One issue I have with the Second Amendment crowd

[Thom18]

In the latest case, a 17 year old got access to his dad’s weapons. While mental health was the driving factor behind the shooting, it was enabled by his access to firearms in the household.

How did he get them in the first place? Were they in a safe? If not, they should have been. If so, why did he know the combination?

He had access to weapons despite being mentally ill and being underage. Without confiscating weapons, how can we fix this? It’s ideal that someone isn’t mentally ill (or just evil) in the first place, but when this can’t be (or isn’t) rectified, you have to work “forwards”. Does Texas state law mandate that weapons must be in safes? If not, legislate. Does the law say that minors can’t be given the code for safes? If the law can be made practical, legislate.

We weren’t seeing this kind of stuff happening every week in years past, though. Moral decline and the rampancy of untreated mental illness certainly hasn’t helped (if those aren’t the causes to begin with). Barring laws, what can we do to stop this?

 

[QContinuum]

American political system - You can’t fully implement your strategies because doing so would be gasp bipartisan, which wouldnt be conservative/progressive enough to get reelected in your respective party

Yes. Also, the long, torturous process of campaigning for office means the populace spends roughly 20-24 months out of every four year term hating each other along party lines.

How do you just forget 2 years of civil warfare and come together like nothing happened?

The media has made it thousand times worse with their voracious coverage of every meeting and debate in order to find their “gotcha” moment. Add that to the internet full of bitter discourse.

I have serious concerns about the future of this country. We are disintegrating along various fault lines.

 

[phil19034]

Discounting the possibility that you are a troll

A troll, really? I’ve been posting on CAF for several years now.

I’m sorry that you don’t believe that shooter games may have an affect, but I do.

We have had guns for the entire history the United States. People didn’t walk into schools and start shooting kids for hundreds of years. This is a new phenomenon, that corresponds with four circumstancal pieces of evidence

1. more violence on TV
2. way more realistic violence in video games
3. society moving away from God
4. a devaluation of human life in society

I strongly believe that even if we make all guns illegal, these mass killings will continue with some kind of different weapon because we are ignoring the root causes that are rotting our society.

God Bless

 

[phil19034]

Maximilian75:

American political system - You can’t fully implement your strategies because doing so would be gasp bipartisan, which wouldnt be conservative/progressive enough to get reelected in your respective party

Yes. Also, the long, torturous process of campaigning for office means the populace spends roughly 20-24 months out of every four year term hating each other along party lines.

How do you just forget 2 years of civil warfare and come together like nothing happened?

The media has made it thousand times worse with their voracious coverage of every meeting and debate in order to find their “gotcha” moment. Add that to the internet full of bitter discourse.

I have serious concerns about the future of this country. We are disintegrating along various fault lines.

I agree, the last time we were this polarized was before the Civil War.

Today’s climate seem far worse than the 1960s and 1970s

 

[Theo520]

The claim that violent video games desensitize individuals to violence is flimsy for multiple reasons.

I recall that the US Military changed their target practice from using bulls eyes to targets shaped like people to help with this issue, and it worked for them. There is some science behind it.

S.L.A. Marshall did a study on the firing rates of soldiers in World War II. He found that the ratio of rounds fired vs. hits was low; he also noted that the majority of soldiers were not aiming to hit their targets.[6] This was a problem for the US military and its allies during World War II. New training implements were developed and hit rates improved. The changes were small, but effective. First, instead of shooting at bull’s-eye type targets, the United States Army switched to silhouette targets that mimic an average human. Training also switched from 300 yard slow fire testing to rapid fire testing with different time and distance intervals from 20 to 300 yards. With these two changes, hitting targets became a reaction that was almost automatic.

 

[on_the_hill]

I’m not sure mental health is the problem, though. Up until the moment that the person pulls the trigger, how do we know for sure that he needs the mental health help? After the fact, we can all say, “he was crazy.” But was he really that much crazier than so many other people who will never do anything like what he did?

 

[MonteRCMS]

I’m sorry that you don’t believe that shooter games may have an affect, but I do.

We have had guns for the entire history the United States. People didn’t walk into schools and start shooting kids for hundreds of years. This is a new phenomenon, that corresponds with four circumstancal pieces of evidence

1. move violence on TV
2. way more realistic violence in video games
3. society moving away from God
4. a devaluation of human life in society

I strongly believe that even if we make all guns illegal, these mass killings will continue with some kind of different weapon because we are ignoring the root causes that are rotting our society.

God Bless

Agree.

School killings are a new phenomenon … 30 years or so.

Video games have trained children to kill. And desensitized them to mayhem.

What year did we begin to drug boys in school for them to become passive? And what are the side effects of those drugs? And how long do those residual side effects persist?

 

[MonteRCMS]

It seems to be a recurrent theme that the shooters aren’t taking anything because they’ve either refused care or haven’t received any or have fallen through cracks in the system.

We need to review the medical history of the shooters … they may have been taking prescription drugs for a long time and only stopped recently.

We have no way of knowing the interactive side effects of various drugs.

I used to get yelled at by mods for introducing my own experiences … but before I retired I worked as a health care professional … had to change my intake form because too many new clients were taking more than ten prescriptions. I had to modify the intake form to allow more space to write in the names of the various drugs and their purpose(s). This blew me away. And the prescriptions were from different doctors who seemed to have no idea what the others were doing to the patient of interest.

 

[MonteRCMS]

There’s a huge difference in socialized medicine and the current exchange system of mandated insurance. There’s a massive difference in how the VA and TRICARE work (the closest things we have to socialized medicine in this country - Medicare and Medicaid are close, but these two are closer) and how the exchanges work.

We also have Indian reservations which are government controlled … but I have no idea how their health care is carried out.

 

[DignumEtJustum]

There were always guns but never the craziness seen with them nowadays. Guns aren’t the problem but rather the breakdown of society at large. Admit the real problem and deal with it. The Second Amendment exists for a reason and gun ownership is a fundamental right of the American people, for better or worse. It always seems those wanting to take the guns away are the last sorts of people (if I owned any) I’d want to submit my guns to.

 

[Pup7]

We have no way of knowing the interactive side effects of various drugs.

As I was saying, based on what I’ve read, most of the shooters seem to be off meds at the time or they weren’t on them to start with for varying reasons. Most have slipped through the mental health cracks.

I used to get yelled at by mods for introducing my own experiences … but before I retired I worked as a health care professional … had to change my intake form because too many new clients were taking more than ten prescriptions. I had to modify the intake form to allow more space to write in the names of the various drugs and their purpose(s). This blew me away. And the prescriptions were from different doctors who seemed to have no idea what the others were doing to the patient of interest.

This is why pharmacists lobbied for cross-sharing of medications by insurance companies, because the other thing that was happening was people would go to Doctor B and not tell them what Doctor A prescribed, either deliberately or because they’re human and just forgot. There’s no reason to blame the doc for that because sometimes the patient is culpable (and of course sometimes they’re not, but the provider isn’t omniscient).

Polypharmacy (which is what that’s called) is a real thing, and yes - it’s scary.

 

[Ender]

They need to increase their emphasis, action, not just words. Like I know the NRA was in a tough spot but it would be nice if they presented alternatives like expanding school-based wraparound care for special needs students.

The NRA is not a legislative body, but they have addressed the need to deal with the mental health side of these mass shootings.

More recently, the NRA has supported legislation to ensure that appropriate records of those who have been judged mentally incompetent or involuntarily committed to mental institutions be made available for use in firearms transfer background checks. The NRA will support any reasonable step to fix America’s broken mental health system without intruding on the constitutional rights of Americans.

 

[Augustinian]

Does Texas state law mandate that weapons must be in safes? If not, legislate.

Locking a weapon in a safe makes it pretty useless if you are attacked. Someone comes up to you on the street threatening to shoot you, excusing yourself to go home and into your safe isn’t usually an option.

 

[redbetta]

Everybody says mental health is the problem, but nobody has any clear solutions. Really, talking mental health is like trying to hammer jello to the wall. It is such an all-encompassing topic that any single policy solution would be lucky to solve one percent of the problem. And a lot of mental health solutions just put band aides on larger problems.

Honestly, the bigger problem is a culture of nihilism, breakdown of the family, and a lack of proper role models for kids to help alleviate the effects of broken down families.

If I were to suggest a policy, I would say make it illegal to publish a mass murderer’s name and picture. The copycat phenomenon is a real thing.

 

[MikeInVA]

Video games have trained children to kill. And desensitized them to mayhem.

I think we over stress this. When I was a boy we played with toy guns every day, and many of the boys I knew received a .22 rifle as a birthday or Christmas present when they were around 8 years old.
Are today’s games too violent, yes. But the number of people who act out violently compared to the number of people who play videogames is miniscule.

 

[Augustinian]

If I were to suggest a policy, I would say make it illegal to publish a mass murderer’s name and picture. The copycat phenomenon is a real thing.

Has this kind of law been effective in the past? This isn’t new, Greece outlawed the mention of Herostratus’ name after he burned a temple to immortalize his name.

The fact that Herostratus’ name is still known, but the names of his judges are not forgotten, tells me this strategy isn’t that effective

 

[godisgood77]

I’m not entirely sure what you mean by Second Amendment People, but why do you think that a person is incapable of supporting the second amendment and mental health services at the same time.

I think he is referring to republican policy on the matter…much said and done about protecting gun carrying rights, very little said or done to deal with the collateral damage of unfettered gun access

 

[phil19034]

MonteRCMS:

Video games have trained children to kill. And desensitized them to mayhem.

I think we over stress this. When I was a boy we played with toy guns every day, and many of the boys I knew received a .22 rifle as a birthday or Christmas present when they were around 8 years old.
Are today’s games too violent, yes. But the number of people who act out violently compared to the number of people who play videogames is miniscule.

Minuscule, yes. Because no one is saying that video games cause all kids to become killers, but rather they have a negative impact and can push the ones who have undiagnosed mental illness over the edge.

And whether we accept it or not, it does have a desensitizing effect, which is why the military is using “video games” today to “help” soldiers who have trouble pulling the trigger

 

[JanetF]

I’m not sure that I agree that it’s up to the NRA to solve the problem of a lack of mental health programs. Why aren’t the various mental health program advocates who understand the issues the best doing more?.

 

[JanSobieskiIII]

I’m a huge second amendment supporter. To the point that I believe the phrase shall not be infringed negates any and all regulation. I’m a fanatic when it comes to the right to keep and bear arms.

I do think the mental health argument is stupid and unhelpful. I don’t think the majority of these shooters have been truly mentally ill. I also don’t think it matters if they were. Acts of evil are acts of evil even if the person committing them is sick. There’s not much that can be done to prevent these tragedies. It’s part of living in a free society.