10/7/15 7:37 AM

You are correct.

I find their analysis to be unbiased on most subjects. Unlike traditional news media and sites.

10/9/15 1:24 PM

And number 46 in AZ today. As to mental health of this shooter, I dunno yet. But in custody and not dead.

10/9/15 3:29 PM

Moved to VW thread

Last edited by Tom Price on 10/9/15 3:51 PM; edited 1 time in total

10/9/15 3:35 PM

Seems it's fashionable to assign any crime horrendous enough as committed by "mentally ill". As though it's so unthinkable that the peep must be mentally ill!

Granted, many of those may have some mental issues. None of the diseases are new, but the sufferers in the past didn't seem to act it out with mass shooting!

At what point does personal responsibility ends and mental illness become the excuse of all bad behavior? (not just killings but all kind of anti-social behavior).

I wonder if that very excuse we allow them to get away with unacceptable behaviors are giving them the believe they're just victim of their own disease that they simply do what they feel like doing at any moment, aka shooting a bunch of people!

The mental health care system is set up to help the mentally ill to live a "better" life (than without the care). It's not setup to "catch", much less CURE, all the mentally ill that may end up shooting into a crowd. That's the job of the law and society to PREVENT them access to lethal weapons. The gun lobby is trying to pin the problem on someone else again, just like everybody is doing nowadays.

10/10/15 2:36 AM

Like April suggests, it's definitely too easy to write off unacceptable behaviour as being a "mental health" issue, whether it's a campus shooting, or young kids acting up in the classroom, or not being able to hold a job, or, or, or.... We're quick to prescribe any number of drugs to help with defective behaviour on a lot of different levels.

"At what point does personal responsibility end and mental illness become the excuse of all bad behavior?" Maybe the motivation has to exist independently of the action. Murder or attempted murder, specific or random, singular or mass, is a problem. Whether mental illness is the causing factor, or criminal behavior, removal of that person from society should be the first priority. One might argue that all violent crime is a result of a mental defect (even "sane" criminal violence has to do with a skewed perception of society that includes violent restitution as a means of achieving justice, street or otherwise) and all should be handled the same, removal from society (jail or mental health facility, interchangeable, but probably mergeable)

I'm a fan of Freakanomics, and probably spend too much time looking at the numbers. I posted some statistics that suggested guns and gun ownership, statistically, might not be the easy scapegoat, but have since read a study that suggests while there are more guns than ever, there has been a steady decline in the number of people who own guns. i.e., fewer people are owning more guns. So the pro gun people who cite there being more guns but less gun violence (or any murder/violence) are kind of wrong. Fewer people own guns now, and violent crime has gone down at about the same rate as gun ownership. Kind of suggests that the fewer people there are with guns, the less violent murders there are.

Not conclusive. The inability to collect real data makes it hard to come to any conclusion or suggestion based on the numbers we do have.

Oh, and Texas too.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/texas-southern-university-lockdown-1.3264956

10/10/15 4:26 AM

If it weren't so horrific an act I would almost think what April states as comical.

Anyone who commits horrid acts of violence against others outside of defense is mentally ill. Guns or no guns, to think otherwise is completely specious.

Mentally ill people kill people in classrooms, churches and theaters.

10/10/15 10:12 AM

Trickles down into even the mentally ill, they see the same shit as every one else, games, media et al.

To much violins on TV [ask Emily Litella] , and every other media outlet. And I think someone already said the nightly new media barrage reinforcing and reinforcing at the reality level on top of the 'entertainment(?)' channels.

I just was channel surfing past Terminator II, the two kids with toy guns fighting. Cameron's specific message no doubt, one of them. "We're not going to make it?" young John Connor asks the Terminator... Not too hard for Cameron to have seen it coming...

10/10/15 12:29 PM

Trickles down into even the mentally ill, they see the same shit as every one else, games, media et al.

Yep

Nothing quite like gripping the sheets of a hospital bed because the game of Doom in your head is actually happening and it-will-not-stop.

And society shuns, bullies, no wonder people snap.

10/12/15 1:35 PM

American society is getting more and more uncivil. That can't help.

We see it in the highest corridors of power, and we see it in daily interactions, especially over the internet.

Being polite and respectful is often derided as political correctness, thereby cloaking rudeness and incivility with a veneer of acceptability.

10/12/15 5:09 PM

I can attest to the internet interactions. This site is absolutely the anomaly.

One other site forum I frequent is full of nut cases and I just add to it there. :)

We have never needed moderators and those that were selected when the site changed years ago probably can't ever remember that they are moderators.

That other site? It would not survive without people to keep the nut cases in check. In some discussions there I am not very civil. No one is. Here we are civil and that keeps us nice to each other.

10/12/15 7:52 PM

I think that when adults discover the internet, the level of maturity that they have achieved in the real world tends to get left behind, then re-developed over time as they discover that their rudeness or arrogance online has consequences in in their valued internet world and beyond.
So, many people act like they want to act, not like they should act, even as might apply to their own self-interest in both their internet world and their real world.
To the extent that their two worlds interact, the process of maturing should occur somewhat faster, as their possible use of the internet as an outlet for their frustration in their real world may produce negative real consequences in both.

I don't think that the uncivility we see on the rise is all that organic, i.e. there is a lot of uncivility being literally fed into society by the corporate world, for their own reasons.
Witness the rolling out of MMA style fighting, trash-talk reality shows like Springer, "hip-hop culture", dysfunctional family culture, etc.
And doesn't much of the rudeness and disrespect shown in news site's "comments" sections somewhat sound like the work of professional trolls? Are there really that many people wanting to waste their time to spout their racial and other insults at one another? It only takes a few well-placed "troll" comments to get the ball rolling.
As an uncivil, depraved, irreverent culture grows, then wouldn't the rate of mental illness be expected to grow with it?

A society that can be made to feel degraded/guilty about their nation's culture can perhaps more easily be made to be in denial about their corporate "benefactor's" savagery and exploitation of vulnerable populations, and ultimately of every group, exploited one by one, as aways serving to defend and deny the actions of "the crown".

Just as with wars, where the first casualty is truth, and where the victors are those who write the narrative/history of the war period, from the causes to the effects to the "solutions".

10/13/15 5:38 AM

...that escalating incivility breeds violence. It's just a constant ratcheting up of the shouts and insults until it boils over. Again, it's a process of desensitization that makes this acceptable or even the norm. It's also reasonable to assume that those that feel that they're not being heard will resort to more extreme measures to get attention.

10/15/15 2:54 AM

Was in central Sydney for the first time in a couple of years today, and walked up to Hyde Park at lunchtime. This new piece of public sculpture caught my eye. Make of it what you will...

10/15/15 4:39 AM

That is just odd.

I have no idea what the artist is trying to convey. You would not even find that sculpture in front of the NRA.

10/15/15 5:30 AM

...it looks like scaled-up 303 British cartridges.

10/15/15 7:01 PM

quote:

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...it looks like scaled-up 303 British cartridges

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10/16/15 12:04 PM

"...I have no idea what the artist is trying to convey. You would not even find that sculpture in front of the NRA."

LOL(!), gee, I wonder why?

It would be hilarious if every DC lobby's building was so adorned with an awarded comical statue made by neutral, 3rd party artists, craftsmen, scholars and humorists.
Better yet, make it an annual award, a roast of sorts.

10/16/15 7:45 PM

Bullets are no different to me than a bag of screws or nails. I just don't get any emotions stirred by them.

They are the functional part of firearms. I would have to say that not a day goes by that I don't handle a bullet or casing in some way. They are in my desk at work (expended and unexpended 5.56 blanks) I have 9x19 snake shot in the dash tray of my truck and magazines loaded with hunting ammo in both 5.56 and 308win in my center console ( I have a history of forgetting my magazines in the safe when I go hunting so I keep a spare of both in my truck)
My nightstand has a little tray that I empty my pockets into when I change clothes. Often that includes a cartridge or two from where I cleared my rifle or pistol and put the cleared cartridge in my pocket.

My point is the sculpture won't have the desired affect in some cultures. Me, I just see it as odd.

10/16/15 10:51 PM

The hilarity of the "sculpture" is in it's proportions. It looks more like a missile-firing range at first glance.