LDS Teenager Murdered at her High School in Parkland

[_Gadianton]

If the FBI truly dropped the ball on this wtf. Unfortunately they will probably end up investigating the investigation.

Maybe more unfortunate than you realize, and the President blaming the FBI is going to backfire. The biggest problem for the NRA and for the gun crowd is that their focus is on the short term rather than the long term.

Allow me to share my vision for how this is going to go down. This incident is so hot that the NRA didn't even dare post a statement about it, and neither did many other right-wing blogs that generally post on most hot topics. What, did they think we were done with mass shootings? It's almost as if they failed to put the millions they should have into figuring out what they were going to say the next time this happens and are literally thinking, "oh crap, it just happened again!" This time they said nothing; next time, what are they going to say, and what are they going to say about the time after that? Are they really thinking, "just lay low, this will blow over in a few weeks, and it was just bad luck it was an AR-15, next time it will be something different -- everyone knows a simple shotgun is better for short range."

The AR-15 is getting some heavy attention. I'm seeing a lot of sentiment similar to Dr. Ws and KG's link that this is a military weapon meant to kill efficiently in a combat situation and has no place in civilian hands. A right-wing preacher just spoke up. I just got a linked-in notification about some people who are voluntarily surrendering their AR-15s. Guess what gun is going to be used the next time? An AR-15. And that's because like the pro-gun posters in this thread point out, there are other social factors at work in a shooting. If the AR-15 becomes the symbol for evil, then the shooter who is trying to hurt society as much as possible is going to use the weapon the public fears most, and maximize his notoriety by using that weapon.

Increasingly, owning an AR-15 and other "assault weapons" will be stigmatized by society. The failure to get legislature off the ground to restrict them will fan public outrage, and so every time an AR-15 makes the news, people are going to be outraged. The best bet would be compromise. Give up the AR-15 and opt for some restrictions that might really make a difference, magazine restrictions etc. Remember, not every shooter is a Timothy McVeigh with absolute resolve to carry out a complex plan at any cost. Younger potential shooters without gang affiliations and social problems who can't just walk into a walmart and get what they want or buy online will be deterred by the increased cost of effort. But that's not going to happen.

Well, back to the FBI. The FBI, like any other government agency, acts out of self-preservation more than anything else. Doing real work is very hard, I can't even imagine how hard it would be to figure out how to appraise every report they get about a potential shooter. And so to save face, if the right-wing is now going to blame them instead of compromising, they'll fall back to their tried-and-true method of sting operations and harassment. Sting operations are biased toward framing innocent people or low-risk potential perpetrators because they make the cost of the crime too low and their grip on the evidence is too high. Are there technicalities on the books regarding assault rifles that don't matter? Get ready for the FBI to sucker innocent gun owners into crossing boundaries they can prosecute so they can get convictions and just like with sex offenders say, "See! We're getting dangerous people off the street! We're doing our job!"

It will be even worse if you get that mental health background check. Just having a database that ultimately could be used by say, an employer to see who the gun owners are will result in discrimination against gun owners. Big companies are very scared of looking LGBT unfriendly, and this is going to become that same kind of issue, especially since there is no reason to believe mass killings with "assault weapons" are a passing fad.

Of course, just as it's unlikely anyone on this forum will be the victim of a mass shooting, its very unlikely anyone will face legal or discrimination problems due to their gun ownership, I'm just saying this is the only direction I can see things going if there's no compromise, which there won't be, and given there's no reason to believe mass shootings are in the rear view mirror; looks like more notoriety than ever for it.

[_EAllusion]

Gadianton -

The NRA always goes dark after a mass shooting. How long they stay silent on social media depends on the intensity of coverage. They've been doing it for a while now. It's their policy to lay low while the heat is on. This one isn't any different.

[_Maksutov]

You know a bigger mess is created by fatty food and laziness... is 35% too much of a tax rate on fried mozzarella sticks and people without gym memberships?

So, because more people sicken and die from unhealthy food choices and laziness, no attempt should ever be made to acknowledge and lessen the problem of gun violence? Its not like no one is already acknowledging, addressing and working on the former of those problems, you know! How stupid can you get?

People choosing to eat unhealthy things are as much of a tragedy as children gunned down at school. That's subby logic. He's just trying to be obnoxious to push your buttons. Remember his holocaust denial shtick?

[_Gadianton]

Gadianton -

The NRA always goes dark after a mass shooting. How long they stay silent on social media depends on the intensity of coverage. They've been doing it for a while now. It's their policy to lay low while the heat is on. This one isn't any different.

I'd never put my knowledge of the news and politics against yours. then I'll make a prediction, and own it if I'm wrong. The NRA came out with their "armed guard" statement 7 days after Sandy Hook. My prediction is they will not address this particular shooting with a recommendation about how to avoid school shootings, not next week or next year.

[_EAllusion]

Gadianton -

The NRA always goes dark after a mass shooting. How long they stay silent on social media depends on the intensity of coverage. They've been doing it for a while now. It's their policy to lay low while the heat is on. This one isn't any different.

I'd never put my knowledge of the news and politics against yours. then I'll make a prediction, and own it if I'm wrong. The NRA came out with their "armed guard" statement 7 days after Sandy Hook. My prediction is they will not address this particular shooting with a recommendation about how to avoid school shootings, not next week or next year.

I don't mean to be cynical here, but the NRA has a clear media strategy that it has been using after these mass shootings happen again and again. The first step is to shut down all social media for several days. Then it is to have public advocates say that whatever gun control is being agitated for won't actually work. Then it is to blame some other causes besides guns (video games, mental health, etc.). Then it is to offer some small token of change. Then it is to count on politicians to kill any response while mobilizing their rank and file to hold those politicians feet to the fire.

I'm not saying that will always work, but this is the playbook. You can set your watch to it.

[_MeDotOrg]

40% federal excise tax on guns and ammunition. If we can't do anything about the guns, let's create a fund to pay for the mess our lack of willingness to address this problem creates.

ah, the sin tax. how inspired.
You know a bigger mess is created by fatty food and laziness... is 35% too much of a tax rate on fried mozzarella sticks and people without gym memberships?

Last time I checked, I haven't seen anyone use mozzarella sticks to murder 17 people at a high school, or murder 50 people in Las Vegas because they didn't use their gym membership.

[_Maksutov]

ah, the sin tax. how inspired.
You know a bigger mess is created by fatty food and laziness... is 35% too much of a tax rate on fried mozzarella sticks and people without gym memberships?

Last time I checked, I haven't seen anyone use mozzarella sticks to murder 17 people at a high school, or murder 50 people in Las Vegas because they didn't use their gym membership.

Hey, Subby thinks killing millions of Jews is a joke. Kids at a high school are nothing.

[_honorentheos]

There's been a fair amount of reporting that the social media Russian sources and bots are participating in online activity on this issue. According to the reporting, the aim isn't to push one side over the other but to raise the volume at the two extreme ends of the discussion combined with sowing seeds of #falseflag doubt and conspiracy theories around the tragedy.

http://fortune.com/2018/02/20/russian-t ... -shooting/

“This is pretty typical for them, to hop on breaking news like this,” Jonathon Morgan, chief executive of New Knowledge, a company that tracks online disinformation campaigns, told the New York Times. “The bots focus on anything that is divisive for Americans. Almost systematically.”

Research sites that track Twitter activity from Russian-linked accounts look for indicators such as posting at an extremely high volume or sharing content that matches hundreds of other accounts.

Some bot operators create hashtags and flood the platform until human users pick them up, while others seize hashtags already being used to hijack the conversation. The top two-word phrase on Twitter the day after the shooting, excluding President Donald Trump’s name, was related to the attack, according to Wired.

The bots are “going to find any contentious issue, and instead of making it an opportunity for compromise and negotiation, they turn it into an unsolvable issue bubbling with frustration,” said Karen North, a social media professor at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, told the New York Times. “It just heightens that frustration and anger.”


http://wunc.org/post/russian-bots-seize ... s#stream/0

"...the problem is that the Russian influence campaigns are trying to get people's attention to then slip in messages that are more directly related to the Kremlin's agenda in hopes that real people will then spread them."

https://www.npr.org/2018/02/20/58737577 ... a-shooting

SHAPIRO: Let's start with last week's school shooting in Florida. How did trolls online exploit that tragedy?

SHAHANI: Well, I spoke with a researcher at New Knowledge - that's a group that studies pro-Russia trolls - and he gave me a chilling timeline. By 2:30 p.m. Eastern that day he saw an uptick of messages by this one troll network. And they just started sharing breaking news, OK? But by 3 p.m. Eastern, a half hour later, they quickly pivoted to conspiracy theories, speculating it was a Democrat conspiracy and also advancing an extreme pro-gun position, saying teachers need to carry concealed handguns to protect students.

Now, that latter talking point made its way into mainstream news. So it's an example of how anyone can drive the national conversation - you know, advocate strongly for an extreme position and manufacture a ton of retweets at the exact moment when pundits are looking to define the polls.

SHAPIRO: That example didn't have to do with an election per se, but can these propaganda campaigns influence voters enough to have an impact on elections?

SHAHANI: Yeah, well, I think the power of that example is to show that it - how quickly the mechanics work. And then it doesn't take a whole lot of voters to be swayed, right? I mean, we just had a Virginia state House election that ended in a tie. And our political system, because of the Electoral College and gerrymandering, is designed for a tiny group to sway an election. Then Facebook ad targeting is designed to let you reach that tiny group and slice and dice them according to their stance on guns or immigration or Trump, all for very little money.

[_DrW]

Honor,

Thanks for the above post on Russian Bot activity related to the Parkland shooting. Such details are helpful and should be more widely disseminated.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

It's almost as if they're following some sort of gameplan or something...

eta: Don't forget Russia via its trolling supported both Sanders and Trump against Hillary. They're encouraging American isolationism. By sowing dischord they're hoping we turn our attention inward thus weakening our outward attention and thus political resolve.

eta2: Huh. I guess my ears were burning. A link from Drudge today:

http://freebeacon.com/politics/sanders- ... -meddling/

tl;dr - Old Man Sanders is like, "Uh? Wha? Russians were wha? Clinton knew! Dat two-faced bitch!"


- Doc