Did you hear about the shooting at Santa Monica college?

Yes, I heard about it on the radio from the sister station in LA. As of 5:30 PT there was no motivation determined by PD.

I didn’t hear about it. I never watch the news anymore because I just don’t want to hear about all the bad things happening in the world. This is terrible.

Maybe all those violent games of the past 25 years really have had a detrimental effect that we are just beginning to see.

Well now I did.
That’s just messed up man!
I don’t understand these people that do that kind of twisted stuff.
I mean if these people want to commit suicide or whatever why do they feel the need to take others down with them?

Stop watching TV.

I rarely watch the news. I caught it flipping channels. I only saw a minute of the coverage and then clicked on a DVR show I have taped. I agree the news is a nightmare, I haven’t watched politics in months, except for a few minutes maybe a day a week.

I haven’t seen the news this morning as I’ve been working. I know news of such events is horrible and disturbing but burying our heads in the sand won’t make them go away. Surely the only way any change will happen is if people do speak up and demand our public officials act to change things that aren’t working in our communities. In this case I would think gun control and I’m wearing my flak jacket so I feel safe in saying ‘gun control!’

Yes, I’m being idealistic but I would rather know I stood up and shouted about what I disagree with than threw in the towel and said ‘I can’t watch’ and pretended it wasn’t happening.

Can we please stop blaming media for the acts of single people? It isn’t video games or rap music that causes these individuals to snap.

We’ve had abhorrent violence in our cultural heritages for ages. See Titus Andronicus, or Medea(play) and countless others.

You may be able to blame media if you think that the disconnected and dis-enfranchised want to do something to get themselves noticed, but I don’t really believe it comes down to that.Not any more than it ever has.

It’s just that we have instant media now and hear about events immediately. But there have always been the people outside of the moral boundaries committing atrocious acts.

The same day of the Newton School shooting, a Chinese man stabbed 22 schoolchildren.

It isn’t guns and it isn’t games. It’s destructive individuals.

I don’t mean to belittle the heartache of the families of victims. I truly don’t.

@Blueroses Who was blaming the media?

@JLeslie @YARNLADY for one, and “stop watching tv” for another.

I just heard a news conference on CNN and they have not released his name or anything abut him. Beyond the shooting spree, they believe he killed family members in his home and set it on fire.

It’s a terrible world, sometimes.

@Blueroses Would you blame education (or lack thereof) at a developing age of one’s life?

@Blueroses The positive correlation between being exposed to violent video games and actual violent acts by individuals is one of the most well-researched in Social Psychology.

I’m not saying that video games are the reason these school shootings occur, but it certainly doesn’t help and it absolutely does affect some individuals in this way. Saying it has no effect is simply incorrect.

Oh, and I believe the, “stop watching TV” answer was directed at the OP for watching the news when the stories upset her.

@Blueroses, I get the whole people shoot guns argument. Really though, if destructive people weren’t wandering around with guns that can kill multiple people very quickly, there would be less of these incidents. I hold up my own country as an example. We haven’t had a major, mass shooting since 1996. Had three fires, so there are always other ways to kill people of course, but no mass shootings. However, after 1996 people could still get hand guns and there was a shooting where one person was killed and five were injured. The shooter had obtained his guns legally so the government response was to toughen our gun laws further.

Of course we have gun crime, but we’ve had one major shooting incident since 1996 when Howard originally changed our gun laws and none since this 2002 incident when he toughened the legislation.

@Blueroses You are including violent games under media? I guess I was defining the word differently. Don’t watch TV isn’t blaming TV for the violent act I don’t think. That’s not how I took it anyway.

Yes I agree. These shootings are happening once a month… every time I can I change the channel to something else. I don’t want to give these creeps any more publicity.

I’ve enjoyed the day outside working and spending time with my family and pets. This is the first I’ve heard of it. Thanks for bringing me down @JLeslie. (I’m joking.)

There are so many sad things in this world that will make a person depressed 24/7 if you spend too much time thinking about them. Enjoy the life you have and the people you love. Be good to the people you encounter each day. You might help a person when they need it most just by being kind to them.

Now that I’ve heard about it, I’m wondering why it’s so hard to get the basic details of this story right. In two separate pages on Yahoo! I’ve seen “number of victims, including the gunman” to be anywhere from 5 to 7 people. Are we so hard to count?

Maybe we need a law that says “it is illegal to carry a gun and shoot people dead.” Why don’t we have that already?

I agree with @Blueroses. Violence and death have existed long before any game, rap or movie was ever invented. I’m pretty sure nobody can deny that.

@Blueroses Said everything I wanted to say, i’d have said it better of course, being as i’m so full of myself, but still…:)

Yes, I was celebrating the fact that another 2nd amendment supporter had an opportunity to live out his dream.

@CWOTUS It’s probably as hard as it’s ever been to get the details right – but now, the rush to get any report out, regardless of whether it’s right, is much more common.

I agree that the greatest killers of all time, Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan had no video games to influence them.