Of knives, guns and a Pennsylvania school.

[beagledave]

I have mixed feelings about interjecting guns and politics into an event so raw, but I'm noticing that some folks are already jumping into the fray with snarky comments about knife regulation.

Number of students dead at 1:30 CST: 0.

Does anyone really think that the situation would be the same if that 16 year old boy had two guns instead of two knives?

There are root causes of violence that gun regulation will not address, but violence punctuated with guns is a different kind of violence.

[cbelt3]

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/st...-1.1750425

Insanity boils over in a school. Horrible. I hope all the children recover.

[beagledave]

cbelt3 wrote:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/st...-1.1750425

Insanity boils over in a school. Horrible. I hope all the children recover.

Thanks for a link to the story, I guess I could have included one in the OP.

I too hope that all recover and that answers are forthcoming on why this boy made this horrific choice.

[D. Lawson]

beagledave wrote:
Does anyone really think that the situation would be the same if that 16 year old boy had two guns instead of two knives?

There are root causes of violence that gun regulation will not address, but violence punctuated with guns is a different kind of violence.

Existing regulations likely kept him from having access to guns in the first place, which is why he resorted to kitchen knives.

[cbelt3]

School regulations also forbid the knives.

Mental healthcare continues to be almost inaccessible , especially for minors. If all the money spent on arguing about guns went into mental health services, many if these tragedies would not have happened.

[J Marston]

cbelt3 wrote:
If all the money spent on arguing about guns went into mental health services, many if these tragedies would not have happened.

Possibly. But any gun rights advocate will tell you that you can't restrict access to a firearm on the suspicion that someone is mentally unstable. You would need a medical certificate of some kind which, to preserve patient confidentiality, would in turn require background checks to carry (and not just purchase) a weapon, and you can imagine how the NRA is going to react to that. In addition, the vast majority of people who are mentally "fragile" never have recourse to violence, still less a shooting spree.

In other words: I agree that mental health is an issue in many of these cases, but there is virtually no way that regulations currently available would have kept guns out of the hands of most such killers.

[Lemon Drop]

cbelt3 wrote:
School regulations also forbid the knives.

Mental healthcare continues to be almost inaccessible , especially for minors. If all the money spent on arguing about guns went into mental health services, many if these tragedies would not have happened.

there's way too much talk about mental health in the gun debate, IMO.

Most mentally ill people are not violent, in fact they are more likely to be victims of violence than to be perpetrators.

Spending more on mental health will do little in my opinion to solve the problem of gun violence in our country, most of which is committed by people who are stupid and/or mean.

[mattkime]

Lemon Drop wrote:
Spending more on mental health will do little in my opinion to solve the problem of gun violence in our country, most of which is committed by people who are stupid and/or mean.

I would like to statistics along those lines.

[Spock]

Lemon Drop wrote:

There's way too much talk about mental health in the gun debate, IMO.

Most mentally ill people are not violent, in fact they are more likely to be victims of violence than to be perpetrators.

Spending more on mental health will do little in my opinion to solve the problem of gun violence in our country, most of which is committed by people who are stupid and/or mean.

Want to reduce the gun violence? Reduce the number of guns. Yes its that simple.

There are, of course, those who think that 30.000 plus dead americans every year is acceptable, cough NRA cough, but their members should be aware that no amount of washing will clean the blood from their hands.

[Lemon Drop]

mattkime wrote:
[quote=Lemon Drop]
Spending more on mental health will do little in my opinion to solve the problem of gun violence in our country, most of which is committed by people who are stupid and/or mean.

I would like to statistics along those lines.
along what lines?