Well, if the murderer was a Muslim, no doubt that would be the headline in most newspapers for this story. However, since the killer is a allegedly a mild mannered Christian church goer who was apparently a wonderful human being until now, the fact that he shot 2 policeman and 3 city officials, is merely an “act of God” which no one could have predicted or prevented.
Five people were fatally shot and two others wounded on Thursday evening by a man who opened fire as a City Council meeting began in Kirkwood, Mo., a generally placid suburb of St. Louis, the authorities there said. The gunman was shot to death by police. […]
Witnesses told of chaotic scene in Kirkwood, a middle class community of about 27,000 people with a main street lined with shops and restaurants and many grand homes. As officers from departments from suburbs throughout the region swarmed into Kirkwood, many residents expressed disbelief and anger that such a thing could happen in there. […]
The authorities did not identify the gunman, but The Post-Dispatch reporter and other witnesses identified him as Charles Lee Thornton, an independent contractor known as Cookie. Mr. Thornton was said to have often come to council meetings and to have had repeated disagreements with Kirkwood officials.
“He came from the back of the room,” Janet McNichols, the correspondent, told The Post-Dispatch. “He kept saying something about, ‘Shoot the mayor,’ and he just walked around shooting anybody he could.” […]
In late January, a federal judge tossed out at a lawsuit Mr. Thornton had filed against Kirkwood and its officials. He contended that they had violated his free speech rights by prohibiting him from speaking out at meetings. […]
She said she never suspected that her son would be violent but described the events as “an act of God, just like a storm or a tornado.”
Mr. Thornton’s sister-in-law, Doreen Thornton, said he had had a 17-year-old daughter and said she could not understand what had happened.
“Cookie never got mad,” Ms. Thornton said. “He was a people person. Cookie was known through his church to be a No. 1 kind of man.”
The other day in testimony before Congress, top intelligence officials in the Bush administration continued to warn of Al Qaida terrorists coming to America to kill us all in our beds, a message the Bush administration has continually promoted over the past 6 and a half years. Yet, every year we witness on television reports of lone gunmen who kill innocent civilians at schools, malls and other public places with weapons which are easily obtainable and readily available in this country.
Yet no one, and certainly no politician, ever says a word about the risk of gun violence which we as Americans face every day of our lives. On our streets, at our schools, our shopping malls, our places of business. Over the last year we have had a number of such incidents, including, but not limited to, the following incidents:
February 2, 2008: Lone gunman murders 5 women execution style at Chicago area strip mall.
December 10, 2007: Lone gunman murders four people in two separate incidents at a Colorado mega-church and at a training center for Christian missionaries.
December 6, 2007: Lone gunman murders 8 people at Omaha, Nebraska Mall.
December 5, 2007: Lone gunman shoots woman in robbery attempt at Newport News, Va. area mall.
November 27, 2007: Lone gunman kills girlfriend and self at Houston area mall.
October 10, 2007: Student gunman shoots 4 people at Cleveland high school, then kills himself.
October 5, 2007: Lone gunman murders 2 people and wounds 3 others at Alexandria, La. law firm.
April 30, 2007: Lone gunman kills 2 people at Kansas City area mall.
April 10, 2007: Lone gunman murders 32 people at Virginia Tech University, the single deadliest school shooting in US history.
April 9, 2007: Lone gunman kills one person and wounds others in shooting at MI office building.
March 7, 2007: Gunman shoots estranged girlfriend, then kills self at Midland, MI high school.
February 12, 2007: Lone gunman murders 5 people at Salt Lake City Mall.
This is just a very small sample of the many “random” acts of gun violence in the United States over the past year. I could have spent all day tracking down stories about other shooting incidents such as these, had I the time. And I didn’t even bother looking for stories of drive-by shootings or other murders related to inner city gang violence which is endemic in most of our major cities. A catalog of all those incidents for the past year would take weeks, if not months.
Yet, no one ever talks about the violence and the deaths which are actually happening here in America because of our addiction to guns, and laws which make them easily available to just about anyone. Instead, we are consumed with stories in the national media about Islamic extremist terrorists who are coming to kill us — someday, real soon — if we don’t support our President and our troops. Well, maybe someday we will have another terrorist attack by Islamic based extremists, but everyday we live under the real threat that we could be gunned down in our own cities and towns by our fellow citizens who own guns. People you may know, or total strangers. So I have to ask you, which do you believe is the greater danger to you, your family and your friends, right now, today? Islamofascist terrorists or your fellow gun loving Americans?
Something to think about.
Just for the record, the first two people Charles “Cookie” Thornton shot in Kirkland were two police officers who I presume were armed. Unfortunately the fact that they were “packing” and I imagine well trained in the use of firearms apparently didn’t do them much good in stopping Mr. Thornton.
So you are contending that right now American terrorism is a greater threat to America than Al Qaeda terrorism? No argument here. Still, we are not seeing a 700 billion dollar plus budget proposed to save us from ourselves, are we?
How many Americans die every year from gunshot wounds? How many died on 9/11?
I really didn’t want to see this
http://www.progressive.org/mag_rothschild0308
FBI working in concert with private industry…using the term “when” not “if” a military coup takes place
“So I have to ask you, which do you believe is the greater danger to you, your family and your friends, right now, today? Islamofascist terrorists or your fellow gun loving Americans?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Actually the greater threat is those with the temerity, those demonstrating the impertinence to even ask such a question. Mr. Mukasey requests your presence next week for a little questioning of your attitudes. Bring your library card, he’ll be wanting to keep that for future queries.
Early reports claimed those as the gunman’s words. Later reports have suppressed that.
Christian fanatics are every bit as dangerous to America as Muslim fanatics.
Tom DeLay was on Hardball yesterday mocking McCain for wanting to regulate gun sales at gun shows. DeLay of course wants NO restrictions on gun ownership – in fact he thinks if we all had guns there would be no random violence. It will be interesting to see what the NRA does with the McCain candidacy.
Maybe lone gunmen need more friends.
Or less guns.
Good thing Cookie didn’t know about Bush’s warrantless wiretaps.
.
Cookie wanted to be heard.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Point taken. I was just thinking that he was responding to losing a right he thought he was guaranteed as a citizen.
It always amazes me how irrational people are when it comes to the risks we encounter in our daily lives. Whether it’s terrorists or fear of getting on plane or fear of some random gunman at the mall during Christmas, the sheer irrationality of it is fascinating.
Statistically speaking, the greatest risk you faced today was probably your drive to work. But does anyone rub their prayer beads before they rush out the door with that steaming cup of coffee in one hand and a ringing cell phone in the other, ready to hurtle 70 mph down a narrow lane with thousands of other people doing the same thing? Often only inches away from you.
Irrational fear, that is what drives the politics and often our behavior. We humans are quite the animal, aren’t we?
Some years ago the NYT had a graphic op ed that was essentially a graph plotting perceived risk against actual risk. There was a strong inverse relationship.
The data were collected by tabulating the number of stories in major media outlets about the risk the public associated with snakes, white sharks and then things like skin cancer, car accidents and handguns. Of course, people thought the likelihood of dying from a rattlesnake bite was greater than the risk of dying from skin cancer or a car accident.
There just isn’t enough of a “wow factor” in reporting on the true daily risks of, say, tanning beds. The media and the public just don’t want to hear about it.
After the mall shooting in Nebraska my wife said it scared her a little to go to the mall. And that was due, of course, to the media’s saturation coverage giving the impression that there could be gunmen everywhere or anywhere and all the talk about how “open” malls are so it makes them easy, soft targets.
Feeding our fears and paranoia is just irresistible to the media and the viewing public just laps it up.
I can only shake my head in amazement.
.
Dep’t of Justice – Racial differences exist, with blacks disproportionately represented among homicide victims and offenders.
Traffic deaths 40,000+
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Yet, no one ever talks about the violence and the deaths which are actually happening here in America because of our addiction to guns, and laws which make them easily available to just about anyone.
Addicted to guns or to violence? Symptoms of a much deeper sickness?
Sitting in a waiting room, I listened to two little kids, 6 or so years old, playing their hand held games. Gradually they began chatting with each other, till one moved next to the other. They began to watch each other play and then traded games. They shared their ups and downs, teaching each other. One suggested their moms should talk so they could get together and play. Making friends – it was really quite charming.
Breaking a quiet moment of concentrated play, one kiddo said, “I am good at killing.”
It was hard not to cry.
We’ve institutionalized violence in this country. Just start looking at commercials on tv to see how many have some form of hitting/slapping/knives(that Hall’s commercial I think)as part of the joke line or to make the point in a commercial. Same way with everyday speech patterns…how many people can go for just one day without saying anything like ‘jeez, I’d like to kill that guy’ or I’m going to slap the shit out of so and so?…….
That Hall’s commercial makes me cringe every time I see it! Why is it funny? I don’t think it’s funny; it’s scary.
I agree SN, it’s not funny to me either. The best I can say is that it’s a relief when you realize that huge knife isn’t going to harm anyone…yeah really funny alright.
Interesting comparision of real versus perceived threats.
Also begs the question of how much we would accept some level of terror attack. The Bush admin has sold America on spending whatever it takes, violating whatever civil rights are necessary, rolling back whatever personal freedoms are needed to keep terror attacks at zero. Perhaps its not worth that much.
At my peril around this place I also would push back on the explanation for these American “terror” attacks is a love of guns.
I think it is something in our culture that says the ultimate way to right a wrong is to draw as much innocent blood as possible and go out in a hale of bullets.
You could have added a guy in AZ that was just arrested after sending a threatening letter to authorities before he drove to the Super Bowl with an AR15 with plans for revenge for not being awarded a liquor license. Fortunately, he turned around and called his family.
There is an element of cross purposes of the gunholder asking to be pitied as the victim.
If are media ever linked the common threads of our weekly gun carnage, more of us would better understand the horrific tapestry which shrouds us all. In what common space are we safe from a nut with a gun ?
A concern I have is : we already lead the western world with roughly gun deaths 30,000/yr . And I fervently hope I’m wrong , but I see a potential train wreck involving a deep economic decline and unprecedented levels of firearm availability.
We know from our own history that economic declines always produce an increase in social problems and criminal activity .I’m not sure we have ever before entered an economic decline as heavily armed as we now are . I greatly fear what such a toxic mix might produce . One need not be a great sage to foresee the potential calamity of more guns and more poverty .
Private Guns, Public Health
David Hemenway
The first complete picture of the public-health approach to gun violence, and a commonsense plan for ending this American epidemic:
On an average day in the United States, guns are used to kill almost eighty people, and to wound nearly three hundred more. If any other consumer product had this sort of disastrous effect, the public outcry would be deafening; yet when it comes to guns such facts are accepted as a natural consequence of supposedly high American rates of violence.
Private Guns, Public Health explodes that myth and many more, revealing the advantages of treating gun violence as a consumer safety and public health problem. David Hemenway fair-mindedly and authoritatively demonstrates how a public-health approach-which emphasizes prevention over punishment, and which has been so successful in reducing the rates of injury and death from infectious disease, car accidents, and tobacco consumption-can be applied to gun violence.
Hemenway uncovers the complex connections between guns and self-defense, gun violence and schools, gun prevalence and homicide, and more. Finally, he outlines a policy course that would significantly reduce gun-related injury and death.
With its bold new public-health approach to guns, Private Guns, Public Health marks a shift in our understanding of guns that will-finally-point us toward a solution.
David Hemenway is Professor of Health Policy at the Harvard School of Public Health and Director of Harvard’s Injury Control Research Center and Youth Violence Prevention Center. A former Pew Fellow on Injury Control, he has been a Senior Soros Justice Fellow and held a Robert Wood Johnson Investigator Award in Health Policy Research.
Links of Interest
Listen to an interview with David Hemenway at http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wbur/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=668329 .
If our media ever linked the common threads of our weekly gun carnage, more of us would better understand the horrific tapestry which shrouds us all. In what common space are we safe from a nut with a gun ?
A concern I have is : we already lead the western world with roughly gun deaths 30,000/yr . And I fervently hope I’m wrong , but I see a potential train wreck involving a deep economic decline and unprecedented levels of firearm availability.
We know from our own history that economic declines always produce an increase in social problems and criminal activity .I’m not sure we have ever before entered an economic decline as heavily armed as we now are . I greatly fear what such a toxic mix might produce . One need not be a great sage to foresee the potential calamity of more guns and more poverty .
Private Guns, Public Health
David Hemenway
The first complete picture of the public-health approach to gun violence, and a commonsense plan for ending this American epidemic:
On an average day in the United States, guns are used to kill almost eighty people, and to wound nearly three hundred more. If any other consumer product had this sort of disastrous effect, the public outcry would be deafening; yet when it comes to guns such facts are accepted as a natural consequence of supposedly high American rates of violence.
Private Guns, Public Health explodes that myth and many more, revealing the advantages of treating gun violence as a consumer safety and public health problem. David Hemenway fair-mindedly and authoritatively demonstrates how a public-health approach-which emphasizes prevention over punishment, and which has been so successful in reducing the rates of injury and death from infectious disease, car accidents, and tobacco consumption-can be applied to gun violence.
Hemenway uncovers the complex connections between guns and self-defense, gun violence and schools, gun prevalence and homicide, and more. Finally, he outlines a policy course that would significantly reduce gun-related injury and death.
With its bold new public-health approach to guns, Private Guns, Public Health marks a shift in our understanding of guns that will-finally-point us toward a solution.
David Hemenway is Professor of Health Policy at the Harvard School of Public Health and Director of Harvard’s Injury Control Research Center and Youth Violence Prevention Center. A former Pew Fellow on Injury Control, he has been a Senior Soros Justice Fellow and held a Robert Wood Johnson Investigator Award in Health Policy Research.
Links of Interest
Listen to an interview with David Hemenway at http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wbur/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=668329 .