17 Dead in Germany...

[qjakal]

A teenager in Enfurt(?) shot and killed 15 adults (teachers mostly) and 2 students before killing himself.....when is this trend going to require action? Thats the third incident in Germany in the past few years, and of course we've had a half dozen here in the USA, though none quite that bad. This happened on the day newer, more stringent gun control laws were passed into effect...ironic. Q

 

[venray]

I can only ask.........

....where are the parents?? Yes we lead busy lives these days and mom is not always home to keep track of the kids, but where is the time spent getting to know what's going on inside the kids heads. Do we take the time to get to know the mind of the child we have brought into the world or do we just let things take care of themselves. As long as there is no problem noticed, we assume there is none.

It is EVERY parents' responsibility to know what their kids are doing and who their friends are. More importantly to find out what problems they may be having and to teach them how to work through them without the use of violence or self destruction.


my 2 cents.......

Ven

 

[ShiningIce]

These are such troubling times.

 

[shark]

You got that right venray.If someone doesn't want,or can't accept, the responsibility having kids carries,fine.Don't have them.

 

[Haltickling]

Info on killings in Germany

Here are the first hard facts about the massacre in a German school in Erfurt:

The victims were 12 teachers, 1 school secretary, 2 students, and 1 cop. The students were killed accidentally when the amok-runner fired through a locked door. The killed cop was the first policeman who arrived at the scene.

The killer was a 19-year-old ex-student of the same school. He had failed the final exams a year ago and got a second chance. In February 2002 he was expelled because he had forged medical attests to exculpate his absence during mid-term tests. His expulsion meant he had forfeited any chance to finish whatever kind of higher education, and he blamed that on his former teachers.

According to his former classmates, he was a quiet, frequently introverted boy. Others describe him as 'open and friendly, craving for attention'. There had been no signs of violence before. His school rating was a bit below average, but they think he could have made it. He didn't tell his parents that the school had expelled him months ago, and he left the house every day at the usual time, so his parents had no suspicions.

In the course of the post-massacre investigations, the police discovered quite a lot of violent video-games, videos, and a collection of newspaper-clips and internet-printouts on the Littleton school killings. He was a fan of rather aggressive German punk music, openly calling for violence. Snippets from the texts: "Kill what is killing you", and "Kill all teachers, kill them all!" (Comment: Well, I suppose it was published under the label 'artistic freedom' and 'free speech'.)

As an adult member of two shooting sports clubs, he was legally entitled to own two shotguns and two handguns. For his raid on the school, he used a pump gun (which he didn't fire) and a handgun (about 40 shots fired). He had about 500 rounds of ammunition with him (hidden in a school toilet), and about 700 rounds were found in his room at home. How he was able to acquire such a large depot is still subject to further investigations.

The school was in the middle of this year's final exams. He went systematically from classroom to classroom to look for his former teachers, and he killed them one by one. When he reached a locked classroom door (one of his teachers had been quick-witted enough to lock it), he fired through the closed door. That's when the two students were killed. The school remains closed, probably for the rest on this term (ends in June). How and when the other students will be able to take their final exams is still not decided upon.

One of his teachers (in an otherwise empty classroom) had the courage to tell him: "Shoot me if you want, but you've got to look me in the eyes." During the following brief moment of astonishment, the teacher shoved him away, left the classroom and locked it from the outside. Then the killer shot himself.

Now the media call for 'immediate actions', the comments ranging from everything between 'students are under too much pressure from school', and demanding metal detectors and security staff at all schools, similar to US standards. Others are suggesting more stringent laws on video games and rock music texts, or 'one therapist for each school'.

I'll spare you my own, personal comments (except the one on the music texts above), as I'm still too emotional for that. Thank you for posting the news, Q, and all the others' comments so far.

 

[qjakal]

Waste...

The horrible thing about these tragedies is that all the people involved in them have somehow deluded themselves into seeing "no other way" to get things settled, at least in their minds. Not sure what the answer is, because incidents like these are so damn unpredictable, and the person planning them has all the advantages...time, locale and scouting information. It's unrealistic to remove ALL guns that are currently in circulation, and at the other end of the spectrum, its a bit ridiculous to have to arm everyone to even things up, so to speak. Such a waste of lives though..... Q

 

[strtbottomjim]

You want to place blame here?

The very same day as this German tragedy, some nutcase in India flipped out and killed 10.

Y'all didn't hear about that, didja?

Know why?

It's because the Indian nut used edged weapons.

Somebody in LA recently did a mass killing at a school, killed a couple of kids, injured others. Didn't make the news. Why?

'Cuz he used a damn Cadillac. Deliberately, mind you.

But there's no national pressure to ban cars, so criminal misuse of 'em isn't big news.

It gets better. The Pearl, Mississippi school shooting of a few years back was indeed widely reported. Over 400 stories nationwide. A few mentioned that the deranged kid in question "surrendered to school authorities", but only 9 stories admitted that an assistant principle had sprinted to where his car was parked off-campus, retrieved and loaded his handgun, and ran back to point the gun at the kid, who surrendered with 30 rifle rounds remaining. The assistant principle had a state carry license (after having passed a background check and training) but the permit was no good on school grounds due to Federal rules...so while he was doing a pair of 100yd dashes at top speed, children died.

One of the latest school shootings in the US involved an adult law school in one of the 33 carry-legal states...and with no kids around, there were no rules against packing with a permit. So the loonie only got a few rounds off, before surrendering to a fellow student who was legally armed and had drawn down on the nut. Y'all probably never heard of that one either - few reports on that incident admitted how it ended.

Every school in Israel is guarded by armed teachers and other school authorities. When kids in Israel go on field trips, teachers and parents who are going too can go to the local police department and sign out (yes, BORROW) any sort of military-style small arms they want, just for that day trip. The only time a school field trip was ever shot up was when they made the mistake of visiting Jordan, and the adults were disarmed at the border, which followed an attack on the kids while in Jordan.

So two lessons here:

Media attention to these rare school shootings has ensured that any nutcase who wants to be famous after death must *shoot* up a school. Nothing else will bring the desired fame.

Lesson two: mandated disarmament of non-criminal adults is always a civil rights violation, and always leads to an *increase* in violence, not a reduction.

 

[Ayesha]

Haltickling and strtbottomjim

Thank you for all that information, I have to confess that I missed the in-depth news item. All I can do is shake my head in disbelief once more and wonder what it is that makes these peoples mind's reach such a horrific conclusion.

Ayesha

 

[Haltickling]

strtbottomjim

strtbottomjim

I'd really appreciate if you could restrict your pro-gun-lobby campaign to threads directly related to that topic. Abusing the immense personal tragedy of a school killing to run ads for your lobby is highly tactless to all victims and their relatives, and absolutely tasteless IMO.

Apart from that, your comparison of Israel (which has been constantly in a latent or actual war situation since its beginnings, due to its hostile neighbors) with Germany (a country with an uninterrupted peace since 57 years) is devoid of any logic.

I don't question your right to state your opinion in general. While you are absolutely entitled to consider being armed as your civil right, this does not apply to Germany, so it doesn't apply to this thread either. I find all killings horrible, no matter where, how, and why. But I seriously object to abusing such horrible acts to gain a political advantage.

Carry on your political lobbying where it belongs to, and pray that none of your family ever gets killed by a stray bullet.

 

[qjakal]

Caddy...

Not sure that being killed by a Caddy or a knife isn't newsworthy either, but it takes a helluva lot longer to aim and fire a Cadillac than a semi automatic. As I said before, I'm not sure there IS a solution to people deciding to "flip out"....really doesn't matter what the weapon is, because we inventive humans have been killing each other since the Stone Age with various devices....wish we could find a way to short circuit the entire decision making process that leads to all these tragedies. I have a concelaed weapon permit due to the nature of my business, but I don't really think it will help much in the final analysis if someone does their planning well enough...sad times.... Q

 

[strtbottomjim]

Haltickling,

You can disagree with me all you want, but news reports I've seen say that when German police searched the German killer's home and papers, they found newspaper clippings from American school shootings, including Littleton and Columbine.

He had been *influenced* by US and German media reports. He knew he'd found a path to being "famous". That, as much as anything else, drove him.

You may think there's a lot of school shootings in the US. Heck, most Americans think that. The fact is, they're very rare, but EVERY single one of 'em gets *national* media attention...which in turn feeds the "fame craze" of certain sickos. If every arson made national TV, we'd see one hell of a lot more arsons, for exactly the same reason.

This is the single biggest factor in these shootings. The killings are in large part being caused by the media, which in turn feeds off of the resulting ratings.

And you think *I'm* the one using these types of shootings for political gain? A clue for ya: it's not my side *causing* the damn things.

 

[headtripper25]

Jim- Can you produce a single fact or figure to support your argument that strict gun control laws lead to increased violence? Hand-picked anecdotes don't count.

Headtripper 25

 

[strtbottomjim]

Headtripper25:

Glad you asked.

Professors Lott and Mustard from the Chigaco University school of Law and Economics did a study in 1996 comparing the "before and after" effects, county by county, of every state that switched to allowing "carry concealed weapons" with a permit (background check and usually some training) from previously having a ban on carry.

The study is online in Adobe Acrobat version as one file:

http://teapot.usask.ca/cdn-firearms/Lott/lott.pdf (you need the free Acrobat reader available at www.adobe.com if you want this version)

It's also available as HTML in three parts:

http://teapot.usask.ca/cdn-firearms/Lott/guncont.html
http://teapot.usask.ca/cdn-firearms/Lott/guncont_fn.html
http://teapot.usask.ca/cdn-firearms/Lott/table13.html

The opening paragraph tells the story, the rest is the proof:

-------------------------
Abstract

Using cross-sectional time-series data for U.S. counties from 1977 to 1992, we find that allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons deters violent crimes and it appears to produce no increase in accidental deaths. If those states which did not have right-to-carry concealed gun provisions had adopted them in 1992, approximately 1,570 murders; 4,177 rapes; and over 60,000 aggravate assaults would have been avoided yearly. On the other hand, consistent with the notion of criminals responding to incentives, we find criminals substituting into property crimes involving stealth and where the probabilities of contact between the criminal and the victim are minimal. The largest population counties where the deterrence effect on violent crimes is greatest are where the substitution effect into property crimes is highest. Concealed handguns also have their greatest deterrent effect in the highest crime counties. Higher arrest and conviction rates consistently and dramatically reduce the crime rate. Consistent with other recent work (Lott, 1992b), the results imply that increasing the arrest rate, independent of the probability of eventual conviction, imposes a significant penalty on criminals. The estimated annual gain from allowing concealed handguns is at least $6.214 billion.
-----------------------------

Note the "Concealed handguns also have their greatest deterrent effect in the highest crime counties" sentence. It makes sense, because legal carry mainly affects "stranger violent crime", such as muggings, street rapes, etc...which you see less of in the more peaceful areas. CCW permits have little effect on in-home "unplanned crimes of domestic violence" one way or another.

CCW also doesn't affect "crook on crook crime" which is the most common overall type of murder.

Lott was involved in a follow-up work, where they studied the effect of legal gun carry on "mass public shootings" of every type, not just school-specific. The school events are actually the least common type of public mass killings.

That paper, titled "Multiple Victim Public Shootings, Bombings, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handgun Laws: Contrasting Private and Public Law Enforcement" is available at:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=161637

Opening paragraph:

----------------------------------
Abstract:
Few events obtain the same instant worldwide news coverage as multiple victim public shootings. These crimes allow us to study the alternative methods used to kill a large number of people (e.g., shootings versus bombings), marginal deterrence and the severity of the crime, substitutability of penalties, private versus public methods of deterrence and incapacitation, and whether attacks produce "copycats." Yet, economists have not studied this phenomenon. Our results are surprising and dramatic. While arrest or conviction rates and the death penalty reduce "normal" murder rates, our results find that the only policy factor to influence multiple victim public shootings is the passage of concealed handgun laws. We explain why public shootings are more sensitive than other violent crimes to concealed handguns, why the laws reduce both the number of shootings as well as their severity, and why other penalties like executions have differential deterrent effects depending upon the type of murder.
----------------------------------

Note the phrase "our results find that the only policy factor to influence multiple victim public shootings is the passage of concealed handgun laws" - that sounds radical until you stop and think. See, virtually all of these events end in the suicide (or attempted suicide) of the killer. "Deterrence after the fact" simply isn't an issue, you can't threaten somebody with jail when they plan on blowing their brains out.

What you CAN do is "deny them glory", by blowing their butts to hell the moment they pop up and act out. "Loony killed by enraged grandma" doesn't have the "glory factor" to a nutcase the way "embittered victim lashes out at society, society takes it on the chin" does, which is how these losers see it and how they WANT to see it.

Follow?

 

[Haltickling]

strtbottomjim

Please read both my posts again, strtbottomjim. I told everyone about the found paper clips, and I never insinuated that any political wing caused the crimes.

If I read you right, you mainly criticize the huge media coverage such school killings get. In the same thread, you criticize the media for not reporting the killings afflicted by a car or a knife. This just doesn't compute. Zero points for the candidate.

What do you suggest to do against the media coverage? It's a major crime, and it's the media's duty to report about it. You can't muzzle the press on school killings with several hundred witnesses and so many victims' families. Besides, the media coverage on this set off serious discussions about how we are dealing with our young generation. Is that bad?

I won't deny the fact of nutcases imitating such crimes. They also imitate what they see in movies and TV news about other crimes, just to become famous. But surely you wouldn't want to establish a serious censorship over news and movies, would you? Where does it start, where does it end? Who decides what is to be censored, and to what degree? Stuff for another thread.

And whereas I just reported some facts about a major crime, you - hocus-pocus - turned it into a thread about gun restrictions. You've done the same to several other threads, too. I do not wish such a discussion in this thread. Too much blood and too much grief is involved. Put up your own soapbox elsewhere, strtbottomjim, this thread is not the place for political speeches.

 

[strtbottomjim]

Quoting:

"If I read you right, you mainly criticize the huge media coverage such school killings get. In the same thread, you criticize the media for not reporting the killings afflicted by a car or a knife. This just doesn't compute. Zero points for the candidate."

Yes, the media is mostly at fault, but you missed my other point: the difference in coverage based on the "tool used" shows that there's bias against particular tools!

That same bias pervades everything related to the coverage, and ends up "sensationalizing" these specific types of crime. And that in turn leads to MORE of these incidents because in all of these, the criminal is driven by a need for "publicity".

Quoting again:

"What do you suggest to do against the media coverage? It's a major crime, and it's the media's duty to report about it. You can't muzzle the press on school killings with several hundred witnesses and so many victims' families."

I believe that how the media treats these cases is irresponsible, and is causing more such to happen.

What's the cure? Damned if I know. Government censorship isn't the answer. Public pressure on the media to simply delete the NAME of the assailant, in every case where they died in the process, would help! Deny the bastards their "fame".

Second, I know of two cases where the incidents were ended by legally armed US residents, and the media DID NOT report that, in over 90% of the reports! Does THAT make any sense?

Quoting:

"Besides, the media coverage on this set off serious discussions about how we are dealing with our young generation. Is that bad?"

No, that's one good thing. Fine. But we don't need to know the names of the assailants unless they're still alive (which in their minds constitutes a "failure").

Quoting:

"And whereas I just reported some facts about a major crime, you - hocus-pocus - turned it into a thread about gun restrictions. You've done the same to several other threads, too. I do not wish such a discussion in this thread. Too much blood and too much grief is involved. Put up your own soapbox elsewhere, strtbottomjim, this thread is not the place for political speeches."

1) Most of those 17 are dead because they weren't able to defend themselves. Remember, this nut targetted adults, hitting two kids only by accident. The basic human rights of those adults were violated, and the kid's rights were violated when the adults there to otherwise protect them were stupidly disarmed.

2) Each of these incidents has been used to try and advance the gun control agenda in the US. And now it's happening in Germany, as a result of this case.

So yes, this IS the right place to talk about solutions that work, and those that don't.

 

[Haltickling]

Sigh... You still don't get my point. What I want is peace for the dead, not some politicians or whatever lobby stepping over the corpses. We had a very long thread about gun laws already, and since it slid back out of view, you're constantly hijacking other threads to continue this discussion, without any sympathy or respect for the dead. That's what I'm objecting to!

As strtbottomjim won't listen to my appeals for perspective, I ask all the other members to simply ignore this kind of lobbying here.

End of this discussion. I repeat: If you want to resume the gun law discussion, do so. But not in a thread that mourns tragic events!

 

[shark]

I wasn't going to bother posting on this thread again,but I have a few observations.

As far as hijacking threads,the very first post on this thread went into detail on how the killings occurred and then asked when the trend would stop.Looks pretty open for discussion to me.
Aside from that,many of the threads on this forum stray from what is,or is perceived to be,the main topic.How many people are scolded about it?

A post preceding jim's went into detail about how many guns the guy had,how much ammo,and how many shots fired.Are these details necessary to help with grief?The subsequent post went into how neither bans nor arming everyone were viable solutions.It appears to me that,at this point,the thread was already opened up for other opinions or replies.

After jim's reply,he was accused of campaigning for the progun lobby.Three prior posts had made points about guns and their use in the killings,a couple arguably antigun,but jim gets told about his.One could accuse a moderator of the opposite sympathies,especially
when he wasn't the one who started the thread.

Further discussion was initiated when headtripper asked a question of jim,which he was happy to answer.Now where was tripper's question helping with grief?Another open avenue for opening the discussion,and this one from a person who obviously questioned jim's data.Where was the hijacking complaint then?

Anyone who has read my posts knows my stand on the gun rights subject,
but I haven't said a word about it until now.What I do see is posts that are being made,with only certain ones being targeted despite them being made in reply to others,one even by invitation.It looks alot like lobbying to me.

Before somebody thinks I am further hijacking a thread,read the post where members are asked to ignore someone's posts,even while they have been deemed good enough to "print".Am I wrong,or doesn't this also qualify as off-topic posting?

While I'm arguably off topic too,I might as well point out that, at least in the US,if the media was not following their own agenda,many of the Clinton administration personnel,as well as other government officials,would be on trial now.But then again,I am responding to a post in this thread.

I was told awhile back that easiest way to turn friends into enemies was to discuss religion and politics.In my own life,HOW TRUE.

 

[qjakal]

Hmmm....

I too wasn't going to post, but now I feel compelled to do so...there are a lot of strong feelings being expressed here, and much of it does center on the gun control issue...that being said, I also believe it is fairly relevant to the thread, but your claim of Mod harassment seems a bit too harsh. Mods are people with opinions as well, and the extra import we (the community) sometimes attach to their posts must be frustrating...if that same post came from Strel, or Dave or myself, people might just respond to it with a "yeah yeah, but here's what I think approach"...but, since it came from a Mod, it gets a bit more attention, right or wrong. As the author of this thread, it WAS my intention to mourn the event more than discuss a solution, but that's the nature of threads....they wander a bit, getting OT and downright out of control at times!🙂 But, I'd hate to see Mods have to "censor" their views just because of their position...let's just treat their posts as you would anyone elses, up to the point where they actually exercise "Mod" priveleges, and then, if and when that happens, you can segue into that kind of discussion on their behavior. I don't (usually) agree with dvnc or a few of the other Mods, but I'd hate to lose their input because they felt they had to pussyfoot around posts for fear of looking biased....my 2 cents... Q

 

[shark]

I never said that mods should not post their opinions.However,a mod here has definitely asked other posters and readers to ignore someone's posts on the grounds that they were lobbying....while said posts were not only no more off topic than others,but one was blatantly invited by another poster.

Haltickling and I had several exchanges in prior threads and had no problems.Whatever the deal is,Jim's posts were certainly given more scrutiny than others that were both offtopic and worthy of reply.

 

[shark]

I had also overlooked part of a post where jim was told to hope and pray that none of his family gets hit with a stray bullet.This was after the first mod post giving all the off-topic,non-grieving details
about the shooter's life style that was rebutted by Jim.

Exactly what do you want to consider off-topic and flat out inflammatory?The last mod post goes on,invites others to ignore Jim's posts,and then says "End of discussion".Nobody can tell me for one second that there is not some level of bias involved here,and that a certain opinion is the target.Again,many threads go off-topic,but the posts involved here show me a definite bias.

 

[Cosmo_ac]

Ok

ok, now i'm getting into this 😉 Basically, i think the reason this post was made, was a way of morning those killed. Now, i agree, there are a lot of posts that end up going off topic. Usually i don't mind that. I think what hall is trying to stress is, that this is a post FOR remembering the dead, not to discuss gun laws. He's not saying we can't talk about gun laws but, out of respect for the departed, that we stay on focus about the tragedy of the life lost and how it was lost, not the means of how it was lost, which is becoming the focus here. a discussion about gun laws will envelope this thread, and i think the dead deserve a little more then that.
Now, i read that other threads also drifted into gun controll isues. I don't know these threads, and i don't know if they were about people that had been killed so recently. I only know what i've read from this thread.
And, as far as Hal being biased, well he's human, and everybody has certain views about certain things. Can't help that, it's how we are. I have an impinion about the gun laws, but i'll stay away from that, since i don't think this is the time or place for a discussion on the topic.

Just some thoughts...

 

[strtbottomjim]

It seemed on-topic to me to talk about how to SOLVE this sort of freakshow, and how not to.

 

[headtripper25]

Ooops....sorry Hal

I have to take some of the blame here for turning this thread into a theater of the absurd. Unfortunately my desire to debate got the better of my common sense and I posted when I should have held my tongue.

peace,
Headtripper 25

 

[Deleted member 2452]

this was tragic

i too avoided this thread, till now. i saw the news break on fox news channel. it is a tragidy. so many people cut down, leaving spouses, children, parents, etc.. lives lost,or forever changed for the worse.
the fault here lies with the killer. the fact that he used a gun is immaterial. if he didn't have one he could hav used a spray bottle of gas, an a lighter! a gun is nothing but a chunk of metal. it does nothing untill a peson picks it up.
the underlyng cause of this and other tragidies, is the devaluation of human life in society. the morals of the whole world are swirling in the toilet. no one respects the rights of othrs to live, cause it'sok to kill unborn babies. all these shootings have only come about since abortion was legalized. it's just another symptom of the total lack of concideration for th sanctity of life.
steve