Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Another Mass Shooting in Texas
I have no idea what the solution is.
I mean, I do: intact Families and a culture that does not promote despair and rage.
But since that is not on the table, I have no idea. Taking away guns from citizens has never been shown to work in this nation. That seems to be all that is ever proposed.
Guns have always been in the hands of the people. Mass shootings are a sign of sickness in America as much as theft of AC parts. In the great depression, people did not rob infrastructure. We are sick and dying as a society.
Not enough people believe in anything but getting what is good for themselves or in hurting others because of their pain. It is the Republic of Rome in its last days.
Published in General
It’s an interesting question whether an armed and trained populace would mitigate those serious problems. Even if that situation brings some problems of its own.
In fairness, politics is downstream from culture. Politicians cannot solve this problem, though their policies contribute to the moral decay. As an example, the idea that we should help out single mothers because raising children without a father is hard seems great, but when the govt takes over a basic responsibility, people stop doing it. When a single Mom will get help, the Dad is less likely to stick around or be condemned for not sticking around because everyone knows the govt is there to help.
The Right surrendered the culture war, and the consequences have been devastating. This is the world that David French and Ann Coulter want. One where the GOP doesn’t fight to end abortions, but rather accepts that people want to kill babies. That drag queen story hour is exactly what the Founders intended when they authored the First Amendment. Every time a politician in the GOP says that fighting the culture war will cost votes and thus it shouldn’t be fought…it leads down this path.
Completely agree. I am certain that I would not be here today absent counseling and my anti-depressants. When I stopped taking them last year (ran out and literally forgot to refill them) it was less than a month and I was starting to have suicidal thoughts again. It was like a cold splash of water in my face when I was filling my weekly meds and realized my count was off and then that I hadn’t been taking my anti-depressant for weeks. I’m still recovering from that episode and it’s been well over 6 months.
That “one flew over the cuckoos nest” book/movie was a big part of the change. It either reflected a trend or promoted one.
I’d like to see states use compelled and embedded medical delivery of anti-psychotics. Our cities and streets are filled with crazy people that can be helped by medications, but not able to maintain the regime. Between doing nothing and locking people up to force daily meds, is the implant (IDDS=Implantable Drug Delivery System). Today’s implants last 5 years.
It should also be noted that today’s meth-amphetamines cause schizophrenia, so the problem is getting worse and worse.
You are correct. The number killed depends not on the gun but on the number of targets and the time it takes a good gun to arrive on the scene to neutralize the bad gun. Mass shooters pick places with lots of targets of targets and no good guns. Even if a place has an armed guard, he is easily identified and avoided. Concealed carry, on the other hand, presents too much uncertainty for a mass shooter or any other criminal. I’m not opposed to laws allowing open carry but an opposed to open carry as a deterrent. It enables a perp to identify and avoid the good gun that could take him out.
Good luck. The problems we face are found all across the western world.
News always try to blame Republicans.
I agree. Cultural problems indicate a need for more morality. Government can’t provide morality, only legality. Morality that governs culture has declined with the advancement of secularism, ergo…
We still don’t understand all the ins and outs of brain function. I’ve decided the brain isn’t perfect and the things we take drugs for now are to neutralize some of various characteristics the human brain can exhibit throughout society. It is hard to tell a depressed person to just be happy or a person with ADHD to sit still and pay attention.
I have no problem with your expressing an opinion. I disagree with your premises about the cause and cure. I understand that what you think is influenced by what you hear on the news and how it is presented. The media sources are biased against guns and support bans.
Guns are less prevalent today than in past centuries because everyone needed guns as tools for defense and hunting. When I was in high school in the late 60s, student pickup trucks in the school parking lot had rifles in the truck gun racks in the school parking lot during hunting season. Nobody gave it a second thought. More and more people grew up without guns though in the 20th century. Gun sales have exploded in recent years in reaction to two things, Democrat attempts to ban them and the growing desire for self-defense in the face of increasing crime brought on by cultural changes and lax criminal justice policies.
Mass shootings cause a small fraction of gun deaths, less than 2%. In almost all cases, the perp was known to law enforcement, friends, or schools to be a problem.
How do you propose to reduce the number of guns? First, why does it matter how many guns are in a law-abiding household? There are more than one for the same reason you have more than one type of screwdriver a more than one pair of shoes. Reducing supply of any good or service creates a blackmarket and the higher prices of the blackmarket increases incentives for criminals to steal them. After Australia banned most guns, the blackmarket there was selling $500 handguns for up to $15,000. When there is that kind of money to be made, criminal organizations will figure out how to obtain or import something. it would be no different than the war on drugs or our failed attempt at prohibition.
We have no problem with the number of guns but do have a problem with the number of criminals on the streets.
The right to self-defense is an unalienable right. One that certain goat’s have taken away. Next door to your country is a l other where that eight have been severely abridged and now they suffer massive petty crime and violent crime as well. The idea that getting mugged isn’t a bad thing comes from a belief that you shouldn’t defend yourself. There are times when you might choose not to, but to have the govt take that away from you and force you to suffer the indignity of petty theft or violent crimes like armed robbery, assault, rape, or murder is truly an illusory form of safety.
I disagree. Stop funding the destruction of the family.
We also have people from Maine, the most annoying state, who talk like that.
We literally fought and won a war so that we didn’t have to actually care what people across the Atlantic thought we should do here.
I’m also glad that you were able to express your opinion. We’re going to disagree about “solutions” because we differ not only in assessing “the problem”, but because we have different principles.
More for @charlesmark
There is an old saying we used in the military, “quantity has a quality all its own,” and it applies here. It is really not worthwhile comparing a small country to the US, which is really a republic with 50 sovereign states, many the size in land or people as other countries. Heck, California alone has more people than Australia even though Australia is the approximate size of the continental U.S. Depending on the desired point, stats can be manipulated by choosing between total and per capita. For example, crime here is only 2 times greater than crime in Ireland per capita. However, total crime here is 146 times greater than in Ireland, ergo we have a lot more criminals. The murder rate here is 3 times yours per capita while the total number of murders is 241 times greater. You also have 25% more law enforcement than we have.
Your first reaction might be to recommend we increase law enforcement by 25% but that increases the tax burden in a country where taxes are already more progressive than in other countries. Private citizens with concealed carry permits are free. In fact, concealed carry permit holders compete favorably with law enforcement for best safety record and legal application of gun-use laws. That is why law enforcement supports concealed carry and many off-duty and retired officers teach concealed carry classes. Some are on ricochet.
This concept that men shouldn’t defend themselves and their loved ones is new and has only existed for a few decades in over 7,000 years of recorded history.
Many schools have adopted policies that allow those with concealed carry experience who have been trained by local police to be armed at school. The schools put up signs warning perps that some of the staff are armed. Shooters so far have not targeted any of those schools. Before you recoil in horror, let me point out that it is no different than being in any public place that hasn’t put up a “no guns allowed” sign. People just don’t see the guns but know they possibly exist. I hope many exist because if I am in a store and one of those crazies starts shooting, I want an armed citizen to stop him immediately rather than wait ten minutes for police to do it.
The fact we still have this many shooters tells me we do not have enough good guns. Also, when a citizen with a good gun stops a shooter before he can shoot 2-4 people, it isn’t a “mass shooting” so you will not see stats for this.
Gun banners include justified (legal) homicides in their homicide totals to make things sound more scary. The more dishonest ones include suicides, up to 60% of gun deaths, and the number shot rather than killed. ”Mass” could mean as few as 2-3 rather than 4 or more.
Considering that I deal with both and they tend to feed each other…yeah, I am looking for some help on ADHD at 54 because it exacerbates my depression.
That contributes to the problem but doesn’t cause it. It’s a small quibble, but essential. We need to stop promoting policies that undermine the family unit.
No doubt true, but not contrary the point I made.
Q: You don’t think that the feminization of education and counseling has resulted in a discipline-by-medication war on boys?
There are some great, new meds.
More than likely they aren’t getting enough recess time.
And they’re expected to behave like girls — which they are not.
Close friend used to teach in elementary school. She said that it’s obvious that boys and girls have different needs and learn differently. She also said that today the schools teach to the girls and leave the boys to sink or swim. She left teaching and went back to college to get a CS degree. She and I were hired into the same company, same project at the same time. Early spring 1985.
Women facing the prospect of defending themselves from a much-larger male attacker, using only their fists, would like a word with you.
I have spent in the aggregate about 9 months in New York City. On one occasion, in the 1980s I walked up a street in the Upper East Side and entered the doorway to my accommodation. Within seconds I heard gunfire outside. It turned out a man and a woman had been shot dead. I believe the killer waited until I was off the street to carry out the attack. A friend of mine witnessed a sniper shooting around the same time. I saw guns pulled on at least one occasion – by police telling a black guy (totally innocent) to “freeze”. I don’t need to rely on media reports to know what goes on.
As to the point of principle, I have often argued the Constitutional point with fellow Irish people who think all guns should be seized straight away.
My answer: Yes!
I think the problem of schools is more complex and deserves more than a yes or no answer. I do not believe our 19th century schooling system is what is needed today in the 21st century and it does not serve the needs of up to 40% of children.
But the high preponderance of (mostly very liberal/leftist) women teachers, is unlikely to be good for boys.
Well, I don’t mean to derail, so, letting that one go.
I grew up in a time when being ADHD wasn’t a terrible thing. Heck we didn’t even have a name for it as I recall. But we had more movement during the day and not so strict a schedule. The Nuns and teachers at my school enforced discipline, but if you figeted it was fine. We had morning recess to run around and along lunch to do the same. If there was a disruption that delayed the class five minutes it wasn’t the end of the world like it is now.
But, my inability to concentrate at work is making it harder to do my job, which is adding stress to my life. Sometimes I need to be able to focus on something I really don’t want to do and my only current coping mechanism is to create a crisis to force myself to focus. That is partially what lead to my depression and I need touse that mechanism sparingly. Alas right now it’s being g used too much and it’s negatively impacting me.
One issue is that we have moved away from many of the 19th century ways of teaching. We have even moved away from mid 20th century teaching. Modern instruction is much more collaborative for the students with the idea that this is better preparation for them for a modern job. There might be some truth, but it also misses that children, and even teens are not ready to work in a modern office style where sitting quietly while working independently and asynchronously is prized. Those skills are learned ones, and not applicable for every person.
It also seems likely to work better for girls than for boys, especially at those ages.
Which also makes it understandable that mostly-female teachers would prefer it. But it shouldn’t be up to them.