Taser maker offers electric-shock drones to stop school shootings Rick Smith, founder and CEO of body camera and Taser maker Axon, believes he has a way to reduce the risk of school children being shot by people with guns. No, it doesn't involve reducing access to guns, which Smith dismisses as politically unworkable in the US. Nor does it involve relocating to any of the many countries …
Actually no, they might have inadvertently found the solution;
Anyone in the US who thinks that the terms of the 2nd Amendment had been abused to the point of ridiculousness should be given free passage to any other country in the World, (a bit like the reverse of the situation in the 17th-19th centuries). Give it 200-300 years and the remaining population will be either dead or reduced to barbarism, and hence ripe for re-colonisation as per the 16th-19th centuries.
Win-Win really!
What, downvotes, how comes? Surely this exactly what the Republicans/NRA/ etc. should endorse - everyone has the right to decide their own future, and if that isn't what you think they should want then well, sorry about that....
Anyone in the US who thinks that the terms of the 2nd Amendment had been abused to the point of ridiculousness should be given free passage to any other country in the World, (a bit like the reverse of the situation in the 17th-19th centuries)
That assumes any other country will want them. USAian here, and I am hoping to be able to bolt to another country if/when the right wingnuts get another crack at fully turning us into dystopia.
Well, the history of USAfolk being unhappy with their country and fleeing abroad includes those who so objected to states recognising Gay Marriage in 2015 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_the_United_States), that they fled to Canada (Gay Marriage legalised in Canadian in 2005: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_Canada).
So, please, look before you leap.
Or, and here’s an idea, how about the US (and particularly the Republican Party)…
1) stops pissing about and misrepresenting the second amendment as something that it isn’t.
2) recognises the NRA for what it is - a borderline terrorist organisation, holding the politician institutions of the country to ransom (and even, on occasion, via its members, threatening people)
3) banning pistols, assault rifles and magazines larger than 5 rounds. For everything else, ensuring stringent licenses and controls are in place. You know. Doing what the rest of the developed world (more or less) does.
>Go metric?
This US is already largely metric. The military is 100% metric for a start. When you buy things made there (cars, for example) all the fasteners are metric. When you buy assemblies then you find the often have odd sizes like 3.245" by 1.872" or something like that.
We just can't say the "M" word out loud. It riles the usual suspects up.
It's his personal baby. He's aligned themselves 100% with Republicans and Russians (google Alexander Torsin, Maria Burtina*), nothing really to do with guns, more to do with money and power.
If the courts remove Wayne LaPierre (there's a civil case brought by New York DA), then it all falls apart, all those dodgy dealings. His attempts to put NRA in to bankruptcy in Texas failed too, but the attempt itself may make the courts act against Wayne LaPierre.
The only way to stop a bad man with a gun, is to not give him the gun in the first place.
Putting semi-lethal tasers on drones is just laughable shit, a gunman would just knock it down or shoot it down.
* Zelensky says Russia has taken 200,000 children so far. Putin is very predictable, he'll use them as a human shield to military targets. His friendly Republican group, will prepare lots of "thoughts and prayers" memes. Lots of "Ukraine shouldn't be bombing Russian targets, Ukraine killed those kids" flipping of reality.
3) banning pistols, assault rifles and magazines larger than 5 rounds. For everything else, ensuring stringent licenses and controls are in place. You know. Doing what the rest of the developed world (more or less) does.
The developed world? Methinks you’re not terribly familiar with that the rest of the developed world has done.
The US already has banned assault rifles.
As for pistols and magazines over 5 rounds. Only GB has banned pistols (literally just Eng/Sco/Wales - not Northern Ireland, nor the rest of the developed world) and nobody outside the US is pissing around with magazine capacity limits. You’ll be shocked to learn I can stick a 120rd drum mag on my Ruger 10/22 here in the UK if I want to! You’ll probably also be surprised to learn it’s legal to own a .50BMG rifle over here - something that some US states have banned (namely California).
Bans do nothing (otherwise Czechia - where you actually can own proper assault rifles with the right license) would be a bloodbath.
The US needs to license gun ownership, probably institute some form of registration (at least for certain classes of firearm) and also start taking domestic abuse much more seriously, with the suspension of firearm rights for those offenders.
Yes yes, it’s very inconvenient if Police officers become unavailable for duty because their domestic abuse case means their ability to possess or carry a firearm has been suspended, but that’s the way it needs to be.
Precisely, lots of other countries have nukular weapons but only the US used them.
So obviously having nuclear weapons isn't the issue
Therefore everyone should have the right to nukes - the 2nd amendment just says "bear arms" (*), it doesn't specify any limits.
(* an unfortunate bit of bad hand writing has led to a couple of centuries of unpleasantness when the founders just wished Americans to have a tasty treat comparable to Beaver Tails)
"the 2nd amendment just says "bear arms", it doesn't specify any limits."
So the 'arms' could be anything from a pea-shooter to a MIRV ICBM? But on a 'legal' note, as the US Supreme Court is re-considering 'Roe vs Wade' and a majority is likely to claim, that the US Constitution does NTO guarantee a woman's right to an abortion, and therefore leave it to the state legislatures to decide things. Then each state could decide for itself how to interpret the word "arms" in the second amendment. (You can tell I'm a mathematician, not a lawyer, can't you?)
Its not strictly true that "assault rifles" are banned. They're not in most states. In some there are quite a lot of restrictions on them but the Federal ban on them was allowed to expire some years ago so now the "AR-15" style rifle is the go-to weapon for the budding mass killer. (They're also quite easy to modify to be fully automatic although there's no real reason to do so.)
The problem with domestic abuse cases is that these days an accusation, no matter how vague or how old, is taken as concrete proof. I'm not a great fan of domestic abuse myself but I've witnessed it going both ways (especially as a young person) and I find the modern "look at me and you get a complaint or lawsuit" mindset a bit OTT, its totally counterproductive. What's probably a bit more important is that there's a significant cadre of ultra-right wing types in the police force; this combined with activist DAs can lead to all sorts of trouble.
Assault rifles are banned. The AR-15 is not an assault rifle. The M16/M4/M249/M60 are assault rifles. If you tried to fight a war with an AR-15, they'd turn you into dogfood in about 30 seconds.
It's actually easier to mod an AK kit to be full-auto, since those usually come with the original military select-fire trigger parts. It's not as easy to find the select fire parts for the AR series, actually I don't know that I've ever seen such other than in the rifles I used in the Corps. I think Colt was sort of tight-fisted with those parts. I know there are "plans" out there for making auto-sears out of bent wire, etc. Meh, that kind of stuff doesn't usually hold up to much use, and an out-of-battery detonation can still take part of your face off. Not gonna be a good day at the range.
Personally, I'm highly in favor of the so called "Red Flag" concept IF the laws are written very tightly with concrete definitions and tight timetables, and with severe repercussions for fraudulent claims. That would go a long way toward solving the problem, IMHO. We've got 20 million+ of the scary ARs and AKs in civilian circulation right now, those aren't going to disappear in any of our lifetimes.
And if you're going to tell us what assault rifles are and aren't, perhaps don't include medium machine guns?
For anyone reading along:
An assault rifle is a select-fire rifle chambered in an intermediate cartridge.
Select fire meaning it has a switch to go from semi-auto to full-auto (or burst fire). This has nothing to do with "Assault Weapons" which is a term coined especially for the US Federal Assault Weapon Ban and which did not actually affect assault rifles. It only affected semi-automatic rifles with certain (mostly cosmetic) features.
An M16 or an M4 meets that definition (as does an SA80 - for the Brits, though not the version they let cadets shoot). An AR-15 does not meet the definition (the AR stands for "Armalite Rifle", not "Assault Rifle").
It's not splitting hairs, it's actually quite important since most countries prohibit firearms that are capable of firing full-auto, whilst semi-auto-only rifles are permitted (and very rarely seem to be an issue, outside the US).
You're quite right that an M249 is not an assault rifle, as it is not select-fire (full-auto only), and the M60 definitely doesn't count, since it's both full-auto and chambered in a large cartridge (7.62NATO).
Aye, most parts are interchangeable EXCEPT the parts which would turn the modern sporting rifle into a so called "assault" rifle. Those will only fit in a select-fire lower receiver that has the third pin hole. And those are pretty hard to come by outside of law enforcement and the military (but not impossible).
Yeah I got a bit carried away technically, but the M249 and M60 are closer to "assault' weapons than is the AR15. At its root, the AR15 is a semi-automatic rifle that can (usually) take the same magazines as the M16 family. Sort of like a tweaked Ruger Mini-14, which has a wood stock so doesn't instill fear in the hearts of those who see it. But, eh, functionally the two rifles have similar capabilities.
Its not strictly true that "assault rifles" are banned. They're not in most states. In some there are quite a lot of restrictions on them but the Federal ban on them was allowed to expire some years ago…
Assault rifles were banned under the National Firearms Act. That federal law remains very much in force. There are a number of pre-NFA firearms grandfathered in. They’re very rare and very expensive, even before you pay the a Federal Tax Stamp to transfer such a firearm (unlike mos firearms in the US, they’re registered).
What you’re referring to is the Assault Weapon Ban, which was a feel-good ban on assault “weapons” (a term coined specifically for that law, and which has no broader meaning), which are firearms with certain cosmetic features like having a bayonet lug. Which put an end to the spate of school shootings where the perpetrator has err… fixed bayonets….
The problem with domestic abuse cases is that these days an accusation, no matter how vague or how old, is taken as concrete proof.
Citation required methinks. If this were true, there would probably not be quite so many cases involving a dead spouse where the perpetrator had a history of domestic abuse claims made against them.
YMMV of course. Professional Standards Depetments in (some) big cities will do a better job than a small-town PD where the Sheriff and their three top deputies and all related and looking out for one another.
I'm not a great fan of domestic abuse myself
One would hope not…
What's probably a bit more important is that there's a significant cadre of ultra-right wing types in the police force; this combined with activist DAs can lead to all sorts of trouble.
Well yes, right wing extremism is now the largest segment of domestic terrorism in the US. It’s a heady mix when a portion of those individuals are in uniform, plus the DAs and elected sheriffs choosing to pursue law enforcement along party lines. I wouldn’t say either is more important though - they’re both a symptom of individuals with unhealthy power complexes being able to join the Police, behave as they wish (often with “qualified immunity”) and knowing that nobody is watching the watchmen.
They aren't so much rare as EXPENSIVE as there are thousands of them in private hands.
Well yes, but the hands of private collectors with $$$.
When did an NFA firearm last show up in the hands of an angsty 18year old doing a bad thing at their school?
Per the Czech Republic, it doesn't actually seem to matter if you let people own actual machine guns, provided you're not handing them out on street corners.
For anyone wondering, you can even own a fully-functional machine-gun in the UK as a private collector and shoot it. The HBSA hold a machine-gun shoot at Bisley periodically. There are less Section7 guns floating around than NFA firearms in the US and the regulations surrounding them are somewhat stricter - but the point holds - licensing works.
There is already registration for certain classes of firearms, namely automatic firearms of any kind, including 3-shot burst / select-fire weapons, short-barreled shotguns, explosive ammunition, and basically all military firearms.
And of course bans do nothing. Criminals, by definition, don't heed laws. Licensing? Well, one is required to have a valid license to drive a car, yet it doesn't stop people who have had their license revoked from driving drunk and killing people. Not sure that would work. Again, only the people who weren't going to shoot anyone anyway would bother with the license. America already bans felons from buying guns, and it works. Gun stores don't sell to them. Felons buy guns from the same people they buy their drugs from. Btw, the drugs are banned too.
In all seriousness, many within the NRA and their paid off legislators are proposing banning doors. Instead of each classroom having a door for children to go to recess or get out in case of a fire, seal those doors.
It makes a perverted sort of sense to perverts that stockpile assault rifles, magazines, and ammunition.
I know that your post was sarcastic, but the day after the shooting, I was listening to the World Service BBC news and they had rolled out some fuckwit texan gun fetishist who was a spokesperson for the NRW. He was actually blaming the teachers & school admin for not being armed & was admant that there was nothing wrong with their gun laws.
Fucking unbelievable.
I have spent a lot of time in very dodgy parts of the world but would not want to live in the US for any money.
Here's hoping that the whole nation bucks it's ideas, if only for the benefit of the people I know that live there.
I know a lot of people living in other places, namely Russia, some African countries and some middle Eastern regimes where guns are the norm but they don't seem to be so fucking idiotic about defending their right to shoot 10 year old children.
There was a radio program on BBC Radio 4 recently about 'The little black book: Black male survival in America, or staying alive & well in an institutionally racist society', by Carol Taylor*. The rules (from the perspective of a privileged middle-class white male) are shocking: Do not ride bicycles; you only have to provide your name and Identification to a police officer, if (s)he asks anything else they are 'opening an investigation' etc. etc. etc.
*https://www.amazon.co.uk/little-black-book-survival-institutionally/dp/B000713EZ0
Wow what a great idea!
I sure hope that no potential high school shooters with a STEM background take note, and build their own remote control handgun-drone in an escalatory arms race.
I'm going to give it 6 months, before we see our first mass-shooting-by-drone event. Thoughts and prayers and now is not the time to politicise the issue by talking about drone control laws.
Some kid was smart enough to put a gun on a drone back in 2015. But dumb enough to upload a video of it.
And when they fail to do so, their next step will be to put machine guns on the drones.
Who does he think is going to control these drones? Will each school need a permanent staff of drone controllers? No, don't tell me, you're going to propose using "AI" aren't you? Gotta be a tech bro solution to this complete lunacy................
Every time this issue comes up, gun advocates decry the real issue being a mental health crisis rather than widespread access to firearms. Since mental health care for disaffected psychopaths is obviously a non-starter in the United States, I have come up with a novel plan to address the issue. I call it the KYNK plan: Kill Yourself, Not Kids. The government can start a public awareness campaign via the NIH showing people how much easier and less work it is to kill themselves rather than children or other innocents. If, for some reason, the government is unwilling to step up, it should be relatively straightforward to crowdfund the campaign. The slogan could be something like "KYNK for Kids!" or "Love Kids? Show your KYNK!" and the theme song would have to be "Lift Your Head Up High (And Blow Your Brains Out)" by The Bloodhound Gang.
I look forward to the slew of upvotes and positive feedback on this revolutionary and groundbreaking idea!
Sadly suicides by firearms accounted for more than half of all deaths by firearms in the USA in 2020:
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/03/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/
When catalytic converters were mandated, the number of suicide deaths dropped, although the number of attempts did not. People trying to gas themselves with the less lethal vehicle exhaust fumes had more time to think and change their minds. With a firearm that does not happen.
"Sadly suicides by firearms accounted for more than half of all deaths by firearms in the USA in 2020:"
That's ok. I find that preferable to them using a train and preventing me from completing a journey on time. Terry Pratchett did a special on this topic with far better options than using a gun which is fraught with downsides. It's a very difficult topic, but he did a great job and it was an especially important topic to him after he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and didn't want to be a burden to his family nor be remembered in an unflattering way at the inevitable end.
A close watch on people that are on or being taken off of powerful psychoactive medication might be a good thing. Perhaps Red Flag laws should require that people on those sorts of drugs are on the FBI database to be denied legal access to firearms. Way back, California had allowed medical marijuana use for people that held a State issued card. The downside was that their driving license was taken away. Very few official cards were issued and it sort of devolved into a note from one's doctor being accepted even though it wasn't really legal. Any law enacted and then ignored is useless.
Big Drone will get you if you don't follow orders.
This is yet another avenue of citizen manipulation and surveillance.
We already have CRMMs, Coward Remote Murder Machines. Of course our overlords will use less lethal devices to keep the peasants in order. :-P
And have fun pretending these CRMMs, Citizen Remote Manipulation Machines, will ever stop a mass shooting. That's ridiculous. One bullet or swipe of a baseball bat and the drone is useless.
How about we stop championing crazy: Left, Right or Center.
Americans are behind the times. I saw a YouTube video years ago showing off Samsung's autonomous, computer-controlled, 9mm machine gun. It recognizes humans, targets them, yells at them via precorded voice to stop (or something -- it was in Korean, which I don't understand), and if the human continues to advance, it opens fire. It's a stationary, area-denial device, but easily could be mounted in the back of a remote-controlled, or computer-controlled truck.
Similarly, the YouTube show "FPS Russia" demo'd a (remotely-controlled-by-humans) machine-gun armed drone.
How do these people get into schools? Mine has keycard controlled doors. While outside doing science the other day we had to let an anxious student in to do his exam. He could have gone in the front talking his way past the office. Got no business you get inside the outer door maybe.
When going to the next door primary on valid business I had to flash my ID card and state why I was there to get through the inner door.
>How do these people get into schools? Mine has keycard controlled doors
How did a kid get into a small town school in Texas?
Inconceivable - he must be Chuck Norris or a cyber-ninja assassin programmed by Bill Gates and George Soros to drop from a stealth black helicopter on wires like Tom Cruise in MI.
Or same way that Joe Biden got into the Texas Book depository to shoot Kennedy - nobody actually locks doors and door locks on small town schools vary slightly from those on missile silos or bank vaults.
violent people, not inanimate objects. Ban the guns and the knives come out. Ban the knives and the acid comes out. Ban the acid and the fertilizer and kerosene bombs come out. Ban diesel and fertilizer and the bleach and ammonia gas bombs come out. The common denominator is not the vastly differing inanimate objexts, but the people using them. No matter what gets banned, violent people will find a way to be violent and there are far worse ways to be violent than a firearm. Thumb this down all you like, it won't change the truth of the matter - the problem is violent people, not items.
Maybe.
And when you have the violent person with the dangerous items so readily available then the problem becomes much more apparent.
Having nutjobs having to resort to a stick or some fertiliser is not as bad as a nutjob who can get an readily assault rifle with hundreds of rounds of ammo.
The cops in the UK don’t even carry firearms in general.
>So, your government doesn't trust its cops either, huh?
No, that's why we have a couple of regiments of elite guards units surrounding the head of state, although sometimes an illegal immigrant ursine predator does get past them.
But we avoid the problem of a bunch of nut-jobspatriots attempting to break in and hang the vice prime-minister by a cunning plan of nobody knowing or caring who he, or she, is.
Guns and knives, for a comparison. One is a stand off weapon, the other requires getting up close and personal.
If I’m running away down a school corridor, then my chances against an AR-15 are slim, but your thrown knife probably misses me, then I’ve got it. Acid in a Super-Soaker would be nasty and could blind me, but a high energy projectile will pulverise my organs. The fertiliser is never as easy to transport and use as a small arm.
These guns are easy to use automated killing machines with no other primary purpose, which give the user the ability to dole out death from a distance, or control other people under threat of instant death.
One day, the people are going to start shooting and shooting back and the whole thing will go off like a box of mouse traps.
We need all the non-violent people to have guns so they can perma-ban the violent people, and the people that look like they might be violent, and the people that might stop the non-violent people having guns, and the ones that are trying to destroy our country, and the ones that did us wrong.
Texas has cut over $200M from its mental health programs. Seems to show what they really think.
As Dr. Tracy Vaillancourt said -
"Dear America,
I study violence and I study mental health. The problem is access to guns.
I’m also the elected president of the International Society for Research on Aggression.
International experts agree - it’s the guns.
Regards,
Tracy"
— DrTracyVaillancourt (@vaillancourt_dr) May 25, 2022
That's an excellent idea, and I see absolutely nothing that could go wrong with it. In fact, I can't believe nobody has ever thought of it. I'm sure that, in the past, if and when somebody did think of it and attempted to put it in practice, it all went swimmingly.
Why can't we 'ban' violent people? One 9mm in the forehead and they won't be violent any more. If they have siblings, they each get one, too. They were a parent, yep, they each get one, too.
Presumably as a first step in the right direction you are going to off yourself, as you certainly seem quite a violent sort of person?
The same solution we've had for violent people for centuries. Imprisonment, imprisonment for life, execution. You can't prevent a violent person who has never attacked anyone before from doing it once, but you can make the penalties tough enough that they think twice about it, and tough enough that once they do commit violence that they are not in a position to do it again.
But if you think life owes you any guarantees of safety, forget it. You are expected to take some responsibity for your own safety. I take responsibility for mine by being armed, and proficient in the use of my weapons. Worst case scenario, I'm also a rather large, strong man and can hold my own against most, but not everyone is like me. Being small and weak should not mean you aren't allowed to be armed and able to defend yourself against larger, more violent people. Removing all possible weapons is also going to be impossible, because any tree branch, even a handful of dirt can be a weapon. But doing so also puts the weak at the mercy of the strong.
If I were a violent person, I would welcome as many bans on weapons as possible. It would mean I could be violent without worrying about someone weaker than me being able to do anything about it.
"No matter what gets banned, violent people will find a way to be violent and there are far worse ways to be violent than a firearm. Thumb this down all you like, it won't change the truth of the matter - the problem is violent people, not items."
The issue is that allowing them ready access to things literally designed to kill lots of people is clearly *not* working.
If you accept that there will always be fire you don't say "oh well, let's keep soaking the structural timber in kerosene as a preservative and not bother with a fire department"
Wrong.
It has been proven that easy access to guns increases violence. It also increases suicides. If you have a gun, all you need is 5 minutes of dispair and boom. Without a gun, you have to go through the trouble of setting up a rope, or throwing yourself out the window, or swallowing all those pills. All of that takes time, time during which you can put yourself in question and delay the worst.
Those who talk about knives have never knifed anyone. Shooting someone is a video game, knifing someone is intensly personal and real.
Besides, if you reason that Humanity is the same just about everywhere, your argument falls down because, if violent people really were that violent, we'd have reports of knifings in all countries where gun control is in place and efficient.
We don't have those reports.
QED.
We don't have those reports.
I live in a country with very strict gun laws where only military, police, dignitaries, members of shooting teams or hunting clubs can legally own lethal weapons. I'm also a lawyer with a lot of friends in the police force and there's a lot of killing and maiming with knives and axes. But it doesn't make the news because it's always personal, like in killing in their own community/family. Not in shopping malls or schools, so it's not really news.
Of course we have the ocassional public shooting between rival mobs, but as long as it doesn't involve a celebrity it's just minor news, good for a couple of days on local TV/newspaper.
Fun fact: in oder to legally own a less than lethal weapon (think rubber bullets), a law abbiding citizen must attend and pass a class (80 hours), pass a medical and psychiatric test and wait 45 days for the police to say yes or no. As opposed to a less concerned citizen who can go to certain places and get a gun for less than 500 euros.
Anon because I don't want my license revoked :P
Um the epidemic of knife violence in London has passed you buy I suppose?
We used to have that here in Scotland, part bad tradition but also post Dunblane. It got solved by big investment and three agencies working closely together. Oh and the worst most violent people were put in the gaol. When they got out everything was different.
London knows all this but has not implemented the Scottish solution because it would cost money and/or the necessary agencies won’t work together. Social Work doesn’t trust the Met for eg.
"Um the epidemic of knife violence in London has passed you buy I suppose?"
Epidemic?
Hardly - whilst 74% of murders in London were by knife (or other sharp implement) that's partly because just 8% were firearms related.
London has a population just shy of 9 million, about the same as NYC - yet has <150 murders a year compared with >450. (133 vs 460 in 2021).
I know the two aren't identical "control" cities, but to suggest that because we have measures to prevent people casually picking up and carrying around firearms means we have lots more knife crime is daft.
It's also a false equivalence... I'd far rather get five fines of £10 than one of £500 - it's not just the number of crimes or attacks that's important, it's the magnitude of those crimes, and particularly the situation of those directly affected.
"the problem is violent people, not items"
The problem of violence is due to violent people. The problem of mass killings is violent people having very easy access to people-killing tools, including ones that are very powerful / efficient, and serve absolutely no other purpose except killing large numbers of people with minimal effort.
If anyone has a good solution to identify all violent and potentially violent people and make sure they never act violent, I'm all ears. In the meantime, some sort of limits on high-efficiency people-killing machines might be useful
Your statements are not incorrect but do you seriously think that is defence against letting any misfit oddball get hold of a gun and enough ammunition to decimate a small town ? If you do then you are part of the problem. I am glad that we seem to have a bit more sense over here.
Once a year I used to clean out all my drains with a product called "One Shot". It was about 95% sulphuric acid.
Then this product started being used in "less pleasant" ways.
Now you can only buy it if you're a certified plumber. No fuss, no bother, just don't sell nasty things to people without a proven need for it.
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The problem is not violent people or crazy people. There are zillions of them among us. Always have been and always will be. Those who tell us we can solve the problem by funding mental health care for all those who need it are pissing into the wind, into a gale really. That isn't going to happen and can't happen. Removing or at least tightly regulating guns solves most of the problem. It can be done and has been done in a number of more rational nations. That is where we should put our energy.
He's correct in saying that, at this point, it's not feesible to remove guns from U.S. society irrespective of how anyone feels about it
Something which has been pointed out on occasion is that some other societies have armed populaces and don't have this issue.
So what is it about the U.S. that began in the 1990's (which is when I think mass shootings mostly increased) which is causing this.
My thoughts:
Perhaps it's over or under medication, as it seems a lot of people like to medicate their sons over there because they think aggression (which men are built for) is abnormal, when actually it's entirely normal and needs social control and funneling.
Perhaps it's the lack of fathers in the family unit so there is no one to teach and show boys how to behave and restrain themselves (see above). Yes, I know it's a trope, but I think it may well be playing a role. Boys need male role models and without them are morely likely to go wild.
Perhaps it's society sending the overt blanket messages of contempt aimed at men and boys, particularly in the US and particualrly in the last 10-15 years. It's happening in the UK as well.
Perhaps it's how the public U.S. education system works. I've heard this this may be a factor, but not sure.
Perhaps it's that colleges and universities have become a hostile place for men & boys. Look at the number of boys not going on to further education or dropping out across the west vs. the number of girls. I think this is because, historically, girls have been seen as needing it and boys are seen as not. It's now flipped and there's no political will power to help the boys because: ideology and the above view that boys and men are problematic.
And perhaps it's a deeply terrible mixture of the above.
If any of the above is correct then maybe address *those* issues and maybe the mass shootings will decrease or even disappear. Also, it might help stabilise society and most of all help boys instead of neglecting them and keep them from beomcing disenfranchised.
Food for thought.
I'm sorry to contradict you, but shootings did not start in 90s. They started in 2000.
My opinion on that, as I have already pointed out in these hallowed pages, is that it is the access to Internet that started this whole sorry mess.
Before the Internet, the wackos felt alone, isolated. Without access to the Internet, they did not act on their pulsions because they did not know that other people thought like them.
When the Internet became readily available to the general public, these wackos suddenly discovered that there were a lot of other wackos out there, and they were encouraged to act on their pulsions.
And now here we are.
Personally, I'm glad to live in France, where this kind of nonsense is (almost) non-existant.
Shootings did not "start in 2000". When you read that Wikipedia article, you didn't notice
"19th and 20th centuries : Main article: List of school shootings in the United States (before 2000)"
Warning: that list of school shootings before 2000 is very long, and it's incomplete.
Pascal, you cited a Wikipedia article that's specifically restricted to school shootings from 2000 onwards. There were many school shootings before then and there have been many other mass shootings before 2000 too. I would have thought you'd have heard of some.
Does the name George Banks ring a bell, or the University of Texas Tower shooting? Perhaps something like the San Diego McDonalds massacre was too commonplace, but surely you know the term "going postal" sprang from actual events such as the Edmond killing of 14 postal workers by a colleague in 1986?
It didn't take the internet for "wackos" to discover "there were a lot of other wackos out there"; the United States used to have a thriving newspaper industry that covered many such events extensively and 1999's Columbine School massacre was even the subject of a Roger Moore documentary. Some weren't so widely reported, true; it's only recently there's been much coverage of the killing of tens or hundreds in Tulsa on May 31 and June 1, 1921, when a whole bunch of killers didn't feel "alone, isolated".
I don't think you can blame the internet for something that happened a hundred and one years ago.
Hi, GP:
Actually it was Michael Moore who did the _Bowling for Columbine_ documentary -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_for_Columbine -- and -- https://watchdocumentaries.com/bowling-for-columbine/
Roger Moore was somewhere else in the firearms discussion, saving the world from various baddies as James Bond 007.
"some other societies have armed populaces and don't have this issue"
No other country has even close to the firearms per capita of USA. Others who get close are either because most weapons are hunting weapons (eg Canada), military weapons that conscripts keep safe at home (eg Switzerland) or complete nutcase countries emerging from or still at war (eg Afghanistan, Libya etc).
Certainly all the other factors you mentioned are relevant, but not sufficient on their own.
I think South Africa and Brazil have a lot of gun violence and wide availability of guns but it’s mostly connected to robbery, not nutcases killing at random in schools, hospitals, cinemas and shopping malls. I know South Africa is gradually tightening up and imposing controls.
The other very sad symptom of US gun culture is the accidental access to weapons by young children and the tragedies that result.
I was indeed thinking of the Swiss.
I'm a great believer at looking at root causes and curing those to resolve the issues further down the line, otherwise you're trying to treat the symptoms each time it happens... and it will keep happening.
Also, it's counter to the dismissive "these guys are simply nut cases" narrative which, although accurate on the face of it, doesn't resolve the probelm.
We need to look beyond the terrible act to what is driving these young men/boys to do what they do. It's almost coming across as a last great f-you before they depart a world that they hate. Notice that most are shot or shoot themselves? These guys are on a one way mission of hate. Why are they hating to the point of murder/suicide? We need to discover that and see if we can resolve it.
Isn't this the kind of thing we techie guys do in our own sphere? We find out the root cause of a failure when it occurs if we can.
"Isn't this the kind of thing we techie guys do in our own sphere? We find out the root cause of a failure when it occurs if we can."
Yes, but finding the root cause isn't always (even usually) the hard part. Getting manglement to address the root cause is. I think I see a parallel here.
"Why are they hating to the point of murder/suicide? We need to discover that and see if we can resolve it."
Some of them are already identified as unbalanced in are seeing a psychiatrist that has them on strong meds. If they don't take their meds, unpredictable things can happen. As I stated before, somebody being prescribed these drugs needs to be on the banned list and perhaps their household as well until a doctor either clears them or they move from the household (and the household may be eligible again). Access to illegal weapons is still a problem, but gun laws won't solve that. Old fashioned police work is likely the only thing that will work and it means enough officers/detectives on the streets learning what's what. Getting fussy about "ghost" guns is a false cry too. The presence of a serial number on a weapon does nothing to prevent crime. One would hope that any weapon used in a crime or possessed by a criminal would be destroyed if confiscated.
The Hollywood thing, the portrayal of guns in Hollywood culture, particularly in old Westerns, is to my eyes quite warped and sick. To point a gun at someone and end their lives is shown as something trivial and arbitrary. I’ve no doubt 19th Century Wild West was lawless and violent but I don’t believe it was quite so cold and without emotion.
Actually, in the best Western movies the "heroes" are usually unwillingly to shoot unless there's no other choice, and shootings are not frequent. The "evil ones" usually use their guns far more. They have good plots and dialogues, and do not revolve around shootings.
Then there are many B-movies and the horrible "spaghetti Western" (which is an Italian idea) with much more shootings because of lame plots, and to appease the public looking just for that. Later Western movies, late '60s and early '70s are much more violent.
Anyway there are researches showing that in the "Wild Old West" guns inside towns were much more regulated than in actual Texas - but the "lawless" ones.
If you think old Westerns are bad, do not watch any Zombie movies, where killing large numbers of former people with lots of blood and gore , but without conscience or consequence is the norm. For example, 'Zombieland' and 'Zombieland 2' have the excellent actors Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone and Woody Harrelson with a cameo by Bill Murray. Zombies are killed with great rapidity and sometimes glee. I cannot help feeling that the perpetrators of mass shootings treat their victims as if they were 'zombies', and, frankly doubt I'll watch another such movie for some time*.
*Yes, I'm a 'bleeding heart', 'tree hugging', (European-type) 'liberal', live with it, I have to.
"the portrayal of guns in Hollywood culture, particularly in old Westerns, is to my eyes quite warped and sick."
There are even worse portrayals these days in certain populations. Rap videos that feature and encourage violent behavior with people waving guns and eliminating the competition. In most of the Westerns I remember, the bad guy needed killing usually due to murdering some innocent prior to their run in with the sheriff. The landscape was also far different and usually a frontier location where the modern practice of just turning the bad guys loose after their portrait session wasn't practiced.
"So what is it about the U.S. that began in the 1990's (which is when I think mass shootings mostly increased) which is causing this"
Hmmm. Well, Doom came out in 1993. Prior to that it was shooting 8-bit space aliens, nebulous blobs, and poorly rendered ducks. Afterwards, the Internet came along and all your base are belong to us. Hmmmm, Internet Famous. Sounds like the perfect storm.
Hmm, whatever happens to mass-shooters who don't die during their rampage? Three squares a day and a line of female fans wanting conjugal visits? Maybe some public barbarism would help future shooters stop and think before they lay waste to another dozen elementary-aged kids. Or maybe make it worse. Probably never know either way as we can't do that anymore.
"what you posted is just an offensive stereotype."
Sterotype - Usually a good first order approximation.
I'll earn a full set of down votes for the about, but I do believe that kids do better in a two parent household. At the very least, having two parents that maintain a share in the raising of their kids. My parents divorced when I was young and I lived with my mom, but my dad was a big part of my upbringing too.
I'm going to go way out on a limb and proclaim that a male and female parental influence while growing up is a good thing.
I'll have a few now to cushion my system >>>>
"And perhaps it's a deeply terrible mixture of the above."
I don't have an answer, however broken families and crazy people and feminism are not unique to the US but there are few other places in the world where people seem to think that the best way to settle their issues with others is to grab a gun and start shooting.
Maybe it's an unhealthy mixture of institutional paranoia and skewed religious dogma?
Some place in the USA, doctor to pregnant patient: «I'm afraid, abortion is no longer allowed here. But if you like, we can shoot dead your baby straight after its birth. So you don't have to wait till it goes to school.»
I did consider to add a "joke alert". But, very unfortunately, this isn't a joke.
Our government does not take care of its citizens. Where is the Universal Health Care? There is too much of "Your Money, or Your Life".
Why are our prescription drugs so costly?
There is too much racism, to much sexism.
How about paying people what the job is worth? Wages haven't kept up with inflation since the early 1970's. Inflation cause by profit taking.
Development often means displacing the people of color living there.
Our prisons are full of people who have harmed no one before going in. Not so much getting out.
Our country is being run by people that get off on hardships, death and destruction of others. Even profit from it.
Too many firearms doesn't seem to be enough.
Need help? Got any money? If they had money, they wouldn't need help!
> Our government does not take care of its citizens. Where is the Universal Health Care?
An interesting statistic that was pointed out to me the other day: the US is obsessed with banning abortion yet has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the developed world, ranking 33rd out of 36 OECD countries.The US rate is 5.8 per 1000 live births whereas in Japan it is just 1.9.
If US politicians cared about the lives of babies then they'd worry less about abortion and rather more about improving healthcare for pregnant women. (But that might require spending money on people who <whisper> "don't deserve it", aka the poor).
https://www.americashealthrankings.org/learn/reports/2019-annual-report/international-comparison
"we have fucking bible thumpers and pandering politicians who think that everyone shouldn't even think about sex until after the wedding."
Yeah, like that works. The girls from the priory were often the most promiscuous. Nothing encourages behavior in a teenager like banning something that is rather pleasant. It's been a few years, but not all of my memory has faded away yet.
"I think you're missing the fact that the only Japanese who are getting pregnant want to have a child"
That, to me, is smart thinking. In a world where the vast majority of the billions in population live in poverty, choosing when to have children and how many is a great idea. The "be fruitful and multiply" has been done a bit too much. The cost of living in Japan can be very expensive. Living in a big city such as Tokyo can be very cramped so having 4 kids is going to be expensive or very limiting.
I heard a female Texan politician interviewed about effectively banning abortion in that state. She was adamant that (other) women should have to carry their foetus to term. When asked about state support for mother and child after birth, she was also adamant that the state should not help, but that 'charities' could provide support.
I had previously heard an interview of a US congresswoman, who in her adventurous youth had travelled to Mexico, where she had been raped at gunpoint. She returned to the USA, and, finding herself pregnant, had an illegal abortion (which nearly killed her), the nurses being entirely unsympathetic when she was admitted to hospital suffering blood loss. Because, obviously, she just should not have 'let' herself be raped.
I do sometimes wonder about just how aware some politicians on either side of 'the pond' are of the consequences of their policies on the people actually affected by them.
The rest of the world should sue America over the trauma of their own mass shootings.
I for one have stopped watching the news due to America’s obsession with mass murder.
We should certainly lobby our local broadcasters to ease the fuck up. I recall during Trump’s Administration you could turn on some UK news channels and the first 15minutes was analysing something Trump had said. Not to do with the UK or Europe or Brexit. Just something generally outrageous and the editors decided this needed to be top of the news and get a full 10-15minute slot.
Turn over to Al Jazeera and there’s been a military coup in Africa which the Beeb (and others) have completely missed or ignored.
Seriously, we get that it’s easier to rehash US news because it’s already in English(ish). But sometimes the breaking news is outside the Anglosphere and you need to just deal with paying a translator to help you report it.
Another advantage of a drone-monitored class room is that nobody moves too fast, makes any sudden movements, pointing fingers or anything else not fitting the pattern recognizing (read: AI) algorithmes in the drone software...
And during the Thursday software updates *everyone* sits absolutely perfectly still and ultra quiet. We'll never forget the funny KB643995 update hick-ups, where the teachers were hunted down and tazered all over the place...
Of course the drone solution is the last line of defence. The schools will be behind multiple high barbed-wired fences, heavily armed guards, pupils will all carry armoured backpacks and will of course all carry guns. It's easier to learn how to shoot than reading....
Ahhh. Sweet freedom.
of mine put it.
"I dont need anything other than my hunting rifle or my 9mm glock, if you want to own a semi/full auto rifle , you go down the recruiting office and sign up to be part of a well regulated militia..."(ie army/navy/air force/coast guard/national guard/cops(marine corp left out because no one trusts them with crayons let alone guns :) ))
"but I need a 50BMG sniper rifle for home defence" BS you need one because your dong is 3" long and in any case after the struggle to get it out, load it and then fire and miss at the bad guys you then wonder how many walls a 50bmg round will go through until it stops(hint it will go through an engine block and then the rest of the car without stopping)
"I need 155mm for home defense - if those kids in the next town play their music too loud"
For me it's the weird guy across the street with the PA system and a case of liking to putter around in his shed at 2am with music blaring. At about 2:15a, I'd really make good use of a 155mm round.
""but I need a 50BMG sniper rifle for home defence" "
Those are big, heavy and expensive to fire. Just practicing enough to be competent is a big pile of bank notes in ammo. The up side is for home defense, you don't have to be good. Fire one 50cal round inside and the bad guy may soil himself and run. A large caliber handgun with half loads is also a good deterrent. Big badda boom. If you have a weapon, you should be proficient with it.
I don't understand why they are not suggesting that the teaching staff get issued with tasers directly. This does not require the technical issues of drones, navigation etc. and hopefully would be less lethal than arming teachers with actual firearms as has been suggested by some as a response to the latest killings.
Of course, arming teachers with anything gives attackers the option of turning up, surprising a teacher with an attack and taking their weapon to dispense violence to others, but drones require skilled remote control, and then there is the issue that the cameras will be used for general surveillance, rather than purely protection.
And then there is the case when the attacker gets control of the drones: see the Register's multitude of security articles on IT hacks, hijacking of 'self driving' vehicles etc.
I cannot help feeling that in this case, prevention is would be far better than cure.
...arming teachers with anything gives...
Dead teachers.
The police after summoning enough courage to creep trough a door if they see an adult holding a weapon they will shoot first to avoid having to ask questions later.
I can't imagine them shouting "excuse me, are you the shooter?" before opening fire.
That applies equally to 'all you need to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun'. In essence, how does anyone identify in a blood-soaked corridor with multiple bodies, whether the one blood-stained person left standing when you ('a good guy with a gun') arrive is a 'good guy' who has just shot a 'bad guy' or t'other way around?
The definition of 'good guy with a gun' should mean "Police Officer", preferably in uniform, certainly with a visible badge of office. I believe that it takes a great deal of training for 'good guys' to be competent to enter a building with an armed intruder and only shoot the intruder. If the matter is complicated by multiple 'good guys with guns' not in any uniform also 'helping out' there are only going to be more dead bodies and victims.
"If the matter is complicated by multiple 'good guys with guns' not in any uniform also 'helping out' there are only going to be more dead bodies and victims."
That has generally not proven to be the case. A "good guy" without a gun is also known as a "victim". A person should not be rendered helpless (or reliant upon government intervention) from protecting and defending themselves and their family against the "bad guy". THAT is what a "good guy with a gun" really is. Especially since we now have at least two major instances of the nearby government intervention experts (ie - fully uniformed cops) failing to render the aid you seem to believe they will render.
I don't understand why they are not suggesting that the teaching staff get issued with tasers directly.
My dear E.M., you're not from around here, are you? If you were, you'd know that arming teachers with Tasers won't provide near the profit margin that outfitting schools with the Buck Rogers Memorial Taser Drone would.
Won't somebody please think of the shareholders?
@ Someone Else "My dear E.M., you're not from around here, are you?"
Umm, no, I'm from across the water, that is one of the terrible oppressors from whom the upstanding colonials sought freedom and gained it in 1776.
"arming teachers with Tasers won't provide near the profit margin that outfitting schools with the Buck Rogers Memorial Taser Drone would"
Ah, yes, of course, I forgot the cardinal rule - "follow the money".
You are, of course entirely correct.
And so to bed - sleep tight!
"I don't understand why they are not suggesting that the teaching staff get issued with tasers directly."
Easy, those tasers will be removed from the teacher's possession and used on them. The same would happen with firearms. If you multiply all of the schools in the US times the number of class days and factor in the number of shootings, it's barely a blip. Not to minimize the horror and grief, but the ways of reducing the number of injuries and deaths can't, in and of itself, lead to a greater chance of injury and death. One of the requirements of tasers in the US is that when they are fired, they spew out a whole load of tiny serial number tags so the charge can be traced. Those tags can injure people's eyes if the victim is close enough.
It's mostly the student body that is more of a problem than outsiders coming onto schools.
This post has been deleted by its author
Axon, the company formerly known as Taser, has abandoned plans to build a stun gun-equipped drone intended for deployment in schools after an “exodus” of resignations from its internal ethics board.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/06/school-taser-drone-programme-paused-after-ethics-board-exodus
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