Las Vegas shooting

[Robovski]

As someone used a rental truck from the company I work for to run over people Saturday night the intention to do harm to others does seem to be the core of the issue. The real world expression of the power fantasy of just murdering a great many people in a public places strikes me as a bona fide mental health AND cultural problem.

[The Romulan Republic]

So like, NOW can we please enact the common-sense gun regulations that every other industrialized country has? Or at least the ones that Australia has, and they haven't had a mass shooting ever since they enacted them?

I honestly didn't think I'd see anything to top the PULSE massacre in my lifetime, much less within a few years. Why is everything that happens this year the worst thing of its kind in human history?

I think the neo-Nazi attack a few years back in Norway had a higher death toll, unless this one's has gone up/goes up significantly (which it very well could, if more of the wounded die of their injuries). But fewer injured.

And of course, their are wartime massacres of civilians that exceed it. Even in America, this is only the worst if you conveniently don't count various massacres of Native American civilians.

But it is nonetheless horrific on a scale I hadn't ever really expected to see from a mass-shooting in America, even if I probably would have known, intellectually, that it was possible if I'd thought about it.

[Admiral X]

Can we really count the various massacres of Natives as mass shootings though? I mean, a few were done by civilians, but most were done by the US Army, so, I mean, "massacre" seems to sum it up pretty well. :shrug:

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

For clarity's sake, let me put it this way.

ONE PERSON did all this shooting. As far as I know, this is the highest death toll from a single shooter in a single event.

So can we please implement the kind of very BASIC legislation that our fellow countries implement so mass shootings aren't such a regular occurrence that even observations ABOUT their regularity and the lack of meaningful change of become tired and cliche?

In retrospect, Sandy Hook marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.

-Dan Hodges

[Karha of Honor]

As someone used a rental truck from the company I work for to run over people Saturday night the intention to do harm to others does seem to be the core of the issue. The real world expression of the power fantasy of just murdering a great many people in a public places strikes me as a bona fide mental health AND cultural problem.

Cultural problem? How does the culture mainstream or otherwise endorses this sort of action?

[Madner Kami]

In retrospect, Sandy Hook marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.

-Dan Hodges

Sandy Hook was instigated by the government anyways

Before you quote this to go off on a tirade, this was a reference to how royally screwed up the entire debate about shit like this is in the US and not a serious remark or opinion.

[FakeGeekGirl]

For clarity's sake, let me put it this way.

ONE PERSON did all this shooting. As far as I know, this is the highest death toll from a single shooter in a single event.

Thank you. While we should definitely remember the horrific way in which Native Americans were treated, I feel like a lot of people get sidetracked discussing the semantics of this.

One person shot hundreds of people in a matter of minutes. That's horrific. He was able to kill dozens of people and wound hundreds instead of a handful, as would have been the case with a car or a bow and arrow or any other weapon (except of course for explosives).

The Oslo shootings have this one edged out, and I dearly hope it's not a record that gets broken anytime soon.

But it's not just the mass shootings that we should think about in terms of the gun regulations. We should also be thinking about incidents in which one or two people were killed, or where the only victim is the shooter, because while mass shootings are of course horrific and we need to do something about it, many more people die of guns every day in smaller incidents, most frequently suicides. According to the Brady Campaign which itself cites the CDC, two thirds of gun deaths in America are suicides, and about fifty of them happen each day. Every. Single. Day.

Someone who cuts their wrists or overdoses has time for the paramedics their sobbing mother or wife or child called to get there and save them, someone who shoots themselves often does not. I often think about the sad death of country singer Gary Allan's wife Angela. He knew she was acting very odd and had been suffering from depression, and did his best to watch over her, but she shot herself when he went to get her a soda from the refrigerator. By the time he ran back into their bedroom to try to save her, she was already dead. If she'd cut her wrists or hanged herself, he would have had time to call 911 and offer aid. They had two kids. I think a lot of people here are familiar with Justin Carmichael and how he died - he shot himself while his wife tried to talk him down. She would have had more time to get help if he'd used almost any other means. I'm about to get really real here - I considered this, at the height (depths?) of my depression a few years ago. I could very easily have gotten a gun from a pawn shop in the state where I live - maybe not as easily as I imagine, since I never actually tried it, but I'm pretty sure I could have done it. Years ago I read that the mother of one of the girls wounded at Columbine bought a gun in a pawn shop and killed herself right there in the shop, as soon as it was in her hands, which is probably why it occurred to me to get the gun from a pawn shop. Thankfully I got help - I was in therapy for a year, and once I got out of the stressful situation I started doing better. But I was lucky, very, very lucky.

Is there a way to keep guns out of the hands of the Angela Allans and Justin Carmichaels of the world without making it needlessly hard for someone who just wants the gun to protect herself from the campus rapist to get one? I don't know. Is the gun actually going to protect her from that rapist? Only if she knows how to use it well and is emotionally prepared to do so and doesn't end up having the gun taken from her and used against her. Is this something the state should care about? I think so, others may disagree.

Either way, we definitely have to do something about the state of mental health care in this country. We need to end the stigma, we need to make people aware that they can reach out, and we need to make professional mental health care available to more people. I got help because I was a student at a large university that offered counseling for free. If I have a relapse, I can talk to a therapist and have insurance pay everything but an admittedly pricy copay, or my GP can prescribe medication for me and make sure I respond well to it. Not everyone has this luxury. Now and again someone who didn't get help shoots up a movie theater or a concert or a church. Much more often, they shoot themselves. That's not acceptable.

I don't think we have to only look at guns or only look at mental health or only look at broader cultural issues like homophobia and misogyny and racism that lead to specific shootings. I think we can, and indeed have to, look at all of it.

[Madner Kami]

As someone used a rental truck from the company I work for to run over people Saturday night the intention to do harm to others does seem to be the core of the issue. The real world expression of the power fantasy of just murdering a great many people in a public places strikes me as a bona fide mental health AND cultural problem.

Cultural problem? How does the culture mainstream or otherwise endorses this sort of action?

A society that tolerates police officers regularly breaking the law and straight up murdering people on what almost feels like a daily basis without consequence, is kinda prone to this sort of behaviour in general. I know, it's a symptome of the overall problem with violence in US culture, but this nicely shows how deeply flawed the US' views on such things are.

[Karha of Honor]

As someone used a rental truck from the company I work for to run over people Saturday night the intention to do harm to others does seem to be the core of the issue. The real world expression of the power fantasy of just murdering a great many people in a public places strikes me as a bona fide mental health AND cultural problem.

Cultural problem? How does the culture mainstream or otherwise endorses this sort of action?

A society that tolerates police officers regularly breaking the law and straight up murdering people on what almost feels like a daily basis without consequence, is kinda prone to this sort of behaviour in general. I know, it's a symptome of the overall problem with violence in US culture, but this nicely shows how deeply flawed the US' views on such things are.

it's a giant country, there will be some firefights and the police is running wild in some cases and on some issues. The idea that a few real life firefights involving police lead to mass shooters feeling empowered is nonsense. The US has real violence problem? It cetainly does not prevent people from seeing it as a tourist destination or one for immigration. So it must be more than tolerable.

[Madner Kami]

it's a giant country, there will be some firefights and the police is running wild in some cases and on some issues.

"Some". Yeahright. They are probably not comitting as many crimes as the entirety of the criminal underworld in the US, but they are right up there, along with Senators and Don Vito Corleone.

The idea that a few real life firefights involving police lead to mass shooters feeling empowered is nonsense.

I can't remember having written that, so where are you taking that from? My point was, that in a country where the police can arrest you for having done nothing, can permanently confiscate whatever they want without ever having to give it back even if you have done nothing wrong and kill people almost at will for the flimsiest of excuses and can get away with that almost always, is rotten to the core and one only needs to look back to last month, when Trump pardoned Joe Arpaio, to see that there's an institutional problem. You know the country and society as a whole fucked up royally, when the gun-tooting nut-crackers who defend their right to bear arms by saying that they need them to defend themselves from their own government, have an actual valid point.

The US has real violence problem? It cetainly does not prevent people from seeing it as a tourist destination or one for immigration. So it must be more than tolerable.

People tour North Korea. Your point? That people emigrate to the US from countries were things are even worse, doesn't show that all is golden in the US either. The hopes and expectations of people rarely are congruent with the actual reality.