[dimtimjim]

"Gunman was a loner with Poor Social Skills"

ALL FEAR CJ...!

[MK Chris]

I just don't think an outright ban would a) work or b) stop mass killings. Sure you might get less killings with the use of guns but the sad fact is there are lots of bad people out there or untreated mentally ill who will kill regardless.

Am I missing something there? Points A and B are effectively the same. I know that's pedantic, but you made it look like you had two arguments against it when you only had one, thereby weakening it a little. Anyway - the sentence after that is the one I'm focusing on really because "Sure you might get less killings with the use of guns" is a MASSIVE argument in favour of what you are arguing against.

I do think what Yudster says is right in the culture of guns in America, but I also think that what she says in changing the law is one step towards changing that. Look at the evidence - in EVERY country with strict gun control, mass shootings and killings almost NEVER happen - in America it's RIDICULOUSLY common. The evidence speaks for itself.

[Boboff]

Topher, I for 1) agree with deadly, and 2) disagree with Yuds, and 3) disagree with you.

Shootings in the UK are not 5 times less likely, and we have a population of 1/5 of the US. Shootings in Norway are again not proportionately less based on population, or indeed France, Russia, the Baltics, Afganistan, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Eygpt etc etc all with varying approaches to gun control.

So there is no evidence to support the "no Gun control" = " Kiddy shootings" or either "gun control" = "No Kiddy shootings"

I belive there was a shooting at a school in Scotland, France, Norway, Germany, Spain and Italy in the last 10 years, so that rules out the "NEVER" argument.

BUT..... Sure it does seem that the US has more than it's fair share of * nutters with guns. Is that because they have ease of access to Guns?

I just can't see it, the * up twat comes first, the damage caused by said * up twat is exponentially greater in a country that allows people to have semi-automatic guns at the breakfast table though, and to that end something does need to be done.

But, there are countries where girls are shot on the Bus in the head for wanting an education, in the name of religion too, and something needs to be done about that too.

To be dogmatic on one treatment of a situation I think is to perhaps miss the point. These events are regretable, something should be done, but what? Restrict access to guns as well as a highly trageted mental health intervention program to me seems to be the only option, that and the use of drones with rockets to bomb insurgence homes.

[The Deadly]

I go back to my original point of if someone has lost their mind and are intent on causing harm they will do with guns or without them. You can say that guns would reduce the amount of deaths which is maybe true but there would still be deaths, one is too many. Id prefer America to introduce proper security at all schools and colleges. Security check points would greatly reduce the risk of incidents like this. We live in a world where there are people who are evil or mentally ill and there's not a lot you can do about it. The taxi driver Derek Bird legally owned a gun and snapped one day killing lots of people. Nobody saw it coming, nobody could have stopped it. Improved psychological testing and making it harder to own a gun I strongly support but until someone can guarantee that a ban on guns in America will stop shootings all together I'm not sure I'd agree on an outright ban. Like I've said previously if somebody wants a gun that badly they will get one. Any one of us could find a gun within hours if we wanted to. I don't want to come over as a supporter of gun ownership because I'm not at all I just don't think a ban on guns would work in America.

The banning of guns is likely to never happen in America. The bill would never be passed and the Supreme Court would block it even if the bill got through so its a non argument really.

[Boboff]

^^ what he said.

[MK Chris]

I think broadly we sort of agree - I think an outright ban is unrealistic, as you say, but controls need to be far, far tighter.

Id prefer America to introduce proper security at all schools and colleges. Security check points would greatly reduce the risk of incidents like this.

Apparently this guy was known to the school and this is how he got through the security. Columbine, for example, would also not have been prevented, as they were students at the school.

What you say about mental health is certainly valid, although I suspect people with issues such as these are very, very good at hiding them... if they were easy to spot, the answer would be a simple one. Whatever the answer is, it's not easy to find, that's for sure. I suspect the media have a strong case to answer for - the point has been made by quite a few (not including the Morgan Freeman quote that's doing the rounds, that's a fake) that nearly all the papers were highlighting the killer and not the victims. The Independent on Sunday were a notable exception to this, with their powerful and moving front page, which I've shown below. However, I doubt one media outlet in America led with a similar line. Clearly that kind of notoriety excites some people.

[Yudster]

Umm, Yuds, Aspergers/Autism is a mental health issue.

No they aren't. They are mental "disability" issues or as they are termed these days, "Learning Disabilities". Mental Health pertains to depression, psychoses, bi-polar issues, schizophrenia etc - all of which are treatable. Mental disability is not treatable.

A lot of people with autism have mental health problems, because their lives can be very difficult and confusing - but equally many do not.

VERY important distinction.

[Boboff]

So autism is not an issue relating to mental health?

I very much do not agree. It effects learning, but the spectrum which defines ones "autism" is an issue relating to ones own mental "health"

I don't know what Drum you're banging, and frankly I couldn't give care less, your choosing to prefer the word "disability" to "health" is rediculous, and brings little to the discussion. To me they are two sides of the same coin.

Those poor Bastards, if only they knew there Aspergers isn't treatable, all that work, and effort going into making there lives more bearable, a complete and utter waste of time, as they ain't ever going to get any better. ( I know they will never be cured, but taking a boy who can't intereact, does not learn, and develop them over 20 years into someone with a job, friends, a wife and family, is a TREATMENT)

There are treatments and support to ensure people with aspergers function better, there are techniques and approaches others can use to ease the symptoms, all of which can be defined as treatment. You can't say that there arn't as there are.

HIV is not cureable, but it is treatable, HIV is not a disability its a health issue, your penantics don't stand up, your sermon like "your opinion is a fact", is again, unsupportable.

See I don't mind arguing this point with you!

Still Love you mind!

[Yudster]

Boboff, its not a drum for banging, its a clinical distinction. All of our service users have autism or Aspergers. About 40% of them have mental health issues. That's a clinical statistic, not an opinion.

[Boboff]

Obviously you know best, your organisation is defining the standard, and definitions better than anyone else, and we shall all bow to your superiority in all things.

The fact that otherss may have personal experience which offer them insight into the situation is unimportant, irrelevant and down to your arbitration.

I still think that Asperger is a mental health issue, your organisation has decided to take the autistic spectrum out of the definition of mental health, I can see that as appropriate, when your population is 100% autistic.

Now I'll go and get the washing finsihed, as I always feel this must be like watching your parents row at a party, for other forum members!

[dimtimjim]

30-15, Yuds to serve.

[Yudster]

Obviously you know best, your organisation is defining the standard, and definitions better than anyone else, and we shall all bow to your superiority in all things.

The fact that otherss may have personal experience which offer them insight into the situation is unimportant, irrelevant and down to your arbitration.

I still think that Asperger is a mental health issue, your organisation has decided to take the autistic spectrum out of the definition of mental health, I can see that as appropriate, when your population is 100% autistic.

Now I'll go and get the washing finsihed, as I always feel this must be like watching your parents row at a party, for other forum members!

My organisation hasn't made any definitions or defined any standards - we are bound by the same internationally recognised clinical criteria as all other health and social care providers.

And I have an adult nephew who is severly autistic, completely non-verbal and requires 24 hour support in a residential environment. I also have a godson with Aspergers who has had support at school and is now at college, and doing well. Notwithstanding the people I work with every day and have come to care very deeply about. I'm not sure how much more personal experience you want me to offer Boboff - but its irrelevant anyway. Fact is, Mental Health and Mental Disability are two clinically separate things. The idea that you have the assumption that everyone with Aspergers is mentally ill is really unfair to the vast majority of them. Its like saying everyone with Downs Syndrome is depressive. Just wrong.

[dimtimjim]

30-30.

[Boboff]

But the point I make is about your pedantics.

Apsergers affects peoples mental ability, you call it a mental disability, I called it mental health.

Someone with MS has trouble with there physical health, and they are physically disabled, but they still suffer from a Physical Health issue.

The International definitions you refer to are all well and good, but when someone states that they have mental health issues, and you go all "No thats not right" "it's not mental health, it's a disability" is both pednatic, childish, and supports my drum banging theory as you then choose to share with us all that actually you work in mental health and like everyone you know just about has Aspergers, and you know best, so all the rest of you can * off, just really pisses me off, it's like Black Catting or two Shitting as Topher calls it, you choose to take issue with a minor definition issue, just to make sure everyone knows how * clever you are.

You might be able to do it to the newbies and a few others but seriously, * stop it with me.

[Yudster]

I don't like using the term disability. If there was a less horrible one available I would definitely use it. But the answer isn't to substitute the word "health" because mental health is a a huge range of different things.

The reason I am so pedantic about it is that the assumption that people with Aspergers all suffer from mental health problems - ie depressive type illnesses - is insulting and misleading. People are going to get the idea that this man in the States shot all those people because he has Aspergers, he didn't, he shot them because he had a mental health problem which he might just as easily have suffered from if he had NOT had Aspergers.

And I don't work in Mental Health. I work in Health and Social Care and Learning Disabilities. And I still hate the term.

[dimtimjim]

Deuce.

[Boboff]

Headline at Yahoo

"Gunman was a loner with Poor Social Skills"

No * shit Sherlock.

The issue is with Mental Health intervention not guns.

Just so we are clear - being a "loner with poor social skills" might be an indication of a neurological condition such as Aspergers or some form of autism - it does not automatically mean you have mental health issues.

Shooting up a buch of babies in their classroom however DOES indicate that you have massive mental health issues.

Right, this is the point I made. The issue is with the treatment of his mental health. I didn't mention Aspergers, YOU DID.

You also said that to shoot babies you have to have mental Health Issues, which is EXACTLY what I said as well.

The rest is just pedantics about whether your so * clever knowing exactly what a term means or how it should be defined, then you go on to then say that you hate the term disability which was one which you first introduced.

So in short I suspect that you are in a bad mood and want a fight, I still believe that your opinions being stated as facts is wrong and that you do try and go one up on everyone, about how * clever you are, which isn't endearing and has been progressively getting worse the longer it goes unchallenged.

Tim, I don't give a *, I'll retire from the game.

[MK Chris]

Shootings in the UK are not 5 times less likely, and we have a population of 1/5 of the US. Shootings in Norway are again not proportionately less based on population, or indeed France, Russia, the Baltics, Afganistan, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Eygpt etc etc all with varying approaches to gun control.

To come back to this point (sorry all), Barack Obama reminded the audience to his speech yesterday that this is the fourth mass shooting of his presidency: that's one per year. I'm fairly sure if you analysed our own statistics, you wouldn't find one every five years... Dunblane, Cumbria, Hungerford - I can't think of any more that recent off the top of my head and Hungerford goes back to the late 80s.

[Yudster]

I don't want to fight - especially not with you Boboff because I love you.

I mentioned Aspergers because the article I read and possibly referenced mentioned Aspergers. I use the term disability because its currently the clinically correct one to use for Aspergers. I hope this changes soon, but until it does, unfortunately it is the appropriate term. The only other one I have heard is "neurologically atypical" which seems absurdly lugubrious.

I've got a lad standing with me now who has been at college this morning trying to explain to all his classmates that having Aspergers doesn't mean you are about to start shooting people. His neuro-atypicality (disability) makes this particularly difficult for him to do. He's had to come out of college and come in to see us because the questions from people are making him feel stressed and anxious. THAT'S where a mental health problem can start for people with Aspergers.

The point you made earlier about him having a mum in some Armageddon Sect was a huge one too.

[dimtimjim]

Tim, I don't give a *, I'll retire from the game.

I know. I must apologise, I'm guilty of 'doing a Duck' as its known - purposefully annoying people for my own petty amusement.

Sorry.

[Nicola_Red]

you do try and go one up on everyone, about how * clever you are, which isn't endearing and has been progressively getting worse the longer it goes unchallenged.

Please remember that personal insults are not allowed here. Thankyou.

From a personal viewpoint, I have mild Asperger's. It is not a mental health problem as Yuds defines it, and I trust that she, working in the industry, knows the definitions and terminology better than many of us. I certainly wouldn't describe it as one myself - it isn't depression, psychosis, schizophrenia etc, or anything even close.

[Boboff]

Noted. Sorry.

I didn't intend to argue the point really, in relation to the cruel and sad events, but I did say there were mental health issues, not that he had Aspergers.

Now Yuds has " Come clean" on her day, it kind of puts things into perspective when she took what I said, stated her own argument, which I hadn't even made, and then I made the mistake of replying!

There you go, Aspergers is just a point on the Autistic Spectrum, we are all on that spectrum somewhere Nic, so we are all mildly Apsergic in some way! I can't see why there needs to be some primary difference in definition between Aututism, and other kinds of Mental Health, you can't choose to have Autism, and you can't choose to get depressed. To me Mental Health means just that, how fit are we mentally to cope with this * up world we live in. It's not to me as bad as saying someone is mentally Disabled! Horrible as Yuds says.(Although I am sure 100% most accurate and accepted!)

[Nicola_Red]

I definitely agree with you there boboff

Apologies that this is off topic - but after that previous post, which is my only post of the past couple days, a thread was started by a new user entitled "Nicola Red's lies" stating that I'm a lying [I won't repeat the expletives] and not to trust me. The poster obviously forgot that all first posts have to be moderator approved now, so of course I disapproved it (on the grounds that it breaks the rules on personal insults) and banned the poster. This was obviously a regular (or maybe past) member hiding behind an alias. I have no idea what I've said to upset the person, but I'm less than happy about it, and wondering if my time here is over if that's how people feel about me.

[Bruvva]

Yeah, I saw that pop up on the "recent threads" doodah on the main page (prompted me to email you actually!). But don't leave, that's probably what the poster of that comment wants.

[Nicola_Red]

Ah, I didn't know threads showed up there before they'd been approved! That's interesting. I never really look at the main page. You're probably right, though.