Gunman kills 19 children, 2 adults in Texas grade school

[Skybird]

A cultural problemn. A culture of violence, and people, get accustomed to it form childhood on.

Sweden and Switzerland have high rates of gun ownership, too. Nobody mentions their weekly school shooting events. Nor their high rate of gun-violence. Australia tightened its laws drastically some years ago - and their gun violence rates took a dive. Sorry, or it was Canada, maybe I mix it up, but I think it was Australia.

Nothing wrong in taking the junior age 15 or so and train him on the range with an air rifle, and some years later on that farm a small callibre hunting rifle, and like Neal said, at even higher age - 28, 30 or so - a pistol or whatever for self defence. I once was strictly against guns, but I have u-turned on that extreme position many years ago already,anmd if laws would allow me in germany I would own one myself. I am not against owning guns. But i am against the excessive, almost religious glorification cult around guns. And AR rifles in the hands of ten year olds. That is a no-go, that is NEVER NO MATTER. That is obscene. I have no tolerance for this abuse. Yopu form not just one midn by this, but youj form a whole national mentality, cultural public climate.

When Trump dripped his verbal poison on the NRA convention recently, you can bet that no guns were allowed, not even Swiss pocket knifes. So much for the double standards. And the same Texas senator demanding better mental checks for gun owners has cut funding for according health care I read and funnelled it into border fences or somethign related to that. Double talk. Last but not least, for the industry the second ammendment plays no role here, they may pose as saints and defenders of liberty and all that paroles and hiogwash but what they really are is: greedy for ever more profits. To hell with dead children, who cares? To hell with shooting incidents, who cares? Lets make moneymoneymoney. That and only that it is about.

In the end what it comes down to is a weapon fetish for the sake of the weapon itself, a cult of firearms, a culture born from violence, breeding ever more violence and thus having nothing else to expect from the future than violence. You get the hell from it that you have made yourself. You reap what you sow. Enjoy.

[Skybird]

The other side of the arguments:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-61615236


One of the reasons why I am no more strictly anti-gun as I was many years ago.

[Skybird]

Der Spiegel, mid-February this year (2022):

(...)
As if that weren't bad enough, U.S. firearms manufacturer WEE 1 Tactical is now offering a semi-automatic rifle designed specifically for children, modeled after the AR-15.

The JR-15 will "help adults safely introduce children to the shooting sports," according to promotional copy from the company. It has now been unveiled at the "Shot Show 2022" in Las Vegas. At the gun show, an employee spoke of a rifle designed specifically for young shooters.

It "looks, feels and functions just like mom and dad's rifle," the company advertises the weapon. Compared to the standard AR-15 model, however, the JR-15 is significantly smaller and lighter, costing $389. For boys, the company advertises it with a pirate skull with a mohawk. Girls are said to be appealed by a skull with blond highlights and a pink pacifier in its mouth.

Activists against gun violence strongly condemned the advertising campaign for the children's rifle. "At first glance, this seems like a grotesque joke. At second glance, it's just grotesque," said Josh Sugarmann of the Violence Policy Center.

The Newtown Action Alliance, a group that also advocates for firearms restriction, accused the gun industry of being "willing to do anything to continue making profits."

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Thats not just disgusting anymore - that is rightout perverse. All sanity went out of the window long time ago. If you will this, you have no argument anymore against mortar training in kindergardens, and constructing hand grenades in chemistry classes at school. You live like you train, right?

[Commander Wallace]

Originally Posted by Armistead

When I was 23 dating my first wife and she had a child. I stayed with her on weekends as she was 1.5 hr from me and lived rural. One night while there I heard something in the basement. I got her gun I knew was there, a mere 410 pump shotgun and loaded it with 1 shell she had in the drawer. Anyways, they came up the stairs and opened the door to the main part and I fired, pretty dark. It was enuf they ran. A large knife was found. One was arrested a county over at the hospital saying he had an accident. The other was later arrested. One had just recently gotten out of prison for 7 years for attempted murder and rape. I made sure she had proper gun then. I already owned several being an avid hunter.
I'm OK with some extra gun laws, tho I don't think they'll ever stop mass school shootings if someone is determined to do it. However, anyone that lives as an adult, has a home and family has the right to defend it. One thing I notice with most murderers today arrested is they usually have a long violent rap sheet often with illegal gun charges. I see the NY subway murderer turned himself in. He had 19 previous arrest, many violent and several illegal gun charges. His last bail was $1000. With so many violent people let go so easily I'll stand by the fight to own guns to defend your life, home and family.

I had looked at weapons for my lady and we settled on a high end .357 magnum revolver-6 shot. I also purchased speed loaders. For control-ability, The weapon is loaded with .38 caliber ammunition rated at plus p pressures and they are also hollow point bullets. There are also other weapons here, mostly of the automatic variety. We also have our license to carry weapons as well and have for some time.

I have had a good number of conversations with police officers I deal with, a few of whom I went to high school with. For the most part, they tend to agree that drugs are fueling most crime. People steal to buy drugs, people rob to buy drugs, people break into homes to find money to buy drugs, people are caught selling drugs, etc....

One State Police officer told me during a conversation that there are video games that feature 1st person " shooting " games. He told me that he and fellow police officers are gravely concerned that younger kids, perhaps hyped up on illicit drugs, are being de-sensitized to violence from playing these " games.". They have told me they wouldn't allow their own kids to have those games.

Years ago, I was friendly with a young woman I met who was from the U.K. In trying to select a movie for viewing after dinner, she made an observation. She innocently asked why the vast majority of our movies are so violent and dark. She further asked why there is so much gratuitous violence that lends nothing to the movie itself. Until then, I had never given movies much thought. I agreed with her. My own movie viewing was and remains for the most part, comedies, history and military documentaries and anything dealing with science / space exploration. I also tend to watch the odd Football and Hockey game. I still look at movies today from the same perspective she gave me.

Are these aggravating factors in gun violence ? In my honest opinion, most likely. Are there other aggravating factors ? Probably. I don't think anyone can be certain of why this is happening. This may well be an example of gun culture that people from different countries are pointing to what is becoming an ever increasing violent society.

In my own family, growing up, we were taught early on to have respect for other people and their things and to have respect for life and animals, in general. My own mum and dad had said to me and my siblings, " don't ever shame our family name." We also had respect for our teachers and administrators, in school. Do other kids have this ? In many regards, sadly no. Is this a factor in gun violence ? Only you can decide that for yourself.

[mapuc]

Due to the roadblocks in the Congress and Senate-Nothing will happen.

Big words was spoken by Obama and others after the Sandy incident...Nothing happens.

Could it be that Platapus is correct your politicians are only saying what YOU wanna hear- And after this politician has been re-elected this person seems to forget what they promised.

Since People seems to be more interested in their weapon and their politician than their love one-Nothing will change.

Markus

[Ostfriese]

Originally Posted by Commander Wallace

He told me that he and fellow police officers are gravely concerned that younger kids, perhaps hyped up on illicit drugs, are being de-sensitized to violence from playing these " games.". They have told me they wouldn't allow their own kids to have those games.

Why are excessive gun violence and mass shootings an American-only problem then? Kids play the same video games worldwide, but among the first world nations the US stand alone, experiencing more mass shootings in a single year than the entire rest of these nations expierences in decades.

[Xerxes]

Originally Posted by Ostfriese

Not even capital punishment does have that effect.



The solution is prevention - prevent people from becoming criminals in the first place, by giving them a good education, perspectives and a purpose.

Law isn't intended to be preventative, it's inherently reactive. It just happens that strict punishment has a slight deterrent property. If you want to prevent law-abiding citizens from defending themselves, be my guest. As I have said, if a man wants to go on a murderous rampage, he doesn't give a damn about whatever laws you throw at him.

[Xerxes]

Originally Posted by Skybird

A cultural problemn. A culture of violence, and people, get accustomed to it form childhood on.

Sweden and Switzerland have high rates of gun ownership, too. Nobody mentions their weekly school shooting events. Nor their high rate of gun-violence. Australia tightened its laws drastically some years ago - and their gun violence rates took a dive. Sorry, or it was Canada, maybe I mix it up, but I think it was Australia.

Nothing wrong in taking the junior age 15 or so and train him on the range with an air rifle, and some years later on that farm a small callibre hunting rifle, and like Neal said, at even higher age - 28, 30 or so - a pistol or whatever for self defence. I once was strictly against guns, but I have u-turned on that extreme position many years ago already,anmd if laws would allow me in germany I would own one myself. I am not against owning guns. But i am against the excessive, almost religious glorification cult around guns. And AR rifles in the hands of ten year olds. That is a no-go, that is NEVER NO MATTER. That is obscene. I have no tolerance for this abuse. Yopu form not just one midn by this, but youj form a whole national mentality, cultural public climate.

When Trump dripped his verbal poison on the NRA convention recently, you can bet that no guns were allowed, not even Swiss pocket knifes. So much for the double standards. And the same Texas senator demanding better mental checks for gun owners has cut funding for according health care I read and funnelled it into border fences or somethign related to that. Double talk. Last but not least, for the industry the second ammendment plays no role here, they may pose as saints and defenders of liberty and all that paroles and hiogwash but what they really are is: greedy for ever more profits. To hell with dead children, who cares? To hell with shooting incidents, who cares? Lets make moneymoneymoney. That and only that it is about.

In the end what it comes down to is a weapon fetish for the sake of the weapon itself, a cult of firearms, a culture born from violence, breeding ever more violence and thus having nothing else to expect from the future than violence. You get the hell from it that you have made yourself. You reap what you sow. Enjoy.

Damn. Australia had low gun violence rates to begin with, when they banned guns, the numbers barely changed. We never mention any of the south american countries with mass killings, or the middle eastern countries with mass killings.



I want to have a civil conversation here, you don't need to be so rude, chill.

[Commander Wallace]

Originally Posted by Ostfriese

Why are excessive gun violence and mass shootings an American-only problem then? Kids play the same video games worldwide, but among the first world nations the US stand alone, experiencing more mass shootings in a single year than the entire rest of these nations expierences in decades.

If we knew that, we wouldn't be debating this topic here and would have addressed it long ago.. I think it's a conglomeration of the factors and the examples I listed and probably more. These may be some of those factors or the very trigger that has brought about these events. The question is, are the kids you mention using illicit drugs in conjunction with those games. Do those same kids have the wherewithal to differentiate between a video game and reality ?

We just don't know.

I would like to know how other countries deal with certain issues. Perhaps how other countries do things may have applications here in the U.S and work better than what we are doing.

[Xerxes]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Der Spiegel, mid-February this year (2022):

(...)
As if that weren't bad enough, U.S. firearms manufacturer WEE 1 Tactical is now offering a semi-automatic rifle designed specifically for children, modeled after the AR-15.

The JR-15 will "help adults safely introduce children to the shooting sports," according to promotional copy from the company. It has now been unveiled at the "Shot Show 2022" in Las Vegas. At the gun show, an employee spoke of a rifle designed specifically for young shooters.

It "looks, feels and functions just like mom and dad's rifle," the company advertises the weapon. Compared to the standard AR-15 model, however, the JR-15 is significantly smaller and lighter, costing $389. For boys, the company advertises it with a pirate skull with a mohawk. Girls are said to be appealed by a skull with blond highlights and a pink pacifier in its mouth.

Activists against gun violence strongly condemned the advertising campaign for the children's rifle. "At first glance, this seems like a grotesque joke. At second glance, it's just grotesque," said Josh Sugarmann of the Violence Policy Center.

The Newtown Action Alliance, a group that also advocates for firearms restriction, accused the gun industry of being "willing to do anything to continue making profits."

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Thats not just disgusting anymore - that is rightout perverse. All sanity went out of the window long time ago. If you will this, you have no argument anymore against mortar training in kindergardens, and constructing hand grenades in chemistry classes at school. You live like you train, right?

Your slippery slope arguments are unfounded and perverse. The JR-15 is chambered in 22lr, a round so small, it can barely kill a squirrel. There's no difference between that and a crickett, besides cosmetics. I don't see anyone protesting the crickett.



You seem convinced that letting a child even TOUCH a gun, will immediately turn them into a murderous psycho. You also seem convinced that the NRA is some massive, powerful force. The NRA is dying, and has been dying. Most gun owners aren't members, because the NRA doesn't stand for gun rights, and is corrupt as hell.


Your arguments are an insult to every responsible gun-owner in america, and you need to stop while you're ahead.
I agree that we have gun issues, but nobody wants to take the steps to punish those who commit crimes, or to lock up the insane.

We had almost no school shootings in the 1950s, and tons of kids had guns, and the gun culture was strong. What was different?

We also have lower murder rates than other countries, that needs to be taken into consideration.



Here are some stats for you to mull over:



https://worldpopulationreview.com/co...ngs-by-country
https://worldpopulationreview.com/co...ngs-by-country

https://earlywarningproject.ushmm.or...-all-countries
https://www.statista.com/statistics/...e-us-by-state/
https://www.maciverinstitute.com/202...shooting-myth/

https://www.politifact.com/article/2...try-it-needs-/
https://rockinst.org/gun-violence/ma...ing-factsheet/


Remember that only per-capita stats can apply, seeing as populations vary.
In the end, both sides need to shut up, and let people mourn the losses, instead of taking cheap shots at each other.
Please do us the courtesy of being civil, and stop trampling on the victims' bodies.

[Skybird]

I dont get little children and AR guns, rifles of any kind, firearms, together.



C-H-I-L-D-R-E-N.


Thats why.


Its not about them turning into murderous psychopaths, its about fostering a culture of weapons and spreading a religion of weapons that focusses on weapons - and then wonders why the result is a culture that has bigger problems with non-violent problem-solving and has more school shootings and more amok runs and more drastic violent crime and more kills from firearms than any other civilised Western country including Japan, Korea, and the likes.



When there are more weapons in a country per head than there are citizen or in many civil war countries, (1.2 or 1.4 firearms per American head), then there is a message in that.


A culture of violence and weapon fetishism will give birth no nothign else than always more weapons, violence, and fixiation on both, and evertyhing else in that cutlure - media, arts, individual focus - will submit to that. Accordingly even prisons become an ordinary business industry, and prisoners get produced and keep the industry economically healthy. Its a different symptomn - but of the one and the same great complex of this topic: violence and weapons.



And thats what we see, and thats what already Michale Moore so very correctly analysed back then. A climate of fear that elads tro a fixiationto get security by endlessly repeatign the emdia loops and getting security by weapons. Weapons onyl cure the imminent symptom, not the underlaying cause of excessive violence and crime rates.



Ten year old with AR rifles, even just normal pistols. Sorry, that is perverse, obscene, and the only thing rude here is the image of a ten year old with these weapons in his hands. Because at that age nobody should hold fnctional firerarms like that, but play with toy cvars, puppets, or with the kids on the playground.


C-H-I-L-D-R-E-N.


Not little adults in tiny bodies.


But okay, its your cult of frequent, regular human sacrificing. Enjoy. The Aztecs sacrificed their prisoners, you sacrifice your own beloved ones. Everyone to his liking. One reaps what one sows.

[Rockstar]

Every day you murder children C-H-I-L-D-R-E-N. Making them your slaves to mine precious rare earth minerals that contribute to your own selfish comfort and lifestyles of convenience, electric cars, and computers to post stupid meme. Any bets more have died by your hand than by that kid in Texas?

No, I’m saying one is any better or worse than the other. Just an attempt to suggest you get off your high horse.

[Rockstar]

The incident has nonetheless caused alarm among many people commenting online. "This sort of thing must be banned! Children need peace, and toys to play with, not weapons," writes one Twitter user. But another thinks any anger towards the military is misplaced: "Neither the army nor the defence ministry are responsible for keeping children away from the military and weapons. The parents are."

Germany's defence minister, Ursula von der Leyen, has now intervened, announcing there will be no more hands-on gun displays at all during such events. "Despite clear guidelines, this regrettable mistake occurred," she said.

Meanwhile the peace loving Germans turn a blind eye seeing no problem selling arms to someone else’s children.

https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/...ernothilfe.pdf

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Rockstar

Every day you murder children C-H-I-L-D-R-E-N. Making them your slaves to mine precious rare earth minerals that contribute to your own selfish comfort and lifestyles of convenience, electric cars, and computers to post stupid meme. Any bets more have died by your hand than by that kid in Texas?

No, I’m saying one is any better or worse than the other. Just an attempt to suggest you get off your high horse.

You dont get it, you are completely off track.

Both your examples should not be.

But the one you accept as being despicable, the other not. But I dont accept either of them, to me BOTH stories they tell are unacceptable.

Its sick if adult people think it is normal that a ten year old or even less, what do I know, gets a semiautomatic AR rifle as if that were just another teddybear to play with. And as explained before,. reatedly, this way you create the cultral heritage yourself that you get haunted by. A culture gets created this way, and gets kept alive, that must reap what it has sown.

Okay, Im out here. Of course I knew that nothing was to be gained here, but that advert with that little boy really had the kettle whisteling for me. Its perverse, and utmost cynical.

[Xerxes]

Originally Posted by Skybird

I dont get little children and AR guns, rifles of any kind, firearms, together.



C-H-I-L-D-R-E-N.


Thats why.


Its not about them turning into murderous psychopaths, its about fostering a culture of weapons and spreading a religion of weapons that focusses on weapons - and then wonders why the result is a culture that has bigger problems with non-violent problem-solving and has more school shootings and more amok runs and more drastic violent crime and more kills from firearms than any other civilised Western country including Japan, Korea, and the likes.



When there are more weapons in a country per head than there are citizen or in many civil war countries, (1.2 or 1.4 firearms per American head), then there is a message in that.


A culture of violence and weapon fetishism will give birth no nothign else than always more weapons, violence, and fixiation on both, and evertyhing else in that cutlure - media, arts, individual focus - will submit to that. Accordingly even prisons become an ordinary business industry, and prisoners get produced and keep the industry economically healthy. Its a different symptomn - but of the one and the same great complex of this topic: violence and weapons.



And thats what we see, and thats what already Michale Moore so very correctly analysed back then. A climate of fear that elads tro a fixiationto get security by endlessly repeatign the emdia loops and getting security by weapons. Weapons onyl cure the imminent symptom, not the underlaying cause of excessive violence and crime rates.



Ten year old with AR rifles, even just normal pistols. Sorry, that is perverse, obscene, and the only thing rude here is the image of a ten year old with these weapons in his hands. Because at that age nobody should hold fnctional firerarms like that, but play with toy cvars, puppets, or with the kids on the playground.


C-H-I-L-D-R-E-N.


Not little adults in tiny bodies.


But okay, its your cult of frequent, regular human sacrificing. Enjoy. The Aztecs sacrificed their prisoners, you sacrifice your own beloved ones. Everyone to his liking. One reaps what one sows.

I'll point something out: our country also has major drug issues, with tons of OD deaths every year, more ODs than gun deaths.



They're both issues, and both need to be resolved. The issue is, I don't see anyone saying that we have a drug culture. Get off your high horse, and propose real ideas to fix the problems. Ideas that work.