Umpqua, Oregon, Mass Public Killings, Oct 1st 2015.

[photonrider]

Right.

 

[TenEightyOne]

In the wanton wake of slaughter

You probably mean "the wake of wanton slaughter", and maybe even bigger letters to demonstrate the excitement?

 

[photonrider]

You probably mean "the wake of wanton slaughter", and maybe even bigger letters to demonstrate the excitement?

You were talking 'sensationalism', now you're talking concepts. The wake (trail left) was not orchestrated, nor was the slaughter (cruel killing) choreographed - they were both wanton. Take your pick of what was wanton.

You give me advice on writing - let me, in return, give you advice on reading:

Learn every possible connotation conceptualised by a grapheme so that when read in context the concept expressed by such denotation will be clear.
It may help with the snappy, attention-getting one-liners addressing cherry-picks.

This is my second response to you. There will not be a third forthcoming on the subject of your grading this essay in the OP - until you rewrite the whole thing. Simple challenge.

As for the large font leading into smaller point - it's one of many standard type-setting routines. You may use it too.

____________________________

Putting aside 'thread-talk' . . .

 

[LMSCorvetteGT2]

The problem is, it turned into a gun discussion (or at least to me) the moment that comic was posted, as the author evidently got everything wrong, comparing people using guns to murder people to people using knives or bats. The image would have been much more correct if instead of a single body, the gun section had at least 10...

I'll address this in the proper thread since the direction the OP is trying to drive this is different from being about guns or any mass violence in general but recognizing that every day people (as I said in the President 2016 thread) can create a positive change in such sad circumstances. Thus a good thing.

 

[LeMansAid]

Coooool!! This is so uplifting - I want more bloodbaths and heroes.

I also love it when someone does my thinking for me. Hell, we're all such a bunch of cold-hearted dummies in here - we need that.

Also, also, I see no hints of narcissism and self importance in the approach of the OP.

 

[Com Fox]

This is seriously out of control. Makes me kind glad I don't live in America but at the same time I wish their was something that can prevent all this. I don't think it really matterS who or what is the blame which they are making a big deal over, JUST TRY TO FIX IT!

 

[prisonermonkeys]

You give me advice on writing - let me, in return, give you advice on reading:

Learn every possible connotation conceptualised by a grapheme so that when read in context the concept expressed by such denotation will be clear.

So, in other words, "if you didn't get my meaning the first time, it's not because there's a problem with my writing, but because you didn't read it properly", then? Sorry, but that doesn't fly. As a writer, then onus is on you to convey the subtext; the intended meaning that the audience will take from your work without having to be told what that meaning is. Given that there are people with wildly different understandings of your intended meaning, it's a failure on your part to adequately express your point. You cannot offer "yes, but it must be read in context" as a counter-argument because context is the personal, social, political, economic, historical and spiritual (and so on) circumstances that led to the composition of an argument. So your response to @ TenEightyOne amounts to "shut up, no".

This is my second response to you. There will not be a third forthcoming on the subject of your grading this essay in the OP - until you rewrite the whole thing. Simple challenge.

You call that an essay? It's not an essay. It barely qualifies as an argument. It's an emotional reaction to a situation and purely subjective without being persuasive.

 

[Danoff]

Everything is fixed, obama feels bad:

http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/09/politics/obama-oregon-shooting-visit/

Whew, glad we took care of that little debate.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Biased reporting is biased. He says, "that's not real freedom", not "Australians have no freedom".

Oh, it is real freedom. I think that it's more free than anything Americans have, because I'm free to go about my daily life without fear that my school is going to be shot up - and if the worst should happen, then I'm free to express my grief without someone marginalising it by claiming that their right to own a gun is somehow more important than the right of the innocent dead to live a full and happy life. How long does the list of innocent victims have to be before this "right" is no longer regarded as a freedom, but a tyranny?

Also, statistically speaking on a per capita basis, you are about as equally likely to have died being shot in a school setting in Australia this year as you are in the U.S. The U.S. can outpace australia in school shootings 15:1 and still be equal per capita.

And that somehow makes it acceptable?

 

[Com Fox]

I'm usually one to accept death occurs and move on but I do find it sad that during these massacres people care more about their Guns more than the innocent people who have died.

 

[Johnnypenso]

Oh, it is real freedom. I think that it's more free than anything Americans have, because I'm free to go about my daily life without fear that my school is going to be shot up - and if the worst should happen, then I'm free to express my grief without someone marginalising it by claiming that their right to own a gun is somehow more important than the right of the innocent dead to live a full and happy life. How long does the list of innocent victims have to be before this "right" is no longer regarded as a freedom, but a tyranny?


And that somehow makes it acceptable?

How far would you like to move those goalposts? You said, "FOX broadcasters decry Australians as having no freedom" and now that I show that's not an accurate quote you come back with, "oh, it is real freedom"? How about, "oh sorry, I guess I didn't listen to the piece myself, I just assumed the headline was true"?

No, the equally likely odds of being shot in a school setting in Australia this year vs. the U.S. doesn't make it acceptable, it just puts a little perspective on the numbers. It's a bit selective to decry American schools as unsafe when in some ways you'd actually be safer there than in Australia, this year at least.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

How far would you like to move those goalposts? You said, "FOX broadcasters decry Australians as having no freedom" and now that I show that's not an accurate quote you come back with, "oh, it is real freedom"? How about, "oh sorry, I guess I didn't listen to the piece myself, I just assumed the headline was true"?

I corrected myself. The FOX broadcast said "Australians don't have real freedom", as you pointed out. I refuted that with my post. Now you come up with this whole "moving the goalposts" line because I didn't immediately acquiesce.

FOX were trying to refute the argument that Australia has had success with its gun control laws, arguing that it's not "real freedom" because we don't have the right to own weapons. We have never had it, have never considered ourselves to need it, and have never regarded it to be a right. And yet, we're not living in a state of tyranny or oppression.

No, the equally likely odds of being shot in a school setting in Australia this year vs. the U.S. doesn't make it acceptable, it just puts a little perspective on the numbers. It's a bit selective to decry American schools as unsafe when in some ways you'd actually be safer there than in Australia, this year at least.

One person dying in a shooting like this is one too many. How many people have died in shootings like this is Australia? None. Not none in 2015; none. How many people have died in shootings like this in America? At least a dozen this year alone. So you're absolutely right: putting some perspective on the numbers works wonders.

 

[photonrider]

So, in other words----

Whatever.
You may take your 'other words' to the half-dozen threads available dealing in structural linguisitics and we can 'argue' semantics there down to the last morpheme. No derailment in here - please, and thank you.
The only relation to the topic that language has, is about the routine journalistic labelling - which is only one of the routines we are looking to change.

You call that an essay? It's not an essay. It barely qualifies ......xsnipx

You missed the metaphor by a mile, never mind the hidden euphemisms. The 'subtext' in the para offered was simple: a qualifying (if not qualified) edit asked for to assay such critic's (and therefore critique's) credibility.

______________________________

To go on:

"Of course, this acceptance is not surprising; cognitive science has revealed how so much of our thinking and our responses to particular situations occur unconsciously, rooted in the frames, narratives and metaphors that we have picked up since childhood. And, in a culture filled with brutally violent imagery and emotionally powerful narratives that extol the value of violence, accepting violence has become too easy. To view 294 mass shootings in a supposed peaceful country as routine is simply one further illustration of the need to begin to ask some fundamental questions about violence. The classroom seems like the right place to start."

http://montrealgazette.com/news/world/opinion-its-dangerous-to-accept-school-shootings-as-routine


The question asked in the OP shortly after the incident occurred was simple; How can we change this routine?

What routine?

The routine reactions that make the factual non-sensational - except to those personally hurt by the massacre. Then the fact of slaughter becomes more than sensational.
The routine of calling it 'mass shootings'.
The routine of random slaughter of several civilians in a gathering.
The routine of public venues for the slaughter - schools, sports events, cinemas, streets . . .
The routine of repetition in America.
By a lone active attacker seemingly unbalanced and anti-social.
Armed ususally with guns but not always, sometimes even a car used.
Routine killings involving unbelievable cruelty.
Killings include some sort of routine manifest.
Killers are routinely youg adults with access to schools.
And so on . . .

We need to look closely at these routines and shock our perceptions out of the complacency that reacts with: 'Ho hum, another shooting in .Murica . . .', 'Same old nonsense . . .', or 'Ban guns!' or "I'd be surprised if it doesn't happen again."

It will happen again. It would be counter-intuitive to accept otherwise.
At the very least it would be forgetful. That makes it even more routine.

It can happen tomorrow. Maybe next week. Or the month of Christmas.
It will happen. Again. And maybe again and again. Dynamic statistics don't come to a crashing halt, they constantly evolve, change and reflect changing circumstances.
We must accept this first before we can change routines - we must realise that this is a routine and will happen again as routinely as routines are apt to do.

The circumstances now, in continental America, simply put, has this routine:
Random, routine mass killings of civilians in public gatherings.

That's the What, When and Where outlined - and it is a routine scenario.
The How and Why are what changes.

How?
Guns, bombs, sonic phones - whatever is convenient at the time (easy to acquire, cheap, portable, concealable, effectively deadly , capable of mass killing.etc. )

Why?
A significantly surfacing answer: The expression of Hate.
This will be manifest on whatever public wall is available by force - writ in blood.

This could easily be spotted well in advance; humans don't turn into monsters of hate overnight - especially not those who may have been pushing an anti-social manifest for quite some time. The Social Media (obviously an oxymoron in this case) throws up early warning signs in much of what people write and post reflecting their hate for society. In a sense, these people profile themselves - in their attitudes, in the chattels they collect, in the social media posts . . ..
If you know a person who amasses guns, hero-worships mass-killers, hates life and people, and has no solid ambitions for a future - then obviously these are early warning signals that the person has qualifications more or less towards a destructive end.
Get them help.
Teach them about the beauty and fragility of life and how other people (whose lives they may destroy randomly) have recognised this beauty about life and want to live it.
It is not hateful to rebel, to revolutionize, to critique, to contradict, to innovate, to express concern - this is not hate, these are human endeavours for change and undertaken by those who do not fear to challenge the status quo in a civilised manner within civilisation to improve the conditions of societal living.
But Hate is fear manifested.
Hate drives these anti-social crimes. Hate is significant in this routine of killing the public randomly - because the hate here is for those who enjoy living.
Hate is the first signal that the routine of killing might be carried out eventually.

There is another aspect to these routines - a most important one.

We must focus on the beneficial routines that are being practised, and that save lives, and circumvent routines that these killers depend on.
There are routines these killers depend on, too.

They depend on the routine of conveniently using guns. They depend on the group they are after to be coralled, to not escape, to not be able to take cover. They depend on the authorities not being informed of anything until they are well into the deed. They depend on the victims threatened to not be able to communicate - to send text or video, or use items the victims may have (mace, knives, etc).
These killers in public of the public want control as a means towards yet another end: attention - they need it desperately so 'at the point of a gun'.
It is only if they so wish, that anyone lives or dies - or carries a message for them to the 'rest of the wordl' and it's most often a simple message: 'See? I'm great. I have the power to kill. Take me seriously.'

So let's change some routines in taking away this power to kill that has been so freely given to everybody. Instead of the routine of discussing and politicizing the 'How' that was used to perform the 'What', let's look at some routines that may save lives:

Always check the exits when gathered indoors in groups. Know where they are and how far away you are from them. This should become a subconscious routine. Make this a routine and it can save your life. Doesn't matter gun or bomb threat or poison gas, getting out of there may be the first option that works best to save your life.

If you are in a classroom equipped with the new door-guards, steel wedges, or bar-locks that are being produced to battle this threat and help keep a door closed, use them quickly.
Stay down. The closer you are to the ground the safer in most circumstance.

Stay away from windows if you are locked in a room with an active shooter outside or in another classroom.

Some schools already practise 'active shooter' drills. Take these drills seriously, it may save your life.

Be handy with your phone or other communicator - learn to use it fast in an emergency - have emergency dialling on your speed-dial. This can save lives. the faster the call for help, the more chance of preventing carnage an even saving the critically injured.

Learn where the fire alarms are when you enter a building that has a large gathering. A fire alarm galvanizes a somnambulist crowd into action, and that may help save lives by getting people out of areas of potential danger.

Talk to the relevant people in your schools and work out routines about the fire alarm - do you need another kind of alarm that tells everybody to lock themselves in instead of fleeing outside? This may prevent confusion and also save lives.

See something? Say something.
Sometimes all a person needs is some professional help to realise that true happiness is the opposite of hate, and that society can actually help people find that happiness . The pursuit of happiness is what the American society was built on - and because happiness is individual then the liberty to pursue such individual happiness without distress to society - because society is the framework that civilisation is built on, and civilisation is a great aid to the pursuit of happiness for a great many people.
When we see someone with an agenda based on death then we see a person that is a merchant of unhappiness - the fruit of hate.
This doesn't mean rampant paranoia - but learn to spot signals that someone is unhappy enough to hate living on and to take other lives with them. The lonely are to be specially viewed and succoured - lonliness is a disease in society, and incredibly destructive - with lonliness within society, itself being the ultimate irony.

Have the mindset that this will be a constant and daily battle wherever you are in America. Do not get into the routine of numbness that it is going to happen again, but not around you. This is countrywide. Learn the routines of this new style of urban survival against this new style of urban guerrilla.

There is also news that many such attempts by other would-be mass-killers in America have been stopped by law-enforcement investigations that led to arrests. That sort of stuff hardly surfaces in the news - successful villains seem to provoke more interest than successful heroes. Let's stop that routine, too, and look for the heroes in our society - and celebrate their lives, for they have given continued life to many others who may not be with us today.

I would like to say it doesn't affect me, I'm not in America, and wash my hands off it - but it would be more than placid of me to ignore the distress of my American friends (on an American site) about an American social problem that is eating into its way routinely into the public - flesh, blood and consciousness.
________________________


As patterns emerge, further news unraveled, and other routines come to light we learn more.

First a lesson from the student who was told to hold the routine manifest:

When a life comes so close to ending, it gets a person thinking about life, even if you’re an 18-year-old college student.
“The final thing I want to add is … that any day could be your last,” Downing said. “You don’t want anybody’s last memory of you to be a bad one so everybody needs to take it upon themselves to just be a lot nicer to people.”

http://fox8.com/2015/10/10/oregon-shooting-survivor-describes-rampage-in-gunmans-classroom/

Again a subtle warning that we should be attentive to one another - in a nicer way. It is for our own survival as a group, as a society, and finally as fruitful nations.

When we focus on heroes - what more providence than the offcers that just happened to be located close enough to respond fastest were also officers with unswerving courage, tactical skill, and immediate, head-on response to the threat:

"Roseburg Detectives Joe Kaney and Todd Spingath pulled up to Umpqua Community College in an unmarked police car, with no lights or siren going.
Both men are veterans on the force and in the field. They've been in a shootout and spent time in the military. But last Thursday, they were wearing suits when they arrived at the school just outside their city. Neither had bullet-proof vests.
They happened to be among the closest to the school when they heard the call come over the police radio about 10:38 a.m:
"Somebody is outside one of the doors, shooting through the door ... we do have one female that has been shot at this time. We're still attempting to get further ...," the dispatcher said.
When the detectives arrived, they knew the shooter was in a Snyder Hall classroom. They knew he may have a long gun. And they knew about 35 people were scattered throughout the building with him.
They parked to the southeast of the hall at 10:44 a.m. They heard several shots as they approached.
The gunman was firing shots through the windows from inside the classroom.
They used their police car and other cars in the lot for cover and moved toward the shots. They saw the shooter, Christopher Harper-Mercer, standing right outside the classroom. They saw the muzzle on his 9 mm handgun flash."

"State Police Sgt. Lynn Withers came from the west."

There is an animation in this link that recreates the tactical action:

http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-n...f/2015/10/suspect_is_down_cops_recall_cl.html

As the nation reels and mourns the nine who were killed, Spingath and Kaney have been hailed as heroes as officials say their actions were key to preventing Harper-Mercer even more devastation.
Kaney is a former Marine who has been employed by the Roseburg Police Department for 23 years.
He also received a Medal of Honor for the 2005 shooting, as well as a and Purple Heart from the Oregon Peace Officer Association as he was hit.

Detective Todd Spingath, 41, is a United States Air Force veteran employed by the Roseburg Police Department for 16 years. He received the Medal of Valor for another shooting in Oregon in 2005.
He was with his partner Sgt Joe Kaney, 49, when they received the alert of gunfire in Umpqua Community College last week.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...amed-decorated-police-hero.html#ixzz3oE05UOQd

They don't want to be considered heroes - but that is a routine to be expected of heroes:

An Oregon police chief says two detectives who ran toward the sound of gunshots and wounded the gunman who killed nine people at a community college don't want to be called heroes.

Roseburg Police Chief Jim Burge says he and many others in the small town consider the officers to be heroes. But he says Kaney and Spingath feel they did what they were trained to do.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/latest-oregon-gunman-killed-police-shot-34315939

From that same link:

Authorities say the gunman who killed nine people at an Oregon community college killed himself inside a classroom after two plainclothes officers shot and wounded him.

Downing confirms what happened:

"When police arrived, the shooter began firing at them, said Downing. He added the shooter leaned outside the classroom and was shot by an officer.
Downing said the gunman then shot himself in the head."

http://abcnews.go.com/US/lucky-survived-oregon-school-shooting-describes-massacre/story?id=34385602

And again confirmed by Wesenberg:

Douglas County District Attorney Rick Wesenberg said at a news conference Wednesday that the two detectives who were among the first on scene heard a volley of gunfire and ran toward the shots at Umpqua (UHMP'-kwah) Community College last Thursday.
They spotted 26-year-old Christopher Harper-Mercer in the doorway of a building and he immediately fired at the officers, who weren't wearing bulletproof vests.
Wesenberg says they fired three rounds, one of which stuck the shooter in the right side. Once Harper-Mercer was wounded, he went back into the classroom and shot himself at the front of the room.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/latest-oregon-gunman-killed-police-shot-34315939

This also shows that America is prepared. That there are effective routines in place that help to save lives. Compare with the following incident (link provided below.)

At a house-party here in Canada, a very quiet one according to neighbors, several students were killed - again by a student who had access to the party ( and therefore a group in an enclosed area.) He walked in and used a knife taken from the kitchen of this very house. It took him almost half an hour to kill several people. By the time someone called for help and it arrived it was too late for many who had been stabbed. How would this same scenario be different enacted in America?

http://www.calgaryherald.com/Police+officer+charged+city+worst+mass+murder/9739998/story.html

A vast difference to the quick response the American public, and its peace officers made that actually saved many lives in the case of Umpqua.

Now, whether American or not, but more so aptly if you are, bring those ideas in here - share them - those routines that can actually save lives.
Maybe in the future, smartphones will have auto-video immediately a 911 call is made from that phone, or the sort of law-enforcement weaponry that will bring an attacker down instantly but alive, so that we can teach these deviants, and others who would follow, that there is no reward in this - only punishment. Maybe if will be harder in the future to procure instant death over a counter, or harder to get with them into areas filled with the public, or maybe more attention given to those who so desparately want it - when they need it.

These changes only scratch the surface for now.

What about the mothers who lose children in this way - what about all the mothers whose children turned killer? What of their heart-break, their shattered lives, their remaining torment on Earth? Again, we have a habit, a routine, of castigating such parents, but we must try to change that, too . . . among many other routines.

We're all in this together - and it is our collective consciousness applied to the reality that will change it.
Be safe. 👍

OP was updated with fresh details.