Scores of dead in CT
The Hartford Courant reports that there are 27 dead including 18 children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT where a single shooter opened fire with a couple of handguns. Fox News reports that at least one of the guns was a Glock, you know – those handguns which have minds of their own and inspire fear among gun control advocates. The other was a Sig Sauer.
Fox also says that the gunman had a “.223-caliber rifle” so he couldn’t have been using the terrifying AK-47. MSNBC says that no one has mentioned the rifle to them. But, the MSNBC reporter just said that there was no word if the shooter used “high capacity ammunition clips”, so I’m not sure if they know the difference between a pistol and a rifle.
MSNBC broadcast news is reporting that another person has been apprehended in regards to this shooting. Other news sources aren’t confirming the “second shooter” theory.
Of course, some folks can’t wait to get in their shots against gun rights;
Alex Pappas at The Daily Caller has some more reactions from the Liberals on Twitter. Twitchy records more knee-jerk reactions from the usual suspects.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney on the shooting;
“There is, I am sure, will be, rather, a day for discussion of the usual Washington policy debates, but I do not think today is that day.”
Well, when they have that discussion, remember this; I went to the range yesterday with several of my weapons. Among those weapons was a Glock (with a large capacity magazine) and two .223 caliber rifles, also with large capacity magazines. I had about 1,000 rounds of ammunition. I drove by at least two schools on my way to the range in Maryland. None of my weapons jumped out of the truck and began shooting up those schools, neither did I.
Whoever this shooter was, (MSNBC says his name is Ryan Adam Lanza, 24 years old – his mother was a teacher at Sandy Hook and she was found dead at the school) he broke several laws to accomplish his grisly task today. How is it possible to write more laws to prevent something that was already steeped in illegality?
ADDED: Our buddy, Blanka, sends a link from USAToday in which they mention that Lanza was “dressed in military style assault gear”. That’s not what caused the incident, either. I was wearing Multicam – the style of uniforms Army troops wear in Afghanistan – at the range yesterday, and I wasn’t even tempted to shoot another person. The MSNBC reporter said that Lanza was wearing “dark” clothes “with pockets” – so we should be banning pockets now, I suppose.
Category: Gun Grabbing Fascists, Guns
Joe, I’m late to this thread, but you are a certifiable dick. That is 12 miles from where I grew up and you have no fucking idea about what the second amendment stands for if you think joking is funny. This is NOT about guns it’s about goddamn crazy people who kill because they think it’s going to fix what ails them…unless they kill themselves first when they realize the horror of what they have done. Go on. Get out of here with your miserable dick self, will you? Please.
Here is one possible answer that no one will like: make mental health records available to law enforcement. When a gun purchase request goes through to the feds, they can cross reference for mental health status. Civil rights go out the window, ditto doctor-patient confidentiality, but it might weed out some of these types of offenders.
#80…that happened recently here in Indy as well. It leveled half a dozen houses and damaged another few dozen beyond repair
@100: Well, the left always is driven by emotion, not logic. Use Joe as an example. In Israel, they don’t have these types of shootings, because the teachers are armed. Unlike Joe’s assertion that getting rid of the guns will stop this type of thing, the historical record shows that exactly the opposite is true. Anti-gunners are always going to push for more regulation and more confiscation without providing the necessary logical examples to prove their hypothesis. They think that taking something away from someone will stop the problem they are trying to correct. History shows us that never works. For an example, look at prohibition. Alcohol was banned, but instead of stopping the problem, as they saw it, it created more problems by strengthening organized crime. The restriction of machine guns didn’t stop mobsters and other criminals from getting them. Mexico has very restrictive gun laws, but it hasn’t stopped criminals. Washington DC, until recently, had the most restrictive gun laws in the country and it didn’t stop murders from happening and in fact, made more people victims of criminals than stopping criminals. Same with Chicago.
So, when people like Joe start sputtering on about getting rid of the 2nd Amendment, just consider the source; a complete dumbass.
New Jersey law enforcement found this asshat’s father dead in his residence, Hobokin, NJ. So, we now know both parents are dead by his hand, plus the adults and 18 children at the school. Joe here, is shooting his wad all over his keyboard about now spouting anti-gun talking points. The Bushmasters I have handled (and shot) were not threaded for adaptation of anything. Could an armed and trained individual have deterred of stopped him? You bet!
So now I wonder what Joe would have done had he been present in that office or hallway. Most likely, Joe would gone down on his knees, thrown his hands way up in the air, begged God for forgiveness then passed out about the time he took a lead pill to the cranium region, his grey matter littering the floor and wall.
No Joe, it’s not the movies glorification of guns, knives, clubs or anything else. It all boils down to simple personal responsibility. The blame lays with the shooter and his “accomplice”. So while your busy banning things that kill? Lets start with 600K Americans that die each year from heart disease, so come on Joe. Let’s some how catharticly dispell all the henious shit that goes on in the world.
Ban heart disease, cancer, transportation of any form because all those do kill people. Far more lives are lost to those three modes of dead than any god damn, pistol packing left loon, shit bag from your side of town.
Why not just install mandatory metal detectors at all schools?
Defend, I’ve seen so many of these things now, including the school shootings by Laurie Dann in Evanston in 1988, that the ‘horror of what they’ve done’ is likely to have any effect on the people who do these things.
This link has something about Laurie Dann: http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/12/14/sandy-hook-tragedy-evokes-horrible-memory-of-laurie-dann-rampage/
It’s more likely that they just don’t want to get taken off to jail — as in “you’ll never take me alive”. They don’t want to have to take any responsibility for what they did.
I think we should petition to repeal Joe’s US citizenship. Then he can be deported to the gun-free country of his choice, such as England, Scotland or Norway. Oh, wait, Norway had that mass murderer shooting people trapped on an island last year.
Ok, then Scotland — no, wait, the 1996 Dunblane school massacre where 16 children and a teacher at Dunblane Primary School were shot by a man with a rifle who got in through a side entrance.
OK, then England. Oh, wait, I forgot about the taxi driver: June 21, 2010 — The media in the UK is having quite a time with their latest mass-murder spree. A taxi driver went off the deep end and killed 13 people, including himself. And this is despite the toughest gun-control laws in any western democratic country.
Looks like countries with supremely tough gun control laws are no better off than the US when it comes to preventing mass murders with guns.
Well, I guess we could just put Joe on a boat anchored offshore somewhere.
Like I said before, Joe, you don’t know your ass from a hole in the ground. You only know how to run your ignorant mouth.
@107, yes, I typed in Chicago instead of Indianapolis out of sheer habit. My error, sorry about that. It was Indianapolis.
@110. For starters, that won’t protect kids on the playground and the person manning the metal detector will be the first one dropped.
@111 True, but I think it would be at least a start. An armed guard, not the person manning the detector, would ultimately be a valuable asset if the case presented itself as dangerous. But you’re right 100% about the playground.
Meant that for 113
Kids were all between 5 and 10 years old. I can’t even imagine what their families are going through at this moment.
#112…oh I just assumed something similar had happened in Chicago and I just didn’t hear about it. My step-mom lives 3 miles away from the blast and still felt it. It was crazy. Thankfully there were only two people killed; it could have been far worse
@116. Well, Blanka, there isn’t one of us here that isn’t pained by this, to say the least. The other banter is, we know, neither here nor there. That’s the way it is.
Joey–I know where you live, you know where I went to high school (Go Scorps!)
So at what point did we become so irresponsible that we couldn’t carry weapons OPENLY in our trucks as we came to school after deer/elk hunting at dawn or heading out after school to do same?
And surprise, surprise, surprise! Nobody died. Not on school grounds, not anywhere near them.
Oh, and in case you think that banning weapons made Britain a Kum-Bah-Yah cuddle utopia, look at their violent crime rate, douchenozzle…at last count, nearly TRIPLE (yes, TRIPLE) ours.
Well I certainly don’t wanna offend the regulars here and get an earful. Heavens to Betsy!
And it’s not about moral high ground, air cav. As a fellow air cavalry man I have seen the same world of shit you have, I’m just not choosing to let the military life style define me the way some people here do. The fact is, both sides of this argument entrench themselves into positions and the result is no movement for either viewpoint. The fact that the bodies weren’t even cold and people are already making their defense of gun rights positions is idiocy. As if ANYONE who will make real lasting decisions on the matter come here for guidance.
My issue, and as a veteran much like other people on here, I feel I have a RIGHT (sorry “regulars”, “new guys” have a voice too) I’m telling you that the louder you scream about gun rights the more you make it an issue that won’t be won. I’m FOR gun rights. I AGREE that it was a person, not a tool that did this. But I also see the damage to that position that is done when people jump to a senseless argument instead of trying to actually solve the problem: like the fact that this country has no moral compass anymore. Being a rational adult is a punch line around here. THAT’S what killed these poor kids today
The heck with all the gun control stuff. I blame the media, shut THEM down: http://www.forbes.com/sites/josephgrenny/2012/12/13/the-media-is-an-accomplice-in-public-shootings-a-call-for-a-stephen-king-law/
@120. “like the fact that this country has no moral compass anymore.” Well, if you started with that line of reasoning (akin to BK at cmt 66), the result would have been different. And, no, we’re not all of one mind here, but, largely we are conservative, with a smattering of libertarians. I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot here but me, personally, I don’t like being talked to like some rank rookie and that’s the way I reacted. Stick around.
KW–look who’s screaming louder. In case you’re not keeping score, tune in to CNN/MSNBC/ABC/NBC/CBS, for starters.
Even ol’ Shep Smith’s panties are getting pretty moist when he talks about it, I’m sure.
Oh, and no doubt Bobby Costas will get his 90 seconds at halftime again on Sunday night, complete with talking points fed to him from his old butt-buddy Keef Olbertard.
@121 – That is a good article, making a good point. The rather ghoulish gathering of reporters at a disaster, like vultures and hyenas and other carrion scavengers coming to a kill on the veldt, is the first image that came to me while I was reading the article.
However, I would take issue with King’s response, because until “Rage” became that kind of ‘icon’ the Salinger novel “Catcher In the Rye” was the iconic piece of literature for this kind of thing. Mark Chapman, who killed John Lennon, and David Hinckley, who attempted to shoot Pres. Reagan to impress Jodie Foster (who did not know who the hell he was), had both read, absorbed and somehow made “Catcher In the Rye” the source of their idea to kill someone.
King’s reaction to the shooter quoting ‘Rage’, followed by copycats, was normal but misdirected out of a sense of guilt. Copycats are copycats and using a piece of literature for inspiration is baloney. The real inspiration comes from their own dysfunctional selves.
The quotes, or novels, or whatever are just distractions. If it’s quoting literature as the excuse, then why isn’t anyone quoting Shakespeare at a mass murder? How about “Cry ‘havoc’ and set loose the dogs of war!” How’s that for a quote?
I have a question/scenario for Joe (and perhaps others by now who share his point of view)…
Where weren’t the cops on site – immediately – before the first round went off? Even if a 911 call was made, the police should have poofed into existence and eradicated the threat, so none of this would have happened. Obviously, this is the way some people think in their little coccoon and their world view is just as screwed up.
My point being is that police officers aren’t employed to protect the public, they are there to enforce the law. Conversely, people who are law abiding and mentally stable and own guns have a choice when confronted with such events: either eradicate the threat or become a victim.
With that off my chest, I must also remind those who would like to take our guns away that (in the words of Mark Fuhrman on FOX today), “…guns aren’t the issue here… Keep in mind that this country was almost brought to it’s knees by 2 fanatics with box cutters.” To propose to criminalize legal gun ownership while there are crazies out there who possess them promises that we’ll all become defenseless victims.
…#125 was me – not “Anonymous”
It seems that the guns were registered to the gunman’s mother:
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/14/15907407-elementary-school-massacre-27-killed-including-20-kids-at-connecticut-school?lite>1=43001
and he is identified as Adam Lanza, 20, while his brother Ryan Lanza was nowhere near the scene and says his brother has a history of mental illness.
@120: To add to what Air Cav said, it’s actually not just conservatives and libertarians, but a few regular liberals, too. Not the ‘Joe’ kind, but regular non-trolls. In my experience, things tend to start off heated -especially when people like Joe surface- but then simmer down into reasonable disagreement and conversation.
Stick around; it’s always good to have different viewpoints.
While some are decrying the issue of gun control featured in many of this post’s comments, it is this very topic that both obama and NYC Mayor Bloomberg were not at all inhibited about addressing:
“Obama said Friday’s shooting, following the massacre at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., and other murder sprees, showed the need for ‘meaningful action…regardless of the politics’ to prevent more blood from being spilled.”
“New York City Mayor Bloomberg, who has been pushing for tougher gun laws, called for Washington to act immediately.”
Both quotes c/o Ex-PH2’s link in cmt 127.
#106 PN: making mental records available to gun sellers won’t help for a couple of reasons, and will cause harm:
1. The accused shooter is reported to have autism, not mental illness. While a psychiatrist may be able split the hair that separates the inability to form social relationships (autism) from the tendency to commit homicide, and lawyer lives in the splitting of that hair – neither LEO nor gunsellers would know.
2. If gunsellers failed to sell the guns, they would be sued for not only violating the purchaser’s right to own a gun, but multiplied because autism falls under the PC laws, like homosexuality.
3. Definitions of mental illness and disease and disorders are subject to PC whims. We’ve got the Prognazis eager to disarm us, and Obama isn’t too keen to follow law.
4. Our government is the largest single suppliers of weapons to criminals in Mexico and the US of A, and of Al Queda abroad. We need legitimate gunsellers to offset our government’s support of narco-cartels and gangs.
5. Cause harm because, under HIPAA, gunsellers don’t have a legal right to medical information. Forcing disclosure of diagnoses of imperfect health can prejudice the seller, and society at large, against the person.
You wanna know what causes these things? It’s this shit right here:
http://gawker.com/5968604/the-sandy-hook-elementary-shooting-what-we-probably-maybe-possibly-know-about-the-shooter
Now, go look at the video I posted up in 93 and tell me I’m wrong.
Hell, I’ll link it again.
What is painfully obvious here is blatently ignored by people like Joe, they have a need to blame a tragedy like this on everything but the inheriently evil asshole that actually did this crime. It must of been the Hollywood allure of the gun that made this guy execute kids. It must have been videogames that removed his moral compass. Blame the asshole who picked up these weapons and pulled the trigger.
Blanka: re “mandatory metal detectors”. Two questions:
(1) who makes the “mandatory” call, and under what authority?
(2) who pays for them?
To paraphrase the late 38th President, Gerald Ford: A government big enough to tell you what to do in every aspect of your life is also big enough to control every aspect of your life.
Do you really want to go there?
@133
Some people live in such abject fear that yah, they’ll turn their lives over to the Nanny State, rather than face the boogey man in the closet.
While metal detectors and physical pat downs may prove as a “deterent” upon entry to schools, the issue will be the left wing liberals who will scream violation of civil right and liberties.
Just an observation.
Nik: I concur.
Benjamin Franklin perhaps put it best about such wretched individuals: “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Hondo: It wouldn’t be so sad if it were an individual choice, like the classic story of the Dog talking to the Wolf.
But they’re trying to sell ALL of our liberty for their temporary safety.
May 18, 1927: Bath, Michigan School treasurer Andrew Kehoe, after killing his wife and destroying his house and farm, blew the Bath Consolidated School by detonating dynamite in the basement of the school, killing 38 people, mostly children. He then pulled up to the school in his Ford car, then set off a bomb, killing himself and four others.
fuck joe and the rest of the trolls spouting their PC garbage
on here. FUCKING PC is why were here pissed-off at this horrible shit that happened today!grrrrr
every fucking Friday,,nothing, but bad news! and now they say their not gonna remove the bodies until Sunday? who the fuck are these people running this shit?
It’s kind of sad how quickly this polarized everybody, I see very few posts addressing the horrible sadness of this act. This is a terrible, terrible tragedy.
While I can agree that guns do make it somewhat easier to take a life, if someone is out to break the law (ie. kill someone) they’re not really looking to obey any laws, let alone gun laws. These things can happen anywhere.
It isn’t necessarily about body count with these kind of people, it’s the shock of it all, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/belgium/4322233/Five-dead-in-knife-attack-at-Belgian-creche.html
Even as I post this I don’t know if it’s a good idea, because those poor casualties haven’t even been buried yet and we’re arguing about our guns (both sides) :(.
May all those affected find some solace somewhere, and RIP to those killed.
1995: Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols decide to make a statement by renting a truck and turning it into an improvised explosive device commonly known as a truck bomb. They parked it at the Alfred Pl Murrah building in Oklahoma City and detonated it by remote control.
The details are here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing
McVeight was stopped by a state trooper for driving without a license plate and was arrested for carrying an illegal weapon in his car.
168 people were killed, including 19 children under the age of 6 years old. More than 680 people were injured by the blast. The radius of the blast was 16 blocks from dead center, and 324 buildings were severely damaged or destroyed, there was glass damage to other 258 buildings, and 86 cars were burned and destroyed, all by an amateur home-made bomb composed of fuel oil and fertilizer that any farmer can get.
Guns are not the problem. People with warped minds and dysfunctional behavior are the problem, and that’s all there is to it. You can take every frakking gun off the planet. They’ll still find some way to kill other people. And they don’t care who they hurt, as long as they get to do it.
@#129. For Obama and Bloomie, fuck em both. They’re operating on the idea of “never let a crisis go to waste”.
Unconscionable, classless pricks, both of them. Any sentient being knows exactly what Obie meant when he said “meaningful action…regardless of the politics’ to prevent more blood from being spilled.”
Hondo: I understand the fear of big government control, but metal detectors in schools are hardly “every aspect of your life.” It’s a changing world, and not a very safe one at that, and preventative measures should be in place. There are broken people out there with the drive and will to kill, rape and torture. And there is no current method of tracking each and every one of them and locking them away. And even if there was, where does one draw the line between sane and insane? This is where rights would truly be taken away. Thus the need for protection. I’m not knowledged enough to know what the cost of metal detectors is… but in terms of an armed guard, why not place a local area policeman on duty and on rotational basis? Or a National Guardsman?
Most schools have specific procedures for entry into their buildings, and that includes metal detectors and locked doors, also known as closed campuses.
This killer was buzzed in because he was known there. His mother had been a teacher there.
How many times does that kind of thing have to be put in front of you before it sinks in? Those procedures are already in place. Did someone sneak them in, or were you simply not paying attention? Huh?
I could say, gee, I’d like to build a time machine and go back to live in the 1960s, but that was the decade when Richard Speck got into a nurses’ residence and killed eight of them. Or how about the 1940s, when William Heirens killed two women in 1945 and later killed and dismembered a 6 year old girl?
There is NO ‘safe’ place and there is NO law on God’s green Earth that will stop people who want to commit mass murder.
Point taken and sunk in… Let the bloody games continue, then. Apparently there’s no solution.
@#143. Have you been paying attention lately? City and county police and sheriff’s departments are laying people off, because they have limited money, and they want to fund neighborhood associations and Friday in the Park, and midnight basketball. No money for cops in schools. The school district I worked security for has 14 schools, and the PD in that city puts out two officers per day shift. Where do the extra officers come from? BTW, we were unarmed, we couldn’t convince the administration to put in restricted access to the schools, no metal detectors, and in most of the schools, the front door was not visible to the office staff, and there was no video monitoring of the front door. And, today, the superintendent was on TV saying that, under no circumstances did he want armed people in his schools.
And, if you haven’t noticed, many members of the National Guard have been deployed overseas, not to their communities.
Like I said in #145, point taken UpNorth. I can honestly say that I give up. No joke.
OK, Blanka, I didn’t mean to go off on you. Just that shit like today sets me off, especially when I heard that moron I used to work for on TV, with his morally superior stance that he would not have anyone with a gun in his schools.
Then, reading what those two asshats that are allegedly national leaders had to say, it just set me off again.
The National Guard patrolling the streets….what a great idea! Martial law for all!
The people that complain the most about the loss of rights due to a terrorist act (i.e. 9/11 and the Patriot Act) are the first to demand a loss in rights due to a terrorist act.
I guess their rights are more important than others.
#141 Don’t forget the White Salamander Bombings or the original WTC Bombing that was booby trapped with… I think Anthrax to kill first responders as well? Like I told someone else today on this discussion. A gun is targeted, a bomb is indiscriminate.
I’m kind of convinced that maybe we should start teaching people about the IRA and other groups that made use of bombs more than guns. If they were scared before…
@150
Eloquently said. Eloquent.
Blanka: not arguing the concept, lady. Reality is that schools today need more security than they did years ago.
However, even if it would save lives making school metal detectors “mandatory” by Federal edict is a royally bad idea. Just like making a low-fat diet “mandatory” for all would save lives – but would be a royally bad idea. As would limiting cars to a maximum design speed of 60MPH and making any modifications to increase same unlawful. Ditto banning tobacco, alcohol, requiring mandatory 45min daily exercise, and a host of other intrusions into local and personal spheres of autonomy.
Freedom includes the freedom to live as one desires – including taking risks. Indeed, virtually every free choice involves weighing risk and reward. Remove the freedom to take risks, and you no longer have a free society. Instead, you now have a nanny state.
A government that has the power and authority to mandate such everyday minutia as nationwide metal detectors at schools or low-fat diets is effectively a dictatorship, plain and simple. It doesn’t matter if it is benevolent or not – it’s still a dictatorship. And the character of dictatorships often changes over time; many that start out benevolent get progressively less so over time.
I have no desire to live as the subject of a dictatorship, benevolent or otherwise. I’d prefer to take my chances as the citizen of a state that respects personal freedom.
@ #151- Dead Man: It was assumed by the trial judge that there was cyanide involved in the 93 WTC>/a> bombing.
There remains a popular belief that there was cyanide in the bomb, which is reinforced by Judge Duffy’s statement at sentencing, “[y]ou had sodium cyanide around, and I’m sure it was in the bomb.” However, the bomb’s true composition was not able to be ascertained from the crime scene and Robert Blitzer, a senior FBI official who worked on the case, stated that there was “no forensic evidence indicating the presence of sodium cyanide at the bomb site.” Furthermore, Yousef is said only to have considered adding cyanide to the bomb, and to have regretted not doing so in Peter Lance’s book 1000 Years for Revenge._.”