Santa Barbara Town in Shock After Mass Shooting

[yuiyoshida]

[Spitfire of ATJ]

1. Imagine if this happened in Santa Ana.

[MrMickeysMom]

2. Would somebody please tell me what kind of mental illness this is?

Just checking… I mean we don't intend to do anything to use caution when people like this get ahold of guns.

It appears to have been a mistake in raising this boy. He's someone's son, but pathologic. Was there any reaching out to the mental health system, just in case it was organic. Or, did his parent(s) just forget to instill any seed of self-worth?

It does not appear nothing to have anything to do with the kind of mental anguish that produces desperation from no job and no money. He just wasn't getting any respect, am I correct?

Was it bullying? Does it matter who you are when you're bullied?

[bossy22]

3. Sociopath/psychopath

Almost in its truest definition

This may have not been something "we did" or "didn't do" for this guy. For lack of a better term he might have been "born this way".

In the whole nature vs nurture argument i believe that a little of both played a role.

I don't think any amount of "help" short of institutionalization would have done anything. Some people can't be cured, some people can't be made "better".

[They_Live]

4. True, and sometimes there is no motive for actions,

or even if you know the motive, it doesn't really make sense to anyone else. I feel like our insular electronic social network culture has something to do with this UCSB case. Many poeple don't know how to have a normal conversation with another human being anymore, everything is self promotional blogs and facebook and so on. I have an in-law whose adult son will not even talk to her on the phone anymore, he says, "If you want to know what's happening with me you can just check my facebook."

[MrMickeysMom]

5. Well,then, THAT being the case...

How obvious should it be that the legislative branch get off their DEAD ass and pass the most stringent gun ownership regulation. Make the price tag pretty hefty and the wait time long enough.

Then compare the data. This shit, I agree HAS to stop, starting with congress.

[AtheistCrusader]

6. That might have saved 3 of the 6 dead.

He stabbed 3 of them to death.

Also injured 4 by running into them with his car.

[MrMickeysMom]

7. Say that again….

This time, listen to the words… "That might have saved 3 …"

If that's supposed to be an argument of yours for disagreeing if guns should be regulated in this country, I'd say it falls down and goes "boom". How many of those children were gunned down in that school… Um… what was the name of that school again?

There's not a FUCKING thing you said that wasn't true, BTW. Except, you never mentioned a proper procedure for gun ownership and it's flagging someone like the family of a would be gun owner. We have the thinnest of processes to acquire weapons. At least an intervention would have had a fairer chance of happening instead of the father preparing a press statement. He rather swiftly let the public know there was trouble with this kid to begin with, based on what he said. We needed a process that emphasized more about who should not acquire a gun than the person selling the gun.

[AtheistCrusader]

8. Guns are highly regulated. Moreso in California than most places in the US.

I don't disagree they should be regulated. I quite like keeping guns out of certain persons' hands. I would, in fact, add a few, even to California's higher-than-average set of laws.

That wasn't meant as a full-stop 'no regulation' objection.

I'm just saying, mileage may vary.

In fact, given what we know now, I don't see (yet, more facts will be forthcoming) a specific law that would have prevented this.


But again, we don't know everything about this attack yet.

[MrMickeysMom]

9. I'm sure there will be more discussion about this...

As I understand it, mileage may vary, but statistically, we are horribly under-regulated.

I'd like to compare the United States with, say, Canada, where someone said earlier that there are more guns per households.. now the caveat was -

1) why type

2) what must persons do to own that type.

I still disagree with what you've said about the US and gun control.

[Wgles]

11. The guns empowered him to stab

I feel like people who bring up the "he stabbed three people" didn't read his manifesto and other writings or listen to his videos. He made it very clear that the guns that he got made him feel powerful. He collected them over a year. He got the first one, the Glock, quite a while ago and once he did he said it made him feel invincible, and strong. Then he got two more and hatched a plan to kill people. The stabbing came later, almost seemed like an afterthought; he said he was going "to get them out of the way". Why he didn't shoot them, I don't know, but I don't think he would have felt strong enough or invincible enough to kill three men in his house if he didn't own the three guns and all the rounds. So I feel like the stabbings could have been prevented if he never got the guns. I feel like some sociopathic yet cowardly people get some sort of deranged high off the ownership of a gun, and feel like they can control others and take away their power.... Without the gun, my feeling is that he would not have had the guts to stab those guys.

[AtheistCrusader]

12. That is a possibility.

He specified that he would kill the first people quietly, so the knife makes sense in that context.

Exactly how he went about it is currently unknown, and whether he would have had the confidence to do it without a gun, will have to remain an unanswered question. I can see where you are coming from in assuming that.

[markpkessinger]

10. I'm going to go way out on a limb here . . . .

Last edited Wed May 28, 2014, 10:53 PM - Edit history (1)

. . . but I gotta say it. As a gay man, the kid sets off my gaydar. No, I don't have any evidence -- it's just a vibe I pick up watching his video, a kind of intuitive sense -- which means, of course, that I could be totally offbase. But here goes. . .

This strikes me as the kind of twisted thinking that can result when you take a young gay man who feels too much pressure (be it from his social circle, family, religious faith or some toxic mix of the three) to conform to a heterosexual norm, and thus cannot come to terms with the reality of his identity (that itself being a fertile field for all sorts of mental pathology), and mix it in with a young man who perhaps has some sociopathic tendencies already. Again, I'm certainly n9ot qualified to make such a diagnosis, and I could be totally off base, it's just the alarm bells that went off as I watched the video.