DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... TV crew shot and killed

I agree with your rationale. I'm also very pro-Second Amendment. The main problem I have with the thought of trying to remove guns is that it's like trying to treat a massive flesh wound with Tylenol...ie attempting to treat a serious problem by removing one of the symptoms.

I'm not going to propose a bona fide solution since I don't have one...but I feel that the main problem is strong mental illness. Perhaps a start would be to both trying to identify mental illness more often and to encourage treatment, rather than stigmatize those who receive it.

nice insights Spawn.

sorry this probably affects you more than most of us ... sad situation

Yeah, I kinda just assumed all news shoots, especially if outside, would have some level of security. Even it's a guy with a flashlight and walkie talkie lol.

But, I can see if funding and etc wouldn't support that for some smaller city crews and etc. Just another sad event that'll be in headlines for the weeks to come.

Is this going to be turned into a racial hate crime? If the killer was white and the reporter was black, would it have been turned into that? Should we start carrying signs that say "white lives matter" and marching through Virginia streets?

I know!! Let's all riot and burn down our own neighborhoods!!

Gun deaths shaped by race in America

Gun deaths are shaped by race in America. Whites are far more likely to shoot themselves, and African Americans are far more likely to be shot by someone else.
The statistical difference is dramatic, according to a Washington Post analysis of data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A white person is five times as likely to commit suicide with a gun as to be shot with a gun; for each African American who uses a gun to commit suicide, five are killed by other people with guns.

Per 1 million people (age adjusted)
Homicide gun deaths:
Blacks-151
Whites- 15

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/feature/wp/2013/03/22/gun-deaths-shaped-by-race-in-america/

Good, I was needing some new Nike Air's.

Deadspin

America Has Lost The War Against Guns


Yesterday morning in Roanoke, Va., a man named Vester Lee Flanagan walked up to newscaster Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward as they were filming a segment for local TV station WDBJ, and, using a handgun, shot them to death. (He also critically wounded Vicki Gardner, the woman Parker and Ward were interviewing; after fleeing the scene, he shot and killed himself.) We know this, because we saw this. The murders were captured by Ward’s own camera; Flanagan also recorded the murders from his perspective.

Parker and Ward were killed in spectacular fashion, and so it’s certain that their deaths will inspire more headlines than most of the 8,512 other gun deaths so far this year, and the 12,557 gun deaths that took place in 2014. In their coverage, most reporters and pundits will speak around the murders. Flanagan, evidently a disgruntled former WDBJ reporter, posted his own footage of the carnage to Facebook and Twitter, and so sounds will be made about the danger and allure of social media. Of course, hands will be waved about his ostensible insanity. Flanagan, who is black, claimed on Twitter that Parker said racist things to him and that Ward once reported him to HR, which is evidently why he shot them to death, and so vague statements will be made about racism in America. Then something else compelling and awful and newsworthy will happen, and we’ll move on.

Yesterday morning’s murder of Alison Parker and Adam Ward is considered a spectacular display of gun violence because journalists became news, and so opinions will also be proffered about whether the amendment to the Constitution that explicitly states (go read it) that people who are in militias can own guns also means that people who are not in militias can own guns, and if so, whether and which citizens should own guns. Most of these opinions will be the incorrect opinion.

There are some people who hunt and shoot animals that they then eat; they should own guns. There are some people who raise livestock in areas where large carnivores hunt; they should own guns. There are some people who live in areas with poor or nonexistent infrastructure that are many miles or even hours away from the nearest police station or hospital, and for those people, guns serve as literal home-security systems; they should own guns, too.

There are some other people who should own guns. Active soldiers are highly trained in the safe and proper use of firearms and probably should; police officers receive far less training and probably shouldn’t. Some people genuinely enjoy using guns to shoot inanimate objects for sport, and in a different, better world, that’d be too bad, and they’d have to do something else instead.

Because of the way bullets and human initiative work, there is little basis to the argument that “the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun.” The murders of Alison Parker and Adam Ward are instructive in that regard. Ward was approached from behind; just before Parker was shot to death, she screamed and attempted to run away, but she didn’t make it. If a hypothetical Good Gunman were in the area, this hypothetical Good Gunman would have either been killed by Vester Lee Flanagan, or killed Flanagan too late to keep him from killing Parker and Ward, or accidentally killed Parker or Ward or Gardner in the act of trying to save them. Alternately, if Flanagan attacked the trio with a sword, or a knife, or a baseball bat, or a pipe, or his hands, at least one of them would likely have escaped with their lives. Very possibly all three.

That’s because guns are tools conceived, built, and used for the primary purpose of killing living things very quickly and with very little effort. They are perfect, and whether men and women and children and babies use them correctly or incorrectly, people get maimed or killed. For this reason, it should be illegal, as it is in most of the world, for most citizens to own guns.

This is apparent to many people, even and especially to many people who sell guns. But it is even more apparent that nothing anyone says or writes about how it is an absolute f-ing farce that it is legal for most citizens to own guns matters. Episodes like Roanoke, and Sandy Hook, and Aurora, and Blacksburg, and Charleston affirm that the fight is already lost.

American gun culture is unique, taking hundreds of years to grow and harden into the current disaster as it exists. It started with hazy national myths of the frontier and the horrors it housed; it was inscribed in our DNA when Americans were occupied by English forces; it was solidified, much more recently, following a concerted effort by capitalists to misread the Bill of Rights in service of selling people on fear of a future in which they become a hunted minority. Even as the amount of households with guns has steadily declined over time, firearms are still being collected by hardline owners so paranoid of a changing nation that they imagine a day someone storms in their house to take their guns. This will of course never happen (though perhaps it should), but still they react by maintaining their capacity to shoot that someone dead.

In its current form, this is a legacy of Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon, who didn’t just pander to a grievance-stricken right wing but in many ways created it, taking advantage of mass suburbanization and white flight to stoke fears of the Other that underwrite our politics today. One of those fears is that sometime soon, someone is going to storm over the border or out of the cities, kick doors in, and steal the America way, and that when that happens, you have to be ready to shoot those someones dead.

These synthetic, reactionary politics are so tied up in people’s notions of their own identity, so ingrained in what it means to be American, that guns can’t be cut out from our culture, and any radical plan to change our culture can only be spoken in certain circles, scarcely above a whisper. We can only play at saving lives through what amount to quarter-measures: expansive background checks, long grace periods between purchasing and receiving guns, outlawing of selling guns through places like pawn shops and gun shows, and so on. It should be career suicide for a politician to speak against these modest initiatives, but in many districts, it is instead the opposite. Those able to write gun restrictions into law have declined or failed to do so, and so almost nothing has been done, and so people like Alison Parker and Adam Ward and an endlessly updating list of others are fated to die, every single day, when they don’t have to.

The greatest tragedy of them all, then, is that the fight for gun control in this country is utterly, completely lost, and in a cruel irony, the safest thing one can do is leave, or else perhaps buy a gun.

America has won the war against those who would take away
our second amendment rights.

Now that our Rights are once again secured, we can begin to
talk about limiting those Rights to the sane and to the
Law abiding citizen.

I wish we'd win the war on stupidity so we don't have to keep seeing these ridiculous articles.

This is a most unfortunate and sad story. However, a news conference going on right now reflects unfortunate societal sentiments of attempts to somehow blame the station for not being more vigilant with their hiring. Really?? This individual was sick and there is most likely nothing that would have prevented this sick individual from carrying out this sick act of violence. Sick...that is what it is.

Give it a shot(?)

Make the most of it.

Make sure you explain the long history behind black on white shootings or the guy's written manifesto about hating white people.

You might have luck protesting against disgruntled worker shootings though.

America is viewed as a land of psycho gun owners by the rest of the world.

Making guns illegal will never happen, but it's absolutely time to give up the, "Out of my cold dead hands!" hyperbole.

Serious, constructive compromises about regulations need to happen.

It's tiresome to continually hear the guns don't kill people, insane people shouldn't get guns nonsense whenever these shooting sprees happen.

There's sure to be a lot of room between the 2 sides for a serious problem solving discussion to happen.

And this is a perfect example of why the two sides can't talk.
You have already dismissed multiple truths as being tiresome hyperbole and nonsense.

Discussion over, see you in Congress!

Maybe gun culture has changed a lot in the past years, but for many of us, guns are used to protect us from the government. I don't hunt, I don't shoot for fun. I only own a gun to protect myself from the government. Not a would be robber or assassin, but strictly for the government. I know this seems like a super radical idea, but I've seen throughout history as minorities are always persecuted against and have no weapons to defend themselves. I do not want to see myself found in a similar position.

It's funny, one time in an English class, during our unit on Dystopian novels, a person said, "How could they ever let this happen?" Well, the answer is right in front of us. Guns. There are no guns in any of these universes. The populace needs to have guns to protect ourselves from these greater evils. It's tragic that people die because of guns, however we cannot trade safety for freedom. It is much better for us to be free rather than safe.

Regardless of what you think about getting rid of the second amendment or making guns illegal or any of that.. How can that be done since so many guns are already in the hands of people of this country?

I hear anti gun people bringing up statistics of European countries that have no gun violence. But those countries for the most part, don't have citizens who have guns? We can't ask everyone in this country to just turn in their weapons.

We need to be better as a country as making sure people like this scumbag in Virginia, and the scumbag in South Carolina, and every other place that has seen a horrific tragedy don't get a hold of guns. This country has a mental health problem. Which always seems to get ignored when stuff like this happens. It's always about the guns, and while I partly agree with that, mental health is an important issue, if not more important.

I read an article a while back about how people with serious mental health problems here in Chicago are just being dumped off to the Cook County department of corrections, because there is literally no where else to put them. People who haven't necessarily committed crimes deserving of prison. Government cuts by the State of Illinois has left us with no options. It's incredibly sad. As a country, it's the deep dark family secret that nobody wants to talk about.

The nation tried to get the gunman help. Which he used to work at as a reporter. But he only got gave in one time.

Notice that I will not mention him by name out of respect for Alison Parker and Adam Ward as well as recovering Vicki Gardner.

Agreed. I think things always fall back to a debate on guns because just about everyone, regardless of their political beliefs, tend to suppress and ignore mental illness in their daily lives, whether that be within themselves, amongst their family, friends, peers, or the homeless person asking for change. It's just easier to ignore it or pretend it isn't happening. Not many can claim to not be guilty of that at some time or another. Rather than look into the darkness, we blame it on tools (literally and figuratively).

Take guns away from gangs and see what our gun crime rate is.

Ergo my post about mandatory psychiatric exams for both current and prospective gun owners...

How are you taking their guns away?

Probably too expensive and time consuming. Also easily corrupted.

An insane person can simply drive downtown and purchase a weapon from that kid that got kicked out of school last year.

No way possible. Even cities with the most stringent gun control laws can't do it.


But, take away gang bangers shooting, I'd love to see what the murder rate is without those killings added in.

Definitely. I don't think anyone can argue that. Believe me. I live in Chicago and every weekend kids are dying from violence on the west side.

But that's kind of my point. How can we control guns when there are so many already out there? Repealing the second amendment or having some kind of ban would just empower those already with guns even more, yes?

I am in favor of strict, and I mean really strict laws that could help control gun from getting into the hands of those who are capable of events like yesterday, but for those who want to do away with them, I think it's wrong that if my wife and I, who own no guns, and have no criminal or mental disorder history would not be able to purchase a gun for protection is also wrong. You can go in circles with this conversation forever.

A lot of my buddies out here conceal and carry. It's pretty frightening out there. I don't blame them. My wife and I are considering getting one for our place. I've just recently shot guns for the first time in the last two years.

probably not as much as if you eliminated psycho's:

http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/united-states

according to the stats, there were 33,636 gun deaths in 2013.

gun homicides were at 11,208

gun suicides were 21,175

which, unfortunately, went up, since in 2010, 19,392 killed themselves

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/05/24/suicides-account-for-most-gun-deaths/

we have a gun culture problem and a mental health problem.

oh, look at this:

There were 1,824 gang-related killings in 2011. This total includes deaths by means other than a gun. The Bureau of Justice Statistics finds this number to be even lower, identifying a little more than 1,000 gang-related homicides in 2008. In comparison, there were 11,101 homicides and 19,766 suicides committed with firearms in 2011.

http://www.armedwithreason.com/do-we-have-a-gang-problem-or-a-gun-problem/

http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf

there's a gang problem, for sure, but it seems like that's everybody's favorite scapegoat, instead of addressing the real problem.

Oh.

Bit according to your numbers, deaths by gun are mostly suicide? If that's correct, take the guns away and people will still kill themselves, no?

I don't feel we have a "gun culture" problem.

it's funny that everybody tries to blame gangs, and they end up being the lowest on the totem pole.

i wonder why gangs get the most attention though? y'all already know what im going to say....

people pick guns because it's the quickest way to kill themselves.

we have a gun culture problem. no matter how many times you try to spin it, no matter how many different "but but but" you try to come up with, thats a fact Arch. sorry about it.

we glorify guns in this country. we glorify violence as a nation. everything is up for interpretation with the constitution and all that, but the moment we talk about guns, its a no fly zone here.

gun culture problem. period.

I disagree. For me, and everyone I know, guns aren't a problem. I can almost guarantee that within 1 mile of my house, there are more than 300 guns.

Nobody has been shot. It's not a gun culture problem, it's an inner city gang problem. As for guns. JMO.

I don't think gang violence gets the most attention. It certainly doesn't around here. Kids dying in Chicago from gang violence is a blurb that is dropped on the nightly news.

Some whacko goes and shoots up a church, movie theatre, live tv shot, etc.. It gets wall to wall coverage. I get that people are attracted, probably in a guilty pleasure, to shock value, but there is way more coverage to supposed cop brutality and mass shootings. Gang violence here is reported, and then moved on. They report, how many, at what time the police arrived, they usually show a crying parent of one of the victims, and then it's buried until the next gangbanger shootout the following weekend. It's horrible. It's as if people are desensitized to it, and just don't care.

I don't think you know much about how suicides happen.... it's usually spontaneous, so people do whatever seems effective and nearby.

That's why guns are important to the suicide number - because when people reach for a gun, they (with a very high probability) succeed in killing themselves. When they do almost anything else, they usually don't actually die.

"Though guns are not the most common method by which people attempt suicide, they are the most lethal. About 85 percent of suicide attempts with a firearm end in death. (Drug overdose, the most widely used method in suicide attempts, is fatal in less than 3 percent of cases.)"
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/magazine-features/guns-and-suicide-the-hidden-toll/

why do you keep saying it's a gang problem when i just posted the facts that says you're wrong?

not only is gangs not the top reason, it's not even the second reason.

it goes suicide
regular?? homicide
gang related homicide.

stop spreading misinformation please.

yes, we need to do something about gangs, but we also need to do something about ALL the other deaths that TOP gang related deaths.

Even though the person might say otherwise, most overdoses aren't actual suicide attempts, but rather a cry for attention or help. If you took only the people that seriously wanted to kill themselves by overdose, the percentage would be much, much higher.

I don't think the line between "cry for help" and "people who seriously want to kill themselves" is black and white at all. All the literature indicates that suicidal people fluctuate wildly between each, and they aren't even sure if they want to die or not.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24690051

It's a pretty interesting (accidental) study on suicides. There are two bridges in Brisbane, Australia that are only a couple hundred yards apart, and for some reason, city council spent money to put a net preventing people from jumping off one of the two bridges.

It seems stupid, common sense says "well, they'll just walk over to the other one", but it turns out the suicide rate was cut by about 50%. By the time you walk to the other bridge, it's unlikely that you are still going to actually jump.

Well, I work in the field and deal with this stuff on a daily basis. Most overdose patients that I see are "cry for help" or attention seeking behaviors, where they take a higher than indicated but non-lethal dose of medication. The ones that are serious usually end up in the morgue or the ICU. We occasionally get some that are found quickly by a friend or loved one and are able to get charcoaled in the ER before any serious damage is done, but these are a very small percentage of the overdose patients we get.

How do you know the intentions of the ones who went to the morgue?

Because they died?

Suicide isn't tough. Those that survive an "attempt" most often didn't want to die in the first place.

I'd take jfan's words to heart. He deals with it daily I would guess.

J/C ....

We need to win the war against mental illness, to do all that we can to help those with mental illness find help and health.

However, we also need to understand that we will never have a 100% success rate, and that tragedy will occur. It is an unfortunate truth that we can never reach everyone who needs help. We do need to do a better job of reaching more, though.

I disagree that mental illness is ignored in these cases. Most media discussions focus only on mental illness for fear of appearing on one side or another of the gun issue.

There's no doubt that shooting sprees are about mental illness, but to pretend that the availability of guns has no part in these events offers no service to the mentally ill.

The absolute worst mental illness issue is when politicians cut funding for services which puts the mentally ill under the guardianship of the police and corrections departments.