Originally
posted by
tellarion:
And Heston, I think that's a great point and something to think about. It also dovetails into issues like bullying which have increased in recent years.
That being said, these types of issues are endemic to most cultures around the world. Hell, the country I live in has an even more massive problem with this than the US. Nearly every day, one of the train lines I ride on is delayed because someone decided to jump in front of them down the line...suicide here is the leading cause of non-medical related deaths in this country. But there have been no mass shootings in my lifetime, and even the police are incredibly hesitant to use firearms for fear of public backlash.
http://www.nydailynews.com/...fe-guns-article-1.1223065
So obviously this solution wouldn't work in the US without a Constitutional Amendment, and that would never get even close to passing unless(and even if) something even more drastic takes place. Still, you can't dispute the effectiveness of these policies.
The typical left response to this would have to be...
*Waves arms wildly in the air and runs around screaming "We must stop all trains, people are being killed by them, OMG, fire all the engineers. STOP TRAIN TRAVEL FOREVER"
I get what you are saying tella. And I agree you are right that facts and statistics don't take sides, they just are.
So, how do we deal with our problems? The founding fathers had a solution, they debated it in congress ( another word for a large troop of baboons, I might add). And they would come to a mutually inclusive decision for the most part, at least prior to moneyed interests influencing the vote/debate.
When we can make the donor box as anonymous as the voting booth, we will be able to have a strong and successful republic OF THE PEOPLE. Until then, it will always belong to the moneyed interests and their associates.
So, we must live with the risk of a mentally ill person going out and shooting up some place to compensate for the evils of the moneyed people taking over and enforcing their view of how things should work on us because THEY have the VOTES and the MONEY.
Has anyone considered looking into any kind of psychiatric backgrounds on these shooters? Have they already been in for "treatment", and if so, what kind?