I don't know what the fuck malnutrition and dehydration have to do with this thread but that comment is just plain retarded...
This is a terrible event that happened today. It is part gun control and it's also part "crazy people being crazy" as is popularly said. How do we fix it?
Well to start there needs to be more awareness and better treatment for mental health (and health in general) in our country. I said it many times today in discussions that I've had over this, I feel absolutely certain that I would know if my son could possibly kill 20 young children. No doubt in my mind. I assume that this kid's parents were in denial over his problems, either they treated him like a special little snowflake who could do nothing wrong or they neglected whatever warning signs there may have been that their son was batshit insane. Either way I feel that they ignored what their son was capable of.
As far as gun control is concerned, I can see the argue on both sides but the reality is that there are just far too many guns for their to be massive restrictions and to make them a rarity for people who really want to use them in negative ways. I don't have the exact numbers on hand but I believe that there is close to a 1:1 ratio of guns to either humans or adult humans in the United States. That's one-hundred plus million guns. It just doesn't seem feasible to me to remove all of those guns from their owners or to restrict them in any direct way.
Some things that I can see being implemented, although I don't know how much it would have helped in this case since I believe the guns this kid used were owned by someone else in his family, would be to have more rigorous background checks when purchasing a firearm in all states of our union. Crazy people are crazy. It's pretty simple. If someone has mental health issues then they should simply not have the right to own a gun and they should not have access to a gun. Of course such a law would be pointless if everyone didn't have access to high quality mental healthcare so I believe that it would require a combination of the two for it to do any good.
In addition to that people need to be more aware of the mental health of the people close to them. As I said above, I have no doubt that I would know with absolute certainty whether my son was crazy and capable of doing something so horrendous. People need to know that some people are crazy, they have problems, whether it is a mental illness or whether they are just plain bad people I don't know, but I think that it's going to be made clear after knowing someone so intimately.
I personally know someone who had some sort of mental problem, a friend of my brother, who ended up in a terrible murder suicide. The guy was indeed batshit crazy and everyone knew it. He started talking about aliens and other random conspiracies, he would watch a blank television, etc. My brother wasn't very bright and continued being around this person, I believe that he was in the sort of denial that I mentioned above. If it's a good friend of yours, a family member, your child, you just don't want to believe that they could be such a bad person. You just don't. But if it was a third party looking in with no bias such as I was in the case with my brother, I suggested that he stay as far away from the guy as possible because that just sounded like bad news to me.
My point is that people need to be more aware and less biased when it comes to the mental stability and health of their loved ones. If you feel that something is wrong, then to a third party something was likely wrong a long, long time ago. Their loved one needs to get help as soon as possible before something terrible happens.
Another part of this whole thing that I am tending to agree with is that the media is also playing a role in this garbage behavior. They put these killers on television and continue to go over the same terrible things, over and over and over again. I have no doubt that crazy people are out there watching these newscasts and thinking to themselves that they are going to be just like that, their face all blown up on the television. It's sad to think that people are that insane but they are. Some people are just crazy.
tl;dr -- Better mental healthcare is necessary, especially for gun owners and people with access to guns. In addition to that people need to heighten their awareness and drop their bias when it comes to the mental state of their loved ones. Prevent crazy before it happens.
This is a terrible event that happened today. It is part gun control and it's also part "crazy people being crazy" as is popularly said. How do we fix it?
Well to start there needs to be more awareness and better treatment for mental health (and health in general) in our country. I said it many times today in discussions that I've had over this, I feel absolutely certain that I would know if my son could possibly kill 20 young children. No doubt in my mind. I assume that this kid's parents were in denial over his problems, either they treated him like a special little snowflake who could do nothing wrong or they neglected whatever warning signs there may have been that their son was batshit insane. Either way I feel that they ignored what their son was capable of.
As far as gun control is concerned, I can see the argue on both sides but the reality is that there are just far too many guns for their to be massive restrictions and to make them a rarity for people who really want to use them in negative ways. I don't have the exact numbers on hand but I believe that there is close to a 1:1 ratio of guns to either humans or adult humans in the United States. That's one-hundred plus million guns. It just doesn't seem feasible to me to remove all of those guns from their owners or to restrict them in any direct way.
Some things that I can see being implemented, although I don't know how much it would have helped in this case since I believe the guns this kid used were owned by someone else in his family, would be to have more rigorous background checks when purchasing a firearm in all states of our union. Crazy people are crazy. It's pretty simple. If someone has mental health issues then they should simply not have the right to own a gun and they should not have access to a gun. Of course such a law would be pointless if everyone didn't have access to high quality mental healthcare so I believe that it would require a combination of the two for it to do any good.
In addition to that people need to be more aware of the mental health of the people close to them. As I said above, I have no doubt that I would know with absolute certainty whether my son was crazy and capable of doing something so horrendous. People need to know that some people are crazy, they have problems, whether it is a mental illness or whether they are just plain bad people I don't know, but I think that it's going to be made clear after knowing someone so intimately.
I personally know someone who had some sort of mental problem, a friend of my brother, who ended up in a terrible murder suicide. The guy was indeed batshit crazy and everyone knew it. He started talking about aliens and other random conspiracies, he would watch a blank television, etc. My brother wasn't very bright and continued being around this person, I believe that he was in the sort of denial that I mentioned above. If it's a good friend of yours, a family member, your child, you just don't want to believe that they could be such a bad person. You just don't. But if it was a third party looking in with no bias such as I was in the case with my brother, I suggested that he stay as far away from the guy as possible because that just sounded like bad news to me.
My point is that people need to be more aware and less biased when it comes to the mental stability and health of their loved ones. If you feel that something is wrong, then to a third party something was likely wrong a long, long time ago. Their loved one needs to get help as soon as possible before something terrible happens.
Another part of this whole thing that I am tending to agree with is that the media is also playing a role in this garbage behavior. They put these killers on television and continue to go over the same terrible things, over and over and over again. I have no doubt that crazy people are out there watching these newscasts and thinking to themselves that they are going to be just like that, their face all blown up on the television. It's sad to think that people are that insane but they are. Some people are just crazy.
tl;dr -- Better mental healthcare is necessary, especially for gun owners and people with access to guns. In addition to that people need to heighten their awareness and drop their bias when it comes to the mental state of their loved ones. Prevent crazy before it happens.
