Scrutable

This one is in a school. 2 dead, four injured.

There simply must be a reason for all this, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

Anyway, thoughts and prayers.

This will, inevitably and depressingly, become a megathread. Because it will keep happening. Because of one lobby’s power over seemingly any administration regardless of public opinion.

Yes of course the answer is there's too many guns, but there's another elephant in the room, what is it about the American education system that makes so many kid want to go back and shoot up their schools?

Or do British kids want to shoot their school chums up too but just can't get the guns?

Boustrophedon wrote: ↑

Thu Nov 14, 2019 10:00 pm

Yes of course the answer is there's too many guns, but there's another elephant in the room, what is it about the American education system that makes so many kid want to go back and shoot up their schools?

Or do British kids want to shoot their school chums up too but just can't get the guns?

Some of it's probably self-perpetuating copy cat crimes. Kids want to shoot up their school because that's what they've known disaffected teenagers to do, since from before they were born. The UK doesn't have that in its culture.

Dyqik makes a good point. Mass Shooting Contagion is a relatively new but growing area of study, sadly.

Boustrophedon wrote: ↑

Thu Nov 14, 2019 10:00 pm

Or do British kids want to shoot their school chums up too but just can't get the guns?

Going off on a tangent (which is what I do and I'm not going to stop now)... I blew up the school piano, maybe it was the cultural memory of Guy Fawkes that influenced the 16 year old me.

It seems to (uneducated) me that the thing (whether it's killing people or making a symbolic statement) is very much attached to a method (guns or explosives) in the mind of the perpetrator.


ETA I'm sure I've read somewhere (Johann Hari perhaps) that suicide is generally connected to a method, commonly guns in the USA, historically gassing (head in the oven in the days of town gas) in the UK, and that if the method is removed people who are suicidal actually don't just find another way to kill themselves, they tend to not do it.

EATA A local businessman near where I live committed suicide recently by car exhaust in a sealed lockup.... it's possible that this post is me over-thinking and losing the distinction between general and specific.

^ If my above post makes any sense at all, I'd like it to be an attempted refutation of the argument that if access to guns is restricted then people will simply use another kind of weapon to achieve the same ends.

People on twitter are saying that this murderer only had a handgun, so had a high wounded:killed ratio, as well as a low hit rate.

i.e. even if banning assault rifles doesn't stop school shootings, it nonetheless reduces the fatalities.

individualmember wrote: ↑

Fri Nov 15, 2019 10:38 am

I blew up the school piano,

How the f.ck do you blow up a school piano? Can I ask why as well?

A very sad, disturbed and angry Yr 9 boy tried to burn down the school I was working at. He took out about a quarter of it and nearly a lot of people as well as the faulty fire alarms had been turned off to allow exams to continue without false alarms. Allegedly.
The young lad even told me beforehand, but I took no notice just as I had ignored his threats to kill me, the head and especially the deputy head. "No don't do that, now how can we help with your work". I liked him.
We failed him. I failed him.

But when you have witnessed your entire family being shot in front of you and get dragged to a country where you don't speak the language, perhaps he had reason to be angry.

Boustrophedon wrote: ↑

Fri Nov 15, 2019 2:33 pm

individualmember wrote: ↑

Fri Nov 15, 2019 10:38 am

I blew up the school piano,

How the f.ck do you blow up a school piano? Can I ask why as well?

Why? To see what would happen. (I don't mean to sound glib, but to see what would happen was really the reason).

How? You used to be able to get firecrackers which I believe were a mixture of potassium chlorate and silver fulminate, unwrap a handful and you have some pressure sensitive crystals... place where they would get struck. Funnily enough my form teacher in the 5th year was one of the chemistry teachers and I remember him looking away when I owned up. In retrospect I think he was laughing. Whatever, I got a verbal bollocking but no other punishment.





[TBH my secondary school period, ages 11 to 18, went basically bored-isolated-depressed, f.ck knows why they let me stay around when I wasn't engaging with anyone, I guess because they would have had to confront mental health issues and they weren't equipped/prepared to do that. FFS I'd given them a reason to chuck me out if they'd really wanted to. Perhaps my unaccountable shed load of O levels made them think that I'd walk my A levels as well. I didn't.]

individualmember wrote: ↑

Fri Nov 15, 2019 2:57 pm

Why? To see what would happen. (I don't mean to sound glib, but to see what would happen was really the reason).

How? You used to be able to get firecrackers which I believe were a mixture of potassium chlorate and silver fulminate, unwrap a handful and you have some pressure sensitive crystals... place where they would get struck. Funnily enough my form teacher in the 5th year was one of the chemistry teachers and I remember him looking away when I owned up. In retrospect I think he was laughing. Whatever, I got a verbal bollocking but no other punishment.

You are not alone. I have a friend who regularly blew things up.
Most memorably:
A large branch from a tree so it fell on the Head's car
The telephone box outside the school gates
and perhaps most eye catching, the long jump pit, minutes before the event started

OK I fess up, in primary school, I sellotaped percussion caps around the inside of the rim of the school handbell that was rung to summon us in from break. It worked rather well. The dinner lady was really cross.

individualmember wrote: ↑

Fri Nov 15, 2019 10:38 am

Boustrophedon wrote: ↑

Thu Nov 14, 2019 10:00 pm

Or do British kids want to shoot their school chums up too but just can't get the guns?

Going off on a tangent (which is what I do and I'm not going to stop now)... I blew up the school piano, maybe it was the cultural memory of Guy Fawkes that influenced the 16 year old me.

It seems to (uneducated) me that the thing (whether it's killing people or making a symbolic statement) is very much attached to a method (guns or explosives) in the mind of the perpetrator.


ETA I'm sure I've read somewhere (Johann Hari perhaps) that suicide is generally connected to a method, commonly guns in the USA, historically gassing (head in the oven in the days of town gas) in the UK, and that if the method is removed people who are suicidal actually don't just find another way to kill themselves, they tend to not do it.

EATA A local businessman near where I live committed suicide recently by car exhaust in a sealed lockup.... it's possible that this post is me over-thinking and losing the distinction between general and specific.

A patient of one of my former colleagues started a plan to blow up a local high school, but he made the mistake of informing my colleague, thinking that a doctor couldn't shop him. How wrong he was. Various items were found at his house and some very interesting things in his interweb search history.

Re suicide methods: denying access to methods is always a good start for a reduction strategy. However, folk then start to change habits - see, for example, changes to UK-ian gas supplies, with overdosing having become the most common method used here.

It it was Hari and it came from his book about depression...Well, what can I say, other than if there was anything sensible in it, we (ie those of us in the biz) already knew and much was just pish: a very unhelpful book and I do not know what the f.ck the publishers were paying at giving it the time of day.

murmur wrote: ↑

Fri Nov 15, 2019 4:59 pm

Re suicide methods: denying access to methods is always a good start for a reduction strategy. However, folk then start to change habits - see, for example, changes to UK-ian gas supplies, with overdosing having become the most common method used here.

It it was Hari and it came from his book about depression...Well, what can I say, other than if there was anything sensible in it, we (ie those of us in the biz) already knew and much was just pish: a very unhelpful book and I do not know what the f.ck the publishers were paying at giving it the time of day.

Fairy nuff, I've read a couple of his but can't remember much detail. I've enjoyed (sort of, maybe not quite enjoyed but found interesting) a couple of Ruby Wax's books (although the idea of self treatment with mindfulness techniques is somewhat, er, problematic IMO, if you need help you need proper help) and the Anthony Clare/Spike Milligan one a few years ago. Been on tricyclics and SSRI's myself and had a good success with CBT, so coming from a patient/outsider pov.

Boustrophedon wrote: ↑

Fri Nov 15, 2019 4:42 pm

OK I fess up, in primary school, I sellotaped percussion caps around the inside of the rim of the school handbell that was rung to summon us in from break. It worked rather well. The dinner lady was really cross.

One April 1st I drove the getaway car when my future brother-in-law shot my brother and he and his brother dragged my brother into the car and sped away. I was in high school at the time.

We would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those darn kids!

(Starter pistol.)

They had an eleven county manhunt going when one of David's classmates ratted us out.

Gawdzilla Sama wrote: ↑

Fri Nov 15, 2019 5:38 pm

One April 1st I drove the getaway car when my future brother-in-law shot my brother and he and his brother dragged my brother into the car and sped away. I was in high school at the time.

We would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those darn kids!

(Starter pistol.)

They had an eleven county manhunt going when one of David's classmates ratted us out.

Me and the future BIL were underage, and my brother was waiting to go to the Air Force boot camp. The other person in the car was BIL's brother, who was home between tours as a door gunner in Vietnam.

So yeah, a whole car loads of crazy that night.

An account of the sequence of events here.

Boustrophedon wrote: ↑

Fri Nov 15, 2019 2:42 pm

A very sad, disturbed and angry Yr 9 boy tried to burn down the school I was working at. He took out about a quarter of it and nearly a lot of people as well as the faulty fire alarms had been turned off to allow exams to continue without false alarms. Allegedly.
The young lad even told me beforehand, but I took no notice just as I had ignored his threats to kill me, the head and especially the deputy head. "No don't do that, now how can we help with your work". I liked him.
We failed him. I failed him.

But when you have witnessed your entire family being shot in front of you and get dragged to a country where you don't speak the language, perhaps he had reason to be angry.

Please tell me the boy got help in the end.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... yard-party

I suspect this might be gang related.

First month of March with no school shootings since 2002.

https://theweek.com/speedreads/908469/l ... l-shooting

Gfamily wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 14, 2020 7:47 am

First month of March with no school shootings since 2002.

https://theweek.com/speedreads/908469/l ... l-shooting

My thoughts and prayers are with the gunmen locked down to the extent that they can't exercise their constitutional right to shoot indiscriminately on school grounds.

Martin_B wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 14, 2020 8:19 am

Gfamily wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 14, 2020 7:47 am

First month of March with no school shootings since 2002.

https://theweek.com/speedreads/908469/l ... l-shooting

My thoughts and prayers are with the gunmen locked down to the extent that they can't exercise their constitutional right to shoot indiscriminately on school grounds.

Although I appreciate the sediment I think we should continue to stockpile thoughts and prayers solely for frontline medical staff because once we've exhausted them they'll be facing the virus with literally nothing else.

Although at the federal level, perhaps some thoughts and prayers can be released from government warehouses to be directed towards divine intervention to provide an adequate supply of PPE. Anything else would be godless communism.

Little waster wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 14, 2020 10:12 am

Martin_B wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 14, 2020 8:19 am

Gfamily wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 14, 2020 7:47 am

First month of March with no school shootings since 2002.

https://theweek.com/speedreads/908469/l ... l-shooting

My thoughts and prayers are with the gunmen locked down to the extent that they can't exercise their constitutional right to shoot indiscriminately on school grounds.

Although I appreciate the sediment I think we should continue to stockpile thoughts and prayers solely for frontline medical staff because once we've exhausted them they'll be facing the virus with literally nothing else.

Although at the federal level, perhaps some thoughts and prayers can be released from government warehouses to be directed towards divine intervention to provide an adequate supply of PPE. Anything else would be godless communism.

The problem with the latter plan is that it's a little known secret that most of the Federal government's stockpile of thoughts and prayers can't be removed from the large government warehouse, because they were stored too close to that Ark recovered from the Germans in the 1930s, and it absorbed them all.