School Shooting in Finland, at least 7 dead

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That's typical of scum like that. They are cowards by nature.

 

I think mentally ill would be more accurate. And, offhand, I'd hesitate to call such people scum. For the most part, school shooters have been social pariahs and were often the victims of bullies.

 

I'm not sure I'd call it cowardly either. Crazy? - yes. Stupid? - yes. But gunning up a bunch of people and then turning the gun on yourself and ending your life? I don't think a coward would have the guts to do it.

 

I think Dins is right. There are times that it's easier to just "pull the trigger" than it does to face some of the harsh realities of life. Sometimes it takes a lot more courage to face life head on, and to overcome some of the hardships that we are all dealt. To say that the system is not at fault also would be unfair - look at the V. Tech shootings: That guy was a walking bomb, and in this instance, the entire system failed. Yet, it had every opportunity to pull the guy over and get him some help. Instead he fell through the cracks. When a massive tragedy like this occurs, there are a lot of breakdowns that happen along the way. The greater tragedy is that no one seems to learn from the breakdowns. Instead, we get idiotic solutions like: "Everybody needs to start packing a gun." Or "Let's arm the students and the teachers." Yeah, let's have more students bringing guns into schools. Great! You would think people would learn at some point. Instead, they make the same mistakes over and over again.

The two Columbine idiots are a case study in parents leaving it up to the system to raise their kids, as has been pointed out. The parents need to be held accountable. These guys had rooms full of weapons and bombs and the parents did not even know what was going on in their own homes. And these weren't poverty stricken kids, left out of necessity; they were just ignored by their parents, who felt they had more important things to do than raise their kids.

 

I would not call the guy a coward, either. More like a cornered rat.

I remember there having been talk on this very forum about how a couple of "armed citizens" could have stopped the guy at Virginia Tech quickly. Well, the idea of "armed citizens" walking around creeped me out then and it creeps me out now.

When the shooting in Jokela, Finland happened, my first thought was pretty much "I thought this only happened in those really gun-happy countries." Then, as already said, it turned out we are one of those really gun-happy countries.

There is now talk about tightening the gun laws (as in, actual politicians are actually seriously discussing this). Great, but it is a shame that something like this had to happen first.

 

You got it Chandos. That's exactly what I was talking about in regards to being a coward.

Also, I don't care if he's mentally ill or an outcast or was bullied, there is nothing that justifies cold blooded murder like this. Anybody who resorts to that is scum in my book.

The call to tighten gun laws after an incident like this is as inevitable as it is useless. The politicians have to appear to be doing something even if it has been shown time and time again not to work.

 

chandos.......there are so many things wrong with your comments....... one of the only assaults at a school that was halted early was by a private citizen with a firearm. all the "no weapons" policies at schools & businesses do is insure that the criminal will have noone to worry about stopping him until he is done.
you know like in luby's in killeen, texas in 1991, where george hennard calmly strolled through the restaraunt executing people since the law in texas at the time did not allow LAW ABIDING citizens to carry their firearms on them. only allowed in your home & your car. at least 1 of the people present(Suzanna Gratia Hupp) had a firearm in her car & would have tried to save her mother & father ,who were killed in front of her, if she had been allowed to carry it.
firearms are used over 4000 times a DAY in the u.s. to prevent a crime(this # does not include police)
and please dont pull out the HCI's "12 children are killed everyday by guns in america" crap. their figures include everyone 19 & under as a child, including gangmembers, active duty military & police officers.

he!!, look at vermont. every us citizen, not just vermont residents, has the right to a gun for self protection in vermont. vermont ,which shares a border with new york, is one of ,if not the safest, state in the union to live in.

 

It was a "law abiding citizen" who shot those people in Finland. Not a two-bit thug.

 

Everyone's law abiding. Until the day they're not.

 

no amaster, if you obtain a weapon illegally or for the purpose of committing a crime you are not law abiding.
in this case he apparently posted videos online and made comments indicating what he was going to do for several weeks before hand. it was unfortunate that noone who knew him saw it ,or if they did, didnt take it seriously

 

There's a difference between acknowledging the many elements that contributed to someone's psychotic breakdown and arguing that it was justified. No one is actually saying that the shooting was justifiable...merely that the perpetrator wasn't necessarily a coward.

 

That doesn't actually refute what I wrote.

 

While I thought it was implicit in my previous post, I was in no way stating that I felt the shooting was justifiable. If I were to believe that, then I'd also have to believe that those who died got what they deserved, which clearly isn't the case - they just went to school that day.

Indeed, it does not.

 

So then we should disarm everyone because someday they might use the weapon in the commission of a crime? How typical. The rabble can't be trusted so those who know what is best for us need to make sure we don't do something untoward. After all, we have to try to remove all risk from life, don't we? Well, someday I might also need to use a firearm to defend my family from this type of person. The chances of me needing to do this are low, but the chances of a law abiding gun owner snapping and becoming a murderer like this guy are even lower.

Also to clarify my statement about justification. I know you guys aren't justifying this person's actions. Perhaps I should have chosen a different word like "defend" or "excuse." Mental illness is no defence for such an action.

 

Hmm. Ok. I see your point dmc. Obviously I made the leap to where I thought he was going with this since he and I disagree on almost everything.

 

I cannot speak for AMaster either, but I took his statement to mean that there is no way for an owner of a store who sells firearms to determine for what purpose the customer intends to use the gun. If he passes the background check, he gets the gun. AMaster's point (again I'm assuming here) is that no matter how bad an apple we're talking about, at one point that bad apple has no criminal record and can legally acquire a gun - and then use it illegally. So that person was a law abiding citizen - up until the point he stopped being one.

As a side note, I don't have any problem with you having a gun in your home to protect your family.

 

@martaug

I'm not saying that you're wrong here, but a gun happy post after a school shooting is pretty disrespectful.
And even if there was a law that allowed everyone to buy guns I'd like to think Finnish parents are more intelligent than letting their kids roam free with shotguns. And teachers? Most teachers I know wouldn't want to waggle a piece around either and most of them have been in the army (law).

And yes, we could all wonder about a "what if" solution here. Maybe there could have been a ninja in the ceiling who would have stopped mr.Shooter (I won't honour him with his name), but there wasn't. These things happen, maybe something could have been done to prevent this, maybe not and he was just always nuts.

I didn't know about Finnish gun laws either, though I knew we had a lot of guns, mostly for hunting purposes I guess.

 

Aik, I figure I may owe you an apology for my dismissal of the Columbine effect. It looks like it's not as unlikely as I'd hoped, judging from this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7101689.stm


Germany 'foils school massacre'

German police say they have thwarted a plot by two students to carry out a massacre at their school.

One suspect, aged 17, committed suicide after being questioned about the plot and his alleged accomplice, 18, is under arrest, police said.

A school in the western city of Cologne is believed to have been the target.

Police were alerted last week after the suspects were spotted by classmates studying pictures of the Columbine school massacre in the US in 1999.

 

As it turns out, the police didn't prevent anything. The older guy talked the younger one out of it almost a month ago, after which the younger said something about killing himself.