So what IS the best way to reduce or prevent mass shootings?

[Kondor3]

Shorten the death sentence time frame for murder from 20 years to 12 months. We have murders dying of old age in prison WAITING to be executed.

True. Standardize and shorten the appeals process so that everybody gets the same and adequate opportunities to appeal and review, and then set a date, and pull the trigger.

I don't see how it pertains to this thread though.

The DP is irrelevant to mass shootings.

So, what are you, the On-Topic Police, or something?

It is, indeed, related, and I was engaged for all of 5 seconds in responding to a related sidebar that had opened-up as a natural consequence of the dialogue.

Now, shall we waste more time away from the main theme, or do you want to let this go, now?

 

[Campbell]

Stop allowing Big Pharma from dispensing their poisonous drugs....I know...I know....it won't happen because Big Pharma and Big Gov are one. Its all about the money, you know?

Teach the Ten Commandments...I know...I know...it won't happen because the Left has made religion a dirty word.

Promote family values...I know...I know...it won't happen because the Left finds that discriminatory and hateful.

Oh well...maybe the elite Left wants MORE mass shooting so they can impose their will on the people...more likely.

Ten commandments ?

 

[JoeB131]

solution- 2 heterosexual loving parents at home; upbringing with some discipline and some rules; do well in school, get a job. God doesn't hurt either.

Dylan Roof had all those things, he still shot 9 people.

James Holmes had all those things, he still shot 12 people.

Jared Loughner had all those things, he still shot 6 people.

Seung-Hui Cho had all those things, he still shot 32 people.

No, the real problem is all these guys had mental problems, and they were still allowed to get guns.

And why not? If you think that owning a gun is a basic God-Given Human Right the same as freedom of speech or freedom of religion, why shouldn't they be allowed to own a gun?

Just own up to the consequences when they do.

 

[JoeB131]

Whenever these mass shooters are finally confronted by someone else with a gun they kill themselves. Seems to me if someone had a gun from the get go the mass shooter would go elsewhere.

Well, that's not true. For instance, the Guy who dressed up like the Joker who shot two cops was confronted by a gun-owner.

And then his girlfriend who liked to dress up like Harley Quinn shot him in the back.

 

[JoeB131]

Stop coddling and enabling crazy people and criminals.

We lock up more people than any other country in the world. How is that "Coddling' anyone?

 

[The VOR]

What IS the best way to reduce or prevent mass shootings?

The answer to that question is pretty obvious.

More Guns!!!

 

[Campbell]

Stop coddling and enabling crazy people and criminals.

We lock up more people than any other country in the world. How is that "Coddling' anyone?

The problem is that we are locking up the wrong people. 2-5 for having an oz of pot is a little strong. Why don't they go after the rich warlords from Mexico who are stacking up money by the millions every day? I'll tell you why....the cops and officials are bought and paid for.

 

[candycorn]

Europe and Australia have it right. The answer is painfully obvious. Getting there is problematic.

Europe and Australia don't have dick right. But if you feel safer there, you should move.

Interestingly put, but I'd say if Europe and Australia don't have the same degree of the same issue, then they must have their collective dick righter than we do.

You can't separate mass shootings from masculinity issues. Can't do it. Time to wake up to that.

What a load if hooey. They do have mass shootings...as well as other issues. They don't have the same number of violent gun crimes because they don't have the same numbers Of BLACK THUGS shooting up the world in their progressive managed shanty towns in cities with strict gun control. Get rid of black inner city population and our high murder rate disappears.

The race card is out. Scratch a conservative find a racist.

 

[candycorn]

Europe and Australia have it right. The answer is painfully obvious. Getting there is problematic.

Biggest mass shooting in history occurred in Norway, so no, they haven't "got it right".

Sort of like saying Roger Maris was a better slugger than Babe Ruth because he hit more homers than Babe did in one season. He also hit more than Hank Aaron ever did....

 

[candycorn]

Stop coddling and enabling crazy people and criminals.

We lock up more people than any other country in the world. How is that "Coddling' anyone?

The problem is that we are locking up the wrong people. 2-5 for having an oz of pot is a little strong. Why don't they go after the rich warlords from Mexico who are stacking up money by the millions every day? I'll tell you why....the cops and officials are bought and paid for.

Agreed. We have to stop punishing people for behavior we simply don't like. We need to punish people for behavior that endangers others.

 

[candycorn]

Some cogent thoughts. I don't really think it's got anything to do with publicity though. After all if they're on a suicide or suicide-by-cop mission as a conclusion, then by definition they're not going to be around to assess the coverage anyway.

Well, I think that one needn't be alive to seek publicity although I wouldn't call it "publicity"; more of a need to "leave a mark" in a world where they see everything as disposable. Marriages are disposable. Friendships are disposable. Schools are disposable. So on and so fourth.

I think they're in it for immediate sensory gratification, which is why the firearm is the preferred tool. It provides splatter of blood and guts and visible sensory feedback of fear from the targets, and that's what they're after -- everything in the moment. Moreover it provides the means to deliver from a 'safe' distance. It's the perfect tool for mass random slaughter. So perfect that if the gun did not exist but the conditions for mass slaying did, the slayers would find a way to invent it.

Great points. While I don't think its a "one size fits all" scenario in terms of the maladies that are affecting these folks....I think you covered a lot of the underlying factors.

What we do about that has little to nothing to do with gun laws. We go to the root causes, which are a cultural value system that glorifies firearms, violence and death, coupled with individual crises of masculinity -- which means power. Virtually without exception every mass shooter is on some kind of power crisis trip, snaps, and takes this avenue to address it as a final act of desperation.

Address those, and we take away the fire's fuel. Ignore the fuel, and prepare to fight more fires forever.

I'll disagree with you here. The US has 330,000,000 people. In terms of the earth's population, that is about 1/15 or whatever. So 14/15's do not live under the 2nd Amendment's allowance for you to get a gun relatively easily.
Lets chop that number in half to 7/15's or 2.8 Billion folks that live in nations that are somewhat advanced and modernized. Undoubtedly there are males who have "crises of masculinity" as you so deftly put it in China, Japan, India, etc... Moreover, as women begin to ascend to higher social levels in these nations, you'll have scores more of these men who are being emasculated figuratively. While you could argue about the cultural value system, Hollywood would be the first to the tell you that it values much more what movies a Chinese teen is attending in Hong Kong more than what an American in Houston is attending. They launch the same movies worldwide and the teens are seeing the same scenes of James Bond, Tony Stark, Star Trek, Star Wars, Hunger Games, etc... Harry Potter was set in London!!! Books? They read the same books. Television shows are pretty much the same. Wars? Europe has seen combat hundreds of more times than the US. Australia was once a penal colony if you want to talk about deviant behavior.

Anyway,you have males who are frustrated simply by the law of big numbers. And you have the same influences by and large.

The only major difference is the 2nd Amendment and a Wal*Mart willing to sell you as many weapons as you can afford.

 

[mudwhistle]

I know.....stop sensationalism of mass shootings in the media.

 

[candycorn]

I know.....stop sensationalism of mass shootings in the media.

Stop reporting the crimes and they'll stop?

Yeah, that worked with the Catholic priests....

 

[Wildman]

Letting law-abiding citizens carry freely is, and has always been, the best deterrent to crime.

... ... ... ...

 

[koshergrl]

Europe and Australia have it right. The answer is painfully obvious. Getting there is problematic.

Europe and Australia don't have dick right. But if you feel safer there, you should move.

Interestingly put, but I'd say if Europe and Australia don't have the same degree of the same issue, then they must have their collective dick righter than we do.

You can't separate mass shootings from masculinity issues. Can't do it. Time to wake up to that.

What a load if hooey. They do have mass shootings...as well as other issues. They don't have the same number of violent gun crimes because they don't have the same numbers Of BLACK THUGS shooting up the world in their progressive managed shanty towns in cities with strict gun control. Get rid of black inner city population and our high murder rate disappears.

The race card is out. Scratch a conservative find a racist.

Two women killed, 11-month-old among wounded in Chicago drive-by shooting

 

[koshergrl]

Europe and Australia have it right. The answer is painfully obvious. Getting there is problematic.

Europe and Australia don't have dick right. But if you feel safer there, you should move.

Interestingly put, but I'd say if Europe and Australia don't have the same degree of the same issue, then they must have their collective dick righter than we do.

You can't separate mass shootings from masculinity issues. Can't do it. Time to wake up to that.

What a load if hooey. They do have mass shootings...as well as other issues. They don't have the same number of violent gun crimes because they don't have the same numbers Of BLACK THUGS shooting up the world in their progressive managed shanty towns in cities with strict gun control. Get rid of black inner city population and our high murder rate disappears.

The race card is out. Scratch a conservative find a racist.

14-year-old boy killed, second boy hurt in Kenwood drive-by - Chicago

 

[koshergrl]

Europe and Australia have it right. The answer is painfully obvious. Getting there is problematic.

Europe and Australia don't have dick right. But if you feel safer there, you should move.

Interestingly put, but I'd say if Europe and Australia don't have the same degree of the same issue, then they must have their collective dick righter than we do.

You can't separate mass shootings from masculinity issues. Can't do it. Time to wake up to that.

What a load if hooey. They do have mass shootings...as well as other issues. They don't have the same number of violent gun crimes because they don't have the same numbers Of BLACK THUGS shooting up the world in their progressive managed shanty towns in cities with strict gun control. Get rid of black inner city population and our high murder rate disappears.

The race card is out. Scratch a conservative find a racist.

Rapper Capo and 1-Year-Old Boy Killed in Drive-By Shooting in Chicago

 

[Wildman]

I will not send a child to a school that doesn't have armed guards on campus.

no need for armed guards, an extra tax payer burden, allow teachers want to be armed..., let them, no extra tax payers expense.

 

[Rustic]

Something I wrote in 2007 after another mass murder then. As true now as it was then.

-------------------------------------------------------

What IS the best way to reduce or prevent mass shootings?


No method is 100% perfect, of course, and never will be as long as we are a society of imperfect people.

But most of the methods being tried today, pretty much have no effect. Indeed, insane mass murderers seem to be drawn to the "Gun Free Zones" set up by naïve liberals. Where else can they be guaranteed a large collection of unarmed, vulnerable targets, with many uninterrupted minutes to blow away as many people as they like before the cops get there?

Is there a viable way to cut down the numbers of such shootings, and/or the body counts?

Many of the whackos (people who actually start shooting into crowds, at malls, post offices, schools etc.) know it is a suicide mission. The idea that they may be killed, obviously doesn't deter them... in that way, anyway.

But what most of them want, is to go out with a huge splash. They want huge headlines after the fact, crying and wailing about the ten or twenty or thirty innocent people who died, how horrible it all is, wailing and gnashing about what we could have done to prevent it, three-page exposes about the shooter's disturbed childhood and how unfair society was to him, etc. etc. To their twisted minds, that's worth getting dead over.

But if they show up at their planned execution site, start pulling the trigger, wound the first person, miss with the next shot, and then get get shot through the middle of the bod by someone in the crowd they never suspected might have his own gun, next day's headlines will be much less lurid. Some nut pulled a gun and fired two shots, wounding one. The wounded person is now recovering in the hospital, and the nut is dead, end of story. He's a footnote on page 28, if that.

And THAT's what the whackos don't want to happen. They want huge headlines and weeks of media coverage, even after they are dead, that's mostly why they're doing it.

If everyone is allowed to carry, most people still won't bother. I probably wouldn't most of the time. But some people will. And a nutcase like this guy will never know which people in the crowd, are the ones with their own gun. Could be the granny in the wheelchair over there, whose kids were killed in a home invasion robbery five years ago, who swore she'd never go unarmed again, and never misses her weekend hour or two at the practice range.

The deranged whacko is certainly insane. But he's obviously still coherent enough to have a goal in mind, and to do what he needs to carry it out. And he's probably coherent enough to realize that a few unknown people in the crowd who have guns and are practiced in their use, can and will deny him the splashy headlines he wants. And there's nothing he can do about it.

It's enough to often make even a deranged whacko reconsider his plans. Why start shooting at a public event, if you're simply going to become dead three seconds later with little or no lurid body count to show for it?

Letting law-abiding citizens carry freely is, and has always been, the best deterrent to crime. Criminals know there will be somebody nearby who will discourage them quickly. Only in so-called "gun free zones" are the criminals guaranteed the freedom to carry out their crimes.

Or does somebody think that some nutcase who is ready and willing to murder dozens of people, will turn around and obey a new "No guns permitted here" law?

Buy more guns and ammo...

 

[koshergrl]

Arm everyone or disarm everyone. There is no other way.

Didn't even read the OP, did we?

Neither of the two are going to happen, either way.

Which is why the discussion is not about those two "methods".

Got anything to say about the actual subject of the thread?

No, there is no realistic solution. I will not send a child to a school that doesn't have armed guards on campus.

So don't. I send my kids only to schools where I know at least one person on campus is armed. When I was attending school, we had rifles in gun racks in our trucks in the parking lot. Loaded and unlocked.

Never had a kid killed there.