![praying_hands[1]](https://i0.wp.com/jonathanturley.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/praying_hands1.jpg?resize=125%2C150)
The 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
I bring you good news of sort… Last week Michigan passed Legislation that allowed a person to carry a concealed weapon on school grounds if they had 16 hour or more of weapon permit licensing. Today the governor of Michigan vetoed that legislation. I think it would have been signed but for the unfortunate incident in Connecticut. I talked to a friend of mine in the legislature that was concerned about it being signed, of course she is a good Democrat.
Dredd – Too bad they gave up when they did, that bearing was at a nice orange when the video stopped.
Gene H,
Here is the record of the first experiments on the hockey table project you mentioned …
Gene H. 1, December 18, 2012 at 4:48 pm
…
Dredd,
If you’ve never seen the New Red Green Show where he builds his own air hockey table from two dryers and some duct tape, I highly recommend it.
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I dig.
Great talent.
raff,
According to Lewis Black, NyQuil – his favorite drug because it says 40 proof on the bottle – is the only thing that actually tastes like the colors it comes in; red and green.
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Dredd,
If you’ve never seen the New Red Green Show where he builds his own air hockey table from two dryers and some duct tape, I highly recommend it.
rafflaw 1, December 18, 2012 at 4:28 pm
Gene,
Red and green what? 🙂
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“Send God, Guns, and Money …”
Gene,
Red and green what? 🙂
Certainly not “Christmas” in New Mexico, that’s for sure… I, WISH!!
More like “Christmas” + eight to twelve hours. X-0
CNN excerpt.
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http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/18/opinion/bergen-guns-national-security/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
Editor’s note: Peter Bergen is a CNN national security analyst and author of “Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for bin Laden, from 9/11 to Abbottabad” and “The Longest War: America’s Enduring Conflict with al-Qaeda.”
(CNN) — The proliferation of semiautomatic weapons in the hands of Americans of the types that were used in the Newtown massacre is sometimes framed as a public health issue in the United States.
There is considerable merit to the notion of treating gun violence as a public health matter. After all, homicides — around 70% of which are accomplished with firearms in the United States according to an authoritative study by the United Nations — are the 15th leading cause of death for Americans.
Peter Bergen But framing gun control as a public health issue doesn’t quite do justice to the problem. It’s probably more or less inevitable that most Americans will die of cancer or a heart attack, but why is it even plausible that so many Americans in elementary schools, colleges, movie theaters and places of worship should die at the hands of young men armed with semiautomatic weapons?
Americans generally regard themselves as belonging to an exceptional nation. And in terms of living in a religiously tolerant and enormously diverse country, Americans can certainly take some justified pride.
Will Newtown change America’s attitude toward guns?
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That tolerant pluralism was on display Sunday night at the interfaith memorial service for the 27 victims in Newtown, which featured priests from several Christian denominations, clerics of the Muslim and Baha’i faiths as well as a rabbi, a memorial that was led by the country’s first African American president. But there is another side to American exceptionalism that many Americans seem strangely unable to recognize: Americans kill each other with guns at rates that are unheard of in other advanced industrialized countries. Britain, with around a fifth of the population of the United States, had 41 gun murders in 2010 while the States had around 10,000.
The scale of this death toll really resembles a national security problem as much it does a public health issue.
Consider that jihadist terrorists have only been able to kill 17 Americans in the United States since 9/11. Meanwhile, some 88,000 Americans died in gun violence from 2003 and 2010, according to the U.N. study.
Activist frustrated with lack of action
Changing gun control in U.S.
Jamie Foxx: Get the guns off the street
School security after mass killing
How do we stop the violence? That means that in the past decade, an American residing in the United States was around 5,000 times more likely to be killed by a fellow citizen armed with a gun than by a terrorist inspired by Osama bin Laden.
Consider also that there are cities in the United States today that exact a higher death toll from violence than the civilian death toll in the war in Afghanistan.
Last year, some 3,000 Afghan civilians died in the Afghan War out of a population of 30 million, which makes the civilian death rate from the Afghan war 1 in 10,000.
Yet residents of New Orleans are being killed at a rate that is six times that of Afghan civilians killed in that war. New Orleans had 199 murders last year, or 6 for every 10,000 residents.
End excerpt.
Newtown parents have formed an organization with a goal to talk to local politicans.
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/18/us/connecticut-school-shooting-group/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
What are we going to do here at JTs? ´Move on until the next tragedy?
We’ll need the Professor’s permission to base activism here. But first we must have a plan.
Blouise and SWM are experienced activists, not fair to point them out, but we who hope to get activated can hope for advice.
Guns have no place in our Constitution, just as SYG and murder do not either.
junctionshamus,
I’d like to second what Mike said. You’ve been a value add poster from day one.
raff,
Just remember that NyQuil is the only thing that tastes like red and green.
*************
Mike,
I sent you an email in re: Harlan Ellison.
Cross posted from Lieberman, better here I believe.
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idealist7071, December 18, 2012 at 2:57 pm
Although nature confirms MikeS affirmation that rushing a gunman is appropriate activity, this must be a last resort tactic. With no disrespect, I ask are we training Iranian Guards suicide troops in the war with Irak?
Colonies of birds will exemplify. They do not sit quietly waiting to be picked by the carnivorous bird. At the first alarm signal, they fly and create a pandemonium which makes it harder to select and capture a prey.
Such suggestions as Megan McCargills’s puts the responsibility on the children, not where it belongs. Our kids take 18-25 years to mature. It is our job to protect them. Now get to it please.
“Mike,
I sent you an email in re: Harlan Ellison.’
Gene,
You did and your evidence persuaded me that since what I remember happened 53 years ago and I was a impressionable 15 year old and it was late at night, I am wrong. All these years thinking Harlan was unstable and all that he was was a man marching to the beat of his own drummer. Of course my opinion made no difference to his illustrious life, but when you’re wrong…..you’re wrong.
Wonderful things said about yours truly; wonder if I’m going to prove him wrong…
Wonder if – Wonder what American society would be like if we saw as much full-frontal nudity as shootings, and as many shootings as we see full frontal nudity, on broadcast and basic cable TV?
Give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for one day; teach a man to fish, and he’ll blow thousands of bucks on “stuff”…
Just to register my thoughts on Megan McCardle’s notion that 5 year olds should be taught to run towards the source of deadly fire. Number one, her idea is perverse and , number two, she’s perverted, to wit:
Put the onus on coping with a deranged societal problem and product on the innocent and virginal victims vs dealing with several causes of the growing problem by attacking it’s roots.
I’m sure Ms McCardle would say she only trying to be realistic and helpful, but further conditioning, even training innocent children to be inured to a culture of violence seems like the solution of a cold, crass and pathetically blind adult who is looking around for something to say to look clever and engaged.
BTW, I’ve had a gun stuck in my face, while pretending to be asleep in my apartment. I’m glad I had no thought of resisting.
Editorial in top Swedish newsoaoer today.
“Vi är impregnerade av våld, bröstfödda på det. Hur kan vi tro att vi skall stoppa det när vi ägnar halva vår vakna tid åt att bli underhållna av det.
Tidningar, tv, film, böcker, allt! Våld. Ingen som fått nog? På riktigt?”
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Roughly translated:
We are impregnated by violence. fed it since babyhood. How can we believe that we can stop it, when we spend half of our conscious time to being entertained by it.
Newspapers, Cable, films, books, everything. Violence. Has anybody gotten enough? For real?
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I hope that it is clear that this is about the school shooting, with Newtown as the latest.
http://www.dn.se/kultur-noje/johan-croneman-valdet-skoljer-over-oss-i-alla-riktningar-i-alla-medier-i-alla-sa
Thanks Gene.
I understand what you were suggesting, but we have no choice but to take action on the abuse of guns and the loopholes that allow guns to be sold without background check or for mental stability. We regulate so many things in society, but we can’t regulate and restrict certain semi-automatic weapons and large capacity magazines?
This is not knee-jerk reaction to the Newtown massacre, but a reaction to Columbine, Va Tech, NIU, to name a few. I can remember a shooter in North Suburban Chicago(Wilmette) in a very wealthy neighborhood who killed kids in a school way before Columbine. Laurie Dann who killed some kids and adults in a school and in a home with a semi-automatic pistol in 1988, I believe. She had severe mental health issues and a gun. She also tried poisoning people and if I remember correctly, she tried either setting a fire or bombing a school.
This problem didn’t start with Newtown or the more recent mass murders. It didn’t start even in 1988 with Laurie Dann, but we have to start ending this nonsense. Reasonable controls of dangerous weapons and ammunition is not only legal, but necessary for the lives of all of us. The NRA exists not for the protection of the second amendment, but to protect the sales of guns for corporations. It is time to stand up to the NRA and get meaningful and reasoned reforms.
Gene,
Can I borrow the Nyquil? I may need some now! 🙂
First Hurricane Sandy and not Sandy Pointe in Newtowne. If they had both hit at once the second would be smothered by the other.
Arm police dogs.
Sounds like a bunch of SchmuckMa if you ask me.