Octopus Overlords

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Thu Nov 08, 2018 5:40 pm I wasn't saying that him being armed would have made a difference or not. Just saying that from reports it sounded like he was a bouncer/ doorman and probably unarmed because Holman was suggesting, albeit sarcastically, that he had a gun.

Agreed. He was almost certainly an unarmed bouncer.

GreenGoo wrote:unarmed bouncer.

‘Tis just a flesh wound!

Long lived with his mother in a tree-lined neighborhood of ranch-style homes built in the 1960s in a hilly section of Newbury Park overlooking the Santa Monica Mountains.


...

He appeared to be unemployed and stayed inside, rarely talking to his neighbors, sometimes acknowledging their greetings, sometimes ignoring them.

...

Often, neighbors could hear Long, his mother and sometimes a third person yelling in arguments that erupted at all times of the day, sometimes "in the middle of night."

"No question in my mind that the guy was troubled," said MacLeod, adding the behavior and the arguments grew worse after Long returned from Afghanistan in 2013.

Several neighbors said they viewed Long as troubled and talked about what they referred to as post-traumatic stress disorder.

...

"Everyone knew he had PTSD," said Richard Berge, a neighbor who sometimes cared for at least one of Colleen Long's dogs.

He said Colleen Long expressed concern about her son.

“She was worried because he wouldn’t get help,“ Berge said.

On an April morning, Hanson heard noises and what he called commotion involving Ian Long in the house. He said Colleen told another neighbor her son was having what she called “an episode.”

It goes on. Afghanistan is the war that keeps on giving.

Borderline Bar & Grill

Holy shit! Not only do I know this place, but I spent many hours there in my 20s dancing.

Thousand Oaks: Las Vegas shooting survivor among dead

A man who survived a mass shooting in Las Vegas last year was among those killed in Wednesday's attack in California, his family says.

Telemachus Orfanos, 27, died alongside 11 others when a man opened fire at the Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks, north-west of Los Angeles.

He escaped death last year when a gunman killed 58 people in Las Vegas.

A number of survivors of that shooting, the worst in modern US history, have said they were at the bar on Wednesday.

"My son was in Las Vegas with a lot of his friends and he came home. He didn't come home last night," his mother told ABC News.

"I don't want prayers, I don't want thoughts, I want gun control", she said.

"It's particularly ironic that after surviving the worst mass shooting in modern history, he went on to be killed in his hometown," his father told the Ventura County Star.

We had an active shooter scare this morning at a local high school. Turns out it was a malfunctioning water heater on the roof making really loud banging noises.

While obviously everyone was relieved that it was a false alarm, the sad reality now is that we can't even hear a random bang without locking down three schools and calling in a SWAT team.

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Thu Nov 08, 2018 5:40 pm I wasn't saying that him being armed would have made a difference or not. Just saying that from reports it sounded like he was a bouncer/ doorman and probably unarmed because Holman was suggesting, albeit sarcastically, that he had a gun.

Sorry, I didn't intend to imply that. I just thought that, in this case at least, it wouldn't have mattered if he was a cop/guard/bouncer/customer or armed/unarmed. Sometimes unless you shoot the shooter first, he's going to do his damage before he's taken down. The problem is you can't shoot him before he does something and if he's the least bit sneaky then he won't be an obvious threat until it's too late.

[url=http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencen ... story.html[/url] There is no real evidence that the shooter had PTSD[url]. Lazy reporting by the media. The article is a great read and not too long if you have time.

The claims of PTSD come from his neighbours and his mom, who was concerned that he wouldn't get help, which is potentially why he wasn't diagnosed.

The claims did not originate with media, but those closest to him.

He may not have had PTSD. His mom is not a psychiatrist and his neighbours had little contact with him.

He's dead now because he shot a bunch of people then himself so we'll never know.

The article wasn't a great read. We don't know and PTSD *only* affects 20% (holy fucking shit) of men who see combat is not much of a refutation of the claims.

I guess we'll have to disagree as usual. US Veterans actually do get health care and are diagnosed when necessary so I'm fairly sure the 20% number is valid.

You misunderstand me. 20% is not a small number. That is an insane number of military members with mental problems. I'm not incredulous, I'm dismayed. That's thousands and thousands of people with PTSD. If they are trying to suggest that statistically it's unlikely, that might work if he was some random dude who kept to himself and had trouble integrating into society. But this guy was that and more. If they wanted to convince me that it's unlikely that he had PTSD because only 20% have it, they did not. They informed me that many more individuals have it than I ever thought possible.

As far as this particular case, the article is less than useless.

The only people jumping to conclusions are his mother and neighbours. Not the media. Not the public.

We don't know that he had PTSD so he might not have had it? In what way is that "an interesting read"?

edit: I realize you take this personally but it's really not intended that way. I clicked on the article because you said it was worth reading, not to denounce it. But it's just some random pysche dude spouting statistics. The article clearly has an agenda, otherwise it would have been written as a general PTSD article, not a refutation that shooters have PTSD with absolutely no facts to back that up, just statistics, make your own conclusions type stuff. I find those articles extra annoying, not interesting.

That said, others may read it and come to different conclusions. You did, for example. I'm just writing out my own. They are free to draw their own.

My daughter had been out of sorts for a few days, we found out yesterday she had dated a guy who died in the thousand Oaks shooting. She went to Cal State Northridge and worked in a few restaurants in the area. She had never been to the Borderline.

Ouch.

That's a big deal, or at least it would be to me. I didn't do much casual dating, so with almost everyone I dated I felt a connection.

Sorry to hear that this has hit you on a more personal level than most of us.

Ex-Fiance of an ER doc appears to be the shooter. ER doc is the first victim and deceased. Shooter is the other deceased.

He shot her in the parking lot and then decided to go inside and start shooting randomly. Officer shot was a responding tac officer.

Looks like CPD officer is the third fatality. Godspeed, RIP.

Ok, "active shooter" is a term I was willing to accept as a way to describe an event as it unfolded. I.e. duck and cover, the shooter is still afoot.

"active shooter" incident is redundant. And it annoys me personally, which is what really matters about these shooter attacks.

Remember when domestic violence was domestic? Now you've got to take as many vulnerable people with you as possible?

There is no way it has always been like this but we're "hearing about it more now with the internetz etc". How on earth would these shootings not be national news in the 60's, 70's, 80's?

GreenGoo wrote: ↑Mon Nov 19, 2018 10:57 pm How on earth would these shootings not be national news in the 60's, 70's, 80's?

They were. News consumption and presentation was different back then. Shootings fell under the banner of local news and was rarely covered on a national level. Incidents that may be a big thing in one town may have got little traction outside of the local area. Rarely did politics get involved to further inflame and add to the notoriety of these incidents. We now have multiple political agendas working to spin these incidents into their own interests; if some aspect of a given mass shooting can rise about the din of outrage, you might see it last through multiple news cycles. In the 60's, that would typically just happen with a Manson-class event.

As a child in the late 60's who always watched news with my parents, I actually, truly marveled at their good fortune to still be alive since the news led me to believe that getting shot and killed at some point was the ordinary outcome in life and to make it to middle or old age took remarkable luck. Statistically, it was more dangerous then than now, only the media reporting has changed to make it seem otherwise.

I'd argue that domestic violence/shootings may not be more common but the idea of taking everyone with you in a mass shooting is if not new, more common. Why didn't this guy at Mercy just do a murder-suicide right there? Why engage the cops and run inside?

I think the idea is seeded now. And these will continue on as the new normal domestic.

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Tue Nov 20, 2018 11:02 am I'd argue that domestic violence/shootings may not be more common but the idea of taking everyone with you in a mass shooting is if not new, more common. Why didn't this guy at Mercy just do a murder-suicide right there? Why engage the cops and run inside?

I think the idea is seeded now. And these will continue on as the new normal domestic.

I think there's a lot more personal arsenals now as well as more semi-automatic equipment that can efficiently take down larger numbers of people. It's more impersonal. That there was less notoriety for mass-shooting events in the 60's probably also helped keep the numbers of such events down. A perp might be mad enough at a spouse or boss, but there was nothing to be gained by the dick move of taking out others that had no involvement. How it's a blaze of glory type thing - they'll be just as dead as they would in an old-fashioned murder-suicide, but hey, take down a bunch of people and you're not a nobody anymore, you're a national news story!

Jeff V wrote: ↑Tue Nov 20, 2018 11:47 am

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Tue Nov 20, 2018 11:02 am I'd argue that domestic violence/shootings may not be more common but the idea of taking everyone with you in a mass shooting is if not new, more common. Why didn't this guy at Mercy just do a murder-suicide right there? Why engage the cops and run inside?

I think the idea is seeded now. And these will continue on as the new normal domestic.

I think there's a lot more personal arsenals now as well as more semi-automatic equipment that can efficiently take down larger numbers of people. It's more impersonal. That there was less notoriety for mass-shooting events in the 60's probably also helped keep the numbers of such events down. A perp might be mad enough at a spouse or boss, but there was nothing to be gained by the dick move of taking out others that had no involvement. How it's a blaze of glory type thing - they'll be just as dead as they would in an old-fashioned murder-suicide, but hey, take down a bunch of people and you're not a nobody anymore, you're a national news story!

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. We're shittier people now. Or maybe more accurately, out shitty people are shittier. It's not enough to kill the one who jilted you, now you also have to accumulate a body count to make your point.

One note though, semi-autos are over a hundred years old. AR-15s are over 50 years old (yes, the civilian version).

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Tue Nov 20, 2018 11:59 am Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. We're shittier people now. Or maybe more accurately, out shitty people are shittier. It's not enough to kill the one who jilted you, now you also have to accumulate a body count to make your point.

One note though, semi-autos are over a hundred years old. AR-15s are over 50 years old (yes, the civilian version).

I think the more pertinent and important question is how many were in civilian hands. I would not be surprised that if we had good records that went back in time, that you'd see that most civilians owned lever action rifles or maybe family 'heirlooms' like M1 Garands, etc. My idea is that the concentration/wide availability of "AR15"-style weapons plus shittier people is a factor. Plus more shittier people as a function of population growth. This is why the incidence of individual shootings has become more scarce but the impact of them is on average getting worse.

It isn't just that we get our news differently, it's that the news - and the discussion of it - is 24/7. Back then it was 30 minutes a day, and only a few minutes for any one story. Now we sit here, we sit on Facebook, and we maintain an active discussion of it. That tends to draw out the event and make it more memorable.

And I recall a lot of 'multiple fatality shootings' on the west coast that never made national news.

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Tue Nov 20, 2018 1:30 pm It isn't just that we get our news differently, it's that the news - and the discussion of it - is 24/7. Back then it was 30 minutes a day, and only a few minutes for any one story.

Very much this. TV stations had two 30-minute slots per day (one at 6 and one at 11 pm), or sometimes one 60- and one 30-minute program. Newspapers had a limited number of pages to fill once a day. One could find 24-hour news stations on AM radio, but they were niche players for local markets. Now we have seemingly endless media outlets with a voracious appetite for continuously updated content. And, as has always been true, "If it bleeds, it leads."

Kraken wrote: ↑Tue Nov 20, 2018 4:05 pm

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Tue Nov 20, 2018 1:30 pm It isn't just that we get our news differently, it's that the news - and the discussion of it - is 24/7. Back then it was 30 minutes a day, and only a few minutes for any one story.

Very much this. TV stations had two 30-minute slots per day (one at 6 and one at 11 pm), or sometimes one 60- and one 30-minute program. Newspapers had a limited number of pages to fill once a day.

Sure, that's true, but you're telling me that news at 11 was reporting just as many mass shootings as today, we just didn't notice because it was only 30 minutes a day and had no one to talk about it with?

GreenGoo wrote: ↑Tue Nov 20, 2018 5:49 pm

Kraken wrote: ↑Tue Nov 20, 2018 4:05 pm

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Tue Nov 20, 2018 1:30 pm It isn't just that we get our news differently, it's that the news - and the discussion of it - is 24/7. Back then it was 30 minutes a day, and only a few minutes for any one story.

Very much this. TV stations had two 30-minute slots per day (one at 6 and one at 11 pm), or sometimes one 60- and one 30-minute program. Newspapers had a limited number of pages to fill once a day.

Sure, that's true, but you're telling me that news at 11 was reporting just as many mass shootings as today, we just didn't notice because it was only 30 minutes a day and had no one to talk about it with?

No, just the opposite. Shootings were local news unless they racked up a high score, included children, or were particularly heinous in some other way (like the Manson cult, the Zodiak killer, Jim Jones, the "going postal" fad, etc.). Your routine "Man kills kids, self" stories seldom got national coverage because they had no larger significance. Nowadays they can dominate the news cycle for hours or even days until something else comes along, because bandwidth is insatiable and because we're more fearful than we used to be.

So apparently the Mercy shooter had an active order of protection against his ex-wife after he threatened her and pulled a gun on her real estate agent (?). He also threatened to shoot up the CFD academy when he got fired (for harassing females). History of domestics and threats, specifically with a firearm.

He shouldn't have had his FOID or CCL nor any firearms.

My father-in-law claimed that the world in the good-old-days 80 years ago wasn't that good.

You just didn't talk about shameful and distasteful things. There was no audience and you didn't want the tragedy to be known. Rapes, murder, domestic abuse, etc. were all more common but private. He said today was better because we can no longer pretend the evil didn't exist.

Did I mention he took confessions as a priest? He gave no details but was quite strong in his belief.

Zarathud wrote: ↑Tue Nov 20, 2018 11:00 pm My father-in-law claimed that the world in the good-old-days 80 years ago wasn't that good.

What possibly could have been happening in 1938 that wasn't awesome?

Zarathud wrote: ↑Tue Nov 20, 2018 11:00 pm My father-in-law claimed that the world in the good-old-days 80 years ago wasn't that good.

You just didn't talk about shameful and distasteful things. There was no audience and you didn't want the tragedy to be known. Rapes, murder, domestic abuse, etc. were all more common but private. He said today was better because we can no longer pretend the evil didn't exist.

Did I mention he took confessions as a priest? He gave no details but was quite strong in his belief.

While I get his point and have no doubt that's true, it's pretty hard to hide an elementary school being shot up.

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Tue Nov 20, 2018 11:03 pm What possibly could have been happening in 1938 that wasn't awesome?

He asks the German board member.

GreenGoo wrote: ↑Tue Nov 20, 2018 11:21 pm

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Tue Nov 20, 2018 11:03 pm What possibly could have been happening in 1938 that wasn't awesome?

He asks the German board member.

They hid the murder of more than a few schools....

Zarathud wrote: ↑Wed Nov 21, 2018 5:06 pm They hid the murder of more than a few schools....

That's...those are two different things being conflated.

Some shootings in the south end of Ottawa are the subject of an article that the CBC thought it would be clever to headline as "Trigger Warnings: blah blah blah"

Sebring, FL

BREAKING: At least five people are dead after a gunman opened fire Wednesday afternoon at a SunTrust Bank in Sebring, Fla., authorities said.

At around 12:30 p.m., a man contacted police to say he had fired shots inside the bank, according to the Highlands County Sheriff’s Office.

When authorities arrived, they established a perimeter and attempted to negotiate with the gunman, the sheriff’s office said.

“After negotiations to try to get the barricaded subject to exit the bank were not successful, the HCSO SWAT team entered the bank and continued the negotiations,” the sheriff’s office said.

The suspect eventually surrendered, they added.

7th mass shooting in less than three years here in Florida.

Henry Pratt Company, Aurora, Ill.

Authorities are responding to multiple casualties in Aurora, Ill., Friday afternoon, including several police officers, after a gunman opened fire inside a business. The suspect was apprehended, according to the City of Aurora.

"We are told that multiple people have been struck by gunfire," a spokesman for the Kane County State Attorney's Office wrote in an email Friday afternoon.

An Aurora police spokesman told The Washington Post that “multiple people ... multiple officers” were injured. The spokesperson could not confirm any fatalities. Those in the Highland-Prairie area were being asked to shelter in place.

5 dead, not sure if that number includes he shooter or not but he's dead too. 6 cops injured, two were airlifted to trauma centers.


Has anyone made the point yet that this is the second Aurora now?

This was in an area between my wife's job and mine, a 'hood I travel all the time. I was already still past this area when my wife texted me to stay away.

They just eased up on a lockdown at my job when a termed employee went off his nut and was caught trespassing on the property several times. The police department assigned Barney Fife to man the front desk for about 2 months, for a few weeks our security company had door watchers on all 3 of the secondary entrances. Employees still have to enter through only the main entrance, much to the dismay of smokers who are assumed to a shelter off one of the side entrances.

The nutcase involved was an unassuming bean counter who was promoted then has a break down when he couldn't handle the pressure. He was on.a leave of absence for.at least 6 months, didn't return or communicate when he was supposed to come back so was subsequently terminated.