When does personal responsibility become a part of the question?

Use this forum to discuss the March 2018 Book of the Month, "Final Notice" by Van Fleisher.
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Kibet Hillary
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Re: When does personal responsibility become a part of the question?

Post by Kibet Hillary »

kastle wrote: 13 Apr 2018, 23:52 There is a lot of factors involved in who is to blame. But ultimately, the final decision is up to the shooter. It is their choice, their mind, their thought process in deciding what to do.
Very true. Owning the gun may not be the problem but using it is what may land one in a problem and this means that by the shooter pulling the trigger, personal responsibility comes into play.
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Post by Samantha333 »

Personal accountability is something we could all afford to exercise more in ourselves and also would benefit from seeing in others. It’s so easy to look outwards during times of distress, however many believe all life comes from within.
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Post by adillon6 »

A shooter is ultimately to blame for his or her actions. That being said, it is so important for people to keep an eye out for warning signs. We don't need to try to assign importance to every little behavior, but when there is overwhelming evidence that someone is not in his or her right mind, or could possibly be violent, it is important to take action to prevent tragedy.
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Post by Ricecooker50 »

I believe the problem with the ability to predict death within a short notice provides the wrong sort of people with a get out of jail free card. Some people will want to do maximum harm and damage before making a clean getaway without having to go to prison or pay their dues in this lifetime. The Easterners ( I am Chinese ) believe that we all pay for our crimes if not in one lifetime then in another future lifetime. However, for someone who only believes in the here and now, a Final Notice is a way to cheat God, Satan, and karma. Perhaps, such people should not be allowed to have such technology. Doctors can predict death- true - but usually help the patient to psychologically deal with impending death rather than be free to succumb to the above aforementioned approach.
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Post by joshfee77 »

Ultimately, you have to place most of the blame with the killer in a mass shooting scenario, but I think this is somewhat of a grey area, as you are dealing with serious mental illness in many cases. Australia's worst ever mass shooter, Martin Bryant, had the intellectual capability of an 11-year-old child when he committed his terrible atrocity at Port Arthur in Tasmania at the age of 26. This doesn't make the shooter any less culpable, but there are other mitigating factors involved. Some blame has to be placed with people who should have known better or intervened in some way before the event. The recent Parkland shooting springs to mind, where law enforcement had been called on the shooter some 39 times in the five or so years leading up to the shooting, and the FBI had been tipped off to an ominous YouTube comment he posted some time prior (not to mention the sheriff's deputy who stood outside the school for 5 minutes while 17 students and teachers were being massacred). However, these people cannot act unless there are clear laws vindicating their actions. Confiscation laws, universal background checks, mental health checks. Government legislators have the biggest responsibility here - and have been failing in the US for a long time.
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Post by haleygerstenberg »

My stance on this sort of thing is that in a society structured in a way where corporations aren't expected to have any moral compass other than profitability there's responsibility on the society to be mindful of where they spend their money and where they spend their votes, because government does exist to protect its citizens. The specifics of what that looks like are subject to debate, sure, but we at least need to be mindful and responsible.

At the end of the day, the shooter is responsible for the lives they took. Though I guess it's also worth noting that there are individuals making decisions that they are personally responsible for within the company as well, and if you had data saying "if you keep this feature, people will be murdered" and made no attempt to do anything about it, you would bear responsibility as well.
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Post by Fuzzy456 »

Of course the person behind the gun is the responsible party, but we, as a society, must do our part in being vigilant to those around us. Seeing a change of behaviour and other red flags make us part of the issue as well. Reporting these potentially dangerous behaviours can avoid a tragedy and we must do our share in society.
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Post by shidawn »

Ultimately, it's the shooter's responsibility. Anyone who had knowledge of the shooter's intentions shares some responsibility if the person chooses to do nothing, though. Unfortunately, it's always a lot easier to look back and say that someone should have done something than it is to do something in the moment. For example, in many of the recent school shootings, the kid said something to someone else or did something that could be portrayed as violent or threatening even before the shooting took place, but nothing was done about it. No one took the danger seriously. Yet, there are also examples of kids (even elementary school kids) getting into quite a bit of trouble for comments or actions that were perceived as violent or threatening but that were really just innocent on the child's part. I think the balance between when to take something seriously and when to let it go can be difficult.
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Post by P0tt3ry »

If the shooter is emotionally and medical competent, than the blame lies with them. In the book, the NRA was marketing to people who were at risk for medical issues that would cloud their judgement. People and organizations that put weapons in the hands of those who are not competent to use them shoulder some of the blame as well.
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Post by VirgoRules2018 »

I am sure you have heard this before...."guns dont kill people.....people kill people". Most times, someone has to make the decision to pull the trigger before the gun goes off. It is not always easy, as situations can sometimes vary. What is important is that the person who owns/controls the gun should be mature, responsible and of sounds judgement. But today, who ensures that this is so?
It cannot be any business man off the street....who is monitoring the people selling the guns as well? Attention is required to be paid to all parties in the lead up to the discharge of a firearm. And we should not wait for incidents to continue to occur before we take steps to improve the process involved in acquiring a firearm.
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Post by liftedbooks »

Tough question. We are all responsible for our own actions, however I do think that VitalTech should also be blamed. To answer your question, personal responsibility comes in to play when you making a choice between right and wrong. The shooter chose not to do the right thing, even though they knew it was wrong.
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Post by Riszell »

Personal responsibilty is knowing to choose the response, action and/or reaction to what is happening around a person. That means an individual is personally accountable for his actions in life and also his reactions to the environment. We do have choices to do something about certain situations or circumstances. We do have choice to change or control our responses to make situations better.
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Post by Chanti Stargirl »

Responsibility is, in the end, a personal choice. The law may hold a person responsible but that person may still blame others. If personal responsibility is not chosen then it just becomes a blame game and leads to a victim mentality.
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Post by Brittany J »

The shooter is ultimately the one to blame, but we should also look at societal failures and look more towards the reason of why these events happen. We need to look at what we can do to prevent it rather than focusing on who to blame. I do think that the US is in major need of gun reform though. While the gun is not responsible, it makes it way too easy to commit these fatal attacks.
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Post by Jgideon »

I believe that we cannot blame an entire society for the crime commited by an individual. Everyone has to take responsibility for their actions. Owning a gun and using the gun to commit a crime are two different issues. It is important to make people know that every choice and action has consequences.
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