Better "stock" up boys

[Scoot]

Interesting topic with some good info and good points. Also, some really misinformed posts in here too...

 

[Murdy]

these people choose schools because they are an obvious soft target and a gun free zone already.

I tend to support some sort of armed presence (put a police officer in each school? Maybe) and heightened security at schools, but I don't think that most of the shooters choices were based on finding soft targets. I have not done extensive research, but, my recollection is most school shooters have some tie to the school, mostly current or former students, I think. That can't be a coincidence and has more to do with why the school was selected (and maybe has implications about how hard it might be to deter such an individual by hardening the target).

 

[gelton]

Internet Education

 

[realunlucky]

How much do you think it would cost for a qualified armed guard per school year? Even my small town has two elementary, one middle, one junior and one high school that's a chunk of money for a small community for what's essentially insurance

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

 

[MTNRCHR]

Colorado has enough money from pot sales to hire an army at each school...

 

[Murdy]

If you have enough money to build and staff 4 schools, it would seem adding 4 employees wouldn't be outlandishly burdensome.

 

[Kevin Dill]

If you have enough money to build and staff 4 schools, it would seem adding 4 employees wouldn't be outlandishly burdensome.

Might seem this way, but many schools are actually reducing staff to attain budget levels. I believe a huge majority of rural school systems would not have a chance of affording armed police or other security at each school for the coming decades.

 

[Ray]

Very good read: link

TL;DR - "Five years after Columbine, the Secret Service partnered with the Department of Education for an equally definitive report, which analyzed every major school shooting for a 26-year period and offered startling assessments: That there is no single profile of a school shooter; most perps aren’t loners, losers or outcasts and came from all social classes but shared a handful of striking commonalities: all were male, 98 percent had recently suffered a major sense of failure or loss, and most were clinically depressed. A stunning 78 percent had actually attempted suicide already, or had a documented history of talking about such plans. So by 2004, we understood who these killers were."

Another good read from a conservative view point: link

 

[Scoot]

I believe a huge majority of rural school systems would not have a chance of affording armed police or other security at each school for the coming decades.

Absolutely true! Seriously, four full-time staff doesn't seem like much? Do you want poorly paid, poorly trained people being the ones who hold the guns in the schools? It would be a big burden for most schools and for many it would be way more than they could even think about affording.

Also, piggybacking on a point Kevin made earlier- teachers with guns? No way! Like he said, most don't want it, plenty wouldn't have a clue how to use a gun, and some simply should not be allowed to have a gun. Teachers are great! But... they shouldn't be packing heat in schools!

 

[Scoot]

gelton, do you propose taking everyone off of their psychotropic medications? That wouldn't cause any problems at all, would it???

 

[kda082]

My kids high school is locked down tight and has armed police officers always present and visible. This is a rural school. I don't know why people wouldn't want an armed law enforcement or skilled guard. Makes me feel better.

 

[jmez]

Thanks for the link, it is an interesting read. A couple of things to consider when looking at not only this study, but trying to draw "factual" conclusions from any scientific study. These things don't mean that studies are worthless, though many are, but are all indicators in the quality of information that can be taken from them.

First is the date, this is from 43 years ago. In the medical world, 5 years in considered out of date. The next is the type of study, this is a retrospective study. It means that you make a hypothesis and then go backwards and see if you can find support for than hypothesis. This inherently introduces bias in the study from the start. It is considered the weakest form of evidence in the scientific community. Retrospectives are seen as a means to try to recognize trends but not considered reliable for cause/effect relationships. The data available, since it is being taken from past events is very easy to manipulate and also very easy to exclude pertinent information. Rather than starting at ground zero and trying to prove a fact, you are looking at a bunch of information trying and how to put it together to "prove what you believe."

A lot of flaws in the study if you are trying to claim that it proves psychotropic drugs are responsible for our mass murder problem. First they take a prison population and then further isolate that population into the most violent/aggressive people within the system. You are already starting off with a subset that is prone to do what you are trying to prove. They then compared rates of aggressiveness within that group between those that were medicated and those that weren't. What they found was the medicated group had more aggressiveness when they were on medication. Yet, when they compared the two groups over all, the medicated group was not more aggressive than the non medicated group, they both had the same number of aggressive behaviors over time.

What it may show, is that in a certain subset of these people the medication may make them more aggressive. They were medicated and aggressive incidents increased. They stopped the medication and the aggressive incidents decreased. The limitation of the retrospective study leaves a large question that the authors did not address and could also be concluded. Why did some need medication while others did not? Do they have worse mental illness that is not dealt with as well as their cohorts? If so and they are placed on medication then the aggressive incidents may have been going to occur had they not been medicated. None of them were medicated the entire time. They all had to be examined and prescribed medication by a physician, so they are examined and the Dr. sees triggers that indicate things are going south so he puts them on medication, they then have an aggressive event. A Dr. sees them, there are no triggers or signs that things are going south and he doesn't medicate them, they have no aggressive event. That should have been addressed in the discussion and it was not.

On the surface the study shows a pretty direct link. When you critically review it not so much.

As for the drug inserts, there are all kinds of side effects listed for medications. That in no way shows any kind of causation for mass murder. Taking a product insert and making the leap that that is a root cause for mass murder is quite a leap. You would full well expect there to be emotional and psychological side effects with mind altering drugs. You can't just cherry pick random bits of information and conclude them to be factual. Yes, the side effects on the label are factual. Saying that said effects are a major cause in our current problem is not. Three drugs listed below all have inserts warning of psychotropic side effects including violence and aggressive behavior, one for asthma, one for quitting smoking, and one for acne.

https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2009/020829s051_020830s052_021409s028lbl.pdf

16 Dec 2010: Update on varenicline (Champix(R)) and neuropsychiatric events | HSA | Health Sciences Authority

https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2008/018662s059lbl.pdf


I think the whole drug thing merits investigation and it may be a causative factor. There are no facts to prove that it is. As I posted earlier, Canada prescribes and has more people on antidepressants than the US or European countries. Canada doesn't seem to have this problem.

 

[Kevin Dill]

Psychotropic drugs. Homicidal killer.

Chicken. Egg.

Draw your own conclusions.

 

[boom]

9 pages!!

i bet we are now off the topic of the actual stock, and talking about something entirely else..huh?

 

[Scoot]

Psychotropic drugs. Homicidal killer.

Chicken. Egg.

Draw your own conclusions.

It's as simple as understanding that because two things are correlated does not necessarily mean they are causally related. It's like saying taking a medication for weight loss causes obesity. Obviously it does because the people who are taking it are all overweight!

Similarly, people with serious psychiatric conditions who are much more likely to commit violent and crazy acts are much more likely to be on antipsychotics and other psychotropics. Does that mean that the medications themselves caused the problems? Obviously not... It doesn't mean that they couldn't have caused the problems but it sure as heck doesn't conclusively tell you that they did.

...and taking everyone off of their psychotropic medications would cause all kinds of problems, particularly those who are on antipsychotics.

 

[gelton]

It's as simple as understanding that because two things are correlated does not necessarily mean they are causally related. It's like saying taking a medication for weight loss causes obesity. Obviously it does because the people who are taking it are all overweight!

Similarly, people with serious psychiatric conditions who are much more likely to commit violent and crazy acts are much more likely to be on antipsychotics and other psychotropics. Does that mean that the medications themselves caused the problems? Obviously not... It doesn't mean that they couldn't have caused the problems but it sure as heck doesn't conclusively tell you that they did.

...and taking everyone off of their psychotropic medications would cause all kinds of problems, particularly those who are on antipsychotics.

Good response...but that EXACT response could be used for the guns are the problem crowd. Its not a gun problem its a people problem and curtailing gun rights is not going to stop it.

 

[gelton]

gelton, do you propose taking everyone off of their psychotropic medications? That wouldn't cause any problems at all, would it???

No definitely would not. In fact that's when the problems become the worst when they aren't weaned off the medications correctly.

As I said many pages ago - let people start suing the pharmaceutical manufacturers and the doctors that prescribe them like they do the gun manufacturers. Then you have a first step to solving the problem of medicated individuals that pull these types of stunts.

 

[airlocksniffer]

At the very least we shouldn't allow drug companies to market directly to consumers. How many parents with a fidgety kid went to the doctor and told them they should be on Ritalin after they saw a commercial/magazine inserts/etc?

 

[gelton]

Wow Guys I am just flabbergasted...so much for the armed guard theory when the armed guard is a coward -

"He Never Went In": Officer On Duty Filmed "Doing Nothing" During Florida Shooting | Zero Hedge

 

[AustinL911]

Wow Guys I am just flabbergasted...so much for the armed guard theory when the armed guard is a coward -

"He Never Went In": Officer On Duty Filmed "Doing Nothing" During Florida Shooting | Zero Hedge

I'm not defending the guy in any way, but wasn't there some legislation passed in the past years that said something to the effect of, 'LEOs are not required to put themselves in harms way to protect the public' ?

Protect yourself, because it's no one else's duty to do so.