German School Gunmen Kills 15

[Limited]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7936817.stm



Fifteen people have been killed after a teenage gunman went on a rampage in south-west Germany, officials say.
Most of the dead are thought to have been pupils at the Albertville secondary school in Winnenden, north of Stuttgart.
The gunman, a 17-year-old former pupil, is also dead, police say.
The teenager, who was said to have been wearing black combat gear, was chased by police after fleeing the school into the centre of town.Crazy stuff, still breaking news so not many details yet.

Inb4 Jack Thomspon crawls out of the wood work.


...

Jesus, theres been shootings in Alabama too.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7936382.stm



A gunman has killed at least nine people in a series of shootings across two towns in the southern US state of Alabama before killing himself.
Officials say there were at least four separate shooting incidents.
The gunman fired on homes, a petrol station, shops and vehicles in Samson and Geneva near the Florida border.
Five people - including a child - were killed in one home. Several of the victims are believed to have been members of the gunman's family.
The gunman has not been formally identified, but was named in the local press as Michael McLendon.

[rossmum]

in before ill-informed "OMG GUNS ARE EVIL BAN ALL GUNS" tripe

[ICEE]

oh christ, how unfortunate... really sad what happens just because of one emo fucker who got his hands on a weapon.

[Sel]

Am I the only one who fails to be shocked in any way by these occurrences?

I mean come on they just happen so ridiculously often now. Sure it sucks that some social reject went and killed some people but it's almost embedded in my mind as a regular event :S

[Mr Buckshot]

Hi, my name is Jack Thompson and Counter-Strike is responsible for all these killings.

[RecycleBin]

It is really sad that these kind of things happen. There is no reason for it to happen. All because someone was upset that their life was so fucked up, if i was there i would tell him to cry me a fucking river before i was shot.

[cheezdue]

Ive noticed that all the of the shootings always end in the shooter killing himself. Also is is happening way to often now.

[Limited]

Ive noticed that all the of the shootings always end in the shooter killing himself. Also is is happening way to often now.
Yeah, either that or they get shot by the police, but they probably want to be shot. They never give up and get arrested.

[SnaFuBAR]

Welp, can't say anything about "only in America" or "because of America's evil gun culture" or anything anymore, now can we.

[Limited]

Welp, can't say anything about "only in America" or "because of America's evil gun culture" or anything anymore, now can we.
Hmm, must be a way to play with the words...how bout...Well the German guy must have got the idea from America, something Jack Thompson would say. Then he'd word in how the American ones were compared to the violent games, missing out the fact that he was the one that compared lol.

[Hotrod]

Yeah, I heard about this on the radio this morning. One thing that I never got, why go and kill other people, as well as killing yourself? I mean, neither of them make sense alone, but why do both? If you hate life, and are fucking retarded enough to kill yourself because of that, then why take others down with you? And if other people piss you off, then why go and kill yourself?

[Agnaiel]

Yeah, I heard about this on the radio this morning. One thing that I never got, why go and kill other people, as well as killing yourself? I mean, neither of them make sense alone, but why do both? If you hate life, and are fucking retarded enough to kill yourself because of that, then why take others down with you? And if other people piss you off, then why go and kill yourself?
That.

I heard about this in (funnily enough) German class today. I also heard about the Alabama shootings. I'm starting to get worried. It just seems like a matter of time things come up here....

[PlasbianX]

I'll bet the kid was listening to Tokio Hotel and it drove him insane.

[n00b1n8R]

Havn't heard about that on the news, but I did hear about this:

11 dead in Alabama shooting spree

Reuters

Wednesday, 11 March 2009


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Authorities grappled today for the reason a 27-year-old Alabama man shot dead 10 people, including his mother, before killing himself after a gun battle with police and a car chase down a rural highway.
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Timeline: Tragic school shootings (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/timeline-tragic-school-shootings-1642690.html)


Michael McLendon, who lived with his mother, killed five of his victims in yesterday's shooting spree at a mobile home in Samson, in south-eastern Alabama, according to a local coroner and Wynnton Melton, mayor of nearby Geneva.
The victims at the mobile home included the wife of a local deputy sheriff and her child. He also killed two people at a convenience store and a man in a pickup truck who died during a car chase as McLendon apparently fired at random, said Melton.
"We sent 11 bodies to Montgomery (the state capital)," said Robert Preachers, the coroner in neighbouring Coffee County who said he knew most of the victims including the killer.
"He (McLendon) was a nice quiet kid, no trouble. He was always polite and nice," Preachers said. Asked about a possible motive, he said: "He carried it with him to the grave."
Rural south-eastern Alabama, which borders Florida, is a largely agricultural area with many low-income families.
Mass shootings have become more frequent in the United States in recent years.
Guns are widely available for purchase in the United States, a country that prides itself on the right to own weapons for self defence and hunting.
The website of the Dothan Eagle newspaper quoted Coffee County District Attorney Gary McAliley as saying the gunman had been armed with both pistols and assault rifles.
The shooting spree began in Kinston, a small town in Coffee County, and continued to Samson, where McLendon killed his grandmother, uncle and others, said the FBI, local police and Preachers.
It ended after a car chase and gun battle in Geneva, the county seat about 12 miles away, they said.
Describing the car chase, Melton said: "Officer Ricky Morgan rammed his car to distract him and was rewarded with a hail of bullets .... One bullet grazed the shoulder of police chief Frankie Lindsey."
A police officer in Geneva said the gunman "shot at several vehicles on the highway and then he shot at Wal-Mart and Piggly Wiggly," a grocery store.
McLendon also shot the family's dogs, Preachers said. "He killed her (his mother) and her dogs. He shot the dogs in the head. Then he piled them up and gassed them (poured gasoline on them and lit it). He laid the dogs next to her," he said.


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/gunman-kills-nine-in-alabama-shooting-spree-1642234.html

gawd bless NOT SAYING ONLY IN AMERICA

PS: gun violence is baaad guys, these people are weird. :saddowns:

[DaneO'Roo]

Uh, why did the news say the Alabama man shot himself when other reports say the police shot him?

[RobertGraham]

Thats the media for you


Am I the only one who fails to be shocked in any way by these occurrences?

I mean come on they just happen so ridiculously often now. Sure it sucks that some social reject went and killed some people but it's almost embedded in my mind as a regular event :S

^This

[Ifafudafi]

[A classmate] said the two played poker together, both in person and online, as well as a multiplayer video game called "Counter-Strike" that involves killing people to complete missions.

Of course they thought it necessary to point out that the object of CS is to kill others, while forgetting to mention that the object of poker is to decieve others for their money.

[nooBBooze]

But appearantly videogames do desentezie to some point. I read somewhere that before and during the vietnam war, over 50% of the soldiers didn't actually try to kill the enemy because they just couldn't kill another man.
Nowadays armies use videogames to actively desentezie the troops.
If anything, videogames get excesive violence into our minds, how the respective individuals handle it, is another question.

[Bodzilla]

But appearantly videogames do desentezie to some point. I read somewhere that before and during the vietnam war, over 50% of the soldiers didn't actually try to kill the enemy because they just couldn't kill another man.
Nowadays armies use videogames to actively desentezie the troops.
If anything, videogames get excesive violence into our minds, how the respective individuals handle it, is another question.
The media is more to blame then video games.

look at the crap they're promoting in movies, and news stories and music....
They just cant leave it alone because it earns them too much money.

[nooBBooze]

Well, the same applies to vidya. I used to think that due to the interactive aspect of videogames that gradually aquaint us to more realistic killing is actually more harmful to a childs [or rather anyones] mind than the passive conumption of violent and militarized media. Now I would say that they really are complementary, two sides of the same coin poisoning our minds.
At any rate, heres a rather relevant documentary on this subject
http://www.esoterictube.com/militainment-inc.html

[rossmum]

I like how they seem to portray games (and anything else it's cool to use as a scapegoat this week) as being able to corrupt perfectly normal minds and force people to commit random acts of violence, when it takes someone on the verge of going out and murdering someone anyway to actually have any serious negative impact.

I've played violent games since I was about 10, and I won't throw a punch until I've already been hit a few times. I detest real-world violence. Guess that makes me the odd one out, according to the all-knowing media and their highly qualified 'experts'.

[Dwood]

Every time there's a murder thread in here everyone goes all "jack thompson..... jack THOMPSON...... JAAAAAAACK THOOOOMMMMMPPPPPSSSSSOOOON"

No one even noticed how terrible the story of the German shooting. Honestly, I could write a better story. It answers no questions. The story argues with itself, one fact is true while another is not. It's almost like the reporter is more focused on trying to make others look like idiots.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7936817.stm

Re-read it with what I said in mind.

Now, to those who keep bringing up Jack Thompson: you're beating a dead horse.

Now, finally you guys actually mention something which is relevant to the anti-VG theory. This also applies to any form of media. If Doom was made with the Crysis engine, and we could run the engine decently, do you think blood would repulse us much after playing the game a lot?

Add to that- What if this epic-Doom was released 4 years prior to Vietnam, and EVERY gamer just HAD to play it? Then, Dead Space comes out on an even more powerful engine, and then Left 4 dead, and still more and more people play it with graphics more and more realistic? Then Vietnam starts, and by the time Nixon gets into office everyone's played those games some 10+ years earlier.

Would we care as much about the actions in Vietnam?

The one thing about video games that makes them different from movies is that when you're constantly playing them you're constantly exposed to people exploding, blood gushing etc. Your mind will be desensitized over time.

Look at the dramatic pictures from Vietnam. It can almost be guaranteed that they won't repulse the gamer playing bloody games like Dead Space etc as it would a parent who has never played anything but those small little flash mahjog games.

These bloody games get the mind ready to not be affected by the blood of war.

[rossmum]

Yeah, because I can totally watch archive footage of soldiers getting blown up or shot and not be repulsed. I can't even watch a decent war movie without feeling some sort of adverse reaction to people dying.

I'm a gamer and I'll soon be a fucking soldier, and yes, I am repulsed. Anatomical dissections don't bother me since I have an almost infinite curiosity for how things work and I was doing a med course, but seeing people getting blown up, chopped up, or burned to a crisp while alive still has the same effect it would have on any normal person.

Please don't make wildly exaggerated claims you can't support, thanks.

[SnaFuBAR]

These bloody games get the mind ready to not be affected by the blood of war.
Guys, I found Jack Thompson.

[rossmum]

Guys, I found Jack Thompson.
Or ill-informed, rambling ignoramus, they're interchangeable.

Anyone who is actually sane, like a 'normal' person, and who has some common sense (rather unlike a 'normal' person I guess) can tell you that they won't be desensitised by obviously fake violence and they won't be lying. I sit here just about pissing myself laughing when I see people get killed in outrageously gory ways in games, but if the same thing happened in real life I'd be both disgusted and distressed. I entertain all sorts of ideas that'd probably get me a priority appointment with a shrink, but I flat-out don't like real-world violence and I can also differentiate very clearly between the two.

Anyone who is actually affected in the kind of way suggested either has a predisposition to violence or a lack of emotion when exposed to it, or is just plain old mentally unstable. In the case of both, they could be set off by anything. Books, movies, music, games, some seemingly random and minor event... there's no one thing you can just lay the blame on, and anyone who thinks otherwise doesn't know shit from clay. Of course, since the average adult will swallow anything the media feeds them spin and all, very few older adults know the first thing about games. My parents, on the other hand, know that I can be trusted with violent games, violent movies, and a loaded rifle - because I'd rather go blow the fuck out of a target than a living, breathing person.

[Bodzilla]

Or ill-informed, rambling ignoramus, they're interchangeable.

Anyone who is actually sane, like a 'normal' person, and who has some common sense (rather unlike a 'normal' person I guess) can tell you that they won't be desensitised by obviously fake violence and they won't be lying. I sit here just about pissing myself laughing when I see people get killed in outrageously gory ways in games, but if the same thing happened in real life I'd be both disgusted and distressed. I entertain all sorts of ideas that'd probably get me a priority appointment with a shrink, but I flat-out don't like real-world violence and I can also differentiate very clearly between the two.

Anyone who is actually affected in the kind of way suggested either has a predisposition to violence or a lack of emotion when exposed to it, or is just plain old mentally unstable. In the case of both, they could be set off by anything. Books, movies, music, games, some seemingly random and minor event... there's no one thing you can just lay the blame on, and anyone who thinks otherwise doesn't know shit from clay. Of course, since the average adult will swallow anything the media feeds them spin and all, very few older adults know the first thing about games. My parents, on the other hand, know that I can be trusted with violent games, violent movies, and a loaded rifle - because I'd rather go blow the fuck out of a target than a living, breathing person.
this^
because his argument is maximum.

I'm same way tbh.