Yet another school shooting.
 

Oregon cops respond to report of shooter at community college | Fox News

http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/01/us/ore...ing/index.html



I really want this shit to end already. :(

Damn.

Seeing reports of anywhere from 10-12 killed.

Yeah so senseless. Not that I see sense in a killing spree of people you hate or that have "wronged you" either but I just can't imagine what is going on in your mind when you just kill random people.

Let's see how "random" it actually was before we get too deeply into that.
I mean, typically, it isn't truly random at all.

From CNN:

It's vague and doesn't prove identity on its own, but here's the online exchange from last night on - you guessed it, 4Chan. Other posters were actually encouraging him and giving him advice about how to kill more people.

https://i.imgur.com/F90JrJW.jpg

So many fucked up deranged people out there hiding behind a keyboard. Is it getting to the point where we are afraid to leave our homes? Or, should we go on about our lives like normal because they WANT us to be afraid?

There's much more risk of dying in a car accident or eating bad foods (and a million other things) than there is being killed by a someone randomly.

There's certain dangers and causes of death that our brains have trouble rationally processing the risk of (see the Ebola thread).

Chilling shit IF it does turn out to be connected.

As an aside, I'm not sure I would have guessed 4Chan off the top of my head. Not sure what site/platform I would have guessed if you'd asked me but it didn't immediately leap to mind or anything. I suspect that's just a sign that I'm rather old. (My 17 y/o, when told of the possible link, simply said "of course it was")

The 4chan discussion really didn't strike me as being about fear tbh. Cry for help, cheap thrill, delusions of grandeur ... but I don't get much sense that it was about scaring anybody per se.

:popcorn:

Another pro-gun vs anti-gun thread, I suppose. Seeing it from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, those are still a mistery to me.

Yeah I get that, but the media loves to shock the public with this stuff. I was more or less just wondering out loud how people are reacting to these incidents.

Move theaters, schools, malls....before Columbine I never thought about something like this happening when I went somewhere. Now, especially with kids, I hesitate a little and wonder if it is worth it anymore.

Nope, none of that, at least here. Although, I think you mean "mystery", right? ;)

Not really. The Charlie Hebdo attack was probably scarier because it was so organized and the target (free speech) something we can easily identify with. Certainly stricter gun laws aren't a panacea.

It's sad when people who want to die think there's value in taking others with them.

Really hope this thread doesn't turn into it. Just turns into mudslinging on either side with nothing ever being discussed rationally. No one ever wants to meet in the middle on the issue unfortunately

So true. Can't help but make the connection with radical Islam either. I have nothing that verifies this shooting did or didn't have anything to do with jihad, but in my opinion the concept you bring up is a sickness that seems to be empowered each time we see it on tv. Guns just happen to be the tool these people use to permeate their distorted views of the world.

Is there any confirmation on the 4chan stuff? News agencies are sort of reporting it but that shit is pretty common on 4chan.

This explains a lot.

I don't even know what 4chan is...and now I never do.

It's sad how America is the one advanced country where this happens again and again and again and again.

Who said we were all advanced?

I had to go to urban dictionary to look up what "beta uprising" meant. That's apparently a buzz word that's going around the 4Chan shooting threads to the extent that CNN talked about it today. I guess their spiritual leader is that rich douchebag that shot a bunch of women in California because he couldn't get laid.

I don't need a panacea. Some progress would be nice, though.

Yes, I can't disagree with that.

I got this off my girlfriends Fb feed. She is an elementary school teacher and says she goes through the locked drills regular which adds to her worry about this happening someday. I was blown away at the volume of these incidence just in the last 2 1/2 years.

http://www.vox.com/a/mass-shootings-sandy-hook

The breathless national media coverage of each and every one not only makes it seem like a choice that many other have made, but also provides an incentive to many cowards who feel like girls won't talk to them, or their viewpoint isn't being heard. http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/02/health...illings-study/

That's far from the only problem, and it wouldn't make them go away, but I have zero doubt that media coverage and the glorification of the shooters does increase the chances of another one. It's been a while since I read it, but the Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell had a chapter where he talked about how certain things can turn into a cultural epidemic because young/immature people start thinking society expects them to do a certain thing. And there's clearly no stopping the parasitic media from putting ratings above people's safety.

How the media responds to a school shooting #UCCShooting - hope you're safe @KP_KaylaMarie ❤️❤️ pic.twitter.com/HJOUXKYyme

— Ryan Widner (@RyanWiddy) October 1, 2015

How else is the media supposed to respond to someone posting a tweet about this? She obviously felt safe enough to send out the original tweet.

EDIT: I agree that the media (CABLE NEWS) is part of the problem in the obsessive coverage, but at the same time, they're merely delivering what gives them ratings. They get more eyeballs from crap like this, so they're going to push it.

I'd hope they would show some decorum, but clearly that's gone out the window in favor of getting the story first. There's also a chance she sent out the tweet hoping it might be useful information to followers or people who could conceivably be affected by the ongoing situation, not so that parasites 3000 miles away could use it for a cheap ratings boost. I'd even be a little more understanding if it was only national stations or Oregon ones, but why are local New York or Wisconsin affiliates desperately trying to get an on the ground interview?

I grew up in a great town outside Boston, continue to work at the HS, and I've seen multiple news vans three times. Twice when a pedestrian was struck and killed, once when a HS student committed suicide (occasionally one will show up for a particularly contentious town vote or a big sports game). For the last one I helped the administration throw reporters off campus because they were cornering crying teenagers, then watched them set up their cameras 10 feet off it so they could have our school as a nice backdrop while giving their report and try to interview any student walking past. They're leeches feeding off the pain and misery of others, and the 24 hour news cycle has only made it worse. I understand how ratings work, how freedom of speech works, and that the real problem is the large percentage of people who secretly love hearing about things like this as they complain about it, but I'm going to actively oppose them when I can't avoid them. I hate that I know the names and faces of Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold, Adam Lanza, Dylan Roof etc, and I'm sure I'll be bombarded with the name and face of this cowardly douchebag on the wall of TV's at the gym later.

I don't want complete media censorship or silence on events like this, but they long ago crossed the line between respectful reporting and fetishization and glorification of the psychos. I don't have a good answer for how to walk it back and cut down on the cycle, but maybe calling them out on their bullshit and making them feel a little ashamed helps just a little.

As opposed to calling out the people who watch it all and want even more?

Media responds to demand, because demand = revenue.

I have specific questions about the case I happened to be interested in. Who was the guy, what was his basic motivation, what's the general backstory here (bad relationship? bad grade? utterly random?), and yes I was curious to know the number & type of weapons involved. And that's probably about it. I've managed to satisfy that interest with 15-20 minutes worth of reading since the details started to emerge, no need to Google any of it, it's all been touched upon in stories that readily came into my view from a headline aggregator site. I've seen exactly zero seconds of TV coverage of any kind.

Wanna bet there's a (small) ratings spike for cable news last night though? Or what a leading #hashtag yesterday was? Point being that I don't have to be part of the demand to recognize that it exists.

Pointing the finger at the media instead of the viewing public is a mistake afaic.

We take it for granted but reporters are how we get news about what happened, and even historical documentation about what happened. It can be a really dirty job in the trenches, but I understand why people want to know about major events. I was in a reddit thread yesterday where people were simultaneously complaining about "parasite" reporters and jumping all over every new little news tidbit. Where do they think those tidbits come from?

You of all people show know disdain can be directed at more than one group at a time. ;) And in fact I did make a point to mention the hypocrites who decry it while secretly driving the demand.I don't have any problem with going to read a story on it - I usually end up doing that once with these stories for the same reasons you do. I have a problem with wall to wall coverage that pushes it into peoples faces, with affiliates 3000 miles away all trying to break news instead of just having the national team do it and using their information or the reporting from the local station when they feel it necessary to talk about it on the nightly news, and most importantly with people glorifying it to either push an agenda or make money.

Honest question here - if the TV media all agreed at least not to show the pictures of the people who did this and made it something you actually had to search for on message boards and in darker corners of the web, like when a horrific video like a beheading comes out, do you agree it would reduce the chances of at least one of these attacks? If yes, at what point does that start to have more value than some people's need for details? This isn't something the media is unaware of - I actually saw the link to that CNN story yesterday with a February publish date, and it was updated today so it would show up on their front page feed.

Those folks are just trying to make a living like the rest of us. More than one career has been made by simply being the person who got something everybody else didn't. I get the pressure, I get the motivation, I can't blame 'em for it.


No, not really. Not in a meaningful amount (i.e. some tiny fractional percentage maybe). Those who seek attention would likely go bigger to force the media's hand -- "ignore THIS" basically -- that ship has sailed already.



If it's public record or legally obtained ... pretty much only on matters of national security afaic.

Oregon shooter said to have singled out Christians for killing in ‘horrific act of cowardice’ - The Washington Post


:(

Awful. Awful stuff.

I know everyone talks about guns and so forth but it does seem like a lot of these people are complete losers who realize this is the easiest way to get their message out. Like the guy even said this before the shooting.

I don't know how to change that either. The media is going to report on what the public wants. Maybe the answer is that these become so common that none of these shooters stand out anymore.

I also thought the President's statement was good. But I really wish he would tell us what he wants done. Like give a policy change you want and tell the public to push for it with their representatives.

Sounds like this guy had a bunch of red flags, but of course nobody took 2 craps of care in his direction. It seems like the only way for this crap to be prevented is for more human to human interaction in person.

In lieu of that, I think advancements in sexbots will tone down a ton of the male angst that leads to this sort of thing. And I know this statement sounds dumb but distraction probably helps to put minds at ease

I wonder how much social media and this sort of narcissistic society plays a role in this. There is so much desperation from people online for attention. I mean I like aspects of social media but it is bizarre to see people obsessively tweeting photos of what they have for dinner to their 6 followers.

Obviously there are deeper issues at play but some of this feels like people who are so desperate for attention that they will do unspeakable acts just to get their rants in front of people.

I frankly don't know that it matters that he was killing Christians. Whether someone was/is a Christian it shouldn't matter. Right?

At the risk of turning this into a pro gun vs anti gun thing.... They are complete losers and not much we can do to stop them from murder but I think we could at least act like we want to cut down on the sheer volume of these killings. I am not smart enough to say what that is but got to be something more than just say "fuck shit happens!":-(

Well it is true that this happens in our country at a disproportionate rate compared to other first world countries. So the "shit happens" doesn't make much sense because it doesn't happen elsewhere.

The question is why though. Is it lax gun laws? Is it our culture? Is it lack of mental health? I don't know. But I do think it's a topic we should be trying to figure out an answer to. Why the hell is our country so much different from the rest of the world?

Seems fair to note the motivation though. I mean, it's included as part of other stories so why not this one too, y'know?

Pot guns? I knew drugs were insidious but DAMN.

The alignment shifts that would create, my head spins.

;)

Odd little tidbit I've seen in several articles today


Now it's quite possible that it was some sort of light I suppose ... but my first thought was "think maybe it was his phone?"

edit: this relates to how we always seem to hear little quotes after incidents but we're really lacking context even then

Haha thanks I fixed that:-)

Sure. But doesn't change anything.

Well that didn't take long for a politician to say it:-)...Jeb Bush Says 'Stuff Happens' In Response to Gun Violence - Yahoo

I haven't seen -- here nor even in my own social sphere -- a single person suggest that it does.

I'll guarantee that SOMEWHERE either of us could easily find some narrative that spins this as an assault on Christians (indeed, I did see one 9th tier blog post that referred to the shooter as a Muslim, everything I've seen elsewhere suggests that he was more an atheist than anything) but on the whole, that really doesn't seem to be something getting any traction at all.

Good point and I have not seen it either yet.

Yeah, when my boss asked me about the Christian thing, I said he was probably atheist, just based on the details I'd heard/read (4chan being a huge indicator IMO).

He should have known better than to say it the way he did, and of COURSE everyone latches onto "Stuff Happens", but he's somewhat right.

Indeed. If its an assault on blacks or Muslims or whoever else, it is reported. I think it's one of those things that should be included regardless of who is being targeted. The motivation can be important to note as maybe it may lead to some extra thought (noting that the Charleston shooting targeting blacks did a lot and perhaps some folks who are really militantly atheist may back off on their rhetoric a bit knowing that this sort of thing is what it may lead to when one peddles in hate - regardless of which direction).

Agree but one question was it determined the Charleston shutting was because he hated Christians or African Americans . I know it happened in a church but thought it was racially motivated?

Charleston was racially motivated. This shooting was anti-Christian motivated apparently.

Yup.

There were posters here who blamed the Jared Lee Loughner shootings on the conservative media. That was a fun thread. I think motive, if we know it, it always worth mentioning, but I don't think you can take it literally. These people aren't processing the world the same way normal people are. The shootings yesterday do not represent some broader theme about violent atheists rising up and attacking Christians. (I'm sure you could find that narrative being pushed somewhere on the internet).

I'm starting to think these things aren't about guns or mental illness. There's not a lot of countries which have completely banned guns or who have cured mental illness in the general population. There's many countries where you can acquire weapons if you don't have a criminal record. The reality is, if someone wants to kill you, they probably can, almost anywhere. They can't kill as many as the weirdo did at Sandy Hook if they don't have access to that kind of weapons stash, but they could certainly kill one or two people. And they don't even do that at the same rate, especially against random strangers.

Saying "not a lot of countries have cured mental illness" is obviously a strawman, but the fact is most other Western countries do have some form of nationalized healthcare and compulsory mental health care that means it's a billion times less likely that these cases fall through the cracks and people who need mental health care get it. I'd love to see figures on the % of people needing mental health care in the US who receive it vs most of western europe. I would imagine it's probably night and day.

I saw this posted on facebook and honestly, while it's a troll job I can't completely disagree with it

"It's not guns, it's mental health!"
"Great, let's get people mental healthcare!"
"No! The government shouldn't be involved in mental healthcare!"

Most of these shooters were relatively wealthy and had access to mental healthcare.

The government didn't involuntarily detain them though. I have no idea to what extent that happens in Europe. But that's always been a tough sell here. We've tried to use the criminal justice system for that purpose, but we have real reluctance to lock up law-abiding people who we deem mentally ill. I would love to see that mindset changed. I train police officers on occasion and always emphasize their statutory power to detain people who, due to their mental illness, are threats to themselves or others. Of course, police are only going to be aware of that when someone is acting out in a dangerous way, and a lot of these people are loners who spend most of their time in their homes. And even when there is a situation, people are detained briefly and stabilized and released, at least until they commit their first crime. Adam Lanza was treated and the schools and doctors knew how crazy he was, but I don't think he committed any crimes, or acted out in any way to provide evidence that he was dangerous. I think the mother knew more but was concealing info from authorities, which is easy to do in a country that has relatively strong privacy rights. If there was such evidence though, I'm still not not sure they would have locked him up, because we just don't do that as much as we should.

People struggle with mental illness (and addiction) even when they have resources to treat them. It's a real inexact science. So I don't think it tells the whole story either.

You may be right. That being said, it's just a completely different approach. Even if you are wealthy and you have access to mental health care, you are still probably paying for a large part of it out of pocket or spending time convincing the insurance company you really need it. And either of those situations you have somebody who is really motivated to keep the care as cheap and as short as possible.

I'm going to stop there and not go down that road because it ends up in the same old healthcare argument and that does this thread a disservice. But ultimately I do agree with what was posted on fb above.

You can say all citizens deserve access to guns with minimal/no background checks
You can also say the government should not be in the business of providing health care including mental health care and that should be left to private enterprise and the decisions of individuals
But if you do say both of those things, I don't think you can turn around and then be surprised when these kind of shootings keep happening. Maybe as a society we agree with 1 and 2 so much that we are willing to live with 3. But it seems dishonest to me to skirt around the edges and say "why does this keep happening here"

Do all of these shooters necessarily have a mental illness? I'm not sure that's a safe assumption. And that's kind of a scary thought

Rather than quote anyone/anything specific, I'll just say that this is in response to several posts talking about mental health issues & the handling of them in other countries.

Perhaps it's a legitimate possibility that other countries' have people doing a better job of taking care of their own family members than we do. An intentional exaggeration to clarify what I mean there, maybe other nation's aren't as reluctant to lock their own fruitcake relative in the basement as we are*

And, frankly, I'm not criticizing places where that might be the case


* (I just didn't feel like what I meant by "take care of" was clear, and wasn't up to a long-winded explanation of it, the extreme example seemed likely to suffice)

That's probably a fair question.

It's also probably equally fair to wonder aloud how small a percentage of the population isn't diagnosable as "mentally ill" in some form or fashion.

This particular fellow certainly seems easy enough to tag.

It sounds like goofy conspiracy theory, but I find myself questioning the role of not just mental illness, but mental illness medication itself in these shootings. Even the adds for lots of those psychoactive medications contain disclaimers about "may cause homicidal/suicidal urges'. Surely most of the hundreds of thousands of users of those medications get the intended benefit, but what if the cost is that they also push a few nutcases over the edge? Not only do we need to consider throwing more resources into mental health, but we need to consider our culture of treatment, beyond the modern standard of "throw some pillz at it".

An extremely quick & lazy google search reveals a semi-interesting take on the subject, from the journalistic powerhouse, the Los Alamos Daily Post:

A Brief History of Psychotropic Drugs Prescribed to Mass Murderers | Los Alamos Daily Post

To prevent mass shootings? Or to prevent any potential crime?

At least we finally have a Republican candidate come out against the Patriot Act.

Of course, he also said this You Don't Pass a Pool Fencing Law After a Child Drowns, Says Jeb, Who Did Just That

I think Jeb is just running because it was expected of him. I'm not sure his heart is really in it.

He's a politician. Of course he's a hypocrite!

Of course, on the flipside, that pool fence measure was passed 109-8 in the state house. He didn't exactly have a lot of choice.

Is the fence-free pool tied to some sort of Constitutional right that Im missing. Is this a valid comparison?

So I am curious to hear the particulars of the shooting in Oregon as to what type and number of guns this wacko had, how he got them ( were they his or a relatives) how much ammo did he have.

I don't know what types he had....doesnt really matter, but they were all legally registers and he had plenty of ammo.

Yeah it absolutely does matter at least in my mind. Did he walk into the school with two assault rifles with two thousand rounds of ammo or did he walk in with a pair of hunting rifles with two boxes of ammo? I get they were all legal. It seems just about anything is legal with our gun laws.

He actually only used a pistol. There was (what I gather was) an AR-15 he stored/hid in another room but never used it.

A semi-auto pistol can often times hold more rounds than an AR/AK. I have a Smith and Wesson 9mm that can carry 17 rounds in each magazine.

Almost everything I hear about Jeb is that he's a manager at heart. I don't think that he's a politician at heart. He's a great manager, so he sees a problem and starts to think of solutions. Deadly accidents involving pools? Let's weigh the pros and cons of new regulations of pools. Can we save lives with reasonable expense and a minimum of interference with enjoyment? Deadly accidents involving guns? Let's weigh the pros and cons of new regulations of guns. Can we save lives with reasonable expense and a minimum of interference with enjoyment? That's the first place his brain goes. Trying to solve the problem.

A natural politician would have gotten up and led with rhetoric about the Constitution and just gone from there.

I'm a Democrat, so I want the Dems to win the presidency in order to be a veto to the GOP legislature. But if I had to pick a public figure to put in charge of something large and important based solely on skill, I would probably pick Jeb. He likes solving problems, and he seems pretty good at it.

Assault rifle is a glorified name for a military looking hunting rifle. Hell, even if we banned AR-15's, that would force him to use shotguns....

In any event, it's illegal to kill people, what makes you think people will obey gun laws? And what kinds of punishment would you hand out differently if they were legal or not? The only thing that I see happening with strict gun laws is normal citizens are going to be defenseless. I hate to say it, but murder or attempted murder with guns should hold the same weight. You fire a gun at a human being and you are done playing the game of free citizen. Pinning these horrific crimes on white GOP southerners attached to the NRA is just a no-gain political stunt.

For me, it still always comes back to why do other countries not have these things on a weekly basis? They have things happen but it's not all the time, nor is it often as bad. Is it guns, mental health, income gaps, what is it? If you say that it's all of these things then you are saying, it's just American culture and the idea this is something we just have to live with is asinine.

For me it's about mental health and the way we treat it but I'm sick of watching the same discussions over and over as we as a country sit around with our thumbs up our asses hoping it's going to blow over. God forbid the day that several of these people link up. Then we might find out how bad things can really be. We have to start trying to develop ideas and working the problem and not just living with it.

It is illegal to steal things, what makes you think people will obey robbery laws?

It is illegal to drive drunk, what makes you think people will obey DUI laws?

It is illegal to use non-public information to trade stocks, what makes you think people will obey insider trading laws?

That is a horrible strawman argument that really needs to stop.

You mean like the bullshit surrender on drug laws? That certainly seems to be popular with the leftists that want to restrict gun ownership, so goose, gander, etc.

Also, none of the things you mention is a constitutionally protected right, so apples & oranges could come into play as well.

You are aware that the right to bear arms as a constitutional right is not absolute? Otherwise convicted felons and the like would legal be able to legally own weapons.

No, you just created the straw man. Read the part of my post where I start with, "I hate to say...." and it lines up nicely with all your reversed logic.

Make America great again. Repeal the 21st amendment!

It's not absolute. The VAST majority of guns are handguns, rifles and shotguns. Most other weaponry is illegal or extremely hard to get legally. While we get up in arms about this, in the end, it was 10 people. Drug dealers and thugs are still dishing out 10,000 deaths each year and its because of drugs, not mental health. And yet here we are again blaming those card-carrying NRA "gun-nuts" of the GOP flavor.

So, what kind of gun ISN'T a handgun, rifle or shotgun?

Good points that I admit are things to consider. I think we might eventually have to consider some type of deterrence to mass murder or murder with guns other than just plain old lethal injection. A life of hard labor in a coal mine or in the future life if hard labor on an asteroid in space just brain storming death by acid bath. As violent as American culture has gotten it would have to be a pretty horrific death to deter people. But then we come back to people who would never allow that and also there is no way to deter crazy.

Machine guns?

Aren't those considered short barreled rifles?

Yes, I think it's reasonable to assume every single one of them had psychological issues severe enough to have a complete breakdown, these aren't split-second loss of awareness decisions. It takes too much time between the decision to grab the gun and the actual shooting for this to be an act of temporary meltdown.

The desire to consume drugs (in my opinion) is actually a signal of mental illness.

So in about half the states in this country people can
But automatic weapons albeit they go through a lengthy FBI background check as long as they are not an ex con or have a record of domestic violence they can get one of the 300,000 automatic weapons fire up there. As for ARs, they now can empty 30 rounds in a few seconds.
CNN's Don Lemon says automatic weapons are easy to get | PunditFact

Right, by "extremely hard to get" I mean, most people don't bother with it. You can empty a 9mm pretty quick too. 30 round mags are available....ban those...okay, you'll need to bring two...neither is very accurate at that rate of fire though. The vast majority of the 10,000 annual homicides are done when the shooter fires less than 6 rounds anyway...

Agreed, but at least those are passive mental problems and not aggressive mental problems. Although, drinking or being high while driving tends to eliminate the overall benefit, I suppose.

So you are on board with limiting magazines to 5 rounds or fewer?

If anything, I was implying you want to ban everything that has 30 or less rounds! But no, I wasn't implying anything like 5 or less only.

Plus, they could be minor at first, but can rather quickly lead to bigger problems.

We have to remember that, despite attention from the media rivaling that of missing Malaysian airliners, the sum total of people killed in rampage-type shootings per decade is about equal to the number of people who die in traffic accidents in America on a single summer day.

You'd have far more impact on the lives of innocent people with a $1,000 fine for texting and driving. I also would guess that increased penalties on those who drink and drive has had an enormous impact.

I don't own a gun. I don't want a gun. I don't get warm and fuzzy thinking about my neighbors owning machine guns (and I'd bet at least one of them does).

But I view gun restrictions as somewhat similar to abortion restrictions. That most attempts to restrict gun ownership are a slippery slope toward an authoritarian control.

And I view restrictions as somewhat pointless. Many of our larger urban areas have the strictest laws against gun possession. Yet the murder rates are much higher in many of these areas.

As for restrictions on the mentally ill, I'm just not sure how that would work. But I am for restrictions on felons and my guess is that people who dangerously mentally ill - at least to a point where we would consider invoking this type of law - are already felons.

Including, or not including, alcohol?

Look, I agree with these ideas, but once again comparing guns to cars is false equivalence of the highest order.

Including.

What if you drink wine/beer/cocktails because you like the taste?

interesting map (not realted to school shootings, but gun deaths in general)

http://projects.oregonlive.com/ucc-shooting/gun-deaths