Stop the senseless murders of US citizens.

Dane

Dane

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I live in Santa Barbara. SB is the recent location of a mass murder in the college town of Isla Vista, where a mentally ill young man killed 6 people and injured many others, 3 of which are still in the hospital. He stabbed his 3 roommates to death, gunned down 2 women, and killed another young man at a deli.

I have friends who live in Isla Vista, I frequently ride the streets on my road uni and wink at bikini-clad women. I've played my ukulele on the beaches there. It's a fun loving, goofy, beach party college town. This kind of thing shouldn't happen anywhere, and especially not a place like this. These kinds of things are always saddening, but it feels different when you have a connection to it.

The blame is not linear. Many things allow these horrors to happen, time and time-again. United States mental health monitoring systems, US gun and weapon acquisition systems, and the media are the main culprits. We need to let our politicians know that we will not stand to let this happen anymore. It's their job to act on our behalf and make laws for the betterment of our citizens.

No more senseless deaths, tweet #NotOneMore

Send your elected officials an actual post card, free of charge and it takes about 15 seconds.
http://act.everytown.org/sign/NotOneMore/

This is not a thread for theories, or political debate. Something is wrong in the system somewhere, let's make our politicians work to solve this problem.
 
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/makes popcorn, pulls up a chair and waits for NRA to arrive on the thread
 
I should perhaps point out that I agree totally with you, in case there is any confusion. But the only responses you're likely to get here are "what has this got to do with ukulele", "I'll give up my guns when...blah blah blah" or outright apathy.

There are members who share your (and my) views, but discussions of a moral/political/philosophical nature are generally frowned upon, or disregarded entirely, on UU.
 
The Big Kahuna said:
/makes popcorn, pulls up a chair and waits for NRA to arrive on the thread
Click to expand...

There is no single source of blame. More and more details come out each day forming a larger picture of what has happened and what may or may not have caused this tragedy. But lets make US politicians pay attention.
 
The Big Kahuna said:
I should perhaps point out that I agree totally with you, in case there is any confusion. But the only responses you're likely to get here are "what has this got to do with ukulele", "I'll give up my guns when...blah blah blah" or outright apathy.

There are members who share your (and my) views, but discussions of a moral/political/philosophical nature are generally frowned upon, or disregarded entirely, on UU.
Click to expand...

That's why it's at the bottom of the forums in General Discussion, because it's not ukulele related.
 
I agree with you on many of your points, especially regarding mental health care, as the lack of funding for treatment is a real problem. I just never understand why people blame the media in these cases. How is the media to blame? [That's not rhetorical, I'm actually looking for an answer to that.]
 
Cheeso said:
I agree with you on many of your points, especially regarding mental health care, as the lack of funding for treatment is a real problem. I just never understand why people blame the media in these cases. How is the media to blame? [That's not rhetorical, I'm actually looking for an answer to that.]
Click to expand...

The theory is that media coverage of violent events encourages more violent events. This is, of course, nonsense. But it's much more comfortable to blame the media than to accept the real reasons this doesn't get better: Apathy. Selfishness. A money-soaked political culture that considers governing unnecessary. None of that will change until Americans accept their responsibility as citizens to be aware of the real world and act to make it better.

Stepping down from my soapbox....

-- Steve
 
Dane said:
I live in Santa Barbara. SB is the recent location of a mass murder in the college town of Isla Vista, where a mentally ill young man killed 6 people and injured many others, 3 of which are still in the hospital. He stabbed his 3 roommates to death, gunned down 2 women, and killed another young man at a deli.

I have friends who live in Isla Vista, I frequently ride the streets on my road uni and wink at bikini-clad women. I've played my ukulele on the beaches there. It's a fun loving, goofy, beach party college town. This kind of thing shouldn't happen anywhere, and especially not a place like this. These kinds of things are always saddening, but it feels different when you have a connection to it.

The blame is not linear. Many things allow these horrors to happen, time and time-again. United States mental health monitoring systems, US gun and weapon acquisition systems, and the media are the main culprits. We need to let our politicians know that we will not stand to let this happen anymore. It's their job to act on our behalf and make laws for the betterment of our citizens.

No more senseless deaths, tweet #NotOneMore

Send your elected officials an actual post card, free of charge and it takes about 15 seconds.
http://act.everytown.org/sign/NotOneMore/

This is not a thread for theories, or political debate. Something is wrong in the system somewhere, let's make our politicians work to solve this problem.
Click to expand...

Shouldn't the postcard also have wording about enacting common sense laws to reduce knife violence? Three people were stabbed to death.
 
Unfortunately, it's a matter of mathematics and statistics. The USA population is approximately 310 Million folk. If 99.99% of them are considered, stable, reliable and in control of themselves, that still leaves 31,000 folk in that 0.01% unstable, unreliable and out of control group. That's give-or-take 600 per state, with the higher population states (California, New York, etc.) more likely to have numbers in the hundreds and the lower population states (both Dakotas, Rhode Island, etc.) in the couple-hundred range. So, what do you do about the one-in-10,000 who doesn't care about the laws the other 9,999 follow?

Government trying to protect against the 0.01% who don't "play by the rules" by restricting the behavior of the 99.99% who follow the rules just doesn't work. As an example, despite all the DUI laws out there, tens of thousands are killed or injured every year just in the USA, and there is no end in sight.

We all grieve for the victims and their loved ones when such atrocities occur. As large as this country is, and we tend to forget how large it really is, we do get a lot closer with each other in times of strife.
 
SteveZ said:
Government trying to protect against the 0.01% who don't "play by the rules" by restricting the behavior of the 99.99% who follow the rules just doesn't work. As an example, despite all the DUI laws out there, tens of thousands are killed or injured every year just in the USA, and there is no end in sight.
Click to expand...

Might want to check your facts. Drunk driving fatality rates were down 48% from 1991 to 2012. Still work to be done, but stricter laws and enforcement, along with greater awareness, have made a big difference.

http://responsibility.org/sites/default/files/files/AIDF%20Rates%20-%201991-2012%20trend.gif

-- Steve
 
StevieBGoode said:
Might want to check your facts. Drunk driving fatality rates were down 48% from 1991 to 2012. Still work to be done, but stricter laws and enforcement, along with greater awareness, have made a big difference.

http://responsibility.org/sites/default/files/files/AIDF%20Rates%20-%201991-2012%20trend.gif

-- Steve
Click to expand...

Trending down or not, ten thousand killed by DUI is a bunch.

"Drunk Driving
In 2012, 10,322 people were killed and approximately 345,000 were injured. Each crash, each death, each injury impacts not only the person in the crash, but family, friends, classmates, coworkers and more."

Source: http://www.madd.org/drunk-driving/
 
In this country, there has been a complete ban on all handguns and 'military' type rifles since the Dunblane killings, many, many years ago.

It still doesn't stop the 'bad' elements of society getting their hands on such items and using them. Of course you can argue that restricting the number of guns goes some way to preventing the guns falling into the 'wrong' hands, but that's not the whole truth.

The 'bad people' will just adjust their methods, which in this country has meant a meteoric rise in knife crime. Or they will simply apply for shotgun licences and use them.

One sad repercussion of the blanket ban on legally held handguns is that when the inevitable nutter does run amok with a shotgun (as with the Cumbria shootings), or illegally procured weapon no-one is really in a position to defend themselves .......

Personally, I'm more concerned with the number of utter incompetents that are driving around on UK roads, either with no licence, or with absolutely no regard for other road users.

So what then? Ban all cars?
 
I'm almost hesitant to even touch on this, but it's been on my mind all day so here goes nothing. If the details that I've been reading about this incident are true - mainly, that the assailant committed this horrific act essentially because he wasn't rich and powerful and wanted to get revenge on those who he believed slighted him for this - this is not a problem that can be solved by the government. As a society, we've got some pretty messed up values when it comes to money, power and status, and it seems to me that educating our future generations that these things don't matter should be our top priority. I wish I could express what I'm feeling about this more eloquently, and I hope there may be others reading this who get what I'm trying to say (and who are raising their kids in a way that teaches them that being a good person is more important than driving a good car).

Words fail.
 
janeray1940 said:
I'm almost hesitant to even touch on this, but it's been on my mind all day so here goes nothing. If the details that I've been reading about this incident are true - mainly, that the assailant committed this horrific act essentially because he wasn't rich and powerful and wanted to get revenge on those who he believed slighted him for this - this is not a problem that can be solved by the government. As a society, we've got some pretty messed up values when it comes to money, power and status, and it seems to me that educating our future generations that these things don't matter should be our top priority. I wish I could express what I'm feeling about this more eloquently, and I hope there may be others reading this who get what I'm trying to say (and who are raising their kids in a way that teaches them that being a good person is more important than driving a good car).

Words fail.
Click to expand...

Actually, very eloquent - and spot on!
 
janeray1940 said:
If the details that I've been reading about this incident are true - mainly, that the assailant committed this horrific act essentially because he wasn't rich and powerful and wanted to get revenge on those who he believed slighted him for this...
Click to expand...
Actually, my understanding is that he was a sexually frustrated virgin who was angry because he wasn't getting any. Then again, if he were rich and powerful, he'd probably have had women throwing themselves at him.

If he equated money and power with the ability to be with women, he was so wrong.

Honestly, he wasn't some hideously ugly or deformed person where his appearance would immediately turn women away. I imagine some women might have thought he was good looking. Obviously, he was "socially challenged" and had unrealistic expectations.

You are right that this not something the government can really do anything about.

It starts with being raised in a home where the parents are responsible and instill appropriate values in their children. Sadly, many children don't have stable homes with good moral backgrounds these days.
 
It may be that focusing on hardware as the cause and therefore the solution to this problem is indicative of the materialistic society we live in. I am as guilty (materialistic) as anyone the proof being my difficulty imagining what a non-materialistic society's solution would be.
 
itsme said:
Actually, my understanding is that he was a sexually frustrated virgin who was angry because he wasn't getting any. Then again, if he were rich and powerful, he'd probably have had women throwing themselves at him.

If he equated money and power with the ability to be with women, he was so wrong.

Honestly, he wasn't some hideously ugly or deformed person where his appearance would immediately turn women away. I imagine some women might have thought he was good looking. Obviously, he was "socially challenged" and had unrealistic expectations.

You are right that this not something the government can really do anything about.

It starts with being raised in a home where the parents are responsible and instill appropriate values in their children. Sadly, many children don't have stable homes with good moral backgrounds these days.
Click to expand...

Well said, all of it, and especially that last sentence.
 
Crazy is crazy, trying to examine it rationally won't get you very far. I just heard the other day that one of the columbine shooters stated that he didn't have any friends, and that he had no social life. They found out he did in fact have quite an active social life, and did things with others frequently. But that's not the way he perceived it, because he wasn't right in the head.

Government can help, why are we allowing people who are documented as mentally unstable buy, or continue to own, lethal weapons that fire ranged projectiles?

Sure people will always have access to knives, but it takes a lot more determination to kill someone with a knife. It's much more personal. Guns are quick and easy, any monkey can point and fire a weapon at someone in medium to close range, and if they have enough rounds, land lethal hits. Also the victim has more opportunity for self-defense in a knife attack. I'm not sure what the statistics are on survival rate of knife wounds, but I would assume they are greater than bullets? I'm not sure on that one.

And no, I'm not anti-gun. I frequent the shotgun and rifle ranges with my 870 and my 22 rifle. I also own, and am skilled with throwing knives.
 
Cheeso said:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/armed-civilians-do-not-stop-mass-shootings
Click to expand...

Read it - and all it seems to try and do is dismiss all the occasions of people intervening by highlighting that they were, or had been, or were training to be, in some sort of uniformed service.

None of which alters the fact that they DID intervene.

I think the above posts sum it up very well - you simply cannot legislate against people with a mindset that results in them carrying out these attacks, because they will find another way ..... be that using a car, a knife or even a bomb ......... all of which we've seen in this country at some point in the past few years.

And like I say, despite a blanket ban on handguns, people are still being killed with them over here ........
 
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