Bay 12 Games Forum

From what I could tell, it looked like he was trying to inject some levity, lift spirits and whatnot.

It's just it had all the consideration of walking up to the funeral of a religious leader known for lifelong advocacy against pedophilia and boisterously going, "Hey, you heard the one about the necrophilic priest and the dead pre-teen?"

... though in other news, the president has apparently touched down in peurto rico and spoken. Sweet fucking tone deaf hell.

... I didn't notice, is any one in here actually advocating for extreme security checks? Or much of anything, for that matter.

No, no, if you're going to try to get people killed like that max, what you do is rig every outward facing room in every building with explosives, then put sensors on their outside wall that triggers the individual room's set.

Instead of guns, you give the crowd laser pointers or whatever sets the bombs off, so that if someone starts shooting they can wave the pointers in the building's general direction and collapse that side of the thing, killing the shooter, anyone else in that part of the building, and however much of the crowd debris fall on to. Same effect, less people walking off with guns, and perhaps marginally less trauma for whoever in the crowd actually ends up being the one that kills the perpetrator instead of random bystanders.

Could go with skin permeable chemical weapons or something, too, I guess. Plenty of options of similar intent.

Besides, what else are we working with here? A man lives a quiet life for 50-some years and then silently prepares for and executes a plan to kill 59 people and wound 500+ more? More effectively than almost every other terrorist and every mass-shooter in recent history? Despite apparently holding no strong political or ideological views?

Guy snaps for some reason or another and goes on a killing spree, sure? Not like you need strong political or ideological views to pick up how to effectively kill people, or that there was really anything special about his methods other than being stable and sane enough/in the right ways to go through with it and rich enough to fund it, contrary to many people who are motivated in such ways. Don't need a history of mental illness (or actual long term neurological dysfunction of some sort at all) for something to fuck up hard enough to send you temporarily-ish insane long enough to do it, either.

Also more than one sort of brain damage that can cause radical behavioral shifts, for that matter, which get all the more common as a person gets older. Till we have an actual explanation all guessing really gets us is guessing. At least at the mo' it looks like it's entirely possible this is really is "just" a rich guy unfortunately capable in the right ways that snapped in the right ways at the right time, without some kind of background more contributory than providing the physical means to make things happen. Also possible it's who the hell knows what else. Still hasn't been 24 hours, I think. Certainly been less than 36. To dig into the life of a person that, as you note, lived a long and apparently fairly quiet one up 'till the end of it.

Apparently the planes he had access to were fairly small. Not really possible for him to do more damage with one than he did with the guns. Easier to notice and get out the way of a plane, harder to get it into position to do much, lift weight is a bastard, etc., etc.

Any case, it's definitely viable this was without connection to a larger organization. That "moderately wealthy" smj mentioned has popped up with the word "millions" involved, from what I've seen in passing. Guy was moderately wealthy by the standards of wealthy people. He was straight up rich to the majority of the country.

Resources pretty much couldn't have been an obstacle, even if he was blowing tens of thousands in the casinos. Expertise wise, guy was a hunter, seems to have had at least some professional background in defense industries (probably office work, considering I've been seeing folks call 'im a retired accountant, but connections aren't exactly a hard thing to make if you're looking to make them), and didn't exactly do much that required anything in particular except time and preparation. Had the money, didn't take much expertise, just carefully executed intent and a degree of... goddamnit, whatever the hell that word is that basically means steadiness while stressed.*

Basically, if there's another party involved the connection being material or training seems fairly slim, least from what I've personally noticed mention of, so far.

And yeah, as nenj mentions, without further detail him having a bomb only means so much. Fertilizer bombs are... not terribly difficult to make, as explosives go, and someone intent on mass murder and controlled enough to do somethin' like this would probably have stuff as a backup or step 2 if they have the means. Which again, he had the means, to all appearances.

... also, probably dun? It's not like cops trying to find and stop someone firing into a crowd are hard to notice even before they kick in your door.

* E: Discipline! That's the one. Damn brain.

Eh, you stop at things without substantive extra use, or whatever the word is. Can get by without a gun pretty easily, less so without a car in the US or being able to cross bridges. There's also this thing where firearm ownership is one of the jagoff huge statistical gribblies when it comes to suicide, heh.

... any case, I'm pretty sure we actually do ban people with certain mental illnesses from driving cars. Not like there's not stuff with perceptual buggery that renders it impossible to pass the requirements for acquiring or maintaining a license.

Firearm ownership is a right, not a privilege. The distinction is important.

If you're gating ownership with a psych check, it's a privilege, heh.

Legal question in the US is kinda' sketchy, too, though. Most precedent has came down in favor of individual ownership, but there's still a bit of an argument going on on the subject. It's damn sure not the same sort of right as stuff enumerated in the first, in any case.

People are (rightly!) concerned about a list like that being created for the same reason EnigmaticHat is concerned above about the creation of an active database of people with mental health problems. It cannot possibly exist for any purpose other than to discriminate, legally or otherwise, against the people whose names are on it.

It totally could exist for other purposes, really. Buncha' sociological shit tracking demographics and ownership patterns and whatnot could be done without even knowing specific names. The legal/enforcement possibilities are pretty obvious, and don't preclude things besides discrimination (one of the common talking points is that a database would make it a lot more certain whether a firearm used in a crime isn't yours, if you've been accused, ferex), either. Active stat tracking is useful stuff even if you're not doing much particularly heavy handed with it.

Potential abuse is obvious, of course, but the question folks ask are if gun crime and the potential issues caused by mental illness is worth the potential. Note that I ain't saying they are worth that potential, mind yeh. Just that saying the stuff would be used for discrimination isn't exactly a counter to the arguments for it, given that even with the quibbles above, to a fair extent that's largely the point.

E: Though, all that said, as RK noted while I was typing, as a country we're apparently pretty okay with stripping people of rights a metric fuckton more fundamental than the ability to own a specific tool for killing things. Particularly so far as how the GOP approaches the issue, it's a farce to claim all that many folks really give a shit about whether it's a right or not, or would care even if it was.