Running Shooting Thread 2024

That gun folks won't even bother to address some other potential causes of these, childhood mental health issues, intervention etc. is the kind of thing that makes me think they really DON'T care about stopping them. Even mitigating them. A gun by itself doesn't cause these things.
That said, it wouldn't be a bad idea to take all white males over the age of 12 in gun owners homes and putting them in a boarding school and keep an eye on them until they turn 22 or so. Like keeping matches away from gasoline. Shoot, we did that to the Japanese in WWII.

 

So, there was a school shooting yesterday, not even a couple hundred miles from where I’m currently sitting.

Nobody texted me. This thread was barely popping up to the top of the page on occasion. Nobody called to say, “God, can you believe this happened?”

The question wasn’t “if” there’d be another school shooting; it was where, and when. September 4, somewhere between Atlanta and Athens. Check and check. Carry on.

This is how numbed we’ve become.

I agree that last night wasn’t the time to be asking policy questions, and it certainly wasn’t the Barrow County sheriff’s responsibility to address policy. If we aren’t going to address the root problem (guns), or the secondary problem (mental health treatment for young people), maybe we have to treat the symptoms.

You know where random shootings don’t happen? Airports. It’s probably time for a TSA equivalent at every school. Line out the door, body scanners, metal detectors, whatever it takes. Some security theater to start the school day. Is this terrible? Yes. Is it more terrible than dead kids or dead teachers? No.

As for gun reform, maybe we stop waiting for it to happen on the federal level and instead somehow pressure the states into it. The states were pressured into raising their drinking ages to 21; why not withhold some highway funds until state-level assault weapons bans are in place? Or a state registration program or background check?

 

Mothers Against Drunk Driving put pressure on legislators to raise the drinking age. Neither party was willing to fight for the right to drive drunk, and neither party's voters would have supported them if they did.

The same can't be said of the gun control laws, no matter how commonsense they may be.

 

"You'll shoot your eye out, kid."

 

https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/05/us/winder-georgia-shooting-apalachee-high-school/index.html


The father of the mass shooting suspect accused of killing four people at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, told investigators this week he had purchased the gun used in the killings as a holiday present for his son in December 2023, according to two law enforcement sources with direct knowledge of the investigation.

Colt Gray, a 14-year-old student, is accused of killing two students and two teachers with an AR-style rifle in the Wednesday shooting. Nine more people were hospitalized.

One source told CNN the AR-15-style rifle was purchased at a local gun store as a Christmas present.

The timeline the teen’s father, Colin Gray, provided to authorities would put the gun purchase months after authorities first contacted Gray and his family to investigate school shooting threats made online.

 

Dad has been arrested.

 

So the FBI knew the kid, and visited his house last year? WTF are we even paying them for?

 

At this point, arresting this motherfucker is probably for his own protection. If I’m a parent of a student at that school and I find out this kid got an AR for Christmas from his parents AFTER getting a visit from the FBI, I’d be hard-pressed to not take matters into my own hands in some way.

 

You can’t just lock up every 13-year-old idiot, because then you’d pretty much have to lock up every 13-year-old. There’s gotta be a better way.

 

More thoughts and prayers

 

Once you get through the news cycle or two with “it’s about mental health”, “don’t politicize a tragedy”, “we need stronger doors”, etc. the collective attention span has moved on.

 

24 hours after a school shooting: Thoughts and prayers for the victims. It's too soon to politicize this tragedy.

24 hours after a random white woman is killed by an undocumented migrant: This is what happens with open borders! We must secure the border now! Democrats did this!