Mindhunters | 2012 December

Are You Kidding Me, Your Honor?

By Mark Olshaker On December 26, 2012 · 7 Comments

Law & Justice

Just when we might have thought that losing Republicans Missouri Representative Todd Akin and Indiana Senate hopeful Richard Mourdock were neanderthal aberrations when it came to the subject of “forcible” rape, comes word of the admonition of Orange County, California, Superior Court Judge Derek G. Johnson by the state’s Commission on Judicial Performance.

It seems the commission – better late than never – has just gotten around to reviewing a sentence Judge Johnson gave out – or rather didn’t give out – back in 2008. So if you’re wondering where Akin and Mourdock might have picked up their arcane views in the intervening four years, look no further.

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The Problem or the Solution?

By Mark Olshaker On December 21, 2012 · 14 Comments

Two Sides of Gun Control

This is not meant to be a commentary for or against gun owners or the Second Amendment. But one week after the Sandy Hook tragedy, on a day when the nation stopped to mourn the victims and three more people were gunned down in Pennsylvania by a rampaging shooter, one of them in a church, the National Rifle Association finally went public.

Wayne LaPierre, the organization’s executive vice president and public presence, opined that the only way to deal with our epidemic of mass violence is through more guns. “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” LaPierre commented. He may actually be right in certain circumstances, but in a way that the Cold War arms race was “right”: the concept of disincentive through mutually assured destruction.

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Civilians and Mass Murder

By Mark Olshaker On December 20, 2012 · 21 Comments

Those who are familiar with the books and articles John Douglas and I have done will know how we rail against opinion or conventional wisdom-based conclusions that do not have a sound basis in evidence. In the wake of the recent horror in Connecticut, we’d like to call attention to the work of Mark Follman, a senior editor with the nonprofit news organization Mother Jones, who has done in-depth reporting on a subject central to the public debate.

After the slaughters at the movie theater in Colorado and the Sikh temple in Wisconsin, Follman identified and analyzed sixty-two mass murders – incidents in which four or more victims were killed – over the previous thirty years.

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What I Want to Know

By Mark Olshaker On December 18, 2012 · 11 Comments

Bushmaster AR-15

We’ve been having an interesting and meaningful discussion on the firearms issue and we’ve heard thoughtful arguments on both sides. I have found that there are fewer extremists on either side than I had thought and with the recent horror, both sides seem somewhat more willing to compromise.

What I want to know is: Why do we need the right to keep and bear assault rifles?

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Greater Love . . .

By Mark Olshaker On December 17, 2012 · 4 Comments

Under normal circumstances, for a writer like me to paraphrase even one word of the magnificent language of the King James version of the Bible would be hubris. But these are not normal circumstances. So in all humility we submit:

“Greater love hath no woman than this,

that a woman lay down her life

for her friends.”

Rest in peace:

RACHEL D’AVINO

DAWN HOCHSPRUNG

ANNE MARIE MURPHY

LAUREN ROUSSEAU

MARY SHERLACH

VICTORIA SOTO