A spate of killings (Illinois Tech and NY): liberty vs. safety
As far as the recent horrific killings at Northern Illinois University go, I’ve said most of what I want to say before, here. As I wrote earlier in connection with the shootings Virginia Tech:
Yes, a gun was involved here, and would that the shooter had never had access to it. But he did, either legally or illegally [in Illinois, it was legally]. And, given that, it stands to reason it would have been a good thing had someone in that crowd of students been armed and trained, as well.
I am often reminded, of all things, of the story of Sleeping Beauty. Whatever am I talking about? Just this: you can burn all the spindles in the land, but you can never get them all. And rest assured, the ones that remain will fall into the hands of those eager to do evil.
Speaking of doing evil, there’s of course this story, as well. A man (a patient? an ex-patient? the friend/husband/lover of a patient?) stabs and hacks a NY psychologist to death, and seriously wounds her colleague.
As Dr. Helen writes, it’s surprising it doesn’t happen more often. I agree. One of the well-known hazards of the therapy trade is dealing with people who are suicidal and at risk to themselves, but another is dealing with those who might threaten others. And the “others” involved can, of course, be the therapist him/herself.
Security is often present but not always adequate:
Some therapists who see patients in private offices install alarm systems or emergency buzzers in case a patient becomes threatening. In Manhattan, many also are in buildings with doormen and video cameras.
Dr. Faughey’s building was equipped with both a doorman and a surveillance camera. They failed to help her, except perhaps now, after it is too late. The camera caught the image of the perpetrator and may help in his capture, but Dr. Faughey will unfortunately remain just as dead.
Even a buzzer in the office itself is unlikely to offer much protection if there is any sort of time lag before the police arrive. And any deterrence afforded by knowing in advance about such security arrangements probably wouldn’t be acting on the mind of a psychotic armed with a gun and who isn’t thinking rationally.
Did I write “gun?” My error. Because the Faughey murder illustrates that where there’s a will, there’s a way; guns are quite unnecessary. This murderer preferred to do his vile business the old-fashioned way. One can kill with a knife or even with a blunt object, although it’s more difficult, requires more strength, and is not suitable for mass murder of the Northern Illinois U. variety.
These cases are illustrations of the fact that safety precautions such as buzzers and cameras may deter some crimes, but to a fiercely determined murderer they are no barrier. And gun control is either a mixed bag or may even be an actual encouragement to crimes such as that in Northern Illinois; if the shooter had known there might have been hidden shooters in the crowd willing and able to take him down, would he have done what he did?
Perhaps. Since he committed suicide, it seems he wanted to die. Whether it needed to be at his own hand, or whether the hand of someone in the crowd would have done just as well for his psychological purposes, we don’t know and will probably never know. And of course, there’s no guarantee that allowing certain approved and licensed students to carry concealed weapons wouldn’t lead to further shootings; although there’s some evidence that it might in fact deter them.
There’s a report that the Illinois shooter recently went off his medications, and this may have been a factor in his rampage. Again, what’s the remedy? He was an adult of twenty-seven, and we can’t compel adults to take their medications without compromising liberty to a completely unacceptable degree.
Our desire for freedom and our quest for safety are always in an ever-shifting and somewhat uneasy equilibrium. We want both, and we need both. But people will continue to differ and argue about where to draw the line.
As the wise authors of our Constitution seemed to know. the possession of firearms is necessary for liberty. Human nature being what it is, they are also incompatible with total safety (an impossible goal, anyway), although they can also help us maintain safety when in the right hands. But then, this is true of all weapons.
[ADDENDUM: News that the medication the Illinois shooter had stopped taking seems to have been an antidepressant.]
That was even-handed and fair.
Guns don’t kill people. People ‘off their meds’ kill people.
You might recall, Neo, that we did a podcast on the day of the VT shootings.
It is a relevant today as it was last year.
http://pajamasmedia.com/2007/04/sanity_squad_what_went_wrong_a.php
It is true that the knowledge of possible guns amongst the victims won’t deter the determined and desperate, but in all these spree killings one undeniable common factor is the sooner that rounds are placed on target in the shooter, the fewer casualties that shooter can create and almost universally the only thing that stops the shooter is a bullet, either from their own weapon or another’s.
First thought: As long as violent people have guns, non-violent people will need guns to defend themselves. Yes, non-violent people with guns is an apparent contradiction. Welcome to real life.
Second thought: Although guns can make violent people more violent, they cannot make non-violent people more violent. Firing a weapon at tin cans and paper targets does not addict one to violence. Context and character are everything.
There simply is no satisfactory conclusion to this debate. We all know the issues inside and out and nobody’s really budging. The best we can do is mourn our losses and keep trying. Has life ever been any different?
> “He was an adult of twenty-seven, and we can’t > compel adults to take their medications without
> compromising liberty to a completely
> unacceptable degree.”
We can’t? Yes, we can. Absolutely yes.
Liberty assumes the capacity to make rational decisions. Absent the capacity for rational thought, one has no claim to liberty and no moral responsibility.
A shark cannot be free, it simply swims, eats and makes baby sharks.
Leaving that aside, one’s right to be insane ends when they might become a danger to me. People who wish to be insane have no such right because they will inevitably impose costs on me in the forms of increased taxes to support and treat them, as welll as creating physical danger.
The police arrived at the hall within 3 minutes of being called. That’s a remarkably fast response time. But as we can see, it’s never ever going to be fast enough.
Someone armed could have stopped some of the killing, but not all (there are the moments of shock when this kind of thing happens – it’s human nature to freeze).
I’m waiting for a shooter to walk into one of these situations and a student who is carrying without permission, defends the class. It will be interesting to see the fall out from something like that.
In the meantime, I wonder if Vo-Tech schools are getting more kids enrolling. It would seem to be a far safer environment!
Chris: but there’s no indication that, prior to this event, the shooter was doing anything “insane.” We don’t know what the meds were, but my guess is they were not anti-psychotics probably something like anti-depressants.
In our Sanity Squad podcast of April 18, 2007 we discuss the issues involved with the earlier shootings. Then, perhaps even more relevant to your comment, is this Sanity Squad podcast about involuntary commitment.
Chris wrote: “Liberty assumes the capacity to make rational decisions. Absent the capacity for rational thought, one has no claim to liberty and no moral responsibility.”
There’s a bit more than that involved in liberty. Liberty must also assume, absent due cause and process, a parity of rationality within the citizenry. We can’t just snatch someone up and see if they’re rational enough to suit us.
I’m not sure there is a right to be insane, and I’m pretty certain no one wishes to be insane. That’s nearly a contradiction of terms. But if you’re going to limit liberty on the basis of who might become a danger to you, you’re going to have to give up on the idea of liberty. For my part, I’ll side with Benjamin Franklin.
DuMaurier-Smith: You might want to listen to that Sanity Squad podcast on involuntary commitment, as well. These are issues the mental health community has had to wrestle with for a long time.
Saw this elsewhere – “When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.”
About 10 years ago, there was a wire story that was in a number of newspapers, comparing the murder rate, per 100,000, of modern cities to cities in the 1300 and 1400’s. The murder rate was 2 to 3 times higher back then. Somehow, I don’t think it was the ready availability of “Saturday Night Specials.”
neo-neocon: Thanks. Been there, done that. And I’m somewhat damaged goods. I had a long conversation with Thomas Szaz years ago that convinced me to be at least suspicious of the convenience of the labeling “mental illness,” a la the medical model. There is no doubt in my mind that schizophrenia, for example, is a biochemical disorder, and that there are indeed people who need to be committed for their own good as well as for the good of society. But when it comes to diagnosing the disease from aberrant behavior–which relies so heavily upon social norms–I’d choose to err on the side of civil liberties.
Were I to reconcile the real and the ideal, I’d need to admit that respect for civil liberties count for less than turkey snot when the therapist is in a courtroom with rapacious D.A.s demanding to know why this lunatic was allowed to run free. But as you and I both at least suspect, the courtroom has long been more governed by sophistry than rationality.
This is why colleagues and I started the “Librarian Gun Club”
nyomythus: may I suggest David Hardy’s site, http://www.armsandthelaw.com/
Also http://volokh.com/ and http://www.instapundit.com/
all of which are legal scholars on 2A issues.
And we see which side you come down. The mass shootings of students in classrooms around the country on a fairly regular basis is of modest concern when compared to the fundamental “right” to own guns.
Does it bother anyone here at all that mass shootings are becoming a fairly regular occurrence? If terrorists could walk onto buses, blow themselves up and kill a six to ten people or so on a regular basis (say 2-3 times a year) can you imagine what commentators here would be saying we should do about that? And yet young men and women are killed on a regular basis by legally acquired handguns, and for that we shrug our shoulders and leap to a knee-jerk defense of the almighty Second Amendment?
Interesting indeed. I’m sure many parents will be pleased to know that the only way their sons and daughters can possibly be safe in a campus setting is if they carry their own weapons. I can’t wait until the day my son grows up and I can send him off to school with his books, supplies…and a sidearm.
Xanthippas:
You seem to have much more attitude than information, much too much to be talking about knee-jerk reactions. You should do some research on the subject. For starters, class room shootings are quite rare, in spite of the media craze for such lurid events. Your son will be far more likely (perhaps 10,000 times more likely) to be killed in traffic than in a class room. That is why, though I and others think allowing licensed adult carry of firearms in schools is generally good policy, I wouldn’t argue for it; it doesn’t seem to me very necessary. Both of us might change our minds if one of our family were in a gun-free zone while some murderer safely moved about choosing and executing people at will.
Better a gun in the hand than a cop on the phone.
But, you see, Xan is concerned for the welfare of others. Just ask him about the average Iraqi and how much better off they are abandoned to random violence that is much more certain.
Even if concealed gun permits were easy to obtain, only small minority would use it, say, 5%. But this is quite enough for public protection, especially because those few who decide to exercise this right woud tend to be gun enthusiasts, regulary training and preparing themselves for such occasions. And almost everywhere, in any class or another public place, there will be armed and prepared first responders. See them as volunteer militia of concerned citizens. No society can be safe without some proportion of vigilant citizens, always ready to act in emergency and much larger in overall numbers than any affordable police force.
Ex-soldiers using their educational benefits can provide exellent core of this voluntary force, especially those with actual combat experience. They are disciplined, trained and would hardly “freese” in moments of danger: they have different reflexes than young peoples without military background.
shooter was doing anything “insane.”
Are all the criminals have “insane” behaviors with their characters?
I wonder? Or this the common and formal claims quite often put forward about criminal to give them legal immunity of full punishment and sentence?
I wound if those US solders in Iraq have any insane” before so that they did torturing killing and raping Iraqis.
I just wonder how much of this over the top violence we will one day figure out belongs at least partially on the shoulders of an amoral media machine.
Godless people disseminating information for ratings value ruin a lot more lives than any nutcase with a handgun ever thought about.
And someone please tell me why the media still chooses to print the names of these attention seeking whackos.
When seconds count, police are only minutes way. Trust your firearm.
More guns in responsible hands of, or in defense of, the victims is analogous to Operation Iraqi Freedom, should we watch the other Security Council nations assist Saddam in looting an important Arab nation (legislators), corollary of which was leading to the civil implosion of that failed state … the violence would have been much worse. No more war pigs have the power … we need more neoconservative intellectuals on the state levels … unfortunately, you very often get a paucity of the ‘intellectual’ and an premium of the ‘conservative’ … which often comes with to much of the vice of faith-based reasoning.
I forget who said this:
“A well-educated electorate, being necessary to the self-governance of a free state, the right of the people to keep and
read books shall not be infringed.”
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.
The primary grammatical and philosophical question about the Second Amendment remains the relationship between the first phrase and the second. What connection, if any, does the right of ‘the People to keep and bear arms’ have to ‘a well regulated militia’ and the ‘security of a fee State’? To what degree do we attempt to understand the original intent of the Founding Fathers and the practical, legal and military situation at the time of its writing versus the bare language of the amendment itself? Unfortunately, Second Amendment absolutists have a tendency to ignore the first clause completely. Anyone suggesting, for example, that those who would ‘keep and bear arms’ should be ‘well regulated’ is accused of ‘infringing’ on that right.
Why shouldn’t we insist upon, at the very least, a degree of control similar to the one we expect from our Departments of Motor Vehicles regarding the licensing of drivers and registration of vehicles? We accept that a driver needs to be of a certain age and pass tests that demonstrate their proficiency behind the wheel and understanding of the laws pertaining to operating a motor vehicle before they can get a license, which must be kept current, that allow them to operate certain classes of motor vehicles. Drivers of different classes of vehicles need different licensing to assure that they have the knowledge and capability to operate them. Those vehicles must in turn be registered and maintained and are subject to periodic inspection. The types of vehicles allowed on our roads are also not unlimited. Where one can drive their vehicle is also subject to certain limitations. I’ve never heard anyone making the case that these regulations are an undue infringement on our right to own and drive cars.
Well totalitarianism can’t not exist, because it’s way to much work for it, where there exist a free thinking, armed population … Stalin would have stayed in seminar school and become just another bitter old virgin priest.
Chris White: It’s tough to carry the argument you want to make; the constitutional law scholars are mostly agreed that the 2A protects an individual right–even the very liberal Lawrence Tribe. And note that the right belongs to the people, not the state, and not the militia. All the phrasing says is that because a well trained militia is a good thing, the right of the people to keep and bear arms necessary to that training shall not be infringed uupon by the government. (“Regulated” meant trained in the use of arms.) And why, in a series of amendments protecting the civil rights that the citizens insisted they already had and were not the government’s to grant, would you write an amendment with the reverse effect? And why would it have ever been adopted?
Oh, and Chris . . . we don’t have a right to own and drive cars. As civil liberties go, owning and driving cars doesn’t rank up there with self defence. And believe it or not, bearing arms in the framer’s days was a part of the sovereignty of the citizen–a social status equalizer. And that historical sovereignty is why Americans have the right to defend themselves while British subjects have no such right.
Why shouldn’t we insist upon, at the very least, a degree of control similar to the one we expect from our Departments of Motor Vehicles regarding the licensing of drivers and registration of vehicles? We accept that a driver needs to be of a certain age and pass tests that demonstrate their proficiency behind the wheel and understanding of the laws pertaining to operating a motor vehicle before they can get a license, which must be kept current, that allow them to operate certain classes of motor vehicles.
Would you put people through that kind of regulation to cast a ballot in an election?
After all, in America, more can be changed with a vote than a bullet.
If you don’t trust Americans with guns, why do you trust them to vote, that is the crux of the matter.
Besides, Chris, your specious argument has been covered and recovered:
I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials.”
– George Mason, in Debates in Virginia Convention on
Ratification of the Constitution, Elliot, Vol. 3, June 16, 1788
I can’t wait until the day my son grows up and I can send him off to school with his books, supplies…and a sidearm.
What’s wrong with that?
That’s how I went to college. That’s how my son is going to go to college.
Grow up. You and the rest of the flaky lefties, just grow up: You are responsible for your own safety. Why is that so difficult to understand?
This is a dumb argument, anyhow. What are you going to do about the guns? Come get them?
>neo-neocon Says: “Chris: but there’s no indication that, prior to this event, the shooter was doing anything “insane.” We don’t know what the meds were, but my guess is they were not anti-psychotics probably something like anti-depressants.”
Chris says: I was speaking of general principles. I don’t know if the shooter was obviously insane or on anti-psychotics. But, we do have every right to ensure that psychotic people take their medicine, for their own sake as well as ours.
> DuMaurier-Smith Says: “There’s a bit more than that involved in liberty.”
Chris says: I was naming a necessary, not sufficient, condition.
If I said that making a cake requires eggs, that doesn’t mean that only eggs are necessary.
> DuMaurier-Smith Says: “Liberty must also assume, absent due cause and process, a parity of rationality within the citizenry. We can’t just snatch someone up and see if they’re rational enough to suit us.”
Chris says: I would respond to that if I knew what it meant.
> DuMaurier-Smith Says: “’m not sure there is a right to be insane, and I’m pretty certain no one wishes to be insane.”
Chris says: Nonsense. There are 6+ billion people in the world. Some of them want to be crazy. Or, at the very least, they would rather be crazy than take certain medicines.
> DuMaurier-Smith Says: “But if you’re going to limit liberty on the basis of who might become a danger to you, you’re going to have to give up on the idea of liberty.”
Chris says: Again, nonsense. We already do it all the time. That is, we institutionalize people who are an imminent danger to themselves or others. Always have; I hope that we always will.
> DuMaurier-Smith Says: “For my part, I’ll side with Benjamin Franklin.”
Chris says: A great bumper sticker. Not very sound policy. We all sacrifice certain freedoms for security. Indeed, we cannot help but make such tradeoffs. The only question is: What tradeoffs do we make?
Chris says: Again, nonsense. We already do it all the time. That is, we institutionalize people who are an imminent danger to themselves or others. Always have; I hope that we always will.
and Conservatives have shown themselves to be an imminent danger to themselves, the Iraqi people and the planet and must be locked up.
OR, you’ll like this one:
Anyone so crazy as to believe in Allah over Jesus is a danger to themselves and and the Homeland and must be locked up for their, and our, own good.
OR, you’ll totally dig this one:
Any woman going to an abortuary is a danger to her unborn child, as well as herself from the inhuman procedure, and must be locked up for the good of the child until she delivers.
So, what’s to prevent those from happening?
As usual, it turns out there’s more to this guy’s past than was reported at first. He had self-control issues when he was a teen and spent some time in some kind of in-patient treatment center.
Which means: A policy requiring background checks to include psychiatric history might have prevented this guy from acquiring his firearms legally. Nobody can say whether the extra difficulty of buying an illegal gun (assuming it is more difficult) would have deterred him.
Chris wrote:
> DuMaurier-Smith Says: “But if you’re going to limit liberty on the basis of who might become a danger to you, you’re going to have to give up on the idea of liberty.”
>Chris says: Again, nonsense. We already do it all the time. That is, we institutionalize people who are an imminent danger to themselves or others. Always have; I hope that we always will.
Don’t change the terms Chris. You wrote “Leaving that aside, one’s right to be insane ends when they might become a danger to me.”
“Might become a danger” is light years away from being “an imminent danger.” And I leave aside the idea that a right to be insane makes any kind of sense.
“What’s wrong with that?”…sir, you answer your own question.
I’m glad that being worried about the safety of my children makes me a “flaky” lefty. That ought to put about 80% of America’s parents on my side of the aisle.
And how exactly are we all “responsible” for our own safety, when we all pay taxes for police and the military to protect us? Would you prefer we disband the military and police, hand the guns out to everybody and tell them they’re on their own?
Really, I don’t see why anybody has to buy a gun just to have a chance at defending themselves from a psycho mass murderer. That you think that’s an unreasonable proposition says a lot about the twisted discourse revolving around guns in this country.
And no, I don’t want your stupid guns. There appear to plenty in the world for the taking.
I have plenty of both, thank you. Yes, class room shootings are “rare”, except when you happen to believe that such horrific killings shouldn’t happen at all. And yes, I’m quite aware that the odds of getting killed in traffic are greater than the odds of being killed in a mass shooting, die in a airplane crash, drown at sea…and be killed by a terrorist. And yet the very thought that we could be killed by terrorists prompts some on the right to propose that we invade other countries and actively kill other people (and our own people in the process) simply to prevent this possibility. But kids get killed in class, and we get stats on how much more likely it is to die in traffic. Count me among the non-comforted.
As for your scenario…well, there’s little doubt that were one of my family members trapped in that scenario, I’d wish very much for them to be armed. But I’d wish much more that the psycho shooting at them had never gotten that gun in the first place, since that removes all possibility of my loved one being killed by a nut.
Really, I don’t see why anybody has to buy a gun just to have a chance at defending themselves from a psycho mass murderer
No, of course you don’t.
> DuMaurier-Smith Says: “Might become a danger”
> is light years away from being “an imminent
> danger.” And I leave aside the idea that a right
> to be insane makes any kind of sense.
Sorry there chief. Not changing terms. There are two questions: 1) Current policy on such involuntary commitments; 2) What policy on involuntary treatment should be.
I’ve commented on both of them.
1) What we do now: Lock people up who pose an imminent danger to themselves or others.
2) What we should do: Require sick people who might reasonably become a danger to take their medicine.
I am simply advocating a somewhat less strict standard than currently used, a standard that would allow us to protect society from the likes of the VT killer and perhaps the more recent case–although the relevant history there isn’t known.
You might leave aside the idea that there is a right to be insane but I assure you that many people do not. They think that it is a dandy idea.
> Gray Says: So, what’s to prevent those from
> happening?
The fact that society makes reasonable distinctions based on evidence. For example, self-defense laws typically require the threatened person to feel in imminent danger of death or serious bodily injury to use deadly force. (And be unable to retreat in most cases.) Deciding whether self-defense is justified is a judgement call and police, prosecutors and juries make it all the time.
We use judgement based on the facts.
Clearly liberals think conservatives are a danger and conservatives think liberals are a danger and they both agree that adolescent libertarians are a danger. (No offense intended.)
But making sick people get better isn’t the first step to a police state. It is the common sense that we lost about 40 years ago.
Now go clean the sand out of your shorts. It is making you irritable.
Chris: If you listen to the Sanity Squad podcast on involuntary commitment, you’ll see how incredibly difficult that process has become.
I’m glad that being worried about the safety of my children makes me a “flaky” lefty.
Worrying about your ideological purity instead of valuing the protection and safety of actual human lives, is what makes you a flaky leftist.
It is all about priorities. You have your priorities reversed.
And I leave aside the idea that a right to be insane makes any kind of sense.
That describes the entire triangle of National Socialism, Democratic Socialism, and Communism to a T. They have a right to be insane, so long as they don’t actually implement any of their programs. Of course in reality, they still have a right to insanity and to spreading insanity around just because.
And how exactly are we all “responsible” for our own safety, when we all pay taxes for police and the military to protect us?
The police ain’t around to protect you. There’s something called the Bill of Rights that prevents police from executing criminals and preventing crime, you know. The military is around to protect people from foreign enemies, not criminals. Which is kind of obvious given how many criminals have offed Marines and Army soldiers without a peep of retaliation from the military.
Really, I don’t see why anybody has to buy a gun just to have a chance at defending themselves from a psycho mass murderer.
You don’t need a gun. You need a spine for that.
But I’d wish much more that the psycho shooting at them had never gotten that gun in the first place, since that removes all possibility of my loved one being killed by a nut.
No, it doesn’t. You think just because you remove a gun from a person, he can’t kill you? Stop deceiving yourself. There is no 100% guarantee that you or anyone else will be safe. “Removes all possibility”, you just go on and keep thinking that. It’ll make it easier on the rest of us when you get targeted.
The problem we have with socialist utopia believers is that we don’t think wishing somehow that we can change the past so that we make sure they “had never gotten that gun in the first place” is something useful to protecting actual human lives. Wishing is not going to save anybody. Doing something, that will have a higher chance of saving somebody. And since we value human life more than we value ideological or political theories, X, we don’t really care what you say about your 100% guarantees. You ain’t going to 100% guarantee our life back if we lose it because of your flawed product.
That’s your problem. We think the only one we can trust with the protection of our life, in the end, is us. You think you can entrust somebody to “guarantee” your life. I don’t think so. Not even parents can guarantee that their children won’t be kidnapped and killed. I sure as heck ain’t accepting your guarantee for my life or the life of my loved ones. Same goes for the police and government.
Here’s a link for folks interested in getting a little something more effective than alarms and guarantees from the police and govmint.
Link
You won’t be interested in this, X, because frankly you were given the right to life but nobody said you had to take it.
You may even be on the verge of thinking that us having guns and the knowledge to use violence is a threat to you. When you get to that point, X, let us know.
Because the Faughey murder illustrates that where there’s a will, there’s a way; guns are quite unnecessary.
Quite obvious to folks that have studied how to kill with bare hands, Neo. Target Focus Training is just one of many training programs to help people do that. Although most of them are for the military and the Special Forces. They just don’t let the civilians have the good stuff. The real deal. Most self-defense programs are worried about getting sued, you know.
Check this google video out for some actual samples of the training
And yet young men and women are killed on a regular basis by legally acquired handguns, and for that we shrug our shoulders and leap to a knee-jerk defense of the almighty Second Amendment?
I don’t see you crying a river over people being killed by legally acquired cars and political slogans, X.
It is kind of obvious you really don’t give a damn about who gets killed, so long as someone promises that your life won’t be in danger. I am pretty sure we can take care of your problems without limiting anyone else’s right to their own life.
Why shouldn’t we insist upon, at the very least, a degree of control similar to the one we expect from our Departments of Motor Vehicles regarding the licensing of drivers and registration of vehicles?-Chris White
Guns are already licensed. They are called carry licenses or concealed carry licenses. Why are you making arguments based upon stuff that is totally irrelevant to what you really want to do?
The only real reason for you to do so is because you want more. Pro-gun restriction folks want more than the status quo, because they see that people can still choose amongst firearms that have been proven capable of equalizing the playing field between criminal and citizen. By ensuring that citizens have a harder time qualifying for self-protection, inevitably citizens will be forced to go along with your United Nations, International agreement and new world order plan, Chris White.
I, on the other, don’t believe people should be forced into making decisions and backing government policy because they have been intimidated into it with force by either the government or their supporters.
I’ve never heard anyone making the case that these regulations are an undue infringement on our right to own and drive cars.
That’s because you don’t care about whether anyone’s car actually gets confiscated or not. And of course, you haven’t been listening to Californian Mexican illegal alien driver license proponents, either. But none of that really matters, since you believe the government should have the right to decide for everyone how they should live their lives. That the US cannot just decide for themselves, amongst nations, how to defend themselves. That there must be communion and debate with everybody else. That I have to meet the government’s standards and thoughts for what I should or can do.
As a basic philosophy, it is not my cup of opc, ChrisW. And I suspect it will always be a fundamental dichotomy, like small states vs large states.
neo: We don’t know what the meds were, but my guess is they were not anti-psychotics probably something like anti-depressants.
I’m betting on anti-psychotics, but why do we even have to bet?
Does anyone know what meds Cho was on?
You’re exactly right. I bought a handgun for home defense a few years ago, took a beginner’s firearms course, and applied for and received a concealed carry permit. Yet so far I have never carried in public, even though I can legally do so.
The fact that society makes reasonable distinctions based on evidence. For example, self-defense laws typically require the threatened person to feel in imminent danger of death or serious bodily injury to use deadly force. (And be unable to retreat in most cases.) Deciding whether self-defense is justified is a judgement call and police, prosecutors and juries make it all the time.
Bzzzzt. Not even close to what the question was about. We were talking about involuntary committment, not self defense.
Do you think you can defend yourself through involuntarily committing the people who want to hurt you?
How could you conflate self defense and involuntary committment!?
That’s just weird….
There appear to plenty in the world for the taking.
Molon labe.
The problem of involuntary commitment is a very complicated. Under Communist rule this procedure was widely abused by various government bodies, fist of all, by secret political police (KGB) to suppress religious and political dissidents; it was a “punitive psychiatry”, and it use such diagnosis as “slowly developing shizophrenia” as a reason for hospitalisation, while this condition may be completely devoid of any obvious psychotic symptoms. After collapse of communism a new legislation was enacted, which made almost impossible to hospitalize anybody inviluntary before this person actually commit some heinous crime, even if for any decent psychiatrist it was obvious that this person quite capable to do it. Only after actual suicide attempt persons with acute depression could be hospitalized involuntary, and for many of them this was too late.
How to find some middle ground between these two extremal approaches – preventive action based on reasonable suspicion, and post-factum reaction, is still unclear.
I’m glad DuMaurier-Smith was able to clear up, in two brief comments, all of the lingering questions and controversies regarding the Second Amendment and the true intent of the Framers. Why don’t we just suspend the Supreme Court, or at least remove certain questions regarding particular clauses and amendments, like the SA, from their consideration, since all their work has been definitively completed?
I particularly appreciate the line of reasoning – seemingly supportive of the unrestricted (unregulated) right of the People to bear arms — that says these issues are now beyond question based on the fact that “constitutional law scholars are mostly agreed that the 2A protects an individual right.” It does leaves me a bit curious as to why similar arguments regarding, say, the way climate scientists are mostly agreed about anthropogenic climate change get such short shrift around here. And then there remains that grammatical/legalistic conundrum of equating “the People” a collective noun I believe, with “the individual.”
One wonders how British subjects survive the horrors of strict gun control laws and (perhaps worse) socialized medicine, not to mention public education through the University level. How do they stand it? After we’re finished in Iraq we should consider freeing the Brits from such tyranny. When we’re done we can liberate some other nations suffering this dire fate, like Sweden and Norway. I’m sure they’ll be happier when their murder rate (a sign of freedom) begins to rival ours.
And as an aside, Neo, as a therapist do you think that Ymasakar comments indicate a degree of paranoia and fantasy projection that might indicate he is in need of therapeutic assistance or intervention? It is both fascinating and a bit frightening to discover that in his mind I am an advocate for some kind of totalitarian new world order under the yoke of the U.N. because I am not a Second Amendment absolutist. I try not to assume that any given specific comment reveals an entire philosophical, political world-view. I figure there are a nearly as many individual world-views as there are individuals, not that there are a limited handful of all encompassing belief systems from which we must choose.
Why don’t we just suspend the Supreme Court, or at least remove certain questions regarding particular clauses and amendments, like the SA, from their consideration, since all their work has been definitively completed?
Again, the only thing that matters is what you want to force on people, ChrisW. What people think about the Supreme Court or you, doesn’t really matter to you. So why should it matter to us that you are complaining about them?
It is both fascinating and a bit frightening to discover that in his mind I am an advocate for some kind of totalitarian new world order under the yoke of the U.N. because I am not a Second Amendment absolutist.
Whether you like or don’t like the Second Amendment has nothing to do with it. If supporting it could help you out, you would do it. If not supporting it helps you out, you would do that too. I am under no illusion of having accused you of obtaining principles concerning America and the US Constitution, ChrisW.
Instead of addressing the factual and reasonable arguments put forth by folks, you choose to take it to another level and frame everything in terms of how it is wrong because you are the righteous and dignified party. You aren’t righteous, Chris, and there’s nothing in the US Constitution that will ever change what you are, either way.
I figure there are a nearly as many individual world-views as there are individuals, not that there are a limited handful of all encompassing belief systems from which we must choose.
You’ve been commenting here for awhile. It is pointless to act as if your beliefs aren’t transparent here.
You want to know what you really think about those “diverse” and global world-views you are talking about?
Why don’t we just suspend the Supreme Court, or at least remove certain questions regarding particular clauses and amendments, like the SA, from their consideration, since all their work has been definitively completed?-ChrisW
How do they stand it? After we’re finished in Iraq we should consider freeing the Brits from such tyranny.-ChrisW
For someone that thinks there are a multitude of views, you sure act like you know them all. Or maybe you only know your own views and extrapolate them to be everyone else’s.
Chris White: I’m glad you found my post helpful. You won’t believe this, but some, lacking adequate information to debate the issues would have tried sarcasm and snide responses.
Perhaps I can help you still more. Try to avoid these loose associative linkages that involve you in trying to argue Bill of Rights issues as parallel to problems of climate. You won’t believe this either, but there are those on the list who might take that as a deficiency in rational thought and want to lock you up for their safety.
I do, however, find your parsing of Bill of Rights terms fascinating in its implications. That the term “people” can only be a collective noun is a novel idea. Few would be brave enough to ignore all the historical evidence that the Bill of Rights was to protect individual rights. Consider: ” The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated . . . .” Think of what your discovery means! No individual right! All those cases dismissed because of illegal searches must be tried again! And since “people” is a collective noun, only those searches which were collective would be legal. Amazing. Of course, we might run into difficulty trying to define that collective–how many searches at a time must there be to be a collective: a town? a state? a nation? Never mind. It’ll put an end to criminals getting off on technicalities. Freedom of speech rights will be still more interesting. As freedom of speech can be protected only in instances of something like “choral speech.” Here again, problems of defining how many people define a collective arise, but I’m sure you’ll figure that out with the same cool logic and reason you’ve demonstrated in your posts. Still, it does nag at me a bit. Must they all be saying the same thing to be this collective organism “the people?” If they were saying different things, even while all talking together, wouldn’t protecting all them then be protecting individuals? Ah well, as I say. I’m sure you have it all worked out.
Finally, England ISN”T doing all that well. Haven’t you been following the exponential crime rate increase since the last draconian round of anti-gun laws? Australia’s experience has been the same.
But again, do try to stay focused; Brit medicine and education are different issues. As you’ve asked neo for an arm-chair diagnosis of Ymasakar, perhaps you can ask as well what it means when one’s logical train of thought keeps being broken up by irrelevant affective linkages.
And how exactly are we all “responsible” for our own safety, when we all pay taxes for police and the military to protect us?
Spoken like a true sheep. Gutless wonder. Back in your playpen, baby. Let the grownups handle this.
Were the “people” disarmed at the time the 2nd ammend was written? Were the “people” in the process of being disarmed at the time the 2nd ammend was written? Were the “people” subsequently disarmed not long after the 2nd ammend was written?
I’d say if the 2nd ammend words aren’t specific enough, then the actions of those who wrote the words might be a good place to fall back on.
I’ll admit it is a bit risky to shoot off a quick comment before morning coffee. As Ymasakar notes I have commented here before and, over time, dropped my initial and more natural, ‘here’s my opinion, perhaps one might consider’ tone and adopted the sarcastic ‘if you don’t agree with me you’re an idiot, a troll or a treasonous b*st*rd’ attitude that tends to dominate here. Sorry.
It is always perplexing to consider where the optimal balance points ought to be between individual liberties and collective benefits such as security, especially in those areas explicitly discussed in the Constitution and the various Amendments. In light of the recent campus shootings it is being discussed here and elsewhere in terms of the Second Amendment. We also see it playing out in terms of warrant-less surveillance at the moment. There are individual rights absolutists who believe such warrant-less surveillance is never permissible and those whose concern for our collective security is such that they are strongly in favor of aggressive surveillance of all sorts without the impediments of warrants and judicial oversight. It would not be a surprise to find someone posting here who is a passionate Second Amendment rights advocate, who believes every individual’s right to bear arms should be total, yet who also believes that the threats we face from various enemies trumps the right of individuals ” to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures … ” Holding these two views simultaneously might be considered contradictory, but if comments I’ve read here are anything to go on, not beyond being plausible.
Whether the NIU or Virginia Tech shooters should (or could) have been denied access to the weapons they used, or whether a dozen students carrying concealed side arms might have cut them down before they could harm any innocent victims, are merely theoretical jumping off points for advancing the discussion. Points of balance shift with the times, public opinion, new legislation and the make-up of the Supreme Court; so count me among those who believe simultaneously in the right of individuals to bear arms, but who do not see that right as all encompassing and absolute.
Chris White: It does leaves me a bit curious as to why similar arguments regarding, say, the way climate scientists are mostly agreed about anthropogenic climate change get such short shrift around here.
Could it perhaps be that, 1] consensus has nothing at all to do with science, 2] that whatever consensus there is is actually against AGW science, because, 3] the ipcc Climate Scientists are not proceeding scientifically to begin with?
Chris, go check out how the ipcc does its “science” for yourself. But if you are not aware enough as to how science is actually done to make this evaluation, why even bother to wonder why those of us who are are acquainted with how science is done see and say that the ipcc is not doing it? Iow, this question simply might not be up your alley.
p.s., Chris: I was certifiably stunned to find out, starting back in 2000, that the ipcc is not doing science. Up until then I had presumed that the ipcc must be doing science and that the science was likely producing valid conclusions, under the otherwise reasonable logic that no bunch of “scientists” would not do science. This presumption turned out to be wrong – granted also that it’s hardly any of the scientists the ipcc only claims as its own who actually go rocketing off into space in writing the ipcc AR’s.
But apart from the horrendous flaws found in the ipcc’s practice of its “science” itself once you start to look at it, here’s one more-general scientific/rational argument, which nearly anyone can understand, which suggests that the controlling ipcc members, process, and their “conclusions” are deeply suspect from a scientific/rational point of view:
Why did the ipcc intentionally design its Kyoto Protocols so that they couldn’t possibly work – simply by excluding Countries containing 5 billion of the Earth’s 6.5 billion people from having to follow them?
Why allow Countries such as India and China to go hell-bent-for-leather towards producing as much coal-fired CO2 as possible, if the ipcc does in fact believe its own “science”, including, of course the necessary “disaster” from Global Warming?
One might even wonder if the ipcc isn’t essentially encouraging the very conditions it says it wants to prevent according to its own “science”.
But how is any of that “scientific”?
Chris White: Thank you for that post. Now we can look at our agreements. I’m as probably as fanatically absolute on freedom of speech rights as anyone you’ll ever meet, but I don’t think even that right is absolute. An absolute individual right includes the right to harm others. No right can go that far. However, the harm or potential harm that is invoked to limit a civil right must be rational and highly probable. Too often the invoked harm is predicated on emotional rather then empirically demonstrable principles. For example, there were a host of incitement (sedition) prosecutions launched against opponents to WW I, primarily because England and America were scared witless by the German propaganda machine. The Germans were so scientific, it had to be dangerous. Besides, it made people angry–especially those running the draft–to hear dissidents proposing draft resistence. The idea that speech causes behavior is about like believing in spells and witchcraft. (A lot of money was lost on advertising before producers got smart and realized they couldn’t persuade people to buy what they didn’t want. Better to do research on what they want and make it.) Nevertheless, people went to jail for uttering those “dangerous” ideas, just as they did in the fifties during the cold war scare.
Those of us who believe in the 2A as an individual right have endured much of that same atmosphere for several decades. Blood will run in the streets if licenced carry is legal. It didn’t; quite the contrary, crime rates may have decreased. Blood will run on the campus if guns are allowed where all the drinking and carousing goes on. It didn’t; there are now several campuses where state courts have ruled that universities must follow state law regarding the carry of concealed weapons. Last I heard, there have now been all together sixty semesters of campus carry without a single incident.
No one I’ve known–and I’ve known some wild ones–believed that the 2A is absolute. Even the crazies get nervous about their neighbor with fissionable materials in the basement. But I think all do believe that to limit the 2A right requires the same rational demonstration of harm as any other civil right–and certainly not because someone has a dream of a gun free world or a phobia of guns.
1
Whether the NIU or Virginia Tech shooters should (or could) have been denied access to the weapons they used, or whether a dozen students carrying concealed side arms might have cut them down before they could harm any innocent victims, are merely theoretical jumping off points for advancing the discussion.
Utopia and total government restrictions on human actions are theoretical, because they can never be implemented given human nature or the tools at our disposal.
The use of a labor saving tool of violence, such as a firearm, has demonstrated its ability to boost a citizen’s ability to defend themselves, their family, their neighbors, and their civilization from threats that are not part of the societal framework citizens agree to abide.
When I said to some guy and that other folk about them being insane, I do not mean it as a mental condition. I mean it as a literal description of a person’s ability to perceive reality. They perceive reality to be different than I do. For example, you would see something as being theoretical and not physically present, such as how violence works to defeat violence, but that view of reality does not apply to me. Since that’s not my reality. That is yours.
It’s not a fundamental disagreement on policy, because theoretically you could want the same thing I want. It is not a disagreement over details, because the real disagreement is over what is real and not real.
Finally, England isn’t doing all that well.
The problem is that people see murders by firearms as being a fundamentally different thing than increased violence, crime, and armed break ins.
As X said, they are willing and eager to allow only criminals to have guns, if this means it is only slighter harder for a Virginia Tech to occur. That’s a gamble they wish to make. But it is not a gamble everybody wishes to make. That’s why we have ca[s]i[n]os.
In the end, Chris is talking about murder rate by firearms, which does decrease, and you are talking about crimes in aggregate, which does increase.
Ah well, as I say. I’m sure you have it all worked out.
Still, you made a good persuasive point. To folks like me, if not to ChrisW.
Spoken like a true sheep. Gutless wonder. Back in your playpen, baby. Let the grownups handle this.
That’s what he is doing, Bugs. After all, if Democrats are against gun laws, and if X is for Democrats and the Left in their policies, then technically isn’t Xan letting the grown ups handle things?
so count me among those who believe simultaneously in the right of individuals to bear arms, but who do not see that right as all encompassing and absolute.
It is very easy to be for something when you aren’t interested in actually using it to do anything positive for human life. Anybody can sit on the fence and spectate. That has nothing to do with whether the government has a right to tell people how they should protect themselves when the government is either incapable of doing so or would violate individual freedoms to do so.
Your thoughts on FISA, wireless monitoring of internet and phone calls being routed through the United States tele-communication hubs, and NASA word searches is due to your belief that you think it just can’t both be done well and legally. As a result, you end up favoring more civil legal protections at the expense of efficiency. That’s fine for you since you can sit on the fence and go anyway in which you feel like going, but it is going to be much harder for other human beings that end up dead, because of your policies, to change their route in life as a consequence. You cannot expect other people to sacrifice their right to life and a future simply because you don’t wish the political party in power to “overbalance’ your neat little setup.
Even the crazies get nervous about their neighbor with fissionable materials in the basement.
Not to mention the neat little botulism you can cook up just with spoiled meat and a dark enclosed place to bottle it up.
Botulism is also what botox is made from. One wonders when terrorists will become smart enough to realize that there are already stores of nerve agents around for them to utilize, if they can only find a way to adulterate it in foods or the water supply. Most terrorists seem to favor airborne nerve agents such as Sarin. To be expected from lazy folks.
Attempting to outlaw such things as the mass production of easily made products, is pointless. Since just as the Progressives attempted with Prohition, if the demand is high enough, people will find a way to get it. When there is a will, there is a way. Especially when people have money and will. The supply and demand for nuclear weapons by individuals is still pretty low. That is why it is justifiable to outlaw it to individuals, because people don’t want it and they couldn’t get it in enough quantities to matter one way or the other.
It is not justifiable to make a law that people won’t obey. That just destabilizes civilization so that the criminals can run loose. I presume people here are against that. Although I might be wrong for some.
As for the idea that if you favor gun control you should simply point across the pond and say ‘see, they have a lower murder rate in London’, well, read this and be disabused of your fallacious notions:
“Gun Control Myths”
As to the question of whether the framers meant the people (collective) or the people (individual) in “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.”. Ever heard of the Dick Act of 1903? Since it has not been declared unconstitutional, if you are a male between the ages of 17 and 44, you are considered a member of the militia. Given modern anti-discrimination laws, I guess that means that according to constitution, no matter how you parse words, you have a constitutionally protected right to bear arms.
As to examples of mass shooters being thwarted by persons who were allowed concealed carry, and whether or not they’ll freeze:
Dec ’07The Colorado Springs church shooter and Jeanne Assam.
Oct ’97Pearl Mississippi school shooting and Joel Myrick.really think gun control is a good idea, and you believe you’ve really thought your position out, just google “gun control myth” and do some reading. Fear of guns (in a general sense) is irrational, and is what drives the gun control advocates. I’ve never heard anyone who is rational in their desire to ban guns.
“Anyone who trades liberty for security deserves neither liberty nor security.”
Benjamin Franklin
“Democracy is an agreement on rules of conduct between well armed gentlemen”
Benjamin Franklin
“Anyone who thinks s/he can have liberty without security becomes a Slave.”
– Negrodamus
It all boils down to the (admittedly trite) catchphrase “If all guns are outlawed, then only outlaws will have guns.”
I formerly thought that was a stupid phrase, but now I see its truth: those who want to commit crimes will commit crimes, no matter how difficult society makes it. If the U.S. were to ban guns entirely, is it reasonable to think that guns would not be available to any purchaser with money in Mexico? Do we think that individuals unstable enough to want to kill innocents on a school campus would be deterred from traveling south of the border?
Really, how foolish do we have to be to believe that crime can be stopped simply by legislating against it? Has it worked so far? Did it work during Prohibition? Or did that failed legislation create more crime?
Conversely, it’s been shown that citizens with their own legally-obtained and used firearms can and do prevent further bloodshed with the ability to stop crazies in the throes of mass shooting incidents, and crime has been shown to decrease in states where concealed carry is allowed.
Am I advocating a return to the Wild West, where everyone was armed? Not necessarily–but I’ll wager that crime was actually lower per capita when the “bad guys” knew that the “good guys” had just as much firepower as they.
They do not need a gun as Richard Speck proves. At 11:00 PM on July 13, 1966, Speck broke into a townhouse located at 2319 East 100th Street in the Jeffery Manor neighborhood of Chicago. It was functioning as a dormitory for several young student nurses, some of whom were Filipinas. Armed with only a knife, he terrorized the young women, who included Gloria Davy, Patricia Matusek, Nina Schmale, Pamela Wilkening, Suzanne Farris, Mary Ann Jordan, Merlita Gargullo, and Valentina Pasion. Speck, who later claimed he was high on both alcohol and drugs, may have originally planned to commit a routine burglary.[3] Speck held the women in the house for hours, methodically leading them out of the room one by one, stabbing or strangling them to death, then finally raping and strangling his last victim, Gloria Davy. Only one woman, Cora (Corazon) Amurao, escaped because she managed to wriggle under a bed while Speck was out of the room with one of his victims. Speck may have lost count, or he may have known there were eight women living in the townhouse but had been unaware that a ninth student nurse was spending the night there.
Indeed, people do not need guns to commit mass murder:
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http://www.metafilter.com/55308/Bath-of-Fire-The-Worst-and-Most-Forgotten-Mass-Murder-of-American-Children
http://angam.blogspot.com/2007/04/worst-mass-murder.html
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For those of you who are sick of passivists’ “the police should protect everyone”–and for passivists as well, I recommend the following light reading:
http://www.philelmore.com/download-beamartialist/Be_A_Martialist.pdf
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Finally, neo, given the fact that both the Virginia and Illinois college murderers involved people who had been on anti-depressants… Am I out of line in suggesting that we re-think the pharmacy of anti-depressant medication? Perhaps look for a solution which doesn’t involve altering brain chemistry toward sociopathy?
q2600: You can’t come to the conclusion you do about antidepressants from this particular data set. Not only is it miniscule, but the Illinois shooter had stopped his medication (can’t remember about the other one, but I think it was also true at Virginia Tech). One cannot conclude the meds were at fault. Perhaps it would have happened sooner without them.
On the other hand, there’s some troubling evidence of a rise in violence, especially suicide, in those actually taking antidepressants.
I should have been more clear: my hypothesis is that antidepressants are altering brain chemistry in such a way that some form of personality disorder manifests when the medications are stopped. Essentially, suicidal anger as a severe withdrawal system.
And while the dataset here is too small to be significant, there has been other research in this area:
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http://www.antidepressantsfacts.com/addiction-withdrawal.htm
http://www.goertzel.org/dynapsyc/1998/TeenageViolence.html
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Of course, I am committing the hubris of discussing your own profession. Is there something I haven’t noticed which invalidates my hypothesis?
The antidepressantfacts site is a Scientologist front organization. Do your research.
This is a quote from an article I read but lost the source so I cannot give proper attribution. The author nails it beautifully.
“There is simply no way on Earth the Anti-Federalists would have surrendered to the new and mistrusted government the right to own any gun they wanted at any time they wanted in any number they wanted.
To believe differently, to believe that the Second Amendment actually gives the federal government the authority to regulate firearms, one must believe the absolutely unbelievable. One must believe that the Anti-Federalists, fearing and loathing federal power, compelled Madison to compose this laundry list of rights, this list of things over which the government was to have no authority and, very near the very top of the list, these people in fear of the federal government desired a clause that reads, “Despite the fact that Article I, Section 8 does not empower you federal government people to infringe our firearms rights, we hereby correct that mistake and surrender to you a right which we previously held, but wish now to give away.”
We must further believe that James Madison was such a monumentally incompetent and abysmal writer that, when trying to give the federal government this new authority to regulate the private ownership of firearms, the last fourteen words of the Amendment read, “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
We must also believe that revolutionary American history conceals some hitherto unknown and utterly undocumented groundswell of public desire for gun control.
Picture in your mind for a moment the rough-and-tumble individualist who gave birth to this nation, a man who had tamed a wilderness, fought Indian wars on and off for 180 years, and successfully faced down the world’s mightiest empire. Hold a picture of that man in your head for a moment and then try to imagine his being told that this new federal government would have the power to regulate his ownership of firearms in any manner it saw fit, including imprisoning him for possession of any firearm for any reason at any time.
No honest or serious person could ever claim to believe that any part of the American electorate in the 1700s desired federal gun control, let alone the Anti-Federalists who forced the creation of the Bill of Rights.”
Found the source of the above quote:
http://www.fff.org/comment/com0802f.asp
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