A deranged individual can also inflict a tremendous amount of destruction by starting wildfires as well. Not necessarily any mass murders but whole areas can be destroyed with families ruined; no guns necessary at all.

@1 - I fail to see the thirst for equivocating these incidents in the context of guns vs. other means of killing humans when guns are obviously the most efficient devices to do the job.

@2 - they're trying to do that "oh yeah? well what about my ice cream cone that I paid three dollars for and then DROPPED ON THE SIDEWALK???? Isn't that worse than Hitler?" thing.

@3:

Yeah, false equivalency is always a sure-fire tell that someone doesn't have shit for an argument.

@4

Oh, @1 has plenty of shit.

Let's all remember:

When a sniper was taking out cops, they decided the suspect was the only black guy with a gun they could remember

And they imagined that there were multiple shooters

This tells you how they see the world.

The U.S. has a lot of angry people, crazy people, and thugs. The U.S. also has a lot of guns. A very toxic combination and I don't foresee any of these decreasing in number in the near future.

Greater than the toxic problem of too many guns and there are about hundred million too many is our problem of unchecked mental illness and alienated loner males that are ticking time bombs. An African student told me that the most glaring thing about America was all the alienated looking people, alone, and not connected to anyone. Apparently a US or Western phenomenon.

Are we ignoring the fact that the head of Homeland Security is named "Jeh"? It sounds like a portmanteau of "Jeb!" and "meh" that someone came up with on Twitter to derail Bush's campaign.

Thanks for the context, Wikipedia (and for the assist in helping me look like an asshole):

Johnson's first name is taken from a Liberian chief, who reportedly saved his grandfather’s life while he was on a League of Nations mission to Liberia in 1930.

When will this horror stop? Why can't we change anything when there are more of us? How can we even pretend there's any democracy left, when our politicians are bought and paid for?

the suspect killed by the police, identified as Micah Johnson, 25, appeared to be the sole gunman ... Chief Brown declined to identify the people who were arrested... The gunman claimed he acted alone, he said.

Did I read that right? The gunman (now dead) claimed he acted alone. Were those his last words? That seems really strange.

Fuck.... after reading the preceding comments.... fuck it...

@8
Yeah, definite part of story

@1 Yes, how often must we pick up a newspaper and read yet again of someone walking into a public place and suddenly killing tons of people with wildfire he pulls out of his coat? It's an epidemic, I tell you.

@13

I think they had him cornered and were negotiating with him for at least a couple of hours before they killed him, so he could certainly have made that claim.

BlueLivesMatter @8: "unchecked mental illness"
Hmm, maybe that's because poor people cannot afford mental health care. How about universal health care to solve that problem?
And ban the guns, so the violently mentally ill can only kill one person at a time.

Seatackled @17: "I think they had him cornered and were negotiating with him for at least a couple of hours before they killed him"
And this is exactly why Americans don't trust the police...

"Greater than the toxic problem of too many guns and there are about hundred million too many is our problem of unchecked mental illness and alienated loner males that are ticking time bombs."

The greater the problem is the ease of access that those with serious mental health and serious behavioral problems have to firearms. We take away driver licenses, and withdrew any professional licenses from those who are incompetent to a threat to society at large. I think any Patriotic American who loves their country, would accept firearm safety and training license and regulations, besides keeping certain firearms from being sold to the public at large.. We are not going to stamp out evil, nor stop the killing and suicide by firearms, but we need to use legislation to regulate it and control the use of military assault rifles in public.

Jesus, Dan. Your whiteness was showing yesterday.

A black man walks around an open carry state with a legally-owned gun slung across his body, and it's his fault that Dallas PD identified him as a "Person of Interest" in the shooting. By that extension, it's probably also either of this week's dead men's fault that they were killed because they had a gun (if they had a gun) even if they weren't holding it.

A black man is driven crazy by the number of police-related killings of black men and the lack of change surrounding the unaccountability of the police state. As a result, he shoots up cops a protest. A statement so brash that even fucking Red State is like "oh, uh, hey guys. Maybe the cops are a problem. Maybe we do have a problem with police/Minority relations." And yet all you can do is harpy on about gun control?! When you're to the right of race relations of Red State, you have a problem.

So, yeah Dan, let's change the conversation away from race relations and focus solely on gun control. When Black Lives Matter stopped the Toronto Pride parade to demand that the largely white male leadership make a statement about or against the police presence marching in the parade, I thought they were whack jobs because I've seen a handful of gay white men marching along side BLM in big cities in an attempt to fix accountability and mend relations. But, I just had my come to Jesus moment, Dan. They are making a statement against the gay people who change the topic whenever it's convenient. They're making a statement against the gays who defend the police at every turn.

@20, your middle paragraph carries with it the idea that the Dallas shooting was a good thing and might spur changes for the better. I don't think I can get on board with that. it seems more likely to make cops even more paranoid about the black people they encounter over the course of their work. In addition I'm not a big fan of murder in general.

Just to clarify, I do think that the murders of innocent black people is horrifying and that police corruption that allows people to get away with it needs to be uprooted. I just don't advocate responding with more murders.

@21, I read that middle paragraph as the Dallas shooting being a terrible thing that might spur changes for the better. (See for example Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.)

@20 @22 since when has violence ever been a catalyst for positive change? Like 9/11? When our response was to invade a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and kill 200,000 Iraqis?

Christ. That's fucking insane. Violence begets violence.

People thinking that murdering people makes less murder IS THE ROOT OF THE FUCKING PROBLEM.

Why does the NRA give A+ ratings to legislators who vote against mental health care?

@20 "A black man is driven crazy by the number of police-related killings of black men and the lack of change surrounding the unaccountability of the police state"

No. It was most likely an angry male loner, who had violent fantasies and acted out his violent fantasies with easy access to firearms. This is guy is more related to Adam Lanza, Elliot Rodgers, and like many of these mass shooters, they have to use a cover, to carry out their fantasies..

No matter the complexities about race in the US. The common theme for these horrific shootings are young emotionally disturbed males with easy access to firearms..

@21 I never said that Dallas was a net positive. It's pretty much a negative in every way, shape and form. But, the root cause and solution to a situation like Dallas is in police relations with minority communities, and the enforcement of police accountability...not gun control. The solution to police brutality is not taking away guns.

@23 The Revolutionary War? The French Revolution? Parts of Arab Spring? While I'm not condoning the actions of the sniper, it's a bit privileged and naive to say violence is unnecessary and has never led to positive change. Still, that's a threadjack that avoids discussing the root problems at hand (racism, police thuggery, and community relations) so you can feel superior in condemning a violent person, whom you know little about, who was killed by a police robot without trial.

@25 Whatever you want to believe to avoid actually engaging with the situation. It's really easy to Other people into being something that you're not. It's much easier to say that they're mentally ill loner males than it is to confront your own advocacy for the authoritarian methodology used by police, and tacit acceptance of police non-responsibility, and how that adds into the system. It's much easier to blame an inanimate tool than the system of oppression we've built into western civilization.

@25: I would have to add to your third paragraph:

......are young emotionally disturbed males with easy access to firearms and emotionally untrained and poorly trained police offices with no easy access to firearm alternatives....

@26

If you believe the crisis of black people being killed by policemen in the US is a problem that should or could be changed via the use of violence, please say so clearly.

@23, actually, the 9-11 terrorists achieved their stated goal of closing the US military bases in Saudi Arabia.

Wikipedia: "Since Saudi Arabia houses the holiest sites in Islam (Mecca and Medina), many Muslims were outraged at the permanent presence of non-Muslim U.S., British and French military personnel. The continued presence of U.S. troops after the Gulf War in Saudi Arabia was also one of the stated motivations behind the September 11th terrorist attacks...On April 29, 2003, Donald Rumsfeld announced that he would be withdrawing remaining U.S. troops from the country."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_S…

Violence often achieves its intended effect. Not saying that's a good thing. Just saying.

@31

If you believe that violence could be used to solve the crisis of policemen killing black people in the US, please say so.

@32 I think strategic non-violence is more effective.

@30 um the 9/11 attack was not the effect of the US withdrawal from Saudi Arabia. The 2003 Iraq War was unpopular in Saudi Arabia, and US basically transferred US Forces, mainly the US Air Force to other countries. The US heavily used Saudi Arabian airspace and bases during the 2003 Iraq war. Osama bin Laden was not the cause of the US withdrawal from Saudi Arabia..

If you want to support your argument, you shouldn't use open source material like Wikipedia, it is better to quote sources like this one..

http://www.cfr.org/saudi-arabia/saudi-ar…

@23 - yes, you are totally right. The way Bush handled 9/11, as terrible & ham-handed as it was, was the only possible way that such a crisis could have been handled, and an analogous response to the shootings in Dallas is the only one possible. There is simply no way anything positive could ever come out of this incident, no matter what anyone did.

@26. Oh for Christ sake. You realize the French Revolution lead to the utter chaos of The Terror that led to Napoleon, the Napoleonic Wars, and the death of 3 million Europeans and TWO MORE MONARCHIES IN FRANCE. A republic did not emerge there for forty years. Reforms by Louie were well on the way to forming the SAME republic. The revolution was a total disaster and crippled France and France lost nearly all its status as a world power as a result and was nearly carved up by the rest of Europe.

As for our Revolutionary war? One war out of the THOUSANDS? Come on comparing a war between nation states conveniently divided by oceans that took months to cross to random nuts killing people ... Really? Or as a success of violence...

You resize we were in a constant state of war for a hundred years after the revolution, right? Even WWII never really ended. Proxy wars. The Cold War. The Korean War. Vietnam war. The Gulf wars. The war in Afganistan.

Wars don't end. They pause.

Your understanding of violence is as mature as your grasp of history.

@34, your link says "One of the chief grievances of Saudi-born Osama bin Laden was that "infidel" troops from the United States were present in Saudi Arabia, which contains Islam's two holiest sites, Mecca and Medina."

it's true that the US didn't say that we left because of 9-11, and it didn't happen immediately. But it's also true there was no timeline to close those bases until after 9-11. And then within 2 years there was.

@34 you wrote: "the 9/11 attack was not the effect of the US withdrawal from Saudi Arabia."

I think you meant the opposite? I'm saying 9/11 caused the US withdrawal. Not that 9/11 was an effect of (resulted from) the US withdrawal.

@36 The terror was part of the French Revolution, silly. Napoleon was a bad choice to lead the post-Revolution government, but...the goals of the revolution were eventually met. Napoleon established a lot of decent things during his rule that are overshadowed by his damn War.

He rewrote tax and property law, he ended the inquisition, he broke up the Holy Roman Empire, he made Jewish people equal in the eyes of the law. He established the French Bank, codified due process, established a secular higher education and even legalized divorce.

But, the French Revolution was a total disaster. Right.

@40: So, let's tally up:
-Mass executions of TENS OF THOUSANDS of political prisoners and other dissidents
-Years of chaos and turmoil
-Return to a monarchy anyway
But it was a success because the new monarchy did a few good things, right?

@40 (and @41 who gets it) I weep for education in this country.

Nearly every reform Napoleon enacted was already under way before the Jacobins.

MILLIONS DIED as a result of the revolution. MILLIONS. It took forty years to get back to reforms already underway. The revolution had next to nothing to do the later republic. The revolution reversed progress and put lierally the worst of the worst in power. This chaotic vacuum made Naooleon only desirable by default and by least worst alternative. He was a tyrant. He was the first ruler in history to draft and mobilize the entire population and GDP of his country for war. That was the outcome of your revolution. His successors were tyrants and some were even were lackies of other European monarchies because France was left so weakened by the revolution. She lost or had to trade away nearly every single colony - excepting those nobody else wanted in Indochina and central Africa.

Hey Hitler, Mao and Stalin did some good things, amiright?

@44: "Is the starvation of the poor less important than the lives of the rich? Should they have waited patiently for their turn to eat?
People were already dying before the revolution...the revolution just changed the who."

YOU ARE FUNDAMENTALLY MISINFORMED AS TO WHO WAS PUT TO DEATH DURING THE REIGN OF TERROR.

They didn't just axe all the aristocrats; they summarily executed anyone, from peasant on up, who was accused or suspected of harboring counter-revolutionary opinions! Imagine McCarthyism on steroids, only instead of getting blacklisted or having your career ruined, if someone accused you they'd give you a very close shave with the National Razor. Instead of letting people starve in winters or die in wars, the Montagnards opted to expedite matters and chop heads directly.
GOOD GOD DAMN, you're ignorant. Dr.Zaius is spot-on in his assessment of American education!

@8

"Greater than the problem of too many guns..... our problem of unchecked mental illness and alienated loner males ,,,,,, Apparently a US or Western phenomenon. "

I grew up in Britain, then lived in China, and now live in Australia.

All of these countries have lots of people with mental health problems. America is not unique in this regard.

The people with mental health problems in these countries do not go around shooting people. Because they don't have guns.

It shouldn't be a difficult thing for you to get your head around. And yet....

@44 the bloody grist of Napoleons war engine were exclusively poor people. Again OVER 3 million people died - some estimates as high as 10-12 million people - nearly all the starving poor people who you think wanted the revolution so bad and the millions of nameless peasants in the countries Napoleon invaded.

Sure. Napoleon at least brought home the bacon for a few years. Yup. He sparked some great innovation and class movement. For about eight years.

And then his senseless wars brought ALL that to a grinding halt and nearly destroyed France. And nearly everything Napoleon did that was good was well on the way regardless.

Christ all mighty. This Super Villain view of history is stunted and childish. War, with very, very very, few exceptions brings nothing but death and destruction for the vast majority of people while a tiny sliver benefit.

War, by it's very nature, is COUNTER-revolutionary. It is a regressive, not a progressive force.