Topic: School shooting in Connecticut (Read 9737 times)

Catloaf · « **Reply #100 on:** December 18, 2012, 01:06:49 PM »

I hereby petition for the the renaming of this thread to either:
"Psycho Killers" (Que ce que c'est!? FFFFFFFFF)
or
"Ballistic lead launchers, the people who irrationally love them, and the monsters who make us hate the former two."

Thad · « **Reply #101 on:** December 18, 2012, 02:13:21 PM »

I went with a deliberately dry and specific title on this shooting, as I did with the last several, for a couple of reasons:

1. I don't want a "mass shooting" dump thread. I don't want them to run together and all be treated as this sort of blob of minor, indistinguishable events, like whatever the week's election story was or the general one-off WTF's we observe. These are individual horrors, to react to individually.

2. It's not fucking funny.

Zaratustra · « **Reply #102 on:** December 18, 2012, 05:20:21 PM »

what if it's a clown shooting

Shinra · « **Reply #103 on:** December 18, 2012, 11:44:08 PM »

Mom turned Adam Lanza on to guns, took him to the gun range, let him use her guns, let him make guns a hobby, etc

Can we please start blaming the fucking parents?

how to get a son with asperger's to fit in: TAKE HIM TO THE GUN RANGE!

Brentai · « **Reply #104 on:** December 19, 2012, 12:08:35 AM »

To be fair, I think my father's been doing that too.

Catloaf · « **Reply #105 on:** December 19, 2012, 10:32:01 AM »

Quote from: Shinra on December 18, 2012, 11:44:08 PM

Can we please start blaming the fucking parents?

But-- But... She had "a heart of gold"!

A² · « **Reply #106 on:** December 19, 2012, 12:26:02 PM »

I'm sorry the thought of a parent trying to bond with their child is so horrible to you. Perhaps we should just kill all parents the instant they have a child, just to be safe.

Thad · « **Reply #107 on:** December 19, 2012, 02:08:28 PM »

Okay, this feels like one of those points where I should say something before this escalates.

I get that people are on edge here. This isn't just a national tragedy, it's also the intersection of at least three hot-button issues. People are upset, tempers are high. I get that.

But be nice.

Shinra, you're coming across a little aggressive here. I get where you're coming from, but it would probably help if you could dial it back a bit.

Lyrai, your criticism of Shinra's perspective is a valid one. I wish you'd chosen a way to get it across besides passive-aggressive sarcasm.

I'll probably be back to share my thoughts later (tl;dr both perspectives are valid and I really don't think we know enough right now to declare one or the other definitively right, and we might not ever), but right now I'd just like to ask everyone to stay civil. Thanks.

A² · « **Reply #108 on:** December 19, 2012, 03:23:24 PM »

Allow me to amend my point, then, Thad.

Speaking from far, far more personal experience than anyone should ever have to be fucking put through, when a parent has a child with a mental disability, they honestly want nothing more than to just understand their child. To learn how to bond with them, to cope. They have no way of knowing what's going on at any given moment. They want a child that loves them, and they're constantly doubting themselves, wondering what they did wrong.
"Am I a good parent? Am I a failure? Did I cause this? Will I fail my child?"

There is nothing wrong, at all, with wanting to bond with your child over an interest. And the interests you're familiar with give you a good starting point. My father tried it with me over woodworking and computers (Computers stuck), my mother with medical profession and quilting (Kinda stuck on the first.) It's where you start, it's where you go, when the absolute best advice you can get out of medical professions is a "Well, maybe it'll work, maybe not, WHO KNOWS" because we are so far behind on mental health it's staggering. It's depressing, especially, when you look at these parents who would want nothing more than just to be able to look at their child and -understand-.

So no, do not hold it against the parent, for one goddamn fucking second, that they tried to bond with their child. The parent may have had a hand in it elsewhere. There may have been other things the parent could have done. But her, trying to talk to her son on common ground, when he has a mental issue that inhibits -base human communications- is never something you should deride a parent for.

Rico · « **Reply #109 on:** December 19, 2012, 03:33:15 PM »

That and it's barely a step above what any parent with guns should be doing to educate their children to avoid gun accidents.

Kayin · « **Reply #110 on:** December 19, 2012, 03:33:30 PM »

Quote from: Brentai on December 19, 2012, 12:08:35 AM

To be fair, I think my father's been doing that too.

Yeah, same here.

And (aside from Aspergers no longer being a real label) it needs to be said that Autism is not a disorder characterized with violence at all. Saying "OH! OH HE HAD AUTISM!" is only slightly more meaningful as saying "OH! OH HE PLAYED VIDEO GAMES". While it's something that couldn't help but to effect what happened, it is nothing that in any way was or should be a warning sign or an explanation. It's simply not that kind of disorder. It is a communication disorder -- in this case reading subtle social cues. It's not that you don't care or can't have empathy, you're just blind to a certain way we tend to communicate our feelings.

Now it's also been pointed out that he may have had numerous other mental illnesses and his mom might have been nutso or whatever and all that all can come together to maybe make a decent case for what's going on. But just going "AH! BRAIN DIFFERENT! VIOLENCE!" is kinda offensive to me as someone who's been through the mental health system (and humorously, without a real diagnosis, but that's a story for another day!). Autism does not make you a sociopath. and almost every case for every diagnosis has it's own nuances and best-practices.

And I, in a rare moment, gotta agree with Lyrai a lot with this. Even if the mothers actions were ultimately the cause, the scenario that happened is so rare that in 99.9 of cases, she was quite possibly doing the right, responsible and caring thing.

Mongrel · « **Reply #111 on:** December 19, 2012, 03:53:02 PM »

Even if she wasn't, I'd say she paid as high a price as anybody.

Brentai · « **Reply #112 on:** December 19, 2012, 04:03:06 PM »

The current going theory is that what actually drove the kid over the edge is, in fact, his mother treating his social disorder as a full-on padded cell psychosis. Uncorroborated reports say that she was looking into having him committed. For, you know, maybe liking ponies a little too much.

Joxam · « **Reply #113 on:** December 19, 2012, 05:17:20 PM »

If that is the case than I don't think anyone here would mind jumping on the 'the parents fucked this kid up' bandwagon. Of course, what Brent is saying is miles away from shinra's argument, and by association, from kayin and lyrai's criticism of it.

TA · « **Reply #114 on:** December 19, 2012, 05:22:54 PM »

Quote from: Joxam on December 19, 2012, 05:17:20 PM

If that is the case than I don't think anyone here would mind jumping on the 'the parents fucked this kid up' bandwagon. Of course, what Brent is saying is miles away from shinra's argument, and by association, from kayin and lyrai's criticism of it.

But that criticism is against a strawman, is the thing. Nobody's faulting the mom for trying to bond with her kid, they're faulting her for choosing "training him to kill people with guns" as a method.

Brentai · « **Reply #115 on:** December 19, 2012, 06:15:55 PM »

A pretty sizable population of this board has been trained to "kill people with guns". Try to keep the rhetoric at a very low simmer here.

Kayin · « **Reply #116 on:** December 19, 2012, 06:22:40 PM »

Yeah and for most people, it IS a healthy family activity. Without knowing how mentally ill the shooter came off as, it's hard to say whether she made a bad decision. If he really was just autistic, it's a reasonable thing to do. I know a lot of families who do a lot of bonding over shooting (I bet Mali and Joxam are one such family)! It's hard to understand gun culture without being a part of it.

Friend · « **Reply #117 on:** December 19, 2012, 06:43:48 PM »

Yeah, it's hardly fair to compare "taking your son to the gun range" with "training him to kill people with guns".
Some people just like to shoot guns. It might not have anything to do with self defense. They might enjoy the thrill of shooting at targets. It could be a form of entertainment, or a way of feeling empowered in their lives. Or they could be practicing their aim because they're avid hunters, or whatever. But to compare the mere activity of going to the gun range as people killing training is a bit disingenuous.

Bal · « **Reply #118 on:** December 19, 2012, 07:15:30 PM »

Ok, I'm going to speak from personal experience here too. My mom tried a million things to connect, get me interested, whatever. However, none of them were at the shooting range. I wholly agree with the idea of trying nearly everything to connect with your mentally ill child, but I don't think that that is a good or responsible way of going about it. I mean, I've been free of serious symptoms for ten years, and I still refuse to have a gun in my house, because it makes any violence I might become prone to (toward myself or others) 100% too easy.

Shinra · « **Reply #119 on:** December 19, 2012, 08:23:04 PM »

Quote from: Bal on December 19, 2012, 07:15:30 PM

Ok, I'm going to speak from personal experience here too. My mom tried a million things to connect, get me interested, whatever. However, none of them were at the shooting range. I wholly agree with the idea of trying nearly everything to connect with your mentally ill child, but I don't think that that is a good or responsible way of going about it. I mean, I've been free of serious symptoms for ten years, and I still refuse to have a gun in my house, because it makes any violence I might become prone to (toward myself or others) 100% too easy.

This is what I was getting at, thank you Bal.

When you have a child who is prone to instability, teaching them how to use guns or keeping guns around them is dangerously irresponsible, sorry.

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Author Topic: School shooting in Connecticut (Read 9737 times)