http://tv.msnbc.com/2012/12/14/nbc-news-26-dead-in-newtown-ct-elementary-school-shooting/

 

27 dead in Newtown, Ct., elementary school shooting

 

Police reported that 26 people, including 18 children and 8 adults, were killed in Newtown, Ct., after a lone gunman opened fire during the school day Friday, NBC News reported.

 

Federal authorities identified the gunman as 24-year-old Ryan Lanza. Lanza reportedly wore all black and carried two 9mm handguns. Police authorities confirmed that Lanza was dead inside the school and that the crime scene had been secured by Friday afternoon.

 

Connecticut State Police lead children from the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., following a mass shooting. (Photo by: Shannon Hicks/AP Photo)

 

Lanza reportedly began shooting inside Sandy Hook Elementary School, a kindergarten through fourth-grade school with 600 students, shortly after 9:30 Friday morning. Authorities said that Lanza, whose mother was a teacher at the school, focused his shooting at his mother’s kindergarten class after first shooting the principal’s office. Lanza’s mother was among those killed Friday morning.

 

The suspect's father was found dead in a Hoboken, New Jersey home, apparently dead from a gunshot wound. Another unidentified Lanza family member was found dead near Sandy Hook Elementary school Friday.

 

Jay Carney, a spokesman for President Barack Obama, spoke about the shooting at a press conference Friday afternoon.

"As we do, I think it's important on a day like today to view this as I know the president, as a father does, and I as a father and others who are parents certainly do," Carney said. "Which is to feel enormous sympathy for families that are affected and to do everything we can to support state and local law enforcement and to support those who are enduring what appears to be a very tragic event. There is, I'm sure, will be rather a day for discussion of the usual Washington policy debates but I don't think today is that day."

 

The president had a phone conversation with Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy and FBI Director Robert Mueller Friday afternoon to update information and offer his condolences, NBC News reported.

 

Obama ordered that flags be flown at half-staff Friday afternoon in honor of the victims.

Blahh blahh blahh gun control!

 

 

 

Now that I already made that argument, can we keep it out of this thread? There is nothing worse than arguing in a time of tragedy. I feel sorry for the families and my prayers go out to them.

It's horrible that something like this had to happen again so soon :(

 

edit: And agreed with Vezon. Gun control should be discussed - but not in the direct connection to an actual incident. Such a tragedy should not be used for a political goal.

Que the temporary gun control mania...

 

Very sad. Hard to imagine what was going through the mind of the person (people) who were doing this...

What I find most disturbing about the Connecticut shooting is that it reveals an essential truth about this country: people are only outraged because it was a massacre that was not sanctioned by the state.

 

If 18 children were murdered in a Pakistani schoolhouse by a drone, no one in the media would report it and just about everyone would go about their lives not caring.

 

Statism has a horrifically dehumanizing effect on how we perceive other human beings that are not American.

His mother's classroom was one of the first hit? And he killed his father as well? That guy had some serious family issues. This kind of thing is why I try to talk with my children as much as possible and try to teach them constructive ways of dealing with their emotions. I have no illusions that I always succeed, but hopefully it will make them more likely to talk with me as they get older, and less likely to express pain and frustration in ways like this.

 

Gun control really doesn't stop things like this from happening, btw. We have crazy gun laws here in Canada, and even we get nutjobs shooting up schools every so often.

 

Why people think killing children will make things better is beyond me though.

What I find most disturbing about the Connecticut shooting is that it reveals an essential truth about this country: people are only outraged because it was a massacre that was not sanctioned by the state.

 

If 18 children were murdered in a Pakistani schoolhouse by a drone, no one in the media would report it and just about everyone would go about their lives not caring.

 

Statism has a horrifically dehumanizing effect on how we perceive other human beings that are not American.

About any country really. What gets people is that they see this has possibly happening to them. Where as, I doubt anyone thinks they would be at a Pakistani schoolhouse.

 

 

But regardless, what are we supposed to do? Learn about every death in the wold and mourn over it? Lots of people are blaming the media for making money on these deaths. What, are we supposed to know about every death in the world? It's ridiculous for anybody to mention "the same number or more people die someplace else, but no one cares". It's like a cheap philosopher trick trying to guilt the masses.

 

People know there is death but do you think people like to THINK about it? Come now.

 

 

*this is more of a rant about the general attitudes of some people after these events, not just you Donnie.

My stance is Americans are not more precious then Pakistani's and to anyone who is more upset about these murders then those should check their values. Unless you knew any of the victims personally

My stance is Americans are not more precious then Pakistani's and to anyone who is more upset about these murders then those should check their values. Unless you knew any of the victims personally

 

This is the 5th largest school massacre in the world. So get your head out of your ass please.

 

I was reading this during the school day and it really depressed me. How could anyone rightfully look at an elementary school student and shoot them? Shoot 20 of them? It really touched me and I wish incidents like this never happened...

Im not saying its not tragic it is horrible. Im just saying other people are human too and given that you should more or less react to news the same. Whether its american, pakistani, Israeli or Palestinian.

Donnie, you might want to read up on "Dunbar's Number".

 

The basic concept of it is that we have a maximum number of people we can legitimately care about the deaths of. It's why your mom dying will hit you like a truck, but fifty people on the other side of the world dying seems almost meaningless. If we assigned the level of importance we assign to our close loved ones to everyone, we'd all be so emotionally scarred that we wouldn't be able to function.

 

Massacres scare us because they can happen to anyone and at any time. They're horror stories that hit home, and when they involve children they're even more terrifying because the lives of children are often viewed as even more sacred than those of adults (especially by parents).

Civilian casualties in wars are scary because they can happen to anyone, but only in a war. For the citizens of most 1st world countries, war isn't considered much of a threat any more (whether that is accurate or not).

 

 

We freak out a lot more over the stuff that can affect us, and that's natural. Certainly more attention should be paid to the atrocities of war, but not by downplaying tragedies like these.

We aren't at war with pakistan though and I specified paki children. And yes I'm familiar with Dunbar's number which is why I specified not knowing the victims personally.

 

My critique of peoples reactions is just like I said in my first post on this topic, people care more about people in their own country more then others and this is a negative affect that statism (read: nationalism) has on us.

A horrible tragedy. I also keep hearing of a school killing in Beijing that killed 22 children today also..

We aren't at war with pakistan though and I specified paki children. And yes I'm familiar with Dunbar's number which is why I specified not knowing the victims personally.

 

My critique of peoples reactions is just like I said in my first post on this topic, people care more about people in their own country more then others and this is a negative affect that statism (read: nationalism) has on us.

 

That's just not how the human mind works though. Yeah, in theory we should mourn for everyone we don't know in the same way, but the facts just are it's going to hit closer to home if it's in your country, if it's in a place you know, if it's a one-time event as opposed to something going on for a longer time (As civilian casualties in wars do). That's just the way it is and saying someone should "check their values" if they're more upset about this than about a Pakistani dying is ridiculous.

Whilst I don't want to engage in a "this should receive more response than this" argument, this massacre is headline news here in Australia. The slaughter of children in Syria and deaths of CHILDREN to Predator drone strikes in Pakistan receives little to no coverage. Whilst, yes, in a free democracy that is in peacetime, deaths seem to be more shocking because they are out of the blue, it feels...strange...to think that those deaths elsewhere are a footnote. I'm not saying we should feel the same "grief", but we sure as shit should feel something - shock, horror, disgust - about what is happening to children elsewhere in the world.

 

A horrible tragedy. I also keep hearing of a school killing in Beijing that killed 22 children today also..

 

A knife-wielding man has injured 22 children and an adult outside a primary school in central China as students were arriving for morning classes, police say.

 

http://www.smh.com.a...1214-2bfng.html

This is the 5th largest school massacre in the world. So get your head out of your ass please.

 

I was reading this during the school day and it really depressed me. How could anyone rightfully look at an elementary school student and shoot them? Shoot 20 of them? It really touched me and I wish incidents like this never happened...

 

Whilst I don't necessarily agree with the post you were replying to, the size of the massacre of little relevance. And surely as a people (brb HUMANS) we should want NO events like this - peace or wartime, first world or thirds, etc - to happen.

We aren't at war with pakistan though and I specified paki children. And yes I'm familiar with Dunbar's number which is why I specified not knowing the victims personally.

 

My critique of peoples reactions is just like I said in my first post on this topic, people care more about people in their own country more then others and this is a negative affect that statism (read: nationalism) has on us.

 

I think it's not entirely due to nationalism - it's partly proximity, and somewhat relateability.

Whilst I don't want to engage in a "this should receive more response than this" argument, this massacre is headline news here in Australia. The slaughter of children in Syria and deaths of CHILDREN to Predator drone strikes in Pakistan receives little to no coverage. Whilst, yes, in a free democracy that is in peacetime, deaths seem to be more shocking because they are out of the blue, it feels...strange...to think that those deaths elsewhere are a footnote. I'm not saying we should feel the same "grief", but we sure as shit should feel something - shock, horror, disgust - about what is happening to children elsewhere in the world.

 

A horrible tragedy. I also keep hearing of a school killing in Beijing that killed 22 children today also..

 

A knife-wielding man has injured 22 children and an adult outside a primary school in central China as students were arriving for morning classes, police say.

 

http://www.smh.com.a...1214-2bfng.html

 

That's relieving. I feared the worst.

The shooter had aspergers... Been trying to find out more about the gunman. It's quite easy to blame gun laws, goverment, etc. but nobody ever looks at what made the gunman think that shooting a classroom full of kids was a good idea, that's too much effort aswell, so people just blame the easy target I guess.

 

I always found this quite ironic; if someone was armed and were to defend the kids, that person would be breaking the law since schools are gun-free zones. Also, I'm pretty sure none of the weapons he used were legal in ct, I might be wrong, but I think only handguns are *completely* legal in ct, correct me otherwise.

The day we have a tragedy without a policy debate is the day the world will end.

The day we have a tragedy without a policy debate is the day the world will end.

 

dont worry, the gun control arguments are incoming

The shooter had aspergers... Been trying to find out more about the gunman. It's quite easy to blame gun laws, goverment, etc. but nobody ever looks at what made the gunman think that shooting a classroom full of kids was a good idea, that's too much effort aswell, so people just blame the easy target I guess.

 

I always found this quite ironic; if someone was armed and were to defend the kids, that person would be breaking the law since schools are gun-free zones. Also, I'm pretty sure none of the weapons he used were legal in ct, I might be wrong, but I think only handguns are *completely* legal in ct, correct me otherwise.

 

the AP also says there was a .223 rifle.

The shooter had aspergers... Been trying to find out more about the gunman. It's quite easy to blame gun laws, goverment, etc. but nobody ever looks at what made the gunman think that shooting a classroom full of kids was a good idea, that's too much effort aswell, so people just blame the easy target I guess.

 

I always found this quite ironic; if someone was armed and were to defend the kids, that person would be breaking the law since schools are gun-free zones. Also, I'm pretty sure none of the weapons he used were legal in ct, I might be wrong, but I think only handguns are *completely* legal in ct, correct me otherwise.

 

the AP also says there was a .223 rifle.

So I've heard, are the rumors about the grenades true? I'm starting to wonder (judging by his equipment) he wasn't really aware of what he was doing. Are there any records of shooters with aspergers?

Urrm aspergers is pretty similar to autism of which I have myself. Being autistic is all about social difficulties and has pretty much nothing to do with killing like 30 children in a school.

I think he was suggesting that Aspergers -> difficulty socializing -> frustration/anger -> shooting

I think he was suggesting that Aspergers -> difficulty socializing -> frustration/anger -> shooting

Might also be another reason beyond that that we don't know about.