Tragedy in Connecticut

Boom Boom wrote:

ETA: as I've posted earlier, these weapons were all purchased legally and owned by the killer's mother - a teacher at the school. Why a school teacher would own such weapons is beyond me.

I can't find any confirmed sources that the shooter's mother was a teacher at all, anywhere. The school district has stated she is not in their database, and others confirm she was not a teacher at the school in any capacity.  Was she, perhaps, employed in a private kindergarten or school?  Nothing has come out about her circumstances except that her alimony payments from her 2009 divorce were $10 000 per month. She may not have been employed at all.  

One source reported that she was a longtime gun collector and regularly took her sons target shooting. Collecting guns is not a hobby that appeals to me, but it should be one with requirements for safe and secure storage of the weapons in question. 

I read today that the children were shot mul;tiple times at close range with the .223 assult rifle....I can't imagine the carnage.

All the militant gun lovers should be shown the graphic photos from the scene...maybe it would finally sink through their thick skulls..maybe not.

Mr.Tea wrote:

alan smithee wrote:

I don't see how gun owners can't see the sanity of this point.

 How far do we take it? Should people be able to own shoulder-mounted, rocket-propelled grenade launchers? How about anti-aircraft, surface-to-air missiles? 

Grenade launchers are not illegal in Canada. Nor are "RPG" rocket launchers (without the rocket)  though for the second one you need to be a collector.

Edited to remove pics from thread.

Just saw someone on CNN state there's been a shooting like this in the USA every year for the past twenty years. What a fucked-up country - if, in fact, he has his stats right.

ETA: probably has his stats wrong, I can only remember about three or four in my lifetime.

I can recall 13 shooting sprees in the U.S. since 1984...atleast the ones that stand out in memory and 4 of them happened this year alone.

Boom Boom wrote:

infracaninophile wrote:

 

I can't find any confirmed sources that the shooter's mother was a teacher at all, anywhere.  

Odd. That was reported by both CBC and CNN last night.

You're both right.

I just closed an article that said, while it was reported all day yesterday that she taught there, she didn't, hadn't, no connection to the school other than her kids going there. Also, the TV apparently misidentified the shooter as his own brother Ryan for a good part of the day.

Mr.Tea wrote:

Unionist, the medical examiner confirmed that all the kids were killed with the Bushmaster 223. Google it. It's a military-grade assault rifle. Why these are available for sale is beyond me.

Isn't that what my post said?

Why they're available for sale is because all assault rifles are for sale since Clinton's 10-year ban expired in 2004.

Google it.

Amazing how much coverage this story is getting. Yet when American drones kill civillians in Pakistan, Afganistan, and elsewhere, there's hardly any mention at all. It's sick.

Boom Boom wrote:

Amazing how much coverage this story is getting. Yet when American drones kill civillians in Pakistan, Afganistan, and elsewhere, there's hardly any mention at all. It's sick.

You sound exactly like the crazies on the far right. Start at 1:20 in the attached video and see what I mean.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2h1QNTQDnoU

Disgusting

Ditto, Michelle.

This was posted on Facebook a few years ago after yet another mass shooting in the USA - probably still relevant, although may need to be updated. But the message it sends - about twisted priorities - is clear.

Esther, your comment at #75 is an unsubstantiated personal attack. It's nasty and it's against babble policy. Don't do it again.

Serviam6 wrote:

Would there have been a different outcome if this man used a pumpaction shotgun?

Maybe not, obviously he should have been allowed a pump action shotgun, 'cause we all know that's a necessary tool that all good citizens have a right to own.

It's also an outrage not to allow nuclear and biological arms in the hands of law-abiding citizens.
Where does the US constitution  say that the "right to bear arms" is resticted to handguns, shotguns and automatic weapons?
Freedom of choice should not restrict the possession of these to the untrustworthy Governments.

Nukes don't kill people, people kill people.
If you stop good citizens from having nukes and biological weapons, criminals will find other ways to wipe out the planet.
Happiness is a warm isotope.

I am Adam Lanza's Mother

Three days before 20 year-old Adam Lanza killed his mother, then opened fire on a classroom full of Connecticut kindergartners, my 13-year old son Michael (name changed) missed his bus because he was wearing the wrong color pants.

“I can wear these pants,” he said, his tone increasingly belligerent, the black-hole pupils of his eyes swallowing the blue irises.

“They are navy blue,” I told him. “Your school’s dress code says black or khaki pants only.”

“They told me I could wear these,” he insisted. “You’re a stupid bitch. I can wear whatever pants I want to. This is America. I have rights!”

“You can’t wear whatever pants you want to,” I said, my tone affable, reasonable. “And you definitely cannot call me a stupid bitch. You’re grounded from electronics for the rest of the day. Now get in the car, and I will take you to school.”

I live with a son who is mentally ill. I love my son. But he terrifies me.

You Are Not Adam Lanza’s Mother

1)      The suggestion that this woman’s son is of the same type of person who would or will commit a “rage murder”, without any real evidence to back up this suggestion.

2)      The article doesn’t divulge, or even acknowledge, that its subject might have his own perspectives, beliefs and motivations that are worth mentioning. His mother’s perspective, mainly on his ‘evil eyes’ with their ‘calculated pupils’ is the only one given. Thus the child is presented solely as a problem, or at best, as a two-dimensional contradiction of his “behavioural problems” and his “intelligence” and not as a person with any more than shallow emotions. By reducing ‘mental illness’ to ‘outward behaviour’ the article dehumanises the mentally ill and completely glosses over the inner mental life and experiences of those with mental illness.

3)      The article complains about mental illness stigma while reinforcing it by explicitly tying it to violence, and in particular, mass killings. The reality is that there is no such observed link: “after analysing a number of killers, Mullen concludes, ‘they had personality problems and were, to put it mildly, deeply troubled people.’ But he goes on to add: ‘Most perpetrators of autogenic massacres do not, however, appear to have active psychotic symptoms at the time and very few even have histories of prior contact with mental health services.’” And most people with mental illness are not violent, although they are far more likely to be victims of crime (see here, for instance).

4)      The article, with this link established, implies a desire to stop violent crime allegedly perpetrated by those with mental illness should motivate better care and provision for those with mental illness, and not, say, the lower life expectancy, unemployment, isolation, suicidality, homelessness, victimization or in general the suffering endured by those with it. The continual disregard for this reality perpetuates stigma on all levels of society and further exposes those with mental illness to harm.

I don't want to talk about gun control

The conversations which will feature in the news in the coming weeks are as predictable as they are futile. "Evil visited this community today," said Connecticut Governor Dan Malloy. The killer will be declared a psychopath with a grudge against his mother. His various pathologies will be diagnosed, anatomized, second-guessed and fetishized. Many will demand tougher gun laws and just as many will decry such demands as misguided overreaction. Jon Stewart will mock the gun nuts and Fox News will taunt handwringing liberals. God will feature prominently. And 20 children, shot dead in their classroom, will still be gone. 

The popular NRA refrain maintains that the aftermath of a violent gun crime is no time to talk about gun control. And for once, I agree with them. Not that I don’t believe the U.S., and even Canada, need much more stringent firearm policies -- I can see no justification for handguns in urban centres at all, for example -- but because our society has once again proved its compulsion to produce men who go into our most sheltered spaces and kill indiscriminately those who most need our protection. And that compulsion can’t be cured by a handgun ban.

Already there is a comparison with the Chengping attack in which a man wielding a knife injured 23 children in a primary school. Advocates for tougher gun laws will point out that each of these children lived -- and they’re right. But if the only lesson we take from these incidents is to form some sort of harm reduction strategy before the next rampage attack we all know is imminent, we are failing our children and ourselves.

I don’t want to talk about gun control. The truth is that society failed these children, their parents, their teachers -- indeed, all of us -- catastrophically. I don’t want to participate in the guffawing circus we will see on the Colbert Report and elsewhere in the coming days, mocking NRA advocates for clinging to their assault rifles in the face of such horror. I don’t want to take pleasure in the righteousness of my logic as I demolish the absurd claims of conservative pundits on social media. I don’t want the satisfaction of being right, of not being wrong, of being able to say I-told-you-so.

Now actually is the time to discuss gun control

What makes me so incredibly angry, is that amidst the pain of these parents, these children, this community, is that the f-ing gun lobby, and its mouthpieces, and our Conservative politicians spout on about how it's not the time to discuss gun control, or get "political." Well, it actually is the perfect time to discuss gun control AND get political -- in a positive way. Regressive policies are constantly being shoved down our throats when we (as a populace) are in a state of shock. It's called "Shock Doctrine." Now, when a nation grieves (2 nations, actually), why not turn our shock, our horror, our outrage into positive changes? Let's teach and preach non-violence, get rid of guns, fund healthcare, de-stigmatize mental health disease. 

 Violence is everywhere, it's glorified on TV and in video games. It's a way of life, a cultural given. Why? Haven't we evolved beyond eye for an eye? I don't believe in God, it's not God who makes us good, we make each other good.

 

 

 

Unionist wrote:

I was puzzled by Michael Stewart's rabble piece.

Yes, well fortunately I can assist you in your puzzlement since (surprise?) I wrote it. Sorry for the fals front, but I think it's been an open secret for awhile. Besides, if Stevie Van Zandt can play his own songs on his own radio show, where can he play them?

I'm sorry you felt you lost its way -- perhaps it did in that it didn't offer a solution or an alternative to the endless gun control arguments (one iteration which ironically appeared in the blog comments themeselves). In terms of the criticism you raise here, I think it's easy to see how American society and Canadian society are inextricably intertwined and co-implicated. We are complicit and participating in all of the US's foreign adventures, in the exploitation of international capital, in the free availability of firearms here and to the south, in the neglect of the mentally ill, in patriarchy, in white supremacy, in capitalism, etc. ad infinitum. Newtown isn't indicative of a policy problem, it's indicative of a deep social wound that all of us are implicated in.

And my (I think) simple point was that responding to this catastrophic tear in the social fabric by rehearsing the same old arguments about gun control (in particular) is less about reparing that rupture than it is about ego and being right. Consider the rhetoric of "gun nuts" and "sick" people (like even Laura does, who I have met and admire) which attempts to first to categorize and isolate the problem rather than to start by accepting collective responsibility. Anything else becomes an exercise in ego, in earning intellectual capital from the enemy, in chortling along with Jon Stewart at the folly of "gun nuts" rather than recognizing that maybe that need to chortle, to deride, to rhetoricaly demolish is itself part of a flawed masculinity, part of a need to dominate, part of the problem that got us here in the first place.

And this time I don't want any part of that circus.

Catchfire, thanks for your explanation (or second explanation - maybe I was too dense to get it the first time).

Just a couple of small points.

In Québec, there is no debate about gun control. Maybe I was writing from a Québec point of view. You weren't, I don't think. All of Québec society - indeed, all the warring parties in the National Assembly - are and always have been unanimous in demanding stricter control, in supporting the registry (if that was temporarily the best we could get), and in opposing Harper's policy. Premier Pauline Marois's reaction to the horrific events in Connecticut was to [url=http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/12/16/pauline-marois-long-gun-registry... to registration of all weapons in Québec[/url]. You can be sure that not one opposition politicians will speak against that - except to maybe say it doesn't go far enough.

So you needn't be concerned about any "circus" here. Everyone is in the same ring.

In Canada, unfortunately, there's not much of a debate either. Not one other province tried to resist Harper's abolishment of the registry. Not one is calling for tighter controls of any kind. That's across all party lines.

Federally - I see no debate either. Harper, Mulcair, and Rae [url=http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2012/12/14/us-canada-connecticut-rea... described the incident as "senseless violence"[/url]. All three refrained from talking about how a 20-year-old could get three (not two, Catchfire, but three - two handguns plus the assault rifle which did all the killing) guns from his mother's "collection" (God help her and us and her damned "collection") and carry out this massacre. Not one of them said anything about guns in Canada. Because that debate [b]is over[/b] - at least for the foreseeable historical future. The NRA has won. Justin Trudeau has said he will not revive the long-gun registry. Has Mulcair said he will? Anyone else? I missed it. But we ridicule Trudeau for telling (just this once) the truth.

Of course, this isn't just about guns, not even close. It's about a society which is erected on oppression, at home and around the world - the rule of the strong over the weak, the few over the many - the victory of selfishness over solidarity, of violence over reason. It's racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-environment, and anti-worker to the core. And it maims and murders human beings wherever its tentacles reach. And I said Canada has "similar" issues, as does Québec. But don't ask me to plead guilty to their crimes. We have our own ongoing crimes, our own diseased society to deal with.

All this needs to be discussed, so that we can figure out how to avert violence in the society, violence against minorities and majorities, violence against people of other countries. Guns is a small part of that discussion, and it's an effect, not a cause. But treating symptoms can help. I understand your frustration at the ego-swinging nature of that discussion. But Québec shows that it can be done otherwise.

Consensus is possible. To get there, we may have to overcome our disgust and participate in the circus.

Mr.Tea wrote:

An Indiana man has been arrested after threatening to commit a similar school massacre. When police searched his home, they found 47 guns. 47. I could see someone feeling the need for one gun. Five guns, maybe even. But 47 guns? Can we not even have laws saying you can't have 47 guns?

Do you think he is going to use 47 guns at once? Ammo for each of those guns would be pretty heavy too.

What's the difference betweem 47 guns and 1 gun with 47 magazines?

Excellent posts, Unionist and Catchfire.

From a friend in Ohio:

"There’s only one funeral home in Newtown, Connecticut. And while I doubt the Honan Funeral Home will bury all the victims and the shooter, they will probably bury many of them. From what I can tell by the obituary section on their website, the Honan Funeral Home is not a very large funeral home. In fact, they’ve only advertised 12 obituaries in the past year. They will need help as they could very well have twice their yearly volume in one week. And thankfully, per this article, other surrounding funeral directors are offering their help to Honan."

Yes, I thought Catchfire's piece was a bit odd, although I don't fundamentally disagree with it. Probably because I live here in Québec and never travel to the US (I can't). Even though that community is not terribly far away, it seems very foreign. Obviously we are also complicit in imperialism and militarism, even here in Québec (although anti-militarism, not necessarily leftist by the way, runs deep here). 

lagatta wrote:

Obviously we are also complicit in imperialism and militarism, even here in Québec (although anti-militarism, not necessarily leftist by the way, runs deep here). 

Yes, I'd say we have just as many blind spots as they do, and certainly nothing to feel superior about (and I am not implying that your comment reflects that). I've been down there enough to notice a few of our shortcomings in comparison to them.I have met wonderful people, and seen action and committment that puts us to shame.

This does not only happen in the United States.

howeird beale wrote:

What a vague, faint hearted, tenuous and confused mess.

Actually I thought the editorial made good sense, and was quite specific about the problem - people using this tragedy to harangue and cast blame about what they assume is the real cause, and not seeing the forest for the trees.

I agree.