Madness in Webster NY two first responders shot and killed

[uwe]

"Most of the U.S. gun violence, something like 97 percent of it, is inner city drug/gang violence, not legal gun owners."

Like Ms Lanza. She had nothing to do with it, neither had her guns, they just went off by themselves, just like her little son. Cars indeed.

Now help me out: When was the last time the inner city drug gangsters set up camp in a schoolyard and shot 20 children at will? While economically senseless - at least some of those kids might have grown into drug using adolescents/adults, killing your future customers is alway silly -, I'm really curious. Aren't they mostly busy shooting firemen?

Make way for those rap music-hearing, drug trafficking thugs for their shooting sprees in middle class schools! Arm your schools - tanks? - to fend them off.

Flash thought: Darn, if John and Yoko had only carried semi-automatics for self-defense when they walked up the Dakota, John might still be alive and could now be credibly advocating as an NRA member for the Second Amendment.

[Bionic-Joe]

Now help me out: When was the last time the inner city drug gangsters set up camp in a schoolyard and shot 20 children at will?

[/quote]

Uh....Innocent Children are shot everyday as a result of the drug culture and thugs running rampant on the streets of Chicago.
This is not a joke. You couldn't last a day in the streets of Chicago.
    I had to work on Christmas Eve....On the way to work, I have to drive through the ghetto. The dope dealers were out on the corner selling dope.....
   You obviously live in a sheltered box and have absolutely NO IDEA what it's like to have to drive through these streets. I could be shot dead at any moment. I do pray and hope that concealed carry in made legal in Illinois.
    There is a God and there is EVIL in this world, whether you acknowledge it or not, right and wrong do exist. This is not a Moral Relative problem. It's a Moral problem.

[uwe]

God - whether he exists or not - chose not to intervene in Sandy Hook even though on the face of it good and bad seemed to be relatively discernible in that school compound, I hope he wasn't a hesitating moral relativist.  I also haven't found the 2nd Amendment in the Ten Commandments yet. And if your definition of a sheltered box is the absence of a prevalence of semi-automatics within Europe, I'm sheltered as hell. So are my kids. Lucky me and them.

Do you actually believe that Chicago hot spots would be safer if there were more concealed guns around? AFAIK, gangstas wear their guns "at work" concealed anyway, doesn't seem to stop them from killing each other.

You haven't answered the schoolyard question yet. When did ganstas do something similar in a protected suburban middle class habitat like Sandy Hook? Ghetto violence is another issue (a serious one), but it probably has little to do with whether semi-automatics are outlawed or not. Preventing inner city crime is one thing, preventing maniac mayhem another. Shooting a kid because you want his smart phone is horrible, but it is not what happened in Sandy Hook.

Shouldn't guns be mandatorily insured at the very least? Most things that are dangerous on even an abstract level need to be. The NRA's assets could be conveniently used to fund the nation-wide mandatory gun insurance initially. Gun holder's insurance has to pay whatever damage is done with the gun. If you can't pay insurance, the gun is impounded. Cars are mandatorily insured, why not guns?

[Bionic-Joe]

The Bushmaster was found in his car.....the point is that people who need mental help need just that.....and we no longer take care of people with mental problems...The guy tried to buy guns and was denied...he found out his Mom was going to have him put away and he snapped. Does anybody KNOW EXACTLY what took place?? I don't . I was not there. But panicking and doing a Hitler by banning and confiscating all guns is Fascist.
   Law abiding citizens have EVERY right to protect themselves and their property and that includes their family as well as their freedom. Take away their guns...you take away their freedom.
   I'll admit...the United States if more f***ed up than ever...but it once was a great nation...and our core  foundations still remains...for a while.....God DOES exist...and his plans are unknown to us...why...what right do we have to tell him what to do??? he made everything....everything is for HIS purpose...He creates life and he destroys life...We do not know his purpose ...but I tell you this...it is for His Glory...
   Why did this happen in Newtown??? I don't know...Why did my 23 year old Cousin kill Himself in a high speed car wreck 6 months ago when he was just starting to live his life? I don't know...... Why does it seem that Evil prospers??? Again..I do not know...But I tell you this...God is Merciful and God is Just. He is the potter...and we are the clay...God is real and he is all powerful and does everything with a purpose.

[Dave W]

From Warren Meyer at Coyote Blog (emphasis in original):

I had thought that post-9/11 and with the very visible object lesson of TSA security theater that this would have already been understood, but I will repeat it:  There are no security steps that we are willing to tolerate as a free society that would make it impossible, or even substantially more difficult, for a motivated deranged person to shoot up an elementary school.

Promises by politicians up to and including the President to take "steps" to improve safety are illusory.  What we will get, if anything, will be incremental steps that will hassle law-abiding citizens (think: taking your shoes off at the airport and not using your iPad during takeoffs) without doing anything to deter actual criminals.  In particular, any honest and knowledgeable security person will tell you that there is no realistic way, short perhaps of turning ourselves into North Korea, of stopping a killer who is determined to die as part of his crime.


The same goes for the killer in Webster NY.

[uwe]

"There are no security steps that we are willing to tolerate as a free society that would make it impossible, or even substantially more difficult, for a motivated deranged person to shoot up an elementary school."

Now it gets philosophical, I dare venture

- If a ban on (semi-)automatic rifles in the future prevented just one Sandy Hook or saw "just" two children getting shot by a hand gun rather than twenty by a semi-automatic, then that would be a preferable status to today.

- You cannot get away from the fact that this happens more in the US than in any other English-speaking Western country. I inserted "English-speaking" to insure that the cultural comparison is as close as possible. Both Australia and Canada are former frontier nations like you, they do not have comparable issues. And tougher gun laws.

- If your definition of freedom contains the right to bear assault weapons, then you are closer to Ayn Rand than I thought. So the US is a free society and all other Western societies with tougher gun control aren't? And the fact that you are not allowed to go 140 mph on your highways leaves that freedom unhampered, but not being allowed to have a Bushmaster in your cupboard would?

[Bionic-Joe]

We could argue all night over this stuff...but I am glad we choose to debate. We all have some good laws and some bad ones and some that just don't work. I do wish I had a 1973 Porsche 911 that I could dive 200 MPH legally sometimes!!! I would also love to have a WWII M3 Ma1 Grease gun .45 caliber submachine gun that I could shoot at targets or old cars once in a while in a designated shooting range....or even if I was rich enough to own a farm....
     But I really do believe it what's in a person's heart that determines his true motives. And if there is no Moral Compass...or No Love....anything goes and life has no value. It horrible. Killing is not a good thing.
    But now obsessing over Gibson Thunderbirds........

[dadagoboi]

From Warren Meyer at Coyote Blog (emphasis in original):

I had thought that post-9/11 and with the very visible object lesson of TSA security theater that this would have already been understood..

Yeah, I agree, USA TSA is crap.  German and Israeli, among others, isn't.  Perhaps we could learn a lesson there too.  They hire professionals, pay them a decent wage, don't concern themselves with dog and pony shows or subcontract it to privateers.

[Denis]

The TSA is a stop-gap administration, poorly designed in nature and rushed through without most of those in Congress actually reading most of it.

And now many of the people who are against any sort of gun control are also against the TSA and it's efforts, despite the fact they thought it was a good idea when it was first created. These are the same people who say we are becoming a police state on one hand, but support the NRA and it's call for armed guards in every school on the other hand. Hypocrisy rules here.

In Germany Lufthansa told me a 3 inch snow globe was okay in my carry-on luggage. In Chicago it was not and I had to check the bag and though I was in sight of the officials the ENTIRE time, I had to go back through the line, take out my laptop once again, remove my shoes and go through the metal detectors a second time. Chickenshit.

[mc2NY]

Connecticut has an existing ban on semi-automatic weapons. Obviously, it did no good...except the shooter WAS denied when he tried to buy his own weapon. That he used his mother's guns means that they were either not locked up or that he knew where the key was. More laws cannot prevent that. However, I DO agree that the "gun-free zones" absolutely invite these sort of shootings, rather than deter them. You notice how fast all of these psychos who commit mass shootings shoot themselves, as soon as anyone armed shows up to deter them? The shooters pass by locations that have armed protection.

My dad was a NYC police officer and he kept his service revolver in his BR dresser my entire life. I think I saw it one time, ever. My brother is a Fed NIS officer for 30+ years. I'm sure he has always carried a gun but I have never once seen it. That's how I see proper gun ownership. But I also have no problem with guys who want to own the larger semi-automatics for sport or protection...as long as they take training and pass a criminal/mental check. Gun registration/insurance is an interesting concept, except it would get as corrupt as the health/auto/homeowners insurance industries...more government BS regulation that does not solve a problem and only gives them more money to piss away on other things.

I don't know how many of you here have ever been in an actual situation where you needed a gun, when you life was in peril? That might change you opinion a bit.

A few years ago, I woke up around 3 a.m. to the sound of someone going through spare change on teh top of my dresser next to my bed. I rolled over to see a big black guy the size of a linebacker, in the light from my TV set. I was rolled up asleep in teh blanket and he hadn't noticed me. As I rolled over, he got surprised and I was trying to think what to do. Through his legs I saw that he'd gathered together power tools and some other valuables. I then realized he was one of the local crackhead thugs in the neighborhood and his brother, a plumber, was a friend of mine. I had seen the guy the day before on a corner with his brother and when I stopped to say hi, he was bragging about his new (illegal) handgun. So, I know had him in my house, robbing me..and he was standing up and I was already laying down...so I decided to try and talk him out. The only gun I own is a 12-gauge pump shotgun and it was under the bed. I got lucky and once I started talking to him and he knew I caught him in the act, unbelievable, he decided to ask me "if I still needed someone to paint an apartment?" He actually decided to act as if he'd broken into my house at 3 a.m. to ask for work...but that at least brought the situation down a notch. I tols him I would call his brother if I needed someone and told him he had to leave. Then he asked if I had "any spare change" and I said to look on top of my dresser and take what he needed....and I got up wrapped in a blanket and escorted him out and locked my door. Apparently my girlfriend had decided that she HAD to go up and buy a box of Fuit Loops at 3 a.m. amd had left the door open...the thug had seen her leave..and that's why he tried to get it, thinking the house was vacant. I got REAL lucky. I didn't think I could make a grab for my shotgun and chance him having his new handgun on him, so I chose "Plan B."  But the world is FULL of people like this who would rob and kill you in a heartbeat. If the situation had gone differently and it came down to a fight and having to grab for my gun and shoot or be killed, I'd like to think I would have had the balls to stay alive. But I'd rather first try and not have to shoot somone. I see absolutely no reason why I, as a law abiding US citizen, should not be allowed to buy and own whatever firearm I choose, for sport or protection.

That happened in New Orleans, the U.S. city with the highest murder rate in the U.S. at the time. But like ALL U.S. cities near the top of that list, nearly all of the gun violence is inner city thug-on-thug violence. NOTHING any politician writes into law will change that. Th big Catch 22 is that laws are not follwed by the lawless or deranged, who are the gun offenders in almost all shootings.

Gun ownership and sport seems to be an American "thing" and a fundemental right. largely meant as a protection for we citizens to keep our government in check should it ever get out of control on us....comparing us to Canada or Australia "frontier nations" (funny Uwe) is apple-to-oranges. Funny you should choose the three major powers that all began under the Brits.  But I contend that both Canada and Australia would have the same or worse gun violence statistics if you transplanted all out inner city thugs to those countries. Yes, the U.S. DOES have the occasional mass shooting by some deranged white guy (white males definitely corner that niche) but, statistically, those killings are barely a decimal point in the overall numbers....and you CANNOT legislate anything to control what the unperdictable mentally ill might do.

Personally, I think it is just the yin/yang that goes along with the freedom the U.S. allows its people (albeit a sadly dwindling freedom the last decade.)  We have the best guns, the best movies, the best music, etc...and you have to take the good with the bad. We used to build the best stuff (along with the Germans, I admit) but greed has shifted most of it countries like India and China that build crap.  Perhaps the best solution to gun violence is to tax U.S.-made guns so much, that all guns end up being made in China....so we know that they will break or fail upon firing.

[uwe]

"You notice how fast all of these psychos who commit mass shootings shoot themselves, as soon as anyone armed shows up to deter them?"

That has nothing to do with the police bearing guns but with the fact that they don't want to get caught alive. Shooting themselves is their crowning achievement in their sick little world. They would shoot themselves just as well if the police arrived unarmed, but with enough people to overpower them.

I've been mugged myself. In NYC at weekday lunchtime, smack in the middle of midtown. (A week later I walked Manhattan from South to North, crossing Harlem, the Bronx and Washington Heights without anything happening even in the worst of neighborhoods, this was 1988 - I believe they thought that a white guy in their neighborhoods must be either an undercover cop or a martian, at least that is how they looked at me!) The mugger just south of Central Park was obviously a crack-addict and wanted 10 Dollars off me (he saw I had more in my wallet), I doubt that he had a gun underneath his jacket like he claimed, but in hindsight I'm glad I didn't shoot him to keep 10 Dollars. Or get shot myself like the kid in the subway a week before when he refused to surrender his leather jacket to two thugs. That is why I kept my defense measures conservative and let money do the talking. My mugger was nice enough to say "God bless you!" after he had taken the 10 Dollar bill. You Christians are a funny people ...  

[nofi]

i walked into my old house in the middle of the day to confront a burglar holding my ruger .357. to make a long story short i'm still here and he is probably back in mexico.

[mc2NY]

.
I've been mugged myself. In NYC at weekday lunchtime, smack in the middle of midtown. (A week later I walked Manhattan from South to North, crossing Harlem, the Bronx and Washington Heights without anything happening even in the worst of neighborhoods, this was 1988 - I believe they thought that a white guy in their neighborhoods must be either an undercover cop or a martian, at least that is how they looked at me!) The mugger just south of Central Park was obviously a crack-addict and wanted 10 Dollars off me (he saw I had more in my wallet), I doubt that he had a gun underneath his jacket like he claimed, but in hindsight I'm glad I didn't shoot him to keep 10 Dollars. Or get shot myself like the kid in the subway a week before when he refused to surrender his leather jacket to two thugs. That is why I kept my defense measures conservative and let money do the talking. My mugger was nice enough to say "God bless you!" after he had taken the 10 Dollar bill. You Christians are a funny people ...  

Uwe...Being a native of NYC, I fell I need to inform you that you were not mugged. That is how we welcome everyone to NYC

Speaking of such, one year outside of MusicMesse in Frankfurt at the end of a show day, I was standig at the streetcar stop with my friend who was a big PR agent from the UK. It was drizzling and we were in a crownd of around 40 people waiting. We went to buy our tickets from the machine and had rested out briefcases on a bench. We had to trun around to put our money into the machine, so I picked up my briefcase although if was only a couple of feet to the machine. My friend laughed at me for doing that and I said "hey, I'm from NYC...I don;t trust anyone more than a foot away." As we turned back...HIS BRIEFCASE WAS GONE! He freaked because all of his business from the last four days, his passport, his money...was in the briefcase. We split up and started looking thru the crowd. About a block down I saw someone walking a little quickly with a briefcase who looked back over his shoulder every five seconds or so....so I took off after him. He walked along the curbm so I walked faster up along the strorefronts so he would not see me and caught up to him a few blocks later...I came around in front of him when he turned to look back and I grabbed the briefcase. I surprised him and started yelling "give ne that briefcase" and he was yelling in some non-German language and finally let go and ran. As I was walking back to the streetcar stop and the adreneline was wearing off, I started to think "geez...I hope this is the right briefcase and I didn't just mug some guy." Plus I was soaking wet by now and must've looked insane with my hair dow my back. Fortunately, when my friend saw I was holding his missing briefcase, he was amazed and thankful. After we caught the streetcar and I got off at my stop, I grabbed a cab...but the SOB thre me out of his cab for being too wet!! I ended up having to walk another mile in the rain back to my hotel, then missed my dinner appointment by the time I'd dried off and changed. But my friend sent me a really expensive bottle of Scotch when I was home in New York with a funny note that read "Dear Superman...Very clever to have been disguised as a reporter" because I was at the Frankfurt show covering it for a magazine.  My point though is that I chase the thief because it was Germany and I figured he likely had no gun. In NYC I probably could have been shot, since the bad guys have guns and most citizens do not. Being armed and trained to use it I think falls in a  case by case situation, whether it helps or makes a bad situation worse. I can understand US citizens who want to own a gun...but I'm not sure I understand the ones who need MANY guns. I guess those are the ones who don't trust the government and fall into the paranoid militia category. I'm VERY against government over-reaching into peoples' lives but I also agree that the paramilitary type gun advocates seem to push the limits of the Second Amendment.

[drbassman]

Europe is a secular society, the churches are empty.  They must be murdering people hand over fist there.

God, the construct of man, is always an easy way to avoid personal responsibility.  Just about every organized religion has been happy to mass murder those who don't hold their exact beliefs.  Or at the least have the hubris to judge them in God's name and lock them away.  'Burning at the Stake' was pretty much the height of 'counseling' in churches for most of the history of Christianity.  Screw 'religion' that condones preemptive drone strikes and tells soldiers "God is on your side."  

Government, the construct of man, is always an easy way to avoid personal responsibility.  Just about every organized government has been happy to mass murder those who don't hold their exact beliefs or possess valuable land or resources.  Or at the least have the hubris to judge them in the State's name and lock them away.  'Re-education'. i.e. change or die, was pretty much the height of 'counseling' by governments for most of the history of man.  Screw 'government' that condones preemptive drone strikes and tells soldiers "The State is on your side."  

Religion, in the hands of man, has done horrible things throughout history.  That doesn't negate the fact that communism, nazism, totalitarianism, colonialism, nationalism, tribalism, the Roman Empire, ethnic cleansing, etc., etc., ad nauseum, have extinguished millions more than organized religions.  Either way, both systems are grossly faulty when misused.  It's not rational to single out one without being honest about the other.  In the end, it's always the people who muck it up.  It's the people who screw it up!

[Granny Gremlin]

I don't know how many of you here have ever been in an actual situation where you needed a gun, when you life was in peril? That might change you opinion a bit.

A few years ago, I woke up around 3 a.m. to the sound of someone going through spare change on teh top of my dresser next to my bed. I rolled over to see a big black guy the size of a linebacker, in the light from my TV set. I was rolled up asleep in teh blanket and he hadn't noticed me. As I rolled over, he got surprised and I was trying to think what to do. Through his legs I saw that he'd gathered together power tools and some other valuables. I then realized he was one of the local crackhead thugs in the neighborhood and his brother, a plumber, was a friend of mine. I had seen the guy the day before on a corner with his brother and when I stopped to say hi, he was bragging about his new (illegal) handgun. So, I know had him in my house, robbing me..and he was standing up and I was already laying down...so I decided to try and talk him out. The only gun I own is a 12-gauge pump shotgun and it was under the bed. I got lucky and once I started talking to him and he knew I caught him in the act, unbelievable, he decided to ask me "if I still needed someone to paint an apartment?" He actually decided to act as if he'd broken into my house at 3 a.m. to ask for work...but that at least brought the situation down a notch. I tols him I would call his brother if I needed someone and told him he had to leave. Then he asked if I had "any spare change" and I said to look on top of my dresser and take what he needed....and I got up wrapped in a blanket and escorted him out and locked my door. Apparently my girlfriend had decided that she HAD to go up and buy a box of Fuit Loops at 3 a.m. amd had left the door open...the thug had seen her leave..and that's why he tried to get it, thinking the house was vacant. I got REAL lucky. I didn't think I could make a grab for my shotgun and chance him having his new handgun on him, so I chose "Plan B."  But the world is FULL of people like this who would rob and kill you in a heartbeat. If the situation had gone differently and it came down to a fight and having to grab for my gun and shoot or be killed, I'd like to think I would have had the balls to stay alive. But I'd rather first try and not have to shoot somone. I see absolutely no reason why I, as a law abiding US citizen, should not be allowed to buy and own whatever firearm I choose, for sport or protection.

To answer the question, no.  But I feel the need to point out that you are asking an irrelevant question, which ironically begs the pertinant one:  how come so many people in the US find themselves in such situations... but not so with those of us from Europe, or, your closest neighbor to the North?

There are many answers (including socio-psychological ones; culture of Fear etc - listen to Gila Copter by The Revolting Cocks with Timothy Leary for a bit of an primer on that), but one of them is just how damn easy they are to get; legally AND illegally in the US (the notorious Gun Show loophole etc).  

Sure, individual state bans are meaningless when there's no inter-state border conrtrol - the Connecticut ban was doomed to failure because the neighboring states stymied it with their lack of control, not because restrictions/bans are not effective.  The assault weapon, semi-auto and handgun ban up here in Canada (not a full ban, mind, but if you want to have these it takes years of courses, exams, training and membership in a registered gun safety club) works.  Sure, some of these weapons do exist on the black market, but they are rare and you never see them outside of the odd (like less than yearly) org crime incident. ... and I would point out that studies show 5that the noverwhelming majority of these are smuggled across the US border (so our heavy weapons problem would almost disapear along with yours if we harmonized gun laws at least somewhat, continentally). Moreover, I can go to a registered club  and legally/safely shoot almost any gun I want  (assuming they have one, which is a matter of business decision vs gov regulation) without any license or background check (though supervised by an instructor on a proper range), and I have (actually no full auto, but I have shot auto-disabled assault rifles).  I know how to safely operate a semi and can shoot with one well, but don't own any firearms personally nor feel the need.  I do not feel that my freedom is being restricted because I can hunt (you can buy a shotgun or bolt action rifle in Canadian Tire hardware stores just not inner city ones, which again is a biz  decision vs regulation; they used to stock them when I was small but they just weren't selling).  Any honest experienced hunter will tell you that you don't usually get more than one shot anyway... unless you're spray and praying into a herd of, for all intents and purposes, corralled beasts at some of those "sportsman's" resorts.... we already have the advantage of firepower (you don't need auto to hunt unless you just plain suck at it, and even then it doesn't help with a real hunt) or sport shoot restricted arms any time I want - but safely (and safety here includes my personal, as well as societal).

I've had mugging attempts, and so have many of my friends.  Nobody ever saw a gun (or felt one was implied).  

Oh, and FYI, I live down the street from the most notorious and crime-infected public housing project in Toronto. I bike right through it daily.  Also I'm across the street from a lesser-known and smaller but (until the redevelopment a year ago) just as bad one.  Shots have been fired.  Revolvers and shotguns mostly, occassional semi handgun.  Always killing their own (cause otherwise the cops come down on the whole project and everyone gets busted... kinda racist/classist, but effective). I also used to be a Dickie Dee boy (those guys with a trike with a cooler on the front, ringing a bell to let the gangsters know that there's money and ice cream available) in the hood, which was scary as shit.  No guns.  Few close calls, but no guns.

I have been to Chicago.  Yes, it's worse.  Why is that?  Again, part of it is cultural (the subtle unspoken segregation on the streets is very disconcerting to people not from there; it's like visible minorities are invisible to the rest of society - and I'm not the only person who thinks this about Chicago.... very differant from NYC or SF for example, which deal with race and cultural differences in their own ways), but gun regulations are definitely a part of it.  Our ghettos don't have liquor and gun stores on every block (exaggeration, sure, but an actual thing said, if paraphrased here,  by US social justice advocates).

... and I'm glad a few folks beat me to the whole religious vs secular society and mental health debates because, pardon the pun, goddamn (crusades, inquisition, honour killing, witchhunts war on terror, terror, and on the other side, forced medication, sterilization and worst of all lobotimization of historically misunderstood/disenfranchised groups such as lationos and aboriginals just because they were culturally different and therefore not normal which = insane).  I say all this as a Catholic, not an anti-religion type.  All the constitution wavers down in the US need to remember that Separation of Church and State is in there too, and for good dang reason.