Another shooting in Texas

[Inkjet]

Aug 5, 2019 16:07:22 GMT -8 Artemis said:

Aug 5, 2019 15:22:35 GMT -8 Inkjet said:

I think it’d be safe to say that because mental illness (depression, anxiety, etc) are “invisible” illnesses, those that don’t suffer from them are not going to be won over. Without any sort of physical proof (compared to day, a visual bruise), I think trying to prove to those masses that this is in fact a serious issue is quite daunting.

But as I mentioned, I don’t believe the issue is guns as a whole. The issue is the instability of the individual(s) involved in creating such attacks. It can’t be argued that a normal sane person would feel like going out one day and just shoot the masses because “it’s fun!” There’s some serious mental building blocks missing in the shooter’s mind and it really is a shame we can’t create affordable mental health care, and of course, just affordable health care in general.

Arguably, I’d say both go hand in hand. Mental health = mass shooting issues.

The thing that gets me, is that we’re upset about gun control issues when mass shootings happen. But what about places like Chicago where just this weekend, 57 people were shot, 7 fatally? I wonder why we as a nation don’t have more outrage at that nationally?

Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll ever see a resolve to the issue at hand. Where there are people, guns, and anger, hate will continue to exist unfortunately.

Sure, but even pointing to mental health is very broad, and with that comes the fact that other nations have people with mental illnesses too without the same rates of violence. Can all of that be explained with better access to mental health resources? There are just so many factors it's hard to point to even one broad explanation. Even within mental health we need to ask if a shooter didn't have access, if they did but just didn't use it, if they did use it but it wasn't caught, etc. Then we need to compare all that to the other shooters and the answers for all of them. And no factor exists on its own so maybe we need to also ask if there's an issue with our laws that allows certain people easier access to guns and what those might be, because it must vary with each person. The fact that laws are different in each state complicates things further. Then there's rhetoric and societal factors maybe including not just healthcare but poverty and location and other things, because as much as people like to think language is completely harmless we've seen all sorts of examples of people falling down rabbit holes of hate and fear, and maybe this person wasn't what we think of as mentally ill after all and they were just furious and terrified and driven to action. So we should consider what's driving these people to these horrible actions, because if we can't just explain things like this away with an easy answer like mental illness, we've got some much more serious problems to address. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

All of this being said with the acknowledgement that we're in no way ready to have these discussions as a nation. ;x That's the most frustrating part.

All very well said.

Definitely agree with the lack of conversation. I know that we’ll ever be an “agree to disagree” nation, and that’s unfortunate. Because I believe that’s what keeps us all firmly divided. It’s amazing how people will turn their backs on others that don’t share the same thought process.

[Artemis]

Aug 5, 2019 18:17:30 GMT -8 Inkjet said:

Aug 5, 2019 16:07:22 GMT -8 Artemis said:

Sure, but even pointing to mental health is very broad, and with that comes the fact that other nations have people with mental illnesses too without the same rates of violence. Can all of that be explained with better access to mental health resources? There are just so many factors it's hard to point to even one broad explanation. Even within mental health we need to ask if a shooter didn't have access, if they did but just didn't use it, if they did use it but it wasn't caught, etc. Then we need to compare all that to the other shooters and the answers for all of them. And no factor exists on its own so maybe we need to also ask if there's an issue with our laws that allows certain people easier access to guns and what those might be, because it must vary with each person. The fact that laws are different in each state complicates things further. Then there's rhetoric and societal factors maybe including not just healthcare but poverty and location and other things, because as much as people like to think language is completely harmless we've seen all sorts of examples of people falling down rabbit holes of hate and fear, and maybe this person wasn't what we think of as mentally ill after all and they were just furious and terrified and driven to action. So we should consider what's driving these people to these horrible actions, because if we can't just explain things like this away with an easy answer like mental illness, we've got some much more serious problems to address. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

All of this being said with the acknowledgement that we're in no way ready to have these discussions as a nation. ;x That's the most frustrating part.

All very well said.

Definitely agree with the lack of conversation. I know that we’ll ever be an “agree to disagree” nation, and that’s unfortunate. Because I believe that’s what keeps us all firmly divided. It’s amazing how people will turn their backs on others that don’t share the same thought process.

I just saw this article about using mass shootings as a proxy for gun violence and how it's not a great way to analyze trends. It kind of goes in depth as to all the different rates of gun violence by age, socioeconomic conditions, sex, etc. It's a neat read. If we ever get around to the seemingly impossible task of changing legislation and policy in the future these would be good things to consider for those offering super simplistic takes on every side.

[ToriJ]

I don't like how people want to link it to mental illness. Not everyone with a mental illness go on a shooting rampage. And most of the time they just bring it up to distract people from wanting more gun control.

[Meryl]

What is the matter with these people?  Why do they have to take out the public...instead of themselves?


I think there's more to this, to be honest.  I don't know what, but something's not quite right.

[Bugme]

Aug 6, 2019 8:35:28 GMT -8 ToriJ said:

I don't like how people want to link it to mental illness. Not everyone with a mental illness go on a shooting rampage. And most of the time they just bring it up to distract people from wanting more gun control.

And not everyone who owns a gun commits atrocities like this either yet, gun owners seem to get all lumped together also. No simple answer.

[📚 Dianne 📚]

Aug 6, 2019 8:35:28 GMT -8 ToriJ said:

I don't like how people want to link it to mental illness. Not everyone with a mental illness go on a shooting rampage. And most of the time they just bring it up to distract people from wanting more gun control.

I think (and believe me I have no facts to back this up) that the reason mental illness jumps to everyone's mind is because they don't want to think a sane and sensible person would do something like this.  People understand (or should) that there are degrees of mental illness from depression and anxiety to, well, insanity and illnesses were one has to be hospitalized.

 Plus it's easier for a defense attorney to use this excuse/reason to get a reduced (life instead of the full out death penalty) sentence for their client.

[ToriJ]

Aug 6, 2019 10:20:34 GMT -8 Bugme said:

Aug 6, 2019 8:35:28 GMT -8 ToriJ said:

I don't like how people want to link it to mental illness. Not everyone with a mental illness go on a shooting rampage. And most of the time they just bring it up to distract people from wanting more gun control.

And not everyone who owns a gun commits atrocities like this either yet, gun owners seem to get all lumped together also. No simple answer.

I never implied that was the case, either.

[ukschalke]

as long as guns are legal in america it will happen over and over again

[Bugme]

Aug 7, 2019 1:14:54 GMT -8 ukschalke said:

as long as guns are legal in america it will happen over and over again

Chicago has a total ban on guns and yet it has the highest amount of violent gun related deaths per capita in America. Making them illegal is not an answer.

[Inkjet]

Aug 8, 2019 8:25:55 GMT -8 Bugme said:

Aug 7, 2019 1:14:54 GMT -8 ukschalke said:

as long as guns are legal in america it will happen over and over again

Chicago has a total ban on guns and yet it has the highest amount of violent gun related deaths per capita in America. Making them illegal is not an answer.

Of course it is!

Don’t you know when you ban some thing, it magically disappears? 😂

[Artemis]

Aug 8, 2019 8:25:55 GMT -8 Bugme said:

Aug 7, 2019 1:14:54 GMT -8 ukschalke said:

as long as guns are legal in america it will happen over and over again

Chicago has a total ban on guns and yet it has the highest amount of violent gun related deaths per capita in America. Making them illegal is not an answer.

It's a lot harder when you're looking at one city out of an entire country. We can't take anything from Chicago alone to see how it would work if the whole country had similar laws. Over half the guns used in crimes there come from outside Chicago.

This isn't to say that outright bans would be super effective in America anyway, but it's really not that simple.

Also I'd be interested to see what you're referencing here because that doesn't seem to be right.

[angeldeb82]

It seems that Trump has once again blamed the shootings on "violent video games". I guess he doesn't seem to care about the protagonist of Red Dead Redemption 2 who has respect for all races, genders, sexual orientations, and creeds, and who also suffers from tuberculosis. Yet in response, Walmart is removing signage on violent video games. When will these people ever learn that violent video games do not contribute to real-world violence?

www.gamespot.com/articles/walmart-reportedly-removing-violent-video-game-sig/1100-6468992/

[CheatAreZee]

Aug 9, 2019 14:21:03 GMT -8 angeldeb82 said:

Yet in response, Walmart is removing signage on violent video games. When will these people ever learn that violent video games do not contribute to real-world violence?

www.gamespot.com/articles/walmart-reportedly-removing-violent-video-game-sig/1100-6468992/

They are also removing advertising for violent movies and hunting videos as well. What Trump said about it was stupid, but I don't blame Walmart for removing the signage. Since one of the incidents took place at a Walmart, I get that it may seem distasteful to have that kind of advertising visible to shoppers; particularly in the short term while the shootings are still on everyones mind.

If they were outright banning the sales of the violent games and movies, that would be different of course. But even then, Walmart is a company that wouldn't sell music albums with a Parental Advisory sticker on it for decades (maybe even still today, if they even sell music in stores anymore?), and there were still vast amount of stores that you could get those from and it didnt really affect the music industry. The same would likely be true if they opted to stop selling M rated games / R rated movies.

[🍁🇨🇦 Tai Pan 🇨🇦🍁]

Human nature to be killers its just that most of us fight it and sad few embrace it.

[Retread]

Aug 10, 2019 7:50:30 GMT -8 🍁🇨🇦 Tai Pan 🇨🇦🍁 said:

Human nature to be killers its just that most of us fight it and sad few embrace it.

If they say why, why,
Tell 'em that it's human nature