Connecticut Elementary School Shooting

[Crown]

Funnily enough all this time I thought that there were some rigorous tests and training courses to become a police officer and given a weapon and trusted with the responsibility to protect and serve the community at large with your own life if need be and trusted to be able to exercise the use of deadly force at moments of crisis using good judgement.

But thankfully due to this thread, my eyes have been opened, and all you need to be is an alternative to a restriction to gun ownership in the USA.

America! FUCK YEAH!

Arm the fucking janitors, is this a troll thread or something?

[Broken]

IIRC, from some of the articles on the NRA speech (I've read a number) the rough napkin math of putting even one armed, professional security officer in each school in the country means we would need around 100,000 personal. Even if there were that many people up and ready to go, that's a lot of background checks and physical moving around, since each school is probably not lucky enough to have one of these new folks living right there.

Not that having armed personal at the scene of a shooting will necessarily help matters. Columbine High School had an armed sheriff's deputy on site the day of the shooting and that didn't appear to be of any help. Nor the concealed carry at the Giffords shootings, who was wise enough not to take a shot he was not certain of. And not one of the 62 mass shootings of the last 30 years was stopped by an armed citizen.

So throwing even more weapons into the mix is not likely to stop these rampage shootings. We are already an incredibly heavily armed society, with roughly 300 million guns in the US. Violent crime in all major categories had been trending down for something like 20+ years, except for gun crimes which are steady. No, things like the proposed assault weapons legislation won't help more likely then not, but its better then assuming average citizens will suddenly become steely-eyed protectors of the weak when something happens, because what few facts we have just don't support that conclusion. We need better mental health care, we need ways to keep weapons out of the hands of people who shouldn't have them, we need facts so we can make accurate, correct decisions. We don't need the knee-jerk ban everything or the insane hope of we can find the magic number of armed people we will automatically limit all rampages. No other first world nation keeps this mad cycle of mass shootings and yelling without changing anything. Perfect prevention is impossible, but as other nations show, we should be much more capable of limiting the carnage.

[ryacko]

Columbine High School had an armed sheriff's deputy on site the day of the shooting and that didn't appear to be of any help.

LEOs have been retrained in the wake of Columbine, instead of waiting for Swat, they are supposed to move in to engage the shooter.

Also, assuming on average twenty people die a year from mass shootings, that's still 0.001% of all deaths.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Yeah, Columbine is a false analogy, as the "strategy" in those days was to retreat and wait for a SWAT team when dealing with an active shootist.

Also, school janitors are fairly highly paid union employees who have to go through background checks already to make sure they're not pedophiles and child beaters, so they're not exactly stereotypically down and out janitors with low cognitive ability and so on.

[Broomstick]

Well, they might be of "low cognitive ability", there's nothing incompatible with being not that smart and also a law-abiding, non-abusive citizen.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Not that having armed personal at the scene of a shooting will necessarily help matters. Columbine High School had an armed sheriff's deputy on site the day of the shooting and that didn't appear to be of any help. Nor the concealed carry at the Giffords shootings, who was wise enough not to take a shot he was not certain of. And not one of the 62 mass shootings of the last 30 years was stopped by an armed citizen.

The change in police tactics can be best reflect with Trolley Square. An off duty Ogden police officer engaged the shooter and delayed him long enough for Salt Lake City PD officers to arrive and deal with the shooter.

[TimothyC]

And not one of the 62 mass shootings of the last 30 years was stopped by an armed citizen.

Ok, that's just funny. It totally ignores the counter arguement that you can stop a shooter from becoming a 'mass murderer' as has happened before, such as in the Appalachian School of Law Shooting where only three people were killed before the shooter was subduded.

[General Zod]

And not one of the 62 mass shootings of the last 30 years was stopped by an armed citizen.

Ok, that's just funny. It totally ignores the counter arguement that you can stop a shooter from becoming a 'mass murderer' as has happened before, such as in the Appalachian School of Law Shooting where only three people were killed before the shooter was subduded.

Mikael Gross, a police officer from Grifton, North Carolina retrieved a 9 mm pistol and body armor.[7] Bridges, a county sheriff's deputy from Asheville, North Carolina[8] retrieved his .357 Magnum pistol from beneath the driver's seat of his Chevrolet Tahoe.

I don't think they count as your typical "armed citizen" given they're both trained police officers.

[aerius]

Food for thought - http://www.ssristories.com/index.php

Pretty much every school shooting, including this latest one was committed by someone who was on anti-depressants or had recently stopped taking anti-depressants. But no one wants to talk about that, in fact I think Lonestar was the only one who brought up mental health issues and how you need to do a better job there. Everyone else just talks about guns without trying to find the root cause or fix it. You have a school & medical system which hands out drugs like candy with little to no supervision (btw, you might want to look up the known side-effects of Paxil and other such drugs. Manic episodes, homicidal rage, and impulsiveness among other things...) and then wonders why kids flip out and go postal.

[Aaron MkII]

Actually I think you'll find that a number of us mentioned that better access to mental health, along with a list of other things would go further towards stopping this.

But as someone who had just gone through lengthy effexor withdrawl before xmas, yes those of us who take these meds (myself included) should be under increased scrutiny. And should be given access to more resources.

[Losonti Tokash]

Are you blaming antidepressants for mass shootings? Maybe it's more to do with the fact that they were mentally ill.

[Beowulf]

Are you blaming antidepressants for mass shootings? Maybe it's more to do with the fact that they were mentally ill.

People who just get put on anti-depressants are known to be more likely to commit suicide, why would it be a surprise that SSRIs might do something wonky too? Oh no! That might interfere with the "guns are innately evil" story that all the statists here are trying to promote. I mean, anti-depressants are designed to mess with your brain chemistry!

[Losonti Tokash]

Probably because aerius is a giant shithead and tells people contemplating suicide to just do it. But your eagerness to jump onto a conspiracy theory is pretty telling. Do you know if vaccines were involved? Or MKUltra?

[Losonti Tokash]

Shit, how did I forget? I bet it was the ultimate NRA boogeyman, noted video game Bulletstorm!

[TimothyC]

Probably because aerius is a giant shithead and tells people contemplating suicide to just do it. But your eagerness to jump onto a conspiracy theory is pretty telling. Do you know if vaccines were involved? Or MKUltra?

Conspiracy theory?

What conspiracy theory? The fact that people going on or off of psychoactive medications might be unstable isn't a conspiracy theory at all. We've also known for some time that when you put people on SSRIs you have to monitor the patients closely because in the early stages of treatment the medication isn't built up enough to get the person out of depression, but can be built up enough to get the person out of the "Do nothing" stage. This is why there are directives to monitor said patients for suicide after treatment is started.

Even then, there is no need for a 'conspiracy theory'. SSRIs have to some degree gone generic and are one of the more popular anti-depressant therapies. The point that Beo, Aerius, & Aaron are making is that it is conceivable that improved mental health treatment would represent a better investment than the "Ban guns!" plans of some of the left.

[aerius]

If there's one thing everyone here should've learned from the George Zimmerman case it's that the US media is completely full of shit and not to be trusted. FoxNews touched on mental health in the article I posted a few pages back about his mom getting him committed to a mental care facility. And that's about it, you have to go into blogs & forums to find any mention of anti-depressants & mental health disorders.

Or you could go into the foreign news media and find articles such as this one from Switzerland:
http://www.lematin.ch/faits-divers/tire ... y/25707764

Tireurs fous et médicaments: cocktail explosif?


Aux Etats-Unis, un médicament sensé soigner la dépression est pointé du doigt après la fusillade de Newtown. A la suite du drame de Daillon et à l'heure du procès du forcené de Bienne, la question se pose aussi en Suisse.

Les médicaments jouent-ils un rôle dans le passage à l'acte des tireurs fous? La question peut se poser à l'heure où le drame de Daillon (VS) et le procès du forcené de Bienne rappellent que les fusillades ne se produisent pas seulement qu'aux Etats-Unis. Outre-Atlantique justement, un médicament sensé soigner la dépression est pointé du doigt après la fusillade de Newtown.

D'après le site Atlantico.fr, Adam Lanza, le jeune homme de 20 ans qui a tué de sang froid 26 personnes, dont 20 enfants âgés de 6 à 10 ans, à l'école Sandy Hook le 14 décembre 2012, prenait du Fanapt, un médicament antipsychotique controversé.

Controversé car, selon que l'agence américaine de la nourriture et des médicaments (FDA), le Fanapt, commercialisé par Novartis, aurait des effets secondaires indésirables tels que «l'hostilité, la chute de la libido, la paranoïa, l'état de confusion, la manie, la catatonie, les changements d'humeur, les attaques de panique, les troubles obsessionnels compulsifs, la boulimie, le délire, l'anorgasmie, la polydipsie, ou encore de très graves dépressions».

Pour le Pr. Chinbin Eap, de la Faculté de biologie et de médecine à l'Université de Lausanne (UNIL), ce n'est toutefois pas le médicament en lui-même qui provoque la violence, cette dernière dépendant essentiellement de la personnalité de chacun. «Certains médicaments, comme les benzodiazépines, à savoir tous les tranquillisants, peuvent avoir des effets paradoxaux», dit-il. «Ils provoquent une désinhibition. Et si le patient prend de l'alcool pendant son traitement, il peut devenir agité, agressif et délirant», poursuit le médecin.

Translating the bolded part:

"According to the site Atlantico.fr, Adam Lanza, the young 20 year old man who 26 people in cold blood including 20 children aged 6 to 10 years, at the Sandy Hood school on December 14 2012, was taking Fanapt, a controversial antipsychotic medication.

Controversial because according to the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA), Fanapt, commercialized by Novatis, has undesirable side-effects such as hostility, loss of libido, paranoia, confusion, mania, catatonia, mood swings, panic attacks, OCD, bulimia, delirium, anorgasmia, polydipsia, and severe depression."

Am I saying the drugs made him do it? No. Were the drugs a contributing factor? Possible, given their known side-effects, but we'll never know since he blew his own brains out. But most people don't want to talk about that because it means you'd have to ask hard questions about how your society deals with mental health issues, how the medical & school system drugs the shit out of kids, how parents have failed in their responsibilities in raising kids and so on & so forth. It's so much easier to go "OMG GUNS!!!" than to admit that your entire society & political system has failed your children. And until you fix the root causes you're going to keep getting mass killings.

[Civil War Man]

Food for thought - http://www.ssristories.com/index.php

Pretty much every school shooting, including this latest one was committed by someone who was on anti-depressants or had recently stopped taking anti-depressants. But no one wants to talk about that, in fact I think Lonestar was the only one who brought up mental health issues and how you need to do a better job there. Everyone else just talks about guns without trying to find the root cause or fix it. You have a school & medical system which hands out drugs like candy with little to no supervision (btw, you might want to look up the known side-effects of Paxil and other such drugs. Manic episodes, homicidal rage, and impulsiveness among other things...) and then wonders why kids flip out and go postal.

1. Lots of people have brought up issues with mental health care.

2. One of my issues with this line of argument, along with a lot of gun control arguments, is that it is full of false dilemmas. Notice how most anyone who tries to propose any kind of gun control, regardless of the specifics, is almost immediately accused of being a tyrant trying to take away all guns. Or arguing that possible gun control measures should not be considered if they are not 100% effective at eliminating gun deaths. Or implying that gun control measures should not be considered if there's any other possible causes of gun violence.

Why can't we improve our mental health care system and take steps to try to minimize access to guns for people with known stability issues? Why can't we strengthen our safety net to improve living conditions for the poor and restrict access to features that can easily increase body count when gun violence occurs? Why can't we try to address the glorification of violence in our culture and require safety features designed to help mitigate accidental deaths? How are any of these things mutually exclusive?

[Kamakazie Sith]

1. Lots of people have brought up issues with mental health care.

Yes, and it seems to be pushed to the side for things like magazine bans and restricting specific firearm types.

2. One of my issues with this line of argument, along with a lot of gun control arguments, is that it is full of false dilemmas. Notice how most anyone who tries to propose any kind of gun control, regardless of the specifics, is almost immediately accused of being a tyrant trying to take away all guns. Or arguing that possible gun control measures should not be considered if they are not 100% effective at eliminating gun deaths. Or implying that gun control measures should not be considered if there's any other possible causes of gun violence.

Here on this forum? Who? Duchess is the only one I can recall making that extreme of an accusation. Almost everyone else is saying "I haven't done anything wrong and I don't want to be punished for that"

Why can't we improve our mental health care system and take steps to try to minimize access to guns for people with known stability issues? Why can't we strengthen our safety net to improve living conditions for the poor and restrict access to features that can easily increase body count when gun violence occurs? Why can't we try to address the glorification of violence in our culture and require safety features designed to help mitigate accidental deaths? How are any of these things mutually exclusive?

I think you'd be surprise to know that most moderate firearm owners agree with you. For the most part those who are experts with firearms on this board seem to be ignored on issues such as magazine size. People who advocate such a restriction are told that it is a useless measure but for some reason these other people who have little to no experience disagree because apparently in some cases being an asshole makes you an expert.

There is a middle ground here. You've just said it. I like this direction.

[EdgarjPublius]

I. And not one of the 62 mass shootings of the last 30 years was stopped by an armed citizen.

Refuted

Summary:
Of the events considered, 32 were stopped by some form of intervention (roughly half of mass-shooting events end in suicide by the perpetrator before police intervene)
15 of those were ended by Police and 17 by civilians, 6 of whom were armed.

The MotherJones dataset, while useful for many purposes, is incomplete and insufficient for any analysis or discussion of prevention and/or intervention, as it only includes 'successful' attacks.

I'm not sure the DailyAnarchist data is complete enough to draw significant conclusions from either. However, it does a good job of showing where the MotherJones data is weak, and effectively counters the idea that civilians are powerless or otherwise incapable of intervening, and specifically that armed civilians have never stopped an attack.