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Las Vegas: Worst Mass Shooting in US History

I don't think it is about finding out who these people are and making sure they can't hurt anyone. I think it is about making it less stigmatizing to get help, and making help more readily available and affordable, so more people will seek help and get treatment thereby lessening the instances of these outbursts. I think it is the price we pay by having the attitude that we can never do anything about mental illness in all its forms besides trying to stop them from hurting people. Guns just up the ante.

But no, you can never entirely stop people who are bent on hurting other people. History has taught us that. If someone is hell-bent on hurting people, in all likelihood they will find a way.



...about making it less stigmatizing to get help, and making help more readily available and affordable, so more people will seek help and get treatment thereby lessening the instances of these outbursts. I think it is the price we pay by having the attitude that we can never do anything about mental illness in all its forms besides trying to stop them from hurting people.

I think the same applies to guns - there seems to be an overwhelming attitude that we can never do anything about gun violence, so we don't even take baby steps that most agree would have little impact on responsible gun owners

there's also the attitude that since there's no magic bullet (pardon the pun) that will eliminate all instances of inappropriate gun use, there's no reason to try anything to perhaps decrease it on some level

it's like thinking that since speed limits, seat belts and air bags have not eliminated all traffic deaths, we may as well just get rid of them since people will still die in traffic accidents in spite of the efforts to make driving safer
 
I think the same applies to guns - there seems to be an overwhelming attitude that we can never do anything about gun violence, so we don't even take baby steps that most agree would have little impact on responsible gun owners

there's also the attitude that since there's no magic bullet (pardon the pun) that will eliminate all instances of inappropriate gun use, there's no reason to try anything to perhaps decrease it on some level

it's like thinking that since speed limits, seat belts and air bags have not eliminated all traffic deaths, we may as well just get rid of them since people will still die in traffic accidents in spite of the efforts to make driving safer

Well said.

To me this is like problems I deal with at work, or in Six Sigma projects. You have to get to the root cause and address that. If you can eliminate or greatly decrease the root cause you can eliminate or greatly reduce the problem. You can also address issues that exacerbate the situation, which can help reduce the severity of the issue, but really it is a symptom and won't do much to decrease the overall issue.

To me the root cause for the majority of these things is mental health. If we do something about that we can impact potentially all future events like this, but not just that, it would also help millions of people live better lives and be more productive and better citizens all around.

We should also do something about availability of guns, but if that is our SOLE focus then we still leave potentially thousands of people with issues that might drive them to use a car or a bomb or some other weapon to inflict the pain they feel they want or need to inflict. Because guns are not the root cause, they are a tool, or an escalating factor.

If we truly want to reduce events like this in the long run we have to deal with the state of mental health in this country.
 
Well said.

To me this is like problems I deal with at work, or in Six Sigma projects. You have to get to the root cause and address that. If you can eliminate or greatly decrease the root cause you can eliminate or greatly reduce the problem. You can also address issues that exacerbate the situation, which can help reduce the severity of the issue, but really it is a symptom and won't do much to decrease the overall issue.

To me the root cause for the majority of these things is mental health. If we do something about that we can impact potentially all future events like this, but not just that, it would also help millions of people live better lives and be more productive and better citizens all around.

We should also do something about availability of guns, but if that is our SOLE focus then we still leave potentially thousands of people with issues that might drive them to use a car or a bomb or some other weapon to inflict the pain they feel they want or need to inflict. Because guns are not the root cause, they are a tool, or an escalating factor.

If we truly want to reduce events like this in the long run we have to deal with the state of mental health in this country.

Six Sigma lowering their standards these days?
 
I think the same applies to guns - there seems to be an overwhelming attitude that we can never do anything about gun violence, so we don't even take baby steps that most agree would have little impact on responsible gun owners

there's also the attitude that since there's no magic bullet (pardon the pun) that will eliminate all instances of inappropriate gun use, there's no reason to try anything to perhaps decrease it on some level

it's like thinking that since speed limits, seat belts and air bags have not eliminated all traffic deaths, we may as well just get rid of them since people will still die in traffic accidents in spite of the efforts to make driving safer

Your parallel example is a nanny state mindset, which obviously isn't something that goes over well with many people. I don't think you protecting me from myself on the road with adult seat belt laws compares well to you protecting someone else from my gun. I think stopping the example at traffic regulations would be more appropriate.
 
Your parallel example is a nanny state mindset, which obviously isn't something that goes over well with many people. I don't think you protecting me from myself on the road with adult seat belt laws compares well to you protecting someone else from my gun. I think stopping the example at traffic regulations would be more appropriate.

Seat belt and air bag laws protect other people in the vehicle as well as the driver. It applies in the same way that keeping a gun out of the hands of your children within your own home applies.
 
This article has lots of statistics about gun violence and mass shootings globally. However, its conclusions explain quite well why we will continue to have a large number of mass shootings in the US.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/07/world/americas/mass-shootings-us-international.html

. . . Switzerland has the second-highest gun ownership rate of any developed country, about half that of the United States. Its gun homicide rate in 2004 was 7.7 per million people — unusually high, in keeping with the relationship between gun ownership and murders, but still a fraction of the rate in the United States.

Swiss gun laws are more stringent, setting a higher bar for securing and keeping a license, for selling guns and for the types of guns that can be owned. Such laws reflect more than just tighter restrictions. They imply a different way of thinking about guns, as something that citizens must affirmatively earn the right to own.

The Difference Is Culture

The United States is one of only three countries, along with Mexico and Guatemala, that begin with the opposite assumption: that people have an inherent right to own guns.

The main reason American regulation of gun ownership is so weak may be the fact that the trade-offs are simply given a different weight in the United States than they are anywhere else.

After Britain had a mass shooting in 1987, the country instituted strict gun control laws. So did Australia after a 1996 incident. But the United States has repeatedly faced the same calculus and determined that relatively unregulated gun ownership is worth the cost to society.

That choice, more than any statistic or regulation, is what most sets the United States apart.

“In retrospect Sandy Hook marked the end of the US gun control debate,” Dan Hodges, a British journalist, wrote in a post on Twitter two years ago, referring to the 2012 attack that killed 20 young students at an elementary school in Connecticut. “Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.”

This makes sense to me. The US has chosen to assume the risk of mass shootings in exchange for the right to own guns with relatively little control. It is our culture. I don't know that it is necessarily right or wrong. We just need to realize that with that culture comes the assumptions of risk.
 
It's great that people are finally acknowledging that white People shooting up churches is all about mental health and has no link to religion or any philosophy, we as a society have to find these neglected souls and treat them better - we have failed these poor folks.



It's unfortunate that so many people however refuse to aknoweldge RADICAL ISLAMIC TERRORISM when a brown person says 'god is great' in Arabic and commits violence. Why won't people just say it so these others, inherently evil dirty scums of society no longer are able to commit such acts. JUST SAY IT.
 
It's great that people are finally acknowledging that white People shooting up churches is all about mental health and has no link to religion or any philosophy, we as a society have to find these neglected souls and treat them better - we have failed these poor folks.



It's unfortunate that so many people however refuse to aknoweldge RADICAL ISLAMIC TERRORISM when a brown person says 'god is great' in Arabic and commits violence. Why won't people just say it so these others, inherently evil dirty scums of society no longer are able to commit such acts. JUST SAY IT.

Why is this name so important to you? How does calling it by a religious name stop those who distort that religion from continuing to do so? It denigrates millions of peaceful adherents to that religion. We don't call out other murderers by their religions, even when religion plays a part in their mixed-up philosophies. And you are kidding yourself if you think that Christianity has not been a part of terrible distortions in some peoples' thinking. Have you read the Bible completely? There's some messed up philosophy in there. Yet we don't feel it is appropriate to paint all Christians with the same brush as those who commit terrible atrocities in its name.
 
It's great that people are finally acknowledging that white People shooting up churches is all about mental health and has no link to religion or any philosophy, we as a society have to find these neglected souls and treat them better - we have failed these poor folks.



It's unfortunate that so many people however refuse to aknoweldge RADICAL ISLAMIC TERRORISM when a brown person says 'god is great' in Arabic and commits violence. Why won't people just say it so these others, inherently evil dirty scums of society no longer are able to commit such acts. JUST SAY IT.

You for real?
 
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