posted December 28, 2012 01:48 PM            

Once I had a bumper sticker on my car that read, "Mean People Suck!"

Feel so warmed by your sensitivity...
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ADDED 2:34pm EST ... and I just saw a post that I believe was meant towards myself and Lexxigramer, in Lexigrams Section.

Guess we can't stop the demeaning cruelties that can exist even on lindaland.

posted December 28, 2012 04:14 PM            

Gangs don't get their guns from the store. You can't stop them from getting guns anymore than you can stop them from getting crack cocaine.

posted December 28, 2012 04:14 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by aquaguy91:
i never will forget when i was in 5th grade a new boy joined our class, he was very very odd... he cussed openly in class and acted up, the whole 5th grade shunned him and treated him horribly.. i will admit i picked at him for a week or 2 but i finally decided to give him a chance because i felt bad for him, we ended up becoming really good friends, he was a really smart kid and was really nice once you got to know him. i soon found out why he was a little "disturbed" . i noticed that he was really really skinny and ate like a horse at lunch and was always begging for other peoples food, that was a big reason people got annoyed at him. one day i asked"phil, why are you always soo hungry?" and he explained to me that most days when he got home from school his stepdad beat him and locked him in his room until the next morning without feeding him supper. basically the only meals he got were school lunches, so i always gave him my food heck i didnt like the school food anyway. after finding all this stuff out i tried my best to be a good friend to him and stuck up for him in front of the other kids because i felt really wrotten for being mean to him initially. i ended up telling the teachers about phillips home life and they alerted childrens services and got him put in foster care. anyways my point is we should always try to treat others with kindness because we dont know what they go through when we arent around.

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That made me cry. That is beautiful!

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Passion, Lust, Desire. Check out my journal

posted December 28, 2012 04:26 PM            

Kids are under incredible pressure today by both their peers and by adults, and that creates something of a powder keg. The "boys code" makes it a lot worse, especially as boys generally aren't supposed to show any other emotion than anger or contempt. Throw in psyche meds which are way over prescribed (and the vast majority of mass shooters of all ages had either just started them or just went off of them which caused a massive chemical imbalance in their brain) and bullying (and the injustice that often goes with it, especially if the bullies are jocks above the rules or the victims are a group the faculty WANTS bullied), along with easy access to guns (this last especially for adult shooters) AND making schools into gun free zones not helping, and I'm surprised it's not worse than it is.

And it goes much deeper than that. The USA worships violence & aggression on BOTH sides of the law. That doesn't help either.

But in this case I think Adam was just insane who had easy access to powerful guns AND been trained in their use. His motivation appears to be that he felt his mom was trying to "get rid of him" by trying to have him committed and then after killing her he felt a jealous rage at the kids at the school she taught at, feeling she loved those little kids more than him, and thus attacked the school. That is to say I don't think the usual factors played in that much in this case.

posted December 28, 2012 05:05 PM            

quote:

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You can't stop them from getting guns anymore than you can stop them from getting crack cocaine.

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posted December 28, 2012 08:51 PM            

From my pov, Bullying is Darwinism exerting itself in a tangible way. It amounts to the powerful assigning what they deem as the bullied role in life.

How the bullied handles that marks them for life many, to many times. Their reaction to that assigned role determines many many things.

For some, they meekly accept it, for others it drives them to overachieve, for others it drives them to physical strength for others to extremely self destructive acts to themselves or to others.

Also think, it will never go away, if one follows the view that we are mere hairless apes, this is how social structures are formed within a given hierarchy.

That reaction also tends to follow people unless they take real steps to change the situation.

Firearms in these killings are simply the tools of acting out against such a social structure.

posted December 29, 2012 12:27 AM            

quote:

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So I don't get your response.

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posted December 29, 2012 02:38 AM            

There is also an element of "sexual" bullying, especially with younger girls with low self esteem.

posted December 29, 2012 06:08 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Padre35:
a divergence from AG's point is in order on this topic

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I love challenges like this but I'm a bit stumped as the numbers of mass shootings has gone up with more gun control while at the same time most countries with a lot less guns in legal circulation experience a lot less tragedies like this (though crimes against individuals, especially against women & elderly, tend to rise dramatically with large scale banning of guns as happened in the UK and Australia and I certainly don't want to see that here), so I find it challenging to say why one should "do the same thing, be it more guns or more gun control, only harder and hope for better results."

If I were to be a contrarian to AG then I'd have to say that the number of guns enabled Adam (who was NOT bullied, btw) to carry out his massacre, and in my mind there is no excuse for him to have had access to those guns when his mom KNEW he was crazy (she was trying to have him committed after all). In fact, I feel almost nothing for Adam, he's just a rabid dog to me, insane and without accountability. It's similar to the person who knows their dogs are violent menaces but let them run loose anyway, I don't blame the dogs (though don't care if someone shoots the dogs either, in fact it's for the best, but that's more Vulcan logic than any form of hate), I blame the owners who know and don't care.

She should've had her guns locked away. It actually makes sense, safes help protect guns from both disaster (such as a fire) to burglary, so it's a wise investment (granted, good safes cost money which means less guns, but I can't say I'm all that sympathetic to that consideration when one has a dozen or more guns). And if she had a good safe, especially biometric (given her armory she had the money to afford such as well), Adam could not have gotten those guns. In theory he may have gained access to say one gun on his mother's person when he snapped, or he may have resorted to other weapons, but unless he pursued a very unlikely course of action (or luck was really bad at the time) then even in this case the death toll would've been much less.

Switzerland has easy access to guns, heck scenes like this (which would get her shot without warning by the cops in many parts of the USA) are easy to come by there on some days:

Yet despite this violence is rare (most I heard about is foreigner on foreigner violence). While I expect this is primarily due to their culture being very anti-violence (including anti-military, and just to be clear I'll say that I'm defining military as an offensive force rather than the Swiss defensive militia model) there are other reasons given for why they're a peaceful country, one being that guns are tightly regulated (but not prohibited), including in that when not in use guns are to be locked away...as Nancy's guns should've been locked away (that said, I don't know how Switzerland handles 20-year-old men who may or may not have a severe mental illness, and I believe Adam would've been REQUIRED to own a military rifle and be proficient in its use unless he had a special exemption). I know the details have been changing to make the rest of Europe feel better so I just can't guess how it would've worked out in Switzerland.

I'm aware that a great many people don't lock away their guns and nothing really bad comes of it and I grew up with guns in easy reach (the vast majority of kids raised that way learn to respect guns, and they certainly don't grab them to go on shooting sprees, though psyche meds might start changing that) but this was a nightmarish shooting, and the mother alone didn't pay the price for her gross and inexcusable negligence. So perhaps there should be a requirement for gun safes, maybe even biometric gun safes, especially when guns are stockpiled that can make a massacre like this all too possible.

posted December 29, 2012 06:12 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Padre35:
From my pov, Bullying is Darwinism exerting itself in a tangible way.

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posted December 29, 2012 06:36 AM            

quote:

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They should just educate kids to not bully someone that looks like they might shoot u in the future.

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posted December 29, 2012 06:48 AM            

Btw, it would be nice if Nobel Peace Prize winning Obama and America could shed some tears for the children we terrorize and kill with our drones around the world. But we worship violence so we don't, at least as long as it's not ours being brutally killed (and mindless of the karma it generates). Heck, bullying kills off far more kids every year than mass shooters, too (and I'm even ignoring that some mass shooters were inspired by years of being bullied). Maybe they deserve some action, too? Or does that just not help your agenda?

And as typical of American thought I see very little thought put into oversimple proposed solutions. For example, the idea of putting armed teachers in schools ignores the already slashed school budgets, and that was after our schools were already failing (btw, I blame parents on schools being failure that more than anything else, as it's parents who worship sports, that is violence and aggression, over academics and thus elected school boards cater to parents, and furthermore parents and many religious & political groups also oppose history, science, etc, and sabotage their children's education in other ways as well, but that's beside the point, and I'll throw in that schools could still do a lot better than even 10 years ago with less money IF it wasn't for certain bureaucratic nonsense and school boards trying to please parents who demand to have their cake and eat it, too), and to hire armed security (including insurance, liability, etc) would slash those budgets even further to the point that without drastic changes elsewhere it would pretty much be the end of plenty of schools (unless they just want to admit they're just babysitting, and sometimes **** poor babysitters at that, and stop the pretense of being educators). It would literally be more practical to start homeschooling in some districts even when both parents work (homeschooling groups exist, btw, that is, even if kids actually need a babysitter and both parents work this can be worked around).

That aside, to be effective there would have to be at least half a dozen armed guards (preferably spread out), otherwise they'd just be the first to be shot (as they were at Columbine).

And besides, schools are already enough like prisons and armed security can prove to be more of a liability than an asset to kids, especially when a school shooting is actually very unlikely (though if they DID put a half dozen or more there then I expect it would discourage many mass shooters from targeting schools...adults would instead target daycare centers in all likelihood, while kids would take to ambushing other kids and/or teachers elsewhere). It might also have the unintended consequence of making even deadlier school massacres (not all the different to how Israel stopped school shootings by terrorists by arming teachers but then faced suicide bombers as the terrorists adapted), when those seeking a mass murder adapt to things like bombs, such as the most deadly school massacre in US history at Bath school.

An alternate view being promoted by conservatives is that teachers themselves should be armed (like in Israel). Just because it worked in Israel doesn't mean it would work here for multiple reasons, the 2 biggest being Israeli teachers are well-trained and experienced in weapons while many of ours are not and the Israelis have powerful enemies that unite them in fear whereas in the USA our fear is a lot more vague and we tend to fear everyone rather than specific organizations. And I know enough faculty members that I wouldn't trust with a screwdriver let alone a taser and especially a gun, too. Hell, I'd literally trust my 15-year-old with a gun in school more than some teachers I've encountered. While I'm not against a teacher who gains a CCW permit as an individual carrying onto school grounds discreetly, I'm very much against the idea of pushing (obligating?) them to be armed like cops as part of the job description. (And my partner, a high school history teacher, not only shares my antipathy to that idea but she has some very snarky things to say about conservatives who have demonized and attacked her profession repeatedly now wanting to arm them.)

So all in all I'm GENERALLY against the idea of more guns as I am of more gun control. To me that's treating a symptom of the problem rather than the problem itself, and both are likely to have regrettable unintended consequences as well as ultimately failing.

And another flaw all too many Americans have is they want everything RIGHT NOW (I've met a few who complain about MICROWAVES being too slow!). They don't want to THINK about something that took decades to develop (that's too hard), and they especially don't want to roll up their sleeves and working to real change (that's even harder than thinking), they just want a magical one-shot, one size fits all solution with an Uncle Sam stamp on it and then pretend everything is fixed (and if their team can cuss out those opposed in the process, so much the better, just don't make the message too complicated for them to follow). And both sides of the gun debate are doing exactly that (as are other factions) and they're more concerned with promoting their own agenda than in saving anymore lives (of course if lives ARE saved, then so much the better, but if not they're not gonna reverse course either, that is their purpose isn't to save lives it's to promote their agenda). That Americans also tend to dualistic thinking and extremes only exacerbates this problem.

posted December 29, 2012 10:43 AM            

And gun control? Pft. People kill people. Why didn't anyone "demand a plan" when Timothy McVeigh shot those kids before the Oklahoma City bombing? What does that say about our government that it takes them so long to legally react to such events? That THIS shooting is better than the others? Really.

posted December 29, 2012 10:50 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by PixieJane:
(ETA: I bet most Americans won't even have the attention span to read my post here.)

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I was agreeing with you right up until that point...

posted December 29, 2012 10:52 AM            

-The Swiss suffered a massacre of the local politicians when a disgruntled man broke into the local parliamnet replete with his StG-58 and simply starting shooting them.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/september/27/newsid_2539000/2539769.stm

They also keep mortars and anti tank weapons in their homes.
-Oh my yes, America is a very very uptight place today. The more vulgar and coarse it is, the more popular it then becomes.

-Arming teachers, I'm not opposed to it per se, but think it is a ad hoc solution

-I mostly look at the parents when it comes to poor school performance as well. To much TV as parent, not enough holistic learning being utilized. That and the School has become a de facto baby sitter with artificially long school days meant to keep the kiddies off of the streets. 8 hrs of school? My God.

-Locking firearms up, eh, locks have keys who do not know who use them.

posted December 29, 2012 10:55 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Padre35:

I have complex view on all of this.

From my pov, Bullying is Darwinism exerting itself in a tangible way. It amounts to the powerful assigning what they deem as the bullied role in life.

Strictly my .02 cents on that one.

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Read Amanda Todd's story and try to tell me bullying is a healthy exercise of darwinism. Or this one: http://jezebel.com/5844523/bullies-continue-to-taunt-gay-teen-who-committed-suicide

posted December 29, 2012 04:20 PM            

COLUMBINE STUDENT'S FATHER 12 YEARS LATER !!

Guess our national leaders didn't expect this. On Thursday, Darrell Scott, the father of Rachel Scott, a victim of the Columbine High School shootings in Littleton, Colorado, was invited to address the House Judiciary Committee's subcommittee. What he said to our national leaders during this special session of Congress was painfully truthful.

They were... not prepared for what he was to say, nor was it received well. It needs to be heard by every parent, every teacher, every politician, every sociologist, every psychologist, and every so-called expert! These courageous words spoken by Darrell Scott are powerful, penetrating, and deeply personal. There is no doubt that God sent this man as a voice crying in the wilderness.. The following is a portion of the transcript:
"Since the dawn of creation there has been both good & evil in the hearts of men and women. We all contain the seeds of kindness or the seeds of violence. The death of my wonderful daughter, Rachel Joy Scott, and the deaths of that heroic teacher, and the other eleven children who died must not be in vain. Their blood cries out for answers.

"The first recorded act of violence was when Cain slew his brother Abel out in the field. The villain was not the club he used.. Neither was it the NCA, the National Club Association. The true killer was Cain, and the reason for the murder could only be found in Cain's heart.

"In the days that followed the Columbine tragedy, I was amazed at how quickly fingers began to be pointed at groups such as the NRA. I am not a member of the NRA. I am not a hunter. I do not even own a gun. I am not here to represent or defend the NRA - because I don't believe that they are responsible for my daughter's death.

Therefore I do not believe that they need to be defended. If I believed they had anything to do with Rachel's murder I would be their strongest opponent.

I am here today to declare that Columbine was not just a tragedy -- it was a spiritual event that should be forcing us to look at where the real blame lies! Much of the blame lies here in this room. Much of the blame lies behind the pointing fingers of the accusers themselves. I wrote a poem just four nights ago that expresses my feelings best.

Your laws ignore our deepest needs,
Your words are empty air.
You've stripped away our heritage,
You've outlawed simple prayer.
Now gunshots fill our classrooms,
And precious children die.
You seek for answers everywhere,
And ask the question "Why?"
You regulate restrictive laws,
Through legislative creed.
And yet you fail to understand,
That God is what we need!

"Men and women are three-part beings. We all consist of body, mind, and spirit. When we refuse to acknowledge a third part of our make-up, we create a void that allows evil, prejudice, and hatred to rush in and wreak havoc. Spiritual presences were present within our educational systems for most of our nation's history. Many of our major colleges began as theological seminaries. This is a historical fact. What has happened to us as a nation? We have refused to honor God, and in so doing, we open the doors to hatred and violence. And when something as terrible as Columbine's tragedy occurs -- politicians immediately look for a scapegoat such as the NRA. They immediately seek to pass more restrictive laws that contribute to erode away our personal and private liberties. We do not need more restrictive laws. Eric and Dylan would not have been stopped by metal detectors. No amount of gun laws can stop someone who spends months planning this type of massacre. The real villain lies within our own hearts.

"As my son Craig lay under that table in the school library and saw his two friends murdered before his very eyes, he did not hesitate to pray in school. I defy any law or politician to deny him that right! I challenge every young person in America , and around the world, to realize that on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School prayer was brought back to our schools. Do not let the many prayers offered by those students be in vain. Dare to move into the new millennium with a sacred disregard for legislation that violates your God-given right to communicate with Him. To those of you who would point your finger at the NRA -- I give to you a sincere challenge.. Dare to examine your own heart before casting the first stone!

My daughter's death will not be in vain! The young people of this country will not allow that to happen!"

- Darrell Scott
Do what the media did not - - let the nation hear this man's speech.