Thousand Oaks shooting

[Seahawk]

Thank you. I appreciate your thoughts.

I grew up not far from there and called a few friends.

Originally Posted by Danimal16

First Sheriff Dean is a decent man, the best you could want to serve a community. His deputies are cut from the same cloth, just the best. I am damn crushed by what they have seen and the loss of one of them, Sgt. Ron Helus.

Reports now are that Sgt. Helus confronted the murderer and shielded others from the gunfire.The real issue to confront, in my opinion, is a Constitutionally correct method to screen out the mentally ill from owning guns. According to reporting, this shooter is an ex-Marine who, clearly, was suffering from PTSD.

Until we have a way to deny firearms to U.S. citizens that are deemed mentally unstable, this will continue to happen on a regular basis and for at least a generation after a method has been established and enacted.

My thoughts and prayers are with the Families of all of the victims and those that are tending to them and conducting the investigation.

The Elephant in the room has arrived:

Originally Posted by True6

The real issue to confront, in my opinion, is a Constitutionally correct method to screen out the mentally ill from owning guns.

Until we have a way to deny firearms to U.S. citizens that are deemed mentally unstable, this will continue to happen on a regular basis and for at least a generation after a method has been established and enacted.

The question, then, is finding the path forward. The odds are, unfortunately minuscule.

[Craig T]

Originally Posted by onewhippedpuppy

I totally agree. These guys want to be famous, to get their revenge on society in a very public way. Our media eats it alive, and the sheeple just play along. Stop watching and they'll stop playing it. I wish people would realize that ultimately they have the power in this relationship. The media are whores for your attention, stop giving them what they want!

+1000x!

The media sensationalizing these events for ratings (aka advertising $$$) is perpetuating the problem. I'm so disgusted with news media that I can't even watch it anymore. I leave the room and read when my wife watches the CBS evening news every night.

BTW...This shooting was less than 5 miles from my house. My daughter was there every night before she got married three years ago and had a baby. Tragic.

[onewhippedpuppy]

Originally Posted by Shaun @ Tru6

Without any hard numbers, I don't think most mass murderers want to be famous. Some do, sure.

The real issue to confront, in my opinion, is a Constitutionally correct method to screen out the mentally ill from owning guns. According to reporting, this shooter is an ex-Marine who, clearly, was suffering from PTSD.

Until we have a way to deny firearms to U.S. citizens that are deemed mentally unstable, this will continue to happen on a regular basis and for at least a generation after a method has been established and enacted.

I think there are a number of them who want their pain to be shared and known. Seems like this has been pretty consistent with those who actually leave some sort of note, electronic trail, etc. But I can't quantify that.

I think our current laws have moved in the right direction towards denying the mentally ill and criminals legal access to guns. Unfortunately that can't address people with un-diagnosed mental health issues, or those that simply acquire the gun illegally. Which is also pretty common.

[Craig T]

I just spoke to my daughter and she said many at Borderline knew the shooter, and knew he was having PTSD problems. He was offered help from several sources and always denied it.

This should be a wake up call for the DOD that we need to start investing more into PTSD screening and treatment before releasing these guys coming back from these Muslim war zones.

[red-beard]

Originally Posted by onewhippedpuppy

I think our current laws have moved in the right direction towards denying the mentally ill and criminals legal access to guns. Unfortunately that can't address people with un-diagnosed mental health issues, or those that simply acquire the gun illegally. Which is also pretty common.

If someone is mentally ill enough to have their guns taken away/denied, should they be left in public? A car can be just a lethal. Or a knife.

[pwd72s]

Originally Posted by id10t

On that note....

Which one of California's various draconian gun control laws was supposed to prevent this?

Beautifully made point.

[flipper35]

Originally Posted by Tobra

The next one

My right to have a gun and your safety is not an either or choice. Just a day or two ago, CCW guy stopped a crazy murderer guy with a knife. Nobody got shot.

Bad guy with a gun is stopped practically every time by a good guy with a gun. How many lives did Ron Helus save, 10, 50? He called his wife right before he went in there and told her he had to go do his job. Talk about that

Somewhere I read a story on that statistic where it is close to 100% where shootings were stopped before there were multiple deaths when a CCW was present when it started. Give me a few to find it.

[Rick Lee]

When an armed citizen thwarts a mass shooting, you don't hear about it very much in the news. There was a real good example two weeks ago at a McD's, I think in AL. How long did that stay in the news? Good guy with a gun dropped a bad guy who came in there to shoot the place up.

[tabs]

Originally Posted by Shaun @ Tru6

Without any hard numbers, I don't think most mass murderers want to be famous. Some do, sure.

The real issue to confront, in my opinion, is a Constitutionally correct method to screen out the mentally ill from owning guns. According to reporting, this shooter is an ex-Marine who, clearly, was suffering from PTSD.

Until we have a way to deny firearms to U.S. citizens that are deemed mentally unstable, this will continue to happen on a regular basis and for at least a generation after a method has been established and enacted.

You are mentally ill....as is everybody....

You are ALL CAPABLE of going beserkO.

[onewhippedpuppy]

Originally Posted by red-beard

If someone is mentally ill enough to have their guns taken away/denied, should they be left in public? A car can be just a lethal. Or a knife.

True, but you can't just lock everybody up either.

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

When an armed citizen thwarts a mass shooting, you don't hear about it very much in the news. There was a real good example two weeks ago at a McD's, I think in AL. How long did that stay in the news? Good guy with a gun dropped a bad guy who came in there to shoot the place up.

Another reason to ignore the news.

[scottmandue]

Originally Posted by Craig T

This should be a wake up call for the DOD that we need to start investing more into PTSD screening and treatment before releasing these guys coming back from these Muslim war zones.

I have a friend who is a Navy Chaplin that was counseling returning soldiers and he implied the PTSD number are way worse than we are led to believe.

I'm no expert but isn't it possible some soldiers have it but don't/won't ask for help for fear of the stigma? It may also be possible some never fully recover from PTSD even if they do get help?

[Baz]

So sad.....

[scottmandue]

"He probably should have retired a couple years ago, he could have, but he stayed on because he loved the fight," Novak said. "He loved helping people, he loved protecting people. He did exactly that tonight."

[tabs]

Originally Posted by scottmandue

I have a friend who is a Navy Chaplin that was counseling returning soldiers and he implied the PTSD number are way worse than we are led to believe.

I'm no expert but isn't it possible some soldiers have it but don't/won't ask for help for fear of the stigma? It may also be possible some never fully recover from PTSD even if they do get help.

Nope.

These guys think they can handle it...just man up..

No man is an island where you have to ask for help sometimes...asking for help in of itself is a release mechanism. It shows a humility that you feel overwhelmed. It is when you internalize or repress or suppress those emotions that you become volatile. Repression twists the emotion into a paranoid thought pattern of what can be described as a cold rage.When it lets go you can become a killing machine.

If you come from a dysfunctional background and then are faced with confronting the daily terror of being killed in combat, seeing your friends get wounded or killed and having to take lives you don't have the emotional tools to cope. It is hard enough for someone who does come from a well grounded background.


The WW2 vets never talked about what they had seen or went through...they were stoic internalizing the horror..their major outlet was booze and sometimes domestic violence.

[IROC]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

When an armed citizen thwarts a mass shooting, you don't hear about it very much in the news. There was a real good example two weeks ago at a McD's, I think in AL. How long did that stay in the news? Good guy with a gun dropped a bad guy who came in there to shoot the place up.

You don't hear about it often because it is actually pretty rare. If (and when) it does happen, you do hear about it. The NRA for sure is going to make sure you hear about it.

By definition, if a mass shooting is "thwarted", there is no mass shooting, so it doesn't become newsworthy.

[Rick Lee]

Originally Posted by IROC

You don't hear about it often because it is actually pretty rare. If (and when) it does happen, you do hear about it. The NRA for sure is going to make sure you hear about it.

By definition, if a mass shooting is "thwarted", there is no mass shooting, so it doesn't become newsworthy.

Fair enough. Same for a "near miss" with an airliner. They don't report the thousands of safe landings every day. The NRA ain't the national media and their "Armed Citizen" page in their monthly magazine doesn't come close to reaching the audience that sees what happened today. And sure, it's pretty rare that a good guy with a gun happens to be in the right place at the right time, especially in a bar, where CCW is generally frowned upon, even in the CCW-friendly states.

Bad guys don't generally target gun ranges and police stations. They go after soft targets.

[red-beard]

Originally Posted by onewhippedpuppy

True, but you can't just lock everybody up either.

At least 2/3rds of the people we lockup in prison today, 60 years ago would have been put into a mental health hospitals. We, as a society, as leaving a lot of mentally ill people on the streets, without help. Many of those do end up in prison.

[Arthropraxis]

Would be interesting to see blood profiles on all these shooters since Columbine to see if there are any similarities in psychoactive drugs.

[Tobra]

I think the problems arise more when they are off their meds though.

[Craig T]

People on anti-depressants kill themselves at more then twice the rate of people not on anti-depressants.