it's messed up

[Owlet]

This thread talks about a relatively sensitive topic of shootings so please be aware.



Today all the schools in my region are closed down due to a young, armed, woman who is obsessed with collumbine running about. (collumbine was a very large school shooting some years ago.) I'm not sure what sparked this initial concern, maybe it was a social media post but I'm not sure what landed her in the authorities radar.

https://www.denverpost.com/2019/04/17/sol-pais-colorado-schools-closed-columbine-threat/

And I've realized that this is messed up in its own right, it's also messed up that I'm just... use to situations like this. I've grown up with these things happening several times a year. I worry for the people involved of course but I'm just so use to these happening.

Some events have been relatively close to me, such as;
> Aurora movie theater shooting. I live 20 minutes from Aurora, I work in aurora too. Some of my brothers friends were at the movie theater when it happened.
> Month(?) long manhunt that ended with a shoot off in the mountains. Cop and suspect dead. Met the parents of the cop later on who apparently live in my neighborhood.
> My first highschool received bomb threats and had to be evacuated.
> at my 2nd highschool there was an armed robbery near by so we had to all hunker down in a small closet.
> crazy person shooting around outside of the hospital where my mom works. 1 cop hurt but thankfully he survived, no one else hurt.
> there's more but those are what I can easily remember.

It's just messed up that people in my generation and gen z have just grown use to these things happening... I wonder why all of this is so prominent now.

 

[Kiwibird]

I heard about her. Hopefully she is apprehended soon before she can harm herself or others. Sadly, I suspect when more comes out, this young woman will be another case where people who loved her knew she had problems and tried to get her help and were unable to due to a broken system.

I don’t think anyone can pinpoint an exact cause for the increase in school/mass killings (not just shootings, they’re driving cars into crowds, I think there was one a few years ago who was shooting people with arrows). Humans of all ages seem to be more anxious and on edge as a whole. Meth, opioids and synthetic drugs like spice and bath salts are a cancer upon society and are damaging the brains of a lot of previously mentally sound individuals. I don’t think the publicity these shooters gets helps matters (for weeks/months afterwards every news site is running constant articles about them/their childhood/an interview with their 3rd grade music teacher etc...) meaning those with cluster b personality disorders likely see and want similar attention/focus on them and see injuring/killing a bunch of people as a way to do so. I think in the cases of adult shooters, a huge part is when they started shutting down mental institutions and making it next to impossible for families to get help for mentally unstable family members. Where he wasn’t violent, I watched a close childhood friend be “lost” this way- his mom fought and fought to get him committed but he was an adult and not considered a danger, so instead the system just let him kill himself slowly on the streets as a deranged drug addict with severe mental health issues who was not competent to care for or make decisions for himself instead. Imagine them doing the same for someone who did have violent tendencies? Illegal guns and weapons can be easily obtained on the street, recipes to make bombs and chemical weapons can be found online, the internet has given all kinds of zealots a platform....it’s a recipe for a dangerous society!

One last point to consider, you are statistically still far more likely to be killed by accidental or natural causes then you are in a mass shooting. I think you’re even more likely to die in a domestic dispute or natural disaster than a mass shooting. The media really hypes these events up and instills fear into people when the reality is you’re more likely to die in a purely accidental car crash or of a heart attack, for example, than at the hands of a mass shooter. But the thought of the proverbial boogeyman sells for the news stations/websites.

 

[Owlet]

100% agree that a lot of the enticement to enact such acts comes from media and the lack of available mental health care. A LOT of school shootings can be traced back to the attacker's interest in Collumbine or other such events. I remember a couple years ago a couple girls were apprehended in my school district for making plans for a collumbine-like shooting. I talked to several people after that who had been close friends without at least one of the girls and they would always say "yeah she was seriously messed up she needed help"

our healthcare system really needs to get its sh** together, especially our mental healthcare.

 

[Owlet]

There's been an update in the story.
Someone spotted the young woman running around the forests of Mt Evans, by the time authorities got there she was dead, supposed suicide.

Article also says that Pais hadn't made any threats to hurt anyone and it really really sounds like she just wanted to end her life. Instead of helping this woman, we had a state wide manhunt for her. Honestly this whole situation just angers and depresses me. She was only 18 and the signs had been there for at least almost a year (via her online journal) and nothing was done.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...ng-school-closures-colorado-come-home-n995396

 

[ChristaNL]

You are right- it is unbelievable you actually grow used to these things happening.


I do not think it is something that escalates though, human history is written in blood.
We are a ridiculously violent species when it comes to killing fellow-humans.


It is actually a compliment to all of us now it is not really commonplace anymore (and I hope it never will be again).


Unfortunately, with the internet everywhere there always will be copycats; the frustrated individuals who feel they have to make themselves famous in this way or just want to act out...
and there are those who just 'get lost in the system' and that is a tragedy.
(though I am sad she killed herself; somehow I am glad this time only one person died)

 

[Kiwibird]

What happened to this woman was tragically predictable. I saw an updated article and she had apparently been posting online about committing violence for a year.... and no one did anything to get her help by the sounds of it. Now an 18 year old is dead and thousands of children were put through a lockdown and not allowed to go to school today and had their educations disrupted. Who knows how much was spent on the efforts to try and capture her. Money that could have been better served to give her help even if she didn’t want it (because people like her and many of these other mass shooter types don’t realize or understand that they need help).