history lesson (ndr)

Ray,

Thanks for posting. I had no idea records of this nature went back that far. I couldn't help but chuckle a little at the one that stated "Barnes then committed suicide by shooting himself in the head several times" and I thought I was a piss poor shot!
 
No, Ed, it wasn't. But we changed the law to prevent it from happening again.
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Hmmm... so laws can be changed and this helps to prevent terrible acts... That is a heretical position that you are espousing there, Mr. Reardon. Next thing, you are going to want to repeal - or more accurately, re-interpret - the 2nd Amendment.

(Yep, sorry, I'm am being off-the-cuff and ironical again...)

Best,
Dan
 
The Bath School bombing remains the deadliest killing spree at a school ever, according to the National Constitution Center.
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And he didn't use a gun...You can add restrictions to make life a pain for everyday law abiding people, but you can't fix crazy...

Speaking of school violence without the use of guns, anyone hear about the attack in the Chineese school on Friday? The news did a good job of burying that story with the Newtown news.
 
No worries, Ed. I don't know why, but for me the formatting when I try to reply with a quote gets all screwed up, and it makes those posts confusing. And congratulations!

Dan, I like the 2nd amendment just fine. I don't think it precludes sensible measures like background checks, keeping firearms out of the hands of felons and other dangerous folks, and similar measures. There are an awful lot of dumb gun control ideas, but that doesn't mean every proposal is equally dumb. I suspect many of us agree that banning fully automatic weapons made sense. Perhaps we could agree on some other changes.
 
No, Ed, it wasn't. But we changed the law to prevent it from happening again.
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Hmmm... so laws can be changed and this helps to prevent terrible acts... That is a heretical position that you are espousing there, Mr. Reardon. Next thing, you are going to want to repeal - or more accurately, re-interpret - the 2nd Amendment.

(Yep, sorry, I'm am being off-the-cuff and ironical again...)

Best,
Dan
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You have no problems in Cananda to solve?
 
Hi Chuck -
I agree: you can't fix crazy. But can you make the effect of crazy less lethal?
That story out of China is a great example: as I recall I madman attacked a bunch of school kids with a knife. Something like 20 kids were injured; none were killed.
As a professional data-geek, I looked at Ray's statistics with two questions: what pattern can we find in order to detect "crazy" before it happens? And what can be done to reduce the lethality of crazy when it does.
Good questions, I think. Don't know the answers...
Respectfully,
Dan
 
You have no problems in Cananda to solve?
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Hi Tod -
No shortage of problems north of the border. We thank you for your concern.
I thought that I addressed my interest in this topic in a previous post. To wit: "So why is some (overly opinionated) Canadian getting so worked up about US gun violence? Canada is neither isolated or immune from this issue and will be influenced by the direction taken south of the border."
I went on to express concern about the society that will be inherited by my kids and to empathize with Ed's thoughts for his grand kids. I also asked elsewhere that my comments not be misinterpreted as condescension, a request that I will suspend only for the next paragraph.
This is a long post. Lots of words, some of them are quite long. But try to keep up, dude.
Affectionately,
Dan
 
Just some food for thought... Tim McVeigh killed 168 people, including 19 kids under 6. Fertilizer, diesel fuel and box trucks are still legal and no one is fighting to ban them.


Actually, you need to be licensed to sell ammonium nitrate and registered to buy it. All transactions are checked against the terrorist watch list, and the Department of Homeland Security tracks all the sales.

http://www.dhs.gov/ammonium-nitrate-security-statutes-and-regulations
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Thanks, Jeff. That is good to know. However, my point was less about our current ability to get fertilizer and more about the fact that banning guns is not the solution as there are other means. If someone is determined to do damage, they will find a way. McVeigh did a lot of damage and no gun was used. The whack-job that flew the plane into the IRS building is another.
 
You have no problems in Cananda to solve?
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Hi Tod -
No shortage of problems north of the border. We thank you for your concern.
I thought that I addressed my interest in this topic in a previous post. To wit: "So why is some (overly opinionated) Canadian getting so worked up about US gun violence? Canada is neither isolated or immune from this issue and will be influenced by the direction taken south of the border."
I went on to express concern about the society that will be inherited by my kids and to empathize with Ed's thoughts for his grand kids. I also asked elsewhere that my comments not be misinterpreted as condescension, a request that I will suspend only for the next paragraph.
This is a long post. Lots of words, some of them are quite long. But try to keep up, dude.
Affectionately,
Dan
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I'll just let this post hang without a response - dude.

Tod
 
Ray -
Those are some incredible and incredibly sad statistics. Thanks for posting them.
I was struck by the acceleration within the last 20 years. I didn't take the time to add it all up, but it seems at a glance that the majority of incidents happened since, say, 1990. What does this indicate about the direction that we are headed? (Admittedly, this could be a statistical sampling error - but somehow I suspect not.)
Is there something that CAN be done to reverse this trend? I think that Ryan makes a good point that early identification of potential threats is a place to start. Would Tim McVeigh have been successful in the current war-on-terror climate? Dunno, but maybe not.
Personally, I also think reducing convenience and spur-of-the-moment access will help - at the margin. Reducing the people-killing efficiency of unrestricted weapons might help - at the margin. Making it harder to accumulate personal armouries and arsenals - at the margin. And with rose-coloured glasses firmly in place, hugging our kids and taking them hunting (yes with guns!).
Respectfully,
Dan
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Years ago I ended up in a conversation with my parents about all this "murder-suicide" stuff that was being reported on in the early 1990's. To my great surprise my mom said it happened all the time in the logging camps and fishing towns of her youth in OR and WA. They just did not talk about it, and the papers would not print much other than an obituary if even that. Who really cares if some drunk tree cutter killed his wife after some other guy looked at her, and then got all sad and ate a bullet? I had a similar conversation with my dad and he replied the same about rural folks in NC. You did not hear about it unless you knew them. It just was not news back then.

From my own youth in 1981 a young man walked into his sunday school class and killed himself in front of a girl he fawned over. He was an A+ student, almost eagle scout, almost state champ wrestler twice, and well liked by everyone. No obit and no public service. This event should be on one of those tables and its not.

Take the above anecdotal opinions and those tables about school attacks and you can consider that they might not be as well documented as one would think.

Where are we headed? I have no idea. I do know that we are surrounded by slippery slopes on all sides.
 
Ray -
Those are some incredible and incredibly sad statistics. Thanks for posting them.
I was struck by the acceleration within the last 20 years. I didn't take the time to add it all up, but it seems at a glance that the majority of incidents happened since, say, 1990. What does this indicate about the direction that we are headed? (Admittedly, this could be a statistical sampling error - but somehow I suspect not.)
Is there something that CAN be done to reverse this trend? I think that Ryan makes a good point that early identification of potential threats is a place to start. Would Tim McVeigh have been successful in the current war-on-terror climate? Dunno, but maybe not.
Personally, I also think reducing convenience and spur-of-the-moment access will help - at the margin. Reducing the people-killing efficiency of unrestricted weapons might help - at the margin. Making it harder to accumulate personal armouries and arsenals - at the margin. And with rose-coloured glasses firmly in place, hugging our kids and taking them hunting (yes with guns!).
Respectfully,
Dan
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Years ago I ended up in a conversation with my parents about all this "murder-suicide" stuff that was being reported on in the early 1990's. To my great surprise my mom said it happened all the time in the logging camps and fishing towns of her youth in OR and WA. They just did not talk about it, and the papers would not print much other than an obituary if even that. Who really cares if some drunk tree cutter killed his wife after some other guy looked at her, and then got all sad and ate a bullet? I had a similar conversation with my dad and he replied the same about rural folks in NC. You did not hear about it unless you knew them. It just was not news back then.

From my own youth in 1981 a young man walked into his sunday school class and killed himself in front of a girl he fawned over. He was an A+ student, almost eagle scout, almost state champ wrestler twice, and well liked by everyone. No obit and no public service. This event should be on one of those tables and its not.

Take the above anecdotal opinions and those tables about school attacks and you can consider that they might not be as well documented as one would think.

Where are we headed? I have no idea. I do know that we are surrounded by slippery slopes on all sides.
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But Ray, he is a self-proclaimed "professional data-geek".

Given that I like data too, my calculations indicate that in the past 6 years that he has been a member of this forum that 11% of his posts have been in this thread - on a topic in which his opinion is irrelevant given that he has no say in how WE progress as a nation.

T
 
Hi Chuck -
I agree: you can't fix crazy. But can you make the effect of crazy less lethal?
That story out of China is a great example: as I recall I madman attacked a bunch of school kids with a knife. Something like 20 kids were injured; none were killed.
As a professional data-geek, I looked at Ray's statistics with two questions: what pattern can we find in order to detect "crazy" before it happens? And what can be done to reduce the lethality of crazy when it does.
Good questions, I think. Don't know the answers...
Respectfully,
Dan
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Now You quoting events in China as factual? The last time I looked their 1st amendment rights were on par with their 2nd amendents rights ,non existent. We don't know what happened in China nor do I care.
 
I'll just let this post hang without a response - dude.

Tod
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Tod -
Way to take the high road.
I, on the other hand, did not. I thought that my opinions were being dismissed off-hand and reacted - over-reacted - with an excess of rudeness and an absence of the "civility" that is typical here.
I apologize.
I also hope that my rudeness - and nationality - don't make my opinions irrelevant here. They are sincere, if nothing more.
You decide - I'ma go sit in the penalty box for a bit.
Respectfully (yes),
Dan

PS - dude.
 
...and an absence of the "civility" that is typical here.
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When politics are discussed, there is typically some poo slinging. My official stance is, if you don't like it (political discussions), don't read it.
 
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