Northern Illinois University shooting?
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You're talking about people with CCW permits. I'm talking about people who carry concealed: "whether they have permits or not." The people who carry concealed consist of those who do so legally and those who do so illegally. That's why I wrote: "It would sure be nice if taking responsibility for your own self-defense was not a crime."
The stats tell us that legally "CCW even in the most popular areas is still a very small minority of the public." However, the stats cannot tell us how many people illegally carry. My experience has been that the legal CCW people are the tip of the iceberg.
Doesn't being constantly medicated automatically label someone a possible danger? If it doesn't, shouldn't it? If someone is on Prozac/Zoloft/Xanax/Adderall/Fukitol or whatever other nutjob medication he may have been scripted shouldn't that be an automatic disqualification at this point?
Then again they haven't reported what the medication was. It could have been something for his liver, or kidneys, or thyroid. It's possible that this snapping event had nothing at all to do with his medication. Or it could be that he was on a medication completely unrelated to mental health but stopping it triggered a slight chemical imbalance that exacerbated a genetic predisposition to violence.
Who knows? But the important thing is that he did buy those guns legally and we should recognize that. Ignoring it and pretending it's irrelevant will only hurt us as gun owners.
But it is liable to happen at another school.
My gut feeling is that the majority of those who carry illegally are also probably carrying for an illegal purpose... That is my gut though and cannot be substantiated any more than the statement that CCW people are the tip of the iceberg.
It is almost certain though that the amount of teachers and students who would elect to carry illegally for a just reason is infinitesimal. The teachers are generally not going to risk loosing their ability to ever teach again against the reasonable chance they may be discovered vs. the very very small chance of needing a gun and most students in college have really not put the extended thought towards the morality of carrying illegally for just purposes. Most college students are far more concerned with the opposite sex, beer and grades.
I can understand that.
But my experience is based on conversations with my friends, with people I meet at the local gun ranges and gun shops, my neighbors, and a few acquaintances that I have with the local police department. Taking my acquaintances among the local police out of the picture, I know between 30-40 people who carry concealed, out of which there are exactly 2 who have permits. Of the rest, they typically are "thinking about" getting a permit or don't think they need a permit or don't want to spend the money and time getting one.
Could be my experience is atypical, but I have to go with what I know. However, none of those people carry for an illegal purpose (well, at least they haven't so far).
I know it'll happen at other schools. I work in higher education in Illinois, and I can already hear the comments about how unsafe this makes all our schools. I really don't think that one law can stop these things. You could ban all firearms across the country and it wouldn't stop it.
You can't legislate against this event. If a sane, otherwise law abiding individual with relatively few warning signs can do it, then you can not stop it with laws. It's entirely reactionary, maybe more cops or CCWs could limit the impact.
My point above is that this is an extremely statistically aberrant event, and responding with further general legislation is a misapplication of legislative power. Maybe someone will find a way to stop one of these events in the making and the culture will learn how to deal with it. Until then, more of the laws and methods that failed to stop this one will not help.
The safety of the Illinois schools is not increased -- it's the same as it was before this event. Until we have reason (data) to think otherwise, this was unlikely to happen here, and it's unlikely to happen in the next place that it will. It's a very rare crime compared to other types.
-Jephthai-
toybox99615
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don't quote out of context
if you want to start playing the quote game you need to keep it in context. otherwise it can end up like this.
Nnobby45 posted: Individual opinions aside, there have been, .... legislative proposals to arm high school students, or any anyone on a college campus not already licensed to carry.
Now that's how this game can get played. You don't have to like my post but if you screw with it I'll play along the same way.
if you want to start playing the quote game you need to keep it in context. otherwise it can end up like this.
Nnobby45 posted: Individual opinions aside, there have been, .... legislative proposals to arm high school students, or any anyone on a college campus not already licensed to carry.
Now that's how this game can get played. You don't have to like my post but if you screw with it I'll play along the same way.
TOYBOX: With all due respect, I didn't leave out any words that changed the context of your post--like you did to mine. I included what appeared to be the point you were making, and commented only on that.
Twist your right ear counterclockwise about 1/8th of a turn and adjust your sensitivity meter downward.
I think a lot of individual comments are spoken out of the context of anger and disgust at the continuing mass murders committed in "gun free" zones where good people, who wouldn't commit crimes anyway, are disarmed "for their own safety" by an anti-gun establishment that isn't concerned about anything but their own liability or personal feelings concerning guns.
I think that reasonable decision is to have teachers get trained and armed. The same way they do this in Israel, were are numbers of staff on every campus and in every school are trained with anti-terrorist techniques. You can see people with machineguns, rifles, and handguns everywhere: on streets, restaurants, cafés, move theaters. And Israel doesn’t have shooting problems on campuses or shopping centers unless its terrorists.
I felt safe everywhere.
But before hands students have to be more observant of what is going on.
Forget media - bunch of liars and communist propaganda.
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Armed you are citizen, unarmed you are victim.
I felt safe everywhere.
But before hands students have to be more observant of what is going on.
Forget media - bunch of liars and communist propaganda.
***************************************
Armed you are citizen, unarmed you are victim.
Glenn E. Meyer
New member
Banning gun ownership for the simple usage of certain drugs or getting therapy is a totally stupid idea.
The vast majority of folks who benefit from either do not become rampage shooters. Such laws would take away gun rights from millions and/or discourage millions from getting needed help.
It makes as much sense as banning all semis as a small number of times a year they are used in rampages.
Gun folks curse and scream at that logic and then want a new ban based on a similar probability analysis.
No damn rational thought here. Call up Hillary and suggest a Gestapo like policing of mental health records for the purposes of gun control.
Current rules are for folk with serious adjucations before stopping gun sales, not this kind of wholesale crap.
The vast majority of folks who benefit from either do not become rampage shooters. Such laws would take away gun rights from millions and/or discourage millions from getting needed help.
It makes as much sense as banning all semis as a small number of times a year they are used in rampages.
Gun folks curse and scream at that logic and then want a new ban based on a similar probability analysis.
No damn rational thought here. Call up Hillary and suggest a Gestapo like policing of mental health records for the purposes of gun control.
Current rules are for folk with serious adjucations before stopping gun sales, not this kind of wholesale crap.
I am not a lawyer, I do know that in the past labeling someone as "mental"
and having them "committed" was the source of a great deal of abuse and was too often used as a way of punishing someone whose actions and behavior were objectionable but not illegal-or perhaps someone simply wanted them out of the way. Nowadays the pendulum has swung too far in
the other direction-hence the old "he stopped taking his medication" excuse.
Also the use of mood and behavior altering drugs is seen as a humane and efficient alternative to institutionalization. I also think that one consequence
of the 1960s is that standards of behavior have been defined down so that
much obnoxious and even anti-social behavior is no deemed acceptable or at
least tolerable, or at the very least decent people have to put up with it.
Conversely in the 1960s and 1970s the Soviets found "psychiatary" an acceptable substitute for Stalinist style repression-you don't want to live
in the Workers Paradise?-there must be something wrong with you. And stripping someone of their RKBA because a "mental health" professional says
they might "harm" someone, and they are somehow not trustworthy with
firearms-that is a slippery slope that I will not allow anyone to be pushed down. Along with the RKBA I also believe in Due Process.
and having them "committed" was the source of a great deal of abuse and was too often used as a way of punishing someone whose actions and behavior were objectionable but not illegal-or perhaps someone simply wanted them out of the way. Nowadays the pendulum has swung too far in
the other direction-hence the old "he stopped taking his medication" excuse.
Also the use of mood and behavior altering drugs is seen as a humane and efficient alternative to institutionalization. I also think that one consequence
of the 1960s is that standards of behavior have been defined down so that
much obnoxious and even anti-social behavior is no deemed acceptable or at
least tolerable, or at the very least decent people have to put up with it.
Conversely in the 1960s and 1970s the Soviets found "psychiatary" an acceptable substitute for Stalinist style repression-you don't want to live
in the Workers Paradise?-there must be something wrong with you. And stripping someone of their RKBA because a "mental health" professional says
they might "harm" someone, and they are somehow not trustworthy with
firearms-that is a slippery slope that I will not allow anyone to be pushed down. Along with the RKBA I also believe in Due Process.
The Tourist
Moderator
gunshow said:
Thank you, Dr. Phil. The manner for stopping and the meds used are not in evidence.
The gunman was a "cutter." These patients cut themselves to promote the production of endorphins. It's a condition of people driven inward, into themselves.
Frankly, having a cutter shoot someone, and decide the crime stemmed from mental illness, makes about as much deductive sense as trying to find a his connection to breast feeding. It might be a concern, it might not.
I quit taking a drug. During a ramp up, my psychiatrist prescribed Geodon, which had just passed trials at that time. It made me worse, and brought on an almost uncontrollable anxiety. So I stopped taking it. The doctor and I met a few days later to re-evaluate the course of treatment.
And for you armchair sleuths, this happens all of the time. Some meds work. Some don't. Some only work in conjunction with others, and make matters worse if used as a singular med.
Get out of this medieval idea of mental illness and crime. Some patients kill, so do some chiropractors. And don't try to build a case on statistics.
Technically, Volkswagen beetles kill more people per year than Harleys. There are more beetles than bikes.
A few weeks ago I used the epithet "bubba." One guy wrote that he wore a red flannel shirt, but didn't live in a double-wide. Same concept here.
You might own flannel and be a yooper hunter. You might wear flannel because it's warm. A patient might shoot, but not all shooters are patients, nor is it a predominant factor.
One out of every ten people is mentally ill. In this country that means we have 30 million people in destress.
However, we do not have 30 million murders.
theberettaman
New member
It's not to the Hitlery/Obama Universal Health Care Plan.If the govt. is paying for your healthcare they are gonna wanna know every aspect of your life.Everyone is saying that the Dems aren't talking gun control anymore? They don't have to.They've changed their approch.They will make it a "medical decision" to take your guns away.
Uuuh yes they are Tom Cruise
Perldog007
New member
Perhaps we should consider that people who seek help voluntarily for mental illness are much less prone to violence than the population in general.
We also need to consider the number of spree shooters who were on mood altering drugs during or preceding their acts. Maybe the drugs are a factor?
The relationship does seem to exist, from Kip Kingle, to Patrick Purdy, to Kleibold, right to this latest shooter. There is a common thread.
Maybe the drug companies are playing russian roulette with our lives for profit?
We also need to consider the number of spree shooters who were on mood altering drugs during or preceding their acts. Maybe the drugs are a factor?
The relationship does seem to exist, from Kip Kingle, to Patrick Purdy, to Kleibold, right to this latest shooter. There is a common thread.
Maybe the drug companies are playing russian roulette with our lives for profit?
Glenn E. Meyer
New member
I wish folks would take research design classes. How many folks take the same drugs and do NO harm and are helped?
Hundreds of thousands. The reason these folks took the drugs was that they had serious disturbances before hand.
Kip Kingle's parents bought him the guns, IIRC, because they felt they couldn't control him and he would have bought them on the street. The Columbine parents allowed their kids free reign with little checking.
One could easily postulate that without the anti-psychotics we would have violence as more people wouldn't be helped as compared to a rare number of failures.
Hundreds of thousands. The reason these folks took the drugs was that they had serious disturbances before hand.
Kip Kingle's parents bought him the guns, IIRC, because they felt they couldn't control him and he would have bought them on the street. The Columbine parents allowed their kids free reign with little checking.
One could easily postulate that without the anti-psychotics we would have violence as more people wouldn't be helped as compared to a rare number of failures.
The Tourist
Moderator
theberettaman said:
Okay, let's debate that issue.
How many times have you heard a leftist make the comment, "There's something wrong with a guy who owns that many guns"? If you offer rebuttal, they claim you are paranoid. If you counter that you're a realist, they offer the remise that they have never been mugged.
The entire discourse "proves" to them that there are a lot of weirdos out there hiding behind The Second Amendment.
Same thing here. The moment the media and the conspiracy boys find out that a criminal once used (or in this case, stopped using) drugs, they linchpin the crime to the illness.
And for all we know the shooter was mad over getting a bad taco.
You mention Tom Cruise, and that's a good example. Lots of Americans read a scare story in The Readers Digest and now claim to know all there is to know about mental illness, the treatments and the side effects.
The problem is that you never mention the times where illness is not a factor.
Perhaps you are too young to remember the "cocaine cowboys" in Florida during the early 1980's. "Miami Vice" is loosely based on those criminals. They would spray an entire shopping mall with automatic fire to kill one man.
Now, you would also assume that I know a lot about mental illness since I am in those ranks. I don't. I do know that diagnosis and treatment are a delicate balancing act of cognitive therapy, meds, lifestyle changes and routine monitoring.
But here's the kicker. I needed vice-grip monitoring during the last episode, and I mean almost daily evaluation. I had about five or six drug changes and resulting "ramp ups," and one horrible spate of anxiety where I felt it was the end--and I mean chained up at a facility.
However, I now go in for evaluation once per year. I'm the same guy.
I don't look at this issue as you do. The fall-out, and I mean the real damaging fall-out, relating to firearms, personal freedoms and restricting enumerated rights is going to be considered with debates including Dr. Phil, Tom Cruise, Oprah and hobbyist forums.
In other words, the guys who know the least.
Is that what you want? You want to go into your doctor (seemingly in confidence), find out that the fistula in your colon is also present in 60% of the chronic schizophrenics, and oh by the way, you've just lost your gun rights.
We don't know what meds and stimuli do to individual patients. But whatever the cause and effect, if won't be found by a hunter in a gun forum.
Patients are shooters, but not all shooters are patients, or criminals.
This statement make as much sense as any the Brady Bunch has ever made. According to your guideline you would probably eliminate at least 30% of all Americans who take some kind of medicine that would fall under your guidelines. The stats for those classified as anti-depresants is lower but there are many more that would cause some kind of mood altering condition. Add to that the fact that prescription drug usage is directly tied to both economic and social standing you would then proabably eliminate 50% of those who could legally carry a gun and leave the criminals free reign not even having to worry about selecting gun free zones.
Your comments express the exact same attitude of ignorance of those who thing putting up a sign or passing a law will eliminate bad guys from having guns.
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Why would being prescribed a medication disqualify you from firearm ownership now at this point? Totally silly idea. You cannot protect society from having these things happen. It won't happen because it is impossible, when you are alive on this planet, you are in danger of something causing you harm. It is a fact of life. Safety is an illusion. And its not the medication, firearms, or what he ate that morning that caused this, its one guy with a screwed up view as to how to vent rage.
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