School Shootings

Off Topic
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“At approximately 12 p.m. local time a student opened fire at the Jokela School Centre. Some of the students smashed windows in order to get out and heavily armed police soon surrounded the school. At least eight people were reported having been killed by the gunman.
Seven of the victims were students, five male and two female. The eighth victim was the school’s headmaster.
Three more people suffered gunshot wounds and an unspecified number of people were injured by shattering glass. The shooter is in critical condition from self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head according to Finnish medical officials and police.”
(more information can be found on the link above)

I just read this on the news when I came home today. My classmates also told me about it at school today, just hours after it happened. It happened very close to where I live.
Now, this thread was not originally intended as a place to talk about the shooting (what is there possibly to be said about something so horrible, that hasn’t been said already?). However, of course share your opinions on the matter.

What I wanted to say, was how much this actually stuck with me. I understand how ignorant and inhuman it sounds, but before this, I never thought much about school shootings. I would read about such events on the news, and talk with my friends and parents about it, and discuss it with teachers during relevant classes at school.

But I never paused and actually questioned the real horror and severity of the ease it is to witness and be part of something like this. It is one thing to see it on the news - to hear about it happening in another country and send out your silent condolenses to the affected, but it’s totally something else to actually go through it. Or even for it to happen near where you live. To be part of it. Thats what I realized.

And then I thought … what if this happens in my school?
What if some asshole pulls out an gun in the middle of class, and with the pull of one trigger, my life is gone?

And it got me thinking… if I was to die right now, what would I have achieved in my life? what would I have mattered to the world? Would I have made a difference? Would people remember me for my good deeds, or my bad?

Now I know what they mean when they say “live every day like it’s your last” and “live in the moment”. You can lose your life so easily, yet most people live like the days never end. I think Chris Shugart has talked about it several times in his “Shugart’s Hammer” articles. People don’t appreciate their lives.

They live bland, montonous existances of working jobs they don’t like, coming home and going to sleep. Like machines. Like their lives are just another statistic. (Check out Chris’s article “I Hear Dead People” the subject)

I now understand movies like Fight Club and American Beauty, which talk about experiencing life and not being caught up in the same old monotonous living the world wants you to conform you.

And then it got me thinking, what really is the most important thing in life? A great job and loads of money? A stable, loving family? Having as much fun as possible? Doing as much for society and the world as you can?
What is going to make me feel like I have lived well? That if one day, some psycho pulls that trigger in my face, that just before I die, I’ll know everything has been worth it. It’s all kind of mind-boggling.

So now I sit here, with a stupid face, thinking about all of this. I know several people at my school who seem disturbed enough to possibly pull a gun out and go Mad Max on the rest of the school.
I think it’s moments like this that change you. Moments that you realize how much the people that you love mean to you. How much the people you don’t know - people you see walking by you everyday, how much they mean to you. Or how much weightlifting and the feel of a chalky iron bar in your hands, and veins pumping in your neck, and eyes swollen full of blood after a set of deadlifts - how much that means to you. Or, heck, how much just waking up in the morning to a great site like this means to you.

What are your thoughts?

2

  1. This is why we need more guns in our schools and society at large. It would at least get rid of the “fish in a barrel” aspect of these events. At best we would have a very polite, yet cautious culture.

  2. Mad Max didn’t shoot up folks who didn’t already deserve it.

3

[quote]Bujo wrote:

  1. This is why we need more guns in our schools and society at large. It would at least get rid of the “fish in a barrel” aspect of these events. At best we would have a very polite, yet cautious culture.

  2. Mad Max didn’t shoot up folks who didn’t already deserve it.[/quote]

Kansas recently passed legislation that allows concealed carry. Now, everywhere I go, especially gas stations and liquor stores you see signs banning guns.

All I can think when I see these signs is that if I was a shop owner, I would ENCOURAGE the people that have taken the classes and tests, and have been upstanding citizens, and carry a concealed gun to come into my store. At least if someone pulls a gun and goes on a rampage there is somebody there with the ability to fight back.

The reasoning to the signs escapes me.

4

Good post. Coming from the UK where gun laws are VERY strict and yet similar things STILL happen I really don’t have any answer to give you - even if one was warranted.

The ability to fight back is an important one - Something close to me. I still don’t have an answer though.

5

[quote]tedro wrote:
Kansas recently passed legislation that allows concealed carry. Now, everywhere I go, especially gas stations and liquor stores you see signs banning guns.

All I can think when I see these signs is that if I was a shop owner, I would ENCOURAGE the people that have taken the classes and tests, and have been upstanding citizens, and carry a concealed gun to come into my store. At least if someone pulls a gun and goes on a rampage there is somebody there with the ability to fight back.

The reasoning to the signs escapes me.[/quote]

Concealed Carry laws always generate a lot of media coverage, as if the whole state is suddenly going to become one giant vigilante group.
Guns = Scary
In a few months few people will even think of it. In a year the signs will either begin to come down or be forgotten.

In actuality there really aren’t that many people carrying. Take Florida for example. Florida has a population of ~16 million, but only issued ~1.2 million permits since concealed carry laws were adopted and only has 400K active permits to date. Most people don’t care.

Those that do are going out of there way to pay for training and class/es, subjecting themselves to government background checks, and generally have to live by a higher standard of laws once licensed. Eventually folks realize they’re making mountains out of mole hills.

6

[quote]tedro wrote:
Bujo wrote:

  1. This is why we need more guns in our schools and society at large. It would at least get rid of the “fish in a barrel” aspect of these events. At best we would have a very polite, yet cautious culture.

  2. Mad Max didn’t shoot up folks who didn’t already deserve it.

Kansas recently passed legislation that allows concealed carry. Now, everywhere I go, especially gas stations and liquor stores you see signs banning guns. [/quote]

I highly recommend that you stop doing business there. I open carry here in Idaho and have had to boycott certain stores. It’s a pain in the ass sometimes, but it keeps me from putting money into businesses that have no regard for their customers’ safety or legal rights.[quote]

All I can think when I see these signs is that if I was a shop owner, I would ENCOURAGE the people that have taken the classes and tests, and have been upstanding citizens, and carry a concealed gun to come into my store. At least if someone pulls a gun and goes on a rampage there is somebody there with the ability to fight back.

The reasoning to the signs escapes me.[/quote]

The reason is that people are cowards. They would rather FEEL safe than BE safe. Seeing sheepdogs with guns reminds them that there are wolves in the world. Instead of confronting the wolves they would much rather gang up on the sheepdogs, because by cutting the balls off of sheepdogs they cannot accidently mistake them for wolves.

mike

7

My high school had a couple people get blasted out front. Can’t stop it really.

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A few days ago someone was shot and killed with an automatic gun, 50 rounds, right across the street I could look out my window and see the crime seen. Last year, same place, someone was shot in the head.

I still love my guns, but I just shoot targets, clay pigeons and ducks. No deer yet. Venison is a great source of protein.

9

The reason is that people are cowards. They would rather FEEL safe than BE safe. Seeing sheepdogs with guns reminds them that there are wolves in the world. Instead of confronting the wolves they would much rather gang up on the sheepdogs, because by cutting the balls off of sheepdogs they cannot accidently mistake them for wolves.

-That is a very well put metaphor. The more i read it the more i like it. I’m going to take the last part and use it “by cutting the balls off sheepdogs they cant accidentally mistake them for wolves”