The massacre in Connecticut is making some people say some really stupid things. You can’t stop gun-weilding mass murderers by training elementary school children to bum-rush them. You can’t explain the white male profile of spree-shooters by arguing that white men feel unneeded in modern society, nor can you plausibly argue that you can limit mass-killings by showing more empathy for the pain of eroding white-male privilege.
These women are idiots.
There are really only two main issues, and some ancillary ones to consider as well. Some of the recent shooters were severely mentally ill. This was certainly the case with the Tucson and Aurora shooters. We can do a better job of treating people with mental health issues.
Secondly, we can reduce the lethality of mass killings by making it much more difficult to obtain semiautomatic weapons and large ammunition clips. The Tucson shooter was disarmed when he was forced to reload. Unfortunately, his first ammunition clip contained 33 bullets. He killed six people and injured 13 more in just a few seconds. The Aurora shooter had a 100-round canister as well as a shotgun and handgun. He killed 12 people and injured 58 before the police arrived a mere 90 seconds after the shooting began.
It won’t always be possible to get people the mental health care they need, nor will it be possible to completely eradicate the availability of semiautomatic weapons or large magazine clips. That’s not the goal. The goal is to do our best.
We can consider, too, the role of violence in our culture, particularly in our popular entertainment. I don’t think it’s healthy. I think the producers of entertainment should make some voluntary changes. But we have to change.
We can’t tolerate this anymore.
The massacre in Connecticut is making some people say some really stupid things.
Is anyone in your commentariat really surprised at the stupid emanating from one of those two people you linked to? There is a reason she’s one of the most mocked people on the interwebs. It’s interesting, though, seeing people like Josh Marshall just now realize McMegan can write some really stupid stuff.
She’s outdone herself this time.
Yes, but I should have made my point clearer. Maybe I am alone, but I always thought it wasn’t if but just a matter of when. She is one of the best examples of the Peter Principle, outside of government, I know. Well, I don’t know her personally, but I think people know what I mean.
Eh, it’s not like Megan McArdle needs a tragedy to be stupid.
Making it harder to get the tools to commit mass murder is the first order of business: it’s relatively easy to do. (Really, that’s the easy part).
Improved mental health care would be good, for the ones that can be identified as badly broken. It’s a massive undertaking though, that requires reforming the attitude of a society to mental health.
I think the cultural issues are wider than popular entertainment, to say the least. I can’t quite articulate this yet, but the sentiments that drive the Reagan-Thatcher revolution, the Washington-Brussels consensus, the xenophobia for people outside your tribe, might-makes-right are all highly destructive and institutionalise dehumanisation and exclusion and make the excluded highly vulnerable. I’m not sure it’s just the shooters that are mentally ill. It may be the society.
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Under his reign ended the suffering in the Goelag Archipelago and funding for US mental institutions. Funded the mujahideen and delivered arms to Pakistan.
Clinton, Bush and Obama set forth a similar policy in Middle-East.
At home the violence and massacres intensified:
Columbine – Aurora – Virginia Tech – Newtown.
Guns are primarily used for suicides – see chart! Interesting discussion on violence, video games and lack of communication skills by loners
who commit these outbursts of mass killings combined with suicide here and here.
PS The manuscripts of Solzhenitsyn’s work on microfilm was smuggled out of the Soviet Union in the violin case of Emmy Verhey. Very courageous.
I thought the Wampole had some merit in pointing out the gender and race of these shooters. But her conclusions were uninformed and how do I put it… wrong. It’s time to read more mental health pros on that subject and not just speculate and ramble.
We need improvements in a lot of spheres of American life. We’re steeped in violence and the stats show how we pay for it. Sort this graph by homicide and compare:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate
I agree about our “entertainment”. I found The Hurt Locker to be nothing more than well executed “war porn” and was terribly disappointed that it goes on to win much praise and awards. I’m not saying we ban it, but America at large isn’t aware of the violence in our souls. It’s the “banality of evil” clouding our judgment.
America is an inherently violent society, overall; the culture and history are steeped in it, riddled with it, founded upon it.
Think I’m overstating it? I invite you to read this blogpost by Jim Wright of Stonekettle Station, think it over, and then reply:
http://www.stonekettle.com/2012/12/bang-bang-crazy-part-two.html
Jim Wright is only scratching the surface.
Recalling the reaction to 9/11, I would say this is akin to calling water wet.
I think it just unleashes the pre-existing stupid that’s been hiding its light under a bushel. Once tragedy comes to visit, nobody dares call call stupid by its name, ’cause it’s so well-intentioned.
Why does anyone give McMegan a platform anymore? I mean Christ, she can spew her stupid if she wants but let her do it on her own blog.
I’ve seen three different blogs link to her piece just today. She’s getting clicks.
Megan’s article was amazing in in its breadth and depth of stupidity. The end advice about teaching people to rush a gunman was especially astonishing. Unless the attacker is wielding a wooden spoon, charging at him is basically saying, “Looky, here are ten easy targets for you to pick off!” What an idiot.
We need to get rid of the assault weapons. Offer buy-backs. Stop glamorizing violence and objectifying guns.
The NRA is led by bullies and single-minded millionaires who are both obstinate and selfish. We have to stop letting them make the rules. Their efforts to buy a president failed. We won this election and we need to take advantage of the momentum.
The mental health aspects are tough, too. But certainly it becomes important to address the obvious profile of young white males who feel bullied or isolated, and are therefore showing levels of anger or resentment. We cannot stigmatize mental illness more than it already is. Families will feel persecuted and some people will be strongly ostracized, whether they pose a threat or not.
If the solution was simple, we would have handled it already. We have to collect information from myriad sources, have evaluations and assessments of the data, and put some options on the table. The time to act is already long past us. We have to catch up.
Of course, that’s impossible in the current media/political/civic environment. Isn’t life great.
“The end advice about teaching people to rush a gunman was especially astonishing.”
Young Marines (boot camp) are trained to do just that: Jump the shooter. But the key is, when and if they are in the situation, they are MARINES … you know 175lbs of trained, post pubescent testerone on legs. They firmly believe (with some very good reasons) that they can take out anyone they can get to before they are dead. The very definition of insanity with a nod to reality.
6 year olds vs a 20 year old? Not so much.
Megan McArdle should realize that John Wayne was a draft dodger with bad feet … not a school child.
Small favors from Hollywood:
Tom Cruise action sniper movie premiere postponed
Red carpet unrolled for Tarantino’s “Django Unchained.
Having sat through the “Djano Unchained” trailer can say that it didn’t make me want to see it. But it’s probably no worse than all the other gratuitously violent (and crushingly boring) movies that were released this year.
McArdle is basically a younger and even more demented version of Peggy Noonan, paid apologist for 1% front groups, except McArdle has way more production than Peggy, and her very expensive education has given her the ability to vigorously and pretentiously “blog” her total ignorance of pretty much every substantial issue in American life.
I disagree. Is Megs going to get all gooey over Ratso, like Peggy has over JPII? Can you get drunk off Pink Himalayan salt?
Contemptible as these 2 are, every form of media is awash in self-serving/plain ignorant psychologizing and cultural lamenting — much of which points to the problem of so much “diversity”. I can hardly stand to read, watch, or hear anything just now.
Assertions about violent media are as iffy as they were half a century ago. Having somebody fixate on a relatively low-gore Batman movie and go on a rampage is a long way from showing cause and effect. As with all censorship impulses, whether directed at legal sanctions or “voluntary changes” there’s no way to sift the good from the sickening. I guess I wouldn’t be willing to give up Tarantino films to eliminate mindless spatter flics like the Saw series. As we’ve seen over and over again judges and lawmakers are grossly incapable of making the distinction.
Movies may amp up the hormones, but unlike guns, they are not explicitly designed as tools for destroying, threatening, hurting or killing. The gun culture is the problem. If we want to deal with social aspects of murder, nothing will suffice short of building a just and equal society. And even then there will be crazies.
I was just at Target. They have an aisle full of NERF guns and giant ammo clips. I played with gun toys when I was a kid. I’m not a naif or a Philistine. But it made me a little queasy to see these openly paramilitary toys.
The solution is not possible in a single act just as establishing Social Security or fixing health care was not possible in a single act. Obama did establish that health care is a right, not a privilege of good employment. The real answer is national single payer health care that essentially dismantles the for profit health care delivery industry as we know it. We will get there but it takes time and turning public opinion same as any other social movement. Same is true for gun control. It would be a huge victory if it gets established that gun control is a needed and legitimate function for the federal government. If we reinstate the assault weapons ban, ban clips of more than ten bullets, add bullet identification, close the gun show loophole plus end internet sales we would go a long way to accomplish this but still not a solution just as ACA is not the solution for health care.
A car loaded with explosive gasoline is truly a dangerous device. You can own and operate that car at lethal speeds but you are required to maintain control of that vehicle. You must have a license to drive and liability insurance to cover accidental damage to others. If you are negligent, say DUI and cause a death you get charged with manslaughter. In Colorado there is mandatory jail time for driving without a license. This is enforced personal responsibility for car owners. While we can’t get rid of cars to eliminate car deaths or get rid of guns we can certainly add an equally severe layer of personal responsibility for gun ownership.
The mother of Adam Lanza was living in the family home with annual alimony payments of $289k per year with paid insurance for her mentally ill son. All the help that was needed was certainly in place. What was missing was the personal responsibility of that affluent mother.
All guns owned by anyone must be registered. If not they get confiscated and penalties assessed, same a driving without a license. All these registered firearms need liability insurance, same as a car. Let the free market determine the rates that reflect having a gun collection with mentally disturbed children in the house. Finally there must be a mandatory gun safe. Failure to have and use the gun safe would make that owner personally responsible for anything that happens with those guns due to that lapse of judgment if those guns go missing. Keep those guns but only with enforced responsibility. If you can’t afford this, get rid of the guns. We need a generous buyback program with maybe subsidies for gun safes.
You’re right, we just can’t tolerate this anymore.