School shooting in Texas (shooter arrested)

Joey D
In the US, mental health is pretty low on what's treated, maybe in Europe, there are better services for that? I don't know, but I'm inclined to think mentally ill people have better access to care than they do in the US.
Click to expand...

In belgium we have started the process to pay back visits of the psychologist depending which healthcare organisation you joined. And if they pay it's only x amount of sessions a year. In my case 4. That's ridiculous as a patient myself I have to say for me 4 wouldn't have been sufficient to get me out of my depression with starting suicidal tendencies. Imagine if you had an attemp and you're supposed to fix it in 4 hours...

So no mental healthcare is way down the list. There also is a social stigma of going to these places which makes this situation worse. And often people seeking help are called crybabies, attention seekers or generally weak people.

People who go to a therapist should be more open about this. It lowers the step to get there. The only reason I went is the parents of someone at my dorm who commited suicide who practicly begged us to seek help in these situations. Not going to me felt like betrayal and would have made his dead and parents gathering the strength to talk to us worthless.
 
Joey D
That's a fair point.

I do think access to guns does make it easier for violent people to carry out their twisted fantasies. However, I do wonder if you took guns out of the equation, would these people just use something else? I don't know, nor do I have an answer.

I've spent a bit of time in Europe and while watching TV in various European countries, it seems like violence is less likely to be shown, while sex is pretty common. In the US that's the complete opposite. We're exposed to things like swearing and sex far less than we are exposed to violence in our media. As an example, I watch Vikings on History when it airs and recently I bought the European version of the show. Throughout the show, there are several scenes with nudity and graphic sex scenes. Those are for the most part cut out of the US version of the show even though they have no problem showing a really detailed scene about cutting a dude's lungs out and flopping them on his shoulders. Sure, it's anecdotal, but it's the best example I think of off the top of my head.

Take someone who's not mentally healthy and expose them to that stuff again and again and chances are they'll start thinking that way. While a vast majority of us can separate fiction from reality, some folks can't.

I also don't know a ton about the European style of healthcare other than what our media spouts about it (which is probably wrong). In the US, mental health is pretty low on what's treated, maybe in Europe, there are better services for that? I don't know, but I'm inclined to think mentally ill people have better access to care than they do in the US.
Click to expand...

I can't speak to the situation in all countries, but I suspect that treatment for mental health issues is not that readily available anywhere. And the problem is that the psychopathic tendencies of these kids may not be clearly identifiable in advance. Perhaps the most troubling of all these recent shooters is Stephen Paddock. How the hell do you anticipate something like that?

Would people just use other means if guns were not available to them? It's possible. I keep emphasizing the "copy cat" nature of these events because I believe it's a very important factor. Repeated incidents "normalize" the activity & make it more likely someone else will do them.
 
Biggles
I can't speak to the situation in all countries, but I suspect that treatment for mental health issues is not that readily available anywhere. And the problem is that the psychopathic tendencies of these kids may not be clearly identifiable in advance. Perhaps the most troubling of all these recent shooters is Stephen Paddock. How the hell do you anticipate something like that?

Would people just use other means if guns were not available to them? It's possible. I keep emphasizing the "copy cat" nature of these events because I believe it's a very important factor. Repeated incidents "normalize" the activity & make it more likely someone else will do them.
Click to expand...

You have to think... for a teenager who is suicidal and who hates their classmates and everyone at their school (teachers, kids in other grades included), are they going to just off themselves in their home or are they going to look for a way to give their life meaning with one last hurrah before they go out. They're ready to end it either way, but in the school shooting scenario they get to exact revenge, take back power from the kids that stole it from them every day, and for a few moments even seize the entire country. That has to sound way better to them than just killing themselves quietly and being forgotten by most.

If you put yourself in the mindset of someone who has already planned to kill themselves, giving themselves the power that they probably desperately longed for every day for years probably sounds pretty great.

Blowing yourself up in a truck would be a lot harder for the same kid. It's more difficult to actually learn how to operate a truck when you're not allowed to drive in the first place. It'd be hard to buy the necessary chemicals and amass them without your parents knowing about it. And it doesn't give you that sense of power for a few moments before the end. Blowing something up remotely would be more effective. You could watch the aftermath for a while before offing yourself. That one actually gives you more of a chance to off yourself in a comfortable manner. But blowing something up remotely is complicated and offers a lot of opportunities for it to go south and get you caught.

The school shooting perpetrated by a student at the school seems to me to be one of the most problematic for everyone in this discussion. This particular incident is pretty much exactly the worst case scenario. How do you identify this kid? How do you prevent him from access to guns? How do you keep him from losing it in the first place? Once he has decided to carry this out, how do you protect the school?

I don't have any great answers for that. I can think of things that would help, but... I can always think of downsides to those ideas. More remote learning, segmented schools that don't provide access to all the kids. Metal detectors. Cops. Gun laws requiring more secure measures in households with kids. Mandatory screening. I don't see any easy answers.
 
Danoff
You have to think... for a teenager who is suicidal and who hates their classmates and everyone at their school (teachers, kids in other grades included), are they going to just off themselves in their home or are they going to look for a way to give their life meaning with one last hurrah before they go out. They're ready to end it either way, but in the school shooting scenario they get to exact revenge, take back power from the kids that stole it from them every day, and for a few moments even seize the entire country. That has to sound way better to them than just killing themselves quietly and being forgotten by most.
Click to expand...

Yes - but realistically, the vast majority of teenagers who commit suicide DON'T go on a shooting spree. It's still a extremely rare occurrence compared to the huge number of suicides.

I don't think blowing up a truck is a likely way to go ... but stealing a van or truck, or even a car & plowing into a group of people ... that, unfortunately, is very doable & I could see it becoming more common if a few more people "popularized" it.

Danoff
The school shooting perpetrated by a student at the school seems to me to be one of the most problematic for everyone in this discussion. This particular incident is pretty much exactly the worst case scenario. How do you identify this kid? How do you prevent him from access to guns? How do you keep him from losing it in the first place? Once he has decided to carry this out, how do you protect the school?

I don't have any great answers for that. I can think of things that would help, but... I can always think of downsides to those ideas. More remote learning, segmented schools that don't provide access to all the kids. Metal detectors. Cops. Gun laws requiring more secure measures in households with kids. Mandatory screening. I don't see any easy answers.
Click to expand...

I agree - it's very problematic. No easy answers. BTW: neither this kid nor Cruz actually ended up killing themselves.
 
Danoff
This is not the guns thread, or the accidents thread (I don't know if there is an accidents thread). I'm not sure what it has to do with this thread.
Click to expand...
He's trying to point out how bad America is 'cause guns...
That said, it's similar, but belongs in a different thread. The parent didn't secure their firearm.
 
ryzno
He's trying to point out how bad America is 'cause guns...
That said, it's similar, but belongs in a different thread. The parent didn't secure their firearm.
Click to expand...
I don’t think America is bad because of guns. I just hope that lives can be saved... one vote at a time, if I can help someone see gun control does have the power to save lives. With less firearms / strict good control an accident like this dramatically reduces in probability.
 
Danoff
You have to think... for a teenager who is suicidal and who hates their classmates and everyone at their school (teachers, kids in other grades included), are they going to just off themselves in their home or are they going to look for a way to give their life meaning with one last hurrah before they go out. They're ready to end it either way, but in the school shooting scenario they get to exact revenge, take back power from the kids that stole it from them every day, and for a few moments even seize the entire country. That has to sound way better to them than just killing themselves quietly and being forgotten by most.

If you put yourself in the mindset of someone who has already planned to kill themselves, giving themselves the power that they probably desperately longed for every day for years probably sounds pretty great.

Blowing yourself up in a truck would be a lot harder for the same kid. It's more difficult to actually learn how to operate a truck when you're not allowed to drive in the first place. It'd be hard to buy the necessary chemicals and amass them without your parents knowing about it. And it doesn't give you that sense of power for a few moments before the end. Blowing something up remotely would be more effective. You could watch the aftermath for a while before offing yourself. That one actually gives you more of a chance to off yourself in a comfortable manner. But blowing something up remotely is complicated and offers a lot of opportunities for it to go south and get you caught.

The school shooting perpetrated by a student at the school seems to me to be one of the most problematic for everyone in this discussion. This particular incident is pretty much exactly the worst case scenario. How do you identify this kid? How do you prevent him from access to guns? How do you keep him from losing it in the first place? Once he has decided to carry this out, how do you protect the school?

I don't have any great answers for that. I can think of things that would help, but... I can always think of downsides to those ideas. More remote learning, segmented schools that don't provide access to all the kids. Metal detectors. Cops. Gun laws requiring more secure measures in households with kids. Mandatory screening. I don't see any easy answers.
Click to expand...

Honest question, how many of these school shootings end with the shooter killing him/herself?

While I can't put myself in a kind of mindset like you describe I can see it as plausible.

In most of the suicide cases I actually saw those people writing notes in which they apologised for all the harm they caused before and will cause due to suicide. I saw them taking the full blame on subjects they did nothing wrong at. I even saw thank yous for actions certain people made to give them a nice goodbye or making the time they lived a tiny bit better.
 
Mr Tree
Honest question, how many of these school shootings end with the shooter killing him/herself?
Click to expand...
Well...

PocketZeven
160616144218-05-gun-violence-chart-how-shootings-end-12-7-15-super-169-jpg.738055
Click to expand...
Of course there's no differentiation between those who may have wanted to off themselves anyway and those who just didn't want to be taken alive.
 
Mr Tree
Honest question, how many of these school shootings end with the shooter killing him/herself?

While I can't put myself in a kind of mindset like you describe I can see it as plausible.

In most of the suicide cases I actually saw those people writing notes in which they apologised for all the harm they caused before and will cause due to suicide. I saw them taking the full blame on subjects they did nothing wrong at. I even saw thank yous for actions certain people made to give them a nice goodbye or making the time they lived a tiny bit better.
Click to expand...

It actually doesn't matter how many of them end in suicide. What matters is how many of them happened in which the shooter planned on killing himself (let's be honest, this isn't a herself situation).
 
Biggles
I don't think blowing up a truck is a likely way to go ... but stealing a van or truck, or even a car & plowing into a group of people ... that, unfortunately, is very doable & I could see it becoming more common if a few more people "popularized" it.
Click to expand...
While driving a car in the US (with the majority being automatic) is an easier thing to do than with manual transmissions (that are more common in Europe), its still not an easy thing to do at all if you are completely new to it, and as has been said a lot more difficult to practice.

Trucks (and to a lesser degree vans) are a different beast altogether, with 10 speed transmissions with hi and lo range, most people at first can't even get them moving, let alone drive one without any form of training.
 
Danoff
...from the perspective of the mentality that I was explaining in the post that the quoted text was a response to.
Click to expand...
Fair enough. Perhaps more pertinent, particularly given the thread title, is that Dimitrios Pagourtzis didn't commit suicide.
 
TexRex
Fair enough. Perhaps more pertinent, particularly given the thread title, is that Dimitrios Pagourtzis didn't commit suicide.
Click to expand...

Again, my post was about attempting to understand the mentality going in, in hopes of understanding the effect of any preventative measures taken to avoid a similar situation. The fact that he changed his mind is irrelevant.
 
Scaff
While driving a car in the US (with the majority being automatic) is an easier thing to do than with manual transmissions (that are more common in Europe), its still not an easy thing to do at all if you are completely new to it, and as has been said a lot more difficult to practice.

Trucks (and to a lesser degree vans) are a different beast altogether, with 10 speed transmissions with hi and lo range, most people at first can't even get them moving, let alone drive one without any form of training.
Click to expand...
I've rented many many trucks in Canada up to a 24 foot straight box. All of them came with either an automatic transmission or a 5-speed.
 
Biggles
Yes - but realistically, the vast majority of teenagers who commit suicide DON'T go on a shooting spree. It's still a extremely rare occurrence compared to the huge number of suicides.

I don't think blowing up a truck is a likely way to go ... but stealing a van or truck, or even a car & plowing into a group of people ... that, unfortunately, is very doable & I could see it becoming more common if a few more people "popularized" it.



I agree - it's very problematic. No easy answers. BTW: neither this kid nor Cruz actually ended up killing themselves.
Click to expand...
Johnnypenso
I've rented many many trucks in Canada up to a 24 foot straight box. All of them came with either an automatic transmission or a 5-speed.
Click to expand...
I've driven many trucks, many of them don't.

Aside from which the point about an unskilled non-driver easily gaining access to one and even practicing remains.
 
Scaff
I've driven many trucks, many of them don't.

Aside from which the point about an unskilled non-driver easily gaining access to one and even practicing remains.
Click to expand...
It doesn't take much skill to drive a 12-foot box truck. Over here that will most definitely be an automatic transmission . The only trucks I've ever rented that have a 5-speed or the 16 to 24 footers and even many of them are automatic these days. Not much different than driving a minivan. You don't need skill or you don't need to demonstrate skill to rent one. You just show up, present your license, make a deposit and off you go. Over here it's as easy as renting a movie and you can easily be in and out in 10 minutes or less.
 
Johnnypenso
It doesn't take much skill to drive a 12-foot box truck. It's not much different than driving a minivan. You don't need skill or you don't need to demonstrate skill to rent one. You just show up, present your license, make a deposit and off you go. Over here it's as easy as renting a movie and you can easily be in and out in 10 minutes or less.
Click to expand...
Great, but we are talking about people who may not have a licence and have little to no driving experience.
 
Scaff
Great, but we are talking about people who may not have a licence and have little to no driving experience.
Click to expand...
If they don't have a license and have no experience why would they be stealing a vehicle?
 
Scaff
Great, but we are talking about people who may not have a licence and have little to no driving experience.
Click to expand...
It sure looks like we were talking about how hard it is to gain access to and drive trucks with ten speed low range manual transmissions in Europe. This was confusingly a counterpoint to how easy it could be for someone in North America to be at least 18 years old, go to a Penske or U-Haul building and rent an automatic box truck fundamentally extremely similar to the millions of pickup trucks sold in the United States alone every year and then drive it into a crowd of people.


Assuming they don't take the old three quarter ton pickup truck that a teenager could reasonably own himself and do the same thing as soon as they get a permit at age 16. Or just grab their parents' truck whenever.
 
Last edited:
Tornado
It sure looks like we were talking about how hard it is to gain access to and drive trucks with ten speed low range manual transmissions in Europe as a counterpoint to how easy it could be for someone in North America to be at least 18 years old, go to a Penske building and rent a box truck fundamentally extremely similar to the millions of pickup trucks sold in the United States alone every year and then drive it into a crowd of people.


Assuming they don't take the old three quarter ton pickup truck that a teenager could reasonably own himself and do the same thing as soon as they get a permit.
Click to expand...

In general, the minimum age to rent a car in the US is 25. Some rental companies allow you to rent for a large fee between 21 and 25. I didn't see any that go under 21 just now. I think a 16 year old would find it impossible.
 
Danoff
In general, the minimum age to rent a car in the US is 25
Click to expand...
To rent a truck from Penske or U-Haul the minimum age requirement is 18 years old, nationwide as far as I can tell; the former of which even advertises not having any surcharges at all for those under 25. Unless you are in New York or Michigan, where the minimum age requirement for any car rental service by law is 18 years old (but I'm assuming with huge fees on top of that).


Danoff
I think a 16 year old would find it impossible.
Click to expand...
That was why I was talking about a vehicle a 16 year old might own themselves that would be fairly similar to a box truck as was the case for several people I knew in high school with outmoded city work and farm trucks. They were extremely cheap transportation to purchase and (comparably) to insure so long as you could eat the exorbitant gas costs; and presumably have remained so in the intervening decade.
 
Tornado
It sure looks like we were talking about how hard it is to gain access to and drive trucks with ten speed low range manual transmissions in Europe. This was confusingly a counterpoint to how easy it could be for someone in North America to be at least 18 years old, go to a Penske or U-Haul building and rent an automatic box truck fundamentally extremely similar to the millions of pickup trucks sold in the United States alone every year and then drive it into a crowd of people.
Click to expand...
And yet they don't, which begs the question, why?

Honest question, in the US which would be eadier, the above or buying a gun?

Tornado
Assuming they don't take the old three quarter ton pickup truck that a teenager could reasonably own himself and do the same thing as soon as they get a permit at age 16. Or just grab their parents' truck whenever.
Click to expand...
Which again begs the question why they don't?
 
Certainly it may be because they can just use a gun. Or maybe it is as Biggles said, that it simply isn't the "trendy" way of doing such a crime (even if the "yet" never comes to pass as he speculated), since the only instance that has been plastered all over 24 hour news cycles in America like a typical school shooting was when that Nazi guy drove his Charger into the crowd of protestors last year. Maybe if a kid in the US paid more attention to the terrorists in Europe who occasionally rent trucks and plow into crowds with them even though they are largely ignored by the media here it might turn some wheels in his head.


That a gun may very well be easier to perform such a crime in 2018 wasn't my point of contention with your post, and I'm suspecting you knew as much.
 
Scaff
And yet they don't, which begs the question, why?

Honest question, in the US which would be eadier, the above or buying a gun?
Click to expand...

I can only speak from my experience of doing both. Buying a handgun and renting a moving vehicle took about the same amount of time. I assume the moving company (U-Haul) ran my driving record before letting me take their truck and had me fill out a bunch of insurance papers. The gun shop I was at took my license, ran a quick check, and had me sign some papers.

This was Michigan though where it's fairly easy to buy a gun or rent a vehicle. I'm not sure what it's like in other states.
 
Tornado
Probably because they can just use a gun. Or maybe it is as Biggles said, that it simply isn't the "trendy" way of doing such a crime (even if the "yet" never happens), since the only instance that has been plastered all over 24 hour news cycles in America like a typical school shooting was when that Nazi guy drove his Charger into the crowd of protestors last year.


That a gun may very well be easier to perform such a crime in 2018 wasn't my point of contention with your post, and I'm suspecting you knew as much.
Click to expand...
Yet in majority of the rest of the world, without access to guns in the same way they are still not used by students to target each other.

So my genuine question is why?
 

Similar threads

Obelisk
Parkland FL HS shooting, shooter arrested, 17 dead
21 22 23
Replies
675
Views
31K
UKMikey
UKMikey
Sanji Himura
Shooting at Great Mills High School in MD.
Replies
2
Views
616
McLaren
McLaren
Obelisk
At least four dead in California shooting
Replies
24
Views
2K
Liquid
Liquid
Firehound427
Former Japanese PM Shinzo Abe shot dead at event in Nara
2
Replies
46
Views
4K
Liquid
Liquid
ryzno
Mass shooting in Southern Texas Church
13 14 15
Replies
441
Views
18K
McLaren
McLaren

Latest Posts

Back