Nothing about the UCSB tragedy?

[BedellBrave]

My prescription is tax the tar out of ammunition and weapons by making the manufacturers accountable for how their product is used / misused. A person can take all the drugs they want but if there is no gun to shoot or bullets to load, there is no shooting. I don't think they should be outlawed but they should be harder to find and manufacturing wise not as plentiful.
Go to the source

Yes, there is also a common thread of mental illness tied to Big Pharma. But, I don't see ANYONE proposing how we get around that. Again, that will take genrations to solve. Hell, it took generations to become the problem it is and I don't see it changing anytime soon.
At this point in time, in this context, mental health is nothing more than a distraction. Like a birth certificate or death panels

No one is trying or proposing any solutions. Speaks volumes

How you going to break up Big Pharma?
Have you voted for people that are willing to take them on?

No need to be myopic. Again, making guns hard to legally get might be a component, it may have a place in what a nation does, but people who want them will still get guns and ammo and you know this. And people who want to use them for sinful purposes are willing to violate laws. And in this case (as is common), the murderer is willing to use other means to kill (be it with knives or automobiles, etc.).

Admit this. And then don't dismiss other issues that are integrally connected to this huge problem that everybody is clamoring about addressing. Don't, as you are, be dismissive and throw up your hands, when it comes to the very dangerous side effects of psychotropic drugs and how doctors and Big Pharma are these huge dangerous drug dealers and how we as a society want to medicate problems away and in trying to do so we are creating greater problems. And don't throw up your hands and say, "this will take to long." If we never begin to grapple seriously with the issue and always go back to our hobby horse, then it will never be addressed and no progress will be made.

We as a society inundate our kids with a violent, misogynist, belligerent, sexually-charged gaming, music, and pornographic industry. We either make them (the kids) the center of the universe, with little or no restraints or checks placed upon their desires & whims (a great point jpx7 makes). Or, we go the other direction and constantly use the drugs, the games, the access to porn, to baby-sit them so we can go do our own thing. And then we scratch our heads and wonder why they are so messed up.

And underneath all of that is a baseline sinful heart, that is then nurtured in this narcissistic, sex and violence obsessed culture. Raising taxes and adding more regulations on guns is a small bandaid. It might be a good bandaid. But it is a still a bandaid.

The first step toward a viable, cultural solution is to diagnose the problem well and this problem goes far beyond the NRA...

 

[AerchAngel]

The issue with the left is they want this political knowing damn well even European countries don't have a law banning weapons, only selected weapons like us, but they have a more stringent background check keeping the guns away from loons, Finland notwithstanding. My ex owns a gun and so does her boyfriend in Germany. They even did a background check on here in the US and took them almost two months to get their weapons and they are in the most strictest nation in regards to having guns, Germany, which one of the major manufacturers of guns are made.

Since they have fewer people and not much political underhandedness like here, they can operate better in this landscape than we can which the statistics point out. Europe psychiatric drugs are not as bad as ours but our FDA makes it impossible to use their medication because of bureaucracy and not getting handouts like they from our pharmaceuticals. The Dems aren't going to bite the hands that feed them so they will blame the NRA while the Pubs is not going to bite the hand that feed them as well. They both need to be looked at that and neither side will give that up.

 

[BedellBrave]

The issue with the left is they want this political knowing damn well even European countries don't have a law banning weapons, only selected weapons like us, but they have a more stringent background check keeping the guns away from loons, Finland notwithstanding. My ex owns a gun and so does her boyfriend in Germany. They even did a background check on here in the US and took them almost two months to get their weapons and they are in the most strictest nation in regards to having guns, Germany, which one of the major manufacturers of guns are made.

Since they have fewer people and not much political underhandedness like here, they can operate better in this landscape than we can which the statistics point out. Europe psychiatric drugs are not as bad as ours but our FDA makes it impossible to use their medication because of bureaucracy and not getting handouts like they from our pharmaceuticals. The Dems aren't going to bite the hands that feed them so they will blame the NRA while the Pubs is not going to bite the hand that feed them as well. They both need to be looked at that and neither side will give that up.

I'm afraid you are probably right AA. And it goes so much deeper than guns and psychotropic drugs. We really have to evaluate where we are as a society. We have stewed in hyper-individualism (a part of our national DNA); we have had our sexual revolutions and what they spawn; we are blessed and cursed by a growing, all encompassing technopoly; we've latched on to whatever "parenting" whim and fancy that has come along; we (many) bask in a decadent wealth and privilege that breeds it's on problems; we perpetuate the myth that the goal in life and the mark of success is getting laid whenever we want with whomever we want; we are "happy," shallow, narcissistic, men and women with hollow chests.... To quote an American prophet, "America's chickens are coming home to roost."

 

[jpx7]

But many of these mass murderers have been receiving psychological health care. Might that actually be a part of the problem? The kind of care they are receiving?

I think it's the kind of care, not that they are receiving care.

 

[BedellBrave]

I think it's the kind of care, not that they are receiving care.

Absolutely. Doctors - and patients/families - tend to be more and more pill pushers and pill wanters. "Better life through drugs" - that's the mantra. It's lazy. It's impatience. It's shallow. It's popular.

Is there a place for drugs, for medicines? Yes, absolutely - but not just because a big pharmaceutical can make a killing (pun intended) off of them.

 

[50PoundHead]

I think this all goes deeper than the gun debate and the mental health debate. I don't think that there's anything inherently wrong at the foundation of our country and its culture, but I believe we are seeing the effects of the first generation that is probably going to have a difficult time doing as well as previous generations. It's especially difficult when the advertising industry keeps pushing the image that if you consume certain products, you're automatically considered to be doing better, but it all turns out to feel empty. I think that drives some to despair. The manufactured image that one can have the perfect job, perfect spouse, perfect car, and perfect house (in the perfect neighborhood, of course) has never been true, but somehow it appears to be having a more deleterious effect on younger Americans. I'm old. I could be wrong.

I've been on and off depression/anxiety meds for the past 20 years. Not ashamed to admit it. I was part of a couple of drug trials. I didn't have the kinds of reactions that Bedell outlined above, but I agree with him that the meds by themselves aren't sufficient to get at the heart of a lot of people's issues. There needs to be talk therapy accompanying the meds.

Americans have always desired easy answers. Got trouble with the neighbors? Move west! Our current plight is different and not as easy to solve, but I think the country needs to do some soul-searching. Our mental health system is a mess, but maybe instead of worrying about the state of the response to the problem, why don't we start working on the roots of the problem. I frankly don't know what they are outside of our rampant consumerism and quest for eternal youth (and I don't know if a public policy response can be fashioned to deal with things like that).

 

[ESP47]

I think this all goes deeper than the gun debate and the mental health debate. I don't think that there's anything inherently wrong at the foundation of our country and its culture, but I believe we are seeing the effects of the first generation that is probably going to have a difficult time doing as well as previous generations. It's especially difficult when the advertising industry keeps pushing the image that if you consume certain products, you're automatically considered to be doing better, but it all turns out to feel empty. I think that drives some to despair. The manufactured image that one can have the perfect job, perfect spouse, perfect car, and perfect house (in the perfect neighborhood, of course) has never been true, but somehow it appears to be having a more deleterious effect on younger Americans. I'm old. I could be wrong.

I've been on and off depression/anxiety meds for the past 20 years. Not ashamed to admit it. I was part of a couple of drug trials. I didn't have the kinds of reactions that Bedell outlined above, but I agree with him that the meds by themselves aren't sufficient to get at the heart of a lot of people's issues. There needs to be talk therapy accompanying the meds.

Americans have always desired easy answers. Got trouble with the neighbors? Move west! Our current plight is different and not as easy to solve, but I think the country needs to do some soul-searching. Our mental health system is a mess, but maybe instead of worrying about the state of the response to the problem, why don't we start working on the roots of the problem. I frankly don't know what they are outside of our rampant consumerism and quest for eternal youth (and I don't know if a public policy response can be fashioned to deal with things like that).

Solid post. I do have a question for you though. The manufactured image of the perfect job, spouse, car, house etc was in full force after WWII and through the 50's. How come we didn't see this kind of thing going on as much back then? Every generation thinks the next generation is full of a bunch of spoiled degenerates who don't know what it's like to put in hard work. I'm sure it's been going on since technology started gaining steam hundreds of years ago. School shootings have been going on for a long time but this case wasn't your normal school shooting. Most kids don't go on a killing spree because they can't get laid by the hottest girls at school. Everyone seems to be concentrating on this aspect and what to do about it but it's not really even in the top 10 list of problems if you ask me. This is a somewhat isolated incident with a kid who had a molotov cocktail of problems. Bullying, social awkwardness, isolation and depression seem to be a big factor in almost all of these school shootings. Not narcissism. We're concentrating too much on the fact that the kid was spoiled and not on the same problems he shares with most every other kid who has shot his or her school up. Clean up the bullying and help with the social awkwardness and you can get rid of the isolation, the depression and the drugs that lead to these killings.

 

[50PoundHead]

Solid post. I do have a question for you though. The manufactured image of the perfect job, spouse, car, house etc was in full force after WWII and through the 50's. How come we didn't see this kind of thing going on as much back then? Every generation thinks the next generation is full of a bunch of spoiled degenerates who don't know what it's like to put in hard work. I'm sure it's been going on since technology started gaining steam hundreds of years ago. School shootings have been going on for a long time but this case wasn't your normal school shooting. Most kids don't go on a killing spree because they can't get laid by the hottest girls at school. Everyone seems to be concentrating on this aspect and what to do about it but it's not really even in the top 10 list of problems if you ask me. This is a somewhat isolated incident with a kid who had a molotov cocktail of problems. Bullying, social awkwardness, isolation and depression seem to be a big factor in almost all of these school shootings. Not narcissism. We're concentrating too much on the fact that the kid was spoiled and not on the same problems he shares with most every other kid who has shot his or her school up. Clean up the bullying and help with the social awkwardness and you can get rid of the isolation, the depression and the drugs that lead to these killings.

(1) Economy was expanding and there was a strong consensus that things were consistently getting better, (2) readily-identifiable enemy in communism (although the threat was vastly overstated), and (3) more local free-standing economies instead of the faceless suburbs and mall culture that exists today. I think the changes we've undergone as a society since the end of the Vietnam War have been fairly significant to the national psyche and it has helped form the foundation of many of the problems we are experiencing now.

I think bullying plays a large role in this and thanks for pointing that out, but we have to get to the heart of what constitutes bullying and what "markers" make someone a target for bullying. Clothes? Economic status? Personal behavior not consistent with perceived gender? For all the yakking about political correctness, I think we are more intolerant now than we were when I was growing up.

PS--I don't want to get into the gun issue, but I also think there were less handguns around in the 1950s and 1960s. I'm not going to judge those who owns them now, but I never held a handgun until I was in my early-20s. Thug acquaintance had one and was showing it around at a party. My generation used rifles for hunting and that was about it.

 

[AerchAngel]

I think bullying plays a large role in this and thanks for pointing that out, but we have to get to the heart of what constitutes bullying and what "markers" make someone a target for bullying. Clothes? Economic status? Personal behavior not consistent with perceived gender? For all the yakking about political correctness, I think we are more intolerant now than we were when I was growing up.

Great post and I emphasized the 2nd paragraph mainly. Bullying has gotten worse. Before you might get a wedgie in the 60's and 70's, but 80's till now the bullying is worse because we are in the new technology age. It can come from many directions/sources and like you said it is an "image" thing. Those who have and those who have not, no matter if you are a thug or a nerd, you feel left out.

 

[ESP47]

Great post and I emphasized the 2nd paragraph mainly. Bullying has gotten worse. Before you might get a wedgie in the 60's and 70's, but 80's till now the bullying is worse because we are in the new technology age. It can come from many directions/sources and like you said it is an "image" thing. Those who have and those who have not, no matter if you are a thug or a nerd, you feel left out.

I agree but I don't know if bullying is that much worse now other than the social media bullying that goes on. I think kids were bullied in a much more embarrassing manner in decades past. Trash canned, swirlies, pantsing etc and it was in front of everyone. I wont get into it too much again but I touched on the empathy subject in an earlier post in this thread. It's up to the parents to pound it into their kids heads about the dangers of bullying. The problem is that they do it in an incredible superficial way by just saying "Treat others the way you want to be treated". They don't go into how psychologically damaging constant bullying can be and how it can affect someones life. The kids who are bullied can't stand up for themselves because they are normally too weak and are considered even weaker if they go to a teacher or parent. You can't raise a kid to socialize with someone they don't want to be around but you definitely can raise them to leave other kids alone if they don't like them.

The parents of the bullies are normally pretty ignorant. You hardly ever hear about them whooping their kids asses when word gets out that they're bullies. Normally they are the first to defend their kid because they don't want to believe they could do that. Elliot mentions one of the girls who made his life hell in school and I read that her father has already came to her defense about how she's the sweetest girl anyone could ever meet and that she would never pick on anyone unprovoked. Then people posted up screenshots of her facebook statuses and it turns out that she's a pretentious little bitch.

 

[50PoundHead]

I agree but I don't know if bullying is that much worse now other than the social media bullying that goes on. I think kids were bullied in a much more embarrassing manner in decades past. Trash canned, swirlies, pantsing etc and it was in front of everyone. I wont get into it too much again but I touched on the empathy subject in an earlier post in this thread. It's up to the parents to pound it into their kids heads about the dangers of bullying. The problem is that they do it in an incredible superficial way by just saying "Treat others the way you want to be treated". They don't go into how psychologically damaging constant bullying can be and how it can affect someones life. The kids who are bullied can't stand up for themselves because they are normally too weak and are considered even weaker if they go to a teacher or parent. You can't raise a kid to socialize with someone they don't want to be around but you definitely can raise them to leave other kids alone if they don't like them.

The parents of the bullies are normally pretty ignorant. You hardly ever hear about them whooping their kids asses when word gets out that they're bullies. Normally they are the first to defend their kid because they don't want to believe they could do that. Elliot mentions one of the girls who made his life hell in school and I read that her father has already came to her defense about how she's the sweetest girl anyone could ever meet and that she would never pick on anyone unprovoked. Then people posted up screenshots of her facebook statuses and it turns out that she's a pretentious little bitch.

I do think that school officials in an earlier era had less compunction about beating the crap out of a bully though. I don't know if that solves anything. I would say that I got bullied a bit as a kid (shrimpy, wrong side of the tracks) and bullied some (verbal abuse aimed at others), but nothing major. I don't know if I'm better or worse for it.

But again, for all the services that are readily available, we still have this problem. I do think that the generation of kids that are in junior high and high school now are intent on curbing the trend, but that could simply be someone with a good PR campaign.

 

[ESP47]

I do think that school officials in an earlier era had less compunction about beating the crap out of a bully though. I don't know if that solves anything. I would say that I got bullied a bit as a kid (shrimpy, wrong side of the tracks) and bullied some (verbal abuse aimed at others), but nothing major. I don't know if I'm better or worse for it.

But again, for all the services that are readily available, we still have this problem. I do think that the generation of kids that are in junior high and high school now are intent on curbing the trend, but that could simply be someone with a good PR campaign.

I think most everyone gets bullied and does a little bullying at some point. In fact it's probably healthy to be on the receiving end of it once in a while, that way you aren't shocked when it happens as an adult. I'm mainly talking about the kids who get bullied to the point where they either feel hopeless or so enraged that they are willing to take their own lives and the peoples lives around them.

Yeah I'm not sure if it's PR or not either. It will be tough to break the mob mentality though. If one kid from the "cool" side steps up and defends the kid being picked on, the mob then turns and picks on the kid who stood up for him. This doesn't just involve children either. Think of all the BS that goes on with our politics, yet there's almost never a politician that steps up and does the right thing for the people because that would mean career suicide.

 

[BedellBrave]

I'll happily add in consumerism to the mix and agree with you 50. But aren't any of you at all concerned, in the least, with some of the other things I have mentioned?

Y'all think our overly sexualized and violent media culture has no part in this? That our cyber-life isn't a factor?

You always have bullies. There will always be socially awkward people. We've had access to guns throughout our history.

Today we are consumed with things, sex, violence, getting what we want when we want it. We ply dangerous prescription drugs like they are candy and we live lives within an a cyber-virtual-reality world that is very different than the one I grew up in. These are the things that I see that are different than days gone past.

And all that coupled with sinful hearts is a toxic mix.

 

[50PoundHead]

I think most everyone gets bullied and does a little bullying at some point. In fact it's probably healthy to be on the receiving end of it once in a while, that way you aren't shocked when it happens as an adult. I'm mainly talking about the kids who get bullied to the point where they either feel hopeless or so enraged that they are willing to take their own lives and the peoples lives around them.

Yeah I'm not sure if it's PR or not either. It will be tough to break the mob mentality though. If one kid from the "cool" side steps up and defends the kid being picked on, the mob then turns and picks on the kid who stood up for him. This doesn't just involve children either. Think of all the BS that goes on with our politics, yet there's almost never a politician that steps up and does the right thing for the people because that would mean career suicide.

Good point. There's a saying, "Don't worry that your kids don't listen to you. Worry instead that they watch you." It's one thing that the country is somewhat polarized. To me, the bigger issue is that the quality (or lack thereof) of the language used when responding to a viewpoint other than one's own.

 

[BedellBrave]

Great post and I emphasized the 2nd paragraph mainly. Bullying has gotten worse. Before you might get a wedgie in the 60's and 70's, but 80's till now the bullying is worse because we are in the new technology age. It can come from many directions/sources and like you said it is an "image" thing. Those who have and those who have not, no matter if you are a thug or a nerd, you feel left out.

But why is it worse? What makes kids think they can say things and do things worse than giving someone a wedgie or threaten to beat them up? What fuels these changes?

 

[BedellBrave]

(1) Economy was expanding and there was a strong consensus that things were consistently getting better, (2) readily-identifiable enemy in communism (although the threat was vastly overstated), and (3) more local free-standing economies instead of the faceless suburbs and mall culture that exists today. I think the changes we've undergone as a society since the end of the Vietnam War have been fairly significant to the national psyche and it has helped form the foundation of many of the problems we are experiencing now.

I think bullying plays a large role in this and thanks for pointing that out, but we have to get to the heart of what constitutes bullying and what "markers" make someone a target for bullying. Clothes? Economic status? Personal behavior not consistent with perceived gender? For all the yakking about political correctness, I think we are more intolerant now than we were when I was growing up.

PS--I don't want to get into the gun issue, but I also think there were less handguns around in the 1950s and 1960s. I'm not going to judge those who owns them now, but I never held a handgun until I was in my early-20s. Thug acquaintance had one and was showing it around at a party. My generation used rifles for hunting and that was about it.

I agree on the handguns. But why are they more popular? What is driving their popularity? What makes for their market? And this gets into economics. Why do we have large pockets of our country where such a message is welcome? Where fear or "coolness" drive the market?

 

[Krgrecw]

The issue with the left is they want this political knowing damn well even European countries don't have a law banning weapons, only selected weapons like us, but they have a more stringent background check keeping the guns away from loons, Finland notwithstanding. My ex owns a gun and so does her boyfriend in Germany. They even did a background check on here in the US and took them almost two months to get their weapons and they are in the most strictest nation in regards to having guns, Germany, which one of the major manufacturers of guns are made.

Since they have fewer people and not much political underhandedness like here, they can operate better in this landscape than we can which the statistics point out. Europe psychiatric drugs are not as bad as ours but our FDA makes it impossible to use their medication because of bureaucracy and not getting handouts like they from our pharmaceuticals. The Dems aren't going to bite the hands that feed them so they will blame the NRA while the Pubs is not going to bite the hand that feed them as well. They both need to be looked at that and neither side will give that up.

Notice how the left and liberals bring up gun control when a white shoots a group of whites. They never bring up gun control when discussing the genocide of African American youths in Americas inner cities. The same cities that just happen to have the toughest gun laws in the country.

insurance only paying 50% for shrinks while they pay 80-90% for family doctors is a big problem in America. Family doctors aren't versed in psychiatric drugs and don't know which ones to prescribe. Zoloft, Paxil aren't cure all drugs

 

[Krgrecw]

I agree on the handguns. But why are they more popular? What is driving their popularity? What makes for their market? And this gets into economics. Why do we have large pockets of our country where such a message is welcome? Where fear or "coolness" drive the market?

Hand guns are more popular and 'cool' because they are more easily hidden and don't have the kickbacks that bigger guns have. You can conceal a handgun on your waist, in your socks, in a purse etc. handguns are cheaper and way more common at stores than assault rifles, shotguns.

 

[Tapate50]

Kudos to most of you in this thread for a level headed and thought out group of posts . This is how it's supposed to go!

 

[weso1]

A couple of thoughts:

- We need to put more emphasis on mental healthcare in this country. Not just from a fiscal point of view, but also from a social aspect. The idea of seeking mental health in this country is viewed as somewhat shameful. We are way too apathetic about those who struggle with mental issues. These people are helpless members of our society. And it's not just to help prevent mass murder. There is a problem here for anyone that struggle with mental health. I'd rather the fed spend money helping those who have know capability to sustain themselves than those who are more self sustainable.

- What impact does news media have on these tragedies? Do many of these mass murderers seek attention and national news is more than willing to provide it to them? What if the news media banned together and stopped covering these types of stories? I think sometimes the news media just assumes they aren't part of the problem or they rationalize it away.