Tribute to the recent fallen..

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Swedishchef

Minister of Fire
Jan 17, 2010
3,275
Inuvik, Northwest Territories
Hey guys

It's not often that Canada makes the news and unfortunately in this case it is not for a good reason.

3 RCMP officers have been killed this evening in Moncton, New Brunswick. Another 2 have been shot and are in hospital.

I am not opening any debates about guns...just wanted to pass along thoughts and prayers to family members and the fallen's fellow officers.

Hug your loved ones tonight.

Andrew
 
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That's too bad about the three mounties.

Contrary to popular belief, bad things do happen outside the US.

Do you remember Karla Homolka and Paul Bernardo Swedish?
 
Yes it is sad indeed. and it is still ongoing.

It's one thing for a police officer to be shot while responding to an armed robbery and a gunfire exchange begin but it's another to get a call for an armed suspect and be completely ambushed on arrival. you can not predict the unpredictable....

I certainly do remember them. they were quite sick.

Violence exists in every country. Some more and some less. but if 1% of people are violent than that number represents a lot more bodies in a larger populated country.

ANdrew
 
Here's a link to the story.

Hopefully they'll catch the guy.

What you said about the 1% being violent....

It's very sad that so few can make life miserable for the rest of us that just want to go about our lives peacefully without bothering or hurting others.

Down here in the states we're seeing increased gang violence in the more rural areas now.
 
Pretty bad story. I have friends and familly in Moncton that are sleeping in there basement since yesterday.

I tought about you Andrew when I got the news......

Hope no more blod will flow before they catch him
 
Seattle Pacific University, a Christian college, just had a shooter go nuts. Fortunately he was subdued, but he still killed one person and wounded 2 more. When are we going to end this violence?
 
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Yeah, he came out of the woods soaking wet and said "I am done". They had him surrounded and I guess he was tired of being a wet rat.......I am surprised he gave up that easily and glad he didn't take his life.

Seattle was quite a mess..I read a student tackled him while he was reloading his shotgun. That person is a hero amongst heroes.
 
I'm glad it is over for that community.

Yes, the SPU student is a brave kid. He pepper sprayed the shooter, then tackled him. Once he was down other students piled on to hold him until the police arrived.
 
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And today at his first appearance there was not request for a psych assessment. Good stuff.
Gonna be a sad memorial next week. I wish I could make it...
 
Andrew, thoughts go out to you and your colleagues... I always struggle to understand what twists in an individual that leads them to do something like this. Keep safe yourself.

Heard about the Seattle shooting but haven't checked on the details. Brave and quick thinking student seems to have minimized the damage...
 
Personally I think that anybody that doesn't relate sitting in the bedroom massacring people in a video game with deciding to go do it for real is an idiot.

Quit worrying about if your kid is looking at porn or smoking dope, and start looking at how many kills they are scoring on Mortal Combat.
 
It's looking like the Seattle kid had some mental health problems that the system didn't deal with and his mom wouldn't let him get help. The kid was calling out for help years before. As in other cases, the warning signs were there, but not acted on. It's a fine line the legal system treads when dealing with mental health. Often this is an area of frequent budget cuts when money is tight.
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Seattle-shooting-suspect-reported-a-rage-inside-262235681.html
 
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Personally I think that anybody that doesn't relate sitting in the bedroom massacring people in a video game with deciding to go do it for real is an idiot.

Quit worrying about if your kid is looking at porn or smoking dope, and start looking at how many kills they are scoring on Mortal Combat.
If that was so Japan would have one of the highest massacre rates and South Korea would be off the charts. Instead it is quite the opposite. There was a local program on this topic. The numbers don't show a correlation between video games and violent crime, though many seem to think so.

Screen Shot 2014-06-07 at 9.41.31 AM.png
http://videogames.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=003627
http://www.pbs.org/kcts/videogamerevolution/impact/myths.html
http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsl.../October/violent-video-games-and-young-people
This is another view at stats that seem to correlate better:
http://www.newgamernation.com/violence-and-video-games-part-9-the-statisticsconclusion/
 
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True, shooters are not part of Japanese society. This correlates to almost no handguns there. South Korea, which plays video games as a national addiction tracks closer to American games.
 
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Andrew, thoughts go out to you and your colleagues... I always struggle to understand what twists in an individual that leads them to do something like this. Keep safe yourself.

Heard about the Seattle shooting but haven't checked on the details. Brave and quick thinking student seems to have minimized the damage...


Thanks...I always try to be safe.

Yes, a student saved many lives and is a true hero.
 
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Thanks for letting me know about the fund. Young man didn't hesitate, just moved. One in at least a million.
 
Hard for me to relate video games and murder - because hundreds of millions of people around the world play games big time - yet in most other cultures (and even here, by statistics), they don't act out.

We could go further and say that Chess or certain card games - football, for sure, etc. all cause violence...

If I had to pontificate on the subject, I'd say that I think it's a big combo of things - poverty, hopelessness, consumer culture (which often means a lack of personal connections), a world in flux, the ease of gaining weapons, media culture (copycats, etc.) and probably a lot of other factors too.

If it were easy to isolate out one or two parts we could do something about it. As it stands, I think the murder and violent crimes are still on a downward curve (stats against population) - even here in the USA.

We definitely have a violent culture, though. In a few ways, that's a good thing...in that, over history, that made the European and other powers leave us alone. But now that we have fewer real threats of that type, we have to focus that warrior spirit on other things....

Who knows? There was always lots of violence - the Mafia, Prohibition, Civil Rights and on and on. Probably less today than ever.
 
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Once the damage is done...by poverty, hopelessness, family, etc. it is very difficult for outsiders (social workers) to fix. Every time I delve into the field (as a volunteer, etc.), I find it's pretty much fighting a losing battle. It's quite depressing....

The real fix - IMHO - is to avoid the causes in the first place.
When it comes to mental health, you can't fix all of it because some is genetic. But it may be possible to create conditions where less of it expresses itself in a violent fashion.

I think I read that Social Services are the 2nd largest industry in Western MA. So it's not like we don't spend a lot of time and money on these things. However, IMHO, there is no amount which can alleviate all the potential problems. Well, I guess we are getting something for the money - among the very lowest murder rates in the USA:
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/murder-rates-nationally-and-state#MRord

As you can see by the chart at the bottom, the national rate is headed down and down. It's just the media and the randomness of these acts which shocks.
 
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Hell it happened again today in Vancouver. We live in a world full of insane people.

And before some gun nut says carrying will prevent it, a guy carrying in Las Vegas just got himself killed because he was "packing".
 
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