Rekna

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,301237,00.html


There have been a recent string of school shootings. This is a case where one was luckily avoided. I think the parents in this case should be charged also and go to prison for many years. They are at the minimum grossly negligent by allowing this kid to be armed. Why does he have grenades? Why does he have an assault riffle? Seriously this kid is 14, a loner, and very likely to use these weapons.

I have to wonder how the Ohio student got his guns.

Should parents be held responsible for the actions of their kids if the purchased the guns for the kids or knew the kid had them? What if the parent didn't know the kid had guns but should have reasonably known?


I don't have a problem with teens having hunting rifles as long as they have gone through some training. However why do teens need hand guns, grenades, and assault riffles?

Ustwo

Mmmm can someone explain to me what the amount of weapons really matters?

Obviously the kid had issues, and he was caught prior to any damage being done, but I can cause as much mayhem with a .223 hunting rifle as anything there.

I'm also willing to bet the grenades were defused and the story doesn't say.

So the kid had a bunch of swords, air guns, one real gun which is no more dangerous than a rifle and 'grenades' which were most likely not live who may or may not have had planned to carry out a school shooting and didn't have ammo for his one firearm.



Ah well it does make an impressive looking picture though.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

roachboy

arguments about direct causation are dicey, but at some point there has to be a level of incidents--on the order of shoot-em-ups in schools accomplished and foiled--such that even folk who are interested in refuting causal claims (access to guns=increased likelhood of gun violence doesnt seem terribly risky, the predictable counters from the anti-gun control folk notwithstanding) have to acknowledge that (a) there is a relation and that (b) that relation is a problem.

but as there's no agreement on what that level of information be, we get to watch shit like this happen and try out all kinds of hypotheses other than the availability of guns might make gun related violence more likely.

there's always the canard of "media biais" that can be tossed into play...this only gets coverage because there is some secret biais against grenades in the hands of teenagers and assault weapons and so on.

or maybe the kid was learning to hunt deer with a grenade.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

dksuddeth

The ONLY reason this type of hypothesis (more guns=more violence) doesn't get a large amount of discussion in most circles is because of the direct relation of having to declare, in one loud voice, that all people are crazy, immature, uncontrollabe, impulsive, murdering maniacs the minute they get hold of a gun. Imagine the anger and resentment that occurs when you're called a potential homicidal mass murderer because you own a gun and aren't licensed after an anal probing background check.

media bias? as in calling a semi auto military style rifle an 'assault weapon' in the hands of a citizen, but put that SAME EXACT RIFLE in the hands of a cop and all of a sudden it's called a 'patrol rifle'? no media bias there I guess.

highly doubtful that the grenade was live, but since the story seems to have missed pointing that out (because a kid with a grenade, presumed live, sounds so much more horrifyingly dramatic) for some reason.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

Rekna

According to the article 1 was a working grenade and the others were being assembled.

He had a 9mm assault riffle (bought by his mother).

Willravel

I'm home-schooling all my guns.

roachboy

i think this is a straw man.
you could equally state the obvious---that "normal" is more a zone than a state and that anyone can snap, given an adequately dense adverse situation. which seems a far more sensible position than the one you outline, dk. if that's the case, then the question shifts to one of availability of weapons---which remain neutral in themselves. availability, the advantages and disadvantages of the present level availability, the risks involved (that one can talk about coherently), and whether those risks are worth bearing.
problem with that line is that the opponents of gun control could well loose.


your argument above is a straight reversal of claims that in other contexts i have criticized you for implicitly making--that guns are magical objects the possession of which makes you politically free--which, pushed a little, imputes agency to an inanimate object. so it is curious to me that you would reject that interpretation in one set of contexts and embrace its mirror image in another.

the problem with the argument i make above is simply that the question it raises devolves onto another--the relative liklihood of such situations occurring. it seems to me there is no way to know that. so then the question would shift onto the point i raised in the earlier post.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

samcol

Oh, I would be extremely suprised if it was an actual fully automatic rifle, which is what 90% of the people in this thread probably think when they hear 'assault rifle.'

__________________
It's time for the president to hand over his nobel peace prize.

dksuddeth

I don't see it as a straw man. I'm not saying that all people use that argument in debating against guns, but to simply declare that more people carrying guns is a direct factor in escalations of gun violence and NOT say that 'guns are evil' (which is a really ridiculous viewpoint) is basically saying that people in general are what I said before. The reason I don't see it as a strawman is i've seen many people say that exact thing, some even on this board.


Then you're really not seeing my viewpoint on what I think guns truly are. They are a tool for defense. They can be an equalizer, when the law abiding aren't restricted from being equal to government forces. At no time do I think I ever intimated that a gun makes anyone an unstoppable force for anything.

Every time that the subject of guns comes up, i'm always hearing hypotheticals of 'a teacher could shoot a student in anger' or 'a student could mug the teacher for the gun'. These hypotheticals are indeed possible, but I have to wonder of these people that make these claims ever consider that students already bring guns to school and start shooting, so it seems that those who argue this position, while not ok with a shooter having completely defenseless targets to shoot until cops get there some minutes later, find that far more preferable to the possibility that someone could 'snap'. I don't understand that 'logic'.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

Plan9

Quick! Blame Guns!

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

Willravel

There's no such thing as "offense is a good defense". Offense is offense, and defense is defense. Guns are offensive weapons. Kevlar is defensive.

Guns are tools in a vague sense, but calling them tools suggests you're equating them with other things generally described as tools which is using deceptive language to mask the violent nature of guns. I don't see many people killed by rakes, hoes, or phillips screwdrivers, so it's dishonest to call guns tools. Guns, specifically, are weapons. They are designed to have a primary function of doing harm. I don't know of anyone who uses guns to clean leaves or fix a broken dishwasher.

Rekna

I didn't say blame guns i said blame parents who buy their clearly troubled kid guns and then ignoring the fact that he was making grenades.

I also see that almost no one is even answering my question of should parents be held accountable in cases like this?

Willravel

Should parents be responsible? Shit yes. These idiots had no clue who their kid had become insane. What kind of parent doesn't know their child at all? A bad parent. I don't know if they should go to prison, but they should be allowed to raise kids anymore than someone with a DUI should be able to drive. They're shown they aren't responsible enough to be parents.

Also the schools. If they could take the standardized tests and assembly line teaching strategy out of their asses for just a second, they could see just how important school can be in the development of a child. Childhood and adolescence is an incredibly difficult time for most people, and providing a safe and healthy environment to develop in is pinnacle.

Also the government. I'm sorry, but the prison system doesn't work at all. The idea of simply punishing instead of preventing is, and I choose my words carefully here, the worst problem in the US today. A few years ago, my mother (psychologist) worked with a program called "Second Step", which was designed to prevent criminal behavior by providing a better school environment for children. Empathy training, impulse control and problem solving, and anger management are taught to young children grades preschool through 5th grade. It saw incredible success in less than a year, and the children have subsequently ALL gone on to be very successful, productive, and healthy. The program was cut. Apparently, there wasn't enough money in the budget to prevent crime. After all, we need to pay for the prison industrial complex.

Plan9

Parents are the first, last, and only party to blame here.

Guns? Nah. Schools? Nah. TeeVee violence? Nah. Accessories before or after the fact in some philosophies? Sure. But not the principal.

BLAME MOM AND DAD... they screwed the pooch here.

They OWN the kid. They feed the kid. They cloth the kid. They transport the kid around. They own the dwelling the kid resides in. They have plenty of potential interaction time with the kid on evenings, weekends, summer breaks, holidays, etc.

Parents are the living gods of their child's universe until they are no longer considered juveniles... and if god fucks up and drops the ball... what does that leave you with?

...

Obviously this moron didn't get the memo. School shootings stop being cool in 1999.

...

Okay, 9mm "assault rifle"... whatever. It was Hi-Point carbine, a $200 piece of shit that is better used as a club than a rifle. And they found no ammo for it. Scary.

Another misuse of terminology by the media: Assault rifles are shoulder fired, two handed, intermediate caliber (5.56mm, 7.62x39mm, etc.) semi and full auto weapons that use high capacity detachable box magazines.

...

FUNNY:

The police found 30 air-powered guns. Airsoft guns? BB guns? WTF?

Those aren't firearms. They are not weapons. They are not regulated by law. They don't kill people. They are generally made out of the same plastic as vibrators and orthodontic retainers.

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

markd4life

Yes, I blame the parents. I am father of two home schoolers, and we have weapons in the house. Firearm owners have a responsibility, not only to their own children, but also everyone else's children. There is no reason a person that age should have access to that kind of arsenal.

MSD

Parents who own guns should begin educating children about them at an early age (want to show a kid why he shouldn't play with guns? Load a pistol with Hydra-Shok rounds and shoot a watermelon, I've heard first-hand accounts of people being hit with chunks 50 yards away.) Even though they learn about them, and may even shoot a kid's .22 at the range, the guns should not, under any circumstances, be unsecured and accessible to the child until he is well into the teenage years. Even if your child owns a gun for hunting or target shooting (giving someone a gun for self-defense under 18 is a bad idea, especially in less gun-friendly state,) they should go in the family gun safe until he is no longer a minor, at which point the parents should decide whether their child is responsible enough to store his own guns safely.

If you buy a minor a gun (and it is legal, not a straw purchase as the DA in this case is trying to claim,) you are responsible, ethically and (hopefully) legally for anything they do with it. If you have such a vague idea of what your child is doing in his spare time that he is building pipe bombs, as the kid in this case was, then neither you nor your child should be trusted with guns or anything sharper than a banana. If your child exhibits warning signs of future violent behavior, get him to a psychiatrist.

Plan9

His arsenal of BB guns, a sword, some homemade boom-boom, and a 9mm Hi-Point with no ammo?

Uh... not an arsenal. The average police officer carries much more firepower.

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

dksuddeth

as has been said before, if guns cause violence, pencils cause spelling mistakes.

An inanimate object is neither good nor evil, peaceful nor violent.

damn right parents should be held responsible.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

roachboy

i dont understand what exactly folk are saying when they write "the parents should be held responsible"--mostly because these claims are made in short sentences without any qualification.

do you mean that this kid had no agency?
does it mean that a 14 year old does not actually do anything?
does it mean that the parents were really assembling grenades?

or are these claims really a way to avoid the issue of a kid with weapons who is understood in plymouth meeting (a suburb of philadelphia) as having "issued terrorist threats"--and by doing that to avoid addressing the problems raised by easy access to weapons?

seems to me the latter.

then there is the other issue of hysteria generated by the shootings in cleveland, by other school shootings....

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Rekna

When I say the parents should be held responsible I think the parents should be charged for any crimes that the kid broke (the kid should also be charged with them in a juvenile court).

Plan9

I resemble that remark with:

I'm at a loss here. Does the obvious need any more qualification?

Terms like "enabling through neglect" and "vested interest" and "active parenting" mock my minimal intellect.

Suggesting that Mrs. Dumpykins was assembling M67s in her basement is a little silly.

Of course we blame the child! Society has dictated that we can't cut off their heads anymore. Some other party has to take the fall, too.

What should be used to qualify said factors? I'm clueless.

...

Like WillRavel said: Dangerous world out there! I'm homeschooling all my guns.

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

Baraka_Guru

Does this mean it would be okay for me to have nuclear warheads? It's true guns don't cause violence, but they certainly make it more accessible and efficient. And to comment on your illustrative comparison, it appears far too many illiterate people are using pencils. They should be taken away.

This doesn't make sense. If a minor commits murder, both parents should be charged with murder and the minor should be tried in a juvenile court?

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Rekna

If the parents purchased the weapon and ignored the warning signs yes. If someone is negligent and someone dies because of that negligence it is considered murder (by law). I'm not keen on trying a 14 year old in adult court but I think he needs massive rehabilitation.

dksuddeth

we've dealt with this strawman before.

so do knives, cars, malotov cocktails,....etc.

and far too many people speak before thinking. Maybe we should cut their vocal chords.

accessory by neglect?

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

Nimetic

Clearly - if owning these weapons is illegal, the parents have complicity (moral if not legal) in a crime. What the penalty is depends on the system and local laws.

It's interesting. I'm sure that if a similar weight of cocaine and heroin were found in the child's room - the fate of the parents would be clear.



(Oh... I'm not saying that guns are like drugs here... just that if kids had illegal X, it sounds like it will be treated differently than illegal Y. Where X is guns, and Y is drugs.)

Baraka_Guru

This isn't exactly a strawman in this context, especially considering it points out the oversimplification of your statement. Maybe I should point out that it would be more correct to say: "If guns cause violence, pencils cause marks."

Guns are designed to inflict violence, whether it be to inanimate objects or to living things. They are devices designed with the sole purpose of launching projectiles at a high velocity. What is the purpose of this action? It is not to help deliver information, as is the primary purpose of the pencil. It is to put holes in things, thus destroying them. This is why it should be far easier to obtain pencils than to obtain guns. It is also why we shouldn't use pencils as a comparison (i.e. as a red herring).

To say guns are primarily for defense or to act as an equalizer is to make an assumption that that is the most effective end to be achieved. Unfortunately, I am not satisfied that it is. (I, for one, would feel much safer by not carrying a gun.) Statistically, far too many people die from guns to suggest that they are tools of safety. Looking at domestic violence and suicide numbers alone would suggest that guns are also tools of destruction. And before you throw up some more suggestions about how one could just as easily kill oneself with a Molotov cocktail or by climbing to the roof of a building, remember just how quick and easy it is to fire a gun.

As far as these particular parents are concerned, they might be subject to a more direct responsibility for their actions, but I was speaking from a more general sense, as cases like these could set dangerous precedents. Parents often have little control over their teenagers, which is likely a reason why there are juvenile courts in the first place. I hope this makes what I wrote before a bit clearer.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Plan9

The firearm philosophy / use debate truly tires me. As long as nobody in the ivory castle is writing some bill of attainder saying I'm a criminal for owning and using them for sporting purposes, I'm starting to care less and less about other people and their idiocy with their implements. Apathy hurts my soul.

The root of the problem, I'd say. This isn't a factual thing, so much as it is a belief. Like religion, it only works if you let it into your imagination.

Colorful sayings come out of the closet:

"But we should treat them like adults." "They need privacy." "Kids being kids." "Oh, they're just kids." "What can I do?"

Ex post facto bovine excrement. Copouts. Lame attempts at excuses. Bargaining. BAD PARENTING.

The thing that slays me is how easy it is for society to believe such things.

We didn't give up the power over our kids... we just ignored it and put it in a closet. We (adults) put ourselves on the same level as them (juveniles).

We are what we do... and we act like kids have the same rights as adults.

We fucked up.

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

Baraka_Guru

Many forms of corporal punishment are illegal in most places now. In Canada, if you're 14 or older, no one can use it on you legally. So we're expected to reason with hormones. I'm not sure about the laws regarding the parental incarceration of teenagers.

Teenagers have their own agency, but not many of them have the capacity for reason that we would expect in adults.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Plan9

You're not allowed to beat privates in basic training anymore, either.
My relish-suit wearing brothers and I turned out to be fine soldiers.
All the instructors did was communicate their desires to us. In a firm tone.
I'd suggest that being a modern soldier is slightly tougher than a teenager.
Granted that it is not by much. Both are subjected to varieties of torture.
Some of these kids are both soldiers and teenagers. Talk about crazy.

...

Respect? Resp... re... oh, fuck it. Not worth mentioning.

...

I'm not suggesting that corrective violence or petty legal venues are the answer.
I'm thinking that a lot of what does "it" is a breakdown of communication.
Parents in an individualistic, low context society, enabled "it" to happen.

In a family... you and I are we.

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

JohnBua

I went shooting with my dad as far back as I can remember. I was taught gun safety, how to clean them and how to lock them up. Its not the guns that are the problem, its nut bags and their nutbag parents.