Do something
After every mass shooting (especially School shootings), there's the hue and cry, "this happened again, we have to do something!" They usually don’t say what, and the few who do, usually aren't very informed on the topic. So let's tear it down and look at what we should do, and should not do, and what people are asking for. And understand why were are likely to stay divided between gun controllers and those with a clue.
Contents
Contributors to school shootings
Things that contribute to school shootings (or body count):
- Isolated, mentally disturbed kids or adults - that aren't getting proper care and attention
- Medications - mood altering drugs can alter mood in bad ways. Who knew?
- Playing on sociopaths fantasies - violent video games, TV, Music, and Movies (as well as religions).
- Sensationalizing events - basically turning mass shooters into famous/infamous celebrities
- Gun free zones - when seconds count, we make sure that the ability to stop someone is at least 15 minutes away
Solutions to school shootings
Each problem has a cure, or at least some things we could do to reduce the problems. For 40+ years the Democrats have obstructed solutions that would help, and used the bodies of the fallen kids as political fodder to foster their gun-control (anti-Constitutional) agenda, that they know they can't have. But if you want to "Do Something", here's what we could do:
- More Mental Health / Wellness - an easily improvable problem that both sides SHOULD support
- Control the substances and kids- there's a significant intersection between certain substance users and violent behavior. Instead of attacking the gun-public at large, why can't the left admit that there's a high risk subset that could be more easily targeted?
- Censor the content (violence) - While most can handle violent content, we know that a few people with mental illness fixate on violence. It's hard to tell them apart, but if you have any common sense, it's a lot easier to focus on the violent subset rather than trying to stop the entire public from getting guns
- Censor the media (no sensationalism) - We know the media sensationalizing these "events" get copy-cats. So why not hold the media accountable, or make them stop?
- Armed Security - Israel, Thailand, and other places have reacted to their school shootings by arming security and teachers, and the problem ended right there. Why do the Democrats oppose this?
Of course while we could do those things, if the Democrats allowed any of these problems to be fixed/improved, they would be "letting a crisis go to waste". So they obstruct every proposed solution (even mocking them), make the problems worse, and then accuse the other side of doing what they are doing. It works on their base, but can never work on the informed.
Distraction to progress
If you want to shut down progress on any of this, and perpetuate mass murders, what divisive causes and methods would you use? That's easy, the ones that the media and far left uses:
- Relative Risks - start with lies of omission and commission around context and scale to alienate the other side
- Start an "honest discussion", dishonestly by filling reports with errors, lies, or false claims like you only want "Common Sense Gun Laws", create by those lacking in common sense or.a basic understanding of guns, or human nature.
- Gun ban - really hold out for something that won't work, and you know you can't have
- Protests - have your snowflakes meltdown on command, and have a tantrum, just to make sure the other side is dug-in and pissed off
If you wanted to truly make diplomatic/legislative progress on an issue, you would NOT start every discussion pretending you care more about fallen kids than the other side, blatantly lie/exaggerate about the issues, or that the other side is just evil or puppets of the NRA. That vilification can only result in seize up any diplomatic or legislative progress.So if the Democrats care about the issue, why do they keep doing that?
Conclusion
You can tell how much Democrats really care by what issues they did not prioritize when they controlled all 3 houses (Congress, Senate, Presidency), with super-majorities, during Obama's first term (2009-2010). (Something the Republicans have never had). If Democrats wanted to fix anything, they had the opportunity. They chose not to address this. Why?
A cynic might think because they know if they fixed it, they couldn't keep campaigning on it. And even if they tried everything they claim they wanted, they know none of it would have helped. (Because they're focused on the wrong problem). So they don't want to own it, they want to blame the other side for not being able to override their obstruction on it.
What we know is that the Republicans have suggested for 40+ years things that might not "solve" the problems, but at least would make it better. And the Democrats have obstructed all of them. Democrats only want to accept something they can't have: disarming the public. Democrats aren't offering real solutions when they claim "Gun Control" is the only solution. They're saying "do something", and blocking every effort to do anything effective. This is a hostage situation where Dems are saying "we'll keep letting kids die, until you give us what we want".... which they know they can never have. But they're OK with that, as long as they can keep blaming it on someone else, and their base goes along, "Mean old NRA is the cause of all of this", they'll bleat in unison.
We 100% know that the Democrats can't get complete gun control/confiscation - If you think they can amend the Constitution (rewrite the 2A to outlaw everything but muskets), you're in a delusional fantasy land. And we know that without that, their hunger for a police state and the elimination of weapons in the hands of the public will never be sated. Without a complete ban and door-to-door confiscation, gun-control could never be effective (a pistol or shotgun is more effective in school shooting situation than an AR-15). And if Democrats were the dog who finally caught the bus (like in Obama's first term), they don't know what to do. Prohibition never works (look at the drug war, which never got drugs off the streets), and if they tried to go door-to-door seizing the weapons of law abiding citizens, it would result in civil war (insurrection) and more lives lost than they could ever save. I ask Democrats, in all seriousness, "how many lives would you sacrifice for your cause?" And they just get indignant and are unable to answer honestly. They either can't think it through, or don't want to get what they claim they want: they just want to vilify the other side for not giving it to them.
So is the Democratic leadership too stupid to know these basics? Or are they smart and just politically savvy enough to know that they can play their base (the gullible rubes), by distracting from real solutions, while pretending to care and getting power/attention/votes, and all it costs is the bodies of fallen children. Pick one.
Truths
If you accept the facts, then solutions become obvious.
Mental Health / Wellness
This sounds trite, but the problem of a person committing murder is not the tool they use to commit it, but lies with the person. Thus if you want to address the problem, you can't punish the innocent, you focus on addressing the guilty (or ill).
We need to address bullying (another word for telling others what to do, or trying to make them feel bad about themselves. Like the Democrats do when they blame gun owners and the NRA for the actions of mentally ill, or their side. We need to create programs to identify the dangerous, and address them. In cases like Nikolas Cruz, they only had a tip to the FBI hotline, 55 separate calls, multiple people warning the local and federal police of the problem, and still they didn't follow up. And the far left blames, the gun? The problem was the system, and the left refuses to address it. [1]
Medications
Many shooters are on anti-depressents or medications. The problem of a few reacting to violent content is also magnified in a small percentage of the population that have reaction to their anti-depressent medication. Studies bore that out: that many mass shooters have these anti-depressant or mood-controller medications in common.
So rather than blaming all gun owners for the actions of the few (and turning them all into opponents), why not target it at the risks? If you're on anti-depressants, then you start requiring regular monitoring of the person, you proscribe them to avoid violent games and imagery, and you suspend only their guns rights? There are certainly logistical complexities, but not as many as trying to ban everyone's rights to guns, or a class of guns.
The fact that Democrats don't want to target the restrictions, let's you know about their true motives. They don't distrust the mentally ill with guns, they distrust anyone with guns and really want to repeal everyone's rights under the false auspices of protecting us from the few over-medicated or mentally unstable.[2]
Violent Content
For most people, violent video games, TV, music, and movies are nothing but fantasy. For a very small fraction (psychopaths/sociopaths), they're an titillating game plan. We know this from MANY studies. And the law of large numbers applies.
Law of Large Numbers: this is a principle of probability that even highly infrequent event, becomes highly probable, if you have a large enough sample pool.
E.g. Even if only 0.001% have a problem, over 50M million kids, means there's 5,000 Nikolas Cruz's out there, waiting to be triggered. It doesn't matter that most kids can handle it, there's a small amount that can not.
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We can brainwash people. The mentally ill may be more susceptible to this -- and so giving them violent programming, and letting them train with violent gaming, then acting shocked and blaming the gun for them acting on the training/brainwashing you gave them, is beyond stupid: it's criminally malicious and culpable.
So if you want to cut down on the numbers that will follow that sociopathic plan, you need to control the people with issues, or the messages they see (and substances they take). Punish/block/control movies/TV/games from people that are unable to handle it -- and virtually everyone knows who those people are, long before they commit horrific crimes.
Sensationalizing
A subset of censoring the violent imagery on TV/Games, and a much easier to address problem is the sensationalizing of shooters. We've known for DECADES that talking about the shooters, gets copycats. Again, there are caveats -- most stable people don't react to shooters as, "I wish I was that guy". But we also know that to a small percent, the more we sensationalize these events and the more the media turns these mass murderers into celebrities, the more shooters we will get.
Here's what we know:
- Schools used to kick out pregnant girls, because of herd contagion (one leads to more)
- We used to kick out disruptive kids, because otherwise other kids copy them
- We know that suicides lead to more suicides
However, for Democrats, the idea that a few sociopaths might be attracted to copying famous sociopaths is where they draw the line and close their minds: if they believe it, it makes them culpable.
So mitigation is simple: punish/block media outlets that give the shooters names or interview victims, and so on. They can talk about the crime in factual terms, but revoke all Press credentials/privileges and lawsuit protections from agencies that show pictures or names of perpetrator (it's unneeded to inform the public), no interviewing victims and getting ad revenues off the deaths of children, no more making a media storm out of it for a weeks at a time. [3]
Opposition : The left opposes everything that distracts from their agenda of gun control. So they will ignore that the consequences of their ghoulish rubbernecking is that it will kill more kids, because either they're too biased to learn, or for them the ends justifies the means. We know this is malicious, because they will attack anyone who points this out: putting their agenda above personal growth, or the kids lives.
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So if you don't want to censor all violence on TV/Movies (or at least control the depressed/violent from seeing it), the least you could do is censor the media on these events: punish the outlets that do anything other than reporting the news. If you won't prevent the media from turning mass-murderers into infamous celebrities, then you have no right to whine, when the next mass murder happens.
Some will rightly scream, "First Amendment", and they have a point -- if they're also the same folks screaming "Second Amendment" about gun control. (At least they're principled constitutionalists). If they're willing to violate the 2A, but want to pretend that dangerous behavior is perfectly OK for the 1A, then they can be ignored as hypocritical polemics.
Historically, we've been able to squelch unsavory speech (like blocking porn, or sedition), more than we've ever been able to use prohibition on substances or guns. So if they TRULY cared about the results, they'll focus where they stand a chance of success.
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Armed security
We protect our politicians, celebrities, banks, and things we value with guns. We protect our children with signs that say, "no guns allowed!"
Answer honestly: How's that working out?
Gun crimes happen when the ratio of bad people with guns is higher than the ratio of good people with guns. They end, when good guys with guns come on the scene.
- We know that countries with gun bans and gun free zones, still have mass murders, and school shootings. The three worst school shootings in body count are: Russia, Norway, Germany, and other than strict gun control, they have virtually nothing in common.
- We know that 17 people being murdered in Chicago or Baltimore is a slow weekend, despite the most draconian gun control in the nation. So anyone who can count to three, can reason that gun control doesn't stop or slow shootings. If you're committing the high crime of mass murder, the low crime of ignoring a silly regulation and disobeying sternly worded signage is NOT going to slow you down.
- In 1974, Israel endured the Ma’alot Massacre in which “Palestinian” terrorists took 115 people hostage at Netiv Meir Elementary School. 25 were killed and 68 injured. Israel now requires schools with 100 or more students to have a guard posted. Since then, they've had only one "successful" school shooting (2008 the Mercaz HaRav massacre, where 8 students were killed), and a few failed attempts with dead perpetrators.
- Thailand had a 2004 Pak Phanang school shooting (with 2 dead), prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra went against Thailand's strict gun control, and allowed teachers to carry guns (with training), and they have not had another shooting since.
- It’s legal in Utah for permit holders to carry on campus and guess what? We don’t have school shootings there either.
We've know this for decades, and Republicans have been pushing for security for schools, but Democrats block it and don't want it. Thus every kid that dies in schools without it, are on the Democrats hands: putting their agenda above kids lives. [4]
Lies
Relative Risks
Every time the media lies, whether through commission and sensationalizing how big a problem this is, or by omission (and failing to offer context), it shows that they're dishonest. To understand a tragedy, you need to understand scale and scope -- what are the probabilities and risks.
- Gun murder rates have been dropping dramatically over the last 30 years, while we've been stripping away gun controls and allowing more conceal and carry's.
- More people are murdered with knives than Semi Automatic rifles in the U.S. every year.
- There is a 1 in 700,000 chance of being hit by lightning.
- There are over 50 million students in U.S. schools, and an average of <10 students killed in school mass shootings per year. So a 1 in 5,000,000 chance that one of our children would be murdered in school by a gun.
- Kids are 7 times more likely to be hit by lightning than an active shooter in school.
- At about 100 deaths per year (average), they are 10 times more likely to die of the FLU.
- 4,300 kids die per year to drunk driving -- that's 430 times more likely than getting shot.
If you care about kids, there are lots of areas we could focus on that would save far more of them, than this gun control fight. In fact, the whole Nikolas Cruz thing happened, because the Democrats had the FBI distracted on imaginary Trump-Russia collusion investigations, instead of following through on multiple warnings that this guy was a danger. They have their priorities after all.
Gun ban
Gun ban's can't have a material impact on shootings, and never has, anywhere it was tried. Read the following about the failures in the UK, Canada, Australia, or most of all, just understanding how it works in the U.S.
We know that countries with gun bans and gun free zones, still have mass murders, and school shootings. The three worst school shootings in body count are: Russia, Norway, Germany, and other than strict gun control, they have virtually nothing in common.
It’s alarming how liberals keep clamoring for us to “do something“, but they block everything we could do, in favor of gun control, which we know doesn't work. The only solution they know of, is to turn us into a police state (where no-one but the police can have guns).
Their claim is that, "we don't want a complete ban, just on a class/category" of gun, but anyone with a clue, knows that can't work. Read Guns: Control or ban? if you want to have a full understanding of that topic.
Start an honest discussion, dishonestly
When the media (ABC, NPR, CNN, etc), makes false claims like:
- this was the 18th school shooting this year by repeating false claims from the long discredited far-left Everytown for Gun Safety they poison and polarize the conversation between the informed people crying foul, and the dishonest polemics cheering the lies. (Everytown claims that someone committing suicide in off hours, a school window hit by a BB gun, or a cop accidentally firing his gun on school grounds, are considered "school shootings").
- Then they double down on their ignorance with not understanding the difference between automatic and semi-atomatic weapons (the former are illegal), and semi-automatics that only fires once per trigger pull. How can you have an intelligent discussion on real-world solutions with people who don't understand the basics of the topic? (Read: What is a gun? or What is an assault rifle? for the basics).
- They ignore thousands of gun laws/regulations we already have (each promised that it would help, but didn't), and getting the rest wrong like imaginary gun show loopholes, Australia’s gun ban, and so on.
- Lying that Trump made it easier for the mentally ill to get guns.
- Lying that they only want "common sense" gun laws, when all the laws that the Democrats offer (and the media supports) would not help with the latest shooting that happened. Why should we give up our liberty for something that wouldn't have stopped what just happened? (Read: Reasonable Gun Laws to understand just some of the shitshow that we already have).
- Anything they say about the NRA (how it is evil, a big lobby, or has lots of money, doesn't offer gun safety or want to help reduce gun abuses, and so on).
We can't have an honest discussion, until the gun controllers, media and far left (but I repeat myself), gets a fucking clue on the basics of gun operations and laws, and will admit what's going on truthfully. So if you want to blame someone for why we can't have an honest discussion? Look no further than the venom spewing polemics at CNN, MSNBC, NYT and NPR either directly or through their "experts" throwing ad hominems and getting basic facts backwards. That's why there's open hostility between the clueful, and the gun controllers. [5]
Protests
While the Democrats are blocking anything that would actually help, they also organize their snowflakes to "spontaneously protest", as if that ever did anything constructive. They picked 4/20, as it is Hitler's Birthday, because he was also very pro-gun confiscation. Or perhaps it's an homage to the day that all the pot-smoking slackers get baked, in honor of some other teens getting baked in 1971.
So there are plenty of other "spontaneous" protests being planned and organized by Communist/Soros and other DNC front groups like the Women's March, and being attributed to "the kids" have grass-roots outrage. If I hear that, I know the reporters are either biased or stupid. [6]
Either way, Democrats protests are non-constructive. Using naive children as their pawns, to try to advance something that won't help, can only influence the naive. For the rest of us, using the kids as human shields on their anti-2A agenda, will be met with the same warmth as when they use the same tools against their 1A agendas: the rational ignore or mock it, the media will celebrate it, while all it really does is distract and obstruct from the things that would make a difference. So the left continues to divide us into two groups: the herd following rubes of the left, and those who care enough to use their brains.
References
- ↑ Mental health / Wellness:
- ↑ Medications:
- https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/28307-from-prozac-to-parkland-are-psychiatric-drugs-causing-mass-shootings
- http://nationalpsychologist.com/2014/09/mass-shooters-received-only-limited-treatment/102638.html
- http://behaviorismandmentalhealth.com/2014/09/22/mass-murderers-and-psychiatric-drugs/
- Dutch Study (Paul F. Bouvy, Marieke Liem) on correlation between antidepressants and violent behavior: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00213-012-2668-2
- https://www.cchrint.org/2017/10/10/another-mass-shooting-another-psychiatric-drug/
- http://kellybroganmd.com/mass-shootings-the-new-manifestation-of-an-ancient-phenomenon-and-their-link-to-psychiatric-drugs/
- http://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/Another-Mass-Shooting-Potentially-Linked-to-Psychiatric-Drugs-1002085657
- http://www.cchrflorida.org/antidepressants-are-a-prescription-for-mass-shootings/
- ↑ Sensationalizing:
- http://www.upworthy.com/how-the-media-coverage-of-mass-shootings-makes-everything-worse?g=2&c=ufb1
- https://hotair.com/headlines/archives/2018/02/things-know-school-shooters/
- Even the New York Times caught on, 25 years after everyone else, and pretends this is some new discovery of theirs: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/15/opinion/school-shooters-florida-guns.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fopinion
- ↑ Armed Security:
- https://web.archive.org/web/20100107001716/http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel200409022215.asp
- https://townhall.com/columnists/lawrencemeyers/2018/02/15/president-trump-have-education-department-mandate-active-shooter-protocols-n2449726
- Here’s a peer reviewed study (source data provided): In the last 100 shootings - the average number of people killed in mass shootings when (a) stopped by police = 14.29, when stopped by a civilian = 2.33 :
- https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2014/september/fbi-releases-study-on-active-shooter-incidents/pdfs/a-study-of-active-shooter-incidents-in-the-u.s.-between-2000-and-2013
- http://gunwatch.blogspot.nl/2012/12/mass-killings-stopped-by-armed-citizens.html
- https://ijr.com/the-declaration/2018/02/1067803-sheriff-calls-arming-teachers/
- ↑ Media dishonesty or incompetence:
- CNN's Katy Tur: https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/bill-dagostino/2018/02/15/katy-tur-still-doesnt-know-what-semiautomatic-means
- MSNBC's Chris Matthews: https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/curtis-houck/2018/02/16/delusional-matthews-spews-fake-news-fearmongering-guns-wild
- http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/456494/we-need-accurate-national-conversation-about-guns
- https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/bill-dagostino/2018/02/15/katy-tur-still-doesnt-know-what-semiautomatic-means
- https://www.dailywire.com/node/27165
- http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/no-there-have-not-been-18-school-shootings-so-far-in-2018/article/2649183
- http://freebeacon.com/issues/media-push-gun-control-activists-misleading-school-shooting-count-includes-window-broken-bb-gun/
- https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/curtis-houck/2018/02/14/cbss-pegues-promotes-far-left-gun-control-group-without-label
- https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2018/02/15/nets-push-bogus-school-shooting-stat-anti-gun-lobbyist-group
- ↑ Many spontaneous protests are planned:
- https://townhall.com/notebook/bethbaumann/2018/02/17/multiple-nationwide-student-walkouts-planned-to-demand-gun-control-n2450794
- https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/02/17/students-teachers-planning-nationwide-walkout-protest-gun-control-inaction-students-fed-up-they-plan/348752002/
- https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2018/02/18/calls-for-gun-control-grow-louder-after-florida-shooting/axfKzdJ8hslsh6B4bZGanJ/story.html