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Post by nighttimer on Feb 16, 2018 19:20:47 GMT -5
We interrupt the obsessing over where President Pussygrabber parked his pee-pee before and after marrying Melania to bring up a n oh-so-vaguely-important-news-items-you-may-have-missed-because-you-confused-trivialities-with-reality: Broward County entered a grim, horrifying roster on Wednesday after the Sheriff’s Office reported 17 people had been killed by a single shooter at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
With that many people dead, the Stoneman Douglas shooting would be the deadliest for any high school in the United States, surpassing the 13 victims killed at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, on April 20, 1999. The death toll from Columbine rose to 15 after the two shooters, both Columbine students, killed themselves.
The rankings culled by news organizations over the years list the 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech as the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history. Thirty-two people were killed by a student at the Blacksburg, Virginia, university. He also killed himself.
In 2012, 26 victims died at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. A former student was the shooter, and he killed himself.
Assuming the death count reported by Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel remains at 17, the Stoneman Douglas shooting would land third on the list of the nation’s deadliest school shootings.
Fourth on the list would be the 1966 shooting at the University of Texas Tower in Austin, when a student there killed 14 people before being killed by police. Columbine, while the deadliest shooting at a high school before Wednesday, would be the fifth on the list of all U.S. school shootings.Now I'll cop to having been both out of sight and out of mind from this board while I dealt ( not entirely well at all) with some serious family matters, but I would think---I would hope---hell, I would EXPECT at least one sentient soul on this board to at least mention yet another mass murder massacre of our schoolchildren. Apparently I presume overmuch. If I come off as a bit preachy or pendantic, I offer apologies in advance. I'm about as wound up and about to become unsprung as a cheap wristwatch, but in my most splendid misery and angst, I'm not so cauterized at my nerve endings as to still not feel an acidic drop of anguish dripping upon my heart when a boy or girl dies. I know you're cynical about this sort of thing because I'm cynical too, but for fuck's sake, CHILDREN ARE DYING AND WE COULD TRY TO SAVE THEM. BUT
WE'RE NOT TRYING.
Maybe what it takes for us to give a damn is when one of those dead faces are ours or someone we love. Of course that's too late to do anyone any good, but hey, that's what happens when we ignore George Santayana.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 16, 2018 19:36:39 GMT -5
I'm glad you posted this, NT. And yes, it's obviously way more important than our past and present presidents' pee pees and peccadillos. I've been following the shooting story obsessively but haven't had the heart to post. The last school shooting just fucking happened, for christ's sake. I posted something on that one because I felt like, jesus, we need to acknowledge this happened, but I hadn't been able to bring myself to discuss this one yet. What will it take to get our representatives to fucking at least try to do something? Answer: they won't. At least not until we get new representatives. This is not going to be the last one. There isn't any other way to react to this story -- to all these stories -- than to be strung out and angry. The 17 victims and their stories.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 16, 2018 19:47:43 GMT -5
A pretty stunning chart that was in my twitter feed yesterday demonstrating that even after adjusting for the size of our population, the amount of gun violence we have in this country is just extraordinary, and another that shows the public support for gun measures that experts actually would be effective. (I'd post direct links to the New York Times, but I'm guessing many of you don't subscribe. If you click on the twitter links, you will be able to see the charts sans subscriptions.)
We could take effective steps to reduce gun violence. There's even a lot of support for these steps. And yet all our representatives do is send "thoughts and prayers."
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Post by prozyan on Feb 16, 2018 20:08:24 GMT -5
I too thought about posting about this, but in the end I thought what's the point? I mean seriously....as NT has said several times previously if there was no action following Sandy Hook there won't be action after <insert random tragic mass death shooting>.
The charts Cass posted don't surprise me. The US has basically a 1-1 ration of citizen to gun ownership rate. There are 101 guns per every 100 citizens.
I don't want to retread old arguments about gun control, bans, etc. Those just end up being circular.
But I will say this young man had a well documented history of violence and threats, it seems everyone thought he was a potential danger, he posted a youtube video in which he claimed to be a professional school shooter and deputies even had been to his residence 39 freakin' times. Yet this young man was able to legally obtain an AR-15. No matter where you stand on gun bans, background checks, etc there is simply no way to deny this system is broke.
News stories are reporting the FBI dropped the ball...the FBI is pointing fingers at local authorities. Local authorities are pointing fingers at school officials. Trump is pointing the finger at everyone.
How about we investigate where the ball was dropped and go after that person or agency with the same vigor we go after "Russian interference" or "I did not have sexual relations with that woman". What a concept.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 16, 2018 20:24:35 GMT -5
How about we investigate where the ball was dropped and go after that person or agency with the same vigor we go after "Russian interference" or "I did not have sexual relations with that woman". What a concept. Agree completely. Another thing on Twitter that's been really something -- the number of students and family of students at the school who have been saying "DO SOMETHING OTHER THAN FREAKING THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS!" in the immediate aftermath. I've seen so many retweeted over the last day or two. ETA: I'll post a few that have been in my feed as I find them:
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Post by Deleted on Feb 16, 2018 23:29:58 GMT -5
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Post by nighttimer on Feb 17, 2018 0:07:15 GMT -5
I too thought about posting about this, but in the end I thought what's the point? I mean seriously....as NT has said several times previously if there was no action following Sandy Hook there won't be action after <insert random tragic mass death shooting>. Here's the point, prozyan: Children are dying. Maybe not your child if you have one and maybe not mine, but all that means is not this time. Next time it could be. Then all we'll be is another forgotten family missing a son or daughter or father or mother that will never draw breath again. Or live on like Anne Hochalter, a survivor of Columbine. Anne Hochhalter was eating lunch outside with friends at the time. She remembers thinking the sound of gunfire was from someone’s paintball gun, a senior prank, perhaps. Then she realized she couldn’t move her legs. One of her friends doubled back and dragged her to safety.
"Every so often, I'm still reminded of Columbine's lingering effects," she told U.S. News. “Once I was checking out at a grocery store and the cashier asked me, bluntly, why I was in a wheelchair, so I responded, bluntly, that I was one of the students injured at Columbine High School.
“Then a person emerged from behind me in line to tell me that he was sorry he had not been able to get to us sooner — he was part of the SWAT teams that were not allowed to enter the school until hours after the shooting began — and I was able to tell him, ‘It's OK, no one blames you, I don't blame you.’ It was one of the greatest moments of my life.”
I understand. We're all worn out and tired from these sort of discussions, right? Nobody changes their mind. We only dig in deeper to already entrenched positions. Why does anyone need a goddamned AR-15? We should get rid of them. au contraire mon ami. Real sorry about the loss of life and thoughts and prayers and all that good shit, but we're not going to trample underfoot the Second Amendment for everyone just for the few. Or the teenager. Or the child. Or anyone else. You know something? I don't give a fuck anymore. I'd really like to lock Sarah Brady, Wayne LaPierre and the ghosts of James Brady and Charlton Heston in a room with no food, water, light or working toilet and tell them they can't come out until they come up with some sort of damn deal where both sides can walk away feeling like a winner while sparing the lives of Americans citizens who go to churches, malls, nightclubs, post offices or schools. Then they can go tell the pressure groups, billionaires and millionaires, labor unions, special interests and other politically wired types to tell those gutless wonders in Congress and that fucking nut in the White House just how shit is gonna go down from here on out. Before they shoot up another school. Before they shoot up another mall. Before they shoot up another church. Before they shoot up another movie theater. Before they shoot up another group of sacrificial lambs. I don't want my daughter sharing Ms. Hochalter's sentiments. She's going for a degree in early childhood education and she spends a lot of time working in daycare centers. I don't want to see her to as a survivor of a school shooting. I don't want her to wonder why she's alive and little kids are dead. Call me small-minded, but I'm used to see her upright on two legs. Seeing her in a wheelchair would require a serious and severe attitude adjustment. I'm sure not gonna get any protection for her or those kids from the likes of Donald John Trump, The NRA isn't going to protect my daughter. Your Congress and your President aren't going to protect my daughter. My daughter and the children she teaches and protects are going to die if a gunman walks into their classroom. I shouldn't wait for that to happen, don't you think? If nothing is done is it because nothing can be done we have already decided nothing will be done. And more will die. That's not on Trump or Congress or even the NRA. That's on us.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 17, 2018 0:28:30 GMT -5
I won't speak for Prozyan, but what he may have meant is something I've felt in the wake of it (and the last shooting as well, and the one before that) -- an overwhelming sense of helplessness that we can make our current Congress and President fucking DO anything. 2018 and 2020, yeah, we need to get our asses out there and vote. But meanwhile, I read all this shit and I picture my beloved nieces and nephew at school and facing something like this and picture all those dead kids... and then we have the same conversation again and again and again. And Christ.
It's fucking insanity. I agree, you agree, most of America agrees. I wish that made me more confident that our leaders would actually act. But they won't -- we've got to vote in people who will.
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Post by michaelw on Feb 17, 2018 11:15:46 GMT -5
I see that Rick Scott has said Christopher Wray should resign over this. Maybe he's got a point, but I can't help but think Scott is just trying to deflect the blame, given that he's surely going to take some heat for his gun stances and his chumminess with the NRA. Perhaps Scott could resign too, and then his comment on Wray won't bother me as much. Beyond that, I don't have much to say. I tend not to post much in shooting threads. But NT is right to point out how important this is. There's a certain numbness I feel about this issue, like it's just a normal part of American life now. Two of my friends survived the Aurora movie theater shooting, and I think that's made it even worse. But obviously, it's not normal. What could ever be normal about walking into a school and murdering people? The more I think about it, maybe the solution is not for Scott or Wray to resign but for teachers to resign. All of them, or more realistically, as many as possible. What better way to utterly shame and humiliate Congress and the Trump administration? I keep thinking about a line I remember from Hotel Rwanda. "We must shame them into sending help." Sometimes shame is the most powerful weapon you have.
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Post by Amadan on Feb 17, 2018 11:42:24 GMT -5
The board is small and participation, never high, has been low recently. I know I've been posting less often, you (NT) have, and it seems to me everyone has. It is what it is. So I don't think the lack of a previous thread about this shooting means no one cares or has been paying attention to it elsewhere.
I've been a pretty die-hard advocate of gun rights. And yeah, I am at the tipping point - I'd be, somewhat, okay, with a ban on AR-15s at this point, and I own one. I still have reservations about how all these "common sense" measures would be implemented, and if the end game is a total, or nearly total, ban on gun ownership, which I remain convinced is the true goal of most gun control advocates. I think in principle, licensing and registration is a good idea, and while I question the efficacy of outlawing particular models of guns, I guess I'd be willing to see if banning AR-15s actually reduces mass shootings or if the next shooter will just use another weapon.
I am trying not to get into gun control debates anymore (I failed, most recently, on Facebook) because I don't think most people engage in good faith. The gun control debate was the proximal, though not immediate, cause of my banning from The Other Board because so many people got emotional and flipped out that it wasn't possible to express anything but emoting over the dead without incurring wrath. I just don't think most people think beyond their emotional reactions. My emotional reaction is very negative towards people who just emote and have not the slightest qualm about demanding "security" from the government, without regard for secondary effects, and I am working on that because it's led me to be overly uncharitable more than once.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 17, 2018 13:27:53 GMT -5
Oh, god. Trump is just Not. Good. in these situations. He did a bunch of smiling photo ops with first responders and medical staff. No. No. Not the time for smiling photo ops. No. The kids aren't cold yet. No. ( I don't know what the staff in that picture are thinking either, but they aren't president, so I cut them more slack.) What we should be seeing are photos of Trump hugging victims' families, and videos of Trump talking about how the nation is going to address these tragedies and prevent them in future. There shouldn't be ANY of him smiling. ETA: I saw reports on Twitter that Trump spent a total of six minutes with victim's families. Can anyone verify or dispute this with a reliable link (I'll look when I get a chance)? If it's true, it's awful. For now, I'm going to really hope that it's fake news. ETA: Alas, it seems as though it could not have been much more than six minutes... www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-a-brief-florida-stop-trump-focuses-on-praising-responders/2018/02/16/ff5444cc-1389-11e8-9065-e55346f6de81_story.html?__twitter_impression=true&utm_term=.ce07c54808e5Golf isn't gonna play itself, you know.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 17, 2018 13:57:34 GMT -5
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Post by Amadan on Feb 17, 2018 14:12:39 GMT -5
Oh, god. Trump is just Not. Good. in these situations. He did a bunch of smiling photo ops with first responders and medical staff. No. No. Not the time for smiling photo ops. No. The kids aren't cold yet. No. ( I don't know what the staff in that picture are thinking either, but they aren't president, so I cut them more slack.) What we should be seeing are photos of Trump hugging victims' families, and videos of Trump talking about how the nation is going to address these tragedies and prevent them in future. There shouldn't be ANY of him smiling. Golf isn't gonna play itself, you know. Some of those smiles look pretty forced. Especially the tall guy in the back.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 17, 2018 14:16:38 GMT -5
Agree.
If it were me, I think I would have said "excuse me, Mr. President, but are you FUCKING KIDDING ME with the photo op shit? You want me to fucking SMILE?"
But then again -- these people had just been frantically responding to 17 dead people and a pile of wounded. I've no doubt they were shell-shocked. It is hard to say how one would react in that situation, and then the president walks in for a photo op. I'll cut them some slack.
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Post by prozyan on Feb 17, 2018 16:06:23 GMT -5
Um, not exactly what I was addressing when I asked what the point of starting yet another mass murder thread where we retread the same tired old arguments we have in the last four or five such threads.
Yes, I don't have much faith in our leaders to do much of anything. I don't have faith in electing new people that will do much of anything that makes significant difference. The government's ability to prevent these types of events is very limited. Sensible gun control is about the best they can do, which doesn't even begin to address the underlying problem.
Sensible gun control? What's that? Personally, I see no need for any citizen to own a firearm that is NOT a pump action shotgun, bolt action hunting rifle, or a six shot revolver. When the only viable reasons for someone to own a high capacity, semi-automatic firearm are "Well, the 2nd amendment says I can" and "They are fun to shoot" it is time for a change. Yeah, they are fun to shoot. But so is heroin.
Gun control, however, only address the capability to inflict mass casualties easily. Perhaps that is a win, but I think the question must be asked: What makes someone want to grab a gun and commit mass murder? The cop-out answer of "because crazy" only gets you so far. The bottom line is American culture is saturated in violence. It is in our news media. Its in our music. It is in our movie and tv entertainment. It is in our video games. Is it really surprising that after being bathed in a near endless stream of violence that many American's idea of conflict resolution is continually escalating aggression and violence.
The news media damn near glorifies violence in its coverage. Violence and gang culture claim a large subset of the music industry. And think about the most popular TV shows in recent years....Breaking Bad, Sons of Anarchy, Game of Thrones, The End of the Fucking World....it goes on and on and on. And that is on us, the common folk, not politicians. We lap it up and ask for more. Then we all want to act shocked when violence begets violence.
I wish I had some bright ideas about how to address this underlying problem, but I don't. I think acknowledging we have a problem with the culture and not necessarily just with guns would be a start. I think talking to kids frankly about the violence they see and hear on a daily basis would be a start. But as Americans we seem, in general, to have this weird hangup that whenever a subject makes us uncomfortable our best solution is to push it into a corner and pretend it doesn't exist.
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