Yesterday, we discussed how various people have used the massacre in Connecticut to call for everything from gun control to new social programs and prayer in school. Now, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), a long advocate for censoring music and speech, added his own take: crackdown on violent video games. Lieberman described Adam Lanza of having a “hypnotic involvement” with the games and called on Congress to get involved.
Of course, it was not Lanza history of mental illness. Lieberman’s focus is on the games he played — the same games played by hundreds of millions of kids and adults who do not run to their local school to mow down students. However, Lieberman insists that “[v]ery often these young men have an almost hypnotic involvement in some form of violence in our entertainment culture – particularly violent video games. . . And then they obtain guns and become not just troubled young men but mass murderers.”
The basis for his concern with regard to Lanza? “Rumors” that he played the games. It was enough however to go to the floor of the Senate to call for yet another area of government regulation of speech and association.
Lieberman recognizes that the games seem to leave a surprising number of people in a non-murderous state, but that is just a fortunate side note: “Thank God, not all of them become murderers, but some of them do and we have to ask why.” I prefer to ask why we are talking about video games instead of the history of mental illness demonstrated by Lanza. And that is not even a rumor.
Dredd,
Making stuff up. “Yeah, and the Ariel Gore who want unlimited violence.
Gosh … tuff choice for ya?”
At least, in an obscure way, you acknowledge the Gore-Lieberman connection. Bravo for one moment of reason.
One of the reasons I can’t hate religious people is that I see others make the same extreme leaps of logic like you typifying my comment as “who want unlimited violence…Gosh…tuff choice for ya?” In substance and methodology, it’s no different. Religious people and secular people are still subject to flights of fantasy and hysterics. You aren’t any different.
My wife has this friend that pisses her pants when she sees a gun, total hysterics, so I fear to tell her what I could do with a baseball bat….yet neither lying on a table represent a danger to her. Still, she pisses her pants over the gun…
Unlimited violence, no, except in your troubled mind, and really your leap lends well to that assessment (in more frank terms, are you that effed up to think that’s what I meant when I went to the cultural issues?). The calls now for more laws, especially like the “assault weapon” ban or “gun show”, have absolutely nothing to do with this case and would have not stopped it whatsoever. They are examples of the hysterical “we must do something, because we must do something”. We have laws on the books covering everything this kid did, including stealing the weapons from his mother, yet they didn’t stop him. If laws stopped this behavior, the behavior would have stopped long ago.
Get a grip on reality and understand that gun laws in the US won’t stop this behavior. I so await and anticipate responses (leave out the UK, Australia, or NZ).
Again, the worst mass killing of children was Bath, 1927. A much more gentile time.
Most of you seem aware that every guilty party: whether it is gun sellers, non-regulating politicians, Big drugs, Big psychotherapy, no taxes for psychotherapy, etc. etc—-the list is long and includes us and our fascination with violence. But each and everyone of us has realized that each “dealer” in death will be looking to keep his profit stream unaffected.
There will be investigations launched, and reports generated when the heat dies down. There will be token legislation, token programs with fine sounding names (Race to the Bottom?), ad infinitum. It will require unusual perseverance by the public to drive something meaningful through the maze of lobby groups, corporations, bought pols, etc
Do we have the fortitude to do it? There can’t be many here who don’t realize what a prominent blogger here has said several times.
Short of a revolution, it will take a huge effort to take this country back to a semblance of democracy. You know democracy? That we had when we lived in caves with our families and fellow hunters nearby.
Another has said that it is that or serfdom.
Or look at Dredd’s video again.
Violence, that’s football, instead of gymnastics or health sports. The worst sorts you can ask your grandkids about.
It is up to you. Nobody can or will do it for us.
There will be Liebermans who will declare their fealty to Conn’s hunters and is against violent games. Ha! Followed by a long chain of false prophets, all bought or nutty themselves.
Choose! It is the last chance.
Send a letter to your congressman, asking Boehner to get off the stage. We are tired of him and his millionaires.
What nal said about demonizing psychopharmacology. God knows I criticize that industry, but lumping all psych meds and all prescribing in one ball is way over the edge.
And what nick S said as well . . .
Eric, sorry if I wrongly ascribed motives. I agree that the culture of violence and aggression is out of control with multiple factors to blame. My gut tells me we can do a much better job of regulating access to guns, especially keeping them out of kid’s hands. As to politicizing, I’m not sure I agree; that’s how things seem to get done — certainly for the worse — why not for the better?
Want a weird idea.? Want to do something, but don’t know how?
This idea will get you activated everyday to do something in remembrance of Newtown and their fallen and stricken. Guaranteed.
There is a RCC sect that the members regularly use an apparatus, around the buttocks, applying a scarification and pain as penance.
Get one of those. Let us know how it works for just you.
DonS,
Some can’t read, not you I hasten to add. Someone blamed you for pointing at one cause to the tragedy. In fact, you said that there were several. Some read what is there, others only what they think is there.
Ding ding ding! Not saying this is connected to Holy Joe’s message, just saying (via Kos):
“Sources close to the issue tell Fox News that the National Rifle Association — which has remained silent since the shooting, chiefly to allow for a proper period for mourning — will soon start to “push back” against the gun-control lobby.
“If we’re going to have a conversation, then let’s have a comprehensive conversation,” said one industry source. “If we’re going to talk about the Second Amendment, then let’s also talk about the First Amendment, and Hollywood, and the video games that teach young kids how to shoot heads.
“If you really want to stop incidents like this,” the source continued, “passing one more law is not going to do a damn thing. Columbine happened when? In 1999. Smack in the middle of the original assault-weapons ban.”
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/12/18/nra-to-push-back-soon-sources-say/
So is Holy Joe sending mixed messages? It’s clear, re video games, he is sending a strong call for ACTION. With Chris Wallace he calls for “a national commission”, comes down hard on mental illness, trots out rehashes of his old gun position, but most heavily lambastes the video game/entertainment industry. It’s almost like video games! mental health! and, oh yeah, “I think we ought to restore that assault weapons ban, because, not to take anybody’s guns away from them, they have now.” . . . because who knows how long it will be before the vaunted national commission publishes an interim then final report, and the political (lobbying) process has to digest it all. And that’s hard work. (snark alert)
“http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/fox-news-sunday-chris-wallace/2012/12/16/connecticut-school-shooting-reignites-gun-control-debate#p//v/2039381272001
Colt Arms Company, Hartford Connecticut. Just a coincidence. Maybe.
Nick Spinelli – could not agree more. If a pol is talking, they are lying. No exceptions.
From Harriet Hall at Science-Based Medicine:
Psychiatry-Bashing
Szasz and Scientology (a marriage made in heaven?) joined forces to create the Citizens Commission on Human Rights. They have a slick website with a home page that proclaims its bias with a picture of a door labeled “Psychiatry: An Industry of Death.” They claim to be supporting human rights, but they appear to be engaged in a vendetta against psychiatry and psychotropic medicines. They do have some good points, but they go way overboard. And they systematically ignore any evidence showing that psychiatric care benefits patients.
…
A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine helps bring several controversial psychiatric issues into focus.
…
This study is not perfect and can’t stand by itself, but it confirms previous studies showing that psychotherapy and SSRIs are both effective and the combination is even more effective.
As we all should be @ all times.
dobie606, Most folks don’t remember the spate of lawsuits regarding prozac back in the 80’s/90’s. I remember well because I worked several lawsuits involving suicides. I agree w/ Nal, but there is also a lot of “Look @ the shiney guns” being yelled by the RX industry. And..they throw around more lobby $ in one week than the video and gun lobby do in one year. It’s a sadistic, shell game going on right now. Be skeptical of all lobby groups and pols in the near future.
DonS – Its interesting that you asked and answered your own question. Like many in this country, you “assume” that anyone who has a different opinion must be “one of them”. Personally, I am not opposed to regulating access to guns – we regulate driving cars, drinking alcohol, and smoking tobacco.
My point was that regulating guns would not have prevented this tragic occurrence and we should not politicize it. The guns were purchased legally, Conn has an assault weapons ban but the gun in question was not an assault weapon. Further, studies have shown that the federal ban on assault weapons did not reduce gun violence.
As several folks have mentioned on this board – I believe it is our society’s complete embrace and glorification of horrific and graphic violence that leads to this type of event. If you have ever seen any of the “Grand Theft Auto” games – or the “Saw” movies, you should understand this.
“Thank God that not everybody that drives runs someone over, but some of them do and we have to ask why.”
“Thank God that not everybody that drinks goes drinking and driving and ends up killing people, but some of them do and we have to ask why.”
“Thank God that not every fireplace burns down a house and kills families, but some of them do and we have to ask why.”
And so on and so on.
I find myself asking, when there is a concerted effort to attribute THE cause to any one factor, is this an attempt at a legitimate public service, or is their a primary agenda, to deflect attention from other important contributing factors. Can’t help it, guess I’m just a skeptic.
let’s ‘ConnectTheBlots’ in Connecticut:
amphetamines, Antidepressants, barbituates, CCHR, Dexedrine, effexor, lexapro, Newtown, CT, paxil, prozac, psychiatric drugs, Remeron,
Sen. Feinstein, tranquilizers, valium, wellbutrin, zoloft
Who Stands to Gain by Withholding this Info?
Alexandra Bruce
December 17, 2012
As Senator Feinstein prepares to introduce a gun control bill in 2013, any reporter seeking to discover
what medications were being taken
by the alleged shooter in the Newtown massacre
will find that they cannot get this information, by law.
One must assume the shooter was on psychiatric drugs
for what had been described as “anti-social” behavior,
on his being “slightly handicapped”
and suffering from Asperger’s Sydrome, a form of autism.
Nowhere, will you find any comments about the drugs
prescribed to the shooter. Nothing except the guns as the problem.
Who stands to gain by withholding this info?
The drug manufacturers, of course – certainly, not the public.
http://www.forbiddenknowledgetv.com/videos/drugs/the-link-between-psychiatric-drugs-andnearly-all-recent-mass-shootings.html
ConnectTheBlots
July 23, 2012
This video highlights the link between psychiatric drugs and acts of senseless violence, including nearly all recent mass-shootings and school shootings.
This video is a chapter from the full documentary ‘Psychiatry’s Prescription for Violence’ which was originally produced and released by Citizen’s Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), an activist branch of the Church of Scientology that campaigns against psychiatry and psychiatric drugs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhO0Pul_FcE
The TRUE SOURCE of RANDOM & MASS SHOOTINGS and VIOLENCE
11:21
When violent shootings take place,
honest journalists are forced to ask the question:
“Does this fit the pattern of other staged shootings?”
“Is there a mysterious ‘second suspect’
that disappears from coverage?”
“Is the shooter mentally disabled and under mind control?”
“Did the feds take over the investigation from the local police?”
“Was this a false flag?”
“Who benefits?”
Apparently we have no honest journalists.
–MrWarriorClass
Yesterday, the retiring senator of 24 years declared (with a straight face) that it may be time for term limits.
I won’t miss him.
Ariel 1, December 18, 2012 at 4:43 pm
Shades of Tipper Gore. This call to limit, control violence …
===============================================
Yeah, and the Ariel Gore who want unlimited violence.
Gosh … tuff choice for ya?
Shades of Tipper Gore. This call to limit, control violence whether in movies, song lyrics, or games is nothing new, and seemingly always fails the “correlation-causation” test. Gore and Lieberman both draw from that “worst of Americana”. Perspective, people, perspective.
I notice there’s another call to ban “assault weapons” in Congress. The only way a Bushmaster .223 is an “assault weapon” is the pistol grip. It’s a semi-automatic, like the M-1 (an antiquated weapon best left to parade and museums), and like most guns sold today, such as the Glock .40 loved by Police departments. Personally, if it isn’t capable by manufacture of being fully automatic it isn’t an assault weapon, the term being derived from military-use weapons which have been fully automatic for most of my life.
If you really want to stop this, go for a society of strict social controls on all levels (including no adults called by their first names by children, Sir and Mam, or Miss by all of us). Conformity over all else.
Locking up and treating all the DSM candidates may work also, this kid and Loughner being the latest examples. Most of our mass killings in the US are directly related to mental illness.
Or you could realize that a heterogenous society has issues, especially one that vacillates between police state and embracing liberties and freedoms. I just heard on the radio that Congress is going after gun shows now. These guns were obtained legally, his mother a target-shooter, so none of these laws will actually address the problem. But we must do something, so something is better than nothing…
If you want the worst mass killing of children, look up Bath circa 1927.
bettykath 1, December 18, 2012 at 4:12 pm
It’s not the mental illness, it’s the treatment. (Nearly?) every mass shooter has been on psychotropic drugs.
Guns need some regulation as well.
==================================
Our minds need regulation … beginning with those in power … something that has been known for a long time.
Think about it.
If the puppy faced species Lieberman would stop humpin’ the turtle faced McConnell … anyway …
God wanted us to be naked.
We rebelled.
Know what I’m sayin’ …. ???
It’s not the mental illness, it’s the treatment. (Nearly?) every mass shooter has been on psychotropic drugs.
Guns need some regulation as well.