California active shooter.....Here we go again...

[Knobgoblin]

Well, peacock…. since you're implying you have more moral "compassion" than the rest of us… let me humbly come before for superiorness and proffer a proven idea to effectively control mass shootings….


SHOOT BACK!!

 

[Hueco]

I like that you touched on the financial situation in your post.
I can't imagine being what I am ( blue collar, supposedly decent job, good benefits) but have to watch the tech explosion happen over the last decade/15 years.
This is a broad assumption that mr. 57 yr old lived and worked in San Jo this whole time. But if so he probably developed a sense of hopelessness and low self worth during this period.
Again, wildly speculative.

I'm sure we'll find out. One of my first big breaks in the tech industry was with a company that was quickly growing at the time. I was employee number 205. Kept my nose down, did my work, blew every metric asked of me out of the water. The company did an annual party and handed out recognition awards - and I saw my team's award go to other people...Now, they were good people, jovial, fun to work with...but, in my opinion, if you have a competition then you have rules...and the top spot wasn't being awarded to the winner (which would have been a buddy of mine one year, me the next).

And then, I noticed that all the promotions, awards, and bonuses seemed to go, 95% of the time, to people of a certain religion...that was my first real taste of nepotism. And boy, did it piss me off. I'm not making excuses for anyone that commits violence...hell, most men in that situation end up, if they do anything at all, shooting themselves not anyone else...

My point is: our culture prizes hard work - but the game can be rigged and there simply isn't much that is or can be done about it...and if someone is left in a real bind because they pulled the short stick...we do nothing to help. One of the primary reasons that I think we need to pursue a UBI is to offer stability to the extreme downtrodden. Imagine the weight lifted off your shoulders if you knew that your life wouldn't be ruined if you lost your job because the society and system you pay into has your back.

 

[Dinglenutz]

One of the primary reasons that I think we need to pursue a UBI is to offer stability to the extreme downtrodden. Imagine the weight lifted off your shoulders if you knew that your life wouldn't be ruined if you lost your job because the society and system you pay into has your back.

I don't like a UBI in principle, but for practical reasons I think it would be good to replace all the current means-tested (complex, bloating, bureaucratic) "assistance" with a simple reasonable sized UBI. I would keep working. I don't know anyone working who could afford not to.

All the McDonald people, they could keep their UBI and work without fear of losing it.

Of all the bad options, a UBI that REPLACES what we have seems one of the least bad.

 

[Certaindeaf]

I'm sure we'll find out. One of my first big breaks in the tech industry was with a company that was quickly growing at the time. I was employee number 205. Kept my nose down, did my work, blew every metric asked of me out of the water. The company did an annual party and handed out recognition awards - and I saw my team's award go to other people...Now, they were good people, jovial, fun to work with...but, in my opinion, if you have a competition then you have rules...and the top spot wasn't being awarded to the winner (which would have been a buddy of mine one year, me the next).

And then, I noticed that all the promotions, awards, and bonuses seemed to go, 95% of the time, to people of a certain religion...that was my first real taste of nepotism. And boy, did it piss me off. I'm not making excuses for anyone that commits violence...hell, most men in that situation end up, if they do anything at all, shooting themselves not anyone else...

My point is: our culture prizes hard work - but the game can be rigged and there simply isn't much that is or can be done about it...and if someone is left in a real bind because they pulled the short stick...we do nothing to help. One of the primary reasons that I think we need to pursue a UBI is to offer stability to the extreme downtrodden. Imagine the weight lifted off your shoulders if you knew that your life wouldn't be ruined if you lost your job because the society and system you pay into has your back.

Sounds like you needed some remedial white privilege training like our retired generals working at Lockheed-Martin..

As F-35 problems piled up, Lockheed Martin sent top exec on course to ‘deconstruct’ his ‘white male privilege’

With its trillion-dollar F-35 fighter jet plagued with faults and delays, Lockheed Martin sent an executive in charge of the project away to learn about his “white male privilege.” Welcome to the Woke Industrial Complex.

www.rt.com

 

[P7M13]

I see little compassion here for 8 dead Americans of unknown political lean. Honest question... Devil's advocate or whatever. As someone that exercises their 2a rights, as a gun owner, does anybody here have tangible ideas on how to better control mass shooting events?

Compassion: I hope the families of the victims and those who survived can recover from this senselessness.

No doubt there are many ways to skin a cat, even if knives are outlawed.

Boiling water sure is quick.

Human compassion is our only hope.....

Perhaps we need to start valuing life again, and operating from a base of absolute morals, as a society if we ever hope for things to get better.

America prides itself on freedom. I have watched that definition expand to allow nudity in public, ubiquitous porn, unproscecuted crimes committed in a demonstration, and protests to prevent capital punishment.
Those same freedoms need to be accompanied by a strong code of morality and mores, brutality and willingness to employ said brutality to enforce the rules.
"Go children, play with your toys in the sandbox, but the stick will be used if you get out of line."

 

[CRBMoA]

Actually Jenner is a (formerly) male lebeshian…. still likes the ladies.

I just refer to him as Bruce.

 

[9ssxx3332fs]

Well, peacock…. since you're implying you have more moral "compassion" than the rest of us… let me humbly come before your superiorness and proffer a proven idea to effectively control mass shootings….


SHOOT BACK!!

I'm no peacock, but I'm your huckleberry. Just looking to provoke some conversation. Mission accomplished. Some good and some bad points here for sure.

 

[wollzy]

I'm sure we'll find out. One of my first big breaks in the tech industry was with a company that was quickly growing at the time. I was employee number 205. Kept my nose down, did my work, blew every metric asked of me out of the water. The company did an annual party and handed out recognition awards - and I saw my team's award go to other people...Now, they were good people, jovial, fun to work with...but, in my opinion, if you have a competition then you have rules...and the top spot wasn't being awarded to the winner (which would have been a buddy of mine one year, me the next).

And then, I noticed that all the promotions, awards, and bonuses seemed to go, 95% of the time, to people of a certain religion...that was my first real taste of nepotism. And boy, did it piss me off. I'm not making excuses for anyone that commits violence...hell, most men in that situation end up, if they do anything at all, shooting themselves not anyone else...

My point is: our culture prizes hard work - but the game can be rigged and there simply isn't much that is or can be done about it...and if someone is left in a real bind because they pulled the short stick...we do nothing to help. One of the primary reasons that I think we need to pursue a UBI is to offer stability to the extreme downtrodden. Imagine the weight lifted off your shoulders if you knew that your life wouldn't be ruined if you lost your job because the society and system you pay into has your back.

I'm not a huge fan of UBI...but I would much prefer it as a replacement to our current welfare systems that are bloated and more expensive to run then just sending people a check and letting them do with their money as they will. The government tries to make "one size fits all" programs and they suck at it. People would be far better off just getting a check and allocating it to their needs instead of saying "Here is X amount for food, Y amount for rent, here is coupon for specific kinds of foods, ..." and having to apply to different programs for all of it. We would actually save a lot of money on welfare from the start.

Replying to your earlier post about hopelessness...I 100% agree. Violence is directly tied to economics. Gun control advocates love to point to European gun control as the solution but leave out all the countries that have similar gun control measures but higher gun violence than the US. The one correlation that is consistent with gun violence is economics. The higher quality of life the less violence you have. More importantly, if the goal is to reduce gun deaths and 2/3rds of those being suicides higher quality of life absolutely reduces suicide rates.

 

[po18guy]

1. Suicidal is homicidal. The last revenge they take is upon themselves. For what?
2. Why is it so easy for a gun, bomb, incendiary device etc. to find a murderer available?

 

[albin25]

These guys are obviously very mentally confused and dis-organized....
.... if they want to kill themselves they should do it FIRST, then shoot a bunch of innocent people. Y'know... like any normal suicidal person would!

 

[AnOregonian]

At the risk of getting accused of being a fudd or an anti 2A, it's clear something further needs to be happening to make sure dangerous hands don't wind up with weapons in them. Essentially anyone who isn't a felon, yet, can acquire a lethal weapon no questions asked. That was all fine and dandy up until about 40-50 years ago when society turned a corner. I don't know the cause, I don't know the remedy, but I know society is messed up in a way that it wasn't before. For example; before my dad gave me my first gun he had me do hunters safety, get badges related to shooting in Boy Scouts, and he had talks with me about not just safety but responsibility and when you should or shouldn't have to use a gun. I think he was just making sure I wasn't some kind of reckless idiot who was going to shoot somebody. So while any legislature is slippery slope to restrictions I still can't stop thinking that there's something more that could be done, maybe something like having people do a 30 minute chat with someone who simply checks that the buyer isn't some kind of deranged asshat. Heck even the humane society does a chat like that before they give someone a dog or cat, shouldn't something similar be done before giving someone a gun?

(Please don't get rude and tear me a new one here, I do understand the potential negative implications to 2A freedom... I'm not even against anyone having any type of gear they want if they're not a dangerous person, IMO full auto should be fair game for a responsible citizen. Interested to hear and entertain civil counterarguments/criticisms)

 

[Longwalkhome]

At the risk of getting accused of being a fudd or an anti 2A, it's clear something further needs to be happening to make sure dangerous hands don't wind up with weapons in them. Essentially anyone who isn't a felon, yet, can acquire a lethal weapon no questions asked. That was all fine and dandy up until about 40-50 years ago when society turned a corner. I don't know the cause, I don't know the remedy, but I know society is messed up in a way that it wasn't before. For example; before my dad gave me my first gun he had me do hunters safety, get badges related to shooting in Boy Scouts, and he had talks with me about not just safety but responsibility and when you should or shouldn't have to use a gun. I think he was just making sure I wasn't some kind of reckless idiot who was going to shoot somebody. So while any legislature is slippery slope to restrictions I still can't stop thinking that there's something more that could be done, maybe something like having people do a 30 minute chat with someone who simply checks that the buyer isn't some kind of deranged asshat. Heck even the humane society does a chat like that before they give someone a dog or cat, shouldn't something similar be done before giving someone a gun?

(Please don't get rude and tear me a new one here, I do understand the potential negative implications to 2A freedom... I'm not even against anyone having any type of gear they want if they're not a dangerous person, IMO full auto should be fair game for a responsible citizen. Interested to hear and entertain civil counterarguments/criticisms)

There is said to be 440 million guns in the nation. 13,958 of them were used to murder last year.

Number of deaths for leading causes of death

• Heart disease: 659,041
• Cancer: 599,601
• Accidents (unintentional injuries): 173,040
• Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 156,979
• Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 150,005
• Alzheimer's disease: 121,499
• Diabetes: 87,647
• Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 51,565
• Influenza and pneumonia: 49,783
• Intentional self-harm (suicide): 47,511

Just saying that if you look at the top causes of death in America we are killing ourselves at a far higher rate than being murdered with a gun. If you intend to keep dangerous things out of peoples hands.... well good luck with that idea.

 

[po18guy]

We'll never know, but I think he self-identified as an Antifa member.

 

[wollzy]

So while any legislature is slippery slope to restrictions I still can't stop thinking that there's something more that could be done, maybe something like having people do a 30 minute chat with someone who simply checks that the buyer isn't some kind of deranged asshat

That's pretty hard to be effective. It's along the same lines as a mental health screening. Unless people are going to willingly give up that information it will be pointless. Trying to predict someones future behavior is the equivalent of modern day phrenology. Either the system will be too loose to be effective or it will be too strict and prevent too many honest citizens from owning guns. There isn't some magical set of questions that can be asked that will divine if someone will cause harm with a firearm in the future. Yea the humane society does this, but owning an animal also isn't a constitutional right.

As for why this is happening...For starters the copycat phenomenon is a real thing. While this is a driver, it isn't the root cause. Also despite strict gun control there are European countries that have more mass shooting deaths per capita than the US. As for why this wasn't such a thing 40-60 years ago, well the big difference between now and then isn't religion, music, video games, or whatever boogeyman people want to blame....it's economics. Quality of life and value of the dollar was greater then. People had a far more positive outlook on life and potential to grow financially. For most people that doesn't seem viable these days. When people feel like they don't have anything to look forward to in life they start getting resentful and doing some crazy sh!t

 

[CRBMoA]

At the risk of getting accused of being a fudd or an anti 2A, it's clear something further needs to be happening to make sure dangerous hands don't wind up with weapons in them. Essentially anyone who isn't a felon, yet, can acquire a lethal weapon no questions asked. That was all fine and dandy up until about 40-50 years ago when society turned a corner. I don't know the cause, I don't know the remedy, but I know society is messed up in a way that it wasn't before. For example; before my dad gave me my first gun he had me do hunters safety, get badges related to shooting in Boy Scouts, and he had talks with me about not just safety but responsibility and when you should or shouldn't have to use a gun. I think he was just making sure I wasn't some kind of reckless idiot who was going to shoot somebody. So while any legislature is slippery slope to restrictions I still can't stop thinking that there's something more that could be done, maybe something like having people do a 30 minute chat with someone who simply checks that the buyer isn't some kind of deranged asshat. Heck even the humane society does a chat like that before they give someone a dog or cat, shouldn't something similar be done before giving someone a gun?

(Please don't get rude and tear me a new one here, I do understand the potential negative implications to 2A freedom... I'm not even against anyone having any type of gear they want if they're not a dangerous person, IMO full auto should be fair game for a responsible citizen. Interested to hear and entertain civil counterarguments/criticisms)

Thank you for a thoughtful post.

I would reply that there is no constitutional right to own a cat, so the barriers to entry in the cat ownership realm do not apply here at all.

 

[po18guy]

What Big Pharma prescriptions was he on? They never touch that subject.
"Ask your doctor if going crazy and shooting people is right for you."

It's a matter of perspective. "Big Pharma" comped me close to $1 million in experimental drugs and has seen me through one cancer three times and two other cancers, plus all three simultaneously. "Big Pharma" is now keeping my transplanted immune system from killing me. Of the 21 anti-cancer drugs I have received, not to mention the many times that number of other drugs to both prevent and counteract, I should have died close to 100 times, based on the "serious adverse events" associated with each drug.

Haven't.

 

[baker3gun]

No easy answer, because mass shootings are not an accident. So it's not like redesigning an unsafe car. These are purposeful acts committed by people. The problem is in people.

The really big lie is this notion that everyone is crazy to varying degrees, and that anyone could "snap" at any point in time.. therefore nobody should be trusted and/or have access to anything other than a musket "for hunting".

The truth is, almost 100% of people never commit mass murder, no matter how much they might be struggling. And almost all of these mass murders are committed by people who have shown signs of serious breakdowns.

In this libertine narcissistic post-modern America, the mechanisms by which society polices itself are broken.

Amen brother!

1 - As I've posted elsewhere, 99.9% of guns are not used in crime, and 99.9% of gun owners don't commit violent crimes with guns.
Pretty much, almost no one ever snaps and starts shooting people, ever.

I have a bone of contention:

The definition of mass shooting.

IMO, a criminal act only qualifies as a mass shooting if the victims are unknown to the perp and have no clear and primary social or business nexus with the perp. Vegas - mass shooting. Workplace shooting is never a mass shooting, it's just a criminal act committed by a person, who as AD suggests, likely gave signs for a long time before he finally popped.

A problem in our society is tolerance for aberrant behavior. We ignore obvious signs and unacceptable behavior, and then we squeal about icky guns when some obvious criminal or nutjob finally pops and shoots our kids.

 

[Longwalkhome]

Again, folks want more laws because media propaganda pumps up the fear but the fact is laws are worthless when a killer sets his mind to kill.

"California has an "assault weapons" ban, universal background checks, a red flag law, a 10-day waiting period on gun sales, a limit on the number of guns a law-abiding citizen can purchase in a month, a "good cause" requirement for concealed carry permit issuance, and numerous other guns controls, as well as controls on ammunition sales.
None of these controls prevented the 57-year-old suspect from entering San Jose's Valley Transportation Authority building and using two handguns to kill eight people."

 

[9ssxx3332fs]

Thank you for a thoughtful post.

I would reply that there is no constitutional right to own a cat, so the barriers to entry in the cat ownership realm do not apply here at all.

To further stir the bubblegum, and disclaimer: these thoughts don't represent my own, but are meant to incite conversation.

I think his point was that the barrier to owning a non lethal feline shouldn't be higher than the barrier to owning firearms.

Yes, there's other ways to kill, but firearms are damn effective at it.

I don't believe in gun control, but definitely believe in people control. If I had to take a mental evaluation with my cpl every 5 years, I would. I guess the question is why wouldn't you?

I should probably just stick to classifieds.

 

[nwslopoke]

I don't believe in gun control, but definitely believe in people control. If I had to take a mental evaluation with my cpl every 5 years, I would. I guess the question is why wouldn't you?

2020 and Portland's leadership. Throw in a little mid 30s European history.