Forums / Discussion / General

A shooting at a Connecticut elementary school Friday left 27 people dead, including 18 children, an official said.

---

Source 1
Source 2

I wonder what could have gone through the one identified gunman's mind. I've read elsewhere that he first shot and killed the school psychologist and the principal. That leads me to believe that this was premeditated and based on some interactions his son/daughter (likely a father of a child at the school) had.

The fact that he then ended up shooting and killing children (more than several) leads me to believe that it might have involved bullying.

My pure speculation here is that his child was being bullied, the psychologist and principal didn't act with enough zeal (in the father's eyes), and he decided to take it out on the adults involved…and then the children who picked on his child.
 
Sad, how this comes so close to the holidays. I'd love to hear your opinions and any more info you hear about this.

---

Let me know if the source links don't work for you.

It's very sad. Since we have an entry on the Aurora shooting (which is confirmed), it would make sense to do an entry on this event. 2012 is a bad year for shootings.

Mass shootings happen every few days in the US now. The last one was at Clackamas Town Center southeast of Portland, literally on Tuesday. When the fuck are people going to realize that more guns is not the solution?

Probably never.

Hopefully when people see their kids getting shot, they'll realize that continuing to allow any fucking crackpot on the street have a firearm is the worst conceivable idea.

This is just horrible, my prayers go to the families.

I would just like to say that before you go demanding gun control, Mexico has some of the strictest gun laws in the world. We need to find ways to help the mentaly unstable, not just make it harder for them to obtain firearms.

Apparently the shooter was the son of a teacher there. I can't even fathom this kind of violence. Why in a school, though? And why kill kids?

That's the thing. I would have guessed that the man wasn't completely insane but rather didn't value other people's lives.

That's why I thought that he had a child in the school. If the child was being bullied and the first people killed included the principal/psychologist, then it made sense to me that the child was disruptive/was being picked on, the psychologist/principal didn't take any claims of bullying seriously, the child went home every day crying/reluctant to go to school every day…It would drive many parents to righteous anger.

It takes a little more than anger to drive a man to murder children though, so he probably had a moral compass that wasn't calibrated well.
 
However, if his only tie to the school was through his mother, then the massacre almost seems random.

• Killing your mother because you're upset with her? Sure. I could see a person who doesn't value human life doing something like that.
• Killing your mother then turning it on children you have no connection to whatsoever? That's obviously the sad part, but it's also the part that doesn't make sense.

It was orchestrated, because he was armored with multiple firearms. He was ready to kill when he got to the school. But killing your mother seems like it would have been the only objective for him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_shooting#North_America

so fucked

Hopefully, the affected families can be left to mourn in peace. The last thing I'd want is for them to be harassed for information by the media, as it is oft to do in these situations. These matters require privacy.

This could easily lead to another huge debate on gun control but at this point people really should be asking the bigger question: Why are people doing this?

These same people who go completely postal are the types that would still get a gun (illegally) even if they were completely banned to the public…or just use a sword of some other improvised weapon. Stricter gun laws may make things harder for killers but I doubt it would get rid of them

The real root of the problem is what sends these guys into psychopathic killing sprees in the first place and authorities need to get to the bottom of it. I don't think it's a coincidence how they just keep appearing in schools every week. I'd wager that there is a common trigger for all or most of them. Something about schools or a certain culture that sends people over the edge…

I agree with Dac. We should be trying to keep people from wanting to kill to begin with, not making it harder for them to own firearms. Restricting ownership of firearms will keep a person from performing a mass shooting as much as making murder illegal will. It's not a very hard concept to grasp. I would like for this to not become a huge debate about gun control because to me that is highly disrespectful towards the people who have fallen victim to gun crimes like this. Do not use the misfortune of others to prove your points.

I absolutely hate hearing about school shootings, they're the worst news I read about, really. No, I'm not going to go on and argue about gun laws and all that because there's no point, it's the people who've committed these actions, not the guns, and certainly not all the thousands of other Americans either.

Well, anyway, Philosoraptor did ask "If guns don't kill people, people do, then do toasters not toast toast, toast toasts toast?"

---

To reiterate, I'm not going to go on about Gun control in the US; it's not my country, I don't make the decisions.

Guys, go look at the "Mass Effect" Official page on facebook, and take a good laugh/rage.

I'm being serious.

I do not know Mass Effect's story so I do not know if this is true or not, but some people defending the game in those comments say that in one part of the story you have to protect a school full of children from an attack.
 
Ironic.

Some of this language is highly derogatory which masks the true root of the issue which BSod mentioned, "I’d wager that there is a common trigger for all or most of them. Something about schools or a certain culture that sends people over the edge". This situation which society faces is not as simple as one crazed man which acquired a gun and then randomly sought out one target. This tragedy is unfortunately caused by the true nature of the society which we have created which is not designed for rehabilitation. Richard Arum, director of the SSRC's program on educational research and a NYU professor of sociology and education said regarding this issue:

"It's important to consider the larger social context from which this problem emerged. In many ways this incident is an unfortunate byproduct of many of the things that are most positive about U.S. society, particularly our embrace of individual freedom. In this country we have a right to bear arms, we have a right to privacy, we have a right to due process that's extended to students in our schools, we have rights to free speech, and we provide special protections to disabled students in our schools including individuals who are mentally impaired. Unfortunately, these freedoms make it very difficult for schools to respond to individual troubled youth".

We fail to see that these people embody the issues that we, as humans will always struggle with, whether they are born with these problems or not. People who are unfortunately born with these mental deficiencies which create such sporadic behavior are not treated and unfortunately wind up mentally unstable, or face a social situation which makes them mentally unstable, but there are very little services that can be provided to stabilize them. Today, these extreme examples of human behavior are similar monsters of ancient myths; they embody a problem that we face either as a species or what we fear (which is death mostly). They will still lurk in our shadows but if we can confront them and fix what creates them, then the chances of them becoming a problem will greatly diminish, and less people will create new monsters to make us fear the world that we live in. Sensationalism is not the answer to this problem, prevention is, but we fail to do so.

Case in point: the 2011 Norway attacks where a lone gunman massacred over 80 people, despite Norway having some of the strictest gun enforcement laws in the world. I'd say that is more of an isolated incident though. The US, on the other hand, has these school shootings every few years, and ever time, we get a ton of debate over society. Nothing really gets done.

I am fully in support of stricter gun control and enforcement laws, as I am of the opinion that that would preclude most of these deranged individuals from ever having the idea of killing as many innocent people as possible. However, I do acknowledge that the really dedicated offenders (which most aren't) will just obtain the weapons somehow anyway.

Such massacres can be attributed to two probable causes: gun culture, and a lack of preventive action. Neither of these are very approachable. The first is unfortunately innate in American, among others, culture, and no, banning video games and censoring things won't help in the least. The second is the real issue, I think. Governments tend to focus on visible, rather than latent issues. If only we could some how reach out to these troubled individuals and reform them, none of this would have happened in the first place. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done, although identifying such people early on would be a start.

I really feel horrible about the victims, as well as the whole of humanity, every time something like this pops up. It's just so unreal and unbelievable from my mindset, and I could never fathom why a person would want to take their anger out upon others, children no less.

May our hearts be with the families and souls of the deceased.

This tumblr post informed us on a celeb's point of view on the shooting

Text n shit for the lazy:

Morgan Freeman’s thoughts on the shootings:
“You want to know why. This may sound cynical, but here’s why.
It’s because of the way the media reports it. Flip on the news and watch how we treat the Batman theater shooter and the Oregon mall shooter like celebrities. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are household names, but do you know the name of a single victim of Columbine? Disturbed people who would otherwise just off themselves in their basements see the news and want to top it by doing something worse, and going out in a memorable way. Why a grade school? Why children? Because he’ll be remembered as a horrible monster, instead of a sad nobody.
CNN’s article says that if the body count “holds up”, this will rank as the second deadliest shooting behind Virginia Tech, as if statistics somehow make one shooting worse than another. Then they post a video interview of third-graders for all the details of what they saw and heard while the shootings were happening. Fox News has plastered the killer’s face on all their reports for hours. Any articles or news stories yet that focus on the victims and ignore the killer’s identity? None that I’ve seen yet. Because they don’t sell. So congratulations, sensationalist media, you’ve just lit the fire for someone to top this and knock off a day care center or a maternity ward next.
You can help by forgetting you ever read this man’s name, and remembering the name of at least one victim. You can help by donating to mental health research instead of pointing to gun control as the problem.”

@Pyro

I'd like to see where that quote originated from but it's a very good point (made even better when read in Morgans voice).

That same point has been brought up here before with more people pointing towards unchecked mental health as a source of the problem.

Furthermore, the discussion going on in the event article had already brought up the subject of how the media tends to make an anti-hero out of serial killers and how none of us want that to happen.

We all know it would be better if serial killers remain anonymous, and not plastered everywhere around the internet. This action serves to sensationalize killers and we've seen how it can get them rewards such as another disgusting fandom that pops up around them.

While I wouldn't suggest the media is the sole reason. They way they allow killers to "go out with a bang" is likely to be one reason. It gives them a motive: if you are going to burn then you can burn the world with you and be remembered. Whether or not Morgan actually said that, I'd say it's what many of us are already thinking.

---

@Twins

Fully agree. We've had horrible shootings happen down here too (just not recently or as severe) and this country pretty much wont let anyone have a gun unless you have a damn good reason. We've got some of the lowest rates of gun crime worldwide and yet it still happens on very rare occasion

I'm fine with stricter gun laws as well, I live with them just fine so I know it's not as bad as some people think. If the US should restrict guns, go for it. But since I know that the gun laws don't stop the shootings completely, I know that we shouldn't be focusing our attention on just the guns.

Besides, I don't live in the US and I don't fully understand the gun culture there, so I prefer to avoid debates about it.

To add on to the gun control discussion, Connecticut is one of the more stricter states when it comes to gun control. It's a mystery how the guy even obtained an M4 in the first place (or rather, how his mother obtained it).

Anyways, I agree that though gun control isn't the premium route, I don't really think the "help the psychologically insecure" route is the best either. The only thing most mass-shooters have in common is that they are usually very socially inadept, so that's all we really get in terms of warning signs. The problem with this is that we simply can't go about treating every socially anxious/insecure person (like myself) as a potential murderer, for various reasons (including ethical reasons). This person in particular happened to have Aspergers (according to my sources, anyways), but we can't do anything about that either.

Besides, I don’t live in the US and I don’t fully understand the gun culture there, so I prefer to avoid debates about it.

To my knowledge, the East and West Coasts are generally normal (in comparison to the rest of the world). However in the Central US most households have a gun for hunting reasons. Hunting is a big deal in a lot of states. Some companies even have a holiday at the start of the hunting season to allow their employees to hunt.

….it is… an odd sort of fraternity to belong to. All our love, hope, and wishes.

Don't tell people to shut up, please. It's not that serious in the context of a discussion to be rude. Especially on what is a very touchy topic.
 
As for a larger problem, I think more strict gun control would only be part of the solution, but it would be part of the solution, nonetheless.

As for a change in gun culture, people would ascribe to other cultures anyway. There is a mainstream, and there are subcultures that differ from the mainstream. If a person defects from the mainstream values in regards to guns, then they'll slip through the cracks.

Just like a change, in mental health resources, people will still be missed. Many people don't utilize mental health resources. Psychologists want to be paid a certain amount. Insurance doesn't always pay for therapy. People will slip through the cracks here as well.
 
 
The problem (and there is a problem specific to the US, and it is recent) requires multiple solutions, and even then, it won't stop everything. But even with that cynical truth in mind, I would be depressed to hear someone suggest that nothing wide-ranging be done about it. It's not a small-scale problem when other countries don't have nearly as many shootings (even including differences in population,) so a large-scale set of solutions seems to make sense.

---

And I have no problem with discussing gun control here as long as it still references mass shootings. Sorry, Locks.

@Fifths

I'm sorry. I know that there's probably not a damn thing we can do about it. We can't make the world a happier place

I'm sorry that I just don't feel like giving up and saying "Hey world, that's okay. Get me killed anytime in a horrible shooting because that's just life right? Shit happens. YOLO"

I'm sorry for not wanting the same fate to befall me or any of my close friends and loved ones

I'm sorry for feeling that despite how powerless I am; I should not just let these matters slide over my shoulder. I should seek something, anything to be done about it, even if it's as small as merely theorizing what could be done about it with others and coming to a conclusion on what to make of the whole thing and how to share the news.

Because I know that if I discuss the matter to the point of reaching a reasonable consensus, I can tell others, and they will tell others…and maybe that can lead to people in general having a better idea of how to handle the situation. To give one example: we, the people of the internet, can at the very least do a part to not glorify/sensationalize the names of serial killers which we are sure is one of the pieces to the puzzle. It's a small piece…but it's something…

Damn us for trying something, anything to satisfy that little bit of humanity inside of us that wants to see less of this shit happen, even if all we can do is just talk about it on a forum thread. It's better than not giving a damn at all.

"Yeah, it’s legal in the United States. It's part of our Constitution. You know, the right to bear arms is because that’s the last form of defense against tyranny. Not to hunt. It’s to protect yourself from the police."

Normally I would condone such stupidity, but not this time, with these circumstances.

You, my friend, are a scumbag, and I pity you.

I agree with you there. Mocking the children that just died is too heartless. I bet he doesn't care what the parents are going through right now. I hope he gets bad karma and a lump of coal from Santa this year.

You smile happily when walking through a town struck by a hurricane and jack off to the sadness everyone is in.

I don’t want to hear this stuff from you. I can try to be nice here, but I rather not have those with a god complex judge others in these situations.

@fifths
I'm sorry, but that sort of cynicism would be best applied somewhere else. I get what you're saying, but you're phrasing it very, very poorly.

Never put human life in terms of statistics. That's the same logic that pervaded Mao and Stalin's minds and led to the deaths of dozens of millions, directly or otherwise. And hey, 60 million people dead? That's like, 10% of the population of China under Mao. If it can bring us up to speed with every other civilized nation in the world, why not? It's just a percentage right?

Careful with that logic, is what I'm saying. A life is a life. A single murder is no better than a mass murder. Science and numbers only get us so far.

---

I found a rather good article (if a bit sensationalist with the title) explaining the plight of a mother with a boy of equal mental instability.

---

@muffins
Again, careful with that statement. Socially ineptitude is quite prevalent everywhere (lol internet), and identifying such killers as such is only slightly more accurate than saying they're all human beings.

Generally, mass murderers seem to be socially inept, mentally ill with no support, come from a poor family environment (probably the root of everything), males (says something a lot about society). A history of violence doesn't seem to be correlated, as Holmes had none, while Lanza showed violent behavior in his youth, and neither does intelligence- Holmes was working on a Ph D., the Port Arthur Massacre guy had an IQ under 70. Of course I'm missing a ton of factors, and unfortunately there are less identifying characteristics of a mass murderer than say, a serial killer.

Guy's did you hear that this happened in china too, except that the guy didn't have a gun but he had a knife?

the attack

Now I wont speak much on the matter of both of the attacks but I can only give sympathy to the families that suffer the loss of their loved ones.

@Fifths

And if there's a shovel nearby, I'll grab it. In the meantime, let us exercise our empathy even if its the only thing we can offer. It's what keeps us human. I'm not being fearful. I'm not stopping my day over this. I'm only doing what I feel is human to do: care. I'd rather not have people judge me for that

Your first post implied that I shouldn't give a damn at all. To that I took exception. But thank you for returning to re-clarify your point, I think I see what you were trying to say now and that's fair enough, even if I don't entirely agree with it.

@Twins

It is the privilege of scholars, philosophers, and others who don't have to directly act to think of lives as wholly valuable and ends in and of themselves. The logical conclusion of such thinking is that you become a sort of passivist, unable to fully help some for the fear that you might hurt others in so doing. When presuming to pass policies however, we must be willing to look at the singular life as having less than infinite value, we must be willing to consider the statistics. Twenty-seven people dying senseless deaths is a tragedy, but how much greater a tragedy would it be if in a fit of emotion and irrationality, we pass laws that negatively affect millions?

@RandomMan

You misunderstand and abuse me. I feel I am right and justified in this matter, so I'm not going to recant my opinions even at the threat of a ban. I only ask that you understand my opinions fully and deem them to be unquestionably malicious before deciding to drop the banhammer.

@BSoD

I respect that you accede to the reason you see in a position even when it's coming from someone who circumstance has you turned against. I really mean that.

And do realize that even though that attack was aimed at you, I was more addressing a general public who is willing to bemoan and cry about the injustices of the world, who force all sorts of (very harmful) legislation to try and fix it, but are unwilling to actually get their hands personally dirty to fix these problems.

I think it's only human to have some emotional reaction to a thing like this, and I don't hold it against you for feeling some level of outrage. Passion is not a justification to do something however, and that is what I have objection to. Acting on passion leads us to propose radical and harmful solutions in the short run, and then when that passion fades, it leaves us apathetic and unwilling to address legitimate problems that need addressing.

My RAGE is at these passionate actors, the people who take their emotion to be license for all sorts of madness in the short run and the absence of such fiery emotion to be an excuse to do nothing at all. When such people dare to get self-righteous with me, to condemn me for not following the rest of them in mindlessly throwing themselves off a cliff, when I think of the utter hypocrisy of it all, it…it…rustles many jimmies.

So I by no means condemn you for giving a damn, just keep a sense of perspective while you do it. And if you are one of those who picks up the shovel and keep shoveling, then I will regard you as one of the finest human beings alive.

@Fifths

Arguing with mods = ban?…

Since when?

@Discussion

I tried to avoid the discussion, but sure, why the hell not.

Personally, I don't believe guns are the issue so much as the people using the guns are. Some people are just unfit to carry guns, others are far more responsible. Not everyone who holds a gun will go around shooting up places just like not everyone who keeps to themselves are murderers waiting to happen. Some people just shouldn't have a weapon, in any shape or form. With that out of the way, I'd like to point out that there is no way to figure out who will use their firearms irresponsibly before it actually happens. If there was, gun control wouldn't even be an issue. I guess I just want to say that because we can't pick out the murderous potential of each individual owning a gun, we should disable the possibility. Sure, taking away the guns won't stop a person from picking up a knife and stabbing 22 people, but doing so will require more effort than pulling a trigger. People are lazy by nature. I don't think there will be many people willing to walk up to several individuals with the sole purpose of shanking them like monday night pot roast. Seems like too much effort for something so trivial.

tl;dr

Do I think it's right to take guns away from people? No.
Should we take guns away from people? Yes.

@Fifths

And where did you get that idea? Why would I ban a person for having an opinion? I have banned before for forcing ones opinion constantly or sharing it solely to talk smut about a subject, but not for what you're posting.

Past experience on KYM with you have learned me that you simply do not value human life, and often find your own opinion superior without any rebuttal possible as legit as it may be. You find sadness and destruction arousing, as you have described when walking through a hurricane struck town. You simply aren't a party I'd prefer to make decisions on situations like gun control, sorry for saying it.

As much as I believe an objective point of view should be a main priority in these society-changing decisions, and people shouldn't act rashly on emotions so short after the event, your way of not caring is something I disagree with.

I live in a country with gun control, and even we had a shooting last year in a mall. He was a member of a rifle club, and had a history of physical and suicidal issues. So even though he got those weapons legally, his history should've proven he wasn't to be trusted with firearms, and therefore the system is to blame here.

Gun control will always stay a matter of shutting the stable door when the horse has already been stolen, as even thinking about action isn't done until the situation deteriorates to crisis point. And as I live in a country which has a whole different system on these things, I can't give a clear opinion on a country like the US. We don't have ghettos, one of the main places you'll find illegal weapons in the US, so it's impossible for me to draw a straight conclusion.

Call me insensitive, but I honestly don't think that just saying "What a tragedy" every time something like this happens is going to get us anywhere.

You're right, but sometimes, discussion helps people to make sense out of a situation.

Maybe like me, people feel helpless in a situation like this. Perhaps without a change in culture, US citizens are helpless, and the only way to make sense out of it is to accept that it "comes with the territory." Perhaps we call for extensive, wide-ranging policy because individuals or small communities like this one may not have an effect.

But in practicality, maybe it isn't useful. There are several things in life like that. Laughing, joking, breasts, etc.

---

Fifths, I can't argue your point meaningfully.

Users, don't downvote Fifths (or anyone) unless they are being carelessly or intentionally antagonistic.

Users, don’t downvote Fifths (or anyone) unless they are being carelessly or intentionally antagonistic.

I agree with this. Although I don't really approve of Fifths' rather contemptuous attitude here, I wouldn't downvote him.

---

Also, discussion can help bring a group of people together, and it does have its benefits for morale, but from my point of view, I see it as being sort of insubstantial in a scenario like this (of which we've had too many).

Thank you for the defense. Could I ask you to explain why you don't feel you can argue the point meaningfully?

I like how somebody downvoted you on that post. Jesus.

My teacher said today that this guy that killed the kids obviously wanted attention, if he didn't have an illness, and that that's exactly what we're giving him. She said that we should just let it go, and stop posting his name and what he did all over the news and move on with our lives. And I can't say I disagree with her.

Honestly? It's not fun. Discussing anything with you with a degree of seriousness takes it out of me. The cons outweigh the pros. I'd prefer I didn't have to say that, but since you asked, that's my answer.

Maybe that won't be a problem when I'm out of school for a few months, or maybe it's debating a philosophy major. But it doesn't make sense for me anymore.

And then you get downvoted for calling it out. There's always that one dumb fuck.

@Verbose

I understand perfectly. You'd be surprised how often I get that from people, and I'd like to believe it doesn't stem completely from me being an annoying pain in the ass. A philosophical perspective holds nothing sacred, questions things everyone else holds as plainly given, and cares little for practicality. I can understand how people could just be completely frustrated by that.

@fifths

It's fine to have a philosophical perspective, but if you are going to do that, this is not the way to go about it

@Everyone suggesting solutions
Just shut up. This country has 300 million people, it doesn’t matter if you have the smartest policies to control weapons nor does it matter if you have the greatest psychologists to control psychotics, when you have that many people, some shit is going to manage to slip through the cracks.

That's why people didn't like that comment. It seemed way too antagonistic.

Edit: why can't I do the blockqoute shit?
Double Edit: I actually agree with you that stronger gun laws wont fix anything and ultimately stuff like that will continue to happen no matter what, but they way you put forth your view left a bad taste in my mouth to be honest.