By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
The horrific events in Newtown, Connecticut have left us all with a sense of shock and helplessness. Twenty elementary school children dead, six educators slaughtered, and a place we all like to think of as a safe haven from the misery of the world polluted by horrific violence wrought by weapons more properly used on a battlefield. Politicians from President Obama to New York Mayor Bloomberg have called for “meaningful action” to combat gun violence which is endemic to America.
But does this mass murder of innocents present the right case to support effective gun control? From what we know now the answer is “no.” The shooter, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, was a troubled teen who suffered from either Asperger’s syndrome or a personality disorder according to the New York Daily News. One family friend described the young man, saying, “This was a deeply disturbed kid. He certainly had major issues. He was subject to outbursts from what I recall.”
Lanza also had strange permutation of the syndrome in that he was impervious to normal stimuli. Another “longtime” family friend said Lanza had a condition “where he couldn’t feel pain. A few years ago when he was on the baseball team, everyone had to be careful that he didn’t fall because he could get hurt and not feel it.”
Asperger’s syndrome is an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) which allows the sufferer to maintain high academic and cognitive functioning but handicaps social interaction. It is the classic high school brainiac who is unable to ask a member of the opposite sex out on a date. The cause is unknown but certain genetic markers may be present to suggest that is its origin. Thus, Lanza may have acted from a motivation he had little control over and which no amount of gun control or mental health legislation could control.
Additionally, the guns used in the slayings were purchased legally by Lanza’s apparent first victim, his mother, Nancy. Lanza stole the weapons — a .223 Bushmaster assault weapon*, and two semi-automatic handguns, a 9 mm Sig Sauer, and a 9 mm Glock — after murdering his mother and thus began his rampage. The simple fact is that no gun control measures either on the books or reasonably under consideration could have stopped such a disturbed person from acquiring these weapons if he was willing to kill to get them.
As much as many of us would like to see guns regulated at least as much as cars or liquor, the facts here do not present the best case to achieve this goal. The American love affair with guns is seemingly getting stronger with sales of firearms setting new records. Gun manufacturers and their minions at the NRA have succeeded in scaring many Americans into believing that Obama and the Democratic Party have a secret agenda to disarm the public.
In fact, the public’s support for gun control has been on a steady decline according to polling conducted by Pew Research. Even the school mass murder at Columbine registered only a bump of support which quickly vanished. The chart below (from the Huffington Post) graphically demonstrates the public’s attitude about guns in an era of distrust with government and the political process.
It would take a paradigm shift in the culture to create the political will to take on the Second Amendment. It is a telling — and perhaps damning — fact that even the death of 20 children under age 10 is simply not enough.
Source: CNN; New York DailyNews; Huffington Post
~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
PSs:
Our good friend, slartibartfast, has provided a link on the effectiveness of the federal ban on assault weapons. It’s good reading. Here it is: Did the federal ban on assault weapons matter?
*Also commenter, Roman Berry, (9:19 am) has provided some context for the term “assault weapon.”
Thanks, guys.
JAG,
“Gene…. that was THEN…. this is NOW….”
And you’re still engaging in the Historian’s fallacy and presentism. All the while you manage to remain ignorant as to how jurisprudence and precedent operate.
“we are all on pretty even footing at this point….. the USA is in NO danger of being taken over by any other country…..”
Yet you conveniently ignore the ever encroaching domestic tyranny of the unitary Executive and the expanding police state.
“Maybe, YOU don’t mind that cost, since it is NOT YOUR child laying in a Funeral home right now…..
In MY EYES…. that cost is WAY TOO HIGH!!!”
As to the “YOU don’t mind that cost, since it is NOT YOUR child laying in a Funeral home right now”?
That simply merits a “bite me”.
Who the f@ck do you think you are to say something like that to me? Or anyone else for that matter?
My primary concern is protecting the civil rights guaranteed by our Constitution. If you’re willing to throw them away? That’s your bad choice. That your rights mean so little to you? Says more about you than it does about me, you puppet to your emotions. You’ve already agreed that what I said were reasonable restrictions were indeed reasonable restrictions and that you don’t wish to do away with the 2nd. Most of your last scree was simply an attempt to what? Make me look bad? Hurt my feelings? Shame me into agreeing with you?
You apparently haven’t read many of my comments or you’d realize the futility of that tactic. I don’t give a rat’s ass what you think about me. I don’t even care if you like me. I do care about the logical sufficiency of arguments and so far yours have been lacking. I’m interested in the rule of law and the maximization and retention of civil and human rights. Your agreement is not required.
Now the next time you address me, I’d advise you to lay off the trying to make me in to a bad guy. Or you can try to demonize me again. See how that works out for you. It won’t be pretty, but it will be funny.
“and if you want to change my MIND…. it is simple….. STOP saying NOTHING will work…”
You assume my goal is to change your mind when it is to show your illogic. And thanks for the straw man. I never once said “NOTHING will work”. I stipulated quite clearly several steps that could be taken to mitigate risk. Your capacity for logical fallacies is becoming truly impressive. Almost as impressive as your constant shouting. I hope you don’t talk that way IRL. It’s really annoying.
Gene… I do NOT mean change my mind about guns…. for the umpteenth time… I am NOT anti gun…. I actually like shooting…. and like guns….
I mean change my mind from thinking that Pro gun advocates are just fanatic nut jobs…..
It just seems that too many Pro NRA types just go a LITTLE overboard……
It seems they do not want to entertain any restrictions…. even wanting 100 round mags…..
I guess because I am NOT gun fanatic… and no anti gun either that I see that DIFFERENCE in the way guns are talked about now days vs 30 years ago…… it is like Christianity and Islam… 30 years ago… they were LESS fanatical….. NOW…. they have gone over the edge…… and that is what Pro Gun advocates are like now……
at one point the NRA was OK with some gun restrictions… they were not about…. ALL guns for EVERYBODY……
I love what Shano posted……..
and this is just PRICELESS…….
Which begs my question: in precisely which “tactical” scenarios do all of these lunatics imagine that they’re going to use their matte-black, suppressor-fitted, flashlight-ready tactical weapons? They tend to speak of the “tactical” as if it were a fait accompli; as a kind of apodeictic fact: as something that everyone – their customers, interlocutors, fellow forum members, or YouTube viewers – experiences on a regular basis, in everyday life. They tend to speak of the tactical as reality.
And I think there’s a sense in which they’ve constructured their own (batshit insane) reality.
One in which we have to live.
Here is one of the best statements I have read on the subject of gun and how the gun culture has changed in America- from an anonymous post at TPM: “I was raised with guns. More to the point, my childhood was steeped in gun lore: I learned to hand-load ammunition when I was 10 and 11, and – by the time I was 14 – my dad was trusting me to prepare my own handloads. I could (and to some extent, still can) recite chapter and verse of firearms arcana, from muzzle velocities – a product of the type of gunpowder used in one’s handloads; of the weight (in grains) of a projectile; of the length of a gun’s barrel (the longer, the faster); of the temperature and elevation at which one is shooting – to impact energy (measured in footpounds), to trajectories (flatter for heavier bullets; some calibers have an innate advantage over others), and so on.
I bring this up to establish my bona-fides.
The gun culture that we have today in the U.S. is not the gun culture, so to speak, that I remember from my youth. It’s too simple to say that it’s “sick;” it’s more accurately an absurd fetishization. I suppose that the American Gunfighter, in all of his avatars, is inescapably fetishistic, but (to my point) somewhere along the way – maybe in, uh, 1994? – we crossed over into Something Else: let’s call it Gonzo Fetishization. The American Gunfighter as caricature.
The guns that I grew up with (in the late-1970’s and 1980’s) were bolt-action rifles: non-automatic weapons, with organic fixtures – i.e., stocks – and limited magazine capacities. As a pre-adolescent, weaned on the A-Team and the nationalist inanity of the Reagan years, I still remember marveling at the gorgeous glossiness – at the beauty – of my dad’s Sako “Vixen” .222 Remington, with its hand-checkered French walnut stock.
I was raised nominally to hunt, although we didn’t do much of that: once a year, at most. More frequently, we’d go to the range and shoot at targets. So I grew up practicing, and enjoying, what’s commonly called benchrest rifle shooting. I still do so (to a limited extent) today.
Most of the men and children (of both sexes) I met were interested in hunting, too. Almost exclusively, they used traditional hunting rifles: bolt-actions, mostly, but also a smattering of pump-action, lever-action, and (thanks primarily to Browning) semi-automatic hunting rifles. They talked about gun ownership primarily as a function of hunting; the idea of “self-defense,” while always an operative concern, never seemed to be of paramount importance. It was a factor in gun ownership – and for some sizeable minority of gun owners, it was of outsized (or of decisive) importance – but it wasn’t the factor. The folks I interacted with as a pre-adolescent and – less so – as a teen owned guns because their fathers had owned guns before them; because they’d grown up hunting and shooting; and because – for most of them – it was an experience (and a connection) that they wanted to pass on to their sons and daughters.
And that’s my point: I can’t remember seeing a semi-automatic weapon of any kind at a shooting range until the mid-1980’s. Even through the early-1990’s, I don’t remember the idea of “personal defense” being a decisive factor in gun ownership. The reverse is true today: I have college-educated friends – all of whom, interestingly, came to guns in their adult lives – for whom gun ownership is unquestionably (and irreducibly) an issue of personal defense. For whom the semi-automatic rifle or pistol – with its matte-black finish, laser site, flashlight mount, and other “tactical” accoutrements – effectively circumscribe what’s meant by the word “gun.” At least one of these friends has what some folks – e.g., my fiancee, along with most of my non-gun-owning friends – might regard as an obsessive fixation on guns; a kind of paraphilia that (in its appetite for all things tactical) seems not a little bit creepy. Not “creepy” in the sense that he’s a ticking time bomb; “creepy” in the sense of…alternate reality. Let’s call it “tactical reality.”
The “tactical” turn is what I want to flag here. It has what I take to be a very specific use-case, but it’s used – liberally – by gun owners outside of the military, outside of law enforcement, outside (if you’ll indulge me) of any conceivable reality-based community: these folks talk in terms of “tactical” weapons, “tactical” scenarios, “tactical applications,” and so on. It’s the lingua franca of gun shops, gun ranges, gun forums, and gun-oriented Youtube videos. (My god, you should see what’s out there on You Tube!) Which begs my question: in precisely which “tactical” scenarios do all of these lunatics imagine that they’re going to use their matte-black, suppressor-fitted, flashlight-ready tactical weapons? They tend to speak of the “tactical” as if it were a fait accompli; as a kind of apodeictic fact: as something that everyone – their customers, interlocutors, fellow forum members, or YouTube viewers – experiences on a regular basis, in everyday life. They tend to speak of the tactical as reality.
And I think there’s a sense in which they’ve constructured their own (batshit insane) reality.
One in which we have to live.
Prove you are capable of exercising that right to bear arms without infringing on my right to send my kids to school safely.
How to prove? Testing, education, evaluation and timely retesting. For all gun owners.
States with a good gun culture like Vermont have very few problems with guns. the hunting culture there creates a secure environment for most people. that culture is based on education, practice, tradition and knowledge.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/12/16/1170899/–Take-That-Nigger-Off-the-TV-We-Wanna-Watch-Football Justagurl, This is what people tweeted tonight when Obama went on the air to talk about the shootings. Be glad you live in Sweden.
SwM,
Here is a short video that explains the confusion about semi-auto and full-auto rifles, the similarities and differences. The instructor is a police officer.
“The simple fact is that no gun control measures either on the books or reasonably under consideration could have stopped such a disturbed person from acquiring these weapons if he was willing to kill to get them.”
It depends on how disturbed a person happens to be whether or not they would be up to the task to find and buy a gun on the black market. Some really disturbed people would not be able to navigate or be organized enough.
When they can just walk down to the local pawn shop & buy a gun as they can now, it is only a matter of holding themselves together for a short time during the interaction.
OS, I know very little about guns but am trying to learn so I will know what legislation to support.
Blouise,
They thought it important enough to say – even though it was in the context of supporting militias – that “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The 2nd is binary. One element – the preface – is to support militias; providing for the common defense. The second element is what is necessary to support militas and that is that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. A right of the people. An individual right. A natural right they felt so important they protected it specifically.
We can agree to disagree, but I’m going to stick with my training on how to interpret the Constitution, construction of laws and how to discern statutory intent as the guide in what informs my opinion.
You are skirting outcome determinism with the notion of a collective right that impairs the individual right as the Founders intended and derived from the English Bill of Rights of 1689. The right to bear arms is an individual right as written in the Constitution and affirmed by case law. Disagree all you like. You’ll have to produce better evidence and argument to change my mind on this matter. I think that it can be reasonably restricted – few rights are absolute – but it cannot be removed without amendment or modified to the extent that it is effectively removed without Constitutional challenge. That’s at the heart of the finding that D.C.’s attempt to ban weapons was unconstitutional in District of Columbia v. Heller. The notion of it being an individual right protected by the Constitution was challenged and the individual right won.
I still love you anyway. So there. 😛
JaG,
If the Feds do not know a patient is a patient, what would motivate them to give up privacy. I don’t think I would. The only way a psychiatric patient might come to the attention of the law is if they are adjudicated mentally ill and committed to a mental hospital involuntarily. And in most jurisdictions, even those commitment records are sealed by order of the court.
Otteray Scribe
1, December 16, 2012 at 10:47 pm
JaG,
If the Feds do not know a patient is a patient, what would motivate them to give up privacy. I don’t think I would. The only way a psychiatric patient might come to the attention of the law is if they are adjudicated mentally ill and committed to a mental hospital involuntarily. And in most jurisdictions, even those commitment records are sealed by order of the court.
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I mean EVERYBODY gets a mental health check up….
so, EVERYBODY would have a letter attached to their background check records……
It is simple… you want a gun…. you go get screened….
SOMETHING has to be done here…..
DO you have any suggestions ?????
Look at the MOTHER who bought her guns legally….
she sounded paranoid to me…..
This is where I see that……
She was not just preparing for a POSSIBLE Economic meltdown…..
NOPE…. she was preparing for THE Economic meltdown…..
That is sliding into the gray area in my opinion…..
Otteray Scribe
1, December 16, 2012 at 10:16 pm
JaG,
The biggest single problem with your suggestions regarding mental health issues. First of all, there is something called HIPAA. Google it. No doctor is going to risk a $50,000 dollar fine and a year in jail in order to comply with a proposal such as you make.
Second, such legislation would have less chance of passing in this country than I have of becoming a circus acrobat.
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Of course I know about HIPPA…..
and the patient can allow the doctor permission to write a clearance letter regarding their mental health status…. that would break NO LAWS….
SwM,
An assault rifle is one with a select fire switch. It can be changed from semi automatic to full auto with a flip of a small lever. Those are highly controlled and next to impossible for a civilian to own legally. That has been true since 1934, pursuant to Federal law.
There is no real difference between the current so-called “assault rifles” and an ordinary hunting rifle, except for the cosmetic appearance. Just because a rifle is ugly, should not be the determining factor in whether it is legal.
Rifles and shotguns have a minimum legal barrel length. Anything even a fraction of an inch shorter than the legal minimum is illegal under Federal law.
” Enough With The Legalese Smart Guy, What’s The Bottom Line?
Like any public policy matter, it is important to get/be educated. An assault weapons ban? One that covers machine guns[13] would not even implicate the Second Amendment. One that included semi-automatic “assault” weapons would probably pass constitutional muster[14]. At least one federal court of appeals has upheld a ban on large capacity magazines[15] and others have upheld regulations on gun possession by a person convicted of domestic violence[16] and an outright ban on .22 caliber short-barreled rifles[17]. While it is important to note that case law differs among the federal circuits, the idea that the Second Amendment is inviolate and that sensible gun control laws cannot be passed is simply untrue. What it takes, like anything else in Washington, D.C., is political courage – something that has been in short supply in this area for a long time. “
Outrage about drones killing children?
You’ll find that outrage here anytime the subject is brought up I venture. It’s a damn red herring the way it’s been used in this thread I think.
If you, anyone, wants to call hypocrisy because the equivalence hadn’t been specifically brought up I suggest taking your scolding to the media. Right? Give the media a free pass for not pointing out the complicity and bloodymindedness of the administration every damn day it occurs, but they’re all over the CT killings. How’s that for equivalence?
A very poor example of honesty in discussion, as opposed to technical argumentation.
http://scarylawyerguy.blogspot.com/2012/12/a-quick-primer-on-gun-rights-in-america.html
JaG,
The biggest single problem with your suggestions regarding mental health issues. First of all, there is something called HIPAA. Google it. No doctor is going to risk a $50,000 dollar fine and a year in jail in order to comply with a proposal such as you make.
Second, such legislation would have less chance of passing in this country than I have of becoming a circus acrobat.
Gene H.
1, December 16, 2012 at 9:40 pm
JAG,
Those countries don’t have the history or the jurisprudence we do if you want to talk about argument by non-sequitur. Our country is a rarity in the world: a democratic Presidential Constitutional representative republic born from the violent overthrow of a despotic oppressive monarchy. Our very reason for existing is the overthrow of tyranny. Tyranny that is coincidentally on the rise in this country and yet you wish to possibly critically undermine one of our rights that is a bulwark against tyranny because the right comes with a horrible cost:
————————————————————–
Gene…. that was THEN…. this is NOW….. we are all on pretty even footing at this point….. the USA is in NO danger of being taken over by any other country…..
————————————
yet you wish to possibly critically undermine one of our rights that is a bulwark against tyranny because the right comes with a horrible cost:
———
Maybe, YOU don’t mind that cost, since it is NOT YOUR child laying in a Funeral home right now…..
In MY EYES…. that cost is WAY TOO HIGH!!!
and if you want to change my MIND…. it is simple….. STOP saying NOTHING will work….. and just do what we are doing…. cuz fact is… it is NOT working…..
Instead of arguing about drownings and total gun bans…..
make some SUGGESTIONS….. don’t say things like…..
“yet you wish to possibly critically undermine one of our rights that is a bulwark against tyranny because the right comes with a horrible cost:”
Cuz that just makes you look REALLY bad…
YOUR freedom, just cost 20 families their children and 8 families their wives…. mothers… sisters… cousins…. aunts…… grandmothers… daughters, and FRIENDS….
that HIGH COST…. did not fall ON YOU……
Justagurl, Both the Colorado shooter and the Connecticut shooter had access to mental health care. One was a student at a very good medical school, and the Connecticut boy was very wealthy and had received a diagnosis so not having access does not apply to these most recent cases. It often is a factor, though.
Gene,
Your quotes do not deal with the Second … they deal with the natural right to bear arms … that goes to The English Bill of Rights back in the 1600’s. The right to bear arms was natural … like the right to breath and as such did not not need an amendment to help with ratification.
The standing army and the militia and the states’ concerns about keeping their militias did require an amendment in order to help with ratification.
You are hanging your hat on the wrong hook but that is not unusual as it was the same hook the gun lobby/NRA chose.
I think this one of the problems Madison anticipated when he worried that listing a bill of rights would lead to certain rights being ignored or even lost.
Gene,
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.
JAG,
Those countries don’t have the history or the jurisprudence we do if you want to talk about argument by non-sequitur. Our country is a rarity in the world: a democratic Presidential Constitutional representative republic born from the violent overthrow of a despotic oppressive monarchy. Our very reason for existing is the overthrow of tyranny. Tyranny that is coincidentally on the rise in this country and yet you wish to possibly critically undermine one of our rights that is a bulwark against tyranny because the right comes with a horrible cost: sometimes broken and evil people do really shitty things with guns. I feel for their victims, I really do, but their tragedy is not a good reason for usurping a protection against tyranny and especially in a political environment where tyranny is on the rise in the for form of attacks on the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and even the 9th and 10th amendments are already under various forms of attack.
“IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.”
Our very system of government is based on freedom from tyranny, foreign and domestic. The Founders chose to protect the right of citizens to arm themselves to protect us from enemies foreign and domestic. There will be no semi-automatic weapons ban without Constitutional amendment which quite simply isn’t going to happen for more reasons than one.
The EU is not America just like correlation is not causation.
rafflaw
1, December 16, 2012 at 9:07 pm
Justagurl,
Gene’s comment about free and available mental health would be part of the solution. It may be easier to get a gun than to get mental health care.
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I absolutely agree…..
I do find it IRONIC though… NOT in Genes case… BUT in GENERAL the Republicans are always wanting to cut SERVICES,…NEVER have they wanted to PROVIDE SERVICES…
NOW, since this shooting… they are all talking as if they have wanted FREE Mental health care for ages and us liberals have been fighting them….
It is looking RATHER ABSURD….
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Bob,Esq.
1, December 16, 2012 at 9:20 pm
Make not mistake Raff, I’m all for preventing the killing of children. I simply find more utility in pointing out and preventing imminent danger rather than doing the equivalent using appeal to emotion for laws about as rationally related to a legitimate purpose as leash laws for unicorns.
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OK bob… what do YOU suggest we do????
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See, I have been advocating for Mental health evaluations every 2 years… this way if somebody starts to go downhill after they have been cleared to purchase guns…. They will then have to PROVE that they are still FIT to own a gun…….
THOUGH…. NOW we find out that the NRA has gotten a little deal…. and people who were deemed at too dangerous to own gun, are now going to court and getting their guns back…. even SERIOUS PTSD case where the man was deemed too dangerous by his DOCTOR and asked to NOT return to the VA……. he thinks he is still in active combat….. and the judge did not know this, and gave him back his guns…..
The article is posted above by SMM…. or Elaine…. can’t remember…..
as for ban on guns…..
NOPE… it would NEVER work….. BUT…. assault weapons NEED to be banned or at least FAR MORE tightly controlled……
and NO MORE than 10 rounds per magazine…..
NO high capacity magazines…. that is what has been the trouble in the last
few shootings…. they are getting off 30+ rounds before a slight break in the action where then people had some time to find safety or tackle the gun away from the shooter……..
and REALLY….. NOBODY NEEDS 50 freaking guns…..
and if you do collect them….fine…. do like they do in other countries….
make them unable to shoot…..
also…. if your gun is stolen…. YOU are fined $50,000 for NOT keeping it SAFELY hidden away from thieves……..
and if their is a mentally challenged person in the home…..
BE SMART for pitty sake…. DO NOT ALLOW the mentally challenged occupant NEAR the guns…..
and if your child steals your gun and shoots somebody….. YOU LOOSE EVERYTHING….. You pay a huge FINE… and you pay the medical bills…. and you pay the funeral costs…..
I bet parents would lock their guns up far more safely……
and NOT allowing these mentally challenged people to get their gun rights back unless they can PROVE they are being treated and are SAFE…..
If somebody on psych meds wants a gun…. they have to be checked EVERY 6 months….