Another mass shooting

Robert said:
Even with your figures (which I haven't checked*) it still works out that for every three days that pass, more than one of the things you describe occurs at or near a school.
That remains depressing stuff.

On the bright side, AR-15s have never been more popular and "thoughts and prayers" figures are through the roof.

*EDIT:
Here's a list from the ITV website:
  • January 3: At the start of the year a 31-year-old man shot and killed himself at a school in Michigan.
  • January 4: A bullet went through a window at New Start High School in Washington state but nobody was hurt.
  • January 10: A student committed suicide at Coronado Elementary School in Arizona and was found with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
  • January 10: A shot was fired at a window at California State University but no one was struck by the bullet.
  • January 10: A bullet was fired through a wall at the Grayson College Criminal Justice Centre in Texas, but no one was injured.
  • January 15: At Wiley College Campus a bullet went into a dorm room but no injuries were reported.
  • January 20: Najee Ali Baker, a student at Wake Forest University, was mortally wounded after being shot following a fight on campus.
  • January 22: A 16-year-old targeted a girl a year younger in the cafeteria of Italy High School, Texas. The victim was injured but survived the incident.
  • January 22: A 14-year-old boy suffered a flesh wound in the parking lot of a New Orleans high school.
  • January 23: Two people were killed and 14 injured at a Kentucky school. Bailey Nicole Holt and Preston Ryan Cope were fatally injured during the shooting for which a 15-year-old student was arrested for.
  • January 25: A student at Murphy High School in Alabama opened fire on the school's grounds but did not injure anyone.
  • January 26: Gunshots were fired from a car in the Dearborn High School car park in Michigan.
  • January 31: A fight at Lincoln High School resulted in a 32-year-old father of eight being shot dead. Three separate weapons were used in the incident.
  • February 1: A 12-year-old girl was arrested after taking a loaded gun into Salvador B. Castro Middle School in California. The gun went off accidentally, shooting a 15-year-old boy in the head and a girl of the same age in the wrist but both are expected to recover from their injuries.
  • February 5: Two teenagers were charged with attempted murder after a 17-year-old was shot twice in the chest while in a car on the Oxon Hill High School grounds.
  • February 5: During a school event at the Harmony Learning Centre a child reach into a police officer's holster and pulled the trigger on his gun. No one was hurt.
  • February 8: No one was injured when a teenager fired a shot at the Metropolitan High School in New York.
  • February 14: At least 17 people died when a gunman opened fire with an assault rifle at the Parkland school in Florida.
I find the above thoroughly depressing.
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No, There Haven't Been 18 School Shootings This Year — Not Even Close

 
Robert said:
That you can't see that your meme is also propaganda should probably surprise me but... meh.
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No, different times, showing that modern is not always better. 70s is not even that long ago. Locally I have a friend who commented that when he was growing up, half the student's cars in the parking lot were a pickup truck with a gun rack. Before you get the mental image of some redneck in the deep south, he's a Cuban-American in Miami. Schools becoming "gun free zones" have been a disaster. Attitudes have changed (not for the better) so it is unlikely to go back to that era, but that doesn't change the fact that "gun free zones" are soft targets for disturbed people.

Add on top of this a massive decline in parenting since the hippies, lack of teaching kids to respect guns, a massive decline in quality of teachers, a victimhood narrative, plus pop culture that romanticizes such violence and you have a toxic soup.
 
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Robert said:
That implies that the solution is either one or the other, which is such a nonsensical false dichotomy that I guess you meant something else.
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The solution is that Trump, in this case, is right. Only the people that know him can report him. They need to ask for help.
As to whether the right kind of help is there, that is another matter. First we need to know if people did try to report him, to whom and what was the result.
If people were trying to ignore the situation and not wanting to involve higher authorities then there is a social problem (or a mistrust in authority problem) that needs addressing.
If they were reported but the institutions failed then we have a problem of institutional failure.
I suspect that both of these two things exist to some degree - but ultimately it has to start with people reporting problems because the alternative is having a massive government effort to actively look for problem people and that might be what some people think the government's role is but I don't and I also don't think it could work (as is the case with the huge data sweeps from internet and phone seemed to miss this guy and others like him because it's too much guff to churn through and we don't really know what to tell the computers to look for).
 
metalman said:
Deputies called to suspected shooter’s home 39 times over seven years

the nature of the emergencies at his Parkland home included “mentally ill person,” “child/elderly abuse,” “domestic disturbance” and “missing person,” KTLA reported.
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Well. Sounds like he was reported quite a lot. That'll be an institutional failure then.
Clearly if the current system was applied he should never have been able to buy guns.
But what other steps should have been taken. What interventions? Should he have been jailed for pre-crime, or involuntarily committed? Or should people have been more accommodating to him or should he have had a safe space in the school to go to?
The people who do these shootings, even though they seem to happen frequently, are rare in terms of frequency in the population. What kind of systems can you put in place to address the one in a millions (because there are probably similar police records that never end up as school shooting.)
 
FluffyMcDeath said:
The solution is that Trump, in this case, is right. Only the people that know him can report him.
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Right to crassly point out the obvious whilst simultaneously implying the victims are to blame?
Not for me.

And even then, it may form part of the solution but the idea that it is the solution is absurd.

-EDIT-
Seems the murderer was reported and it didn't help anyway.
Not that any of this really matters. Trump is simply demonstrating that he is an arsehole but he's been demonstrating that regularly for decades.
 
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And yet he passed the FBI background check, *and* when the FBI found out he proclaimed he would shoot up a school they stood down and let him do it.

Cops Were Called To Florida School Shooter’s Home 39 Times Since 2010

“If you see something, say something,” we’ve been told for years regarding threats like terrorism and potentially violent coworkers and classmates. The assumption, naturally, is that if we say something, the authorities will then do something.

The news reports about the school shooting in Parkland, Florida are making it infuriating clear that plenty of people said something but people failed to do something.

According to a report by CNN today, the police were a frequent presence at the home of Nikolas Cruz, who has confessed to the Valentine’s Day shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Documents obtained by CNN show that law enforcement responded to his house thirty-nine times since 2010.

Many of Cruz’s neighbors and former classmates have told reporters stories of his disturbing behavior, including stealing mail, torturing animals, an obsession with firearms, and frequently discussing morbid topics like school shootings.

Cruz also made numerous online posts about school shootings or murder, making comments like, “I wanna shoot people with my AR-15” and “Im going to be a professional school shooter,” the later of which was under his uniquely spelled name and was confirmed as reported to the FBI.

As we are learning today, the FBI failed to follow their own protocols after that report was made.

A motto or a cruel joke?

“If you see something, say something.”

For this to work, the American public needs to be able to trust that the next step involves someone who is able to do something.

Conspiracy theorists who will claim this was a false flag to gain support for gun confiscation will have plenty of ammo.
 
Sessions orders review after FBI says it missed Parkland tip

A person close to Nikolas Cruz, the confessed shooter, contacted the FBI on January 5 to report concerns about him, the FBI said in a statement Friday. But the bureau did not appropriately follow established protocols in following up on the tip.

"The information was not provided to the Miami Field Office, and no further investigation was conducted at that time," the statement said.

The stunning admission -- which prompted Florida Gov. Rick Scott to call on FBI Director Christopher Wray to resign -- is sure to raise further questions about whether the FBI could have prevented the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, which left 17 dead.

Fast & Furious gun running, standing down while a school shootings happen...
 
Robert said:
Not intrinsic but hardly outlandish.
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Putting words into people's mouths is always outlandish. The interpretation was partisan political spin. If pundits would just stick to "he's avoiding the issue" instead of trying to claim he thinks the kids that got shot were asking for it, they might have a bit more credibility.
 
Robert said:
Then the word 'implication' becomes meaningless.
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Not necessarily. It's just that you have to realise that it is YOU making the implication, not Trump. You are reading it a certain way because of what you believe about Trump, not because of what Trump actually is saying.
 
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