Criminal law, Politics, Society

Send God, Guns, and Money: Sandy Hook Shooting Becomes Rallying Point For Political Advocates

praying_hands[1]300px-M4-TransparentThe murder of 20 children and six adults at the Sandy Hook Elementary has spawned an array of commentary from calls for new gun controls to greater funding for mental illness in the United States. However, Fox commentator and former GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said that the shooting was not surprising after the removal of prayer from public schools. Rep. Louie Gohmert, a Republican from Texas, did one better, he wished God ensured that Principal says Dawn Hochsprung had an M-4 assault rifle at the school before she was killed.

Gohmert told Fox News “I wish to God she had an M-4 in her office locked up so when she heard gunfire she pulls it out and she didn’t have to lunge heroically with nothing in her hands but she takes him out, takes his head off before he can kill those precious kids.” Wouldn’t it be a bit more direct to pray that God had stopped Lanza from going to the school or that he was institutionalized before his mass murder?

If school teachers are now to be armed, wouldn’t the teachers have to carry around their assault rifles at all time since they would not know when an attack would occur? Indeed, given the low likelihood of such an attack, should they also be equipped with ebola-medical kits, rabies treatment packs, floatation devices, and other equipment for more likely threats. The average soldier, after all, carries as much as 135 pounds depending on their unit. Should our teachers carry less to protect our children?

As for prayer, is that what caused Lanza (with a history of mental illness) to kill? Lack of school prayer. His first murder was at home. After shooting his mother in the face, would Lanza have hesitated at the schoolhouse gate because he recalled morning prayers in civics class? By the way, those terrorists we read about daily do a lot of praying. It does not seem to have the same impact on them.

Putting aside the desire to try a tragedy to a favorite cause, there is often a search for meaning in tragedies. The most frightening thought is that such a terrible loss would not have meaning. It was an unspeakable crime committed by an unstable person. We are all emotionally shredded by this tragedy. However, we know that this is likely to happen again. Even with gun controls, people will still have guns, which are constitutionally protected. Some will have multiple guns. We do not have to shrug and do nothing. There is a need to better deal with mental illness in this country. It was not that long ago that another unstable young man committed a massacre at Virginia Tech. However, as with gun controls, it is not clear that much would have changed in this case. Lanza’s mother decided to keep him at home and tried to deal with his instability on her own. If a parent keeps a child at home and addresses such problems privately, it is doubtful that new programs would have had any impact.

Nevertheless, I would prefer to discuss expanded mental health programs over assault weapons in schools as a starting point of any reforms.

Source: Hill

310 thoughts on “Send God, Guns, and Money: Sandy Hook Shooting Becomes Rallying Point For Political Advocates”

  1. GeneH,

    Don’t look for snarkineass, and you won’t find any. That was an honest observation. And opened for correction, as I said roughly that “as I recall” So your correction is noted, but must be evaluated as all answers must be.

    Your proposals on campaign finance and an amendment to stop corporate ínvolvment are nice, but hardly possible with the Congress we have.
    Those are goals, GeneH. Not ways to achieve them.

    My soiutions? I have proposed at least two. Both involve starting with empowering the people, ie teaching them how to organize and get honest congressmen.

    En masse we scare them, although they hold the keys to our company cars, and the mortgages on our houses, we are still voters. Those who wish to do so, of course.

    The “dissident party” holds the nation in gridlock condition. How long will we allow that?

    Saul Alinsky, where is your replacement? It was not Obama, as we hoped.

  2. DonS,

    “Hmmm, maybe you were referring to id707.” – Correct.

    As to abandoning reason? The same mistake twice referred to the error of passing the Patriot Act without calm reasoned deliberation versus handling this situation with calm reasoned deliberation. You seem impatient. If I read that as abandoning reason when you have not? Mea culpa. However, in changing laws – especially those relating to fundamental rights – there is an adage in the realm of criminal defense that applies to the realm of legal construction as well. Justice delayed is justice. Or as my grandfather often said, “Measure twice, cut once.”

  3. Gene, not sure which snark you’re referring to — I plead guilty to having a bit of that in me (if it’s the ‘deconstructed part’ that was admiring tongue in cheek, not intentional snark). Hmmm, maybe you were referring to id707.

    Anyway, I hadn’t thought I’d abandoned reason, much less twice! Can’t accept your reading, but you don’t accept mine either. Neither of us is surprised I expect.

  4. The choice to abandon reason is indeed a choice, DonS. It is a bad choice for decision making, but it is a choice. I see you seem willing to make the same bad choice twice.

    However, abandoning reason is also the path to disaster in governance.

    ****************

    “Logic does not effect the lawmakers, money does.”

    Only when we allow it to as a society, id707.

    As to your snarky closing? I’ve proposed many times that the ills of our society can be best addressed if we implemented campaign finance and lobby reform first. Followed by a Constitutional amendment forbidding corporations from participating in the legislative and electoral processes combined with legislatively restraining the ever expanding legal corporate personality to restore corporations to their former levels of limited legal personality.

    So why don’t you worry about coming up with your own solutions instead of worrying about mine.

  5. ” An affluent resident of an upper middle class town, Lanza had exactly the kind of resources that you would want for taking care of a kid with these kinds of problems. His parents had all the money he needed to get him help, and his school did everything they could to help him cope, according to the Wall Stret Journal: “Not long into his freshman year, Adam Lanza caught the attention of Newtown High School staff members, who assigned him a high-school psychologist, while teachers, counselors and security officers helped monitor the skinny, socially awkward teen, according to a former school official.” Daily Beast

  6. ElaineM has it right, expecting anything from Congress is hopeless.
    Didn’t someone here call for total recall?

    As for a bylined BS full article from the fiscal debate holders are apparently feeling upstaged by Newtown.
    =========================

    ““Members of Congress, when you get down to it, are just people,” said Mickey Edwards, a former House Republican leader. “There are those things that, at least momentarily, trump ideology.”

    “I think, at least for a while, it’s going to soften people’s hearts to each other and make people think, we’re a team, we’re all Americans,” said Mr. Edwards, whose new book is called “The Parties Versus the People.” “The greatest problem is that neither side trusts the other side. And that being the case, this could help.” …………etc.
    ================

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/18/us/politics/newtown-tragedy-may-soften-hearts-in-washington.html?nl=us&emc=edit_cn_20121217

    The gun lobby still rules. As do the laws limiting opinions, substantive support (words only) to unnamed terrorist organizations, and the feds keeping track of everybody even where no suspicion exists.

    Great place to raise kids. Great scenery and monuments over fallen heroes.

    Gone for the day. Soon midnight.

  7. Frankly 1, December 17, 2012 at 4:21 pm

    20% of Americans own 65% of all the guns in America. Think about that for a while. We are not dealing with rational, healthy individuals here. there is no reason to expect them to behave in a rational manner.
    ================================================
    In that light:

    A decreasing number of American gun owners own two-thirds of the nation’s guns and as many as one-third of the guns on the planet — even though they account for less than 1% of the world’s population, according to a CNN analysis of gun ownership data.

    (CNN).

  9. ElaineM,

    IT IS AS AMERICAN AS APPLE PIE!!!!

    It started with the native americans, continues with drone attacks in Pakaf, and now we are nosing at Syria/Iran to keep the MIC fed.

    Those that support guns from the “top” would call the kids in Newtown collateral damage.

    There is a time for logic. That is now, but we should not let our heat steam away, unused.

  11. Whew, Gene, I feel all deconstructed 😉

    As with any long term issue, the parameters of which don’t change too much of time, there are more than enough, suggestions, proposals, studies, draft laws and model codes for gun control efforts just waiting in the wings — and forged in the long, boring, calm, cool, deliberative process of preparing for a much needed eventuality that never seems to get here.

  12. “When neither extreme polarity has sufficient traction to distract emotionally or otherwise from rational productive analysis and problem solving.”

    Rational productive analysis and problem solving ain’t likely to happen in our Congress!

  13. GeneH.

    With all due respect, I understand your position to be one which we have heard from wise heads since the 1920s. I think we are tired of this rational “out” being used.

    We all know except for a few here, that we have handed over our society to the commercial forces a long time ago. When does that stop? Logic does not effect the lawmakers, money does. And we know who is paying for the gun lobby. And it is not the people who tried to ban 30 shot magazines in Connecticut. They did not have the money to do that.

    I agree that seizing the emotions of tragedy is not a proper solution.
    But this matter has been studied for decades by calm heads, and now the people say the time is now, if the polls are to be trusted.

    Federal regulations which will be opposed, just as voter registration is opposed, just as civil rights violations by our federal executive branch (AG) opposes its sworn duty to protect and defend the big C,

    You make magnificent appeals to logic. But I don’t recall you coming with solutions to our societal ills. How would you, in view of years of study, propose going forward?

  14. What the NRA, gun lobby, and gun advocates want us to do is to shut up until everybody has cooled off and gone back to thinking about other things–so nothing will be done to change anything…as has happened in the past after mass shootings in this country.

    It seems as if the mass murder of innocents may soon become as American as apple pie too.

  15. Juris, Re-reading, your surmise might as you say hint in the direction of gun controls being “misplaced”, but put in context I read it more as a lament that they might be (equally) ineffective as MH law changes — one thing to put laws and procedures in place, another to have them adequately function. (Certainly with the arsenals already in the hands of the public it’s an uphill battle to find a way to be effective).

    In any case, reading the Professor’s into, in combination with his comment on mespo’s 12/15 thread that “No citizen should be allowed to own such weapons – we do need to further define the 2nd amendment once and for all.” I perhaps got the impression that informed what I said, i.e., that we need to try to do better, and maybe the status quo when it comes to the second amendment scare tactics used by many to thwart effect gun control is not acceptable. Maybe JT will spell it out down the road.

  17. DonS,

    “Seems like we all need to be oh so cautious about threading on the little twinkies of the RW wackos, gun fetishists and militiamen. They, as we we
    all know are duly steeped in the finer points of Constitutional jurisprudence.”

    No. We need to be careful, calm, rational and exercise forethought in restricting basic rights and/or amending the Constitution. Such actions are the legal and societal equivalent of brain surgery: risks and costs must be weighed objectively against benefits and any “fix” needs to be as minimally invasive as possible and designed to limit ancillary damage and unintended consequence.

    “I would wonder exactly when is the switch flipped that indicates the searing heat of the moment has passed and we can enter cool and calm deliberations — with the certain cooperation of said right wing wackos, gun fetishists and militiamen (who, btw, would never fearmonger or appeal to emotion themselves)”

    When neither extreme polarity has sufficient traction to distract emotionally or otherwise from rational productive analysis and problem solving.

    “And what level of repeat gun violence vitiates the ‘all clear’ presaging calm and cool deliberations and, as it were, starts the ‘no discussion’ waiting period running again?”

    None. The time for calm reasoned discussion and analysis is always now. The inability of the extremists to engage in such without time to cool their respective jets is a problem with them that hinders immediate discussion and has nothing to do with the conversation itself. It’s a limitation in human nature. But the time is always now for calm reasoned discussion and analysis. Panic and emotionalism no matter the derivation don’t solve problems but rather tend to complicate or exacerbate them.

    “Using the Patriot Act as a negative exemplar — maybe shaming all those progressives who were rolled by that one — is a pretty low device.”

    Actually it’s an accurately correlated warning about rushing into solutions without reasoned calm deliberation. Abridging rights under the driving force of fear is what brought us the Patriot Act. Should we make the same mistake twice?

    “Finally, I’m not willing to subscribe to the purist jurist view that “the law”, in it’s many forms from formulation to appellate review is really immune from emotion.”

    You misunderstand the problem. Law isn’t immune to emotion. Emotion, however, is inherently irrational and irrational results in law are undesirable as a matter of proper construction.

    “Maybe it’s a nice ideal, but to have the accusation of emotionalism used as a cudgel to dodge this issue time and again doesn’t convince.”

    Only the extremists are trying to dodge the issue. But emotionalism no matter the source or the context of the argument does not lead to good analysis or decision making as a matter of pure logic and basic psychology. Emotionalism – in this case from both the “We’ve got to do something!” and the “You can’t change gun laws at all!” contingents – would lead to bad analysis and decisions simply because it is based in an emotional and therefore inherently irrational stance. An appeal for calm from the reasoned mind is directed at both poles in this argument.

    Calm down, peoples.

    Look and think before either “side” leaps.

  19. DonS is right on the money.

    War, violence and the thrills of all that has been sold to us, from when we were kids. And now to our grandchildren too.

    When are we going to realize that we are manipulated. And it is NOT the measly gun sales that drives the violence parade. It is the MIC, etc.
    I do suspect gun owners though. Try forest running instead, much healthier.

    Only the mentally disturbed and alcoholic drunks strike anyone in Sweden. And Sweden once dominated northern Europe. So it is not the genes being the answer to the pacific frame of mind here.

  20. DonS, thank you for the correction in my prior post as I misread and misinterpreted what the prof said. However, I do think the prof hinted that looking at stronger gun control may be misplaced in stating that “it is not clear that much would have changed in this case” with gun controls and in preferring to discuss mental program reform above gun control reform.

    The reform of either as a possible solution are not mutually exclusive.

    My bad.

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