Human beings are dying in our society but gasp our traditions! We need to be able to shoot defenseless animals!! SMDH. Hopefully Maine will change it's tune after this.
Maine doesn’t require permits to carry guns, and the state has a longstanding culture of gun ownership that is tied to its traditions of hunting and sport shooting.
Human beings are dying in our society but gasp our traditions! We need to be able to shoot defenseless animals!!
SMDH. Hopefully Maine will change it's tune after this.
These comments are always a little confusing to me. What policies, besides an outright ban, would've prevented this? The ability to carry without a permit did not cause this shooting and requiring...
These comments are always a little confusing to me. What policies, besides an outright ban, would've prevented this? The ability to carry without a permit did not cause this shooting and requiring a permit wouldn't have prevented it. The shooter was a firearms instructor for the U.S. Army Reserve, so he most certainly would've had a permit if one was required.
The current suspect was committed to a mental health facility earlier this summer after reporting "hearing voices and threats to shoot up" the military base where he was stationed. Maine does not...
The current suspect was committed to a mental health facility earlier this summer after reporting "hearing voices and threats to shoot up" the military base where he was stationed. Maine does not have red flag laws, so there was no legal mechanism for (temporarily) removing his access to his guns in the wake of his mental health crisis.
Because half the country loses their minds when even the most modest gun control measures a suggested, and law enforcement sees it as their right not to invesitage or enforce gun control laws...
Because half the country loses their minds when even the most modest gun control measures a suggested, and law enforcement sees it as their right not to invesitage or enforce gun control laws (against people with similarly pigmented skin).
I think it's a well funded and noisy minority that is blocking this, via regulatory capture, bribery and lobbying, plus general hysteria over any mention of "gun control" (similar to how so many hate obamacare but support many of the individual components of obamacare.)
That often is because it is the local will of the people for them not to, even if the state (or federal) laws say otherwise. A citizens' referendum would recall anyone who enforced the law.
law enforcement sees it as their right not to invesitage or enforce gun control laws
That often is because it is the local will of the people for them not to, even if the state (or federal) laws say otherwise. A citizens' referendum would recall anyone who enforced the law.
I’m so ready to dance on the grave of the Republican Party. They keep giving me hope of collapse. I look forward to the day the gerrymandered majority in this country gets the control it deserves...
I’m so ready to dance on the grave of the Republican Party. They keep giving me hope of collapse. I look forward to the day the gerrymandered majority in this country gets the control it deserves and just goes wild implementing its will.
Cynicism on- The dems will surely self destruct. They do not represent the majority. They are slightly to moderately better on a few issues important to most tilderinos, but leadership is a mess...
Cynicism on-
The dems will surely self destruct. They do not represent the majority. They are slightly to moderately better on a few issues important to most tilderinos, but leadership is a mess and policy implementation a confused morass.
They are substantially better on a number of issues — there is no "slightly" or "moderately" about it when we are talking about LGBT issues, abortion rights, etc. This is not because the Democrat...
They are substantially better on a number of issues — there is no "slightly" or "moderately" about it when we are talking about LGBT issues, abortion rights, etc. This is not because the Democrat Party has great policies (they are pretty blah by world standards), but because the Republican Party has nosedived.
They are also substantially more organized. This is not because the Democrat party has good leadership or a cohesive culture (I think that's virtually impossible in a two-party system), but because the Republican Party has gone so completely off the rails that they struggle just to elect a House speaker.
The Republican Party appears to be in the process of self-destructing now. The Democrat Party has its factions (as virtually all parties do), which may lead to a party split down the road, but it's hard to imagine them going through the same explosive process that the Republican Party is experiencing now. I suppose it's possible, but I haven't seen any obvious signs of it—whereas the Republican Party has been fracturing in a really obvious way since ~2008 and showing clear signs that the insane reactionary wing was situating itself to drive out the intelligent conservative wing.
Republican party self-destructing will result in the dems splitting into a new conservative party that will continue their trajectory of uselessness and a further left new socdem/demsoc wing....
Republican party self-destructing will result in the dems splitting into a new conservative party that will continue their trajectory of uselessness and a further left new socdem/demsoc wing.
There are those democrats who are foaming at the mouth to pivot right so they can make money hand over fist from far right corporatists that don't want to appear "too woke." Gavin Newsom comes to mind. There are also many democrats (easily a plurality in the party if not the majority of its actual normal constituents) that actually would like society to improve somewhat. They would not be willing to go along with a lurch rightward for the sake of money and power if it meant giving up any values they had left. You've seen it over the past few decades, the actual constituents of the democratic party are growing more and more disenchanted with the party and the leadership has had to play spin doctor more and more brazenly, with the modern democratic party's disingenousness only beaten by the GOP.
The vast popularity of the DSA despite its uselessness shows there is clear appetite for a party to the left of the current Democratic party. Once the GOP fails for good expect such a demsoc party or wing of the Democratic party to get stronger, not weaker.
Are red flag laws necessary if the shooter threatened to shoot up a military base already? This sounds like one of these three criminal charges have already been committed and law enforcement...
Are red flag laws necessary if the shooter threatened to shoot up a military base already?
This sounds like one of these three criminal charges have already been committed and law enforcement failed to enforce:
18 U.S.C. § 844(f)(1) Threatening to Damage Federal Property
18 U.S.C. § 2332b Terroristic Threats
18 U.S.C. § 115 Threatening Federal Employees or Officials
I'm not a lawyer, but any of these are felonies and would allow the confiscation of weapons under already established law.
The Baker Act is a Florida state law, not federal. The suspect’s hospitalization was for two weeks, and the hospital did not begin proceedings to involuntarily commit them (which involves going in...
The Baker Act is a Florida state law, not federal.
The suspect’s hospitalization was for two weeks, and the hospital did not begin proceedings to involuntarily commit them (which involves going in front of a judge).
Only a couple of states prohibit firearms ownership for short-term holds. Most only prohibit it for those who were committed long-term or declared mentally incompetent by a judge.
I thought that in order to be held past 72 hours, one needed to go before a judge? I'm guessing it's state by state, but I had assumed that 72 hours was common among states.
The suspect’s hospitalization was for two weeks, and the hospital did not begin proceedings to involuntarily commit them (which involves going in front of a judge).
I thought that in order to be held past 72 hours, one needed to go before a judge? I'm guessing it's state by state, but I had assumed that 72 hours was common among states.
It does vary. But often they'll attempt to get them to 'volunteer' in a a very coercive way, i.e. "Sign this paper or face legal consequences and be here involuntarily".
It does vary. But often they'll attempt to get them to 'volunteer' in a a very coercive way, i.e. "Sign this paper or face legal consequences and be here involuntarily".
I don't know that it helps anything when one argues in such extreme terms. ref The shooter was using an AR-15 and managed to kill about 22 and injure 50 to 60. There are lot of gun bans that don't...
I don't know that it helps anything when one argues in such extreme terms. ref The shooter was using an AR-15 and managed to kill about 22 and injure 50 to 60. There are lot of gun bans that don't get in the way of hunting rifles or self-defense pistols, that would still have prevented this tragedy (and do, everywhere else in the modern world except the USA); but "Nobody needs to own a gun" is, for me and I think a lot of Americans, well outside the bounds of what's reasonable or feasible.
Yeah, you're right. I'm posting out of passion. I'm pissed off about another mass shooting. I've never touched a real firearm in my life, and I've never had any desire to. I acknowledge that a gun...
Yeah, you're right. I'm posting out of passion. I'm pissed off about another mass shooting.
I've never touched a real firearm in my life, and I've never had any desire to. I acknowledge that a gun is an instrument of death, and is specifically constructed to cause catastrophic damage to biological tissue and disrupt life. So when I hear about people who want to own guns purely for "tradition", I get angry, and I post without consideration.
So, here's a reply with consideration.
The Daily Show had a couplesegments some years ago where Michael Kosta traveled to Switzerland and learned a lot about their culture and it's affection for firearms.
TL;DW, There's a few things we can do, but one thing the Swiss did after they had a mass shooting was enact strict ammunition control. But I feel there's more to the problem.
I think there's a lot to be said about the psychology of the US. Not just over the obsession with firearms, but the stigma against mental health itself, and especially how difficult it can be for men to access. The majority of mental health patients in America are female, and has been as long as therapy and exploring mental health as a whole has been around.
While it's not a bad thing, as a result, a lot of the rules are written around the female brain - Just a nature of the situation. But male brains do communicate differently. For a lot of men, going to therapy can feel like being forced not only out of one's comfort zone, but into a place where they have to try and essentially speak in a foreign language. I do think mental health and therapy is moving in a direction that's healthier for men, but it's not there yet.
So what do men do when we have a lot of anxieties and fears and we feel powerless and don't know how to work through these feelings and we're scared to go to don't need therapy?
Well, the past generations taught us to suck it up. Empathy is for the weak. Find another way to feel powerful.
What's an easy way to feel really powerful?
Grab yer huntin' rifle!
And don't feel for those animals we're going to kill to conquer our insecurities for sport. Empathy is weakness. Besides, it's tradition!
And now I'll stop before I devolve back into anger. I don't have the answers. I'm just mad that hobbyists with a deadly hobby that I want nothing to do with get to shape the safety of our country.
Maine has bears and coyotes and people who stretch their budget by eating hunted game meat. It's not just a hobby. But red flag laws would have helped.
Maine has bears and coyotes and people who stretch their budget by eating hunted game meat. It's not just a hobby.
Maybe don't live in the woods? That's why humanity started living in larger groups, no? Safety from the wilderness? One shouldn't need to do that in our modern society. And if you do, then you...
bears and coyotes
Maybe don't live in the woods? That's why humanity started living in larger groups, no? Safety from the wilderness?
people who stretch their budget
One shouldn't need to do that in our modern society. And if you do, then you need to rigorously and regularly prove that you're responsible enough to own a firearm, or learn bow hunting.
This comes off as rather elitist, and would essentially require us to abandon a few states. Many of the states are predominately rural and very sparsely populated. There are areas in the US where...
Maybe don't live in the woods? That's why humanity started living in larger groups, no? Safety from the wilderness?
This comes off as rather elitist, and would essentially require us to abandon a few states. Many of the states are predominately rural and very sparsely populated. There are areas in the US where you can travel for hours without seeing another human. Most of my family is rural and lived in Appalachia. Many of them do not have access to law enforcement in any sort of reasonable timeframe but have been living in those areas for over a hundred years without issue.
I personally think the concept of states needs an iteration, cities should probably be able to self govern more strictly. The needs of the urban centers, suburban areas, and rural areas are totally different and should be able to self govern.
Fair point. As mentioned previously I'm pissed and that's coming across a bit in my words. Sorry. Sounds to me like they're unfortunately already abandoned, huh? That's terrifying to me. Alas, I...
This comes off as rather elitist,
Fair point. As mentioned previously I'm pissed and that's coming across a bit in my words. Sorry.
and would essentially require us to abandon a few states.
Sounds to me like they're unfortunately already abandoned, huh?
Many of them do not have access to law enforcement in any sort of reasonable timeframe
That's terrifying to me. Alas, I still feel the solution to this problem isn't "let anyone living in the wilderness have a gun", the solution is "establish substantial emergency services in these communities."
Again, sorry if my words are overly disgruntled. I'm mad, I'm scared, I'm frustrated. I hate that my kids are going to have to perform active shooting drills when they start going to school. I despise how that's what the world's come to.
They are just sparsely populated. Alaska has a population density of 1.3 per square mile. Montana is 7.5. Massachusetts is 901. These are different places to live with different needs and...
Sounds to me like they're unfortunately already abandoned, huh?
They are just sparsely populated. Alaska has a population density of 1.3 per square mile. Montana is 7.5.
Massachusetts is 901. These are different places to live with different needs and different cultures. Montana is a great place to live and some people prefer a lifestyle that is more isolated. We have the land. If we continue to compress people into urban areas the housing crisis will escalate.
That's terrifying to me. Alas, I still feel the solution to this problem isn't "let anyone living in the wilderness have a gun", the solution is "establish substantial emergency services in these communities."
This isn't financially viable. Let's dive into the law enforcement aspect of this.
According to the BJS roughly 3% of violent crimes (across the US) take more than an hour for a law enforcement response. Response times are increasing over time in major urban areas. If urban areas - which have the money, can't solve this problem - why would we expect rural areas with limited or no resources to be able to do it?
Duty to protect
Castle Rock v. Gonzales is a relatively recent case the reinforces the fact that law enforcement exist to enforce laws. Not necessarily to protect individuals or save individuals.
None of this goes into the fact that involving law enforcement can often increase the lethality of a situation. There are plenty of examples of the police literally shooting the person that called them.
During natural disasters law enforcement and emergency services become largely useless, and can stay that way for extended periods of time.
I do believe in civil society and a basic rule of law, but I do not seem to hold your standard of trust in law enforcement to serve in my or my families best interests in every situation.
Again, sorry if my words are overly disgruntled. I'm mad, I'm scared, I'm frustrated. I hate that my kids are going to have to perform active shooting drills when they start going to school. I despise how that's what the world's come to.
I hate that too. I think there is plenty of work to be done in legislation that preserves responsible firearm rights that can help decrease the severity and frequency of the violence. I do not think that Bob owning a firearm for shooting varmit in Montana is the reason why your son has to do an active shooter drill though.
This is your perspective, and it's valid, but this gap is precisely why we have democracy and different scales of legal jurisdictions. You have a right to your outrage and your political position,...
This is your perspective, and it's valid, but this gap is precisely why we have democracy and different scales of legal jurisdictions. You have a right to your outrage and your political position, but you do not have any right to determining what abandonment means for these people, you do not have any right to define their lives. It's deeply distasteful, even in times of crisis, to suspend these basic rules of civility.
My words came across a bit distasteful, huh? Sorry about that. To be clear, I'm not actually suggesting abandonment of these communities that live far from emergency services, My suggestion is...
My words came across a bit distasteful, huh? Sorry about that.
To be clear, I'm not actually suggesting abandonment of these communities that live far from emergency services, My suggestion is getting more emergency services established so folks in these regions don't need to wait so long to get help.
No, I get what you were saying. I don't think you meant anything bad by it, but your comment kind of typifies urban chauvinism. Cultures differ, and there are lines in the sand that cross into...
No, I get what you were saying. I don't think you meant anything bad by it, but your comment kind of typifies urban chauvinism. Cultures differ, and there are lines in the sand that cross into morally unacceptable to sit back and watch, but you did basically say that if everyone in Maine just moved into a city, their lives would be better. Broadly, you outright stated that you know what their priorities should be, damn whatever they say, that law enforcement as we know it is an absolute positive, and that self-reliance is unjustified. Those are often issues very close to the heart in rural communities, and I promise they've heard and considered "just make it like Boston" before.
I don't know why anyone would ever live in a metropolis. When I look at them, at least the model of city defined by London or NYC, I see places where people train themselves not to care about one another, places where we pretend we can have all the benefits of society with none of the compromises, where we throw our shit in the streets and have The City deal with it. If I went around with the same haughtiness many urbanites show to rural folks, I'd be berated and banned from most fora for instigation. The only difference here is that city folk outnumber rural people, and so get to exist in a world where "everyone" agrees with them, just because the discontents aren't going to continue living somewhere they hate.
I feel like you're over simplifying things a bit. A key detail I think a lot of non-US citizens don't realize is that the US has a lot more rural land and distance between communities than Europe....
I feel like you're over simplifying things a bit. A key detail I think a lot of non-US citizens don't realize is that the US has a lot more rural land and distance between communities than Europe. It's "younger" than a lot of other countries but grew pretty fast, so there are a lot of developed areas where wild animals haven't fully moved on from but instead adapted to. I live in the suburbs of a fairly large city in an area with a lot of fields, and we still have coyotes behind our house. Our neighbors have lost multiple cats to them, and I'm pretty sure I've seen one on the walk to our front door.
The more rural you get, the more wild animals there are. Bear spray won't help farmers protect their livestock, and getting an ambulance to come if you're mauled by one can take upwards of thirty minutes. For areas like that, a gun really is just a basic safety tool.
On that note, a lot of people in those areas hunt game not just for "tradition" or budgetary reasons, but because they find it more ethical than meat at grocery stores. I've seen a few people who only eat game meat they or their families caught since they got it. It also helps keep animal populations under control (which is important in areas where we've basically wiped out predators) while not wasting their deaths.
All that said, we absolutely need to have stricter gun control. People don't need AR-15s to go hunting or scare off animals, and people shouldn't be able to just buy a gun without any background checks or licenses. We need far more rigorous requirements and regulations around gun ownership and licenses.
For the record, I am a US citizen. But also I'll admit I'm a city boy. So I have not personally experienced wild animals trying to kill me firsthand (Unless you count Disney Park Guests) and thus...
For the record, I am a US citizen. But also I'll admit I'm a city boy. So I have not personally experienced wild animals trying to kill me firsthand (Unless you count Disney Park Guests) and thus have never felt a real reason or compulsion to own a firearm for that purpose.
The more rural you get, the more wild animals there are. Bear spray won't help farmers protect their livestock, and getting an ambulance to come if you're mauled by one can take upwards of thirty minutes. For areas like that, a gun really is just a basic safety tool.
Is the fence store closed? C'mon, we're human beings, our brains can come up with amazing solutions to these problems that don't require guns. And as I said to TurtleCracker, my solution isn't arming more people, it's increasing emergency services to these rural communities.
they find it more ethical than meat at grocery stores.
I guess I can see that. To me personally it's less ethical to end the life of a free creature than it is to consume the meat of an animal that was born explicitly to become human sustenance. Maybe that animal had a painful existence, but if I don't eat it, won't it's sacrifice have been for nothing?
It also helps keep animal populations under control
Gotta clean up our own messes I suppose, fair point.
I'm glad to read your final point on AR-15s. I don't think a device that can reduce a human to hamburger in seconds should be in the hands of anyone other than trained, regulated, and accountably held professionals.
Its sacrifice would be for much more than nothing if you didn't eat it, because it would lead to the cycle slowing down (the more people who went this way anyhow). That animal's painful existence...
To me personally it's less ethical to end the life of a free creature than it is to consume the meat of an animal that was born explicitly to become human sustenance. Maybe that animal had a painful existence, but if I don't eat it, won't it's sacrifice have been for nothing?
Its sacrifice would be for much more than nothing if you didn't eat it, because it would lead to the cycle slowing down (the more people who went this way anyhow). That animal's painful existence didn't happen for no reason, it happened because it was assumed that you'd buy the products that resulted from its painful existence. If you buy them, then you've proven their assumption correct, which simply means more painful existences will be created under the assumption you will continue to buy the products resulting from them.
I wasn't exactly advocating for hunting. There's the capability for many of us to exist that doesn't require intentionally killing animals to eat them. I was more so commenting to dispel the logic...
I wasn't exactly advocating for hunting. There's the capability for many of us to exist that doesn't require intentionally killing animals to eat them. I was more so commenting to dispel the logic that it's somehow in servitude of the factory farmed animals to eat them so their painful existences aren't wasted.
I'm also not attempting to shame you or anyone else either for buying those products. I occasionally buy those things myself, though I make attempts to keep it to a minimum. I just don't try to deceive myself or anyone else into believing that it's doing the animals any favors in the event that I do purchase those products.
I actually used to think of fences as a decent solution until I did a short paper on coyote control for an English class. Farms are big, so completely fencing the entire area isn't necessarily...
I actually used to think of fences as a decent solution until I did a short paper on coyote control for an English class. Farms are big, so completely fencing the entire area isn't necessarily viable from a financial standpoint.
Coyotes can also jump and climb fences, and dig under them. A quick Google search just now suggests that fencing should be at least 8 feet tall, but that they're also able to climb 14 feet fences if they can get a decent foothold. And that's assuming the fence is intact along the entire circumference, you'd need to check the fence daily for any damage.
And bears... Yeah, most fences won't do much to stop them. Pretty sure they can just ram a fence down if they're determined enough.
Increasing emergency services won't necessarily help too much either. Having 100 EMTs and officers on standby at all times won't change the fact it would still take 30 minutes or more to drive to an isolated property. The drive can be even longer if the roads are poorly marked. Even following a GPS, my mom and I missed a turn going to my cousin's farm because there was no sign for the road and had to backtrack. It's worse in more wooded areas and at night.
Overall, rural America is VERY different from urban America. I think a lot of people don't realize just how different it can be from a practical standpoint. I can't advocate completely outlawing guns for that reason (and also, I'm pretty sure the backlash of a total firearms ban would be messy, to say the least). Instead, I think the best solution is to enforce sensible, responsible gun ownership.
Allow hunting rifles but ban automatic and semi-automatic weapons (seriously, AR-15s should NOT be available to the public!! There is literally NO use for them other than murder). Have more rigorous background checks and exams for licenses, have multiple renewal check-ins each year, have a house visit to check if they have a proper gun safe, make a registry tracking ownership of every legally-purchased firearm, regulate and track how much ammunition is sold at a time, etc.
Actually, just restricting ammunition sales can help a lot since it would take more time to stockpile ammo for a mass shooting. Which means more time for people to realize something is wrong and intervene, or for the would-be shooter to come to their senses and change their mind. It would probably be easier to pass that than measures directly targeting guns (which is stupid).
You completely ignored my suggestion of giant robotic demon wolves! But seriously, we are the smartest creatures on our planet, and given the time and resources, we could come up with alternative,...
You completely ignored my suggestion of giant robotic demon wolves!
But seriously, we are the smartest creatures on our planet, and given the time and resources, we could come up with alternative, non-lethal solutions to any problem that requires a firearm.
I just can't bring myself to accept the gun (no matter how small), and in my opinion, we could get by without them if everyone was down.
I feel like it's a bit disingenuous to suggest that people could come up with alternative solutions without providing specifics. You could just as easily say that about, say, developing a cure for...
I feel like it's a bit disingenuous to suggest that people could come up with alternative solutions without providing specifics. You could just as easily say that about, say, developing a cure for multiple sclerosis. I have absolutely no doubt that we could do this given sufficient time and resources - but the fact that we haven't already should be an indicator that the time and resources might be prohibitively large outside of a mere hypothetical.
Not to mention that such a hypothetical is of little use to people who are forced to use the 'worse' alternative right now. I feel like any argument that hinges on some hypothetical, yet-to-be-implemented solution should at least make an allowance for people choosing other solutions in the meantime. First someone must actually create an affordable, non-lethal wildlife solution, then we can discuss further restriction of gun ownership.
20,000 people are killed every year with guns, and guns are the leading cause of childhood deaths. Even if it takes the death of that many people resisting full confiscation in a...
20,000 people are killed every year with guns, and guns are the leading cause of childhood deaths. Even if it takes the death of that many people resisting full confiscation in a rip-the-band-aid-off scenario, the ethical calculus is still pretty easy to make. The time for compromise is long past.
Plenty of countries have equal or worse mental health situations, but what they don't have is an epidemic of weapons that make mass murder effortless. I've long been for the generous level of gun allowances Japan offers (hunting rifles only, with annual licensing and inspection of storage, a decade in prison for unlawful possession of any other firearm), but at this point even that's more than the people resisting reform deserve. If they won't accept that, it's time to push for hard bans.
I grew up in Maine, and I'm still waiting for names to be released so I can tell if this affected anyone I know. I'm fucking sick of this completely avoidable cycle. I'm sick of this country being held hostage by people who tacitly support the shootings and gleefully talk about needing guns in case they feel like overthrowing our democratically elected government.
Thank you. In my mind, psychopaths causing needless bloodshed should have ruined it for everyone. The only people handling firearms should be trained members of the active armed forces, and nobody...
Thank you.
In my mind, psychopaths causing needless bloodshed should have ruined it for everyone. The only people handling firearms should be trained members of the active armed forces, and nobody else.
I sincerely hope none of your acquaintances, friends or loved ones were affected by this crime.
Weird place to draw the line. I'm not sure that leaving the weapons to the ones who are honest about their bloodthirst and have the training to maximize the damage they do is a great strategy.
The only people handling firearms should be trained members of the active armed forces, and nobody else.
Weird place to draw the line. I'm not sure that leaving the weapons to the ones who are honest about their bloodthirst and have the training to maximize the damage they do is a great strategy.
You know the Army can't take home their assigned rifles, require a separate arms vault key, pin, and more to even access the rifle and the ammunition is kept separate in another facility, usually...
You know the Army can't take home their assigned rifles, require a separate arms vault key, pin, and more to even access the rifle and the ammunition is kept separate in another facility, usually requiring it's own checks to get access to...
Unless a Soldier is overseas in a combat environment, they likely don't have regular access to their kit. So, we're at least keeping that blood thirst in check.
It's easier for me to get an unregistered AR-15 and combat load than it is for me to get into the arms room.
I just find it strange that other countries do not have this problem. Coincidentatlly, those other countries have way tougher gun control laws. I'm sure it's just a coincidence though.
I just find it strange that other countries do not have this problem. Coincidentatlly, those other countries have way tougher gun control laws. I'm sure it's just a coincidence though.
This always bugged me as an argument. Other countries don't have millions of guns already in circulation from decades of selling them. Other countries don't have 2 massive land borders and a ton...
This always bugged me as an argument.
Other countries don't have millions of guns already in circulation from decades of selling them.
Other countries don't have 2 massive land borders and a ton of coast line that's already used for vast amounts of illegal smuggling.
Other countries don't have a nearly militarized police force, who i'm 100% certain will still be carrying pistols, shotguns, and AR's if such a law is passed.
Other countries don't have the 2nd Amendment (and without going all the way down that rabbit hole, whatever your opinion on it is, you can't just pretend it won't be fought every step of the way in the courts).
Any sort of gun law has to be aware of, and address, these issues. Turning a huge % of your population into criminals overnight (armed ones by definition) isn't something that's easily feasible, especially when people are right to question if it's a great idea to turn a weapon they purchased legally in.
People talk about gun buybacks, which could maybe work, but the numbers on that are insane and I still suspect you're going to get less than 30% of guns in circulation returned, and who knows just how bad the black market is going to be. But i'm sure we can fund ANOTHER war on X to militarize law enforcement even more to combat all the dangerous gun smugglers.
It's just not that easy, and it's never going to be fixed if people keep pretending it is. Any politician pretending otherwise is wasting your time, and 100% not serious about actually changing anything. Hell just looking at the stats, the vast majority is suicide by handgun, which sure screams mental health issue. From there you, again, have mostly handguns being used to perpetuate crimes. "Assault Rifles" keep getting legislation because they make the news when someone shoots up a public place, and that's by far the smallest % of gun violence.
Two of these are obviously mental health issues as well (mass shooter/suicide) and yet we never get ANY legislation for that, and the legislation we do get is often some uniformed pile of nonsense like the assault weapons ban. I'm all for red flag laws, mandatory training, revoking weapons, and a bunch of other reasonable measures that might begin to help with all this, but it's just so ignorant to pretend this is an easy solution.
This always bugs me as an argument. Sure, we can't take away everybody's guns overnight. But if we stopped selling new guns right now then the total number of guns in the country would begin a...
Other countries don't have millions of guns already in circulation from decades of selling them.
This always bugs me as an argument. Sure, we can't take away everybody's guns overnight. But if we stopped selling new guns right now then the total number of guns in the country would begin a slow decline. Generous buyback programs and ending or heavily restricting the sale of ammunition would also have a tremendous effect. It's hard to go on a shooting spree with grampa's AR-15 if you used the last of your ammo for it 10 years ago shooting cans in the desert and have no easy way to replenish it.
I don't like ignoring obvious solutions just because they take time to be effective.
I agree that banning guns will decrease gun deaths, that's pretty obvious though. Banning swimming pools will also decrease drowning. I think what's worth some investigation is why firearm deaths...
I agree that banning guns will decrease gun deaths, that's pretty obvious though. Banning swimming pools will also decrease drowning.
I think what's worth some investigation is why firearm deaths are rising, if anything firearm laws were less restrictive in the past but these kinds of mass shooting events did not occur with the same frequency or severity. Why are they increasing?
Swimming is a personal risk. Guns are a public risk. Choosing to swim does not endanger the lives of people who choose to not swim. The right seems to think that one of the big reasons why this...
Swimming is a personal risk. Guns are a public risk. Choosing to swim does not endanger the lives of people who choose to not swim.
The right seems to think that one of the big reasons why this kind of thing keeps happening is poor mental health, and I would agree that it's part of it. Unfortunately they aren't interested in doing anything to actually address that problem. I would like to have a robust public mental health system in place, but I seriously doubt that I'll see it in my lifetime. In the meanwhile, the next best thing is to ensure that people going through hard times don't have ready access to weapons that can instantly kill a person.
I was not attempting to compare the dangers of a swimming pool to the dangers of drowning. Just pointing out that banning something will of course decrease the instances of it. Mental health is an...
I was not attempting to compare the dangers of a swimming pool to the dangers of drowning. Just pointing out that banning something will of course decrease the instances of it.
Mental health is an aspect but I personally believe it has more to do with poverty, social media, and American capitalism.
I've lived in poverty. Poverty does not make you shoot people. If you'd like to expand on those three ideas, though, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.
I've lived in poverty. Poverty does not make you shoot people.
If you'd like to expand on those three ideas, though, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.
I've lived in poverty too - I agree that there isn't a direct link to violence. Poverty does seem to have a correlation with violence statistically however. Fajnzylber, Lederman, and Loayza (2002)...
I've lived in poverty too - I agree that there isn't a direct link to violence. Poverty does seem to have a correlation with violence statistically however.
Fajnzylber, Lederman, and Loayza (2002) seems to find correlation between inequality, poverty, and violent crime. I think as income inequality and poverty continue to grow in our society and engagement based social media allows trends to spread virally we will only see more and more disruptive or violent behaviors in our society.
Personally, I think your three culprits have one common factor; they are great sources of stress which can cause people to make desperate decisions. If you have all of your choices taken away from...
Personally, I think your three culprits have one common factor; they are great sources of stress which can cause people to make desperate decisions. If you have all of your choices taken away from you, you have no choice but to consider the inconsiderable and taboo. In that respect I think that something like UBI - or really any major improvement to public welfare - would help to reduce violence. That seems to be even more impossible of a goal with today's politics.
But violent crime is a big category, and mass shootings have their own considerations. I can imagine someone in poverty might try to steal and rob, and become violent when it means being detained and ruining what little is good about their lives already. Having them attempt a mass shooting is a far less believable scenario.
Blaming people for their predicaments might be a rationale for them attempting mass shootings. That seems to be a common thread among many mass shootings, it's an indiscriminate blame of society,...
But violent crime is a big category, and mass shootings have their own considerations. I can imagine someone in poverty might try to steal and rob, and become violent when it means being detained and ruining what little is good about their lives already. Having them attempt a mass shooting is a far less believable scenario.
Blaming people for their predicaments might be a rationale for them attempting mass shootings. That seems to be a common thread among many mass shootings, it's an indiscriminate blame of society, or at least aspects of society.
There's another comment in this thread referencing a talk that the mother of one of the Columbine shooters had where she mentions mass shooters are suicidal first before homicidal. I don't know if that's truly accurate in most cases but it fits what I have observed. If we look at it through this lens, whether it's stress or a combination of things, once a person moves past the point of attempting to resolve their immediate needs (whether it's money, food, shelter, stress relief etc.) by stealing or robbing or whatever the case is, if instead they see their situation as lacking any permanent or long term solutions, then it may be the case to blame others for the predicament they're in.
The way I view it is, generally speaking, no mass shooter gets away with it and goes on living their life. I'm sure there's rare occasions out there somewhere, but generally speaking, most of them either end up dead or in prison for the rest of their life. So the people who would take this course of action are more likely people who have given up on any other possible futures. In that way I'd almost argue it's even different than other crimes, possibly other murders, because there's got to be an inherent awareness that there's no life going forward for someone who takes this action. Usually there's an element of premeditation to these actions as well, differentiating them from crimes of passion where someone may not consider the consequences afterward. Someone who premeditates a mass shooting on some level would seemingly have the time to consider that there is no future after it.
So when I look at it like that, it gives me a better understanding of what circumstances someone might be in that results in them going down that path. Of course it's not justified, I'm not explaining it to justify it, rather explaining how I try to understand how the situation happens to begin with.
Stress and a lack of resources can lead to people that don't have deescalation training or healthy coping mechanisms. I think an abundance of resources can lead to the same thing too. I've met...
Stress and a lack of resources can lead to people that don't have deescalation training or healthy coping mechanisms. I think an abundance of resources can lead to the same thing too. I've met extremely wealthy people that are just disconnected from reality but in a completely different way from some of my family that have fought with various addictions. They both seem to make impulsive or irrational decisions sometimes.
Guns laws are definitively less restrictive now. Case in point: Federal Assault Weapons Ban, 1994-2004 The AR-15, the most favored spree killing weapon, was illegal under that law. After the...
I'm not comparing 2023 to 1994. Prior to 1934 the US largely had no restrictions on firearms. You could purchase fully automatic weapons through the mail without registration or any real...
I'm not comparing 2023 to 1994.
Prior to 1934 the US largely had no restrictions on firearms. You could purchase fully automatic weapons through the mail without registration or any real paperwork. The National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934 is largely the start of modern firearm restrictions. It was enacted due to organized crime. Prior to 1934 recorded instances of mass shooting are exceptionally rare even though the rate of gun ownership was extremely high and there were virtually no restrictions on the weapons. Pretty much every recorded shooting from that era was directly tied to organized crime - like the The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre (1929).
And this would not have stopped any mass shooting with how that law was written. This is like saying we need to ban the Toyota Camry when the issue is cars. There are PLENTY of legal rifles with...
The AR-15, the most favored spree killing weapon, was illegal under that law.
And this would not have stopped any mass shooting with how that law was written. This is like saying we need to ban the Toyota Camry when the issue is cars.
There are PLENTY of legal rifles with the exact same capabilities as the AR-15 that were legal under the 94-04 ban, which also had a bunch of cosmetic nonsense included. I just do not believe that someone who has decided to go kill a bunch of strangers is going to be stopped because the rifle doesn't look the same.
Yeah, our problems go WAY deeper than guns. Regardless of individual feelings on gun control, we've gotta recognize that it's just a band-aid and we've got some uniquely late-20th and 21st century...
Yeah, our problems go WAY deeper than guns. Regardless of individual feelings on gun control, we've gotta recognize that it's just a band-aid and we've got some uniquely late-20th and 21st century American problems to deal with. There is something broken about many men in America and I don't think boiling it down to either mental health or gun access tells the whole story, though they're important parts of the conversation.
The differences between swimming pools and firearms are twofold: Guns are explicitly designed for the purpose of killing things. They have no other practical utility, so they fare poorly when...
The differences between swimming pools and firearms are twofold:
Guns are explicitly designed for the purpose of killing things. They have no other practical utility, so they fare poorly when assessing risk vs reward.
Deranged mass murderers don't have a tendancy to burst into the bowling alley where I take my family and kill a dozen people with a swimming pool. If someone dies in a swimming pool, it's because they took the risk of using one on themselves.
I don't think their point with that went beyond "obviously reducing the supply of something will reduce deaths from it," which nearly everyone here seems to agree with. I'm not sure poking holes...
I don't think their point with that went beyond "obviously reducing the supply of something will reduce deaths from it," which nearly everyone here seems to agree with. I'm not sure poking holes in the comparison is useful when it wasn't really load-bearing.
Norway has had one (1) mass shooting in the last 20 years. When I say the US has a problem, I mean we keep having multiple mass shootings every single year. As The Onion likes to say: ‘No Way To...
Norway has had one (1) mass shooting in the last 20 years.
When I say the US has a problem, I mean we keep having multiple mass shootings every single year.
As The Onion likes to say: ‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens
We're comparing countries with different sizes. Norway has 5 million and the US has 330 million, so that's equaivalent to a rate of one every 3-4 years for a US-sized country. Still much less, sure.
We're comparing countries with different sizes. Norway has 5 million and the US has 330 million, so that's equaivalent to a rate of one every 3-4 years for a US-sized country. Still much less, sure.
This is a real tragedy for us here in Maine - it's not that violent crime doesn't happen here, but we haven't had a mass shooting like this really ever. My heart breaks for the victims and their...
This is a real tragedy for us here in Maine - it's not that violent crime doesn't happen here, but we haven't had a mass shooting like this really ever. My heart breaks for the victims and their families. I am sorry that we live in a country that just can't deal with the problem of a man who has been struggling with mental health walking into a bowling alley and murdering as many people as he can.
Firearm culture is disgusting and needs to end. The article said it, at this point hunting is a tradition not a way of life. Guns for civilians are a hobby, full stop. The solution is obvious but...
Firearm culture is disgusting and needs to end. The article said it, at this point hunting is a tradition not a way of life. Guns for civilians are a hobby, full stop. The solution is obvious but we will do mental gymnastics to justify our 'culture and rights '. I only wish the bill of rights also had a 'right to not get shot'
The fact that this person was/is? an arms instructor in the military changes my perspective a bit. No wonder police are on high alert and residents are sheltering in place. This person has the...
The fact that this person was/is? an arms instructor in the military changes my perspective a bit. No wonder police are on high alert and residents are sheltering in place. This person has the training to do incredible amounts of harm. The gun culture in Maine seems like an aside when the shooter is someone who was stationed there with the training and resources to do this.
I've noted that with some regularity, that mass shooters seem to disproportionately be represented by those who have a military background. A quick google search says its between 28 and 36% of all...
I've noted that with some regularity, that mass shooters seem to disproportionately be represented by those who have a military background. A quick google search says its between 28 and 36% of all mass shooters. Which makes sense that once you're trained to kill the 'bad guy' that it doesn't take a lot to decide to kill innocents.
Honestly I dont understand US culture at all. A veneration for military service. A deep seated belief that having a gun is a "god given right" and an unshakable belief that guns make them safer despite clear evidence to the contrary. No other civilized country suffers hundreds and hundreds of mass shootings a year and yet the US clings to this belief that it's somehow a superior nation because of its "freedom" for nearly everyone to carry firearms.
I don't know the personal situation of the shooter and I probably don't want to, I just want to say that many people I've spoken to over the years have told me they wish they could get therapy but...
I don't know the personal situation of the shooter and I probably don't want to, I just want to say that many people I've spoken to over the years have told me they wish they could get therapy but can't afford it.
I just... People with mental illness are more likely to be victims of crime than people without. Committing such crimes - unless we define the willingness to do so as its own mental illness -...
I just... People with mental illness are more likely to be victims of crime than people without. Committing such crimes - unless we define the willingness to do so as its own mental illness - isn't about being mentally ill with some limited exceptions. His mental illness almost certainly didn't cause this.
This person may have had innumerable frustrations in his life, but not a one of them is going to come close to justifying or even fully explaining this. There are so many people suffering from so much and the vast majority will not pick up a gun and harm anyone, and even more will not harm others.
Therapy should be more accessible than it is. But this take feels very out of place on a morning where people are still sheltering to avoid being killed by this person.
I didn't say anything about mental illness, in fact the only thing I did say about him is that I didn't know his situation. Therapy is for everyone. We don't care for suffering people in this...
I didn't say anything about mental illness, in fact the only thing I did say about him is that I didn't know his situation. Therapy is for everyone. We don't care for suffering people in this country period. That's my "take".
You mentioned therapy, mental illness was an implication and was mentioned in the article, and yours was only one of several that took this particular angle. Sorry that yours was the one I...
You mentioned therapy, mental illness was an implication and was mentioned in the article, and yours was only one of several that took this particular angle. Sorry that yours was the one I responded to, but I'm not sorry for my stance.
People with mental illness are like people, they are all different (as well as the fact that mental illness is a very wide umbrella in itself as In there is many different things covered under...
People with mental illness are like people, they are all different (as well as the fact that mental illness is a very wide umbrella in itself as In there is many different things covered under that term). And they are going to be affected by their illness in different ways. Getting people better access to mental health care (and removing the stigma around getting it) would help. I mean I also do think we need better gun control as well. Like licenses to show you know how to use one properly and background checks. And yes, if you have mental Illness at least some way to show you are dealing with it and have it under control (I am not for disallowing it cause otherwise you end up with what happens to pilots, they avoid getting diagnosed with stuff like anxiety or anything else that would lose their license so instead you end up with ones flying with problems that need to be addressed but they are too afraid to in case of losing their license. Not even mental problems but stuff like sleep apnea can lose them their license).
And your last point feels very like gun nuts when they say now is not the time to talk about it. Now is when it is on people’s minds so it’s a perfect time to talk about it.
I'm a huge advocate for expanding access to mental health issues. I do think if there's a "not a time to talk about it" it's probably while the situation is still unfolding. We don't even know how...
I'm a huge advocate for expanding access to mental health issues.
I do think if there's a "not a time to talk about it" it's probably while the situation is still unfolding. We don't even know how many people's lives have been lost and the fixation through the thread on his mental health status seems to eliminate his conscious choices of which he almost certainly had to have many.
And so many people with schizophrenia, depression, any number of diagnoses, don't kill people. And I've worked with people found Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity (NGRI) which is not something that you get found if you planned out a murder.
I just get very frustrated at how quickly we talk about mental health only in these situations and only in a sort of tsktsk way. The same way that we as a society only talk about gun issues after a shooting and still never do anything one way or the other. And no one seems to care about the mental health of the people who died or the survivors.
I don't love being compared to a "gun nut*" but if being a mental health professional is the equivalent I suppose I'll take it.
*also don't love using stigmatizing language around mental illness while ostensibly advocating for it.
More likely to be victims of violent crime than perpetrators More likely to be victims of crime than the general population This was just a quick search and a summation. Even the threat assessment...
This was just a quick search and a summation. Even the threat assessment training I've gotten from our campus police dept teaches this as a matter of course - which is why a mental illness is not a red flag but behavior is.
The University of Maine is closed today (Thursday) with the suspect still at-large. UMaine is 110+ miles away from Lewiston. This really is felt statewide.
The University of Maine is closed today (Thursday) with the suspect still at-large. UMaine is 110+ miles away from Lewiston. This really is felt statewide.
Grew up in Maine. Apparently the shooter went to the same high school as me (different time) but I haven't done any research to if that's true or not. Sounds like all my immediate friends and...
Grew up in Maine. Apparently the shooter went to the same high school as me (different time) but I haven't done any research to if that's true or not.
Sounds like all my immediate friends and family are safe, but who knows what the long term/ripple effects will be.
Randomly enough, I just bought a house about 30 minutes from where this happened and will be moving back to Maine shortly.
I wish I could be confident that this would drive meaningful change around gun laws in the state.
I am wondering if he is dead already. I still think everyone should stay locked down because he could easily be lurking anywhere alive and well. But given how these things often go, and how Dylan...
I am wondering if he is dead already.
I still think everyone should stay locked down because he could easily be lurking anywhere alive and well.
But given how these things often go, and how Dylan Klebold's mom suggests that most mass shooters are suicidal first and homicidal second, I think he possibly killed himself after his shooting spree.
Maybe, but Maine is also a very large and sparsely populated place. It's not terribly surprising that it's taking time to find a guy who seemingly wanted to disappear.
Maybe, but Maine is also a very large and sparsely populated place. It's not terribly surprising that it's taking time to find a guy who seemingly wanted to disappear.
I really, truly, and honestly think this is a failure of the US healthcare system and the way it is funded. Like others have said in this thread, we don't know this shooter's life situation, but...
I really, truly, and honestly think this is a failure of the US healthcare system and the way it is funded. Like others have said in this thread, we don't know this shooter's life situation, but it can be surmised that if he thought killing innocents was his only remaining option that his perspective was distorted to say the least. Therapy can solve so many problems but is out of reach or carries too much stigma for so many. I know Maine has a state-funded healthcare system for those with low income, but whether that was utilized by this person can't really be determined. My point is that if this person knew he had a safety net or that help was available who knows what could have been different.
If my hunch is correct, and this person would have had greater access to therapy/resources to channel strong emotion rather than be controlled by them then this tragedy may never have happened. Heart goes out to the victims and their families and friends. I really cannot imagine something like this happening to me or those in my life, but each passing day in the US, sadly, gives me a clearer picture.
This is hard to claim when he literally got two weeks of inpatient therapy (allegedly, please correct me if the news has updated this.) Two weeks paid for by the military. We absolutely fail...
This is hard to claim when he literally got two weeks of inpatient therapy (allegedly, please correct me if the news has updated this.) Two weeks paid for by the military.
We absolutely fail people with severe mental health needs, but most of those folks still don't choose to murder multiple people so despite him getting mental health treatment, despite him making threats, he still made these choices.
While the US health care system is in shambles, sadly I don't think the mental health care is strictly a US-centric issue. It's still relatively young compared to other medical fields, and...
While the US health care system is in shambles, sadly I don't think the mental health care is strictly a US-centric issue. It's still relatively young compared to other medical fields, and knowledge and best practices are constantly evolving as new information is discovered. It's also much more specialized since every case is different. There are no blanket diagnoses or treatments. The same condition can have wildly different treatments between different patients, and sometimes different symptoms.
Meanwhile, the field is vastly understaffed compared to the number of people who need help. Wait lists can be months long, and even after going through one, the therapist may not be a good fit so you'll have to try again. It can take months to find the right one.
And that's before accounting for the fact that it's dependent on patients wanting the help. People refuse mental health care for all sorts of reasons besides stigma, ranging from pride to being literally unable to realize they NEED help. You can't force an adult to go to therapy, the closest thing is to get them institutionalized on an emergency basis if you believe they're a risk to themselves or others. And thats usually only for 72 hours, at which point the facility needs to prove to a judge that this person needs to have extended care. Even if you can get through all the hoops for involuntary commitment, they still need to cooperate to improve.
This guy was reportedly at inpatient therapy for two weeks. I don't know the circumstances behind how he ended up there, beyond claims that he talked about hearing voices telling him to shoot up an army base. If he signed himself in willingly, he likely signed himself out, and there would be no way for workers to stop him.
Just, mental health care is so complicated. The US is absolutely flawed and other countries do better, but I don't think any country has a good system for mental health yet.
Everytown’s stance on this seems to be (unsurprisingly) intentionally deceptive. Maine has a provision that allows law enforcement to petition a court to seize firearms from a person that is...
Everytown’s stance on this seems to be (unsurprisingly) intentionally deceptive.
Maine has a provision that allows law enforcement to petition a court to seize firearms from a person that is presenting an extreme risk to themselves or others by possessing the firearms.
They have dubbed it a “yellow flag law” because family cannot petition the court, it has to be law enforcement.
A large problem with this is that pretending a law doesn’t exist shields the law enforcement agencies that should have actually used the law to prevent this. It makes it seem like the legislators are to blame, when he was already on law enforcement’s radar and should have ostensibly had his firearms seized and made into a prohibited person under a law that very much exists. It’s a failure of the police that were involved here to… police.
Human beings are dying in our society but gasp our traditions! We need to be able to shoot defenseless animals!!
SMDH. Hopefully Maine will change it's tune after this.
These comments are always a little confusing to me. What policies, besides an outright ban, would've prevented this? The ability to carry without a permit did not cause this shooting and requiring a permit wouldn't have prevented it. The shooter was a firearms instructor for the U.S. Army Reserve, so he most certainly would've had a permit if one was required.
Hunters did not cause this shooting.
The current suspect was committed to a mental health facility earlier this summer after reporting "hearing voices and threats to shoot up" the military base where he was stationed. Maine does not have red flag laws, so there was no legal mechanism for (temporarily) removing his access to his guns in the wake of his mental health crisis.
Oh my god. He literally told people he was going to do this? How can we fail this hard?
Because half the country loses their minds when even the most modest gun control measures a suggested, and law enforcement sees it as their right not to invesitage or enforce gun control laws (against people with similarly pigmented skin).
A recent fox news poll shows most Americans support modest gun control measures when asked about individual measures.
https://www.foxnews.com/official-polls/fox-news-poll-voters-favor-gun-limits-arming-citizens-reduce-gun-violence
I think it's a well funded and noisy minority that is blocking this, via regulatory capture, bribery and lobbying, plus general hysteria over any mention of "gun control" (similar to how so many hate obamacare but support many of the individual components of obamacare.)
That often is because it is the local will of the people for them not to, even if the state (or federal) laws say otherwise. A citizens' referendum would recall anyone who enforced the law.
I’m so ready to dance on the grave of the Republican Party. They keep giving me hope of collapse. I look forward to the day the gerrymandered majority in this country gets the control it deserves and just goes wild implementing its will.
Cynicism on-
The dems will surely self destruct. They do not represent the majority. They are slightly to moderately better on a few issues important to most tilderinos, but leadership is a mess and policy implementation a confused morass.
They are substantially better on a number of issues — there is no "slightly" or "moderately" about it when we are talking about LGBT issues, abortion rights, etc. This is not because the Democrat Party has great policies (they are pretty blah by world standards), but because the Republican Party has nosedived.
They are also substantially more organized. This is not because the Democrat party has good leadership or a cohesive culture (I think that's virtually impossible in a two-party system), but because the Republican Party has gone so completely off the rails that they struggle just to elect a House speaker.
The Republican Party appears to be in the process of self-destructing now. The Democrat Party has its factions (as virtually all parties do), which may lead to a party split down the road, but it's hard to imagine them going through the same explosive process that the Republican Party is experiencing now. I suppose it's possible, but I haven't seen any obvious signs of it—whereas the Republican Party has been fracturing in a really obvious way since ~2008 and showing clear signs that the insane reactionary wing was situating itself to drive out the intelligent conservative wing.
Republican party self-destructing will result in the dems splitting into a new conservative party that will continue their trajectory of uselessness and a further left new socdem/demsoc wing.
There are those democrats who are foaming at the mouth to pivot right so they can make money hand over fist from far right corporatists that don't want to appear "too woke." Gavin Newsom comes to mind. There are also many democrats (easily a plurality in the party if not the majority of its actual normal constituents) that actually would like society to improve somewhat. They would not be willing to go along with a lurch rightward for the sake of money and power if it meant giving up any values they had left. You've seen it over the past few decades, the actual constituents of the democratic party are growing more and more disenchanted with the party and the leadership has had to play spin doctor more and more brazenly, with the modern democratic party's disingenousness only beaten by the GOP.
The vast popularity of the DSA despite its uselessness shows there is clear appetite for a party to the left of the current Democratic party. Once the GOP fails for good expect such a demsoc party or wing of the Democratic party to get stronger, not weaker.
Are red flag laws necessary if the shooter threatened to shoot up a military base already?
This sounds like one of these three criminal charges have already been committed and law enforcement failed to enforce:
I'm not a lawyer, but any of these are felonies and would allow the confiscation of weapons under already established law.
The Baker act is federal. Was he involuntarily committed?
I thought that in order to be held past 72 hours, one needed to go before a judge? I'm guessing it's state by state, but I had assumed that 72 hours was common among states.
It does vary. But often they'll attempt to get them to 'volunteer' in a a very coercive way, i.e. "Sign this paper or face legal consequences and be here involuntarily".
I'm on the team of "Nobody needs to own a gun." So, yeah that's my suggestion, and it should have been enacted in the US decades ago.
I don't know that it helps anything when one argues in such extreme terms. ref The shooter was using an AR-15 and managed to kill about 22 and injure 50 to 60. There are lot of gun bans that don't get in the way of hunting rifles or self-defense pistols, that would still have prevented this tragedy (and do, everywhere else in the modern world except the USA); but "Nobody needs to own a gun" is, for me and I think a lot of Americans, well outside the bounds of what's reasonable or feasible.
Yeah, you're right. I'm posting out of passion. I'm pissed off about another mass shooting.
I've never touched a real firearm in my life, and I've never had any desire to. I acknowledge that a gun is an instrument of death, and is specifically constructed to cause catastrophic damage to biological tissue and disrupt life. So when I hear about people who want to own guns purely for "tradition", I get angry, and I post without consideration.
So, here's a reply with consideration.
The Daily Show had a couple segments some years ago where Michael Kosta traveled to Switzerland and learned a lot about their culture and it's affection for firearms.
TL;DW, There's a few things we can do, but one thing the Swiss did after they had a mass shooting was enact strict ammunition control. But I feel there's more to the problem.
I think there's a lot to be said about the psychology of the US. Not just over the obsession with firearms, but the stigma against mental health itself, and especially how difficult it can be for men to access. The majority of mental health patients in America are female, and has been as long as therapy and exploring mental health as a whole has been around.
While it's not a bad thing, as a result, a lot of the rules are written around the female brain - Just a nature of the situation. But male brains do communicate differently. For a lot of men, going to therapy can feel like being forced not only out of one's comfort zone, but into a place where they have to try and essentially speak in a foreign language. I do think mental health and therapy is moving in a direction that's healthier for men, but it's not there yet.
So what do men do when we have a lot of anxieties and fears and we feel powerless and don't know how to work through these feelings and we're
scared to go todon't need therapy?Well, the past generations taught us to suck it up. Empathy is for the weak. Find another way to feel powerful.
What's an easy way to feel really powerful?
Grab yer huntin' rifle!
And don't feel for those animals we're going to kill
to conquer our insecuritiesfor sport. Empathy is weakness. Besides, it's tradition!And now I'll stop before I devolve back into anger. I don't have the answers. I'm just mad that hobbyists with a deadly hobby that I want nothing to do with get to shape the safety of our country.
Maine has bears and coyotes and people who stretch their budget by eating hunted game meat. It's not just a hobby.
But red flag laws would have helped.
Maybe don't live in the woods? That's why humanity started living in larger groups, no? Safety from the wilderness?
One shouldn't need to do that in our modern society. And if you do, then you need to rigorously and regularly prove that you're responsible enough to own a firearm, or learn bow hunting.
This comes off as rather elitist, and would essentially require us to abandon a few states. Many of the states are predominately rural and very sparsely populated. There are areas in the US where you can travel for hours without seeing another human. Most of my family is rural and lived in Appalachia. Many of them do not have access to law enforcement in any sort of reasonable timeframe but have been living in those areas for over a hundred years without issue.
I personally think the concept of states needs an iteration, cities should probably be able to self govern more strictly. The needs of the urban centers, suburban areas, and rural areas are totally different and should be able to self govern.
Fair point. As mentioned previously I'm pissed and that's coming across a bit in my words. Sorry.
Sounds to me like they're unfortunately already abandoned, huh?
That's terrifying to me. Alas, I still feel the solution to this problem isn't "let anyone living in the wilderness have a gun", the solution is "establish substantial emergency services in these communities."
Again, sorry if my words are overly disgruntled. I'm mad, I'm scared, I'm frustrated. I hate that my kids are going to have to perform active shooting drills when they start going to school. I despise how that's what the world's come to.
They are just sparsely populated. Alaska has a population density of 1.3 per square mile. Montana is 7.5.
Massachusetts is 901. These are different places to live with different needs and different cultures. Montana is a great place to live and some people prefer a lifestyle that is more isolated. We have the land. If we continue to compress people into urban areas the housing crisis will escalate.
This isn't financially viable. Let's dive into the law enforcement aspect of this.
Rural areas
If emergency services are available they are 2x as slow in rural areas. Several smaller communities are disbanding their police departments entirely. One in three Alaskan villages have no police. People in these areas are expected to be somewhat self sufficient.
Response time in general
According to the BJS roughly 3% of violent crimes (across the US) take more than an hour for a law enforcement response. Response times are increasing over time in major urban areas. If urban areas - which have the money, can't solve this problem - why would we expect rural areas with limited or no resources to be able to do it?
Duty to protect
Castle Rock v. Gonzales is a relatively recent case the reinforces the fact that law enforcement exist to enforce laws. Not necessarily to protect individuals or save individuals.
None of this goes into the fact that involving law enforcement can often increase the lethality of a situation. There are plenty of examples of the police literally shooting the person that called them.
During natural disasters law enforcement and emergency services become largely useless, and can stay that way for extended periods of time.
I do believe in civil society and a basic rule of law, but I do not seem to hold your standard of trust in law enforcement to serve in my or my families best interests in every situation.
I hate that too. I think there is plenty of work to be done in legislation that preserves responsible firearm rights that can help decrease the severity and frequency of the violence. I do not think that Bob owning a firearm for shooting varmit in Montana is the reason why your son has to do an active shooter drill though.
This is your perspective, and it's valid, but this gap is precisely why we have democracy and different scales of legal jurisdictions. You have a right to your outrage and your political position, but you do not have any right to determining what abandonment means for these people, you do not have any right to define their lives. It's deeply distasteful, even in times of crisis, to suspend these basic rules of civility.
My words came across a bit distasteful, huh? Sorry about that.
To be clear, I'm not actually suggesting abandonment of these communities that live far from emergency services, My suggestion is getting more emergency services established so folks in these regions don't need to wait so long to get help.
No, I get what you were saying. I don't think you meant anything bad by it, but your comment kind of typifies urban chauvinism. Cultures differ, and there are lines in the sand that cross into morally unacceptable to sit back and watch, but you did basically say that if everyone in Maine just moved into a city, their lives would be better. Broadly, you outright stated that you know what their priorities should be, damn whatever they say, that law enforcement as we know it is an absolute positive, and that self-reliance is unjustified. Those are often issues very close to the heart in rural communities, and I promise they've heard and considered "just make it like Boston" before.
I don't know why anyone would ever live in a metropolis. When I look at them, at least the model of city defined by London or NYC, I see places where people train themselves not to care about one another, places where we pretend we can have all the benefits of society with none of the compromises, where we throw our shit in the streets and have The City deal with it. If I went around with the same haughtiness many urbanites show to rural folks, I'd be berated and banned from most fora for instigation. The only difference here is that city folk outnumber rural people, and so get to exist in a world where "everyone" agrees with them, just because the discontents aren't going to continue living somewhere they hate.
Rural poor people exist, like the urban poor do. You are asking a lot of people to relocate.
If relocation is not possible, be it fiscally or person's choice, there's non lethal solutions to wild animals. Bear spray exists.
I feel like you're over simplifying things a bit. A key detail I think a lot of non-US citizens don't realize is that the US has a lot more rural land and distance between communities than Europe. It's "younger" than a lot of other countries but grew pretty fast, so there are a lot of developed areas where wild animals haven't fully moved on from but instead adapted to. I live in the suburbs of a fairly large city in an area with a lot of fields, and we still have coyotes behind our house. Our neighbors have lost multiple cats to them, and I'm pretty sure I've seen one on the walk to our front door.
The more rural you get, the more wild animals there are. Bear spray won't help farmers protect their livestock, and getting an ambulance to come if you're mauled by one can take upwards of thirty minutes. For areas like that, a gun really is just a basic safety tool.
On that note, a lot of people in those areas hunt game not just for "tradition" or budgetary reasons, but because they find it more ethical than meat at grocery stores. I've seen a few people who only eat game meat they or their families caught since they got it. It also helps keep animal populations under control (which is important in areas where we've basically wiped out predators) while not wasting their deaths.
All that said, we absolutely need to have stricter gun control. People don't need AR-15s to go hunting or scare off animals, and people shouldn't be able to just buy a gun without any background checks or licenses. We need far more rigorous requirements and regulations around gun ownership and licenses.
For the record, I am a US citizen. But also I'll admit I'm a city boy. So I have not personally experienced wild animals trying to kill me firsthand (Unless you count Disney Park Guests) and thus have never felt a real reason or compulsion to own a firearm for that purpose.
Is the fence store closed? C'mon, we're human beings, our brains can come up with amazing solutions to these problems that don't require guns. And as I said to TurtleCracker, my solution isn't arming more people, it's increasing emergency services to these rural communities.
I guess I can see that. To me personally it's less ethical to end the life of a free creature than it is to consume the meat of an animal that was born explicitly to become human sustenance. Maybe that animal had a painful existence, but if I don't eat it, won't it's sacrifice have been for nothing?
Gotta clean up our own messes I suppose, fair point.
I'm glad to read your final point on AR-15s. I don't think a device that can reduce a human to hamburger in seconds should be in the hands of anyone other than trained, regulated, and accountably held professionals.
Its sacrifice would be for much more than nothing if you didn't eat it, because it would lead to the cycle slowing down (the more people who went this way anyhow). That animal's painful existence didn't happen for no reason, it happened because it was assumed that you'd buy the products that resulted from its painful existence. If you buy them, then you've proven their assumption correct, which simply means more painful existences will be created under the assumption you will continue to buy the products resulting from them.
I appreciate your sentiment, just not quite enough to stop eating store-bought meat and take up hunting. Sorry.
I wasn't exactly advocating for hunting. There's the capability for many of us to exist that doesn't require intentionally killing animals to eat them. I was more so commenting to dispel the logic that it's somehow in servitude of the factory farmed animals to eat them so their painful existences aren't wasted.
I'm also not attempting to shame you or anyone else either for buying those products. I occasionally buy those things myself, though I make attempts to keep it to a minimum. I just don't try to deceive myself or anyone else into believing that it's doing the animals any favors in the event that I do purchase those products.
I actually used to think of fences as a decent solution until I did a short paper on coyote control for an English class. Farms are big, so completely fencing the entire area isn't necessarily viable from a financial standpoint.
Coyotes can also jump and climb fences, and dig under them. A quick Google search just now suggests that fencing should be at least 8 feet tall, but that they're also able to climb 14 feet fences if they can get a decent foothold. And that's assuming the fence is intact along the entire circumference, you'd need to check the fence daily for any damage.
And bears... Yeah, most fences won't do much to stop them. Pretty sure they can just ram a fence down if they're determined enough.
Increasing emergency services won't necessarily help too much either. Having 100 EMTs and officers on standby at all times won't change the fact it would still take 30 minutes or more to drive to an isolated property. The drive can be even longer if the roads are poorly marked. Even following a GPS, my mom and I missed a turn going to my cousin's farm because there was no sign for the road and had to backtrack. It's worse in more wooded areas and at night.
Overall, rural America is VERY different from urban America. I think a lot of people don't realize just how different it can be from a practical standpoint. I can't advocate completely outlawing guns for that reason (and also, I'm pretty sure the backlash of a total firearms ban would be messy, to say the least). Instead, I think the best solution is to enforce sensible, responsible gun ownership.
Allow hunting rifles but ban automatic and semi-automatic weapons (seriously, AR-15s should NOT be available to the public!! There is literally NO use for them other than murder). Have more rigorous background checks and exams for licenses, have multiple renewal check-ins each year, have a house visit to check if they have a proper gun safe, make a registry tracking ownership of every legally-purchased firearm, regulate and track how much ammunition is sold at a time, etc.
Actually, just restricting ammunition sales can help a lot since it would take more time to stockpile ammo for a mass shooting. Which means more time for people to realize something is wrong and intervene, or for the would-be shooter to come to their senses and change their mind. It would probably be easier to pass that than measures directly targeting guns (which is stupid).
You completely ignored my suggestion of giant robotic demon wolves!
But seriously, we are the smartest creatures on our planet, and given the time and resources, we could come up with alternative, non-lethal solutions to any problem that requires a firearm.
I just can't bring myself to accept the gun (no matter how small), and in my opinion, we could get by without them if everyone was down.
I feel like it's a bit disingenuous to suggest that people could come up with alternative solutions without providing specifics. You could just as easily say that about, say, developing a cure for multiple sclerosis. I have absolutely no doubt that we could do this given sufficient time and resources - but the fact that we haven't already should be an indicator that the time and resources might be prohibitively large outside of a mere hypothetical.
Not to mention that such a hypothetical is of little use to people who are forced to use the 'worse' alternative right now. I feel like any argument that hinges on some hypothetical, yet-to-be-implemented solution should at least make an allowance for people choosing other solutions in the meantime. First someone must actually create an affordable, non-lethal wildlife solution, then we can discuss further restriction of gun ownership.
20,000 people are killed every year with guns, and guns are the leading cause of childhood deaths. Even if it takes the death of that many people resisting full confiscation in a rip-the-band-aid-off scenario, the ethical calculus is still pretty easy to make. The time for compromise is long past.
Plenty of countries have equal or worse mental health situations, but what they don't have is an epidemic of weapons that make mass murder effortless. I've long been for the generous level of gun allowances Japan offers (hunting rifles only, with annual licensing and inspection of storage, a decade in prison for unlawful possession of any other firearm), but at this point even that's more than the people resisting reform deserve. If they won't accept that, it's time to push for hard bans.
I grew up in Maine, and I'm still waiting for names to be released so I can tell if this affected anyone I know. I'm fucking sick of this completely avoidable cycle. I'm sick of this country being held hostage by people who tacitly support the shootings and gleefully talk about needing guns in case they feel like overthrowing our democratically elected government.
Thank you.
In my mind, psychopaths causing needless bloodshed should have ruined it for everyone. The only people handling firearms should be trained members of the active armed forces, and nobody else.
I sincerely hope none of your acquaintances, friends or loved ones were affected by this crime.
Weird place to draw the line. I'm not sure that leaving the weapons to the ones who are honest about their bloodthirst and have the training to maximize the damage they do is a great strategy.
You know the Army can't take home their assigned rifles, require a separate arms vault key, pin, and more to even access the rifle and the ammunition is kept separate in another facility, usually requiring it's own checks to get access to...
Unless a Soldier is overseas in a combat environment, they likely don't have regular access to their kit. So, we're at least keeping that blood thirst in check.
It's easier for me to get an unregistered AR-15 and combat load than it is for me to get into the arms room.
Because the military has forms of gun control.
In an ideal situation they wouldn't be permitting bloodthirsty folks into the armed forces to begin with.
I just find it strange that other countries do not have this problem. Coincidentatlly, those other countries have way tougher gun control laws. I'm sure it's just a coincidence though.
This always bugged me as an argument.
Other countries don't have millions of guns already in circulation from decades of selling them.
Other countries don't have 2 massive land borders and a ton of coast line that's already used for vast amounts of illegal smuggling.
Other countries don't have a nearly militarized police force, who i'm 100% certain will still be carrying pistols, shotguns, and AR's if such a law is passed.
Other countries don't have the 2nd Amendment (and without going all the way down that rabbit hole, whatever your opinion on it is, you can't just pretend it won't be fought every step of the way in the courts).
Any sort of gun law has to be aware of, and address, these issues. Turning a huge % of your population into criminals overnight (armed ones by definition) isn't something that's easily feasible, especially when people are right to question if it's a great idea to turn a weapon they purchased legally in.
People talk about gun buybacks, which could maybe work, but the numbers on that are insane and I still suspect you're going to get less than 30% of guns in circulation returned, and who knows just how bad the black market is going to be. But i'm sure we can fund ANOTHER war on X to militarize law enforcement even more to combat all the dangerous gun smugglers.
It's just not that easy, and it's never going to be fixed if people keep pretending it is. Any politician pretending otherwise is wasting your time, and 100% not serious about actually changing anything. Hell just looking at the stats, the vast majority is suicide by handgun, which sure screams mental health issue. From there you, again, have mostly handguns being used to perpetuate crimes. "Assault Rifles" keep getting legislation because they make the news when someone shoots up a public place, and that's by far the smallest % of gun violence.
Two of these are obviously mental health issues as well (mass shooter/suicide) and yet we never get ANY legislation for that, and the legislation we do get is often some uniformed pile of nonsense like the assault weapons ban. I'm all for red flag laws, mandatory training, revoking weapons, and a bunch of other reasonable measures that might begin to help with all this, but it's just so ignorant to pretend this is an easy solution.
This always bugs me as an argument. Sure, we can't take away everybody's guns overnight. But if we stopped selling new guns right now then the total number of guns in the country would begin a slow decline. Generous buyback programs and ending or heavily restricting the sale of ammunition would also have a tremendous effect. It's hard to go on a shooting spree with grampa's AR-15 if you used the last of your ammo for it 10 years ago shooting cans in the desert and have no easy way to replenish it.
I don't like ignoring obvious solutions just because they take time to be effective.
I agree that banning guns will decrease gun deaths, that's pretty obvious though. Banning swimming pools will also decrease drowning.
I think what's worth some investigation is why firearm deaths are rising, if anything firearm laws were less restrictive in the past but these kinds of mass shooting events did not occur with the same frequency or severity. Why are they increasing?
Swimming is a personal risk. Guns are a public risk. Choosing to swim does not endanger the lives of people who choose to not swim.
The right seems to think that one of the big reasons why this kind of thing keeps happening is poor mental health, and I would agree that it's part of it. Unfortunately they aren't interested in doing anything to actually address that problem. I would like to have a robust public mental health system in place, but I seriously doubt that I'll see it in my lifetime. In the meanwhile, the next best thing is to ensure that people going through hard times don't have ready access to weapons that can instantly kill a person.
I was not attempting to compare the dangers of a swimming pool to the dangers of drowning. Just pointing out that banning something will of course decrease the instances of it.
Mental health is an aspect but I personally believe it has more to do with poverty, social media, and American capitalism.
I've lived in poverty. Poverty does not make you shoot people.
If you'd like to expand on those three ideas, though, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.
I've lived in poverty too - I agree that there isn't a direct link to violence. Poverty does seem to have a correlation with violence statistically however.
Fajnzylber, Lederman, and Loayza (2002) seems to find correlation between inequality, poverty, and violent crime. I think as income inequality and poverty continue to grow in our society and engagement based social media allows trends to spread virally we will only see more and more disruptive or violent behaviors in our society.
Personally, I think your three culprits have one common factor; they are great sources of stress which can cause people to make desperate decisions. If you have all of your choices taken away from you, you have no choice but to consider the inconsiderable and taboo. In that respect I think that something like UBI - or really any major improvement to public welfare - would help to reduce violence. That seems to be even more impossible of a goal with today's politics.
But violent crime is a big category, and mass shootings have their own considerations. I can imagine someone in poverty might try to steal and rob, and become violent when it means being detained and ruining what little is good about their lives already. Having them attempt a mass shooting is a far less believable scenario.
Blaming people for their predicaments might be a rationale for them attempting mass shootings. That seems to be a common thread among many mass shootings, it's an indiscriminate blame of society, or at least aspects of society.
There's another comment in this thread referencing a talk that the mother of one of the Columbine shooters had where she mentions mass shooters are suicidal first before homicidal. I don't know if that's truly accurate in most cases but it fits what I have observed. If we look at it through this lens, whether it's stress or a combination of things, once a person moves past the point of attempting to resolve their immediate needs (whether it's money, food, shelter, stress relief etc.) by stealing or robbing or whatever the case is, if instead they see their situation as lacking any permanent or long term solutions, then it may be the case to blame others for the predicament they're in.
The way I view it is, generally speaking, no mass shooter gets away with it and goes on living their life. I'm sure there's rare occasions out there somewhere, but generally speaking, most of them either end up dead or in prison for the rest of their life. So the people who would take this course of action are more likely people who have given up on any other possible futures. In that way I'd almost argue it's even different than other crimes, possibly other murders, because there's got to be an inherent awareness that there's no life going forward for someone who takes this action. Usually there's an element of premeditation to these actions as well, differentiating them from crimes of passion where someone may not consider the consequences afterward. Someone who premeditates a mass shooting on some level would seemingly have the time to consider that there is no future after it.
So when I look at it like that, it gives me a better understanding of what circumstances someone might be in that results in them going down that path. Of course it's not justified, I'm not explaining it to justify it, rather explaining how I try to understand how the situation happens to begin with.
Stress and a lack of resources can lead to people that don't have deescalation training or healthy coping mechanisms. I think an abundance of resources can lead to the same thing too. I've met extremely wealthy people that are just disconnected from reality but in a completely different way from some of my family that have fought with various addictions. They both seem to make impulsive or irrational decisions sometimes.
Guns laws are definitively less restrictive now.
Case in point: Federal Assault Weapons Ban, 1994-2004
The AR-15, the most favored spree killing weapon, was illegal under that law. After the sunsetting of the AWB, production and sales skyrocketed.
Many states also passed laws allowing open-carry and permitless carry over the past twenty years.
I'm not comparing 2023 to 1994.
Prior to 1934 the US largely had no restrictions on firearms. You could purchase fully automatic weapons through the mail without registration or any real paperwork. The National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934 is largely the start of modern firearm restrictions. It was enacted due to organized crime. Prior to 1934 recorded instances of mass shooting are exceptionally rare even though the rate of gun ownership was extremely high and there were virtually no restrictions on the weapons. Pretty much every recorded shooting from that era was directly tied to organized crime - like the The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre (1929).
And this would not have stopped any mass shooting with how that law was written. This is like saying we need to ban the Toyota Camry when the issue is cars.
There are PLENTY of legal rifles with the exact same capabilities as the AR-15 that were legal under the 94-04 ban, which also had a bunch of cosmetic nonsense included. I just do not believe that someone who has decided to go kill a bunch of strangers is going to be stopped because the rifle doesn't look the same.
Yeah, our problems go WAY deeper than guns. Regardless of individual feelings on gun control, we've gotta recognize that it's just a band-aid and we've got some uniquely late-20th and 21st century American problems to deal with. There is something broken about many men in America and I don't think boiling it down to either mental health or gun access tells the whole story, though they're important parts of the conversation.
The differences between swimming pools and firearms are twofold:
Guns are explicitly designed for the purpose of killing things. They have no other practical utility, so they fare poorly when assessing risk vs reward.
Deranged mass murderers don't have a tendancy to burst into the bowling alley where I take my family and kill a dozen people with a swimming pool. If someone dies in a swimming pool, it's because they took the risk of using one on themselves.
I don't think their point with that went beyond "obviously reducing the supply of something will reduce deaths from it," which nearly everyone here seems to agree with. I'm not sure poking holes in the comparison is useful when it wasn't really load-bearing.
It's not quite right to say it's US only. For example, Norway has had this problem.
Norway has had one (1) mass shooting in the last 20 years.
When I say the US has a problem, I mean we keep having multiple mass shootings every single year.
As The Onion likes to say: ‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens
We're comparing countries with different sizes. Norway has 5 million and the US has 330 million, so that's equaivalent to a rate of one every 3-4 years for a US-sized country. Still much less, sure.
This is a real tragedy for us here in Maine - it's not that violent crime doesn't happen here, but we haven't had a mass shooting like this really ever. My heart breaks for the victims and their families. I am sorry that we live in a country that just can't deal with the problem of a man who has been struggling with mental health walking into a bowling alley and murdering as many people as he can.
Firearm culture is disgusting and needs to end. The article said it, at this point hunting is a tradition not a way of life. Guns for civilians are a hobby, full stop. The solution is obvious but we will do mental gymnastics to justify our 'culture and rights '. I only wish the bill of rights also had a 'right to not get shot'
The fact that this person was/is? an arms instructor in the military changes my perspective a bit. No wonder police are on high alert and residents are sheltering in place. This person has the training to do incredible amounts of harm. The gun culture in Maine seems like an aside when the shooter is someone who was stationed there with the training and resources to do this.
I've noted that with some regularity, that mass shooters seem to disproportionately be represented by those who have a military background. A quick google search says its between 28 and 36% of all mass shooters. Which makes sense that once you're trained to kill the 'bad guy' that it doesn't take a lot to decide to kill innocents.
Honestly I dont understand US culture at all. A veneration for military service. A deep seated belief that having a gun is a "god given right" and an unshakable belief that guns make them safer despite clear evidence to the contrary. No other civilized country suffers hundreds and hundreds of mass shootings a year and yet the US clings to this belief that it's somehow a superior nation because of its "freedom" for nearly everyone to carry firearms.
I don't know the personal situation of the shooter and I probably don't want to, I just want to say that many people I've spoken to over the years have told me they wish they could get therapy but can't afford it.
I just... People with mental illness are more likely to be victims of crime than people without. Committing such crimes - unless we define the willingness to do so as its own mental illness - isn't about being mentally ill with some limited exceptions. His mental illness almost certainly didn't cause this.
This person may have had innumerable frustrations in his life, but not a one of them is going to come close to justifying or even fully explaining this. There are so many people suffering from so much and the vast majority will not pick up a gun and harm anyone, and even more will not harm others.
Therapy should be more accessible than it is. But this take feels very out of place on a morning where people are still sheltering to avoid being killed by this person.
I didn't say anything about mental illness, in fact the only thing I did say about him is that I didn't know his situation. Therapy is for everyone. We don't care for suffering people in this country period. That's my "take".
You mentioned therapy, mental illness was an implication and was mentioned in the article, and yours was only one of several that took this particular angle. Sorry that yours was the one I responded to, but I'm not sorry for my stance.
People with mental illness are like people, they are all different (as well as the fact that mental illness is a very wide umbrella in itself as In there is many different things covered under that term). And they are going to be affected by their illness in different ways. Getting people better access to mental health care (and removing the stigma around getting it) would help. I mean I also do think we need better gun control as well. Like licenses to show you know how to use one properly and background checks. And yes, if you have mental Illness at least some way to show you are dealing with it and have it under control (I am not for disallowing it cause otherwise you end up with what happens to pilots, they avoid getting diagnosed with stuff like anxiety or anything else that would lose their license so instead you end up with ones flying with problems that need to be addressed but they are too afraid to in case of losing their license. Not even mental problems but stuff like sleep apnea can lose them their license).
And your last point feels very like gun nuts when they say now is not the time to talk about it. Now is when it is on people’s minds so it’s a perfect time to talk about it.
I'm a huge advocate for expanding access to mental health issues.
I do think if there's a "not a time to talk about it" it's probably while the situation is still unfolding. We don't even know how many people's lives have been lost and the fixation through the thread on his mental health status seems to eliminate his conscious choices of which he almost certainly had to have many.
And so many people with schizophrenia, depression, any number of diagnoses, don't kill people. And I've worked with people found Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity (NGRI) which is not something that you get found if you planned out a murder.
I just get very frustrated at how quickly we talk about mental health only in these situations and only in a sort of tsktsk way. The same way that we as a society only talk about gun issues after a shooting and still never do anything one way or the other. And no one seems to care about the mental health of the people who died or the survivors.
I don't love being compared to a "gun nut*" but if being a mental health professional is the equivalent I suppose I'll take it.
*also don't love using stigmatizing language around mental illness while ostensibly advocating for it.
Ive ever heard this before. Is there somewhere I could read more?
More likely to be victims of violent crime than perpetrators
More likely to be victims of crime than the general population
This was just a quick search and a summation. Even the threat assessment training I've gotten from our campus police dept teaches this as a matter of course - which is why a mental illness is not a red flag but behavior is.
The University of Maine is closed today (Thursday) with the suspect still at-large. UMaine is 110+ miles away from Lewiston. This really is felt statewide.
Grew up in Maine. Apparently the shooter went to the same high school as me (different time) but I haven't done any research to if that's true or not.
Sounds like all my immediate friends and family are safe, but who knows what the long term/ripple effects will be.
Randomly enough, I just bought a house about 30 minutes from where this happened and will be moving back to Maine shortly.
I wish I could be confident that this would drive meaningful change around gun laws in the state.
I am wondering if he is dead already.
I still think everyone should stay locked down because he could easily be lurking anywhere alive and well.
But given how these things often go, and how Dylan Klebold's mom suggests that most mass shooters are suicidal first and homicidal second, I think he possibly killed himself after his shooting spree.
Maybe, but Maine is also a very large and sparsely populated place. It's not terribly surprising that it's taking time to find a guy who seemingly wanted to disappear.
I really, truly, and honestly think this is a failure of the US healthcare system and the way it is funded. Like others have said in this thread, we don't know this shooter's life situation, but it can be surmised that if he thought killing innocents was his only remaining option that his perspective was distorted to say the least. Therapy can solve so many problems but is out of reach or carries too much stigma for so many. I know Maine has a state-funded healthcare system for those with low income, but whether that was utilized by this person can't really be determined. My point is that if this person knew he had a safety net or that help was available who knows what could have been different.
If my hunch is correct, and this person would have had greater access to therapy/resources to channel strong emotion rather than be controlled by them then this tragedy may never have happened. Heart goes out to the victims and their families and friends. I really cannot imagine something like this happening to me or those in my life, but each passing day in the US, sadly, gives me a clearer picture.
This is hard to claim when he literally got two weeks of inpatient therapy (allegedly, please correct me if the news has updated this.) Two weeks paid for by the military.
We absolutely fail people with severe mental health needs, but most of those folks still don't choose to murder multiple people so despite him getting mental health treatment, despite him making threats, he still made these choices.
While the US health care system is in shambles, sadly I don't think the mental health care is strictly a US-centric issue. It's still relatively young compared to other medical fields, and knowledge and best practices are constantly evolving as new information is discovered. It's also much more specialized since every case is different. There are no blanket diagnoses or treatments. The same condition can have wildly different treatments between different patients, and sometimes different symptoms.
Meanwhile, the field is vastly understaffed compared to the number of people who need help. Wait lists can be months long, and even after going through one, the therapist may not be a good fit so you'll have to try again. It can take months to find the right one.
And that's before accounting for the fact that it's dependent on patients wanting the help. People refuse mental health care for all sorts of reasons besides stigma, ranging from pride to being literally unable to realize they NEED help. You can't force an adult to go to therapy, the closest thing is to get them institutionalized on an emergency basis if you believe they're a risk to themselves or others. And thats usually only for 72 hours, at which point the facility needs to prove to a judge that this person needs to have extended care. Even if you can get through all the hoops for involuntary commitment, they still need to cooperate to improve.
This guy was reportedly at inpatient therapy for two weeks. I don't know the circumstances behind how he ended up there, beyond claims that he talked about hearing voices telling him to shoot up an army base. If he signed himself in willingly, he likely signed himself out, and there would be no way for workers to stop him.
Just, mental health care is so complicated. The US is absolutely flawed and other countries do better, but I don't think any country has a good system for mental health yet.
Maine does not have any red flag laws.
Everytown’s stance on this seems to be (unsurprisingly) intentionally deceptive.
Maine has a provision that allows law enforcement to petition a court to seize firearms from a person that is presenting an extreme risk to themselves or others by possessing the firearms.
https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/34-B/title34-Bsec3862-A.html
They have dubbed it a “yellow flag law” because family cannot petition the court, it has to be law enforcement.
A large problem with this is that pretending a law doesn’t exist shields the law enforcement agencies that should have actually used the law to prevent this. It makes it seem like the legislators are to blame, when he was already on law enforcement’s radar and should have ostensibly had his firearms seized and made into a prohibited person under a law that very much exists. It’s a failure of the police that were involved here to… police.
Then the people I was reading were talking out their asses. I should know better.