just ... the news ...

[veronica_rich]

Another shooting. At an elementary school in Connecticut.

I'm not normally a betting woman, but I'll venture a guess that it's another white male. Why it continues to be white males, I don't know. Are they pissed off they don't get to run everything anymore? Are they bored and have nothing to do? At my most unemployed, I found things to do that didn't involve shootin' and killin'.

But the larger issue - better controls on gun ownership and types of allowable weapons and ammunition. If something like this upsets ME - I don't have children and don't particularly like them - shouldn't it upset even the gun-craziest parents out there?

I'm just waiting for that one person of high-profile who seriously suggests the solution to this would have been to allow the teachers and kids to carry weapons at school. (Yes, allowing patrons to take guns into the movies was an actual suggestion from some jackass lawmaker following the shooting at the Colorado theater this year. Idiot.)

Comments

[johnnypenn.livejournal.com]

The guy was somewhat crazy, I think to do that.
But experts say that after any sort of shooting that's really devastating, shootings like that start to happen more often until things die down. like there was also that mall shooting as well.
I wonder if they could like not report that stuff on the news, at least not in detail, like suicides. Because the same thing happens with suicides.

And yes, stricter gun ownership.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

I don't mean this specific to you, but I'm sick and tired of the media being blamed for such as this when it happens. Because the ownership of said media hardly ever has to face the actual criticism on the ground, so to speak - it's the reporters lambasted and criticized for doing their jobs (because you know, like it or not, it's NEWS). Reporters and editors who are underpaid and overworked didn't do this; nutjob(s) with guns did this.

You know what would stop such as this being reported? If it stopped happening. I'd say that's more a job for the lawmakers and enforcers than reporters.

[bonnie-halfelvn.livejournal.com]

THIS.

[philosophercat.livejournal.com]

I'm glad that you qualified that with 'of high profile' because I've already seen Joe Crazy Public suggesting that on twitter. He was picking a fight with a much more reasonable, and high-profile guy who simply painted the fantasy scenario for him. The dude actually thinks life is like a movie, that a teacher can, with lightning-quick reflexes, take down a killer in a room full of panicking children. Yeah. I'd sort of like to tell him about how an autistic kid managed, in a split second, to scratch a radio reciever I was wearing on a holster as I walked past him. Imagine it's a gun.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

My sister has already had to read on her Facebook contacts list arguments and comments about how teachers should have guns. I just - do the people saying these things understand how hard it is to shoot? I'm not talking about the moral dilemma (and there ARE teachers who wouldn't do it because of their own beliefs, and it's not a job where they should be forced to against their will - it's not like signing up to be a cop, where you know it's necessary to the training); I'm talking about, it's not easy to aim and shoot and reload. These people saying this have to either be clueless idiots who've never held a gun, or veteran crack shots who think everybody knows how (and I just can't imagine there are too many of the latter in the pro-classroom-guns group).

[janamelie.livejournal.com]

Teachers with guns is so ridiculous and scary that I can't believe anyone would seriously suggest that.

I'm not going to get on a high horse about how much safer it is in the UK (see below example of a school shooting here), but the much tighter gun control laws here do translate to fewer shootings. It's so blatantly obvious it shouldn't need pointing out.

[janamelie.livejournal.com]

*Checks news* God, this is so horrific I don't know where to begin.

Actually, it reminds me of the school shooting in Dunblane, Scotland in 1996. A class of five-year-olds were virtually wiped out.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

It's pretty bad. Why does this keep happening, is what I want to know. If we knew why, maybe we could affect it.

[keechakatt.livejournal.com]

Not a gun person myself, but have no objections to others legally owning one.

My concern is the lack of mental health treatment. The insurance companies control access to everything, so according to some plans you get 6 visits. That is not enough time for some really disturbed. No insurance, good luck to ya.

I'm in no way excusing what he did. I just think he had to be out of his mind to do something this evil.

[bayliss.livejournal.com]

My concern is the lack of mental health treatment. The insurance companies control access to everything, so according to some plans you get 6 visits. That is not enough time for some really disturbed. No insurance, good luck to ya.

On some insurance policies that's ONLY 6 PER Year, If you are lucky at all and if they want over night observation, forget about it. They won't cover that. Our mental health system here in the States it abysmal. As some one who was forced to go for mental health treatment because of stupid things that were once at a job. They didn't like the fact that my job was so tedious that I thought sticking pencils in my arm would be less boring. Note: I never did do that, I just thought that it would be more entertaining. Oddly enough the doctor thought I was normal and told me I was sane. <.< OK.

My feeling on gun control are mixed. Yes, you should be able to own a gun, but certain types should be limited to Collectors and rendered useless (Automatics for one thing CAN NOT be used for hunting, unless you are wanting lead filled pheasant for supper.)

[a-silver-rose.livejournal.com]

I'm waiting for the inevitable gun-control debate when people start talking about banning guns thinking that someone dead-set on committing an atrocity like this will actually stop and think twice because they can't legally buy the gun they plan to use.

[bayliss.livejournal.com]

THIS.

If they want to do it they're going to find the gun, one way or another.

[bonnie-halfelvn.livejournal.com]

You mean rather than the current debate of, "Criminals will get a gun regardless of gun-control laws"? I'm so sick of that argument. Do these people leave their doors of their homes and businesses unlocked, too, because, "If burglers want to rob your house, they're going to do it no matter if your door is unlocked or not"?

[finding-neo.livejournal.com]

I wondered aloud today why not a single one of these shooters was stopped by a citizen licensed to and actually carrying a gun conveniently at the time and in the presence of the assailant? All but 1 state has conceal/carry laws, meaning their citizens can be licensed to carry a concealed weapon. Illinois is the only state which has yet to pass such a law, but it is coming very shortly since a federal appeals court recently ruled that the law preventing it is unconstitutional.

So clearly, neither gun toting citizens nor teachers are going to stop this type of thing.

Guns are in America to stay. Gun Control really comes down to what types of guns we allow certain people to possess. Until the majority of citizens demand that government legislate what types of weapons the average American citizen can legally obtain, these types of killings will continue. According to reports this shooter used a semi-automatic Sig Sauer rifle and a Glock 9mm handgun. No one needs those guns, unless they are in law enforcement and ironically used to prevent these types of incidents. The rifle retails for over $1200. Why would a middle aged woman need or want to have such a gun, since it has also been reported the mother was legal owner of the weapons involved? That makes me suspicious as to whether or not the mother's identity was stolen by her own son or if she was coerced to buy these, especially since he shot her in the face, also according to reports. That is a hateful shooter, the type who wants to see the victim's fear.

All that is speculation because at this point nothing is certain and some reports may be found to still be false, such as the name of the shooter was confused with that of his older brother earlier today.

The family had money, the father is a GE Capital executive. They could have afforded the treatment the son obviously needed. Mental illness is often an easy scapegoat in my opinion. Some mental illness starts at home.