Texas school shooting incident this morning

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Cruiser
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Re: Texas school shooting incident this morning

Post by Cruiser »

drc wrote: Just like in video games.
That pretty much says it all.
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Re: Texas school shooting incident this morning

Post by pirateguy191 »

drc wrote:It is the constant rehearsal. Years ago when I took martial arts, over 90 % of the class was rehearsal. No practicing against another person or the bag. Just rehearsal. Over and over, going through the motions until you got them right. Then it could be put into practice.

Rather than fumbling around with reloading, or just standing there staring when the first kid becomes a victim, it is acquire a target, shoot, acquire a target, shoot, acquire a target, shoot, reload, and repeat. Just like in the game that they have played over and over and over until it is just muscle and mental memory. Then when they snap, it is just like they were playing a game.

Then they just turn off and it is over.

It is not the games in and of themselves. It is the games and someone with an underlying problem that the 1st person shooter games enable the devil hiding inside. The warped personality who gets even more warped.

How many of you ever went deer hunting ? I would bet the first time you went, a bunch of you just stood there and looked when the deer ran by. Because you were not mentally prepared to go through the motions. Your adrenaline came up, you were shaking so bad, you lost fine motor control. But when you have gone through it a 1000 times, over and over and over, that part of your brain just takes over. Do you have to think about walking, talking, doing something with your hands ? No, it is the subconscious layer doing the controlling from years of repetition.

That is why the armed forces, some LEO departments and especially the elite divisions of the armed forces do the training that they do. You should watch some of the shows on the military and history channels that show how they practice over and over and over until they don't have to think, so that it doesn't bother them, they don't stand there looking at the enemy that just went down, it is on to the next.

Just like in video games.

^^^^ He's right you know.
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Re: Texas school shooting incident this morning

Post by TSiWRX »

The problem with the video game theory falls apart under actual scientific studies: there's no definitive causation, and these studies have been going on for the past two decades, only correlation.

We can certainly say that the correlations are worrisome, but the truth of the matter is that kids in other countries engage in gaming just as much as we do here - if not more - yet this specific type of violence is much less of an issue (and as I've noted in my previous post, it's not just "the gun," either).

In terms of video simulation, certainly, that does cause desensitization and has also proven to be helpful in many different types of training (not just infantry or LE, but also even more complex tasks such as piloting aircraft, driving a race-car, or even surgery), but killing has a much more visceral component as well: who among us would suggest that video-based training is all that is necessary for success versus a violent criminal encounter in place of activities such as live-fire training, force-on-force, and integrated combatives sparring (all of which the military and other martial institutes also enact)? Logically, we cannot argue for both, can we? :wink:

Does watching porn turn us all into rapists or sexual deviants?

Are all butchers that one step closer to being murderers?

Does being obsessed with guns and knives also mean that the individual is just a time-bomb waiting to blow?

To me, blaming video games is just like the generations before us blaming the "decline of society" on something like music or TV, and is also little different from the antis blaming "guns and gun violence" for what is simply violence.

There is an actual underlying problem that these contributing factors - factors which a normal, well-adjusted person simply will not find issues with - are all feeding into, and I think we need to look more holistically at the problem, rather than blaming what is easy (and has been proven to be not causative).

The Conflict Manager (CRGI) FB Page saw a post by Erik Kondo this morning, linking out to an article in the National Review:

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/w ... planation/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

In it, the author references Malcom Gladwell's theory, which is examined here:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015 ... f-violence" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It's very interesting to take a look back in time, going back to this (also) 2015 review of Gladwell's hypothesis, here in The New Republic:

https://newrepublic.com/article/123139/ ... l-shooters" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[ Note: I am not trying to posit this as a political Left-versus-Right contest. Rather, just simply as a backwards look through history. ]
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Re: Texas school shooting incident this morning

Post by carmen fovozzo »

Very impressive post.....but I still believe it has plenty to do with shooters up bringing and violence in his life, and he acted it out..he's not only a loser, but also a coward...
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Re: Texas school shooting incident this morning

Post by M-Quigley »

carmen fovozzo wrote:I just came from the bank..2 armed guards carrying money bags...
My wife had to go into a bank that had a no guns sign on it, while I stayed outside and escorted her to the door. It said it had some kind of weapons detection system on the entrance doors. Only one person can enter at a time, open the door, it takes a second or two to scan you, and the inner door opens. She told me that there was an armed guard inside, and not not some 90 yr old guy with a six shooter either, but someone who was serious looking and aware. But of course schools can't take any measures to keep kids from bringing in guns or bombs into the school, or arm staff, that might inconvenience someone, or make a small number of students or teachers feel uncomfortable. :roll:

After a school shooting there's always so much talk about what causes the shooter to commit their crimes. Prevention is great, but no matter what you do, their will always be mentally ill students or adults, and you can't prevent all mass shootings. What seems to be lacking is doing common sense measures to prevent a school shooting or bombing at the school level. The Israeli's don't waste energy trying to figure out why the PLO wants to murder their children, they make their schools a hard target by various means. You don't just walk into a school in Israel with a bomb or gun. There is a three letter organization out there that is standing in the way of common sense measures to make schools safer and enabling school shooters to inflict mass numbers of casualties, but it's not the N "R" A. :(
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Re: Texas school shooting incident this morning

Post by kcclark »

TSiWRX wrote:
The Conflict Manager (CRGI) FB Page saw a post by Erik Kondo this morning, linking out to an article in the National Review:

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/w ... planation/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Led me to this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tpq4hArjur0

At 2:34
“Let’s not kid ourselves that if we passed the strictest gun control in the world that we would end this particular kind of behavior.”
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Re: Texas school shooting incident this morning

Post by Gramps »

Cruiser wrote:
drc wrote: Just like in video games.
That pretty much says it all.
I concur.
Sad but I have a Grandson who plays kill em all video games almost every waking hour. When we talk it seems that it always ends up with him going back to talking about his latest game.
Good and moral kid too, just programed with the games.
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Re: Texas school shooting incident this morning

Post by TSiWRX »

carmen fovozzo wrote: but I still believe it has plenty to do with shooters up bringing and violence in his life, and he acted it out..he's not only a loser, but also a coward...
I don't doubt that there's correlation - but again, that's not the same as causation. At the same time, not all of the past shooters have come from broken homes (with or without violence as a component) - Gladwell's 2015 article in the New Yorker provides a quick-read digest, and I really think that this lack of pattern/causality is, for me, honestly the most frightening thing.

In any case, back to video-games. :)

We firearms enthusiasts and shooters lament the fact that while there's a tremendous number of us, we are vilified by the actions of a very, very, very few twisted individuals.

If we apply this logic to violent entertainment media (including video games), can the same not also be said? How many people - not just children, but even adults (I have a friend who is a father of three, a highly-regarded community pediatrician, who engages in a monthly night of FPS games with several of his friends: all of whom are well-adjusted adults who have families and hold successful professional careers) - engage in these games?

https://www.statista.com/statistics/189 ... -by-genre/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://www.statista.com/statistics/189 ... ince-2010/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements ... n-shooters" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I think that as a possible contributing factor, yes, we need to examine video games - all of popular mass media, really (including those box-office darling ultra-violent movies that are such a fixture of the industry, which ironically hosts the most mega-earner hypocritical stars of the same) - but that it shouldn't be scapegoated, especially as we in the gun community can well understand the misguided nature of such.

----

kcclark - I was waiting for someone to remember that fact. ;) I think, however, we can pull his views on gun-control out of the current discussion. :) In-retrospect, I probably should have mentioned it to begin with: that what I wanted to examine wasn't Gladwell's politics, but rather his use of Granovetter theory as applied to school shooters, and perhaps how the beast is being fed.

[ FWIW, while the logic of simply making guns unavailable is undeniable, my personal belief is that this is unreasonably idealistic in today's world, and furthermore, that the trade-off of freedom and liberty for security is both short-sighted and completely untenable. I think that the conversation needs to move beyond the feel-good cry of "gun control," and instead look at realistic and pragmatic solutions, as what M-Quigley wrote in his post above. But, yeah, preaching to the choir here, right? :) ]

----
M-Quigley wrote:What seems to be lacking is doing common sense measures to prevent a school shooting or bombing at the school level.
I really think there's a *_huge_* disconnect with parents - and in-turn students - and their insistence that they "don't want their kids to go to school in a prison." :roll: That, somehow, "guns don't belong in schools" is a rallying cry that criminal actors and those with evil intent will somehow magically obey - jut like the signage on school grounds forbidding the same.

These parents - and I've come across quite a number of them - seem to be willing to completely dismiss the fact that anywhere in today's society where we demand -REAL- security, we have ARMED security. They turn a blind eye to the fact that their airports, banks, courthouses, or even their favorite high-dollar jewelry store are secured by men and women with guns.

My question to these parents, a question that either remains unanswered by a quick change of topic or is just returned with a blank stare, is always this simple one: If we really value our children's physical security that much, why don't we want to harden our schools?

Is that airport a prison? The bank? The courthouse or that jewelry store?

Personally, I think it's some kind of psychological defense that's preventing these parents from coming to that logic. I think they fear that by acquiescing to the need for armed security (and/or staff) and physical hardening of the school, they have to face up to the reality that their children's safety - and in turn their own - is never fully guaranteed. That the world is not the safe-space they idealize in their mind.
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Re: Texas school shooting incident this morning

Post by docachna »

FWIW, while the logic of simply making guns unavailable is undeniable, my personal belief is that this is unreasonably idealistic in today's world, and furthermore, that the trade-off of freedom and liberty for security is both short-sighted and completely untenable.
Isn't the problem with that suggestion actually much, much more simple ?

It is physically, and logistically impossible. Screw it being "unreasonably idealistic" and being short sighted (both of which I agree, BTW); it just ain't gonna happen. If a solution is absolutely impossible, there is really no reason to debate the merits. The merits don't matter, when the solution is simply never going to be implemented.

That's why I always tell my "anti" acquaintances to not even waste my time suggesting that 2A be repealed, and all privately owned firearms in the USA outlawed. #1: nigh onto impossible, and #2: even if somehow you did, all it does is leave how many firearms out there - 300,000,000 ?? What's the popular number this weekend ?

(I usually don't even go on to #3: figure on that starting Civil War II, at the VERY least. No sense in throwing gas on the fire in the discussion....)
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Re: Texas school shooting incident this morning

Post by Brian D. »

Anybody think drugs prescribed to these kids for psychological/emotional problems play a role? I sure do. But the medical community does their darnedest to make us not look in that direction. They scream "HIPAA violation! Foul on the play!" anytime the subject is raised.

Okay, just tell us the prescription details on the school shooters who died during their particular incidents. Pretty sure their right to privacy expired when they did.
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Re: Texas school shooting incident this morning

Post by M-Quigley »

Gramps wrote:
Cruiser wrote:
drc wrote: Just like in video games.
That pretty much says it all.
I concur.
Sad but I have a Grandson who plays kill em all video games almost every waking hour. When we talk it seems that it always ends up with him going back to talking about his latest game.
Good and moral kid too, just programed with the games.
I've got a grandkid who plays a lot of video games too, some of them you're supposed to do things like shoot people and steal cars, drive from the cops as their chasing you, etc (not GTA) He tried to play a WW2 type game but couldn't understand why he kept losing, as he was trying to shoot every soldier he saw. :roll: I had to explain to him that you're not supposed to shoot the ones wearing a certain uniform.

When I was a little kid many of the boys played Cowboy and Indians (I know not politically correct anymore) or war, simulating shooting, outside, watched Westerns or War shows like Combat or Rat Patrol on TV, didn't warp anybodies minds that I know of or caused anyone to want to kill someone for real. IDK if violent video games negatively affect kids minds or not, but I doubt they're ever going to be controlled anyway, except at the family level. Sure, there's the mature label, but kids can easily get around that. My grandson got one of his games from another kid.
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Re: Texas school shooting incident this morning

Post by bignflnut »

TSiWRX wrote:And rock and roll will make us worship the devil, too. :roll:
I have never accepted the status-quo in anything I do and I’ve never accepted defeat. And I won’t do it now. I will continue to speak up and will stand up for what my heart and my God commands me to do, and I assure you he hasn’t instructed me to believe that gun-rights are bestowed by him.”
It is worth noting that our Founding Fathers declared independence in 1776 based on the conviction that our natural rights flow from God, not government. Thomas Jefferson wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

It was under this declaration of rights from our Creator that our Founding Fathers pledged to “each other [their] Lives, [their] Fortunes and [their] sacred Honor.”

The Houston police chief indicates God has yet to confirm to him the origin of our gun rights.
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Re: Texas school shooting incident this morning

Post by bignflnut »

Two details set the Santa Fe shooting apart from other recent deadly attacks: explosives and the use of less-lethal weapons. https://t.co/F0rJZQydMa" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) May 18, 2018

Hottest take: “The guns were a less lethal weapon than firearms used in other recent mass shootings, such as the AR-15.”https://t.co/BVlTzqJN23

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Re: Texas school shooting incident this morning

Post by TSiWRX »

^ I saw that this morning as a part of my FB feed.

Quoting from the USA Today article: "Other shootings, including the deadly attack at Virginia Tech included less lethal weapons. Student Seung-Hui Cho used two pistols to kill 32 people in 2007. "

^ highlighted for emphasis.

:roll: :x

Tell that to the thirty-two (32!) dead.

I really wish that the writers of these news articles would educate themselves about firearms and violence before actually penning them. I find that this opinion column in The Washington Examiner (from back in March) to really speak my heart's voice, where it comes to this issue:

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/no-o ... gun-debate" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

-----
docachna wrote:
TSiWRX wrote:FWIW, while the logic of simply making guns unavailable is undeniable, my personal belief is that this is unreasonably idealistic in today's world, and furthermore, that the trade-off of freedom and liberty for security is both short-sighted and completely untenable.
Isn't the problem with that suggestion actually much, much more simple ?
True. True. :)

-----
Brian D. wrote:Anybody think drugs prescribed to these kids for psychological/emotional problems play a role? I sure do. But the medical community does their darnedest to make us not look in that direction. They scream "HIPAA violation! Foul on the play!" anytime the subject is raised.

Okay, just tell us the prescription details on the school shooters who died during their particular incidents. Pretty sure their right to privacy expired when they did.
I think there's a danger there no matter which way we look at it.

I think mental illness is a very, very large worry - and that this is regardless of the type of instrument the violent actor end up choosing.

I also think the scope is bigger than that: personality disorders as well as those who suffer from neurological and developmental disorders such as Autistic Spectrum Disorder have also been to engage in this type of activity (successful or otherwise).

In any case, the problem is not only HIPAA (and I agree, I think that their right to medical privacy should have expired not only as they did, but definitely in light of the innocent lives they took), but also social stigma for patients: I think that there's a fine balance to be struck between finding out the factors at-play versus insuring that those who suffer from these conditions actually are able to seek the help that they need, if nothing but to prevent more of these events from happening.

I think that this is an issue that will require a lot of thinking, to work through, but I also think it definitely needs to be pursued.

The mental health component of this equation is far too concerning to ignore or downplay.

[ And may be relevant too, for the Houston police chief, who is waiting to hear one voice or another to speak to him, per bignflnut's post above! ]
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Re: Texas school shooting incident this morning

Post by kcclark »

The "facts" in that USA Today article are unreal.
High-powered rifles such as the AR-15 can be fired more than twice as fast as most handguns.
Where does this info come from and why would someone believe it? Does your finger suddenly move more than twice as fast because you're holding a magical AR-15? Writer needs to watch some of the single action pistol shooting videos on YouTube.
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