OT: Safety is an Illusion

[paramount]

May 1927 – 38 elementary school children, two teachers, four other adults and the bomber himself killed. Bath, Michigan

July 1984 – James Oliver Huberty kills 21 people (including five children) and injured 19 others. McDonalds, San Ysidro, California

April 1999 – two teenage schoolboys shot and killed 12 schoolmates and a teacher at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, before killing themselves.

July 1999 – a stock exchange trader in Atlanta, Georgia, killed 12 people including his wife and two children before taking his own life.

September 1999 – a gunman opened fire at a prayer service in Fort Worth, Texas, killing six people before committing suicide.

October 2002 – a series of sniper-style shootings occurred in Washington DC, leaving 10 dead.

August 2003 – in Chicago, a laid-off worker shot and killed six of his former workmates.

November 2004 – in Birchwood, Wisconsin, a hunter killed six other hunters and wounded two others after an argument with them.

March 2005 – a man opened fire at a church service in Brookfield, Wisconsin, killing seven people.

October 2006 – a truck driver killed five schoolgirls and seriously wounded six others in a school in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania before taking his own life.

April 2007 – student Seung-Hui Cho shot and killed 32 people and wounded 15 others at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, before shooting himself, making it the deadliest mass shooting in the United States after 2000.

August 2007 – Three Delaware State University students were shot and killed in “execution style” by a 28-year-old and two 15-year-old boys. A fourth student was shot and stabbed.

December 2007 – a 20-year-old man killed nine people and injured five others in a shopping center in Omaha, Nebraska.

December 2007 – a woman and her boyfriend shot dead six members of her family on Christmas Eve in Carnation, Washington.

February 2008 – a shooter who is still at large tied up and shot six women at a suburban clothing store in Chicago, leaving five of them dead and the remaining one injured.

February 2008 – a man opened fire in a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois, killing five students and wounding 16 others before laying down his weapon and surrendering.

September 2008 – a mentally ill man who was released from jail one month earlier shot eight people in Alger, Washington, leaving six of them dead and the rest two wounded.

December 2008 – a man dressed in a Santa Claus suit opened fire at a family Christmas party in Covina, California, then set fire on the house and killed himself. Police later found nine people dead in the debris of the house.

March 2009 – a 28-year-old laid-off worker opened fire while driving a car through several towns in Alabama, killing 10 people.

March 2009 – a heavily armed gunman shot dead eight people, many of them elderly and sick people, in a private-owned nursing home in North Carolina.

March 2009 – six people were shot dead in a high-grade apartment building in Santa Clara, California.

April 2009 – a man shot dead 13 people at a civic center in Binghamton, New York.

July 2009 – Six people, including one student, were shot in a drive-by shooting at a community rally on the campus of Texas Southern University, Houston.

November 2009 – U.S. army psychologist Major Nidal Hasan opened fire at a military base in Fort Hood, Texas, leaving 13 dead and 42 others wounded.

February 2010 – A professor opened fire 50 minutes into at a Biological Sciences Department faculty meeting at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, killing three colleagues and wounding three others.

January 2011 – a gunman opened fire at a public gathering outside a grocery in Tucson, Arizona, killing six people including a 9-year-old girl and wounding at least 12 others. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was severely injured with a gunshot to the head.

April 2 – A gunman kills seven people and wounds three in a shooting rampage at a Christian college in Oakland.

July 20 – A masked gunman kills 12 people and wounds 58 when he opens fire on moviegoers at a showing of the Batman film “The Dark Knight Rises” in Aurora, a suburb of Denver, Colorado.

Aug. 5 – A gunman kills six people during Sunday services at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, before he is shot dead by a police officer.

Aug. 24 – Two people are killed and eight wounded in a shooting outside the landmark Empire State Building in New York City at the height of the tourist season.

Sept. 27 – A disgruntled former employee kills five people and takes his own life in a shooting rampage at a Minneapolis sign company from which he had been fired.

Oct. 21 – Three people are killed in a Milwaukee area spa including the estranged wife of the suspected gunman, who then killed himself.

Dec. 11 – Two people were killed when a gunman opened fire Tuesday at a mall outside Portland, Oregon.

Dec. 14 – A shooter opens fire at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, killing 26 people including children.

Dec 2015 – Husband and wife Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik shot and killed 14 people and injured 21 others at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California, United States. They targeted a San Bernardino County Department of Public Health training event and holiday party with about 80 employees in attendance at an auditorium rented for the event.

[NotCranky]

So, is it correct to call it an epidemic at this point in time?

[SK in CV]

Wouldn’t it be nice if there was something….anything…that could be done to reduce the likelihood of these kinds of events happening. I can’t imagine what it might be. But whatever it might be, we can’t ever dare mention the elephant in the room.

[paramount]

[quote=Blogstar]So, is it correct to call it an epidemic at this point in time?[/quote]

I’m no expert, but I think it’s correct – and I haven’t heard that mentioned by the media BTW.

Having said that, most children are hurt by someone they know.

[NotCranky]

[quote=paramount][quote=Blogstar]So, is it correct to call it an epidemic at this point in time?[/quote]

I’m no expert, but I think it’s correct – and I haven’t heard that mentioned by the media BTW.

Having said that, most children are hurt by someone they know.[/quote]

Those children being hurt by people they know could be part of the epidemic. Same as ghetto violence. It’s all violence.

I think this; When greed and violence are condoned in all “legitimate” entities in a society, how can we expect the ignorant and unstable to buffer it in themselves?

[flyer]

Speaking of “epidemics.” IMHO, there seems to be “epidemic” of insanity at the core of these horrific acts. I have many opinions as to why this “mind or mindless set” is escalating within society, but I’ll leave that discussion to the experts.

This growing “insanity factor” makes these occurences all the more frightening, since there is really very little we can do to control this type of wild card as a society–confirming the “Safety is an Illusion” premise of the OP.

[jpinpb]

There’s a lot of mentally ill and seriously troubled people out there that are not receiving proper healthcare/treatment.

[paramount]

From Morgan Freeman on the Sandy Hook Tragedy

“You want to know why. This may sound cynical, but here’s why.

It’s because of the way the media reports it. Flip on the news and watch how we treat the Batman theater shooter and the Oregon mall shooter like celebrities. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are household names, but do you know the name of a single *victim* of Columbine? Disturbed people who would otherwise just off themselves in their basements see the news and want to top it by doing something worse, and going out in a memorable way. Why a grade school? Why children? Because he’ll be remembered as a horrible monster, instead of a sad nobody.

CNN’s article says that if the body count “holds up”, this will rank as the second deadliest shooting behind Virginia Tech, as if statistics somehow make one shooting worse than another. Then they post a video interview of third-graders for all the details of what they saw and heard while the shootings were happening. Fox News has plastered the killer’s face on all their reports for hours. Any articles or news stories yet that focus on the victims and ignore the killer’s identity? None that I’ve seen yet. Because they don’t sell. So congratulations, sensationalist media, you’ve just lit the fire for someone to top this and knock off a day care center or a maternity ward next.

You can help by forgetting you ever read this man’s name, and remembering the name of at least one victim. You can help by donating to mental health research instead of pointing to gun control as the problem. You can help by turning off the news.”

[FormerOwner]

I wonder how many of these recent mass-murderers WERE being treated and were taking prescription anti-depressants. I know several people that are on them (some since childhood) and I think some anti-depresants can CAUSE people to have crazy irrational thoughts and possibly even permanentaly alter the brain. You will never hear anything about this in the mainstream media since the pharma companies are MAJOR advertisers. There is a good Frontline episode entitled “The Medicated Child” that goes into some of this but really focuses on young children. What happens when they become adults though? There is a lot of information on the web about this – such as:

Take This Antidepressant, and You Too May Have a Violent Psychotic Break

[Allan from Fallbrook]

[quote=SK in CV]Wouldn’t it be nice if there was something….anything…that could be done to reduce the likelihood of these kinds of events happening. I can’t imagine what it might be. But whatever it might be, we can’t ever dare mention the elephant in the room.[/quote]

SK: I’m presuming you mean gun control? How would a gun ban have prevented this? The .223 Bushmaster he used was a pre-ban weapon acquired legally in 1993.

Metro cities like NYC and Chicago that have extremely stringent gun laws still unfortunately have high rates of gun violence (because the criminal element is acquiring the guns elsewhere.). Which would mean a nationwide ban on ALL guns, which I’m guessing is that proverbial elephant in the room.

[paramount]

The issues surrounding these atrocities are difficult, I was recalling today that the gov’t used a type of tank to incinerate more than 20 children in Waco, Texas in 1993.

[ltsddd]

Guns sure make it a lot deadlier and more efficient at killing people. On the same day this happened, a crazy man in China stabbed 22 children. Same intent, different weapons, different results.

Link

[KIBU]

When the FDA withdraw medications because of its adverse effect to a very small number of people/cases…American don’t go to congress and lobby to get back that medication for their rights to treat their justified indication. When the guns while serving the “liberty” purpose, the “self defense” purpose, the hobby and entertainment purpose, but also have the side effects of accidental deaths, mass massacre, murders by gun….nobody dares talking about a “recall” or a “withdrawal” like the FDA can…even when many more people died by gun in this country than all the side effects of medications could ever kill people.

There are differences between the two, yes. But the analogy shows how we look at and solve things differently independently of how many people die. Our cost/benefit analysis is out of whack.

[Anonymous]

There are many facets to this issue, and simplifying it to a presumed desire to ” ban guns” is one reason it rages on, in my opinion and deep sadness. As n example, see
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/12/15/1170462/-It-s-not-just-a-few-mass-killers-who-are-sick-and-twisted-Some-gun-manufacturers-are-worse

[paramount]

No rise in mass killings, but their impact is huge
By HELEN O’NEILL | Associated Press – 13 hrs ago

Grant Duwe, a criminologist with the Minnesota Department of Corrections who has written a history of mass murders in America, said that while mass shootings rose between the 1960s and the 1990s, they actually dropped in the 2000s. And mass killings actually reached their peak in 1929, according to his data. He estimates that there were 32 in the 1980s, 42 in the 1990s and 26 in the first decade of the century.

Chances of being killed in a mass shooting, he says, are probably no greater than being struck by lightning.

[Author]

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