More gun stuff
I have a lot of guns and ammunition and I worried what would happen if my house was ever burglarized. Not about losing my guns, but about arming some criminal. So this is where my guns stay;
Well, that’s where they stay except the one that is on my hip. I bring this up because NBC reports that the weapons that Adam Lanza used today were registered in his mother’s name and obviously, she lost control of them.
Lanza’s brother, Ryan said that Adam had a history of mental illness – responsible gun ownership means keeping guns out of the hands of people like Adam. Ryan and Adam’s mother paid for that mistake with her life, and the lives of twenty children.
Category: Guns
Unfortunately that is very true. They lost control of them and paid for it with too many lives. Scary thing there. He lived with them for years and then just cracked.
I wonder if his being sheltered from life by his parents didn’t set something up in his mind for this crap…
I grew up witha lot of weirdo’s in my hometown, but none have turned out to be mass murderer’s…
Godspeed to all those affected by this one stupid mother……….
thunder
Awful Damn Day this is.
We mourn the innocent, and offer up our prayers.
But you can count on Obamugabe using this to further his agenda.
Especially when he said at his press conference :
“I challenge all my colleagues in Washington , regardless of political stripe to fix this problem , so it never happens again ” unquote….
Gee i did’nt know you could legislate mental illnes ?
Get ready for the bastard to really further his agenda of trashing the second amendment.
Waiting for the dust to settle to see what the actual diagnosis of mental illness. Like other knee-jerk reactions, the claim of mental illness/insanity is tossed out for a number of reasons, including legal reasons. Sure as the sun rises and sets, lawyers are queueing up at the school to talk to parents and family.
BK and PintoNag brought up 2 good points: the moral component (BK, #66 in previous post), and some better way of notifying gunsellers of a buyer’s/buyer’s familymember’s diagnosis of mental illness of a dangerous nature (the old ‘homicidal mania’)(PN, #106).
Were the Prognazis not so intent on violence toward Americans (such as we saw in Michigan this week), I could support PintoNag’s suggestion.
The answer is not in legal wrangling, or in Constitutional spliffsmanship, but in BK’s suggestion of reinvesting in a society with stronger, saner morals.
@2.
“I challenge all my colleagues in Washington, regardless of political stripe to fix this problem, so it never happens again ”
More laws and more funding. Of course! obama is a genius! It worked for eradicating illicit drugs, didn’t it? It worked to make big cities and small towns virtually crime free didn’t it? More laws and more funding! Brilliant.
@4
The only way to “fix this problem, so it never happens again” is to cut everyone’s hands off.
Feet too.
@3. DaveO. The moral argument doesn’t carry much weight, although I agree that a morally stronger USA with a firm heart fixed on traditional Judeo-Christian values is the ultimate prize. Turn on the TV and look at the trash (Just yesterday, I saw a condom ad on TV telling people that condoms are a great holiday gift and another from Target saying that you’ll find the “real meaning” of the holidays there!) Look who the president of the USA and his wife think are worthy of being entertained by. Look at the numbers of abortions. Look at the number of fatherless households and the dwindling number of people who profess to adhere to a particular religion. I could go on. So, where the hell do we begin?
And the wind shall say:
“Here were decent godless people:
Their only monument the asphalt road
And a thousand lost golf balls.”
— T. S. Eliot, The Rock
The automobile he used to drive to the school today was also registered in his Mother’s name. She lost control of that too. So I vote to ban all automobiles. Make the psychopaths walk to their crime scenes.
You’re beginning to give Libtards the high ground. Soon they’ll be ranting for laws which require firing pins removed from weapons and buried in the backyard outside of the building the gun is located in.
As usual the guy crazy, nobody look it seriously, and he hurt people. If he didn’t have access to the guns I’m sure he’d find another way. In China kids are routinely attacked without guns being available.
@9
Osaka school, 2001. Janitor goes ape-shit. He kills and wounds 23 people with a blade.
Not an axe, not a sword, he used…a kitchen knife.
You make a good point. We are an intelligent free people. We should behave as such. Yes, the crazies will still be crazy and cause harm if they can. But we’re still obligated to control that which we are able.
Forgive me if I’m not eager to have someone willing to trade my essential liberty for their temporary security.
OK here we go…MSNBC’s ED Schultz already pivoting to “Gun Control” debate citing recent high profile incidents in Arizona, Wisconsin, Colorado, KC Chief Jovan Belcher and now this.
Oh, and Big idiot Ed gloating the WH website being flooded with petitions for President BO to take action for stronger gun laws…Rahm Emanuel school of “never let a crisis go to waste” and demonize the “gun lobby”.
This whole recent history of “mentally unstable” people committing horrific crimes can be placed squarely in the leftist’s laps, because they created this situation.
It was the bleeding heart leftists who, in the compassion for the mentally ill, shut down the majority of mental hospitals and asylums in our country, and farmed them all out to group homes, parental/family care, etc. They wanted to “reinstate” these people into a “more normal” life and not stigmatize them with long-term incarceration in mental facilities.
And now, we’ve seen the evil, poisonous fruit that these vines have brought forth. Reopen the mental asylums, build as many as we need to, and put these people away where they can’t harm anyone else.
Tim, it’s “mainstreaming”, and the ACLU was front and center, getting these “poor people” out of the hospitals and asylums, and into “community settings”. You’re right, get the hospitals built, reopen those asylums that are still standing and protect those that society is supposed to protect.
The loss of life is truly tragic. The pending loss of liberties even more so…
It’s estimated it would take between 100 to 150 years to get all the guns out of the citizen’s hands in the US.
Trying to ban all guns is not going to work…I’m sorry, it is logistically impossible. After being a cop for 32 years, I know the cops are only 10 minutes away when you need them in 10 seconds.
How do we fix this shit?
1.) Focus on mental illness.
2.) there is already a long list of people who can not legally own a firearm…make sure the crazy ones get put on the list! and enforce it.
3.) Make everybody secure their guns at home if they are not there.
4.) Really require everybody to go through a back ground check…
5.) Make everybody take a gun safety test or class– it’s the only law in CA that’s doing in good.
6.) For anybody who supplies a gun to somebody not allowed to have one, if it’s used in a crime, the person who supplied it is guilty of the same crimes (murder etc).
7.) I’ve studied active shooters for years and teach classes on this…in almost every case somebody knew they shooter had problems…teach citizens how to report and get help for these folks.
CI RD, regarding your #6, my wife sells guns for one of the big box stores. When she calls in to NICS for the background check, and NICS gets a hit that tells them someone is not allowed to buy a gun, sometimes they ask for the purchasers address, sometimes not. Why not ask for it each time someone who is not legally able to buy a gun tries to buy a gun? Then make sure that someone pays them a visit?
When she turns someone down for a straw purchase, why not send someone to, at the least, talk to them?
Regarding #7, the shooter in Portland had stolen his rifle of choice, prior to that, he sold all of his belongings and went through what a girlfriend described as a “real change” in behavior. But, no one thought to notify anyone?
His brother stated that he had been diagnosed with Personality Disorder. ” He told police that he had not been in touch with his brother since about 2010.” His family knew he was mentally ill: A relative told ABC News that Adam was “obviously not well.” Family friends in Newtown also described the young man as troubled and described Nancy as very rigid. “[Adam] was not connected with the other kids,” said one friend. Nancy and her husband Peter, Adam’s father, divorced in 2009. When they first filed for divorce in 2008, a judge ordered that they participate in a “parenting education program.” Restaurant owner Mark Tambascio, a family friend, said Nancy Lanza told him recently that her son Adam had Asperger syndrome, that he was “getting out of control and that she might need special help for him.” So definitely not a good family environment, especially for someone who was mentally ill. Someone commented on another blog that schizophrenia usually manifests itself first in the late teens and early 20s. Maybe that’s true of other mental illness as well. He also noted that all of the recent shootings were committed by young adult men. Schools are definitely a target because they are such easy pickings for the deranged. As for cause, I wonder if the feminization of our society is partially responsible. As the mother of three young adults, 2 of them men, I certainly know how everything seems to be against them these days. Almost everything boys like to do – be active, fireworks, scooters, speed, etc. is discouraged or illegal. Kids aren’t meant to sit still in a classroom for 6 or more hours a day, especially from such a young age. There is no outlet for their energy and, when they’re older, testosterone, except for sports. Boys should be outside, running, climbing, fishing, hunting, etc., things so many boys are deprived of these days. No wonder they’re so drawn to video games, it’s the only outlet for some. It’s just heartbreaking all around – a young man from a broken family who was ill and wasn’t… Read more »
“Lanza’s brother, Ryan said that Adam had a history of mental illness – responsible gun ownership means keeping guns out of the hands of people like Adam.”
Let’s not go there.
The mental illness ascribed to Adam is Aspergers syndrome.
Please, educate yourself on Aspergers before passing judgment.
Lanza broke the law dozens of times yesterday, including gun laws, and not one of those laws stopped him:
Gun laws broken:
1) Theft of a firearm (3 counts).
2) Possession of a firearm by someone under 21 years of age, without supervision (3 counts).
3) Matricide with a firearm.
4) Possession of a firearm by a mentally defective individual (3 counts).
5) Theft of a vehicle.
6) Possession of a firearm within 300 feet of a school (3 counts).
7) Discharge of a firearm within city limits (Minimally 28 counts).
8) Discharge of a firearm on school grounds (Minimally 27 counts).
9) Murder by discharge of a firearm (Minimally 27 counts). 10) Commission of a crime while in possession of a firearm (76 counts).
11) Suicide (yep, that’s a crime.)
The day prior, in China a man attacked 22 schoolkids, with a knife. It is not an uncommon occurence in China. Evildoers will use whatever tools are available to prey on the unarmed. If China bans knives, it will be their hands that the psychotic use to attack the unarmed. http://waronterrornews.typepad.com/home/2012/12/man-stabs-22-kids-in-china-growing-trend.html
In places where responsible citizens are deprived a Right to own firearms, crime has not decreased. It has increased in DC, Chicago, Mexico, Australia, and Britain.
While you all are sitting around dissecting and discussing this (which is a GOOD thing, mind you), you fail to bring up the one thing that always escapes notice. People can hide clues quite well, when those clues would give them away.
I don’t know if it’s because no one really pays any attention, or if it’s being just too busy to notice, or what is behind not remarking on it, but it is never stopped and never brought up until it’s too late.
If you don’t understand what I mean, then look up the history of Charles Whitman, the shooter who killed and injured many people in 1966 at the University of Texas, after he took a rifle and ammo up to the clock tower and started picking targets. Look it up. He seemd to be the so-called perfect this and that, with a perfect life, and then one fine day, he “snapped” and killed people — many people.
Surprise attacks happen because no one “saw it coming” — meaning they paid no attention to clues that give away what is going to happen. The kids who killed so many fellow students at Columbine High School were doing and saying things that their parents ignored or blew off.
90% of the time, when someone says “I’m gonna kill him”, it’s just blowing off steam. The other 10% of the time, it’s intent and no one pays attention. How many hunting accidents have been murder? How many perfect families have been wiped out by one person?
While you’re all worrying about whether or not you’ll still be allowed to carry weapons, someone somehwere is probably planning a copycat event, just as this was a copycat following the Oregon mall shooting.
It has little to NOTHING to do with gun control, and you know it, and if you’re going to discuss that, then remember this: the Oklahoma City truck bombing was scheduled by McVeigh and Nichols for the anniversary date of th4e Waco, TX, invasion by the FBI.
Nik? I really don’t give a flip what diagnosis Adam did or did not have. I also don’t care what sort of meds he was on or was supposed to be on. He obviously was deranged, detached from reality, and a whole bunch of other stuff. And a criminal.
A lot of people are suffering from his actions today.
Many of us remember when the mental hospitals were closed with the vast majority of the former occupants being dumped on city streets across the country. The resulting problems were instant, and so sad. People incapable of caring for themselves literally thrown out in the cold? Weird.
@23
They are.
My concern is that a lot of perfectly safe, if different, people who have autism and people who have aspergers are going to be demonized for something they didn’t do.
And you’re right. Way, way too many fucking people were dumped out on the street. That was so wrong on so many levels.
A gun safe is the best item I’ve ever purchased. There was a great article over at LegalInsurrection.
http://legalinsurrection.com/2012/12/my-long-car-ride-mourning-the-victimsregardless-of-the-politics/
So long as we have a presumption of innocence, of a Right to Liberty, until convicted of crimes that would prove otherwise, then we can NOT incarcerate Citizens on the *presumption* that they may some day commit atrocity or minor crimes.
And while the mentally defective deserve and should get ‘help,’ even commitment to a facility, this must be carefully considered and limited in scope, with stringent standards of proof, as it is too easily abused for tyrannical and political purposes, i.e. the Gulags of the USSR, and Evin Prison of Iran, as well as the recent incarceration of a Former Marine in our own country.
This is particularly true in Modern America, where Combat Veterans are characterized as violently ill with PTSD, by the MSM and politicians, in a time where *some* Veterans have lost their Rights as a result of the same.
The mother may have very well had the weapons in a safe or had trigger locks on them. How many punches to the face before she hands over the keys? Hell, he could have just took the keys from her purse.
#22: Ex-PH2 – I don’t disagree, but you have to factor in two things:
1. People are VERY sensitive to this – regularly schoolkids are suspended or locked down for making threats, or stealing a kiss. Society at large breathes a sigh of relief because another felon has been caught, and one who is too young to suit the society.
2. There are laws that say we can’t take a person’s quirks, foibles, appearance or actions into consideration. On top of that, if you try to help someone (and actually help them), you can be sued. The Good Samaratin was murdered by the SCOTUS decades ago.
Remember – the cops gave back a victim to Jeffrey Dahmer. Folks likely saw the man was disturbed, and they were rewarded for not interfering by keeping their lives and meager savings safe from lawyers.
@27: Also, a good number of gun safes are easily cracked. This becomes a question of what’s a REASONABLE deterrent. And that’s not easy to tackle. OK, so guns in a safe with it locked. What if the combination is on a post-it-note on the safe itself? Does that still count?
Figuring out the accountability issues with safes is a miserable process unlikely to lead to anything positive.
Not to say that there is no one out there who would not do so, but seriously – you actually know someone who has the safe combo on a post it note on the safe??? (Maybe that partially explains why you remain “anonymous.”)
@26 WOTN:
I agree completely about the need for very strict controls on institutionalizing people.
Also, Asperger’s and “personality disorder” are two different things. Yes, he may have had Asperger’s, but he could very well have also had a “personality disorder”. Asperger’s doesn’t make one go out and murder innocents…
I do wonder, though, what additional complication there would be for a “personality disorder” when it is combined with Asperger’s (the problems with social skills, difficulties with communicating, the desire for routine/ritual).
Fellow TAHers,I went shooting Today with 3 of my Grandsons. I must tell you we had a great time shooting my AR-10,AKS, AK-47 and Ruger 10-22s. plenty of ammo fired(helping the National Debt To even out. Sorry only paper and trash(tin cans and plasticplastic bottles,not left behind) were killed. Joe
Miss Ladybug:
I don’t know anything about Aspergers. I do know that he was described by family and acquaintenances as being clearly mentally defective. I do know that at 20, he could not legally purchase a handgun.
I do know that Lanza broke dozens of laws, including gun laws, before he shot the first round in the school, and none of those stopped him.
I also know that the Californian studying at University of Colorado, that shot up the Aurora theater, while mentally defective, had no convictions that would have precluded him from voting, owning a gun, or loss of any other rights, but also broke gun laws by carrying it into that theater, and broke numerous other laws before he fired the first shot in the theater, including wearing body armor during the commission of a crime.
I know that we MUST NOT strip Citizens of their Rights, without a FAIR trial, that we cannot do so based on a presumption that they may some day commit a crime. But also that those individuals who have been stripped of their Rights, after a fair trial, should not be coddled.
And I do know that China is experiencing a rash of knifings, as Evildoers will find a way, with whatever weapon is at their disposal, but since the majority of people are not evil/or/psychotic for thos that prefer that term, and that because there are more Sheepdogs than Wolves disarming the masses, makes all less safe, not more.
WOTN~
My comments about Asperger’s was directed to #20 (Nik), I just forgot to make that reference…
Asperger’s is a developmental disorder on the autism spectrum. Generally speaking, people with Asperger’s can lead normal lives (as a substitute teacher, I did sometimes work with a couple of little boys, one with Asperger’s and one profoundly autistic; Jake, the boy with Asperger’s should be able to live a normal life as he gets older; Ethan, on the other hand, will never be able to live an independent life, as he – even as he got to be a 3rd grader – remained non-verbal), but may continue to be socially awkward. The WedMD article I liked does start Asperger’s can increase the risk of developing depression, ADHD, schizophrenia, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Maybe that’s what happened here. Asperger’s in not a “personality disorder”, but schizophrenia is; maybe Adam Lanza had become schizophrenic, but no one had done anything about it…