smjjames

Since we don't have a generic MidEast politics thread, gonna post this link on the Saudi Arabia foreign minister calling the missile incident an act of war, but stopping short of actually declaring war on Iran. Pretty serious escalation over there. http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/06/middleeast/saudi-foreign-minister-interview/index.html

Internally.......

Barring aberrant occurrences (Breivik), mass shootings seem to be a chiefly American phenomenon. Which means that either there's a greater concentration of "evil" people in the US -an absurd proposition- or there's a series of actual causes involved, which hopefully can be explained and tackled. dunno, US is similiar to Middle east? heard there is plenty of shooting No because there isn't some war or civil conflict going on. Speaking of the Middle East, Saudi Arabia has stopped short of directly declaring war on Iran by calling the missile flyover an act of war.

In hindsight, yes, but it's unclear (mainly because it's still early in the investigation) whether he got them legally or illegally/fraudulently.

Sounded to me like they said he didn't have any gun license, and more like several somebodies are in trouble because he bought the guns at different places in different states. We'll eventually find out the details of how he got the guns and whether he got them legally as the legality of the purchases seem unclear to me atm due to somewhat conflicting reports.

The press conference this morning confirmed that he didn't have a gun license (expired or otherwise), I assume that even at gun shows they at least check for a license? The reputable sellers at least. So, there are multiple failures here because he shouldn't have been able to get any of the guns in the first place. Also, they said that there was a 'domestic situation in/with the family', so, this is an extreme form of domestic violence? Sometimes evil is just evil, yes, but this also looks like a failure of current gun laws to do their thing.

I said roughly constant as in not being a huge number. Also not really possible to get a truly accurate picture for (most of) the 19th century and back due to the modern study of psychology and treatment being a relatively recent thing. Not that attempts at treatment in times past didn't exist obviously. The whole visiting psychiatrists and on psycho drugs needs some context though, like is it just more people being diagnosed and treated and a decrease in the stigma rather than an actual increase in mental illness. Not disputing it, just needs some context and data. Either way, the domestic assault alone should have precluded him from owning guns and Guard Dog noted that someone seriously screwed up the background check in Colorado.

Well, the number of untreated and undiagnosed (and incorrectly diagnosed) mental illnesses would increase the further back you go just because of the state of psychology as a science at the time, especially getting into the 19th century. So, it wouldn't be possible to reliably check beyond a certain point, and it certainly would have fluctuated with wars and social issues, etc. Main point though is that right now, we don't have more mentally ill as a percentage of the population compared to other countries. We have more people by virtue of larger population, but not as a percentage. As Guard Dog mentioned, enforcement of current laws would definetly help since someone screwed up big time with the background check.

@malcador: What does that have to do with anything? @guard dog: Thing is, what changed? If powerful weapons capable of shooting clips of 20 at a time have been around for at least a hundred or more years, then why is it a recent phenomenon? Mental illness is an incomplete answer because we don't have more mentally ill on average than any other country and the numbers of mentally ill have likely been roughly constant through history. Anyways, turns out that the guys in laws go to the church, but the in laws weren't there at the time, so a possible motive. Though one would think to check if the in laws were in fact there.

Well, there are no statistics on gun violence from the 19th century, so, we can't say for absolute certainty that individual acts of violence were greater in the 19th than the 20th, though I agree that the mass numbers are much more recent. Also, there IS one thing that wasn't readily available to the public 100 years ago, powerful guns like the AR-15 bushmaster type rifle that the shooter used, so, there are new types of guns, that didn't exist until relatively recently. Anyway, Gov. Greg Abbott said that the gunman was denied a right to carry, don't know if that was concealed carry or a total inability to get guns. Also, that terror incident in NY showed that the gun laws worked in that instance, a terrorist doesn't purchase a BB gun and a paintball gun if they're unable to buy a real gun.

It fits wherever you want it to fit... *cue porn music* Lol guys XD, also getting a little into territory that I'm not sure the mods are okay with. Then again, we've got that brothel in Defiance Bay.

How does the Aloth/Iselmyr bit work though? Would be a funny bug if Aloth fell in love with his Iselmyr personality.

So, apparently the guy was discharged for assaulting his wife and child, wouldn't domestic violence also preclude him from owning guns? Though I think that's only if you're convicted. Not sure how he'd go from domestic violence to shooting up people though.

I wonder how much the NRA would complain if the government enforced the gun laws? including having background checks at gun shows which could be how someone who isn't supposed supposed to have them, got them.

The husband of the woman in that article is a real piece of ****, abandoning his family. On the discharge thing, one source (daily beast via vox) https://www.vox.com/2017/11/5/16610084/san-antonio-texas-church-shooting says he was discharged for 'bad conduct' but the specifics of that aren't public yet. Not sure if you can have a bad conduct discharge and still have it be honorable, you'd know a lot more about how it works than I do.

How well enforced is that act though? So, this is another guy who wasn't supposed to have guns in the first place, so, how did he acquire them?

Dunno why they didn't identify the guy at the press conference, CNN has now confirmed that ID. Yeah, this shooting just seems strange all around. I don't mean 'conspiracy theory' strange, it's just.... the whole overkill of it for one, and a church.... and the black tactical suit....

If this is accurate, and the main authorities haven't even released a name yet (not the ones CNN showed a press conference of) then I REALLY wonder what he had against that church.

Maybe it was a Muslim white guy? Not claiming that the person was one, just throwing that (to some people) contradiction out there. Anyways, the guy was white and mid 20s and was wearing all black tactical type gear, whether it matches that rumor going around or the name(s) already mentioned on other websites remains to be seen. If he is from that small town, it's a hell of a grievance that he was hiding.

One person who was talking to CNN said that there was a rumor going around (it's a small town of 600 people, rumors are going to spread fast, especially in the age of social media) of who might be the shooter. The person talking to CNN said they knew the family members of the room red shooter, but not the rumored shooter. She didn't want to say who the rumor mentioned as she didn't want to disrupt the investigation, probably a smart move on her part. It's entirely possible those sites are referring to the rumor or rumors.

Is the forum section for the beta going to be available to the public? Wouldn't be surprised if it was limited to certain people, just not sure how exactly Obsidian does their backer betas.

Let's not taunt Murphy

could you not? Not what?

True, yes, but absent of facts as to what happened, you can only deploy the usual arguments and statements on guns given by both sides. Even then, I don't see the argument budging anywhere, we've had ones worse than this and nothing changed.

Um, drinking AND carrying a pistol while drinking doesn't sound like a very safe combination. Nothing political there, I swear, just common sense. Also have to find out the who, but yes, too early to really have any debate on it. Eleronds point was more that some people are going to start deploying their pro-gun or pro-gun control arguments before the facts are fully in.