CT Elementary School Shooting - WTF?!?

[Bomm Bastic]

Studies on the effectiveness of gun control laws are incredibly unclear.

Studies on the effectiveness of relationships are not.

Nice! I approve this message.

[NoWayOut]

Studies on the effectiveness of gun control laws are incredibly unclear.

Studies on the effectiveness of relationships are not.

This is something that gets lost on far too many people, but in our technology driven world we've lost our basic humanity. I don't want to go off on one of those old guy tangents, but I'm old enough to remember a time when people interacted face-to-face much more then they do now. I mean a lot more.

So much of everyday life can be, and is, conducted anonymously online. If you don't spend time interacting with other people in a meaningful way it is so easy to no longer view others as people. Couple that with the level of anger and hatred you see everyday, easy access to weapons, and it's sadly not surprising we're seeing more and more of this shit.

As a race, and I mean mankind when I say that, we have to take a long hard look inside ourselves and ask where the f--k are we headed as a whole.

[Bnhershy]

I wrote an exam today. Written by two profs and most of the questions written by 1 of the profs were really ambiguous. People left the room crying etc....

I get home, and read about this story, and it really puts first-world problems like that into perspective. I felt sick. I can't imagine what the families of these children must be dealing with.

Once the mourning ceases, this shooting is going to get real political real quickly.

It's disgusting that this is the kind of thing that it takes to wake up a nation. It's way too easy to obtain a firearm in the states. It's enough with the 2nd amendment BS.

To generalize, I wonder how middle-America feels about this whole thing.

It's one thing to argue your right to bear arms, but do you really want to live in a society where your kid's life is at stake because some unstable individual decides to do the unthinkable?

[Dakkster]

Blaming gun laws is a total cop-out. Obviously they need to be revised but that's not why this happened, nor would stricter gun laws prevent it. This person decided to do this. He would have found a way to do it regardless.

Whenever I see the gun control argument, it makes me think of a protest where there was one guy wearing a t-shirt that said "spoons made me fat, make them illegal".

We're all human beings and we're all 100% accountable for the decisions we make.

A total cop out? Wow...

Of course the availability of guns is a huuuuuuuge factor in violence in the USA. Maaaaaaany killings wouldn't even happen if guns weren't so ubiquitous. That's just a no brainer. Not up for discussion.

This is a time when I think Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine should be revisited. The culture of fear needs to stop.

[Bomm Bastic]

This is something that gets lost on far too many people, but in our technology driven world we've lost our basic humanity. I don't want to go off on one of those old guy tangents, but I'm old enough to remember a time when people interacted face-to-face much more then they do now. I mean a lot more.

So much of everyday life can be, and is, conducted anonymously online. If you don't spend time interacting with other people in a meaningful way it is so easy to no longer view others as people. Couple that with the level of anger and hatred you see everyday, easy access to weapons, and it's sadly not surprising we're seeing more and more of this shit.

As a race, and I mean mankind when I say that, we have to take a long hard look inside ourselves and ask where the f--k are we headed as a whole.

Exactly. Most of know better because we grew up in an environment where we had to fight our fights hand-to-hand, without any of our buds jumpining in and sucker punching our opponent.

We never bailed out our friend until it got to be an unfair fight. Start a fight, lose? Cool, take you lumps and move on.

Now? Shit.

Get picked on in school and it's immediately splashed all over facebook, twitter or any social network for all to see. It was hard enough in elementary, middle and high school just dealing with your classmates. I could even imagine having every blunder posted on the net for all to ridicule. Humiliation ad infinitum.

To objectify is the first step in attacking you opponent. To objectify is to reduce somebody, or something that is complex and multifaceted, to the status of a simple object. War, gangs, politics, it's much easier to defeat your opponent when you reduce them to an avatar, nationality, demographic, slur, rather than a father, mother, brother, sister.

[NoWayOut]

Exactly. Most of know better because we grew up in an environment where we had to fight our fights hand-to-hand, without any of our buds jumpining in and sucker punching our opponent.

We never bailed out our friend until it got to be an unfair fight. Start a fight, lose? Cool, take you lumps and move on.

Now? Shit.

Get picked on in school and it's immediately splashed all over facebook, twitter or any social network for all to see. It was hard enough in elementary, middle and high school just dealing with your classmates. I could even imagine having every blunder posted on the net for all to ridicule. Humiliation ad infinitum.

To objectify is the first step in attacking you opponent. To objectify is to reduce somebody, or something that is complex and multifaceted, to the status of a simple object. War, gangs, politics, it's much easier to defeat your opponent when you reduce them to an avatar, nationality, demographic, slur, rather than a father, mother, brother, sister.

Remember the story a couple of weeks back where the hacker group Anonymous stepped in and prevented a teen girl from commiting suicide? How strangers and people she knew were trying to egg her on? It's not that far back in time where that sort of thing was unheard of.

Now it's sadly not the case. Nobody with a shred of humanity could stand in the same room and do that, too real. Now people have no more feeling for the real flesh and blood human being on the other end of that electronic connection than they do a character in a movie. Scares the f--king shit out of me to think how cold, heartless, and utterly devoid people are of anything approaching care and concern for anybody or anything other than themselves and their own selfish f--king interests.

[Loch]

The thing that I just can't get past is that an adult (20 is adult enough) gunned down young children. I'm not the warm fuzzy sort and at best I'd say I tolerate kids, but that is just phenomenally f*cked up to me.


Incidentally, I'm on the gun control side if only for the fact I cannot fathom why the US population needs almost 89 guns for every 100 people. Serbia is 2nd in the standings at 58 per 100 persons...

Interesting fact: The US has between 44% and 51% (depending on estimates) of the civilian fire-arms in the world (and about 25% of the world's prisoners, not that that is relevant).

[Bomm Bastic]

The thing that I just can't get past is that an adult (20 is adult enough) gunned down young children. I'm not the warm fuzzy sort and at best I'd say I tolerate kids, but that is just phenomenally f*cked up to me.


Incidentally, I'm on the gun control side if only for the fact I cannot fathom why the US population needs almost 89 guns for every 100 people. Serbia is 2nd in the standings at 58 per 100 persons...

Interesting fact: The US has between 44% and 51% (depending on estimates) of the civilian fire-arms in the world (and about 25% of the world's prisoners, not that that is relevant).

Dude I am even more confused, cuz now they're saying the suspect's mother was found dead at his house - possibly prior to the school shooting. Which of course makes one ask...then what the f**k did he go to the school for?

[cdubb]

Blaming gun laws is a total cop-out. Obviously they need to be revised but that's not why this happened, nor would stricter gun laws prevent it. This person decided to do this. He would have found a way to do it regardless.

Whenever I see the gun control argument, it makes me think of a protest where there was one guy wearing a t-shirt that said "spoons made me fat, make them illegal".

We're all human beings and we're all 100% accountable for the decisions we make.

It's a lot easier to kill people with a gun than a knife,

Think it's reasonable to make it harder for these psychos to get guns.

How many households in the US have guns? 89 per 100, versus 31 in your neighbors to the north.

[NoWayOut]

Dude I am even more confused, cuz now they're saying the suspect's mother was found dead at his house - possibly prior to the school shooting. Which of course makes one ask...then what the f**k did he go to the school for?

It'll never make sense no matter what explanations eventually come out. Evil like this can never be understood. And really there can never be a reasonable explanation for violence against innocents like this. For once I hope religion is right and there is a hell because this peice of shit deserves his own special corner of it.

[ericdaoust]

It's a lot easier to kill people with a gun than a knife

...which is why they don't sell nuclear weapons to average joes.

[One87]

Dude I am even more confused, cuz now they're saying the suspect's mother was found dead at his house - possibly prior to the school shooting. Which of course makes one ask...then what the f**k did he go to the school for?

The mother was a teacher at the school. CNN stating that he went after the mother and her class, whatever that means...smh. Obviously, this kid was mental.

[Bomm Bastic]

The mother was a teacher at the school. CNN stating that he went after the mother and her class, whatever that means...smh. Obviously, this kid was mental.

But they're now saying the mother was found dead at the shooter's ( her son) residence. The timeline is comfusing at the moment.

[dongjohnson]

Bring it up Dakkster, it's the elephant in the room. These tragedies are only becoming more common and with an increasingly devastating toll taken.

Your right in that our gun laws need addressing asap, and your right to bring that up since it plays a role in horrors like this. But there is a larger problem at work here. People have come completely unraveled mentally, they have no ability to work through their issues without resorting to violence. The smallest slight or setback, be it real or perceived, and people can't deal with it mentally and feel the need to escalate things to the point of murder.

Guns have been prevalent in the U.S. from day one, but acts like this were very few and very far between until the later half of 1900's. A key difference is somewhere, somehow, the human race has lost the ability to handle obstacles, disappointments in a rational manner. It seems as if everywhere you look tempers are on a hair trigger. Add in all the guns and it's a recipe for carnage, and all the more heartbreaking as it's preventable.

More enlightened gun laws didn't stop Anders Breivik. Draconian gun laws didn't stop the guy earlier this week in China from attacking and injuring 22 kids with a knife. Yes we desperately need to overhaul things to make guns less prevalent, but let's also not overlook the other issues that drive things like this. It all goes hand in hand, anger, hatred, the easy access to weapons, not just guns. Take away guns they'll use knives, clubs, or worse case scenario, bombs.

Those bent on acts like this will find some avenue to achieve their evil ends. We as a whole, the human race, need to really do some major soul searching and figure out why have we, in spite of all our advancements, seemingly become more base and animalistic in our treatment of one another. But it also needs to be coupled with tighter gun control.

I have less hope, and use, for humanity as the days go by. Maybe this really is the end of days, and instead of some cosmic, meteorological, or geological event that will do us in, it will be our own f--ked up psyches. We're not going to be wiped out by an asteroid, mega-hurricane, or global warming, we're just going to flat out f--king kill ourselves off, one lunatic at a time.

So damn sad that so much innocence was wiped out, and so many families forever destroyed in one fell swoop.

+1. It's a lot more complex than just a "gun problem" and we all know it. America has no culture, is morally bankrupt and 96% of people only care about when the next Iphone is coming out. 90% of H.S. Grads read on what would've been considered an 8th grade level 30 years ago... I see it as all inter-related.

[Bomm Bastic]

+1. It's a lot more complex than just a "gun problem" and we all know it. America has no culture, is morally bankrupt and 96% of people only care about when the next Iphone is coming out. 90% of H.S. Grads read on what would've been considered an 8th grade level 30 years ago... I see it as all inter-related.

Wow such insight, professor.