# College Station, Texas shooting
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-station-texas-shooting/631402
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [August 13, 2012, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-station-texas-shooting/631402 "2012-08-13T19:46:31Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2012, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-station-texas-shooting/631402/41 "2012-08-13T22:11:11Z")
> [@sleestak](#):
>
> This incident sucks. I feel for the families of everyone involved. However, the shooter in this incident could have used a whole bunch of other weapons to achieve the same result.
I concede that, he could have used a swimming pool.
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### Author:  [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2012, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-station-texas-shooting/631402/42 "2012-08-13T22:12:11Z")
A 75-foot pool is still pretty big, though!
I hope I don’t come off as a huge asshole for saying this (maybe I will, but at least I’m being honest), but I’m pretty much numb to the horror of mass shootings anymore. Ever since the Gabby Giffords shooting, my give-a-damn has been on E. Like, I heard a coworker mention there was another shooting earlier today and I thought, “Welp… God Bless America,” and just went back to what I was doing.
I do believe I’m too thoroughly jaded by all this, definitely, but I dunno what to do about that. Sorry if this is inappropriate for the thread, I don’t mean to threadshit. I’m not just posting to say, “OLD NEWS LOL WHO GIVES A FUCK?” because I \*do \*think it’s a valid thread about a current event. But I’m just so weary of mass-murder discussion. It doesn’t register as something I can do something about, so I care about things I CAN do something about instead… if that makes sense.
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### Author:  [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2012, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-station-texas-shooting/631402/43 "2012-08-13T22:17:13Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#):
>
> I find it amusing that because you hate guns you think it’s preferable to be fucking retarded about them and make glaring technical errors in the description of them. It’s like not knowing the difference between a manual transmission and an automatic transmission in a car, you don’t need to know how either transmission works, but if you can’t get that “automatic weapon” means “hold trigger down and lots of bullets stream out” or that a “manual transmission” means you have to shift the gears yourself and use a clutch pedal you’re a moron.
I love guns, you great big pussy. Guns are really cool.
What I’m not afraid of is the world. You great big pussy.
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### Author:  [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2012, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-station-texas-shooting/631402/44 "2012-08-13T22:25:34Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#):
>
> I love guns, you great big pussy. Guns are really cool.
>
> What I’m not afraid of is the world. You great big pussy.
I don’t think you are being fair about the dangers. I had a friend ambushed by a bunch of tin cans. He tried valiantly to fight back with his meager 50 round clip, but he was facing a blood thirsty six-pack and had no chance. His last words were “if only I had ordered that 100 round magazine off the internet…”
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### Author:  [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2012, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-station-texas-shooting/631402/45 "2012-08-13T22:39:50Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#):
>
> I don’t care how outraged you are, a few innocent lives are a completely reasonable cost for any number of dangerous items people enjoy the freedom to purchase and own. Luckily for firearms, the SCOTUS has recently begun correctly interpreting the constitution such that the second amendment confers an individual right to own firearms, so until you losers get 38 states to agree with you we’re going to keep owning guns.
See, if you keep being deliberately annoying, eventually the gun control people are going to form a supermajority.
If you want to keep your right to keep and bear arms, your only real option is to keep popular support for guns, because “Fuck you, I’ve got the Second Amendment” only goes so far. As you say, when guns become unpopular enough suddenly you’ve got 38 states signing up to repeal it. And then you’ll wish you’d been a bit less dismissive, won’t you?
High profile crimes spawn copycats. If you think America is just going to tolerate spree killing after spree killing then you’re mistaken. If you gun nuts have some ideas on how to keep the spree killings down to a discreet minimum, then maybe you should trot them out rather than let the gun grabbers dominate the discussion. And “Everyone should be armed” doesn’t exactly work when spree killers are shooting armed cops. A spree killer always has tactical suprise on his side.
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### Author:  [@Harborwolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harborwolf)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2012, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-station-texas-shooting/631402/46 "2012-08-13T22:40:58Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#):
>
> Unfortunately several other dangerous items that people enjoy owning have no explicit constitutional protections. Considering the number of innocent lives taken by things like swimming pools, ATVs, and alcohol we may be in trouble on those. Luckily none of those things makes liberals piss and shit their pants in fear like firearms do, so at least for awhile we’re safe to get drunk after swimming and then drive our ATVs into a daycare.
Dude. This is just silly. The comparison isn’t there. How many times has someone killed multiple people by wielding a swimming pool at them? Committed vehicular mass murder by running people down in an ATV? Walked into a school and made every student in a classroom get fatally drunk?
I’m not going to get into a big gun debate with you because I honestly don’t give a single fuck about gun control. I just wanted to point out that you tried to make your point in what may be _ **the dumbest way possible** _. Most people go for cars or something. You went right to swimming pools and alcohol.
I have to give it to you. The idea of some guy picking up _an entire swimming pool_ and killing another person with it makes me smile.
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### Author:  [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2012, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-station-texas-shooting/631402/47 "2012-08-13T22:42:30Z")
Ok, so this is weird…_nothing_ about this on Drudge Report.
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### Author:  [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2012, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-station-texas-shooting/631402/48 "2012-08-13T22:44:03Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#):
>
> Society makes the valuation, and society disagrees.
For now.
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### Author:  [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2012, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-station-texas-shooting/631402/49 "2012-08-13T22:48:57Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#):
>
> I love guns, you great big pussy. Guns are really cool.
>
> What I’m not afraid of is the world. You great big pussy.
I think I’ve already cornered the market on talking about how big of a coward the other side is on this debate, sorry you’re too late to the show.
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### Author:  [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2012, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-station-texas-shooting/631402/50 "2012-08-13T22:49:59Z")
> [@Lemur866](#):
>
> See, if you keep being deliberately annoying, eventually the gun control people are going to form a supermajority.
>
> If you want to keep your right to keep and bear arms, your only real option is to keep popular support for guns, because “Fuck you, I’ve got the Second Amendment” only goes so far. As you say, when guns become unpopular enough suddenly you’ve got 38 states signing up to repeal it. And then you’ll wish you’d been a bit less dismissive, won’t you?
This is going to happen about the same time we land humans on a planet in another solar system.
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### Author:  [@Harborwolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harborwolf)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2012, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-station-texas-shooting/631402/51 "2012-08-13T22:51:56Z")
Do you know how many people die each year shoveling snow? Why aren’t liberals pissing their pants in fear every time somebody has to go shovel the driveway of some daycare?!?
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### Author:  [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2012, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-station-texas-shooting/631402/52 "2012-08-13T22:54:06Z")
Did this thread START in the Pit?
Why on Earth? Let’s keep this in perspective – these are Texans being killed, not Americans.
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### Author:  [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2012, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-station-texas-shooting/631402/53 "2012-08-13T22:55:29Z")
> [@Harborwolf](#):
>
> Dude. This is just silly. The comparison isn’t there. How many times has someone killed multiple people by wielding a swimming pool at them? Committed vehicular mass murder by running people down in an ATV? Walked into a school and made every student in a classroom get fatally drunk?
>
> I’m not going to get into a big gun debate with you because I honestly don’t give a single fuck about gun control. I just wanted to point out that you tried to make your point in what may be _ **the dumbest way possible** _. Most people go for cars or something. You went right to swimming pools and alcohol.
>
> I have to give it to you. The idea of some guy picking up _an entire swimming pool_ and killing another person with it makes me smile.
So you’re admitting deaths only matter when they happen in spectacular fashion?
Cars are a dumb comparison because people _need_ cars. You don’t need guns, you just want guns. But I can say the exact same thing about open in ground swimming pools on private property, I can say the exact same thing about alcohol. Both are things we don’t need, we just want. And both of them kill _thousands_ of people every year other than the people who bought the pool or the booze. That makes them a perfectly apt comparison to guns, the only real difference is no, people don’t die in big sprees from pools or guns. But only idiots are concerned with anecdote style data.
If 10x as many people were killed by drunk drivers than were killed by people with guns (they aren’t, which is why this is hypothetical) then the actual public policy level aggregate data would say alcohol was a far worse scourge than guns, no matter if the people killed by guns were killed in single death incidents or multiple death incidents. In the aggregate there is no real difference between one guy killing 10 people and 10 guys killing 10 people in separate incidents.
Public policy should be based on issues that are big enough to warrant being a public policy debate. _General gun deaths_ are public policy scale, but if you want to focus in on “how many times a year do multiple people get killed at once by xxx” as if that is where the gun control debate should be focused, that’s retarded. The number of people killed each year in spree killings is less than 1 in 100,000 and that means it isn’t relevant at all as a matter of public policy. General gun deaths (including all homicides, accidents, and suicides) are public policy scale and worthy for debate. But spree killings? No, totally irrelevant.
So for that reason it’s irrelevant whether or not we have “spree drunk drivings” or “spree pool drownings.” Instead what is relevant is how many people die each year in accidental drownings? How many people die each year due to alcohol?
If the numbers are even close to the numbers for guns, then you have to ask why we let people build in ground pools and why we let people buy alcohol too.
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### Author:  [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2012, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-station-texas-shooting/631402/54 "2012-08-13T22:55:52Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#):
>
> Did this thread START in the Pit?
>
> Why on Earth? Let’s keep this in perspective – these are Texans being killed, not Americans.
I didn’t even notice that…did it? I don’t see any mod notes that it was moved.
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### Author:  [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolak_of_Twilo)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2012, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-station-texas-shooting/631402/55 "2012-08-13T23:00:59Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#):
>
> The OP reported what the news outlets said, with no editorial “dwelving”.
Exactly. All I did was post the information related in the link I included. I actually debated whether I should post it in this forum or not. In the end I decided to put it here. I figured some hypersensitive, paranoid dick would come along and start crying about how it couldn’t possibly be true.
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### Author:  [@JXJohns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JXJohns)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2012, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-station-texas-shooting/631402/56 "2012-08-13T23:01:41Z")
> [@Lemur866](#):
>
> … If you gun nuts have some ideas on how to keep the spree killings down to a discreet minimum, then maybe you should trot them out rather than let the gun grabbers dominate the discussion. And “Everyone should be armed” doesn’t exactly work when spree killers are shooting armed cops. A spree killer always has tactical suprise on his side.
Simple, ban spree killings.
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### Author:  [@Harborwolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harborwolf)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2012, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-station-texas-shooting/631402/57 "2012-08-13T23:03:52Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#):
>
> So you’re admitting deaths only matter when they happen in spectacular fashion?
Nope. Pointing out the glaringly obvious flaw in your logic. A gun is a weapon. It’s a tool that is used to kill by design. That’s what it’s for. A pool is not used to kill. The deaths happen by accident. Nobody uses a pool to kill people. Alcohol is also not used as a weapon. That’s not it’s intent. People use alcohol to make posts like yours that I quoted make more sense. An ATV is not a weapon. It’s a recreational device. It would probably bounce off of most reasonably constructed day care centers no matter how drunk you are or how many laps you swam.
You’re not comparing apples to oranges. You’re not even in the ball park. You’re comparing apples to tube socks. It’s funny as fuck, but it’s not an argument. It’s unintentional comedy.
You know what else kills people? Choking on food. Next thing you know liberals will be shitting their britches every time someone eats. Those wacky liberals.
And just so you know, I didn’t read the rest of your long post. Couldn’t stand to think of you taking your earlier post so seriously. Comparing guns to swimming pools. Damn funny.
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### Author:  [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2012, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-station-texas-shooting/631402/58 "2012-08-13T23:05:10Z")
> [@Harborwolf](#):
>
> Do you know how many people die each year shoveling snow? Why aren’t liberals pissing their pants in fear every time somebody has to go shovel the driveway of some daycare?!?
You know those fake “Ask the person on the street” articles that the Onion does? This seems like it came right out of one of those articles. (P.S. I know youa re being sarcastic)
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2012, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-station-texas-shooting/631402/59 "2012-08-13T23:06:04Z")
> [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](#):
>
> Exactly. All I did was post the information related in the link I included. I actually debated whether I should post it in this forum or not. In the end I decided to put it here. I figured some hypersensitive, paranoid dick would come along and start crying about how it couldn’t possibly be true.
All you did was relay a news report without comment…but unfortunately the report had that special trigger word.
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### Author:  [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2012, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-station-texas-shooting/631402/60 "2012-08-13T23:08:07Z")
> [@Rachellelogram](#):
>
> I do believe I’m too thoroughly jaded by all this, definitely, but I dunno what to do about that. Sorry if this is inappropriate for the thread, I don’t mean to threadshit. I’m not just posting to say, “OLD NEWS LOL WHO GIVES A FUCK?” because I \*do \*think it’s a valid thread about a current event. But I’m just so weary of mass-murder discussion. It doesn’t register as something I can do something about, so I care about things I CAN do something about instead… if that makes sense.
The only reason this is in the news is because it happened [del]on[/del] near a college campus and OMG school shooting!!!1 It’d take a slow news day for most other ‘asshole/crazy dude with a gun takes offense at the orders of police officers’ stories to hit the national news with breaking news alerts and all that. The ratings-crazed reporters were probably assuming this was another college student gone nuts again.
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