What’s a little callous misappropriation of a mass shooting, in the scheme of things? – Ken White
Radley Balko has been on sabbatical for a month now, and I’ve settled into a pretty regular routine of guest blogging over on his excellent website, The Agitator. As I told you last week, he still finds time to drop in every once in a while when he has a good reason to, such as announcing a benefit concert for Chris Tapp, the cancer-stricken singer/guitarist for The Cold Stares; if you’re going to be anywhere near Nashville on August 16th, why not show up to enjoy a night of blues and help out a good cause? He also wrote a short post calling attention to the moral courage of Pierce O’Farrill, one of the survivors of the Aurora, Colorado theater massacre:
…moral courage [is] holding fast to your principles in the face of unimaginable challenges to those principles. Pierce O’Farrill was shot three times in Aurora, once with each of James Holmes’ guns. He gave a radio interview yesterday. So first of all, the guy was shot three times, and he gave a radio interview yesterday. But it’s more about what the guy said. First, he forgave his attacker. Second, he asked that his attacker not be given the death penalty. And third, he reaffirmed his support for Second Amendment rights…[he] sounds like a pretty exceptional human being.
At the end of last week, Patrick from Popehat bid the readers farewell because personal and professional commitments will probably preclude his doing any more guest blogging for the duration of Radley’s absence. However, his blogging partner Ken took up the slack with three posts: one of them revealed the real reason the Washington, DC police suddenly reversed course and announced that police will no longer harass, arrest, manhandle, rob or make false accusations against citizens who try to take pictures of them; the others strongly criticized two mayors (Michael Bloomberg of New York and Ed Lee of San Francisco) who wasted no time in making use of the Aurora shootings for their own political ends. Also, Drew Johnson posted a links column.
I started the week with “Compare the Headlines”, a small compilation of links and video about police in Anaheim, California attacking a crowd who dared to question their shooting an unarmed man in the back. On Tuesday I published “What’s the Difference?”, a “sex work is work” column incorporating passages from “Bogeymen” and TW3 #29. On Thursday I reprinted “Godwin’s Law”, which appeared on this blog in March of last year; my “Five Star Friday” video was ZZ Top’s “La Grange”, and today I shared pictures of my dogs Shasta and Lassen. As usual, I also posted three link columns, containing the following:
- New Bowling Green, Ohio law allows cops to give tickets to virtually anyone.
- The IRS demands $40 million in inheritance taxes for an item which is literally worthless.
- Girl faces jail time for naming the boys who sexually assaulted her.
- John Burge’s fondness for torture has cost Chicago taxpayers $33 million so far, with $7 million more on the way.
- One of those things that make me glad I don’t have television.
- Wait, isn’t Cracked supposed to be a humor site?
- Headlines of the day for Monday and Saturday.
- “Zombies take over city.”
- Your daily reminder that politicians are horrible people.
- Disabled man delayed so long by TSA the batteries on his oxygen machine run down.
- Here’s a really good piece on gun control from Harper’s, and an even better one from Mike Riggs. And if you prefer more practical arguments on the subject, here’s a good one for women who are married to sociopathic perverts.
- Puppycide, complete with a swaggering excuse from the sheriff.
- Government Wins Right to Pretend That Cables Released by WikiLeaks Are Still Secret. Meanwhile, Congress wants to use the Wikileaks precedent to prosecute mainstream journalists as well.
- Cop tried to trade theft victim’s stolen property for sex.
- “If you see something, say something” backfires on NYPD.
- Another isolated incident, with nudity.
- Every 3-D movie is the same.
- The New York Times blames the Aurora shootings on Warner Brothers.
- Cop has 20 years of on-duty sex, plus overtime, then retires early at 42 with 7 years of health benefits.
- The London Olympics 2012 Total Perspective Vortex.
- Man bets friends he can set his own face on fire, and wins.
- Cops beat and pepper-spray paraplegic for videorecording them.
- Suicide bombers of the insect world.
- Doctors in Dominican Republic refuse to treat pregnant teenager for cancer, due to fear of prosecution under a strict abortion ban.
- If you had plans for the next 20 billion years, you should probably speed up your timetable a bit.
You know, it’s amazing. We know a lot about spree killers, to the point where we can check off a list. They’ve been around for years and years, and we understand their psychology. There’s no mystery to them any more, really.
And yet people still want to blame a tame, PG-13 action movie.
And guns. Because you know, there wouldn’t be any murders if private citizens couldn’t have guns. Except for those committed by police. And by people with illegal guns. And the large fraction committed with knives, ropes, blunt objects and such.
Here’s an argument. Our spree killer had weapons at two location. Location A he used bombs, and location B he used guns. What do we know about bombs? Well, a well constructed bomb kills more people than a shooter. (See Oklahoma city for one example.) There’s a reason why so many soldier have been killed by IEDs rather than rifle fire in Iraq. Now, it’s true that “point and shoot” is easier for a dumb criminal then the chemistry of putting together an IED, but wasn’t this guy a well educated scientist? (Frankly, we’re all lucky he had no imagination… I was watching 12 Monkeys last night.)
Aside from complicated bombs, Molotov cocktails work wonders too. Those will always be easily obtained as long as cars run on gasoline.
Guns are precision weapons designed to kill individual targets. Bombs and Firebombs are much better for getting a high kill count, and this murderer was prepared to use bombs. (Indeed he did use bombs at his apartment, but as he was coming down from his adrenalin high he told the cops all about them. Otherwise….)
Therefore, the fact that he decided to shoot up the theater rather than bomb the theater probably saved lives. (Same thing happened at Columbine. The school shooting was plan B, they had constructed a large bomb that fortunately for everyone had not gone off. Given their rage, in the absence of guns they might simply have worked harder on their bomb.)
Yes it’s a hard argument to make, but it can be simplified to a quote from Heinlein, “There are no dangerous weapons, only dangerous men.”
Precisely. The most dangerous thing about laws against inanimate objects is that they give authorities more power by lulling silly people into thinking they’re being “protected” when in fact they aren’t.
i dont agree with those who state that sex is somehow different because its a bonding experience or too intimate.sex like anything else you might experience is what you make of it and depends on the person you do it with.ive found hugging and cuddling in bed with my mother a far more intimate experience than the sexual experiences ive had;yet i havent hesitated to hug people i didnt have any feelings for if i felt they needed comfort or just because a teammate scored when playing soccer.in every case it was what i made of it.with my mother i experienced love,with acquatances who told me their problems sympathy but its not like i lost my sleep over their problems,like i would with someone with whom id have a more intimate relationship,with my teammates i just experienced joy and the hug was a way to congratulate the scorer.
as for guns,i think that ”how can a mentally unstable person be allowed to have a gun?”is a reasonable question.if people are allowed to be armed then i think they should provide a paper that states that they have been examined by a psychiatrist and everything is fine.i had to provide a paper that stated i was clinically healthy to attend gym class,why would it be any different, especially when the lives of many other people could be at risk?i dont exclude cops from undergoing such checks.
What’s to stop a person from getting a gun illegally, just like they can buy drugs and whores illegally? The Powers That Be use extremely rare incidents like the Aurora shootings to control everyone; the murder rate in American states with a high percentage of gun ownership is actually much lower than that in states with a low percentage.
Well, a gun is much harder to hide than either. A whore is a businesswoman providing a service and thus it’s very difficult to separate her from any other woman. And drugs are used in very small amounts, and an individual will only need a few pounds a year if that.
But a gun, especially a rifle, is heavy and bulky, and thus much harder to conceal and isn’t something that would be mistaken for something else. A quality firearm can only be made by highly trained machinists working with complex tools.
Gun control wouldn’t work perfectly but it would make firearms far harder to acquire than drugs or whores.
That’s what the gun controllers want you to believe. Don’t.
As a matter of fact, I don’t believe in gun control.
And I’m not saying that gun control would prevent mass shootings, just that it would actually have a negative impact on the number of guns that would be physically available to people, and that would have a bigger effect that supply than banning drugs had on that supply.
We have a second amendment because the founding fathers thought gun control would lead to there not being enough guns to outfit an army.
No, we have a second amendment because the Founding Fathers wanted the population to police itself so there wouldn’t have to be a standing army or police force; it’s not at all the same thing. The idea that only cops should have guns is madness that only a population woefully ignorant of history could possibly embrace.
It’s well recognized that there are limits to every part of the Bill of Rights. Freedom of speech doesn’t legitimate slander or libel, freedom of assembly doesn’t allow trespassing, etc. Yet we’re not supposed to put any limits at all on the second amendment.
Non sequitur. Gun ownership does not allow a gun owner to attack another person or even threaten him irresponsibly; that is comparable to the other examples you gave. Laws against inanimate objects are always wrong, and always excuses for tyranny; it’s what a person DOES with an object that creates criminality, not the mere fact of possession.
There are almost no practical limits on Free Speech in the US. Slander and libel are very difficult to prove in court (unfortunately so, in my opinion).
Freedom of Assembly, on the other hand, is quite handily suppressed in the United States, unfortunately, making the Constitution a dead letter on the subject. (I fully believe that the heavy suppression of freedom of assembly in this country makes a mockery of our Bill of Rights.)
Decent guns can be used to kill people, so incremental measures are simply about feeling good in this specific instance of a thoughtfully planned spree killing. Handgun bans don’t stop spree killers, and if a gun can kill a deer it can kill a human. (Most of the other stuff, like magazine size, etc. will simply inconvenience the killer. The killer’s main trump card is that a defenseless, unarmed and unarmored group of victims only real defense against guns is flight. This guy spent huge amounts of money on weaponry and patiently assembled his armory. I have to think anything but a total ban on “human killing” guns was not going to be an obstacle.)
A total, draconian gun ban would probably have an impact. It would also cause a Civil War. I don’t think the incremental bans will ever add up to acclimating the US to a total ban. It is true that some types of gun control may have an impact in some specific situations, but this particular meticulously planned spree killing by an educated, intelligent monster is not one of them.
In other words, sure, you can make a case for some types of gun control. The Aurora shooting is not useful in making those cases. It is very emotionally resonant though, so it’s good for pure shock value and getting people to think with their hearts and not with their heads.
I’d be very cautious about proposing psychological evaluations before allowing people to buy guns. There are already psychologists suggesting certain political beliefs to be signs of mental illness, such as conservatism.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/aug/13/usa.redbox
I also remember reading somewhere that back in the old Soviet Union they would label political dissidents as mentally ill and send them to special facilities in Siberia to be “treated.”
I’ve often been labeled as paranoid by non-psychologists who disagree with my enthusiasm for buying as many guns as I can afford, especially big scary “assault” weapons like AKs and ARs. The last thing I need, or anyone else needs for that matter, is for those people to get their way and have individual life choices different from theirs labeled as some sort of psychosis in need of treatment.
It’s easy to say “if guns are hard to get, people will still get them.” But there are countries where guns are hard to get, and people don’t still get them, and there are virtually no gun homicides. We’re not talking about how many unicorns can dance in a circle, we know how this works because other societies have done it.
It’s one thing to say “X won’t work” if no one has tried X, but if other countries have tried X and it works, then perhaps we should try it as well.
Those countries are NOT the United States.
There are four kinds of countries: Those with high gun ownership and a high murder rate; those with those with high gun ownership and a low murder rate; those with low gun ownership and a high murder rate; and those with low gun ownership and a low murder rate. Nobody has ever been able to demonstrate a dependable correlation between the two. Homogeneous populations tend to have a lower murder rate, and there are a number of other factors, but rate of gun ownership is NOT one of them in either direction.
If I had to hazard a guess, I would link the high American murder rate to our tortured views of sex; a frustrated nation is an unbalanced nation.
I was thinking about this today (prompted by the various news stories, natch). While on the one hand, I think one answer lies (as it always does) somewhere in between the two camps screaming “Ban all guns!” and “I should have as many guns as I want!” The problem is we’ll never get to that ‘in between’ point because those doing the screaming have been so firmly convinced of their correctness for so long they’ve lost all sense of compromise.
On the other hand, and this is where I think you’re on to something, Maggie, all this debate about guns and such would quite possible go away if we were to reform our drug laws, divorce laws, vice laws, perhaps even our very economy. I would like to think that when offered a choice, a real choice mind, a person would choose to make a living that wouldn’t involve him having to buy an arsenal of weaponry to defend his ‘turf’ or operations or whatever you want to call it, and therefore wouldn’t require the people around him to buy their own weaponry in response.
In other words, reduce gun violence by taking away the motivations for it.
As for the what the framers had in mind when they drew up the 2nd Amendment, in this day and age I find myself asking, are we really so jaded that we can’t conceive of ever changing our political system for the better without having to resort to armed conflict? I realize that The Huffington Post isn’t an unbiased source by any stretch, but this column by the actor Andy Richter makes a point (despite the use of the dreaded “if just one…” argument) that I think plays into my question, specifically the second to last paragraph: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andy-richter/aurora-shooting-gun-rights_b_1696455.html
For the record, I’m not trying to troll anyone with this. It’s just the thoughts percolating in my head.
It’s a genie out of the bottle that you’ll never get back in. For instance – I daresay I will never buy another firearm – I have so damn many of them and this includes even the hated SKS and AK variants. I have so many guns I give them away to my kids and loan them out – more than I’ll ever need. I have all the reloading equipment and materials I need and I can reload for every one of my firearms and I could reload several thousand rounds for each – more than I’ll ever shoot.
And – I am NOT alone. So you’ll have to come confiscate mine and many others if you want them. We’re not going to turn them in and I don’t fear jail time for owning a firearm – or many of them – or even effective ones like semi-automatics.
And by the way – people DO get firearms in the nations you mention and very honorable citizens are forced to procure them in illegal ways. I have a Norwegian friend of mine of owns a .44 magnum semi-auto handgun courtesy of a very good looking and studly American I know who found a way to get it to him. 😀
The US isn’t like most nations. We were founded as a result of a revolution and, to certain extent, our efforts to fight the King were handicapped by our ability to get weapons. In fact, the first military engagements at Lexington and Concorde were a result of British efforts to capture arms caches of the colonists.
As a result – the right to keep and bear arms was installed as the 2nd amendment to the constitution. Many people see this as significant – as the first amendment is freedom of religion and speech – and the second is the right to bear arms.
Now, many disagree with that amendment and want to see it changed. The founders, in good faith, put a method in place to legally change it should future generations wish to do so. Everything in our Constitution can be changed through the amendment process. However, gun control advocates are too lazy to use that method – and would rather use asinine methods to “chip away” at the right. This not only makes a joke of the second amendment – it makes a joke of the entire constitution when we allow them to do that.
There’s never been a violent revolution in England? There’s never been a martial culture in Japan? Germany has never seen a violent change in government?
Watch where you’re going with that Japan example. Weapons were always forbidden to the common people in Japan; only the elite were allowed them. And as you recall, that didn’t turn out too well over the centuries, not for the peasants, anyhow.
The U.S. came about as a result of a violent revolution that SUCCEEDED. It succeeded because we had weapons – mostly because we either made them – or got them from enemies of England, like France (Charleville musket for example.)
Scots are, to this day, prisoners of Mother England and a big part of the reason England was able to maintain control was weapons confiscations. Same in Ireland.
Riddle me this – up until the U.S. successfully revolted against England – how many of her other colonies were able to break free via violent uprising?
Yes – the U.S. is unique.
These are mostly small, urbanized countries. For a pro-gun control argument, you’d be better off citing Australia.
On the Aurora shootings – there were a couple of people I normally don’t agree with that I was very proud of for their reaction to it, and to the media’s disgraceful portrayal of it …
First is … “cop killer” … Ice Tea … who absolutely understands the purpose of the Second Amendment … “to protect yourself from the police” …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sx4mylCC9Y
Second is John Stewart – who ripped a new ass into Brian Ross at ABC for his completely lazy and fucked up agenda driven reporting …
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2012/07/24/jon-stewart-slams-brian-ross-what-story-does-guy-have-blow-get-troubl
isnt that the guy that was bragging about being a real life pimp,unlike the poser rappers that adopt ”the pimp persona”,without having nothing ever to do anything with pimping in reality?i really dislike him and i dont even consider him talented.one rapper who was a ”procurer”for high class girls and i do consider somewhat talented is Snoop Dogg,but overall the glorification of pimping in rap music is sth i really hate,especially when female rappers,like Eve have gotten so much shit for having been strippers.
Well I did mention before posting it that I don’t really agree with him (or John Stewart) all that much.
Although his Wiki page says that he WAS actually a pimp while he was stationed at Schofield barracks in Hawaii. This wouldn’t have been your typical “gangsta” stereotypical “pimping” though. He was probably more or less a “social coordinator” for his army buddies in the barracks.
I think it’s HILARIOUS that both “Ice T” and country music singer, George Straight were BOTH stationed at Schofield Barracks, and BOTH in the 25th Infantry Division!
During the Summer Olympics, NBC runs a ton a ads for their upcoming season. It generally forces mean to look deep into the reality of 1980s television, lest I fall into the nostalgia trap. TV probably isn’t really any worse now than it was ‘back in the day,’ though I have to think hard sometimes to remember what was as bad.
The thing about what all we could have had if the money spent on the Olympics were spent on MY PERSONAL LIST OF STUFF I LIKE BETTER is farging ridiculous, just like such lists of what all NASA’s budget could buy. Yeah, sure, IF there were any reason to think that the money would have been spent on all those teachers and such. It wouldn’t have, or the budget for teachers, etc. would already have been huge. Also, the “Olympic budget” is always a misleading number, because a whole whopping huge amount of the money was (and is every time) for infrastructure work the city in question needs, Olympics or no Olympics.
The fact that Portugal has decriminalized drugs (all of them) and it’s worked pretty well for them is getting mentioned from time to time on TV, and almost every time this is countered by a statement which is utterly true: Portugal is NOT the United States. The US is a global superpower, we have an ethnically diverse population, or for whatever other reason it just wouldn’t work here.
Here’s another crime-fighting technique that doesn’t work: raising the drinking age. Whether the age is set at eighteen, nineteen, twenty, or twenty-one (it’s been all of those in various states in the 1960s and ’70s), you get a spike of DWI traffic deaths at that exact age. And, the higher the age, the bigger the spike. I suspect that setting the legal drinking age at fifteen would help a lot, because the spike would be before the drinkers are driving.
The statement which is utterly true is that Portugal is NOT the United States. The stuff about why it wouldn’t work here is desperate clutching at straws to save the War on Drugs (which is pretty much over, and drugs won).
re the Bowling Green ordinance: could billboard companies be charged for ‘attractive nuisances’ under the law? What about signage in general; since the whole goal of roadside signs are to attract the attention of drivers, certainly they would be distracting drivers. And the ubiquitous summer car washes promoted by attractive women in scanty clothing; there’s very little that could be more distracting to a driver!
By the way, there is another shooting almost the same number of victims as James Holmes: A man from the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, killed 16 people and injured 60 others in the military camp in Vientaine in Asia on April 5, 1978.
There is a good James, but died very unexpectedly: James Radley Mattioli. Mattioli was shot dead and he looks like his father, Mark.
After the shooting in Sandy Hook, after one last ballot was cast, and the one last act of heroism, by Michael Landsberry, the Sandy Hook Elementary School has been torn down.