[jbrown132]

Originally Posted by RVJim

Given your profile picture we know where your bias is at. No thanks not interested in engaging with an obviously biased original poster with some sort of agenda.

Everyone of these individuals is mentally ill. The mental health system in this country is broken and until it gets fixed this will continue. We have a grandson who for several years was in and out of hospitals. He would tell his mother he was hearing voices that were telling him to do bad things. She would him to the hospital, they would keep him for a day, release him and essentially the treatment was go home, take two aspirin and call me in the morning. This went on for two years. Finally, he woke up one night and got his mother and father up and said the voices in his head were terrible and they were telling him to go out and hurt people. They took him to the fourth hospital they had tried where he was admitted. After two days they were going to release him until his father said if they did he was going to call everyone news outlet he could find and tell them the hospital was going to release their son who was threatening to kill himself and other people. The hospital keep him and after a month of intense discussions with psychiatrists and drug treatment he was finally diagnosed with schizophrenia and has been doing well for several years now. The real problem is most hospitals are no longer staffed or capable of handling mentally ill patients. They may have a small psychiatric unit and that’s it. They need to start building more psychiatric hospitals that treat these types of individuals where they are taken seriously when they are seeking help. In this case our grandson had two loving parents who would not give up. In the case in Texas, and most others this was not the case and there were red flags all over the place that were ignored by the parents and police. Until they fix this system that is broken this unfortunately will continue.

[Annie66]

I view this problem as I would view a fire. Fires exist because of 3 elements being present at any one time....... Oxygen ... fuel .... and heat. Remove any single element from the situation and no fire exists.

I think the same is true for mass shootings. The 3 elements being ...... a weapon (in particular assault guns with high-capacity magazines) ..... mentally disturbed people ...... and crowds of people (such as parties, malls, other gatherings, etc.).

Attempting to fix the mental health issues in our country just does not seem to be in the DNA of our legislators to fund an endeavor such as this. It's a more complex problem involving how to effectively identify mentally disturbed people and instituting fruitful treatment programs and successful evaluations. I never see that happening. If you do, please comment.

And of course, outlawing moderate to large gathering (however you want to define them) will never be a solution. All we have to do is look back at our Covid-19 experience.

The easiest solution, albeit an emotional one is removal of the weapons. I did not say all weapons. Just those that can kill many people in the shortest period of time. Prohibiting the sale of assault weapons, high-capacity magazines and things like bump stocks is the easiest way to break the triangle of mass shooting violence. Of course, this does not solve the problem completely, but as said in an earlier post when President Bush allowed the moratorium on assault weapons to pass, we saw a dramatic rise in these catastrophes. Identifying the definition of a mass shootings does not get to the root cause. It adds more blather to the discussion.

This leaves us with prohibiting the sale of assault weapons, etc. This has always ignited the emotional firestorm discussion about 2nd Amendment rights. In reality, our country did fine without assault weapons before their inception and would do fine without them in the future. The most emotional argument is if we prohibit assault weapons, then the legal ownership of pistols, hunting rifles, shotguns, etc. will also be taken away. I have to ask do those who spue this really believe what they are saying? Are they the majority or minority of gun owners? Their argument is purely affective language meant to stir the fires. Lastly, on this point ..... when the assault weapon ban was put into effect, was there a groundswell of activities to begin the prohibition of personal weapons for protection and hunting? I cannot recall any meaningful legislation that was proposed. I suspect neither can you.

Let's be reasonable. The only true actionable solution to this problem is to remove one of the elements. Take out the assault weapons from the triangle and we'll return to the days of the assault weapon ban and fewer and fewer truly heinous crimes on humanity out there.

[lpkruege1]

Originally Posted by jimbomaybe

In any discussion you have to have a frame of reference, define the terms, that's what language is all about otherwise I'am talking about apple's you are talking about oranges without the possibility of communication. Sociological factors are the root of the problem. Fifty years ago semi auto surplus military weapons were cheep, abundant, and very easy to acquire and mass shooting were very rare. We are swimming in a sea of information with no emphasis on critical thinking . Its very easy to find all manner of information that will support, reinforce ANY idea we care to have , you always find what you are looking for, if not the real article a reason or excuse that will satisfy our held opinions. The result is any "idea" has as much merit as it has popular appeal. What has changed? Then if you had the opinion that something like a "zombie apocalypse" was possible, that a reasonable explanation for a missing air liner was alien abduction , that you could change your gender you would rightfully be considered delusional and be treated as such. Our society is becoming less and less stable.

If you look at the destruction of the family, the removal of God from our lives, children being subscribed dugs at an unprecedented level, not teaching basic manners and respect, no discipline in schools or at home, what do people think will happen?
There is no such thing as an assault weapon. There are semi auto rifles and then there are military grade weapons used by the military that We as law abiding US citizens are not allowed to own. There are some allowances to own fully automatic weapons, but the list is too long to list here.

Growing up we carried our semi auto, pump, and single shot shotguns along to high school so we could stop on the way home to go hunting. We showed our teachers the shotguns, at least those that hunted. They showed us theirs. WE didn't have mass shootings.
If there was an issue at school with discipline, and my dad got called, and there was punishment when I got home. He didn't run to school threating to sue, he didn't get in fights with other parents, he didn't beat up the teacher. He punished ME. I was responsible. He didn't blame someone else for a lack of parenting. He didn't drug his child. He taught me manners, and respect for life and other people. Stop blaming an inanimate object. Put the blame where it needs to be.

[Larchap49]

Originally Posted by Keefelane66

Reinstate the assault weapons ban it was a reasonable law until Bush allowed it to sunset now it’s out of control!

Do you think another law will help. Prostitution, drugs , and all manner of other thing are outlawed or banned but the laws stop none of it. Laws on the books need to be enforced. Banning items just creates a black market. Resulting in only law breakers having those items. Our leadership from the lowest level has failed us

[Jacob85]

Where did the 77 percent come from? If you look at all the past shootings they all had guns that shot multiple bullets! Name a time where someone had a gun that shot one bullet at a time?

Originally Posted by OrangeBlossomBaby

Okay so let's establish that "Mass Shooting" is no fewer than 5 victims, at least one of them must be a stranger to the others, none of them should be undocumented immigrants, and none of them should be pregnant females.

That's still one person who shouldn't have had a firearm, having one, and using it to kill people. And THAT one person is the only "problem" that needs to be solved.

And how about alcohol? How about drugs? How about street gangs? How about drug cartels profiting by becoming conduits for illegal immigration? All of these have and do result in death to innocent persons. I guess it depends on what YOU don't like. Get real.

[Dgodin]

Originally Posted by Sarah_W

With the 4th of July, Uvalde, and the Greenwood Mall mass killings many people want to discuss this societal problem and find solutions to not only protect our children, but the public as a whole.

I know this thread will get locked if it becomes political so please do your very best to keep politics out of it.


The first issue in identifying a solution is understanding the problem. It begins with a failure of uniform definition. The FBI defines a mass murder event as 3 or more people killed. The media is inconsistent with their definition.

Mass shootings are the catalyst for people who wish to ban AR style rifles, despite the fact that 77% of mass shootings don't involve AR style rifles.

In my opinion a logical definition of a mass shooting should be:

1. 1 or more individuals plan to kill many strangers and 3 or more people are killed
2. Family quarrels and murder-suicides are not included
3. Gang violence is not included

If you want to talk about gun violence and acheive real answers, then you must start with no restrictions. So AR15s and gang violence cannot be excluded. Nothing can be excluded.

[Jacob85]

So just how are you going to find this one person? They don’t have prior records, they are not immigrants, and finally using mental health issues is misleading because some of them have never been identified as mental health patients. They could be sociopaths so there is no treatment for them.

[gettingby]

Originally Posted by Keefelane66

Reinstate the assault weapons ban it was a reasonable law until Bush allowed it to sunset now it’s out of control!

It did nothing, all words that make you feel better. My personal opinion is you will never be able to tell free people they can’t have something the constitution clearly says we can. It’s the wrong approach plus the fact that there are believed to be over 200 million guns in America now and it will start an armed conflict if it’s tried. How about we study who these people that do these things are and see if we can find the common threads. In disclosure I own an AR but also own a shotgun. As much damage as an AR will do a shotgun would be a better gun. Banning AR’s won’t put a dent in this kind of crime.

[Blackbird45]

Originally Posted by Sarah_W

With the 4th of July, Uvalde, and the Greenwood Mall mass killings many people want to discuss this societal problem and find solutions to not only protect our children, but the public as a whole.

I know this thread will get locked if it becomes political so please do your very best to keep politics out of it.


The first issue in identifying a solution is understanding the problem. It begins with a failure of uniform definition. The FBI defines a mass murder event as 3 or more people killed. The media is inconsistent with their definition.

Mass shootings are the catalyst for people who wish to ban AR style rifles, despite the fact that 77% of mass shootings don't involve AR style rifles.

In my opinion a logical definition of a mass shooting should be:

1. 1 or more individuals plan to kill many strangers and 3 or more people are killed
2. Family quarrels and murder-suicides are not included
3. Gang violence is not included

I know you're arguing there should not be a ban on AR-15s, but if you take a bird's eye view of the way you are presenting your argument it would seem we need tighter restriction on all firearms. That's not my position, but we have more gun related deaths than any other country.

[Larchap49]

Originally Posted by lpkruege1

If you look at the destruction of the family, the removal of God from our lives, children being subscribed dugs at an unprecedented level, not teaching basic manners and respect, no discipline in schools or at home, what do people think will happen?
There is no such thing as an assault weapon. There are semi auto rifles and then there are military grade weapons used by the military that We as law abiding US citizens are not allowed to own. There are some allowances to own fully automatic weapons, but the list is too long to list here.

Growing up we carried our semi auto, pump, and single shot shotguns along to high school so we could stop on the way home to go hunting. We showed our teachers the shotguns, at least those that hunted. They showed us theirs. WE didn't have mass shootings.
If there was an issue at school with discipline, and my dad got called, and there was punishment when I got home. He didn't run to school threating to sue, he didn't get in fights with other parents, he didn't beat up the teacher. He punished ME. I was responsible. He didn't blame someone else for a lack of parenting. He didn't drug his child. He taught me manners, and respect for life and other people. Stop blaming an inanimate object. Put the blame where it needs to be.

You left out planned Parenthood. In short educated self sufficient society plans a family and produces limited offspring that usually grow up to be responsible adults. On the other hand the uneducated, less than self sufficient, criminally slanted population grows at a much faster rate. This results in an ever increasing level of crime. Gee what a surprise. Possible solution? None without violating some civil rights. There is a solution that would involve forced planned Parenthood, ie forced neutering of repeat criminals. Never happen sooooo buy more guns to protect what's yours.

[Marmaduke]

In my humble opinion, this is an excellent original post, with great give and take exchanges, so far.

I'm so pleased that it has been "civil" to keep a good dialog going. Thx, we may actually learn something, be able to demand action from the adult mental health community and stop blaming AK rifles as the culprit.

As I caught up on News this morning, albeit a few days behind, I opened to a (NY Post) 2 page headline in BOLD CAPS:

GUN CAPITAL OF BIG APPLE

with a subtitle:
48 shootings this year in notorious Brooklyn precinct.

Critically thinking about this article, and based on today's post, I'd agree 100% with the importance to establish the guidelines.

We need to establish definitions and separate mass shootings from gang violence, murder/suicide if we expect to tackle this relatively new plague of mass shootings.

I Nodded in full agreement when I thought about the original posters comments on the media sensationalism. This story had about 7 graphic pictures, followed 6 timelines and was written by 3 reporters right as national legislation is underway.

Thank you for an interesting, informative and intelligent post.

[ThirdOfFive]

Originally Posted by jbrown132

Everyone of these individuals is mentally ill. The mental health system in this country is broken and until it gets fixed this will continue. We have a grandson who for several years was in and out of hospitals. He would tell his mother he was hearing voices that were telling him to do bad things. She would him to the hospital, they would keep him for a day, release him and essentially the treatment was go home, take two aspirin and call me in the morning. This went on for two years. Finally, he woke up one night and got his mother and father up and said the voices in his head were terrible and they were telling him to go out and hurt people. They took him to the fourth hospital they had tried where he was admitted. After two days they were going to release him until his father said if they did he was going to call everyone news outlet he could find and tell them the hospital was going to release their son who was threatening to kill himself and other people. The hospital keep him and after a month of intense discussions with psychiatrists and drug treatment he was finally diagnosed with schizophrenia and has been doing well for several years now. The real problem is most hospitals are no longer staffed or capable of handling mentally ill patients. They may have a small psychiatric unit and that’s it. They need to start building more psychiatric hospitals that treat these types of individuals where they are taken seriously when they are seeking help. In this case our grandson had two loving parents who would not give up. In the case in Texas, and most others this was not the case and there were red flags all over the place that were ignored by the parents and police. Until they fix this system that is broken this unfortunately will continue.

There is a lot of merit to the points raised in the post above.

The history of that goes a long way back, but is similar in most states. De-institutionalization began in earnest in the 1970s. Minnesota, where I hail from, got the start on that from a certain court case, Welsch v. Noot (Welch being Patty Welsch, a mentally disabled young lady, and Noot being Art Noot, the Director (at the time) of the Minnesota Dept. of Public Welfare. The case claimed that Patty Welsch was not getting the services needed at her place of Residence (a Minnesota State Hospital), and that the services she needed could, and must be provided, in a community setting. Patty Welsch happened to have a developmental disability but the case later generalized into applying to persons with mental illness as well. The intent was good. There were undoubtedly people being warehoused in huge State facilities who could have been served better, as well as a lot cheaper (from Joe Taxpayer's point of view) in community-based facilities.

The problem was that it went too far, as idealism often does. Many of the large institutions in Minnesota that once housed the mentally disabled and mentally ill were either torn down or were "repurposed" for other uses, mainly prisons. Concurrently, community-based services were developed. Unfortunately, although most de-institutionalized folks could be served adequately in those community- based services, there were a number of them who could not: they were violent, or had medical needs so great that serving them in the community entailed a significant risk, or had other behaviors that put themselves or the community at risk if they were there, etc. etc. Concurrently with that there were legal decisions that mentally ill people had a RIGHT to be mentally ill (can't argue with that) but, given that, they also had the right to refuse medications, which led directly to an explosion of homelessness in Minnesota (and I assume most other states as well). It led to a big mess that in many respects was never solved: mentally disabled people who could have been adequately housed and cared for, but whose needs could not be met in the community, all of a sudden found themselves with no services at all, or who ended up being "served" in jails and prisons. And it is not an insignificant number: "In 2018, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) reported that 14 percent of prisoners in state and federal facilities met the criteria for having serious mental health conditions. In local jails the number was 26 percent." ("Imprisoning America's Mentally Ill", Ed Lyon, "Prison Legal News" July 20, 2022). Considering that America has an estimated 2.1 MILLION people behind bars, we're looking a a huge number of mentally ill people incarcerated in America: debatably somewhere around 500,000. And that number is just those behind those bars. How many others are still out there needing services but not getting them? And committing crimes along the way?

I think it can be accepted as a given that, if America were more conscientious in treatment of folks with mental issues, there would be fewer people out there killing other people. Unfortunately, as always, the devil is in the details. We'd be fighting a lot of idealistic but often misguided advocacy groups as well as an entrenched (by now) system whose idea of "service" is and remains totally skewed.

[nhtexasrn]

Originally Posted by Sarah_W

What is an assault weapon?

Exactly Sarah! If someone shoots me with a tiny little Baretta 25, I am definitely assaulted!!

[The Chipster]

Originally Posted by RVJim

Given your profile picture we know where your bias is at. No thanks not interested in engaging with an obviously biased original poster with some sort of agenda.

Wow, talk about bias. Sure, let's not have a civil conversation about the mass carnage in our country.