[dfarm]

I always thought this kind of thing was always done by uneducated postal workers and the like. Pretty disheartening to see a fellow engineer act so stupidly.

Time to reconsider getting a concealed weapons permit I guess. Condolences to Agarwal and Pugh's (and anon woman's) families.

[shimi]

10 Years ago I was an uneducated postal worker

I can't remember having the urge of shooting my bosses or workmates

[dfarm]

Sorry for the generalization shimi. I thought for awhile about how to express that idea and couldn't think of a good way. But you're right, education and/or intelligence are not the predictors. I guess it just seems to me that it SHOULD be.

Also, though my statement is essentially indefensible, I did want to point out that I was not saying that all postal workers are uneducated, but rather was referring to the postal workers that had opened fire years ago as being the intersection of the set "uneducated" and the set "postal workers." I apologize.

[sh1mmer]

I think this clearly shows education doesn't have too much to do with mental health. People with a lot of education can be just as sad and disheartened as anyone else. Layoffs aren't a happy time for anyone, but for someone who was already in a bad place it looks like it can be a tipping point.

[zandorg]

It's to do with brain chemistry, say psychiatrists. It can affect anyone, even well-off civil servants.

But losing your job is not a chemical imbalance, it's something real.That's harder to treat (I personally think psychiatric drugs should not be used when the problem is real).

[sh1mmer]

Personally my feeling is that chemical imbalance is the symptom not the cure. It takes a very mature society to practice preventative medicine. We clearly aren't that society (look at the obesity epidemic).

I'm sure that people who are mentally unwell have a chemical imbalance, that doesn't mean it isn't caused by diet, environment or simply their human experience constantly training them to be a in a particular state.

[time_management]

I would bet that these sorts of workplace homicides would decrease by 50-90 percent if our country did one thing right: implemented universal healthcare. I've been through layoffs, and the healthcare mess is the scariest thing about losing a job. Food and living expenses can be brought down, but healthcare premiums are ridiculous and inflexible.

[potatolicious]

Sounds like in this case though he may have been a foreign worker on an H-1B, who wouldn't qualify for nationalized health care anyways.

This is entirely speculation, but knowing Chinese foreign visa holders... it's likely that he was very close to his green card, and thus bringing his family over to the US, and then he got laid off - 5 years down the drain, and even if he gets another job it's another 5 years before he can see his family again. That kind of stress can make a man do strange things.

[xiaoma]

Sounds like in this case though he may have been a foreign worker on an H-1B, who wouldn't qualify for nationalized health care anyways

Why not? Foreigners still pay taxes, right? Their health still has value, right?

As a foreigner in Taiwan, I get national health care.

[zandorg]

Thanks for your response. I'll point out that I'm in the UK, but I don't know whether it's better in the UK than the US. The UK system is pretty effective, and you get disability 'welfare' (called benefits here) to tide you over until you're better.

So, the hospital is free, the drugs are free, the consultant (who checks up on you perhaps quarterly for 20 minutes) is free, and living expenses free too.

Free meaning National Insurance is paid, but you get that paid too.

[abstractbill]

As someone who has lived in both countries for many years at a stretch, I'm very glad that I effectively still have the British safety net because I'm still a citizen and can go back there if I get really sick and lose my job and healthcare here.

[time_management]

I know a lot of Europeans who went back to the EU when they had health problems. This would even work for an American, because many EU hospitals will treat anyone who comes in needing care.

It infuriates me when anti-universal-healthcare people (they still exist) argue that US healthcare is superior because foreigners come over here for medical care. What year are they living in, 1979? Now, people leave the US for critical treatment.

[time_management]

The US healthcare system is terrible. Although some argue that universal healthcare leads to long waits and difficulty getting appointments in some specialties, it's just as bad over here as it is in, say, Canada or the UK. We have all those problems to an equal degree... and medical bills, on top of that.

In Manhattan, some of the top doctors have stopped participating with insurance companies, because the companies (which are manned by the sorts of people who would be in guard towers of prison camps in other kinds of societies) often refuse to pay for bullshit reasons, leaving the doctor unpaid, or "negotiate" pay that is below subsistence level for the doctor. We've had a two-tier health system (insured vs. not) for decades, but now we're approaching a three-tier system (self-insured vs. crappily insured vs. not) because of the sliminess of insurance companies and the crappiness of their policies.

In addition, doctors have to carry malpractice insurance, the premiums of which are set, in large part, on a statewide basis. Base rates can vary by almost two orders of magnitude within a specialty, from a few thousand dollars per year to a few hundred thousand. The high-premium states lose doctors and it becomes almost impossible to get a specialist if you live in one of those states, with 3-month waits for appointments not being uncommon.

The US healthcare system is terrible; it's not just "left-wing propaganda" on the continent that says so. It actually is horrendous. Even many center-right Republicans are coming around to the need for an overhaul of the system.

[nihilocrat]

In Manhattan, some of the top doctors have stopped participating with insurance companies, because the companies (which are manned by the sorts of people who would be in guard towers of prison camps in other kinds of societies) often refuse to pay for bullshit reasons, leaving the doctor unpaid, or "negotiate" pay that is below subsistence level for the doctor. We've had a two-tier health system (insured vs. not) for decades, but now we're approaching a three-tier system (self-insured vs. crappily insured vs. not) because of the sliminess of insurance companies and the crappiness of their policies.

If you are not from the US and/or not already familiar with US healthcare, listen to this person. This is the sort of experience 99% of people on insurance get. Sure, we have insurance, but it's a crapshoot whether the company is going to actually pay for all the expenses it should be. This lulls the "insured" into a false sense of security, and provides a great incentive to not go to the doctor.

[byrneseyeview]

Education correlates pretty well with impulse control, which correlates well with not shooting up your office. There is also a fairly strong correlation between being law-abiding and having a high IQ. So while it's true that some educated people commit crimes, it is absolutely false to pretend that they're equally likely to -- or that this story is anything but an aberration.

[ricky_clarkson]

What will you do with the concealed weapon? Shoot his bullet in mid-air?

[iigs]

I would like to nominate firearms, and especially the political landscape around firearms, as an informally off-topic subject for this site.

Everyone that has an opinion about this topic has a strong one (even me), and I've never seen a forum of any charter not fall into 1) banal, uninformed bickering or 2) scary monoculture or homogeny of thought, relentlessly punishing dissenters.

The value of HN (to me) is that it is well tended, and this looks like an additional loss of focus that isn't welcome in my opinion.

[jumper]

I think the basic motivation for carrying a concealed weapon in situations like these is what if the guy never plans to stop killing? What if he just carries on hunting people for so long as his ammo lasts? That gives you a possibility of making a difference by putting him down early.

Likewise, why bother wearing body armor, they'll just shoot you in the face! Except... sometimes whether by their aim sucking or not having time to aim properly, and etc., it does matter. Chaotic situations like these have many possible challenges to present you, some of which a concealed weapon can help you with.

I think a lot of people have hate for guns and hence irrationally choose to ignore all the utility of them, in this case by suggesting a situation where it is ridiculous to stop bullets with more bullets, essentially a strawman argument, ignoring all the situations where you can use bullets to prevent someone from firing more.

[mechanical_fish]

I think it's the placebo effect. That's why I carry a homeopathic concealed weapon: a small vial of water with some floating specs of rust in it.

[maximilian]

You mean you are carrying a small vial of water that says it has rust in it, but doesn't actually (or at least has a very low probability of having a rust molecule).

[mechanical_fish]

That's more correct, actually, and I used to use one of those. But I decided it didn't have enough firepower. Now I prefer my homeopathic Death Star, in case I get attacked by a whole planet at once.

[yummyfajitas]

It's also completely useless for the police to carry weapons. After all, the best we can possibly hope for is that they might shoot someone's bullet in mid air.

Therefore, I propose we stop giving weapons to the police as a cost saving measure.

[abstractbill]

British police don't usually have guns, and I always felt safer for it when I lived there, fwiw.

[yummyfajitas]

Maybe you felt safer, but the numbers suggest your feelings were incorrect.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/798708/posts

Note: I realize the US has high murder rates. Murder rates are not indicative of general safety, since most murders consist of one crook killing another. To put a face on it, think Tony Soprano or Stringer Bell taking out the competition. Most robberies (at least those reported in crime statistics) consist of a criminal robbing a civilian.

[kqr2]

Yes, but they have surveillance cameras everywhere. It's a bit Orwellian.

[abstractbill]

Most of those cameras are privately owned, and on private property. I'm ok with that.

[jimbokun]

Does the state have the right to demand and view the tapes?

[NonEUCitizen]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4713753.stm

[ivank]

Maybe prevent the deaths of two or more people? Is this really so far-fetched?

[bprater]

If you knew that everyone else had the potential of carrying a concealed weapon, would you be at likely to shoot someone else?

In my state, Florida, it's relatively easy to secure the paperwork to carry concealed, and it tends to be a strong deterrant here.

[abstractbill]

If you knew that everyone else had the potential of carrying a concealed weapon

...then I would probably never leave my house.

[anamax]

Then it's good for you that only the bad folk carry....

[abstractbill]

I think people have the capacity to be both good and bad, depending on often quite random stuff that happens to them.

I'm just glad to live somewhere that the majority of people, "good" or "bad", don't carry - I'd hate to live somewhere the opposite was true.

[anamax]

> I'm just glad to live somewhere that the majority of people, "good" or "bad", don't carry - I'd hate to live somewhere the opposite was true.

How do you know that the majority of the bad folk don't carry where you are?

I've been places where everyone was carrying. Why should that have bothered me?

[blackguardx]

My school, Case Western Reserve University, had a student shooting at the business school a few years back.

A business major went on a rampage because he thought some sysadmin had deleted his personal webpage. He went on a shooting spree at the Peter B. Lewis building and shot a few people, killing a fellow student. His target, the sysadmin, was unharmed, though.