School shooting again

[allusernamesaretakennow]

Yet another one.

https://news.sky.com/story/boy-8-and-girl-10-killed-in-us-catholic-school-shooting-named-as-father-brands-attacker-a-coward-13420257

Why no action from all the other ones?

I think you have the wrong person.
I never said what gender this person was.
My issue is that they were clearly very ill, had expressed violent intent towards children in a school, yet were allowed to get hold of weapons.
I've said that very clearly.

The leading cause of death for children and adolescents in the USA is firearms, and has been for the past five years. More than cars, illness etc.

So I'd agree with the above poster. The American government are powerless to protect children from guns.

You're arguing with an FWR poster here, everything is about trans people being male or female to them.

You are correct if course, being trans is irrelevant here. The shooter was mentally ill and allowed to buy a gun, exactly the same as all the other school shootings that happen in the USA.

Thank you. I genuinely couldn't work out the issue, when I'd explained it clearly!
The problem is gun ownership, more particularly by people with significant mental health problems.

I couldn’t understand why this was even on the news as there is a mass shooting in America every day.

The leading cause of death? So you'd strap your child safely into a car, but they're more at risk of someone with a gun. Horrifying.

They will argue that it is far too late and the bad guys already have guns so what would happen is the good guys give up their guns, the bad guys keep theirs and the good guys are left defenceless.

They may have a point…when we had Dunblane and changed the gun laws there were far fewer guns knocking around to be handed in in the first place.

Clinton enacted an assault-style weapons ban from 1994. It was allowed to expire in 2004. The reduction in homicides for that period (about 6%) was deemed not statistically significant, although it's thought that number would have improved if the ban was in place longer.

Here's the stat though...mass shootings were 70% less likely to occur during the ban period, based on data from 1981-2017.

Another crazy stat, the ban accounted for only a 0.1% reduction in total firearm homicides.

These statistics are crazy.

These laws already exist - it's pretty tough to buy a gun from a store in the US if you're a 'Bad Guy'. Criminal record or a history of poor mental health will stop you getting licensed for the most part, for example.

Stores have to perform background checks by law and many (all?) states have a 'cooling off' period designed to stop people getting mad and running to the store for a gun they can use immediately.

Private sales with no requirement for checks etc are legal in some states though.

The NRA says that the horse has bolted - Bad Guys already have guns, and will still be able to get guns, and they're right. Weather it's gangs using street guns or imports, or a 'school shooter' accessing a family member's legally owned guns, they're out there.

I have anti-gun friends in the US who still own them because if they ever get into a situation with someone wishing to do them harm, that person is likely to be armed.

The other issue is the Constitution. Many Americans believe it's their right - God-given - to arm themselves. They see an attack on any part of the Constitution as opening the door to an attack on all of it. First it'll be assault rifles, then all guns, then freedom of speech, etc. It's not that they love guns, it's the principal.

I travel to the US a few times a year and am a member of a gun club. Love shooting on the range, pistols, shotguns, rifles, all sorts. But if I had my way that's where they'd stay.

America will never, ever get rid though. Too much money too deep in politics, too culturally engrained. Too many people willing to accept dead children as the price of freedom.

Worth noting on these stats as well, a 'mass shooting' doesn't necessarily mean something as big as Sandy Hook or Columbine.

The FBI defines a mass shooting as at least 3 people (can include the shooter) killed in a single incident. So if a man caught his wife cheating and shot them both and himself, that would qualify.

Other groups define a mass shooting as at least four people killed or injured in a single incident, not including the shooter.

The problem with refusing point blank to acknowledge the relevance of the gender identity of the shooter is that there are a cohort of males who rather than being treated for mental health issues, are affirmed as the opposite sex without question.

We know that many of these young males DO have mental health issues, we know that some of them feel extremely angry if they are not unconditionally treated as the opposite sex. We know that there are subreddit groups called things like 'transguns' and there have been calls to violence by parts of the trans community.

There have not been adequate studies on the impact of cross sex hormones on mental health or aggression.

We know that people with acknowledged mental health issues are prevented from buying firearms but these males are not.

I am not trying to imply that all males who identify as trans are violent or murderers/ school shooters. But you ignore the background of these males at your peril.

This is not the first trans school shooter.

In Texas certain school districts genuinely train teachers to be armed. Some schools have had licensed and armed teachers since 2013.

Men are so very violent

My step-daughter is Canadian, married to an American for 30 years, lives in US. Recently, at a lunch with 5 or 6 friends, the question of gun ownership came up. Two of the women present had guns in their purses, and another had a gun in her car. These women are all mid-50s.

It's a whole other culture, isn't it? That would be unimaginable here.

I do think the trans issue is relevant. It seems to me that he had mental health issues which he funnelled into transitioning and once that failed to materialise the promised euphoria he became destructive. I think on the far corners of the internet there’s quite a lot of crossover between Tims, Incels and murder/ suicide ideation of other school shooters. Previous school shooters are considered legends / heroes it’s why quite often news sites won’t use their names to avoid incentivising other potential killers.

I do wonder if there was a sliding doors moment in this young man’s life where he could of gotten appropriate mental health and learned to accept himself and grown up to be a functional member of society.

It's unlikely those women will get mugged.

You can buy a holster for your bra gun here:
The Five Best Bra Holsters on the Market

Goodness. That would be quite a purchase!

They witter on about 9/11 while many die every year in mass shootings by Americans

" thoughts and prayers" just ain't enough

Poor kids. Just appalling

I’ve just watched a tik tok about a woman who has bought a bullet proof shield for her kid to take to school. Puts in her backpack to use in ‘active shooter drills’ & to use in the classroom if there is a shooting. these kids are primary school age. How can they think this is normal.

Yes, it's the normalisation which is so concerning.

I grew up in America and went to HS and university there. After columbine, active shooter drills became as commonplace as fire drills for us. Sadly.

There's a giant leap between expressing anger (performative or genuine) that people won't accept your new gender and having the kind of venom in you to commit mass slaughter.

I don't think it's as simple as saying that being trans is or isn't a factor in something like this...there's going to be a whole tangle of issues, ideas, experiences, and obsessions that have come together to make this happen.

What is clear is that transgender people do not kill or attack people at a disproportionate rate. Michael Jensen - a respected US terrorism response researcher, has a database of mass casualty plots (executed or otherwise) dating back to 2023 - less than 5 were perpetrated by trans people.

A number of recent mass shootings in the US have been surrounded by (false, until now) rumours that the shooter was trans while details were still emerging.

From what I understand there's no evidence whatsoever that Robin Westman's actions were motivated by transgender issues. Everything they left behind showed an obsession with other mass shooters, the online communities who hero worship them (and, interestingly, hate trans people as a rule), and wanting to be notorious in the vein of an Adam Lanza. They didn't even seem particularly angry at anything on the face of things...their 'manifesto' wasn't much more than a load of half baked student politics.

I can certainly see why a trans person or a gay person who'd been stuck in a Christian school being taught that their existence is an abomination might choose it as a target.

I don't see any evidence to suggest that gender identity is particularly compelling starting point when it comes purely to the 'why'?