Gun Violence Part 2: Thoughts and Prayers STILL Don't Work

[AmazonGrace]

The reason there are so many mass shootings in America is that dangerous maniacs have access to doors.

There are no doors in any of the buildings in Japan and they also have virtually no school shootings because no one gets in.

No door ever saved a life because no one uses them to escape fire or a school shooter.

The best thing everybody can do is nothing.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Fake Facebook accounts and online lies multiply in hours after Santa Fe school shooting"

Spoiler

In the first hours after the Texas school shooting that left at least 10 dead Friday, online hoaxers moved quickly to spread a viral lie, creating fake Facebook accounts with the suspected shooter's name and a doctored photo showing him wearing a "Hillary 2016" hat.

Several were swiftly flagged by users and deleted by the social network. But others rose rapidly in their place: Chris Sampson, a disinformation analyst for a counterterrorism think tank, said he could see new fakes as they were being created and filled out with false information, including images linking the suspect to the liberal group antifa.

It has become a familiar pattern in the all-too-common aftermath of American school shootings: A barrage of online misinformation, seemingly designed to cloud the truth or win political points.

But some social media watchers said they were still surprised at the speed with which the Santa Fe shooting descended into information warfare. Sampson said he watched the clock after the suspect was first named by police to see how long it would take for a fake Facebook account to be created in the suspect's name: less than 20 minutes.

"It seemed this time like they were more ready for this," he said. "Like someone just couldn't wait to do it." The fakes again reveal a core vulnerability for the world's most popular websites, whose popularity as social platforms is routinely weaponized by hoaxers exploiting the fog of breaking news.

Facebook officials said the company removed the suspect's real account and were working to remove impersonating accounts.

Facebook said this week it had disabled more than 500 million fake accounts on the social network in the first three months of the year, though it contended tens of millions more were probably still online.

Christopher Bouzy, whose site Bot Sentinel tracks more than 12,000 automated Twitter accounts often used to spread misinformation, said 4 of the top 10 phrases tweeted by bot or troll accounts over the past 24 hours were related to the Santa Fe shooting, reaching the top 10 within less than three hours. "That is significant activity for our platform," he said.

The fake accounts included the name of Dimitrios Pagourtzis, the 17-year-old student and suspect who police say is now in custody, and included a photo taken from his Facebook that had been changed to include a hat from Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign.

It's unclear who created the false accounts. In the past, similar accounts have been created as part of disinformation campaigns, including by Russian-linked trolls, or people just out to spread havoc. "For some people, they have no stake in the game, and life is just a big joke," Sampson said.

Conspiracy theories, hoaxes and unsubstantiated news reports by anonymous online posters have increasingly run rampant on message boards such as 4chan and other dark corners of the Web in the wake of school shootings. Alt-right news sites also quickly spread unsubstantiated allegations claiming the shooter was part of the antifa movement.

But that wave of misinformation can also pierce into the mainstream: In February, after a school shooting in Parkland, Fla., a video labeling a shooting survivor as a "crisis actor" whose involvement was faked to boost gun control soared to the top of YouTube’s “Trending” list. The site blamed algorithms that rewarded the video for gaining a rapid amount of viewership in a short amount of time.

Several of the fake Facebook accounts named for the shooter were disabled within a half-hour on Facebook, but others could be seen popping up sporadically through Friday afternoon, including one fake profile that featured a banner from the campaign of President Trump.

Facebook, which did not immediately respond to requests for comment, said it has 10,000 human moderators watching the site and intends to double that number by the end of the year. Some critics suggested the site should force new accounts into a waiting period before they are publicly available, or that the company should more aggressively watch names in the news for potential fakes.

 

[onekidanddone]

3 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

The reason there are so many mass shootings in America is that dangerous maniacs have access to doors.

There are no doors in any of the buildings in Japan and they also have virtually no school shootings because no one gets in.

No door ever saved a life because no one uses them to escape fire or a school shooter.

The best thing everybody can do is nothing.

One door huh? How is that "one door' going to work in a fire? Just how stupid are these ass hats?

[formergothardite]

49 minutes ago, onekidanddone said:

One door huh? How is that "one door' going to work in a fire? Just how stupid are these ass hats?

Or how will it work when the gun man pulls the fire alarm and then guns people down as they go out the one door. 

These people are willing to spout the stupidest stuff instead of speaking the truth about guns. 

[Ozlsn]

7 hours ago, Audrey2 said:

Why am I picturing Boomhauer from King of the Hill?

I suspect Boomhauer has (marginally) more sense - or at least enough paranoia to stay away from police.

Although my husband just pointed out that it's Dale rather than Boomhauer who is the paranoid black helicopter one. Heh.

Also according to this BBC article there have been more deaths of high school students than of US service personnel in 2018.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44173954

Edited May 19, 2018 by Ozlsn
Trivia

[JMarie]

https://hellogiggles.com/news/politics/how-to-respond-to-thoughts-and-prayers-gun-solution/

[47of74]

4 hours ago, onekidanddone said:

One door huh? How is that "one door' going to work in a fire? Just how stupid are these ass hats?

Pretty fucking stupid.  We've got a clone of Patrick here in Iowa named Steve King.  Both individuals make the entire populations of their respective states look like a bunch of inbred idiots who only copulate with farm animals or close relatives.  They don't want to do a fucking thing about guns so they have these little dumb fuck contests to see who can suggest the stupidest fucking thing possible.

[Audrey2]

5 hours ago, onekidanddone said:

One door huh? How is that "one door' going to work in a fire? Just how stupid are these ass hats?

Terribly, as this tragedy near Cleveland showed over 100 years ago. I'm on my phone, so will just use quotation marks.

"The Collinwood school fire (also known as the Lakeview School fire) erupted on March 4, 1908, killing 172 students, two teachers and one rescuer in one of the deadliest school disasters in United States history.[1]

Lakeview had only two exits and fire quickly blocked the front door. Children rushed to the rear door, but, in a vestibule narrowed by partitions, they stumbled and climbed on top of one another, forming a pile that completely blocked the exit. "

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collinwood_school_fire

A friend of mine in elementary school had a book of Cleveland Plain Dealer front pages. I remember reading this as a fourth grader, and I was horrified.

[AmazonGrace]

 

[JMarie]

13 hours ago, onekidanddone said:

One door huh? How is that "one door' going to work in a fire? Just how stupid are these ass hats?

It didn't work too well for the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911.

[fraurosena]

Just so you know: the Second Amendment is in the bible, y'all. 

 

[Glasgowghirl]

Every time I hear about a school shooting, I think back to being 8 years  old and coming home from school and finding out a madman, not too far away had shot and killed 16 children and a teacher. I was terrified after Dunblane but immediately after it things changed, most schools here didn't lock the gates during school time and visitors could go straight into classrooms without signing in, after that gates were shut during class time. Visitors need to be buzzed in the main entrance and teachers collect kids from class. 

Then Prime Minister, John Major promised gun reform and by the following year both him and his successor Tony Blair had passed gun laws banning all hand guns 22 years later no school shootings have happened and only 1 mass shooting, Cumbria Massacre in 2010. I read a book by Dr Mick North, whose daughter Sophie was killed in Dunblane, when campaigning for gun reform in a meeting one of the pro gun campaigners, he was told you can't take a pass time I enjoy, his reply was i enjoyed raising my daughter and that was taken from me, his wife had died of cancer a few years before and Sophie was his only child.

Banning guns out right would never work in the US but better vetting for gun owners, improved security in schools and better detection of those at risk of being school shooters may work. Both this shooter and the Parkland shooter posted things online that should have been investigated. Thoughts and prayers don't save lives actions do.

[fraurosena]

It boggles my mind and brings tears to my eyes every.damn.time.

 

Edited May 19, 2018 by fraurosena

[fraurosena]

So true.

People should start calling the things for exactly what they are. It’s not a school shooting, it’s mass-murder. It’s not a shooter, it’s a mass-murderer. Not sacrifices, but murder victims.

What they are and what they do should not be diminished in any way shape or form. Call it what it is.

[Howl]

This is what the police chief of Houston, TX had to say: 

Quote

Acevedo said he was "not ashamed to admit I've shed tears of sadness, pain and anger" after the shooting.  "I know some have strong feelings about gun rights, but I want you to know I've hit rock bottom," he said in a Facebook post, adding he would "de-friend" anyone who posted anything about "guns aren't the problem."

 

Edited May 19, 2018 by Howl

[47of74]

I think I've said this before but if I could I'd pull up stakes and move about 600 miles due north up to somewhere near Thunder Bay.

My mom likes those house hunting shows and one stood out to me - it was one of those international house hunters where an either an American family or mixed American/European family was looking for a house somewhere in Europe because they did not feel that America was a good place to raise their children.  Yeah, I totally get that.  If the good Lord had given me a choice before I was born there's about two dozen places I would have rather had been born than this country.

[JMarie]

8 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Just so you know: the Second Amendment is in the bible, y'all. 

 

Hmm, road rage + Americentric?  Who is this gun-toting (hopefully not a carpooling) dad?  Here you go:  https://www.azcentral.com/story/entertainment/people/2015/11/10/merry-christmas-starbucks-joshua-feuerstein-arizona/75533598/

[onekidanddone]

14 hours ago, JMarie said:

It didn't work too well for the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911.

My grandparents were garment workers, and I grew up knowing International Ladies Garment Workers Union song by heart.

5 hours ago, fraurosena said:

So true.

People should start calling the things for exactly what they are. It’s not a school shooting, it’s mass-murder. It’s not a shooter, it’s a mass-murderer. Not sacrifices, but murder victims.

What they are and what they do should not be diminished in any way shape or form. Call it what it is.

Awful thing is people will still vote for the pile of shit.

[laPapessaGiovanna]

12 hours ago, fraurosena said:

So true.

People should start calling the things for exactly what they are. It’s not a school shooting, it’s mass-murder. It’s not a shooter, it’s a mass-murderer. Not sacrifices, but murder victims.

What they are and what they do should not be diminished in any way shape or form. Call it what it is.

I think his phrasing was very honest actually. The kids were sacrificed on the altar of the gun-god by its gun-worshipping acolytes. Ted Cruz is willing to sacrifice any number of kids lives on the altar of the gun-lord.

[fraurosena]

48 minutes ago, laPapessaGiovanna said:

I think his phrasing was very honest actually. The kids were sacrificed on the altar of the gun-god by its gun-worshipping acolytes. Ted Cruz is willing to sacrifice any number of kids lives on the altar of the gun-lord.

Yeah, if you look at it that way, they are indeed like sacrificial lambs, slaughtered as the ennarrey priesthood commands to pacify Secondamendment the Gun-god.

[Glasgowghirl]

I feel sorry for you Americans that have politicians that can't or won't make changes to help save peoples lives. When the constitution was written a lot of things now thought unacceptable were legal, slavery, women and poor men didn't have the vote in most countries, children were employed to clean chimneys or collect cotton from under industrial machines while moving or sent down coal mines to work. Children should be able to go to school safely and everyone should be able to go to shopping malls and food places, without being shot.

 

[Howl]

I posted part of this upthread, but wanted to post Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo's full, powerful Facebook statement, keeping in mind that Santa Fe High School is not that far from Houston: 

"I know some have strong feelings about gun rights but I want you to know I've hit rock bottom and I am not interested in your views as it pertains to this issue. Please do not post anything about guns aren't the problem and there's little we can do. 

This isn't a time for prayers, and study and inaction, it's a time for prayers, action and the asking of God's forgiveness for our inaction (especially the elected officials that ran to the cameras today, acted in a solemn manner, called for prayers, and will once again do absolutely nothing)."

This LA Times: Texas school shooter killed girl who turned down his advances and embarrassed him in class, her mother says

Quote

 

One of Pagourtzis' classmates who died in the attack, Shana Fisher, "had 4 months of problems from this boy," her mother, Sadie Rodriguez, wrote in a private message to the Los Angeles Times on Facebook. "He kept making advances on her and she repeatedly told him no."

Pagourtzis continued to get more aggressive, and she finally stood up to him and embarrassed him in class, Rodriguez said. "A week later he opens fire on everyone he didn't like," she wrote. "Shana being the first one." Rodriguez didn't say how she knew her daughter was the first victim.

 

Likely motive?

 

[apple1]

42 minutes ago, Howl said:

 

This LA Times: Texas school shooter killed girl who turned down his advances and embarrassed him in class, her mother says

Likely motive?

 

I saw that last night. Sort of does away with stuff that I already saw about "Oh the shooter was bullied" and "See something say something" (which is correct, but to say it now is victim blaming).

[fraurosena]

The latest idiocy being spouted by gun-worshippers. 

 

[Howl]

Dan Patrick, the Texas Lt. Governor, (one of three people that Art Acevedo called out, who "ran to the cameras today, acted in a solemn manner, called for prayers, and will once again do absolutely nothing") was blathering on about how Texas has allowed teachers the option to arm themselves in the classroom, how violent our culture is and how kids play violent video games, yada yada, but Art Acevedo is right: Lt. Gov. Patrick, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Asshole) and TX Gov. Greg Abbott) WILL DO NOTHING.

Here's something else that chapped my ass: Both Dan Patrick and Ted Cruz were on camera on the evening of the shooting wearing jeans.  No, I'm not making this up.  Neither of these men have lifted anything heavier than a fork, but a lot of men (and women) in this state wear jeans as practical clothing, so it's painfully obvious they were trying to appear like they were working class, gun-owning men -- you know, worked all day, came home to feed the cows and horses and then dashed to Greg Abbot's side for a presser.   

, 

Edited May 20, 2018 by Howl