Another nut goes on a rampage

But the media doesn't have a bias. "We only report the facts."
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I no longer can call it a bias and I really don't know how you can either. It's not a bias when you are paid to spin the news a given way, it's called an agenda. It's not a leaning or a perception, it's being paid to create the perception, to lead the reader to the right door and leave it open with strong suggestions on what will be found inside.

The reality you must face today is that we are all having a hard time knowing what the truth is because we are being misled at every turn. Don't try to look for an unbiased source either, all the outlets are like this and there is nothing going that isn't paid for and co-opted. That's how I see it and that's how I see the medias' dealing with the gun rights issue.
 
To buy a weapon, you must have 2 doctors approval that you are of sound mind
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What doctor would give it knowing that he only incurs risk and there is no gain to be had, they would never hack off on a request.
 
In Japan, on the 26th, another misogynist went after a popular all-girl pop group with a saw. How he got it into the venue is still being investigated. He managed to injure two of them before being taken into custody.

The removal of any weapon from the hands of the public merely promotes the inventive imagination of those who are inclined to use them in nefarious ways. In this case, it was a common garden implement.

ARTICLE
 
To buy a weapon, you must have 2 doctors approval that you are of sound mind
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The net effect would be to discourage people from using those drugs, many of whom would benefit. While SSRI's may be overprescribed, and while they may play a factor (we've seen only a thin correlation), the majority of users are not inclined towards violence.
 
The best thing we can do is not give these malicious individuals the fame they seek. Perhaps news media not reporting these stories would help (although inciting fear is the medias bread and butter).

No doubt we should provide necessary care to the mentally ill. The big problem is sociopaths have no problem lying. And blaming prescription drugs is silly considering how many millions of peaceful people are also taking them. There is also a solid correlation with the increase of 'fantasy' violence (TV, video games, etc) and a decrease in actual violence. Why do we need a cause to point a finger at? Whatever happened to just plain crazy?

There will always be people bent on doing harm to others. A single, motivated individual can not be stopped. Maybe the violence and death toll can be mitigated (big maybe), but never completely eliminated. People will always find a way to accomplish their malicious goals. Improvised munitions can be made with completely innocuous ingredients, many times even the finished products can be carried down the street without drawing suspicion.

For example, let's assume the TSA is very effective, would they catch someone with 2 little tubes of Jb weld labeled as toothpaste? Go to lavatory on plane, fold magazine in half, fill center fold with JB weld. Voila! Large knife made in minutes.

There is no such thing as absolute security or safety; never has been, never will be. Suggesting ways of making our world absolutely secure is a waste of breath.
 
For example, let's assume the TSA is very effective, would they catch someone with 2 little tubes of Jb weld labeled as toothpaste? Go to lavatory on plane, fold magazine in half, fill center fold with JB weld. Voila! Large knife made in minutes.
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Let's not give the bad guys any help with inventing weapons.
 
The reality is that there is no way to totally prevent violent and murderous outbursts, especially when the perpetrator plans to include his own death in the scenario. No set of enforceable laws would ensure that mass killings do not re-occur, with or without firearms. The media and politicians should be asking: if in reality we cannot really prevent these tragedies, is there anything that can be done that would likely mitigate the damage, i.e., end the episode quicker? If that questions were asked then the advantages of having licensed concealed carry holders becomes apparent. It would not be a guarantee of the killing stopped early, but it would certainly give the possibility of that happening.

What some anti-gun folks fail to think of is that if, by some miracle, a law could be passed that actually removed ALL guns from society, for lawful citizens and criminals alike, what then would happen? We know the answer: knives, hammers, bombs, and other weapons would be utilized. And if no weapons were to exist (an impossibility of course) then the young, strong and ruthless would have free rein to terrorize the old, weak and passive.

If you have ever seen the video of the young lady testifying before the Texas legislature about sitting helplessly while a crazed gunman shot and killed her parents in a cafeteria in Killeen, Texas (or Waco?) as well as killing others, while her firearm remained in her pickup truck in compliance with the law at the time in Texas, then you would better understand why some of us feel the need, as well as the right, to carry a firearm.
 
By now, millions have read his manifesto. Which is exactly what he wanted.
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And millions KNOW that any author of such writings has SERIOUS issues and should probably be confined, sedated and kept far far away from women, room mates, family members, etc.

Some might say it was a cry for help far too late. I'd say the ravings of a madman beyond help.

But again, whadda I know?

If, as a recent court has ruled, LEOs can enter a depressed firearm owners home and take the weapons as a benevolent gesture for her safety and the well being of the community based on what said gunowner's therapist told police, one wonders if BMWs and sharp steel will follow suit.

Crazy world we live in.
 
With these rampage killers (there are other types in the terrorist mode who have political purposes), I opine that many of these hindsight evaluations aren't really worth much.

God (or lack of), games and guns - ALL TO BLAME. If only those kids would get off my lawn and go to the square dance - like the good old days.

Nope - you are projecting your own beliefs when there is no real evidence for any of these being causal.

You are dealing with folks who are mentally ill. That is the driving force. Then cultural/societal influences shape their behavior into action patterns.

Again, the political rampagers are another game. Probably a separate population.

Without the mental illness - not a problem. Unfortunately, we don't have the technology to proactively and accurately discern who will go off in this direction UNLESS - you have direct evidence of threats and weapons purchasing. Also in the mix is past violence behavior but you may not see that in all.

I read the professional literature on this and many would be better off reading such rather than spouting off what are basically political statements - to be blunt. Those darn PINKOS - get off my lawn.

No psychological test or interview process can reliably detect incipient killers. The meta-analyses are crystal clear. You would get such a tremendous number of false positives as to make gun ownership tremendously onerous. Are you ready for large psychiatric gulags? If you needed psychological help, would you go for it if you knew it could take away your beloved bang stick?

We see that with soldiers and police NOT seeking help as they fear job consequences.

Very, very few mental health professionals would sign up to do an approval for a private citizen to buy a gun. Mental evaluations are done for government employment but then the liability insurance is provided for you by the agencies.

In the good old days - we did have killers as Pax pointed out. But we have more people now, so we have more.

To go back to causality - we do provide a milieu that educates the violent and small subset of mentally ill folk with a model. We do know that these folks study past incidents and glorify them. We do know that insistent media coverage showing the damage, crying folks, etc. vicariously reinforce the next killers. That person imagines the damage and vengeance fantasy after their warrior death.

But we don't know how to predict such unless you actually see the preparatory behavior. That's how quite a few of them have been caught before the event - someone (usually a girl) turns them in.

To reduce the rampage shootings - do you want:

1. Psychological testing and gulags
2. Intense gun control laws that ban sales and confiscate all but the most vanilla sporting guns.

If you value civil rights - you want neither. Unfortunately, some would go for Door One and some would go for Door Two.

Choice Two is acceptable to those who see no societal use for guns in the two important roles of self-defense and defense against tyranny. Sporting use and hunting is trivial for this debate. Sports and hunting can be conducted with some O/U shotguns and bolt action rifles with three shot capacity. That's why the MSR crappola for EBRs is useless for this debate.

The millions of folks who take medicines for psychiatric conditions don't go off. The millions of folks who buy EBRs don't go off. Nor do those who play games. Nor do those who do or don't believe in your Deity.

Do we imprison everyone on the Autism Spectrum? Heard an idiot on the radio suggest that was it.

Without totalitarian mental health measures or gun control - we cannot stop such gun violence. Even if we removed guns - we might see stabbings or whatever. Guns do make it easier to have a rampage - but do we give up the right to self-defense or defense against tyranny?

Some would say yes and some would say the mental ill need to be imprisoned.
 
Do we imprison everyone on the Autism Spectrum? Heard an idiot on the radio suggest that was it.
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There's been a lot of misunderstanding about Asperger's ever since Sandy Hook. For the record, it is a developmental disability, not a mental illness. There aren't "meds" for it. Nor is there any evidence that folks with Asperger's (or any autism) are more inclined towards violence.

While I don't blame them for this, there's a "men's rights" movement that takes a really entitled, misogynist approach towards dealing with women. Rodger appears to have glommed onto them and gotten some validation. The main forum he was on has been taken off line, but some of the quoted posts should have given people pause.

Like most of these killers, the Rodger case is complex and has a lot of variables. It's disingenuous to suggest that any one measure would have prevented his actions.
 
Originally posted by Tom Servo:
Look, the correlation between SSRI's and these shootings is hard to miss, but that's not causation.
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I'd like to point out that SSRI's are prescribed to people who have underlying mental illness. Hard to pin it on the SSRI. Risperidone does have SSRI activity
but does not have the boxed warning like true SSRI's.

Also, I've not looked into it myself but I am very skeptical of the validity of what the media reports regarding what meds these guys are on/off and how comliant they are. To be credible, they'd information would need to come from medical professionals and that'd most likely be a HIPAA violation ;)

Posted by sonic808
wow. risperidone is pretty heavy stuff. it is an antipsychotic, usually reserved for difficult cases of schizophrenia, bipolar, etc. I think there are off label uses but not frequent. Sounds like Mr. Rodger may have been diagnosed schizophrenic ? I'm guessing based on those heavy meds
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Yes, risperidone is an antipsychotic used in schizophrenia and bipolar disease to reduce symptoms of psychosis or mania. My guess is that he was bipolar as opposed to schizophrenic (that's assuming that was indeed on risperidone). I think we'd have heard about the schizophrenia by now.

I don't have the data and I'm not going to dig for it but I believe bipolar disorder correlates more with violence than schizophrenia.
 
Like most of these killers, the Rodger case is complex and has a lot of variables. It's disingenuous to suggest that any one measure would have prevented his actions.
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I agree, these are dynamic problems.
 
I'm glad many are starting to see that the one-sided "blame game" is maybe not the avenue we should pursue.

It's easy to blame it on video games, SSRIs, lack of religion, too much religion, too many trophies given, not enough trophies given etc. when the human condition is much more complex than that.

I think we've always had lunatics on their crusades. The writings and the god-syndrome of Rodgers remind me pretty distinctly of the writings of Harris and Klebold. The Columbine Massacre was blamed on all of the same things -- guns, video games, lack of religion, SSRIs, modern parenting.

I'd like to think that if we've decided as a society that these anomalous events are worth are time and effort to study and prevent them that we've come a little bit closer to talking about the problem than blaming something we don't like or understand.

Sorry about the run-ons.
 
Various and sundry musings:

Don't forget that logic is not a part of the law making process in California.

Are you ready for the next rush on guns on ammo that is about to occur?

Why is it the media does not go into a tirade over the 6 or more killings that occur daily across America in minority neighborhoods?

California already has the most stringent gun legislation in America. What else will result in CA from this tragedy?
 
here's two more things that seldom get a mention...

Actual biology. We are mammals. Don't think we aren't because we think more than the rest of them...

Widely noted, and throughout history, individuals, most often male) of various species will run "amok". Animals don't tell us why, but people sometimes do. It may not actually be why, but its what they believe.

People can be "driven" crazy by many things, but some just go crazy all on their own, even though they usually fixate on something as justification.

Could not some of what we are seeing just be that simple? That they just went mad, at some point, in some manner, and the rampage is the (usually) final act?

Also, some days I actually wonder about demonic possession...(just playing devils advocate..:D).

In earlier times, when these kinds of things happened, it was ascribed to demons. Are we really so sure they were entirely wrong?

(ok, I'm not really serious about demonic possession in the classical sense, but these people who run amok are clearly driven by demons the rest of us don't see, or understand.)
 
It does seem to me that a better means of attaching mental health flags to background checks might have stopped some of this.
Granted, he didn't do all his killing with guns. But, maybe some more flags would have been raised when he did start buying guns, and he could have been reevaluated and committed.
It seems like there were lots of clues that this kid was about to snap, but nobody was able to put it together until after the fact.

As far as the media goes: their job is to get you to find in and watch commercials. "News" is just the hook.
For-profit news is never going to be balanced. Balanced news doesn't sell.
 
I prefer not to have mental health professionals 'tag' folks for more gun scrutiny on their whim. I mentioned before that violence protection doesn't work except with overt threats. This kid didn't do that.

So how to tag - when you come up with diagnostic tools that don't exist now - let me know. This is a version of the moral panic of we have to do something. Hey, like just ban guns. No guns, no shooting. Confiscate them.
 
"I prefer not to have mental health professionals 'tag' folks for more gun scrutiny on their whim."

That can be dangerous to people who think excessive caution is best. True story:
Guy I know with slightly autistic wife goes to the hospital because his baby got a serious cut and they were concerned. Someone in the hospital got weirded out because the wife doesn't seem 100% normal. Kid got taken away from them and they got the kid back with supervision for a year.
 
. Glenn E. Meyer. So how to tag - when you come up with diagnostic tools that don't exist now - let me know.
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They are actually making some very interesting progress in using brain scans to identify personality disorders. True, the technology is in it's infancy, but things advance very quickly.

However, I don't see anyone rushing to foot the bill on this type of screening for the general public. Even if the technology was already currently viable.
 
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