14 year old shoots himself in the head during school

[Hypno-Sheep]

geez, and i thought the food at my school was bad.

 

[Raesvelg]

/sigh...

Again with the gun thing. Like guns are the only way to commit suicide.

You do realize that the United States has like half the suicide rate of Japan, where guns are frighteningly illegal, right?

For that matter, the US is lower than South Korea, Switzerland, France, Ireland, Finland, Canada, Sweden, Iceland, Norway, Denmark, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and about 30 other countries to boot.

The ultimate truth of the matter is that if someone wants to kill themselves, they'll accomplish it. The gun might make it more convenient, or dramatic, but it doesn't change the outcome.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

What the hell is wrong with kids these days? They are all whiny little shits. Suicide, really? That's the coward's way out. Still better than shooting a bunch of people though. Something has got to be terribly wrong with the educational system for things like these to happen so often that I'm no longer surprised.

 

[MintsMan]

i saw the title and thought AMERICA lo and behold it was.

never happens in the civilized country i live in cause we aren't a bunch of dumbshits wit a government dumb enough to follow a dated law that lets any idiot get hold of a gun.

Hey bro. Keep trolling from your "civilized" Australia (which is 5 places behind America in suicide rates, for the record).

OT: *Sigh. Kids. Next thing you know people will be getting all "ZOMG HE WAS BULLIED IT'S THEIR FAULT WE NEED TO PROTECT OUR CHILDREN FROM THE EVIL BULLIES", unless they just skip straight to blaming video games somehow.

He's AUSTRALIAN? Wow, I thought our education was at least better than THAT... Some people never fail to disappoint.
OT: The moment I saw the title, I KNEW that video games will be blamed for this.
And anyway I was 12 when I was in grade 8. Again, I'm not too sure on America's schooling system, but still...

 

[Viral_Lola]

And I thought New Hampshire seemed like such a happy place. Wonder if someone's going to write a grunge song about it.

Somebody has. Pearl Jam?s Jeremy.

Personally, I hope he gets better. I wonder what made him do it though.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

What the hell is wrong with kids these days? They are all whiny little shits. Suicide, really? That's the coward's way out. Still better than shooting a bunch of people though. Something has got to be terribly wrong with the educational system for things like these to happen so often that I'm no longer surprised.

This is the flip side to the argument and I'm actually very against it. If suicide is so cowardly, why don't you play a few rounds of russian roulette and prove it, lord bravery?

Because you "just don't want to"? Well why don't you want to?

Ah, see? Suddenly its a little more scary isn't it? Suicide is actually pretty hard to do and most people have to be in a broken mental state to pull it off properly. The internet tends to forget details like that.

You didn't think that through. Yes it's hard to do when you're not miserable and depressive. It's called cowards way out because it's the easiest thing to do when you think there's no hope. People who don't know how to deal with their problems take their own lives instead, without any regard to those around them who might need them. If I were a miserable depressive bastard the easiest thing would be to off myself.

 

[ElPatron]

Don't misunderstand me, I agree with pretty much what you've said: this should not be a legislative issue in terms of firearm ownership, its a responsible ownership issue. Unless the parents trusted the lad to have access to the locked cabinet/safe the pistol was stored in (which is another debate in itself), its owner was lax in securing the weapon. Would you agree?

I don't understand why would someone with a child leave guns and ammunition outside a safe during the day. I don't agree with obligatory safes but if the kid had not been educated in the operation of a firearm why leave it out?

 

[Sansha]

What kind of educational facilities are we providing our children if they'd rather do this than see out the rest of the day there?

 

[twohundredpercent]

Somebody has. Pearl Jam?s Jeremy.

Personally, I hope he gets better. I wonder what made him do it though.

Yes they have. It's called a reference.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Arguing with your mom/girlfriend/spouse, asking for help with bullies.

Swiping a gun, getting it past school security, getting the balls to put it up to your head and having the bullet pass through your very brain.

Choose the more difficult scenario.

How about ignoring all that and trying to live your life like the rest of the kids? That was obviously more difficult for this kid. Standing up to the bullies was more difficult. When you think that you have nothing to live for the easiest thing is not to live anymore.

And it's not about the procedure of getting the gun past the security. That has nothing to do with anything. It's about the decision to take your own life. It's easier than doing something to improve your life. You can try to spin it all you want but it won't change the fact that suicide is the cowards way out of misery.

 

[Zack Alklazaris]

In another article it says quote "He?s an avid hunter - like his name." So it may very well be his own gun.
They also say he is in critical condition.

Also, he shot himself, not other people. While traumatic I have no hatred towards him. In the ways one can rightfully "express their inner feels" through bringing a gun to school he did it right.

I have also looked at his picture, he is a stereotypical heavy weight with the mushy face. I can easily see him getting picked on to the point of wanting to kill himself. This is just another unfortunate reality of the crap you go through in high school and the bullies at worse get sent home. While they should start getting fines and spending nights in jail. Like I would if I went up to a random person on the street and treated them like some kids get treated in school.

 

[Tayh]

Maybe his father shot up his laptop at home and, using the methods his father taught him, he took out his frustrations the only way he knew: by putting a bullet into the issue.

 

[Urgh76]

Maybe his father shot up his laptop at home and, using the methods his father taught him, he took out his frustrations the only way he knew: by putting a bullet into the issue.

.....

I feel so goddamn horrible for smiling at this

 

[ablac]

When the saints come in is not a nursery rhyme. Im sorry I mispelled something i understand how abhorrent it is to get a mention. Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit but i do not have a problem with it. I infact just used it. I understand humour dont try and tell me that i dont on the basis that we dont agree on a single joke. What i was trying to say was that the joke was not suitable as no one has accused this of being the fault of videogames and that, while the finger is pointed regularily at games by the media, it has not yet been done here. Therefore the joke wasnt suitable because the story was about what had happened not the media fallout. Making a joke early is not clever. Its just that you think this event was trivial enough to joke about and that its fine to totally change the subject. Many people have trivialised this and those people are scum, the maker of the joke included. The joke is just lazy as sarcasm generally is. Very rarely has actual skill been put behind sarcasm and this is not one of those cases. He took a serious situation and trivialised it. If someone you knew had done this and someone decided to make this joke then you would hardly be in hysterics would you? no you, i hope at least to demonstrate you are at least human on some level, would be insulted because they were trivialising it. you dont joke about a real human being attempting suicide infront of 70 people.

Sorry for confusing your gospel song with a nursery rhyme... I sang both in preschool, easy to get confused... and hey... I remember putting rude words into it then too! The mature 4 year old I was...

If you had read other parts of this thread you would have seen that I was on a train when a friend of mine threw himself in front of it... I know about tragedy... fuck, I read about it all day everyday in my job.

Beleive it or not, sad as it is there are multiple ways of dealing with grief. Personally I am proffessional at my job, and as much as it is sad, I am heavily desensitised to it... A lot of people who live and work around tragedy are... Yes, I think this event is quite trivial. At the moment it has fired up a lot of questions... as it happens the kid isn't dead. He hurt himself with a dangerous weapon. I want to know why.
If I was reading about 2 year olds in Syria who were hit with mortars and artillery, whilst in their own houses... who are now in a feild hospital, abandoned because the doctors cannot return, then it would be different... whos fault is that? The child did nothing.

But we arn't talking about a tragedy like that, we are talking about a kid who should know better shooting himself in school, from a privaleged country, who should have done more to have prevented it. Yes its sad that the kid did that, but we still don't know why... there is no background to it yet. Hell, he could have been playng russian roulette for all we know. He could have been attention seeking, because mummy and daddy don't pay enough attention to him, (in that case I would be more angered at the parents than anything.)

Welcome to the real world... people act differently, its what makes us human. Yes, there are people in this thread being heartless, and saying they don't care (in which I would pull the BS card in most of those cases), and I am not defending them, what I am defending is the fact that people can say what they want in a scenario like this. Its how people cope with this kind of news... most people who crack jokes around sober subjects cannot help it... it's a coping mechanism. Once you experience the real world, not your 'cry at every death' bubble you live in then I will take your points, but guess what, I don't care right now. If I were to stop and mourn every death I hear about i'd never do any work...


AND WAIT! What's that I spot on the first page of this thread... your first comment to this whole affair:

'Well he's clearly messed up...'

Wow... Mr Compassion, showing us how it's done...

Well he is messed up. Im saying that hes clearly not right in the head. Thats quite obvious and its hardly an incompassionate statement. I doubt anyone here is that attached to this that they need to revert to a coping mechanism. No, these people are using humour and saying they dont care so they can appear superior to those who do care. They like the idea that they are superior to those with pathetic things such as emotions and care for their fellow human. Im gonna stop arguing with you now because to continue would be to disrespect what has happened. Humour is not suitable here and especially when the item is used simply as a gateway to a joke which has absolutely no connection to the story. You can respond but i wont respond in this forum anymore.

 

[katsabas]

the kid survived a gunshot. TO THE HEAD.

Almost certainly because he was a dumbass who is epic fail at basic biology. Betcha the idiot(let's face it, if you manage not to kill yourself with a gunshot to the head you're either pretty fucking stupid or really, really lucky, good or bad) put the barrel under his chin and had it angled forward when he pulled the trigger.

I went by the facts. I don't know why the kid did this or who he is. On the other hand, I can bet that neither you, nor anybody else in this forum that made fun of him knows the first thing about the boy, his mental condition or the situation in general. So, what makes you think you can ridicule him or judge him ?

 

[DasDestroyer]

He must have put his evoker next to his gun when he got home, and then grabbed the wrong one.

 

[Ironic Pirate]

Shot himself in the face, but was hospitalized? I bet it was a pellet gun. Don't really care why he did it myself, doesn't change my opinions on gun control or bullying.

If it was a pellet gun, I doubt he would have been hospitalized. Guns aren't like in games, there's no 100% fatal shot. The human body is a very complicated system, and a gun works by firing a very small chunk of metal through it at a very high speed. It will wreck your shit no matter what, but whether it will cause enough damage to kill you or not depends on a huge number of factors, and it's very rarely instant.

People don't live through point blank head shots from fire-arms.

Yes they do. For one thing, head =/= brain. Getting shot through the cheek is quite survivable. Also, Gabrielle Giffords was shot through the head recently, and lived. Even when people die it's rarely instantaneous, IIRC Lincoln lived until the next morning and was taken to the hospital. Remember, it said hospitalized not "with a good chance of recovery".

Here is a list of people who have survived similar injuries.

[link]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saburo_Sakai#Serious_wounds[/link]

[link]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/5177344/Woman-makes-cup-of-tea-after-being-shot-in-head.html[/link]

[link]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Beck#20_July_plot[/link] (he was later finished off by a second headshot)

[link]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage[/link]

[link]http://weirdthings.com/2010/06/the-man-who-survived-10-shots-from-a-mexican-firing-squad-weirdest-survival-stories/[/link] (also survived nine preceding shots by firing squad)

This article goes more into detail about surviving brain injury, with mention to gunshot wounds.

[link]http://main.uab.edu/tbi/show.asp?durki=85704[/link]

According to ChaCha (not always the best source, admittedly) you have a 2% chance of surviving a headshot.

I'll give you the head =/= to brain thing, but it was reasonable to assume he wouldn't have been hospitalized for a shot that didn't penetrate the skull, he would have only needed stitches otherwise, unless it somehow grazed the eye.

Other than that, you are ignoring the proximity of the shot, none of your links involved a shot at that close range. The results of a bullet impact vary based on range.

Secondly, the exception proves the rule.

Furthermore, none of your links involved children, who have smaller skulls and more vulnerable brains.

I stand by what I said.

The german man held the gun to his temple. Can't exactly get much closer range than that. The woman who was shot in the head was also shot at a rather close range.

The exception proves the rule? The fuck? You said that it's impossible to survive a gunshot wound to the head, and I showed multiple cases where it happened. That's not "the exception that proves the rule" it's disproving that statement.

I admit that none of my links involve children. However, that has nothing to do with the original argument, which was whether or not people could survive such wounds (they can). Also, you don't seem to understand how brains work. There's lots of little parts to them, and the whole thing doesn't die if any part is injured. It is very possible to get shot in the brain and live, it depends on where in the brain.

 

[Darkbladex96]

This happened at my highschool in the gym, i took pictures then didnt give a fuck just took the chance to skip class and get some waffle house. Brain on the floor made me crave hash browns.

 

[SD-Fiend]

He must have put his evoker next to his gun when he got home, and then grabbed the wrong one.

I told them to be careful...

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

It's fairly difficult to accidentally shoot yourself with a gun, especially in the head...

That really isn't true in the slightest. Accidentally self-inflicted gunshot wounds are relatively common though the most common cause is user negligence rather than mechanical defect. Common examples are pulling the trigger without first ensuring the weapon is unloaded or mishandling weapons without adequate safety mechanisms (older models of the M1911 or any of the countless models of the SKS that uses a floating firing pin are examples of this).