Another US school shooting

[Platapus]

We have 300,000,000 people in the US. Even supposing that 99.9999 percent of the people are reasonably sane and not dangerous, that still leaves 30,000 dangerous nutters.

When ever a population gets that large, even a tiny percentage of nutters results in a disturbingly large actual number.

I am actually pleasantly surprised that we don't have more of these types of horrible crimes, given our population.

I rarely hear about school shootings in China or India, and both those countries roughly have 1,000,000,000 more people...
As far as I know, there have been like ~20 school shootings in Asia in total during the last decades.
Same amount of shootings occurred in the US this year alone.

I really don't think population numbers are the problem.

[Ducimus]

Probably gang related, which is nothing new. When i was in high school (which is 21 years ago), we had SEVEN drive by shootings, all of them gang related; and I went to the better high school in my area. The other was much worse. Guns were not the only weapons, nor the most common. Usually knives, baseball bats, chains, fist bats, etc etc.

EDIT:
Now that I think about it, I remember I used to carry a 5 inch folding buck knife in my jean jacket every day during high school for self defense.

Originally Posted by Ducimus

Probably gang related, which is nothing new. When i was in high school (which is 21 years ago), we had SEVEN drive by shootings, all of them gang related; and I went to the better high school in my area. The other was much worse. Guns were not the only weapons, nor the most common. Usually knives, baseball bats, chains, fist bats, etc etc.

EDIT:
Now that I think about it, I remember I used to carry a 5 inch folding buck knife in my jean jacket every day during high school for self defense.

I can not remember a single one of the school shootings that took place in the last decade (in the US) that have been gang related. Not a single one.

[Ducimus]

Originally Posted by Nippelspanner

I can not remember a single one of the school shootings that took place in the last decade (in the US) that have been gang related. Not a single one.

Your probably just watching the headlines like Aurora or Sandy hook. Not all violence gets sensationalized. Of those seven driveby's at my high school that i mentioned , I was present at one of them, and none of them made any news outside the local newspaper. No LA times, no NY times, nada.

As to this incident, did I say this was gang related? Looks like i was pretty damn close. In this news story, here is our upstanding citizen:


Updated news stories:
From Pittsburgh:
Police: Teen Arrested, Charged In Brashear H.S. Shooting

Police say the shooting outside of the high school was the result of Willet being robbed at school last month by the same students who he fired at.

He didn’t want to file a report on last month’s robbery, Lt. Kraus told reporters, rather “he took matters into his own hands.”

In another news source local to me that is citiing an assoicated press article:

3 Pa. students shot; suspect calls it retaliation

Three Pittsburgh high school students heading to their vehicle after classes ended were shot Wednesday, and another student was charged and told police he was retaliating for being beaten during a drug-related robbery last month at school, police said.

Gangs.... drugs.. two peas in the same pod if you ask me. As of right now, I do not see any reference to this story as of yet on CNN or Foxnews.

True, yet if you look at the persons who did the "famous" shootings you will see that they have not been gang related. If there are even more shootings, gang related or not, it's even worse.

[Ducimus]

Originally Posted by Nippelspanner

True, yet if you look at the persons who did the "famous" shootings you will see that they have not been gang related. If there are even more shootings, gang related or not, it's even worse.

Look, lets be frank. I think it's obvious your pinning this whole story as an anti-gun argument. What I am telling you, is that stuff like this is nothing new. If he didn't use a gun, he would have tried something else. Either by himself, or with his "homies". While in high school, I pissed off someone too. Next thing I knew had a pack of his homeboys looking for me, and they were all packing one weapon or another.

In other words, what I'm saying is what we're really looking at here is not gun issue, (though one was used) but an issue of inner city violence, gangs and drugs. Unfortunately this is nothing new. Hell, i practically called the issue out for what it was before the story was updated.

Let me ask you this, do high schools in germany have an on campus police office? Many of ours do. Not because of guns, but because of violence in general. In fact, students aren't even allowed to have lockers anymore where i grew up. The problem of weapons and drugs being stashed in them became too much, so they took them out.

Your probably just watching the headlines like Aurora or Sandy hook. Not all violence gets sensationalized. Of those seven driveby's at my high school that i mentioned , I was present at one of them, and none of them made any news outside the local newspaper. No LA times, no NY times, nada.

That's because shootings are so common over there, you really should do something about restricting access to firearms.

Originally Posted by Tribesman

That's because shootings are so common over there, you really should do something about restricting access to firearms.

But...guns are not the problem!
They can't be!
Cause 'Murrica!

(Since I'm getting cynical and therefor deconstructive, I just bail out of this...)

[the_tyrant]

This type of attack is impossible in China. At my old high school, the school was gated, and there were security guards were outside the school doors. The school lead out to the local university, which was again, gated with guards.

Thus, external attacks like this, where the attacker was not in the school would prove to be impossible. This is why we heard of kindergarten attacks a few years ago, the outside madman can't really attack students at high schools, so they attack kindergartens without security.

As for internal attacks within the student body, a significant amount of students live in residence on dorms at the middle school to high school level in which it would be impossible for them to attack the school.

Now for the rest of the students, I've identified a few more reasons, why attacks like this are far less common. If media (video games, gangsta rap, violent movies, etc) do make you more violent, than Chinese students have little time to actually consume any of it.

Also, a large number of attacks are ideologically motivated, and again, that won't happen. All schools have political science teachers. Teenage anger and rebellion? what is that? It surely never happens in China.

[August]

Originally Posted by the_tyrant

This type of attack is impossible in China.

I wonder if this degree of security is worth the heavy handed rule that is required to achieve it.

[Cybermat47]

Originally Posted by Ducimus

Probably gang related, which is nothing new. When i was in high school (which is 21 years ago), we had SEVEN drive by shootings, all of them gang related; and I went to the better high school in my area. The other was much worse. Guns were not the only weapons, nor the most common. Usually knives, baseball bats, chains, fist bats, etc etc.

EDIT:
Now that I think about it, I remember I used to carry a 5 inch folding buck knife in my jean jacket every day during high school for self defense.

I...

What?!

That's insane!

I hope they've cleaned up that area now!

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Cybermat47

I...

What?!

That's insane!

I hope they've cleaned up that area now!

Insane?

[Ducimus]

Originally Posted by Cybermat47

I...

What?!

That's insane!

I hope they've cleaned up that area now!

You mean where i grew up and went to high school? Oh yeah they've managed to clean it up.

I went back some years later to visit an old friend from my graduating class who went back to be a teacher. While there it was hard not to go down memory lane, but some of the things i noticed right away:

- Brick work on the buildings themselves were painted over with an enamel to make it easier to remove grafitti.

- A wrought iron perimeter fence was installed. Presumeably to keep shady characters out, I think it was to keep the students in. Damn school looks like a fortress now.

- Lastly, and most importantly, they got rid of the three "rent a cop" styled security guards that worked there while i was attending and the local PD opened a satellite office on campus. Some kid does something stupid like pick a fight, his reward is a nice set of matching "bracelets", and a chauffeured ride in the back of a cruiser to the city lockup.

I'm pretty sure the gang problems are a thing of the past there now. I haven't heard anything to indicate otherwise, but then again, I just didn't normally go by there anymore.

Problem is there's so many 'Laws' to protect us that We are no longer allowed to protect ourselves.