Tragedy in Connecticut

Oh God.

Obama to speak at 315 EST - in 25 minutes - about the shooting.

Fat chance. They couldn't even revive Clinton's ban on assault weapons when it expired in 2004, or since.

You have so much information about this incident. Have you contacted the authorities to help them with their investigation?

What part of "I'm waiting", "why" and "if" lead you to believe I have concrete information?

Do you think this man would not have been able to murder children if he had something other than an assault rifle in his possession?

I see you are offended by my assumption. I apologize and will add the caveat that my non-medically trained opinion is that this man who murdered 26 people is a psychopath. He many very well NOT be a psychopath.

Unionist wrote:

Good first step. Next we'll talk about "demon". After, we'll discuss your view that it's "sad" that people are talking about gun control today.

For sure!  I'm glad your turning this horrible attack into an instructional period and correcting my use of words you don't agree with. Important issues, do you feel better?

Alan, violence against children in general seems like a good start.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/International/2012/Dec-14/198448-knife-...

There is no movement for gun control in the U.S. The best we can do to commemorate this and other similar catastrophes is to rid Canada of this menace. It will mean combatting the same powerful lobby and money here, but it can be done.

Newtown and the Madness of Guns

So let’s state the plain facts one more time, so that they can’t be mistaken: Gun massacres have happened many times in many countries, and in every other country, gun laws have been tightened to reflect the tragedy and the tragic knowledge of its citizens afterward. In every other country, gun massacres have subsequently become rare. In America alone, gun massacres, most often of children, happen with hideous regularity, and they happen with hideous regularity because guns are hideously and regularly available.

and:

The people who fight and lobby and legislate to make guns regularly available are complicit in the murder of those children.

my comment: I think it can be easily argued that the NRA is a terrorist organization.

Really, WTF?

Nobody getd it? Cmon f

We'll see, they seem to wanna reckon.

Again.

Why most mass murderers are privileged white men Written July 23, 2012

Quote:

Is there something about the white, male, middle-class experience that makes it easier for troubled young men to turn schools and movie theaters into killing fields? In a word, yes.

Not every mass murder in recent years has been committed by a middle-class white guy. But as Jamie Utt pointed out in the hours after the Colorado theater massacre, in those rare instances where a man of color is responsible for a shooting spree (as in the 2007 Virginia Tech killings or the 2009 Fort Hood rampage), the popular reaction is to search for connections between the race or religion of the murderer and his act. 

.................

The difference, as Chauncey DeVega made clear on Saturday, is that when white men commit mass murder we don’t hear how their skin color, their maleness, or their social class were contributing factors to their acts. As Peggy McIntosh famously wrote in her White Privilege Checklist, we see whites as individuals whose moral state reflects their individual will. In other words, white men kill simply because they are “sick” or “evil.” When men of color murder, it is because they are both those things and because of factors uniquely attributable to their race.

.................

We don’t yet know what drove James Holmes to do the terrible things he did. We only partly understand what drove the likes of Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold, Charles Whitman, and the many other white men who have committed similar massacres. While each killer had a unique pathology that helped drive him to do the unthinkable, the fact that these white male mass murderers felt so confident choosing public spaces to commit their crimes reflects a powerful truth about the culture in which they were raised. Put simply, they did what they did because of an individual sickness—but they did it where they did it in part because of white privilege

.............

White men from prosperous families grow up with the expectation that our voices will be heard. We expect politicians and professors to listen to us and respond to our concerns. We expect public solutions to our problems. And when we’re hurting, the discrepancy between what we’ve been led to believe is our birthright and what we feel we’re receiving in terms of attention can be bewildering and infuriating. Every killer makes his pain another’s problem. But only those who’ve marinated in privilege can conclude that their private pain is the entire world’s problem with which to deal. This is why, while men of all races and classes murder their intimate partners, it is privileged young white dudes who are by far the likeliest to shoot up schools and movie theaters. 

Not sure how far this analysis holds (from Maysie's link) - maybe Québec is different.

There have been three school massacres within a few minutes' bus ride of my home. One perpetrator (1989, Polytechnique) was the son of an Algerian Muslim immigrant. Another (1992, Concordia) was a Russian Jewish immigrant professor. The latest (2006, Dawson) was the son of Punjabi Sikh immigrants.

Male - yes - overwhelmingly, and maybe that's the key. I wonder what the gender breakdown of gun users, owners, hunters is. Anyone have any stats?

White, middle class? That part of the analysis, while thought-provoking, is less clear to me.

A Radical-Left Perspective on the 'Gun Control' Debate: The Case for a Community-Based Approach to Firearms Regulation

December 15, 2012
By Steve D'Arcy 

The recent mass killing of school children and education workers in Connecticut has horrified everyone concerned about public safety. It has also re-ignited the longstanding debate about 'gun control,' and whether there is anything more that can or should be done to protect people in their neighbourhoods and workplaces from attacks by violent people armed with assault-type weaponry and wearing body armor. Normally, the debate is dominated by two positions: a "libertarian" position that favours the unfettered right of people like Ted Nugent to bring an assault rifle into a coffee shop or a school whenever he chooses, and a "liberal" position that wants "the authorities" to be empowered to exercise unilateral power from above in imposing gun regulations deemed by politicians to be "sensible." Is there a third position? More specifically, is there a radical-Left position, based upon the values and principles of egalitarian democracy and worker empowerment? 

I believe that there is such a position, but that it has not been adequately articulated, with the result that many on the Left have come to believe that the "libertarian" and "liberal" positions are the only ones available. The following comments attempt to introduce a Left perspective into the debate, sketching the elements of a community-based, radically democratic approach to firearms regulation.

The present situation in many jurisdictions (such as Utah, to give an extreme example) is intolerable, from an egalitarian and democratic point of view. What makes it unacceptable is that (i) it shows callous indifference to the most basic standards of workplace health and safety, allowing anyone, including open fascists and violent police officers, to bring guns, in some cases even assault weapons, into workplaces and classrooms; (ii) it prevents workers and communities from taking grassroots action to limit the capacity of fascist or quasi-fascist militias to set up and train paramilitary organizations (of which there are several dozen in the US), whereas if anyone on the Left attempted to do the same thing on a similar scale they would be brutally suppressed by the state, regardless of the law, as history amply illustrates; and (iii) it assigns sole authority to regulate or not regulate firearms to the least trustworthy institutions in society, employers and the capitalist state, completely disempowering workers' organizations and neighbourhood-level community organizations.

This situation can and should be changed, by bold action from below, to reclaim public authority that now wrongly resides with employers and the state. Such authority ought to be exercised democratically, by participatory-democratic public assemblies. Only democratic regulation of firearms by the people, in workplace and neighbourhood assemblies, can be relied upon to put the public interest ahead of the interests of elites in maximizing the unchecked power of the police and insulating far-Right militias from public accountability or limits imposed by those most endangered by such groups, especially the racialized groups and immigrants that are their main targets.

In practical terms, a community-based approach to gun regulation would begin by establishing Public Safety Assemblies in every neighbourhood, and Workplace Safety Assemblies in every workplace. These Assemblies would be empowered to impose substantive limits on the carrying of weapons within the areas of their jurisdiction. No employer or state agency should be able to force workers or other persons to endure unfettered gun-wielding by strangers entering their neighbourhoods or work sites. If such risks are to be taken, it should require prior authorization by democratic assemblies of the people who live and work in those places. Safety Assemblies would offer a means by which such authorization could be granted, or denied, on a democratic basis.

Among the substantive regulations that such Public Safety or Workplace Safety Assemblies could impose, any of the following can serve as examples of the sorts of proposals that an Assembly could entertain: that only persons with permission of the Assembly may carry assault weapons in the workplace; that no police officers may carry weapons into the workplace or neighbourhood, except under specifically enumerated circumstances set out by the Assembly, or with special permission of the Assembly; that the storing of weapons by openly racist militias within the jurisdiction of the Assembly shall be prohibited; and so on. Such proposals could be rejected by the Assemblies, of course. The point here is that it should be up to workers to decide whether or not such regulations make sense for their workplaces; and it ought to be up to residents to decide whether such regulations make sense for their neighbourhoods.

Note that this proposal is not like conventional forms of "gun control," as advocated by many liberals. Because community-based gun regulation relies on democratic control from below, by workers' and neighbourhood Assemblies, the process is actually neutral between those who believe that arming people more heavily would improve public safety and those who believe that restricting firearm use, at least in certain areas or by certain people, would improve public safety. The Assembly process would require people to deliberate publicly with their co-workers and neighbours about the merits of various proposals. In some cases, this might lead to 'stricter' controls; in other cases, the controls might be made 'less strict.'

For example, under a community-based gun regulation system of this type, Starbucks workers would be empowered (as they are not, as of now, as a matter of company policy) to designate their work site as a gun-free zone. Conversely, those same workers could decide to allow open or concealed carry of firearms in their workplace. Or they could allow workers to be armed, but not customers. And so on. The most basic commitment of a community-based approach to gun regulation is not a commitment to 'strict' or to 'lax' gun regulations, but to democratic gun regulation, from below, on the basis of empowered, participatory deliberation in public by workers and neighborhood residents.

This proposal cuts against the "libertarian" impulses of many on both the Left and the Right. But where libertarianism promotes, not liberation, but the disempowerment of workers and community members, and serves objectively to insulate the police from public control, and to embolden fascists to militarize their operations, we ought to choose egalitarian, horizontal Assembly democracy over "libertarian" misunderstandings of freedom.

Community-based, democratic firearms regulation, on a horizontalist, participatory-democratic basis, is an idea whose time has come. It ought to be embraced by the Left, both for the benefits it offers in terms of public and workplace safety, and for the challenge it poses to the unchecked power of irresponsible elites to usurp powers that rightly belong in the hands of the people.

From:Z Net - The Spirit Of Resistance Lives

URL:http://www.zcommunications.org/a-radical-left-perspective-on-the-gun-control-debate-by-steve-darcy

From what I've been reading from various opinions expressed in the news regarding this massacre is that there will more likely to be 'war' on mental health than any changes to gun laws. 

This item from Mother Jones adds detail to the history of mass shootings in the U.S.:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map

This blogger has some data on how much more violent the U.S. is than other countries (not that we have any grounds for self-congratulation -- but clearly U. S. culture has toxic effects):

http://www.kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2012/07/20/america-is-a-violent...

Serviam6 wrote:

It's sad 20(?) children and 6 adults are dead and people are arguing about gun control, as if this psychopath wouldn't have been able to perpetrate something like this if whatever kind of firearm he used was banned.

 

What a demon.

 

I'm waiting to see if he had a history of violence and if he had then why he had access to ANY firearms.

Here is something for you to think about!!!!   How about we require every single gun owner to have a mental evaluation by a qualified doctor. You pass the test you keep your guns you fail you give up your guns!!

NO DON'T LIKE THAT IDEA?

How about this one! NO BANNING OF GUNS!!! I personally am against the banning of guns but I do support stricter gun controls.

How about we let you gun toters have as many guns as you want BUT they all have to be single shot guns. YOU HAVE TO RELOAD after every shot you take. YOU KNOW like back in the time when they passed the second amendment when all guns were muzzle loaders!!!!!

I could never understand why hunters needed automatic rifles to hunt deer. Why do you need AK-47's to go target shooting?

If hunting is a sport lets be real sportmen and give the deer and moose a bit of a chance at surviving SINGLE SHOT HUNTING RIFLES. LIKE HELLO SPORTSMEN!! GET IT? TOO MUCH OF A CHALLENGE FOR YA? NOT SUCH A GOOD SHOT AFTERALL ARE YA?

Unionist wrote:

There is no movement for gun control in the U.S.

I suppose that depends upon what you mean by 'movement.'

I suspect there is broad public support in the US for more gun control, but it's been smothered by the NRA lobby and the politicians they have bought (and the politicians too terrified of the NRA to act).

It's been a long time, but I do recall seeing polling in the US that showed a lot of support for stricter gun control.  How I wish their politicians and courts would follow.

As for the NRA, they actively fund-raise in order to support politicians opposed to gun control - that seems to be their sole purpose nowadays. I think they're a terrorist organization.