I appreciate this piece -- up to a point. It's true that we have lost the space to shape an accurate perspective on events like this, and that a loss like that brings with it a loss of something larger. And it's true that people looking to do harm will do harm. But it's naive to suggest that increased calls for sensible gun control laws are out of place in the wake of a crazy person murdering 20 children. Look no further than China, where, also yesterday, a different crazy man attacked a different classroom full of children -- with a knife. The number of casualties there? Zero.

So, yes: people looking to do harm will always do harm. And it's up us to decide how much harm they should be able to inflict.

A few thoughts
1. "The President can barely maintain composure." Bullshit, if he really was crying he has no business being a leader. A leader doenst cry in public over people he never knew

2. In response to this a number of AZ police public relations people vowed that police would 'step up their presence and visibility today(Friday) and tomorrow(Saturday) so kids going to class could feel safe'

3. The notion that we need to have a rational discussion beyond politics about this is aslo bullshit. $20 bucks says such a discussion will be about gun control and will have no mention of jailing mental cases before they commit such crimes.

4. In regards to gun control, if you out law guns the only people with guns will be cops, who are worse shots than most lawful gun owners, and the criminals the governemnt sells guns to

Sam seems to be unaware of the boatload of gun regulations already on the books in this country.

Sam, what additional laws do you believe would prevent this, and other mass shootings?

Again, look at the evidence from countries which have banned guns.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1223193/Culture-violence-Gun-crime-goes-89-decade.html

This horror is such a disgrace to the USA that IMO the entire nation should take down its Christmas decorations and mourn.

After 9/11, the government gave us a solution called TSA even though the heroes of flight 93 showed us that same day that the tactic of flying a passenger plane into building would now always fail because those on board will no longer sit still but would fight for their lives. People need to remember just how expensive and wrong the "solution" for 9/11 was before they turn to the government for a solution to this new tragedy.

We want to control guns but expect those who suffer mental issues to control themselves. False security (hello TSA!) is not security. There are always mentally unstable people who will act out violently. Instead of focusing on the tool they choose at the moment to use, we need to better identify and protect society from such people including institutionalizing them if necessary. We do a better job of tracking and controlling drunk drivers than we do mentally unstable people who have demonstrated previously a disposition to harm others.

But it's naive to suggest that increased calls for sensible gun control laws are out of place in the wake of a crazy person murdering 20 children. -- Sam Chaltain at December 15, 2012 6:15 AM

You have to be 18+ to legally purchase a long gun (shotgun or rifle). You have to be 21+ to legally purchase a handgun. You can not be a convicted felon. You have to pass a NICS background check to actually purchase a firearm. This is purchasing from a retail dealer. Private sales requirements vary by state, but can be just as stringent.

The shooter in Connecticut killed his mother and used her legally purchased firearms to commit his rampage. This is the same thing that happened in the Red Lake (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Lake_massacre) when the kid killed his grandfather for his bullet resistant vest and police issued firearms.

Making more gun laws that don't stop anyone who has decided to do this. All it does is stop the law-abiding, conscientious, citizen from having a choice available to them. A person with criminal intent is not going to observe the law anyway.

I've been thinking about getting a gun for a long time now, but haven't acted on it. I think I'm ready now.

I greatly admire the Skenazy piece... It's dangerously easy to admire someone who agrees with you. I kinda wish she'd deployed the cussword I so freely used here and here:

Television.

The Connecticut shooting comes into our homes–even our hands–instantly, no matter where we live. We see the shattered parents in real time.

Or in this hour: I'm getting feedback from the lefties in my family suggesting that Obama's walking around the refreshed White House with a salty tear in his eye and a useless boner in his pants, and this country is on the brink of a major dustup over the Second Amendment. Skenazy, whatever her feelings about the 2nd A., might not be inclined toward confrontation...

(more)

...But I usually am. It's wrong to say "we see the shattered parents." No. We watch them on television. IT'S NOT THE SAME THING. This mildly perfumed metaphor ("we see") mustn't be allowed to hijack our understanding.

Television is distributed through programs; visually and temporally bounded compositions which can be used to stoke people's feelings. Television is better at showing death than showing life, and it's better at selling detergent than anything. It will never show the madness which nourished the shooter (perhaps for generations), nor the forward motion of the maimed families.

To allow these events to crack the Constitution is to allow the most presumptuous and gossipy part of human nature, the part that loves soap operas, to cut our path.

Anyone who's given the 2nd Amendment any thought, or even read the damn thing twice, knows perfectly well that it has major faults. Perhaps it DOES deserve to be gutted... OK, fine. But let it happen through the intellectual and moral confrontation the document deserves (and explicitly demands), not through the manipulations of prostate-poisoned television producers.

Thanks for the insights, Sam, but please explain how twenty million unarmed Chinese who were starved to death by their own government is a good swap for a low body count in a bizarre school attack by a madman?

Makes you wonder what kind of government they'd have if there was a firearm waiting for the government goons behind every door in China.

(Mis-posted on earlier thread... Sorry Amy.)

Television doesn't due strength, growth or dignity... It doesn't do LIFE.

Death has one thing going for it if you're covering it on television: Eventually, it's over, you can play some spots for the Ford dealer out on Dixie Bee Highway: Dealin' Days are back!

Life never ends.

This Gog guy's gotta handsome fastball. Great arm on that kid.

Friday: primary school attack, more than 20 children...

Oh, wait, not a gun attack - a knife.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/14/world/asia/china-knife-attack/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn

> And it's up us to decide how much harm
> they should be able to inflict.

This is one hundred percent wrong. It's about nothing but the power fantasies of the man who said it.

Civilization is always, always, always about vulnerability.

If that scares you too much then drop your cellphone, take off your clothes, walk naked onto the prairie and live your life the way you want.

The rest of us will not be compelled to submit to your intrusions to make you feel safe.

"The number of casualties there? Zero." ~ Sam Chaltain

Sam, the number of casualties was 23. "Casualties" includes the wounded.

And how is having a madman slashing 23 people an example of any improvement in violence abatement? Granted, no fatalities, but the ousider-imposed sense of vulnerability, fear, and uncertainty still lingers.

"After 9/11, the government gave us a solution called TSA...." ~ LoneStarJeffe

Exactly.

I'd rather not give ATF unlimited powers of search and seizure.

"...please explain how twenty million unarmed Chinese who were starved to death by their own government is a good swap for a low body count in a bizarre school attack by a madman?" ~ Gog Magog

That's a government solution writ large.

Thanks, but no thanks. I'll keep my freedom ... with all the attendant uncertainties.

"Civilization is always, always, always about vulnerability." ~ Crid

Freud had some interesting thoughts on that subject.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization_and_Its_Discontents

> Sam, the number of casualties was 23.
> "Casualties" includes the wounded.

And this Conan guy's gotta slider! Steeee-rike.

(Reminds me of that time back in Indiana when the small-city news anchor described Hinkley as an "assassin"... His eyes twinkled as his lips spat the word.

Only thing was....)

$20 bucks says such a discussion will be about gun control and will have no mention of jailing mental cases before they commit such crimes.

And how do you propose imprisoning people for things they might do? Wouldn't that require an increase in taxes, to provide housing, food and treatment for the mentally ill? Or should we just shoot anyone who might be crazy?

http://nothingvia.tumblr.com/post/37947949279/serious-people-know-how-to-respond-to-serious

1. I like the way the one little girl is all, like, hey-stop-looking-at-my-Mom, because actually, Mom has a nice ass.

2. Note that Mom didn't hire an undereducated, diabetic TSA agent to stand at the door and fondle & irradiate her children 'for their own good'... She shows up every morning to watch over them herself.

Maybe kids are a typical target in China:

There have been a series of attacks on schools and children around China in recent years.

Some were carried out by people who have lost their jobs or felt left out of the country's economic boom. […] There was a particular string of knife attacks against schoolchildren across the country in early 2010 that killed nearly 20 and wounded more than 50.

In one incident that year, a man slashed 28 children, two teachers and a security guard in a kindergarten in eastern China.

Wow... just because this particular mad Chinaman didn't know biology well, doesn't mean that someone who really wants to kill, will KILL, not maim.

A few minutes studying the locations of vital arteries, and just as many children if not more could be stabbed in the neck and killed.

Same goes for movie theater audience, all he'd need do is go down the empty aisle behind viewers and slash. Trying to fight and take down a man with a knife will get you slashed.

So, the only answer is to leave our right to protect ourselves and our families to us.

Cops can't save you - they can't arrive till the killing/maiming is done.

People who look to the gov't to help are crazy in and of themselves..the bigger picture here is how much worse it is going to get... Obama hired the poison king, the head of Monsanto pestides/GMO's to run our FDA. American doctors have forgotten common sense and simply dispense toxic pharmaceuticals to people already mentally affected by too many toxins in the food supply. The gov't keeps allowing more and more toxins into the food/water/air. Every day, I am made aware of more ways Congress is writing bills to allow these toxic substances in, wearing down the public who are petitioning against them.

Doctors keep "labeling" ill people by ADHD, bi-polar, etc. and physical ailments by the body part or by the symptoms. Most illnesses (not all), physical and mental, come from dysbiosis of the digestive system, which in turn affect the brain. It is too complex to explain here.

The point is... it is not a simple answer like "gun control". Prevention of the mental disease, which as a start, means eating organic well-balanced foods that haven't been corrupted, exercise, proper sleep, and preservation of our right to protect ourselves are the answers to preventing these tragedies.

But, oh yeh, sorry, that would require people to EDUCATE themselves and CHANGE their bad eating habits and chosen ignorance about the food supply, and actually do something to keep it safe. ... instead of evoke gun control which is even more harmful, as we won't be able to protect ourselves from the ever increasing mental illness that is yet to come from this ever increasing toxic environment.

And how do you propose imprisoning people for things they might do? Wouldn't that require an increase in taxes, to provide housing, food and treatment for the mentally ill? Or should we just shoot anyone who might be crazy?

So you find it disturbing to punish the mental before they commit a crime but you dont find it disturbing to punish the sane in response to crimes committed by the mental?

Or did you not note I was drawing a line between two forms of precog crime prevention one of which liberals support and one which they would fight, even though both are essentaily the same at their cores?