More on the Newtown massacre
More facts are emerging:
The shooter was 20-year-old Adam Lanza. He also killed his mother Nancy Lanza, with whom he lived and who worked as an aide at the school, before he went there to begin his murderous rampage. Neighbors described the shooter as “‘odd’ and displaying characteristics associated with mental illness.”
The death toll at the school now is said to number 26 (20 of them children), plus the killer as well as the previous victim (his mother) in the family residence.
The weapons have been described as two semi-automatic pistols and an automatic rifle, but the latter weapon was left in the car and not used.
According to some children in the school who survived, “the shooter didn’t utter a word.”
Tales of heroism will emerge as time goes on, but for the moment we have this:
[A teacher named Varga] said someone turned on the public address system so that “you could hear people in the office. You could hear the hysteria that was going on. I think whoever did that saved a lot of people. Everyone in the school was listening to the terror that was transpiring.”
Also, a custodian went running around, warning people there was a gunman in the school, Varga said.
What indescribable suffering for the parents, the children, the teachers, the community—and also the family of the shooter (see this).
As for President Obama’s comments on the killings, I see no reason to believe his emotion wasn’t genuine (as some have suggested in the comments section of another thread). He’s a father of young children, and for any parent this sort of grief and loss is hard to even contemplate, and can feel almost overwhelming.
UPDATE: Here’s a harrowing but excellent interview with a first grade teacher at the school (yeah, I know the interviewer is Diane Sawyer, but it’s well worth watching):
If Obama couldn’t shed a tear over this, there’s nothing on earth that would make him display compassion. You’d have to be a true psychopath (not just a narcissist) to be unable to express emotion over the slaughter of schoolchildren.
Sadly, Obama doesn’t consider the evisceration of babies on their way out of the womb (partial birth abortion) on same level as the shooting of kindergarteners, which is why it’s hard to feel very moved by his emotional display.
Still, he does have children, and some kind of imagination, he must be able to imagine what he’d feel in the shoes of the Newton parents. So yeah, points for appearing human and humane over this tragedy.
It strikes me as utterly nuts that the Left defends the prolific murder of the unborn, yet claims to do so much “For the children”, including the present weeping over these deaths.
I predict BHO will not let this crisis go to waste. This plays right into his hands. He will seek to limit our 2nd Amendment freedom in more than one way. I offer an onerous Federal excise tax on all ammunition as one possiblity, say $5 or $10 per round to start.
When a nutter drives his car into a crowd, no one talks about car control.
Wait! The perp is now said to have been “possibly autistic”. So perhaps we need autism control…Lock ’em all up?
I think what President Obama said was excellent.
I was puzzled why he kept wiping the corners of his eyes. I looked for even one tear, without success. Nor did I see a runny nose from tears forced back into the tear ducts and down into the nose.
But perhaps I am like Lily Tomlin:
“No matter how cynical you become, it’s never enough to keep up.”
Obama did not seem too upset about sacrificing 4 brave people in Libya or putting guns in the hands of cartel murderers in Mexico. Excuse me for not believing his act. If he dares to propose new gun restrictions, I hope we hear people screaming for him to come clean on his role in Benghazi and Fast and Furious.
Modest technical points, Neo, re “two semi-automatic pistols and an automatic rifle”:
-all pistols are semi-automatic, in that the spent round is automatically ejected and replaced by a live round from the magazine with each trigger pull. Revolvers are not “pistols”; they are revolvers.
– only the military and the cops have “automatic” rifles, which keep firing pretty damn rapidly as long as the trigger is depressed (until the magazine is empty). They are totally illegal and inaccessable for civilians, who are limited to semi-automatic rifles, and which work the same way as semi-auto pistols.
The MSM constantly and intentionally misuses the “automatic” word when applied to sporting and self-defense arms, for demonization purposes: why would anyone need automatic firearm? They just spray bullets.
First, let me begin by expressing (again) my shock at this horrible incident. However, as a non-American, I would like to ask Neocon and also the commenters here:
Do you think such incidents occur more in the US than in other places in the world, and if so why?
I don’t think that the presence of guns alone explains this question. Let me compare this to the situation in Israel, where I live: In Israel, privately-owned guns have to be licensed and regulated, and the owner’s license has to be renewed every year by the police. Not everybody is issued a license for a gun – one has to demonstrate the need for one, and of course to have no criminal record. However, many people still have access to guns: Military service is compulsory for Israeli youth, so in many families there’s a son, daughter, brother or sister who currently serves, and has a weapon issued. As Israel is small these soldiers are often at home with their weapons. Additionally, as security is a concern, there are also many policemen, private security guards, and others with privately licensed handguns, which may be accessible to family members. Nonetheless, such events of random killings (not including politically-motivated terrorism attacks), are virtually unheard-of here. Sure, the population is smaller (about 1/40 that of the US) so such events would be more rare. But I don’t think there’s ever been such an instance here.
So the presence of guns alone cannot explain this phenomenon.
First, on a practical level, the awareness of security, the presence of security guards at schools, cinemas, etc., makes such occurrences less likely. But I would like to propose that there’s an important factor at play here: Alienation and sense of community. In Israel, both Jews and Arabs have a strong sense of community, which I believe is missing, or at least weaker in the US, where the individual is held supreme. When one feels out of touch with his community, and only sees himself, the wrongs done to him (real and imaginary) such acts of violence and ultimate selfishness become more likely. Additionally, in an aware community, an alienated individual is more likely to find support (which will change his course), or be discovered in time to be prevented from extreme actions.
Interested to hear more opinions and analysis.
Why do some evil-doers commit suicide after their dastardly acts?
Don Carlos: most of these school mass murder perpetrators commit suicide, actually, as far as I know. Some of the reasons are discussed in Klebold’s mother’s piece that I linked earlier, here.
But my opinion is that suicidal impulses are often a strong component of the basic rage that drives these things. It’s a sort of “I’m going out and I’m going to take lots of people with me” impulse. Nihilism, destructiveness, and rage, that includes the self as the object.
neo– have to agree with you…When I saw Pres. Obama speaking about this (and I usually turn away or flip the channel at first hint of his image or voice now), I thought: “By God, he IS human, afterall.” In fact, that might have been Barry Sotero we saw for a few moments; a part of him that he decided to lock away at a certain point in his life.
I thought it was very real and genuine — and for me to say that is a lot! It is the first time I have seen anything ressembling humanity in the man, as opposed to the consistently pompous, arrogant, lying, manipulative, disingenuous, calculating and always political person that has been able to snooker a little more than half the Americans in this country for some mysterious reason.
And not to worry — calling his manner genuine today, in those moments, is not to compliment the man. It’s just It’s just an observation that was a bit surprising. I might even venture to say it says less about the man – at least to me — because he is so preoccupied with making concerted efforts to hide that part of him, a part of him that I might actually respect. I’m guessing he perceives it as a weakness.
I don’t have any degree in the study of human behavior, but I am a keen observer or people, and think a lot about why and what they do. (And believe me, Obama has me thinking plenty about what he does and why). I think a lot goes back to his fractured upbringing: the father he didn’t know but of whom he built his own image; the mother who was there, and then not there, who sent him away (even his to his grandparents was sending him away from Mom and her new life), and then all the figuring out of who he was, where he fit in. If I were a shrink, I might say those years of drug binging was escape (stop the world, I want to get off — at least this one!) and the subsequent influences of family friend and avowed Socialist Frank, 20 years of Rev. Wright, and I think, Michele, too, built this “ideal image” (from their point of view) and to please those who surrounded him, he stepped into it like a costume. playing a role defined for him by others. I suspect he was quite lost and without much self-esteem or confidence when he met these people. And once he fulfilled the image they designed for (and perhaps designated to) him, he felt reinvented, reborn — a new — and most importantly, different — person. I also think that changing his name at that time — from Barry Sotero, to Barak Obama, was just the finishing flourish: stepping into a name that was his, but until that time, represented a stranger and the son of a man he didn’t know, but dreamed about.
But then again, what do I know? Only that I detest the man who has been our President for the last 4 yrs. andmanaged to get himself re-elected and thus will remain so for another four. He’s given me no reson, whatsoever, to respect him, and I don’t expect that to change. I have no choice but to continue with the fear of what he plans to do next, what he has already done to this country, and what he may have been doing all along without us knowing (he and his crew are quite adept at cover-ups).
There are three legitimate responses to this incident. First, it is reasonable to request owners of firearms to secure their weapons when not in their direct possession. Second, people must understand that law enforcement is principally a reactive element in preserving the peace, which means ordinary people must remain aware of their environment, including aberrant behavior of people in the vicinity (proximity enables comparative analysis). Third, people don’t necessarily need to be armed, but the possibility of an armed target must always be in the criminal’s mind. The only way to preserve our rights when subject to involuntary or fraudulent exploitation, is to increase the risk or opportunity cost for commission of a crime. It is competing interests which keep honest people honest and others from running amuck.
Any person intent on a killing spree with a gun, can obtain a weapon even when there are severe restrictions prohibiting such weapons.
When guns are prohibited and someone goes berserk on a killing spree like the one we just witnessed, and no one nearby is armed then the death toll can get high. In this case the perpetrator didn’t so much as run out of victims as he decided to kill himself.
If even one of those adults in the building had had a gun probably many fewer would have died. If all of them carried just a handgun then very few likely would have died.
These incidents tend to happen in places such as schools where guns aren’t allowed and/or in states where gun carrying is restricted. In places where guns are more common these incidents tend to get snuffed out minimizing the final toll (and the extent of the headlines) because it just takes one person nearby to stop the nutcase. People who go to the trouble to carry a weapon usually are capable.
So the logical response should be to:
a) restrict all weapons as much as possible, or
b) require everyone to carry a weapon, or
c) allow wider carrying among responsible citizens?
The first one, a, will guarantee we will have more such incidents and that they will have higher death counts. People can always find a gun and there will be nothing to stop them.
The second, b, isn’t feasible. Palin I trust, but I wouldn’t want to be around an armed Pelosi.
The third, c, won’t stop a nutcase from starting a spree, but will likely limit the deaths.
liamalpha, the US is safer than it may appear:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196941/The-violent-country-Europe-Britain-worse-South-Africa-U-S.html
I would say the big problem is people with mental illness not being treated or separated from society if they are a danger. That is a policy choice foisted on the public by well meaning but incredibly stupid politicians starting with Kennedy.
Don Carlos:
I don’t know when it became fashionable to make a distinction between “revolvers” and “pistols” since pistols existed before semi-auto handguns.
Also, many civilians have class three licensed fully auto weaponry.
Of course, they don’t get used in crime. Hmmm.
Amazing how that gun free zone thing works, too.
Now suppose there was a malignant spiritual being who opposed the freedom of man and could, one way or another, influence the unhinged to do something.
Might he not influence this unhinged person to do something despicable with weaponry to cause the populace to disarm itself?
Of course, the unhinged would have to kill himself as a cover up.
No, I guess that’s a bit far-fetched.
I wonder what really happened.
Don Carlos,
You had better check out your modest “technical points” again.
Almost all revolvers are pistols (excepting the ones that aren’t long,rifles or shotguns and can’t easily or necessarily be fired with one hand that also have revolving chambers) but not all pistols are revolvers. For some reason, I’ve noticed up-and-coming firearms instructors and enthusiasts of late starting to make the distinction that a revolver is not a pistol because the barrel and the chamber are not “integral”. I don’t understand the need for such a distinction other than pretentiousness. Handguns were called pistols long before the invention of revolvers and revolvers were initially called revolving pistols.
And saying that only military and cops have “automatic” weapons is as naive as saying that banning guns will keep them out of the criminals’ hands. Maybe the two guys at the North Hollywood shoot out just pulled their triggers really, really fast?
It isn’t news, “it’s just rubbernecking,” turning “this murdering little twat into a a sort of nihilistic pinup boy.
At 1:40, a forensic psychiatrist offers his insight into controlling the propagation of psychopathic behaviors (specifically mass murder).
Assuming we cannot prevent this behavior, it seems like a reasonable place to limit its expression. We should not underestimate unrealized self-esteem and an unfulfilled ego.
I watched BHO’s response 5 times. My inner Lily Tomlin tells me BHO’s response was rehearsed and there were no actual tears. I saw it as cheap theater. At least he did not wipe the pretend tears away with his middle finger. So, while I’m sure BHO cares about his own children; it will take a 180 reversal of his agenda (and coming clean on F&F and Benghazi) before I agree to the slim possibility he cares about my children and grandchildren.
FYI, a few states do allow citizens to own full-auto weapons.
FNC–I think it was O’Reilly–had a couple of mental health professionals talking about the phenomenom. They made a lot of sense to me, especially the man who was talking about the culture.
To me it is a no-brainer. When we have an entertainment media; i.e., movies, TV, video games that sells mindless violence relentlessly, it seems inevitable that it will have an effect. This fellow phrased it along the lines of; “when the cultural wave is moving in a certain direction, it is inevitable that the people on the fringe will move to even more extremes.”
I commented on another thread, that back in the 40s and 50s guns were at least as plentiful, probably more so, than they are now. Yet, you never heard of these mass, mindless, killings–at least not in America. On the other hand you also did not see the casual killing of multiple, clearly inconsequential people, on every TV channel, or every movie. Nor could immature or enfeebled minds entertain themselves by snuffing great numbers of humanoid figures in video games.
There was another Investigator who had been involved in interrogating some mass killers–I didn’t hear who. He said those killers showed no emotion at all, nor remorse, and they spoke of their marksmanship as if they were shooting at paper targets (or my input–video figures.
My wife said that these motivating media sources need to be controlled. My response is that it will never happen, there is much to much money involved. And of course the First Amendment is more revered than the second.
So, the debate will be about controlling guns.
Parker, it is not so simple to own an auto weapon in any state.
First, since 1986 the manufacture of auto weapons for civilian use has been illegal. Therefore, they are becoming rare–and quite expensive.
Secondly, ownership of automatic weapons, even in states that permit it, is supervised and controlled by the federal government.
To buy a legal (grandfathered) auto weapon requires an extensive background check by the FEDs, a wait of several months for approval, and a special $200 tax stamp.
The problem lies with the difficulty in effecting involuntary institutionalization, owing to several well-intentioned (there’s that phrase again) liberal initiatives, capped by a Supreme Court ruling in the 1970s. (Remember “care in the community?” Thanks, liberals.) That ruling made it nigh unto impossible to put someone in the nut barn unless he was proven to be an [i]imminent[/i] threat to himself or others. This cancer on the body politic is also largely responsible for the homelessness problem.
Some lunatic deciding to effect his Goetterdaemmerung at the Supreme Court, which ultimately is the source of this problem, would only be poetic justice.
Ace has a curious tangential story up. Violent, dangerous people are the problem, and perhaps more importantly, the culture that fosters them.
Making more laws, be they gun bans, knife bans, or even incarceration of suspected troublemakers aren’t the solution (and indeed open the door for their own special abuses). Villains don’t care about laws, and often even act specifically to flout them.
No, the change has to come in the people, not in the state’s control.
Oldflyer,
I am well aware of what is required in the few states that allow full-auto ownership. Personally, I feel no need to own one, even if allowed by my state’s laws (Iowa does not) to possess a full-auto. If I ever need one there will be plenty laying, unattended, on the ground. So say we all.
In The Hours
1. In the hours of pain and sorrow,
When the world brings no relief
When the eye is dim and heavy,
And the heart oppressed with grief
While blessings flee, Savior Lord we trust in Thee!
While blessings flee, Savior Lord we trust in Thee!
2. When the snares of death surround us,
Pride, ambition, love of ease
Mammon with her false allurements,
Words that flatter, smiles that please
Then ere we yield, Savior Lord be Thou our shield
Then ere we yield, Savior Lord be Thou our shield
3. When forsaken in distress,
Poor despised and tempest-tossed
With no anchor here to stay us,
Drifting, sail and rudder lost
Then save us Thou, who trod this earth with weary brow
Then save us Thou, who trod this earth with weary brow
4. Thou the hated and forsaken,
Thou the bearer of the cross
Crowned of thorns and mocked and smitten,
Counting earthly gain but loss
When scorned are we, We joy to be the more like Thee
When scorned are we, We joy to be the more like Thee
5. Thou the Father¼s best beloved,
Thou the throned and sceptered King
Who but Thee should we adoring,
All our prayers and praises bring?
So blessed are we, Savior Lord in loving Thee
So blessed are we, Savior Lord in loving Thee
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wT4_QSR0NWI
Sorry, forgot the Ace link:
http://minx.cc/?post=335688
Steve, I consider the US safer in general than Israel (which is also much safer than appears in the media). I was just trying to open a discussion about the phenomenon of random killings, which appear to be more frequent in the US than elsewhere. I understand well that even in the US these events are rare and far between.
I don’t think it’s that complicated why they off themselves. Strike as many blows for their real or imagined grievances and then the escape. In a way that’s their ultimate revenge of not facing us or themselves. To those above, your discussion on the technical side of firearms is beside the point, the left won’t stop until all are banned. (Though I agree learn how to describe them.)
My first thought was the same as everyone’s – unspeakable horror, anger, despair, everything. My second thought was about our Culture of Death. My third was that they would take people’s guns away now. My fourth was that this was a slow day’s work at abortion mills around the country for 40 years now.
As ye sow…
One thing I noticed in many comments allover the web by gun control advocates is the mixing of statistics on random shootings by nuts and gun deaths in the country as a whole. The latter has a lot to do with gang culture and drug pushers, the former with mental illness. As usual, lefties oversimplify to try and impose their one big utopian solution to life’s problems. When will these people shut up and let the grownups talk productively about problems?
Gang-type shootings are not the only social problem caused by this subculture. I would say that the attitude toward education and family responsibility are equally troublesome.
As to the random mass shootings, certainly our policies to mental health treatment is part of the problem, but I suspect that our attitudes about not being judgemental probably lead many to ignore warning signs among people with mental problems.
liamalpha,
Maybe too many in ou society are too far removed from family and social connections and too well provided for to be aware of existential problems. We allow a lot of our young to exist in a fantasy world where the biggest problem is not having the latest model of Michael Jordan shoes or Hello Kitty clothes.
Its turned into a anti gun tirade… with mike lupica, and on and on…
the guns were the kids mothers.. .
but to read the descriptions of them is to read a description written for a purpose other than describing.
ie. like the soviet union, the news does not report news, it uses news to give reason to write a certain way to push a statist point not inform for people to make choices.
the guns were his MOMS, a bushmaster, a sig saeur, a glock.
the descriptions by the guns START with
easy to conceal and carry
now where have i heard THAT phrase?
oh yeah… conceal and carry laws…
but they were his MOMs and so as a woman she would select smaller lighter arms than men generally do. and there are whole lines of guns made to be smaller, and lighter to fit in to her hand (and you can even get them in hot pink).
the bushmaster they claim was designed for police and military. then why, idiots, is it called a BUSHmaster? because the designers are white racists who want cops to go after “jungle bunnies” in the city bush?
the bushmaster uses the same round as the m16 and has that kind of look… i THINK (and hope to be corrected), that its base is the AR15…
he left the rifle in the car… so it wasnt used…
they THINK that they can get rid of guns.
JAPAN tried it, almost worked for years.
but eventually, guns destroyed the samurai
and before people keep saying obama cares, obama is a sociopath, he does NOT care… he cares as much as stalin did when stalin made such public games to influence people.
if the issue was saving lives, then saving the 50-60 MILLION aborted would be a priority over guns.
you can add up all the gun deaths since 1900 for crime, accident, and suicide, and the number would still be smaller than the 50 million abortions.
so… do they really care about kids lives? when they support, fund, export, and promote abortion on demand, killing millions in each western country?
Jonestown – 300 kids
Connecticut massacre – 20 kids
roe V wade – 50,000,000
police do NOT protect and defend any more since women are on the force…
(we don’t care about men, so when men died to protect you, that was fine. we do care about women and their safety, so when women entered the force, police became more important than citizens and the shooting of civilians, chemical attacks on them, and tazing as a way to get compliance in things ranging from stubborn to traffic tickets to using on children who are having a bad day in school!!!!!!!!!!!)
they are completely politically using this..
the sad part is that everywhere its illegal to carry… things like this happen with no response to them, and the crime rate is high in the areas and guns are common.
where conceal and carry is legal, the gun crime and personal crime rates are low, as the crooks dont want to deal with people directly as its too dangerous. (crooks dont practice at the range anywhere near what people with legal guns do)
the idiot kid would have had the drop on the first person or two
but with the microphone open, you can be sure several male teachers would have given up their lives trying to get the man or distract him.
there weren’t any male teachers… males dont teach these grades any more thanks to fear of pedophilia… so all you had was scared women who hid with children in closets.
nothing like the Jewish man who died at columbine who held the door closed to prevent the student. or others.
with more males in the school, it also would not have been as easy.
they would die to protect the kids AND women.
women? they just hide… cause their equal you know…
nothing wrong in that… OTHER THAN THE LIE of politics that diminishes what men do and lifts up what women dont do. right now there is a whole page dedicated to the woman that saved kids by hiding in a closet in an room where the gun man never went.
oh. the problems they will have once they make them illegal and people start making custom guns with no way to trace them in their garages… or the drug dealers get in on it to fill in the empty void, and instead of sig sauer, and glock, they sell grenade launchers and dragunov sniper rifles…
what they really fear is the peoples response to whats coming later this year or next year that us talkers didnt realize (except a few) was coming and how all the ideas that came before were junk once THAT starts…
just remember that the lefts army is an army of misfits…
on a rampage with guns legal they fall like zombies against the oppressor class
who loves their bibles and cling to their guns…
the news makes the event double sick as they are so giddy with the opportunity its as if they are incredibly happy it happened at such a propitious time…
horrible people…
They are totally illegal and inaccessable for civilians, who are limited to semi-automatic rifles, and which work the same way as semi-auto pistols.
actually not… they ARE legal in many places…
you can go online and see people enjoying the use of their fully automatic 50 caliber machine guns at shooting ranges.
not to mention that many of the non automatic versions of rifles can be made automatic with a part change… (but THAT IS ILLEGAL)
a federal license can be obtained for automatic weapons for collectors and others. its not easy to get like a regular license. but it can be had… i have known people who had them.
as far as i know, there has not been one incident of a person possessing that license and using an automatic weapon in a crime – ever…
Artflgr: “so… do they really care about kids lives? when they support, fund, export, and promote abortion on demand, killing millions in each western country?”
No. They do not.
With those 50m America would not be a thriving energetic cauldron of life and creative freedom and the liberty of free people. What they cared about was controlling the soulless proletariat.
They succeeded. Life lost. The people really are soulless and lifeless – true Zombies and not fictional ones at all – and the epitome of lifelessness is exactly 50m dead babies.
It almost makes me laugh that we thought we were going to get away with this without paying the price. When you make a deal with the devil, the devil always gets paid. Slouching towards Gomorrah? We are in a full out sprint.
I have a feeling things are going to get worse before they get better.
Artflgr: “so… do they really care about kids lives? when they support, fund, export, and promote abortion on demand, killing millions in each western country?”
No. They do not.
With those 50m America would now be a thriving energetic cauldron of life and creative freedom and the liberty of free people. What they cared about was controlling the soulless proletariat.
They succeeded. Life lost. The people really are soulless and lifeless – true Zombies and not fictional ones at all – and the epitome of lifelessness is exactly 50m dead babies.
It almost makes me laugh that we thought we were going to get away with this without paying the price. When you make a deal with the devil, the devil always gets paid. Slouching towards Gomorrah? We are in a full out sprint.
I have a feeling things are going to get worse before they get better.
They want you to accept the premise that man is so smart now, that this justifies locking him down for the good of society, nature, and the universe – which will never be safe from his predations without such a lock down by a few who are allowed to prey on them in exchange for being the keepers and ‘carrying that burden heavily’.
did i miss something?
liamalpha, I think the apparent randomness of the recent mass murders in AZ, CO and CT (Jared Loughner, James Holmes and Adam Lanza) can be explained by mental illness. If 10% of criminals are violent, taking them off the street makes all the difference in reducing rapes, murders, etc. The same is true for the mentally ill. A small number are potentially violent. The fact that they cannot be institutionalized (even if their families want them to be) means we can expect ‘random’ killings to continue.
Regarding Obama’s response, I think it was heartfelt. I generally can’t tolerate listening to him or looking at him at all these days, he’s perpetually opportunistic and insincere IMO, but the exceptions are when he is with his own children or in this case reacting to a horrific event involving children.
In my own case, I feel shocked and sad when I hear about these instances of mass murder (Virginia Tech, Columbine, Aroura, etc.) but I don’t have an emotional reaction. Yesterday, when I heard about Newtown, I was in tears all afternoon. As a parent, even if your kids are older than the small children involved in this tragedy, it hits very close to home.
I’m not sure how this happens, but Don Carlos made a comment about pistols, etc.
I comment replied.
A number of others also responded similarly and I wondered if they had not read my comment which was immediately after Don Carlos’.
And I wondered whether people even read others comments before commenting themselves.
But they must have read Don Carlos’ to reply to it.
Here’s why I mention this:
I just came to these comments via a different computer and see that unlike on my other laptop, there are a number of comments between Don Carlos and mine !
I wonder how many times this has occurred to both myself and other commenters and why.
How could my browser (Chrome, XP) display comments after mine, but not before?
@
As Ye Sow Says:
December 15th, 2012 at 9:43 am
re: “I have a feeling things are going to get worse before they get better.”
———————————
Yes, excellent comments. Spiritual warfare, something most know little of. Right now we’re seeing only the severely mentally ill acting out their fantasies. When the economy totally crashes the marginally ill will become radicalized – the absurd will become normal, an everyday occurrence. Stress will beat down those who are barely hanging on.
Raising monies to crush our nation, this seems to be the present goal. Taxes? Start taxing church properties – many would fold. Outlaw home schooling – brings more money into school districts. Legalize drugs – income from taxes. VAT taxes on everything. A nation of free men become slaves to their government.
Not getting into the headlines yesterday was this story:
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/02/15624271-dying-teacher-battled-son-after-attack-in-classroom-saving-students#comments
Here, a 25-year-old with knives and a compound bow and arrow killed his father’s girlfriend and went to the college where his father was teaching a class where he shot the father before killing himself. Reportedly, a scuffle between the father and son gave the students a chance to escape uninjured. A neighbor of the killer says that the 25-year-old had once told him his father should be castrated for having given him Aspergers.
Since Adam Lanza is being reported in some sources as having Aspergers, that makes a double tie-in.
Ed Bonderaka,
I was wondering about that too, being one of the commenters you speak of.
Personally, I find the difference in comments that you speak of between my PC and my iPad. While responding to Don Carlos on my iPad, I didn’t see your comment at all. But then, reading this morning on my PC, I see yours there. I lack the know-how to determine the reason.
Artfldgr Says:
December 15th, 2012 at 9:14 am
Absolutely. The leftists are licking their chops right now. They are rarin’ to go.
“Giddy” is the word, all right.
Jim: Thanks, I’m not going crazy(er).
Neo: Maybe this is a WordPress issue?
CV Says:
December 15th, 2012 at 10:51 am
I have not watched the video from yesterday. A commenter at Ace of Spades said that he wiped his “tear” with his middle finger. Can anybody verify that?
This.
…my wife and I were talking about it. Or, I was listening to what she had to say.
My reply was “Now you know what demons really do.”
This is the revelation of the truest face of evil. Killing children. For sport.
…and if we’re guessing correctly Ed, the only protection is to arm yourself.
Davisbr:
Thanks for the affirmation.
“the only protection is to arm yourself.”
I believe we both understand that to be physically and spiritually.
Moloch, abortion (as others previously mentioned), school shootings.
As for the confusion in posting. Look at the time stamps. When the commenting is “fast and furious” in a thread, other comments may be posted during the period when you start writing and previewing your comment, and when you finish it.
Some of my comments can be …long. So I often, prior to hitting the “Submit Comment” button, will copy my comment to the “clipboard” (using the CTRL-A and CTRL-C key sequence), refresh the page (too see if there were interim comments that also warrant a additional response), and then paste my completed comment back into the edit box (using CTRL-V).
…in my case, it’s not that unusual at all to see several additional comments after I hit the submit button.
ed: Yep, precisely. Moloch.
Blind, pseudo-sophisticated idiots …missing what’s at the tip of their noses.
…who would have ever thought the practice of sending children through the fire would have resurfaced some 2000 plus years later? And that it would have become pre- actual birth?
We’ll never learn. Sadly.
We – the nation – have a lot to answer for.
…and we will answer for it.
The Moloch …courtesy link to Wikipedia …for the edification of any curious heathen “sophisticates” ….
They are totally illegal and inaccessable for civilians…
Caveat: my info might be dated. But my recollection is that, provided the gun is “legal” in the first place, which can be an iffy proposition, all that Federal law requires is that a transfer fee ($200 is what I remember) be paid by the buyer to the US Treasury, and you can legally possess a full-auto firearm. Thing is, this fee (or tax) must be paid each time the gun is sold, and since the seller will usually want to recoup his costs, it can accumulate rather quickly, potentially making a the purchase of a fully-automatic weapon very pricey. Then there’s the cost of ammunition. But state laws vary, from banning full-auto guns entirely to not regulating them at all. So if you have your heart set on a Ma-Deuce like you used in the Army or Marines, check your local firearms laws.
Obviously, this latest school shooting is a horrible tragedy, about as bad as it gets for those involved. But one thing that I’ve noticed is that while schools seem to be free-fire zones for pitiless killers, there hasn’t been a massacre committed at a police station, or a hunter’s safety course, or a shooting range. Any idea why that might be? Help me out here…
Or at a gun store, waltj, as I said on the earlier thread.
For full auto, I think you also need a background check by the FBI.
As for the “comments between comments”,
I believe I’m hitting the “refresh” button after commenting and seeing new comments after mine, but none before.
But not always, and since I comment elsewhere, I can’t say what happens where.
Jim’s comment makes me thing I’m not the only one.
As for Obama’s comments and “tears”, I just noticed that he said
“I know there’s not a parent in America who doesn’t feel the same overwhelming grief that I do.”
I would submit that his grief is less than the children’s parents.
But it’s all about him.
Steve: but “mentally ill” is much too large a category. Most mentally ill people are functioning in a way that they are not a danger to themselves or others. The problem is with the potentially violent mentally ill, a small but very dangerous percentage. If it becomes easier to commit people, how do you predict the potentially violent? Sometimes it is obvious (at least in retrospect), most of the time not. I predict (and of course I could be wrong) that in this case we will find that there was nothing about Lanza’s “mental illness” (which may have been Asperger’s, not ordinarily associated with violence at all) that presaged this attack.
And most attacks are by sociopaths or psychopaths, a “mental illness” that is often quite well-hidden by the perpetrators, who are good at fooling people.
waltj (et al.), your info on Class-III is correct. And I find myself once again appalled by the level of ignorance on display regarding the difference between a pistol and a revolver, or firearms and the law. IT IS PERFECTLY LEGAL for U.S. Citizens to own Class-III firearms (which includes “automatic” machine guns and assault rifles), provided they comply with the limitations of the NFA, file the appropriate paperwork, pay the “tax”, etc. And no, AFAIK, NO ONE has ever committed a mass murder like this using an automatic weapon.
All that aside, what I’m far MORE interested in, with respect to this tragedy, is some input from someone with a Psych background (NEO, THAT WOULD BE YOU 😉 ) regarding the likelihood that spectrum disorder, inappropriately prescribed meds and/or parental irresponsibility combined to produce this horrific event.
Clearly, the media is far more interested in focusing on the victims (appeal to emotion) and guns/video games (politics of fear) than in looking at the actual, likely cause(s) of this event, and the unspeakable stupidity of “gun-free zones”, in order to better prevent future occurrences.
Or is it simply no longer possible to have that discussion in our “enlightened” day and age?
goy: I just don’t have enough information yet to have a clue as to whether “spectrum disorder, inappropriately prescribed meds and/or parental irresponsibility combined to produce this horrific event.” We don’t know what (if any) disorder Lanza had, whether he was taking meds or not and why they may or may not have been prescribed, or what sort of parenting he was subject to. Not a clue, really.
artfldgr: I agree with you about the media and the use of this incident to push an agenda of gun control, which does not conform with the facts of this case. Armed people in the school would have helped
As far as I can tell, though, the women here who were murdered, such as the principal, did not “hide,” as you state. The principal was reportedly killed “lunging” at the perpetrator in order to overtake him.
Now, of course you may regard this as a lie for propaganda, in order to make her seem more heroic. That is always possible. But that’s the report.
I also heard that some of the other teachers/staff who were killed may have done similar things. Of course we don’t know for sure. Many of the women who “hid” (like the first grade teacher who was interviewed) had classes of young kids they were protecting, and they hid because they were hiding with the children under their care. I agree with you, though, that women are probably less likely, statistically speaking, to try to tackle or disarm a shooter, than men would be.
I would be in favor of an armed guard at schools, or even arming certain teachers who have the right training and/or background. The idea of schools as a totally gun-free zone only seems to empower criminals bent on harm to come there knowing it will be very hard to stop them.
Fair enough. Perhaps, then, some discussion of how these and related factors COULD combine to create a situation like this? And what sort of policy – if any – might be pursued in order to minimize the resulting danger.
I’m always fascinated by the eagerness with which the media focuses, laser-like, on the firearms used in tragedies like this – including misrepresenting a semi-auto rifle as an “automatic” or “assault” rifle – but there rarely seems to be nearly as much interest in understanding the details of the shooter’s mental state, what factors led to it, and how all that pertains to the shooting.
Furthermore, I’m always fascinated by the media’s complete dismissal of where these kinds of events always seem to occur – specifically, in places where there’s an implicit guarantee no one will shoot back and / or at least pin the aggressor down with return fire so as to minimize the carnage.
Nobody ever knows how they will react in a life-and-death situation until they’re faced with one.
Military and/or police training certainly helps. The idea of training and practice is that your reactions become automatic when faced with an emergency. But it’s not a guarantee.
I remember my dad, who was a WWII Navy vet, saying that sometimes the roughest, toughest guys would go to pieces when they had to get their vaccinations. They were scared of the needles.
Then there are people like Sgt. Alvin York, who initially claimed conscientious objector status but ended up earning the Medal of Honor.
10,000 people die by gunfire every year in America.
Solution: Ban guns.
1.3 million abortions are performed every year in America. That’s 1.3 million little, helpless babies murdered in the safety of their mother’s womb by the mother’s and the abortion doctors.
The abortions kill more children than guns by a factor of 100 to 1
Solution: Make abortion a paid by the taxpayer unwillingly to enable baby killing by the mothers.
WHAT!
Ban guns to save children but enable money to be taxed to kill babies?
I’d say the ban people are banning the wrong killing device, ban the brain suction abortion instrument if you really, really want to save childrens lives.
goy: I just saw your latest comment, but I’ve already dealt with some of these questions in my latest post.
@neo-neocon : at 1:30 pm I would be in favor of an armed guard at schools, or even arming certain teachers who have the right training and/or background. The idea of schools as a totally gun-free zone only seems to empower criminals bent on harm to come there knowing it will be very hard to stop them.
My very first reaction was similar, neo: we need to add small arms training, certification, and a carry option to teaching credentials.
Incentivize the credentialing by adding an economic stipend from the school districts for those passing the course (even janitors, secretarys, school guards, whatever), and maintaining a concealed carry weapon on their person at all times.
And introduce legislation to abolish the establishment of the idiotic “gun free” campuses …or as the evil call them “free fire zones”.
One of those administrators/teachers might then have been able to take that loony out before those babies died.
…but unarmed like that? – This was finished almost before the police could arrive.
Senseless, senseless tragedy. Evil …just evil.
A horrific, major slaughter, Evil killing Innocence, which was, perhaps, one of the major ideas for Lanza; to make it into the books.
Several components here.
As I have written here before in a variety of ways, the all-spectrum Gramscian campaign of attacks against our traditional world-view, culture, morality, values, and behavior has succeeded in loosening traditional moral standards and constraints, and changed expectations, has flooded every form of communication/entertainment/propaganda with very visceral, highly influential, violent stories, behavior, and images, and has “defined deviance down.”
This because Gramsci et al very coldly calculated that a society in which anger, despair, violence, and chaos were more prevalent and had more scope for action, in which groups, interests, and factions were pitted against each other and family, social, civil, generational, and patriotic unity was shattered, in which evil was denied and/or went unpunished, justice very often denied, genuine peace and real satisfaction increasingly harder to find, and cynicism rampant would be much less able to resist their campaign, and much more receptive to their message that the Left had the solutions and policies to “fix” things.
These Gramscian attacks have succeeded in moving the bar, so that the old governing images and standards as to what was “thinkable” and acceptable, the social and cultural barriers that formerly existed in people’s minds with regard to behavior and violence have been “transformed,” and the quantity, content, nature, and intensity of such witnessed, read about, remembered, and, then, imagined violence-and it’s possibility-has grown and become more and more imaginable and, thus, possible; such intense violence now virtually omnipresent as compared to the “old fashioned,” “rigid,” “judgmental,” and “stuffy” times of several decades ago.
Paralleling these developments a current “therapeutic” model of dealing with crime in which punishments have been weakened, and a concomitant rise in the Marxist, determinist idea that individuals really have no personal responsibility for their acts, but are the powerless “victims” of various impersonal historical/economic/social forces–the Gramscian attack against Education, Religion and Judeo-Christian values, morality, and behavior has played its part here. Further compounding the problem came the “deinstitutionalization” movement, which has flooded our streets with more and more of the mentally ill, while simultaneously making the definition of who is seriously mentally ill much narrower, and commitment of those seriously mentally ill much more difficult.
Making matters even worse has been the Left’s politically correct desensitization of us all to what in former decades (until, starting in the 1960s) would have been considered “crazy” behavior, and the mantra that we mustn’t be “judgmental” about other people, so that people who would have formerly been seen as potentially dangerous, been more carefully watched, and seen as in need of hospitalization are now more often seen as just “odd,” and as people who should not be “judged,” but should be allowed to just “follow their own drummer,” “as long as they don’t hurt anybody.” Of course, by the time they actually “hurt” somebody it is just too late.
I can’t guarantee it, but my guess is that in the former “bad” old decades a lot of these sociopathic, greatly “disturbed” mass murderers would have not had so much social and cultural “permission” to carry out their fantasies and impulses, would have been detected, and locked up in some mental hospital, and not been free and out on the streets, able to commit these crimes.
For perspective… http://bit.ly/XqERuF
Yes, the background check might be a requirement these days. Seems you need one for just about everything else, so why not for a full-auto firearm? And you’re right, I haven’t heard of any massacres at gun stores, either. I’m detecting a pattern here… Could it be that potential mass murderers prefer to avoid attempting their despicable crimes in places where it’s highly probable that there will be armed people who will shoot back? Just a thought.