The Online Photographer

Murder rates have been dropping for decades in the US.

It's how I felt when the Fort Hood massacre happen 45 minutes from where I lived a few years back. Horror stories like these are suppose to happen far away. Not next door.

"Murder rates have been dropping for decades in the US."

Right you are. And it's still among the highest in the industrialized world.

Mike

Senseless. Utterly senseless. Violence against any group on the basis of their religion is abhorrent.

That the Sikhs are the targets of misdirected anti-Islamic violence is the product of the worst sort of ignorance.

Let's be clear. The Sikhs fought, as part of the commonwealth forces, with great distinction on the allied side in both world wars.

OUR side.

The politicians will show up for the prayer vigil. Nobody does prayer vigils like American pols--we seem to do a lot of them.

If you allow people free access to murdering tools then murders will occur.

Too many firearms, too little control; a lax constitution, not properly defined.
Nearby Toronto Canada has a similar killing problem. Hand guns smuggled in or obtained by various means. None are licensed, ammunition purchased on-line. It is noted people kill people; be it with firearms, motor vehicles or other means. Un-natural death is becoming too
common!
A sad statement on our love of firearms and ultimately by whatever means, our demise.

I often wonder where the term "shoot a picture,"
originated?

Think about the phrase and what it says, to us.

My condolences to all.
We all read so much as to why but in the end, the answer is never revealed
I personally believe that if it were racially/religiously motivated, as reports indicate, then more education is required. Ignorance breeds fear and fear leads to irrational acts
Tim

"Murder rates have been dropping for decades in the US."

With any luck, in a few centuries, the US murder rate may drop to near that of most other developed nations. That must give the NRA cold chills.

I hate it all. The shooters, the media who try to out do each other for the story, and the public who demands more and more info. I expect to live in a civilized country and as I get older, I see we still have a long way to go.

Guns don't kill PEOPLE DO so stop selling to them! :-{

If politicians lack the will to change the things that are wrong it means that the resulting consequences of that inaction are therefore politically acceptable. It's a bit like for most Western economies total employment would lead to rampaging inflation as wages go up so therefore it is acceptable to have around 2-3% unemployment.

Chance, legislation, pathological or psychological factors, are generally well short as explanatory factors of such crimes. We have to make a great effort to reach such events remotely.

A seminal book: Carnage and Culture - Victor Davis Hanson - Anchor (August 27, 2002)

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/12/books/the-way-of-the-west.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm

www.clausewitz.com / readings / Bassford / Hanson / BassfordOnHanson.htm

As horrible as this and the Aurora shootings are, and as much as I wish we could enact some level of gun control here in the U.S., I do acknowledge the argument that getting guns under control will not stop mass killings such as these. People determined to kill large numbers have many methods available. There is an underlying problem that needs to be addressed, and no, I do not have a suggestion as to how. I will say that I think that anyone who undertakes to kill multiple victims is by definition mentally ill, and how to deal with that is key to reducing the number of these tragedies.

As a side note, I'd request to Mike that in future when posting items that are so clearly away from the topic at hand, it might be sensible to remove the sponsorship footers from the posts. In these cases we probably don't need to be reminded of the fine folks at B&H and Amazon. I know this isn't intentional, but I'd suggest its worth thinking about.

Patrick

The reactions to this latest front-page-worthy shooting, the recent one in the movie theater, and most others, are really due to two factors: (1) the innocence of the victims, and (2) the number of victims.

In the Sikh temple case, the number of victims, six, was much higher than for most, if not all, of the other murders in the US that day. And, the people who were killed were clearly innocents in a safe location, as opposed, say, to gang members (maybe not so innocent) or proprietors of inner-city liquor stores (innocent, I suppose, but definitely not in a safe location).

It's a mistake to even think about public policy based on what makes news, as opposed to what's actually happening.

Take July, 2012, for example. I can recall only one mass murder, the one in Colorado with 12 deaths. If that was a typical month in the US, there were over a thousand murders total in July, maybe more.

It seems to me that a headline saying "Twleve Killed" is less newsworthy than one saying "Over a Thousand Killed". Yet, the latter headline probably didn't appear in any major US newspaper. The explanation is simple: It isn't news.

If we are to expend any brain energy on the murder problem, it makes more sense to use it on the 1000 rather than the 12.

This has been done. I saw several items after the theater shooting comparing murders, and specifically gun murders, in the US vs. other countries. That, to me, is a subject worth looking into. The subject of mass murders, on the other hand, seems to suck up all the discussion energy that would be better spent on real problems.

What Mark said; it's always too close to home when things like this happen.

That said, having lived through most of Northern Ireland's most recent outbreak of Troubles and more recently living within 45 minutes of Virginia Tech, there are definitely varying degrees of "too close to home".

Message to the FBI..why don't you folks put more effort into identifying maniacs.And less into have agents provocateurs inspire/setup/finance Islamic fundamentalist plots that they can then "nip in the bud."(Sceptics should look into this-it HAS been happening) Identifying maniacs probably be more of a challenge, I admit, but probably better protection for the public.

"it might be sensible to remove the sponsorship footers from the posts. In these cases we probably don't need to be reminded of the fine folks at B&H and Amazon."

Patrick,
That's boilerplate, put in place because of FTC guidelines that profit-making links not be disguised. You can read more about it at the link in the footers, where it says "More...."

Mike

This madness has got to end or it will end civilization.

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. That is the difference between a dog and a man. - Mark Twain

Personally, I agree with all the people who have said that "anywhere" is too close to home. Mike, your audience is global. Why make a special case out of this senseless act? Just how far away would it need to be to make it not "too close to home"?

As I've said before, a society that lives by the gun, dies by the gun. Unfortunately the concept of violence is so entrenched in our psyche that we refer to a point obtained by a spike in volleyball as a "kill". Man is inherently evil. Just think, we have to teach our children to be good, but they have no problem finding ways on their own to be bad. Being evil is not a "fad".

Edward Taylor makes a very telling point. I know this is a photo blog, and I'm sure Mike doesn't want this discussion to be hi-jacked, but unfortunately as soon as you broach a subject like this, the problems, contradictions, prejudices and injustices of our world are inescapable. And I mean the whole world.