Another school disaster

[Miles]

This morning, 730 am. a 16 year old student at a Pittsburgh Area school stabbed 20 students. Two are ctiticaL the rest not so much. So much for gun control.

[Gob]

Dear god, how did he manage to get 20 with a knife?

[Miles]

Two knives. The real question is , how did he get them past security? Turns out to be 19 students and one security person.

[Gob]

Could be worse, we have no security in our schools.

[Econoline]

So much for gun control.

Well, at least no one was killed, apparently.

I'm tempted to say something like "Imagine how much worse it could have been if he'd had 2 semi-automatic rifles instead of 2 knives"...but unfortunately that's not something we have to imagine, because we already know.

[Sue U]

So much for gun control.

Really, what's that supposed to mean? The kid didn't have a gun. As far as anyone can tell, "gun control" (hahaha) was actually effective, to the extent that's what kept him from assaulting his schoolmates with a firearm. And as Econoline points out, nobody died.

[Crackpot]

apparently he did inflict a few life threatening injuries but all are expected to recover.

[rubato]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sc ... ted_States

From 2000 through 2010 there were 52 school shootings with 91 dead and an additional 118 injured.

Maybe we should stop trying the 'make guns cheap and plentiful' approach. Ya think?

or is the NRA right? "The only way to stop a bad child with a gun is a good child with a gun" ?

yrs,
rubato

[Miles]

So much for gun control.

Really, what's that supposed to mean? The kid didn't have a gun. As far as anyone can tell, "gun control" (hahaha) was actually effective, to the extent that's what kept him from assaulting his schoolmates with a firearm. And as Econoline points out, nobody died.

My contention was not in jest but rather that without access to firearms this individual still found a way to inflict grevious bodily harm to a large number of people. Lets face it ,guns,knives,baseball bats,lengths of pipe, cars and many more common objects don't kill people, people do. As long as human nature prevails there will be those among us who can and will cause pain and suffering for no apparent reason, that we can redily understand. If you doubt me talk to corrections officers they will tell you just how cunning and inventive their charges can be. If there is a will a way can be found.

[Big RR]

I wonder if the kid watched The Following; their last few episodes featured crazed followers going on stabbing/throat slitting sprees in a number of venues. I hope it's not life imitating "art" (art being a subjective term).

[Joe Guy]

I was thinking the same thing, RR. If it were to come out that he watched the show regularly, there will be people blaming the show, the parents, or something else. There will be people blaming everyone and anything except the kid, who quite obviously has mental problems.

[Big RR]

Exactly what I'm thinking.

[RayThom]

You gotta' admire his commitment.

If knives are outlawed... only sushi chefs will have knives.

[dgs49]

Not to sound fanatical or anything, what is the (fucking) point of a program like The Following? A mass murderer is able to assemble a small army of would-be mass murderers to carry out his psychotic wet dreams.

What kind of a sick bastard would even imagine such a horrible scenario? What kind of a network, on proper reflection, would produce it?

More and more on television, the plot lines involve the amount of death and destruction a crazy bastard can inflict on the unsuspecting public. Just like video games.

[Big RR]

I think our "entertainment" mirrors our deepest fears. In the 50s and 60s, when we feared the instant annihilation nuclear weapons could rain down upon us. we had many movies dealing with surviving a nuclear war and/or the effects of nuclear radiation. From movies like Mad Max to the Amazing Colossal man, many of our films and shows dealt with that. The 60s and 70s brought the backlash against civil rights and liberties to the table, and so we had movies like Death Wish and Dirty Harry allowing us to get "even with those bastards the liberals coddled". More recently, we have been on the receiving end of attacks by dedicated followers of a complete ass, and so we now look at the same sort of thing in our entertainment, watching how the law enforcement gains on the madman and his minions. Sure the scenario is sick, but it is rooted in our fears, and just like kids watching the monster movies, many people somehow feel better when they "confront" those fears via the movies and TV.

Personally, I like to see films and shows that explore more deepest recesses of human nature, especially when I know that no one is being harmed or killed in the making of it.

[Sue U]

I don't begrudge people a horror movie, but it's not the kind of thing that ever really appealed to me. I've always preferred nature documentaries, myself.

[rubato]

I think our "entertainment" mirrors our deepest fears. In the 50s and 60s, when we feared the instant annihilation nuclear weapons could rain down upon us. we had many movies dealing with surviving a nuclear war and/or the effects of nuclear radiation. From movies like Mad Max to the Amazing Colossal man, many of our films and shows dealt with that. The 60s and 70s brought the backlash against civil rights and liberties to the table, and so we had movies like Death Wish and Dirty Harry allowing us to get "even with those bastards the liberals coddled". More recently, we have been on the receiving end of attacks by dedicated followers of a complete ass, and so we now look at the same sort of thing in our entertainment, watching how the law enforcement gains on the madman and his minions. Sure the scenario is sick, but it is rooted in our fears, and just like kids watching the monster movies, many people somehow feel better when they "confront" those fears via the movies and TV.

Personally, I like to see films and shows that explore more deepest recesses of human nature, especially when I know that no one is being harmed or killed in the making of it.

The appeal of post-apocalyptic movies is more general than that. We fear but are fascinated by the idea of catastrophic change and dramatically it allows for nearly infinite plot twists and devices. The method of destruction has just changed from nuclear war, to zombies, evil machine intelligence, attack by aliens, diseases, meteors, earthquakes, flooding, freezing, "Sharknado" (it deserves its own category), and others too many to list. I don't think it has much to do with particular fears as a general fear.

yrs,
rubato

[Big RR]

Rubato--while I agree with you that we (or at least a large percentage of moviegoers and tv watchers) are fascinated with catastrophic change and its effects, I do think that specific fears often color the actual agents of that change in the films/shows. Just as the Japanese after WW2 (and the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagsaki) flocked to Godzilla movies to see how the brave Japanese countrymen responded to and defeated the horrible monster laying waste to their cities with his "atomic breath".