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Mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut

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

#151

Post by ipince »

code4life wrote: post #133
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.

How do you have them have social interactions with other children and adults? (Just curious since I believe it's extremely important).

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

#152

Post by IgorPartola »

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.

So perhaps you'd like your neighbor to acquire a nuke or smallpox-based vaccine. Sure, he's a great guy and will never use these things, and besides, nukes have plenty of other purposes in a household. Their primary reason is totally not for killing people, so this is all good, right?

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

#153

Post by balanceiskey15 »

protomyth wrote: post #105
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…

Because its worthless to focus on what they used when finding out why and working on brain chemistry and mental health research using technology would be so much more beneficial to society.

I wasn't clear. I'm not suggesting that gun control is the answer, simply that we can use technology to address and understand how this happens.

I agree, using technology to understand brain chemistry and further mental health research is a step forward.

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

#154

Post by dmm »

r00fus wrote: post #149
JoeCortopassi wrote: post #129

Listen, there are two parts to this: 1. The horrible tragedy, and 2. The hopes to prevent this from happening again. If we are going to talk about this, we need to all fall under the assumption that we agree that this is both a very tragic act perpetrated by someone who is obviously disturbed/mentally ill, and that it is all of our desires to do what we can to make sure senseless acts of violence like this never happ…

> 1. Disarm everyone, and 2. Allow everyone to carry weapons. Nice strawmen. There are obviously options in the middle, namely, increasing traceability of weapons and ammo and shutting down channels that where weapons are allowed to change hands anonymously. The proliferation of weapons is one thing, but the fact that these tragedies occur and we don't have a way to follow the chain back to the disreputable dealer wh…

> increasing traceability of weapons and ammo

The guns used in shootings are usually legally bought. There are no disreputable dealers here.

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

#155

Post by MattRogish »

protomyth wrote: post #73
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.

I would really rather we talk about mental health and brain chemistry. Objects are easy to vilify, but we are ignoring mental health in this country and this is the result. The number of people walking around with untreated Schizophrenia is seriously problematic. The shooter in NM set off so many warnings that were ignored by people in power that it should have been seen. When the dust settles, I would expect a simil…

Agreed. My wife is a psychotherapist and has seen a lot of what is happening. Mental-health spending by government is down, service is down, and more folks are going without competent mental health services.

Regardless of ones position on guns, it's almost universal that not nearly enough who need mental health care get it. And, our national attitude is still one of "Therapy is for crazy people!" - yeah, just like "the ER is a viable form of preventative healthcare" and "you only go to the mechanic when your car is on fire".

I'm a libertarian but in practice I'm not sure of a solution that isn't more government involvement.

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

#156

Post by jevinskie »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #127
DannoHung wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The weapons needed to resist a regime are not weapons we allow people to generally have in America at any rate. If we really believed in the 2nd Amendment, people would be allowed to own serious weapons of war but not be allowed to own concealable personal firearms.

Hardly. Just because the public doesn't have nuclear weapons doesn't mean that they are incapable of resisting an oppressive regime. Ordinary firearms are for more than sufficient for that purpose. A populace doesn't need to be able to defeat conventional armies on an open battlefield in order to resist oppression. What would be the likely result of, say, an American insurgency against an oppressive government? You w…

This is precisely true. You need not look further than America's troubled middle east wars to see how devastating a small guerrilla force can be. Some of the insurgents are using Mosin-Nagant rifles, a Russian bolt-action rifle that dates back to 1891!

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

#157

Post by AlexMuir »

Awful, tragic things happen every day. Some can be prevented and some can't. It's highly unlikely that this is saddest thing to have happened in the world today.

There are a certain percentage of people in the world who will kill people for no reason, molest children, order executions and market crystal meth to young mums. This has always been the way, and will always continue to be.

Now I'm not belittling it as a tragedy, but we have to accept that some terrible things just happen and cannot be prevented or deterred. They always have, and they will continue to do so.

Sometimes there is no lesson to be learned, and we have to accept that what we've seen is a manifestation of human nature, in the same way that lightning is a manifestation of nature itself. Neither are predictable, preventable and both will happen forever.

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

#158

Post by gnu8 »

maqr wrote: post #131
untog wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Most members of this community see the absurdity of making a certain string of bits illegal, whether its the private key to decrypt blu-ray discs or describes the shape of a firearm. What's odd is that they don't see the parallel absurdity of outlawing a piece of metal carved into the shape of a firearm. Perhaps they will now that its possible to produce the object from the bits.

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

#159

Post by w1ntermute »

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?…

> It's not the gun. It never was the gun. It's the person.

So what if it's the person? How can you find those people and stop them from getting guns? All the people who knew the shooter in the Oregon mall shooting a couple days ago said that he showed no signs of being anything other than a kind and friendly person. He showed only a marginal interest in guns. But that could describe hundreds of millions of Americans. You would never be able to find the ones that might do this and make sure they don't get guns.

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

#160

Post by maxerickson »

bcoates wrote: post #122
nwh wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then someone blows the old ladies brains out thinking that she is the shooter. Nice plan.

I always hear people worrying about this, but it doesn't sound likely at all. Has it ever happened?

Not quite the same thing:

http://www.policemag.com/list/tag/friendly-fire.aspx

(Do note that many of the incidents there involve an officer intentionally firing on other officers. But there are accidents there.)

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