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

Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 1001 posts

Re: Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)

#201

Post by colechristensen »

themacguffinman wrote: post #160
whatever1 wrote: post #6

We need gory pictures from the executed kids everywhere. Until we understand the magnitude of the horror. I look at my FB and see proud gun owners cracking jokes and I really cannot comprehend how it is possible.

If I show you gory pictures from a car accident, would you understand the magnitude of the horror of cars to the extent that you would want to ban cars?

I was at the DMV and the woman in front of me was describing how her shy child needed a renewed permit as he had been frightened of driving by these kinds of images and never shown interest in learning years since.

Re: Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)

#202

Post by Thorentis »

I honestly think precedent and copy-cat syndrome are hugely to blame. "Shooting up a school" has just become synonymous with going on a shooting rampage. How do we go back from this? Even if we ban guns, how do we stop the determined from getting their hands on a gun so that they can shot up a school? It think it's incredibly tragic that we have gotten to the point where killing multiple primsry school aged children is the go to outlet for mentally ill people who want to go on a killing spree in the United States.

Re: Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)

#203

Post by xvector »

rajin444 wrote: post #64
KerrAvon wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is a multi-faceted problem with a lot of complexity It really is not. There are too many guns available, too easily obtained, to too many citizens who have not been properly indoctrinated with a sense of civic responsibility, let alone trained in the proper ways to handle a gun. The answer isn't to throw more guns at the problem or to blame inadequate mental health facilities. It is to reduce gun availability. A…

> too easily obtained, to too many citizens who have not been properly indoctrinated with a sense of civic responsibility Banning guns is not the answer. Instilling that civic responsibility is - the benefits are astronomical.

Do you see school shootings happening in Europe?

Banning guns is clearly the answer. There will always be psychopaths, and these people will not care about "civic responsibility." The only thing that can be done is to restrict their access to guns.

Re: Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)

#204

Post by throwawaylinux »

greatwhitenorth wrote: post #197
throwawaylinux wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you claim India is almost identical to the USA except for this one variable (which seems like a laughable simplification anyway), and not, say, El Salvador or Serbia? Seems like a classic case of searching for data that confirms your opinion.

Seems like you're incapable of comprehension and searching for something that I never said.

I'm not, you clearly claimed that access to guns was the only difference between USA and India.

> The only difference is easy access to guns.

Re: Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)

#205

Post by dukeofdoom »

onesafari wrote: post #59
freediver wrote: post #2

I sincerely hope this does not descend into a flamewar. We can't have discussion about this in an intellectually stimulating way in congress, we can't have this discussion in the media, we obviously can't have this discussion on social media so HN is the last bastion of hope. It is a multi-faceted problem with a lot of complexity. The fact stands that USA has a school shooting problem [1] unlike any other country in…

The root cause may be bullying and ostracization combined with the media contagion effect. This is a repeating pattern. Bullying: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/05/25/uvalde-texa... The gunman in Tuesday’s elementary school massacre was a lonely 18-year-old who was bullied over a childhood speech impediment, suffered from a fraught home life and lashed out violently against peers and strangers recently an…

It almost sounds like he's the victim in your mind...just consider that there are millions of people that are bullied, and people with mental illness that do not do anything close to this. He targeted little kids. An obivious ego driven attempt at grandizing the scale of his revenge. This was all about him. A purely selfish act. Exaggerated to a scale to mock life itself.

Re: Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)

#206

Post by mulmen »

jonp888 wrote: post #40

As a foreigner, I do not see it as productive to seek any explanation or expect any reaction when yet another news story like this comes along. It's clear that this is the way Americans wish to live, and it is their perogative to do so.

As an American I hope when your country suffers a tragedy people don't go out of their way to tell you it doesn't matter to them.

Re: Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)

#207

Post by mjevans »

belorn wrote: post #113
freediver wrote: post #2

I sincerely hope this does not descend into a flamewar. We can't have discussion about this in an intellectually stimulating way in congress, we can't have this discussion in the media, we obviously can't have this discussion on social media so HN is the last bastion of hope. It is a multi-faceted problem with a lot of complexity. The fact stands that USA has a school shooting problem [1] unlike any other country in…

If we look at the data we can see a significant increase in the last decade, and the mass school shootings are almost exclusively a modern concept from the last 30 years. A question one might ask is then what changed in the USA during those years to trigger this. In addition those factors should be compared to other nations. We should also look at what prevent school shootings. What in society might protect against a…

In the last 30 years or so, even before social media; the 'zero tolerance' issue others have spoken of started to happen. Bullies don't care, and then learn what they can to make the lives of anyone even a tiny bit different, like those who want to try hard to do well and answer questions, a living hell.

The bullies become experts in the system. They trip, push, flick ears, and these days probably far worse.

I believe the stories from my parents day, that the solutions for kids USED to be, as others have also said, to throw a punch, to fight back. That sort of behavior worked because it prevented the creation of something terrible.

Victims. Fighting back is how you prevent the creation of victims. It works in the realm of the savage.

Re: Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)

#208

Post by pokeymcsnatch »

xvector wrote: post #183
maxerickson wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can an 18 year old Serbian walk into a store and buy whatever guns they want? Can they buy a large amount of ammunition? You hand wave away ease of access, but it probably matters. It certainly matters at the margin.

The problem is so obviously guns. It boggles my mind that people can ask questions like "what is the solution" and "we need a nuanced discussion" when the US is the only country in the world where schoolchildren get gunned down every other week. It is plainly obvious to any US citizen that has spent a significant amount of time outside the US, that the problem is guns.

> The problem is so obviously guns

The guns haven't changed in 60 years, and in fact regulations have increased across the board on both purchasing and manufacturing.

But, let's say it is "so obviously" the guns- how is "what is the solution" some kind of naive or ignorant question? Do you know the solution?

Re: Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)

#209

Post by ahallock »

xvector wrote: post #191
artificialLimbs wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well no one has said it yet and I don’t have a precious study to trot out, but: My >80 year old friend has suggested to me that this kind of problem didn’t exist before we started handing out pharmaceutical drugs of the variety that ‘handle’ mental illness. Sidebar semi-related story time: my wife got her Masters in childhood education and went directly to work for a public high school after. She was a.. I forget, co…

Mental illness, mental healthcare and pharmaceutical treatments are a thing in Europe too. The US is not a special outlier when it comes to bullying and mental health. But you don't see children being gunned down every other week in Europe. The problem is guns.

So guns are what caused this tragedy? The mere existing of them in the US causes people to lose their minds and go on rampages? We need to get to the root of the problem because people will find another way to enact their evil. Look at Boston Marathon incident

Re: Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)

#210

Post by greatwhitenorth »

colechristensen wrote: post #194
greatwhitenorth wrote: post #76

India has 4 times the population of US and I've never heard or read about a school shooting or a mass shooting. There is way worse poverty, mental illness, lawlessness, corruption at every level in India. The only difference is easy access to guns. Not sure why it's so difficult for gun worshippers in US to understand this.

India: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_India China, with knives: https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/06/09/china/china-knife-attacks... These things happen everywhere, aren’t necessarily reported in the same way. One part of why they are so prevalent in America is how each event becomes such a cultural focus, half of what I’ve seen on social media has been people posting about this event. Perpetuating t…

What about first world nations like Australia, New Zealand? They too are not reported in the same way?
Post reply on HN