Showing posts with label Gun Safety. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gun Safety. Show all posts
Thursday, July 10, 2014
Monday, June 16, 2014
The Bodyguard Blanket
Well, I guess it's come to this...
I can hear the Gun Cult shrieking like old ladies now..."If we could only have anyone carry a gun in a school, then kids wouldn't need the Bodyguard Blanket."
Or maybe if our society could be arsed to leave behind a troglodytic perception of mental health, guns, and violence, then we wouldn't need the fucking Bodyguard Blanket
I can hear the Gun Cult shrieking like old ladies now..."If we could only have anyone carry a gun in a school, then kids wouldn't need the Bodyguard Blanket."
Or maybe if our society could be arsed to leave behind a troglodytic perception of mental health, guns, and violence, then we wouldn't need the fucking Bodyguard Blanket
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
The Best Quote On Guns In Human History
From an answer on Quora...
There is little doubt that armed teachers could have possibly saved lives in the Newtown shooting.
There is also little doubt in my mind that widespread arming of teachers would at some point result in an accidental shooting of a child, access to a firearm by a child, and a tragic deliberate shooting of an innocent adult due to a misunderstanding or overreaction.
The fundamental problem with most positions on firearm legislation is that they are myopic. The average gun advocate is a responsible, law abiding person with legitimate and justifiable arguments for people like them to possess firearms, and they are no danger to themselves or others. Yet they fail to understand that not everyone is like them. Not everyone can handle the responsibility of a firearm. When the law supports their right to bear arms, it also supports the rights of almost every other citizen to bear arms; many of whom are not responsible enough to do so safely.
As a former soldier I have been trained in the use of a number of firearms from pistols to machine guns. I teach my son and daughter to use an archery bow, and I impress upon them the gravity and responsibility of wielding a deadly weapon. I owned a hunting rifle and later a hunting shotgun, which were surrendered in the Australian buyback following the Port Arthur massacre. There are times, especially in the dead of night, when I wonder how I would defend my family against an armed intruder and I miss having that shotgun - after all, criminals still have access to guns in this country. But I understand that for me to have the right to own firearms for home defence, my neighbour and millions of my fellow citizens must also have that right. I know that most of those people have not had my training and do not have my respect for weapons, and on balance I feel safer with them not having them. And that's just the stable, law abiding ones.
On balance, I feel that arming teachers would cause more harm, when viewed on a national scale, than good. Rather than a knee jerk reaction to militarise schools, I believe that the US would be better served by reviewing firearm laws to make the ownership of guns a revokable privilege rather than a universal right; by putting in place restrictions on automatic firearms and large capacity magazines; by verifying the character, mental state and training of gun purchasers; by licensing guns to owners and making unlicensed transfers a felony; by improving their mental health services and by ending the glorification of gun violence and perpetrators in the news media.
Well balanced...thoughtful...intelligent...and, most importantly, highly illustrative of the complexities of the gun issue.
There is little doubt that armed teachers could have possibly saved lives in the Newtown shooting.
There is also little doubt in my mind that widespread arming of teachers would at some point result in an accidental shooting of a child, access to a firearm by a child, and a tragic deliberate shooting of an innocent adult due to a misunderstanding or overreaction.
The fundamental problem with most positions on firearm legislation is that they are myopic. The average gun advocate is a responsible, law abiding person with legitimate and justifiable arguments for people like them to possess firearms, and they are no danger to themselves or others. Yet they fail to understand that not everyone is like them. Not everyone can handle the responsibility of a firearm. When the law supports their right to bear arms, it also supports the rights of almost every other citizen to bear arms; many of whom are not responsible enough to do so safely.
As a former soldier I have been trained in the use of a number of firearms from pistols to machine guns. I teach my son and daughter to use an archery bow, and I impress upon them the gravity and responsibility of wielding a deadly weapon. I owned a hunting rifle and later a hunting shotgun, which were surrendered in the Australian buyback following the Port Arthur massacre. There are times, especially in the dead of night, when I wonder how I would defend my family against an armed intruder and I miss having that shotgun - after all, criminals still have access to guns in this country. But I understand that for me to have the right to own firearms for home defence, my neighbour and millions of my fellow citizens must also have that right. I know that most of those people have not had my training and do not have my respect for weapons, and on balance I feel safer with them not having them. And that's just the stable, law abiding ones.
On balance, I feel that arming teachers would cause more harm, when viewed on a national scale, than good. Rather than a knee jerk reaction to militarise schools, I believe that the US would be better served by reviewing firearm laws to make the ownership of guns a revokable privilege rather than a universal right; by putting in place restrictions on automatic firearms and large capacity magazines; by verifying the character, mental state and training of gun purchasers; by licensing guns to owners and making unlicensed transfers a felony; by improving their mental health services and by ending the glorification of gun violence and perpetrators in the news media.
Well balanced...thoughtful...intelligent...and, most importantly, highly illustrative of the complexities of the gun issue.
Sunday, May 04, 2014
The Columbine Effect
My home state is reeling this week over the revelations that John David LaDue was planning a Columbine-like school attack. LaDue is yet another teenage male with mental health issues that turned to plans of violence. Today's Strib had this as the front page story.
'Columbine effect': Alarm is rising over copycats
It's a very disturbing yet accurate piece over a phenomenon that has evolved in culture since the Columbine shooting. The piece echoes many of the things I have written about on here about young men in culture. As more is revealed about LaDue, I'm sure we will see that he had most if not all of what I have been calling the magic cocktail (mental health issues, feelings of persecution and lack of attention, taking SSRIs, easy access to weapons, played violent video games, poor parental involvement, lack of community support and/or involvement).
What is very clear from this piece is that the Columbine Effect is part of our culture now and it won't be going away anytime soon. So, what should do about it? The piece has some very general suggestions but this has become a very complex problem. It's no longer as simple as "gun problem" or a "mental health problem." It's an American Culture problem that has to be addressed in a very complex way because it evolved in a complex way.
In many ways, it's become like a puzzle with some easy answers and some difficult ones which contain solutions that will be a big lift. Getting people to stop being lazy and engage young men takes a lot of energy. I know I sound cynical but I don't think most Americans have it in them. I base this on my own experience with parents so I do admit to bias. Changing our antiquated gun laws would help but, honestly, that's a small piece of the puzzle.
This has to be a cultural shift and it will obviously take a lot of time. So, where do we start?
'Columbine effect': Alarm is rising over copycats
It's a very disturbing yet accurate piece over a phenomenon that has evolved in culture since the Columbine shooting. The piece echoes many of the things I have written about on here about young men in culture. As more is revealed about LaDue, I'm sure we will see that he had most if not all of what I have been calling the magic cocktail (mental health issues, feelings of persecution and lack of attention, taking SSRIs, easy access to weapons, played violent video games, poor parental involvement, lack of community support and/or involvement).
What is very clear from this piece is that the Columbine Effect is part of our culture now and it won't be going away anytime soon. So, what should do about it? The piece has some very general suggestions but this has become a very complex problem. It's no longer as simple as "gun problem" or a "mental health problem." It's an American Culture problem that has to be addressed in a very complex way because it evolved in a complex way.
In many ways, it's become like a puzzle with some easy answers and some difficult ones which contain solutions that will be a big lift. Getting people to stop being lazy and engage young men takes a lot of energy. I know I sound cynical but I don't think most Americans have it in them. I base this on my own experience with parents so I do admit to bias. Changing our antiquated gun laws would help but, honestly, that's a small piece of the puzzle.
This has to be a cultural shift and it will obviously take a lot of time. So, where do we start?
Saturday, April 05, 2014
Leadership On Gun Safety
Gander Mountain is a great example of the kind of leadership we need on gun safety from the private sector of our country. Given how many deaths occur reach year due to irresponsible adults, the idea of a gun lock giveaway is a welcome solution.
“When you start reading about them and you see that so many of them involve someone just leaving the firearm out and the wrong person gets it in their hand and it usually involves a child,” he said. “And if it was just either locked up in a safe or it was in a biometric safe in the case of a handgun or a trigger lock these accidents are all preventable,” said Steve Uline, Gander Mountain’s vice president for marketing.
This year they are adding hardware to the cause. Gander Mountain, which has 133 locations in 25 states, is giving away 50,000 gun locks until Sunday, April 6. The gun locks the company is giving away bar access to the gun’s trigger. Uline said the cost of gun locks, which start at $10, isn’t prohibitive considering most gun owners spend thousands on their guns. But gun owners fall into the mentality that accidents or tragedies won’t happen to them. “We felt that we were in a position to raise awareness to cut down on these accidents,” Uline said.
Way to go, Gander Mountain!
That's not all they are doing. They have also done admirable work raising firearm security awareness over the past year through social media and advertising; its leadership’s willingness to engage in a touchy debate is commendable. The retailer’s position — with rights come responsibilities — is something everyone should be able to agree on and, more important, act on.
“When you start reading about them and you see that so many of them involve someone just leaving the firearm out and the wrong person gets it in their hand and it usually involves a child,” he said. “And if it was just either locked up in a safe or it was in a biometric safe in the case of a handgun or a trigger lock these accidents are all preventable,” said Steve Uline, Gander Mountain’s vice president for marketing.
This year they are adding hardware to the cause. Gander Mountain, which has 133 locations in 25 states, is giving away 50,000 gun locks until Sunday, April 6. The gun locks the company is giving away bar access to the gun’s trigger. Uline said the cost of gun locks, which start at $10, isn’t prohibitive considering most gun owners spend thousands on their guns. But gun owners fall into the mentality that accidents or tragedies won’t happen to them. “We felt that we were in a position to raise awareness to cut down on these accidents,” Uline said.
Way to go, Gander Mountain!
That's not all they are doing. They have also done admirable work raising firearm security awareness over the past year through social media and advertising; its leadership’s willingness to engage in a touchy debate is commendable. The retailer’s position — with rights come responsibilities — is something everyone should be able to agree on and, more important, act on.
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Wednesday, February 05, 2014
How The Gun Laws Will Change
Last Friday, Bill Maher and his guests wondered on Real Time what it would take for our nation's gun laws to change to suit our current challenges. If Sandy Hook didn't change things, what possibly could? I kept waiting for them to say it and they didn't. Here is how it will happen.
There will be a mass shooting at some sort of gun event in which powerful people in the gun lobby will be affected personally and very deeply. They will lose family members and friends and will realize their own hubris played a part in causing this. And that's when the gun cult will completely fall apart.
Americans don't move to change until they are affected by things in an overwhelmingly personal way. Sandy Hook and the other shootings we've had in the last year haven't done that because they were incidents that occurred outside of the sphere of the gun lobby. Once they start happening within that sphere, things will change and very rapidly indeed. One need only look at the issue of gay marriage, for example, to see how it will happen. Republicans were very anti gay marriage until family members, friends and donors started coming out. The sphere was no longer closed. Cigarettes were nearly identical, as I have mentioned previously. When the pro smoking crowd started losing people to cancer and heart disease, it all fell apart. The same thing will happen with climate change.
So, we will see incremental changes, with people like Gabby Giffords and her husband making small gains, for what seems like a far too long of a time and poof! Suddenly, it will all change and we will wonder why we didn't have enough common sense in the first place. I realize this isn't much solace for the citizens of our country that have to endure the pain of losing someone to gun violence because a minority of people in this country are mentally unbalanced. People should take some heart, though, that we have made progress in identifying the underlying causes of mass shootings (in particular, school shootings) and talking about them more frequently. Check this recent article out.
Bill Bond, who was principal at Heath High School in West Paducah, Ky., in 1997 when a 14-year-old freshman fired on a prayer group, killing three female students and wounding five, sees few differences in today's shootings. The one consistency, he said, is that the shooters are males confronting hopelessness. "You see troubled young men who are desperate and they strike out and they don't see that they have any hope," Bond said.
We can give the young men in our community hope right now. We don't need altered gun laws to do this. In addition, we can make sure that these troubled young men don't have access to firearms. If we can pursue this vigor and care, we will reduce the number of school and mass shootings in this country. This could be the beginning of a very necessary sea change in this country in which we wake up to the fact that American culture has some very deep flaws in terms of gun competency.
There will be a mass shooting at some sort of gun event in which powerful people in the gun lobby will be affected personally and very deeply. They will lose family members and friends and will realize their own hubris played a part in causing this. And that's when the gun cult will completely fall apart.
Americans don't move to change until they are affected by things in an overwhelmingly personal way. Sandy Hook and the other shootings we've had in the last year haven't done that because they were incidents that occurred outside of the sphere of the gun lobby. Once they start happening within that sphere, things will change and very rapidly indeed. One need only look at the issue of gay marriage, for example, to see how it will happen. Republicans were very anti gay marriage until family members, friends and donors started coming out. The sphere was no longer closed. Cigarettes were nearly identical, as I have mentioned previously. When the pro smoking crowd started losing people to cancer and heart disease, it all fell apart. The same thing will happen with climate change.
So, we will see incremental changes, with people like Gabby Giffords and her husband making small gains, for what seems like a far too long of a time and poof! Suddenly, it will all change and we will wonder why we didn't have enough common sense in the first place. I realize this isn't much solace for the citizens of our country that have to endure the pain of losing someone to gun violence because a minority of people in this country are mentally unbalanced. People should take some heart, though, that we have made progress in identifying the underlying causes of mass shootings (in particular, school shootings) and talking about them more frequently. Check this recent article out.
Bill Bond, who was principal at Heath High School in West Paducah, Ky., in 1997 when a 14-year-old freshman fired on a prayer group, killing three female students and wounding five, sees few differences in today's shootings. The one consistency, he said, is that the shooters are males confronting hopelessness. "You see troubled young men who are desperate and they strike out and they don't see that they have any hope," Bond said.
We can give the young men in our community hope right now. We don't need altered gun laws to do this. In addition, we can make sure that these troubled young men don't have access to firearms. If we can pursue this vigor and care, we will reduce the number of school and mass shootings in this country. This could be the beginning of a very necessary sea change in this country in which we wake up to the fact that American culture has some very deep flaws in terms of gun competency.
Thursday, November 28, 2013
Thankful For Social Media
What am I thankful for today? Social media. Why?
Remember back about 20 years ago when cigarettes were generally accepted? Many of my friends smoked and, while people knew it was bad for them, they still did it without much of a social stigma.
But now there is a pretty big stigma and people that smoke are generally thought of as white trash and really pretty dumb. Sure, there were laws passed on cigarettes and higher taxes but the pushing out of normality regarding cigarettes was generally a cultural shift. Everyone goes outside, even in their own homes, to smoke. People that smoked were generally older and some of them died. Younger people either quite or didn't pick up the habit. In short, we grew out of it. And that's exactly what's going to happen in the next twenty years with guns.
In fact, with social media like Facebook and Twitter, it's going to happen much sooner. We are going to grow out of Gun Cult thinking and into a more rational approach to the (very much limited) 2nd amendment. The recent revelations about Adam Lanza show that we don't have a choice. The annual culling of our citizens is going to stop and it will be because of the new media.
Thanks, new media!
Remember back about 20 years ago when cigarettes were generally accepted? Many of my friends smoked and, while people knew it was bad for them, they still did it without much of a social stigma.
But now there is a pretty big stigma and people that smoke are generally thought of as white trash and really pretty dumb. Sure, there were laws passed on cigarettes and higher taxes but the pushing out of normality regarding cigarettes was generally a cultural shift. Everyone goes outside, even in their own homes, to smoke. People that smoked were generally older and some of them died. Younger people either quite or didn't pick up the habit. In short, we grew out of it. And that's exactly what's going to happen in the next twenty years with guns.
In fact, with social media like Facebook and Twitter, it's going to happen much sooner. We are going to grow out of Gun Cult thinking and into a more rational approach to the (very much limited) 2nd amendment. The recent revelations about Adam Lanza show that we don't have a choice. The annual culling of our citizens is going to stop and it will be because of the new media.
Thanks, new media!
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Crystal Clear
The release of the report on Adam Lanza inexplicably finds that there is no answer to the question of why he committed mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The media has jumped on board with this line of thought, scratching their heads like the fucking apes they are in wonder at just where things went wrong when it is so completely obvious.
Adam Lanza is a textbook example of what happens when the adolescent power fantasy perpetuated by the Gun Cult and conservatives in general goes very, very dark.
We start with his mother, a "live free or die type" who sought no mental health help for her son. She brought him up in an environment that encouraged anti-government and anti-social behavior, allowing him to stay locked in his room with black garbage bags on the windows and communicated to him only via email. She allowed him access to guns despite the fact that he wrote a book in 5th grade about children being slaughtered and a son shooting his mother in the head. In fact, she was planning on buying him a gun for Christmas last year! Add in the obsession with violent video games and the fact that he was bullied and one can see the perfect cocktail for spree shooting mixed all too well.
There may not have been a criminal motive in the strictest of terms found in this case but it's very clear why it happened. Nancy Lanza was a horrible parent who bought into the myths of the Gun Cult and modern day conservatism. Guns are our God given right and mental health problems should just be ignored and repressed as all that business is just a bunch of liberal, touchy feely nonsense. Young men should be allowed to stomp down the hallway, lock themselves in their room and be rebellious towards all authority!!
It completely astounds me just how fucking stupid Nancy Lanza was in all of this. How many more parents are there like her out there? What kind of a parent doesn't notice the red flag of her son keeping a ledger on all the mass shootings in America? And worshiping Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold? Well, as long as her 2nd amendment rights were protected and our country was saved from the gun grabbers. At least she understood what "infringed" meant!
Adam Lanza is a textbook example of what happens when the adolescent power fantasy perpetuated by the Gun Cult and conservatives in general goes very, very dark.
We start with his mother, a "live free or die type" who sought no mental health help for her son. She brought him up in an environment that encouraged anti-government and anti-social behavior, allowing him to stay locked in his room with black garbage bags on the windows and communicated to him only via email. She allowed him access to guns despite the fact that he wrote a book in 5th grade about children being slaughtered and a son shooting his mother in the head. In fact, she was planning on buying him a gun for Christmas last year! Add in the obsession with violent video games and the fact that he was bullied and one can see the perfect cocktail for spree shooting mixed all too well.
There may not have been a criminal motive in the strictest of terms found in this case but it's very clear why it happened. Nancy Lanza was a horrible parent who bought into the myths of the Gun Cult and modern day conservatism. Guns are our God given right and mental health problems should just be ignored and repressed as all that business is just a bunch of liberal, touchy feely nonsense. Young men should be allowed to stomp down the hallway, lock themselves in their room and be rebellious towards all authority!!
It completely astounds me just how fucking stupid Nancy Lanza was in all of this. How many more parents are there like her out there? What kind of a parent doesn't notice the red flag of her son keeping a ledger on all the mass shootings in America? And worshiping Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold? Well, as long as her 2nd amendment rights were protected and our country was saved from the gun grabbers. At least she understood what "infringed" meant!
Saturday, November 23, 2013
No Doubt!
What Is The Second Amendment Coming To When North Dakota Nazi Guy Can’t Even Terrorize His Neighbors With Guns?
I, for one, am outraged. What part of infringed don't they understand?!!?
I, for one, am outraged. What part of infringed don't they understand?!!?
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Shades of Gray Willfully Ignored
It always stuns me when conservatives and, in particular, the gun community, make truly thoughtless statements. One such statement popped in comments a while back which can be essentially summed up as this: if someone is too mentally ill to handle a gun, they are too mentally ill to be out in society.
Setting aside the complete lack of intelligence in terms of mental health issues, how people are institutionalized and...well...that the world is shades of gray (not so black and white), statements like this show just how religious these folks are about guns. It's not about the 2nd amendment anymore. It's about proselytizing. Worse, it really illustrates just how ignorant these folks are regarding human nature and how they completely misunderstand, either by free choice or pure ignorance, the fact that low levels of responsibility are the norm, not the exception, in this country. It's this simple fact that will eventually bite them hard in the ass.
These thoughts really crystallized for me a couple of days ago when two separate events occurred. The first one was a story my wife told me about a fellow parent at my son's school. She was having a conversation with another mom that turned to video games. My wife was pretty shocked to learn that this mom let her son play whatever games he wanted (like Call of Duty) even though he has had mental health problems. Compounding this waiting disaster was the mom's admission that she and her husband were going to get their conceal and carry permits and how they were going to start taking their 11 year old son (the one with the mental health problems and love of Call of Duty) to the range on a regular basis to "turn him into a man." It's nice to know the next Adam Lanza will be just a few short blocks away.
Later that day, I went and played tennis with a younger guy who was clearly on the autism spectrum. He was very picky and jumpy throughout the match, admonishing me for not handing him the balls in the right way on the changeover. A couple of times he just wigged out because he thought he saw a ball flying onto the court from another court and in reality, there was nothing. He apologized after the match, noting his mental health issues, and asked me to give him a break. We never talked about guns but it occurred to me that, while this guy was just fine to be out in public, he would decidedly not be fine given a firearm.
There are many people in this country that are not dangerous in and of themselves. But you start adding in elements to the mix of a perfect cocktail and you can very easily have an explosion of violence. It's not as black and white as the commenter assured me (shocking). Everyone is different and each mental issue is complex with each individual. To say that they should all be institutionalized simply because they can't be trusted with a gun is completely myopic.
And I am real tired of the annual culling that goes on from gun violence as a result of this ignorance.
Setting aside the complete lack of intelligence in terms of mental health issues, how people are institutionalized and...well...that the world is shades of gray (not so black and white), statements like this show just how religious these folks are about guns. It's not about the 2nd amendment anymore. It's about proselytizing. Worse, it really illustrates just how ignorant these folks are regarding human nature and how they completely misunderstand, either by free choice or pure ignorance, the fact that low levels of responsibility are the norm, not the exception, in this country. It's this simple fact that will eventually bite them hard in the ass.
These thoughts really crystallized for me a couple of days ago when two separate events occurred. The first one was a story my wife told me about a fellow parent at my son's school. She was having a conversation with another mom that turned to video games. My wife was pretty shocked to learn that this mom let her son play whatever games he wanted (like Call of Duty) even though he has had mental health problems. Compounding this waiting disaster was the mom's admission that she and her husband were going to get their conceal and carry permits and how they were going to start taking their 11 year old son (the one with the mental health problems and love of Call of Duty) to the range on a regular basis to "turn him into a man." It's nice to know the next Adam Lanza will be just a few short blocks away.
Later that day, I went and played tennis with a younger guy who was clearly on the autism spectrum. He was very picky and jumpy throughout the match, admonishing me for not handing him the balls in the right way on the changeover. A couple of times he just wigged out because he thought he saw a ball flying onto the court from another court and in reality, there was nothing. He apologized after the match, noting his mental health issues, and asked me to give him a break. We never talked about guns but it occurred to me that, while this guy was just fine to be out in public, he would decidedly not be fine given a firearm.
There are many people in this country that are not dangerous in and of themselves. But you start adding in elements to the mix of a perfect cocktail and you can very easily have an explosion of violence. It's not as black and white as the commenter assured me (shocking). Everyone is different and each mental issue is complex with each individual. To say that they should all be institutionalized simply because they can't be trusted with a gun is completely myopic.
And I am real tired of the annual culling that goes on from gun violence as a result of this ignorance.
Friday, October 25, 2013
It Begins (And Ends) With The Parents
Nearly all of the challenges I face as an instructor are due to poor parenting. Parents do indeed really suck and they are getting worse. Even the number of sucky parents are on the rise as our culture becomes more and more cemented in the misplaced and harmful values of the Michael Jordan Generation. It's very clear that parents are just not doing their job.
Never was this statement more true than with the parents of the shooter in the recent Sparks, Nevada Middle School shooting. While it hasn't been fully confirmed yet, the student who killed teacher and vet Michael Landsberry and wounded two other students likely got the semi-auto 9mm from his parents. What the hell were they thinking? And what kind of a fucking country do we live in where a guy who does tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan lives through that but gets shot in his hometown? It's stuff like this that completely disgusts me.
This would be a clear example of people who should not be allowed to own guns and why our laws regarding arms need to be changed. Their license to own a gun should be taken away and they should face criminal charges. I'm wondering if they were "live free or die" types like Nancy Lanza who also thought it would be nifty to let her mentally ill sun have access to her guns.
The facts of this case have been very slow in coming but my takeaways are that it's clear there was some sort of bullying involved (more on that later), the shooter was mentally ill, and his parents are directly responsible. Further, this latest incident has led me to reflect about Newton and come to the conclusion the ideology that bloviates from the gun community is also responsible. This is particularly true in the case of Nancy Lanza who bought their lies to such a degree that she felt she needed a fucking arsenal to protect herself.
It begins and ends with the parents, folks. If they don't do their job, we end up with situations like this. And more and more of them these days are failing miserably.
Never was this statement more true than with the parents of the shooter in the recent Sparks, Nevada Middle School shooting. While it hasn't been fully confirmed yet, the student who killed teacher and vet Michael Landsberry and wounded two other students likely got the semi-auto 9mm from his parents. What the hell were they thinking? And what kind of a fucking country do we live in where a guy who does tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan lives through that but gets shot in his hometown? It's stuff like this that completely disgusts me.
This would be a clear example of people who should not be allowed to own guns and why our laws regarding arms need to be changed. Their license to own a gun should be taken away and they should face criminal charges. I'm wondering if they were "live free or die" types like Nancy Lanza who also thought it would be nifty to let her mentally ill sun have access to her guns.
The facts of this case have been very slow in coming but my takeaways are that it's clear there was some sort of bullying involved (more on that later), the shooter was mentally ill, and his parents are directly responsible. Further, this latest incident has led me to reflect about Newton and come to the conclusion the ideology that bloviates from the gun community is also responsible. This is particularly true in the case of Nancy Lanza who bought their lies to such a degree that she felt she needed a fucking arsenal to protect herself.
It begins and ends with the parents, folks. If they don't do their job, we end up with situations like this. And more and more of them these days are failing miserably.
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Neighborhood Mental Watch
As more information comes out about Aaron Alexis, it's becoming very clear that we, as a nation, are falling short in terms of mental health. Someone that hears voices should not be allowed to own firearms. Period. Yet, as is usually the case now with these shootings, the gun community is falling all over themselves to make sure that none of our nation's gun laws are changed in terms of mental health restrictions. Since we've seen the piles of dead children's bodies won't move them, this latest incident won't either. Further, the Bloombergs and Bradys of the world will be equally as impotent in bringing about change. So, it's time to turn the whole debate on its ear.
I propose bypassing civil law (for the most part) and creating private, community based organizations around the nation that keep an eye out for mentally unwell people and raise a red flag if they own firearms, specifically focusing on young men as they seem to fit the profile of these spree shooters. We can use Bill and Tricia Lemmers, along with suggestions from Peter Brown Hoffmeister, as the models for how to intervene in such situations. Think of it as a Neighborhood Mental Watch.
The structure could be set up in a similar way to MADD or DARE (so we would need to come up with a cool acronym...NMW doesn't really pop...any ideas?) juxtaposed with a local militia. The gun community has their views on militias being allowed to protect local communities. Fine. So will we. It will be staffed by mental health experts, community leaders, retired law enforcement officials, teachers, ministers, and other concerned citizens who will keep on eye out for the next Adam Lanza. Like George Zimmerman patrolling his community for thieves, the Neighborhood Mental Watch will be ever vigilant and seek to keep towns safe.
Perhaps it's time to admit that the gun community is correct. Police are inadequate in terms of providing protecting from criminals. So is the law. It's time to take matters into our own hands.
I propose bypassing civil law (for the most part) and creating private, community based organizations around the nation that keep an eye out for mentally unwell people and raise a red flag if they own firearms, specifically focusing on young men as they seem to fit the profile of these spree shooters. We can use Bill and Tricia Lemmers, along with suggestions from Peter Brown Hoffmeister, as the models for how to intervene in such situations. Think of it as a Neighborhood Mental Watch.
The structure could be set up in a similar way to MADD or DARE (so we would need to come up with a cool acronym...NMW doesn't really pop...any ideas?) juxtaposed with a local militia. The gun community has their views on militias being allowed to protect local communities. Fine. So will we. It will be staffed by mental health experts, community leaders, retired law enforcement officials, teachers, ministers, and other concerned citizens who will keep on eye out for the next Adam Lanza. Like George Zimmerman patrolling his community for thieves, the Neighborhood Mental Watch will be ever vigilant and seek to keep towns safe.
Perhaps it's time to admit that the gun community is correct. Police are inadequate in terms of providing protecting from criminals. So is the law. It's time to take matters into our own hands.
Monday, September 16, 2013
Patience
I wrote this over the weekend before the Navy Yard shooting and planned to post it tonight...
I'm trying to figure out what I hate more after the Colorado recall election of two state senators over their support for new gun safety laws: the usual bloviation from the gun community or the hand wringing from the left that gun control is dead. I think it's the latter.
It's always amazed me how opponents of the gun community (and other conservative causes) cower in the face of defeat. Maybe they should take a page out of the Right's playbook and lie, foam at the mouth, and scream that America is being raped. Nah, they can't do that...sensible people are too reflective and honest!
What they should do is realize that the recall election was actually a failure. They wanted to recall five senators but only got two. The Democrats still have the majority in Colorado. It's amusing that the "liberal media" is spinning this as a loss.
Further, the only thing now that is required in the Great Gun Debate is patience. Eventually, we are going to see something like this on a larger scale within the gun community and all this nonsense will be over. Likely, it will come from the area of mental health as it relates to gun ownership and gun rights groups themselves will be falling all over each other to pass the legislation.
Until it affects them personally, nothing will be done.
As of right now we know that Alexis was a military contractor and a gun enthusiast. He was arrested in 2010 on gun charges (firing his weapon within city limits in Fort Worth). So, how did he get the guns he used in today's shooting? And I thought that mass shooters don't attack gun full zones like a military base...
I'm trying to figure out what I hate more after the Colorado recall election of two state senators over their support for new gun safety laws: the usual bloviation from the gun community or the hand wringing from the left that gun control is dead. I think it's the latter.
It's always amazed me how opponents of the gun community (and other conservative causes) cower in the face of defeat. Maybe they should take a page out of the Right's playbook and lie, foam at the mouth, and scream that America is being raped. Nah, they can't do that...sensible people are too reflective and honest!
What they should do is realize that the recall election was actually a failure. They wanted to recall five senators but only got two. The Democrats still have the majority in Colorado. It's amusing that the "liberal media" is spinning this as a loss.
Further, the only thing now that is required in the Great Gun Debate is patience. Eventually, we are going to see something like this on a larger scale within the gun community and all this nonsense will be over. Likely, it will come from the area of mental health as it relates to gun ownership and gun rights groups themselves will be falling all over each other to pass the legislation.
Until it affects them personally, nothing will be done.
As of right now we know that Alexis was a military contractor and a gun enthusiast. He was arrested in 2010 on gun charges (firing his weapon within city limits in Fort Worth). So, how did he get the guns he used in today's shooting? And I thought that mass shooters don't attack gun full zones like a military base...
Thursday, August 22, 2013
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
The One With The Happy Ending
It started off as an all too familiar event. A young white male with a history of mental health problems gets into a school and threatens to shoot it up. Convicted felon Michael Brandon Hill (who somehow managed to get a gun...how?) skirted past security at Discovery Learning Academy in Decateur, Georgia and held two staff hostage.
But one of the staff, school bookeeper Antoinette Tuff, talked him down and he surrendered to police. The story of how she did this is detailed in the above link. More importantly, however, is that she did this without a gun of her own in a gun free zone. This incident really drives home the point of how this is all about mental health and not guns. What happens to young white men that they get to this point? Why is it always the same profile, save a few outliers?
This is at the heart of the school shooting issue. We need to figure out the profile for these guys just like we would a serial killer or habitual thief. More intelligence means better crime prevention and (thank God) leaving the very unhelpful gun ass hats out of the equation.
But one of the staff, school bookeeper Antoinette Tuff, talked him down and he surrendered to police. The story of how she did this is detailed in the above link. More importantly, however, is that she did this without a gun of her own in a gun free zone. This incident really drives home the point of how this is all about mental health and not guns. What happens to young white men that they get to this point? Why is it always the same profile, save a few outliers?
This is at the heart of the school shooting issue. We need to figure out the profile for these guys just like we would a serial killer or habitual thief. More intelligence means better crime prevention and (thank God) leaving the very unhelpful gun ass hats out of the equation.
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Sunday, August 04, 2013
Not An Outlier?
When I first heard about "libtard" hating Mark Kessler, the police chief of Gilberton, PA, I laughed and thought he was just an Alex Jones type who was far over the top and not really indicative of the gun rights community.
But the turnout of support for him after his 30 day suspension coupled with a serious look at his video rants have made me realize that he is not an outlier. In fact, this is the same shit we see on gun blogs all over the inter-webs (and, sadly, here in comments): adolescent behavior rooted in a deep paranoia and massive insecurity.
Honestly, these people need psychological help. They could start with an examination of their problems with authority which likely stem from troubled relationships with their parents.
But the turnout of support for him after his 30 day suspension coupled with a serious look at his video rants have made me realize that he is not an outlier. In fact, this is the same shit we see on gun blogs all over the inter-webs (and, sadly, here in comments): adolescent behavior rooted in a deep paranoia and massive insecurity.
Honestly, these people need psychological help. They could start with an examination of their problems with authority which likely stem from troubled relationships with their parents.
Thursday, August 01, 2013
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