What makes a person do something like this

[FAC257]

I actually typed out a complete thread and then deleted it several minutes ago. I'm trying to stick to my plan of completely avoiding threads like this but this particular subject bothers me. I have definte views on kids, guns, crimes and killings like these but I'll keep those close to the vest.

What did bring me back out of my topic avoidance hole is found in this photo:


This was one of the photos you may have seen on the national news, during the Northern Illinois University shooting several years back. The young lady standing in front is my niece. The shooter was heading for and looking directly at her, after shooting the previous person. Someone made her get down on the floor to get out of the way. She doesn't know why he didn't shoot her next.

The irony is that my brother had just moved his family to that area, partly because he wanted to get them away from the potential for violence and crime in Miami. Going from an area with more relaxed gun laws to an area with tougher gun laws, did not make it any safer for his family. These nut case boys with guns doing something this aweful, can and will happen anywhere.

FAC

[Dain Arns]

In olden times they called it demonic possessions.
Modern psychiatry says it ain't so, just the mind gone bad, even though science doesn't fully understand the brain.
But times as dark as they are lately, I begin to think maybe the old folks were right...

[HouseHobbit]

Evil is just Evil.. Demonic or otherwise..

And this is truly EVIL!!

God Bless all those who were harmed by this senseless act..

[stansdds]

Evil is just Evil.. Demonic or otherwise..

And this is truly EVIL!!

God Bless all those who were harmed by this senseless act..

You said it!

As for the police protecting us from such events, the courts have been very clear on this subject. The police cannot protect people, they make arrests and take statements after a crime has been committed. That is the role of law enforcement.

If someone answered a cell phone call, went to the emergency exit and opened it for this miscreant, then there is an accomplice somewhere. That is, if that story is true. The media has been very quick to grab onto hearsay and rumors and disseminate it as fact. The whole story will not be known for a while, but since the shooter was not killed and is in custody, there is a good chance we will get the rest of the story.

[dharry]

Here is what I heard this morning.
It appears that the Neuroscience PhD student legally purchased 4 guns and 6000 rounds of ammo in the last 60 days.
Please tell me that a system that allows this is wrong. Does he not live within a modern urban environment and developed society supposedly protected by laws and law enforcement, not the isolated wilderness in the 1800's?

Society will always be made up of all types including people with sociopath tendencies; if it allows the ownership of deadly weapons, this kind of atrocity will reoccur.

So sad...

[cheezyflier]

i think the difference is, you equate (being from the uk) law and order with the concept of no one owning a gun. maybe the guy got past the measures we have to prevent things like this from happening. i don't know. i do know that it's not realistic to think you can stop all possible nutjobs. some of em are gonna squeak past somehow. look at ted bundy. that guy fooled everybody for the longest time.

[OBIO]

There are far far more people in the USA who own guns....many many guns and tons and tons of ammo for those guns....who do not go on maniacal shooting sprees than there are those who do. My father-in-law has nearly a dozen guns in his house....and he has shot not a single person. My brother-in-law owns close to 100 firearms, keeps them all in his house, has ample stocks of ammunition for all of them....and he has not shot a single person. I have friends and relatives who, if put together with all their fire arms, would make one imposing army of citizens. And not a single one of them have used their firearms in an evil or illegal manner.

I could go on here...but then I would be getting very political...and that I will not do.

Oh..I will say this....the laws of a society (any society) only effect those people who are law abiding. You can pass all the laws you want, criminals and thugs and deviants will continue to operate outside of those laws and still pose a great threat to those who do abide by those laws.

And law enforcement is not here to protect....they do not PREVENT crimes....they only come to work after the crime has happened. The cops never show up before someone is robbed, or before someone is raped, or before someone is killed. They only show up after the fact and then they try to figure out who did it and then try to arrest them. It is up to the individuals within a society to protect themselves and their homes.

OBIO

[Wing_Z]

You know, by this argument, it might be OK to allow anyone with a driver's licence to own a small tactical nuclear weapon because it is his right to do so... most of them won't be used on people.

Simple fact is that a nutter with a baseball bat will not do as much harm as a nutter with an automatic assault weapon.
If society ups the ownership ante, it must also accept the more serious consequences.
This guy legally obtained all the hardware.

(I also typed nearly a page worth of rant and deleted it, you can't help getting steamed up by stuff like this)

[Moses03]

Okay, this thread is heading into the ditch and it's days are numbered. What happened in Colorado is horrific and we should be thinking about the families that have suffered so much pain and loss.

[Naismith]

[QUOTE=stansdds;732502]You said it!

As for the police protecting us from such events, the courts have been very clear on this subject. The police cannot protect people, they make arrests and take statements after a crime has been committed. That is the role of law enforcement.
QUOTE]

1829 Sir Richard Mayne - "The primary object of an efficient police is the prevention of crime: the next that of detection and punishment of offenders if crime is committed. To these ends all the efforts of police must be directed. The protection of life and property, the preservation of public tranquillity, and the absence of crime, will alone prove whether those efforts have been successful and whether the objects for which the police were appointed have been attained."
I kinda think he was onto something there which the courts and succesive liberal attitudes have undermined. He was a barrister and joint Commissioner of the Metropolitan police at its inception in 1829. Now if that was good enough then as a code of conduct, why not now?

[hey_moe]

You know what I don't understand about this thread....we always have members that swing it the wrong way and F--K IT UP . It's closed now...Mike