Tragedy in Connecticut

Well the barn door's been bolted open on that one Boom Boom. If I lived in the States, I'd be buying guns too because unless they are going to ban the suckers and rip them out of peoples hands, any measure will be too little too late.

Well truly I would have gotten them as soon as I starting living in the states, unless I lived in a state with good gun control (are there any? )

"First We Mourn, Then We Organize"

The above is a link to a blog entry by Milwaukee teacher Bob Peterson. Here's a good quote, btw:

Bob Peterson wrote:

But, as Nicholas Kristof wrote in Sunday’s New York Times, “What do we make of the contrast between heroic teachers who stand up to a gunman and craven, feckless politicians who won't stand up to the N.R.A.?”

There are plenty of resources (and links on Peterson's blog) about speaking with children when they have questions about living in a violent society. Actually, there's a great deal of resources. I guess they need it... what with the epidemic of mass killings and incessant gun violence in the USA.

Winnipeg vigil for Canadian victim::

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/story/2012/12/17/mb-vigil-for-con...

If this whole tragedy hasn't made you all sick enough...Rumour has it that the yahoos from the Westboro Baptist Church are planning on showing up to the funerals.

Brace yourselves.

I don't think so Bec. Their schtick is definitely the maximum offense, and that means funerals. They threatened to come up here once after a poor fellow was decapitated on a bus.... then chickened out after the cops wouldn't protect them from the reaction.

Evan Solomon had a young guest, a survivor of the Columbine massacre whose sister was killed, and whom has been working with young people ever since. The guest was trying to explain the root causes of young people going on killing sprees like Newtown, but Solomon cut him off because all Solomon wanted to talk about was the gun control issue. Evan Solomon can be a real prick sometimes.

On a related topic, I found this article very thought-provoking:

http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2012/12/17/the-money-behind-the-massacre/...

and wonder how to find out whether OMERS, OPSEU or OTPP and other public service pension plans have invested in this or a similar company?

Legally recognize Westboro Baptist Church as a Hate group..

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/legally-recognize-westboro-bap...

Also hit them where it hurts by riddening them tax-exempt status.

I've been seeing a lot of NRA-type comments about banning knives, shovels and cars because people are killed by them too. Why not ban old age and cancer too they might ask. Then there's the twitter hashtag #armtheteachers in which its twits argue that arming everyone in the school would prevent these kinds of mass killings. Of course they neglect to mention that in situations of panic, darkness, smoke, etc. (Aurora), only the best trained people can possibly have a chance at success. There is likely to be more collateral damage as was the case recently in New York when police opened fire on a shooter outside the Empire State Building and wounded 9 bystanders. 

George Lakoff had an interesting piece in which he extols Obama's response as a good example of changing the frame. 

Conservatives have argued that guns = freedom, and that there should be no limit on such freedom. The president trumped their argument: The price of not protecting the nations’ children is too high. Permitting the mass murder of our children is not freedom.

This whole thread seems to be about guns and making them harder to access but doesn't seem to touch on the mental state of this killer, his history, factors leading up to his murder-spree or what else could have been explored in order to prevent this from happening.

Serviam6 wrote:

This whole thread seems to be about guns and making them harder to access but doesn't seem to touch on the mental state of this killer, his history, factors leading up to his murder-spree or what else could have been explored in order to prevent this from happening.

Of course these are important issues, especially relevant to future preventive efforts, but I think the reason why there's not much discussion of them here (or elsewhere) is that we don't have the needed factual information. Possibly we never will. There is much speculation, and as has been noted before, much false information circulated in the media, about the shooter's family, medical history, personality and so on. 

School shootings and their causes/contributing factors etc. have been investigated before, however:

One study with relevant points is here:

http://www2.ed.gov/admins/lead/safety/preventingattacksreport.pdf

A book-length anaysis which can be read online for free is here:

http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309084121

Some surprising factoids that emerged from a cursory reading of the reports:

-- most school shooters were good students (A's and B's; few were failing)

-- most school shooters had never been suspended for behaviour issues, nor had any brushes with the law

-- most had not shown any significant variation from their normal level of involvement in activities, interests, friendships, social interactions etc. in the weeks before the shooting

-- very few were social isolates; about half were considered mainstream socially and had friends and engaged in activities that were considered mainstream by their peers

-- about a quarter socialized with non-mainstream friends, but were not socially isolated

-- most attackers reported being bullied or persecuted

From the Safe Schools report (my first link above), some key findings:

Key Finding 1:Incidents of targeted violence at school rarely are sudden, impulsive acts.

Key Finding 2:Prior to most incidents, other people knew about the attacker’s idea and/or plan toattack.

Key Finding 3:Most attackers did not threaten their targets directly prior to advancing the attack.

Key Finding 4:There is no accurate or useful profile of students who engaged in targeted school violence.

Key Finding 5:Most attackers engaged in some behavior, prior to the incident, that caused othersconcern or indicated a need for help.

Key Finding 6:Most attackers had difficulty coping with significant losses or personal failures.Many had considered or attempted suicide.

Key Finding 7:Many attackers felt bullied, persecuted, or injured by others prior to the attack.

Key Finding 8:Most attackers had access to and had used weapons prior to the attack.

Key Finding 9: In many cases, other students were involved in the attack in some capacity.

Key Finding 10 : Despite prompt law enforcement responses, most attacks were stopped by meansother than law enforcement intervention, and most were brief in duration.

There's elaboration on all of these findings, and a discussion of preventative measures.

I guess this is what gun nuts ultimately hope for;

http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/11-year-old-takes-gun-to-school-fearing-anot...

Quote:

Newtown kids v Yemenis and Pakistanis: what explains the disparate reactions?

Numerous commentators have rightly lamented the difference in how these childrens' deaths are perceived. What explains it?

        Glenn Greenwald   
        guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 19 December 2012

My Guardian colleague George Monbiot has a powerful and eloquent column this week provocatively entitled: "In the US, mass child killings are tragedies. In Pakistan, mere bug splats".[bold added]
....
There's just no denying that many of the same people understandably expressing such grief and horror over the children who were killed in Newtown steadfastly overlook, if not outright support, the equally violent killing of Yemeni and Pakistani children. Consider this irony: Monday was the three-year anniversary of President Obama's cruise missile and cluster-bomb attack on al-Majala in Southern Yemen that ended the lives of 14 women and 21 children: one more child than was killed by the Newtown gunman. In the US, that mass slaughter received not even a small fraction of the attention commanded by Newtown, and prompted almost no objections (in predominantly Muslim nations, by contrast, it received ample attention and anger).

It is well worth asking what accounts for this radically different reaction to the killing of children and other innocents. Relatedly, why is the US media so devoted to covering in depth every last detail of the children killed in the Newtown attack, but so indifferent to the children killed by its own government? ....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/19/newtown-drones-child...

There are only five members of Westboro who are not related in some way to Fred Phelps, and they are quite a small (though heavily-lawyered and well-connected)  group:

http://boingboing.net/2012/12/19/infographic-understanding-the.html

(second attempt at posting)

The NRA released their response to the Newtown shooting: put armed guards inside every school - elementary, secondary, college, and university - in the USA. Maybe they included nursery schools and day care centres, too.

Why stop there? Why not have armed guards inside every church, synagogue, temple, mosque, hospital, doctor's office, all banks, restaurant, theatre, concert hall, movie theatre...?

The NRA is freaking ridiculous. I think they're a terrorist organization and should be banned altogether. Their presentation today was interrupted by two protests.

Putting armed guards in the schools and locking down the schools during classes just moves the targets. What about school recess and football or hockey games? While the kids are waiting for buses after school?

i heard the current review on cbc wednesday. one of the three guests was a survivor (previously mentioned in this thread) of the columbine massacre, whose sister rachael was killed there; she had previously issued a "challenge to her generation" and rachael's challenge is the name of his foundation, who he said speaks to 3 million kids a year about these issues. he was great.

there were a few mentions of "violent video games, where one "shoots people down" with no context, as being a cause or factor (which i agree with).

but nobody laid any blame on the adults, on the "throw them in jail" lynch mob mentality we tolerate, or the rick hilliers' of our world, talking about the afghan mission in terms of ridding the world of "creeps and scumbags". (or was that alberta referring to easterners in the 70's?).

anyway, blame the youngsters, throw in economic pillaging by the 1%, a lifetime of additive-drenched shit food, video games, and drone strikes, then be surprised when they act out what they learned.  really sad.  there is a different buzz about this one though, maybe something will stick in the larger consciousness.

peace.

From a friend on Facebook:

and: NRA Solution Shot Down – Armed Guards At Schools Don’t Prevent Mass Shootings

 The NRA took a week to craft a message, and all it seemed to accomplish was to re-stoke the fire of outrage.  This will go down as one of the biggest P.R. fiascos of all time.

I was afraid that they'd come out with some Fabian tactic, where they agreed that some form of gun control was in order-- then quietly lobbied against those measures while the American public lost it's sense of outrage over time.

I don't think this is going away any time soon, and we may be seeing the demise of the influence of the N.R.A. 

Making Guns in Your Garage

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/technology/micwright/100007925/making-guns-...

"...How 3D printers will revolutionise the manufacture of deadly weapons.."

3D printers are the first stage of fully functional Star Trek replicators.  Earl grey tea please.

Chess piece printed by the Form 1.

Sea creature printed by the Replicator 2.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/reviews/3d-printer-pr...

That's really fucked-up. Shame on the [i]New York Post[/i] and [i]Daily News[/i].