Enough with the gawddawm random shootings!!!!!

[cookiepuss]

what the hell has happened in this country that every damn week (seems like just about every damn day) there's a story about some miserable asshole who decided to take the lives of people he doesn't even know at school, university, church, mall or fast food restaurant?

and then these cowardly fuckers kill themselves with out ever telling anyone why they fuck they did what they did.:mad: Leave a fucking note. have a fucking reason that's better than...."I don't fit in, no one understands me and I hate them all." Fuck you asshole. Most of us aren't fucking happy, but we don't take everyone else down with us. you wanna kill yourself fine, but leave the rest of us swine alone.

this shit is really starting to piss me off. it needs to stop.

bloody masacre of the day:
Fireman, gunman dead in Wendy's shooting

By BRIAN SKOLOFF, Associated Press Writer

A gunman in a jacket and tie wordlessly opened fire inside a Wendy's during the lunchtime rush Monday, killing a firefighter who had gone back to fetch the toy left out of his child's meal and wounding five others. The 60-year-old shooter then committed suicide.

"This was not a robbery. He didn't demand anything," said Paul Miller, a Palm Beach County sheriff's spokesman. "Looks like this was just another random shooting like we've seen around the United States."

The 42-year-old victim, a Palm Beach County Fire-Rescue lieutenant who was not in uniform, had met his wife and child at the restaurant during a break in training down the street, Deputy Fire-Rescue Chief Steve Delai said. The family had gotten their food and walked out, but the man returned because the free toy was missing from the kids' meal, he said.

The lieutenant, whose wife and child were in the parking lot when the shooting broke out, was shot in the back as he stood at the counter.

"Our officer probably didn't even see him," Delai said of the gunman, Alburn Edward Blake.

Miller said Blake had no relation to anyone at the restaurant and had never worked for Wendy's, and authorities had not found any notes.

"We don't know why he picked this location to do this horrible deed," he said.

The dead firefighter had been promoted in January and was attending a course called "Strategy and Tactics" before taking his lunch break. Delai said the course teaches officers how to "manage large-scale incidents like we had today."

The mayhem unfolded just after noon during the lunch hour rush at the eatery on a major suburban road lined with strip malls, car dealerships and fast food restaurants, about five miles from downtown West Palm Beach. A billboard advertising an upcoming gun show stands just behind the Wendy's.

Blake entered the restaurant and went to a restroom before coming out brandishing a 9 mm handgun, Miller said. About 10 to 15 people were in the restaurant at the time, he said.

Ashley Milton, 28, said she had just opened the door to get lunch when she heard the "pop pop" of gunfire and saw people running.

"I really didn't think that's what it was. I thought this can't be happening," she said. "You see your life flash before your eyes."

Josh Maynard, 30, said he and his 20-year-old brother Jerry hit the floor when the well-dressed gunman opened fire. Jerry Maynard said the shooter held his gun sideways and said nothing.

The gunman went to the counter, Miller said, shooting the firefighter before slowly turning to his left and firing on others.

Three of the survivors were critically wounded, but all had improved and were hospitalized in stable condition Monday evening, Miller said. They included a 43-year-old man, a 16-year-old girl, a 65-year-old man and his 62-year-old wife. One person was injured while running away.

Motorists at the drive-thru window also fled, some leaving their vehicles running.

"I just saw a lady with a little boy in her arms come running out screaming, 'Somebody's shooting!'" said Sandra Jackson, who had been getting gas across the street. The woman said her husband was still inside, said Jackson, 43, of Palm Springs.

When the shooting stopped, the Maynard brothers ran out of the restaurant. Josh Maynard's blue jeans were torn and his brown leather boots were sliced, damage he said was caused by a bullet that grazed him as he lay on the floor.

"It felt like somebody kicked me in the foot," he said.

One customer kicked the pistol away from the gunman after he'd shot himself, then started first aid on the wounded, Miller said.

Bob Bertini, a Wendy's Inc. spokesman based in Dublin, Ohio, called the shooting "a senseless tragedy."

[DeeJayZap]

i dont remember it being this bad until virginia tech and now it seems its happening daily... it sucks...

[TurdBerglar]

these poor petty souls just want some sort of recognition. the news just needs to stop reporting on this shit and it would end.

[cookiepuss]

these poor petty souls just want some sort of recognition. the news just needs to stop reporting on this shit and it would end.

I think you're right.

I think this is negative attention at it's worst. they know if they do something horrible...they'll get recognition and they feel so insignificant that they romanticize the whole thing.

Stopping the media? I can't see that happening. Pandora's box is open.

[Nygel]

i dont remember it being this bad until virginia tech and now it seems its happening daily... it sucks...

shootings happen daily, it depends on how much the media wants to talk about it though....

[cookiepuss]

yeah...I have to ask though...is this kind of thing happening frequently in other countries? I know it's not unheard of..but is it happening more often? or is it again a question of how and when or if it's reported?

the US media typically focuses on what's happening in the US and gives very little attention to what's happening int he rest of the world..unless we're fighting a war in some other part of the world.

[checkyourprez]

i really think its a breakdown of a lot of things in this county.

f conservative confederate flag waiving southerners (and any northern for that matter) that opposes tightening gun laws. this is rediculous.

f the breakdown of the family. and the disposableness of marriage.

f the ultra violent images on tv and in movies, ect. and than only blaming hip hop and manson for all the problems.

f people who hate for no good reason.


lets get it together people.

[cookiepuss]

f the ultra violent images on tv and in movies, ect. and than only blaming hip hop and manson for all the problems.



I'm with ya most of the way, except I remain unconvinced that watching violence causes people to become violent.

I'll conceed that it could help prompt a person with a tendency towards violence to act out his/her fantasy..but I don't think it can truly create violent person. you're violent because you've got a genetic pre-disposition or you've been adbused...not cause you saw violence on tv.

[checkyourprez]

I'm with ya most of the way, except I remain unconvinced that watching violence causes people to become violent.

I'll conceed that it could help prompt a person with a tendency towards violence to act out his/her fantasy..but I don't think it can truly create violent person. you're violent because you've got a genetic pre-disposition or you've been adbused...not cause you saw violence on tv.


aggreed. but i also feel that tv has increasingly been substituted as a parent/babysitter and leads to a descensitation to violence especially when seen from a younge age.

[Nygel]

are you implying people who watch tv about killers are going to kill people?

[funk63]

ya you fuck asses. i blame it on mass media. but seriously fuck killers.

[funk63]

aggreed. but i also feel that tv has increasingly been substituted as a parent/babysitter and leads to a descensitation to violence especially when seen from a younge age.


ding ding ding.

[funk63]

i think if your gonna go on a killing spree kill ppl who deserve it. like gang bangers, or jihad, or sumthin.

[russhie]

ya you fuck asses. i blame it on mass media.

What a stupid thing to say. Mass media = caters for the masses. People love sleaze, scandal and violence, and the news media (like everyone else) are going to capitalize on that.

[Gareth]

how about that drive by on jarrod hayne? [only relevant to league fans]

[hitmonlee]

yeah...I have to ask though...is this kind of thing happening frequently in other countries?

not in mine. you know why? GUN CONTROL. a nutcase goes and kills 35 people so we got motherfucking strict gun laws and a gun amnesty where you could hand in your weapons without any questions asked.

i don't know where the americans on this board stand on owning guns, or if any of them own guns, but i just can't fathom why you guys just let people own guns. and then people say "oh well i need a gun to protect myself from burglers/other people with guns"

mmmhmm, how many people have successfully used a gun in self-defence?

how many times have accidents occurred from guns?

how many times have guns fallen into the wrong hands?

seriously, i don't know why there isn;t a huge protest movement (that i've heard of) to try and stop people owning guns.



fucking MAN UP and go up to the person and stab them with a knife if you want them dead. guns are so clinical.

[kaiser soze]

Very upsetting indeed, something is horribly wrong with society on so many levels.

Nations at war are statistically faced with more violent crime - add to that the sinking economy, sinking healthcare, sinking family values, and sinking societal morality and you have people feeling horrible doing horrible things to others.

Many people are cowards when it comes to taking their lives so they don't want to go alone so they murder people to justify their own violent end.

I wonder how many young men and women who aren't "newsworthy" who die everyday. Why is crime life glorified on t.v., why are gangs still terrifying neighborhoods, why are guns still considerably easy to get?

[hitmonlee]

Reaction

Australians reacted to the event with widespread shock and horror, and the political effects were significant and long-lasting. Both federal and state governments, some of which (notably Tasmania itself and Queensland) were opposed to firearm control, quickly took action to restrict the availability of firearms. It should be noted that the Tasmanian state government initially attempted to ignore this directive, but was subsequently threatened with a number of penalties from the federal government. Though this resulted in stirring controversy, most Government opposition to the new laws was silenced by mounting public opinion in the wake of the shootings. Under federal government co-ordination all states and territories of Australia banned and heavily restricted the legal ownership and use of self-loading rifles, self-loading shotguns and pump-action shotguns, together with a considerable tightening of other gun laws. Family members of victims, notably Walter Mikac (who lost his wife and two children), spoke out in favour of the changes. See gun politics in Australia for more information.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Arthur_massacre_%28Australia%29

[Yeti]

I used to live near West Palm. I read the Palm Beach Post's website and this is sad.......

-----Caught by a gunman's indiscriminate bullet, Lt. Rafael Vazquez, a firefighter who saved lives across Palm Beach County for 15 years, died a doting father.

He and his wife, Michele, bought their lunch Monday and headed out of a Wendy's in suburban West Palm Beach when their 4-year-old son, Adrian, noticed he already had a toy like the one inside his kids' meal. So Vazquez went back inside for a new one.-----

This poor guy was shot at point blank range.

[Schmeltz]

In Gaza they have suicide bombers, in America they have suicide shooters. I think it has less to do with media attention or desensitization to violence, and much more to do with the combination of individual despair and disfunction, and the general failure of modern societies to provide an answer to it.

Check out what hitmonlee's article is really saying. It speaks to more than just the casual public opinion of the Australian populace on a hot-button issue: people were actually so horrified by this event that they legislated a significant alteration to their culture in order to prevent such a thing from ever happening again. In America the general reaction would have been "well maybe we should give guns to teachers." Even after Virginia Tech there was no meaningful push toward the idea that something can actually be done to stop these crimes, just a kind of resigned retread of the traditional positions, quickly swept under the rug by war news and the like.

These things are connected. Gun crime happens in America because Americans allow it to; the fact that they feel helpless to stop it is a facet of the very conditions that lead people to do it. Blaming the media for glorifying violence, or writing these people off as loners who just want attention, is ignoring the real symptoms - alienation, hopelessness, confusion, detachment. It goes way deeper than video games.

[abcdefz]

The problem with America is that too many people think they can decide what another person's life is worth, and whether it's been slavery
or abortion, we've even sanctioned it at times, and that creates an outlook in which this sort of thing becomes permissible in the cultural
psyche. I mean, the correct response to this would be absolute shock and sobs and tears, but we've gotten to the point where
"there's been another shooting." It's just the next one.

It's a national shame.

[cookiepuss]

When it comes to gun control in the the United States, the main argument gets tied up in the constitutional right to bare arms...which is largely misinterpreted in the first place.

and the thing is... our fore fathers knew when the wrote the constituion that they were not infalable and that things might need to be changed as time went on...that's why they made the constitution ammendable. So that we CAN change it if it no longer fits the best interests of our country. the constitution was never meant to be carved in stone.

yet the constitutional right to bare arms is the main argument you'll hear from people who don't want gun control.

[abcdefz]

yet the constitutional right to bare arms is the main argument you'll hear from people who don't want gun control.



...you're thinking of skin cancer advocates. :D

[cookiepuss]

...you're thinking of skin cancer advocates. :D

lol. yeah..wait I'm suppose to spell if like the animal? Bear arms? That looks wrong but I see that's how it's suppose to be.

[abcdefz]

Yeah. Like: "I can't bear it anymore."

[kll]

The worst part is that I am in a situation at my work where one of the owners tried to kill himself 2 weeks ago (2nd suicide attempt since november) and the other owners are voting him out (due to mental incompetence) tomorrow morning. He and his attorney will be present and he has loaded guns (one of the suicide attempts), so the other owners are actually concerned with what will happen afterwards... the sad part is the guy needs medication desperately, but he doesn't think anything is wrong with him... I would not normally be concerned except for the fact he's not medicating!

[cookiepuss]

The worst part is that I am in a situation at my work where one of the owners tried to kill himself 2 weeks ago (2nd suicide attempt since november) and the other owners are voting him out (due to mental incompetence) tomorrow morning. He and his attorney will be present and he has loaded guns (one of the suicide attempts), so the other owners are actually concerned with what will happen afterwards... the sad part is the guy needs medication desperately, but he doesn't think anything is wrong with him... I would not normally be concerned except for the fact he's not medicating!

tomorrow? Um they are suppose to let people go on a Friday, cause there is less chance of an "incident". Come on, they said it in Office Space.

p.s. that's a little scary. hope he doesn't go postal. you were always nice to him right?

[abcdefz]

Wow. That's a really hard situation. One of the rare times I'd consider doing it over the phone or something.

What has your company's attorney recommended?

[kll]

well, one of the owners IS an atty and had been the other owner's atty up until the suicide attempt. as soon as the suicide owner realized that everyone was concerned and acting more to protect the business instead of from a personal level, he retained his own counsel (sp?).

the suicide owner's atty has not been told by the suicide owner ALL of the shit that's gone down in his personal life over the past few weeks and the atty had been encouraging him to return to work even though the other owners have said they don't want him here.


it's sooo much information and confusing, so i hope i communicated clearly. the suicide owner had resigned last week, but doesn't seem to recall it or anything that really happens from day to day. when you talk to him, he says the same thing from the previous day and the previous day before that... kinda like groundhog day.

[marsdaddy]

Yeah, the damned MEDIA! They're evil.

But remember, stories about guns don't kill people...

[cookiepuss]

the suicide owner had resigned last week, but doesn't seem to recall it or anything that really happens from day to day. when you talk to him, he says the same thing from the previous day and the previous day before that... kinda like groundhog day.

sounds a little like dissociative disorder (also know as multiple personality disorder).

Individuals with DID demonstrate a variety of symptoms with wide fluctuations across time; functioning can vary from severe impairment in daily functioning to normal or high abilities. Symptoms can include:[8]

* headaches and other body pains
* distortion or loss of subjective time
* depersonalization
* amnesia
* depression

[cookiepuss]

If their going to do, why not do it Dexter style and get rid of the scum of this earth.

yeah. be selective. I could be ok with that. no more of this random crap.

[hitmonlee]

When it comes to gun control in the the United States, the main argument gets tied up in the constitutional right to bare arms...which is largely misinterpreted in the first place.

and the thing is... our fore fathers knew when the wrote the constituion that they were not infalable and that things might need to be changed as time went on...that's why they made the constitution ammendable. So that we CAN change it if it no longer fits the best interests of our country. the constitution was never meant to be carved in stone.

yet the constitutional right to bare arms is the main argument you'll hear from people who don't want gun control.

yeah i know all this, learnt a lot about americans and the constitution and the right to bear arms at school.

the things is i never hear anything about anyone protesting the opposite.
do people just give up because some people say its in the constitution?
politicians won't touch the issue because it will lose them votes from all the gun lovers?
i know americans can protest, yet i've never seen an anti-gun protest on the news here.

[hpdrifter]

Its actually a really hotly debated issue and there are many many people here in the US who protest the widespread availability of handguns. Up until the Iraq war it was right up there with abortion as the most divisive issue in the country. I'm not sure why it seems to have fallen off the national radar in the last couple of years, probably because the war is the biggest concern for many nowadays.

That and there seems to be no middle ground. Much like abortion, the sides absolutely cannot compromise and so the discussions lead nowhere. I'm sure it'll come back around again in the wake of all of these incidents.

A related issue that worries me is that every single day I seem to see a story in the national news about an estranged husband killing his ex-wife and their kids. Or a man killing his girlfriend, or a woman disappearing while her husband or boyfriend is the prime suspect.

Seriously, violence against and hatred for women seems to be on the rise in the US.

[abcdefz]

That and there seems to be no middle ground. Much like abortion, the sides absolutely cannot compromise and so the discussions lead nowhere.



Yeah, but with guns, you'd think a middle ground would be much easier to draw. Like, let's start at least with, say, armor piercing bullets?
We could start there, couldn't we?

[hpdrifter]

But the pro gun people don't see that. And we don't see why the second amendment is the be all end all.

Its like abortion, you'd think there could be a middle ground with the age of the fetus, the circumstances of the conception, the health of the mother, the ability of the mother to understand what is happening or care for the baby.

But there isn't. To the anti-abortioners, life is life in no uncertain terms.

[abcdefz]

Yeah; that's where I am.

I can see an argument if something's happened and it's either the baby's life or the mother's, though.

[Yetra Flam]

America is a tough country to live in. I think it's all kinds of stress i've not experienced before. Maybe it creates more of an environment to make people go crazy like that? I don't know.

[hpdrifter]

I'm not sure why we have so many gun lovers in this country. I don't think other countries have a problem having handguns controlled. I don't think they protest it quite as much.

[TurdBerglar]

my uncle has a small collection of handguns. not for protection he just likes them and he and his wife go to the range every so often and fire off some shots. and he doesn't even where flannel. he goes to work in a three piece suite.

[hpdrifter]

I've actually considered going to the shooting range. With as many guns as there are everywhere in this country I feel I should at least know what to do with one so I'm not scared of them.

[cookiepuss]

I've actually considered going to the shooting range. With as many guns as there are everywhere in this country I feel I should at least know what to do with one so I'm not scared of them.

I'm not against gun regulation and I don't own one...but we had them in the house when I was growing up and I learned to shoot and always treat a gun like it's loaded whether it is or not. I'm actually not a bad shot.

going to a shooting range is fun. But I still have some fear of guns even though i can handle one. basically as long as the gun is in my hands I'm not afraid. but if someone else is holding it, I'm not comfortable...I don't care if it's someone I love and trust.

[hpdrifter]

Apropos

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23688073/