"When it comes to mass shootings, everyone wants to know if it can happen in their area...

[NRaleighLiberal]

...and the answer is yes"

Direct quote just heard on local news in reference to the DC shooting. Really - everyone? everywhere?

What the hell? What is the purpose of this sort of fear mongering on the local news? Station is WRAL in Raleigh, Jackie Hyland is the anchor. She read the words with breathless anxiety-producing urgency.

Wouldn't you know it - my wife is out of town for a week and this is the first time I've watched the local news in many months....just waiting for my dinner to heat up.

Now I know why....TV is back off....me and my dogs are heading out to the back deck.

[upaloopa]

1. I don't understand. It can happen everywhere

or it can't happen someplace?

[cleanhippie]

8. Anything CAN happen anywhere. But how likely it is to happen is something entirely different.

One has a better chance of winning the lottery than to be involved in a mass shooting.

[KharmaTrain]

17. Yet Another False Parallel...

...my daughter got far close to a massacre than she'll ever come to holding a winning lottery ticket. She was a student at Northern Illinois University when yet another "isolated incident" occured:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Illinois_University_shooting

?w=300

She had a class in that building and was just lucky enough that her class was earlier in the day or she could have been a statistic. She doesn't have a chance to win the lottery cause she doesn't buy tickets (she uses the money for such luxuries as food) but she sure came close up and personal to what a nut with a gun can do to innocent lives and the surrounding community...

[tridim]

2. It can and will happen everywhere unless we put a stop the madness now. nt

[cleanhippie]

7. How? How do you propose to stop "the madness"?

What is your realistic plan to stop it?

[maxsolomon]

24. i'll bite. make firearm purchases difficult.

but not impossible. make it difficult particularly for handguns. REDUCE the amount of madness.

require more thorough background checks, registration, long waiting periods, police interviews, psychiatric evaluations, require militia duties as part of ownership - you want a gun? march up and down for 2 days a year. prove to others you're not clinically insane.

try what they did in Australia.

try something, anything.

yes, every one of these suggestions is politically or legally impossible, because the 2nd amendment. amend it.

now, DU, shoot down every top-of-my-head general suggestion i made. GO!

[cleanhippie]

25. Right or wrong, none of that is going to happen.

The gun issue in this country is a non-starter. That's the reality of the situation. I'm not arguing against your ideas, they are simply not realistically attainable.

Again, what realistic ideas do you propose?

[maxsolomon]

27. no shit they're no-starters. there are no "realistic" ideas.

the debate is paralyzed, the laws are cemented in place by ideology and money. not to mention that archaic amendment and it's oblique language.

gun owners have decided that schizophrenics with high-powered firearms mowing down random strangers are an unavoidable, acceptable consequence of freedom. the freedom to theoretically protect oneself from schizophrenics with high-powered firearms.

[NYC_SKP]

3. "If it bleeds, it leads." They serve up fear more than any other single thing, it's their staple.

They've been doing it with terrorists since 911, and they'll do it with anything else they can get a hold of.

I don't remember it ever being so prevalent, but I think it's a phenomenon that's spread through out our culture's media.

Buy Gold, the economy is collapsing. End of the world prepping. Terrorists. Low testosterone.

Buy this to be healthy, buy that to be beautiful and popular. Maybe it's news PLUS consumerism and advertising.

Oh yeah. OBAMACARE!!! Fear!!!

I could go on but need to go buy duct tape and plastic tarp, just in case of.... I forget.

[NRaleighLiberal]

4. Agreed - you know, I think it is because I've hardly watched TV for 6 years that it is

shocking to watch a newscast and see the salivating fear being shoveled. I think the only way one could be impacted by it is to do what I did - stop watching - for a long time - then turn it back on. It is simply unbelievable - I actually think that every day of watching this thing drops the IQ significantly, and certainly raises anxiety and blood pressure. It literally made me sick.

anyway - learned my lesson - the TV is now returned to its best use - watching movies!

[NYC_SKP]

11. There's very little useful content anymore.

I wonder what happened to shows like James Burke's "Connections".

It's easy, on the other hand, to find faux reality shows about pawn shops, gators, and alien visitors, and these are the shows on the History Channel, Discovery, Science, and National Geographic, for pity's sake!

OTOH, there's good stuff on hulu and blockbuster.

I just watched Who Killed the Electric Car 2 this weekend!

Oh, and you'd like the documentary called "Botany of Desire".

I think. http://video.pbs.org/program/botany-of-desire/

[NRaleighLiberal]

12. saw it and loved it!

[ManiacJoe]

5. "Everyone" tends to ask the wrong question.

The only correct answer to "can it happen" is "yes". "Can it happen" is the equivalent of asking "are the odds of it happening greater than zero". Of course the odds are greater than zero. But that is the wrong question.

The right question is, "What are the odds?" or "Is it likely?". This is where you find useful information, like that it is an unlikely event.

[cleanhippie]

9. +1.

[Taitertots]

22. Did you really expect rational discourse from the corporate entertainment programs?

The number of people who have actually taken a statistics class (or studied independently) is frighteningly low. The number of people who would actually be able to understand useful information is fairly small.

[cleanhippie]

6. Only in the same way that winning the lottery can happen in your area.

That's a rhetorical "you".


A mass shooting is less likely to happen to you (rhetorical) than you (rhetorical) winning the next Powerball drawing.

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. Well, yes, but it has

Just three local examples

McDonnalds shooting in San Ysidro California...among the top massacres.

School shooting at Santa Anna HS in Santee

And SDSU shooting.

And those are the top getters. For my area this is not an idle question. Now, what do we do about it is the question? To me it is not fear mongering. The logical follow up, and here s where they fall short, what do we do about it? This is where media fails.

[pipi_k]

13. I live in a little

rural town of about 1300 or so.

It could even happen here, although I would qualify my opinion...


Is it possible? Yes.

Is it probable? Not so much, I would say

[Bay Boy]

14. It 'could' happen anywhere, but...

...it's not going to happen 'everywhere'.

[Marrah_G]

15. Actually yes... it can happen anywhere.

That doesn't mean it will happen everywhere, but no one can predict where or when. They need to stop these people before they get weapons.

[LanternWaste]

16. It is a valid statement. As to whether it feeds into the fears of any one person

It is a valid statement in and of itself, as it does not predicate itself on probability. As to whether it feeds into the fears of any one person-- mayhaps it does; just as stating that a lightning strike may happen anywhere will also feed into the fears of few, regardless of how improbable that may be. Yet I still listen to the weather reports when lightning storms are in the area, and don't hang out on the balcony when so informed.

[aikoaiko]

18. Realy? I've never heard anyone ask that question after a mass shooting.

[Eleanors38]

19. NewZ!! Brought to you by the Pf-f-f-f-f-t Corp.!

[TroglodyteScholar]

20. It can't happen here

It can't happen here
It can't happen here
I'm telling you, my dear
That it can't happen here
Because I been checkin' it out, baby
I checked it out a couple a times

fz

[NRaleighLiberal]

21. Very first Mothers of Invention song I ever heard....still love it!

[darkangel218]

23. When i was doing private security

I had bullets flying really close to me. I had no idea which direction they were coming from , all I could hear was the sound.

So I ducked.

Don't forget to duck.

[alc]

26. 0.0000001% chance it will happen to you

It's a terrible tragedy when mass shootings happen. About 0.0000001% of the US population has been physically harmed by them in the last two years. If you live a 100 years, that's 0.00001% chance it will happen to you. Much smaller than the chances of many other things.

That's Aurora, Sandy Hook, Boston, Navy Yard. There have been many other "mass shootings" of a different nature - after divorces or firings, where the killer had a close relationship with one or more of the victims and had a specific target.

Not that the other "mass shootings" are any less tragic, but they are different when considering how much to worry and how laws will reduce mass shootings. Less access to guns is likely to stop the guy who just got fired from shooting up your office. But not as likely to stop the guy who spends months planning to kill a lot of people in a theater or at a marathon (they're likely choose a different method like a bomb or driving a truck into the lobby at high speed or do what it takes to get guns illegally)

[maxsolomon]

28. lie back and enjoy it, then?

reducing the FREQUENCY of mass shootings is a realistic goal, if gun owners can fathom that "with great power comes great responsibility".

right now, american gun culture exhibits the moral responsibility of caligula.