Minn. Teen Goes on Rampage; Eight Killed in school

It is on the front page of the major Internet sites. It was the lead story on various National news networks. Folks are going to bring in the "reservation" aspect, but a reason it may not be getting as much TV coverage is the location. Red Lake is out in the boondocks, Columbine is essentially a suburb of Denver. It's easier to get a number of press vehicles to Denver than it is to Red Lake Minnesota.

 

is gun control the main reason to why its a big problem in the U.S?

there are a lot of third world countries where you could get guns easier than in the states!...so in my Opinion i don't think it can only be accessibility reasons.

the only reason i could think of is the attention given to television/movies ... too much violence shown at a young age... not enough restriction to information towards kids....

 

Good luck stopping an M-1 tank with your 12 gauge.

Unfortunately since the dawn of mechanized warfare the idea of personal fire arms being a check against a tyranical US government has become anachronistic.

 

Why do kids always panick and hide under benches? I mean, with two people (Columbine), it may have been different, but here, it is pretty simple. If you are in a room, some lunatic kid comes in and starts spraying gunfire, if you are in a position to take him out, do it. Surely there was some male (teacher, football player, etc.) who at some point in this incident was behind the shooter to enough of a degree that he should have tried something. Must be scary, but there is no way my ass is hiding behind a bench while some dude trys to come in a room to shoot me. Hide behind the door, take him out when he comes in.

 

While I think gun control is a factor I think its way too simplistic to say that access to guns is the only factor.

After Columnbine I thought long and hard about what I was like in highschool and was shocked that I had a lot of similarities in my attitudes to the perpetrators. I think in general teenage boys are more prone to violence than women or other male age groups. I think this explains why boys do things like engage in aggressive sportsl, become soldiers and fight with each other.

Also I think their are big problems with our culture and how adolescents are expected to grow into adults. In many ways our youth obsessed culture puts too much stress on being young and in highschool. Many teens get to feeling that their life is over if they are successful or popular while in highschool. Also as a society we have lost or diminished most of our institutions and rituals that provide direction for becoming an adult. We have both fetishized being a teenager while also undercutting support for shepherding teens into adulthood.

Another problem is that we've also fetishized violence and in most instances portray it on a juvenile level. This is partially a function that we live in a very safe society so violence becomes more attractive because even though we see it portrayed all the time in media its not something that we encounter in our real lives. Like sex the more its celebrated on one hand while denied on the other the more likely is it to be expressed in the worst ways.

Given these pressures and uncertainties I'm not surprised that angry confused teens turn to violence. As for solutions I don't have any. We can talk about returning our society to more rigid social mores but that would mean also sacrificing a lot of the freedoms that we take for granted now. Anyway with a free media and easy access to a broad range of information I don't think it would work.

The only solutions that I can see is one where teenagers, particularly boys, can be given outlets to express violence in a way where they also understand the consequences of it which would rule out video games. At the same time that teens learn to look much further and realize that there is far more to life beyond highschool.

 

I will take a hundred million people with guns against a few thousand tanks.

 

The Iraqi insurgents seem to be doing a good job with their improvised weapons vs. our M-1 tanks. A well armed society could easily play havic with an mechanized army provided the army cared about limiting casualties and limiting collateral damage.

Of course, if they (the mechanized army) didn't care they could just drop an atomic bomb. Game over.

 

It is their explosives and mortars more than their rifles. The mines IED's, mortar fire, and suicide bombings do way more damage than the rifles.

 

We have a hard time getting a 100 mil people to vote let alone put their lives on the line against tanks.

If you are concerned about government tyranny the far better route is to become politically active. Organize and most importantly fundraise for candidates and causes you support. If you want something more hands on with the prevalence of media non-violent civil disobedience is far more powerful than violent resistance and looks better than holing up in your compound exchanging fire with the Feds.

 

This is the most absurd statement I've heard in quite some time, thanks for the laugh. Interesting how the people advocating gun ownership rights seem to generally come across as huge idiots.

 

I dunno, there are some serious -legal- weapons that could do damage to, not M1's or Bradleys but just about everything else

i.e. The Ferret

the above would put a nice hole in an engine block from long range

but this is way off topic

 

I don't care how many paper targets the Michigan militias collectively collate, all the guns in the US didn't stop Alien/Sedition acts, Japanese-American internment camps, McCarthyism, some of the more far-reaching provisos of the Patriot Act.


Notice how the ubiquity of firearms among Iraq's citizenry did little to prevent Hussein's brand of tyranny. Kind of undermines that old saw.

 

Getting the thread somewhat back on track.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7292684/

 

I don't understand why there is so much questioning of the President's concern for Native Americans. This doesn't seem like a Native American issue so much as a school shooting issue. I doubt his response is different than if it were a white school. This president is not one that has had quick public remarks about things (anyone remember the tsunami?). I don't think that means he doesn't care, he just does things differently than some would like.

 

He sure had a quick response to the Shiavo case.

 

I think the Shiavo case has been ongoing for years, and the need for intervention was time sensitive. Expressing regret over what has already happened is different than trying to prevent something that is imminent.