School Shooting at FSU

That's nothing but a staple in a packet of papers. Still, if that's the biggest transgression, then I would argue that we will have learned a lot. May paint a scarier picture than most would have imagined. Such a thing could be a tool to help us look at gun restrictions another way.

Go GATORS!
,WESGATORS

 

I've always admired your consistency.

Go GATORS!
,WESGATORS

 

if you continue to assert directly, or indirectly that mass shootings may be caused by psych meds, I reserve the right to respond to it, because it is a ridiculous assertion.

 

You can do a lot with a packet of papers. You can turn some emails about dinner orders made available to the public into a conspiracy theory that ends up with a guy in a pizza restaurant with a gun. Perhaps that is the price of information being free, but I'd prefer if such information became available, it was with people equipped to actually extract knowledge from it, rather than sensational media "content."

 

what psychiatric meds caused them to shoot people.

 

You appear to be claiming that mental health and mental illness are unrelated. I call bullshit. And thanks for the personal shot. My take is not personal so much as to say that I strongly disagree with your obfuscation with related to gun violence. You're right about one thing. I know how to use the quote function. And no, I didn't claim that you suggest mental health as the panacea for gun violence. You sure love to bring it up though.

 

It sounds as if there may be so many confounding factors to the extent that the one common variable - the gun - becomes the most logical issue to root out.

 

So people like WES can focus on that, instead of guns.

 

No, have never claimed anything remotely close to that. I didn’t mean it as a personal shot, sorry it came out that way.

Go GATORS!
,WESGATORS

 

Not sure why you're taking so much heat. I think you are one of the most objective posters here and with that in mind all I see is you asking the issue be looked at without making any assertions or conclusions one way or the other. I don't recall your stance on gun control but it doesn't seem to be nearly as resistant as any of the conservatives here that reflexively balk at any discussion of reform.

Just my take

 

Riddle me this. Why do we have to solve problems by addressing their root cause? Rarely is that feasible & almost always that is not an efficient solution.

 

He doesn't have one.

 

I don't have one either. Not a rigid one anyway. I know there needs to be reform but i don't know to what extent or what the happy medium is if there is such a thing. I'm curious if we could ever get back to the lower frequency of shootings we had before the AR ban was sunset but I'm somewhat doubtful that alone would do it for a few reasons (although i am in favor of trying). I think everything should be considered like social media, sexuality, celebrity, mental health, medications, parenting, bullying, education etc.

I can't say he is or isn't looking for some sort of gotcha moment with this one particular issue but I didn't think it was a singular point of fixation until he defended the position against several members and multiple addresses.

Just my perspective.

 

Thanks. Some things trigger each of us as posters. With l_boy, it was a 2+ year old reference to psych meds (I don't believe I ever intended that to be the exclusive focus, but I'm certain I've made that clear as of today that it's just one of the many components that should be evaluated, in my opinion, of course). Our experiences lead to vastly different ideas, and I'm ok with that. With davisl, I believe it goes back to a reference I made that I'm more concerned with threats on the road than I am with threats in the school (many, many years ago, fwiw). I've got a couple of high schoolers and with one driving, that view hasn't changed. But here's the important part which I think gets lost too many times: it's not an either/or. That's true in so many of the things we'd like to have addressed, but people see one response and immediately assume you must be for shutting down another approach to the situation. It doesn't have to be that way. No matter what, my view on mental health is constantly changing, and I think we have a long way to go in terms of helping people do better.

I claim ignorance to what policies would be effective, but I've made it clear that I'm not opposed to more restrictive measures. I see intelligent posters like Ben and Helix shoot down proposed ideas or otherwise express how it would be easy to circumvent such efforts or what have you. Sure, I have some ideas, I like the idea about requiring participation with a local militia, but I can't say that that would be an effective answer in this area or not. You've never seen me argue against more restrictive measures.

It's all good, I'm mostly here to learn how others respond to ideas; if there's an honest effort to learn more about an idea or challenge an idea, that's great. If there's not, there's still plenty to learn about how people respond to ideas.

Go GATORS!
,WESGATORS