This is a double page from some South Carolina newspaper today. It features a well placed Christmas sale advertisement.
What is Christmas about if not marketing, buying and giving automated rifles?
Back to Main
December 15, 2012
Christmas Gun Sale
Comments
If having a right to bear arms would keep a society safe from predatory governments, Afghanistan would be heaven on Earth right now.
The Americans have already given up their freedoms and many of their rights. No need for government to knock on their door with guns blazing; the government has already taken away real health insurance, right to unionize, right for a living wage, right for meaningful protests, right to live in a society with the absolute minimum of basic human services …
Posted by: Paul | Dec 15 2012 17:32 utc | 1
b – you should know by now that Americans never understand irony, intentional or otherwise!
Posted by: blowback | Dec 15 2012 17:56 utc | 2
@ blowback
That should read: b – you should know by now that sombunal, Americans understand irony, intentional or otherwise!
New word for the “Newbies” – SOMBUNAL – from Robert Anton Wilson – it means “SOME BUT NOT ALL”.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 15 2012 18:00 utc | 3
Catastrophism: A Review
The End Might Not be Near: A Review of “Catastrophism: The Apocalyptic Politics of Collapse and Rebirth”
…
Pronoia? No way!.. “Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.”…lol
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 15 2012 18:05 utc | 4
The rise in these mass murder sprees has coincided with the introduction and widespread use of many new mind altering drugs. The following article has a long list of violent incidents that were accompanied by psychiatric drug use:
The Colorado “Batman Shooter”. De-mystifying Mass Murder in America
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-colorado-batman-shooter-de-mystifying-mass-murder-in-america/32135
“Here is the sobering list. Read it and weep – and then reassess what really needs to be done with background checks when someone with a clean criminal or so-called “mental illness” record tries to purchase an automatic rifle that can shoot 60 rounds a minute….”
This last week, somebody in China tried a similar rampage, using a knife:
Mentally challenged man stabs 22 schoolchildren in China
http://presstv.com/detail/2012/12/15/278109/22-schoolchildren-stabbed-in-china/
Are Israeli connected psychiatrists now operating in China?
Something else that might be connected to these violent incidences is the Israeli-American terrorists killing for fun in Syria, and before in Libya, were often given mind altering drugs before an attack. The reported effect of these drugs made them feel invulnerable and removed their natural sense of restraint to indiscriminate violence. The recent “face eating” incidents (so-called “bath salts”) may be such drugs reach the street. Interestingly, there was also a “face eater” attack in China this last year.
One is left wondering if these extreme drugs are enhanced psychiatric drugs now commonly dispensed by psychiatrists and if the extreme symptoms of the drugs dispensed to the Israeli-American terrorists can manifest occasionally in some of the milder prescription varieties. It is no secret that the CIA, and other American state security agencies engaged in all sorts of drug experimentation. It’s doubtful they ever stopped. The Israeli connection is probably even more intimate, given their heavy use of psychiatry in Mossad and their central role in illegal drug development and trafficking through the Jewish mafia.
Posted by: вот так | Dec 15 2012 18:08 utc | 5
Obama has seen the light of Christ and he’s going to stop blowing up Afghans and Pakistanis with exploding Hellfire missiles. For as long as this story stays on the front pages, that is. I give it three more days.
drugs ‘n games
from Parent Further:
You have to wonder what makes some people think that school shootings are funny and entertaining. That’s the theme on a new “mod” based on the popular computer game Half Life 2.
Half Life 2 is a very popular computer game that was released in 2004 based on the success of its predecessor Half Life. The game has sold more than 6.5 million copies with some critics naming it the “game of the decade” because of the quality of its animation, graphics, audio, and sophisticated use of artificial intelligence. Parents need to know, however, that it was rated M for mature meaning that the industry itself says that it’s not appropriate for kids to play. . . .
That brings us to a twisted mod about school shootings. Mods are accessed on the Internet, and Mod DB is perhaps the single biggest source with two million visitors a month and ten thousands registered mods. A recently featured mod is built on Half Life 2 entitled School Shooter North American Tour 2012. Here’s a verbatim description, “He decides to become the best school shooter ever. You decide to arm yourself with the exact same weapons as a previous school shooter….The possibilities are endless, you are free to do whatever you want. As long as it involves shooting people.”
And don’t forget the national role models. Clinton: “We Came, We Saw, He Died.”
Soviet-style disintegration awaits US: Gorbachev
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/12/15/278137/us-to-collapse-sovietstyle-gorbachev/
Posted by: Paul | Dec 15 2012 18:42 utc | 8
This relationship between the capitalist economy, crime and punishment has been discussed for quite some time. Most introductory textbooks discuss the familiar statistical surveys carried out in Western Europe in the 19th century. However, it is a little-known criminological fact that the revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg (1951 [1913]) conducted a statistical survey of violent crime in Germany. This rather contrived yet enlightening effort to highlight the tendency of capitalism and religion to foster and reproduce aggressive human relationships showed higher rates of violence in ‘traditional’ regions dominated by right-wing politics and in the throes of disruption by industrial capitalism. The far less revolutionary British historian R.H. Tawney, in his celebrated work The Acquisitive Society, warned of the socially deleterious and potentially criminogenic psychocultural effects of the competitive individualism that characterizes the capitalist free market economy, which: suspends a golden prize, which not all can attain, but for which each may strive, the enchanting vision of infinite expression. It assures men that there are no ends other than their ends, no law other than their desires, no limit other than that which they think advisable. Thus it makes the individual the centre of his own universe, and dissolves moral principles into a choice of expediencies. (Tawney, 1961 [1921]: 33)
From:
A tale of two capitalisms
Preliminary spatial and historical comparisons of homicide rates in Western Europe and the USA
STEVE HALL AND CRAIG MCLEAN
Northumbria University, UK
Posted by: neretva’43 | Dec 15 2012 19:07 utc | 9
Stats on US drone strikes:
http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/category/projects/drone-data/
Children reported killed:
In Pakistan: 176
In Yemen: 24-35
In Somalia: 1-3
Posted by: Paul | Dec 15 2012 19:15 utc | 10
What mind altering drugs allowed the evil IZZIs kill ten times as many in Gaza.
No presidents tears. Just Gazans tears. Again . Again. Again
And replenish the stocks of murderous arms .
1500 killed last time and no complaints.
Posted by: boindub | Dec 15 2012 19:16 utc | 11
First we must study how colonization works to decivilize the colonizer, to brutalize him in the true sense of the word, to degrade him, to awaken him to buried instincts, to covetousness, violence, race hatred, and moral relativism; and we must show that each time a head is cut off or an eye put out in Vietnam and in France they accept the fact, each time a little girl is raped and in France they accept the fact, each time a Madagascan is tortured and in France they accept the fact, civilization acquires another dead weight, a universal regression takes place, a gangrene sets in, a centre of infection begins to spread; and that at the end of all these treaties that have been violated, all these lies that have been propagated, all these punitive expeditions that have been tolerated, all these prisoners who have been tied up and “interrogated”, all these patriots who have been tortured, at the end of all the racial pride that has been encouraged, all the boastfulness that has been displayed, a poison has been distilled into the veins of Europe and, slowly but sulrey, the continent proceeds toward savagery.
And then one fine day the bourgeoisie is awakened by a terrific boomerang effect: the gestapos are busy, the prisons fill up, the torturers standing around the racks invent, refine, discuss.
People are surprised, they become indignant. They say: “How strange! But never mind – it’s Nazism, it will pass!” And they wait, and they hope; and they hide the truth from themselves, that it is barbarism, the supreme barbarism, the crowning barbarism that sums up the daily barbarisms; that it is Nazism, yes, but that before they were its victims, they were its accomplices; that they tolerated that Nazism before it was inflicted on them, that they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimized it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples; that they have cultivated that Nazism, that they are responsible for it, and that before engulfing the whole edifice of Western, Christian civilization in its reddened waters, it oozes, seeps and trickles from every crack.
Discourse on Colonialism by Aimé Césaire.
Later Michel Foucault further worked out that idea of “boomerang effect” in book Society Must Be Defended where he said that techniques and methods implemented in colonies are brought back in the metropole, since it is known as Foucauldian Boomerangs.
Posted by: neretva’43 | Dec 15 2012 19:20 utc | 12
I blame the movies. Saw “The Wildbunch” again. Typical: American gunslingers head south and kill a thousand Mexicans with one shot each. So much fun!
Posted by: ruralito | Dec 15 2012 19:20 utc | 13
I feel terribly sorry for the families of the school children, but I get extremely angry when I compare all this TV coverage with the zero coverage when weddings were regularly bombed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Posted by: Amar | Dec 15 2012 19:51 utc | 14
@ # 4
–Uncle,
I think the problem with Catastrophism, the concept, is that sometimes the fertile ground of being, in which it thrives, is one where paranoia is finally overtaken by a convergence of evil, real evil, real dangers. Cassandra once offered at least a cautionary warning; but now history and even the fable of zombies gets an advertising boost from the CDC. Computers can predict how our nerves react as we are pummeled with horrors. That was then; this is now. But now and then are merging like a shit stain on the highway.
On the other hand, the tyranny of contradictions will only madden us, until it becomes clear to people who look at problems with different world views, what must be done collectively, in solidarity. A worsening situation doesn’t guarantee that such a thing will happen. For some people, their better angels never make an appearance, except as they are driven by extreme circumstances toward a decision.
Maybe b also recognizes that the image, coming from a South Carolina newspaper, adds a further nuance of strangeness to the irony. Some will say that the suggestion of tearfulness, or Obama’s public show of touching his fingers to his eyes, and upper eyebrows, is a satisfactory concession to the sad moment; but not just a wooden, and unconvincing performance. I watched the video three times; and at the point where the transcript reads “and from scripture”, he seems to actually say, “and from spritzer”.
Chris Hedges, after the inglorious November election, and his years covering the blood and suffering caused by US wars, wrote this:
I was sickened and repulsed. My loyalty shifted from the state, from any state, to the powerless, to the landless peasants in Latin America, the Palestinians in Gaza or the terrified families in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those who suffer on the outer reaches of empire, as well as in our internal colonies and sacrifice zones, constitute my country. And any action, including voting, that does not unequivocally condemn and denounce their oppressors is a personal as well as a moral betrayal.
“We talk of the Turks and abhor the cannibals; but may not some of them go to heaven before some of us?” Herman Melville wrote. “We may have civilized bodies and yet barbarous souls. We are blind to the real sights of this world; deaf to its voices; and dead to its death.”
Let me guess … this happened in a ‘gun-free zone?’
Posted by: Daniel Rich | Dec 16 2012 0:52 utc | 17
“Automated”???
Amazing how much the gun debate is fueled by sheer ignorance. Most jackasses blathering on about “assault weapons” and “semi-automatics” haven’t got a friggin’ clue what they are talking about.
I see the gun control nuts are positively orgasmic about having another nut case set up the podium for them. Too bad a couple of the teachers weren’t armed, so they coulda popped a cap in this wackjob’s forehead before he took out twenty kids. Are the gun control nuts so ignorant that they don’t realize that the word “criminal” is used to describe someone that violates the law? Sure, take the guns away, so the only ones that have them are the police, and the criminals. And we all know how responsibly THEY handle being armed, don’t we?
Posted by: PissedOffAmerican | Dec 16 2012 1:04 utc | 18
The comment just above this is really, really stupid.
FUCK THE NRA.
Posted by: Susan | Dec 16 2012 1:23 utc | 19
Posted by: Paul | Dec 15, 2012 1:42:34 PM | 8
Soviet-style disintegration awaits US: Gorbachev
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/12/15/278137/us-to-collapse-sovietstyle-gorbachev/
I believe he is right, unfortunately when the time for that comes, with this people’s violent nature and this country’s cowboy culture one would need to have the gun. Just compare the police behavior in this country with the rest of the world and you would understand.
Posted by: kooshy | Dec 16 2012 1:47 utc | 20
@ susan
You can bet that no politician in the USA would EVER say what you just said and get elected, so what’s stupid now.
@19 That’s just POA. He thinks teachers should be armed. Janitors should carry RPGs and there should be SWAT teams in the playground. It all helps make the kids feel safe.
Posted by: dh | Dec 16 2012 1:52 utc | 23
Agree totally with PoA. Like it or not there is no way the US government can take away 400 million firearms. They have a huge “war on drugs” putting hundreds of thousands(!!) of non-violent “criminals” in prison but haven’t made a dent in cocaine or heroin. To think they will have any more success against guns is a fantasy.
And bear in mind that the police are UTTERLY USELESS in such situations. The first thing they do when they get to a scene of mass shootings is “establish a perimeter” otherwise known as cowering behind yellow tape while the shooter goes about his killing spree.
It is a very sad fact that there is a lot of crime in the US. It is a sad myth, often fatal, that the police can get there in the nick of time to stop a burglar/murderer/rapist/mugger. In fairness, they can’t be everywhere at once even if they genuinely wanted to. It is not unreasonable to want a weapon for home defense.
Posted by: Lysander | Dec 16 2012 1:58 utc | 24
@24 Sad but true. Apparently this Lanza kid’s mother had 3 of them. For home defense I guess.
Posted by: dh | Dec 16 2012 2:02 utc | 25
@ Susan [#19],
Do you notice how those heavily armed SWAT teams always arrive after a killing spree? Would you agree with the notion that if there were no ‘gun free zones’ this would not have happened? I agree with PissedOffAmerican’s pov, that if only the cops and gangs are armed, we’re [or will be] in a heap of trouble. Here in Japan, people/kids are slaughtered by the busload, in a country where nobody’s allowed to carry any kind of weapon. Does that fit into your theory [if so, would you be kind enough to elaborate?]. I’d rather be able to [happily] blow the perp’s brain out, than to stand there [empty handed] trying to figure out a way to take the dingbat out, before I myself [most likely] get shot.
Posted by: Daniel Rich | Dec 16 2012 2:04 utc | 26
@3 Sorry Uncle $cam – I was being ironic with that statement so you just proved my case.
Posted by: blowback | Dec 16 2012 2:11 utc | 27
Check wellaware1.com for a more complete story on this and other shooting, not all things are what they appear to be, but of course, we know the government and media would never lie about something so serious!
Posted by: Duncan | Dec 16 2012 2:12 utc | 28
@25, yes very sad. I’m sure it would have been totally impossible for the perp to obtain a firearm by any other means. What are gun laws like in Norway? Or in the UK? Or Germany?
Posted by: Lysander | Dec 16 2012 2:13 utc | 29
I often hear Switzerland cited as an example. Apparently there are lots of guns but very little gun crime. Why? Not for me to say. I don’t think it’s really so much a question of gun control as cultural differences.
Posted by: dh | Dec 16 2012 2:18 utc | 30
@30, I can’t really explain it either. I’m sure cultural differences, relative ethnic homogeneity (yes, I know French, Italian, German, etc), less poverty, etc. are all contributing factors. Though I don’t see how any of that would have been a factor in any of the mass killings we’ve seen in the past year. I’m convinced the possible culprit would be side effects from anti-depressants or anti-psychotics that the killers may have been taking.
Be that as it may, I believe it is beyond the means of the US government to remove firearms from circulation, short of becoming North Korea. Banning them will only create a black market.
The best way to prevent crime in my view is to end all laws banning drugs and any other victimless crime. All they do is put non-violent people in the prison system where they become hardened criminals upon release. Or force people to resort to crime to support a very expensive addiction.
Also, have you noticed that in the US rape is a very serious crime everywhere…except in prison, where somehow it’s considered to be funny.
Posted by: Lysander | Dec 16 2012 2:42 utc | 31
What I mean by cultural differences. Guns seem to be a part of the American myth. Americans don’t mind being manipulated by the media and ripped off by Wall Street but don’t touch their precious guns. Whereas most Europeans are happy with gun control and police that use guns as a last resort.
I’m not sure legalizing drugs would solve the problem of school shootings. Some people just seem to hate society and themselves.
Posted by: dh | Dec 16 2012 2:57 utc | 32
Mexico has extremely strict gun control laws. Hasn’t stopped the criminals down there from getting guns, has it? In fact the drug lords get some of their guns courtesy of the US government.
The rate of non-gun murders for 2004 in Mexico was twice the rate of all murders in the US. Clearly you don’t need a gun to kill someone.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Mexico
NYC also has strict gun control laws, but there are thousands of illegal firearms in the city and most crimes are committed using illegal weapons.
Our drone-happy president has killed more people including children in his first year in office than have been killed in all the school shootings in the last 12 years in the US. Where’s the liberal concern trolling over that?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_attacks_in_Pakistan
As for the “protect and serve” corps how have they been doing on the civilian casualty front lately? It is estimated there are over 40,000 anti-drug raids in the US every year, many of them targeting innocent people, and each one carrying the possibility of violent confrontation involving live ammo, with the potential for innocent bystanders to get killed.
Here’s an interesting map of some of the “botched” raids:
http://www.cato.org/raidmap/
Posted by: Sean | Dec 16 2012 3:05 utc | 33
@ dh [#30]
side note [Switzerland]: my family was kicked out of that country in the early 18th century [that, of course, doesn’t make me not an expert whatsoever]. What I do know is, that everybody is signed up to defend the country, is trained and armed to do so, and afterwards take the weapons home. I guess that creates a sense of ‘oneness?’
Posted by: Daniel Rich | Dec 16 2012 3:12 utc | 34
@ Lysander
It is not unreasonable to want a weapon for home defense.
A Bushmaster .223 Assault Rifle (Photo) is not “home defense” unless your home is in Afghanistan. F-22 Fighter jets could be used for home defense as well. Doesn’t mean they should be sold to the public. This gun is military technology.
What are gun laws like in Norway? Or in the UK? Or Germany?
Strict, which is why the links you provide to school shootings in Europe happened 16 and 10 years ago. But then again Europe isn’t populated by sexually repressed, paranoid, psychopaths (at least not as much anyway).
But fuck it don’t even know why I’m commenting. Americans deserve what they get.
Posted by: Colm O’ Toole | Dec 16 2012 3:14 utc | 36
@34 Very pragmatic people the Swiss is my impression. They guard their own banks. 🙂
Posted by: dh | Dec 16 2012 3:21 utc | 37
If there are a lot of automobile accidents due to intoxicated drivers, is it then wise to concentrate of debating the merits of car/no car? Reducing these mass murder incidents to a debate on guns misses the point. Which is what those in power want people to do. They want the discussions to be about guns, not about what is going on here. These mass murder incidents are something new. What’s behind them is not the availability of guns.
Posted by: вот так | Dec 16 2012 3:30 utc | 38
In the USA (as elsewhere), there are many more unintentional deaths than homicides.
unintentional – (in thousands)
falls 24
motor vehicle 34
poisoning 31
intentional
total homicide 16
gun homicide 11
total suicide 36
gun suicide 18
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/
@26 – Daniel Rich
Here in Japan, people/kids are slaughtered by the busload, in a country where nobody’s allowed to carry any kind of weapon.
Citation needed…
In 20 years living in Japan, there has been exactly one massacre in schools. Most mass causalities of school-age kids have been caused by drunken drivers slamming into groups of kids on the road.
And there is little gun violence (mostly yakuza on yakuza).
Posted by: Philippe | Dec 16 2012 4:15 utc | 40
@ BOT TAK [#38],
Lesson from the French Revolution: do not – repeat – do not hesitate to unleash the full force of your army upon your populace. I prefer a very peaceful world, one in which we all love each other, sing and dance… Reality tells me I gotta shove those ideas some place, until mother has caught up with me.
mother = most of the rest
Posted by: Daniel Rich | Dec 16 2012 4:17 utc | 41
@ dh [#33]
They even got the pope by the ba- … erhmm, they guard there too :o)
Posted by: Daniel Rich | Dec 16 2012 4:19 utc | 42
@ Philippe [#40],
The guy who stabbed pppl in a train station. They guy who drove a van into a crowd. If you’re creative enough, you can wreak havoc anywhere on the planet, that’s my point. You don’t need guns to kill.
Posted by: Daniel Rich | Dec 16 2012 4:24 utc | 43
30 dh) Switzerland has hardly any street crime as there is hardly any poverty or exclusion.
The guns are used in family crisis and for suicides and yes they are a problem there.
Posted by: somebody | Dec 16 2012 6:19 utc | 44
Daniel Rich @40
True, you don’t need guns to make a mess… and guns won’t help in the case of a (nutty) guy driving a van into the crowds.
Posted by: Philippe | Dec 16 2012 6:47 utc | 45
The maniac that killed this first grade class is quite clearly the scion of one of the 1 percenters. It is interesting that this is not part of the story. What seems more interesting is why the mother would own a Glock and Sig Sauer pistol as well as an AR15 assault rifle. This goes way beyond home protection weapons. Is this a sign that the one-percenters are living in fear that the masses might be ready to attack them? If so, most ironic: all that armament is turned against them by one of their own.
Posted by: ToivoS | Dec 16 2012 7:40 utc | 46
43) Daniel Rich, sure there are other means, guns make it a lot easier though, trucks are very expensive in comparison and kids hardly get access to them.
There were cases of school massacres in Germany. The cases where a kid had access to their father’s licenced guns, did shooting sports themselves and got the weapons legally because of that were the ones with most fatalities. Doing it with molotow cocktails and an axe does not get you very far.
Posted by: somebody | Dec 16 2012 9:09 utc | 48
There are people who insisit that Obama shed fake tears as a run-up to enacting legislation to confiscate America’s guns. Which itself is a run-up to interring all white people in re-education camps….fill in the rest from the well of paranoid fantasies, the Internet is full of them.
Posted by: ralphieboy | Dec 16 2012 9:12 utc | 49
@18 “Sure, take the guns away, so the only ones that have them are the police, and the criminals.”
Sure, but note that it isn’t “the police and the criminals they chase” who are committing these atrocities.
It is people who have a brain-snap that do these things, only in the USA that impulse towards lethal rage gets massively magnified BECAUSE of the ready access to lethal military-grade weaponry.
This guy (presumably) was a nutter, but in any other country he’d
a) go nuts,
b) kill his mother, and then…..
c) get arrested for his mother’s murder.
He certainly wouldn’t
a) go nuts,
b) kill his mother,
c) steal her guns and then
d) run amok.
He wouldn’t be able to, because in Countries That Aren’t America his mother wouldn’t be allowed to have those weapons in the first place.
It’s the difference between one dead person and twenty-plus dead people.
Look, I understand your paranoia about being confronted by Heavily Armed Criminals, but it really is paranoia.
Where there are strict gun controls then the criminals know two things:
1) They aren’t themselves going to be confronted by armed civilians
2) If THEY confront civilians with weapons then The Judge Will Be Merciless.
That doesn’t stop them going about their criminal livelihood but it’s a strong incentive not to bring a gun with them when they do, simply because the cost-benefit isn’t there.
They therefore tend to mug people with menace, but the menace isn’t “a gun”.
They still break into homes but if disturbed they turn and run, precisely because they know they won’t be shot at by enraged homeowners as they Run Away! Run Away! Run Away!
Really, this isn’t rocket science.
Posted by: Johnboy | Dec 16 2012 9:26 utc | 50
50
“Really, this isn’t rocket science.”
Ask him:
Breivik jailed for Norway massacre; apologizes for not killing more
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1246426–anders-breivik-jailed-indefinitely-for-2011-norway-massacre
I don’t think guns are anything near as common or as legal to own in Norway as in the USA (but perhaps those massive Viking double-bladed axes one sees in period films are)?
“It’s the difference between one dead person and twenty-plus dead people.”
And what about this guy:
Mentally challenged man stabs 22 schoolchildren in China
http://presstv.com/detail/2012/12/15/278109/22-schoolchildren-stabbed-in-china/
Perhaps he was using a semi-automatic knife?
BTW, somebody else mentioned that guns are easier for a teenager to get a hold of than a vehicle. Has that person ever seen the parking lot of a typical American HS when school starts or finishes for the day? Crazy.
The problem is people, specifically psychotic people, not the weapon, with these rampages. All this effort to make guns illegal might reduce the number of incidents, or their severity, there is absolutely no guarantee though. Making certain drugs illegal didn’t prevent them being used or reduce the problems from addiction. This is a non-cure to the problem because (in medical terminology, which is apt), it is alleviating the symptoms in the hope the disease will then cure itself. As with making drugs illegal, it wont happen.
The mass murder rampages are a new thing. They are not happening because people can get guns, or any potential weapon. What needs to be done is find out why they are now taking place. What is causing them?
From this point on in the comment:
“Look, I understand your paranoia…”
The regular criminal aspect. The commenter “somebody” in #44 talked about the “cure of the disease”, rather than the symptom, as Johnboy advocates:
“Switzerland has hardly any street crime as there is hardly any poverty or exclusion.”
To cure most regular gun crime, one needs to fix the poverty. If one looks at the source of most regular crime, it is poverty and illegal contraband related. There will always be those who insist upon preying upon those they live among, but fixing the poverty will reduce most crimes drastically and kill the cycle.
The problem with these “make it illegal” cures, besides they’re being total bollocks, is they actually prevent the real problems being addressed and fixed, both in the real world, and in the fantasies of the armchair “fixers”.
Posted by: вот так | Dec 16 2012 10:55 utc | 51
If there are a lot of automobile accidents due to intoxicated drivers, is it then wise to concentrate of debating the merits of car/no car?
Yes, because such a focus allows society to ask: “If we enjoy getting drunk so much, should we move to a much lower car-use society?”
Trams, buses, bikes, taxis, and shanks’ pony would have a very positive effect in such a country.
@ Johnboy: I fully agree.
Posted by: ahji | Dec 16 2012 13:27 utc | 52
ahji | Dec 16, 2012 8:27:48 AM | 52
agree, lots of drama in this part of the world – Bavarian countryside – has been avoided by introducing night bus lines from Friday evening through to Sunday morning.
Posted by: somebody | Dec 16 2012 13:35 utc | 53
Home defense?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2248782/Adam-Lanza-How-classmates-remember-genius-turned-heartless-killer.html
Last night it also emerged Nancy was a member of the Doomsday Preppers movement, which believes people should prepare for end of the world.
Her former sister-in-law Marsha said she had turned her home ‘into a fortress’. She added: ‘Nancy had a survivalist philosophy which is why she was stockpiling guns. She had them for defense.
‘She was stockpiling food. She grew up on a farm in New Hampshire. She was skilled with guns. We talked about preppers and preparing for the economy collapsing.’
Anyone else hear this? If Nancy Lanza was a doomsday prepper, how will this affect the gun “control” talk in coming days?
Posted by: Hamburger | Dec 16 2012 14:02 utc | 54
The Ra-Ra-Gun-Control Chorus will of course do their best to ignore this . . . . . (via NiqNaq)
Brain-Altering Psych Drugs (extract)
Gary Kohls, Lew Rockwell.com, Jul 25 2012
Eric Harris, age 17 (first on Zoloft then Luvox) and Dylan Klebold, age 18 (his medical records have never been made available to the public), killed 12 students and 1 teacher and wounded 23 others in Littleton, Colorado, before killing themselves. Jeff Weise, age 16, had been prescribed 60 mg/day of Prozac (three times the average starting dose for adults!) when he shot his grandfather, his grandfather’s girlfriend and many fellow students (10 dead, 12 wounded) at Red Lake, Minnesota. He then shot himself.
Cory Baadsgaard, age 16, was on Paxil when he took a rifle to his high school in Wahluke (Washington state) and held 23 classmates hostage. Chris Fetters, age 13, killed his favorite aunt while taking Prozac. Christopher Pittman, age 12, murdered both his grandparents while taking Zoloft. Mathew Miller, age 13, hung himself in his bedroom closet after taking Zoloft for 6 days. Jarred Viktor, age 15, stabbed his grandmother 61 times after 5 days on Paxil.
Kip Kinkel, age 15, (on Prozac and Ritalin) shot his parents while they slept then went to school and opened fire killing 2 classmates and injuring 22 shortly after beginning Prozac treatment. Luke Woodham, age 16 (Prozac) killed his mother and then killed two students, wounding six others. A boy in Pocatello, ID (Zoloft) in 1998 had a Zoloft-induced seizure that caused an armed stand-off at his school. Michael Carneal (Ritalin), age 14, opened fire on students at his high school in West Paducah, Kentucky. Three teenagers were killed, five others were wounded.
A young man in Huntsville, Alabama (Ritalin) went psychotic, chopping up his parents with an ax and also killing one sibling and almost murdering another. Andrew Golden, age 11, (Ritalin) and Mitchell Johnson, aged 14, (Ritalin) shot 15 people, killing four students, one teacher, and wounding 10 others. TJ Solomon, age 15, (Ritalin) high school student in Conyers, Georgia opened fire on and wounded six of his class mates. Rod Mathews, age 14, (Ritalin) beat a classmate to death with a bat.
James Wilson, age 19, (various psychiatric drugs) from Breenwood, South Carolina, took a .22 caliber revolver into an elementary school killing two young girls, and wounding seven other children and two teachers. Elizabeth Bush, age 13, (Paxil) was responsible for a school shooting in Pennsylvania. Jason Hoffman (Effexor and Celexa): school shooting in El Cajon, California. Jarred Viktor, age 15, (Paxil), after five days on Paxil he stabbed his grandmother 61 times. Chris Shanahan, age 15 (Paxil) in Rigby, ID who out of the blue killed a woman.
Jeff Franklin (Prozac and Ritalin), Huntsville, AL, killed his parents as they came home from work using a sledge hammer, hatchet, butcher knife and mechanic’s file, then attacked his younger brothers and sister. Neal Furrow (Prozac) in LA school shooting reported to have been court-ordered to be on Prozac along with several other medications.
Kevin Rider, age 14, was withdrawing from Prozac when he died from a gunshot wound to his head. Initially it was ruled a suicide, but two years later, the investigation into his death was opened as a possible homicide. The prime suspect, also age 14, had been taking Zoloft and other SSRI antidepressants. Alex Kim, age 13, hung himself shortly after his Lexapro prescription had been doubled. Diane Routhier was prescribed Welbutrin for gallstone problems. Six days later, after suffering many adverse effects of the drug, she shot herself.
Billy Willkomm, a University of Florida student, was prescribed Prozac at the age of 17. His family found him dead of suicide, hanging from a tall ladder at the family’s Gulf Shore Boulevard home in Jul 2002.
Kara Jaye Anne Fuller-Otter, age 12, was on Paxil when she hung herself from a hook in her closet. Kara’s parents said “The damn doctor wouldn’t take her off it and I asked him to when we went in on the second visit. I told him I thought she was having some sort of reaction to Paxil.” Gareth Christian, Vancouver, age 18, was on Paxil when he committed suicide in 2002. Julie Woodward, age 17, was on Zoloft when she hung herself in her family’s detached garage. Matthew Miller was 13 when he saw a psychiatrist because he was having difficulty at school. The psychiatrist gave him samples of Zoloft. Seven days later his mother found him dead, hanging by a belt from a laundry hook in his closet. Kurt Danysh, age 18, and on Prozac, killed his father with a shotgun. Woody ____, age 37, committed suicide while in his 5th week of taking Zoloft. Shortly before his death his physician suggested doubling the dose of the drug. He had seen his physician only for insomnia. He had never been depressed, nor did he have any history of any mental illness symptoms.
A boy from Houston, age 10, shot and killed his father after his Prozac dosage was increased. Hammad Memon, age 15, shot and killed a fellow middle school student. He had been diagnosed with ADHD and depression and was taking Zoloft and “other drugs for the conditions.” Matti Saari, a 22-year-old culinary student, shot and killed 9 students and a teacher, and wounded another student, before killing himself. Saari was taking an SSRI and a benzodiazapine. Steven Kazmierczak, age 27, shot and killed five people and wounded 21 others before killing himself in a Northern Illinois University auditorium. According to his girlfriend, he had recently been taking Prozac, Xanax and Ambien. Toxicology results showed that he still had trace amounts of Xanax in his system. Finnish gunman Pekka-Eric Auvinen, age 18, had been taking antidepressants before he killed eight people and wounded a dozen more at Jokela High School, then he committed suicide. Asa Coon from Cleveland, age 14, shot and wounded four before taking his own life. Court records show Coon was on Trazodone. Jon Romano, age 16, on medication for depression, fired a shotgun at a teacher in his New York high school.
Posted by: ONS | Dec 16 2012 14:11 utc | 55
the asshole @36 says
“But fuck it don’t even know why I’m commenting. Americans deserve what they get.”
no child anywhere in the world deserve to be murdered. some people may disagree, like the asshole @36 and the westboro baptist vermin, but they are sad, pathetic creatures.
Posted by: lizard | Dec 16 2012 14:16 utc | 56
Am I missing something here? How does person A shoot person B without a gun?
Posted by: ruralito | Dec 16 2012 14:31 utc | 57
as predicted, The Ra-Ra-Gun-Control Chorus ignored it . . . . .
Posted by: ONS | Dec 16 2012 14:41 utc | 59
people comparing the rate of US gun massacres to European Gun Massacres may note that in Europe 12/13/14/15/16 year old kids are generally NOT prescribed mind-altering psychotropic drugs (mostly SSRI’s) as a matter of routine
Posted by: ONS | Dec 16 2012 14:44 utc | 60
Bot Tok @ 51 said:
“fixing the poverty will reduce most crimes drastically and kill the cycle.”
No doubt a good start.
Michelle Bachman would be proud of our most recent nut-job killer. He found his perfect “second amendment solution” to his personal problem. A phrase bandied about by the neo-cons before the last election.
Now Americans are wringing their collective hands over our latest murder spree, while our military trots around the globe killing scores of children every week with our drones. Where’s the concern over the innocent kids we kill weekly while in pursuit of a perfect world for our corporations’ profits? We are truly a sick nation.
Posted by: ben | Dec 16 2012 14:57 utc | 61
@ ONS # 59
indeed, why
@ Hamburger
Haven’t seen you around for some time. How is bun?
Re the doomsday preppers, perhaps they are just forward thinkers. good grief, I think all of us can agree that things are getting worse. the population of the globe is over 7 billion now. the seas have been raped and there are hardly any fish left….I expect the dolphins to leave any time now (ht to Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy). war is now a common event with its cheerleaders and hardly anyone questioning it.
If I thought it would make any difference, I might try to prepare for doomsday. But I don’t, mainly because I don’t expect it soon and further more because I am rather resigned to the fact that I would get taken out by someone younger, faster, more hungry than me. I have known people who do prepare, they have gold, they know how to hunt and forage. they have contingency plans in place. I don’t see them as dangerous or unstable, perhaps overly prudent.
I live in a country (Italy) where it is quite difficult for law abiding citizens to possess a firearm. It is also a place where women can walk alone on the street at night without fear. Children walk to school and over to friend’s houses. most people are not afraid. that is not the case in the US. they are all afraid all the time. for this we have the people who brought us 911 to thank. I am not talking about the guys who crashed the jets but those who used that incident to keep the population cowed. fear is one way to maintain power and it works. We are seeing some of the consequences of that strategy
Posted by: dan of steele | Dec 16 2012 15:44 utc | 62
Who cares why? If the intent is to keep people, ie private citizens, from shooting each other, not having a gun is the best way to do it.
Posted by: ruralito | Dec 16 2012 16:13 utc | 63
” fear is one way to maintain power and it works. We are seeing some of the consequences of that strategy”
Absolutely.
Posted by: ben | Dec 16 2012 16:13 utc | 64
When I first moved to northern suboonia NJ about 30 years ago, there were a rash of kids killing friends or siblings or themselves due to getting hold of their parents’ guns and “playing” with them.
It was bad enough that strong laws were passed requiring parents to lock up guns in the home so that children could not get to them for “play time.” IIRC correctly, ammo had to be locked up separately, but I have forgotten. It’s been quite awhile since there were many stories about kids getting into the home weaponry and shooting themselves or others.
In my past there was a stint as a teacher, with classrooms of about 30 kids, give or take a few. My “career” covered time in a high performing school and then a very low performing school.
I can assure that in no way could I keep an eye on each and every youngster in the room while doing what teachers need to do. If not addressing the entire class to lay out activities, I was kneeling down to talk to small groups of students working together or walking around looking at work to see where people were having problems.
In brief, my back would be turned to some students while helping others.
Now, where would I, the hypothetical armed and ready teacher*, have the gun or guns at the ready to take on a gunman with a weapon holding large numbers of bullets? If it the weapon or weapons were readily accessible to me, the armed and ready teacher, they would also be accessible to the children in the room. Young students are curious, they notice things, one or two might think it would be neat to just check out the weapons….
The armed and ready teacher could never leave the room to discuss an issue either with at student in the privacy of then empty hallway or with a school official. The armed and ready teacher could not stand at the doorway to greet in coming students, with those already arrived in their seats or milling around, talking to friends. The armed and ready teacher sure as hell could never make a quick potty run, so don’t ever experience intestinal difficulty while at work!
Oh, and the armed and ready teacher would need very pricey insurance for having those guns around children…as would the school district.
Get real, you who espouse the armed and ready populace. I don’t want to live where I have to think about just going to the local bar because someone might be getting drunk andpacking heat. Sheesh.
*And what about training for the “armed and ready” personnel in any work situations? I really don’t enjoy the thought of shaking hands trying to get off a few rounds and not aiming very well, esp’ly were I in the area. Instead of drive-by shootings of the purely innocent, we’d get get to add more stand-by shootings of the innocent.
Posted by: jawbone | Dec 16 2012 16:24 utc | 65
Yes jawbone, the devil is in the details. But the ‘armed and ready’ advocates don’t want details….they want the quick fix.
Posted by: dh | Dec 16 2012 16:34 utc | 66
Don Bacon @ 39 —
Guns are mostly used by males to commit suicide; occasionally women use firearms as well, but not as often. Having ready access to firearms in moments of depression or despair makes killing oneself easier to do at that moment.
My cousin died of a rifle blast which took off the back of his head. His mother refused to believe it was suicide, but the police determined it was that.
She never recovered from the horror of his death.
There are more victims to gun violence than just the shooter snd the the one killed by the shot (in suicide they’re one and the same; in gun violence, the effects of the violence radiate outward from each shot, from those who experience the horror without actual bullets in their vicinity but do hear the shooting and some of the screaming…) and society suffers as well. Sometimes recovering from a gun shot, say to the brain, is extremely difficult and the deficits left never can be made up for. And that is accompanied by the psychic pain of being shot.
My point, in short, is that having guns in close proximity, and ready to use, is not necessarily a good thing around children and young people. And, unless those entrusted with the guns are extremely well trained, they may do more damage than good in a crisis.
Posted by: jawbone | Dec 16 2012 16:34 utc | 67
And, seriously, how many of you would like to have, oh, some extremist Tea Party types packing heat around you at work?
Never turn your back…that makes for an efficient work place, right?
Oh, and, fer sure, never disagree with them. Never challenge them.
Sounding like a fun place to work?
Posted by: jawbone | Dec 16 2012 16:38 utc | 68
Don’t forget, in the Home of the Depraved, guns are a for-profit concern, like psychiatry; naturally, encouraging random gun violence and mental ill health boosts sales, employs more workers, garners more votes…
Posted by: ruralito | Dec 16 2012 16:49 utc | 69
“Who cares why?”
Lots of people – well not you obviously, you’re obviously more concerned with pushing your own personal agenda of Gun-Control than you are with arriving at any actual understanding what is going on and why.
But other people might prefer to take a more intelligent view and ask themselves “Why are many more US teenagers murdering family and acquaintances than in other similar developed nations?”.
Intelligent people might also wonder “Why are mind-bending psychoactive drugs prescribed to US teenagers on such a vast scale, when compared to other similar developed nations?”
Intelligent people might also wonder “What effect might such powerful mind-bending psychoactive drugs have on the as yet not-fully-formed personalities of US teenagers?”
Intelligent people might also wonder “Is there a connection between these violent massacres and the drugs that many of the perpetrators, many of them Teenagers, are prescribed as a matter of routine?”
You are entitled to ignore those valid questions in favour of endlessly ranting about guns if you wish, but pretending that they have no relevance to the issue seems rather “head-in-the-sand” at the very least.
I’m by no means saying that the guns themselves are not part of the problem, since clearly it would be much harder to kill large numbers of people with, say, just a knife (but as recent events in China show, it ain’t by any means impossible) but the mere existence and availability of Guns in no way explains the “why?” of it all, nor does it edo anything to negate the apparent correlation between teenagers engaging in murder on a grand scale and those same teenagers being doped-to-the-eyeballs on seriously mind-bending personality-altering legally prescribed psychotropic drugs.
Simply dismissing all of that, and ranting on about guns may be a comfortingly simplistic frustration-outlet for the aforesaid ranter, but is essentially futile in addressing the “Why?” of it all.
And if you’re not concerned with the “Why?” of it all then you’re merely callously and selfishly using such tragic events for your own personal agenda.
=========
Why gun control doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to
Posted by: ONS | Dec 16 2012 16:53 utc | 70
Dan, I would guess that in Italy the sidewalks are just as dangerous (from a auto-traffic perspective) though here, cars are just one of the many dangers that keep kids inside here.
Posted by: scottindallas | Dec 16 2012 16:56 utc | 71
Did gun control work in Australia?
It seems reasonably clear, then, that the gun buyback led to a large decline in suicides, and weaker but real evidence that it reduced homicides as well.
compare to
List of countries by firearm related death rate
Posted by: somebody | Dec 16 2012 17:18 utc | 73
true,
it is I suppose some sort of credit to you that you pack so much into so little 😉
Posted by: ONS | Dec 16 2012 17:19 utc | 74
oh, and I’m not anti-gun. At some point we, the people, are going to need protection from the right-wing militas, all baying for freedom, natch, which the Reptilian Order will unleash when they find themselves backed into a corner.
Posted by: ruralito | Dec 16 2012 17:25 utc | 75
@ 75
well watch out they don’t don’t pull a fast one on you while you’re waiting for all that to happen, by doping the water supply with “Bath Salts” and then launching their much anticipated Zombie psy-op
Posted by: ONS | Dec 16 2012 17:49 utc | 76
@somebody
interesting that report. with the buyback of of automatic weapons the homicide rate has returned to the rate it was 50 years ago when there were no restrictions.
odd also that the majority of firearm deaths are from suicides. My guess is that the rate of suicides has reduced slightly because other forms of suicide are not as certain and that people are surviving the first attempt and probably getting help. putting a gun in your mouth is almost certainly going to make you die whereas pills and slashing wrists don’t. even the nurse in England who got caught up in the phone hoax had to try three times to kill herself and ended up hanging herself with a scarf. she was obviously determined.
Posted by: dan of steele | Dec 16 2012 18:06 utc | 77
@вот так – that China stabbing incident. According to the wiki entry of the event nobody died.
If the guy would have had access to a semi-automatic weapon they would likely be all dead.
That is, what I think, makes the difference. I see no, absolutely no justification to let any normal folks have something like the Bushmaster that was used in this event.
It useless for hunting as well as for close range self defense.
77 dan of steele
“returned to the rate it was 50 years ago when there were no restrictions.”
where did you get this statistics from?
what I found are figures from 1979 onwards – an alltime high then
gun buy back started in 1996
2010: 1.0417
2009: 1.02
2008: 1.05
2007: 1.91
2006: 1.10
2003: 1.45
2002: 1.49
2001: 1.68
2000: 1.69
1999: 1.83
1998: 1.67
1997: 2.31
1996: 2.82
1995: 2.59
1994: 2.88
1993: 2.89
1992: 3.47
1991: 3.57
1990: 3.48
1989: 3.26
1988: 4.06
1987: 4.25
1986: 4.21
1985: 4.31
1984: 4.34
1983: 4.20
1982: 4.56
1981: 4.15
1980: 4.67
1979: 4.71
from Wikipedia
Fully automatic arms were banned on the Australian mainland from the 1930s, but remained legal in Tasmania until 1996.
In the 1940s and 1950s, Cold War concerns about ex-military rifles falling into the hands of communist radicals led New South Wales to place restrictions on the legal ownership of rifles of a military calibre (see: .303/25) while members of rifle clubs and military rifle clubs could own ex-military rifles. In the 1970s these restrictions were relaxed in New South Wales and military style rifles (both bolt-action and semi-automatic) once again became widely available, except in Western Australia and the Northern Territory.
By the beginning of the 1980s, the relative popularity of shooting and the prevalence of firearms in the community began to fall as social attitudes changed and urbanisation increased. The rise of new values including feminism, environmental awareness and media reports of American gun violence created an awareness of gun control as a potential issue. The 1981 publication of Richard Harding’s book “Firearms and Violence in Australian Life”[8] and conferences in several cities involved academics, criminologists, police representatives and gun control activists. As in other countries, public concern over violence and its possible links to media violence also gave rise to a general increase in support for gun control and increased media involvement in the issue. Gun control activism in Australia became organised with the formation in 1981 of the “Committee to Control Gun Misuse” in Victoria, later to become Gun Control Australia.
Posted by: somebody | Dec 16 2012 19:06 utc | 79
@ b
I looked at the report found in the linked story somebody published. here are some snippets..
Although the NFA buyback targeted firearms that were of the type that had been commonly used in crimes, an important feature of the buyback is that very few of the firearms handed in to police were military-style automatic-fire weapons. For the state of Victoria (the only jurisdiction to provide a breakdown of the types of guns handed in), Reuter and Mouzos (2003) report that nearly half of the guns were .22 caliber rifles, and almost all the remainder were shotguns. Less than one in 1,000 of the weapons handed back in Victoria was an automatic.
In the decade following the NFA, there has been a substantial drop in firearm deaths in Australia (Figures 1a and 1b). Firearm suicides have dropped from 2.2 per 100,000 people in 1995 to 0.8 per 100,000 in 2006. Firearm homicides have dropped from 0.37 per 100,000 people in 1995 to 0.15 per 100,000 people in 2006. These are drops of 65% and 59%, respectively, and among a population of 20 million individuals, represent a decline in the number of deaths by firearm suicide of about 300 and in the number of deaths by firearm homicide of about 40 per year. At the same time, the non-firearm suicide rate has fallen by 27% and the non-firearm homicide rate by 59%.7
It is also clear from Figure 1 that firearm deaths have been falling on a consistent basis in recent decades, while a similar trend is not as clear in the case of non-firearm deaths.8 Firearm deaths—both homicide and suicide—are currently at exceptionally low levels by historical standards. The previous low in the rate of firearm suicide was in 1944, at 1.63 per 100,000. The firearm suicide rate has been below that level since 1998. The firearm homicide rate is considerably more volatile, but for the years 2004 to 2007 it has been recorded as at or below 0.15 per 100,000 people. It has dipped below 0.2 per 100,000 on only one other occasion, in 1950.9
Posted by: dan of steele | Dec 16 2012 20:38 utc | 80
Dan of Steele, 80)
thanks, that would correlate with the Wikipedia entry saying that possession of firearms used to be restricted in Australia until the 1970’s.
1944 was the Second World War. I guess weapons and their bearers were under army control and out of their country for most of that year.
Posted by: somebody | Dec 16 2012 21:09 utc | 82
Good to see the old gang, Copeland, et al…
Of course contrary to what most know of me, I’m a extremely strong advocate of the right to arm bears…and vise verse. However, having conveyed that, it matter not one wit with regards to protecxting yourself against the Government. You can’t fight Drones.And you can’t give up your government tracker, i.e., cell phones.
#55 makes a good point but, is half right for the wrong reasons… some of you other twits, are prolly paid disrupter’s…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 16 2012 22:09 utc | 83
“The comment just above this is really, really stupid”
“FUCK THE NRA”
Well.
“Stupid”, eh?
Uh, well, your short little intellectual fart is certainly brilliant, Susan. A shame you don’t contribute more, as I am always grateful when someone comes along to buttress the validity of one of my comments.
Actually, your “fuck the NRA” spittle kinda parrallels my own thoughts about what the NRA has become. I was a paid up lifetime member, until those assholes tried to defend civilian’s right to own armor piercing ammunition, and that jackass Heston blathered that shit about prying his guns out of his cold dead arms.
But, putting the above aside, I happen to see my own guns as tools. I don’t like to hunt anymore. You might say I’m “hunted out”, as my dad owned a commercial outfitters and guide operation and hunting lodge in Idaho as I was growing up. But I sure as shit enjoy elk meat, and kinda dig fried rabbit as well. So, shooting an elk or a cottontail, or a grouse, is akin to cutting firewood. And guess what, (you ignorant fuckin’ twit), I use a semi-auto to accomplish all three tasks, and not one of my arms are “assault weapons”.
And I have no more infatuation with my guns than I do with my log splitter.
Try digging your cell phone out and calling the cops when some meth snortin’ sociopath decides to kick your front door in, sister. Trouble is, you’ll whine and snivel because your government failed to protect you. If you survive.
Truth is, both sides of the debate are sputtering absurdities. An armed militia???? Well, try taking on an Apache gunship with a Bushmaster, and see where that gets ya.
Then, I don’t need to point out the absurdity of YOUR argument, as your ignorant shallow outburst did far more to illustrate my point than I could hope to with any further musing.
Posted by: PissedOffAmerican | Dec 16 2012 22:11 utc | 84
See also “War of the Mind,” our video that looks at the Army’s cinematic attempts to document its search for the perfect psychochemical weapon:
Need I remind anyone?
Full spectrum cognitive dissonance…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 16 2012 22:17 utc | 85
“That is, what I think, makes the difference. I see no, absolutely no justification to let any normal folks have something like the Bushmaster that was used in this event”
“It useless for hunting as well as for close range self defense”
Actually, b, the Bushmaster IS NOT “useless” as a tool for hunting. Its not what I’d choose, or own, but its military-like appearance does not diminish its utility. And make no mistake, it is ONLY its appearance that makes it different from a couple of the rifles I have used to put elk on the table. However, I would agree with your point about it being unsuitable for “close range defense”.
Truth is, owning guns, for many, is just another way of making themselves believe they have giant donkey dicks. Owning a gun like the Bushmaster makes very little sense to me. But if I was tittilated by the sense of power gun ownership gives many, I’d probably have one in my closet alongside a collection of ridiculously adorned chrome plated cuttlery. Nothing makes a jacked up diesel 4×4 more functional than giant tires and a Bushmaster in the rifle rack! Gads, it makes your dick a good four inches longer!
And heck, what could be more patriotic than arming yourself against the onslaught of government forces run amok??? Yep, by geesus, an “armed militia”, taking down those nasty rogue pilots flying them there stealthy black choppers.
Its all horseshit, b. Your argument, and their’s. Both sides, spewing stupid rationales, inane justifications, and essays filled with ignorance.
A gun is a tool. An implement designed to kill. Period. Without a finger to pull the trigger its just another idle machine. Theres good killing, (elk steak), and theres bad killing (twenty dead kids). Taking away the guns from the good killers ain’t gonna save us from the bad killers.
Sensible gun laws??? Good idea. Ignorant blather used to justify implementing useless policies that will solve nothing?? Not such a good idea.
Posted by: PissedOffAmerican | Dec 16 2012 22:45 utc | 86
@87 Reptilians! They preach morality but their “manners are tearing off heads,” in Ted Hughes’ immortal verse.
Posted by: ruralito | Dec 16 2012 23:13 utc | 88
“What seems more interesting is why the mother would own a Glock and Sig Sauer pistol as well as an AR15 assault rifle”
“This goes way beyond home protection weapons”
What is it about the Glock and the Sauer that preclude them from being “home protection weapons”? I would agree with you about the AR15, as it is hardly what I’d by for “home protection”, (or for anything). But the Glock and the Sauer??? Why don’t you elaborate about why you feel these weapons have no home protection utility?
Now, if you want to question the utility of clips that hold huge amounts of ammunition. Or the need for a silencer, you might just get a nod or two from me about the intelligence you employ to wage your argument. But lumping the Glock and the Sig Sauer in with the Bushmaster is just more ignorant blather. Perhaps you’re smarter than that, and you just let your fingers passionately get ahead of your brain. Yes, thats it, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.
Posted by: PissedOffAmerican | Dec 16 2012 23:22 utc | 89
@51 “And what about this guy: Mentally challenged man stabs 22 schoolchildren in China”
Well, yeah, what about him? The statistics say that since 2000 the USA (with 300 million people) has had *as* *many* murderous rampages in schools as The Rest Of The World Put Together (i.e. over 3 billion people).
That is not to say that murderous rampages don’t occur outside of the USA; clearly they do, and at about the same frequency as it does in the USA.
But the point is this: the USA has less than a tenth of the popln, and so it is ten times as likely to happen in the USA as it is everywhere else.
There’s gotta’ be a reason why that is the case, dude, and I’m suggesting that the reason is this: it is *so* *much* easier to get hold of the sort of lethal weaponry that makes running amok inside a school a practical proposition that it is *tens* *times* more likely that a nutter will actually act upon his murderous tendencies.
Honestly, this really isn’t rocket science.
Posted by: Johnboy | Dec 16 2012 23:31 utc | 90
news report: “The issue of high-capacity magazines is also now likely to form a large part of the strengthening debate around gun controls.”
Good luck on controlling those. Anyone think it’s possible to restrict gun-owners’ magazines?
“If having a right to bear arms would keep a society safe from predatory governments, Afghanistan would be heaven on Earth right now.”
Well, some guys with AK-47’s seem to have kicked the US’ ass pretty well, right?
Translate that to the US: Some morons keep saying that the point of the Second Amendment – that citizens should be allowed to be armed in order to be able to deal with oppressive government – no longer applies because the US military is such a huge deal.
Well, there are two points missing here:
1) First, your citizens have to have some balls. Unfortunately that’s no longer the case in the US. However, do note that in the Revolutionary War, at most thirty percent of the citizens supported the Revolution. Most didn’t or were Tories supporting the British. Nonetheless, the Revolution won. All you need is five percent of the population, sometimes less. Five percent of the US is 15 million people – less if you exclude young children, but still large – assume seven million. Seven million is seven times the size of the US military.
2) If any significant percentage of the 300-million US population ever rose up against the government, the US military would last about three weeks.
First, some percentage of the military would probably revolt and join the revolution just as in Syria and elsewhere.
Second, the US has both vast rural and vast urban areas which would be impossible to pacify sort of nuking them.
Third, in any revolution the arms you have are used to get the arms you need – just like in Syria where the insurgents raid military bases and make off with serious hardware.
The US military would be vastly outnumbered and shortly the insurgents would have more than enough weapons to take down any weapon the US military has short of nukes.
Finally, with regards to “gun control” – such a thing is a physical impossibility in the US. The last estimate I saw, which was decades ago, was somewhere between 70 and 170 MILLION firearms in this country. By now, that figure is probably double that.
Plus, you banned drugs – and that worked out real well, didn’t it? If you ban something that people want, you end up with a huge black market. If you ban guns, all you do is insure that anyone who wants one can do to their nearest corner and buy one from the guy selling them illegally.
People don’t learn. The reason for school shootings is because US society is screwed up, the education process is screwed up, and people are screwed up. You can’t stop violence without changing the society, You can’t reduce gun crime in the US to the level of the UK because the societies are totally different and so are the crime demographics.
Finally, I notice that no one gave a crap about the twenty or so Chinese children slashed by a guy with a knife in China on the same day. After all, they’re only “gooks”, right?
The only reason people are bloviating about “gun control” today is because a lot of people want to declare themselves “morally superior” to everyone else. It’s just another “moral panic” and has zero chance of actually improving anything whatever.
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Dec 16 2012 23:39 utc | 92
@ Uncle $cam #83
“makes a good point but, is half right for the wrong reasons… “
slowly does it.
step by step.
One can lead a horse to water . . . but try dragging it there too quickly and our resident wikipedia copy&paste disrupter will crack into over-drive trying to drown us in bullshit 🙂
Posted by: ONS | Dec 16 2012 23:40 utc | 93
In the decade following the NFA, there has been a substantial drop in firearm deaths in Australia (Figures 1a and 1b). Firearm suicides have dropped from 2.2 per 100,000 people in 1995 to 0.8 per 100,000 in 2006. Firearm homicides have dropped from 0.37 per 100,000 people in 1995 to 0.15 per 100,000 people in 2006. These are drops of 65% and 59%, respectively, and among a population of 20 million individuals, represent a decline in the number of deaths by firearm suicide of about 300 and in the number of deaths by firearm homicide of about 40 per year. At the same time, the non-firearm suicide rate has fallen by 27% and the non-firearm homicide rate by 59%
Note that there has been a decline in the murder and suicide rate for all weapons, not just firearms. A possible explanation for that is that it was not due to a reduction of firearms, but due to improvements in emergency medical technology leading to more victims of violence surviving their assaults.
That certainly seems to be the case in the US, where an increase of firearms violence has gone along with a decrease in deaths from these weapons, making the murder rate less because more people are surviving attempted murders, not because of “Giuliani Time,” gun control or whatever other reason is given for the decrease. There may be other reasons having nothing to do with reduced firearm ownership as well, such as a lull in the war for control of the streets by drug dealers.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324712504578131360684277812.html
[Need a subscription but I was able to read it the first time i hit that page.]
or try this:
http://crimevictimsmediareport.com/?p=1042
Posted by: Sean | Dec 16 2012 23:41 utc | 94
By the way, for those who don’t understand the black market aspect of this, let me tell a story.
Some years back, the government decided to change the laws on Class III firearms, i.e., fully automatic firearms which have to registered with the government and a “stamp tax” paid.
So they put in a one year “grace period” in which anyone who owned an unregistered Class III firearm could register it without any legal penalty for not having registered it previously.
At the time the grace period went into effect, there was about 100,000 registered Class III firearms in the US.
During the grace period, ANOTHER 100,000 Class III firearms were registered!
And of course that means that at least ANOTHER 100,000 Class III firearms are still out there unregistered…
I always tell anyone in favor of “gun control” to “bring it on!” That will guarantee that any time I want to buy a weapon, illegally, untraceably, I will be able to do so. It might cost a lot more – or maybe not, black markets can be very efficient at reducing prices as well as increasing them – but there’s nothing like a black market for satisfying demand with supply. After nearly a hundred years of drug law enforcement, drugs today are more plentiful and cheaper than ever before – and the crime cartels that supply them are larger and richer than ever before.
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Dec 16 2012 23:45 utc | 95
“Honestly, this really isn’t rocket science”
Nor is it “rocket science” to realize you are not going to legislate the disappearance of the hundreds of millions of firearms that permeate the fabric of our society. The simple fact is, no matter what kind of useless “solution” you legislate into law, the wackjobs, if they want a gun, are going to figure out how to get one. Or ten of them, if thats what they want. And some disturbed sociopath, who has determined he needs to kill a slew of kids, is gonna figure out some way to attempt the task, gun or no gun.
When you people figure out a way to get rid of the wackjobs and sociopaths, let me know. But until then, maybe you oughta find another issue besides gun control to natter on about. Guns ain’t the problem. Wackjobs are.
Posted by: PissedOffAmerican | Dec 16 2012 23:50 utc | 96
That is not to say that murderous rampages don’t occur outside of the USA; clearly they do, and at about the same frequency as it does in the USA.
But the point is this: the USA has less than a tenth of the popln, and so it is ten times as likely to happen in the USA as it is everywhere else.
There’s gotta’ be a reason why that is the case, dude, and I’m suggesting that the reason is this: it is *so* *much* easier to get hold of the sort of lethal weaponry that makes running amok inside a school a practical proposition that it is *tens* *times* more likely that a nutter will actually act upon his murderous tendencies.
Honestly, this really isn’t rocket science.
See?
I predicted right from the start that the “Ra Ra Gun-Control” chorus would do their best to ignore the “psychotropic drugs + Teenagers angle”
Sure guns play a part, but it’s a highly dubious assertion that the mere existence and availability of guns themselves are what actually triggers the impulse in these mostly teenage/young-adult perps to go on a suicidal rampage in the first place.
The large number of perps on seriously mind-bending psychotropic drugs, and the very young age of many of them should be a major cause for concern.
But it seems that people would prefer to ignore that thorny question of how/why children/teenagers end up being proscribed such completely unsuitable drugs in the first place, and why the media and everyone else tries so hard to obscure the role of these drugs as a probable contributory factor
Posted by: ONS | Dec 16 2012 23:54 utc | 97
“the USA has less than a tenth of the popln, and so it is ten times as likely to happen in the USA as it is everywhere else.
There’s gotta’ be a reason why that is the case, dude, and I’m suggesting that the reason is this: it is *so* *much* easier to get hold of the sort of lethal weaponry that makes running amok inside a school a practical proposition that it is *tens* *times* more likely that a nutter will actually act upon his murderous tendencies. Honestly, this really isn’t rocket science.”
No, it isn’t science of any kind. It’s stupidly conflating cause and effect where there is none.
Obviously the reason why its ten times as likely to have a nut commit a massacre in the US is because the US has ten times the nuts. And the reason for that is the size, complexity, demographics, social organization, and history of the US. You can’t compare the social organization and cultural history of China with that of the US.
The point of the Chinese story is to point out that a massacre can be conducted at any time with any weapon. In Indonesia and Malaysia they regularly have nuts massacring people with SWORDS, no less. Because that’s the society.
The fact that a gun is more efficient a weapon than a sword or a knife is irrelevant except in terms of how many people get killed in a given assault. In fact, only twenty percent of people shot with firearms die. It’s easier to shoot than to slash, but it’s harder to hit someone with a gun than a knife unless you’re as at close a range as you are with a knife.
None of that justifies disarming – or trying to since it’s impossible in any event – a population.
There is no “cost-benefit” analysis being done. If there were, you’d see that the possession of firearms in a population also has a negative effect on crime statistics, i.e., firearms possession reduces crime to some degree. While it may increase certain crimes to some degree, it also reduces others crimes by some degree.
Neither point addresses the fundamental issue of why crime exists and to what degree it exists in a society. “Gun control” is a band-aid which does nothing to address the fundamental issue – and it’s an ineffective band-aid in any event, especially if it produces a society where lawful citizens are disarmed and criminals aren’t.
There is ZERO evidence to prove that criminals will be unable to get firearms even if they are “banned”. And by definition this means that the crime suppressive aspects of firearms will be neutralized while the crime enhancing effects of firearms will not be,
End result: Citizens are disarmed (to the degree possible, which is minimal), criminals remain armed, and nuts continue to kill people in whatever manner they can find, and a black market is created which increases criminal activity including deaths.
But no one’s mind will be changed about this. It’s just too easy to declare oneself “morally superior” by screaming for “gun control” without having a clue as to what is actually involved in trying to implement such a program or the “unintended” consequences thereof, just like the “moral panic” over drugs and alcohol in the early part of the 20th Century.
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Dec 16 2012 23:59 utc | 98
There have been some reports attributed to ABC that Adam Lanza was on drugs. I have been unable to confirm that. But it is possible, and even IF drugs are found to be a contributor to this tragedy, in addition to the extensive ONS list at #55, we CAN’T expect that any action might be taken to lessen the profits of Big Pharma and their kiddie drug program.
It’ll all be on the guns.
TheAtlantic, Dec 16
Gabriella Rosen Kellerman
In the aftermath of the Sandy Hook massacre, reports have surfaced that shooter Adam Lanza suffered from some sort of mental disability or disorder, the exact nature of which is thus far a matter of dispute. Neighbors have described Lanza as odd, remote, and reclusive ; schoolmates recall him as a brainiac, with a flat affect; and a longtime family friend reveals that Adam lacked the ability to feel pain. His brother, Ryan Lanza, told ABC news that Adam “is autistic, or has Asperger syndrome and a ‘personality disorder.'” Police authorities, meanwhile, have alluded to the shooter’s “checkered past,” calling him a “troubled youth.”
Greater diagnostic clarity on this matter will emerge within the next few weeks as friends and doctors who knew Adam Lanza come forward to aid law enforcement in their investigation.
Well, ONS, I guess we both ain’t rocket scientists.
Posted by: PissedOffAmerican | Dec 17 2012 0:00 utc | 100