61 replies to this topic

[e u n O i a]

Left-Field, on 12 December 2012 - 03:00 PM, said:

It's a sign of the times...

As much as I'd like to believe things like this will begin occurring less and less, I have little faith that they will. I think we are still trending in the direction of society succumbing to more and more violence.

I do agree that we are becoming less and less safe in our lives. I grew up in Baltimore and was robbed at knife point when I was 18. Maybe that just makes me more aware of the violent people I may share my community with. If anyone really thinks that these mall shooters are rare individuals, they are completely wrong.

[Left-Field]

e u n O i a, on 12 December 2012 - 03:04 PM, said:

I do agree that we are becoming less and less safe in our lives. I grew up in Baltimore and was robbed at knife point when I was 18. Maybe that just makes me more aware of the violent people I may share my community with. If anyone really thinks that these mall shooters are rare individuals, they are completely wrong.

Whether they actually carry out the actions of doing something like this, I tend to believe far too many individuals have such violent thoughts run through their mind. While it's one thing for someone to have irrational thoughts when they are angry, it's another thing entirely when they fantasize about over a lengthy period of time.

I know sometimes things like this are random, but often times its a person acting on thoughts that may have played through their heads countless times over.

I don't want to be "that guy," but I feel society as a whole unfortunately stumbled along a more negative path rather than a positive one. And in today's world everything is so in your face that it just becomes too much - the violence, sex, drugs, all those things. It's just too much. You're bombarded with it everywhere.

People become conditioned to such things and they don't even realize it. It's hard for people to do when they've grown up with it since the moment they were born. I thought it was bad enough when I was young, but with the technology we have today it's become so much worse.

I can't imagine what it's like for kids today growing up with so much instant access to everything and all the different venues for them to have these negative aspects of life constantly flashed in front of their eyes.

On an individual basis it can be viewed as something that may not be all that troublesome. When you step back and view things from a societal standpoint, however, you begin to better understand things as they truly are.

[Sweetpumper]

Too bad one of the shoppers wasn't carrying.

[Left-Field]

Sweetpumper, on 12 December 2012 - 03:51 PM, said:

Too bad one of the shoppers wasn't carrying.

Because that would've solved absolutely nothing?

[Sweetpumper]

Left-Field, on 12 December 2012 - 03:58 PM, said:

Because that would've solved absolutely nothing?

Wow.

[Left-Field]

Sweetpumper, on 12 December 2012 - 04:04 PM, said:

Wow.

Care to elaborate?

Or are you just so convinved that if someone in the mall - other than the known shooter - had a gun that day they could've prevented the incident from occurring by firing their own weapon at the perpetrator before anything bad happened that you fail realize all the unfortunate scenarios that could've played out if that had been the case; such as the loss of more innocent lives by the proposed "hero" misfiring and hitting someone other than the intended target, or by firing and causing the perpetrator to then shoot more rounds himself at innocent victims?

[rashore]

By the way the article reads, even if a bystander had a firearm, the whole thing probably went down too fast for any bystander to really do anything. And it's not like I foresaw this happening, but I am utterly not surprised about this happening again before the close of the year.
The whole trend of this is pretty disturbing.

[Sweetpumper]

Or, rather than make up all of those scenarios, why not include this one?  Someone concealing near him could've taken him out after the initial shots were fired saving shoppers lives rather than having no other options than ducking behind a garbage can.  I guess some people prefer to be helpless victims.

[Kasey2601]

Well, we all know what happens when only one person in a crowd of 10s or even 100s has a gun and everyone else doesn't, so I say it's time to see what happens if everyone has a gun.

[Sweetpumper]

There would be a lot more getting along.

[Kasey2601]

Or more deaths.

[Jeffertonturner]

Sweetpumper, on 12 December 2012 - 04:55 PM, said:

There would be a lot more getting along.

Or everyone would be shooting at each other...

[Kasey2601]

Either way, someone wins.

[e u n O i a]

[facepalm]

yea, lets give everyone a gun and see what happens in one of these scenerios.

crazy gunman starts shooting... a bunch of people react and try to shoot him.

a bunch of other idiots with guns react and no one can tell who the initial gunman is...



Bullets fly everywhere and lives are lost.

[Left-Field]

Sweetpumper, on 12 December 2012 - 04:55 PM, said:

There would be a lot more getting along.

You're pretty naive to think that. Gun ownership plays no role in people getting along. If everyone carried a gun at all times there would be just as much issues and "crazy" people amongst us as there is now.

The primary difference that would come about from more gun ownership is more murders. The fact that there'd be more guns about indicates this by itself. Furthermore, however, is the fact that more people in their quickness to react when angered or upset by something would resort to using a gun to "solve" their problem(s) rather than letting cooler heads prevail.