quote:

Originally posted by Boogerhead:
Ahmadijan could have a great career in stand-up comedy.

Ahmadinejad never tried comedy. But he did try a brief stint as a stunt driver in European cinema.

Don't believe me? Watch the clip!

heh.

Top air force officials resign over nuclear blunders.

This is not bad, but it makes me terribly sad.

Actually, I think this is genius. It makes me happy that such a simple solution could work so well. The sad part is the loss of brain function, not the bus stop.

It is certainly a far better solution than either locking them up or risking their health when they wander outside and get lost.

I agree it is a great idea. What makes me sad is this, a reminder of how much function they have lost.

quote:

The result is that errant patients now wait for their trip home at the bus stop, before quickly forgetting why they were there in the first place.

“We will approach them and say that the bus is coming later today and invite them in to the home for a coffee,” said Mr Neureither. “Five minutes later they have completely forgotten they wanted to leave.”

They've got one of these in Denmark as well.
I think it is a brilliant idea.

And in another piece of "Whoa News", Google has started to translate Danish - we can no longer hide (dammit!)

anmark--Demente-faar-falsk-busstoppested&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=2&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dplejehjem%2Bbusstoppested%2Bdemens%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26rls%3DGGLG,GGLG:2006-21,GGLG:en" TARGET=_blank>Googly Danish translation about the fake "busstoppested"

Can't fix the above link - some UBB-madness keeps messing it up.

quote:

Originally posted by Fashionpolice:

Googly Danish translation about the fake "busstoppested"

Can't fix the above link - some UBB-madness keeps messing it up.

UBB disliked your : D, took it for an smiley.

Take away the guns, people will find knives.

Can't wait till knives are outlawed and we have rock massacres.

The difference is that with a knife seven is a huge number, and usually they only kill one or two people, while with a gun death counts get easily over ten.

He probably would have got a higher casualty count if he had stayed in the van running over people.

Columbine was 12, Virginia Tech was 30+, Seattle's Capiton Hill(Zombie party) was 7, ... umm...

University of Texas at Austin massacre Austin, Texas, United States August 1 1966 18
Orangeburg massacre Orangeburg, South Carolina, United States February 8 1968 3
Kent State shootings Kent, Ohio, United States May 4 1970 4
Jackson State killings Jackson, Mississippi, United States May 14-15 1970 2
California State University, Fullerton library massacre Fullerton, California, United States July 12 1976 7
Cleveland Elementary School shooting San Diego, California, United States January 29 1979 2
Parkway South Junior High School shooting Saint Louis, Missouri, United States January 20 1983 2
Oakland Elementary School shooting Greenwood, South Carolina, United States September 26 1988
Cleveland Elementary School shooting Stockton, California, United States January 17 1989 6
University of Iowa shooting Iowa City, Iowa, United States November 1 1991 6
Lindhurst High School shooting Marysville, California, United States May 1 1992 4
Simon's Rock College of Bard shooting Great Barrington, Massachusetts, United States December 14 1992 2
East Carter High School shooting Grayson, Kentucky, United States January 18 1993 2
Richland High School shooting Lynnville, Tennessee, United States November 15 1995 2
Frontier Junior High shooting Moses Lake, Washington, United States February 2 1996 3
Hetzel Union Building shooting State College, Pennsylvania, United States September 17 1996 1
Bethel High School shooting Bethel, Alaska, United States February 19 1997 2
Pearl High School shooting Pearl, Mississippi, United States October 1 1997 3
Heath High School shooting West Paducah, Kentucky United States December 1 1997 3
Westside Middle School shooting Jonesboro, Arkansas, United States March 24 1998 5
Parker Middle School shooting Edinboro, Pennsylvania, United States April 24 1998 1
Thurston High School shooting Springfield, Oregon, United States May 21 1998 4
Columbine High School massacre Littleton, Colorado, United States April 20 1999 15
Heritage High School shooting Conyers, Georgia, United States May 20 1999 0
Buell Elementary School shooting Mount Morris Township, Michigan, United States February 29 2000 1
Santana High School shooting Santee, California, United States March 5 2001 2
Granite Hills High School shooting El Cajon, California, United States March 22 2001 0
Appalachian School of Law shooting Grundy, Virginia, United States January 16 2002 3
University of Arizona School of Nursing shooting Tucson, Arizona, United States October 28 2002 4
John McDonough High School shooting New Orleans, Louisiana, United States April 14 2003 1
Red Lion Area Junior High School shootings Red Lion, Pennsylvania, United States April 24 2003 2
Case Western Reserve University shooting Cleveland, Ohio, United States May 9 2003 1
Rocori High School shootings Cold Spring, Minnesota, United States September 24 2003 2
Red Lake High School massacre Red Lake, Minnesota, United States March 21 2005 10
Campbell County High School shooting Jacksboro, Tennessee, United States November 8 2005 1
Pine Middle School shooting Reno, Nevada, United States March 14 2006 0
Platte Canyon High School shooting Bailey, Colorado, United States September 27 2006 2
Weston High School shooting Cazenovia, Wisconsin, United States September 29 2006 1
Amish school shooting Nickel Mines, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, United States October 2 2006 6
Virginia Tech massacre Blacksburg, Virginia, United States April 16 2007 33
Delaware State University shooting Dover, Delaware, United States September 21 2007 1
SuccessTech Academy shooting Cleveland, Ohio, United States October 10 2007 1
Notre Dame Elementary shooting Portsmouth, Ohio, United States February 7 2008 1
Louisiana Technical College shooting Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States February 8 2008 3
Mitchell High School shooting Memphis, Tennessee, United States February 11 2008 0
E.O. Green School shooting Oxnard, California, United States February 12 2008 1
Northern Illinois University shooting DeKalb, Illinois, United States February 14 2008 6


Not quite such a difference, with a couple of anomalies.

Lots of psycho/serial killers use knives, too. But it takes a different kind of mindset to kill people with a knife, more deliberate or something, because it's so much more personal than pulling a trigger--it's right there at arm's length.

Guns certainly have potential for bigger numbers for the same reason. Hence we fight wars with guns, not knives.

quote:

Originally posted by The Psychophant:
This is not bad, but it makes me terribly sad.

quote:

Old Lions Chairman Franz-Josef Goebel

Now there's a name!

quote:

Originally posted by The Psychophant:
This is not bad, but it makes me terribly sad.

This is such a great idea.. I'm gonna use this as an example in some training I'm going to be doing. I love using real examples..

quote:

Not quite such a difference, with a couple of anomalies.

Why are you only listing school shootings?
The stabbings mentioned before were nowhere near a school.

I mean : there are shootings outside school areas, right?

quote:

Originally posted by Boogerhead:
Take away the guns, people will find knives.

Just a note about the article you linked to :
"Japan knife killings: Alleged killer Tomohiro Kato's plans published on internet"

Most of the media are reporting that he published his plans on the Web, and are also starting to blame videogames.

Kotaku has an interesting take on this :

quote:

The chilling part (if trying to kill 17 people wasn't chilling enough!) is how Kato chronicled the events leading up to his mass murders. Truly disturbing. AFP via Yahoo! News incorrectly points out: "On a different site, an anonymous posting on May 27 was entitled 'A disaster in Akihabara' and warned that an incident would take place on June 5." As commenter muu points out, the "disaster" that the thread is referring to? Ninja Gaiden 2 — which went on sale, you guessed it, on June 5th in, that's right, Akihabara. The thread is apparently nothing more than a fanboy flamewar. That Ninja Gaiden 2 Xbox 360/PS3 fanboy fight appeared on television news here as well (above). Yahoo! News Japan has pulled its original story, but at time of posting Yahoo! News was still running that AFP story.

Using the Bureau of Justice statistics from 1993-2001, in the USA you were more likely to be facing someone with a gun than with a knife, though not by much (10% vs 6% of crimes). Knives cause many more serious injuries than guns, mostly because many people are reluctant to fire, or people are more compliant when faced with guns. However the hidden statistic is simply that with guns in many cases people are not injured, they die.

Guns represent 70% of homicides, while knives are 15%, indicating that considering their use in crime shown above guns are five times more likely to result in death than knives. I do not think that will surprise anyone (except maybe Boogerhead).

That said, I am still more likely to be attacked (or killed) with a knife in the USA than in Spain, so it is not just a matter of gun availability, but a violent society. Even so, homicide rates would go down (even if crime remained stable) while serious injuries would go up if people switched from guns to knives. I would like to think that would be a good result.

How many shooting incidents in Japanese schools (your statistic is only School shooting incidents, rather than shooting sprees) in the period you list? I will guess zero. Which is why they have school knifings, but even those are rare, with only one famous case.

How many knifing incidents in US schools? I cannot say. But the Japanese murder rate (per inhabitant) is twenty times less than the US knife rate. If you add other weapons and simple hands, you get one hundred and twenty times less crimes per inhabitant.

I suppose this will get all kind of publicity in the USA. See how we are not the only ones to have violent crazies. See how people can kill without a gun. True. But most countries (Australia after Port Arthur, Britain after Hungerford, even Switzerland after Zug) made changes in laws after the massacres, so it is much more difficult for them to happen. Meanwhile your own numbers show they are getting more frequent in schools...

I am not sure what your point is. If it was that someone willing to kill will end up killing someone, I have to agree with you. But if it is that if people are not killed with guns they will be killed in other ways, I have to disagree with you. Less people will be killed, and those not killed will have had more possibilities to escape or reduce the attacker. It may not matter much to the killer if they kill four or twenty four, but it does matter a lot to the twenty people alive in the second case.

Knifing incidents in American schools? Probably as many as there are students.

You said it best:

quote:

... it is not just a matter of gun availability, but a violent society.

And Japan may not have guns, but we've not had any ricin attacks.

The American school massacre record is still held by Andrew Kehoe, who in May 1927 planted dynamite under the elementary school in Bath, Michigan. The morning of the blast, he killed his wife and loaded his truck with more dynamite, scrap iron and nails. The school charge went off, killing 38 students and teachers. Then Kehoe drove his truck into the crowd that had gathered and blew it up. The final death toll was 44, and would have been much larger, but the second charge Kehoe planted under the school failed to detonate. There was no media circus over the event, not because the press in '27 was more restrained, but because it was already engaged in another media circus, the Lindbergh flight. Apparently, Kehoe was pissed off about a tax to build a new school. Kehoe was on the school board.

Wow.

We're a volatile lot.