patrick.net

TwoScoopsPlissken says

Yet she was still "Leading the Polls!" and Obama was reminding Americans that when (not if) Trump lost, he shouldn't whinge about rigged elections. Then the Democrats lost and started whinging about rigged elections themselves.

Once again, you try to tell us what Dems think or what Dems said. And once again, you are wrong.

The only person talking about "rigged" elections was Trump even after he won. Trump is the person who claimed to have won the popular vote. Trump is the one who claimed widespread voter fraud with no evidence. Trump is the one who pretended to start a voter fraud commission.

Clinton did none of those things and said nothing of a rigged election. Dems said only that Comey exhibited poor judgment and should not have written the letter so close to the election.

anon_8f378 says

Trump is the one who claimed widespread voter fraud with no evidence. Trump is the one who pretended to start a voter fraud commission.

The report is due in a few weeks.

anon_30423 says

Sniper says

Respondents to the poll feel mental illness plays a bigger part of the issue. Imagine that!

If we could only regulate mental illness, we can't so guess it's time to take the guns away, I mean really, what else can we do?

We have to keep AR-15's away from mentally ill people, for the same reason we keep broken glass away from a baby.
Either we figure out how to keep mentally ill people from getting their hands on these guns, or we completely ban the sale of most types of guns.
What will it be?

anon_8f378 says

But, the fact is that the FBI helped Trump tremendously. Polls show it conclusively.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/corey-lewandowski-james-comey_us_582dd4f7e4b058ce7aa97d7c https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-comey-letter-probably-cost-clinton-the-election/

Ahh geeze..

Using Huff Post and Nate Silver as references for polls....

The crazy, it never ends.

CBOEtrader says

The report is due in a few weeks.

I'm waiting with bated breath.

anon_30423 says

If we could only regulate mental illness, we can't so guess it's time to take the guns away, I mean really, what else can we do?

You can't regulate mental illness? Why not?

Aren't there people around the mentally deranged that can see what's going on? That certainly was the case with the Florida shooter, but everyone who knew there were issues just ignored them, including law enforcement.

So your solution is to take the guns away from the other legal owners who don't have any issues?

anon_cf6c6 says

You can't regulate mental illness? Why not?

Aren't there people around the mentally deranged that can see what's going on? That certainly was the case with the Florida shooter, but everyone who knew there were issues just ignored them, including law enforcement.

So your solution is to take the guns away from the other legal owners who don't have any issues?

What if gun sellers were required to access medical records. Criminal records, and felonies too. Guns should not be sold to any of these people.

anon_8f378 says

Clinton did none of those things and said nothing of a rigged election. Dems said only that Comey exhibited poor judgment and should not have written the letter so close to the election.

Wait, what have been hearing for the past 14+ months?

"Wahhhh, Russia rigged the election"

This is the Democratic Majority Leader Today
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-election/democrats-want-300-million-to-fight-possible-russia-election-tampering-idUSKCN1G526N
Asking for $300 million dollars to fight Russian Election Tampering.

Here's Obama just before the Election:www.youtube.com/embed/MzFdMy4gIdQ
"I don't even know where to start. Of Course, the elections will not be rigged. What does that even mean? .... If Mr. Trump is suggesting this conspiracy theory, which is being propagated..."

Gimme a break with the "Stop putting words in the Democrats' mouths" Take it up with Pelosi.

Another major problem is state laws are all different for everything from gun sales to drugs to mental health laws. If you don’t standardize laws nationally... people can drive an hour outside their state and buy whatever they want and bring it back into their state. 40% of all guns in Chicago were purchased in Indiana.

TwoScoopsPlissken says

Russia rigged the election"

I believe the word dejuer is "influenced". Influence via $45k of FB ads is somehow considered treason, while $1.5 billion and a constant ass licking by CNN is just called the 5 o'clock news.

Strategist says

What if gun sellers were required to access medical records

Every hear of HIPAA? Do you want every gun store clerk in the country knowing you're taking Viagra as they look through your records?

With that said, that question is one of the questions on the 4473. Go look at the form.

Strategist says

Criminal records, and felonies too. Guns should not be sold to any of these people.

They're not.

That information is in the FBI database when a 4473 is processed and the disqualifying information denies the purchase.

Please stop with this craziness and do some factual research.

Quigley says

The real culprit behind Florida school shooting

The real culprit?

THERE WAS NO ARMED SECURITY IN PLACE TO PROTECT THE CHILDREN.

Think of this:

There is armed security at NBA games.

There is armed security at NFL games.

There is armed security at MLB games

There is armed security at Jewelry stores.

There is armed security at Banks.

There is armed security at Airports.

There is armed security at major concerts and arenas.

There is armed security protecting Hollywood stars.

There is armed security protecting Politicians.

There is armed security at NASCAR tracks.

There is armed security at major Train stations.

BUT, There is NO armed security at Schools. The Liberals want schools to be Soft Targets, without any protection.

Can any Democrat of gun hater here explain why the lives of all those people I just listed are MORE important than the lives of CHILDREN?

Anyone?

anon_cf6c6 says

THERE WAS NO ARMED SECURITY IN PLACE TO PROTECT THE CHILDREN.

You had a facility with 3100 students, plus at least a hundred or so faculty and staff.

Name me a campus/facility/industrial park/base/etc. with 3100+ personnel that doesn't have full time, dedicated security and at least a gatehouse guard, if not a guard at each building, and/or a cardswipe/badge reader.

People pooh pooh this because it's self-evident when you consider the size of the facility and total lack of just one full time security person whose job it is to control entry and egress. What good is a ban list if not a soul is there to prevent banned people from entering the complex?

"We don't want safe kids, we want a gun ban excuse."

It wasn't a "Shooting" it was a Mass Homicide, the survivors weren't just shot, they were meant to be Killed.
Stop making perpetrators out of the innocent, lawful gun owners are the bad guys here, the Liberals that mis-categorize Crime Stats so they can get funding, or make their region look less crime riddled than it really is. To call Gang Violence a Mass Shooting is considered racist.
To Call a car bomber, or Floor kisser that drives over a parade crowd a Terrorist the bleeding heart Liberals jump up to their defense.
It's all Mass Homicide and they all deserve the chair, and a strong warning sent to what ever organization they profess to belong to.
That message should be "You're Next!".

Deflate and Defeat these Pinhead Lbieral idiots don't even provide them the fat to chew on. It's not a Mass Shooting it's a Mass Homicide.

anon_cf6c6 says

Can any Democrat of gun hater here explain why the lives of all those people I just listed are MORE important than the lives of CHILDREN?

Bueller?

TwoScoopsPlissken says

"We don't want safe kids, we want a gun ban excuse."

That's exactly what it is.

School shooters usually show these signs of distress long before they open fire,

Two years before he lined his schoolmates up against a classroom wall and executed them one by one, the student, who would become the gunman, tried to show his English teacher something important.

He had quietly slid up his sleeves to reveal the cut marks running down his arms. The teacher panicked. A novice educator at the time, she had never been coached or trained in what to do in these situations, what to say or how to help. So she passed the student off to another teacher, who then filed a form with the principal’s office. She felt fairly certain nothing else came of it.

“He was asking for help,” the teacher said in reflecting on the encounter during a recent interview. “If I’d had some training to help him, a five-step sheet to follow, say this, say that, maybe I could have made a difference?”

The story is one of dozens that we have collected over the past two years in our effort toward studying the life histories of mass shooters. It typifies what we believe is one of the biggest challenges that schools face when it comes to averting school shootings – and that is recognizing and acting upon warning signs that school shooters almost always give well before they open fire.

We are both criminologists who study aggression and violence. One of us focuses on mental illness among offenders. The other has an extensive background in group violence.

Together, we have built a database of the 160 mass public shootings that have taken place in the United States since 1966 for a project funded by the National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Justice. For mass public shootings, we use the common definition of an event in which four or more victims are killed with a gun in a public place.

Protective measures fall short

The goal of our project is to use data to look for patterns in the lives of mass shooters. The purpose is to develop a better understanding of mass shooters and why they did what they did, in order to prevent future tragedies.

Valentine’s Day marks one year since the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Florida, where 14 students and three staff members lost their lives. This year is also the 20th anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colorado.

For two decades, therefore, school leaders, law enforcement officials and policymakers have experimented with ways to stop mass shootings. They have run lockdown drills, produced training videos, armed teachers, hired school resource officers and spent billions of dollars on more secure buildings.

Although gun violence in schools has decreased since the 1990s, our research found that mass school shootings have not decreased over time. There have been six in the last 20 years – Columbine, Red Lake, West Nickel Mines, Sandy Hook, Parkland, Santa Fe – plus 39 attempts in which a shooter came to school heavily armed and fired indiscriminately at numerous people, according to our reanalysis of The Washington Post’s school shooting database. That’s a steady average rate of about 2.4 mass school shootings per year.

2018 was the worst year on record for gun violence in U.S. schools, with 97 incidents and 56 deaths, compared to previous highs of 40 in 1993 and 38 in 2012, the year of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Connecticut.

Patterns emerge among shooters

Our initial analysis of the school shooting data found some noteworthy patterns. All of the K-12 school shooters or would-be school shooters were male, between the ages of 12 and 17. The majority were white and nearly all – 91 percent – were students or former students at the targeted school.

While each story was different, all mass school shooters since 1966 had a large number of risk factors for violence. Forty-five percent had witnessed or experienced childhood trauma, 77 percent had mental health concerns, as evidenced in a prior diagnosis, previous counseling or hospitalization, or medication use, and 75 percent had an interest in past shootings, as evidenced in their writing, social media posts or other activities.

The majority of mass school shooters – 87 percent – showed signs of a crisis, as exhibited in their behavior, before the shooting. Seventy-eight percent revealed their plans ahead of time, often on social media. As juveniles, they also used guns that they stole from parents, caregivers and other significant adults in their lives.

Our analysis found that about 80 percent of mass school shooters were suicidal, based on records we have gathered thus far. This includes the Parkland shooter. Almost all of them die at the scene of the shooting, often by their own hand. Our analysis shows that 52 percent of mass school shooters killed themselves, while 15 percent were killed by police and 30 percent were apprehended. It’s unclear how the remaining 3 percent were killed, our analysis shows.

Towards prevention

These findings make it clearer why current strategies are inadequate. If the shooter is most likely a student in the school, lockdown drills only show potential perpetrators the school’s planned response, which can be used to increase casualties.

Punishing explicit threats of violence with suspension, expulsion or criminal charges is ineffective with a suicidal student. These methods only increase the risk for violence and worsen grievances with the school. Likewise, when a would-be shooter already desires to die, the death penalty – President Trump’s proposed response to mass shootings – is no deterrent.

These findings suggest the need for a new approach to mass violence prevention in schools – one that goes beyond running, hiding and fighting, and that does not traumatize students with routine lockdown drills that cause anxiety or hand young people a script for this form of violence.

Instead, our data show that threats of school violence should be seen as a plea for help. These threats are a critical moment for a student to be connected with long-term, high-quality resources, such as mental health treatment, social services or substance use treatment. The Parkland’s shooter involvement with services was sporadic before he was expelled from school.

These threats of school violence are also an occasion to remind parents to keep guns secure to lessen the chances that they will be able to carry out their attacks.

Further, all school personnel – teachers, administrators and staff members – should be able to recognize signs of a student in crisis. They also need to be trained in crisis intervention, de-escalation, suicide prevention, and be educated on how to connect students to needed help.

School shootings are rare events that mobilize people to take action. In our view, our research suggests it is time to shift the focus from protection to prevention and from physical security to mental well-being.

https://theconversation.com/school-shooters-usually-show-these-signs-of-distress-long-before-they-open-fire-our-database-shows-111242

"Family Members Say Florida School Shooter Was On Antidepressants for Emotional Issues "

"From Prozac to Parkland: Are Psychiatric Drugs Causing Mass Shootings?

While mass killers generally have guns in their hands, another commonality is that they often have psychiatric drugs in their blood.
***
As a case in point, the Parkland, Florida, shooter (I won’t use his name and help provide the fame he craved), who murdered 17 on Valentine’s Day, was on medication for emotional issues, his aunt related."

The article lists many more examples.

Unfortunately, the evening "news" broadcasts continue to be sponsored primarily by drug companies. Seriously, count the ads. An outright majority are from drug companies, and half of those are for drugs you can't even buy legally without a prescription. "Ask your doctor," over and over again.

As long as the drug companies control the MSM, you are unlikely to hear much about the role of Rx drugs in driving these otherwise incomprehensible attacks. The narrative continues to blame guns, because gun manufacturers don't generally advertise on TV.

The #1 rule of TV news is: promote the advertisers. Rx drugs are always good, and their illegal competitors are always bad. Anything that goes wrong must be blamed on either illegal drugs or one of the other standard villains, never the drug companies.

Herewith my suggestions for solving this problem:

1. No long guns sold to those under age 25.

2. Crazy young male teens monitored closely: "register punks, not guns"

3. Allow easier reporting of a wacko aggressive male.

4. Monitor and follow any teen taking certain meds which seem to also be a common denominator for many shootings by nutty kids.

5. Allow schools to figure out how to go after a kid shooting up the place; maybe have a guard who isn't afraid to use his gun.

Liberal Education

clambo says

1. No long guns sold to those under age 25.

I would go the opposite route: No Pistols sold under 25, maybe even 35. Exceptions for veterans/current military, or business owners who can apply for a permit.

And add 6. Mandatory Hospitalization of Schizophrenics and very Mentally Ill, and a process for School Admins and Police to do so.

curious2 says

Are Psychiatric Drugs Causing Mass Shootings?

They MOST LIKELY are. The possible contradictory
theory though is that these kids were already the most distraught, and therefore their existing depression before the pills cause both the pills to be prescribed and the reaction? So the question remains, what is the murderous rage difference cause by the pills? Unclear.

What I THINK is happening : 1) these pills are designed to suppress your own normal emotional reactions.
2) these kids already cant conteol their impulsive minds, or they wouldn't be on these pills in the first place.
3) normal people have murderous thought "I'm so angry I could strangle him", followed immediately a healthy emotional and logical reaction reminding you to never actually follow through w this impulsive anger. To most people, these thoughts are just anger spats in their heads.
4)when you take a pill designed to suppress your emotional reactions, AND you are already a logically challenged 16 year old, think about what could happen? maybe just MAYBE in that situation when the kid has his murderous thoughts, the natural humane emotional response is blocked by the pill...and he starts to think perhaps I could actually 'strangle him'.