20 children, 6 Adults dead in Connecticut elementary school shooting

AzaleaLightning said:

The common thing in most of these shootings though is always, "I never expected this, he always seemed okay, etc." from the shooter's friends/families/acquaintances. That aside, it's not as difficult to buy parts and build the gun yourself, borrow someone's, etc. As long as there are guns, there will be gun crimes. This person is murdering children and his parents, he won't give two hoots how hard it is to get a gun. He's going to get it if he wants, he has nothing to lose. The delay in acquiring a gun isn't going to give them time to just 'get over it' which isn't how mental disorders work, lol.

I still stand by my aforementioned statistic that if a civilian, or in this case a schoolteacher or security guard, were armed then this tragedy could have been stopped early in its tracks.​

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Give two men a gun and someone might get shot.

Give zero guns to either and chances are nobody is going to get shot.

And again, criminals can get their hands on weapons if they try badly enough -definitely not as many-. But if you sell them in Wal-Mart, you are begging for this to happen.

This is just so horrible D: 27 children and the shooter's parent dead. I just have no words, it's horrifying. What kind of horrible person would do this, they're little kids ;_; and it appears this is the case now, he shot his own mother and it appears his father too, that's just sick.

Sydian said:

That makes this whole case even more messed up. My God.

Edit: He killed his mother while he was there as well. More ****ery. I just can't with this anymore. Children and his parents? Just...there are no words.

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Okay, now the news is taking back what it said about his father. No one outside of the school was killed.

Also, I think they've said there are still at least 3 people in hospital.

We're also going to get some words from the president within the next half-hour or so. I would hope he's say something about the need to talk about gun control, but it's always "not the time" to talk about that.

I still stand by my aforementioned statistic that if a civilian, or in this case a schoolteacher or security guard, were armed then this tragedy could have been stopped early in its tracks.

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I hate to say it, but even teachers can turn out to be the crazy ones...so I don't think giving teachers a weapon would really help. It wouldn't make the situation more controlled, it would possibly make it more...I hate to say common, but that's really the only word I can think of here.

Went said:

Give two men a gun and someone might get shot.

Give zero guns to either and chances are nobody is going to get shot.

And again, criminals can get their hands on weapons if they try badly enough -definitely not as many-. But if you sell them in Wal-Mart, you are begging for this to happen.

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Interesting fun fact:




Mass Shootings in America info
Guns & Mass Shooting facts in America

Ought to clear up your misconceptions.

AzaleaLightning said:

The problem with that logic is that gun control won't mean guns suddenly stop existing.​

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No, but it will mean it will be muuuuuuch harder to get hold of a gun. And since shooting someone is the easiest and most common way of killing, if you have less guns circulating it will mean less deaths.

According to the United Nations Survey on Crime Trends, in 2002 9369 people were shot dead in the US (300 million people). 97 in Spain that year (50 million people). Kind of a leap. www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_wit_fir-crime-murders-with-firearms

Do we know what the gun is? I'm finding it hard to believe that this many died so quickly with a handgun instead of something automatic or semi.

I would like see a headline one day that goes "Crazy person offs himself without killing any innocent people first".

I don't see why a thread on the innocent lives lost needs to be revolving around gun debate. No offense, but make a new thread. This shouldn't be about gun laws. This guy was mentally ill and he would've gotten ahold of a weapon no matter what. If a man is willing to murder schoolchildren, he'll do it and find a way to get the weapons he wants. Across the ocean, a man in China stabbed children and yet we seem to believe that making guns illegal would magically prevent these kinds of tragedies. It's a mental health issue, not a gun issue.

All I can think of is that there are many families that have gifts under their trees that will never be opened on Christmas Day thanks to this monster. It just makes me sick. I can't imagine the pain they are feeling and I wish we could stop politicizing these types of tragedies and polarizing the pain in the media and let these people grieve and cope.

This was written by a student during the lockdown...



Not sure if that child is still alive, but it breaks my heart that he says "sorry for not being a good son." If he was one of the ones that died, if his mother read this letter then just...she would never have the chance to tell him he wasn't a bad son and...I have to go cry again. Just...my God.

Hopefully this isn't something just circulating that's not related to today's events and this isn't fake or something. If that makes sense...trying to word this better than I did before lol. :( But it would be kinda of rude to be posting pictures of notes like these and saying it's about this and it not even be related to it.

Since when have criminals followed laws?

My answer to gun control. If a crazy person wants to kill someone, what makes you think murderers (read: criminals) are going to legally obtain a gun if it's too complex to obtain? They plan on breaking the law, and most of them kill themselves after shooting up the place. What makes you think that they care?

Sydian said:

This was written by a student during the lockdown...

Not sure if that child is still alive, but it breaks my heart that he says "sorry for not being a good son." If he was one of the ones that died, if his mother read this letter then just...she would never have the chance to tell him he wasn't a bad son and...I have to go cry again. Just...my God.

Hopefully this is real. This is just something I saw circulating, so...

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Dunno about you. But I'm hoping that isn't real :\

Well, when I said "hopefully this is real" I meant that I was hoping someone wasn't just circulating this and it wasn't written about today's events. Sorry about that, lol. Gotta word things better. I don't want that to be real, but I don't want people circulating fake things about today's events. That's what I meant.

> Mass shooting occurs
> People debate gun control
> Another mass shooting occurs regardless of increased/decreased measures
> People debate MORE gun control
> Repeat steps 1 - 4

Timeless formula.

TRIFORCE89 said:

Do we know what the gun is? I'm finding it hard to believe that this many died so quickly with a handgun instead of something automatic or semi.

I would like see a headline one day that goes "Crazy person offs himself without killing any innocent people first".

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From what I understand, he used some kind of Semi-Automatic handgun, a .9 Millimeter or a Glock with extended magazines.

Also, now we sit at 20 dead children, six dead adults, and the shooter.

AlexTheRose said:

Since when have criminals followed laws?

My answer to gun control. If a crazy person wants to kill someone, what makes you think murderers (read: criminals) are going to legally obtain a gun if it's too complex to obtain? They plan on breaking the law, and most of them kill themselves after shooting up the place. What makes you think that they care?

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Did you miss the point that this shooting, along with some of the recent ones, didn't involve criminals, but average people? This guy was just some 24 year old. So was the guy behinf the Aurora shooting, and so was Jared Loughner, the shooter in the Gabby Giffords Arizona shooting last year. It's far easier to walk into any old Walmart and buy one than to go about getting one illegally.

Not really an argument either.

Sydian said:

This was written by a student during the lockdown...

Not sure if that child is still alive, but it breaks my heart that he says "sorry for not being a good son." If he was one of the ones that died, if his mother read this letter then just...she would never have the chance to tell him he wasn't a bad son and...I have to go cry again. Just...my God.

Hopefully this isn't something just circulating that's not related to today's events and this isn't fake or something. If that makes sense...trying to word this better than I did before lol. :( But it would be kinda of rude to be posting pictures of notes like these and saying it's about this and it not even be related to it.

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Wow that made me cry in real life. I dont want it to be real but I also hope that someone didnt just make it up and start circulating that. This is just really depressing. Its hard for me to see that 26 people got killed.

That letter is absolutely heartbreaking, I hope it isn't a genuine letter...and it's sad that people can be this insensitive over a shooting. I've already seem some absolutely disgraceful images out there making light of the entire situation.

Went said:

No, but it will mean it will be muuuuuuch harder to get hold of a gun. And since shooting someone is the easiest and most common way of killing, if you have less guns circulating it will mean less deaths.

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Not quite so. Mexico, a country with roughly twice the population of Spain, has a greater gun violence rate than America. Keep in mind that Mexico has some of the most restrictive gun control laws in the world with some of the harshest penalties, yet it ranks eighth in countries with gun violence. The only way to legally purchase a gun in Mexico is from the government and an individual may only carry a gun within their own home unless that person can prove their life is in imminent danger. Otherwise, only city, state, and federal employees are permitted to carry guns in public.

Klippy said:

I don't see why a thread on the innocent lives lost needs to be revolving around gun debate. No offense, but make a new thread. This shouldn't be about gun laws. This guy was mentally ill and he would've gotten ahold of a weapon no matter what. If a man is willing to murder schoolchildren, he'll do it and find a way to get the weapons he wants. Across the ocean, a man in China stabbed children and yet we seem to believe that making guns illegal would magically prevent these kinds of tragedies. It's a mental health issue, not a gun issue.

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First of all, my respect and condolences to the families of the dead. This should not have happened, and I do hope this never happens again, but, if we don't do anything about to prevent stuff like this from happening, it will happen again. Going to quote someone from twitter: "Now's not the time for gun control talk. We must mourn until this happens again, then mourn more, in cycles forever, never changing anything".

Interestingly, and thankfully, none of the stabbed children died, because stabbing someone to death is much dirtier, complex and slower than shoting someone, and it forces you to fight against your victim. No "pulling a trigger from a distance", you need to get close and make sure the wounds are not only superficial. I'd rather not have any of them, but, if I really must choose, I'd rather go for the second option.

And, if the "if someone wants to shoot someone they'll find a gun somehow" argument is true, then the ridiculous overproportion of gunshot attacks in the US in comparison to Canada and every single other European country means that either a) criminals outside don't seem to want to use guns much, b) there are less criminals (except most of them have similar or even higher crime rates than the US, so numbers don't match), or c) making getting guns much harder than just walking into your local Wal-Mart DOES make getting guns harder. Average crazy teenagers might not have enough money or knowledge to get into the black market and buy a gun without being caught but they are certainly capable of going to the store next home to do so for a couple hundred bucks.

Ryoutarou said:

That letter is absolutely heartbreaking, I hope it isn't a genuine letter...and it's sad that people can be this insensitive over a shooting. I've already seem some absolutely disgraceful images out there making light of the entire situation.

Not quite so. Mexico, a country with roughly twice the population of Spain, has a greater gun violence rate than America. Keep in mind that Mexico has some of the most restrictive gun control laws in the world with some of the harshest penalties, yet it ranks eighth in countries with gun violence. The only way to legally purchase a gun in Mexico is from the government and an individual may only carry a gun within their own home unless that person can prove their life is in imminent danger. Otherwise, only city, state, and federal employees are permitted to carry guns in public.

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Of course, if you are going to talk about one of the countries with the largest crime rates in the world, due to an on-going semi-civil war against drug cartels threatening with turning the country into a failed state- and compare it to Europe or the US, well, I think there are some flaws in your comparison. Having strict gun laws is pointless if the Government has serious issues to apply any laws whatsoever in large zones of the country.

Livewire said:

From what I understand, he used some kind of Semi-Automatic handgun, a .9 Millimeter or a Glock with extended magazines.

Also, now we sit at 20 dead children, six dead adults, and the shooter.




Did you miss the point that this shooting, along with some of the recent ones, didn't involve criminals, but average people? This guy was just some 24 year old. So was the guy behinf the Aurora shooting, and so was Jared Loughner, the shooter in the Gabby Giffords Arizona shooting last year. It's far easier to walk into any old Walmart and buy one than to go about getting one illegally.

Not really an argument either.

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So... mass murderers aren't criminals? That's what it sounds like you're saying. Just re-read what I said, and you'll see that I'm talking about premeditated murder. Its not like someone's going to spend months going through regulations just to kill some people, unless they plan on facing the consequences. (I'm referring to if there was tighter gun control.)

That being said, who would want an extra charge of illegal possession of a firearm on top of first-degree murder if they plan on living?

I'm disturbed by several things:

- This shooting in general.
- The fact that, despite it depressing me, I can't cry about it.
- How depressing it also is at how predictible the response to this is (i.e. " WE WANT MORE GUN CONTROL)
- The possibility of that letter being real.

As far as I'm concerned, I'm torn on the gun issue. On one hand, there needs to be better restrictions on what type of weapons the average person is allowed to have. On the other hand, the idea of taking weapons away from a population frightens me for some reason, because despite the fact that if you give the right to bear arms to the average person there will always be situations like this, I can't help but feel taking away guns from the population makes them more vulnerable to corrupt governments and criminals who'll find ways to hurt people anyway, obtaining the means legally or not.

In other words, lack of gun restrictions isn't the only problem here. People are a problem as well. At least, people who lack the fundamental understandings of responsibility and the value of treating others with respect.