Amish school massacre -- a "number" of people dead

[Dis]

slightly off topic (but we all know this will turn into a gun control thread ), but a kid walks into a school and fires an assault rifle. Hilariously (and thankfully) the weapon jammed. It's a good thing he didn't know how to use the weapon properly.

And this story could also shed some light on the copycat crime theory.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/10/09/missouri.school.ap/index.html

[Vince278]

New info on the news today: An Amish woman came forward to say that she was the victim of an attempted rape that appearently occurred near the Roberts house. She didn't get a good look but a possible link is being investigated. I didn't catch how long ago it was.

[Tingkai]

A kid gains easy access to an AK-47 type weapon.

Obviously the media's fault. Nothing to do with gun control.

[Dis]

the key here is there is no 100% blame game. You guys act like one party must accept 100% of the blame. That simply is not the way it works.

There are a number of parties that share the blame (not equally). Obviously the perp bares most of the blame since they pulled the trigger. Lax gun control is the second biggest problem. The third is the news media (I'm convinced of this). Violent culture also bares some blame. I don't really blame violent music or video games. They are the result of a violent culture, not the cause.

[RGBVideo]

hehe

Originally in mainstream media, the weapon was called "an AK-47". Already then I considered it obvious that it would not be one, but a cheaper clone. Now that the truth's out, people are still desperately clinging onto the label "ak-47" because it creates shock. Reminds me of a newspaper I sometimes read which always bolds "uranium" in "depleted uranium". Amusing to follow.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Dis
The third is the news media (I'm convinced of this).

You blame the media, yet you provide no proof for your claims.

The story you linked says the kid was obssessed with Columbine, not the recent shootings.

[Dis]

he wouldn't have known so much about Columbine if it weren't for the media.

And yes, I know the supression of media is far more dangerous than revealing these things. It's just a necessary evil we have to put up with.

[Tingkai]

Let me get this right, you think that the Columbine massacre should have been kept a state secret with all media banned from mentioning it.

And since it is number three on your list, that must mean you also want a ban on guns.

[Kuciwalker]

No, that's not what he wants.

[Dis]

I believe that the salacious news of Columbine is a factor, but I'm not against free speech. As I said, it is far worse to restrict free speech, than to allow it. I just don't think there's much we can do about it. #3 and #4 on my list just might not be possible to fix. We just have to put up with it.

Gun control, on the other hand we can possibly do something about. Though I fear it's too late, as there are already too many weapons out there. Aside from forcibly removing guns household to household, restricting guns will allow them to only reside in the hands of criminals. But surely there is some middle ground we can reach here.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Tingkai

The same goes for crimes. By reporting on crime, we can make people confront the issues that cause crime. Censoring crime reports will not solve the problem.

What issue causes crime?

Who called for censorship? The most I've seen advocated was that news companies choose their coverage more carefully. I've seen precious little useful coverage of Columbine (in the sense that it seemed likely to somehow reduce school violence), but a large number of copycat crimes. One would think that 5-10% of the actual coverage Columbine received would have been more than enough to inform people about what happened there. What was the rest? It wouldn't have been news companies cashing in on all the morbid curiosity of the public would it? Unfortunately that has a price as well.

[Tingkai]

Okay. Your previous message was vague.

Again, you blame the media without providing any facts to support your statement,

The middle ground on gun control would be to ban the sale of automatic and semi-automatic weapons, and to make existing one illegal. That doesn't mean doing house to house searches, but if these weapons are found by the police, the guns would be confiscated.

[Dis]

some things are just hard to prove. And if it is the cause, then so what? As I said, we really can't have the goverment restricting free speech. So what do we do? They could practice self censorship, but we know that won't happen. Violence on the news sells. And they want the ratings. Hell, I'll admit to being attracted to violent stories on the news. Kind of like rubber necking at a traffic collision. It just seems to be something we have to deal with. But it wasn't always this way. News back in the old days would never show some of the stuff they do now days. But times change, what can I say.

The assault weapons being illegal and confiscated if caught with them is a good thing, but in many cases would have made little difference. because in cases like these, the gun sits unused in a private residence until the massacre. Even in gang arrests and violence the guns are confiscated, but they get more. It's easy for me to say middle ground, but I admit, I can't provide any real answers to the gun control problem. We could restrict imports and manufacture of guns, but like drugs, they will find a way into the system.

Violent culture. If we could get rid of this, we wouldn't need gun control. But how do you turn a nation of gun crazed, patriotic, macho wannabes into a pacifist nation? You could have the goverment mandate that all tv stations play nothing but Barney videos 24 hours a day, but I think that would cause the violence to escalate. . Seriously, the only way this will change, is when we get our ass seriously kicked in a war. And it'd have to be a war on the homefront. We'd have to get ***** slapped like Germany did. But this isn't likely to happen anytime soon.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Sikander
I've seen precious little useful coverage of Columbine (in the sense that it seemed likely to somehow reduce school violence), but a large number of copycat crimes.

Again, more claims of copycat crime without any proof. Yet another, it's the media fault, but no evidence provided to back up the accusation.

Provide some facts to back up your statements.

The fact is there were school shooting before Columbine, there were school shootings after it.

At the same time, by allowing the free flow of information, people became aware of the risk and school administrators have taken steps to reduce the risk (in many cases going overboard in their efforts).

As for asking the media to reduce the coverage, you fail to realize that we in the media routinely questions the amount of coverage given to any issue. At the newspaper where I work, and the places I have worked in the past, no one has ever said, "let's sensationalize this" or "let's distort the information to make it more interesting."

What journalists cannot control is the massive proliferation of information sources that causes information overload on many issues.

What you want would require censorship.

[Sikander]

You haven't shown us any proof either. Does anyone else buy Tingai's apparant belief that there haven't been numerous copycat crimes similar to Columbine after the avalanche of coverage that Columbine received? Does anyone else remember the spate of gunmen who went on rampages after the San Ysidro McDonalds shootings in the 1980s? It's obvious that copycat crimes occur regularly. Look at the spike in school shootings that happened within a year of Columbine. And I'm not talking about using all shootings on school grounds to skew the stats, look at attempts to perpetrate a massacre of fellow students the year after Columbine. The extreme rarity became a commonplace news story, though thankfully none as deadly as the original.

I'm not asking for censorship, I'm asking for good judgement and good citizenship to be practised. Tingai doesn't seem to think that's possible. It isn't when people don't even try.