janes would probably have detained the person. So yeah, banning guns of this caliber would be a start & stricter control on the rest would be a vast improvement as well.

While every society should take better care of people with mental health issues and US in particular could improve a lot in that regard, not only is blaming people with mental health issues so ardently harmful because it stigmatizes people with mental health issues (when, like, 99,9999% of people with mental health issues never do anything like this), there are people like this one who apparently didn't show signs of mental health issues and, from what we know, never tried to get help to such things and as such this "why are we talking gun bans when we should just help the mentally ill to not kill people" line of thought is kind of shortsighted and irrelevant to this particular case. No amount of mental health care improvements would have helped in preventing this case, at least based on current knowledge. Not that we shouldn't be talking about better care for the mentally ill, but it doesn't necessarily stop cases like this while it being (near) impossible to get such destructive weapons would stop a lot of cases like this or at least limit the number of casualties if the person couldn't use such powerful weapons or didn't have such easy access to so much ammo & several weapons of their kind.

 

[Agentnibs]

This is a specific type of mental health issue. I'm not including people with OCD with my suggestion at the root cause here. It is more difficult to kill this many people without guns, but certainly still possible, and especially with the premeditated intent that happened here. I don't see where we're disagreeing other than I keep saying the root issue here is mental health, not guns.

It's as if you guys have been fighting the NRA for so long that you can't stop reducing a conversation to simply gun control. I've said we need it. My point is it won't stop the killings

Lol Okay Mark Levin.

I hate this argument. It amount to "lol, it won't stop murder so why bother?"

You also make the assumption that people can't handle both issues at the same time. Believe it or not we can talk about improving gun control and improving mental health. Neither is mutually exclusive.

But speaking of mental health, what exactly do you propose we do? We assume that someone who could do something like this is sick, but we don't know that right now. And if we did know, how do you propose we handle people with mental illness that haven't committed a crime? How do we prevent sick people from hurting others? Do we just lock up sick people? But what if they were never diagnosed? Etc

 

[Mahonay]

I would not in any case know. But there is a consistent mantra in this thread. Ban guns and be done with it. And I feel that is a very disassociative way to address the issue.

Poor guns. The guns, won't somebody think of the guns???

And let's give your reminder #20 that this guy did not show a history of mental health issues.

 

[GreatestHits]

No amount of mental health care improvements would have helped in preventing this case

I'm really done following your logic around in so far as to debate with you but I'd like to point out that I believe this is our chief disagreement

I hate this argument. It amount to "lol, it won't stop murder so why bother?"

In truth I said we should bother but that the issue is far deeper than that

 

[Stuart444]

I've been avoiding this topic since it happened, all I knew was "Mass Shooting, X dead and X injured" but I saw The Last Leg the other night in the UK and uhh.

An Automatic weapon was used. Didn't know that but I probably should have done due to the amount of people injured and killed. Who the fuck needs an automatic weapon, why are they even allowed to be sold? I just... smh.

It hurts even more to think that just like the last mass shooting, and the one before that and the one before that, that people won't talk about gun control in the US cause "Mah guns"

At this rate, I have no idea what it would take for people to talk about gun control. Probably the extermination of the whole NRA - at least that would stop the lobbying but it's still kinda sick that lobbying can overwrite peoples sensibilities (people in power that is) after a mass shooting.

just smh America.

Also to the guy using the "They would use something else if not guns" argument: That is a hilariously stupid argument. Only thing that could cause this much devastation other than an AUTOMATIC GUN is a gun that fires rockets into mass crowds of people and funnily enough that's still a type of gun. Acid, Knifes, etc wouldn't be able to cause this much damage.

 

[minor effort]

I would not in any case know. But there is a consistent mantra in this thread. Ban guns and be done with it. And I feel that is a very disassociative way to address the issue.

The reason people are primarily focusing on guns in this discussion is because American gun control proliferation differs significantly from other developed nations, and we seem to have a shockingly high number of mass-murders via gun and overall gun deaths per capita.

That's why we're focusing in on guns in-particular as it relates to this conversation.

Unless you have some concrete ideas on what could be done in the field of mental health that would drastically reduce the amount of gun deaths in this country you'd like to share, you're verging on becoming irrelevant.