100% bullshit. I’m surprised you did whine about prayer in schools while you’re at it. The “practice” stuff is tinfoil hat material. In your case, perhaps gold-plated tinfoil hat material. People practice medicine, the law, engineering, etc. Perhaps if you’d crack open a dictionary you’d see that the word “practice” has multiple definitions.
More kids dead but they’re the price that too many are happy to pay for the “right” to masturbate with their weapons.
24KARAT is a good example of the illiteracy of the post matching the idiocy of the content. When you have the intelligence of a turnip, you can’t write any better than you can think. There’s no point in responding to this moron seriously. But it does have humor value. I think abortions being responsible for gun violence is at the top of my list.
One thing I have to point out. The USA is a very big country. Comparing it to New Zeland or a European country is just wrong.
And I am glad the shooter shot himself and I hope he dies.
Why?
What about Australia?
Fuck, you’re stupid. I mean, congenitally dumb. Beyond repair.
1 more child dead doesn’t help anything.
Try spending the whole nickel next time.
What does that have to do with reasonable gun regulation? Comparing the US to New Zealand, Canada, Australia, or a European country is just fine. Those are the comparisons that gun nuts don’t like to make because of how stark the differences are in gun regulation and gun homicides.
One only needs to watch the post-9pm (eastern time zone) prime-time media to drive this point home. Heck, look at all the fan wank in our own “Café Society” forum. We fucking love to see violence and disrespect represented in our media. “Come-on… It’s all harmless if it’s done for a laugh or a thrill; it’s only make-believe”. And yes, it IS only make-believe… sorta. Note that most of us can keep reality and fantasy separate. However, those of lesser-brain (or stressful circumstance) are going to let these visions/situations/thoughts/actions permeate into their psyche.
Until we all start to demand some level of wholesomeness, fairness, compassion and accountability to be represented at the lowest bar of our media, not much is going to change.
What’s your point? I can’t keep track of all the recent shootings that had that many deaths, let alone one from 15 years ago.
Remember-You can’t compare the USA to any other country…unless that country is Switzerland, then any half-assed and ill-informed comparison is welcomed with open arms.
IIRC, Switzerland was the basis of the “an armed society is a polite society” bullshit.
Which explains why our ghettos during the crack-epidemic years were the most polite places on the face of the earth. :rolleyes:
Go ahead and drop some litter on a Swiss street. I dare you.
Biut it doesn’t work, Switzerland has comparitively high gun ownership and comparitively high gun deaths.
The United States are absolute prudes when it comes to what we watch on TV, in regards to sexuality and profanity. Much more restrictive than most of the rest of the developed world. But we aren’t nearly as strict about violence. Here’s a brief (probably not unbiased) comparison:
http://www.medialit.org/reading-room/what-other-countries-do-about-ratings
I’m unconvinced about the importance of fantasy violence though. There are occasional moral panics about video game violence leading to real violence and there seems no real correlation. I have trouble believing that television (which is less immersive) is going to have any greater of an effect.
I think that it’s not the glorification of fictional violence but a glorification of real violence that’s dangerous. Even when incidents become famous through condemnation I believe that they encourage further acts. Because:
It puts the idea into a person’s mind in the first place.
It lets them know that the violence wasn’t prevented, which gives them confidence that they can do it.
They believe they can be famous and/or their act will have an impact, make a statement, cause widespread anguish against those they feel wronged them, etc.
I don’t think cop shows and dramas about shooting aliens are a danger, but news stories spreading information about violence are.
I don’t think that stat actually tells you anything useful. The US doesn’t require or maintain a registry of most types of firearms. Only fully automatic weapons, short barrelled rifles and shotguns, and other “destructive devices” have to be registered. I’m guessing most of the other countries on that list have a different standard.
I’m actually a little more surprised that there are over a million weapons registered in the US. Not many people want to jump through all the hoops and expense to get a machine gun. Maybe that number also includes suppressors.
I want to write out what my family is dealing with right now at my son’s school. I know it’s long and probably boring but I have to write it all out.
My son is autistic. He’s a bit socially delayed. When he was six he was brutally raped. He went through trauma therapy. They pronounced him cured about a year later and despite some anxiety everything was okay.
In seventh grade another student sexually assaulted him in the bathroom at school, only he wasn’t clued in on sex enough to know that it was a sexual assault. The other student grabbed him between the legs and wouldn’t stop or let him go. My son didn’t understand what was happening. He just thought the boy was being mean. He didn’t tell anyone because my son is very shy and passive and thought he might get in trouble for tattling. That’s how it works ya know? You tell on someone and you get called a tattle tale.
So my son never told me about this and I guess maybe didn’t put much thought in to it because the boy left the school a few weeks after it happened. It was just another bad memory for my son.
Only about a month ago this kid shows up at my son’s new school. And my son now understands what happened to him and it all came back to him in a flood of terror. He had a panic attack that day. He told his teacher exactly what happened. I wasn’t even called. My son came home that day and broke down again, telling me what happened. My first instinct was to contact the teacher and ask what could be done. This is an elective class, choir. It’s my son’s most favorite class. There is only one choir class. She said “if I didn’t see it happen nothing can be done about it”.
So I wrote to the guidance counselor and asked my son to also go to the guidance counselor. Again I was told “if we didn’t see it happen nothing can be done”. Meanwhile the kid is laughing and telling other students about how he’s sexually assaulted several of the students. My son found out another girl in class was also a victim. He then found out another friend not in the class was also sexually assaulted by him. I finally reached a point where I insisted something MUST be done. And their solution was to offer to let my son finish the school year in art class instead.
To me this is unacceptable. I am not forcing my kid to leave a class he loves when he’s the victim here. They agree to make the other student sign a “no contact contract” where he is not allowed to talk to my son. But he still looks at him, LEERS at him. One day my son couldn’t take it and told his friend in the class he was going to have to leave. She BEGGED him to stay because she said “you’re my only buffer!” She told her parents. Their solution was “ignore him and he’ll stop”. He’ll stop grabbing her between the legs and joking about it with the other boys. That’s their solution. “Boys will be boys” after all.
About a week ago my son went to a birthday party with an old friend he went to school with back when all this happened. He hasn’t had much contact so he didn’t know this, but this friend’s parents had to take a restraining order against this student after he not only sexually assaulted her, but sent her threatening messages saying he was going to kill her and himself. And that’s why he came to my son’s new school, because he was kicked out of the old one.
But my son’s counselor, teacher, and principal all say there’s nothing they can do about him. I’m thinking they just don’t give a shit. They MUST not give a shit. So Monday I have an appointment with the district administration, not sure who I’ll be speaking with, but something is going to HAPPEN. I don’t know if I’ll end up taking my son out of school. It’s the only school in the district so I’ll have to homeschool. I can’t move. I won’t stop until something is done to keep my son safe though. And I mean that’s my top concern but what about those other kids who are left behind at the school still getting assaulted and harassed while the adults refuse to listen to their complaints?
This is the kind of thing I think leads to school violence. The adults are not listening to the kids. They’re chalking it up to “teen angst”. They’re not listening. I’m going to listen to my son but what about the other kids? What if this boy decides to act on the violent threats he’s made? What if one of the victims can’t take the pain anymore?
There’s pretty much no regulation of weapons, is that not a useful indicator of a country’s attitude to guns?
That’s heartbreaking, Rushgeekgirl. I hope you and your son are able to find the best of all possible resolutions.
It is way past time for them to give a shit about your son’s situation, Rushgeekgirl. Bring a large envelope with all the documentation you’ve got to date and(if there is any room left) stuff it full with other paper. On a separate sheet of paper write down the names, phone numbers and email addresses of every television station, radio station and newspaper you can find. Tell them that they can either do something about this situation, or the next time the problem child acts out you will release a copy of your documents to every name on that list, and that you will do the same if they try to retaliate against you and/or your child.