Wish This Didn't Need To Be Posted

[PaddleCrazy]

Unfortunately, over the past several years, we are witnessing an increasing number of "active shooters (gunman)" in public places, with the death and injury numbers at alarmingly high numbers.

I was sent a PSA today that was produced by the City of Houston Office of Public Safety and Homeland Security, from a police officer friend of mine.

It's a shame that we even have to prepare for something like this, but it seems that "safe places" like movie theaters, high schools, college universities, shopping malls, political speeches, the workplace, just about anywhere now seems to be fair game for the mental case people out there, who arm themselves to care out their random, nonsensical, and indiscriminate attacks on innocent people just going about their days.

Here's the video....



....I pray that none of us, or our loved ones, ever have to use it's directions. 


Be safe and God bless,
PC

[SoCalSupper]

yep sad state of affairs and a bit of a commentary on the world.

On a lighter note if i owned a large business and was near water i swear i would look into Employee Wellness Day(s) or something of that nature with a SUP day for the families of workers.
Ive always admired the companies that spend some extra $$ on employee happiness.

[ObviousSup]

Just the other day there was a shooting at a grocery store I frequent. Apparently the shooter got upset someone blocked his ability to watch a women entering her PIN at the check out stand. According to the news the guy that got shot stuck his finger behind the trigger so they guy couldn't shoot him again. Very gutsy!

[headmount]

Before the Marine sniper went bonkers in the bell tower at U of Texas in  Austin, 1966, mass shootings weren't on everyone's physic map.  But they did happen.  I, unfortunately, was at an incident at the age of 11, so these events, that seem to occur ever more often, rattle my emotional cage.

My Mom was intent on me being able to do whatever I wanted without being compromised by my horrible eyesight.  This is an excerpt from my memoir.

I stare at the 1961 calendar on the wall and twist my head sideways to imagine the numbers upside down.  It’s still 1961.  Mom and I are at the Naval hospital in Bethesda Maryland waiting in the hallway for my appointment to have an eye check up and pre-surgery analysis.  
I’m startled and look up from the Boy's Life magazine in my lap.  A white security cop is going berserk.   He’s yelling something and then he starts shooting a gun.  Mom pushes me to the floor and lies on top of me while the cop blazes away.  The gunshots are not as loud as my Grandfather, Papa Bace’s 45 but there are many and they are sharp and crisp.  I hear a whiz in the air.  What will it feel like if we are hit?
I know Mom sometimes feels powerless with Dad but that cop has a gun.   It feels incredible how she is protecting me now.  I can hear screams and moans and the cop keeps shooting.  How long can this go on before Mom gets hit?  I’ve lost Papa Bace.   I can’t lose Mom.
Another cop shoots the murderer and he tells us it’s over.
When I look in the hallway, there are four people on the floor with blood all over them. Is this what Papa Bace felt like in WWI?  It looks real but I can’t believe it.  We’re in a hospital where people are supposed to get fixed.

[lucabrasi]

There are times, and not just real recently that I have literally had....I guess panic attacks thinking about having brought kids into this world and what a mess this place is (financially, socially, etc. the whole gamut) and how they must deal with it and get through it. My oldest is 25 and I think I have had those fears at times for the last 25 years.
Did parents have those same fears when they saw Hitler storm Europe? Is this more unique and scary to our generation? I have read people went through crowds stabbing random people in Roman times. Does this just go on neverending but change in......our own perception? Some parents still must worry if their kids will be forced into slavery I guess.
Have we in the last 50 years or so seen more changes than say our/my grandparents saw who were born close to the turn of the 20th century who saw automobiles, flight, radio, and televison in their lifetime? Do those changes even relate to this somehow? Are we trading the state of the world for say.......being able to be 1500 miles from the ocean and being able to be there in the same day or even at all?
I think it is a far sadder state now and does this post somewhat relate to the obsession of whipping out the camera and posting neverending images for the world to see?
Headmount, I can not imagine having that memory. I was just getting started when that happened to you. Thinking of my life and experiences and comparing it to others....war veterens, Headmounts day at the hospital, kids at a school in Columbine, etc.....I am one lucky dude. I have not traveled the world to see how others live......but I have gathered that some of the happiest people seem to be some of the cultures with the least of our "conveniences".
At the same time...........don't take away my ability to catch a live sporting event 3000 miles away in the palm of my hand on the middle of a lake instead of hoping I can catch the score in tomorrows newspaper.  

[mittenkitten]

I have friends that work for CPS (Child Protective Services) and at a local adolescent psychiatric facility.  The number of stories they have about pathologic kids and teens is absolutely bone chilling, and the scariest thing of all is that there is nowhere for these kids to go once they are of age and released from the psych facility, at which point they are now deranged and dangerous adults operating in the public sphere. The state of Michigan (I'm not sure what it's like elsewhere) no longer has state run psychiatric hospitals at all   

Better gun control might help alleviate the number of shootings, but then there are those that are making bombs in their kitchen sinks from recipes they found on the internet. Where and how does it end? An exponentially growing population just means the number of these people will grow, but that's along with the rest of the world so i guess it's all relative? The question becomes what, if anything, can we really do? It's just so sad...

[Admin]

Is this more unique and scary to our generation?

This is the norm.  There are attrocities all over the world, every week, that dwarf these recent events.  There is mental illness, there are people who become morphed into their worst possible selves by environment and chance, and there is an ugly element to human nature.  It may may be scarier in the USA in this generation (or group of generations) as we have been so relatively protected from it.  

There are incredibly positive elements to people as well, but the facade that this positivity is, or could be, the whole of the story leads to a lack planning and a sense of fear.

Even with what seems to be the crazy and violent current state of human affairs worldwide, the safety of being a human being is on the uptrend overall.  Violence has declined over time. 

[PaddleCrazy]

Is this more unique and scary to our generation?

At the same time...........don't take away my ability to catch a live sporting event 3000 miles away in the palm of my hand on the middle of a lake instead of hoping I can catch the score in tomorrows newspaper.  

lucabrasi, I believe that your second statement, accounts for the answer to your first question.

No, I don't believe that what we're seeing now is more unique than what past generations encountered, but because of our ability to get information instantaneously and everywhere that past generations were unable to do....has led us to the heightened "scary" factor, that the media has found "sells" quite well today.

What prior generations had to "tune into" on the evening news, or wait for next day's newspapers reporting on the tragedies that played out somewhere in the country and/or world, we now have immediately.....sometimes, even while they're still happening.

With the Internet, and 24 hour news channels constantly searching for stories to fill their airways, anything and everything is being brought to us at a moments notice....when in the past, news directors and editors, had to make conscious efforts to determine what "news" they were going to fit into the hour or two program.

So while we're now more aware of the things happening around us, I don't believe that past generations were immune from the same "horrors"....they really just didn't know about all of them.   

JMO, YMMV......

[headmount]

While some 'kids' like Bonnie and Clyde had automatic weapons from a post WWI weapons glut, most kids in post WWII era didn't have any access to them.  So that is definitely different from the current situation.  Yeah everything gets reported now which is also different but the escalation in available weaponry is alarming.  A stabbing and single shot shooting is one thing.  People get the message and beat feet. But auto weapons and bombs make it a vastly scarier environment than previous times.

[Admin]

All forms of violence have decreased dramatically over time and worldwide.  War, individual murder, rape, etc.  All have declined drastically.  The mode and methods of violence may have changed with technology, but the effect is the same.

[headmount]

While violence has decreased, our level of acceptable violence within our boundaries has decreased even more.  Most people, including me, want none.  That may be as much of a fairy tale as 'world peace' but that's the fairy tale I, and many in my age group, tried to embrace when we were young.     But my hippie outlook caved way to having my head on a swivel, on the look out for trouble  souls who have a need for violence.  And there are plenty, from soldiers returning home with their neurotransmitters fried from PTSD to  many other forms of PTSD like displaced and abused kids.  The fairy tale continues to be just that.

[Admin]

While violence has decreased, our level of acceptable violence within our boundaries has decreased even more.

Societally we still value violence highly.  The form may be more subverted but our games are violent, we hunt for sport, we adore violent films, we cherish the stories of abhorrence in the media.  It is not the whole story but it is in there.  Socialization has increasingly masked this, but remove that barrier temporarily in war or riot and the underlying nature shows itself.  There are individuals with high and low attraction to risk and high and low attraction to violence and for good reason.  Both have had succesful genetic runs.  Society has "needed" individuals to "enjoy" doing combat with a dangerous world and others more suited to stay back and remain safe.  Why does danger give us that thrill?  What is the allure of sports that offer us that?  What need is being fulfilled?

As far as real danger in our world, statistically each of us is our own greatest potential threat.  Over the course of a lifetime we are at twice the danger of taking our own life as we are from being murdered.  Possibly a better video would be tips on how to keep ourselves happy.

[Strand Leper]

Admin,

My friend Corran has a bunch of those types of videos... He seems to like them.  They seem to keep him happy.  You may be onto something there... I am not too into them myself...

SL

[ENCINITAS_SUP]

No, I don't believe that what we're seeing now is more unique than what past generations encountered, but because of our ability to get information instantaneously and everywhere that past generations were unable to do....has led us to the heightened "scary" factor, that the media has found "sells" quite well today.

The statistics seem to support that the number of these events are not increasing, we are just more aware of them now.

[Admin]

Compare those yearly #'s with 40,000 Suicides, 120,000 accidents, 600,000 from heart disease and amost as many from cancer. 

As they say, your chances of dying are one in one. 

Not to minimize how sad these events are but it seems equally as sad to become overly worried about events like this (as above).