Florida school shooting

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Florida school shooting

Postby Cobra-D » Fri Feb 16, 2018 7:18 pm

Man remember how he we would have a different thread on the latest school shooting, and now it's just a meh meh type of thing. What a time to be alive.

Anyways a few days ago, 19 yr old Nikolas Cruz shot up a school in Parkland, Florida killing 17 before escaping through a crowd of students.

Apparently he was part of a white nationalist group, unless he maybe wasn't?

"Of course he wasn't cobra, he's haspanic you dumbass"

Oh what so you don't think a Hispanic would join a white nationalist movement? Now who's being close minded. Oh and also he was adopted so you know there is that.
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Re: Florida school shooting

Postby cmsellers » Fri Feb 16, 2018 8:35 pm

A lot of white nationalist groups allow people who are Hispanic but not super-brown or part East Asian to join. Jews, on the other hand...
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Re: Florida school shooting

Postby Marcuse » Fri Feb 16, 2018 9:05 pm

Rather than debating whether or not he was part of an outgroup, maybe it would be more useful to ask why the FBI has admitted it failed to follow up on a tip that he was preparing to carry out an attack. There's something seriously wrong when someone publicises his intent to kill, it's reported to the proper authorities, and they just...don't bother doing anything about it. It wasn't passed on to a local office that should have handled any action that arose from the tip. It's easy with hindsight to say that something should have been done in any case, but in this case there's a clear line of responsibility, something was done by a concerned member of the public on January 5th and nothing resulted from the authorities.
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Re: Florida school shooting

Postby Cobra-D » Fri Feb 16, 2018 10:13 pm

Marcuse wrote:Rather than debating whether or not he was part of an outgroup, maybe it would be more useful to ask why the FBI has admitted it failed to follow up on a tip that he was preparing to carry out an attack. There's something seriously wrong when someone publicises his intent to kill, it's reported to the proper authorities, and they just...don't bother doing anything about it. It wasn't passed on to a local office that should have handled any action that arose from the tip. It's easy with hindsight to say that something should have been done in any case, but in this case there's a clear line of responsibility, something was done by a concerned member of the public on January 5th and nothing resulted from the authorities.



In all honesty I don't know if the FBI would have been able to stop this, you gotta keep in mind that the FBI most likely get thousands of calls like this everyday meaning even if it went through the proper channels it might have taken awhile to take action especially considering the complaint was about (owning a gun isn't illegal, saying stupid things online isn't either nor saying you want to kill people but is frowned on in most societies...well I mean now they will be probably)
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Re: Florida school shooting

Postby sunglasses » Sat Feb 17, 2018 12:19 am

I'm curious how an ex student got onto the school grounds wearing a gas mask and carrying a weapon. Did someone on the inside let him in.
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Re: Florida school shooting

Postby Krashlia » Sat Feb 17, 2018 12:20 am

cmsellers wrote:A lot of white nationalist groups allow people who are Hispanic but not super-brown or part East Asian to join. Jews, on the other hand...


Saw the ADL article. Immediately started to disbelieve them.
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Re: Florida school shooting

Postby JamishT » Sat Feb 17, 2018 7:39 am

Should law enforcement of some kind have recognized that he was a danger and taken his guns away before he did this horrific thing? Yeah, absolutely. I think that kind of thing is a common sense step toward averting future such atrocities. I think there are concerns that people could vindictively report sane gun owners to disarm them, but I think that's not a realistic concern.

I heard several pieces on this throughout my shift at work today, and it was tough to hear students give accounts and the football coach talk about the assistant coach and athletic director who died by stepping in front of kids. According to the coach, he wasn't surprised that they did that, because he saw their heroism every day.

I am somewhat glad that the monster didn't kill himself, because it gives a chance to figure out how he got to that point directly from him. But then again, taxpayers have to pay for his room and board now.
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Re: Florida school shooting

Postby Kate » Sat Feb 17, 2018 6:58 pm

Cobra-D wrote:

In all honesty I don't know if the FBI would have been able to stop this, you gotta keep in mind that the FBI most likely get thousands of calls like this everyday meaning even if it went through the proper channels it might have taken awhile to take action especially considering the complaint was about (owning a gun isn't illegal, saying stupid things online isn't either nor saying you want to kill people but is frowned on in most societies...well I mean now they will be probably)


Case in point: http://wtnh.com/2018/02/15/17-year-old- ... chool/amp/

A 17 year old made a comment in first period that he could buy a gun. He did not threaten to shoot anyone and did not actually have the means to buy a gun or access to guns at home.

Nevertheless, he was arrested and is being charged with disrupting the peace. The principal compares it to joking about a bomb in an airport, and yeah if you do that and the TSA overhears they will probably drag you in and deflower your orifices, but I'm not sure if they can arrest you and charge you if no actual threat was made and if they can, that is frightening.

This is the kind of thing that gets reported and this is the kind of thing that needs to get sifted through, so without knowing the nature of the report, it's hard to know whether the ball was fumbled or if it was dropped from the top of Mt. Everest.

It's also why I am very wary of calls for "see something, say something." I'm fairly certain most people who other kids whisper about and are convinced will be their school shooter do not actually go on to be school shooters, they're mostly kids who are kind of emo and wear a lot of black and are loners. Some of them like knives and guns. Unless there is more than speculation to back up a report, there's not a lot authorities *should* do, let alone what they can do.

In hindsight it's clear that authorities should have investigated this guy but it's still unclear whether that would have changed the outcome of this tragedy.
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Re: Florida school shooting

Postby blehblah » Sat Feb 17, 2018 7:31 pm

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43088644

The White House has refused to release a photo of President Donald Trump signing a law making it easier for some people with mental illness to buy guns.

Despite repeated requests from CBS News, the White House press office has issued only a one-line response.

Mr Trump last year repealed an Obama-era rule allowing the names of certain people on mental health benefits to be entered into a criminal database.


Sounds like something to jump on the Trump administration about, but, like everything surrounding these issues, it's not quite so straightforward. One group which supported Trump's repeal of the rule? The ACLU.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/donald-tru ... -1.4538963

There are laws in the United States regarding the sale of weapons to some mentally ill individuals. It is unlawful to sell a firearm to a person who "has been adjudicated as a mental defective" or "has been committed to any mental institution."

Obama's regulation would also have required the Social Security Administration to send the names of some people unable to manage their disability benefits because of mental impairments to the criminal background check system database.

Those people, estimated to number around 75,000, could have been prevented from owning or purchasing a firearm and may have been forced to prove why they were competent enough to do so, opponents of the regulation argued.

Those opposed, not surprisingly, included the gun lobby group the National Rifle Association. But on this particular issue, Trump also had backing from an organization usually highly critical of him: The American Civil Liberties Union.

In a blog post last year, the ACLU said that while it does not oppose gun control laws, those laws need to be be fair and not based on prejudice and stereotype.

Thousands of Americans whose disability benefits are managed by someone else range from young people with depression and financial inexperience to older adults with Down syndrome needing help with a limited budget, the ACLU wrote.

"But no data — none — show that these individuals have a propensity for violence in general or gun violence in particular," the ACLU said.


Here is a New York Times article titled, "Limiting Access to Guns for Mentally Ill Is Complicated".

(paywalled) https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/15/us/g ... y-ill.html

Scott Israel, the Broward County, Fla., sheriff, called on lawmakers in Washington and Tallahassee to expand police powers by allowing officers to detain people for a mental health evaluation on the basis of worrisome social media posts or “graphic threats.”

And President Trump urged people to report anyone whose behavior seemed disturbed, despite the fact that there is no law on the books in Florida that would let the authorities take people’s guns in that situation.


It's not hard to spot the problems with those proposals.

In an analysis of some 350 mass killers going back a century, about 22 percent were found to likely have had psychosis; the rate in the general population is closer to 1 percent. A much smaller percentage had severe depression; so far there is no evidence Mr. Cruz had psychosis.

Federal law forbids people who have been involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital and people found to be a danger to themselves or others from having guns. But the federal government depends on states to report such cases so it can add them to a national background check system, and reporting varies widely.

Florida has entered 141,042 mental health records into the national background check system, according to the Brady Campaign. Wyoming, on the other hand, has entered four.

But after 20 children and six adults were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, the Obama administration tried to add some people to the background check system, by requiring the Social Security Administration to submit records of some beneficiaries with severe mental illness.

Last year, Mr. Trump quietly revoked that rule, which was also opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union.


While the background check is federal, reporting into that system is state-controlled. The article notes:

Florida has entered 141,042 mental health records into the national background check system, according to the Brady Campaign. Wyoming, on the other hand, has entered four.


Well, obviously, everyone in Florida is nuts, right?

The article concludes with:

Florida is one of the less restrictive states when it comes to mental illness and guns. The police can confine people considered a danger to themselves or others for up to 72 hours as part of an involuntary psychiatric evaluation. And the police are allowed to take their guns when they are detained. But a 2009 advisory opinion by the state’s attorney general said that without an arrest or criminal charge, the police could not hold onto their weapons.

Mental health experts said the proposals raised by the sheriff and Mr. Scott provoked concerns.

“To say no one with mental illness should have a gun — how do you accomplish that?” said Ronald Honberg, senior policy adviser for the National Alliance on Mental Illness. “Does that mean anybody that goes to a therapist for depression or anxiety should be reported and put in a database and prohibited from purchasing a firearm? That would impact a fair number of police officers.”
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Re: Florida school shooting

Postby blehblah » Wed Feb 21, 2018 2:16 pm

https://globalnews.ca/news/4035559/flor ... cnn-panel/

Former U.S. congressman Jack Kingston faced heat from a CNN host Tuesday, over a tweet that undermined students protesting for stronger gun control in the country.

The former Republican politician, who is now a commentator for the news network, tweeted Sunday night that “left-wing gun control activists” are using the students’ emotions to their advantage.

[...]

“Do we really think 17-year-olds on their own are going to plan a nationwide rally?”

Kingston added that “organized groups,” such as George Soros, are the ones pushing students to speak out.

Camerota then interrupted the commentator, saying she had to correct him.

“I was down there. I talked to these kids before they knew the body count of their friends. No one had talked to them yet, they hadn’t been indoctrinated by some left-wing group. They were motivated from what they saw and what they endured during that ordeal.”

To that, Kingston retorted that teenagers just don’t have the ability to organize protests.


Hey, remember when you were 17 and too stupid to organize protests? Too bad you didn't have George Soros to help, or, you know, Facebook, or whatever stupid kids do these days.

I wonder where Kingston gets this stuff?

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/02 ... nes-video/

In less than a week since they survived a mass murdering gunman attack on their school, two students who quickly became media stars of the Parkland, Florida school shootings are now media obsessed to the point they say they are snubbing an invitation to meet with President Donald Trump this Wednesday in favor of appearing on a televised town hall with CNN’s Jake Tapper.

[…]

One student, in particular, David Hogg has been astonishingly articulate and highly skilled at propagating a new anti-Conservative/anti-Trump narrative behind the recent school shooting. Few have seen this type of rapid media play before, and when they have it has come from well-trained political operatives and MSM commentators.


I dunno, Gateway Pundit, I tend to think events like a mass shooting in one's school can be fairly galvanizing. I don't think it's shocking that some of the kids are fairly media-savvy. They have likely consumed more media by age ten than many people, a few decades back, did in their entire lives. Also, sometimes kids are just, you know, smart, and stuff, all by themselves. My theory is that's where smart adults come from, but at this point it's more a correlation than a causation thing... further research is needed.

Here is another kid, one who supposedly wrote something:

https://www.vox.com/first-person/2018/2 ... s-protests

That's over one thousand words, and they are strung together in a rather coherent manner. Suspiciously articulate for someone who is part of a cohort which will be able to vote, go to war, or buy a gun (but not booze!) within a year or two.

I'm sure there are folks who could be described as 'left' supporting these students. George (the Clooney one, not the Soros one) and Amal donated $500K to these students.

https://globalnews.ca/news/4035903/geor ... e-marches/

The Clooneys say they’re donating the money in the names of their eight-month-old twins Ella and Alexander. The couple also says the family plans to “stand side by side” with students next month.


To put that money in perspective: http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik ... story.html

The NRA's annual lobbying expenditures come to millions of dollars a year: Gun rights advocacy groups, of which the NRA is the kingpin, spent more than $135 million on lobbying in 1998-2017, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Gun manufacturers spent an additional $21 million. Those figures swamped the spending of gun control advocacy groups, which mustered only about $19 million in that period.


I wish these kids the best of luck. I hope they are supported by adults, even the ones who are parents who work for the FBI. It takes a pretty forceful popular movement to overcome the kind of spending the NRA and the like bring to the table. Hmm... popular movement overcoming massive spending... reminds me of something... eh, whatever, it's probably not important.
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Re: Florida school shooting

Postby LaoWai » Thu Feb 22, 2018 2:01 am

Killings will continue and continue, and after every mass shooting, we'll get to hear about how the mass-murderer had mental problems. And, like, no fuck...what teenage kid doesn't have mental problems--it's par for the fucking course.

Know why kids in Australia don't shoot up their schools? It's because they can't get fucking guns! Know why there aren't stories about the 30th mass-shooting in 2018 in China? Because you can't get a fucking gun! It seems like taking guns out of the hands of assholes "who have a right" seriously diminishes crimes by those cunts "who didn't know how to handle guns responsibly."

America, you have become so fucking embarrassing overseas. America, I am talking to you. Are you going to let your deaths be dictated by the likes of the NRA, by money-bribe-outs and let's-talk-about-it-next-week's? Are you going to pretend that 2018 is 1967? America, I'm talking to you.

America, the system is broken; a good man doesn't have a chance. Sure, my buddies used to have guns rights, and it was harmless and beautiful, and it was fantastic how everyone used to get a gun, but children weren't dying then.

America, go fuck yourself with your second amendment. You're the reason I can't walk down the street without being seen as an aggressor. You're the reason I'll always be an enemy. You're the reason what should be fixed never gets fixed. You're the fly in the ointment.

America, go on and put me on your no-fly lists, because I'm willing to say that I'm tired of seeing Americans killed.
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Re: Florida school shooting

Postby DoglovingJim » Thu Feb 22, 2018 2:29 am

I have a feeling it's more about culture, like if you look at places like Switzerland they have relaxed laws and yet certainly not as many (if any?) school shootings.

http://world.time.com/2012/12/20/the-swiss-difference-a-gun-culture-that-works/
Even as the gun-control debate rises again in the U.S. in the aftermath of the horrific school shooting in Newtown, Conn., the gun-loving Swiss are not about to lay down their arms. Guns are ubiquitous in this neutral nation, with sharpshooting considered a fun and wholesome recreational activity for people of all ages.

Even though Switzerland has not been involved in an armed conflict since a standoff between Catholics and Protestants in 1847, the Swiss are very serious not only about their right to own weapons but also to carry them around in public. Because of this general acceptance and even pride in gun ownership, nobody bats an eye at the sight of a civilian riding a bus, bike or motorcycle to the shooting range, with a rifle slung across the shoulder.


“We will never change our attitude about the responsible use of weapons by law-abiding citizens,” says Hermann Suter, vice president of Pro-Tell, the country’s gun lobby, named after legendary apple shooter William Tell, who used a crossbow to target enemies long before firearms were invented.

Switzerland trails behind only the U.S, Yemen and Serbia in the number of guns per capita; between 2.3 million and 4.5 million military and private firearms are estimated to be in circulation in a country of only 8 million people. Yet, despite the prevalence of guns, the violent-crime rate is low: government figures show about 0.5 gun homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2010. By comparison, the U.S rate in the same year was about 5 firearm killings per 100,000 people, according to a 2011 U.N. report.

Unlike some other heavily armed nations, Switzerland’s gun ownership is deeply rooted in a sense of patriotic duty and national identity. Weapons are kept at home because of the long-held belief that enemies could invade tiny Switzerland quickly, so every soldier had to be able to fight his way to his regiment’s assembly point. (Switzerland was at risk of being invaded by Germany during World War II but was spared, historians say, because every Swiss man was armed and trained to shoot.)


But the “gun in every closet” tradition was challenged in 2001, after a disgruntled citizen opened fire with his army rifle inside a regional parliament, killing 14 and injuring 14 others — the only mass shooting in Switzerland’s recent history. The subsequent opposition to widespread gun ownership spearheaded a push for stricter arms legislation. The government and pro-gun groups argued, however, that the country’s existing laws regulating the sale, ownership and licensing of private guns, which includes a ban on carrying concealed weapons, are stringent enough. The law allows citizens or legal residents over the age of 18, who have obtained a permit from the government and who have no criminal record or history of mental illness, to buy up to three weapons from an authorized dealer, with the exception of automatic firearms and selective fire weapons, which are banned. Semiautomatics, which have caused havoc in the U.S., can be legally purchased.

The authorities made one concession, though: since 2008, all military — but not private — ammunition must be stored in central arsenals rather than in soldiers’ homes. The debate culminated in a nationwide referendum last year, when 56% of voters rejected the proposal initiated by anti-gun organizations to ban army rifles from homes altogether.

Although guns are responsible for between 200 and 300 suicides each year in Switzerland, Pro-Tell’s Suter says these statistics have to be put in a wider perspective. He points out that the bullets used in suicides are only a tiny fraction of the 75 million rounds of ammunition that are fired each year in Switzerland during military and civilian target practice.


One of the reasons the crime rate in Switzerland is low despite the prevalence of weapons — and also why the Swiss mentality can’t be transposed to the current American reality — is the culture of responsibility and safety that is anchored in society and passed from generation to generation. Kids as young as 12 belong to gun groups in their local communities, where they learn sharpshooting. The Swiss Shooting Sports Association runs about 3,000 clubs and has 150,000 members, including a youth section. Many members keep their guns and ammunition at home, while others choose to leave them at the club. And yet, despite such easy access to pistols and rifles, “no members have ever used their guns for criminal purposes,” says Max Flueckiger, the association’s spokesperson.

“Social conditions are fundamental in deterring crime,” says Peter Squires, professor of criminology and public policy at the University of Brighton in Great Britain, who has studied gun violence in different countries and concluded that a “culture of support” rather than focus on individualism, can deter mass killings.

“If people have a responsible, disciplined and organized introduction into an activity like shooting, there will be less risk of gun violence,” he tells TIME.

That sense of social and civic responsibility is one of the reasons the Swiss have never allowed their guns to come under fire.



This also was an interesting read (so far) about Switzerland and is a bit more recent having referenced the Florida shooting.
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Re: Florida school shooting

Postby Aquila89 » Thu Feb 22, 2018 9:55 am

Swiss laws aren't so relaxed compared to American laws. As you have quoted, only those can buy guns who "obtained a permit from the government and who have no criminal record or history of mental illness". That's a form of gun control, I'd argue.

LaoWai wrote: Know why there aren't stories about the 30th mass-shooting in 2018 in China? Because you can't get a fucking gun! It seems like taking guns out of the hands of assholes "who have a right" seriously diminishes crimes by those cunts "who didn't know how to handle guns responsibly.


Well, in China there are mass stabbings. But knives are less effective at killing people than guns. For instance, on December 14, 2012 (the day of the Sandy Hook massacre) a madman stabbed 24 people (all children except one) in primary school in China. All survived.

On the other hand, in March 2010, a man killed eight children with a knife in a Chinese elementary school. And in May 2010, a man killed seven children and two adults with a cleaver in a kindergarten.

Gun control may reduce the death toll of such attacks. The Las Vegas shooter killed 58 people in ten minutes. That can't be done with a knife. But even the strictest gun control can't eliminate them.
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Re: Florida school shooting

Postby LaoWai » Thu Feb 22, 2018 11:31 am

Aquila89 wrote:
LaoWai wrote: Know why there aren't stories about the 30th mass-shooting in 2018 in China? Because you can't get a fucking gun! It seems like taking guns out of the hands of assholes "who have a right" seriously diminishes crimes by those cunts "who didn't know how to handle guns responsibly.


Well, in China there are mass stabbings. But knives are less effective at killing people than guns. For instance, on December 14, 2012 (the day of the Sandy Hook massacre) a madman stabbed 24 people (all children except one) in primary school in China. All survived.

On the other hand, in March 2010, a man killed eight children with a knife in a Chinese elementary school. And in May 2010, a man killed seven children and two adults with a cleaver in a kindergarten.

Gun control may reduce the death toll of such attacks. The Las Vegas shooter killed 58 people in ten minutes. That can't be done with a knife. But even the strictest gun control can't eliminate them.


Definitely, stabbings do happen here. The last one to make the news locally was last July, right in the Walmart I used to shop at: 2 dead and 9 injured. The key difference, though, is that it has now become more difficult for me to purchase a knife. For example, the knives that used to be on sale on the street are nowhere to be seen now, because selling them on the street gets you arrested. (And nearly everything is for sale on the streets here.) You're also much more likely to get stopped if you walk down the street with a knife here. ("Look, there's that guy who sharpens knives down the street there, officer, and I'm going to see him.")

Knife control is, naturally, much harder to put into action, because people do need them for cooking (You can't make delicious, delicious kungpao chicken without a cleaver), but the government has been taking some steps to control people's access to them.

Even the step of putting cleavers in those frustrating little plastic cases inside shops seems like it was geared toward reducing such incidents. Whereas, the cleaver I bought here last...um, year of the pig, maybe...was just hung up by the "eye" on a metal rod along with twenty other cleavers. Obviously, that's not going to serve as a major deterrent to a dedicated attacker, but it'll at least give him some reason to pause while he tries to figure out how to get a knife out of that packaging without using a knife (which if he had, he wouldn't need one to get the knife out of the packaging, and is this funnier or more frustrating than them shipping the crowbar you open the crate with inside the crate?).

On a side note, "cleaver" as I'm using it above is actually somewhat of a misnomer for 菜刀--the sort of all-purpose cooking knife. You definitely shouldn't use it on, say, beef bones if you don't feel like a trip to the emergency room. Chicken bones are fine, though. Also, thanks for responding civilly, guys; I'd had a long discussion about gun control last night, and one of the pro-gunners was rather abrasive.
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Re: Florida school shooting

Postby DoglovingJim » Thu Feb 22, 2018 11:45 am

LaoWai wrote:Also, thanks for responding civilly, guys; I'd had a long discussion about gun control last night, and one of the pro-gunners was rather abrasive.


I always felt that we were a rather civil group of people, I'm surprised though that China is making efforts to restrict knives since that sounds almost impossible. Knives are used for so many things and not just cooking, and unlike guns anybody with a few moments to spare can make something pointy and sharp.
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