Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut

news.blogs.cnn.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 336 posts

Re: Mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut

#131

Post by maqr »

untog wrote: post #30
balanceiskey15 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, why don't we bring it back to technology then? Everyday on HN there's this drone about the next Instagram or 37 Signals. Or who will produce better email or flamewars regarding the next dominant mobile OS. Time wasted, honestly (Oh yeah, 'I figured out project management, again.') Where's the debate on HN on how best to handle gun control in the U.S. using technology? Can this community not produce answers for…

Well, I think this is an example of technology not being able to solve everything. Computers are logical and deal in absolutes. People are the exact opposite. Gun control is an emotional, sometimes irrational issue, and the solutions (I suspect) lie in societal changes. Gun control doesn't need advanced technology, as far as I can see. But I'd be interested to know what ideas people have.

Pretty soon, anyone who wants a gun will be able to 3d-print one. I think "gun control" will soon become "technology control", which is going to be tricky because this community appears to be largely anti-gun and pro-tech.

Re: Mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut

#132

Post by mnicole »

nollidge wrote: post #94
Spooky23 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gun control is the easy answer. I want to know how we as a society can figure out why people get frustrated, depressed, or angry to the point that shooting up a kindergarten enters into the picture. We don't know the backstory here, but usually these events are all about someone whose life is spinning out of control for any of a dozen reasons, and either nobody has a clue that anything was wrong or everyone thought t…

And then we let him get some guns.

Procuring a gun doesn't mean it was done over a counter.

Re: Mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut

#133

Post by code4life »

jacquesm wrote: post #56

The psychology behind the kind of people that could do a thing like this baffles me completely. Insanity doesn't begin to describe it. Parents should not have to worry about whether or not their children are safe in school. At the same time armed guards at school are not a solution either, then you might as well turn it into a mini prison. What a sad sad day. Even countries with gun control have instances like this (…

One way to reduce the possibilities of a crime like this is to reduce the centralized system of public education.

My family home schools our children. It coincidentally helps solve this particular problem. (Perhaps it also reduces the likelihood that we spread viruses like the flu).

Making public education more distributed by the use of technology could certainly help with security.

Re: Mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut

#134

Post by xauronx »

marknutter wrote: post #57
xauronx wrote: post #7

This isn't hacker news. I'm going to see this depressing, heart wrenching news in a hundred other places... let me have my one safe technology news site :(

True, but it's a community whose opinion I trust more than most others, so it's often enlightening to read comments about non-hacker news posts once and a while.

I know... I'm not trying to be a dick about it. My mind just recoils from this stuff.

Re: Mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut

#135

Post by kannan »

pdeuchler wrote: post #84
jacquesm wrote: post #56

The psychology behind the kind of people that could do a thing like this baffles me completely. Insanity doesn't begin to describe it. Parents should not have to worry about whether or not their children are safe in school. At the same time armed guards at school are not a solution either, then you might as well turn it into a mini prison. What a sad sad day. Even countries with gun control have instances like this (…

In my ever so humble opinion, it's a population issue. When you have a population size of 300 million you're going to get a lot more outliers (crazy people) than if you have a population of 7 million. Statistically, you will also have crazier people.

I come from India, thrice more populous than US, things like these rarely happen there. Please don't blame it on a singular aspect. A lot of things are in play here,to name a few

1. Easy availability of guns 2. Lack of a family based society. In my opinion, insanity gets aggravated by loneliness

Re: Mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut

#136

Post by onli »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #72
untog wrote: post #4

I can't wait until the part where we all don't talk about gun control and carry on as usual. Sigh. EDIT: I see my post is being downvoted. I know that it may come across as insensitive to immediately leap to the gun control debate, but frankly I'm more angry than upset by this news. How many times does it have to happen? We have a good 48 hours of emotional outpouring and then everyone forgets it ever happened.

This has nothing to do with gun control. Guns exist, that can't be stopped any more than preventing alcohol from existing (prohibition), and some bad guys will always have access to guns. Or knives, or diesel fuel, or explosives. Was the Oklahoma-city bombing a wake-up call for "explosives control"? Was the 2009 Chengdu bus-fire ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Chengdu_bus_fire ) a wake-up call for diesel control?…

If you look in the history of states which had a problem with gun-violence, you can see that banning guns actually works. After banning, destroying and controlling guns, the amount of massacres and murders falls down. One example of this is germany (i think in the 1970s), but you can look earlier or at the history of other countries to find examples for that.

The situation over here is a tragedy, because all school shootings were commited by sons of fathers who were members of a shooting clubs (and therefore had access to guns). Even though it was not politically possible to ban those clubs and weapons.

But the situation in the USA is even more a tragedy. The USA have shooting after shooting with so many dead kids, and still the political forces are not able to ban guns. Or even slightly control them. Sickening.

Re: Mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut

#137

Post by hackinthebochs »

marknutter wrote: post #54
hackinthebochs wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guns themselves don't kill people, but they make it highly efficient. Guns are tools, they create or enhance capabilities and as such they can be judged based on the probable outcomes of their usage.

[Spoons] themselves don't [make people fat], but they make it highly efficient. [Spoons] are tools, they create or enhance capabilities and as such they can be judged based on the outcomes of their usage.

I see you saw my comment before my "probable" edit :). The purpose of spoons are to feed. The probability of getting fat as a consequence of using a spoon is small. The purpose of guns is to make killing efficient.

Re: Mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut

#139

Post by gfodor »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #72
untog wrote: post #4

I can't wait until the part where we all don't talk about gun control and carry on as usual. Sigh. EDIT: I see my post is being downvoted. I know that it may come across as insensitive to immediately leap to the gun control debate, but frankly I'm more angry than upset by this news. How many times does it have to happen? We have a good 48 hours of emotional outpouring and then everyone forgets it ever happened.

This has nothing to do with gun control. Guns exist, that can't be stopped any more than preventing alcohol from existing (prohibition), and some bad guys will always have access to guns. Or knives, or diesel fuel, or explosives. Was the Oklahoma-city bombing a wake-up call for "explosives control"? Was the 2009 Chengdu bus-fire ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Chengdu_bus_fire ) a wake-up call for diesel control?…

Take this argument to its logical conclusion and we should just be handing out firearms to all U.S. citizens, since it's not the guns, it's the people.

Re: Mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut

#140

Post by gfosco »

untog wrote: post #9
dmm wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean? That's usually the first thing people talk about when they hear about a shooting. There is always lots of talk. However, it's a divisive issue that many people feel strongly about and it's a constitutional issue.

Well, I mean talk seriously . Even in the presidential debates, both candidates ran away from a serious discussion on the topic. I know it's divisive, I know people feel strongly about it, but it appears that no politician is interested in starting a real debate.

I don't know how anyone can seriously discuss gun control, as it's an impossible and naive goal. A majority of the really public shootings are done using weapons legally acquired by persons with no prior history. If you want to stop that, then you can't let anyone have a gun.

There's absolutely no way to prevent people from losing it, so the focus should be on minimizing the damage and finding a good process for dealing with the aftermath.

Politicians don't want to touch it because of votes. There are idiots who vote solely for whoever is against guns, or for them, or against abortion, or for it. That's what really drives every election, very select issues that they abuse to extremes. The media doesn't look for the truth any longer, because why do something new when you can just repeat the same pattern every cycle and milk the shit out of it. When a politician takes a stand, and tries to discuss something real, they are sidelined and derided by their own people. They don't want an honest debate because then they'd have nothing to pretend to argue about.

Guns aren't going anywhere, ever... Any attempt at additional control would only lead to violence. Abortion isn't going anywhere, ever... Not even the supposed anti-abortion politicians have any intent of changing those laws. People need to realize this.

The answer is probably more guns, not less. Any number of armed school personnel could have lessened this nightmare. If you're tasked with protecting children, shouldn't you be prepared for a gun fight?

Post reply on HN