Topic: 27 dead, including 18 children, at Newtown, CT, elementary school

[Pandora]

Am I the only one with an agitated spouse waiting for that Survivor finale...having to sit through a stuttering clusterfluke "Wellstone" the memorial?

We can’t tolerate this anymore. These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change. We will be told that the causes of such violence are complex, and that is true. No single law - no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world, or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society.

But that can’t be an excuse for inaction.

I have a feeling SCoaMF isn't advocating to start institutionalizing the mentally ill again, nor is he calling for armed guards at school entrances.

In the coming weeks, I will use whatever power this office holds to engage my fellow citizens - from law enforcement to mental health professionals to parents and educators - in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this.

Never let a crisis go to waste.

Gunsmith said he caught some of that "service" on CNN last night while at work (big screen TV/no volume/permanently on CNN) and what he saw was some woman preacher and AN IMAM attended by some muslim kid holding the koran.  No Rabbi that he saw.

How many 'slims can there be in white-bread Newtown, CT that AN IMAM was given a prayer platform?!

[Libertas]

By most estimates there are 80-100 million gun owners in this country. So on any given day, that's 100 million people who hurt nobody. I consider that a stark testament to the decency and responsibility of gun owners, rather than a supposed "awash with guns" Old West mentality we are accused of having.

I think one of the reasons there is such consternation on the pro-2nd side is that we all know, at some level, that things like this fall under the "sh*t Happens" category and nobody wants to be the one to make that uncomfortable assertion because then you're suddenly the monster. I don't mean that to sound callous, but if you objectively look at the statistics, there is no great overriding crisis or pandemic. I would venture to say that on a daily basis there are more children killed by domestic violence or other criminal acts.

This is going to be a tough one to hold the line on. It punched all the right emotional buttons for our unthinking population, and I am afraid no amount of reasoned analysis or presentation of facts will be able to penetrate through the "but we have to Do Something™" shields.

Yes, they are counting on the fact that the emotionalism over losing little kids stifles the debate.  I would throw it on them and ask where was their state-sponsored compassion toward aborted babies discarded merely because it was a personal and/or economical hassel to birth and care for them!

[Libertas]

Am I the only one with an agitated spouse waiting for that Survivor finale...having to sit through a stuttering clusterfluke "Wellstone" the memorial?

We can’t tolerate this anymore. These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change. We will be told that the causes of such violence are complex, and that is true. No single law - no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world, or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society.

But that can’t be an excuse for inaction.

I have a feeling SCoaMF isn't advocating to start institutionalizing the mentally ill again, nor is he calling for armed guards at school entrances.

In the coming weeks, I will use whatever power this office holds to engage my fellow citizens - from law enforcement to mental health professionals to parents and educators - in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this.

Never let a crisis go to waste.

Gunsmith said he caught some of that "service" on CNN last night while at work (big screen TV/no volume/permanently on CNN) and what he saw was some woman preacher and AN IMAM attended by some muslim kid holding the koran.  No Rabbi that he saw.

How many 'slims can there be in white-bread Newtown, CT that AN IMAM was given a prayer platform?!

You're ruining the diversity moment Pan!

Please continue.

 

[IronDioPriest]

If Canadian Muslims were lobbing rockets across the border targeting Jewish school children, these same assholes calling for our weapons would refuse to make a moral judgment.

This is not about guns or dead children. It is about using dead children to disarm the citizenry so that they can go full-on totalitarian like we all know they want to.

[LadyVirginia]

This is going to be a tough one to hold the line on.

Glock, I think the only way to do it is to maintain the stance of constantly reminding everyone if the principal and teachers had been armed there would have been less loss of life.  That shifts the debate.  Even a far weaker "have an armed guard at the front door" shifts the debate.

If we get caught up in defending our guns then we lose.

[Pandora]

This is going to be a tough one to hold the line on.

Glock, I think the only way to do it is to maintain the stance of constantly reminding everyone if the principal and teachers had been armed there would have been less loss of life.  That shifts the debate.  Even a far weaker "have an armed guard at the front door" shifts the debate.

If we get caught up in defending our guns then we lose.

Precisely.  Every single time this bullspit crops up, it is WE who are put on the defensive.

What does the Left do?  They go on offensive.  We need to do the same.

Tell them not only NO, we're not ceding another goldam inch, but we want the teachers and the principals armed.  NOW.

[IronDioPriest]

This is going to be a tough one to hold the line on.

Glock, I think the only way to do it is to maintain the stance of constantly reminding everyone if the principal and teachers had been armed there would have been less loss of life.  That shifts the debate...

This is especially relevant since we know that the female principle attempted to bull-rush the kid, and was cut down by gunfire for her valiant effort.

It is an easy picture to paint. Heroic female principle throwing her body at armed assailant vs heroic female principle firing off a shot from a position of cover before he knows she's there.

The difference is that one requires unnecessary self sacrifice, and in this case, was proven futile.

[Glock32]

Some genuine, non-condescending information from a recently retired policeman:

http://pjmedia.com/blog/until-u-s-understands-police-limitations-some-will-put-faith-in-gun-control/


My summary, in short: "The police can't tell you what they'd like to say, but since I'm retired I can and here it is. There's not enough of us, a lot of us aren't even very good shots, and the responsibility to protect you and your family is yours first and foremost."

[Pandora]

Some genuine, non-condescending information from a recently retired policeman:

http://pjmedia.com/blog/until-u-s-understands-police-limitations-some-will-put-faith-in-gun-control/


My summary, in short: "The police can't tell you what they'd like to say, but since I'm retired I can and here it is. There's not enough of us, a lot of us aren't even very good shots, and the responsibility to protect you and your family is yours first and foremost."

McDaniel used to participate in the Confederate Yankee blog written by Bob Owen, (who has been a PJ Media contributor for some time), out of Raleigh.

[Pandora]

Please just fcking kill me now.  O'Reilly is on with Alan Gottlieb asking why gun people cannot just go along with an AK15 ban, for the good of the country.

AK15.  IGNORANTI!!

[John Florida]

Please just fcking kill me now.  O'Reilly is on with Alan Gottlieb asking why gun people cannot just go along with an AK15 ban, for the good of the country.

AK15.  IGNORANTI!!

  But he has an opinion.<>

[Pandora]

He's also got an asshole and it is from that orifice that his opinion issues.

[benb61]

Please just fcking kill me now.  O'Reilly is on with Alan Gottlieb asking why gun people cannot just go along with an AK15 ban, for the good of the country.

AK15.  IGNORANTI!!

Well Bill, if we were to "go along" this time and then after the next event (cause we are not regulating mentally disturbed people there will be a next time) they will take away something else, with idiots like you asking "why cant we go along on this next item" and before you know it the tyrant-in-chief declares that he is the emperor and we won't have any way to kick his sorry azz out.

[Glock32]

Bill and his Folks can promptly go and engage in an anatomically impossible act.

[warpmine]

OK so which guns were used in this incident? Autopsy reports or hearsay?
I thought the .223 cal weapon was found in car. Was it used?

[Pandora]

OK so which guns were used in this incident? Autopsy reports or hearsay?
I thought the .223 cal weapon was found in car. Was it used?

Unless someone else has more information, no, it wasn't.  Some report say the children were shot multiple times each with the rifle, but that has not been confirmed.  In any case, if that's so, how did it come to be found in the car's trunk?

There is much about the conflicting reports and lack of confirmed facts that is really troubling about this whole business.  What is being hidden?

[Glock32]

And what of the initial reports of an accomplice?  The media screw up so many facts on everything they report, mainly out of their zeal to shoehorn an emerging story into a particular ideological narrative. They are beneath contempt.

[IronDioPriest]

The medical examiner said a couple days ago that every single fatality was injured by multiple wounds from .223.

That said, I have no idea where the AR in the trunk thing came from. As I posted earlier, the list of things the media f**ked up in the first 24 hours is at the very best, malfeasance.

[trapeze]

OK so which guns were used in this incident? Autopsy reports or hearsay?
I thought the .223 cal weapon was found in car. Was it used?

Unless someone else has more information, no, it wasn't.  Some report say the children were shot multiple times each with the rifle, but that has not been confirmed.  In any case, if that's so, how did it come to be found in the car's trunk?

There is much about the conflicting reports and lack of confirmed facts that is really troubling about this whole business.  What is being hidden?

It was my understanding that the weapon found in the car was a shotgun.

[trapeze]

Precisely.  Every single time this bullspit crops up, it is WE who are put on the defensive.

What does the Left do?  They go on offensive.  We need to do the same.

Tell them not only NO, we're not ceding another goldam inch, but we want the teachers and the principals armed.  NOW.

Actually, this was the point of my earlier post about the ACLU and SCOTUS flooding the zone with previously institutionalized mental patients (the now infamous homeless people) and thereby preventing any post 1980 mentally ill person from being institutionalized unless they have already proven that they are violent.

The ACLU (and the left) need to be confronted with the consequences of their actions.

Should all mentally ill persons be locked up? No, of course not...there are obvious differences between the merely neurotic and the psychotic. But the SCOTUS case won in 1980 by the ACLU makes committing any mentally ill person to an institution involuntarily almost impossible. So, it doesn't happen. Until they shoot up a school or whatever.

The left wants to have a "national conversation" on guns. We should be demanding a national conversation on the "rights" of mentally ill persons. We should be pretty much demanding that schizophrenics, especially paranoid schizophrenics, be involuntarily institutionalized. We should be demanding that anyone judged to be a psychopath or sociopath, regardless of their violent tendencies, history or lack thereof, be involuntarily institutionalized. So we should be going on the offensive with (loud, demanding and offensive) calls for locking up the nut jobs in our midst.

And I'll even go one further. If it is acceptable for the left to attack the 2nd Amendment then it should be perfectly acceptable for the right to selectively attach the 1st Amendment via ultra-violent movies. Is this something that I believe is a causative agent? No, but if they can make trouble for me then I am entitled to make trouble for them and be just as preposterous doing so. We should be going on the offensive with this.

I could make the same argument over abortions. When we, as a nation, sanction the killing of the innocent via abortion, how different is it, really, to shoot kindergarteners? In my mind it is a difference with little to no distinction. Legal and easy abortion is creating a morality free society when it comes to the valuation of life in general. So...why not go on the offensive with that?

We have got to get out of the habit of immediately going on defense.

EDIT:

Rich Lowry at NRO says, in part, and much better than I did:

We may never know what the dynamic was in the Lanza home. For too many parents of the mentally ill, though, it goes something like this: Their child becomes withdrawn, delusional, and erratic. If they call the mental-health system, they are told to bring the child in for an appointment and the sick child won’t go. If the parents call the cops, the cops show up and say the child doesn’t appear to represent a threat to himself or others and they leave. If they take him to the hospital, he is quickly released back to the parents even if he is admitted. The choice might become living with a deteriorating child increasingly out of his mind or forcing him out of the home and into the streets.

Yes, this is 21st-century America. Where we have better means to treat mental illness than ever before, but choose to let the insane people decide to get it or not. Where we supposedly deinstitutionalized the mentally ill by closing down psychiatric hospitals, and then reinstitutionalized them behind bars. The number of psychiatric beds on a per capita basis is back at 1850 levels, and there are three times as many seriously mentally ill people in jail or prison than in hospitals, according to the Treatment Advocacy Center. Where we let sick people sleep on the streets. About a third of homeless men and two-thirds of homeless women are seriously mentally ill. Imagine the national outrage if people with Alzheimer’s were permitted to wander around the streets uncared for. But, by some perverse logic, it’s considered okay for schizophrenics.

No, that's what passes for left wing policy these days and it's the new normal. Up is down. In is out. Same sh*t, different day.