Ultimate Rhoads

The Omaha Mall shooting a few days ago and now this?

I know that this time of the year, people get depressed for legitimate reasons. But doing things like this is not excusable at anytime. It is really sad to see and hear. My heart goes out to those people's families.

This is another example of how our world has just gone so very wrong.

There was a similar discussion at rrtk...but why again in America. I am finding this recently morbidly fascinating.

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xx123456

I think for people that go out and murder nearly a dozen people just have severe mental issues. I know this will seem very un PC, but there's not a lot to be done as far as that's concerned aside from medicating them and locking them up.
Like the kid in Iowa...he was institutionalized at 14. When you are already suicidal and homicidal at that age, there's nothing society can really do for you. I don't think issues of mental health and those who are disturbed are taken seriously at all in this country. Like Choi Sung Hui who shot up Virgina Tech last spring...he was a mental patient as well and when students began to feel something bad about him and they told someone, no one could give a shit.

frank wrote:what do you make of it matt? any opinions from an 'across the pond' perspective?

I know I am not Matt but we in Britain always say this; why do the Americans need guns? We don't have them here and our gun crime rate is tiny. The gangs get them illegally and they get caught and go to prison. IF you see someone waving a gun here and he's not a policeman or a farmer he shouldn't have it.

A knife has a purpose, it's a tool but a gun can only do one thing and as city dwellers we are not hunter gatherers, we don't need them here so we don't have them.

Trigger wrote:

frank wrote:what do you make of it matt? any opinions from an 'across the pond' perspective?

I know I am not Matt but we in Britain always say this; why do the Americans need guns? We don't have them here and our gun crime rate is tiny. The gangs get them illegally and they get caught and go to prison. IF you see someone waving a gun here and he's not a policeman or a farmer he shouldn't have it.

A knife has a purpose, it's a tool but a gun can only do one thing and as city dwellers we are not hunter gatherers, we don't need them here so we don't have them.

I think alot of people think that yes and if I am brutally honest there is a perception of the US almost being out of touch with reality, over the top, gung ho on world decisions and to an extent and in a literal way 'trigger happy'. All these things in the UK media are always thrown around when a tragedy happens in the US.

I know from talking with my best friend Loganfrom New Hampshire US, he couldn't understand our laws that protect a burglar breaking in and having to use what the UK law calls 'reasonable force' or face prison yourself!

In the UK we have very lax freedom of expression laws whch mean groups that are potential threats (like the pocket groups of anti west terrorists) can say I think too much in the UK.

But we are not a gun country. Our policemen carry only a truncheon and hand cuffs and a special team have to be bought in to tackle a 'serious' situation.

Paul Wolfe wrote:The Omaha Mall shooting a few days ago and now this?

Wow what a great way to screw up everyone's Xmas.

America will ALWAYS have guns for the public. Always. Prohibition and the mob made sure that the need for guns would be saturated into the public.

Y'know the funny thing about the shark attacks? 90% of the time everyone at the beach was warned that a shark was sighted and someone decided to go in anyway - and got bit.

I truly believe that if each of us worked at being better people to everyone we meet, the ripple effect would help reduce the number of these incidents in the world.

Paul Wolfe wrote:Y'know the funny thing about the shark attacks? 90% of the time everyone at the beach was warned that a shark was sighted and someone decided to go in anyway - and got bit.

I truly believe that if each of us worked at being better people to everyone we meet, the ripple effect would help reduce the number of these incidents in the world.

Yeah, its the same with most of these gunmen also. The warning
signs are all there, but seem to be ignored until its too late!

ken01fan wrote:Yeah, its the same with most of these gunmen also. The warning signs are all there, but seem to be ignored until its too late!

After Darrell Abbot was shot I read that Nathan Gale had been showing signs of mental instability for years - including claiming to have written Pantera's songs. Most people who knew him simply said they distanced themselves from him when he started acting strange. If even one of those people had moved towards him and tried to understand him and/or get him help rather than moving away from him, that tragedy may have been avoided.