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Originally Posted by AGDee
I know our first instinct is "We must find a way to stop this" but (as pessimistic as this is going to sound), I don't see any way to prevent this type of incident.
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That may be our first instinct, but it's the wrong question, I think. You're right that we can never "stop" things like this. The better question is "are we doing all we can to prevent these incidents from happening."
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Originally Posted by Kevin
I hate that we're all still seriously talking about this "need" of reform. We don't need to do jack squat. At least not immediately. Laws made directly in the wake of emotional events typically aren't well thought out or even needed.
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I don't know about that. I think history just might support the idea that sometimes those emotional events are what prompt people in power into actually doing something. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was a direct catalyst for workplace safety laws. The Selma to Montgomery marches, and particularly the violence in Selma, was a catalyst for the passage of the Voting Rights Act (which LBJ sent to Congress just ten days after Selma).
I agree that haste isn't advisable. But the truth is that there is a window in which discussion are more likely to happen. Strike will the iron is hot and all.
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These types of shootings are becoming more rare, not more common . . . .
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What this means may be a matter of perspective. I agree that the evidence seems to show that mass killings overall have been in decline in recent years. But just in 2012, we've had Aurora, Oak Creek, WI, Minneapolis and now Newtown. To me, that means (1) they're not rare enough and (2) we're not doing all we can to reduce them more.