another school shooting

[Opti]

Sept 8, 2024 10:13:57 GMT -5 raeoflyte said:

Sept 8, 2024 9:14:25 GMT -5 pulmonarymd said:

This is personal for me to. Sandy Hook did not happen far from where I live. My oldest son's best friend in Medical School went there. My wife was caught in traffic due to the response to the shooting when she was going to NYC that day. t has affected the entire area.

Gun fanatics aren't going to be happy until schools become fortresses. Are they willing to pay the taxes required to make schools impenetrable? Going to be great for mental health. This has also happened with hospitals. My hospital has closed entrances and locked every door it can. Hospitals used to be welcoming places, but they have had to change because of security and ongoing threats. It has not been a change for the better IMHO. 

The same people desperate to keep their guns are voting to strip public of funding and send tax dollars to private schools.

I've read a lot of non-sense about private schools being safe options. I swear it's from their play book.

Especially since I think one of the schools shot up was a private Catholic school. I believe by the person whose parents couldn't accept she wasn't the daughter they wanted. No school is safe public or private.

[billisonboard]

Sept 8, 2024 10:23:46 GMT -5 Opti said:

Bills I could not find the info easily on the House link from Bloomberg. Easier to just Google. Congress composition changes every two years. Info probably from Copilot

In the 2020 United States Congress elections, the composition of Congress was as follows:

House of Representatives:

Democrats: Held a narrow majority with 222 seats.
Republicans: Held 213 seats
.
Senate:

Republicans: Held 50 seats.
Democrats: Held 48 seats.
Independents: 2 seats, both caucusing with the Democrats2.
This resulted in a closely divided Congress, with the Democrats holding a slim majority in the House and the Senate being evenly split, giving Vice President Kamala Harris the tie-breaking vote2.

Is there anything specific you’d like to know more about regarding the 2020 Congress?


en.wikipedia.org


ballotpedia.org

Why the hell are you addressing this to me? jerseygirl is the one who asked.

[Opti]

And the mom couldn't understand why I wouldn't let the kid back into the school when "he didn't really mean it".

We don't allow kids to draw guns on their binders; they still do and we have to have them remove it.
We don't allow kids to say "I'm gonna kill you" in jest or frustration.

I liked all of the post above, but especially this. I grew up when school shootings were not common and kids regularly said "I could kill you" simply meaning they were very mad. It wasn't something literal. And unfortunately that was programmed in me when I was young. It still can come into my mind when I am underslept or under great stress. So this is an entire changing of society. Some of it good, but you make me furious does not convey the frustration like the wrong words did back then.

Getting kids to not draw guns must be a tough battle. Teaching and public schools seem so much harder now that school shootings are more prevalent and the pandemic happened. Being a teacher is more stressful and less safe than it has ever been. And sadly it feels like teachers who are killed are barely acknowledged in most articles. I don't think anyone except some of the shooters go to school hoping this is the day I get killed or shot.

And the bigger and more complex the school system the harder it is to act on calls and information that comes in minutes instead of hours before something happens. Learned the other day how weirdly schools have been split up probably due to a bunch of apartment building in the last few years.

[billisonboard]

Sept 8, 2024 10:13:57 GMT -5 raeoflyte said:

Sept 8, 2024 9:14:25 GMT -5 pulmonarymd said:

This is personal for me to. Sandy Hook did not happen far from where I live. My oldest son's best friend in Medical School went there. My wife was caught in traffic due to the response to the shooting when she was going to NYC that day. t has affected the entire area.

Gun fanatics aren't going to be happy until schools become fortresses. Are they willing to pay the taxes required to make schools impenetrable? Going to be great for mental health. This has also happened with hospitals. My hospital has closed entrances and locked every door it can. Hospitals used to be welcoming places, but they have had to change because of security and ongoing threats. It has not been a change for the better IMHO. 

The same people desperate to keep their guns are voting to strip public of funding and send tax dollars to private schools.

I've read a lot of non-sense about private schools being safe options. I swear it's from their play book.

Private schools have the advantage of deciding who attends their school. Not a perfect failsafe, but it's better than public schools who are forced to basically take whomever shows up at the door.

[Opti]

Sept 8, 2024 10:37:07 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Sept 8, 2024 10:23:46 GMT -5 Opti said:

Bills I could not find the info easily on the House link from Bloomberg. Easier to just Google. Congress composition changes every two years. Info probably from Copilot

In the 2020 United States Congress elections, the composition of Congress was as follows:

House of Representatives:

Democrats: Held a narrow majority with 222 seats.
Republicans: Held 213 seats
.
Senate:

Republicans: Held 50 seats.
Democrats: Held 48 seats.
Independents: 2 seats, both caucusing with the Democrats2.
This resulted in a closely divided Congress, with the Democrats holding a slim majority in the House and the Senate being evenly split, giving Vice President Kamala Harris the tie-breaking vote2.

Is there anything specific you’d like to know more about regarding the 2020 Congress?


en.wikipedia.org


ballotpedia.org

Why the hell are you addressing this to me? jerseygirl is the one who asked.

Because you told her to look inside those Bloomberg links and I personally could not find it. That's why. Had you said just Google for the composition of Congress and the Senate prior to that, no post from me. 

[billisonboard]

Sept 8, 2024 10:50:52 GMT -5 Opti said:

Sept 8, 2024 10:37:07 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Why the hell are you addressing this to me? jerseygirl is the one who asked.

Because you told her to look inside those Bloomberg links and I personally could not find it. That's why. Had you said just Google for the composition of Congress and the Senate prior to that, no post from me. 

Did you look at her first NBC News link?

[giramomma]

Sept 8, 2024 10:13:57 GMT -5 raeoflyte said:

Sept 8, 2024 9:14:25 GMT -5 pulmonarymd said:

This is personal for me to. Sandy Hook did not happen far from where I live. My oldest son's best friend in Medical School went there. My wife was caught in traffic due to the response to the shooting when she was going to NYC that day. t has affected the entire area.

Gun fanatics aren't going to be happy until schools become fortresses. Are they willing to pay the taxes required to make schools impenetrable? Going to be great for mental health. This has also happened with hospitals. My hospital has closed entrances and locked every door it can. Hospitals used to be welcoming places, but they have had to change because of security and ongoing threats. It has not been a change for the better IMHO. 

The same people desperate to keep their guns are voting to strip public of funding and send tax dollars to private schools.

I've read a lot of non-sense about private schools being safe options. I swear it's from their play book.

Well, I will say when our school was called because they couldn't locate the dad who had access to guns and threatened to kill his kids..the school administration acted on it right away and the kids were put in lockdown.

We found out later the dad actually was nowhere in town, but about an hour away. (That's where the dad was arrested). So, truth be told, the kids didn't need to go on lockdown.

And, yes, after that for several days, my kids went to school with an armed guard at the front door. After the dad was arrested, he was released because he made bail.

Security didn't subside substantially until the dad started serving time.

And to my knowledge, there were no assault rifles  involved. I know the dad hunted. 

So. No. Private school is not the safer choice.

I am ok with the response. No. It wasn't my choice. I would have much preferred the dad get the mental health treatment he very clearly needed so that none of this happened. The dad wasn't pure evil.

I also will say our public high school takes all threats very seriously. Even the prank ones, where kids write messages in the bathroom threatening to bring a gun to kill folks or bomb the school. 

I don't know why my experience is different. I live in a rather decent sized city-about 250K. Our hospitals are not locked down. Anyone could just walk in the hospital (associated with the university) any number of ways undetected.  They have never been locked. We have 0-7ish murders in our city a year, all together. I live in la-la land, where we are thought to be immune. 

And, yet, with all of that we do take school threats seriously. 

[pulmonarymd]

We have had someone post threats to the hospital repeatedly on social media. He was found with a weapon on the hospital campus one time. I live in NE, and not in some crime ridden area, but as we see with school shootings, it only takes one person to pose a threat if they have a semiautomatic weapon. The thinking it could never happen here is the problem. Sandy Hook is a nice little town who thought it would never happen there. Disturbed people with a grudge, and access to high powered weaponry is the problem, and it can(and has) happened everywhere. Our schools have also changed. No longer can parents just walk into the office. They now have to be let in, which changed when my youngest was in school. Too many people in ugly divorces caused problems

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

We had a mass shooting at Von Maur.

It's disconcerting to see armed police in Kevlar vests patrolling the mall.

That is not something I ever had to worry about as a teen.

[raeoflyte]

I live in an affluent area where normal people have been priced out of the housing market. Houses on my block go for a million for a pretty standard ranch house. There is very little crime. I lock my doors at night but sleep with the windows open.

Columbine and Arapahoe HS pull in from even higher end neighborhoods and the stem school is a charter school who gets some choice in what students it takes (also in a high end neighborhood but being a charter school is less bound by district/neighborhood). It happens everywhere. No where is safe. The people who still believe it will never happen in their town are naive at best.

[Opti]

Sept 8, 2024 10:55:13 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Sept 8, 2024 10:50:52 GMT -5 Opti said:

Because you told her to look inside those Bloomberg links and I personally could not find it. That's why. Had you said just Google for the composition of Congress and the Senate prior to that, no post from me. 

Did you look at her first NBC News link?

I read the very top of the article but did not listen to any of the videos. I just skimmed to the bottom of that NBC link which I do not think I did initially. I did not see anything in print on how Congress was divided in that article besides the mention in passing in the first three paragraphs. My system does sometimes drops pieces of articles until they load in later though. If I missed it, I apologize.

[billisonboard]

Sept 8, 2024 14:50:44 GMT -5 Opti said:

Sept 8, 2024 10:55:13 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Did you look at her first NBC News link?

I read the very top of the article but did not listen to any of the videos. I just skimmed to the bottom of that NBC link which I do not think I did initially. I did not see anything in print on how Congress was divided in that article besides the mention in passing in the first three paragraphs. My system does sometimes drops pieces of articles until they load in later though. If I missed it, I apologize.

It does require using your brain a bit.

The bill passed in a largely party-line vote of 217-213, with two Republicans voting for the measure and five Democrats opposing it.

...the evenly split Senate, ... all 50 Senate Democrats.

You have to do a little math with the House and it isn't necessarily exact, but 217-2+5 gives you 220 Democrats and 213-5+2 gives you 210 Republicans. Close enough. Certainly not a Republican majority.

An even split with 50 on one side means the other side would be 50 also. Doesn't reflect the two Independents, but they aren't very independent anyway.

[daisylu]

Sept 8, 2024 10:13:57 GMT -5 raeoflyte said:

Sept 8, 2024 9:14:25 GMT -5 pulmonarymd said:

This is personal for me to. Sandy Hook did not happen far from where I live. My oldest son's best friend in Medical School went there. My wife was caught in traffic due to the response to the shooting when she was going to NYC that day. t has affected the entire area.

Gun fanatics aren't going to be happy until schools become fortresses. Are they willing to pay the taxes required to make schools impenetrable? Going to be great for mental health. This has also happened with hospitals. My hospital has closed entrances and locked every door it can. Hospitals used to be welcoming places, but they have had to change because of security and ongoing threats. It has not been a change for the better IMHO. 

The same people desperate to keep their guns are voting to strip public of funding and send tax dollars to private schools.

I've read a lot of non-sense about private schools being safe options. I swear it's from their play book.

The bolded is not always true. I have lived in the city and the country - guns are needed for protection.  Now in the country I may encounter coyotes,  snakes,  bears, etc, on a walk around my property.  I support tougher gun laws. I also have no issue with paying higher taxes to support public schools. I grew up poor. My children were raised poor. Public schools are a necessity for a lot of people. My kids are grown but I still buy school and classroom supplies for the local public schools. Teachers still send me their Amazon school supply list and I buy more than I should. 

All that to say that stereotyping is wrong on many levels. 

[raeoflyte]

Sept 8, 2024 16:56:18 GMT -5 daisylu said:

Sept 8, 2024 10:13:57 GMT -5 raeoflyte said:

The same people desperate to keep their guns are voting to strip public of funding and send tax dollars to private schools.

I've read a lot of non-sense about private schools being safe options. I swear it's from their play book.

The bolded is not always true. I have lived in the city and the country - guns are needed for protection.  Now in the country I may encounter coyotes,  snakes,  bears, etc, on a walk around my property.  I support tougher gun laws. I also have no issue with paying higher taxes to support public schools. I grew up poor. My children were raised poor. Public schools are a necessity for a lot of people. My kids are grown but I still buy school and classroom supplies for the local public schools. Teachers still send me their Amazon school supply list and I buy more than I should. 

All that to say that stereotyping is wrong on many levels. 

I will stereotype all day when we are talking about choice that leads to the murdering of children over and over for decades. People choosing to vote in ways that perpetuate an actual mental health crisis in our kids because 12 years of lock down drills, and news of actual school shootings is traumatic.

I said gun in like 4 posts. If you read my posts you'd see it's assault weapons that's I'm talking about. The NRA and everyone who loses their mind at any regulation because the only way to defend against a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.

[raeoflyte]

I hate the mental health focus in the cause of school shootings. Are sociopaths being treated for mental health? I suppose because we know there are causes for the condition outside of the person's control, but once you inflict harm on others mental health is pretty much off the table for me unless we're talking mitigating factors when sentencing.

It's like abuse victims writing off the abusers behavior because they're not as terrible as their parents. It's still abuse and the cause doesn't matter anymore except for the person who is actively working to break the cycle.

[daisylu]

Sept 8, 2024 17:40:00 GMT -5 raeoflyte said:

Sept 8, 2024 16:56:18 GMT -5 daisylu said:

The bolded is not always true. I have lived in the city and the country - guns are needed for protection.  Now in the country I may encounter coyotes,  snakes,  bears, etc, on a walk around my property.  I support tougher gun laws. I also have no issue with paying higher taxes to support public schools. I grew up poor. My children were raised poor. Public schools are a necessity for a lot of people. My kids are grown but I still buy school and classroom supplies for the local public schools. Teachers still send me their Amazon school supply list and I buy more than I should. 

All that to say that stereotyping is wrong on many levels. 

I will stereotype all day when we are talking about choice that leads to the murdering of children over and over for decades. People choosing to vote in ways that perpetuate an actual mental health crisis in our kids because 12 years of lock down drills, and news of actual school shootings is traumatic.

I said gun in like 4 posts. If you read my posts you'd see it's assault weapons that's I'm talking about. The NRA and everyone who loses their mind at any regulation because the only way to defend against a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.

I was only addressing the post I quoted. 

I vote blue, always have always will. I have guns, but I also vote for tougher gun laws. My children have NEVER had access to our firearms. To me, that is a huge issue in regard to school shootings.

I'm not a member of the NRA because I consider them too aggressive. As I posted in my first reply I have no issue with gun laws and tougher regulation - I advocate for it in my community. The federal government does very little so I fight in my state. That's all I can do. 

[Pink Cashmere]

I think 2 things can be true at the same time. A person can want to keep their guns and support legislation to make it more difficult to buy/obtain and keep guns. I don’t know what more difficult looks like, short of a ban, but I am thinking something more than the 15 or 20 minutes it took for a store to run a background check when I bought a gun years ago. 

I also think that like some posters have said, something has changed in our society in addition to the number of guns on the street these days. Families that hunt, have taught their children to use firearms for ages. I don’t think we had the numbers of school shootings 30 or 40 years ago, that we’ve had during the last few decades. So what is different now, compared to back then?

One other thing that I wonder about, is IIRC, some posters say that these shooters come from dysfunctional families. There are a lot of dysfunctional families and bad parents in the hoods and inner city areas all over the country, and also a lot of gun violence. And a lot of irresponsible parents that don’t keep their guns secure, I’m sure. But that’s not usually where these shooters come from. 

[jerseygirl]

Sadly even though guns are highly regulated in NYC, gun violence isnt rare. Lately with random attacks (not gun related) , the perpetrators when caught have long lists of offenses. Often it includes a gun charge. Little or no consequences for the illegal guns. What use are the stringent laws if there’s little or no consequence
One stereotype’ thoughts and prayers’
Another stereotype ‘ more gun control’
Both seem ineffective
Personally I’d very much like to have ban on assault guns with big consequences . Ban on machine guns as a good functional model
A mandated systemized look at perpetrators of mass violence. Characteristic in common? What to do with these to prevent violence
Dysfunctional familly members not allowed to buy or keep guns. Universal Background checks should uncover these - domestic violence, drug use, previous felonies, drunk driving etc. Prosection if possession of guns
Need some way to assure responsible gun owners ( and there are many) they’re not ‘going after their guns’


Just some thoughts

[raeoflyte]

Sept 8, 2024 18:29:23 GMT -5 Pink Cashmere said:

I think 2 things can be true at the same time. A person can want to keep their guns and support legislation to make it more difficult to buy/obtain and keep guns. I don’t know what more difficult looks like, short of a ban, but I am thinking something more than the 15 or 20 minutes it took for a store to run a background check when I bought a gun years ago. 

I also think that like some posters have said, something has changed in our society in addition to the number of guns on the street these days. Families that hunt, have taught their children to use firearms for ages. I don’t think we had the numbers of school shootings 30 or 40 years ago, that we’ve had during the last few decades. So what is different now, compared to back then?

One other thing that I wonder about, is IIRC, some posters say that these shooters come from dysfunctional families. There are a lot of dysfunctional families and bad parents in the hoods and inner city areas all over the country, and also a lot of gun violence. And a lot of irresponsible parents that don’t keep their guns secure, I’m sure. But that’s not usually where these shooters come from. 

There were shootings in the 60's, 70's, 80's and early 90's. They just couldn't take out an entire classroom and keep going.

I'm sure social media and the prevalence and news coverage of shootings beget more shootings. But Australia had 1 school shooting, banned certain weapons, paid to get them out of homes, and somehow they haven't had more shootings. When otherwise they have a very similar culture to the US.

Why can't we do that here? Why are assault weapons so much more important to us than the lives of our children?

[raeoflyte]

Sept 8, 2024 18:36:45 GMT -5 jerseygirl said:

Sadly even though guns are highly regulated in NYC, gun violence isnt rare. Lately with random attacks (not gun related) , the perpetrators when caught have long lists of offenses. Often it includes a gun charge. Little or no consequences for the illegal guns. What use are the stringent laws if there’s little or no consequence
One stereotype’ thoughts and prayers’
Another stereotype ‘ more gun control’
Both seem ineffective
Personally I’d very much like to have ban on assault guns with big consequences . Ban on machine guns as a good functional model
A mandated systemized look at perpetrators of mass violence. Characteristic in common? What to do with these to prevent violence
Dysfunctional familly members not allowed to buy or keep guns. Universal Background checks should uncover these - domestic violence, drug use, previous felonies, drunk driving etc. Prosection if possession of guns
Need some way to assure responsible gun owners ( and there are many) they’re not ‘going after their guns’

And gun license renewal where you have to recertify to the same checks at least every few years.

We're never going to stop all human violence.

[Pink Cashmere]

Sept 8, 2024 18:43:53 GMT -5 raeoflyte said:

Sept 8, 2024 18:29:23 GMT -5 Pink Cashmere said:

I think 2 things can be true at the same time. A person can want to keep their guns and support legislation to make it more difficult to buy/obtain and keep guns. I don’t know what more difficult looks like, short of a ban, but I am thinking something more than the 15 or 20 minutes it took for a store to run a background check when I bought a gun years ago. 

I also think that like some posters have said, something has changed in our society in addition to the number of guns on the street these days. Families that hunt, have taught their children to use firearms for ages. I don’t think we had the numbers of school shootings 30 or 40 years ago, that we’ve had during the last few decades. So what is different now, compared to back then?

One other thing that I wonder about, is IIRC, some posters say that these shooters come from dysfunctional families. There are a lot of dysfunctional families and bad parents in the hoods and inner city areas all over the country, and also a lot of gun violence. And a lot of irresponsible parents that don’t keep their guns secure, I’m sure. But that’s not usually where these shooters come from. 

There were shootings in the 60's, 70's, 80's and early 90's. They just couldn't take out an entire classroom and keep going.

I'm sure social media and the prevalence and news coverage of shootings beget more shootings. But Australia had 1 school shooting, banned certain weapons, paid to get them out of homes, and somehow they haven't had more shootings. When otherwise they have a very similar culture to the US.

Why can't we do that here? Why are assault weapons so much more important to us than the lives of our children?

We can’t do that here because we have become a nation of people that are only about “me, me, me”, fuck everybody else and fuck what’s best for the common good….. best for our children in general, our neighbors, our communities, our nation and the world we live in. Imo, the gun issue is just a symptom of bigger problems in our society. I do not say that to minimize the gun violence and mass shootings at all, it is a problem that I take very seriously and am concerned about. 

FTR, I do not believe that assault weapons should be available for the general public to own.

[TheOtherMe]

Sept 8, 2024 18:43:53 GMT -5 raeoflyte said:

Sept 8, 2024 18:29:23 GMT -5 Pink Cashmere said:

I think 2 things can be true at the same time. A person can want to keep their guns and support legislation to make it more difficult to buy/obtain and keep guns. I don’t know what more difficult looks like, short of a ban, but I am thinking something more than the 15 or 20 minutes it took for a store to run a background check when I bought a gun years ago. 

I also think that like some posters have said, something has changed in our society in addition to the number of guns on the street these days. Families that hunt, have taught their children to use firearms for ages. I don’t think we had the numbers of school shootings 30 or 40 years ago, that we’ve had during the last few decades. So what is different now, compared to back then?

One other thing that I wonder about, is IIRC, some posters say that these shooters come from dysfunctional families. There are a lot of dysfunctional families and bad parents in the hoods and inner city areas all over the country, and also a lot of gun violence. And a lot of irresponsible parents that don’t keep their guns secure, I’m sure. But that’s not usually where these shooters come from. 

There were shootings in the 60's, 70's, 80's and early 90's. They just couldn't take out an entire classroom and keep going.

I'm sure social media and the prevalence and news coverage of shootings beget more shootings. But Australia had 1 school shooting, banned certain weapons, paid to get them out of homes, and somehow they haven't had more shootings. When otherwise they have a very similar culture to the US.

Why can't we do that here? Why are assault weapons so much more important to us than the lives of our children?

We won't do it here because of all the lobbying money spent by the NRA.  

No one needs a personally owned assault rifle.  There is no valid use for an assault weapon at home.  

It will never make sense to me.  

We had violence in my high school in the 60's.  But it was with a knife and a snowball with something hard in it.  Yes, someone got hurt, but they didn't get killed.  It was also a racial fight during the racial tensions of that time period.

I can't imagine what would have happened that day if there had been guns.

That incident made me feel not safe in school and we had police officers with us for the rest of the school year.  I was afraid.  That big fight happened during football season.  There was another incident in the spring.  

All I wanted to do was get out of school alive.

And no guns were involved.  We didn't have any drills of what to do in the case of violence.  We were on our own.  A bunch of us left and walked to where my mom worked.  She had told me to get out if fights like that happened again.  So I got out with friends.  Lots of my classmates left.

[finnime]

I cannot imagine how fraught, how frightening, being a school teacher or administrator or being a parent of young public school-age children is these days. I'm so sorry, Knee Deep in Water Chloe . And I'm so sorry, raeoflyte .

I agree we've got to do better. Ban assault weaponry of all kinds. People hunting people is too horrific. Children hunting children has got to stop.

[Tennesseer]

Another Washington Post article behind a paywall. There is some very thoughtful articles from newspapers like the Washington Post and New York Times which are worth the monthly charge to read them (if you can afford to).

Opinion Punishing a shooter’s parents delivers some justice. But not enough.
We can’t stop this scourge without making some obvious — and popular — changes to gun laws.

Charging a parent of a teen mass shooter with murder might be emotionally satisfying. It is not sufficient, however, to address the problem of easily accessible weapons of war. We should take no solace, then, in the arrest of the father of the latest minor accused of destroying the lives of children and their families.

Georgia officials charged the father of the suspected Apalachee High School shooter with two counts of second-degree murder, four counts of involuntary manslaughter and eight counts of cruelty to children, The Post reported. “The arrest came less than 36 hours after two students and a pair of teachers were gunned down with an AR-15-style rifle that, investigators allege, the man allowed his 14-year-old son to possess.” Investigators interviewed the father, Colin Gray, along with his son, over a year ago.

This is not the first case of its kind. In April, the Associated Press reported, “A judge sentenced the parents of a Michigan school shooter to at least 10 years in prison Tuesday for failing to take steps that could have prevented a ‘runaway train’ — the killing of four students in 2021.” In that case, prosecutors showed that the parents had “an unsecured gun at home and indifference toward the teen’s mental health.”

Given that prosecutors and jurors are eager to hold someone accountable for such horrific crimes, this might not be the last time a parent gets charged in a mass killing. Moreover, there is no reason to limit potential defendants to parents, although they plainly have primary responsibility for their children. Other relatives and any number of other adults who have direct knowledge of a minor’s mental state and who provide access to a weapon could find themselves under scrutiny if the minor goes on a deadly rampage. There is some justice in holding peripheral figures accountable for cavalier handling of weapons. But that begs the larger societal issue of mass shootings.

For starters, many mass shooters are adults. There is no one else to blame. And if the shooter, as is common, is killed in the conduct of their crime, there is no defendant to bring to justice. The death penalty or a lengthy jail sentence is no deterrent when the killer contemplates their own death.

Moreover, prosecuting people related to the shooter deflects from the grotesque public policy failure: ready access to such weapons. Treating these incidents as individual crimes, with a subsequent search for a specific person to blame, allows the real culprits — the gun lobby and the weak-kneed Second Amendment absolutists, as well as the hyper-partisan Supreme Court — off the hook.

Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance (Ohio), putting a lie to the “pro-life” mantle his party claims, calls mass shootings a “fact of life.” That cringeworthy admission reflects Republicans’ willingness to allow an endless string of mass murders. Scores of dead children each year is a fact of life as long as Second Amendment absolutists, a minority of Americans, hold the rest of us hostage. (The Harris-Walz campaign responded to Vance’s statement: “Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Walz know we can take action to keep our children safe and keep guns out of the hands of criminals. Donald Trump and JD Vance will always choose the NRA and gun lobby over our children.”)

We do know how to reduce gun violence; Republicans simply refuse to challenge the MAGA movement’s gun fetish. The center-left think tank Third Way has documented the disparity between blue states with stricter gun laws and red states with lax gun laws. “The red state murder rate was 33% higher than the blue state murder rate in both 2021 and 2022,” the group reported this year. “2022 was the 23rd consecutive year that murder plagued Trump-voting states at far higher levels than Biden-voting states. … From 2000 to 2022, the average red state murder rate was 24% higher than the average blue state murder rate.”

When felon and former president Donald Trump talks about violent crime (which overall has plunged during Joe Biden’s presidency), he points the finger blue states, specifically big cities (generally run by Democrats, with large non-White populations). In fact, “since 2016, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama have had the three highest murder rates in the country,” Third Way counters. “These three red states have consistently had the highest murder rates for over 15 years now.”

The gun problem is as much a democracy problem as anything else. Gun measures such as universal background checks and red-flag laws garner supermajorities. Even in deep-red Tennessee, for example, large majorities support raising the age to 21 to purchase an assault rifle (64 percent), requiring safe storage of weapons (76 percent) and mandating universal background checks (80 percent). When it comes to an outright ban on assault-style weapons, support is nearly as high. Multiple polls show 60 percent or more favor such a measure. But as long as heavily gerrymandered states produced hyper-conservative state legislatures and the Senate filibuster allows sparsely populated red states to dominate, the popular will is thwarted.

Given all that, putting parents of mass shooters on trial should be seen for what it is — a poor replacement for a pro-life policy of serious gun-control measures. Though it might provide some small measure of comfort to grieving families, it does little to prevent the next shooting. And the next after that.

Opinion Punishing a shooter’s parents delivers some justice. But not enough.

[pulmonarymd]

We have a poster right here on this board who says the same thing JD Vance says. We just have to "accept" these things will happen, because she is unwilling to give up any of her precious rigt to own whatever weapon of war she wants. Children are, unfortunately, just collateral damage and the price of "freedom".

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Sept 9, 2024 15:52:00 GMT -5 pulmonarymd said:

We have a poster right here on this board who says the same thing JD Vance says. We just have to "accept" these things will happen, because she is unwilling to give up any of her precious rigt to own whatever weapon of war she wants. Children are, unfortunately, just collateral damage and the price of "freedom".

But that does not apply to my right for body autonomy as a woman.

[pulmonarymd]

Sept 9, 2024 15:53:12 GMT -5 NomoreDramaQ1015 said:

Sept 9, 2024 15:52:00 GMT -5 pulmonarymd said:

We have a poster right here on this board who says the same thing JD Vance says. We just have to "accept" these things will happen, because she is unwilling to give up any of her precious rigt to own whatever weapon of war she wants. Children are, unfortunately, just collateral damage and the price of "freedom".

But that does not apply to my right for body autonomy as a woman.

Well, you do know that we men do know what is best for women. No need to worry your pretty little head about these difficult decisions. Just worry about looking pretty and making us dinner. That is what you are good for/s

[Cheesy FL-Vol]

Sept 8, 2024 18:36:45 GMT -5 jerseygirl said:

Sadly even though guns are highly regulated in NYC, gun violence isnt rare. Lately with random attacks (not gun related) , the perpetrators when caught have long lists of offenses. Often it includes a gun charge. Little or no consequences for the illegal guns. What use are the stringent laws if there’s little or no consequence
One stereotype’ thoughts and prayers’
Another stereotype ‘ more gun control’
Both seem ineffective
Personally I’d very much like to have ban on assault guns with big consequences . Ban on machine guns as a good functional model
A mandated systemized look at perpetrators of mass violence. Characteristic in common? What to do with these to prevent violence
Dysfunctional familly members not allowed to buy or keep guns. Universal Background checks should uncover these - domestic violence, drug use, previous felonies, drunk driving etc. Prosection if possession of guns
Need some way to assure responsible gun owners ( and there are many) they’re not ‘going after their guns’


Just some thoughts

Laws don’t mean a damn thing unless they are ENFORCED! Illegal persons working illegally would disappear if we were ENFORCING existing employment laws and prohibiting corporations from skirting the law would go a long way towards getting our immigration issues under control. Of course creating a better immigration system would help too. No, I don’t have the answers to that.

[Cheesy FL-Vol]

Sept 9, 2024 15:55:10 GMT -5 pulmonarymd said:

Sept 9, 2024 15:53:12 GMT -5 NomoreDramaQ1015 said:

But that does not apply to my right for body autonomy as a woman.

Well, you do know that we men do know what is best for women. No need to worry your pretty little head about these difficult decisions. Just worry about looking pretty and making us dinner. That is what you are good for/s

You forgot incubating babies. Very important. 

[pulmonarymd]

Sept 9, 2024 16:02:05 GMT -5 Cheesy FL-Vol said:

Sept 9, 2024 15:55:10 GMT -5 pulmonarymd said:

Well, you do know that we men do know what is best for women. No need to worry your pretty little head about these difficult decisions. Just worry about looking pretty and making us dinner. That is what you are good for/s

You forgot incubating babies. Very important. 

I thought that was obvious with the looking pretty part, since women also owe us sex and carrying our offspring(who we have no intention of taking care of or supporting) so our family name can be carried on/s