This is a bad take, the dude was fucked in the head from the war and other stuff. It's not necessarily his fault, he didn't get the help he needed.
When something like this happens people always blame the guns or the guy, but this guy clearly had issues that everyone was like 🤷♂️. He then goes out and kills 18 people then himself, and people demonize him as if there were no other warnings. He was fucked from the beginning.
This isn't someone that was like "I wanna kill all gays/muslims/Democrats/etc..." he was just fucked in the head.
Edit: it seems the Reddit downvoting hive mind has followed us here. I wrote pretty much the exact same comment elsewhere in here and it gets 20 up votes, yet this has is at -14
Yet it's still the guns, be it in the hands of an officially mentally ill person or someone who's undiagnosed but can't descern reality from fiction none the less.
Assault weapon ban goes into effect, mass shootings drop drastically.
Assault weapons ban is allowed to expire, it goes up north of 200%.
Assault weapons are revered like Jesus himself and mass murder scenarios suddenly happen every goddamn week.
The prevalence of weapons and free availability of them to virtually anyone, be they mentally ill or fundamentalist radicals, is the direct cause of this getting so out of hand.
Not mental illness or healthcare.
Mental illness exists everywhere.
Mass shootings (and probably any shootings) on the scale and regularity like in the US do not exist anywhere else.
So the crazy people with the guns aren't the problem, it's just their access to guns that are the problem.
Tell that to Timothy McVeigh, Ted Kazinski, or the Tsarnaiev (or however you spell it) Brothers that committed the Boston Marathon bombing, Ted Bundy, or Jeffrey Dahmer (I could keep listing names if you would like). Not one of them used a single gun to actually commit the murders, but they killed or maimed a shitload of people. But yeah, it's the guns that are clearly the problem, not the bat shit crazy people. I agree that there should be stricter gun laws federally, but saying "crazy people don't kill people, crazy people with guns kill people!" is just ignoring the root cause, which is they're fucking crazy.
Mass shootings go down, mass truckings go up. If they want to kill they will find a way. Mass shootings are EXTREMELY rare, statistically, compared to other firms of murder and there is no way in hell that you can implement "assault weapon" bans federally... Hell, band are getting overturned as unconstitutional As We Speak!
Getting a truck is definitely not harder than getting a gun in a lot of states. NJ has a mandatory 2 week waiting period. I could rent a truck in a half hour or less and run into a crowd of people I don't like very easily. You can't even buy a BB gun in NJ!
there is no way in hell that you can implement “assault weapon” bans federally
It's so impossible it was done by Clinton and worked like I said by bringing down mass shootings by 45%.
And went straight up by 250% as soon as Bush and the republicans let it expire and has been going up ever since..
If you mean "now", yeah, because the Republicans designed the entire modern discourse around these guns to have no room for any rational discussion what so ever. It's become the very identity of right wing retards.
As for "if they take away the guns, they'll use trucks", is a majestic load of grade A bullshit.
The people like you that think the only reason that people commit mass murder is because its easy have your heads so far up your asses than these second amendment idiots. If people want to kill a lot of people they'll find a way, it may be a bit more difficult for them but they're not going to be like "oh well, I can't get a gun, so I'll just let my murderous rage dissipate". Does everyone forget that Ted Kaczynski killed people with bombs? Timothy McVeigh killed 186 people with ANFO bombs. The 9/11 terrorists killed thousands of people either directly or indirectly with a fucking plane! Ted Bundy never used a gun either, he beat or strangled the women to death, same with Jeffrey Dahmer. Yet everyone seems to think that if you take away the guns, people will stop killing each other.
You mean trucks, as in those heavily regulated vehicles that are hard to be licensed to use precisely because they can be used as killing machines? Those trucks?
What the hell are you talking about with "vehicles that are hard to be licensed to use precisely because they can be used as killing machines"? Are you trying to say that laws keep people from killing people with motor vehicles? Have you never seen a case of "road rage", or what happened a few years back when someone drove a car into a group of protestors in Charlotte, North Carolina (I think that's where it happened).
Pretty much anyone can get a car, you just gotta have money to get one, the only thing stopping you from going all GTA and driving on the sidewalks mowing down people as you go is because you're not messed up in the head. There was literally nothing stopping this guy from using a truck rather than a gun, it's just that a gun was cheaper and more effective.
He was in the Army Reserve it said, I don't expect it to go into his back story. He could have been in combat previously. My buddy spent 3 years in the Army and he's been in the Reserve for like 5 years now because he gets good benefits from it.
Regardless of that, this dude has mental issues that were treatable but he clearly didn't get the help he needed.
Yeah... That's because they got the help that they needed. You don't really want a person with paranoid delusions walking around unmedicated. Also you just said "mental illness" which could be a wide range of things, there's very few disorders that bring you to the point of killing someone else and this dude apparently had one of them.
That poster is showing empathy and you are not. MORE violence is clearly not the answer to this problem. I know it's hard and emotions are high but these people are some of the ones most desperately in need of help.
There's a big difference between "the voices are telling me that if I eliminate these people other people will be happy and thank me for what I'm doing" and "I fucking hate all you left-wing, socialist loving, rainbow wearing pussies! You need to die to make this world a better place!"
One is someone with severe mental illness, the other is just a piece of shit human being.
There's a big difference between "the voices are telling me that if I eliminate these people other people will be happy and thank me for what I'm doing" and "I fucking hate all you left-wing, socialist loving, rainbow wearing pussies! You need to die to make this world a better place!"
Not from the viewpoint of the people getting eliminated and their loved ones there isn't.
I'd rather have empathy with them than the killers, no matter their motivation.