
Don’t Jump to Conclusions About the Killer - maayank
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/22/opinion/sunday/the-unknown-why-in-the-aurora-killings.html
======
rauljara
"Psychologists describe depression as anger turned inward."

Correction: Freud described depression as anger turned inwards.

Specifically, he described anger at external forces (your mother, etc.) turned
inwards. In his view, the only way to get rid of depression would be to allow
this anger to express itself against the actual external force. This is very,
very far away from the majority view of modern psychology (which has dismissed
the vast majority of Freudian thought), but I still hear it repeated all the
damn time.

The reason I think it's important to correct it is that therapies based on
Freud's notion of depression not only aren't helpful, they in many cases made
a person worse. It turns out, getting a person to focus on all the things that
should make them angry in their life is, in fact, not helpful for their
general mental health.

It is true that depressives tend to think a lot of shitty things about
themselves. More successful cognitive behavioral therapy (which has been
clinically proven to be as helpful as antidepressants in treating non-severe
depression), tries to train people to think of alternatives to those shitty
thoughts without necessarily saying which one alternative is right. Turns out,
getting in the habit of thinking not just the worse thing possible is actually
quite helpful. It gets you out of the rut your in.

~~~
Alex3917
"This is very, very far away from the majority view of modern psychology
(which has dismissed the vast majority of Freudian thought), but I still hear
it repeated all the damn time."

Actually a lot of therapists still use personal mythology construction as a
therapy tool, which is very similar to Freud's idea of directing anger outward
in the sense that both creating a new identity for the person or strengthening
their existing one. It's basically the same idea but expanded a bit and better
explained. If you search for personal mythology on Amazon there are all sorts
of books about this.

~~~
eavc
He wasn't talking about what "a lot of therapists" do but rather the modern
understanding of depression and its causes and solutions.

~~~
Alex3917
What a lot of therapists do is by definition part of the modern understanding
of depression and its causes and solutions. Depression is a biopsychosocial
disease, so to have any real understanding of it you need to look at it
through a variety of lenses and disciplines.

~~~
light3
I assumed "view of modern psychology" as used by parent meaning some generally
accepted views of academics backed up by current experimental research
results. Which as the parent states is in conflict with current practices of
therapists.

~~~
eavc
Exactly. But to be clear, there are, of course, many, many therapists that
practice scientifically supported approaches to treating depression.

------
grandalf
It's just a complete waste of time to think about these kinds of things. Some
humans malfunction and do this kind of thing. It happens quite rarely, and
there is nothing that can be done to stop it. One's probability of being
harmed by the occasional insane murderer (or terrorism for that matter) is
microscopic compared to so many other things that we _can_ actually do
something about.

~~~
jberryman
I understand what you're saying, but really "there is nothi that can be done
to stop it"? What about outlawing firearms for civilian use, or even just not
letting the assault weapons ban lapse? And don't tell me every angry/depressed
yuppie kid who was going to go on a rampage when guns were easier to get than
a drivers license is going to negotiate some black market underworld he knows
nothing about to get his guns.

~~~
csense
The problem is that too many guns exist already in the USA. If guns had just
been invented and only a few of them existed, or if we were a moon colony that
had never imported guns, or if we were some country where, due to
social/cultural/political circumstances very few people have guns, then gun
control would stand a chance of working.

But we have to work with what we've got. The situation we're actually in is
this: Even if we could get the massive political coalition it would take to
repeal a Constitutional amendment, there are still millions of guns that exist
in the USA.

There was an article on HN very recently about a site that allows buyers and
sellers of guns to find each other and go through transactions using Tor and
Bitcoin for anonymity. So I think it's fair to say that the advancing state of
software and Internet technology will make it increasingly easier for people
to obtain firearms illegally.

So if you outlaw guns in the USA, the practical effect is disarming
responsible, law-abiding citizens, whereas anyone who's bound and determined
to get a weapon and doesn't care about the law, can still get one.

(Presently I believe there is a federally mandated waiting period and check
for felony records for those buying firearms, called the Brady bill; the idea
is to make sure you have time to think about what you're doing and have a few
days to "cool off" if you're angry about something.)

My state recently passed a concealed-carry law, whereby any citizen can become
certified to carry a concealed weapon. The controversy surrounding that has
made me aware of an interesting argument:

What if we go in the opposite direction?

If we assume most people are responsible enough to handle firearms, and a non-
negligible percentage of the population carries concealed firearms wherever
they go, then it's harder for mass tragedies to occur. When the crazed maniac
begins his massacre, the would-be victims can start shooting back.

Concealed carry can also serve as a deterrent to violent crime like armed
robbery. If you're desperate enough to try something like that, and you know
you're gonna be the only one with a gun, you also realize that the worst thing
that will happen is you get three squares a day and a roof over your head at
taxpayer expense. Whereas if you know there's a decent chance somebody else
will have a weapon, suddenly the worst-case scenario becomes a hole in the
head, which might affect your calculations enough to change your decision.

That's the argument, anyway; I'd be interested if anyone can find holes in it.

~~~
nowarninglabel
The one glaring hole is in the idea that people with concealed carry will be
ready and able to effectively "start shooting back".

Are there objective examples of this? I've seen counter-examples, such as how
in the Giffords shooting in Arizona the victims actually brought down the perp
through physical force, even though some of them were carrying. Are there
similar examples of concealed carry folks bringing down a shooter? It should
be noted, I'm pro gun ownership, but I'd still like to see you prove your
point rather than just regurgitating what all pro-gun people are saying
without any data to actually back it up.

~~~
nodemaker
Recent event in Ocala FL.

[http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/national-international/71-Year-
Ol...](http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/national-international/71-Year-Old-Man-
Shoots-Would-Be-Robbers-at-Ocala-Internet-Cafe-Authorities-162941656.html)

Although apparently the robbers had an unloaded shotgun.

~~~
nowarninglabel
That's a good example of stopping a robbery, however what I'm really looking
for here is an example of where armed men came in with the intention of
killing people and were stopped by someone carrying, as that's the scenario we
are discussing.

------
japhyr
I cringe every time I hear perpetrators of mass shootings described as "evil".
Evil implies a presence of something bad. It's an easy label that allows
people to hate the perpetrator.

It's much more accurate to describe the perpetrators as cold, empty, detached.
That is frightening, because there is no hope of reasoning or bargaining with
someone who is truly detached from emotion.

There is no such thing as evil. I appreciate this reporter for offering a more
accurate picture of who these perpetrators really are.

~~~
etherael
> That is frightening, because there is no hope of reasoning or bargaining
> with someone who is truly detached from emotion.

This position is strange, you think the only position from which you can
reason or bargain with another person is if they are emotionally attached?

I purposely try as hard as I can to live a life completely free of emotional
entanglement, I think emotion is largely useless. By this measure I suppose I
would be cold, empty, detached. I choose to be this way because appeals to
emotion are usually weak and lacking in actual reason as support.

I can't understand why anyone would look at a wrathful, violence laden action
like mass murder and think that the problem is that the offender is not
emotional enough.

~~~
lusr
Why do you believe emotion is useless? I cannot think of any aspects of our
psychology that are useless (they evolved for a reason).

Negative emotions are fundamentally indicators of a cognitive dissonance and
are absolutely invaluable in maintaining a healthy system of introspection.
Your profile shows you're also a programmer so here's an analogy I use
internally: negative emotions are part of a monitoring system built into our
brains that inform us when an assumption in our set of operating beliefs (our
personality source code) has been violated. (You get angry when your beliefs
about 'fairness' are violated, you feel disappointment when your beliefs about
e.g. 'relationships' are violated, etc.)

Positive emotions fulfil a similar role, in the opposite direction by
reinforcing the value of the beliefs you've created, although negative
emotions are more interesting because your response to the emotion can be
extrospective ("I feel angry because that guy cut me off on the road and that
violates my beliefs about fairness; I'm getting out my tire iron and teaching
him the _right_ way to do things") or they can be introspectively rational,
controlled and empowering ("Should I revisit my beliefs about fairness to be
more in tune with reality, where people make mistakes?"). People with
dysfunctional belief systems and rigid attitudes towards their beliefs are
prone to depression (i.e. their belief systems do not serve them well given
reality, either through distortion or inadapation).

From an evolutionary perspective, I suspect extrospective analysis was more
useful ("I'm angry because the other ape has stolen my lunch, and resources
are scarce, so I'm going to punch him in the face"), which explains our
default, instinctive "emotional" response to emotions, but as civilization
develops and the rules change, introspective responses (which encourage co-
operation) are more useful (but more fraught with dangers such as depression,
which is a kind of reinforcement feedback loop of negative emotional states,
beliefs and poor assumptions). Nevertheless, the high _value_ of emotions
remains present.

If anybody reading this finds this personal philosophy interesting, I highly
recommend reading David Burns' "Feeling Good" for an exhaustive
listing/discussion of emotional states and responses, and constructive ways of
dealing with these experiences.

~~~
etherael
I believe emotion is useless because it is largely a distraction. By this I
mean that if there are reasons other than emotional to take a course of
action, the positive enforcement of emotion to push you in that direction is
unnecessary. However, if there are no reasons other than emotional in order to
undertake an action, that's a good indicator that the action is not a good
path to take.

This doesn't mean that an action which we are compelled to undertake for
emotional reasons is necessarily bad, merely that the emotional justification
alone is not enough. Same with when we are compelled not to and negative
emotions.

Emotion just serves to muddy the waters. I certainly agree with your position
that it had an evolutionary advantage at one stage, however I think that has
run its course. Frequently human society appears to be little more than an
orgy of unthinking, emotionally charged activity. People think less and feel
more, and they are guided by these emotions more than by their rational
thoughts, to the extent that normal people even think at all.

I think that this is a bad thing. Look at our politics and advertisements, or
more generally our levers of compulsion, what largely are the appeals in these
arenas designed to target? Our emotions, because this is an extremely
effective path for manipulation, the vast majority of humankind is enormously
weak to this kind of thing. I believe there is value in making a conscious
effort to reject this paradigm.

~~~
Ygg2
Actually no.

Emotions help us by allowing quick shortcuts in decision. Without them a
person loses ability to think within normal limits. Remember last time you
wrote your signature on a contract. Imagine taking half an hour to write your
signature ? Impossible, well without emotion you will completely rationally
debate whether or not to use blue, red or black pen, which ink color is
better, etc.

Here is a quote:

 _For 30 minutes the patient enumerated reasons for and against each of the
two dates: previous engagements, possible meteorological conditions, virtually
anything that one could reasonably think about. "He was now walking us through
a tiresome cost-benefit analysis, an endless outlining and fruitless
comparison of options and possible consequences. It took enormous discipline
to listen to all of this without pounding on the table and telling him to
stop," Damasio wrote._

[http://www.smh.com.au/national/feeling-our-way-to-
decision-2...](http://www.smh.com.au/national/feeling-our-way-to-
decision-20090227-8k8v.html)

Knowing when to keep your emotions in check is another thing.

~~~
Dylan16807
I wish that went more in depth. It seems like a metareasoning reminder that
taking time to decide is inefficient would turn into a quick choice. Unless
someone without emotions is somehow incapable of picking random numbers.

~~~
lotharbot
> _" Unless someone without emotions is somehow incapable of picking random
> numbers."_

My wife once suffered from a mental illness that nerfed her emotions. I
noticed her once, standing immobile in the kitchen. She'd been there for about
5 minutes. She wanted to make a peanut butter sandwich, but couldn't decide
whether to get the knife or the bread first.

Someone without emotions is incapable of _caring enough_ to make the decision.
They might get stuck on the decision as to which color pen to use, and random
numbers wouldn't help -- they wouldn't care enough to decide "I should just
use an RNG because this decision is arbitrary". Someone with normal emotions
would recognize that pen color _doesn't matter_ while signing the contract
_matters_ ; it is the emotion of _caring_ that makes you capable of deciding
that one decision isn't worth the effort while another is.

As NY Times columnist David Brooks once wrote, _"People without emotions
cannot make sensible decisions because they don’t know how much anything is
worth."_

~~~
Dylan16807
This is legitimately interesting but in the end it's very much away from the
original point. Okay, caring/having motivation matters immensely. Even if you
practice and learn logical prioritizing you still need to care enough to
implement it. You won't get anything done if you see no problem with sitting
still for hours on end.

But almost all other emotions can be ignored. When people talk about making
decisions without emotion they mean without fear, anger, sadness, joy,
disgust, trust, anticipation, surprise. You don't need any of those to arrive
at a solid decision. Having a goal is something else. As far as wikipedia is
concerned "Motivation is related to, but distinct from, emotion."

~~~
lotharbot
> _"When people talk about making decisions without emotion they mean [list]"_

This is exactly the kind of point-missing people engage in when they talk
about decisions or rational thought without emotion. They recognize how some
emotions can be distracting, without recognizing how some emotions (even the
same ones) can be extremely useful. They say things like "almost all other
emotions can be ignored" because they don't have a good grasp of what "almost
all other emotions" are or the role they take in cognition.

Emotions like surprise, curiosity, and frustration are incredibly useful for
rational thought -- they help you realize that some particular line of inquiry
is _worth pursuing_. Emotions make you care about getting something right, or
finding a hidden answer, or solving a mystery. Emotions can positively or
negatively affect your level of attentiveness, as well as memory formation.
Even supposedly bad emotions like anger can serve to focus your attention on
"high value" problems (problems often get solved because people are angry or
annoyed enough to direct their energy to solving them.)

You actually do need emotions to arrive at a solid decision -- some in making
value judgments at the point of decision, others during the analytical
processes leading up to the decision. The key is to have a healthy level of
emotion contributing to your rational process.

------
arturadib
Think outside the box.

I've lived in the US for 10 years, and I follow plenty of world news. It is
clear that Columbine-like shootings are (mostly) an American phenomenon. [1]

So what is it so special about the US that makes this a recurring problem?

Is it poor parenting, without much communication? Is it societal pressure,
i.e. Mr Popular vs Mr Loser? Is it easy access to guns? Is it the
disproportionate amount of media attention that these cases give to depressed
folks with low self-esteem? Is it all of the above? None?

I imagine severe depression happens everywhere, but there's got to be
something in the US that turns depression into mass murder. I wish someone
would analyze the problem from outside the box, not inside.

[1] Before someone jumps the gun about international news, note that terror
and drug/gang crimes are very different. They have clear, consistent motives.
Columbine-like stuff is puzzling- their motives seem to be all over the place,
hence why to this date experts are still trying to figure them out.

~~~
coenhyde
I know American's do not like to hear this but I am of the opinion that it's
easy access to guns which is the cause of these mass murders. Now that
Australia has gun control, the crazy's just stab a few people. It's very hard
to kill so many people with a knife.

If you take away easy access to guns then sure the hard criminals will still
have guns but the wannabe criminals and the lunatics will do less damage.

~~~
kiba
_If you take away easy access to guns then sure the hard criminals will still
have guns but the wannabe criminals and the lunatics will do less damage._

Taking away legal access != eliminating easy access to guns. It still may well
be the case that it is easy to buy guns on the black market.

On the other hand, you also disarm the population, making them easier target
for mass murderer.

~~~
pronoiac
_On the other hand, you also disarm the population, making them easier target
for mass murderer._

Has a massacre in the US _ever_ been stopped by someone with a gun, who wasn't
a cop?

~~~
nixme
Possibly the Appalachian School of Law shooting,
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_School_of_Law_sho...](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_School_of_Law_shooting)

------
bmac27
"Of course they’re sad; they’ve probably gone their entire day getting berated
relentlessly, by the single person in the world whose opinion they hold most
dear — themselves."

This is the most important part of the article.

All of us to some degree have wrestled with negative self-talk in our lives; a
feeling of not liking yourself or just not being “good enough.” For some, it
can be a steady, continuous feedback loop that’s difficult to break. I’ve
wrestled with it myself. For me, it takes the form of the “imposter
phenomenon” and it becomes more pronounced when I’m in groups of smarter
people or when I perceive there to be particularly more at stake than normal
situations. “What are you doing here, you’re not smart enough, how did you get
this job, you’re not good enough to run a successful startup etc.” In the
past, it’s caused me to freeze up, have trouble articulating what I want to
get across or (worst of all) escape the situation entirely. As I’ve gotten
closer & closer to where I want to be as it relates to the startup ecosystem
and my place in it, that inner voice has gotten louder. So I can certainly
relate to that aspect of it. It’s a battle that’s fought anew every day.

And sometimes it does manifest itself in a more social context, e.g. “nobody
cares about me, etc.” which can also be difficult to quell, particularly for
someone who’s more of an introvert at heart. Left unchecked, I can clearly see
how that can get the better of someone and send them down a destructive path,
although I still think to take that anger and push it back out to society in
such a violent way requires a synapse somewhere else misfiring.

It's a good reminder that external stimuli alone aren't usually to blame for
negative, depressing feelings.

------
pdog
_"Resist the temptation to extrapolate details prematurely into a whole."_

The author of this article spent a decade researching the Columbine
tragedy[1]. Here, he's describing how readily mass tragedies and shooting
sprees lend themselves to misinformation by the media and mythologizing by the
public. We can think of the perpetrators as always being loner outcasts, but
the effort to make sense of their motives isn't that simple. They might be
clinical psychopaths or suicidal depressives or paranoid narcissists or
something else.

[1] - <http://www.columbine-online.com/>

------
scotty79
I think of the murderers as having some kind of hardware bug. We have evolved
special safeguard that prevents us form killing the people we live with and
people we meet daily. It's crazy that we do live in proximity of other people
and meet them if you think how dangerous single person can be when this
safeguard fails.

All the search for reasons why the person killed is little bit like creating
fake narratives to kind of natural bizarre event. If person is able to
intentionally kill then there's something wrong with that person and we have
to deal with it. You may investigate how it came to be that this safeguard was
damaged. Maybe the person underwent military training or just had a childhood
equivalent to that. Most likely there is something wrong with the brain of
that person that was there from the beginning or manifested during puberty or
manifested as a result of shock of some sort. "What was the murderers
reasons?" is the most irrelevant question of all.

~~~
arthurrr
I think this is too dismissive, and is the equivalent of sweeping it
underneath the rug and hoping it doesn't happen again. To me, this is a
symptom that there is something broken with society. The way I see it, energy
builds up in the system, and needs to be released somehow. If there's no way
for that energy to be released, it builds up and reaches a phase-transition
state, like how water will slowly boil but then explosively turn into steam.
But something about the structure of society creates a kind of feedback loop,
something like this happens, people dismiss it as a "natural bizarre event"
and dismiss the person as "having some kind of hardware bug." People then
carry on with their lives, forget about it, and then a few years later it
happens again. People don't change. People haven't changed one bit since the
beginning of time. People have the same exact emotions that they had 2000
years ago, and they react in the same exact way. This is why history repeats,
because the way people react to emotions never changes.

~~~
scotty79
> People haven't changed one bit since the beginning of time. People have the
> same exact emotions that they had 2000 years ago, and they react in the same
> exact way. This is why history repeats, because the way people react to
> emotions never changes.

Not true. We are becoming less and less violent. You can see it by observing
numbers of wars fought, war casualties, crime punishment, crime rates,
entertainment over the last hundreds of years. Some artile about this:
[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/22/world-less-
violent-...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/22/world-less-violent-
stats_n_1026723.html) There was also TED talk about this. You can find more.

------
kghose
I've read about killings before, I lived through 9/11, but for some reason
these killings struck me really hard. Even more than school shootings. Perhaps
because I think of the cinema as sanctuary - a place of make believe where we
go to escape (move over places of worship!) but mostly because I wanted to
really know motivations - why did he do it? Especially when it turns out he's
not a person who tortured animals as a kid etc etc. I want to know why a
seemingly normal person can meticulously plan such a senseless act of
destruction.

~~~
Ygg2
Why is there a need to find out why? Killing spree is a lot like thunderbolt.
It has no prediction why it struck, in the path it stuck.

If you only want to minimize risks of future murders, then don't read/watch
the news. Each time a murderer has his/her face shown, she/he is glorified in
even tiniest of ways (i.e. comic book villain), with a number of murders
he/she committed put in front line, number of violent copycat acts will spike.

~~~
corin_
It's completely incorrect to say there is no explanation why it struck. Maybe
it's true that it was impossible to predict, maybe it's true that we will
never find out the cause, but can be 100% sure there is a cause.

~~~
Ygg2
True. There is some semantic mismatch.

------
zyb09
I don't think there was a rational motive behind this, or we would have heard
about it by now. What the scary truth seems to be is, that these individuals
are in a severely distorted state of perception, in which the killing of
people becomes justifiable for them. He has most likely a extreme case of
depression, psychosis or something else along those lines, of which the causes
need to be investigated. But there will never be a reasonable "why", other
then a sad story of a human being, who's life went wrong at one turn or
another and in the end his mind malfunctioned. To prevent this from happening,
I'd argue, given the amount of people, the complex society we live in and the
unfortunate circumstances some people experience in their live, we need to
accept that disturbed personalities like these sometimes "happen", and I'm not
sure how to avoid that. In my opinion, the most effective prevention would
probably be to restrict easy access to lethal weapons. When we realize that
(sadly) our society can produce minds like this, we have to make sure you
can't buy smoke grenades at a pawn shop.

------
paraschopra
I'm getting convinced about an interesting new theory on free will. Our free
will isn't exactly "free", and is not certainly a conscious act. What we will
is determined by the genetic predispositions and a historical interaction of
the self with environment. This creates a feedback loop and the self takes one
of the trajectories for which it is NOT responsible. Yet, the consequences of
the actions are faced by the self in an immediate sense (imprisonment,
sadness, happiness). This creates an unfair situation.

So, in a way, _I_ am not responsible for my actions, yet the blame is put on
_me_.

EDIT: grammar

~~~
nodemaker
This is certainly true of animals, but we as human beings do have the power to
control the direction of the feedback loop.In other words we have the ability
to decide how we respond to external stimuli, a truly unique ability in the
animal kingdom.

"Man is not fully conditioned and determined but rather determines himself
whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them. In other words, man is
ultimately self-determining. Man does not simply exist but always decides what
his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment. By the same
token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant. Therefore,
we can predict his future only within the large framework of a statistical
survey referring to a whole group; the individual personality, however,
remains essentially unpredictable"

\- Viktor Frankl, _Man's search for Meaning_

~~~
paraschopra
We respond to external stimuli in a unique way, true. I'm not saying free will
does not exist, but YOU as an agent do not have that will. It's actually a
combination of genes + historical feedback loop between environment and you.
When you are asked to pick between a color (red or green), on what basis do
you pick that color?

The recent book on Free Will by Sam Harris: <http://www.amazon.com/Free-Will-
Sam-Harris/dp/1451683405> is relevant here.

------
tokenadult
From the submitted article: "At this very moment, the police have probably
gathered a great deal of evidence from James Holmes. They may well have a
clear read on his motives right now. It is vital that they share this
information fully with the public, but just as vital that they conceal much or
all of it while they conduct their investigation. Testimony from friends,
family and survivors of the massacre is also crucial, and witnesses are highly
suggestible. Information must be withheld in the short run to safeguard
corrupting their stories."

This should be ROUTINE practice in police investigations, to guard against
corruption of witness testimony, but, alas, we all know counterexamples.
Moreover, it is a professional ethics violation for prosecutors to make
excessively detailed statements to the press (who are always willing to ask
for as many details as they can get) about the course of an investigation in
progress and about possible motives for a crime when the accused has not yet
been put on trial. The principle of "innocent until proven guilty" is STILL
important, despite many cases we can observe where it appears to be violated.

The human mind leaps to supposing explanations and forming a narrative around
new, disturbing events. The mind is a "belief engine"

[http://www.amazon.com/The-Believing-Brain-Conspiracies-
How-C...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Believing-Brain-Conspiracies-How-
Construct/dp/0805091254)

and all of us would like to get an answer, even a quick and dirty answer that
may be flat wrong, rather than have unanswered questions about a shocking news
story. I remember well the speculation that swirled around the Columbine High
School shootings some years ago. I was active in a different online community
then, and a bunch of programmers were unembarrassed about going beyond the
limits of their occupational knowledge to endorse various hypotheses about why
the shooters killed their classmates. Right now we don't know why James Eagan
Holmes shot movie-goers, evidently planning well in advance to kill many
strangers. I'm not going to speculate about it.

The public-health perspective on violence reduction is interesting, because it
doesn't depend on knowing much about the motives of individuals. The theory is
that certain risk-reduction measures work in general, minimizing the chance
that some individual will engage in any kind of incident like the one in
Aurora, Colorado. Gun control is such a sensitive issue in the United States
that it is barely being discussed yet by politicians in connection with the
incident this weekend, but differing national patterns of gun control have
been mentioned by commentators who point to the example of Australia's
response to the 1996 Port Arthur, Tasmania shooting

[http://edition.cnn.com/2012/07/20/opinion/donohue-gun-
contro...](http://edition.cnn.com/2012/07/20/opinion/donohue-gun-
control/index.html)

[http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8502957/smaller-risk-
of-...](http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8502957/smaller-risk-of-getting-
shot-in-australia)

as the right way to reduce risk of further mass shooting incidents. That's
food for thought. So far I am not aware of any reason for young people in
residential neighborhoods in the United States to have what are called
"assault rifles" for legitimate purposes, and I certainly would be glad to
know that none are in my (crime-free) neighborhood.

First edit: I see other Hacker News commenters are picking up on the submitted
article's author's remarks on depression. This may be overgeneralizing too
much from one example, even though the author also refers to a Secret Service
study of the small number of examples of school shooters studied to that time.
I think the author's most accurate point on that issue is "A vast majority of
depressives are a danger only to themselves."

~~~
harshreality
_So far I am not aware of any reason for young people in residential
neighborhoods in the United States to have what are called "assault rifles"
for legitimate purposes, and I certainly would be glad to know that none are
in my (crime-free) neighborhood._

By "assault rifles" do you mean the colloquial definition of black semi-
automatic firearms with pistol grips and detachable magazines? Or the
technically accurate definition of select-fire automatic weapons, which this
alleged killer's ar-15 was allegedly not?

There is very little functional difference between the ar-15 rifle used in
this crime and rifles commonly used to hunt, other than hunting rifles for
medium and large game are usually larger caliber and therefore usually more
lethal.

Hunting laws prohibit _use of_ higher capacity magazines in some situations.
However, proper accuracy usually makes reloading time a minor factor in how
quickly one can go through 100 or 200 rounds. If you make lunatics like this
focus on accuracy rather than letting them think they're all set because they
can show up with a drum magazine, more people would probably die or have life-
threatening injuries, even if fewer people are hit.

The drum magazine used probably contributed to the shooter's S&W AR-15
jamming, possibly saving lives. They are not the most reliable magazines.

There are owners of assault rifles (in the colloquial sense, and possibly in
the true sense) in my relatively safe neighborhood, and it does not concern me
in the least.

As far as your reference to "young people", I take it that you want to create
yet another age restriction, beyond the 16 years necessary to get a license,
18 necessary to vote and serve in the military, and 21 necessary to drink and
buy a handgun from a FFL? 24 year olds are now not trustworthy? What age limit
would you propose? 30? 35? Can someone be old enough to serve in the Senate or
as President and still not be trusted with a rifle? Anders Breivik was 32.

~~~
tokenadult
For concreteness, is there any credible argument that the restrictions on gun
availability that were put in place after the shooting incident in Australia
in 1996 (which has not been repeated) have in any way reduced the freedom of
citizens and residents of Australia? I know a lot of Australians, and they are
very freedom-loving people, and I think if gun laws in Australia are different
from how they are in the United States, one reason is that Australians like to
be free of being shot to death by crazy people in public places.

~~~
etherael
Originally Australian here; our gun laws are stupid and largely ineffective,
there is currently a war between various outlaw biker gangs going on, they
mostly use guns. The Port Arthur massacre actually used weapons that were
already illegal at the time and not but a month ago an m4 with underslung
grenade launcher was confiscated in a Sydney suburb by police.

No other reasonable interpretation of available data exists other than gun
laws have only effectively disarmed the law abiding. Some may claim this alone
as all the victory required, but the pretense that gun laws stop criminals
from using or acquiring guns in Australia is completely false.

~~~
rquantz
"If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns." A typical remark from
gun-loving Americans. They seem to miss a couple of things: if guns are
outlawed, and you catch someone with a gun, that indicates they posess the gun
with criminal intentions (i.e., their objection can actually be an advantage);
if lots of people have guns and normal people can buy them, it makes it that
much easier for criminals to obtain them; and a gun in a home is more likely
to be use to accidentally kill children than to kill a criminal intruder,
which means there is a good reason to try to discourage regular citizens from
owning guns.

I think there are compelling reasons to keep guns legal, and I could imagine
circumstances in which I would buy a gun. If I have children, I will teach
them to safely handle a firearm, as I was taught. But this NRA cliche about
banning guns doesn't hold water as an argument.

~~~
smsm42
The key word there is _if_. If you catch a criminal with a gun, he'd usually
be holding it illegally within pretty much any current US law. The problem is
that catching those criminals before they do harm is problematic - because
until they do, you don't know who they are. And doing random searches on law
abiding citizens just in case they are hiding something would probably be too
much even for Brady campaign.

Evidence shows that in countries where private possession of guns were banned
- like USSR - the criminals did have guns and did use them to kill people.
Government restrictions rarely make something wanted inaccessible -
prohibition failed miserably, war on drugs did the same. War on guns would
inevitably fail too, but would bring enormous amount of victims among regular
citizens - just like the ones mentioned above did.

------
jorahmormont
Slightly offtopic, I read a comment somewhere that asked what would have
happened if the killer had been an Arab. It is interesting. When the killer is
one of our own, we are able to quickly switch off group-think and acknowledge
that the killer was insane. In contrast, when the killer is of an outgroup, we
instantly assign group blame and then exact group retribution.

------
bootload
_"... The Secret Service’s landmark study of school shooters in 2002
determined that 78 percent of those shooters had experienced suicidal thoughts
or attempts before mass murder. ..."_

With respect to Columbine, the same study noted this observation about
targeted violence in schools.

 _'... Many attackers felt bullied, persecuted, or injured by others prior to
the attack ...'_ [0]

The relationship between bullying and targeted violence appeared to be a
serious enough problem for the Secret Service to consider and investigate.

[0] Fein, R.A. Ph.D., Vossekuil, B., Pollack, W.S. Ph.D., Borum, R. Psy.D.,
Modzeleski W., Reddy M., Ph.D., "Threat Assessment in Schools: A guide to
managing threatening situations and to create safe school climates", Chapter
III, P17, United States Secret Service & United States Department of
Education, Washington, D.C., 2002. (pdf, 754Kb) ~
<http://www.secretservice.gov/ntac/ssi_guide.pdf>

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nikic
Only tangentially related, but I'd like to know:

The Wikipedia article on the incident says "The first phone calls to emergency
services via 9-1-1 were made at 12:39 a.m. The police arrived within 90
seconds and apprehended the suspect."

I'm wondering, can this be true? Are they really _that_ fast? If so,
impressive.

~~~
briannewman
According to the police chief, they had a lot of extra officers out on the
streets as part of a summer initiative. Aurora is a typical strip mall suburb
so it is feasible that a unit even a mile or two away could get there in 90
seconds, especially at that time of night with no traffic.

------
tlrobinson
_"Instead, buy my book!"_

