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Post by Jaga on May 19, 2018 4:49:54 GMT -7
www.mediaite.com/tv/ted-cruz-speaks-on-santa-fe-shooting-there-have-been-too-darn-many-of-these/There have been too darn many of these,” he said. “Texas has seen too many of these. We’ve seen deranged murderers, whether this morning here, whether a deranged bomber in Austin murdering innocent people, or whether six months ago in Sutherland Springs, another evil criminal murdering innocent people. “I tell the people in Santa Fe, you are being lifted up by millions of people in prayer from across the state of Texas and across the world. In the public policy arena, we need to do everything humanly possible to stop this from happening given, to stop them from getting firearms, to stop they from getting access to schools, to incarcerate them when they try to illegally purchase firearms.”
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Post by Jaga on May 19, 2018 4:51:06 GMT -7
here is more: www.thedailybeast.com/the-all-american-ritual-of-a-school-shooting-this-time-in-santa-feThe All-American Ritual of a School Shooting, This Time in Santa Fe ‘I always kind of felt like eventually it was going to happen here, too.’ The Brits have royal weddings. We have school shootings. Both have their particular rituals. The Brits were to repeat theirs with the betrothal of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle at Windsor Castle on Saturday. Markle is American, which marks her as rare as would be a British school shooter, but the ceremony will be essentially no less British than when Prince William wed Kate Middleton. The latest royal bride was expected to wear a less extravagant gown than some in the past. |
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Post by kaima on May 19, 2018 7:29:20 GMT -7
www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/05/18/2018-has-been-deadlier-for-schoolchildren-than-service-members/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.1d8d1345ea5cPolitics Analysis 2018 has been deadlier for schoolchildren than service membersBy Philip Bump May 18 at 4:22 PM 2:31 'Boom!': Students describe the deadly Texas school shooting Authorities are investigating after finding explosives inside Santa Fe High School in Southeast Texas, where a gunman killed at least ten people on May 18. (Monica Akhtar/The Washington Post) This article has been updated. The school shooting near Houston on Friday bolstered a stunning statistic: More people have been killed at schools this year than have been killed while serving in the military. Initial estimates put the number killed at Santa Fe High School at eight. (The death toll has since risen to 10.) We can compare that to figures for the military compiled from Defense Department news releases, including both combat and noncombat deaths. Even excluding non-students who died in school shootings (for example, teachers) the total still exceeds military casualties.  A large part of that is the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., on Feb. 14. This is not usually the case. In 2017, the number of fatalities among service members was far higher than the number of people killed in school shootings, according to The Washington Post data.  After this story was originally published, Jared Keller, a senior editor at the site Task & Purpose, noted that the Department of Defense releases offered an incomplete picture of service member fatalities. Separate data compiled by the Navy, including the Marines, adds another seven casualties to the total, excluding motor vehicle accidents. In May, an Air National Guard plane crashed in Georgia killing another nine — an incident not included in the Department of Defense’s reports. Including those figures (and adjusting the revised figure in Texas), the comparison graph looks like this.  “The DoD doesn’t always present a clear picture of accidental mishap-related deaths due to worries about operational security, hence the trouble with [Public Affairs Office] releases,” Keller wrote in an email. “Back in March 2017, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis even cautioned public affairs officials across the military to ‘be cautious about publicly telegraphing readiness shortfalls’ because ‘communicating that we are broken or not ready to fight invites miscalculation,’ as his spokesman put it at the time.” The figures for 2018 do not suggest schools are more dangerous than combat zones. After all, there are more than 50 million students in public elementary and high schools and only about 1.3 million members of the armed forces. So far in 2018, a member of the military has been about 40 times as likely to be killed as someone is to die in a school shooting, including Keller’s revised figures. That said, it is still the case that 2018 is shaping up to be unusually deadly at schools. Comparing the number of deaths and the number of shooting incidents this year directly with those through May 18 of 2017, that difference is stark.  The number of deaths and school shooting incidents through May 18 are each higher this year than at any point since 2000. There have been three times as many deaths in school shootings so far this year than in the second-most deadly year through May 18, 2005.  In fact, there were 36 fatalities in school shootings in total through May 18 of each year from 2000 to 2017 — only slightly more than there have been in 2018 alone.Without the shootings in Florida and Texas, the figure is substantially lower. In 2000 through 2017, there were an average of two deaths in five or six school shootings through this point in each year. Without Marjory Stoneman Douglas and Santa Fe, the totals in 2018 would be four deaths in 14 incidents. With them, it is 29 deaths in 16 incidents.
So far in 2018, there have been 13 service member fatalities in seven incidents. Seven of those casualties occurred in a helicopter crash in Iraq in March. Three of the total number of military casualties were not related to combat.
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Post by kaima on May 19, 2018 8:23:34 GMT -7
Looking at Fox News online I see that the Texas shooting story is buried well below the multiple articles about the British wedding.
Now the basis of all my politics is anti-monarchism, and I used to say the biggest mistake the commies made in Europe was not killing enough royals and nobility. Now seeing how Russia has re-constituted it royal class system under the name of oligarches, and the USA has fallen so thoroughly, with the will of the people, under a Big Brother government run by an exclusive and privileged elite, I see the tendency to appoint royals and nobility is a human weakness. And here I am with an old fashioned American perspective of belief in Government by the People, All People being equal.
That seems to be a lonely positition today.
Kai
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Post by karl on May 19, 2018 12:30:17 GMT -7
Jaga
It is very appalling of such news of children killing children and school administrators. It makes a person simply wonder, for why and for what?
There is something though that is not mentioned in all of this, and that is the culture of violence that prevails in such things as video games and the cinema. The violence of killing people in the manner of entertainment is in self, a system of disdaining life as an every day occurence. This in the manner to take life to relieve uncertainties and have the power of life or death in ones hands with which ever weapon of choice. Perhaps it is not the guns in America that is the problem, but that of a foundation of violence as culture to justify taking lives in such a violent manner is a pay back for perceive wrongs in the past.
Or, perhaps my self am on the wrong page in the wrong book..
Karl
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Post by Jaga on May 20, 2018 4:59:42 GMT -7
Kai, it is scary and not logical that students at school are less safe than the military troops in the US. I saw a couple of articles that point to this very strange and disturbing trend. Something needs to be done. Even senator Cruz from Texas stated that this happens way too often.
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Post by Jaga on May 20, 2018 5:04:12 GMT -7
Karl, although according to some research there is no direct link between playing violent video games and the school shootings, I agree with you. I don't understand why people even enjoy playing the violent games. My husband sometimes does play it and for me it is not even fun, just gruesome. When I was a girl, kids were playing war games, especially boys. The fact is - we had plenty of war related films. Also boys were depicting tanks and war in their pictures, which I never liked. I agree that this is disturbing. Jaga It is very appalling of such news of children killing children and school administrators. It makes a person simply wonder, for why and for what? There is something though that is not mentioned in all of this, and that is the culture of violence that prevails in such things as video games and the cinema. The violence of killing people in the manner of entertainment is in self, a system of disdaining life as an every day occurence. This in the manner to take life to relieve uncertainties and have the power of life or death in ones hands with which ever weapon of choice. Perhaps it is not the guns in America that is the problem, but that of a foundation of violence as culture to justify taking lives in such a violent manner is a pay back for perceive wrongs in the past. Or, perhaps my self am on the wrong page in the wrong book.. Karl |
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Post by kaima on May 20, 2018 9:09:58 GMT -7
Our values in America have changed substantially in my lifetime, and yes, I believe a part of it is due to the violence in movies, TV and video games. But this argument has been going on forever, back to the days in America when they talked of "dime store novels" and radio dramas with violence and crime. For a long time people have played up the "good old days" that today means the 1950's of mythology. But on long drives I have had a chance to listen to some of those 'old time radio shows' and some were very, very bad for plot and execution, too often depending upon the ancient Greek theater deus ex machina to solve the story line and save the hero. But as a child I remember looking to movies and television as a window, however fanciful, indicating how other people lived under other circumstances. That could be how Henry the 8th lived in Tudor times (or whenever the immoral chap cut off girlfriend's heads and founded his own church based on denial of his fine morality), or the Thin Man series showing life of the drunken partying rich during the depression times, or Fred Astair, again with smoking and drinking being a steady activity of culture at that time. Then of course the crazies and the crooks portrayed in films. Snippet views of jungle life in Tarzan or Indian life in the American West showed us cultures and times and ways of life beyond out own experience, and provided the distorted and romanticized and simplified views of life under different circumstances. War movies - including rebroadcast US propaganda movies from WW II - taught us how we were expected to behave as soldiers, providing a fine basis for going over to the play war in Vietnam, even to resurrecting the Gooks terminology of the de-humanized people we were supposed to kill. Yes, I firmly believe in the existence of the American Culture of Violence. And it has morphed and grown more extreme in my lifetime with everything from Dirty Harry with large calibre handguns to quick street 'justice' with a pocket gun, or today the semi-auto (note how I must say semi-auto instead of automatic; I also know the difference between a clip and a magazine, which many people who would dismiss me if I were to use the auto / semi-auto wrong cannot themselves distinguish between the two - magazine and clip). I belonged to the American Rifle Association back when it was a sporting organization. I quit them once they demonstrated that they were going to stick with the primarily political organization business model. I do see them and their influence as a major stumbling block to discussion, much more so to resolution, of our school shooting problems. Now with them adapting a felon as president, a man who defied the laws of the USA and violated the express will of Congress, I hold out no hope for any change from that direction. We live in a society that rewards criminals if it is a white collar crime and politically acceptable. Harking back to the 1950's one last time, that is the time when it was un-American to advocate the violent overthrow of the US Government. Today it seems to be the patriotic call to do just that! Kai Karl, although according to some research there is no direct link between playing violent video games and the school shootings, I agree with you. I don't understand why people even enjoy playing the violent games. My husband sometimes does play it and for me it is not even fun, just gruesome. When I was a girl, kids were playing war games, especially boys. The fact is - we had plenty of war related films. Also boys were depicting tanks and war in their pictures, which I never liked. I agree that this is disturbing. Jaga It is very appalling of such news of children killing children and school administrators. It makes a person simply wonder, for why and for what? There is something though that is not mentioned in all of this, and that is the culture of violence that prevails in such things as video games and the cinema. The violence of killing people in the manner of entertainment is in self, a system of disdaining life as an every day occurence. This in the manner to take life to relieve uncertainties and have the power of life or death in ones hands with which ever weapon of choice. Perhaps it is not the guns in America that is the problem, but that of a foundation of violence as culture to justify taking lives in such a violent manner is a pay back for perceive wrongs in the past. Or, perhaps my self am on the wrong page in the wrong book.. Karl |
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Post by Jaga on May 20, 2018 21:36:24 GMT -7
Kai,
I try to find something I agree in a discussion than disagree, thus my post to Karl. Of course the biggest point is that although there are many violent movies and games, people don't usually kill real people after watching it.
+++But as a child I remember looking to movies and television as a window, however fanciful, indicating how other people lived under other circumstances.+++
I remember the series about Henry the 8th, this was really a big thing in Poland, everybody watched. Nowadays, it is hard to find anything all people watch. I don't know "thin man" series, but I watched some Tarzan's movies. I remember liking the guy because of his charm, but not I think these movies were quite naïve.
+++Yes, I firmly believe in the existence of the American Culture of Violence. And it has morphed and grown more extreme in my lifetime with everything from Dirty Harry with large calibre handguns to quick street 'justice' with a pocket gun, or today the semi-auto (note how I must say semi-auto instead of automatic+++
yes, people play and watch violent movies in all countries, but only here school attacks are so common. American movies are also more violent like culture is.
+++For a long time people have played up the "good old days" that today means the 1950's of mythology. ++++
The biggest point is - these guns should not be on the streets anymore, as you said, life changed.
John, my husband, has similar views like me about the guns, but today when he was talking to his mother from Texas, he said something which was completely strange to me.... just not show the shootings on TV. I guess, this was his way of NOT discussing important issues with his mom, since his dad was a big NRA lover.
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Post by kaima on May 21, 2018 7:39:36 GMT -7
Kai, I try to find something I agree in a discussion than disagree, thus my post to Karl. Of course the biggest point is that although there are many violent movies and games, people don't usually kill real people after watching it. +++But as a child I remember looking to movies and television as a window, however fanciful, indicating how other people lived under other circumstances.+++ I remember the series about Henry the 8th, this was really a big thing in Poland, everybody watched. Nowadays, it is hard to find anything all people watch. I don't know "thin man" series, but I watched some Tarzan's movies. I remember liking the guy because of his charm, but not I think these movies were quite naïve. +++Yes, I firmly believe in the existence of the American Culture of Violence. And it has morphed and grown more extreme in my lifetime with everything from Dirty Harry with large calibre handguns to quick street 'justice' with a pocket gun, or today the semi-auto (note how I must say semi-auto instead of automatic+++ yes, people play and watch violent movies in all countries, but only here school attacks are so common. American movies are also more violent like culture is. +++For a long time people have played up the "good old days" that today means the 1950's of mythology. ++++ The biggest point is - these guns should not be on the streets anymore, as you said, life changed. John, my husband, has similar views like me about the guns, but today when he was talking to his mother from Texas, he said something which was completely strange to me.... just not show the shootings on TV. I guess, this was his way of NOT discussing important issues with his mom, since his dad was a big NRA lover. Yes, to your last point I can see where people think telling the story of and identifying the shooter is glorifying the person and the deed, and thus encourages similar outbursts. I can see where that ties in to waves of suicides or hysteria that we encounter now and then. But I think it is a small part of the problem. Once again returning back to the "good old days", sawed off shotguns and "auto weapons" were forbidden back then, but those very "auto weapons" have become an accepted standard for civilian use nowadays. The nation readily accepts the loss of young lives today without complaint. I fear the young students, if they are in revolt, are the only hope we have of change today. I certainly don't expect any new ideas of action from the Old Farts (Old Timers) running this country or electing our current batch of low-quality, corrupt individuals. Kai PS. A young colleague in a volunteer organization lost one of his nieces in this latest shootings. The family is shattered by the loss, as you can imagine. |
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Post by Jaga on May 21, 2018 21:37:37 GMT -7
+++I fear the young students, if they are in revolt, are the only hope we have of change today. I certainly don't expect any new ideas of action from the Old Farts (Old Timers) running this country or electing our current batch of low-quality, corrupt individuals.++++
yes, I hope. But today news were silent about any action from this administration about guns. I don't really know how to shake it.
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