14 Children and Teacher Killed in Texas Elementary School Shooting

[Mblake1981]

Imagine if the internet, message boards and social media existed in 1980s America like it does today, with people freaking out about events happening around the vast country. You once had to turn on the news, with them doing some end-of-quarter special series detailing this. This place is too large for a single person to get bombarded like that, and you guys talk about mental health.

-imagine 1980s aussies, red labor chinese and young Beto O'Rourke would all be brow-beating mullet dudes online, who laugh while popping ice cold genuine draft..

[Skarne]

Haha irregardless

[MrSparkle001]

I'm thinking now that these mass shootings by young people have only been an issue since the birth of the internet. Before Columbine we really didn't hear about them. It was never even a concern. Schools would be open and unlocked and anyone could just walk right in and nobody cared.

Because nobody had a reason to care.

Then the internet gets going in the 90's and takes off in the 2000's and now these kids are growing up with it and it's warping their minds. The mentally ill kids are being further harmed by it and they lash out and shit like this happens. No "history" of mental illness doesn't mean there is no mental illness. The kid was a fucked up high school drop-out and I can bet there were warning signs everywhere and as usual nobody cared and let the kid slip through the cracks. Then the internet grabs hold of his malfunctioning mind and suddenly he wants to shoot up an elementary school.

And yes an 18 year old these days is still very much a kid. This isn't the 1940's.

[robayon]

Originally Posted by MrSparkle001 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I'm thinking now that these mass shootings by young people have only been an issue since the birth of the internet. Before Columbine we really didn't hear about them. It was never even a concern. Schools would be open and unlocked and anyone could just walk right in and nobody cared.

Because nobody had a reason to care.

Then the internet gets going in the 90's and takes off in the 2000's and now these kids are growing up with it and it's warping their minds. The mentally ill kids are being further harmed by it and they lash out and shit like this happens. No "history" of mental illness doesn't mean there is no mental illness. The kid was a fucked up high school drop-out and I can bet there were warning signs everywhere and as usual nobody cared and let the kid slip through the cracks. Then the internet grabs hold of his malfunctioning mind and suddenly he wants to shoot up an elementary school.

And yes an 18 year old these days is still very much a kid. This isn't the 1940's.

I agree with your larger point. I think the general effects of the information age have really just exaggerated and amplified the capacity for insane violence. Any of us can pick a completely insane idea and find a group of like minded invidiuals online if we know how to search. I can't even remember how young I was when I first saw people dying on rotten.com or something linked through SA.

But I also believe American culture is extremely violent in a lot of ways, and we normalize violence in ways most cultures don't have to because we have to keep our population complacent and consuming. Panem et circenses. I think if most people saw first hand the violence it takes to give us, say, $4 tshirts at Old Navy, or $3 jars of condiments made with palm oil, they'd start to ask questions about the ethics of all of this consumer culture we have built. And the powers that be can't have that, so some of the most brutal forms of labor get outsourced so that it's out of sight and out of mind.

However, school shootings absolutely happened before Columbine. Not that you were saying they didn't, it was just more localized and information wasn't as easy to access as it is now.

https://www.ranker.com/list/scary-sc.../natalie-hazen

I don't think we have yet realized the full scope of the door we opened when we allowed the public access to the internet. Not that there's any going back, really. I feel like humanity getting the internet might have been some aliens violating a prime directive. Ugh

[Gustoo]

Originally Posted by robayon [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I feel like humanity getting the internet might have been some aliens violating a prime directive. Ugh

Haha probably.

So was anakin skywalker the first school shooter?

[robayon]

Originally Posted by Gustoo [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Haha probably.

So was anakin skywalker the first school shooter?

I suddenly feel like this is like those awful libs saying things like "wow, ted cruz really is a slytherin" and now I would like to punch myself in the dick for using a pop culture reference

[loramin]

Originally Posted by robayon [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I agree with your larger point. I think the general effects of the information age have really just exaggerated and amplified the capacity for insane violence. Any of us can pick a completely insane idea and find a group of like minded invidiuals online if we know how to search. I can't even remember how young I was when I first saw people dying on rotten.com or something linked through SA.

But I also believe American culture is extremely violent in a lot of ways, and we normalize violence in ways most cultures don't have to because we have to keep our population complacent and consuming. Panem et circenses. I think if most people saw first hand the violence it takes to give us, say, $4 tshirts at Old Navy, or $3 jars of condiments made with palm oil, they'd start to ask questions about the ethics of all of this consumer culture we have built. And the powers that be can't have that, so some of the most brutal forms of labor get outsourced so that it's out of sight and out of mind.

However, school shootings absolutely happened before Columbine. Not that you were saying they didn't, it was just more localized and information wasn't as easy to access as it is now.

https://www.ranker.com/list/scary-sc.../natalie-hazen

I don't think we have yet realized the full scope of the door we opened when we allowed the public access to the internet. Not that there's any going back, really. I feel like humanity getting the internet might have been some aliens violating a prime directive. Ugh

I think you guys are overthinking things. This isn't some cultural cliff that we've fallen off (because of Columbine or the Internet or whatever), and now it's a hopelessly complex problem; it's far more basic.

We voted in a bunch of politician who removed gun control laws. Science has shown gun control laws save lives. If we want to fix things, we need to elect politicians who pass gun control laws.

It's that simple.

[Gustoo]

Originally Posted by loramin [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

. Science has shown gun control laws save lives

The only lives that gun control has demonstrated can be saved, are lives that are ended by guns. Most especially, handgun suicides because people suicide via epiphany and having a gun at hand makes it most convenient to act on that before something comes along and changes your mind. Other ways of killing people and killing self can be employed. In the case of killing others all the other alternatives are just as good for completing the task except if the task includes furthering a gun control anti second amendment pro big government pro authoritarian agenda. For suicides nothing beats a gun in the home though, that is your strongest and almost exclusively valuable anti-gun point, I would lean into that one. For killing children there are so many opportunities for someone with severe mental illness and literally no help whatsoever in the USA to enact their horrible acts. I don't even want to list examples on the internet, but the fact is that one can easily destroy the lives of more than 14 children and more than 1 teacher much easier than by using a gun, employing things that have zero chance of anyone trying to ban.

The most important point is that the second amendment is an anti authoritarian / tyranny provision in the constitution and for its proponents literally ANY other solution than to remove this right from US citizens is better than weakening this right. Yes, even investing in mental health care is a better solution, even to a far right leave them to rot in the street gutter curb stomping throw em in prison evil bastard. If he believes in the second amendment he would be happy to support mental health care spending rather than discuss how to cuck out to bolstering authoritarian strength.So if the left actually cared about solving this problem, they would focus on things that are actual options for more than half of the country rather than try to wedge in any further incremental degradation of this highly important bill of rights amendment

Mental health in the united states (and the world) is absolutely plummeting. This is a desirable situation for the powers that be, meaning all rich assholes because their stocks are flying high, and when we hate eachother and crawl into our corners we spend more time on "social media" becoming more insane. This progressive insanity is usually used to help sell products and for the most part it works. But for people with certain underlying issues it is too much to handle and they snap, and do things like this. But keeping people absolutely as close to suicidal levels of misery is high priority for profits so I think it is likely to continue.

Fact is that there are no facts about "gun control" increasing public safety. It goes without saying that when there are less guns that exist, less people will get killed by guns. That is 1st grade no brainer science. Just because bullets kill us less does not make us more safe.

[loramin]

Originally Posted by Gustoo [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The only lives that gun control has demonstrated can be saved, are lives that are ended by guns.

You say that like it's a bad thing to care about victims of gun violence.

[Jibartik]

Originally Posted by Gustoo [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Fact is that there are no facts about "gun control" increasing public safety. It goes without saying that when there are less guns that exist, less people will get killed by guns. That is 1st grade no brainer science. Just because bullets kill us less does not make us more safe.

I am so glad you said that, I was so disappointed that link was "scientific" American, I was reading it thinking, all of this is specious reasoning, none of this is evidence based.

and then I was like, god damn this is "Scientific" American?? god we are so screwed.

Its shocking how much gun control lowers suicides: makes me think the evidence might show it really does take the guns from the people who have them for defense.