We have officially become inured to mass shootings.

[Dallas Tex]

Or...this country has a serious problem with white nationalist and supremacist spree killings. Like the Poway and Pittsburgh synagogue shootings. The El Paso shooting. The Gilroy Garlic Festival shooting. And those are all just in the last 12 months.

TBD what the motive is for this latest shooting, but if they're pulling materials from an off-the-grid shack the guy used, I wouldn't be floored if the guy also ascribed to white nationalist views.

Why wasn’t it a serious national problem with ‘black supremacy’ when five dallas police officers were murdered by a sniper with links to the Black Panthers on his computer? Should our national power been mobilized immediately to combat this obvious ‘serious problem’ ??? No, of course not.


To clarify & make it simpler, I don’t believe either of these incidents were more than mentally ill folks. No conspiracy theories or big ’ supremacist’ movement of any kind.

[joosttx]

I don’t believe that I said it would be.

Wasn’t speaking to you directly. But it does sound like you agree with me.

[thollandpe]

Three bills passed by the Texas legislature will go into effect Tuesday (I’m assuming that TX celebrates Labor Day, if not then they go into effect today):

One doesn’t allow schools to block licensed gun owners from storing firearms in their vehicles. Now I live in a town where back in the day not only could you have a gun in your car, you could actually have it in your locker, because a lot of people hunted before or after school. But then again I’m an old coot and times have changed. I don’t think you should bring guns to school.

Another allows firearms to be taken into places of worship. So much for the separation of church and state.

Another prohibits landlords from restricting firearm possession by residents or their guests. How’s that for respecting private property?

These three bills were passed by the Texas legislature and become law this week. Three little victories for a certain lobbying group.

TH

[bigbill]

I have a ranch near Odessa, Tx. Everyone has a gun there. If no citizen could not stopped this dude, how is arming citizens an effective way of preventing this sort of thing from happening?

If I'm armed, I have two sidearms that I could carry, I can legally only defend myself. The shooter would have to be a threat to me, if I go after a shooter then I'm breaking the law and compound the issue by adding another shooter for law enforcement to contend with. In Odessa, the shooter was driving around shooting at people. A "good guy with a gun" would have to be in a car and have the clarity of situation to pull his/her gun and shoot a moving target. I don't think that's realistic in this situation.

I really wish the NRA would stop the narrative of the good guy with a gun. The only good guys with guns are law enforcement. Private citizens aren't law enforcement, their weapons are only for defending themselves and even then should wait on law enforcement if possible. I have nothing to defend at my home other than myself. If my house is broken into while I'm home, and that's highly unlikely, I'll call the police and lock myself in a room and be ready to defend myself if necessary.

[Bobonli]

If I'm armed, I have two sidearms that I could carry, I can legally only defend myself. The shooter would have to be a threat to me, if I go after a shooter then I'm breaking the law and compound the issue by adding another shooter for law enforcement to contend with. In Odessa, the shooter was driving around shooting at people. A "good guy with a gun" would have to be in a car and have the clarity of situation to pull his/her gun and shoot a moving target. I don't think that's realistic in this situation.

I really wish the NRA would stop the narrative of the good guy with a gun. The only good guys with guns are law enforcement. Private citizens aren't law enforcement, their weapons are only for defending themselves and even then should wait on law enforcement if possible. I have nothing to defend at my home other than myself. If my house is broken into while I'm home, and that's highly unlikely, I'll call the police and lock myself in a room and be ready to defend myself if necessary.

Bill, that's exactly right! And "Good Guy with a Gun" is just another guy with a gun that responding police have to deal with. They are NOT trained to have a discussion, "Oh I see you're here at the shots fired call. And you have a gun. Are you here as a 'good guy' or are you the perpetrator?" Several years ago in NYC an on duty cop shot an off duty cop in a situation like this. It's a recipe for more shooting by people not specifically trained to engage in tactical situations.

Edit: come to think of it, this happened in Queens last winter. Two undercover cops were coming out of a location where there had been shots fired or a report of a gun and they were cut down by responding uniformed cops. One was killed. If they can't get it straight, how do you think Joe Average Citizen or Sally the Math Teacher would do?

[monadnocky]

Can we stop with the whole "mental illness" thing? Can we just stop calling rage, anger, and (especially) entitled resentment "mental illness?" Because the more we conflate the two, the more people with bona-fide mental illnesses will be targeted and scapegoated for this problem (although that's well under way as a means to deflect discussion from actually doing anything constructive).

Armchair psychology and ill-informed psychobabble aside, few if any of these individuals have been "mentally ill" in any meaningful psychiatric or psychological sense of the term. And we all know that truly mentally ill individuals are LESS likely to commit violence - while there is a subset that is at higher risk for violence, compared to the general population (and are, in fact, much more likely to be victims of violence), this subset comprises less than one percent of chronically mentally ill individuals.

Rage is not a mental illness (at least by any nosology of which I am aware, certainly it's not in any edition of the DSM). Hate is not a mental illness. Having a compromised cognitive architecture subject to indoctrination is not a mental illness. So can we stop subjecting the most vulnerable constituents of our society to even more stigma?

[ides1056]

From the Times Op-Ed by Richard Parker:

After El Paso, it was discovered that the governor had made a fund-raising appeal the day before that shooting, referencing immigrants: “If we’re going to DEFEND Texas, we’ll need to take matters into our own hands.” Mr. Abbott’s language, like President Trump’s, eerily reflected the killer’s racist online screed.

In 2015, he even tweeted: “I’m EMBARRASSED: Texas #2 in nation for new gun purchases, behind CALIFORNIA. Let’s pick up the pace Texans. @NRA.”

Even as the Trump administration has turned Texas into a battleground of controversy, Mr. Abbott has made less noise than a frog in a drought. Not about the horrific conditions for immigrants incarcerated in Texas. Not about a border wall that is actually unpopular with most Texans. Not even about the uncertainty the president has injected into NAFTA, vital to the economic lifeblood of Texas.

Over 60 percent of Texans want more rigorous background checks, according to the university’s polling. A plurality of Texans favor stricter gun laws. Only 40 percent want to ban semi-automatic weapons, admittedly. But Texans are split nearly evenly on banning their high-capacity magazines.

So long as Mr. Abbott lacks the moral courage to do something, we Texans are picking up the pace, governor. Getting slaughtered.

[bigbill]

Over 60 percent of Texans want more rigorous background checks, according to the university’s polling. A plurality of Texans favor stricter gun laws. Only 40 percent want to ban semi-automatic weapons, admittedly. But Texans are split nearly evenly on banning their high-capacity magazines.

I'm in AZ and recently purchased a Ruger revolver, a 327 Federal Magnum six shooter. The background check verified that I had no felony convictions, no outstanding protective orders, no arrests for domestic violence, no time spent in a mental health facility, and no illegal drug use. Some of that was up to me to admit or deny, but the criminal and domestic violence are from a law enforcement database that is shared between states. What else would constitute a more rigorous background check? Blood or urinalysis to very no drug use? An interview with a Psychiatrist or social worker? It's harder to get a drivers license than get a gun, but driving isn't Constitutionally protected.

BTW, when I went to renew my TX driver's license in 2015, I was denied because of an accident in 1987 in Saratoga Springs, NY. A guy backed into my parked car and dented the door. The police officer didn't need to see my insurance since the other driver was at fault. But years later, that paperwork error resulted in a report that I was in an accident with no insurance. Since joining the Navy in 1985, I had renewed my license through the mail or on line until 2010, 23 year after the accident. But, as a result of shared databases between states, my license in Texas was flagged and I had to resolve the issue in NY before they would renew. It was basically a letter absolving me, but it demonstrates the shared data available for background checks.

[Dallas Tex]

Can we stop with the whole "mental illness" thing? Can we just stop calling rage, anger, and (especially) entitled resentment "mental illness?" Because the more we conflate the two, the more people with bona-fide mental illnesses will be targeted and scapegoated for this problem (although that's well under way as a means to deflect discussion from actually doing anything constructive).

Armchair psychology and ill-informed psychobabble aside, few if any of these individuals have been "mentally ill" in any meaningful psychiatric or psychological sense of the term. And we all know that truly mentally ill individuals are LESS likely to commit violence - while there is a subset that is at higher risk for violence, compared to the general population (and are, in fact, much more likely to be victims of violence), this subset comprises less than one percent of chronically mentally ill individuals.

Rage is not a mental illness (at least by any nosology of which I am aware, certainly it's not in any edition of the DSM). Hate is not a mental illness. Having a compromised cognitive architecture subject to indoctrination is not a mental illness. So can we stop subjecting the most vulnerable constituents of our society to even more stigma?

Read below, this sounds much more like someone with mental health challenges rather than some organized conspiratorial race war terrorism to me:

.....He lived in a shack with no water or electricity and in the cold months would sit in his running car to keep warm. He frequently shot at animals in his yard and he threatened the neighbor with a rifle..

Forgive my ignorance, but if ‘mentally ill’ isn’t the correct terminology for this type of individual please educate me as to what is the best terminology. I’m certainly not intentionally intending to add stigma to anyone’s challenges.

[sk_tle]

but the criminal and domestic violence are from a law enforcement database that is shared between states.

My guts tell me that you want to remove the danger before the first crime is commited as it can be deadly already.

I think we should limit the amount of ammo anyone can own and carry.

If you needa gun for your own security surely less than 5 bullets should be enough ? Then if you want to buy more you have to provide the proof they were fired by returning the shells/casing whatever they are called. If you can't find them ---> you have to report it to the police.

If you want to unload magazines, buy the ammo at the range and fire it at the range, no ammo brought back at home. If you are a hunter you may be allowed a bit more but all shots must be recorded (builtin tracking device ?) and tracked before you can get more ammo. That should also helps a bit hunting accidents as hunter would have to be sure they are aiming at a deer/whatever before discharging if the amount of ammo they can fire during a week is limited. Similar to how we tend to be more meticulous and careful about our composition when we are taking pictures with film.

That wouldn't solve the issue of domestic violence as one only need a bullet to kill his partner but that should limit those where a magazine has been discharged, including the mass murders. Evidently the black market should be monitored too but if you are found with more ammo than allowed and can't prove where to get it you lose some of your rights.

[monadnocky]

Forgive my ignorance, but if ‘mentally ill’ isn’t the correct terminology for this type of individual please educate me as to what is the best terminology. I’m certainly not intentionally intending to add stigma to anyone’s challenges.

No, I don't think you are meaning to do that.

We don't know the status of someone's mental health short of an evaluation by a professional. Certainly, there's the likely presence of all those things that cause someone to become unhinged: rage, desperation, numerous biopsychosocial risk factors, what have you, but even having all of these factors doesn't necessarily mean that someone has a diagnosable mental illness. As a whole, the presence of mental illness and dangerousness have nothing to do with one another.

We can definitely say that these people are unstable, unwell, dangerous, what have you. Some may, indeed, even be mentally ill (i.e., have been diagnosed, or are diagnosable, with a DSM-defined mental illness) but at no greater of a rate than the general population. In fact, the severely mentally ill rarely carry out such deeds because they lack the organizational capacity to accomplish them.

So, to answer your question, just use a word that fits- unstable, rageful, dangerous, isolated. How's "psychologically unhealthy?" I can get on board with that.

FWIW, I don't have a ton of experience working with the persistent and chronically mentally ill - but I recall my days of working on inpatient units, and I never experienced any of them to be threatening in the least - more than anything, they're very sad and very scared.

[theflashunc]

Why wasn’t it a serious national problem with ‘black supremacy’ when five dallas police officers were murdered by a sniper with links to the Black Panthers on his computer? Should our national power been mobilized immediately to combat this obvious ‘serious problem’ ??? No, of course not.


To clarify & make it simpler, I don’t believe either of these incidents were more than mentally ill folks. No conspiracy theories or big ’ supremacist’ movement of any kind.

Why believe the sbooters' own manifestos then where they explicitly call out violence as justification for creating and maintaining a white ethnostate? Sure, nothing to do with ideology.

Look, if it were just one, like the Dallas shooter, then sure, you can chalk it up as a one off. But four in a year and the continuation of years of this kind of shit? The Charleston church shooting feels like a lifetime ago.

Or if we are try concerned about hate filled ideologies of all kinds, then maybe it is time to restrict access to guns universally.

It's almost like the guns are the problem.

[bigbill]

Read below, this sounds much more like someone with mental health challenges rather than some organized conspiratorial race war terrorism to me:
Forgive my ignorance, but if ‘mentally ill’ isn’t the correct terminology for this type of individual please educate me as to what is the best terminology. I’m certainly not intentionally intending to add stigma to anyone’s challenges.

No, not really except for the shooting at stuff in his yard and threatening a neighbor with his rifle. I have guys who work for me who live out in the desert without running water or electricity other than a generator. Sometimes life puts you in that situation. Some choose that lifestyle, but I wouldn't necessarily put a mental health stigma on it. It's part of the social norms in places like Kingman, AZ where I live and Odessa has a very similar culture as well. Basically folks like that are a paycheck away from homeless even if home is a corrugate metal building or container.

[ides1056]

If you look at mass shootings as an equation, it's the gun part as a variable that is the deadly component. What color the person is, their ideology, mental health, complaint- none of this is the deadly part.

So solve the deadly variable. At least make a start. That is what the Op Ed I quoted suggests.

[bigbill]

My guts tell me that you want to remove the danger before the first crime is commited as it can be deadly already.

I think we should limit the amount of ammo anyone can own and carry.

If you needa gun for your own security surely less than 5 bullets should be enough ? Then if you want to buy more you have to provide the proof they were fired by returning the shells/casing whatever they are called. If you can't find them ---> you have to report it to the police.

If you want to unload magazines, buy the ammo at the range and fire it at the range, no ammo brought back at home. If you are a hunter you may be allowed a bit more but all shots must be recorded (builtin tracking device ?) and tracked before you can get more ammo. That should also helps a bit hunting accidents as hunter would have to be sure they are aiming at a deer/whatever before discharging if the amount of ammo they can fire during a week is limited. Similar to how we tend to be more meticulous and careful about our composition when we are taking pictures with film.

That wouldn't solve the issue of domestic violence as one only need a bullet to kill his partner but that should limit those where a magazine has been discharged, including the mass murders. Evidently the black market should be monitored too but if you are found with more ammo than allowed and can't prove where to get it you lose some of your rights.

I don't think people who intend to murder or commit a mass shooting really care about the law. I doubt they'll wring their hands wishing they had ammo or a gun to commit the crime.

If we're talking about red flag laws, that's also a slippery slope. Let's say I get in an argument with a neighbor about a property line or where they park their cars. What is to stop that person from reporting me as potentially violent? Will there be some kind of requirement of proof that the person represents a danger to himself or the community? A lot of what is proposed is going to almost exclusively affect people who are responsible gun owners. People intent on murder aren't going to follow the same rules. Gang and drug related shootings are still going to occur, people will still kill themselves (only one round), and mass shootings will still occur. I'm not saying to do nothing, but this has to be approached with an organized plan to shift our culture away from gun violence. We can't legislate violence out of our communities, we have to change the culture.

[Blue Jays]

"...It's almost like the guns are the problem..."

Yet there are hundreds of millions of firearms (with millions upon millions of peaceful gunowners) who hurt absolutely nobody.

Hey, this was my 2,400th post!

[sk_tle]

I don't think people who intend to murder or commit a mass shooting really care about the law. I doubt they'll wring their hands wishing they had ammo or a gun to commit the crime.

It really depends. I don't think it will prevents the wealthy organized crimes organisation to get weapons.

The loner angry about the whole world because he is poor and can't get laid that is currently hoarding legally firearms because he can do it and feel like he may have to defend itself against some vague muslim, feminist or LGBT menace ? Maybe so. When you are purchasing goods in a black market it is not like you can enter a shop, fill a basket and go pay your illegal purchase at a counter without a word. You have to socialize a little, something that those mass murderers have issues to begin with.

we have to change the culture.

Sure, but that doesn't mean you can't try to limit the damage in the meantime.

[joosttx]

imagine how many people Charles Whitman could kill if he did it today with the access to the type of guns we have now.

Charles Whitman - Wikipedia

[jclay]

How do other countries do it? I believe they don't allow civilians to possess semi autos of combat calibre/power and they heavily regulate other firearms.

They didn't spend time dicking around with magazine size or other technical details. They wisely prevented weapons that can rapidly spit out bullets from being in the general population. And they regulate the hell out of the rest. Do they get all of them? Of course not. But do they get enough that their rates of mass shootings are a couple orders of magnitude less than ours. I shouldn't even have to pose the rhetorical question but some of the previous comments force me to do so.

We, unwisely, opened the flood gates so remediation will take a long time and lots of sticks, carrots and conversation/cultural changes. We are a stupid lot about too many things.

I don't know about others but if I wanted to learn how to build bicycle frames I'd find out how successful framebuilders do it and then do what they do. Oh, shit, that's what I did...except for a couple of early crap frames where I didn't listen and follow. Hmmm. Is there a correlation?? I wonder.

If I wanted to build a NASCAR team I'd find out how successful teams do it, and to avoid mistakes, how unsuccessful teams do it. If I was chronically in the loser's bracket, which we are in the firearms violence arena, I don't think I'd be arguing that my clever methods worked better than the methods that the winning teams were using.

Low capy mags. What a joke. I can change a 6 shot semi-auto mag vastly quicker than I can a revolver; few mass shooters are going to take the substantial time and trouble to learn to reload wheelguns quickly. And then when low capy mag restrictions, along with other Balkanized regulations, fail the folks who oppose regulation will be able to say "see, gun laws don't work"; it's perfect for them.

We will see a reduction in mass shootings when we have reduced the population of semi autos to a tiny fraction of what it is now, and not a day sooner. A national health care system, better worker protections, breaking up oligopolies/strong anti-trust enforcement and the like would also be of benefit to this problem and society in general...but no, as I said, we are a stupid lot and both parties are beholden to big $$ interests. We are like the frog in the water that's being slowly heated, and about way too many things.

Conceptually this is not a difficult problem but practically we've damn sure made it one.

[ides1056]