You know, I got a wild idea, and would like some opinions.

Ok, how bout this, how bout we look at why these people became outsiders, why they were riddiculed, why they were ignored, why they were derided and tormented. How bout we look into that shit first before we start blaming games.

It's ironic that media often shows answers that everyone else misses. As an example, I point to the episode of Buffy the Vampire slayer called, "out of mind, Out of Sight".

In this episode, an invisible girl torments the friends of one of the shows regular charecters, assulting her boy friend, shoving her other friend of a flight of stairs, and so forth.

The message is, at first, they assume that the girl has the power to control this gift. Infact, what they find out is that this wasn't something she chose, it was something done to her.

The students, teachers, everyone at the school ignored her and acted like she didn't exsist, and because of the power and mystical energy of the area, she became invisible as a result.

basicly, Gill, The columbine shooters, and many other school shooters all have one partciualr, and common, trait. They are often outcasts from the "clich" nature of high schools, and were often bullied, tormented, and got no help from the facility or teadhers.

Truth is, it is the high schools themselves that should be blamed for these things, not games or media. While media might be considered a symptom of a mentally unstable person, as in, a violent or unstable person might enjoy violent media. But millions watch and play violent media and does nothing violent or deadly.

This is the great hypocracy. less then 1 percent of all people who play games every commit any, violent act, yet by the same token. 50 to 70 percent of people in prison often come from poor homes, violent histories, and abuse childhoods.

This is the great truth. Polis and people like Jack thompson wanna treat the symptom, instead of curing the actual problem.

So, agree? Disagree,? Think I'm crazy? Whats your opinion?

Grls, hate to tell you this, but Metal detectors didn't do any good in the past. Columbine had them, and the guns still got in, they aren't ever hidden, most school shooting happen when a peron or persons, with guns in plain view, gets out of a vehicle and just started shooting.

Now, on the other hand, the whole gun control thing. Yeah, that didn't work either. In an ironic twist, cities in the use with the highest gun control laws, also hve the highest number of fatal ciminial shootings. On the other hand ,areas with far less strict laws, have lower shooting rates.

Now, what I think should be done is not remove legal rights to have fire arms, but to target illegal black markets that sell them outright to anyone with the money. That would be a start. Also, Agree with the punishment for bullies thing, but personally, I'd just start offering kids who get bullies a free chance to punch the bully in the balls, that should do the job. Also good, jocks and clicks who torment others? Suspended!!!

I might be going a bit overboard, but I went through all that shit in high school, so i know. And lemme tell you, a knee to the balls gets a bully of your back in a hurry

"The game’s creator also disavows any responsibility… claiming that the game’s purpose is actually to give insight into the Columbine killers. But that’s an entirely disingenuous argument that barely merits consideration."

That's a PAINFULLY presumptuous statement, IMO. More needless flak at a guy who was simply ballsy enough to make a game over an extremely touchy and controversial subject. We need more people like Danny LeDonne, if you ask me.

"Georgia Tech professor Ian Bogost says people like Gill don’t kill because of what they read, hear, or play. How can we be sure without getting inside their minds?”

From what I gather hearing LeDonne talk about it, that's exactly what he tries to do with SCMRPG. Get inside Klebold's and Harris' heads. That's why they are the PC's.

Yuki: Your rant on bullies and victims of bullying resonates strongly with my opinion. If there's a victim of bullying, screw the Zero Tolerance crap (That's only making it worse, if you ask me) and let the kid take a swipe or two at the bully. That's discourage him from bullying that particular student.

“The game’s creator also disavows any responsibility… claiming that the game’s purpose is actually to give insight into the Columbine killers. But sounds like alot of work and thinkin' n' stuff. So we decided just to go with the most readily available scapegoat.”

I think part of the problem with certain groups or individuals immediately calling videogames to the forefront is that we always identify one problem by comparing it to another, similar problem. This editorial and all the news reports related to it talk about these school shootings and instantly tell us it's 'just like Columbine'. It seems to me that these recent events are clearly different than the Columbine incident, and you really don't have to look much farther than the current relationship between the criminal and the school at the present time to notice it. It's just like when that train or subway was attacked by al Qaeda in Europe. Over on this side of the pond, we kept hearing it was 'just like 9/11, despite the fact that it was intensly different. This all means that for the next few years every major hurricane that come about will be 'just like Katrina'.

You know, for an editorial I didn't see much of an opinion. Seems like they're not sure what side of the fence to get off of. The only definitive thing I took from that piece was that they didn't think much of Super Columbine Massacre.

@Sampson
That is the first thing that popped to my mind, it was like he was saying that the only way to understand them is to get into their minds, but to attempt this is just gratuitous violence.
@grls
I agree with the counselling and more punishment thing, but I disagree with the metal detectors and the increased gun control.
Metal detectors are generally fairly easy to get around, especially in a situation like a school (many small entrances, and lots of open ground), and would either be easily gotten around, or cost a prohibitive amound of money to enforce and use.
And as far as more gun control, as yuki said, places with the most gun control in america have the worst crime, also banning hunting for minors would do nothing to prevent gun crimes, as the people who generally hunt and have the gun training required are almost never the people who actually commit crimes such as these. Also, this would do nearly nothing to prevent the kids from getting guns, after all, the columbine kids definately didn't get their guns from their parents, in fact, the parents said they had no clue that their kids had guns at all (horrible parenting), and Kimveer Gill was an adult with perfectly legal access to guns. Besides, most of us would rather our kids hae access to our guns, so just incase someone should break into our house, our kids have a means to protect us.

God I wish they would stop picking on current media for all of societies ills,like the kids that copied laying in the street off a movie.....its not the media that makes idiots idiots or insane people insane,and if you argue that it can make the insane do thigns then get out the rubber becuse we are going to make the world so bland and so safe death will seem like a normal option to leave it....




so help me if this comment is filtered ....shoot me..I know I am bad...but I a no spam bot >

@pix

Scary, but true.

"Here’s a way to stop school shootings: metal detectors, gun control laws"

Columbine already had metal detectors, and they didn't do much good. What are you supposed to do when some lunatic walks through the door carrying a shotgun or hunting rifle? Ask them politely to not kill you and place the weapon into a basket before walking through the detector?

Gun control just doesn't work. Criminals, by their very nature, do not follow the law.

After a rather stable crime rate for nearly a century, the firearm homicide rate in the UK has doubled since they banned handguns and most rifles. And this is an island nation which should be a lot easier to stop guns from coming across the border than the US. Just think of the hundreds of thousands of people sneak into this country per year. And, despite being banned entirely, all the tons of drugs smuggled across the border. Not to mention the thousands of machineguns that make it in which have been illegal to import since 1968, and illegal for civilians to buy if made after 1986.


"And as for the gun-control laws, we should start by making it illegal to hunt for sport, or at least for kids to hunt."

That's funny. Before the push to make schools into "gun-free" zones at the height of the gun-control movement, there weren't any school massacres. In fact, many schools (especially those in the mid-west and less urban areas) often had target shooting clubs/teams. Students would keep rifles in their lockers to use for the target team or just hunting after school. Yet there were no shootouts.

It wan't until the think-of-the-children cultists disarmed all the potential victims (both students and faculty) that these massacres started to happen. Why? Simple. If some nutjob wants to commit mass murder, they know schools are full of soft targets with no means of resistence.

Check out the story of vice principal Joel Myrick, who helped stop a school massacre with a handgun he kept in the car. HE could have stopped it even sooner had he been allowed to keep the gun in his desk or on his person. But thanks to gun-control, he had to waste valuable minutes running to and from his car.


"These kids get the guns from their parents or whoever they live with. How else can they get them? "

The recent shooters in Montreal and Colorado weren't kids though. And the Columbine shooters din't get guns from their parents. The Tec-9 and handguns used there were bought illegally from another adult who also bought them illegally. Before any shots were even fired at Columbine, Klebold and Harris broke some twenty Federal and state gun laws. Before shooting anyone, they would have been looking at like 250 years in prison.


"I know we have a Constitutional right to bear arms, but it seems that more and more people abuse that right every day."

No they're not. Remember that graph which shows the massive decrease in violence with the release of all the GTAs and such marked on it? That decrease in violence also includes a decrease in the misuse of guns. At the same time the violence has decreased, gun ownership has increased at an almost inversely proportionate rate. The number of handguns in the US has increased exponentially while the level of violence has been dropping. It only seems like more people "abuse that right every day" because the media is paying attention to these isolated cases.

"It should be a privilege, like driving a car."

And has licensing and registration stopped people from stealing cars? Has it stopped people from being killed by cars at like ten times the rate of gun-related deaths (even though there are more guns than cars in the US)? Has it stopped people from driving without a license? Besides, you don't need a license to drive on private property, only on public streets. Just as you need a hunting or concealed handgun licenese (except in Vermont and Alaska) to use or carry a firearm in public places.

At any rate, blaming guns makes about as much sense as blaming games. Both are inanimate obects, and to blame them is an emotional, knee-jerk response. A response which all but absolves criminals of personal responsibility. Punish the crimes, not convenient scapegoats.

“The game’s creator also disavows any responsibility… claiming that the game’s purpose is actually to give insight into the Columbine killers. But that’s an entirely disingenuous argument that barely merits consideration. And it doesn’t get the game’s creators off the hook. A game in which players take on the roles of the Columbine killers doesn’t bring psychic insight, just a sick vicarious thrill.”

To say that would be to say that one couldn't learn anything about the incident from the game, which is a lie needless to say.

And to argue against that logic would only result in several stutters and self reprhase when I say "so those 2 didn't go to school and murder several?, cus I learned that from the game"

"PyroHazard Says:
October 1st, 2006 at 3:01 pm

Fandel has a point. Everytime a school shooting happens, more will follow briefly afterwards. I believe we live in a society where a man would point one finger at something but at the end day, 3 other fingers would be pointing back at him."

You know, I really hate that analogy or whatever you'd call it. Because by that logic, even when someone has a valid point, they are actually to blame for the problem they're pointing out. For example when the game industry points at a variety of societies other ills as the real causes of violence, they're at fault. When they point out politicians are burning money on unconstitutional laws, the game industry is to blame for the waste.

While I'm not really a huge fan of Super Columbine Massacre, I do think that it's ironic that a Hollywood director, and a movie studio can make a movie about 9-11, the worst terrorist attacks in United States history. They then spend millions of dollars advertising the movie so that they can make millions of dollars in profit from that movie. But we never hear any editorials denouncing the fact that a major Hollywood studio is profiting off of a tragedy that killed over 3000 people.

But you then have some 20 year old from Colorado, who makes a 16-bit style RPG game about columbine using RPG Maker, with absolutely no intention of making any money off of that game. But yet, not only does he get death threats, but the news media goes after him with the proverbial noose in their hands.

Food for thought....


A major Hollywood studio makes millions of dollars off of a movie about a tragic event that ended with over 3000 people getting murdered.

The response: The news media heaps praise on the director and the movie studio. Never questioning the fact that maybe a movie studio shouldn't be making money off of the greatest tragedy that our nation ever had to endure.


Some 20 year old guy makes a RPG, with no intention of making any profit, about a tragic event that ended with 15 people getting killed.

The response: The news media,(most of whom have never actually bothered to see the game) condemns this guy as some sort of sick individual, while all but blaming him for the actions of a guy in Montreal who clearly was disturbed long before he had ever heard of this game.

Hypocrisy in the newsmedia? Really, you don't say?

It is important to remember that games; just like movies, books, and television, are just another form of media. Video games are the most interactive form of media available to date. For the most part, video games are used purely for entertainment (it is also proven they challenge the mind more than most forms of media), however they can be used for understanding. I cannot speak for Mr. Ledonne, but to me SCM RPG seems like a way of expressing what happened that tragic day. Many books have been written about the tragedy, but no one seems to riot against those...in fact many praise those books as being informative to help prevent such an act. Interactive Media (video games) can convey the same message that those books did, but in an even better form...an interactive form. Which is a better way to understand what was going through Eric and Dyllan's heads: reading about it or interactively experiencing it? Of course the answer is to interactively experience it! Kids can play this game and if they EXPERIENCE similarities between themselves and the killers, they can seek help. That is just my 2 pennies, though.

The politicians know what the actual problems connected with school shootings, yet they don't actuallly want to solve it. Instead they blame the event on the media or something that has little or nothing to do with it. Because if they actually try to solve the problem, the people would no longer need him;ergo, politicians maintain problems to keep themselves elected.

@Ledonne-Welcome to the blog,Columbin. yea,i think that people are basicly harping on your game just because it's a videogame. there wouuldn't be any backfire over a columbine themed movie,book,tv special ETC.


Either way though,i think that you should have avoided calling it"Super Columbine massacre". because that just begs to be pounced on by pols.

First post in a long while for me here on GP but just had post as the subject of school shootings is a personal interest of mine. Also the video game/violent media scapegoat still always manages to seriously annoy me.

People should start listening to real experts and not the likes of Dave Grossman and Jack Thompson (sorry I am soiling this comments section just mentioning their names), these people just distract attention from the real causes and also worryingly use their so called expertise to try to lesser these killers sentences.

In the mean time real experts like Helen Smith are being overshadowed by these scaremongers. Dr. Helen Smith is a forensic psychologist in Knoxville, Tennessee. She has evaluated over five thousand mentally-disturbed children and adults, and has become an expert on kids who kill. She did a national survey of violent and nonviolent kids, which means she had the opportunity to hear what kids themselves had to say.

Smith objects to the way many experts blame violent television, video games or some rock group's edgy lyrics for school killings. Those experts, she contends, are not listening to the kids. She believes that violence comes from the accumulation of many distorted thoughts and stresses that finally send a child over the edge. In short, it's the way he or she processes what they see, hear, and experience. Kids who use violence to solve a problem have already had a number of violent thoughts. They perceive their environment and their situation in such a way that violence seems the best mode of action. That is, children who kill are predisposed to kill. They don’t just snap. They have a restricted view of other people’s rights and they feel they must bring their situation to some dramatic conclusion.

While school nerds who were bullied once chose the course of suicide as the way out, she notes, now they see another way to take action and get attention: strike out. Using guns and being violent toward others moves them from powerlessness to power, from nobodies to media celebrities.

Obviously the media are going to go with what sells and unfortunately this means that they are always going to go with the hype and exaggerating. However think about it, naming a killer "The GTA Killer" is just giving this individual additional status and therefore only adding to the problem.

I appreciate the fact that there are people in the field of psychology who don't run to video games as the reason for this events. We need more of them and they need more airtime.

With regard to the title of my game, I'd like to quote a recent article by Aaron Ruby (which really "got it right" in my view):

"'Super Columbine’s' shock tactics were part of a campaign to offend precisely those people Ledonne could care less about. People exactly like Parents Television Council president, L. Brent Bozell. The effect was not unlike that sought by Sex Pistols guitarist and singer Steve Jones when he famously called interviewer Bill Grundy “a dirty old man" on London ITV. It’s a way of saying, “Fuck you. You don’t know me, you don’t understand my culture, and I’m not going to be bothered to explain it to you.” And the rejoinder couldn’t be truer in Ledonne’s case."

The full article is available here:
http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3825&I...


The title "Super Columbine Massacre RPG!" is actually intended to 1) cement the game with others of the era such as "Super Mario RPG" and 2) lampoon the media's perception of video gaming. In some sense, every time a journalist says the title in full ("Super Columbine Massacre RPG") the satire of the game hits its mark (even of most journalists don't realize it).

Maybe some people are angry at SCMRPG for reasons other than the simple fact that it's a video game. Maybe they're shocked that 200,000+ downloads of the game have occurred or that it would be made at all (thanks to software like RPG Maker and the 'Net). Some people really like the idea of a centralized, controlled flow of information (with various censors, ratings boards, and other stop-gaps in place for controversial material). More than a video game, I think for some SCMRPG represents how you can send a message outside the mainstream canons of discourse. If you're sympathetic with the established order, that's downright scary.

To LeDonne

I saw you on Fox News right after the Montreal shooting and was disgusted how you were treated on there. I commend you for how you stayed on point and got your message out even though it was an obvious witch hunt. I like and understand what you are saying and doing with SCMRPG.

First off, I'll note that I was in my Senior year of HS in Boulder, CO (relatively close to Littleton and Columbine HS) when the shootings occured, which was a rather surreal experience for me. I was lucky in that I was two degrees removed from any loss (Neither I nor my friends lost anyone, but some of -their- friends did), but the event had a profound impact on the school culture and on the behaviour of cops in the area. A local club that had an all-ages Goth Night shut down within a month or two and re-opened several years later in Denver with it's Goth nights and events restricted to 21-and-up, and if you were a social misfit and/or dressed in black (not necessarily goth or punk clothes, mind you, just all-dark clothing on a regular basis) you were singled out for close surveillance by teachers in school and by cops on the street. It was the only time in my life that I've been tailed by a police cruiser for five blocks just for walking down the street (a skinny, awkward teenager wearing glasses, a black shirt and black jeans. -Scary- stuff.). The point I'm getting at with this little anecdote is that the response is almost always misdirected.

As for the utterly asinine statement "We seem no closer to understanding what motivates Columbine killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold", I can only suggest that anyone who doesn't understand simply hasn't bothered to do their homework. I'm not suggesting they read all 11,000 or so pages of documentation on the shooting here:

http://www.boulderdailycamera.com/shooting/report.html

But there have been dozens and dozens of newspaper and magazine articles and even journal pieces on the incident. Just to pick one off the top of my head, how about this one? Oh, it even has a good title:

"The Depressive and the Psychopath: At last we know why the Columbine killers did it." http://www.slate.com/id/2099203/

I recommend that everyone read it, and visit the columbine section of the Author's blog (http://davecullen.com/columbine.htm) for further information since he has literally hundreds of pages of background research on the subject. To summarize, based on the FBI investigation and the conclusion of their psychologists and psychiatrists, these kids were not normal kids pushed to the edge by social ostracism and peer violence and abuse. Both had tight circles of friends and partied on weekends and holidays with larger groups from school. They both had criminal records, too, for various offenses, and finally they were both damaged or simply broken personalities. Harris was a classic psychopath, somewhat unusual only in that he had better self-control than most, and was the dominant driving force behind the shooting. Klebold on the other hand was a depressive, who latched onto Harris in a rather one-sided and manipulative relationship. Counseling, intervention, and concern from authority figures -might- have helped Klebold if it had come before he cemented his bonds with Harris. But Eric Harris was simply a tragedy waiting for a time and place to happen. Psychopaths are untreatable, incurable, or as I said before just plain "broken". Unless and until our control over the mind advances far beyond it's current state our only options are killing them or locking them away for the rest of their lives. A closing note on the subject of these killers, I'd put down $20-30 on a bet that the police investigation will show that Kimveer Gill has shown violent tendencies, signs of mental illness, and/or a criminal record.

The criminal record part gets back to a point about gun control laws. I won't retread the points made about how ineffective they are beyond the simple observation that criminals are, by definition, individuals who don't obey laws. Harris and Klebold broke (I counted) over a dozen different Local, State, and Federal gun laws by the time they'd stepped onto school property that day (counting purchase of the guns and ammo, modification of guns, carrying them, carrying them onto school property, etc), before a single shot was fired. I don't think making it a baker's dozen would have made a difference. For those who advocate repealing the second amendment or the intellectually dishonest position that "the founding fathers never meant the second amendment to apply to individuals", I'll happily argue the point with you in a forum where it's not off-topic ;)

In short, not only are the various forms of entertainment media not responsible, in many of these cases (and definately in the case of columbine) bullying and social abuse are not responsible either. I'm not condoning them (hell, I had -rocks- thrown at me back in middle and high school, among many other wonderful growing experiences), but people keep missing a relatively simple truth: A small number of human beings are fundamentally damaged, and those individuals will inevitably go out and end or ruin other people's lives. We can -try- to pinpoint those individuals and help them (if possible) or incarcerate them (if not) before they hurt people, but even then we won't always be successful. As long as there are humans, in other words, there will be both criminals and the subset of criminals who kill without compunction or hesitation.

@illspirit

You have several good points, although I would -prefer- uniformed and armed police officers (such as the liasons that are already at several schools. I know back in the 90s my HS had one uniformed officer who always had her duty sidearm) over either teachers or armed guards. First, police officers are not simply trained to "eliminate the threat", but to preserve their life and the lives of civilians at risk. Police ROE in the US always includes standards for escalation of force. As a soldier on guard duty I learned a simpler version "Shout, Shove, Show, Shoot" (that is: Verbal warning, Physical force/pepper spray/etc, Presentation of the weapon + another verbal warning, fire), but their training on the subject is more thorough and places a stronger emphasis on not firing without need (if only because the paperwork is a real pain and because they risk quite a lot in terms of personal and professional reputation). Most police officers also have specialized training AND real-world experience talking down potentially dangerous suspects, and so I think your assertion that teachers would be better in that respect is also misplaced. Also, civilians with PTCs have to have -safety- training, NOT marksmanship training, whereas police officers have to maintain at least a moderate level of skill with their weapon.

Second, teachers, even ones psychologically prepared to carry a deadly weapon, are probably not prepared to deploy it properly in a life-or-death situation. If anything civilian gun owners are sometimes -too- "good", as anecdotes like this show: http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/story/5363616p-4853200c.html

A final and more general point. As far as the preservation of life goes, your priorities are a bit skewed. The emphasis is on preventing the subject from hurting innocent bystanders. If that subject has a gun in hand you do not wait to see if they're bluffing about shooting someone. If their weapon gets pointed at -you-, or at a hostage or bystander it is your responsibility to drop them. If they live, that's a bonus, but you don't wait to see if they're bluffing (because if they're not, it's too late) and you don't shoot to wound in an attempt to take them alive because you will be much more likely to miss or to wound them only slightly, allowing them to finish their action (killing or wounding you or an innocent). In fact, a missed shot in a crowded scenario (such as the cafeteria or library in Columbine HS) makes it likely that YOU will be the one wounding or killing a bystander.

The armed guard scenario would have to be handled very, very carefully too. Even if the intended message is "we have stationed people here to keep you safe," it would be all too easy for it to come across as "step out of line and we'll gun you down like a dog."

Look at the outright paranoia directed at people who wore black, wore trenchcoats, were geeky, or any combination thereof in the wake of Columbine. They were treated like time bombs, and the presence of guards would just convey a message: "we have armed guards to protect the normal kids from the freaks like you."

Illspirit, any cop that draws down on a subject without seeing some indication that they have a weapon in-hand or are going for one isn't behaving properly, and there's no reason to assume that a teacher without a police officer's training in handling armed suspects will handle the situation any better. The scenario you posit (A prankster yelling out "OMG He's got a Gun!!" or someone coming to the cop saying that so and so has made threats) is unrealistic because A) A police officer is not going to respond without thinking to the claim "so and so has a gun". They're going to take a few seconds to at least ask a -few- questions of the prankster. In other words, they're going to be using their heads, so when B) they see that no one else in the hall seems to have reacted to the student who may be armed, at worst they still don't have the weapon in hand, meaning the emphasis would be on getting close enough to get a look and to engage/disarm if needed. You don't go after someone who -might- be armed in a crowded area trying shouting and with gun drawn because if they -are- armed and primed to start shooting, the odds are you're going to precipitate them attacking you or attacking the people around, and this is doubly true for liason officers at schools who walk around regularly and so could get close to a suspect or at least close enough to make an assessment without alarming them unduly.

You frame it as a choice between someone prone to shoot too quickly and someone who isn't. I don't think that's an accurate portrayal for the reasons I've already stated, but soemthing that people, you included, miss is that in the math of a shoot/no-shoot decision when the wrong choices are to wrongfully kill someone who's unarmed, or to be too slow and get -yourself- and/or multiple other innocents hurt or killed, it's actually better to shoot than not to. The article you cited doesn't really comment on the issue of shoot/no-shoot decisions since the only school incident it references refers to a man who had already produced a weapon and started firing before anyone (civilian or law enforcement officer) had responded. As I said before, I agree with you on arming and more importantly on -training- teachers, but not only are they "not a total replacement" for police officers (and again I'm thinking in terms of 1-4 liason officers who, again, should be trained and experienced working with teachers and students and known to the school population) They're not -any- kind of replacement. The answer for any "bad shooting" scenario is almost always the same "better training, and more of it". Replacing police with civilians generally replaces more training with -less- training, and that's not going to improve matters.

A final note: You don't shoot people in the head unless you're a police sniper or (if the police are following israeli doctrine) the threat is of a suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest or belt that might go off if shot. You aim center-mass because it's the largest target and because even if you miss the heard and lungs the chances of an incapacitating wound are much higher.

Its the same old victomology B.S. that has been popular for the past 15 years. No one is responsible for their own actions, everyone is a victim. Its actually society's fault that someone became a muigger. Its the failure of the education system that someone became a school bully. Its a video games's fault that someone shot up a school. Etc., etc.

And its all a load of crap.

The loser in Montreal admitted on his blog that he was doing it for attention. He wanted to be remembered. He wanted media time devoted to the glory that was him (at least in his mind). This was his way to get 'the respet he deserved'.

And this was why he killed himself when wounded by the police. A loser dragged away in cuffs, declared insane and locked up in a funny farm is just pathetic, a source of scorn. But the corpse of a mass murderer is memorable. Otr at least he seemed to think so.

Its always the same sort of thing "I'll show them! They'll remember the name of John Smith!"

But in reality he was just another pathetic dweeb who lived in his mother's basement, made excuses for bullies in his blog, decided he was so much smarter than everyone else, and thought the best way to be remembered was as a killer.

Blame the man with the gun, not some silly game. Its past time people started taking responsibility for themselves again, and past time we stopped making excuses for bad behaviour.

I agree with Yukimura, all schools have mean sadisitic little bratty kids that just want to go out of their way to make one kid's life hell. Now i was one of those kids that got that kind of treatment, and it sucked, but heres the thing.

When the kid is getting picked on, he goes and tells the one kid to stop, and it makes the weaker kid look more weaker and thus, more torment. Next he goes and tells a teacher, teachers says to bully kid to stop, and thus in turns is more torment for the weaker kid. So weaker kid goes to his parents, and his parents go and tell the school, school officials sit down with bully kid, and after all that to get bully kid to stop, weaker kid gets WORSE torment. So weaker kid fights back by lashing out, be it smoking, not going to school, drugs/alcohol, and the best of all video games.

I chose video games to get away from everything and it helped (i played RPGs a bunch). But the thing is, some kids are tormented so badly that the weaker kid wants nothing more than to end it all, so guess what, people get shot. (To clear up things, i put down 'weaker' kid cause its mainly a big so-called popular football like kid beating up on people littler than him)

But pretty much, highschool is the worst. Highschool is a glorified popularity contest, if your not popular or not on the football team, your nothing to people and they hate you, and your deemed outsider if you don't wear the same things, don't party with them, or don't listen to the same music or do the same activities. Thus, people are dying cause they don't think of the consequences of their actions.

What should be done is stricter actions for bullying, not go out and say GTA did it if GTA isn't around. Some people i know don't like GTA, just cause they can't get into it (i like it very much cause of the good story line and blowing up a ton of cars with a tank) We should ban Bully, we shouldn't ban violent video games, we need to teach these young adults to show that tormenting people cause their different might get them killed if they push the wrong buttons.

Actually Brer, your claim that "any cop that draws down on a subject without seeing some indication that they have a weapon in-hand or are going for one isn’t behaving properly" is wrong. There are plenty of instances where an officer must have their gun drawn, as illspirit said. Police officers don't draw their weapons simply because they like to. If you see an officer with their weapon drawn, it is because there is some sort of mitigating factor that might alert them to a possible danger to officer safety. And that can happen in any call, from something like a traffic stop, to an automatic alarm sounding, to your more obvious reasonings like shootings.

@illspirit

Your point about approaching with sidearm at low-ready is well-taken, although you must admit that there's still a world of difference between low ready and the weapon up and aimed while shouting for compliance. Also, there are still many cases (such as the case of Amadou Diallo that you mentioned) where police -will- approach a potentially armed suspect without weapons drawn. As for your personal anecdotes:

The first one cited at the OFCC is not a police procedure problem. The problem was and is an inconsistency in carry laws, which is a very -real- problem in America, but is not relevant to this discussion of police decision-making and procedure with respect to armed officers in schools. First because as I said what happened there wasn't a procedural problem, and second because there is no confusion as far as schools are concerned because of the asinine Gun-Free School Zones Act. It may be asinine, but its coverage is nationwide, and amending it to allow teachers to carry concealed is not going to create the patchwork of standards that created the Ohio incident.

As for your personal incident, no one was shot and the worst you can say about the police response is that their response seems like a waste of personnel, and -that- depends on the exact nature of Loud-Stereo-Guy's bogus call.

Finally, Amadou Diallo turned and ran when an officer in plain clothes (backed by 3 others) presented his shield and identified himself as NYPD. He stuck his hand in his pocket and turned back towards the officers, who were approaching him in the first place because he looked like a serial rapist who was known to be in the area and thought to be armed. He was shot 19 times (out of 41 rounds fired which is, I'll admit, alarmingly poor marksmanship, especially since it was only the last few that scored something like fatal injuries) because, as I'm sure I don't need to tell you, when you're presented with a threat and you -make- the decision to shoot you keep shooting until the threat is down. He didn't drop until two of the last 9mm rounds hit his spine (again, I'm sure you're aware of the classic case studies of people taking multiple small to mid-caliber pistol rounds and remaining standing and even combat-effective. The NYPD had decided to issue +P hollowpoints shortly before the shooting happened, but the Street Crime Unit hadn't gotten their allotment yet. If they had I -suspect- fewer rounds would have been fired, although that is only my suspicion, not something that could ever be proved.) After both a criminal trial and a Justice Dept. investigation, all four officers were acquitted of all charges. The jury verdict in the criminal trial was -unanimous-. In short, the cops -didn't- make a mistake. Diallo did.

I understand your point that incidents like the shooting of Amadou Diallo create mistrust of the police. That's certainly true in some cases, but you're better off educating people on the realities of the situation than pandering to their misplaced sense of outrage. There are bad cops, certainly (The Ramparts division CRASH unit of the LAPD springs to mind) , but that is not sufficient rationale for people to react with automatic distrust or contempt for police officers. I'm not suggesting that "Deputy Dan is Your Friend" and that we should cooperate unthinkingly with authority figures. Certainly not. But there's no reason to react strongly to an individual officer one way or the other before assessing the situation, and if people fail to do that it's -their- failing.

@jdmdsp911

You say "some mitigating factor that alerts them to possible danger" and I say "some indication of a weapon". Frankly I don't see that your statement is very different than mine, unless you're suggesting that there are plenty of situations where an suspect thought to be -unarmed- warrants an armed response. "Some indication of a weapon" doesn't just mean a gun, and doesn't just mean a bulge under a coat or a visual ID of the weapon. Perhaps I didn't make that clear enough, and I probably should have said "perceived" rather than "seen" (although that's rather awkward). Also I haven't given any specific scenarios aside from the civilian gun-owner who choked in Tacoma and got shot as a result. The shooting incident you mention was in the article Illspirit mentioned and as I said, isn't a good anecdote one way or the other because the threat was very unambiguous.

Aside from this quibbling, though, I -think- we seem to agree on the general points, to whit:

-The Gun-Free School Zones Act, if not repealed outright, should be amended to allow teachers to carry a concealed firearm (I'm not so sure about storage outside something at least as secure as one of those glove box gun safes. Kids will be kids, after all. I'd also want a minimum marksmanship standard).

-A modest number of Liason officers (I'd say just one in all but the largest schools or those with particularly bad violence problems), who should be screened for their ability to interact with high schoolers and young adults in general.

-To expand on your police state comments, the LOs should not be used for intimidation or enforcement by teachers in everyday disciplinary issues. They should only become involved in incidents inside the school if they become violent, dangerous, or distinctly criminal (that is, the student is breaking laws, not just school policy). They should otherwise be encouraged to engage with the students, -perhaps- (if it doesn't conflict with other duties) taking on some limited teaching duties to foster ties with the student body (as in a class now and then in PE, health, or sociology on a law or law-enforcement-related topic). Finally, LOs would be expected to maintain high standards for personal grooming, wear and appearance of the uniform, and close-quarters pistol marksmanship. (Duty rotation is an issue here. One year seems like the max that would be practical given the need to maintain other policing skills, especially for those officers wanting to make the transition to detective).

How could video games be responsible for the violence, when there are a multitude of other causes? Maybe video games could act as a catalyst, but I understand not how they could be the primary blamable agent.

Why is it that commenters on this page are referring to these mentally disturbed people by saying that they are "dweebs in basements" who should be "killed or locked up for life"? Won't that further their social isolation, by belittling, demeaning and ostracising them? Won't that make them want to commit violent acts with urgency, given that they will increasingly see other people as being opposed to them? How will these potentially violent people, already aggravated, react to social commentary that they should be executed or otherwise deprived of free status? If they think they're going to be executed, wouldn't they put into action the Plan B, where they still die, but in a more heroic or successful manner from their violent perspective?

@illspirit

As for firearm safety...frankly I think that firearms safety -and- marksmanship standards aren't nearly as high as they should be in the law enforcement -and- military communities (I was a member of the latter for several years, and have friends and family in the former.). Part of the marksmanship issue is the cost of ammo and range time and I suspect that's even worse for some police precincts, but at the same time one would hope that the officers are spending some of their own time boning up on civilian ranges with their duty side-arms. Many don't, and frankly they shouldn't have to rely on spending off-duty time and personal money just to maintain their basic skillset. As for safety violations (fingers inside the trigger guard, muzzle sweep, etc) there's just no excuse. None. When we deployed to Iraq, a brigade of over 4,000 soldiers went the year with only about half a dozen negligent discharges because one of the first policies to be instituted was that -any- discharge outside of a range or combat was an automatic field-grade Article, and -any- damage or injury would result in a court-martial when we redeployed.

I can't claim to know Diallo's motivations for running. Perhaps mistrust of the police, perhaps his legal status as a Guinean visiting the US was shaky or he had some other reason to fear the police, and perhaps he just didn't know enough -about- American cops. But at the end of the day that really doesn't matter as far as police behaviour and procedure is concerned. Ditto for kids, who should've gotten the basic lessons of how to interact with the police from their parents when they were elementary-school age.

As for the education of kids in school re: guns, law, and similar issues: personally I always liked the idea of some sort of basic firearms familiarization and safety course as part of a PE curriculum in the last two years or so of High School. Firearms familiarization teaches valuable lessons that go beyond simply handling a gun, and as you mentioned there's an advantage to removing their mystique (although I seriously question the fitness of any parent that has a gun or guns in the home without having taken their kids out and educated them as to proper respect and safety as soon as possible.). Of course, I can just -Imagine- the public ZOMG T3h sK00lz t3AcHNG K1dZ 2 Ki11 !!11!!!1
reaction. ;) And MAN did we get off-topic....

@illspirit

I know a lot of cops enjoy shooting and do it on their free time, but I don't like -assuming- it balances out, and I don't like depending on the individual tastes of officers to ensure their competence. I'm sure the standards vary by department but IMO they should re-qual at least twice a year and preferably quarterly or monthly if possible. On the issue of Army marksmanship (I can't comment on any other branch), there's no way to practice on your own time, at least not with your assigned weapon. You could save up your money and buy a CAR-15 (assuming you're in a unit with M-4s, like mine), but when I've handled a civilian CAR-15 it always felt different than my M-4. Heavier, for one thing, which is good for accuracy in the prone or firing from a supported position. In any case your assigned weapon is kept locked up in the unit armory and no commander in the Army is going to sign off on the armorer signing a M-4 out to you to take shooting at a civilian range (and it would pretty much have to be a civilian range, even if it's one of the "personal" ranges on post. The normal rifle and pistol ranges are reserved for units getting their training in). So while someone with a CAR or AR-15 might be able to work on basic skills (picking up a consistent sight picture off iron sights, for example, the bane of my existence...and why I'd fall down on my knees and -worship- the whoever invented the red-dot sight.) and maybe movement drills, but I'm not sure how much would carry over.

As for video games and hollywood, yep. Anyone who thinks someone with no firearms experience can pick up a pistol and just "point and shoot" people five or ten meters away has obviously never tried to use one. Still, I don't think that's where killers get things in their heads, and the ones that are usually quite accurate are either firing at near point-blank range (Columbine or the recent shooting in Pennsylvania) or have prior experience with weapons (for the kids, most often its experience with hunting rifles, although there are guys like the two perps from the infamous Miami FBI Shootout who had extensive practice in the military). Frankly, I WISH all the potential violent offenders out there only had access to video games as a "training" tool. It would make us all safer ;)

Can those who keep saying "those cities which have the most prohibitive gun laws have the most violence" show me some REAL statistics and evidence, because I can't find anything to validate your claims...


I'm all for rising up against oppressive governments, but until you actually DO, I think your arguements are fallicous.

You say the 4th Amendment is meant to protect you against an unjust government, but lets look at the American government over the last 50 years... How corrupt and malicious has your government been?

I mean, GW Bush wasn't even properly elected!

So, when successive governments have been successively eroding the freedoms of American citizen, when the government constantly puts profit before the welfare of the people, where governments, either republican or democrat continually lie to it's population, and you as a nation haven't risen up, then explain to me WHY you need to bare arms?

@Brer

Only 2 -4 times a year? Is there more range time in basic to get everybody up to speed and qualified? Well, either way, that's more than most LEOs pratcice.

And, wow, I couldn't even imagine flinging two bucks downrange with every trigger pull. Though it's probably not as painful as buying .50BMG in 20 round boxes on the civilian market.


@Funky J

Umm, who said anything about cities being safer? We're talking about schools here. And you want evidence for that? Open your eyes. Since the "Gun Free School Zone Act" (and laws mirroring it at the state level) popped up, school shootings have, well, that's when they happened, and have grown steadily. Meanwhile, Israel did the exact opposite, and terrorists stopped attacking their schools and began choosing other targets.

But if you really want to bring cities into this, Washington DC banned guns 30 years ago, and the murder rate there has gone off the meter. In 2005, they came in number one with 35.4 homicides per 100K people. In the same 30 years (and less), the number of right-to-carry states has jumped to 38. Each time a state jumped on board, their crime rates dropped. This doesn't definitely mean that "more guns = less crime," but it sure as hell disproved the anti-gunners' dire predictions of the "streets running red with blood." And of all the hundreds of thousands of permit holders, only something like 0.02% of them have commited a crime worthy of having their permit revoked.

I honestly don't care much for stats either way though. Dangerous freedom is much better than peaceful slavery. But if you want to play with numbers, here's the most recent FBI crime stats: http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/offenses/violent_crime/murder_homicide.htm...

And while playing with numbers, see if you can find some algebra to explain why firearm deaths in the UK have nearly doubled and continue to increase since the '97 gun ban. Or why knife wielding or even unarmed thugs have become so emboldened that the assault, rape, and burglary rates have increased almost exponentially since then. ;)

As for revolution, well, in case you forgot, that's kinda how we got this country to begin with and stuff. And that's just the most famous case of armed resistance. After that, there was also my hero, John Brown, who led an armed abolitionist insurrection. That whole nasty Civil War thing. Civil rights leader, Robert F. Williams who stood up with arms against racist oppression (without even shooting anyone), and whose contribution to civil rights is pretty much swept under the rug since guns just aren't PC. And many other mini-rebellions.

Why don't we "rise up" now? Well, regardless of how we look in sensationalist TV news reports (or in Presidential statements..), we're not a pack of bloodthirsty animals. So long as there are civil means of discourse, then we shall try to make it work. Besides, with the level of incompetency in government, and the rate at which power changes hands between the parties, they never really make much progress towards a proper police state. Even Dubya's scary sounding domestic spying program is nothing new. Every POTUS for the last 60 years has tried something similar for the boogeyman de jour of the day, it's just usually they don't get caught until after the fact; if at all. And each time the office changes hands, the whole cycle starts over again.

At any rate, you're forgetting two of the most important reasons why we bare arms. Defense of self, family, and property (from criminals and animals), and the defense of the country. Statistics show guns are used defensively between 1 and 2.5 million times a year, depending on who you ask. This is like 30-60 times more often than guns are used in crimes, and often without firing a single shot. As for defense of the state, well, a Japanese admiral said it best in WWII when he noted that invading the mainland would be fooilish because there was 'a rifle behind every blade of grass.' Which, by the way, is pretty much the reason everyone stayed the hell off of Switzerland's lawn during both World Wars.

So, yea, Molon Labe! ^_^

Thanks Illspirt, that was the kind of thing I was looking for...

Statistics AND evidence I said - it's the only way to gain proper understanding.

Of course stats can be skewed, but many people have made claims here that are totally unwarranted both in this discussion and others of GP.

All I ask is people provide back up for their statements.

I disagree with your comment about the right to bare arms for defence though - no where in the constitution does it say the right to bare arms is for defence. It implies that the only reason to bare arms is to form a Militia.

If the right to bare arms is discussed elsewhere in American Constitution then forgive me, I'm not American and not really interested in 400 year old bits of paper. :D

@Brer

Ah, yes, two weeks of daily rifle training sounds nice. I wish I had the money to buy an AR and all that ammo (plus a place to shoot it) to do the same. :x


@Funky J

You're quite welcome. And, yes, statistics can be prodded to say almost anything, because they don't tell the whole story. Some places with total civilian gun bans are peaceful, like, say, Japan. Then there are places like Mexico with more firearm murders per capita than the US even though they've got some of the strictest gun control in the world. At the opposite end you have Switzerland with more gun owners per capita than the US (most of which have govt. issue machine guns) with less murder than the US. As such, blaming guns or games is myopic, to say the least. (here's some world murder stats)

To add to what Brer said, Article I of the Constitution explicitly states that the militia is a key part of national defense, and also sets limits on the power of the legislative and executive branch on the creation of a standing army. It would seem the Founding Fathers weren't too fond of the idea of large, professional armies not under direct control of the people. The Second Amendment was then added to ensure that the citizen militia would have arms to bare in case they needed to be rallied for defense.

Various sections of US Code further define the difference between armies, militias and such. At the first level, you have the general militia comprised of every able-bodied male between 18 and 45. Next is what's sometimes called the "select militia," which are more formal, volunteer militias under command of the Governor of each state (they became the National Guard in 1903). And, last but not least, are the professional Army/Marines/Air Force/Navy under command of the President.

As for not caring about a 200 year old bit of paper, well, allow me to direct your attention to WWII. After the first WW, lots of European countries began disarming the people beacuse they thought it was the "war to end all wars." When Hitler began taking over the continent, Britain started running ads in the US pleading for people to send/sell them arms. In response, the NRA received thousands of rifles from its members, and shipped them across the pond for free. So without our 'old bit of paper' which allowed those rifles, the Nazis might have very well marched on London...