Quote :

"this mass shooting seems like less of a big deal than Columbine + DC Sniper + VT etc I can't figure out why tho. I'm glad the media is not blowing it up, I just want to understand why"

my speculation would be:

at Columbine and VT, it was kids going to school...here its kids/adults/whoever, at a mall...while that might not seem like a huge difference, I think maybe people think of schools as more of a safe haven than something more public like a mall...at least thats my guess

also in regards to the DC sniper thing...they were sniping people and not getting caught...multiple states...over a few week period...at least when the Omaha thing went down you knew the shooter wouldnt strike again like the snipers, cause he was dead

but i'm also glad its not getting the sensationalist media coverage, cause i think anybody who is a much of a coward that takes the easy way out, while taking a lot of innocents with him, doesnt deserve any attention...he wanted to be famous...dont reward him with fame

12/6/2007 4:59:01 PM

Quote :

"Almost certainly too high. Dying is harder than you might think."

You're correct, you've got an 85% - 90% chance of surviving a gunshot wound, so if you say that in 10% of the attacks where the victim might have been shot, only 10% of them would have been killed . . . you still have close to a 1:1 ratio when compared to non-suicide deaths, and this is after I've been (what I consider to be) excessively conservative throughout my analysis.

Are you really arguing that its ok for these people to be shot though?

12/6/2007 5:00:06 PM

well, maybe because it's not nearly on the scale of any of those events, and there's nothing "special" about it. look at those other events:

Columbine - 14 dead, 23 injured. It was completely contained within a highschool, with all the victims being teenagers and teachers. Also, this was arguably the first mass-murder of this sort in the age of the internet and with 24-hour news

DC Sniper - 16 dead. This was a very spectacular and sensational event because it was just so surreal. It's like something out of a movie - a white van travelling on the interstate, taking people out one at a time

VT - 32 people dead. one of, if not the largest single person shooting event in the history of the US. Also, was completely contained on a campus, again meaning most/all of the victims were young people


This guy killed 8 people in a mall. Nothing to shrug-off, but there's no major sensational aspect of the story, at least not on the level of the other 3 examples.
Also - this kind of thing really happens much more often that you would think. Malls seem to be a popular place for depressed, fucked up people to start unloading on other people at random. I can't think of any other specific cases, but it seems like this happens 1, 2 or 3 times a year around the US, with 3-6-8 people dying either in a mall or an office or a post office or whatever.

12/6/2007 5:03:48 PM

Quote :

"Ooooh, or not getting hit by a 16 year old who just got drunk off of two 6 packs of Mike's Hard Lemonade that he got by playing "Hey Mister" in the Circle K parking lot."

or a stupid 40 yr old thinking since he's an experienced drunk can get back to Cary just fine and in the process kills a girl waiting at the bus stop.

Everytime one of these "incidents" the anti-gun crowd always comes out to bitch about gun control. The problems are not guns. If a maniac wants to kill people who will get a gun on the black market or utilize something else as his disposal. People killed each other 1000's of years before guns were invented.

[Edited on December 6, 2007 at 5:13 PM. Reason : a]

12/6/2007 5:11:38 PM

I'm going to point something else out that will make me extremely unpopular among some, but it is the truth. According to the CDC, in 2004, African Americans deaths due to firearms homicide was 6,271 people. That is 48% of all firearms homicide deaths and ~90% of those are black on black violence.

If you remove black on black violence from the homicide numbers you're left with 6,548 firearms homicides in 2004. Removing the black population from the US population, to keep the comparison honest, you're looking at 6,548 firearms homicides for a ratio of 2.7 homicides per 100,000 people. Unfortunately that is still higher than most of the industrialized world, but it is significantly lower than the 4.2 per 100,000 when you include those numbers.

Now, I am not saying that African Americans are intrinsically more violent due to racial characteristics, nor am I arguing that they should be prohibited from owning firearms. What I am saying is that the issue that goes beyond mere access to guns; there are cultural issues that have a tremendous effect on the decision to use a firearm and few intellectually honest people would deny that there are serious cultural issues going on within the “African American community” – at least as much as there is a monolithic black community.

Switzerland has mandatory gun ownership but a firearms murder rate that hovers around 1 per 100,000. The four nations with the lowest homicide rates (Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Hong Kong) all have extremely harsh judicial systems.

Something else that sets us apart, I think, is the American emphasis on individualism. This permeates every part of our society from consumer behavior, to environmentalism, to violence. In a self-centric society, this sort of acting out is going to happen, it is practically encouraged. Firearms do not cause this, although they greatly add to the lethality of those who chose to use them. They also add to the lethality of those who chose to defend themselves with them.

12/6/2007 5:42:39 PM

^ I wouldn't list individualism as a factor in spree shootings at this point. Very often the shooters mention themselves as contemporaries of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold or some other bullshit. They see themselves as part of that larger movement. I'm not saying that it's socially acceptable, but there certainly is a framework that shooters follow. People know that shooting a bunch of people and then offing yourself is the best way to go out with a bang and become national news. The kid could have gotten in the tub and opened up a vein if he were just suicidal. That's why the note says "Now I'll be famous."

12/6/2007 5:52:37 PM

They are like the suicide bombers of the US. instead of exploding themselves they just pick up a gun kill some people then kill themselves.

12/6/2007 5:59:15 PM

^^ I see what your saying, but I don't think emulation of a "role model" is evidence against individualism. Individuals can look to other individuals for inspiration without ceasing to act as an individual. I don't think that this is a "movement" so much as it is disaffected individuals acting out in a manner influenced by previous incidents.

I wasn't referring to this specific incident either, the value we place on satisfying our own wants, as opposed to being members of society, breeds an unintentionally selfish attitude.

A parallel would be our attitude towards energy conservation. When you ask us to give up SUVs and McMansions because it is a global problem and because we consume the plurality of the world's energy, we recoil at the notion . . . until gasoline starts to hurt our own wallet; then, we begin to get concerned.

Let me be clear, I don't think Americans are bad people, and we are incredibly generous when others are in need, but we're also pretty damned self-absorbed. I have no empirical evidence for this, so feel free to prove me wrong.

12/6/2007 6:02:19 PM

Quote :

"Are you really arguing that its ok for these people to be shot though?"

Nope. Where are you getting that from? I was simply questioning your numbers.

I'm not particularly opposed to guns for self-defense.

By the way, I'm sure many of the 2.5 millions cases only involved one gun. A firearm is an excellent way to convince someone not to stab or punch you. The gun doesn't have to be fired to be effective.

12/6/2007 7:04:46 PM

seriously. dude was upset cause he just got fired from McDonalds... Should have just gotten a buddy to phone his manager, say he was a cop, and demand the manager stick a broomstick up his ass.

12/6/2007 7:46:20 PM

and make $6.1 Million!!!

12/6/2007 7:53:11 PM

Nobody here has anything to say about the mind altering psychiatric drugs this dude was on? As long as we are looking for ways to not blame the primary person at fault ( the guy who shot people, duh.) we ought to also place much blame on the makers and distributors of these psychiatric drugs which seem to have the effect of encouraging a certain radical fringe go postal. This is not the first time.

12/6/2007 8:04:32 PM

^

12/7/2007 2:56:43 AM

Yes, the facts clearly show that the the drugs caused the shooting, not the underlying mental problem

12/8/2007 5:10:28 AM

sue micky d's

12/8/2007 9:55:32 AM

Quote :

"You know . . . if you're gonna take people out with you, couldn't you do it at a Klan rally, or a meth lab, or something like that? You'd probably be a shit ton more famous for blowing away a Grand Dragon and some of his ass-cronies, because then you'd add that whole political element to the whiny emo kid element."

And if he'd done it at an NRA meeting we would finally know for a fact weather or not this theory that everyone carrying guns would protect us from shootings. Plus politically a lot of people who always stick with the same side in every issue would be confused about what they're supposed to think.

12/9/2007 12:10:23 AM

Quote :

"You know . . . if you're gonna take people out with you, couldn't you do it at a Klan rally, or a meth lab, or something like that?"

no doubt. i'd fully support your suicidal ass taking out some other shitty people before hand

stop killing regular ass people at the mall please

12/9/2007 12:45:39 AM

Quote :

"Yes, the facts clearly show that the the drugs caused the shooting, not the underlying mental problem "

Well, it seems to me we have not witnessed this sort of violence as often until recent times. I'd assume we have our fair share of crazies throughout history and guns are not particularly new... so what is new? The drugs. Now maybe I'm wrong, maybe there had not been a spike in these sort of suicidal rampages just in the past few decades. I really don't know the statistics, maybe somebody here does. Feel free to squash my argument with facts if you wish.

I'm not saying that drugs are the sole reason, if so we would have lots more violence. It must be that in for these certain fringe cases the drugs push them over the edge to do bigger badder suicides. It is a well-known fact that many of these psychiatric drugs for depression increase suicidal tendencies. Which is more than a little messed up in my view.

[Edited on December 9, 2007 at 4:11 PM. Reason : . oh and ^ ha ha ha.]

12/9/2007 4:10:37 PM

^I was expecting you to add another differentiator...

Now they're guaranteed a solid week of 24 hour CNN, Fox News, etc. coverage.

They were going to commit suicide anyway - now the can become infamous by taking out people beforehand.

12/9/2007 7:02:34 PM

Interesting comparasion between the Mall shooting and the Colorado shootings.

In the second case, the shooter made an erroneous assumption that churches are gun-free zones. He arrived with a bunch of ammuntion and weapons--enough to kill dozens of people. But the church-folks weren't gonna just lay down for this nut.

Some were distracting him, playing for time. And then a woman charged him with her handgun and stopped his killing spree pretty fast.

Quite different outcome from the Shopping Mall and Virginia tech which both forbade guns on their property.

The bad guys will always get guns... we just have to make sure that the good guys can have them too.

12/11/2007 2:21:34 AM