7 dead in Drive by shooting in CA seems one English kid who could not handle it.
 

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/l...524-story.html

On his personal website, the man who made the videotape said he was born in England and raised in the San Fernando Valley.

Re: 7 dead in Drive by shooting in CA seems one English kid who could not handle it.
 

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/...g-of-slaughter

Express has the video that was taken off You Tube.

Seems that despite his connection to the Movie industry he had no success with the Ladies and it came to this.

Re: 7 dead in Drive by shooting in CA seems one English kid who could not handle it.
 

Neither of which are likely to be particularly relevant to why he did what he did but, for now, it looks like that is all of the information that the media outlets have so that is what they are going to print.

Re: 7 dead in Drive by shooting in CA seems one English kid who could not handle it.
 

Judging from the Express piece looks like it is all out there.

Most of it anyway.

Re: 7 dead in Drive by shooting in CA seems one English kid who could not handle it.
 

Yes - just a crazy kid who was able to get his hands on semi-automatic weapons and then went out to kill as many people as he could ... :(

Re: 7 dead in Drive by shooting in CA seems one English kid who could not handle it.
 

Weird and sad phenomena going on. Apart from the easy access to deadly weapons aspect (guns don't kill people, etc. etc.....). Here we have an out of control sense of entitlement, stoked by social media and special interest Internet forums that seem to get people radicalized, fired up and ready to kill. This young man, for instance, felt it was a crime that attractive girls didn't like him, the logical outcome being that he was entitled to kill them.

Re: 7 dead in Drive by shooting in CA seems one English kid who could not handle it.
 

He seemed to have a thing about blondes not liking him.

If he wanted to kill as many people as possible then there are better options.

Re: 7 dead in Drive by shooting in CA seems one English kid who could not handle it.
 

The report referred to a "semi-automatic hand gun". It would be more remarkable if it was a hand gun that was not semi-automatic. :rolleyes:

Re: 7 dead in Drive by shooting in CA seems one English kid who could not handle it.
 

OK - point taken - but it does make me wonder whether, perhaps, we should consider make flintlock muskets more readily available ...

Re: 7 dead in Drive by shooting in CA seems one English kid who could not handle it.
 

You can get single action pistols, the ones I have seen have been for very specialist applications at high price. I remember one that looked like a bolt actioned rifle with a short barrel and no stock.

A shotgun would probably have been more effective in this situation but I doubt that was the point.

Re: 7 dead in Drive by shooting in CA seems one English kid who could not handle it.
 

One news item described it as 'one for the record books'.

I was slightly worried on a personal level as my son has a good friend in Isla Vista and they sometimes visit eachother at weekends.

Re: 7 dead in Drive by shooting in CA seems one English kid who could not handle it.
 

Exactly. How do you get from "girls don't like me/the teacher is picking on me/I haven't got many friends at school/I'm an unhappy teenager" to "I think I'l go and kill some people"? It seems to happen a lot.

Re: 7 dead in Drive by shooting in CA seems one English kid who could not handle it.
 

He was 22, so in 3 years.

Re: 7 dead in Drive by shooting in CA seems one English kid who could not handle it.
 

Just throwing it out there, having guns easily available?

Re: 7 dead in Drive by shooting in CA seems one English kid who could not handle it.
 

No flies on you.:D

It's more than that though. There is something in the culture that works with the availability of weapons that makes this happen. Not sure what it is, but working on a theory that it's to do with the huge emphasis on consumption and acquisition and people not having a sense of who they are and what they are worth without counting up their piles of stuff. I realize that this is not scientific.:blink:

Re: 7 dead in Drive by shooting in CA seems one English kid who could not handle it.
 

Not nice:( Too close to home, glad he didn't visit this weekend mate.

Re: 7 dead in Drive by shooting in CA seems one English kid who could not handle it.
 

While it certainly happens more that one would like, I would submit that rather than happening "a lot" it actually happens "almost never".

Pretty much 100% of teenage boys go through feelings like "girls don't like me/the teacher is picking on me/I haven't got many friends at school/I'm an unhappy teenager" - but almost none of them "go and kill some people".

The point is that it wasn't going through the normal stresses of being a teenager that made this guy go out and kill people - there was something much more fundamental wrong with him.

Re: 7 dead in Drive by shooting in CA seems one English kid who could not handle it.
 

There is a very unpleasant culture of that kind in Calabasas.

I don't know if it was relevant in this case, but large numbers of teenagers are on medication for anxiety and/or depression, it is my belief that these meds can cause erratic behaviour.

Re: 7 dead in Drive by shooting in CA seems one English kid who could not handle it.
 

Its not just your belief, every mental health medication I have been prescribed have warnings about watching for behavior changes, changes in thoughts and so on, and these changes can be increased in children and teens and young adults, so these groups really need to be watched closely by doctors and family, especially when starting, stopping, or changes in dose.

Re: 7 dead in Drive by shooting in CA seems one English kid who could not handle it.
 

There are kids like that around the world but with such easy access to guns in the US (even in California), it's pretty easy for a kid or adult to kill a 1/2 dozen or more people. It's not very easy to kill even one person with a knife or bat and what may excite someone that has a mental illness is the idea of killing a lot of people and if they have to use a knife or bat where they couldn't kill a lot of people, it take the excitement away making it less likely they will act on their impulses.

Re: 7 dead in Drive by shooting in CA seems one English kid who could not handle it.
 

Yes indeed to both.

I do feel a bit spooked today but I'm trying not to be because guns are just part of life here.

Re: 7 dead in Drive by shooting in CA seems one English kid who could not handle it.
 

I am pretty sure it is publicity, this hits all the spots so will be widely covered.

Look at the somewhat belated fuss about the Nigerian girls that were kidnapped, it was mentioned that it was not considered a biggie by the Nigerians, not that unusual, well maybe the numbers at one time. Even in that area machetes probably still rule the roost.

Re: 7 dead in Drive by shooting in CA seems one English kid who could not handle it.
 

We also have to be very careful just what we say on here, it's always possible that parents etc of the young man could be members. None of us know as usernames are usually made up.
He was, obviously, a very troubled young man, with major issues, in the same way that many others who do this are.

Re: 7 dead in Drive by shooting in CA seems one English kid who could not handle it.
 

Like Boiler, in case you were wondering it was not me.

I am sort of intrigued as to what restrictions you had in mind?

Re: 7 dead in Drive by shooting in CA seems one English kid who could not handle it.
 

what a terrible thing to happen, I only watched the 1st minute and a half of his video and could tell just from that he was a fruit loop! people like this will end up doing something crazy whether its with a gun, a knife, or just their hands in my opinion.

Re: 7 dead in Drive by shooting in CA seems one English kid who could not handle it.
 

Bingo. Look at how Xanax hid their research showing the drastic side-effects of Xanax a decade or two ago. And sit through the second half of any breezy advert for drugs like "Abilify", in which they go through a long list of side effects that add up to "a dozen times worse than before you started taking the drug"

Re: 7 dead in Drive by shooting in CA seems one English kid who could not handle it.
 

:unsure:
The story, thus far, is he killed half of his victims with a knife. 3 stabbed, 3 shot.

I opine his motive was 'fame', and not excitement. He could have gone to six flags if he wanted excitement. Our appetite for sensational news stories has whipped the media in to a frenzy we all feast on, just as the wacko hoped it would. Not sure what the solution is...

Re: 7 dead in Drive by shooting in CA seems one English kid who could not handle it.
 

Knife would be his British upbringing.

Re: 7 dead in Drive by shooting in CA seems one English kid who could not handle it.
 

Xanax is definitely a wild card one.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/l...524-story.html

Guns were not the whole story, true, but I still feel that someone easily being able to purchase 3 handguns is not healthy. We may speculate that his fantasies of retribution were more likely to be fuelled by the guns.

Re: 7 dead in Drive by shooting in CA seems one English kid who could not handle it.
 

I doubt it.

It is illegal to sell cutlery to anyone under 18 in England, let alone anything really sharp.

Re: 7 dead in Drive by shooting in CA seems one English kid who could not handle it.
 

He was five when he left the UK and obviously lived a life of privilege with a father and mother working in movies -- not every college kid has a nice BMW, even in CA. He was obviously as messed up as Adam Lanza, but happily didn't take as many innocent people with him.

Re: 7 dead in Drive by shooting in CA seems one English kid who could not handle it.
 

Its pretty clear this guy has some issues, and was apparently receiving some mental health care. The mother found the videos last month and reported them, and police went to visit the guy but under current laws (both in Canada and the US) its extremely hard to commit someone involuntarily and police apparently determined he did not meet the criteria for a involuntary hold.

He was under the care of mental health professionals at the time of the shootings, but never showed any signs of violence, or fascination with guns.

Guns were bought legally, and background trace did not determine anything to prevent him from buying guns.

Re: 7 dead in Drive by shooting in CA seems one English kid who could not handle it.
 

He may have used knives in the house but I suspect he got the courage to do that because he was packing 3 guns. Out on the street a knife is not the weapon of choice since some else may have a gun and people can run away.

Re: 7 dead in Drive by shooting in CA seems one English kid who could not handle it.
 

I hadn't thought about my son's room mates possibly keeping guns before this. One of them voluntarily entered a mental hospital for a while earlier this year.

Re: 7 dead in Drive by shooting in CA seems one English kid who could not handle it.
 

To be fair the vast majority of people with mental health issues do not own guns, nor are they violent.

Re: 7 dead in Drive by shooting in CA seems one English kid who could not handle it.
 

The Gun issue strikes me as being secondary but I knew it would be the focus.

Obviously he has issues.

How many people could knife 3 people, his original victims. I would have thought sticking a knife in someone is much harder than pulling a trigger?

He also ran down a few but that seems somehow more remote and less worthy of comment?

I seem to remember the ACLU were involved in the cut back of mental health care, which the Politicians jumped on of course.

Re: 7 dead in Drive by shooting in CA seems one English kid who could not handle it.
 

So, you are a gun advocate then :rofl:

Re: 7 dead in Drive by shooting in CA seems one English kid who could not handle it.
 

Since guns and knives are equally effective, there isn't much reason for our military to bother with all of the expense of guns, ammunition and weapons training when a cheap switchblade will do the trick. Think of what a gun-free military could do to reduce our budget deficit.

Re: 7 dead in Drive by shooting in CA seems one English kid who could not handle it.
 

At very close quarters, maybe? I assumed that certainly for the British Army issuing a pistol would just be dead weight in most normal circumstances.

Re: 7 dead in Drive by shooting in CA seems one English kid who could not handle it.
 

It's really disappointing that some sources are pointing towards such things as autism as the root, as opposed to the larger cultural institution of male aggression to women they feel have wronged them just by saying no, or rather just by not saying yes. I mean I still refuse for it to be just as black and white as that, but it's still reflective of what I believe is a reversible social or cultural practice.