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Nothing
I normally in this space have a lot to say. Sometimes it is a lot to say about important things, sometimes it is a lot about nothing.
I am at a loss at the deaths of children and their caretakers in Connecticut. Another crazed gunman. Another mentally ill man whose solution was murdering innocents, using the weapons of war we sell on the Internet to literally anybody in America. How many this year? The Aurora Batman guy, the Oregon guy, who can keep track?
Obama is, pardon, dead wrong. Today is the day to talk about gun control, though yesterday would have been better. Gun control won’t solve all problems, no law can. But when faced with horror like this you start, you do something goddammit, you don’t shed a tear and cluck your tongue and change the channel. For God’s sake– for our children’s’ sake– we have thrown out most of the Bill of Rights in the name of a phony war on terror, why can’t we interpret the Second Amendment in light of our present day?
You can love your children, or you can love your guns more. We as a nation have gone, quite simply, insane. May God help us, because we obviously have no interest or desire to help ourselves.
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Jack Smith said...
1Societies fail when they stop caring about children, as in – other people’s children.
12/14/12 10:31 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
2Big changes begin in the little steps we can all take. Keeping this madman’s name and the others from the news and thereby not rewarding him for his insane actions is a small but significant step. Tell the vulture media who benefit from these regular moments of insanity with HUGE ratings the MEDIA is the MESSAGE. (But then where would CNN be?) No doubt he envied the others who also got their day of infamy. He is nothing more than a streaker with an assault rifle.
12/15/12 11:07 AM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
3The winner of the best idea to stop the gun violence gets a free “Call of Duty” video game.
12/15/12 11:21 AM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
4Or this one – reportedly his favorite game.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ9fVXufTHs
12/15/12 4:15 PM | Comment Link
pitchfork said...
5I know that no one wants to hear this. But there is a solution. Had those teachers, been required to Conceal Carry, train, and practice by law, there would be no dead children..nor had other gun violence victims had a weapon, they would not be dead. The proof is Israeli teachers ARE required by law to carry and train. There are no incidents like this in Israel.
I also know the gun control crowd is now going to go crazy. The other truth is…it won’t solve a damn thing. I’m a parent. I feel these parents pain. This is why I advocate for Conceal Carry. If the crazies knew that the chance exists they wouldn’t make it past the door..well, I submit there wouldn’t be these kind of events.
Had ONE SINGLE PERSON, in the theater shooting had a concealed weapon, there is a chance many lives could have been saved. All I know is, no matter how many laws are passed, laws do not stop these monsters. Only guns stop them. If enough people understood this fact, maybe we could stop this madness. There are over 3 million gun owners, and had they all been allowed to Conceal Carry, or even open carry, lots of INNOCENT lives may be saved.
But here is the bottom line. The founders didn’t insert the 2nd Amendment for sport. They knew damn well from experience, that a citizenry is unarmed by law, liberty is short lived. I just wish a few of these crazies would enter Goldman Saks or the Federal Reserve. This is what tells me they are cowards.
Ok, let the flaming begin.
12/15/12 5:38 PM | Comment Link
wemeantwell said...
6Further weaponizing our society is not likely the answer; old West style gunfights in theaters and classrooms are not going to succeed. We need to go the other way, and stop the small arms race. As for Israel, history hasn’t finished evaluating their eye-for-an-eye strategy yet.
12/15/12 6:48 PM | Comment Link
Lisa said...
7Rich Bauer’s comment on the prize encapsulates our dilemma. We slaver at the “graceful assassins” in these games, and wonder why a person just might think being an assassin is a good thing./
While I agree with you, Peter, that “(w)e as a nation have gone, quite simply, insane”, but there is no facile answer to correcting our current iteration of our insanity, no doubt a deeply embedded genetic artefact of a brutish life.
I will append a comment I made today at another site (GraphicFiringTable):
gruff says,
“Americans love to murder children.”
It is so far beyond that platitude, with all due respect, gruff, as you seem an intelligent person.
The Arabs love to kill their children; the Chinese love to rid themselves of excess girl babies; on and on the killing goes. We are driven to kill every good thing, and the origin of the impulse is deep and diffuse. There is no “solution”; we will go on killing whether it is to “kil me softly” or, in a more concrete manner.
Honestly, we could not deplete this topic. Killing for expeditiousness, cruelty, need, hatred, love … killing (destruction) is what we do. And we are Phoenix’s and Lazarus, too.
You could restrict access to certain weapons, but what then? What of the murderous impulse — why are people stepping into schools and malls and doing shoot-em-ups?
I think of our Prohibition and the removal (LOL) of access to liquor for the sake of reducing moral turpitude and decrepitude, and the quick appearance back on the market of the said devil’s brew, and the creation of an entire criminal subculture as a result of that misbegotten knee-jerk impulse to remove the supposed “causative agent”. Prohibition did not help, it hurt society.
So we remove certain weapons … are they then gone bye-bye? Will we use our vaunted justice system on the corpse of the “deranged” man who takes his own life after his rampage?
12/15/12 5:58 PM | Comment Link
Lafcadio said...
8I remember an old All in the Family where Archie Bunker provided his solution to airline hijacking. Just pass out the pistols to everyone as they board the plane. Anyone who tries anything is outgunned 100 to 1.
Ol Archie was a prize.
12/16/12 2:45 AM | Comment Link
teri said...
9And another shooting yesterday; this one occurred in an Alabama hospital. The only one dead is the shooter, although several other people were injured by him first.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/12/15/gunman-dead-3-injured-in-alabama-hospital-shooting/
As a result of this week (this is the third such random shooting in one week), we may expect two things: not sensible gun laws, but increased “security” everywhere, and while we are focused on discussions about “what to do”, Congress will quickly pass some bipartisan agreement on the “fiscal cliff” bullshit which will cut deeply into medicare and SS. And maybe remove the deduction for interest on home mortgages while they are at it. Never letting a good opportunity to sneak something by us go to waste, after all.
The Congress we have today is merely a flock of fat vultures controlled by the wealthiest people and corporations in America arguing over how much gristle to leave on the bone. They do not care how we are downsized – whether it be by some of us killing others of us, by injecting poisons in the water via fracking, by allowing arsenic in the rice, by reducing any aid to those of us temporarily down on our luck, etc., as long as there are less of us. They only need enough of us to make weapons on the assembly line and to sign up as mercenaries in their wars.
And when I say “they” do not care, I assure you that I intentionally meant to include Congress and our “leaders” in with the “they”. In this massive game of grift, we are merely the marks.
-Teri
12/16/12 6:55 AM | Comment Link
Eric Hodgdon said...
10I strongly suggest people look and understand the basics of the US society, as it’s economic and political systems which shape what is shown to the public.
We have a federal government displaying the notion that problems require warfare. Domestic wars, international wars – these are ever present and on display. Law enforcement learns new and more onerous methods of displaying and using force. SWAT-like/Para-Military equipped cops deployed to confront unarmed people peacefully protesting as is their Right.
Economics is solely to beat the competition, to win at all costs.
Sports – the same thing.
These are the examples people see. Whether these mass murders are swayed by the continual portrayal and messages in the media, we don’t know for certain, but studies indicate yes, the portrayal of violence breeds more violence. The cruelty of the last 35-40 years from economic excesses of advertizing/consumption while economic compensation stagnated, builds dangerous imbalances and will explode more often until balance is returned.
Since I’ve no idea who you people are, your locations, and economic status, I don’t know what or how you view what has been going on for the past 40 years for the regular people in the country. So, you folks may not be aware of the situation to a fuller extent and greater appreciation than myself.
I speak about the core essence of the USA gone wrong, with predictable results as an outlet. Expect more of this kind of response to the unresolved social pressures of today.
Whether this latest slaughter is a result of my theory or not, if our national inequity persists and continues to increase, there will be more murders, by firearms or poverty.
12/16/12 7:37 AM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
11Amending the Second: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed unless the lunatic fringe endangers We the People of the United States, threatening the Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, and insure domestic Tranquility.
12/16/12 2:42 PM | Comment Link
John Poole said...
12I understand Pitchfork’s lament and his suggested cure but will have to back PVB. Weaponizing our culture even more might seem a quick fix but whackos might enjoy getting into gun battles and going down in a blaze of faux glory with high attendant collateral damage. Hand guns can only be accurately aimed and fired only after extensive and continual practice. Regular folk with a little initial firing range time usually end up doing more harm than good once they pull out a piece.
12/16/12 3:20 PM | Comment Link
pitchfork said...
13quote “Whether this latest slaughter is a result of my theory or not, if our national inequity persists and continues to increase, there will be more murders, by firearms or poverty.” unquote
Eric, I believe it can be statistically shown that most of these grotesque events are caused by MENTAL ILLNESS. And THAT is what people should be preparing a national dialog on. Mental illness in America is STAGGERING. And given the fact almost all mental hospitals and associated facilities were closed in the 70’s and 80’s, if you pardon the pun..it’s a no brainer. Here is a mother of a mental ill son that really nails it.
http://anarchistsoccermom.blogspot.com/2012/12/thinking-unthinkable.html
But certainly, our national delight with murder, via movies, TV, video games, toys of weaponry, continuous War, and glorifying our military, all the while nullifying the importance of a single life, is testimony to the cause of these tragedies. And yes, easy access to weapons that were undreamed of 40 years ago…in the millions.
However, I have ONE more reason this nation needs to address. How, just how, does one reconcile the monstrous fact, our GOVERNMENT..namely OBAMA, ..does the EXACT SAME THING!! IT MURDERS INNOCENT CHILDREN IN THE HUNDREDS AROUND THE GLOBE..and WHAT does America do? For the most part, from what I’ve seen…America doesn’t have clue it is even going on!!! And that is the real crime here.
When it comes to a homegrown multi-victim assault, the MSM explodes with every gory detail and minutia imaginable. Yet when Obama savagely vaporizes a 16yr old American boy..AND his father..well what do we get? You got it..a big fat MSM YAWN!! The secrecy that surrounds the USG’s Murder campaign is the plum bob of hypocrisy. Every single Congresscritter out there will be introducing some kind of dystopian gun control bill this week. But WHO among them, will say ONE DAMN WORD about the children who, by their own hand via funding, are being murdered daily? ZERO! ZILCH! NADA! The silence is deafening. And that my friends is the REAL tragedy. So who will point a finger at these mental ill kids, when all THEY did is reflect what they see around them. America need only OPEN THEIR FUCKING EYES. THE REAL BLAME LIES SQUARELY ON SOCIETY’S SHOULDERS FOR THE LACK OF WILL TO SOLVE THE UNDERLYING CAUSE. MENTAL ILLNESS, BOTH IN THE GOVERNMENT, AND SOCIETY AT LARGE.
12/16/12 4:28 PM | Comment Link
pitchfork said...
14“Amending the Second: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed unless the lunatic fringe endangers We the People of the United States, threatening the Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, and insure domestic Tranquility.”
Lunatic fringe? You mean like this lunatic fringe?
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/12/gov-dossiers-on-us-citizens/
I’m sure they will appreciate your view. In fact, they might even award you by noting it on your dossier.
12/16/12 4:36 PM | Comment Link
pitchfork said...
15Lord what I’d give for the ability to post pics here. The American Gestapo notwithstanding, I’d submit our current crop of DHS and other Department of Crime “patriots” are probably toasting to that kid as we speak. Who needs Fast and Furious when they have a posterchild for the fastest 2nd Amendment nullification in history. Question is…who you gonna call when the “pre-crime” algorithm at NSA spits out a profile on you that matches their definition of “terrorist”? After all, all you have to do to qualify is “love liberty”..
http://www.infowars.com/homeland-security-report-lists-liberty-lovers-as-terrorists/
Lunatic FRINGE??
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
I’d submit those nice folks at DHS are full blown certifiable fucking psychopaths.
oh, did I mention…….
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/09/why_does_homeland_security_need_14_billion_rounds_of_ammunition.html
Yeah, we need gun control all right. To AIM them.
sheeezushfuckingcrist.
12/16/12 4:59 PM | Comment Link
John Poole said...
16Pitch- Mental illness is at the center of all violence. So now Kerry is getting ready for his closeup-the guy with the shady self aggrandizing spin at the end of the Vietnam War. Maybe he’ll be able to utter in ten years, “Who will be the last drone “jockey” ordered to pointlessly kill hapless non combatants during America’s hit list war?
Mental illness? It goes all the way to the top!
12/16/12 6:06 PM | Comment Link
Lisa said...
17@teri and pitchfork: yes to all.
Mental illness is a great problem, and we fail to see the connection between our national insanity and the personal. Many thinkers have voiced the same idea — among them psychologists Thomas Szasz and R.D. Laing, and Krishnamurti — basically, to be well-adjusted in a profoundly sick society is not necessarily a mark of health.
The “madness” perpetrated by “nutters” is holding a hard mirror up to all of us.
The powers that be harness Orwell’s Two-Minute Hate to keep us outrage and occupied … until it dies down, fading into obscurity once again. Meanwhile, a trip to Costco awaits, so we may stuff our abodes to capacity and be unable to move or thing beyond the front doors of our houses. The media stuffs our minds, and we gladly abet the process by stuffing our bodies.
12/16/12 9:01 PM | Comment Link
pitchfork said...
18quote:”“Who will be the last drone “jockey” ordered to pointlessly kill hapless non combatants during America’s hit list war?” unquote
I don’t know who’ll be the last one, but this guy finally got a clue.
quote:”Why isn’t he with the Air Force anymore? There was one day, he says, when he knew that he wouldn’t sign the next contract. It was the day Bryant walked into the cockpit and heard himself saying to his coworkers: “Hey, what motherfucker is going to die today?” unquote
Satire? Or jaded?? Who knows, but it must have been the last straw.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/pain-continues-after-war-for-american-drone-pilot-a-872726.html
12/16/12 11:54 PM | Comment Link
Eric Hodgdon said...
19Mental illness is a broader category than people think it is. It encompasses both psychological and physiological events. These two are different areas and may often be connected, but not always so.
I’m no one to have a complete answer to what upsets people and leads them to murder or violence, but mental illness is not required to murder or make violence.
Generally, mental illness as defined by the public is from their perspectives on what is right and wrong, their likes and dislikes, and on what they agree and disagree about.
Professionally, mental illness covers thousands and thousands of behaviors – just about every one there is, so long as it disrupts the normal functioning of normal person.
Blaming murder by the weapon of choice, mental state of the murderer, or the weather, is a shallow view on the multitude of factors shaping an action. Each little bit of influence a person encounters can lead to one decision or another. This does not mean I excuse people for their actions or in-actions, but rather to say certain factors will lead one person to murder, while another won’t.
The harshness and incomprehensibility of certain factors in modern America, I think, can and will compound and encourage further degradation of self-imposed restraints on acceptable behavior, leading to violence, murder, or suicide at one extreme, and to apathy, indifference, and nihilism at the other extreme.
12/17/12 5:36 AM | Comment Link
Eric Hodgdon said...
20P.S. I agree with pitchfork’s 4:28 PM comment, and Lisa, and anyone else sane or insane.
12/17/12 5:43 AM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
21“We have cracked down on library books, cell phone calls, fertilizer purchases, and wearing shoes in the airport, but we have done almost nothing at the state level to make it harder for either a terrorist, garden variety armed robber, or young person to get their hands on a handgun.” –
Sarah Brady
12/17/12 12:21 PM | Comment Link
John Poole said...
22Bauer- the Aspergers fellow went shooting with his mother who was a gun fancier. He had legitimate access to handguns and also an assault type weapon. Why was she a gun fancier? That is a valid question we should be exploring. What thrill must she have gotten fondling those phallic stand ins?
12/17/12 2:14 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
23He was the not the real nut.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/mother-of-sandy-hook-gunman-adam-lanza-was-a-gun-obsessive-living-in-fear-of-societys-collapse-16251468.html
Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.
12/17/12 3:46 PM | Comment Link
Lisa said...
24Mr. Hodgdon says, “mental illness is not required to murder or make violence.” True. The murderous impulse lies within, and cannot be expurgated; religious dogma and modern laws attempt to curtail the act.
What we are being disingenuous about (in the name of being p.c.) is looking at the ways that our societal degradation and disintegration is affecting humans. We are hardwired to exist within and react to certain situations, and presumably to do so in a fairly well-adjusted or at least self-serving manner. What is coming too fast and furious is the onslaught that is current media, in all its modalities.
Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote, “Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.” That’s about the size of it.
12/17/12 7:19 PM | Comment Link
Lost in a taxi said...
25http://www.gunfacts.info/
Rather than reacting emotionally to these terrible attacks, promoting we give up our 2nd amendment rights due to the acts of a very few with mental issues, let’s try to think of doing other things that might work better to protect people from these people with mental issues.
Putting up signs saying “gun free zone” is so stupid I don’t know how else to describe it. How many of you think someone with bad intent is going to care about a sign? If you do, I have a bridge to sell you.
If your plan is to disarm everyone, exactly how do you intend to accomplish this? I can see the lines forming now. Surely all the criminals will be first to turn in their weapons. NOT!
Maybe there’s a giant magnet that can descend from the sky and grab up all the guns? I don’t think so.
We already have somewhere around 290 million guns in possession of our citizens already! They all aren’t going away, not even most of them!
We are not Australia. We are not England. We were given the 2nd amendment to be able to defend ourselves from tyranny, not to hunt for Bambi.
By the way, take a look at how well the gun bans in Australia and England are working out. Take a look at Chicago for crying out loud. They just don’t do what you might intuitively think they would do. Quite the opposite!
I only hear this idea to take our guns from people who don’t know much of anything about them. Just owning a gun or two doesn’t mean you are an expert or a 2nd amendment supporter either, so don’t start with that nonsense. There are plenty of people with “daddys” shotgun propped in the corner. They haven’t fired it in 20 years though.
Sometimes they will say they support the 2nd amendment, but then in the next sentence will say “we have to limit these assault weapons”. Assault weapons aren’t used very often at all for criminal acts, but they do get a lot of press. Perception is everything, but it doesn’t mean it’s accurate. Don’t believe me? Ask a cop or refer to the link I put at the beginning.
If you really want to save lives, if that’s the goal, we should start with banning cigarettes, booze, driving cars, then work our way down to guns which are waaaay down the list.
If conceal/carry holders cannot bring a weapon into a place due to them putting a sign up, it’s inviting the crazy people to go human hunting there. It makes no sense to me and a lot of other people too.
As far as protecting schools, why can we not reach out to our veterans and retired police for volunteers to guard our schools? Many of them are probably sitting around wondering what to do anyway and in my case I’d be glad to volunteer for something like that. We’d have to vet them of course, to make sure they haven’t done anything bad since retirement, but still, if the local govt is saying they cannot afford to pay for extra security, that’s a very affordable option and I bet you you’d get a lot of positive response from that group. It is something I think should be looked into at the very least.
In short, any place that bans guns, should provide proper security then. Stores, shopping malls, churches, schools, etc… need to be proactive to protect the people they are disarming.
We have to come to grips that the police cannot be everywhere and are mostly first responders to the crimes. People have to realize they have to take responsibility for their own defense in most cases.
Ask any police officer, when seconds count, the police are only minutes away. Very true….
12/18/12 5:19 AM | Comment Link
pitchfork said...
26ummmm…..did’nt I mention..ARMING the teachers?
well.. sooprise, sooprise, sooprise!!
I guess those texan’s ain’t as dumb as I thought.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,404721,00.html#ixzz2FMD5xNZV
12/18/12 5:47 PM | Comment Link
pitchfork said...
27quote:”If you really want to save lives, if that’s the goal, we should start with banning cigarettes, booze, driving cars, then work our way down to guns which are waaaay down the list. “unquote
No, we should start with banning politicians.
🙂
12/19/12 4:22 AM | Comment Link
Eric Hodgdon said...
28@ Lisa,
Your second paragraph is unclear. Political correctness doesn’t enter in or prohibit me, that I know of, whether you imply it to me or in general.
These murders were on the other side of the country, the reporting continues to hype the weapon, and I’ve studied military history for over 40 years – with recently re-reading ‘The Campaigns of Napoleon’ where single day battles had tens of thousands of deaths. However, let me say each death then as now impacts me more than words allow me to express. Even our Civil War contained much carnage and senselessness, from a common sense tactical point of view, but then World War One was the pinnacle of stupidity with their human wave slaughters. People today don’t comprehend the numbers in the past, because they generally don’t know history. People in today’s America are sheltered from much higher death rates of the children in the 1700s and 1800s. I’m not being callous or insensitive, however, the sensational is reported more which puts it beyond rational perspective.
Blaming the weapon lets too many off the hook of responsibility, because of the larger negative factors I see.
I’m concerned, to say the least, over these recent murders, but to a different focus, that of the reaction people have by diverting away from the reason these things happen and to blame the weapon as the problem. The weapon is only part of the problem, and much less, I think, than people want to reason with. Trying to address this topic this way is difficult.
Yes, technology advances and some advance likewise, but too many do not understand modern technology, although they use it.
12/19/12 7:12 AM | Comment Link
Lisa said...
29Eric,
I was not imputing the quality of p.c.-ness to you, but rather, society at large, a society which refuses to address the actual problems in its midst — a society which finds going on a gun rampage a much more facile way of assuaging its ego.
Like you, I do not see gun control as a solution. We are all hypocrites and like Capt. Renault say we are “shocked”. I think not.
12/20/12 9:26 PM | Comment Link