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I Sometimes Wonder.....

edited February 2023 in Off-Topic
If we lived in any other era in U.S. history when there's wasn't a mass shooting every week how this wouldn't be considered one of the greatest mysteries of all time: https://newsweek.com/las-vegas-shooting-three-unanswered-questions-5-years-tragedy-1748137 The Vegas shooter killed 58 people and to this day there is no known motive for the attack. Imagine if the same attack occurred fifty years ago. The attempt to understand the reason would be on par perhaps with understanding the details and the reasons for the Kennedy assassination. Now, it's just another shooting headline. Yet I still wonder why did it happen.

Comments

  • edited February 2023
    Just sickening. Good kids. Worked hard with the support of parents and teachers to make it to a great university. Might have changed the world for the better ….

    Hell, if those are alien UFOs trying to observe what’s going on down here we don’t need to shoot at them. One look and they’ll high-tail it back out of here.
  • edited February 2023
    More …

    The first one I remember as a teen:”The University of Texas tower shooting” (1966) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Texas_tower_shooting - They were rare in those days. It garnered much more attention and public outrage than what today’s incidents do.

    And from today’s WSJ: “We aren’t going to erect fortresses around our campuses,”said Kristen Roman, chief of police at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “It’s about finding that balance, what tools do we see as necessary, what tools do we see as reasonable, and what are the resources that campuses have to procure those and implement them.”Chief Roman said her team weighs the costs and benefits of having an open campus embedded in a community, and securing facilities appropriately. In addition to surveillance cameras, some universities use facial recognition technology, track students’movements with GPS software and monitor their messages on social media for warning signs of potential violent actions. Some use weapons detection systems at stadiums and have installed panic buttons in classrooms, and use acoustic sensors to detect the exact location of a gunshot …

    Just very sad.

    The proponents of “guns for everyone” overlook that a certain % of the population (any population actually) suffers from mental illness. And, obviously, in a free society not everyone can be evaluated in this regard. So unfortunately these episodes will go on … and on … And public places will in time become “less public” as barriers both symbolic and concrete are erected.
  • edited February 2023
    It also reminds me of Capote’s In Cold Blood, and what a sensation that story originally caused because the killing of one family seemed so random, and in that case it wasn’t completely random. The randomness is what makes it so unsettling—no motive. But in Vegas in 2017 this guy Paddock kills 58 random people in the space of a few minutes, it makes the headlines for a few weeks, and then it disappears from the media as we move on to the next random gun atrocity. And to this day, there still hasn’t been a declared motive for the attack. We’ve become inured to these random attacks, take them for granted as the price we pay for living in this country.

    There is also a bit of the conspiracy theorist in me that thinks the FBI knows the motive for the Vegas attack and for some reason isn’t disclosing it. That is unsettling in a different way.
  • edited February 2023
    I monitor social media sites of several right wing people I've know for 30 years; although we no longer associate with one another. They continue to discuss all things Trump, support the far right politicians in Michigan, gun rights, oppose red flag laws for gun ownership, open gun shows without proper background checks and the list goes on.....
    Several live within an hour drive from Michigan State; and may even know someone who has attended, although I'm not aware of any of their family members attending university anywhere.
    Not one mention of the events at MSU Monday evening in their posts.
    I/we know of several who were, in harms way, but escaped any confrontation. However, the parents were beyond worry until having phone contact.
    Also, that the greater East Lansing area, including all business and residential areas were within the targeted area of the main campus.
    I received notification of the event about 20 minutes after the start. I monitored Lansing police scanner channels until the 'end' of the shooter.
    DAMN !
  • edited February 2023
    ”There is also a bit of the conspiracy theorist in me that thinks the FBI knows the motive for the Vegas attack and for some reason isn’t disclosing it. That is unsettling in a different way.”

    As I recall, the perpetrator was an otherwise seemingly “normal” individual. A person of wealth.

    What is it about our society that puts us so far out “in front” of other countries in the amount of random carnage? I suspect it’s the very thing that made us great, individual liberties, along with the personal wealth necessary to purchase these weapons. And, oh, of course the 2nd Amendment as courts have interpreted it. But I wouldn’t argue if you said it runs much deeper.
  • edited February 2023
    hank said:

    The first one I remember as a teen:”The University of Texas tower shooting” (1966) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Texas_tower_shooting - They were rare in those days. It garnered much more attention and public outrage than what today’s incidents do.

    My alma mater, started there one year later. My (then future) brother-in-law was holed up in the architecture building across the walking mall from the library/tower during the shooting. @Hank, I see by your link that Kinky Friedman's little ditty "Rumor of a Tumor" was fact; hadn't known that for sure before -- altho the piece says it shouldn't have affected CW.
  • edited February 2023
    @AndtJ / Thanks for sharing. You motivated me to read the Wikipedia article I’d linked. Yikes. What a sad but intriguing look into the mind of this psycho. Material for Capote or Hitchcock.
  • hank said:

    More …

    The first one I remember as a teen:”The University of Texas tower shooting” (1966) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Texas_tower_shooting - They were rare in those days. It garnered much more attention and public outrage than what today’s incidents do.

    And from today’s WSJ: “We aren’t going to erect fortresses around our campuses,”said Kristen Roman, chief of police at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “It’s about finding that balance, what tools do we see as necessary, what tools do we see as reasonable, and what are the resources that campuses have to procure those and implement them.”Chief Roman said her team weighs the costs and benefits of having an open campus embedded in a community, and securing facilities appropriately. In addition to surveillance cameras, some universities use facial recognition technology, track students’movements with GPS software and monitor their messages on social media for warning signs of potential violent actions. Some use weapons detection systems at stadiums and have installed panic buttons in classrooms, and use acoustic sensors to detect the exact location of a gunshot …

    Just very sad.

    The proponents of “guns for everyone” overlook that a certain % of the population (any population actually) suffers from mental illness. And, obviously, in a free society not everyone can be evaluated in this regard. So unfortunately these episodes will go on … and on … And public places will in time become “less public” as barriers both symbolic and concrete are erected.

  • edited February 2023
    Friday night viewing (2/17)

    Off the Record, our excellent PBS state political discussion from MSU’s WKAR TV devoted their entire 30-minutes to the MSU mass shooting, weaving in nicely the Oxford Michigan school mass shooting from late 2021.

    However, PBS’s follow-up Friday night program, Washington Week in Review apparently found the story not worthy of mention. Plenty of discussion of Trump, balloons and Biden’s medical exam. But not a word regarding the assassination of a number of MSU students on campus while engaged in nothing more sinister than the act of learning. For shame.
  • edited February 2023
    @hank Thank you for the mention of this fine program. Sadly, I doubt the viewership is very large. The program should be mandatory viewing for all elected officials in Michigan. We watched tonight, too. What a blessing of a person for our state and the politics of the state over the years. Since Feb. 4, 1972....51 years of service. He'll be doing the program until he literally can not. He is another who has known many of the politicians over the many years and recalls so many details about them; and the machinations of the legislature. He also provides/manages a fairly balanced view with a variety of guests and the 4 or so panelists with him at the table.
    Refreshing that not every presentation of political information has to be evil; with yelling and screaming about the details, but a civil discussion.
    Thank you, Tim Skubick.
  • hank said:

    Friday night viewing (2/17)

    Off the Record, our excellent PBS state political discussion from MSU’s WKAR TV devoted their entire 30-minutes to the MSU mass shooting, weaving in nicely the Oxford Michigan school mass shooting from late 2021.

    However, PBS’s follow-up Friday night program, Washington Week in Review apparently found the story not worthy of mention. Plenty of discussion of Trump, balloons and Biden’s medical exam. But not a word regarding the assassination of a number of MSU students on campus while engaged in nothing more sinister than the act of learning. For shame.

    Perfectly stated.
  • Well, Washington Week in Review has always been primarily focused on the politics and happenings emanating from or mainly concerning Washington and the Federal Government. Not so much on more general or local stuff- that is typically covered by the PBS Newshour.


  • edited February 2023
    Old_Joe said:

    Well, Washington Week in Review has always been primarily focused on the politics and happenings emanating from or mainly concerning Washington and the Federal Government. Not so much on more general or local stuff- that is typically covered by the PBS Newshour.

    But gun violence is a national problem. ”No man is an island. Ask not for whom the bell tolls …”
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