And I was not saying all school shootings are by legally purchased weapons. My point was that this one was, so even if there are laws that are not enforced (and I agree with you there are many laws that are not enforced) it was not a contributing factor in this case.

So, by saying if new are not addressing why, are you saying there is no point is trying to reduce the how?

NO ONE knows why electricity works - I guess we shovel stop using it (sarcasm). Doing something is better than doing nothing.

But, not all somethings are useful. That is obvious, since there are lots of "somethings" being done, useless gun Carol laws that are not enforced and have too many loop holes for example.

So, your post was excellent, but came to the same conclusion as many others, we don't know HOW to stop school shootings.

My suggestion is we start talking about it, and stop fighting over the past and find a solution for the future sake of our country and our children.

Very true. A lot of the behavior is driven by wanting attention. The shooter was posting on social media prior to the shootings. Social media has created a lot of narcissists.

so sad...and so sad that our leaders seem to be incapable of doing anything to prevent this

maybe they're just too busy trying to figure out how to get reelected to do anything that will really make a difference in the world we live in

I will clarify my use of the term "how" in my previous postings on this thread to the use of a gun/rifle as the focal point instead of things like how did the warning signs about this individual get missed as has happened in other previous events? How/why did this perpetrator get past a school resource officer who approached him and engaged him? (Per recent reports). Certainly other questions of "how" need to be addressed. Unfortunately there is a race to be first instead of waiting to get data, so immediately there is a call for more gun laws. The call for more gun laws leans into the emotional side of the discussion, but I have yet to see a correlation of how new gun laws will stop the mass shootings. Per a report (link) published in 2019 by the DOJ in which it surveyed prison inmates in 2016, the majority of guns used in their crimes were obtained illegally. So if guns are obtained illegally, or legally as in this specific case, how do the gun control laws prevent a recurrence of this event?

I am curious as to which gun control laws are useless and not enforced and what the many loopholes are that make them useless.

We may not know how to stop the school shootings all together, but we do know how to mitigate the risk. Unfortunately not all schools have implemented risk management plans (in whole or in part) for one reason or another.

I think that the big hurdle is how to start the dialogue. It appears that emotion and politics tend to be the start and end of the discussion.

The shooter legally purchased two AR platform rifles from a federally licensed gun store. This WOULD have required a background check.

Tim McVeigh killed 19 children and 168 people in total with only fertilizer and diesel fuel

This is irrelevant to this mass killing event. Same with in Buffalo last week and Michigan a couple months ago where the guns were legally purchased and were reported to be birthday and Christmas presents for the gunman in each case.

The answer starts at HOME.
 

As someone else posted, the problem is the culture here in the USA. Far too many parents need or want to work two jobs, leaving their children to their own devices for far too long a time. These shooters always give out signs of some sort regarding their intentions. Parents need to make their children feel loved and do their due diligence. Sometimes that means searching their rooms and looking into their computers.
The answer, IMHO, starts at home.

One would be foolish to believe that guns are the problem. There are kids and adults that are mentally unstable, some take medications, others seek help, some do not. If an unstable person gets a gun, whether it be legal or illegally and if they have bad intentions, how is anyone to know if they plan to do harm to others ?Criminals on the other hand carry guns with the intentions if they are cornered or interrupted during their crime they will no doubt shoot someone. Those folks that have purchased a gun legally have the intentions of protecting themselves or their love ones. Sadly we see that mass murders in US has seen more than 200 mass shootings since January.

It all starts with the family base. No father mentioned. His mother was a complete drug addict. Didn't even know that he shot the grandmother. While she was out playing around the child was in the school killing people.

In the "Wild West Days" ammunition capacity was limited to six shots or whatever the rifles of the times held. Now with the AR type weapons, the capacity has increased multiple times. Is there any need for these types of weapons? Can you hunt legally with them?

A mass shooting is defined as four or more. This has been the definition, although many news outlets don’t like it because it does not support their agenda and they have tried to redefine the term. This definition is from the FBI crime statistics.

Three words. ARM THE TEACHERS. This POS would have picked a different target if it were public knowledge that the teachers were packing

If you can list for me the number of "whack jobs" that used a car to mow down 8-10 year old kids that numbers more than 0, I will consider your argument. Schools have become the target for "whack jobs" over the last 10 years.

In this case an 18 year old with no prior mental health issues buys 2 Assault Rifles with high capacity magazines LEGALLY. Can anyone explain to me what 18 year old has a need for such guns?

Now we hear Texas saying that they are going to commit more money for mental health (I guess for the survivors?) and are going to "harden their schools" by allowing Teachers to have guns. I guess this means teachers will be allowed to have an AR-15 tucked between their legs since these attacks typically happen with high capacity magazines and sometimes even some body armor. Does that really sound like it makes sense? It wasn't long ago that the push was on for Armed Guards in every school district. I guess once the noise settled down, they realized there wasn't enough money to do that.

Does Social Media play a part--absolutely. Does mental health play a part-absolutely. Does the easy access to high powered, high capacity guns play a part-ABSOLUTELY. Had this kid just had rifle used for hunting, he could not have killed as many 10 year olds, if any.

This is a multi faceted problem that requires tackling ALL of those issues together, a little at a time, but fixing any 1 of them will not do it.

The problem is not the gun, the problem is single parent households . The decline of the family unit in not married shacking up and producing babies , pretending to be legitimate, women being left to raise children .Compare Chicago, most gun control in the country ,worst gun violence in the country. Massachusetts no gun permit required ,safest state for gun violence. Politicians scream to repeal allowing gun ownership, Nonsense ! Hold parents responsible for their childrens behavior, period.

Mental health is a solution! Gun control is not the answer.

Video Games
 

I feel the same way about video games. Why do they never investigate what kind of video games a shooter watched? Hollywood elites scream their outrage and demand gun control. yet they produce ever more violent movies and tv shows with bigger and bigger guns! Video games get more realistic and more despicably violent! We desensitize children to the value of life! Death becomes less "real"!

Preventing a shooter
 

Sadly, there is little anyone can do to prevent a mass shooting if the shooter is willing to die in the process!

School personnel must be armed to protect students. On a voluntary basis.

Just some rambling thoughts:

This issue is not an easy fix. I believe in gun control and think we have a lot of controls already that perhaps are not being enforced. And true there are adjustments needed to tighten up on who should be allowed to own a gun. And try there should be a penalty for those found to be in possession of an illegal gun.

I own a gun. Not an arsenal. I own a gun to protect my home from invasion. I do not carry it although I can. If I did not feel it necessary to own a gun I would not.

Unfortunately police do not prevent crime. They are no longer allowed to. They can only respond to crime, I.e. after the horse has left the stable. I do not want someone to solve the murder of my family. I need a way to prevent the murder of my family

Logical Gun control is a partial solution to the problem but it needs to reflect WHY folks like me even own a gun.

What do You expect when Americans take GOD out of everything and insert the Worldly ways into everything?? Guns have never killed anyone, it’s the person using the Gun!

Don’t start with the Anti Gun carp. Guns are not the problem! People are the problem and in particular young people. All the shooters were in the age range of 18-20. We are not raising our kids properly like it or not. Respect is gone and Religion is nearly gone especially for young kids. You mentioned Japan well the difference is not about guns it’s about Respect. They still teach it!

Anyone who thinks that banning or worse conversation of guns will fix the problem is a fool. We will become a world of Mad Max.

What do You expect when Americans take GOD out of everything and insert the Worldly ways into everything?? Guns have never killed anyone, it’s the person using the Gun!

Great, maybe we can sue the alcohol companies for all their destruction and car manufacturers because their cars can mow down people at a parade and knife companies too.
When do people start taking responsibility for their own behavior?

They can make all the gun laws they want but if this society doesn't change its tune it's only going to get worst.

The shooter in Robb would certainly have been stopped if he knew he would have to go through a metal detector.

Please move to Japan
 

There are more deaths from car accidents caused by texting and alcohol but we don’t ban cars, iPhones or booze.

Celebrities and politicians screaming “ban guns” enjoy the security of ARMED security.

Did the fact that shooter was transgender make the police scared of being called transphobic from taking legal action of the shooter’s prior violent behavior- shooting people with a BB gun from his home and car, assaulting people, threatening violence??

Forbidding law abiding citizens from owning guns won’t stop gun violence- it will leave only the criminals and the government with guns to do violence against law abiding citizens- ask the hundreds of millions of unarmed citizens of China, USSR, Nazi Germany, Cuba etc slaughtered by their government that first enacted laws to take away their guns, ensuring their citizens wouldn’t be able to protect themselves.

One must be MOST scared of any government that is afraid of it’s citizen owning guns.

I don’t think it’s coincidence that since the law making schools a “gun free zone” back in the 90’s, school shootings skyrocketed- the government wanted school shootings to sicken and scare the citizens into willingly giving up their guns- it looks less fascist if the citizens volunteer to give up their guns. The law made our schools like lame sheep waiting for the slaughter. We need teachers and administrators that are capable gun users to have guns along with armed security officers back in schools.

It’s not a coincidence that we don’t see there mass shootings at gun stores and shooting ranges.

Please, guns don’t kill people, people kill people.

Yes he did that was one case 27 years ago.. How many schools haver been attacked this year so far? Over 200 mass shootings so far this year.

Control the media minions would be a start. They falsely report on what an AR15 even is. At this point they are biased on race of perps. They fix the narritive and manipulate the cherry picked audience and then when conditions are just right they set up copycats. It's a digusting display for $$ and ratings.

Prayers do work and evil is real. Mental health care is a factor and so is the ability for the healthy to defend.

It’s amazing how most on this site repost the same old talking points from Fox noise and the far right gun nutz! The issue is very simple,,,,, stronger background checks- what we have now is lame and useless! Not one person in america needs to own an Assault rifle! NO ONE!. Not one person in America needs to own body armor! If any 18 year old child purchases an Assault rifle, body armor, and massive ammo,,,,RED FLAG folks!

As always, it's not the method, it's the individual. 11 teenagers die daily from text/driving. Legal owners have 300 million guns, trillion rounds of ammo, if we were the problem, you'd now it. If gun control worked, Chicago would be Mayberry USA. I have no problem with strict background checks when it comes to firearms, can we use the same checks that are used for voter ID? How about relaxing HEPA, and maybe these people can be identified BEFORE instead of after. Parents are failing their kids and society is failing us

Could not agree with you more. Let’s also look at Hollywood and the movies they make.

Please, people drunk in cars don’t kill people, alcohol kills people! GEEZ Give me a break!

Perhaps we should ban ALL "bad" guns, right? I only have good guns so I am fine. None of my guns have gone on shooting/killing sprees, so they be good lil' guns. After all, it's not the people wielding the guns, it's the guns that are bad and the people just don't know how to keep them from going out and killing the innocent folks. Of course, more people are killed by doctors than guns so maybe we should also ban doctors. How about those evil cars? After all, it 's not the drunk driver's fault. They don't kill people, just the cars that run over people and destroy other folks property.
Get over it. Guns have NOTHING to do with EVIL thoughts. They are just a tool, used for a purpose. Some folks just insist on using guns for the wrong purpose, killing the innocent. If you go to countries with gun bans, you will see that they have more knife murders than we do. Evil people will always find a way to perpetrate evil, whether with a gun, knife, bomb, fire, ax, hammer, etc.
Like someone else said, try banning certain video games to children.
Teach children to respect life at an early age. Teach them the value of life. People are not born evil, they learn it from someone.

:bigbow:

Did it stop everyone from smoking …….nope

I guess you forget Nazi Germany, Venezuela and every other Communist and Socialist country whose first move is to take all the guns. What part of "if you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns" do you not understand?

Indeed!

Social media. The ultimate oxymoron.

Friendly reminder, Hunter Biden obtained a gun illegally and tossed in a trash can near a school.

Most people who are voicing there opinions are sitting behind a locked door, however the most important people ,the children are not! Please lock our schools down and solve this problem ������ More than 75 percent of adults work behind locked doors, just doesn't make sense.