He had problems in school, was mobbed by classmates, had problems with girls, had no friends, was clinically depressed, saw no future, and was maybe smarter than you would guess. And then he found a gun.

A frighteningly common story, huh. Up until that last point (and now imagine we had no gun control).

Guilty parties:

Himself (pulling the trigger)
Classmates (mobbing, failing to help, social failure)
Parents (wtf happened with the gun?)
Perhaps teachers (failure to notice and take action)
School system
Social system
Health system
Economy

... bah, it's impossible to explain, really. Let's go to church (at least once), cry, and then forget about it...

Oh, wait, I forgot "computer games".

:-( 

I find the lack of originality in all these shootings rather depressing, if you're going out with a bang can't you at least be a little bit creative? 

the similarity in these actions seems to suggest that the news media is a better suspect than games/movies. 

Is sensationalist pap aimed at idiots (the media) so I don't take it seriously.

The biggest causal factor is access to guns.

Fair enough these individuals could use a machete or similar, but they'll do alot less damage and but stopped immediately when the law enforcement or even a security guard arrives.

It always surprises me how they have this massive list of mental issues but still have no problem getting hold of a weapon.

In this case he stole it from his dad, but even so.

Social failings are to blame, society as a whole - that's why the media wants to find scapegoats, because another failing is that we usually can't stomach the truth. 

the "we have no idea why he did it" made me angry, too. Guess they're pretending to don't know so they don't have to confess to failure.

I look at pictures of the guy and immediately think "a person with personal problems". I would have stayed away from him if i had met him in, say, university. 

Looks like his dad had 15 guns at home. Legally. (Well, not locking them away is illegal, though). His son regularly trained at a shooting club.

Umm, I thought we had gun control in this country. No one needs 15 guns for anything. I can understand if you have a sports weapon at home, of course.

It is indeed the case that access to guns is still too easy.

There are relatively strict laws about guns, but apparently they're only followed loosely by gun clubs and gun dealers (and gun owners). For example the parts that say what kind of gun you can have are often not taken seriously. As in the case of the Erfurt guy (he was at a shooting club, too, and an arms dealer didn't take the laws too seriously and sold him a Glock and a pump gun).

Idiots. The dad should go to jail, definitely. His gun was used to kill 15 people because he was lazy with it.

Some guy from the shooting clubs said that the guns could not be locked away at the club, "because there is no way to control that".

Har har, how is it better if Daddy takes his collection home and "controls" it there?!

German soldiers are NOT allowed to take their assault rifles home, btw. They are locked away at the camp and apparently it IS possible to control THAT, since they rarely get stolen or used in massacres, unlike shooting club guns.

Ah well. It happened now. The sad part is that nothing really changes. 

Bl1tz: Really??

http://kotaku.com/5169468/fear-2-toy-soldiers-dlc-is-gigantic-and-free

Can't say I'm a fan of giant maps like that, and this really doesn't fit the FEAR theme.

Having said that, I can not wait for this. It looks really badass. 

Why is gun control so important.
If his dad had only had 5 guns, would he not have gone out and shot those people? Even one gun?


I don't understand the mentality. People always look "WHO/WHAT IS TO BLAME" after things like these happen.
Ok, change a law - ban guns, videogames, horror movies, fire some policemen and ministers. Everything will be ok after that?
It's just completely idiotic populism in the media.

Maybe if there were no guns, he would have made a bomb. Ok so ban chemicals. He would have ripped people in the middle of the night at streets. So ban knifes.

Sigh. 

We have pretty strict gun control in germany already. It makes it harder for people to obtain guns legally, but what the hell - if someone wants to go on a killing spree, they'll get a gut anyway. Or use some other deadly weapon.

Without knowing much about the shooter's personal life and background, I'd agree that if you want to blame anyone besides him, it's the people closest to him: family, teachers, friends. They should have noticed and taken action. A person doesn't just get up and decides to go on a killing spree, it's a long process and that kind of mental sickness doesn't go unnoticed if someone had paid attention.

To blame this on media is too easy obviously. My way of thinking is that horror movies and action games don't make you into a mass murderer if you're normal, but I believe that if you are already on the way to a mental illness and have a lot of suppressed anger issues, they can push you further in that direction and it may not be a good idea for you. But that's obviously not grounds for a ban. If it were, you'd have to ban alcohol right along with them. 

yep 

Ok, change a law - ban guns, videogames, horror movies...[..]

Life would be so monotonous :( .. Nevermind...

I'm fed up with pseudo psychiatric specialists that are always trying to find excuses saying the murderer has been corrupted by our porn/violent society, bla bla bla... silly nonsense...

"Poor guy, he killed his father, his mother, his brother, his sister, and no he is alone... please have mercy of this poor orphan, and don't be rude with him... "

Come on, be serious... Althought this guy was "sick" (crazy ??), he killed people ! Do we have to cry for him, or for the innocents that died ?
Let's stick to the facts, it happens, and as it has been said, if it would have not happened with a gun, it could have been with a knife, a riffle, a bomb, whatever, nothing would have prevent it to not happen.... and it will unfortunately not be the last one...

The only good thing there, is that such people have enough lucidity to kill themselves instead of been caught by the police: it avoids long and expensive trial... not funerals... :P 

With a knife, he would have done less damage and been easier to stop, or perhaps he wouldn't even have started unless he had a gun. There is a difference between a Beretta/Glock 17 and 200 shots of ammo, and a knife/stone/lead pipe.

The laws are OK, but they are not always followed, and there are no controls of gun owners. This is clearly one of the weak spots.

And of course it is adequate after such an occurrence, to ask what went wrong and what could be done better. Don't be silly. It is very clear what went wrong here, too, so there doesn't need to be much discussion.

The killer was sick and murdered people, but he was also a mobbing victim. Thus we have to cry for all of them, if we cry.

Ignoring the mobbing part is bad, because ignorance prevents the finding of solutions.

nothing would have prevent it to not happen

This idea is a) wrong, and b) it's exactly why nothing changes. 

"WHO/WHAT IS TO BLAME"

I don't think that was what we've been doing here. 

Anyone here seen The Dark Knight? Better ban pencils! 

Yeah I was a bit overthetop and simplifying.

What's with this mobbing thing. Why do the mobbers feel the urge to do this?

Is it to impress girls? I mean, what do they get from it?

I'm certain there are people here on func that have been mobbing their schoolmates or something. I'd like to hear an explanation as to why.

There is some mechanism there behind it, otherwise it simply wouldn't happen.

In the adult world it is rarer. Why is this so? 

What's with this mobbing thing. Why do the mobbers feel the urge to do this?

Is it to impress girls? I mean, what do they get from it?

I'm certain there are people here on func that have been mobbing their schoolmates or something. I'd like to hear an explanation as to why.

It's really not complicated. If you're feeling unsure (or even bad) about who you are and who you are becoming (as many teenagers do), then creating an artificial "pecking order" where someone (anyone) is beneath you...worse than you...less powerful than you, is an instant "easy" way to make yourself feel better about life...and it doesn't require any actual self-examination or improvement or hard work whatsoever.

As long as there's someone else who's deeper in the shit than you are, than you can say "At least I'm not that poor bastard", and putting them down, directly, yourself, is a way to ensure that they're less than you.

"I have power over this person." boils down to simply "I have power." which == "I feel better."

Things get worse when, as often happens, the guy (or girl) deepest in the shit becomes known as "that person" and becomes the target for pretty much every damaged or hurting person in the vicinity who is unable to find a more functional way of dealing with their distress.

Then that poor, overwhelmed (and often deeply-disturbed and mentally unsound) individual makes another "easy" choice, and decides to take power back in a very direct way.

It's hard to be hurt by someone when they're dead. 

No, I wasn't one of the "powerful" ones growing up, nor one of the "poor bastards".

But I probably leaned toward the latter. 

http://pjw.planetquake.gamespy.com/grafix/lag.jpg 

Completely different:

http://rathergood.com/kitten_war

Assuming you don�t have enough irrelevance in your life. 

nothing would have prevent it to not happen

This idea is a) wrong, and b) it's exactly why nothing changes.

My answers are simple:

a) I'm not wrong as you cannot anticipate everything. It it would be the case, there were no more outlaws as they would have been jailed immediately (except the "minority report"... if you see what I mean :P)

b) On this one, I agree. I will add: nothing will change unfortunately, as point a) is true...



Also, I cannot understand how it is possible for kids to have access to their parents' guns. My father is a hunter and he has two big riffle at home: a 7.64mm (war ammo) and a hunt riffle with double shotgun. The law is quite strict about the guns and riffles: when not used, they need to be placed into a safe. The safe must be closed, with a numeric combination, not shared with everybody. Also, the weapons need to be recorded by the police, and you cannot move with your weapons except if you have your hunting license, and unless a hunt "party" is organized by an official association.

I don't understand why such measure are not taken by all countries... it reduces dramatically all the risks of kid taking their father's gun, going back to school killing people.... Unless if you do not apply the law, it is always possible that such massacre happens...

Also even with a knife you can do a lot of damage, you just have to be more discrete, and target throat: it is even more destructive, and painful... 

The law is the same in Germany (weapons must be locked away). So what use is it?

It's society that's the problem. The schools for example. 

... society is not the problem, neither schools.. . I think it is rather a lack of education from the parents. There are many parents that are resigning from their role, and rely onto school to do thier "job"... but this is not school's role to educate kids in the way parents have to.

Also, if people would respect law, and would lock their weapon in a safe as required, such mess would have never happened.... though... 

You're beating a dead donkey there - saying it s the parents fault is the same as saying that games made them do it, or music, or whatever.

It's too clean cut and simple to point at a single factor as the culprit.

Saying society is to blame is probably the best answer it's possible to have, since it's a sum of many factors, the biggest one being other people.

It's a sliding scale of guilt.

Is the person selling an alcohoic whisky guilty? 

Watch kitten war, damn your hides. 

1) Speaking in terms of technology, guns are pretty old, even the more advanced designs essentially use techniques nearly perfected two hundred odd years ago. They are also easy to make, converting semi-automatics into automatic weapons is also a fairly trivial matter. Any semi-competent kid in shop class can make a multi firing lethal device in the space of an afternoon.

2) U.S. Federal government spends 50 plus billion dollars a year in an attempt to eradicate cocaine and marijuana. At best they sieze a tiny percentage and even the figures they give are exxagerated as the greater sum of siezure is ditch weed. Price for both pretty much remains constant.

3) Given the mere square acreage of an American prison where the government has close to absolute control compared to say a border where the control of any government is laughable, you would assume it would be difficult to obtain weapons. Well, that is not the case.

4) Putting your trust in a legislative body's abilaty to shuffle a few words around on paper to better assure your future is insane.
The people who actually carry out those laws remain the same with the same incentives. I have an uncle who retired from an agency in charge of port inspections of shipping vessels coming into New Orleans. He admitted to me he could be bribed to look the other way for nothing greater than a case of a good quality Mexican beer, and in spite of this, he was one of the most honest of the officials working at the time.

5) Speaking of officials, our cops in the past few decades have morphed into 'roided out freaks of nature, so long as 'isolated incidences' like these occur:

http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2009/03/grand_valley_student_shot_whil.html

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=6679976

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/401779_schene28.html

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/atlanta/stories/2009/02/23/johnston_sentencing.html?cxntlid=homepage_tab_newstab&cxntlid=homepage_tab_newstab

http://www.explorehoward.com/news/15341/home-raid-leads-complaint/

http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_144800.asp

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/642875BCA98B721B862574B5000DD0C9?OpenDocument

http://www.sdcitybeat.com/cms/story/detail/do_everything_you_can_to_save_my_dog/7584/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/30/AR2008073003299_2.html

I will be damned before I give up any gun that I own, or keep it in a 'safe'.