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[kaijyuu]

Honestly except a few minor derails and the aforementioned jerkface, the thread's been going just fine. Peeps be jumping ship early.

[Loud Whispers]

So does anyone know the MO?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I don't think there's much to say about an MO so far. Guy walked into a movie theater and started shooting people. If there's anything more than that it hasn't been released.

[Caerwyn]

Damn, that's horrible. Where I live, the only few crimes in the past years was some unknown people stealing twine/barbed wire/fencing posts, and some dude who accidentally shot a kid (He's fine, by the way) when he was hunting foxes that had been killing his chickens.

I'm glad that things are quiet here. May the souls of those who have departed be reincarnated into a good life!

[Slayerhero90]

Which side of Colorado was this? I live in GJ.

[alway]

So does anyone know the MO?

That's the most weird bit about this case. He called himself The Joker; according to NBC someone he knew in high school always said he identified with the villains in superhero films. He was a med-school grad student in a neuroscience field. He had a period of low grades and was in the process of dropping out; so it may be a case of being overstressed leading to a total mental breakdown. Though not of the 'and the he SNAPPED' sort, as there was planning behind this; waaaay too much for it to be a momentary lapse.

[Sirus]

Any word on the injured? Are they gonna make it?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I imagine most of the deaths have already happened. It's pretty unlikely to die from anything but the most egregious wounds if you actually make it to the hospital alive.

[Starver]

(Sorry, I mst have missed any Prometheus thread, and as such I've not had opportunity to say the following, little as it has to do with the primary subject of this particular one...)

The point about Prometheus is something I hadn't thought of before, though. At least At The Mountains of Madness had clear reasons for the Elder Things and the Shoggoth hating humanity,[spoiler redacted]

To me, it seemed a bit of a Christian Allegory, albeit in places being a bit arse-backwards or mixed-in-a-blender, compared with the original biblical chronology.

Of course, that could be because universal themes such as (to mention just three, of all those shared) self sacrifice, temptation and rebelling against your Maker just make good stories whether verbally, on papyrus or formed into a digital mass suitably containing codec-compliant information to allow the rendering of a stereoscopic video and multi-speaker audio presentation such as I witnessed, the other week.


As to the more on-topic spin of this thread, the (NPI!) post-mortem over this incident is doubtless going to be lengthy, nobody will be happy at the end of it and the world will keep on turning and presenting countless unrelated challenges to society, but my heart goes out to those touched by this act.

(To caveat the possibly over-sentimental nature of how that paragraph concludes, maybe let that be to the extent that is meaningful, if compassion is finite, given how much else in the world should rightfully demand a portion of that which is available.  Hmmm, now I look callous, no doubt.)

[Starver]

And since I 'penned' that last post, I read through to the end of the thread and saw that it went a bit south (albeit with moderated redactions, leaving me somewhat in the dark about some of it)...  So... apart from new news/developments, I don't know what I should be writing here.  Please consider this 'meta' to be an apology for the drift if the last message, though, minor though mine was in the grand scheme of things.

[Geen]

One thing that I think is bad about America is, with the right permits, you can own an LMG in some states. (Thankfully not here in Washington)
"Whadya need it for?"
"Um...Right! Hunting those goddamn squirrels on my lawn, furry bastards."
"Okay, have your machine gun. Thank you, come again!"

[Cthulhu]

The people talking about arming the citizenry for fighting the government seem to forget that the US military fights from the sky or neighboring ocean.  Hellfire missile from miles away counters civilian AR-15.

[Willfor]

Ugh. Sometimes I wish I could separate the "what-if" scenario generator from my head.

Look, both sides of the "America vs itself" argument are wrong. There is no plausible scenario within the time frame of war being like it is today that the American citizenry will fight purely civilian vs military. At least not within the terms that are being discussed. The FAR more likely scenario is 50/50 split complete civil war with no good dividing line like you had 150 years ago. Both military and civilian forces will be on both sides. There will be field battles, and guerrilla resistances, and that whole mess.

If either side of the political spectrum tries to set themselves up as a dictator -- the only way there will be enough people on their side to make it work -- there will be another half of the country railing against it. While the south is disproportionately represented within the current military structure of the US, that will not be the only factor in dividing lines. It will have more to do with the officers.

The US is WAY too big to hold together an effective dictatorship, with so many undeveloped and underdeveloped areas. Maybe in 50 years one could hold together, but by then we will likely be living in a completely different distopia than we are already living in.

So please stop arguing about AK-47s versus Hellfires, and please start talking about the political ramifications of Virginia vs California if you insist on reducing a very complicated discussion to "who can throw the stone the farthest". Much appreciated!


Edit: I do actually feel rather apprehensive about my tone in this post. Please imagine that I am not exasperated as you read it.

[SalmonGod]

The people talking about arming the citizenry for fighting the government seem to forget that the US military fights from the sky or neighboring ocean.  Hellfire missile from miles away counters civilian AR-15.

With lots of collateral damage involved.  The nature of civil war is that the enemy is right next door.  Sometimes it's family and friends.  Our civilians might not be so sensitive to the horrors of collateral damage when their country sends soldiers to participate in a civil war abroad... but when that civil war is happening all around them, it will be difficult for the side generating the most collateral damage to maintain its legitimacy.

[TCM]

Along with the 'Overthrow American Dictatorship' scenario, this assumes there will clearly be a dictatorship. If there is a dictatorship, it won't clearly say "ARGH I'M A BIG BAD DICTATORSHIP'.

Also, there seems to be a postive bias towards the hypothetical American militia. Some right-wing people think Obama is a Marxist Dictator. If they suddenly decided to overtake territory and try to overthrow the government right now, what would you think?