[Discussion] Mass Shootings - Yeah, we need a thread just for this...

This year is the deadliest year ever in terms of mass shootings. In a political climate of polarization, it becomes harder to suss out legitimate information from the misinformation propagated by those with political agendas. Complicating this more is the continual resistance of 2nd amendment advocates to allow for political talk surrounding these massacres. This will involve political discussion to see if there are ways we can all agree might be good ways to prevent mass shootings.

This discussion should involve the details of any current, or future mass shooting, and how they compare to past mass shootings. How are they the same? How are they different? Do gun laws have an impact? Does the race of the shooter affect how we treat them? What makes one a hate crime and one an act or terrorism? Are these shootings the price of freedom?

It's not a prop gun if it can fire rounds. It's a gun being used as a prop.

Yeah, aren't blanks what killed Brandon Lee?

Nevin73 wrote:

Yeah, aren't blanks what killed Brandon Lee?

According to WaPo, no.

WaPo wrote:

Other prop-gun incidents have resulted in deaths on movie sets. In 1993, actor Brandon Lee, the 28-year-old son of actor and martial artist Bruce Lee, died after actor Michael Massee shot him in the abdomen on the set of the film “The Crow.” The prop gun was supposed to be loaded with blank and “dummy” rounds but was somehow loaded with a .44-caliber bullet, police said. The North Carolina district attorney said the shooting was caused by the crew’s negligence, not foul play.

In 1984, 27-year-old actor Jon-Erik Hexum died days after accidentally shooting himself in the head with a prop gun on the set of a TV show. He was pretending to play Russian roulette with a .44 Magnum revolver when the gun fired a blank cartridge, authorities said at the time.

I am, honestly, mystified by how even a single round of live ammunition could be allowed within 3 miles of a movie set.

I've heard two stories on Brandon Lee. One is that a dummy round with a real bullet but the powder removed had been fired, and the primer was enough to push the bullet into the barrel. Then when the blank was fired it launched the bullet just like a live round. The other is that some set debris had gotten stuck in the gun and it was set aside to be repaired later, only to be accidentally loaded with blanks and given to an actor.

Particularly nowadays, there is simply no excuse for having a real gun or a prop gun capable of firing a projectile on a movie set. AT ALL. You can fix effects in post using CGI and the liability (as demonstrated) is simply not worth the "realism". Blowback replicas are VERY convincing both aesthetically and mechanically and should always be used instead of actual firearms.

I have nothing to add on this tragedy except that I’m glad Trump doesn’t have access to Twitter right now. His posts would have been pretty disgusting I’m sure.

Edit: and it would have probably inspired justifiable finger-wagging followed by reflexive, abhorrent pile-on attacks by other right wing figures.

I was just coming to post what Paleocon posted. There is zero reason to have blanks anymore. Yeah CG costs more, but I guess we are still figuring out how much a life is worth these days anyways.

Baldwin is the producer on the movie too.

IATSE Local 44 claiming it was a live bullet and that the prop master wasn't a member of IATSE.

How does an adult in the year 2021 pick up a firearm and not verify the workings before going near the trigger or even pretending to aim it at another living thing?

Rat Boy wrote:

IATSE Local 44 claiming it was a live bullet and that the prop master wasn't a member of IATSE.

I hate to be that guy, but if I were an investigator, I would be highly suspicious about this and look hard into sabotage.

Rat Boy wrote:

IATSE Local 44 claiming it was a live bullet and that the prop master wasn't a member of IATSE.

Well, that's going to go down exceptionally well considering Hollywood just barely averted an IATSE strike a few days ago when one of the biggest reasons for the strike was how current production schedules made things unsafe on and off the set.

Yeah just 2 days ago there was a post about crew not getting hotel rooms unless they worked 14 hour days (plus lunch). So anything less than 15 hours on set and they had to drive over an hour back home. Not great working conditions.

LA Times report:

As the camera crew — members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees — spent about an hour assembling their gear at the Bonanza Creek Ranch, several nonunion crew members showed up to replace them, the knowledgeable person said.

A member of the producer staff then ordered the union members to leave the set. She said if they didn’t leave, the producers would call security to remove them.

“Corners were being cut — and they brought in nonunion people so they could continue shooting,” the knowledgeable person said.

There were two misfires on the prop gun on Saturday and one the previous week, the person said, adding “there was a serious lack of safety meetings on this set.”

This wasn't something that happened out of the blue.

From the same story:

"“As many of us have already heard, there was an accidental weapons discharge on a production titled Rust being filmed in New Mexico,” said the North Hollywood-based local. “A live single round was accidentally fired on set by the principal actor, hitting both the Director of Photography, Local 600 member Halyna Hutchins, and Director Joel Souza. Both were rushed to the hospital,” the email said.

A source close to union said Local 44 does not know what projectile was in the gun and clarified that “live” is an industry term that refers to a gun being loaded with some material such as a blank ready for filming. "

Paleocon wrote:

I am, honestly, mystified by how even a single round of live ammunition could be allowed within 3 miles of a movie set.

Don't worry, a bunch of scabs were brought in 6 hours before the shooting. Yay capitalism!

https://www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

LA Times wrote:

Labor trouble had been brewing for days on the dusty set at the Bonanza Creek Ranch near Santa Fe.

Shooting began on Oct. 6 and members of the low-budget film said they had been promised the production would pay for their hotel rooms in Santa Fe.

But after filming began, the crews were told they instead would be required to make the 50-mile drive from Albuquerque each day, rather than stay overnight in nearby Santa Fe. That rankled crew members who worried that they might have an accident after spending 12 to 13 hours on the set.

Hutchins had been advocating for safer conditions for her team and was tearful when the camera crew left, said one crew member who was on the set.

“She said, ‘I feel like I’m losing my best friends,’” recalled one of the workers.

As the camera crew — members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees — spent about an hour assembling their gear at the Bonanza Creek Ranch, several nonunion crew members showed up to replace them, two of the knowledgeable people said.

One of the producers ordered the union members to leave the set and threatened to call security to remove them if they didn’t leave voluntarily.

“Corners were being cut — and they brought in nonunion people so they could continue shooting,” the knowledgeable person said.

The shooting occurred about six hours after the union camera crew left.

Can we care about this in a different thread?

In Boise, Idaho two people were killed and five injured in a mall shooting yesterday. Suspect is in critical condition.

The shooter had a YouTube channel. Had both because YouTube shut his racist channel down and he died.

Totally picturing some holster sniffing poser fidgeting with his kydex crotch rig while heaving at the stair machine.

Baron Of Hell wrote:

In Boise, Idaho two people were killed and five injured in a mall shooting yesterday. Suspect is in critical condition.

Just a point of clarity, because this sort of thing bugs me. The shooter isn't a suspect. That is used for when you arrest someone at some point after a crime has been committed because you have evidence that points to them. They are a suspect, because you suspect they did it. If you arrest someone mid-crime or the immediate aftermath and they didn't give you the slip, they are the perpetrator. Or criminal. Or shooter. Or angry white dude (presumably). But they are not a suspect.

Mixolyde wrote:
Baron Of Hell wrote:

In Boise, Idaho two people were killed and five injured in a mall shooting yesterday. Suspect is in critical condition.

Just a point of clarity, because this sort of thing bugs me. The shooter isn't a suspect. That is used for when you arrest someone at some point after a crime has been committed because you have evidence that points to them. They are a suspect, because you suspect they did it. If you arrest someone mid-crime or the immediate aftermath and they didn't give you the slip, they are the perpetrator. Or criminal. Or shooter. Or angry white dude (presumably). But they are not a suspect.

In any event, he dead.

I think the terminology "suspect" is used because of the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. Otherwise it could lead to problems with a subsequent trial by jury.

I had to ask one of these "I don't see color" people "why is it then that the default setting for white, male mass murderer is right wing, antisemitic, deeply racist, and incel?". If "race is not real", why is it nearly always a factor in folks going all spree murdery? sh*t, even Nikolas Cruz at Stoneman Douglas was all over the neo nazi boards.

This isn't a coincidence. This is manipulation through stochastic terrorism. These extremist white wing groups are intentionally creating circumstances to spawn "lone wolf" murderers and organizations like the Proud Boys et al serve to legitimate that sh*t.

Intuitively, even Right Wing white folks understand this mechanism. They see the radicalization of Islamic terrorists through ISIS videos or extremist Imams and draw the dotted line to sh*t like San Bernadino, but when it comes to sh*t like Dylan Roof, they shrug their shoulders and say "but freedom of speech" because it serves their neo nazi adjacent agenda.

This sort of sh*t needs unapologetic opposition. Fence sitting on this is what got us here.

See also, "both sides-ism."

In Big ‘F You’ to White Supremacy, Survivors and Families of Charleston Church Massacre Victims Settle Lawsuit for $88 Million

Law and Crime wrote:

Families and survivors of the 2015 attack by a white supremacist on Black parishioners at an historic Charleston church have made the Justice Department pay heavily for the faulty background check that preceded the terrorist attack.

And the settlement figure the parties landed on is rife with symbolism: $88 million, a number often associated with white supremacists. It is neo-Nazi code for “Heil Hitler,” the eighth letter of the alphabet, and the number of bullets Roof said he brought to the attack.

Bakari Sellers, an attorney who helped broker the settlement, told the Associated Press that the symbolism was purposeful.

“We’ve given a big ‘F you’ to white supremacy and racism,” Sellers told the news wire. “We’re doing that by building generational wealth in these Black communities, from one of the most horrific race crimes in the country.”

Families of those killed in the shooting will received $6 million to $7.5 million per claimant, and the survivors will receive $5 million each, according to the press release.

The plaintiffs, a group of 14 people who either survived the attack or lost family members, had alleged that the FBI failed to stop the sale of a gun to Dylann Roof, who should have been prohibited from buying it because of a prior drug charge. Clerical errors and delays allowed Roof to purchase the gun that he ultimately used in the massacre.

Now, the families and survivors will receive millions of dollars, the Justice Department said in a press release.

At multiple points, the federal government was “negligent, careless, grossly negligent and reckless” in failing to follow federal background check procedures pursuant to the National Instant Background Check System [NICS], the complaint said.

The plaintiffs said those failures led to the deaths of their loved ones.

“If the NICS Operation Center had obtained the Columbia Police Department Incident Report, Roof would not have been permitted to purchase the semi-automatic Glock pistol he purchased on April 16, 2015, used to murder nine parishioners and to attempt to murder others on the attack on Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina,” the complaint said.

The parties have been in litigation since 2016; a federal district court dismissed the case in 2018, but a federal appeals court revived it in 2019.

OG_slinger wrote:

In Big ‘F You’ to White Supremacy, Survivors and Families of Charleston Church Massacre Victims Settle Lawsuit for $88 Million

Law and Crime wrote:

Families and survivors of the 2015 attack by a white supremacist on Black parishioners at an historic Charleston church have made the Justice Department pay heavily for the faulty background check that preceded the terrorist attack.

And the settlement figure the parties landed on is rife with symbolism: $88 million, a number often associated with white supremacists. It is neo-Nazi code for “Heil Hitler,” the eighth letter of the alphabet, and the number of bullets Roof said he brought to the attack.

Bakari Sellers, an attorney who helped broker the settlement, told the Associated Press that the symbolism was purposeful.

“We’ve given a big ‘F you’ to white supremacy and racism,” Sellers told the news wire. “We’re doing that by building generational wealth in these Black communities, from one of the most horrific race crimes in the country.”

Families of those killed in the shooting will received $6 million to $7.5 million per claimant, and the survivors will receive $5 million each, according to the press release.

The plaintiffs, a group of 14 people who either survived the attack or lost family members, had alleged that the FBI failed to stop the sale of a gun to Dylann Roof, who should have been prohibited from buying it because of a prior drug charge. Clerical errors and delays allowed Roof to purchase the gun that he ultimately used in the massacre.

Now, the families and survivors will receive millions of dollars, the Justice Department said in a press release.

At multiple points, the federal government was “negligent, careless, grossly negligent and reckless” in failing to follow federal background check procedures pursuant to the National Instant Background Check System [NICS], the complaint said.

The plaintiffs said those failures led to the deaths of their loved ones.

“If the NICS Operation Center had obtained the Columbia Police Department Incident Report, Roof would not have been permitted to purchase the semi-automatic Glock pistol he purchased on April 16, 2015, used to murder nine parishioners and to attempt to murder others on the attack on Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina,” the complaint said.

The parties have been in litigation since 2016; a federal district court dismissed the case in 2018, but a federal appeals court revived it in 2019.

Who pays this settlement? That will show them...I mean us.

US govt pays due to the failure of the FBI to find the felony arrest.

The good news is that the families that lost a loved one get “generation changing wealth” (which I hope lasts longer than the average lottery winner to truly make positive changes)

The bad news is that we still depend on this system and all of its flaws.

A 15-year-old shot up his Michigan high school. Three dead and six wounded.

The shooter had a semi-automatic pistol and multiple magazines.

The police arrested him without pumping him full of bullets so the odds are pretty good it's a White kid who somehow got hold of his parent's firearm.

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