Madness at Newtown

[Mandy Muffin]

Like most of America and other parts of the world, I am saddened that a 20 year old man/boy decided to take guns from the family home and destroy 28 lives, killing children and adults at the local grade school.   Now I lived in Connecticut for a number of years and know the area and the people there.  My brother still lives a few miles from the site of the tragedy. 

The neighborhood is suburban, with professionals comprising the majority of the population.  There are nice homes, neighborhoods and community there.  This is not the ghetto.  People go to church and put up their decorations up for Christmas and other holiday expressions.  Most are college graduates and teach their children values they learned from their parents.  So how did one young lad come to a state of being totally out of control?

I hear the pundits on TV, some are arguing for more gun control in America.  This is a difficult task, as our Constitution has a provision called "The Second Amendment" that allows private citizens to own guns.  It's  hard to overturn a right that has been around since 1776, from a nation that was forced to take arms in a revolution.  The lobby is powerful.  I am a former Military Policeman and was trained in the use of arms by the US Air Force in nearby Bradley Field AFB in Connecticut.  But I don't own a gun and would never have one in my house. 

In this case the young man lived with a mother who was a gun enthusiast, by all accounts. She had several guns in her home and the son had been trained to shoot them.  He killed his own mother first.  Again, one of the reasons I don't have a gun in my house is that statistics show a family member is often the victim of gun violence. 

They say that guns don't kill but people do.  That may be so but how many children and teachers would this young man have killed with a knife or some other instrument?  We need to find an answer.  If it is gun control, then so be it.

[EastSider]

Nearly 20 years ago, following one of our seemingly regular mass shootings, I made the same argument Lip Service is making: Canadians watch the same TV we do, shop at similar malls, and drink the same coffee. There are some subtle differences though, one is their form of government, the other is their healthcare system and of course their gun laws. Whenever I travel into Canada, the only thing they ask me is if I am carrying any weapons. I guess they're used to us traveling north with weapon on-board.

I support the second amendment, but I don't see bow gun collecting can be legal under the Constitution:

"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

Anyone who can read should understand that individual collectors are not part of a well regulated militia. "A" well regulated militia also does not translate into a bunch of tobacco chewing, in-bred lunatics, looking for lawns to burn crosses on.

I may understand one hunting rifle, or a six-shooter, but what the hell is an elementary school teacher's aide doing with an arsenal at home? is she part of a well regulated milita? Did she have aspirations to be part of a well regulated militia? did she feel that in our day and age, the Queen might reclaim her "territories"?

Nevertheless, I don't think that this particular argument will go anywhere. Back to mental illness and what we can do to protect the public from the side effects of the 2nd amendment. It looks like the only option available to us is to up our defensive measures. Our lives were transformed on Sept 12, 2001 and the same thing happened on Dec 14, 2012.

As long as we think that collecting "live' weapons is a legitimate pastime, or we disillusion ourselves into thinking that we're protecting the rights of the people against a tyranny , we will continue to have Columbine and Newton.

I've been depressed for days, all consumed with this tragedy, and thinking about my own kids. My thoughts are with the families.

[MGDJ]

We think that these tragedys indicate that society is unsafe.  If you want to compare violence today to the conflicts in the old west or the kingdoms of the middle ages, we are much safer today than any other time in history.  There is absolutely no way to prevent all horrific crimes without a major changes to the basic freedoms that made the United States the greatest country on earth. 

[Lip Service]

I don't know enough about mental illness to tell if the violence of the society also carries over to those members of the society who are mentally ill.

But reason and motivation of the perpetrator aside, isn't it clear that the presence of guns is what caused the degree of severity of this event?

It is also not a matter of culture and movies and TV. Nearby Canada has a very similar culture and they watch a similar diet of movies and TV shows but their homicide rate is much less than that of the US. Can  anyone think of a different factor other than the availability of guns in both cultures?

[exedir]

If was just an issue of guns and who owns and uses them, then the issue might be easier to deal with, with or without the 2nd amendment.  But it is not.  We have a violent society saturated by violence in many forms, including the use of firearms.  

The why of why this has happened is that it sells.  And, violence is equated with justice, not the justice of the law, justice of the righteous, the delusional and the victim of wrongs and grievances that needs requires redress if not revenge as seen on TV.   

Interestingly, as most of us were growing up we saw this as the correct way to live, in the olde west, where men were men and the rest really didn't matter.  Shooting without a connection the blood and shattered bodies was a common as playing Cowboys and Indians where after the shooting everyone got up to play again.  And all was justified because it was easy to know what hat the hero worn and who needed justice and the silver bullet.  

Now, we see that the violence in our society is evil and corrosive to the public welfare, that it divides and creates fear, fear actually of almost all of those around you, wherever you are.

[MGDJ]

Full gun control will never happen in the United States.  It is easy to call for gun control when you have not been the victim of a violent crime.  Ask someone about gun control who has been raped or the parents of a child who has been killed in a home invasion crime.  We outlaw drugs in America and drugs are all over the place.  Prohibition didn't work with alcohol, so autlawing guns would probably yield the same results.  That isn't to say that restrictions such as banning automatic weapons isn't good legislation.  The musket was the only gun in exisence in 1787.  The scenario for violence then was a man walking into a crowded square and maybe getting off 2 shots before he was taken down.

[Mandy Muffin]

Thank you for making my point, Lip Service.  If we banned automatic weapons and such, a simple six shooter would have limited the damage.  Weapons for hunting should be kept in a lock cabinet.  Handguns for protection should be limited to one per person and of the single shot at a time variety. Hollow nosed bullets should be banned. 

However, this is still a mental illness problem and the parent should have known better.  A good friend of mine was shot by her mentally ill brother one Christmas Eve.  He has been hunting  in the local woods and came back to the kitchen where he got into an argument with his sister who was visiting their Ohio home from Arizona.  At the height of the argument he pointed the shotgun at her and killed her on the spot.  That was 45 years ago.  He is probably still in a mental institution in Ohio if he hasn't died yet.

[Lip Service]

Ironically on the very same day a very similar incident happened on the other side of the world. A mentally disturbed man attacks and injures twenty two children in China. 

The results are very different though, twenty children died in Connecticut but none in China, the difference being is that no guns are allowed in China.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/world/asia/man-stabs-22-children-...