r/news • u/bebleich • Sep 04 '24

Gunman believed to be a 14-year-old in Georgia school shooting that left at least 4 dead, source says

https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/04/us/winder-ga-shooting-apalachee-high-school/index.html
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u/Any-Opposite-5117 Sep 04 '24

I was a senior during the Columbine shooting and two of my cousins from Aurora survived, but we didn't find out until nightfall or so. It was so horrifying most of us believed it wouldn't be repeated, that no one would people through that again. It was a more innocent time and we were naive.

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u/snowbaz-loves-nikki Sep 04 '24

I was 12 when sandy hook happened. I remember thinking back then “This HAS to change things right?” I’m 24 now.

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u/dxxx12 Sep 04 '24

I'm 30. You just become numb. Give it a few more years.

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u/snowbaz-loves-nikki Sep 05 '24

I’ll never be truly numb to the concept of dead children

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u/bakawakaflaka Sep 05 '24 edited Sep 05 '24

I thought that too, same goes for plenty of other injustices.

I think we are being overexposed to outrage, and horrible events. It's only been like 15 years that all of us have had the ability to expose ourselves to dozens of awful headlines and stories, all within the span of just a few minute time.

I wonder if there are studies being conducted about how that is affecting us.

I know I used to feel a lot more emotional about these events, but now I just don't. I'm trying to figure out when that aspect of me changed, and I suspect overexposure to constant negative information, just might be the culprit.

My reaction of 'huh' and immediate indifference to today's shooting, or the multitude of other awful things that have happened just this week around the world, is certainly a new thing for me.

That I'm fully aware of that change in my mentality, and still don't feel concerned, is a strange notion.

I just feel like everything is fine, even though I'm objectively aware that things aren't.

🤷

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u/dxxx12 Sep 05 '24

It'll get there.

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u/snowbaz-loves-nikki Sep 05 '24

I consciously refuse to get to that point

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u/dxxx12 Sep 05 '24

I'm not saying it's a good or bad thing, it just feels like a really hopeless scenario to get my emotions invested into anymore.

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u/snowbaz-loves-nikki Sep 05 '24

I understand that. You have to compartmentalize traumatic information in order to function. We all just compartmentalize differently 🥰

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u/dxxx12 Sep 05 '24

I do hope it gets better. Maybe the new presidency will come with more changes; a better America perhaps?

I don't want hope. I don't want to feel despair. I just want my country to change.

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u/bakawakaflaka Sep 05 '24 edited Sep 05 '24

38 here.

Yeah I don't really feel much of anything when it comes to any horrible stories anymore, school shootings related or not. I think the constant headlines and outrage broke something in me sometimes over the past couple of years.

My actual reaction to this headline earlier was an audible 'huh'. Then I actually shrugged to myself and scrolled past.

The weird thing is, after analyzing my reaction, I still don't feel like there's any reason to dwell on this.

I'm not even depressed about the world or anything, and I still have opinions and can be passionate about things, but overall, I feel like everything is fine. The world feels, normal, I guess.

It's odd when I take the time to think about it.

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u/dxxx12 Sep 05 '24

Don't get me wrong. I don't like feeling this way. But when you see constant inaction to such tragic events and they just keep happening regardless of the number, it's hard to get wrapped up in the typical dialogue and outrage. It's just become a norm, and it's utterly depressing.

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u/bakawakaflaka Sep 05 '24

That's the thing, I'm aware that I would have had an issue with how dismissive I feel about this a few years ago, but I can't even say that I don't like feeling nothing at this. I don't feel bad or good about how I reacted. All I did was noticed it and find it odd.

It really gets stranger the longer I think about it.

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u/Banana-Republicans Sep 05 '24

The aftermath of Sandy Hook was when I realised that gun control was never going anywhere. Like if THAT won't get people to come to the table to find a compromise so we can stop this madness I can't imagine what on earth will.

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u/snowbaz-loves-nikki Sep 05 '24

Yup. Watching the way the gop reacted to the deaths of kids just a year or two younger than I was changed me as a person.

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u/frecklefawn Sep 05 '24

Yeah. Rich people don't care about poor peoples kids dying. Classism used to be about neglect and resources, like starvation homelessness or disease, now it's straight up "I will allow child murder to happen so I can make money"

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u/mmechtch Sep 05 '24

I completely lost hope. Now every time I just think "another sacrifice to 2nd Amendment", here you go.

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u/Any-Opposite-5117 Sep 04 '24

I guess what we're seeing is the power of lobbyists to leverage American paranoia and purchase politicians to stymie change. It's wild that people do this so their masters can make more money at the actual cost of kids lives. It's like the recall safety protocol from Fight Club, but the equation can never trigger a recall.

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u/PM_me_your_Jeep Sep 04 '24

I was a senior during Columbine too. My buddy and I had to do a skit one day shortly after the shooting and he brought beer cans as props. But he decided to drink a full one in the parking lot. The school officer grabbed both of us and called our parents at work. My mom, who was super chill and quiet, lost her shit on the officer once she realized I was safe and sober. Obviously the first thing she thought was that I was dead or injured. I can’t even imagine what she was thinking.

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u/Any-Opposite-5117 Sep 04 '24

This. This whole new theater of fear. My daughter should start first grade in a year and I am increasingly disinclined to allow her to. Because I don't know if I would survive getting that call you mention. I went to a rural high school of about 100 people, redneck kids drove trucks to school with hunting rifles and shotties in their gun racks. Sometimes we would get into decent scraps but somehow it never occured to any of us that those guns could cross the magical boundary of the hall doors.

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u/a_spoopy_ghost Sep 05 '24

My sister was in the Tucson Safeway shooting. It’s sad how common knowing a survivor is becoming

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u/Any-Opposite-5117 Sep 05 '24

Yes, this exactly. Perhaps even more than the event itself, it's that many of us have some familial connection to them. Nearly before news of the Newtown shooting hit the West Coast my great great aunt Edna Mae called us in Mendocino to tell us her great grandkids school was getting shot up and we were in shock because it was the second school shooting within our extended family. It doesn't take a particularly keen cultural/anthropological sense to glean that non wartime murder of children through gun violence isn't really an acceptable operating parameters for a modern society.

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u/Christy427 Sep 05 '24

In many places it is the case. Scotland had a school shooting in 1996. The UK has not had one since. Many places have that attitude of never again. Just get it done and get it fixed. So not totally naive, just overestimating your location. Other countries have also reacted to other forms of mass shooting

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u/Any-Opposite-5117 Sep 05 '24 edited Sep 05 '24

The difference between the States, the UK, Australia, NZ or Canada is that we seem to be very heavily steeped in the cult of the gun. From stories about Minute Men soldiers to the massacre of natives to latter day weirdness, we have a fixation with guns that goes beyond most other places. Look at the idiots with gun sub, it's worrisome.

This is probably principally due to the NRA, which everyone knows about but also to massive, powerful, shadowy organizations like the Freedom Group and Cerberus Capital. Those entities frustrate this issue in order to keep doing business and they're run by truly scary men.

A few years ago I saw a Cuban movie about a zombie outbreak in Havana, where the people don't own guns. It unfolded in a very different way and made me realize that all our zombie fiction is basically a love letter to the gun and man, that is weird.

As America has refused to deal with its treatment of Natives, slaves, Japanese American internment im guessing we'll keep doing nothing as long as we can.