I think that a lot of people have racial issues, but don't go and blow away a bunch of people because of it. Just like lots of people have religious issues, but don't go and blow away a bunch of people because of it. In the end, the core issue might not be mental health, it's the mental instability or health issues that kind of push them over the edge. Again, to try and paint this (or anything like this) as a single issue is disingenuous.
This is not the thread for levity. Keep that shit in the Drunk Thread, or I'll sick @Kubla Kahn on your ass.
It may not be disingenuous, but treating them with equivalence is wrong. Suppose his motivations where driven by some sort of mental illness (doubtful); even if that factor is eliminated and he doesn't shoot up a church I still have a problem with him being a white supremacist. As far as I'm concerned the biggest issue here is racism, with everything else (guns, mental health, etc.) coming in a distant second.
My big problem is that he had no problem killing a bunch of people, regardless of what race colour or religion they are. Period. And there is no equivalence, and there are no generalities. Everyone just grabs on to the story and tries to spin it to fit their soapbox.
So some Houston NRA board member, Charles Cotton, has blamed the SC massacre on the church's murdered pastor because he spoke out against gun control and not allowing guns inside the church. I would laugh while watching this prick get slowly buried alive. Whether or not the collective NRA itself is defending the comments hasn't been said, at least to my knowledge. This is the fault of the fuck who did it and the fucks who directly influenced him.
I feel that gun ownership is an individual thing. The fact that someone chooses not to own a gun doesn't earn him/her the punishment of being killed. It's fucking disgusting to blame the victims for this.
I'm usually the first one to bring up mental health, but I would be very surprised if it turned out mental illness was anything near a primary factor in this one. This incident has far more in common with the Boston Marathon bombing than it does with say the Aurora movie theater shooting.
It's sad to me, that our society has reached the point where human life is not valued highly enough, that anyone thinks anyone in their right mind could do this. There is nothing that will convince me he is mentally stable.
It's awesome how Charleston is basically out celebrating the lives of those who were killed, instead of letting their community be defined by violence and hate. If someone killed my loved, I'm not sure I could forgive them that easily.
It is the best reaction. Good. I can't find the original video link but Charlie Brooker had it bang on in 2009. Celebrate the life of the loved ones that were lost, don't make it a body count competition and focus on the shooter for days on end. http://www.inquisitr.com/2183991/ch...explains-how-media-should-report-mass-murder/
I agree with everything you said in this post 100%. I wish both sides would get together and quit posturing for their side long enough to realize that if they each gave a little bit they could meet in the middle with something that could help solve the problem. Instead they frantically point the finger at each other every fucking time something like this happens and say "SEE! I WAS RIGHT! If x or y was applied like I said, this never would've happened." Most of y'all know my life has been altered dramatically more then once by gun violence. I don't blame the guns. Hell, I can't even blame the laws in place. My brother in law before he shot my sister, my niece, and finally himself was a very responsible gun owner. But he did have mental issues that would never have shown up in a background check. He was apparently a ticking time bomb, but to the outside world he was a great guy. Something in his brain snapped that night. My boy is a different story. His mother was so anti-gun she wouldn't allow me to teach him gun safety. He was never taught respect for guns. Some asshole sold him a revolver and him being his gangster self wanted to show off how tough he was by playing Russian Roulette in front of his friends. He lost. It would be nice if there was an easy black/white answer to the problem, but there isn't. I do know the answer isn't taking away everyone's guns and it's not useless gun buy back programs. I think mental health would be a good place to start, but it's not the be all, end all. There's a good chance that all these individuals that do mass shootings would've slipped through the cracks and still been allowed to legally purchase a gun. I can't say it falls on the parents (At least for the mass shooters.) It was initially reported that this dipshit's parents bought him a gun for his birthday, it's come out that they gave him birthday money and he bought a gun. His father was one of the first one's that called the police and ID'd him after seeing his picture on the news. I wish I had an idea how to stop this shit, but I don't. I do know that yelling "I'M RIGHT! YOU"RE STUPID!" isn't working though.
Spin it to their soapbox, what the fuck? So there's no truth, no actual reason why this happened, either known or unknown, just everyone who posits a reason it's just preaching on their soapbox? Why are you so resistant to the idea that this guy's primary motivation was racial hatred? He fucking said it himself that's what his motivation was. How much more do you need?
Of course there are reasonS why this happened, but it's usually not as simple as saying it was just one thing. Obviously racism plays a huge part in this. But it's not the only part. As to the soap box spin, I'm talking about the various mouth-pieces for various causes using this to their advantage. Gun rights activists will spin their story (the Pastor was at fault, as per one NRA exec). Gun legislation activists will spin their story (guns are bad and we should get rid of guns). Racial groups will say it was because he was racist. Mental health groups will say it was because of mental health issues. And on and on. Hell, even individuals are doing what they can to milk the situation for their benefit: http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/state-rep.--remove-confederate-flag-468594243695 "Oh look at me, I'm solving this by trying to take a flag down... be sure to vote for me next election". In the end, though, all they are doing is feeding the bullshit that is the 24x7 news cycle, and NOBODY is ever going to get to the root of the problem and solve shit; they're just going to do PR until it dies down. There could be a ton of legitimate issues that led to this; family values, poverty, bullying in school, gangs, racism, religion, etc., etc., and they all add up to creating a racist who killed a bunch of people in a church. NOTHING will be solved out of this, and all the news coverage and posturing will just detract from reporting real news as "expert" after "expert" line up like airliners at Dulles on a stormy day to get on the talk/news/morning show of choice to get their spin heard. And meanwhile the news channels will treat the killer like he was some kind of contestant in a fucked up game of "who killed the most" and glorify him and his actions. Best thing people can do is just think comforting thoughts to the victims, shut off the TV, and work at making your local community a better place to live.
I'm going to respectfully disagree with the idea that the problem isn't guns. I think our culture is so in love with guns that we try to avoid the obvious so we can justify keeping them. There are a lot of red herrings that are thrown out in the media in this debate, and I'm going to point out the 'mental health' one. Somehow, the dialogue has become 'we need screenings and mental health evaluations.' But we get precious little data on how this would look or work. For instance, approximately 1 in 5 Americans suffers from a mental illness of some sort. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2012/01/19/1-in-5-americans-suffer-from-mental-illness/ Now all mental illnesses are not the same. Some people are sicker than others. But where do you draw the line? And would this really help? I have no doubt that there is something 'wrong' with people who commit these acts. I'm just not sure how it translates into Minority Report. The reality is you don't know what people will do in the future. That is an immutable truth. Does this mean we should have no restrictions on gun ownership? No, or course not. Certain people have shown their inability to follow the law (convicted felons) and are banned from owning a weapon. The difference here is we have actual factual evidence (i.e. commission of a crime) versus 'they might do something bad' (mental illness diagnosis of some sort). I'll also throw out these two articles: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...guns-and-mass-shootings-in-the-united-states/ http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/jul/22/gun-homicides-ownership-world-list Look at it this way, if you got rid of all guns - would there be gun deaths? No. There will still be violence and murder, there always has been and always will be. The problem with guns is they make it far easier to commit these types of crimes. And I'm not just talking about 'spree' shootings, when you start factoring all the other types of gun deaths, the number gets much bigger (see articles above). For instance, the asshole that recently killed the people in a church, do you think this guy could have done it with a knife? Would the tally be as high? Ultimately, when you start looking at who commits these crimes, remove the gun, you'll see that while they are assholes and fucked up, they probably don't have the wherewithal to commit crimes of this magnitude without the gun. Much of the time, these folks are smaller, physically weaker individuals that would be hard pressed to kill through manual means. It is the guns that facilitate their ability to kill this many people. So what is the answer? It depends on what you want. If gun ownership is that important to you, then you have to accept that means there will be innocent deaths (just as we accept it with having cars versus public transportation). There is a cost, and we should be honest about what that cost is. If you want to lower gun deaths - intentional and accidental - then you have to get rid of some of the guns. Other countries (Australia) - have done just that after a mass shooting and seen their rate of gun deaths go down. If you really want that gun, then realize it comes at a cost. If you're ok with that cost, so be it. But I'd like to see a more honest dialogue in media about what it costs us so we could all make a better, informed decision/policy regarding guns.
America is not going to give up their guns ever. It has become so integrated into their society that any gun death --no matter how high the body count, no matter how horrid the tragedy-- is eventually passed off as collateral damage. Like cars: automotive accidents kill way more than 50,000 people a year, but the rest of us still alive consider that collateral damage to not ride around on animals until the end of days. That's how guns have become. Many would rather see others killed than to walk around unarmed. It's the only way to explain this bullshit: I have zero faith in change happening.
Bill Maher did an interesting piece last night in New Rules: He mentions Seinfeld's comments (which can be found here): http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/10/opinions/obeidallah-jerry-seinfeld/index.html We've struggled with the same thing on this very board. Even though the subject is comedy, it is serious. Throughout most of Western history, comedians play an important role: they say things that other people can't say (I'm including court jesters here). Satire can be a very important tool in getting people to evaluate their views. I'm curious, is the current explosion of what I'll call 'PCness' detrimental in the long run?
I dont think its going to be an issue in the long-run. The current PC climate is that way because of social media. Yes, its been around for about 15 years now, but only in the last 5 years or so has it been so incredibly pervasive. Its literally everywhere. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Snapchat, etc. are all regularly quoted by news outlets as sources. That gives them legitimacy, and therefore the users and their ideas legitimacy. Because of this people falsely believe they have a voice that is (or should be) heard. Every blog or twitter post is a now pseudo exert from an editorial page. The collective knowing the rules, and in order to increase their legitimacy among the wave of others just like them, have doubled down on the political correctness to stand out. So now you have social arms race to see who can be the most politically correct, the most sanctimonious, and the most self-righteous. Step out of line, and the collective will clobber you and try to ruin your life. Along the way people forgot to not take themselves so seriously. Eventually the pendulum is going to swing the other way, and its already starting to.