School Shooting in Finland 8 dead...

[Humus]

Finland ranks pretty high in violent crimes and I quess we have lot's of guns, although 56% sounds really high. I wonder how that is calculated?

Number of registered guns divided by population?
I read the other day that the highest gun/capita rates are in the US, Yemen, Canada, Finland and Sweden. Not sure what the deal about Yemen is, but for Sweden and Finland it's mostly because of our hunting tradition and most of those are various kinds of hunting rifles (~93% for Sweden).

 

[Humus]

Although it's easy to point at gun control policies, but I think the real problem lies in the society itself. Even if the gunman can't get a gun, he can still take a butcher knife and start stabbing people, just like what happened in Japan. Of course, the number of victims may be smaller, but the underlying problem of some people trying to kill other people indiscriminately is still there. So I think the real issue is to understand why some people do this, and try to prevent this from happening again (such as some sort of monitoring for mental instability, etc.)

Most incidents like this could have been avoided. Usually it's lack of treatment for a mental illness. The perpetrator generally is aware of his problems, it's not unusual that they've also seeked help, but for one reason or another haven't received any. Psychiatry generally isn't prioritized nearly as much as physical health and too many people are left without treatment in many countries.

 

[Kaotik]

9 people were killed and two are seriously wounded, the shooter being one of the wounded.

Apparently the "final count" is 10 + shooter, 3 injured

 

[Goragoth]

I call bullshit on anybody claiming that the moral decay of western society is to blame for this sort of thing. The people that do this sort of thing are mentally unbalanced, always have been, always will be. The only thing you can argue is that they should have been treated and/or locked away earlier but its not like it's that easy to spot the signs in many cases, since the difference between your typical emo teenager and a homocidal maniac isn't that big.

I really wonder why people are suprised that this sort of thing happens, frankly. The human mind is incredibly complex and far from perfect. Things can go wrong for a number of reasons and then you end up with someone crazy enough to go and kill people for no good reason. It's nothing new either, it just gets broadcast around the world in a matter of seconds these days and guns make it easier to kill many people before the person is taken down.

Not to mention that violent crime is on a constant decline in western countries while reporting on violent crime, and homocides in particular is on the rise.

All that being said, this is still a horrible tragedy and my heartfelt condolences go out to the families of the victims. I can't imagine how they must be feeling right now.

 

[_xxx_]

I call bullshit on anybody claiming that the moral decay of western society is to blame for this sort of thing. The people that do this sort of thing are mentally unbalanced, always have been, always will be.

Don't you think that the increase in the number of mentally unbalanced people has something to do with the society and lifestyle?

 

[suryad]

Don't you think that the increase in the number of mentally unbalanced people has something to do with the society and lifestyle?

Yes!

 

[RudeCurve]

Videos of the killer.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4817612.ece

 

[Humus]

Don't you think that the increase in the number of mentally unbalanced people has something to do with the society and lifestyle?

I don't doubt you, but do you have any statistics showing this increase?

 

[WhiningKhan]

I don't doubt you, but do you have any statistics showing this increase?

Hmmm. How do you dumb down the whole culture and life experiences of people into a statistic? Maybe we should call Hari Sheldon.

It's not even necessarily the number of the unbalanced people IMO what is the problem, it's more the behaviour patterns of them. Back in the day, losers were just losers in isolation. Now they have more means of building self-confidence in twisted ways.

I really don't feel like following the mainstream media for at least a week. Just what do the journalists think they accomplish by filling every outlet with coverage of this? Who benefits of all this? Everybody should see even using only their foreheads that attention is exactly what these guys were after.

 

[_xxx_]

I don't doubt you, but do you have any statistics showing this increase?

No, but don't you see/feel it yourself? All the stress, burnout, failed marriages, hyperactive kids spending their life in front of the screen and on and on, should be pretty obvious.

 

[pcchen]

No, but don't you see/feel it yourself? All the stress, burnout, failed marriages, hyperactive kids spending their life in front of the screen and on and on, should be pretty obvious.

I'm not sure about this though. Back then there was a lot of stress too, probably even more. For example, in current western society, people rarely worry about being starved to death. However, probably just two hundred years ago, it's a wide spread concern over a lot of populations. Of course, it's still a great concern in certain places in this world. But I wouldn't say that people in current western society are necessarily more stressed than before.

 

[Kyyla]

No, but don't you see/feel it yourself? All the stress, burnout, failed marriages, hyperactive kids spending their life in front of the screen and on and on, should be pretty obvious.

Famine and disease were rampant 150 years ago and you say modern life makes people more stressed? This "good old times" fallacy is ridiculous.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

I dont comprehend how the finish police could first bring this guy into questioning. See the videos. And not take away his gun :S

 

[Humus]

No, but don't you see/feel it yourself?

Quite frankly I can't name a single guy that I know is mentally unstable. Not that there might not be an increase, but I'd need some numbers to be really convinced. It's so easy to just get an impression that everything's going to hell from media. The average guy on the street probably thinks violent crime is sharply on the rise, but if you use the most reliable statistic namely the number of people actually turning up on hospital due to violence there's been no observable difference over many decades.

All the stress, burnout, failed marriages, hyperactive kids spending their life in front of the screen and on and on, should be pretty obvious.

Those aren't exactly signs of being mentally unstable.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Famine and disease were rampant 150 years ago and you say modern life makes people more stressed? This "good old times" fallacy is ridiculous.

He does have a point though. Life is more stressed. Maybe it does not feel more stressed but we are expected to do alot more in this day and age. 150 years ago you where a farmer and all you had to take care of is make sure you had enough food and if you where a girl you only had to find a male, get kids and take care of the house. Life was alot more simplistic. Today we have to process enormous amounts of information (the information we can process in 1 year now with tv, radio, internet etc is more than a person 150 years ago had to proces in his whole life), sociaty is alot more complicated, we got work, friends, family and with all we are expected to act in different manners, try to socialise with all of them etc. I think you can be very right to say modern life is alot more stressfull even though our living standards are higher.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

I dont comprehend how the finish police could first bring this guy into questioning. See the videos. And not take away his gun :S

Yep the police screwd up, but all of those videos weren't online before the questioning. The officer who questioned him is off duty at his own request though... The gun laws are going to change in Finland next year.

 

[WhiningKhan]

I'm not sure about this though. Back then there was a lot of stress too, probably even more. For example, in current western society, people rarely worry about being starved to death. However, probably just two hundred years ago, it's a wide spread concern over a lot of populations. Of course, it's still a great concern in certain places in this world. But I wouldn't say that people in current western society are necessarily more stressed than before.

Perhaps people had better tolerance for stress due to life being more challenging in general.

If you want statistics, one is that the number of people unable to cope with army training due to mental problems and inability to handle stress has been increasing during last decades. This latest shooter was one of dropouts.

I'd say life is stressing in a different way now than before. Maybe we're not even prepared to handle that kind of stress as well as 'natural' survival stress.

 

[suryad]

Perhaps people had better tolerance for stress due to life being more challenging in general.

If you want statistics, one is that the number of people unable to cope with army training due to mental problems and inability to handle stress has been increasing during last decades. This latest shooter was one of dropouts.

I'd say life is stressing in a different way now than before. Maybe we're not even prepared to handle that kind of stress as well as 'natural' survival stress.

Well said sir. I agree.