OT: parenting and the santa barbara shooter

[livinincali]

The gun debate is all about fear. Most of those advocating for increased gun control are doing from a position of fear. Afraid that they or their friends/family could be a victim a crime committed by a gun. Many laws are created from a position of fear. How many billions per year do we spend on airline security because we’re fearful of 9/11 happening again.

I’m a lot more fearful of a government that has the power to actually enforce and maintain a total ban on guns than a random idiot that uses a gun to commit a crime.

[spdrun]

Gun ownership is also driven by fear. Fear that you might be burgled by an axe murderer (or whatever). Look at the stats. States with loose gun laws and little crime (northern New England for example) have lower rates of ownership than higher-crime states.

If I lived in an area where I felt I needed to carry a gun on my hip to protect myself whenever I went out, I’m pretty sure that I’d move. Not worth the stress.

[SK in CV]

[quote=livinincali]The gun debate is all about fear. Most of those advocating for increased gun control are doing from a position of fear. Afraid that they or their friends/family could be a victim a crime committed by a gun. Many laws are created from a position of fear. How many billions per year do we spend on airline security because we’re fearful of 9/11 happening again.

[/quote]

The exact same thing can be said for many who oppose any and all gun control. On one side you have those with very rational fears that seek an irrational solution, and on the other side, those with irrational fears.

[FlyerInHi]

[quote=livinincali] Many laws are created from a position of fear. How many billions per year do we spend on airline security because we’re fearful of 9/11 happening again.
[/quote]

Or trillions spent on wars or the prison system.

I don’t disagree with you, but let’s just say that there is a price to freedom. Maybe 2000 deaths per year is acceptable so that hundreds of millions can enjoy freedom. I would rather frame it like that.

To argue that gun controls don’t work is not honest. They do work and it will cost money to enforce.

[NotCranky]

The guy had a complete lack of desire, skill and training in using his will constructively. Nobody talks about the guys will and direction. He is no different than the people who beat Reginald Denny or Loot and Riot and burn their own neighborhoods. His class/life experience just puts a different spin on it. We just can’t admit that it is us too.

Part of raising children is teaching them the correct use of their will. It’s hard and you have extreme cases of lack of training or abuse to the point of confusing people about even using the will properly or having one to use at all. People may be stronger and weaker and that makes it even more dangerous, but still in all cases you have to look at this aspect and we don’t. Our culture is trash in a lot of ways life is fricken hard whether you have money or not and just having money doesn’t mean kids should not be taught mental health through training their wills. Kids are exposed to so much soul pollution now the have to be stronger and we want them weaker evidently, No different than the physical, use it or loose it and this guy never used it and there is a lot of that going around.

He wasn’t especially mentally ill he was especially weak and untrained for whatever reason.

Yes fix some of this and it will help with the gun problem, The suicide problem, the depression problem and the drug problem.

[SK in CV]

[quote=Blogstar]The guy had a complete lack of desire, skill and training in using his will constructively. Nobody talks about the guys will and direction. He is no different than the people who beat Reginald Denny or Loot and Riot and burn their own neighborhoods. His class/life experience just puts a different spin on it. We just can’t admit that it is us too.

Part of raising children is teaching them the correct use of their will. It’s hard and you have extreme cases of lack of training or abuse to the point of confusing people about even using the will properly or having one to use at all. People may be stronger and weaker and that makes it even more dangerous, but still in all cases you have to look at this aspect and we don’t. Our culture is trash in a lot of ways life is fricken hard whether you have money or not and just having money doesn’t mean kids should not be taught mental health through training their wills. Kids are exposed to so much soul pollution now the have to be stronger and we want them weaker evidently, No different than the physical, use it or loose it and this guy never used it and there is a lot of that going around.

He wasn’t especially mentally ill he was especially weak and untrained for whatever reason.

Yes fix some of this and it will help with the gun problem, The suicide problem, the depression problem and the drug problem.[/quote]

Question for you…do you think people with schizophrenia are just weak? And if only they were stronger, they wouldn’t have hallucinations?

[zk]

[quote=Blogstar]The guy had a complete lack of desire, skill and training in using his will constructively. Nobody talks about the guys will and direction. He is no different than the people who beat Reginald Denny or Loot and Riot and burn their own neighborhoods. His class/life experience just puts a different spin on it. We just can’t admit that it is us too.

Part of raising children is teaching them the correct use of their will. It’s hard and you have extreme cases of lack of training or abuse to the point of confusing people about even using the will properly or having one to use at all. People may be stronger and weaker and that makes it even more dangerous, but still in all cases you have to look at this aspect and we don’t. Our culture is trash in a lot of ways life is fricken hard whether you have money or not and just having money doesn’t mean kids should not be taught mental health through training their wills. Kids are exposed to so much soul pollution now the have to be stronger and we want them weaker evidently, No different than the physical, use it or loose it and this guy never used it and there is a lot of that going around.

He wasn’t especially mentally ill he was especially weak and untrained for whatever reason.

Yes fix some of this and it will help with the gun problem, The suicide problem, the depression problem and the drug problem.[/quote]

Ok, but “fix some of this” how? If we could legislate good parenting, we could fix all kinds of problems. But we wouldn’t be a free country anymore. Education programs for parents? They’d have to be optional, and only those who want to put effort into their parenting would take them, so that wouldn’t solve much, as those parents aren’t the problem. Stop blaming mental illness? Wouldn’t change a thing, IMHO. Parents who don’t have the time/attitude/aptitude/concern/work ethic to be good parents will find something besides themselves to blame.

Bad parents will always exist, and they’ll be especially numerous, if you ask me, in a culture that glamorizes violence and personal gain, minimizes the importance of personal responsibility and work ethic, and focuses on the shallow.

The only way to fix the problem you’re talking about is, in my opinion, to change our culture. And good luck with that.

I’m not sure how you can claim “he wasn’t especially mentally ill.” There are lots of actual mentally ill people in this country, and that’s not going to change anytime soon. As I’ve said repeatedly before on this forum, our country fails to do anywhere near enough for them. This is just one more manifestation of that failure.

[livinincali]

[quote=FlyerInHi]
To argue that gun controls don’t work is not honest. They do work and it will cost money to enforce.[/quote]

It’s impossible to prove or disprove that gun controls work. How many gun related deaths have background checks actually prevented. How many people were caught with illegal firearm were prevented from subsequently committing a murder.
How many murders were prevented because somebody with a gun stopped a would be attacker intending to commit murder. We don’t a definitive answer to any of these questions and in order prove gun control works you would at least need to have some answers the the questions above.

If we want to determine if the return of investment of enforcing those laws is good, it would require us to to put a value on someone’s life. These things are all difficult to do in an objective logical fashion so we let our emotions dictate the decision process. It’s probably a good idea to have some gun control laws. It’s probably ok to have some costs associated with enforcing those laws. It’s certainly possible that focusing money and efforts on treating mental illness would be more effective at preventing gun related deaths than more gun control.

[an]

[quote=zk][quote=Blogstar]The guy had a complete lack of desire, skill and training in using his will constructively. Nobody talks about the guys will and direction. He is no different than the people who beat Reginald Denny or Loot and Riot and burn their own neighborhoods. His class/life experience just puts a different spin on it. We just can’t admit that it is us too.

Part of raising children is teaching them the correct use of their will. It’s hard and you have extreme cases of lack of training or abuse to the point of confusing people about even using the will properly or having one to use at all. People may be stronger and weaker and that makes it even more dangerous, but still in all cases you have to look at this aspect and we don’t. Our culture is trash in a lot of ways life is fricken hard whether you have money or not and just having money doesn’t mean kids should not be taught mental health through training their wills. Kids are exposed to so much soul pollution now the have to be stronger and we want them weaker evidently, No different than the physical, use it or loose it and this guy never used it and there is a lot of that going around.

He wasn’t especially mentally ill he was especially weak and untrained for whatever reason.

Yes fix some of this and it will help with the gun problem, The suicide problem, the depression problem and the drug problem.[/quote]

Ok, but “fix some of this” how? If we could legislate good parenting, we could fix all kinds of problems. But we wouldn’t be a free country anymore. Education programs for parents? They’d have to be optional, and only those who want to put effort into their parenting would take them, so that wouldn’t solve much, as those parents aren’t the problem. Stop blaming mental illness? Wouldn’t change a thing, IMHO. Parents who don’t have the time/attitude/aptitude/concern/work ethic to be good parents will find something besides themselves to blame.

Bad parents will always exist, and they’ll be especially numerous, if you ask me, in a culture that glamorizes violence and personal gain, minimizes the importance of personal responsibility and work ethic, and focuses on the shallow.

The only way to fix the problem you’re talking about is, in my opinion, to change our culture. And good luck with that.

I’m not sure how you can claim “he wasn’t especially mentally ill.” There are lots of actual mentally ill people in this country, and that’s not going to change anytime soon. As I’ve said repeatedly before on this forum, our country fails to do anywhere near enough for them. This is just one more manifestation of that failure.[/quote]
+1

[NotCranky]

[quote=SK in CV][quote=Blogstar]The guy had a complete lack of desire, skill and training in using his will constructively. Nobody talks about the guys will and direction. He is no different than the people who beat Reginald Denny or Loot and Riot and burn their own neighborhoods. His class/life experience just puts a different spin on it. We just can’t admit that it is us too.

Part of raising children is teaching them the correct use of their will. It’s hard and you have extreme cases of lack of training or abuse to the point of confusing people about even using the will properly or having one to use at all. People may be stronger and weaker and that makes it even more dangerous, but still in all cases you have to look at this aspect and we don’t. Our culture is trash in a lot of ways life is fricken hard whether you have money or not and just having money doesn’t mean kids should not be taught mental health through training their wills. Kids are exposed to so much soul pollution now the have to be stronger and we want them weaker evidently, No different than the physical, use it or loose it and this guy never used it and there is a lot of that going around.

He wasn’t especially mentally ill he was especially weak and untrained for whatever reason.

Yes fix some of this and it will help with the gun problem, The suicide problem, the depression problem and the drug problem.[/quote]

Question for you…do you think people with schizophrenia are just weak? And if only they were stronger, they wouldn’t have hallucinations?[/quote]

Quit bothering me unless you want to try to get something out of what I am saying.

[NotCranky]

[quote=AN][quote=zk][quote=Blogstar]The guy had a complete lack of desire, skill and training in using his will constructively. Nobody talks about the guys will and direction. He is no different than the people who beat Reginald Denny or Loot and Riot and burn their own neighborhoods. His class/life experience just puts a different spin on it. We just can’t admit that it is us too.

Part of raising children is teaching them the correct use of their will. It’s hard and you have extreme cases of lack of training or abuse to the point of confusing people about even using the will properly or having one to use at all. People may be stronger and weaker and that makes it even more dangerous, but still in all cases you have to look at this aspect and we don’t. Our culture is trash in a lot of ways life is fricken hard whether you have money or not and just having money doesn’t mean kids should not be taught mental health through training their wills. Kids are exposed to so much soul pollution now the have to be stronger and we want them weaker evidently, No different than the physical, use it or loose it and this guy never used it and there is a lot of that going around.

He wasn’t especially mentally ill he was especially weak and untrained for whatever reason.

Yes fix some of this and it will help with the gun problem, The suicide problem, the depression problem and the drug problem.[/quote]

Ok, but “fix some of this” how? If we could legislate good parenting, we could fix all kinds of problems. But we wouldn’t be a free country anymore. Education programs for parents? They’d have to be optional, and only those who want to put effort into their parenting would take them, so that wouldn’t solve much, as those parents aren’t the problem. Stop blaming mental illness? Wouldn’t change a thing, IMHO. Parents who don’t have the time/attitude/aptitude/concern/work ethic to be good parents will find something besides themselves to blame.

Bad parents will always exist, and they’ll be especially numerous, if you ask me, in a culture that glamorizes violence and personal gain, minimizes the importance of personal responsibility and work ethic, and focuses on the shallow.

The only way to fix the problem you’re talking about is, in my opinion, to change our culture. And good luck with that.

I’m not sure how you can claim “he wasn’t especially mentally ill.” There are lots of actual mentally ill people in this country, and that’s not going to change anytime soon. As I’ve said repeatedly before on this forum, our country fails to do anywhere near enough for them. This is just one more manifestation of that failure.[/quote]
+1[/quote]

You probably can’t do anything for a lot of people by the time they are 22.
As far as cultural improvements go , I agree ” good luck with that” . Still why not broaden the topic as oppose just pretend that it’s a mystery where mystery doesn’t really exist that much.
This guy is no different than my brother who committed suicide at the same age on the innate madness scale. More is attributed to what I posted about than innate madness. We have no way of proving it, especially because it’s hard to even get people to think about it.

[FlyerInHi]

[quote=livinincali]It’s impossible to prove or disprove that gun controls work.[/quote]

Not all solutions work, but there are solutions that will work. leave it to the academics and technocrats to figure it out and they will.

maybe a solution involves making guns so expensive that only few people can own them.

A solution that works might not be cost effective or consumer friendly, but it will work.

[FlyerInHi]

[quote=Blogstar] the correct use of their will.[/quote]

yes, some people can overcome their weaknesses through sheer willpower.

The problem is that it’s not just a one time application of willpower. You have to deal with weaknesses all the time.

Convenience, availability, cost, social acceptability all play into it.

I have a good friend who is a functional alcoholic. He had everything — good family, money, job, looks, athleticism, high IQ…

His addiction to alcohol is not helped by our culture that attributes getting drunk to being cool and manly. He would go out in the snow, at night, to get booze.

Slowly, he’s become fat, unhealthy, and a more a recluse. I don’t think he’ll live past 70. I’m sad to watch him slowly destroy an otherwise beautiful life.

there is a strong element of mental illness and addiction. It’s much easier for me because I don’t have any desire to get drunk or eat junk food. My brain doesn’t crave it.

He knows exactly what he needs to do, but doing it is too hard and it’s a long term commitment. He relapses to old habits and his health gets worse. Then it becomes even harder.

The only solution would be to lock him up in a rehab center for 2 years and force him to regain youthful strength.

[Coronita]

[quote=FlyerInHi][quote=livinincali]It’s impossible to prove or disprove that gun controls work.[/quote]

Not all solutions work, but there are solutions that will work. leave it to the academics and technocrats to figure it out and they will.

maybe a solution involves making guns so expensive that only few people can own them.

A solution that works might not be cost effective or consumer friendly, but it will work.[/quote]

Wow, that sounds like a society in which 1% of the population here that controls 90%+ of the wealth here also controls 90%+ of the gun ownership…..Are you sure that’s what you mean? I guess rich(er) people are all free from mental illness…But it doesn’t sound very democratic…..

[Jazzman]

[quote=no_such_reality][quote=spdrun]Exactly. Unless they were walking around the house armed with a gun, it’s unlikely a gun would have helped them.[/quote]

The gun debate is a useless gross simplification applied to an unrelated scenario

This is a mental health issue.

Guns, knives, bombs, powder in envelopes, even poison or cars the tool isn’t the problem[/quote]

No, that is not correct. They are very much part of the problem, for without them the problem would not exist. You cannot detach the tool from the worker, from the deed, just as you can’t detach effect from cause. If BMWs were banned, there would be no deaths caused by BMWs. If you banned shovels, no ditches would be dug.

You are right in that this is a mental health issue. But is also a media issue, social issue, gun control issue, and last but not least, a mindset issue. While the focus is on the underlying causes, such as why someone would commit such an act of violence, the acts of violence continue.

This disconnect is as big a psychological barrier to remedying the immediate problem as the sociopathy, and psychopathy that manifests themselves in these abhorrent events. In other words, the mindset is one of the causes. Change the mindset and you can begin to dismantle the tools. When the tools no longer pose such a big threat the real work can begin on the underlying causes. Priorities are absent from this debate.

[Author]

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