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Texas Shooting Spree Leaves 2 Dead, 5 Wounded

apdst said:
How would background checks have stopped this shooting? Thanks in advance!
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The technology of fMRI scans can show the brain of psychopaths, sociopaths, mass murderers, impulsive murderers and paranoid schizophrenics.

1) If fMRI would be included in the background checks he may not have gotten a license to own a legal gun.

2) He would resort to illegal guns.

3) Might be arrested while purchasing illegal guns.

But I have this scene for the guy issuing background check tests:

Inspector: Do you have the fMRI test?

Guy1: Yes

Inspector: Ok, let me see. Alright, all is well, here's your license. Thanks. Next!

(Guy2 comes in)

Inspector: Let me see your documents and the fMRI scan. I'm sorry sir you cannot get the license.

Guy2: Why?

Inspector: Because this here tells me that you are a sociopath.

Guy2: ???

Inspector: A psycho? A "I don't give a damn for other breathing life?"

Guy2: ???

Inspector: Like, if I give you the license you would go in a shooting spray in Texas!?!?

Guy2: ???

Inspector: Alright buzz of mother****er!! You ain't getting a license, now beat it!!
 
AliHajiSheik said:
I read and quoted exactly what you wrote. I quoted no link because you didn't reference one. Since you offered to use common English phrases, try rewording this little gem in a grammatically correct form: "could have not been committed with legal guns". I assumed you mean "could not have been committed with legal guns," but perhaps I'm interpreting what you wrote incorrectly.

If someone passes a law and puts a procedure in place, you cannot, or anyone else cannot, assume that something bad can't happen. That is naive and the province of fairy dust.

You reference that the shooter could have used the black market to get the guns and that there are odds he might have been arrested while buying them. Yes, there are odds. Would you say that they are even money odds or something closer to a billion to 1?
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You interpreted right. See above post for clarification.
 
DDD said:
The technology of fMRI scans can show the brain of psychopaths, sociopaths, mass murderers, impulsive murderers and paranoid schizophrenics.

1) If fMRI would be included in the background checks he may not have gotten a license to own a legal gun.

2) He would resort to illegal guns.

3) Might be arrested while purchasing illegal guns.

But I have this scene for the guy issuing background check tests:

Inspector: Do you have the fMRI test?

Guy1: Yes

Inspector: Ok, let me see. Alright, all is well, here's your license. Thanks. Next!

(Guy2 comes in)

Inspector: Let me see your documents and the fMRI scan. I'm sorry sir you cannot get the license.

Guy2: Why?

Inspector: Because this here tells me that you are a sociopath.

Guy2: ???

Inspector: A psycho? A "I don't give a damn for other breathing life?"

Guy2: ???

Inspector: Like, if I give you the license you would go in a shooting spray in Texas!?!?

Guy2: ???

Inspector: Alright buzz of mother****er!! You ain't getting a license, now beat it!!
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The thought police? Really? :lamo
 
Heebie Jeebie said:
At 4:30 am while the guy was driving around shooting people at various locations? Maybe if they were allowed to drive Bradley's then the citizens could have stopped him, assuming any were nearby at that time of the morning.
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IOW, the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a Bradley
 
DDD said:
You interpreted right. See above post for clarification.
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So they've found some evidence that psychopaths have some detectable readings using this fMRI, but have they yet found a psychopath using such readings? Correlation does not equal causation. Still in the realm of unproven science. Could it eventually be helpful? Perhaps, but I don't see anything that says we should rely on the results.

It does smack of though police.
 
sangha said:
I prefer an F-22

When it comes to beating traffic, you can't do any better.

Though you may have to modify your driveway to accommodate it
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Yeah I had trouble fitting mine in my garage until I re-did it. :)
 
Tigger said:
These attacks, like most crime in the United States, will stop once the people of the United States begin demanding that we once again start punishing criminals; incarcerating the ones who deserve it and executing the ones who have no chance to ever live within societies rules; and return to a society that puts its mentally incompetent members into the institutions that can deal with them. Until we stop believing that criminals and the mentally ill can be a part of the general society without restraint, these things will continue to occur. If not with a gun, with a knife (Google - Jessica Short, Middletown, CT), a bat, a bomb, etc....
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Just remember that it was St Ronnie back when he was governor of California who started the closing of state mental institutions primarily for budget reasons. Since so many on the right don't like paying taxes which were once upon a time used to operate mental asylums, it seems highly improbable that any new ones will be opened in the foreseeable future.
 
tererun said:
Oh yeah, because part of all of our jobs in life is to carry around weapons to shoot at the crazies. Yeah, that won't lead to any more problems. Why don't we just give people grenades and drones....oh forget it i know where this is going with you.
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When I pulled Entry Control Point duty, my personal weapon was the M249, a belt-fed machine gun, loaded with SLAP rounds. This was so that I could disable vehicles should they run a check point or perform a drive-by.

Most CCW civilians have a small caliber, short-range hand guns. That gun is perfectly useless against a vehicle, especially if hollow-points (a popular self-defense round) are loaded.

In order for a small hand gun to be effective against a drive-by, the hand-gunner would have to run up to the truck and get within 8-10 feet of the moving truck and firing gunman in order to have a chance.

A rifle would be effective, and yes it very well could take a full 30 rounds to stop a truck during a drive-by, but your side has demonized rifles, 30rnd mags, carrying a rifle in public and self-defense.

Aside from the criminal, I blame you and your kind for this incident. However, I place more blame on pro-gun-rights for putting up with gun control laws at all.
 
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AliHajiSheik said:
So they've found some evidence that psychopaths have some detectable readings using this fMRI, but have they yet found a psychopath using such readings? Correlation does not equal causation. Still in the realm of unproven science. Could it eventually be helpful? Perhaps, but I don't see anything that says we should rely on the results.

It does smack of though police.
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What do you mean "Correlation does not prove causation?" All you need in this case is a good correlation to associate a personality or character disorder with an fMRI image.

How can fMRI cause one to have personality and/or character disorders anyway!? What is this? Favorite scientific statement quote day?

So what did I say then?

I said this could have been prevented if there were background checks involving fMRI. I do not see why you should not rely on these findings. It is not like we as scientists are only amusing ourselves with these findings. We expect them to be used for common good. Such as stopping mass shootings for instance with background checks involving fMRI's.
 
It does appear that people get so involved in their political and personal disputes they tend to forget the actual topic of threads

Gunman in Texas shooting spree was stationed at Marine base

(Reuters) - A Texas gunman who killed one person and wounded five others before being shot to death by police was stationed at a North Carolina Marine base, the Texas Department of Public Safety said on Monday.

The gunman was identified as Esteban Smith, 23, who was stationed at Camp Lejeune, the agency said in a statement.
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Then there is this other bit of news
Police believe North Carolina Marine killed wife before Texas shooting spree | The Raw Story

Authorities in North Carolina on Tuesday confirmed that the body of a woman found in a Jacksonville hotel room on Sunday was Rubi Estefania, who had been married to the Marine killed by police during a shooting spree in Texas shortly before her body was discovered.

On Monday, Texas Department of Public Safety said that the 23-year-old Marine had been killed during a Sunday shootout with a Highway Patrol trooper and a game warden. Smith had been firing randomly from his truck when he killed a 41-year-old woman and five other people, including Concho County Sheriff Richard Doane.

At the time, it was not clear what prompted the shooting, but authorities said that Smith was carrying an assault rifle, a handgun and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.
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I don't think a brain scan or a background check would have prevented this shooter from doing what he did.
 
tererun said:
yeah, because people in friggen texas don't have any guns.
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Got news for you, not everyone in Texas carries a gun with them wherever they go. In fact, probably a small percentage do.
 
Somerville said:
I don't think a brain scan or a background check would have prevented this shooter from doing what he did.
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From your link:
At the time, it was not clear what prompted the shooting, but authorities said that Smith was carrying an assault rifle, a handgun and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.
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How did he get an assault rifle out of the armory?
 
DDD said:
What do you mean "Correlation does not prove causation?" All you need in this case is a good correlation to associate a personality or character disorder with an fMRI image.

How can fMRI cause one to have personality and/or character disorders anyway!? What is this? Favorite scientific statement quote day?

So what did I say then?

I said this could have been prevented if there were background checks involving fMRI. I do not see why you should not rely on these findings. It is not like we as scientists are only amusing ourselves with these findings. We expect them to be used for common good. Such as stopping mass shootings for instance with background checks involving fMRI's.
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This could also have been prevented if the guy didn't have a car. I never said to stop doing the research.

Rather than banter with words, tell us what percent of these mass killings could be prevented if an fMRI were used in background checks?

Tell us why whatever percent you answer to my first question, isn't reason enough to screen everyone? Buying a car, getting on a plane, or whatever other situation.

I prefer to evaluate on a case-by-case basis whether something is for the common good or not.
 
clownboy said:
Got news for you, not everyone in Texas carries a gun with them wherever they go. In fact, probably a small percentage do.
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I am one such person, but even in SD I am in the minority.

And I probably would not have fired on a drive-by shooter, either.
 
PeteEU said:
Texas Shooting Spree Leaves 2 Dead, 5 Wounded

its from Reuters..

When will these terror attacks by common Americans stop?
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In the first place, it wasn't a terrorist attack, it was a murder of several people. I agree that the word is ambiguous, never defined, and meant to inflame the passions, but really, this is just some GI suffering from PTSD going off the deepend.

If he had used a knife or machete, and his victims had been military, it would not be much different that what happened last week in London near the army barracks.
 
Somerville said:
Just remember that it was St Ronnie back when he was governor of California who started the closing of state mental institutions primarily for budget reasons. Since so many on the right don't like paying taxes which were once upon a time used to operate mental asylums, it seems highly improbable that any new ones will be opened in the foreseeable future.
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And yet gun violence and violence in general as been in a steady decline since then....

Gun violence in US has fallen dramatically over past 20 years, Justice Dept. report finds - U.S. News

So what are you gonna throw at the wall next to see what sticks?
 
tererun said:
This is friggen texas, where were all the heroic gun owners to take down this horrible guy? Oh yeah, ducking for cover while the police did their job. Thank you to the brave police officers who stopped a deadly killing spree and who did their job heroically, and thank you to all the gun owners in the area for owning guns as it seems to have really deterred this criminal. I think it is obvious why I respect police despite some of their less respectable members and actions, and really don't care about the wannabe heroes who think having a gun makes them Wyatt Earp.
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The shooter was from NC, genius.

That's Texas with a capital T.
 
PeteEU said:
But the NRA is an organisation for gun owners and since this gun owner (legal or not) committed a clear terror act by attacking random people... does that mean the NRA is a terror organisation?
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The NRA does not advocate using weapons on people unless it's in self-defence...Nice try though.
 
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