Gun nuts’ infuriating craze: Why they want to redefine “school shootings”

[AthenaAwakened]

So, what better way to combat this alarming list of school shootings than to redefine the term “school shooting” itself? By doing this, according to gun-rights activists, you knock off, say, 59 of the 74 school shootings, leaving you with only 15 real, true, legitimate school shootings. ONLY 15! That’s nothing. We can live with that, right?

I can live with 74. 74 shootings, with a total of 35 deaths, 28 if you take out the ones where the only death was a person committing suicide. If, as Everytown says, "86 Americans are killed by gun violence" every day, that's over 30,000 a year. How many of those deaths happened to occur in schools? It looks like there have only been 266 deaths from school shootings since 1990, which works out to about 11 per year. If you can live with the first 30,000+ gun deaths that take place in this country in a given year, why not an additional 11, or 35? If about 1 in 1000 deaths happens in a school, so what? If you're going to campaign against guns, do it because of the other 999, not just the last one.

Granted, I'm not trying to run a gun-rights PR campaign, so I have the luxury of not having to make emotional appeals to the masses.

Exactly. I'm looking at the actual problem, not the stuff that makes national news.

And the majority of those 30,000 are suicide, not homicide.

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"Oh, it was just some janitor who shot himself in the broom closet..."

And this is not worthy of concern why?

It's not another Sandy Hook.

so you don't see a reason for concern that a person committed suicide?

That a person committed suicide in a public place and the body could be found by anyone?

That is cold blooded.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

Most of the "kids" who die from gun violence are gangbangers.

And so they're not really important, right?

This is what I'm talking about. The knee-jerk dismissal of gun violence if it happens to a person considered to be slightly less than a full member of society. White kids in a school gunned down? Big problem. Minority kids gunned down? Gang bangers...move along...nothing to see here!

It is important when people are pulling a think-of-the-children type argument. The reality is that people feel a lot less badly when the victims chose their path than when they were innocents.

I'm glad the Sandy Hook children were gang bangers. Now I feel their deaths were justified. Thanks!

The point is that most of the "children" *DID* choose that path. Bringing up the cases where they didn't doesn't disprove this.

Exactly. Those children at Sandy Hook chose a life of crime. They deserved to get shot because there is no way to reform or redeem a child once they associate with thugs.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

I tend to take the opposite approach.

If you have a dispassionate rifleman up a clock tower picking off children one by one - that's not really the issue. Because unless you're talking not just about controls over guns, but controls so tight it's functionally impossible to get a rifle, he'll have gotten a rifle anyway.

Funny how this doesn't tend to happen in other countries, but let's ignore it because we do not have a problem with mass shootings here.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Gun manufacturers and their lapdog the NRA can not sell guns to a nation outraged by pictures of mourning parents and gunshot children. So the more people they can remove from that picture, the better. The more dead children they can dehumanize, the better. Hell, if those children can be demonize, they can be used to sell even more guns. even more the better.

Chumps ripe for the fleecing. And oh so glad to be played and exploited. Gun makers love a fool and his money. Each one worth a bail cotton and twice as easy to pick.

 

[laughing dog]

After defining what you mean by "most", "gangbanger" and "choosing a path", please provide disinterested independent evidence to support your claim that most of child victims in school shootings are "gangbangers".

I didn't say most "child" school shootings, I said most "child" shootings.

If there was disinterested independent evidence supporting your claim, you could have provided it along with your "correction". A reasonable conclusion is that you have no disinterested independent evidence to support your claim. Is it a valid one as well?

 

[laughing dog]

Shootings at a school are bad, regardless of the gender, age, and innocence of the victim. Even when adults or criminals are murdered or suicides occur, there are usually innocent children around who may become traumatized from the incident. As a parent, I would not want my children (when they were school age) to have to handle murder or suicide situations at their school. As a member of the human race, I don't want any child to have to handle such a situation at school.

Schools are places of learning and socialization, not firing ranges. Schools should be safe havens. It really is that simple. And it is sooooo fucking demoralizing and depressing to see implicit arguments to the contrary whether they depend on constitutional rights or implicit judgments about the moral worthiness of the victims.

 

[SimpleDon]

All around a very odd discussion.

As discussions about guns tend to be in this country.

The basis of the discussion seems to be that;

• everyone agrees that school shootings resulting in the death or wounding of random children are horrific.
• everyone seems to accept that 30,000 deaths a year are outside the "are horrific" category, for reasons ranging from the deaths being the unavoidable results of our exercising our freedom to something that practical political considerations places there at the current time.
• everyone seems to agree that the less than horrific category even includes the shooting deaths of children as long as they are not at schools.
• therefore it is important that we argue over whether fifty or sixty shootings at school fall into the horrific category or the less than horrific one.

Yes, a very odd discussion.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

All around a very odd discussion.

As discussions about guns tend to be in this country.

The basis of the discussion seems to be that;

• everyone agrees that school shootings resulting in the death or wounding of random children are horrific.
• everyone seems to accept that 30,000 deaths a year are outside the "are horrific" category, for reasons ranging from the deaths being the unavoidable results of our exercising our freedom to something that practical political considerations places there at the current time.
• everyone seems to agree that the less than horrific category even includes the shooting deaths of children as long as they are not at schools.
• therefore it is important that we argue over whether fifty or sixty shootings at school fall into the horrific category or the less than horrific one.

Yes, a very odd discussion.

because it is more important to prove a point than to consider human life.

Oh no, I just appealed to emotion. Luckily there are people here who don't have emotions so no harm done.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I tend to take the opposite approach.

If you have a dispassionate rifleman up a clock tower picking off children one by one - that's not really the issue. Because unless you're talking not just about controls over guns, but controls so tight it's functionally impossible to get a rifle, he'll have gotten a rifle anyway.

No, the ones to worry about in the context of gun control are the ones where what would ordinarily be a short-term problem turns into a death or maiming because of easy access to guns. So, suicides, squabbles over a Nintendo, most gang-related incidents, any kind of revenge killing - basically anything that didn't require months of pre-planning.

You're assuming the only way to kill is with a gun. Take away the guns, people still kill.

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so you don't see a reason for concern that a person committed suicide?

That a person committed suicide in a public place and the body could be found by anyone?

That is cold blooded.

You don't address suicide by anti-school-shooting measures.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

You're assuming the only way to kill is with a gun. Take away the guns, people still kill.

Just not as as effectively, as often, or as much. A net drop in the murder rate is still pretty good, even if it isn't the elimination of murder.

 

[SimpleDon]

All around a very odd discussion.

As discussions about guns tend to be in this country.... .

because it is more important to prove a point than to consider human life.

Oh no, I just appealed to emotion. Luckily there are people here who don't have emotions so no harm done.

I don't think that the Gun Freedom Enthusiasts lack emotion. And I don't think that they need guns to prove their manhood. There is no indication that they truly believe in that they have the right to buy any weapon that they want, there are limits to the guns that they want to be able to buy and the guns that they want to be unrestricted. And it is suspiciously only the guns that the manufacturers currently produce.

The Gun Freedom Enthusiasts correspond to a great degree to the same people who have been convinced that the vast majority of people in this country should be placed at an economic disadvantage to provide more money to the already rich. This is as ludicrous as believing that it is acceptable to tolerate tens of thousands of deaths so that gun manufacturers can profit from sales to the mentally unstable and to criminals. Just my opinion.

Not that it even remotely justifies the Gun Freedom Enthusiasts but I don't believe that most of the proposed restrictions on gun sales will do much good, especially in the short term. There is unquestionably something dark in the American psyche that produces all of this violence.

Virtually all of the crime in the US is committed by either the poor or the rich. The poor commit crime in spite of the fact that they stand the large chance of getting caught and going to prison because they feel that it is a chance to get ahead. The rich commit crimes to increase their wealth knowing that there is little chance of being caught and even less chance of going to prison. Refer to the term "without admitting any guilt..."

The long term solution is to reduce the number of both the poor and the rich. Increase wages and decrease profits. Easy.

 

[Malintent]

For the purpose of adressing the alleged increase in rate of children bringing guns into school for the prupose of killing other children, it is important to call a spade a spade.

if a child brings a gun into school to show his friends and there is no reason to beleive that there was ever any intent to harm anyone.... that is not a "school shooting" (or any kind of shooting at all).
If a child goes to the school property off hours when no one is there, regardless of how the gun is discharged, that is not a "school shooting".
If a cop chases a criminal onto school property, and guns are fired... that is also not a "school shooting".

Any case where a gun is not pointed at another person when discharged is not a "shooting" of any kind.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

For the purpose of adressing the alleged increase in rate of children bringing guns into school for the prupose of killing other children, it is important to call a spade a spade.

I suppose a point is a point. Looked up school shootings on Wiki and the shootout at MIT with the Boston Marathon bombing suspects is listed there.

 

[SimpleDon]

For the purpose of adressing the alleged increase in rate of children bringing guns into school for the prupose of killing other children, it is important to call a spade a spade.

if a child brings a gun into school to show his friends and there is no reason to beleive that there was ever any intent to harm anyone.... that is not a "school shooting" (or any kind of shooting at all).
If a child goes to the school property off hours when no one is there, regardless of how the gun is discharged, that is not a "school shooting".
If a cop chases a criminal onto school property, and guns are fired... that is also not a "school shooting".

Any case where a gun is not pointed at another person when discharged is not a "shooting" of any kind.

So in the interest of calling a spade a spade you are not willing to call just any shooting in a school a "school shooting?"

And bringing a gun to school is not a problem unless it is actually fired at a child by a child?

And you say these things to convince us that you have a rational grip on this problem?

Try again.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

For the purpose of adressing the alleged increase in rate of children bringing guns into school for the prupose of killing other children, it is important to call a spade a spade.

if a child brings a gun into school to show his friends and there is no reason to beleive that there was ever any intent to harm anyone.... that is not a "school shooting" (or any kind of shooting at all).
If a child goes to the school property off hours when no one is there, regardless of how the gun is discharged, that is not a "school shooting".
If a cop chases a criminal onto school property, and guns are fired... that is also not a "school shooting".

Any case where a gun is not pointed at another person when discharged is not a "shooting" of any kind.

So in the interest of calling a spade a spade you are not willing to call just any shooting in a school a "school shooting?"

And bringing a gun to school is not a problem unless it is actually fired at a child by a child?

And you say these things to convince us that you have a rational grip on this problem?

Try again.

WTF? In what possible way can his response be read to come to that conclusion?

He isn't saying that it isn't a problem, he's saying that a different term should be used.

 

[laughing dog]

For the purpose of adressing the alleged increase in rate of children bringing guns into school for the prupose of killing other children, it is important to call a spade a spade.

if a child brings a gun into school to show his friends and there is no reason to beleive that there was ever any intent to harm anyone.... that is not a "school shooting" (or any kind of shooting at all).

True.

If a child goes to the school property off hours when no one is there, regardless of how the gun is discharged, that is not a "school shooting".

It is a shooting at a school, which is the logical meaning of "school shooting", so your claim is false.

If a cop chases a criminal onto school property, and guns are fired... that is also not a "school shooting".

It is a shooting at a school, which is the logical meaning of "school shooting", so your claim is false.

Any case where a gun is not pointed at another person when discharged is not a "shooting" of any kind.

It is a shooting at a school, which is the logical meaning of "school shooting",so your claim is false.

 

[Unbeatable]

You're assuming the only way to kill is with a gun. Take away the guns, people still kill.

Well, they certainly try to. And some succeed. Others fail, like the student who, in April, went on a school stabbing/slashing rampage. Despite his stated intention being to kill people, all 22 of the people he stabbed or slashed ended up surviving. Take away the guns, how many others will fail?

 

[+or-1]

Hmm... Looks to me like semantic bullshit remains semantic bullshit.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

What is going on in the OP isn't about proper labeling or providing clarity, but about not talking about how guns, when used as directed, kill people.

Does that mean all guns should be banned from use by all people for all purposes? No. But if people were to think about guns as sometimes necessary tools and not anytime sexy toys, it sure would be harder to sell a lot of them to a shrinking pool of people interested in buying them.

 

[Togo]

You're assuming the only way to kill is with a gun. Take away the guns, people still kill.

They still try to kill, they just don't succeed as often. That arguement over the Nintendo doesn't end a life. That teen suicide attempt doesn't always succeed. That arguement about a boy blows over, and the gang just calls that guy names, or maybe gives him a knife wound. Guns make the decisions of a moment the decisions of a lifetime. Which is kinda why you have thousands of people dying, and we don't.