Gun Grabbers Unite

[justjoinedtopost]

Regardless, I'm sure Londoners are sleeping better knowing those are off the streets.

I am numb hearing some of the things coming out of EU/UK. Surreal.

 

[JickyJuly]

That is changing along with the negative stigma that used to be attached to vocational schools. Plumbers, welders, electricians, carpenters, HVAC, construction... you name it, brings a decent income, especially if they stick with it and take advantage of all the opportunities that may come along the way. Not a big fan of unions, but they can really help when it comes to retirement and healthcare, among other things.

I hope you're right about this changing with our economy. Would be a great thing. I went to cosmetology school in 2006 and, at that time, was still talked to like I was making a foolish choice/settling despite it being what I could afford to do and better paying than my retail jobs at least.

Let's not forget the mental illness aspect of which 99% of the mass shooters were dealing with in one form or another. Red flags were rather evident in the majority of school shootings. Not surprisingly, the media always focuses on the evil black gun instead of the underlying problem and how the system failed.

Mental illness is definitely involved. Anyone who wants to hurt relative strangers is sick. But, given that these shooters are primarily young men, there is value in looking at that sect. What are we doing that is perpetuating their illness? Why are they not seeking help? How are they flying under the radar until they pull off major criminal violence? I think society in part doesn't want to pick at this scab because it involves the way we parent our children. We're stunting young boys and promising them a world that doesn't exist anymore...a world they were never really entitled to anyway. We've taught American men that anything is better than crying even as children. The first thing you learn in anger management is that anger is displaced sadness. If you don't or can't cry, you will manifest that in anger. Our value system for men exhibiting natural, human behavior is fucked up terribly. Men aren't seeking out psychological help at the same rate as women. No surprise there. And, we're so used to male violence, that even if a young man does see a therapist and says he fears he'll hurt people, they're probably not going to spring into action to stop it. Meanwhile, a woman who tells a therapist that she is distraught over life after giving birth will likely have the police get involved. Violent young men don't feel that they're abnormal. The problem and the paths to the problem are pretty easy to see. Too bad that the media, the NRA and politicians prosper every time these things happen. They don't profit from talking about real issues or trying to solve the root of the problem. These shootings are money. Fixing the problem is work. Money wins.

 

[justjoinedtopost]

Mental illness is definitely involved...What are we doing that is perpetuating their illness? Why are they not seeking help?

The mental health system in America that I have seen focuses too much on selling pills.

These pills they sell can make you suicidal, aggressive, violent, impulsive.

These pills are sold by the same jackasses that are neck-deep in our ongoing opioid crisis. They lie about these pills to protect their profits. They give them to you and say "let's see how you respond"....it is a crap shoot. They encourage their sale to children, adults, people who only have weeks to live...

In my experience, they are fond of prescribing you a bad pill to try and counteract another bad pill. In some circles, wanting to go off the meds borders on modern day blasphemy. And the more desperate you are for help, the worse the care you are liable to receive.

The NRA and the media aren't the only ones the politicians are in bed with.

 

[JickyJuly]

The mental health system in America that I have seen focuses too much on selling pills.

Disagree. Antidepressants save lives, but there are plenty of other therapeutic options. I've done lots even with having zero to crap insurance. It's pretty impossible here to get anything decent for anxiety... even for a nerveball like myself. The stigma, especially for men, is more the problem in my view. Also, the idea that if you just be positive and eat some kale everything will be fine is not really helpful. The biggest problem with our mental health services still is probably the wait list and cost. I live in Florida, land of the crazy and the old, and there is 1 place in my county that does sliding fee for psychs. They also take Medicare. So bogged down. Last time I tried to make an appointment, I had to argue with the woman that my name was not "Harley" and I didn't already have an appointment (wtf), and once we spent way too much time going back and forth on whether I knew my own name, I got added to a list for an appointment 3 months from then. If someone does reach out because they feel like they're a danger, a 3 month window is way too long to leave them hanging. IDK. Just saying that the system here is problematic, but I think blaming pill pushing is an easy out.

 

[JickyJuly]

These pills they sell can make you suicidal, aggressive, violent, impulsive.

These pills are sold by the same jackasses that are neck-deep in our ongoing opioid crisis. They lie about these pills to protect their profits. They give them to you and say "let's see how you respond"....it is a crap shoot.

When you're trying to medicate the human brain/hormones and all that, it is going to be a little bit of a task finding the right combo to help someone. You're given lots of information when you take a new to you antidepressant. Unfortunately, past making educated guesses based on age/gender etc, let's see how you respond is as good as it gets. But, you have a doctor's number should something seem to be going wrong. The first time I was on antidepressants, a doctor gave me Prozac. I stayed in bed for a few days wanting to die before calling and asking what to do. She switched me to something else, and my entire life changed. If someone doesn't have the capacity to know when a drug might be hurting instead of helping, they should not be left to their own devices while finding something. But, blaming life changing medication for violence is not fair. There is still some responsibility on the patient if they're an adult and the parent of the patient if they're a minor. Women are taking antidepressants at a far higher rate than men. We're not the ones shooting up schools. We have just as much access to guns. We're not shooting up schools. To me, that makes guns and meds not the main issue.

 

[justjoinedtopost]

Disagree.

Feel free. It doesn't change the fact that it is what I have seen though.

But, blaming life changing medication for violence is not fair. There is still some responsibility on the patient if they're an adult and the parent of the patient if they're a minor.

This has nothing to do with fair; it has to do with reality...the way things ARE, whether it is pleasing to your ears or not.

It is right on the warning label of many of these drugs (but you can bet it wouldn't be if the makers had their way about it).

The things I said I have had experience with myself, witnessed in others I have been in therapy groups with, and even after eliminating all the extremist voices there is plenty of testimony from others supporting what I shared.

The first time I was on antidepressants, a doctor gave me Prozac. I stayed in bed for a few days wanting to die before calling and asking what to do. She switched me to something else, and my entire life changed...
Women are taking antidepressants at a far higher rate than men. We're not the ones shooting up schools. We have just as much access to guns. We're not shooting up schools. To me, that makes guns and meds not the main issue.

Very amusing to me that you share what sounds like suicidal ideation defending the reputation of meds. They can also cause homicidal ideation, violence, aggression, mania...

3 different meds I have been on made me angry/aggressive. One landed me in the hospital. One I took, I heard a co-worker relate had the same effect on him, made him angry (he wasn't even prescribed it for psychiatric reasons, was for off-label use).

These companies most certainly do lie, downplay the potential negative effects. One of the drugs I was on had a whole big stink about it (including lawsuits) when it came out the the maker had hidden negative effects, and when it hit the market, it seemed like everyone in my therapy group was suddenly talking about "My p-doc is wanting to try me on a new med..." Hey whattya know, we are all on it!

But I am not blaming the meds for mass shootings, more pointing out what I see as a failing of the way our society views and treats what it describes as "mental illness".

If meds are working for you that is great, and I am not trying to take that away from you.

 

[cammingcouple]

Mental illness is definitely involved. Anyone who wants to hurt relative strangers is sick. But, given that these shooters are primarily young men, there is value in looking at that sect. What are we doing that is perpetuating their illness? Why are they not seeking help? How are they flying under the radar until they pull off major criminal violence? I think society in part doesn't want to pick at this scab because it involves the way we parent our children. We're stunting young boys and promising them a world that doesn't exist anymore...a world they were never really entitled to anyway. We've taught American men that anything is better than crying even as children. The first thing you learn in anger management is that anger is displaced sadness. If you don't or can't cry, you will manifest that in anger. Our value system for men exhibiting natural, human behavior is fucked up terribly. Men aren't seeking out psychological help at the same rate as women. No surprise there. And, we're so used to male violence, that even if a young man does see a therapist and says he fears he'll hurt people, they're probably not going to spring into action to stop it. Meanwhile, a woman who tells a therapist that she is distraught over life after giving birth will likely have the police get involved. Violent young men don't feel that they're abnormal. The problem and the paths to the problem are pretty easy to see. Too bad that the media, the NRA and politicians prosper every time these things happen. They don't profit from talking about real issues or trying to solve the root of the problem. These shootings are money. Fixing the problem is work. Money wins.

So what has changed? Those issues you brought up were even worse 50 years ago. Yet, there weren't mass shootings like we have today. I would expect the opposite if that were the cause. I'm actually not disagreeing with you that mental illness is an issue, I'm just trying to figure out what has changed that has made things so much worse despite so many advances in mental health treatment. Maybe our treatments aren't as effective as we think they are, or maybe there's another factor involved here that's fueling it all. Possibly related to how much our society has changed through the internet and social media. Maybe it's due to technology evolving at a massively faster pace than humans have and we are now functioning in a way that humans were never meant to function. I don't think we evolved to sit in front of a screen for 12 hours a day. I don't have answers, just raising some questions here.

 

[dilligaf0]

So what has changed? Those issues you brought up were even worse 50 years ago. Yet, there weren't mass shootings like we have today. I would expect the opposite if that were the cause. I'm actually not disagreeing with you that mental illness is an issue, I'm just trying to figure out what has changed that has made things so much worse despite so many advances in mental health treatment. Maybe our treatments aren't as effective as we think they are, or maybe there's another factor involved here that's fueling it all. Possibly related to how much our society has changed through the internet and social media. Maybe it's due to technology evolving at a massively faster pace than humans have and we are now functioning in a way that humans were never meant to function. I don't think we evolved to sit in front of a screen for 12 hours a day. I don't have answers, just raising some questions here.

The difference is that there were fewer high powered / high capacity weapons in the general public's hands. People (in general) didn't own AR's or military type weapons. There were no bump stocks to make a rifle mimic a fully automatic machine gun.

 

[JickyJuly]

So what has changed? Those issues you brought up were even worse 50 years ago. Yet, there weren't mass shootings like we have today. I would expect the opposite if that were the cause. I'm actually not disagreeing with you that mental illness is an issue, I'm just trying to figure out what has changed that has made things so much worse despite so many advances in mental health treatment. Maybe our treatments aren't as effective as we think they are, or maybe there's another factor involved here that's fueling it all. Possibly related to how much our society has changed through the internet and social media. Maybe it's due to technology evolving at a massively faster pace than humans have and we are now functioning in a way that humans were never meant to function. I don't think we evolved to sit in front of a screen for 12 hours a day. I don't have answers, just raising some questions here.

Many things that have changed in the last 50 years were not worse before. The way we live now is less human. We're not really allowed room to relax and just go through life. We're cogs, and some cogs have been displaced. The economy is very different from 50 years ago. Social expectations. Gender expectations. Family units. Cost of living. Family size. The internet's in there somewhere, sure.

 

[dilligaf0]

Many things that have changed in the last 50 years were not worse before. The way we live now is less human. We're not really allowed room to relax and just go through life. We're cogs, and some cogs have been displaced. The economy is very different from 50 years ago. Social expectations. Gender expectations. Family units. Cost of living. Family size. The internet's in there somewhere, sure.

I agree. It seems that (in general) there's less value placed on other people's opinions / lives. Where 50 years ago people that disagreed would discuss / yell and even fight, now the pull a gun and shoot over minor disagreements. There's a lower value given to other people's lives. In many people's minds those that disagree aren't someone they disagree with, they're "the enemy".

 

[cammingcouple]

The difference is that there were fewer high powered / high capacity weapons in the general public's hands. People (in general) didn't own AR's or military type weapons. There were no bump stocks to make a rifle mimic a fully automatic machine gun.

Not buying that since there were plenty of mass shootings done without assault weapons. A bump stock was only used in 1 AFAIK. Besides, they didn't need bump stocks back then because fully automatic weapons were legal. Virginia tech, the 3rd worst mass shooting where 33 people died, was done with handguns. Looking at the list of deadliest mass shootings, 9 were done with handguns, not assault weapons. At worst, they contribute to the amount of damage done, but I don't see how that can possibly be the "thing that changed". Even if you took away all the mass shootings done with assault weapons, it would still be a significantly worse problem that it was before. However, I don't believe for a second that all of the ones done with assault weapons wouldn't have happened at all if they didn't exist.. Rather, they may have just used a slightly less effective weapon like a handgun. Taking them away might help mitigate the damage done, but mass shootings would still happen without them as evidenced by the number of mass shootings done using handguns.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United_States#Deadliest_mass_shootings

 

[cammingcouple]

The way we live now is less human. We're not really allowed room to relax and just go through life. We're cogs, and some cogs have been displaced.

Couldn't agree more!

 

[DJ_Pioneer]

I just saw on Twitter that there had been a shooting at a Waffle House in Tennessee and the shooter used an AR-15 and managed to kill 4 people before he was stopped by an unarmed man. The NRA troll factory heads to witter and starts arguing with people because the called it an automatic rifle when it is semi automatic rifle, then they start arguing among themselves about the history of the AR-15. And then we have the people who isn't going to try and do anything about this and who will have forgotten about it in about a month doling out the usual thoughts and prayers. At least we aren't having to read over and over again that "the only thing going to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun" this time around.

 

[dilligaf0]

I just saw on Twitter that there had been a shooting at a Waffle House in Tennessee and the shooter used an AR-15 and managed to kill 4 people before he was stopped by an unarmed man. The NRA troll factory heads to witter and starts arguing with people because the called it an automatic rifle when it is semi automatic rifle, then they start arguing among themselves about the history of the AR-15. And then we have the people who isn't going to try and do anything about this and who will have forgotten about it in about a month doling out the usual thoughts and prayers. At least we aren't having to read over and over again that "the only thing going to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun" this time around.

And with Barbara Bush's funeral and the ongoing circus in D.C., this mass shooting never got coverage on the news. Pathetic.


And Happy Birthday DJ

 

[justjoinedtopost]

And with Barbara Bush's funeral and the ongoing circus in D.C., this mass shooting never got coverage on the news. Pathetic.

Saw it pop up on several news aggregators. Pretty much every one I check in fact. You mean the bullshit cable networks?

Spoiler

A slew of coverage on local channels too (well advertised as 'local', but still centralized).

 

[DJ_Pioneer]

And with Barbara Bush's funeral and the ongoing circus in D.C., this mass shooting never got coverage on the news. Pathetic.


And Happy Birthday DJ

Thanks.

I guess shootings have become so common place in America that it doesn't warrant more news coverage unless a larger amount of people is killed, which is pretty messed up.

 

[Bocefish]

And with Barbara Bush's funeral and the ongoing circus in D.C., this mass shooting never got coverage on the news. Pathetic.

It was all over the news in Chicago and on just about every broadcast if that somehow makes you feel better.

BTW, heard the guy was caught today.

BTW II... it says a lot about you since you think the deranged naked guy's shooting spree should take precedence over Barbara Bush's funeral proceedings, just sayin'.

 

[dilligaf0]

It was all over the news in Chicago and on just about every broadcast if that somehow makes you feel better.

BTW, heard the guy was caught today.

BTW II... it says a lot about you since you think the deranged naked guy's shooting spree should take precedence over Barbara Bush's funeral proceedings, just sayin'.

It deserves a mention on a chyron on the screen at least. Oh, right, those killed were only "brown people" so they don't count as much as a dead white woman.

Yes, he was caught today. He has a history of mental issues that resulted in having his guns taken away from him. They were given to his father who then gave them back to him. The father should be charged as an accessory to murder.

 

[Bocefish]

Oh, right, those killed were only "brown people" so they don't count as much as a dead white woman.

What do you think Barbara Bush would reply to that?

 

[dilligaf0]

What do you think Barbara Bush would reply to that?

She wouldn't like it, but then again she didn't like most of what Trump said either.

 

[justjoinedtopost]

BTW II... it says a lot about you since you think the deranged naked guy's shooting spree should take precedence over Barbara Bush's funeral proceedings, just sayin'.

Not to mention...

https://qz.com/515977/its-time-to-change-the-way-the-media-cover-mass-shootings/
https://thesocietypages.org/trot/2017/10/05/mass-shootings-and-the-media/
http://thefederalist.com/2018/02/16...tings-stop-wall-wall-national-media-coverage/
https://www.dailywire.com/news/21879/here-are-5-reasons-media-focus-mass-shootings-its-ben-shapiro
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/10/6/link-between-media-and-mass-shootings.html
https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2016/08/media-contagion-effect.pdf

It deserves a mention on a chyron on the screen at least. Oh, right, those killed were only "brown people" so they don't count as much as a dead white woman.

So you aren't even going to address your delusional claim that this "never got coverage" (it did)...just going to jump straight to the racism.




Here. Brown people on "the news", being interviewed about the shooting.

 

[Bocefish]

Mental illness is definitely involved. Anyone who wants to hurt relative strangers is sick. But, given that these shooters are primarily young men, there is value in looking at that sect. What are we doing that is perpetuating their illness? Why are they not seeking help? How are they flying under the radar until they pull off major criminal violence? I think society in part doesn't want to pick at this scab because it involves the way we parent our children. We're stunting young boys and promising them a world that doesn't exist anymore...a world they were never really entitled to anyway. We've taught American men that anything is better than crying even as children. The first thing you learn in anger management is that anger is displaced sadness. If you don't or can't cry, you will manifest that in anger. Our value system for men exhibiting natural, human behavior is fucked up terribly. Men aren't seeking out psychological help at the same rate as women. No surprise there. And, we're so used to male violence, that even if a young man does see a therapist and says he fears he'll hurt people, they're probably not going to spring into action to stop it.

Given the recent school shootings... you make some good points.