Why random shooters kill...

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Extreme stress that will make you choke in training is not hard, and that was how I started my handgun training. An ideal situation would be to have a dedicated armed security team at every school. Since that won't happen, you need to have some emergency plan other than wait for the cops, and that's where the school staff comes in. They don't necessarily have to shoot to kill, per se, but if they can return significant enough fire to make him retreat or at least slow him down, that would be of tremendous help!

under our present legal regime, this will not be without consequence, the first time there is collateral damage among somebody's children, from the teacher's errant bullet maybe richocheting off something hard, or the teacher point blank ends up shooting a kid [you know how unpredictable kids can be] who happens to have suddenly moved unfortunately into the line of fire-path of the perp [also, it is not unimaginable that perps would use kids as human shields]. just imagine the lawsuits. that is why i said there'd be lots of wailing and suing going on if this amateur plan were to be realized. not everybody is temperamentally qualified nor fit to be anywhere around lethal weapons. there must be another way, why can't there be NON-lethal weapons [for school security use] that would temporarily disable a perp long enough for him to be restrained, which would not cause permanent injury to an innocent child should somebody eff up?

I was wondering when the video games argument will be brought in. I was playing this game called http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmageddon when I was 18 ~ 20. At one stage I was a passenger in the car and saw 5 joggers next to the road. Now if anyone played the game, 5 people would have been a combo. I had this flash back in my head that there was this opportunity to get 5 people in one go and I imagined myself jerking the steering wheel to drive over them. This is when I realised, it is time to stop playing this game. I felt shocked and disgusted with my own thoughts, that I wouldn't be able to control it later if I didn't stop playing this game.

I was wondering if games are appropriately rated and people know when the games are consuming/overlapping their reality. Are there ways to tell younger adults that, do you know when to stop? Because not all video games are bad.

that is close enough to being a legal adult to where the ratings become moot. it becomes a matter of ethical/moral discernment.

The qualities that make one a good kindergarten teacher and the qualities that make one a weapons expert might not be mutually exclusive, but they don't often occur together. Ahnold might be the only co-occurance ever. Trying to make the average kindergarten teacher into a cop will only stress her out.

why can't more amuuricans comprehend that point?

This discussion poses interesting questions. Yes persecution complex can be linked to spree killings.

However I don't necessarily think there has to be a psychotic element, or that they believe that all the people are directly and actively conspiring against them at the point, nor demons.

In fact spree killing were the perpetrator doesn't kill themselves seem to have more of the fantasy element that you might associate with that kind of thinking, though it in itself doesn't mean they are psychotic, but it might be part of the fantasy to give that impression. The batman killings is a case in point.

I definitely don't think it is the case that he thought the children were demons, or conspiring against him, or even that they may grow up to conspire against them. Most people you meet in your life you may never have anything to do with again. His lifestyle didn't make 6 year old a particular threat to him, and if perceived I don't think it is along the lines of direct persecution.

Personally I think the narcissistic element is a far more convincing theory in this case. It was a spiteful act, in taking the children's lives he is destroying something his mother, and other mothers and fathers cherish and love.

It is possible that he also thought that the children were representative of the next generation of people, who he had sociopathic dislike for anyway. I think whilst it may have a element of that, though it is not a credible enough motive IMO. One it is not going to have an impact as the population is huge, and he intended to kill himself anyway. Perhaps an element of spite is aimed at the population at large, though personally I think he was more thinking about the people immediately around him, and didn't care who he hurt, or empathise with them.

I wouldn't say pure sociopath because it is spree killing. I would say depressive, with narcissistic, or self centered view point and by virtue of that sociopathic.

I think there is a a cultural issue that need to be addressed, however this is a painful thing to face up to, and it is even more difficult to analyze.

If we take this type of killings compare to other it is one of the rarer, however in general America's stat compared both the developed and developing world are not at all good.

So that is pause for reflection.

In another thread we discussed school employees being allowed to carry their own concealed handguns to work if they possess a CCW and would be willing to. That alone puts the would be active shooter on the defensive since they will not know who is or is not armed. It seems they tend to prefer soft targets and they will no longer have that.
The mere knowledge that schools are no longer "gun free" zones will be a deterrent a lot more often than not.
Noting is perfect, though, but this is better than leaving the schools as shooting galleries they now are.
As far as video games go they are a byproduct of modern technology and here to stay.

I remember when I was in kid about grade 4 of having thoughts of wanting to kill everyone - partly it was anger because no one seemed to be aware or care about the hard time I was having, but also I had a feeling of not wanting others to go through what I was going through. Like a twisted destroy life to protect it from suffering. Go to a better place sort of thing. It's possible he targeted them so young because he wanted them to die without knowing the pain that he was feeling. Delusional for sure - that these kids would necessarily suffer what he was suffering. And for sure an element of anger. Especially towards his mother because of the manner in which he killed her.

You should take lessons from asymmetric warfare, there are always soft targets. Simply throwing more guns at the problem isn't going to solve the issue. it is not a smart approach,.

It also means they have to have increasing more powerful weapons to deal with the issue.

Also the point about choosing gun free zones as soft target is obvious, but that doesn't necessarily mean the solution to the problem is to throw yet more guns at the problem.

When you throw more guns at the problem you are increasing vector for people to use those guns, because you are legitimizing guns in schools, especially in poorer area, where the school is not going to have the budget to act legitimately. Then people take matter into their own hands, and feel justified in doing so. As a policy it is a very poor one, it won't solve this issue.

Even if it decreases the casualties on the individual level which is not so clear, it could increase the incidence, and increase the level of fear. So you have already lost. It is very blinker to think just in terms of individual event, as if nothing is happening in between.

Asymmetric terrorism simply shifts to the situation it is in. the tools of the trade are guns, improvised explosives, chemical, biological weapons, and anything that is going to make a big scene.

What you should be looking at is the actual stats, try and figure out why it is so high in the US for that developed world, and even compared to developing countries.

Now it would be wrong of me to make and rash assumptions as to why that is. I wish you the best in figuring it out, not everything is obvious it can be a combination of factors. What is clear is this work is necessary.

I did think of that, which might explain why he shot them multiple times. However I just don't buy it. I think he had enough life experience to know that most people weren't like him. Intelligence generally helps with that. I don't think he related with them in that way overall.

I think the fact that he killed his mother in the same vain speaks volumes.

What you are talking about is sometimes used for an explanation for when a parent kills their children them themselves. however though that may be true, the narcissistic element is still there, and the spite.

Delusion is relative, did he have impaired judgement most probably, but the desire to lash out comes firsts, the justification is an afterthought.

Whether video games are linked to spree killing is not clear, but in this case I haven't heard anything to say that is relevant.

Anders Breivik used violent video games to G himself up. So it is fair to say that for some it is reinforcement.

Possibly but not necessarily.

If you look at Columbine, Eric Harris was most likely a sociopath. The massacre was pretty clearly an act of terrorism and not the result of psychosis. Dylan went along for the ride because he was suicidally depressed, but harris was a sociopath, not a victim of bullying or persecutory delusions or any nonsense like that. He hated the world because ht hought he was better than everyone else.

If you look at Jared Loughner, he was most likely psychotic, talking about nonsense like the government controlling his grammar structure.

If you look at James Holmes, my opinion is that was an act of terror not by a mentally ill person, but by a narcissistic, depressed, most likely impotent young man.

I don't have tv now so I'm not sure Lanza. My guess is he has some sociopathic traits. Believe it or not, there are plenty of delusional people who don't act on their feelings of persecution. The majority are too frightened to do so.

This was a deliberate act of terror, in my opinion, most likely by someone who wanted infamy. Not even worth mentioning his name. Chances are, he is just a cowardly douchebag. Mental illness probably had nothing to do with it. If it did, well, whatever, he's dead anyway.

When you get a bad cut you stop the bleeding first and foremost. You don't analyze how and why you just take immediate action to control the situation at hand.

Your way is to leave the schools as the free-fire zones that they presently are and feebly plead "But guns just aren't the way to solve anything" over and over while innocents die. In effect it makes you an active shooter enabler.
NO THANKS!

I actually said throwing more guns at the solution wouldn't necessarily improve the situation.

This is why it isn't working currently. You a focusing too much on simple terms, and set scenarios. Set scenarios don't exist. every situation is slightly different. If you let fear rule your judgement you are destined to mess up. The idea that you don't have time to look not this is bs, you may be unlikely and get a repeat very soon, but there is time to investigate,

My point was that US has to figure out why it has gun related homicides so much higher that the other developed countries, it is a question that has been avoided to for too long. Like I said I'm not speculating as to why, but is something that I think you will agree is worth consideration.