DC Navy Yard Shootings

[TownieDeac]

The Call of Duty series has sold well over 100 Million copies. So, that's just a ridiculous point.

There are (an estimated) 310,000,000 civilian-owned guns. Only 31,000 gun deaths in 2011. So that's like...only 1 in 10,000 guns to a gun death.

 

[demondeacfreak]

So have we all figured out which side of the political spectrum is to blame, or are we compromising on blaming video games?

 

[Liquid Karma]

Disturbed person, mental problems, video games. Wow its so different this time. Call of Duty is a great gift for your kids. Lets see. Guns have been around for hundreds of years. What is new in the past 20? Video games and mind altering drugs. With give them both to 5 year olds like candy.

I don't know of a single parent who lets their 5 year olds play Call of Duty.

You know what else has changed in the last 20 years? The gun lobby has grown immeasurably, and they've somehow convinced every ignorant redneck in the country that if they can't arm themselves like fucking Rambo, that they are losing their precious second amendment rights.

 

[MBDeac08]

The Call of Duty series has sold well over 100 Million copies. So, that's just a ridiculous point.

Easy way to find out the intelligence of a person. Just ask them if they think violent video games are responsible for these shootings.

I used to play racing games and try to cause as big and violent a crash as I could. Spotless driving record for going on 12 years now.

 

[Liquid Karma]

So have we all figured out which side of the political spectrum is to blame, or are we compromising on blaming video games?

Nope. Conservatives are a little bit shaken up trying to figure out how a dark skin person who committed violence didn't have a Koran in his pocket. And liberals are perplexed that a gun toting nut job wasn't a white person wearing a John Birch tee shirt.

 

[Liquid Karma]

Easy way to find out the intelligence of a person. Just ask them if they think violent video games are responsible for these shootings.

I used to play racing games and try to cause as big and violent a crash as I could. Spotless driving record for going on 12 years now.

My litmus test is to ask them if they watch or listen to Sean Hannity.

 

[TownieDeac]

Easy way to find out the intelligence of a person. Just ask them if they think violent video games are responsible for these shootings.

I used to play racing games and try to cause as big and violent a crash as I could. Spotless driving record for going on 12 years now.

It's just not that simple.

Before I go on, know that I in no way think violence in video games is a societal problem or needs to be addressed on a top down level.

Violent video games for most people are just a fun distraction, a way to pass the time, maybe a way to blow off steam. For a disturbed or deranged or mentally challenged person, one may have a hard time with the distinction between fiction, be it a movie like Dark Knight or a video game like Call of Duty, and reality.

Again, I don't think it's a causal link, I don't think it's a problem that needs to be addressed. I'm just not sure it's as simple as all that. I think, to a much lesser extent, the same can be said for guns. The vast majority of gun owners are responsible, well-adjusted people. There also happens to be times of confluence in people's lives with extreme emotional/mental distress, a distorted view of reality from what they saw on a screen somewhere, and access to a murder weapon.

 

[DeaconBrews]

Nope. Conservatives are a little bit shaken up trying to figure out how a dark skin person who committed violence didn't have a Koran in his pocket. And liberals are perplexed that a gun toting nut job wasn't a white person wearing a John Birch tee shirt.

Basically. So many #tcots going SEE HE'S BLACK IT ISN'T JUST WHITE PEOPLE and #tlots going radio silent on the issue

 

[TownieDeac]

I think most decent people, politics aside, just mourn the dead. My pops and I talked about it last night for a little bit at the end of a long phone discussion (mostly about baseball). He and I are not too similar politically, and we both basically talked about how sad it was and moved on.

 

[Deacfreak07]

I don't know of a single parent who lets their 5 year olds play Call of Duty.

You know what else has changed in the last 20 years? The gun lobby has grown immeasurably, and they've somehow convinced every ignorant redneck in the country that if they can't arm themselves like fucking Rambo, that they are losing their precious second amendment rights.

Had a kid in one of my afterschool programs who was allowed by his dumbass mom to play it before Kindergarten. The kid legitimately had PTSD.

 

[MBDeac08]

It's just not that simple.

Before I go on, know that I in no way think violence in video games is a societal problem or needs to be addressed on a top down level.

Violent video games for most people are just a fun distraction, a way to pass the time, maybe a way to blow off steam. For a disturbed or deranged or mentally challenged person, one may have a hard time with the distinction between fiction, be it a movie like Dark Knight or a video game like Call of Duty, and reality.

Again, I don't think it's a causal link, I don't think it's a problem that needs to be addressed. I'm just not sure it's as simple as all that. I think, to a much lesser extent, the same can be said for guns. The vast majority of gun owners are responsible, well-adjusted people. There also happens to be times of confluence in people's lives with extreme emotional/mental distress, a distorted view of reality from what they saw on a screen somewhere, and access to a murder weapon.

I think we are saying the same thing basically (that the violent aspects in media are not what cause these events). In other words I agree it's not the games that make people crazy, it's the crazy people emulating what they see in the games or movies.

Simplified because I'm on painkillers after having shoulder surgery yesterday and don't want to fall asleep mid post.

 

[89DeaconMike]

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/09...ten-share-obsession-with-violent-video-games/

This article came out on September 12th.

A decade after Evan Ramsey sneaked a 12-gauge shotgun into his Alaska high school, where he gunned down a fellow student and the principal and wounded two others, he described how playing video games had warped his sense of reality.
“I did not understand that if I…pull out a gun and shoot you, there’s a good chance you’re not getting back up,” Ramsey said in a 2007 interview from Spring Creek Correctional Center, in Seward, Alaska. “You shoot a guy in ‘Doom’ and he gets back up. You have got to shoot the things in ‘Doom’ eight or nine times before it dies."

So we have people with mental issues. We put them on medication. Then they sit around playing video games 16 hours a day blowing away people. It doesn't take an expert. Common sense tells us that this is not a good idea. People who think that banning a 12 gauge would solve the problem don't get the problem.

 

[Liquid Karma]

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/09...ten-share-obsession-with-violent-video-games/

A decade after Evan Ramsey sneaked a 12-gauge shotgun into his Alaska high school, where he gunned down a fellow student and the principal and wounded two others, he described how playing video games had warped his sense of reality.
“I did not understand that if I…pull out a gun and shoot you, there’s a good chance you’re not getting back up,” Ramsey said in a 2007 interview from Spring Creek Correctional Center, in Seward, Alaska. “You shoot a guy in ‘Doom’ and he gets back up. You have got to shoot the things in ‘Doom’ eight or nine times before it dies."

So we have people with mental issues. We put them on medication. Then they sit around playing video games 16 hours a day blowing away people. It doesn't take an expert. Common sense tells us that this is not a good idea.

Speaking of common sense...seems like a lot of adults got told exactly what they wanted to hear by that nut job.

Common sense also tells you that unfettered access to firearms is not a good idea.

 

[DeaconOEF/OIFvet]

From what I saw, the first guard shack was heavily marked off by the 8th and M St entrance. From what I have heard so far, it sounds like he may have taken weapons from the guard at the post. Going to be a lot longer getting on and off base next week.

 

[TownieDeac]

It is believed that the alleged shooter was able to buy the firearm from a registered gun shop despite having had known mental-health issues. Police in Newport, R.I., say they contacted Naval Police just last month after Alexis wanted to file a harassment report, claiming that three people were following him, talking to him through his hotel walls and "sending vibrations into his body," according to a police report.

http://america.aljazeera.com/articl...eekaaronalexismotiveindcnavyyardshooting.html

 

[2&2 Slider To Leyritz]

It is believed that the alleged shooter was able to buy the firearm from a registered gun shop despite having had known mental-health issues. Police in Newport, R.I., say they contacted Naval Police just last month after Alexis wanted to file a harassment report, claiming that three people were following him, talking to him through his hotel walls and "sending vibrations into his body," according to a police report.

http://america.aljazeera.com/articl...eekaaronalexismotiveindcnavyyardshooting.html

From the article: "U.S. law-enforcement officials told The Associated Press Tuesday that he had serious mental issues and that he suffered from paranoia and a sleep disorder and was prone to flashes of rage. Family members told investigators Monday that Alexis had been treated for mental-health issues since August by the Department of Veterans Affairs, officials said."

So, what is that, a maximum of about 6 weeks if you started on day one? I'm the first to blame the government for most things and I agree we need better gun-purchase-control protocol in place, but you can't get anything accomplished with the government in 6 weeks.

 

[TownieDeac]

This mass shooting event, like many prior, should be focusing the national spotlight on mental health issues just as much if not more than gun control issues.

 

[2&2 Slider To Leyritz]

You are correct. But that is tough to do when our PC push for the last 20 years has been on tolerance of non-conforming behaviors and acceptance of differences. If nothing criminal has been done, one person can't just say "dude is a nut" about another because he likes to chase leprauchans and expect something be done about it.

 

[TownieDeac]

You are correct. But that is tough to do when our PC push for the last 20 years has been on tolerance of non-conforming behaviors and acceptance of differences. If nothing criminal has been done, one person can't just say "dude is a nut" about another because he likes to chase leprauchans and expect something be done about it.

Jesus, I'm not sure where to begin with all the stupid in this post.

We still need to be tolerant and accepting of people with mental health problems. That's not politically correct, that's basic human decency. Mental illness is still an enormous taboo in this country. An analogy I heard recently is, which would you rather tell your friends/family: "I had a hard time getting out of bed this morning because I hurt my back" or "I had a hard time getting out of bed this morning because of my depression"?

Mental health is absolutely a facet of physical health, and it's something that most people, clearly 2&2 included, are grossly misinformed, undereducated, or simply ignorant about.

There is a level of nuance between saying "dude is a nut" about someone, and expressing genuine concern for their well-being, and alerting proper authorities if you think someone poses a real threat to others because of a mental health problem.

Like most things, this starts at home. For a long time, we didn't have a good medical grasp on mental health problems (to a large extent we still don't), and we'd dismiss depression as people being sad or hysterical, and anxiety attacks as fainting. People tend to think that nowadays because SSRIs and benzodiazepines (for anxiety and depression) and amphetamines (for ADD/ADHD) are overprescribed that the national issue of mental health is overblown; it has become a real boy-who-cried-wolf for people with very real mental health problems.

Then, there are people like 2&2, who clearly think we still need to be marginalizing those with mental health problems, treating them as subhuman. Mental health is a spectrum; it can change over time, develop overnight, be affected by events in life, and be treated and managed.

 

[iodeac]

Jesus, I'm not sure where to begin with all the stupid in this post.

We still need to be tolerant and accepting of people with mental health problems. That's not politically correct, that's basic human decency. Mental illness is still an enormous taboo in this country. An analogy I heard recently is, which would you rather tell your friends/family: "I had a hard time getting out of bed this morning because I hurt my back" or "I had a hard time getting out of bed this morning because of my depression"?

When I was in grad school, our stats professor taught using a data set from a study comparing responses to someone who reported either a back injury or a nervous breakdown, and I think almost every metric cast the back injury response in a much more positive light than the nervous breakdown. It's sad how much of a stigma there is regarding mental illnesses in society, and there are probably lots of people who never even speak up about needing help because of reactions from their friends or family that they anticipate.