Sad sign of the times

[RememberSchiff]

I'm confused. Is this just a misunderstanding?

[HelpfulTracks]

18 hours ago, .40AET said:

I was surprised to hear that this was the 18th school shooting of the year. (6 weeks into the new year)

@.40AET, please do not leave the board or even the discussion.  You are certainly entitled to your opinion, as is @CalicoPenn

In my opinion, one of the major problems with our society is the urgency with which we settle into a position, and how entrenched we become, during (or even prior to) a discussion.

Too often we weaponize debate and there is no real chance to have a discussion that might help solve a problem. If you are for gun control legislation you are for tyranny and against individual rights if you are against gun control legislation you are for murdering children and against public safety. 

We are all to blame for where we are. The politicians stake out hardline partisan positions and hold on to them doggedly in order to get reelected because not solving a problem gives them something to rail against, but nothing to be accountable for. 

The media promotes the partisan conflict and 30 second sound bites because conflict sells and they want to gain viewers/readers.subscribers. Or worse, depending on the media outlet, they have staked out their own positions and rather than report, they lobby. 

And "we the people" reward them by continuing to send the same buffoons back to DC, even though 80+ percent of us disapprove of the job they are doing.

[.40AET]

9 hours ago, RememberSchiff said:

I'm confused. Is this just a misunderstanding?

Yes Sir. I failed to use quotes when citing a news source. @CalicoPennsent me a nice note last night. The sun is shining brightly on the new fallen snow this morning and I have a new perspective. I generally stay out of politics and accidentally followed a feed into the forum. 

[Gwaihir]

On 2/17/2018 at 11:44 AM, .40AET said:

I was surprised to hear that this was the 18th school shooting of the year. (6 weeks into the new year)

That's because it isn't true.  It's a nonsense number with no actual facts to back it up.  If there were 18 school shootings 6 weeks into the year, there would be 3 school shootings a week and Trump and Russia would have NEVER hit the news cycle. 

[Gwaihir]

On 2/17/2018 at 7:38 PM, CalicoPenn said:

Everytown for Gun Safety is quite clear on what they consider the parameters to be to call something a school shooting - you can disagree if you want but its rather disingenuous to claim they are being dishonest just because the numbers they are reporting which match their criteria doesn't meet yours or someone else's idea of what a school shooting means.

We can have honest differences of opinion without calling other people dishonest

you called 6 million Americans terrorists, and you want to talk about calling people dishonest? 

[ianwilkins]

38 minutes ago, Gwaihir said:

That's because it isn't true.  It's a nonsense number with no actual facts to back it up.  If there were 18 school shootings 6 weeks into the year, there would be 3 school shootings a week and Trump and Russia would have NEVER hit the news cycle. 

Yes, it's not true, I usually go to snopes, when I don't know who to believe, and it tells me....

https://www.snopes.com/2018/02/16/how-many-school-shootings-in-2018/

Firearm attacks during school hours: 7 (incidents resulting in injuries or deaths: 5) 

22 January: Italy High School, Italy, Texas – A 16-year-old student opened fire with a semi-automatic handgun in the school cafeteria, wounding another student.

22 January: NET Charter High School, Gentilly, Louisiana – An unknown person fired shots at students from a vehicle in the school parking lot. One person was injured (though not by gunfire).

23 January: Marshall County High School, Benton, Kentucky – A 15-year-old student opened fire with a handgun on school grounds, killing two and injuring 18.

25 January: Murphy High School, Mobile, Alabama – A student fired a handgun into the air during a fight with another student. No injuries were reported.

26 January: Dearborn High School, Dearborn, Michigan – Shots were fired during a fight in the school parking lot. No injuries were reported.

31 January: Lincoln High School, Philadelphia – A fight during a basketball game resulted in the shooting death of a 32-year-old man outside the school.

14 February: Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Parkland, Florida – A 19-year-old former student opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle, killing 17 and injuring 14.

But what struck me wasn't the number, the amount, the statistics, fuel for a good discussion. I saw this list on a BBC article, with their ages, and it really took the wind out of my sails, not ashamed to say I get a little teared up every time I look at it...

The students who died were:

Alyssa Alhadeff, 14

Martin Duque, 14

Alaina Petty, 14

Alex Schachter, 14

Jaime Guttenberg, 14

Cara Loughran, 14

Gina Montalto, 14

Luke Hoyer, 15

Peter Wang, 15

Carmen Schentrup, 16

Nicholas Dworet, 17

Joaquin Oliver, 17

Helena Ramsey, 17

Meadow Pollack, 18

[Col. Flagg]

On 2/17/2018 at 11:56 AM, Hawkwin said:

To clarify, that study doesn't state what you think it does. The study did not try to determine "crime related to drug use." That study simply determined that people arrested had drugs in their system at the time of their arrest. That doesn't mean that they smoked pot and while high, decided to car-jack someone.

Correlation is not causality. As your link stated, if they tested individuals arrested for crimes for having consumed water in the last 24 hours, such would not mean that 100% of crime is related to water consumption.

More likely the study suggests that individuals with the propensity to commit crimes are also likely to use illegal drugs. Not a rather shocking discovery.

 

On 2/17/2018 at 1:55 PM, Back Pack said:

But it doesn’t say there isn’t a relationship either. 

I think this sums it up. It at least shows that criminals had drugs in their system.

I find it ironic that Scouters are justifying the existence of illegal drugs.

[blw2]

Not illegal drugs, but how many of these shooters have been on SSRI meds?

I wonder also about ADD meds too....?

....either current use or in the past.

[Col. Flagg]

5 minutes ago, ianwilkins said:

22 January: NET Charter High School, Gentilly, Louisiana – An unknown person fired shots at students from a vehicle in the school parking lot. One person was injured (though not by gunfire).

26 January: Dearborn High School, Dearborn, Michigan – Shots were fired during a fight in the school parking lot. No injuries were reported.

31 January: Lincoln High School, Philadelphia – A fight during a basketball game resulted in the shooting death of a 32-year-old man outside the school.

I wouldn't classify these three as "school shootings". As least, not in the same way that last week's tragedy was. The incidents above took place after school hours or *might* have involved a shooter that was or wasn't a student. That's a bit different than a student bringing a firearm on campus and discharging it.

If you want to broaden the discussion to student-aged kids and violence, then I suspect the number is much higher than 18 incidents. Expand that to the number of kids who simply bring firearms on campus and that number grows further. Expand that to the number of kids detained for bringing anything deemed a "weapon" on to campus and that number would explode.

[ianwilkins]

I'm not sure the classification matters. There was a list of 17 kids who were the same age as my Explorer Scouts when they were shot and killed. Same age as my own children. They are gone and the lives of those around them are in tatters..

[Gwaihir]

On 2/18/2018 at 6:20 AM, HelpfulTracks said:

Too often we weaponize debate and there is no real chance to have a discussion that might help solve a problem. If you are for gun control legislation you are for tyranny and against individual rights if you are against gun control legislation you are for murdering children and against public safety. 

Except that the 2nd Amendment as it's written, is blatantly clear that gun control legislation is in violation of the enumeration of rights.   If we said there should be heavy restrictions on who should and shouldn't be able to speak openly or publish news... there would be almost universal agreement this is in violation of the 1st Amendment, regardless of the merits of such a claim. Heck, Donald Trump even proposed such an idea in response to his "fake news" claims, and there was collective rejection of the premise out of hand, despite the technology advances since the amendment and the ability to disseminate vast amounts of fake and potentially harmful news to millions of people in seconds. 

[Gwaihir]

4 minutes ago, ianwilkins said:

I'm not sure the classification matters. There was a list of 17 kids who were the same age as my Explorer Scouts when they were shot and killed. Same age as my own children. They are gone and the lives of those around them are in tatters..

Does the classification matter if a child was taken during a drunk driving accident or a regular vehicular accident?   To the people involved, of course it doesn't matter, but when looking at facts and statistics to do proper analysis, the classifications matter.  

[Col. Flagg]

17 minutes ago, ianwilkins said:

I'm not sure the classification matters. There was a list of 17 kids who were the same age as my Explorer Scouts when they were shot and killed. Same age as my own children. They are gone and the lives of those around them are in tatters..

It does matter because they are different problems. Much of the student on student violence has to do with local politics, economics, rivalries and other things. It has nothing to do with the issues in the mental health system, over-prescription of certain drugs, the rampant abuse of legal drugs for recreation, etc.

You see it as "a gun problem", but it's not as simple as that. It is much more than that.

[FireStone]

The video games and movies thing drives me nuts every time the gun debate comes up. Do our politicians really not realize that these same video games and movies get shipped around the world, including to countries with little gun violence? There are countries that are far bigger consumers of video games than the US. So where are all of the school shootings in those countries? 

[Col. Flagg]

1 hour ago, FireStone said:

The video games and movies thing drives me nuts every time the gun debate comes up. Do our politicians really not realize that these same video games and movies get shipped around the world, including to countries with little gun violence? There are countries that are far bigger consumers of video games than the US. So where are all of the school shootings in those countries? 

It's not just video games and movies either. Look at violence overall in some of these countries, not just school shootings. Honduras and Guatemala don't have a large number of school shootings per se, but their street and gang violence is off the charts. Go visit a Mexican border town, take a walk down the street in your shorts and Yankee's t-shirt and see how long until you get robbed.