Texas Elementary School Shooting

[Audrey Astor]

9 hours ago, Caressa Duval said:

Yes, where were they all. All I have been seeing is armed police standing outside drinking Gatorade and chatting. All the while... terrified students were being shot, bleeding to death, and a few little ones repeatedly called 911 from  the class room floor SEVERAL times begging for help for an hour!!! All these responsible gun owners, and a bunch of them it was there job!!! They were apparently deaf too, unable to hear an AR-15 being fired, but maybe their conversation outside was much more interesting . So horrifying for those little ones

I’m right here grieving over this horrific atrocity. I learned to shoot when I was 6. I come from a single parent household. My single parent taught me gun safety and RESPONSIBLE shooting skills. I never touched guns that were within my reach. NEVER…., except at the range or to clean. It just wasn’t something that crossed my mind. Violence as a whole was not on my mind. I was taught how important human life is, and how blatantly disrespectful it is to point a gun as someone. Our society as a whole has different way different morals and ethics now it seems. 

I believe that there should be some sort of gun ownership/purchase reform. Parents should know what their kids are doing regardless if they’re a single or a 2 parent household.  This tragedy is beyond comprehension. I find it difficult to believe that none of these school shooters showed signs of derangement. This last one did. Nobody caught it and/or did anything about it. So very sad. I pray that the lord be with these children and their families.

I am only stating my opinion, and believe that everyone has a right to theirs. 

[Bit Banger]

@gr8owl

Yes, no one has the right to own another human being.

But that leads to the fallacy of judging history in the context of today’s mores.  We would be appalled if someone were drawn & quartered today, yet that was the civilized standard of punishment a millennium ago.
Every civilization up to the 19th century, and some into the 21st, practiced some form of slavery.  It’s not right by today’s standards, but in that time & place standards were different.  Legally ‘property’ was just valid for a horse or a slave. Both the GA & MS papers talk of lost property in the billions of dollars (One 1860 dollar would be worth about $3,400, so trillions today.). Good luck with sucking $10T out of any states economy without a fight.

Another thing to remember is that most of those who fought and died for the South were NOT slave owners.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Audrey Astor said:

I’m right here grieving over this horrific atrocity. I learned to shoot when I was 6. I come from a single parent household. My single parent taught me gun safety and RESPONSIBLE shooting skills. I never touched guns that were within my reach. NEVER…., except at the range or to clean. It just wasn’t something that crossed my mind. Violence as a whole was not on my mind. I was taught how important human life is, and how blatantly disrespectful it is to point a gun as someone. Our society as a whole has different way different morals and ethics now it seems. 

I believe that there should be some sort of gun ownership/purchase reform. Parents should know what their kids are doing regardless if they’re a single or a 2 parent household.  This tragedy is beyond comprehension. I find it difficult to believe that none of these school shooters showed signs of derangement. This last one did. Nobody caught it and/or did anything about it. So very sad. I pray that the lord be with these children and their families.

I am only stating my opinion, and believe that everyone has a right to theirs. 

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/mass-shootings-mother-jones-full-data/
 

There’s a pretty good detailed spreadsheet going back to ‘82 in that link. Historically the 80s were the most murderous decade followed by the 70s and then the 90s with a fairly sharp decline in the 00s that’s still climbing today but the 80s still take top billing. I wish I could find it again but during the 80s something like half of murders were gun related and now it’s closer to 73% so gun related killings have increased but the murder rates as a whole is still less than the 80s. That being said the average age of mass shooters taken from that spreadsheet is 33.

This is by no means an attack on your comment. I’m only focusing on the “different morals and ethics” specially as it seems not much has really changed in 40yrs with the exception of near constant news and the proliferation of the internet so information is readily available even if said information is lacking at times. And also live streaming of the attacks. 

That’s pretty much all I wanted to add to the conversation. 

[Bit Banger]

8 hours ago, JoDoe27 said:

… not much has really changed in 40yrs with the exception of near constant news and the proliferation of the internet so information is readily available even if said information is lacking at times. And also live streaming of the attacks. …

Agreed!  With the advent of competing 24/7 news sources  “if it bleeds it leads” becomes even more sensational.  And yet the lawless carnage of Chicago and other urban centers is still back page & below the fold.  Is it too common place to be news worthy?

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Bit Banger said:

Agreed!  With the advent of competing 24/7 news sources  “if it bleeds it leads” becomes even more sensational.  And yet the lawless carnage of Chicago and other urban centers is still back page & below the fold.  Is it too common place to be news worthy?

Actually to me Chicago stays in the news. It’s become the token go to city for violence even though it is not the most violent city in the US despite what your new source tells you along with the “most strict gun laws” even though that too is no longer the case and hasn’t been for over a decade now. And further you, and really people like you, will never avoid a chance to throw “what about Chicago?” out the moment any other state or city is highlighted. Texas leads the country in school shootings. Texas leads the country in most guns per capita. Texas also in the top 5 for mental health issues. And Texas’ governor just went on national television lamenting about needing better mental health help after he slashed a few hundred million for mental health commissions and reallocated it to border patrol. For the sake of argument and to prevent even further thread drift I’d say you could talk about those things in this thread.

If you would like to have a real discussion around the socioeconomic issues in Chicago and “urban” areas that can and often do lead to senseless violence we can very well do that; in a different thread unrelated to yet another school shooting in Texas. We can also discuss why the vast majority of mass shootings are committed by white males if you’d like. I feel you often skip those individuals and go straight to the urban ones whenever you attempt a discourse on this general topic. 

[gr8owl]

3 hours ago, Bit Banger said:

Agreed!  With the advent of competing 24/7 news sources  “if it bleeds it leads” becomes even more sensational.  And yet the lawless carnage of Chicago and other urban centers is still back page & below the fold.  Is it too common place to be news worthy?

Hold the phone there!  The "not much has really changed" statement applies to total murder rate and perhaps many other things but it DOES NOT APPLY to mass shootings.  From the linked Mother Jones table the number of mass murders by decade:

1980's - 8

1990's - 22

2000's - 20

2010's - 66

2020's 12  (if that rate extended over 10 years for fair comparison - 50)

So a total of 50 in the first three decades and 116 the two most recent.  That is a huge change and the whole reason to have this conversation. 

As to Chicago - that is simply the right wing's favorite diversionary tactic starting with the fact that the "strictest gun laws" were overturned by court order over a decade ago.  The claim simply is untrue since then.  As to the murder rate claim see:

https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/blog/highest-murder-rate-cities

The leader and still champion over many years remains St. Louis, Missouri.  Chicago does not even make the top 30.  So the look at Chicago with the toughest gun laws claims are just pure right wing drivel and disinformation.  

It is time to take steps that will actually reduce the trends for mass murders and especially school shootings.  The proliferation of AR style weapons is a good place to start.  And no, so we can start another civil war if we think the feds are being tyrannical assertion is the most ludicrous of all arguments for keeping AR-15's legal but it is about the only one there is for them.  Enough already. 

The comments trying to justify slavery as if that has ANYTHING to do with school shootings and little kids being slaughtered are a totally different conversation and trying justify with "historical context" arguments is just plain despicable.  But I suppose we can have that conversation another day, another time, but stop already in this thread.  Just comes across as desperately trying to change the subject.

[Bit Banger]

@JoDoe27

I mention Chicago because I lived there 50 years ago.  Nor do I consider all the violence to be on the South Side.  One fine day a block from my Near North apartment a mob boss had his lunch interrupted by goons with a double barrel shotgun at his throat.  They emptied both barrels.

As for Gov.Abbott diverting funds to border control, it is a matter of public safety that the Feds are failing.  There are literally thousands of encounters every day with illegals crossing the Rio Grande. That does not include those who evade authorities.  Estimates are over 2 million/year, yet our local population is only about 1.4M. For a CO perspective, illegal crossings are nearly 3 times the population growth of the Front Range in the past decade.  They overwhelm local and state resources when released by the Feds from overcrowded processing centers.  

 

Edited May 31, 2022 by Bit Banger

[Guest]

33 minutes ago, gr8owl said:

Hold the phone there!  The "not much has really changed" statement applies to total murder rate and perhaps many other things but it DOES NOT APPLY to mass shootings.  

Thanks. I should’ve been more clear on that point but didn’t think I needed to since the data is there but I forget my audience 

[Newoldbull]

⁰Forgot your audience! Are you seriously trying to say that Chicago doesn't have a serious gun violence problem. When you are  going through all your statistics look up which cities have the worst gun homicides and you might notice that they are in Democrat led cities that think defunding the police is the answer and have all the gun control laws. If you want a gun bad enough they are out there gun control or not. Like you said they come in from out of state and are being sold on the street illegally. So much for gun control  I know numerous people who own alot of guns and I'm sure they aren't ready to commit a mass shooting. I did not say there shouldn't be any restrictions on purchasing a firearm. Look at my earlier posts. I think the attention should be directed at mental health and picking up on red flags and preventing this insanity before it happens.. But I firmly believe if you were to ban guns you just open up a black market and law abiding citizens will pay the price and the criminals will be the ones who benefit from it. It's coming out now that the Uvalde shooter had been posting on social media all kinds of crazy stuff that should have raised red flags.  But it was ignored or people didn't give it a thought until it was too late. We are all entitled to our opinions so I'm going to leave it at that and I'm done. 

[BBT-8367]

1 hour ago, Newoldbull said:

⁰Forgot your audience! Are you seriously trying to say that Chicago doesn't have a serious gun violence problem. When you are  going through all your statistics look up which cities have the worst gun homicides and you might notice that they are in Democrat led cities that think defunding the police is the answer and have all the gun control laws. 

 Is what you say really true?  I am not disputing your claim, but I saw an article that, at least on the surface, seems to contradict your findings. I am neither a Republican nor a Democrat and I support maintaining at least current funding levels for police forces.  My purpose in giving you this info is to let you know that I am not coming at this from an ultra liberal perspective. My interest here is in the underlying statistics regarding politics and homicide stats. 

 See Republican-controlled states have higher murder rates than Democratic ones: study, Yahoo News,  April 4, 20222. 

Edited June 6, 2022 by BBT-8367

[Newoldbull]

I appreciate your response. I am very careful  about what news sources I get my information from. Yahoo news is not one of them. Our media has been taken over by the far left radicals. We have a serious rise in crime all over this country because of progressive DAS that are letting criminals back on the streets and emptying are jails. I don't have any specific news articles to point to but it's just common sense. They are having a recall in LA and San Francisco right now because of the actions of the present DA's. We are off topic with school shootings but we have to fund the police or we will be living in a crime infested jungle. 

[MrReindeer-9515]

⁰Forgot your audience! Are you seriously trying to say that Chicago doesn't have a serious gun violence problem. When you are  going through all your statistics look up which cities have the worst gun homicides and you might notice that they are in Democrat led cities that think defunding the police is the answer and have all the gun control”

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/these-states-have-the-highest-rates-of-gun-violence-and-deaths#Heres-where-gun-violence-is-the-highest-in-the-U.S.
 

This is what posting with your heart instead of your head will get you:

the 5 states with the highest rates of gun violence are: Mississippi, Louisiana, Wyoming,  Missouri, and Alabama. Last I checked, 4 out of those 5 are run by Republicans.

[Newoldbull]

Mr Reindeer I hate to disagree with you because I think we would agree on other topics but I have spent alot of time in Wyoming and  I would not feel the least bit threatened about gun violence even In Cheyenne.The population of Wyoming is so small that I think that figures into the equation. Missouri  is different because of St Louis and KC. It's a jungle there. Who controls these two cities? I will let you answer that. And would I be careful in Chicago? Yes. Who controls that city? I think we both know the answer to that question too. There are more people shot in Chicago in one weekend then are shot in Wyoming in 6 months. 

[Alex Majors]

I am a little late to the conversation but I have stared down the barrel of a gun. It is not something I want to forget. That being said, taking away my right to purchase a gun to protect myself, is just ridiculous. Criminals will still have them. The police can't protect you. It takes only a few minutes for a criminal/physopath to do what they want. In the school shooting, police  just took positions outside and waited. Which proves my point about them being unable to protect you.

Most of these shootings were caused by mentally unstable people or bullied kids who snapped. If they can't get guns, they will use knives, chainsaws, baseball bats, etc.  In the old days you would treat the mentally unstable in facilities. Keeping them there for long periods of their lives. But today that would be taking away their rights. As for the bullys, teachers used to be able to apply a little punishment at a young age. This would correct the behavior.  Today they would be cuffed and hauled to jail for hitting a kid.

I don't know all the answers. Until we do something about career criminals, the insane or bullys, you better protect yourself. The life you save,  might be yours and someone elses.

Edited June 7, 2022 by Alex Majors

[oldguy47]

11 hours ago, Alex Majors said:

If they can't get guns, they will use knives, chainsaws, baseball bats, etc.

Guns allow a person to kill many in short order with little chance of defense. Knives, chainsaws, and baseball bats don't. A small person armed with high capacity magazines is hard to stop, without firearms. It's much easier to stop even a large person armed with knives, chainsaws, or baseball bats. Furthermore, you can run away from someone with all of those weapons except for the firearm.

[Newoldbull]

6 hours ago, oldguy47 said:

Guns allow a person to kill many in short order with little chance of defense. Knives, chainsaws, and baseball bats don't. A small person armed with high capacity magazines is hard to stop, without firearms. It's much easier to stop even a large person armed with knives, chainsaws, or baseball bats. Furthermore, you can run away from someone with all of those weapons except for the firearm.

I think you just made the case that you probably couldn't defend yourself with a ballbat but you might have a chance with a legally owned firearm to defend yourself or your family against an attack. The guns are here, they are not going to evaporate. The problem is getting them out of the hands of people that shouldn't  have them

[Bit Banger]

On 6/7/2022 at 5:23 AM, Alex Majors said:

 … As for the bullys, teachers used to be able to apply a little punishment at a young age. …

When I was growing up, you told a bully to piss off.  When he walloped on you, you might lose but you made sure that he felt some pain too.  Chances are you’d shake hands and respect each other when the dust cleared.  The one thing you never did was rat each other out.

Today’s kids run to the authorities when their classmates fail to use their preferred pronoun.  They’d probably faint dead if someone demanded their lunch money.

[gr8owl]

2 hours ago, Bit Banger said:

When I was growing up, you told a bully to piss off.  When he walloped on you, you might lose but you made sure that he felt some pain too.  Chances are you’d shake hands and respect each other when the dust cleared.  The one thing you never did was rat each other out.

 

You are 100 percent correct that "we" used to settle things one on one slug it out in the park after school, friends later. 

Then kids started bringing guns to the park and school.  Oh, wait.  But good point.

[Bit Banger]

On 6/8/2022 at 3:59 PM, gr8owl said:

Then kids started bringing guns to the park and school.  Oh, wait.  But good point.

Oh, we took our .22 rifles to school.  The school rifle range is one of the places I learned to shoot as a Scout, AFTER appropriate safety training.  My mother learned to shoot on that same range.

Edited June 10, 2022 by Bit Banger

[ilovewomen]

On 6/8/2022 at 1:08 PM, Bit Banger said:

When I was growing up, you told a bully to piss off.  When he walloped on you, you might lose but you made sure that he felt some pain too.  Chances are you’d shake hands and respect each other when the dust cleared.  The one thing you never did was rat each other out.

Today’s kids run to the authorities when their classmates fail to use their preferred pronoun.  They’d probably faint dead if someone demanded their lunch money.

The good old days.

You're right, the kids today would faint if someone demanded their lunch money.

[rage4order]

On 6/8/2022 at 1:08 PM, Bit Banger said:

When I was growing up, you told a bully to piss off.  When he walloped on you, you might lose but you made sure that he felt some pain too.  Chances are you’d shake hands and respect each other when the dust cleared.  The one thing you never did was rat each other out.

Today’s kids run to the authorities when their classmates fail to use their preferred pronoun.  They’d probably faint dead if someone demanded their lunch money.

When I was growing up it was safe to go to school.