Monday Open Thread

32
  by: Colorado Pols Mon December 17, 2012 at 4:33 PM MDT

“Our faith comes in moments; our vice is habitual.”

–Ralph Waldo Emerson


Full story: Monday Open Thread

32 Community Comments, Facebook Comments

  1. GalapagoLarryGalapagoLarry says:
    Mon December 17, 2012 at 6:54 AM MDT

    Or do you sue? This from Buzzfeed: Mitt’s Diner drops the tab.  http://www.buzzfeed.com/mckayc…  

  2. allyncooper says:
    Mon December 17, 2012 at 8:46 AM MDT

    Is this the solution, or a knee-jerk reaction to the problem?

    Or is the problem best addressed by a greater awareness and treatment of mental disorders and increased efforts to keep guns out of the possession of someone with a mental disorder?

    Or do we need both?  

  3. ProgressiveCowgirlProgressiveCowgirl says:
    Mon December 17, 2012 at 8:57 AM MDT

    You probably saw the “I am Adam Lanza’s mother” story that went viral over the weekend — it’s very moving and illustrates the genuine, complete absence of options today for parents whose children are mentally ill in a violent, threatening way. However, combine this with the early reports that Lanza may have been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome and you have a recipe for a nation afraid of autistic people–which is a pretty damn ridiculous notion.

    Autism comes with difficulty interpreting things like facial expressions, implications, subtext, and subtlety. It doesn’t come with a lack of emotional empathy, the ability to “feel for” others. In fact, many autistic people feel emotional empathy MORE strongly than neurotypical people do. People with Autism are four times more likely to be the victims of crime than neurotypical people, but less likely to commit a crime.

    If you happen to know anyone on the Autism spectrum well enough to have their permission to hug them, ask if they need a hug today. It can’t be fun to have your diagnosis splashed all over CNN as a possible reason for a horrific mass murder.

    The Newtown shooter was probably mentally ill, and we desperately need mental health reform to be a constant part of the national conversation, not just after tragedies. However, nobody who has actually, in real life treated this young man has come forward to explain his diagnosis, and it is irresponsible reporting to put classmates’ “I think I heard he had…” speculations in the news. It is already challenging enough for people with Autism-spectrum diagnoses to bond with their schoolmates, without labeling them as possible mass murderers, too.

    Whatever the Newtown shooter “had,” the more important thing is what he made: The decision to kill 27 people, including himself. He may have made that decision because he was desperately mentally ill, because he was delusional, because he had no access to treatment, but many desperately ill, delusional people with no access to treatment do not make the same decision. They are not ticking time bombs, and you won’t become a target for being kind and friendly toward a mentally ill person.

    We can and should all push for mental health reform and demand meaningful options for inpatient treatment of seriously mentally ill adolescents who cannot be effectively cared for by their parents. But in the pursuit of that very, very good and necessary outcome, think carefully about arguments that depict autistic, schizophrenic, personality disordered, or otherwise mentally ill people broadly as ticking time bombs or the next school shooters. If anything, a mental health diagnosis is just the layer on top of whatever “evil” is that can, in some cases, separate a shooter from reality and consequences far enough to allow him to carry out an evil act. We do not and may not ever understand why some people have the “evil” layer, and blaming the “mentally ill” layer for it is erasing the millions of mentally ill people who are NOT evil and who also desperately need better care and more options, not to “prevent another shooting” but because caring for human beings who are sick and suffering is the right, humane thing to do.

  4. Diogenesdemar says:
    Mon December 17, 2012 at 10:51 AM MDT

    Guns and the Decline of the Young Man

    There is also the issue of race. Not all of the men I listed in the beginning of this piece are Caucasian. However, take a moment and imagine what the archetypical image of a mass murderer in the United States looks like. Is he white in your mind? This stereotype can only be attributed to the truth of those patterns that have established themselves, from Charles Whitman’s 1966 shooting spree at the University of Texas, to Timothy McVeigh’s 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, to the 1999 Columbine massacre. The mass murderer is a type. And his race is white.

    . . .

    The angry black man has been usurped by the angry white man.

    I would argue that maleness and whiteness are commodities in decline. And while those of us who are not male or white have enjoyed some benefits from their decline, the violence and murder that took place at Sandy Hook Elementary will continue to occur if we do not find a way to carry them along with us in our successes rather than leaving them behind.

    http://opinionator.blogs.nytim…

    I’m not saying that I agree or disagree with this article, or even identifying those parts I might agree or disagree with; I’m noting that the conversation has begun.

  5. Phoenix RisingPhoenix Rising says:
    Mon December 17, 2012 at 11:35 AM MDT

    I think we’re starting to get a more complete picture of the background to Sandy Hook…

    A few updates not everyone might have seen:

    1) There were 4 weapons recovered, not 3. The weapon found in the car was a shotgun; a Bushmaster assault rifle was used in the shooting.

    2) The coroner reports that each victim was shot multiple times – up to 7 times each – with a .223 assault rifle, most shots occuring at range. This puts the minimum bullet count over 150, and ups the apparent skill level of the shooter.

    3) It is reported that the shooter fired “hundreds” of bullets, and had hundreds more remaining. The bullets were all in 30-round high-capacity clips (apparently for both the rifle and the handguns – hard to read this exactly from reports so far, but that was my interpretation).

    4) The shooter’s mother was a “Doomsday Prepper” – a gun enthusiast and survivalist convinced the economy was going to crash and everyone would live by the gun. She had (at least) a dozen weapons in her collection.

    5) She regularly took her sons to the shooting range regularly. (This would be why the shooter had good skill with the weapons.)

    6) It is reported that the son had mental problems (beyond Autism Spectrum Disorder).

    Conclusions and next questions:

    Given the woman’s reported actions, I’m guessing the son had full access to her gun collection – “just in case”. No need for the son to break in and steal weapons; he was being trained for that inevitable day when he’d need to use them. Same goes for body armor – it was probably a Christmas present.

    So… WTF was this woman thinking, giving training to a person who was reported to have mental health issues and allowing him full access to her gun cabinet (room/shelter)?

  8. LakewoodTodd says:
    Mon December 17, 2012 at 2:23 PM MDT

    Has anyone noticed that if you click on the Penalty Box, you end up at a website about Ugg Boots?

  9. DaftPunkDaftPunk says:
    Mon December 17, 2012 at 3:32 PM MDT

    A Southern California judge is being publicly admonished for saying a rape victim “didn’t put up a fight” during her assault and that if someone doesn’t want sexual intercourse, the body “will not permit that to happen.”

    The California Commission on Judicial Performance voted 10-0 to impose a public admonishment Thursday, saying Superior Court Judge Derek Johnson’s comments were inappropriate and a breach of judicial ethics…

    Johnson, a former prosecutor in the Orange County district attorney’s sex crimes unit, said during the man’s 2008 sentencing that he had seen violent cases on that unit in which women’s vaginas were “shredded” by rape.

    “I’m not a gynecologist, but I can tell you something: If someone doesn’t want to have sexual intercourse, the body shuts down. The body will not permit that to happen unless a lot of damage is inflicted, and we heard nothing about that in this case,” Johnson said.

    The commission found that Johnson’s view that a victim must resist to be a real victim of sexual assault was his opinion, not the law. Since 1980, California law doesn’t require rape victims to prove they resisted or were prevented from resisting because of threats.

    http://www.sacbee.com/2012/12/…

  10. parsingreality says:
    Mon December 17, 2012 at 3:39 PM MDT

    It appears that their only business purpose is to make AR-15 based weapons.  

    rcdaec@earthlink.net

    We used to be so upset about Raven (??) Saturday Night Specials.  But here is a company whose sole purpose is to make money off of paranoia and stupidity.  Bushmaster is where the revolt needs to begin.

    You can be damned sure that converting them to fully auto is easy……oh, that was hard to find:

    http://www.keepshooting.com/fu…

  11. parsingreality says:
    Mon December 17, 2012 at 5:20 PM MDT

    As Huffpo put up today, it’s not just school massacres.  

    Another Day, More Deaths: Man Accidentally Kills Himself Demonstrating Gun’s Safety… 3 Gunned Down In Grand Rapids… 2 Police Officers Shot And Killed In Kansas… 3-Year-Old Accidentally Shoots Himself, Dies… Man Shoots Wife… One Person Shot In San Antonio, Gunman Later Shot By Cops… Woman Shot At Campground… Woman Shot To Death, Son ‘Thought She Was Sleeping’

    A few days ago a father gets in his truck.  He had just spent time at Dave’s Reloading Shack or something. The gun goes off, his 7 year old is dead.  ”Oh, I didn’t know it was chambered.”  

    And interesting source is the list of countries and their firearm murder and suicide rate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L…

    Every country with a per capita rate higher than the US is what we would call a third world nation.  And many of them don’t include suicides.  

    For the countries reporting both, almost always suicides are more numerous than murders.  I was surprised.

    If you live in the US, you are 128 times more likely to die via a bullet from somewhere else than in Japan.  

  12. DaftPunkDaftPunk says:
    Mon December 17, 2012 at 9:41 PM MDT

    And that’s obviously saying a lot.  I heard he did walk this back a bit today.

    Christian-owned businesses are told to surrender their values under the edict of government orders to provide tax-funded abortion pills. We carefully and intentionally stop saying things are sinful and we call them disorders. Sometimes, we even say they’re normal. And to get to where we have to abandon bed rock moral truths, then we ask “well, where was God?” And I respond that, as I see it, we’ve escorted him out of our culture and marched him off the public square and then we express our surprise that a culture without him reflects what it’s become.

    http://www.rawstory.com/rs/201…

  13. parsingreality says:
    Mon December 17, 2012 at 7:48 AM MDT

    Which personality pattern is this following?

    Crooks

    Liars

    Plundering

    Avoidance of responsibility

    Or, in a word, Republicans.  

  14. ProgressiveCowgirlProgressiveCowgirl says:
    Mon December 17, 2012 at 8:36 AM MDT

    To a guy who spends as much time as Mitt did at $10K/plate dinners.

    $800 for lunch? That’s called “Tuesday” in Romneyland.

  15. Diogenesdemar says:
    Mon December 17, 2012 at 9:00 AM MDT

    the reporters get the bill for that empty stadium in Detroit . . . that fireworks show on the night of Willard’s election . . .  

    No one says “other people’s money” better than a venture-vulture capitalist.  No one said “delusions of grandeur” better than Willard.  

  16. Diogenesdemar says:
    Mon December 17, 2012 at 9:02 AM MDT

    And, I don’t care where we start — just get started!

  17. BlueCat says:
    Mon December 17, 2012 at 4:11 PM MDT

    and to make certain kinds of weapons, magazines and body armor unavailable so they can’t be easily obtained by the unbalanced who slip through the cracks.  Yes career criminal types will know how to get whatever they want but they aren’t going into schools, theaters and shopping malls to senselessly slaughter strangers for the sake of slaughter. And the kind of shooters who do very likely couldn’t acquire all that fire power and armor if it wasn’t so easy.  

    Yes, this particular shooter got the weapons from his mother who legally purchased them. Nothing will prevent every atrocity.  But if his mother had not been able to purchase all that shit, it wouldn’t have been available. Many other mass shooters, such as the Aurora theater shooter,  would most likely not have been able to accumulate arsenals if it weren’t so easy to do so simply and legally.  We can make these horrors fewer and farther between.  

    The knife rampage in China injured 22. The Sandy Hook shooting resulted in 27 dead and only one injured survivor. One of the two little boys who was buried today was shot 11 times.  He was 6. He has a twin sister in another class who will never be the same, for whom Hanukkah will always be a time of unspeakable pain.  They say each child was shot multiple times, as many as 15 times. Not a single one of those 6 or 7 year old bodies could survive that kind of onslaught.  

    We need to do more to prevent but also make it much harder.  We can do that without disarming every law abiding citizen who wants to own a gun.  

  19. Progressive Promoter says:
    Mon December 17, 2012 at 11:00 AM MDT

    What a great piece, PC. Thanks for writing.

  20. Sir RobinSir Robin says:
    Mon December 17, 2012 at 7:59 PM MDT

    I want to ask, “What are the root causes of these “mental illesses”? The question of how interventions and treatments can be vastly improved is very very important. That said, prevention is always the most effective and efficient approach.

  21. rocco says:
    Mon December 17, 2012 at 11:07 AM MDT

    And about time.

    The NRA’s absolutely silent. They’ve taken down their facebook, and are cowering like the night crawling opportunists they’ve allways been.

    They’re talking to paid off copperheads like Graham, Cornin, McCain, et al, trying to contain a situation of their own making.

    But finally, at last, history marches against them.

    And for the most horrific of reasons.

    Finally, the converstion’s started.

  22. Phoenix RisingPhoenix Rising says:
    Mon December 17, 2012 at 11:38 AM MDT

    From an ongoing conversation I’m having elsewhere…

    CBS news showed pictures of the Bushmaster being found at the scene and it had a 100 round “snail drum” magazine.

  23. Phoenix RisingPhoenix Rising says:
    Mon December 17, 2012 at 12:38 PM MDT

    An update of the old criteria would be a good starting place for a future law. Get rid of the loopholes for manufacturers, and no reselling grandfathered weapons except to the government as a buy-back.

    I think a number of people have hit on the main feature of any future ban: high-cap magazines and drums. Make them illegal to manufacture or sell. Institute a buy-back for a few years, and consequence-free turn-in after that. After the buy-back period, they’re illegal. If you’re found with one, it’s a minor felony; if you’re found selling or manufacturing one, a not-so-minor felony; if you’re found with one as part of an arrest, it’s an aggravating factor on whatever felony you’re convicted of.

    I’m not against ownership of semi-auto weapons, but I can’t think of a reason short of surviving the zombie apocalypse in a (formerly) highly populated urban area why you’d need a high-capacity magazine.

  24. ProgressiveCowgirlProgressiveCowgirl says:
    Mon December 17, 2012 at 12:49 PM MDT

    Is no laughing matter!

    I, however, intend to face it with a hatchet when it comes, whether or not I have guns at that time (I don’t yet, refuse to own them until I feel 100% competent with them). The guy with the hatchet is always the coolest in the zombie apocalypse movies/comics. If I’m going to get mowed down by the living dead, I’m doing it in style.

  25. Duke Coxdukeco1 says:
    Mon December 17, 2012 at 1:28 PM MDT

    running through a litany of NRA talking points while his host tossed him the set-up questions. The usual shit..says the weapon used couldn’t be an “assault” weapon unless it was fully automatic,subsequently, that there are no “assault” weapons on the streets of the US…teachers should be trained gunmen, that this wouldn’t have happened if the principal had an AR-15 of her own…the school was a “no gun-zone” so that was where the mass killer chose to strike…the usual infuriating, disgusting tripe.

    The echo chamber will build until the NRA feels safe to come back…but first, the righteous, rightie, radio rednecks will lay down covering fire for them until it is safe to show their cowardly faces.

  26. Diogenesdemar says:
    Mon December 17, 2012 at 2:51 PM MDT

    it must have all been a bad dream, or some kind of media conspiracy . . .

    I just checked the NRA website . . . zip . . . nada . . . not a single word . . . nothing there about Sandy Hook, or Newtown, or any recent mass killings or school shootings.  In fact the last entry from Wayne LaPierre is dated November 27th, 2012, and is a rather moving commentary on how more guns is making us safer.  Great conclusion:

    The point is, gun owners and the NRA have been right all along. It’s the criminals, not the law-abiding gun owners, who are the issue. More guns, less crime isn’t just “quite possible,” it’s a fact.

    The NRA has “been right all along” — I guess that’s all the gun related news that anyone needs to know?

    . . . or, the twilight zone?

  27. Diogenesdemar says:
    Mon December 17, 2012 at 2:56 PM MDT

    zip it, zip it, zip it . . .

    not another word.

    Are you crazy?  What do you think happened to Libertad and ArapaGOP?  If any of this news about Alva’s little for-profit prison scheme gets out, you’ll be the next to go Todd.  And, if anyone asks, you don’t know me — OK?

  28. Duke Coxdukeco1 says:
    Mon December 17, 2012 at 5:25 PM MDT

    from LaPierre. Crickets…

  29. parsingreality says:
    Mon December 17, 2012 at 5:45 PM MDT

    http://www.bushmaster.com

    Or, say “Hi!” to my niece’s father.

  30. DaftPunkDaftPunk says:
    Mon December 17, 2012 at 9:13 PM MDT

    This manual displays pictures and diagrams as well as clear explanations of each step of the process.  This manual is for informational purposes only.

  31. BlueCat says:
    Mon December 17, 2012 at 7:11 PM MDT

    Seven shots is certainly horrific enough.  But one of the of the little boys buried today was shot 11 times. I’ve heard 15 for an “up to” number. After everything from Columbine to the Aurora theater shootings and all other such senseless events in between and since, it’s as if reality has exploded in the wake of this most incomprehensible atrocity of them all. Since the despicable Huckabee knee jerked his despicable instant and disgusting response, the usual suspects have been oddly absent from the national discussion.    

  32. BlueCat says:
    Mon December 17, 2012 at 7:14 PM MDT

    troglodytes stop coming out  from under their rocks?

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