Sandy Hook Elementary
When I left for a lunchtime meeting today, CNN was announcing that an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, was in lockdown with the report of an apparent shooter. When I finished the meeting and checked the news on my iPhone, my heart sank and I felt sick as I learned of the enormity of the tragedy. This is the second one of these we’ve heard about in a week, but with more than ten times the fallout in human lives and human horror.
In the days ahead, we will begin to analyze this latest incident at Sandy Hook Elementary School. We will begin to speculate about what made twenty-year-old Adam Lanza feel justified in taking so many young and innocent lives, and so many admirable adults, of robbing so many of their hopes and their futures. We will tie together the individual murder of his mother, and see what connection it had to his act of mass murder.
But for right now, as with the mall shooting in Oregon, we have no wisdom, no solutions; only questions without answers. How many more of these are we going to endure as a society? Why are we so different from every other civilized nation? Or are we in fact civilized?
Is this what the founding fathers and framers of the Constitution envisioned when they specified a right to keep and bear arms? Had they been personally witness to the now hundreds of mass shootings throughout the United States, would they have been more specific in writing the Fourth Ammendment? Wouldn’t logic and reason have entered into their thinking, as it should in ours?
And here’s another one for you: If these continuing acts of domestic terrorism were being committed by suicidal Islamic radicals, would we still be insisting on our rights? We have given up our right to carry more than three ounces of toothpaste on an airplane and not to have our bodies searched at the whim of a Transportation Security Administration employee as we go through airports. We meekly take off our shoes and our belts. And all this without any reliable or compelling evidence that the whole “security theater” does any real good. At least we became outraged at the video images of a woman in uniform tending an airport security station putting her hands inside a little girl’s pants and got the TSA to stop this stupid and damaging process.
But we can’t compromise on a reasonable plan to regulate firearms as long as it’s our own people who are perpetrating the terrorism.
If this was an infectious disease that was taking our children, our parents and our brothers and sisters so capriciously, wouldn’t we demand that the Public Health Service get on it and do something about it?
The Columbine High School mass murder took place in 1999. When are we going to learn something from our own experience? When are we going to do something about it?
As long as we do nothing, we will have an ever-growing rank of grieving, devastated parents to answer to, and we will have no answer to give them.
I am a Swede and we haven’t so far had any big event of massacre on innocent people. I think this is owing to our strict laws concerning the right to wear a weapon. If you are a hunter you must prove you are one and your shooting ability will be tested and not only that. You must also have a clear record as for health criminality to prove you are entitled to wear a gun. A private person can never wear a weapon not even if he or she is a police or an army officer. You can only wear a weapon on duty as a policeman.
It is true that there is an illegal trade of weapons even in our country. But in order to get hold of them you must have connections in the “under world”. So the incidents of massacres is a very very rare thing in Sweden in comparison to such events in any of your states. In other words I believe that a better regulation of arm permits might improve the security in public places in the US.
Quoting above ” If these continuing acts of domestic terrorism were being committed by suicidal Islamic radicals, would we still be insisting on our rights? ”
and considering only the most recent incidences at VT, can we say that they are not the acts of Islamic followers? To me they seem to be to well organized and be able to obtain guns a non military civilian cannot.
Much like in the Colorado shooting with a seemingly bright and well brought up young man these acts constitute closer and more methodical forms of hardcore Islamic terrorism, in my opinion they are the acts of a much larger problem.
America is becoming a mish-mosh of all kinds of ethnicities who want their customs to be what is most important! They don’t come to be Americans. Japan is one custom. Australia is one custom: They say if you don’t want to live by our rules, maybe this isn’t the best place for you. But now we have Sharia law in Michigan (and we even have 3 languages on the phone)…. and almost in Texas (which I never thought would be). The Democrats have become very permissive. I read the other day that a manual for our troops in Afghanastan was put out to not talk about pedophlia. What? Why are we even over there. We have gone backwards. They are shooting women in the back of the head. So America is not the America I grew up in either. We had one custom, one set of books in school, and we were safe. Now it’s the Wild Wild West. And I have worked around mentally ill folks. The medicines they give do give side effects of violence and suicidal tendencies. I believe in the 1800s, the throw-backs were killed outright. Whether by shooting or hanging. Now we save the weak minded and we have nowhere to put them. Reagan emptied out the hospitals where they were, and they were dumped on the unsuspecting public, who did not know how to handle them — and certainly nowhere to put them. That 3-day Baker’s Act is useless. We have people who think they are seeing Jesus or the devil. My sister had adopted a Schizophrenic child, and they started to break out the windows. She didn’t know what to do with that child. They won’t take their medicine, and the more they don’t sleep, the more they want to stay awake. It’s a no-win situation. Reagan did a big disservice to America when he “found money” and let the weak minded out of hospitals. What if a woman who is PMSing climbed up on a roof of a barn with a newborn baby and threatened to kill the baby. What would you do? What would any of us do? She won’t take her medicine and she is a danger to society. We know that she is. Where do we put her.
Sherry-
I share your fear of government tyranny. It has resulted in the deaths of scores of millions of people around the world in the last century alone.
But I think the effective way to control government is to keep the major branches executive, legislative, and judicial separate, of roughly equal power, and irritated at each other.
Also to keep the military branches separate and irritated with each other.
I think the key to reasonable gun control lies with the powerful voting block of rural Western Senators and Governors. They can lead it and they certainly have the power of keeping it from going too far.
I think if you read up about suicide bombers and serial killers you will find they are very different people to the kinds that carry out these kinds of mass killing.
As for gun control measures increasing ‘the risk of tyranny or government control over people which can in turn result in masses of people being murdered’ i am not aware that we have that kind of problem here in the uk, despite our gun controls. People are still able to own weapons to go hunting with and i never hear anything about people wanting the rules to be relaxed.
If guns were banned would there then be an increase in suicide bomber’s in America as there are in other countries? Instead of being mass murderer’s would they then become serial killer’s and resort to other means to commit murder if their perferred method couldn’t be used?
Guns are not the problem, people with evil intentions are. Banning guns or gun control increases the risk of tyranny or government control over people which can in turn result in masses of people being murdered, so I don’t think that’s the answer to the problem.
I remember when I was in high school that some students would come to school with guns racks in the back of their trucks with their deer rifles on them. No one thought about anyone getting angry and going for their guns and shooting anyone. I don’t recall a single incident where such violence ever occured during that time in any school.
I grew up hunting and still support the right to hunt. But I encourage people to google what a .223-caliber bushmaster rifle looks like.
Do we need weapons like this permeating our society when our childrens lives are at stake?
I agree that the drug situation needs to be looked at, but if the guns aren’t available in the first place then they can’t do the damage.
Yes someone cold just as easily use a knife, however it is much easier to over power someone with a knife than it is someone with a gun and the injuries inflicted with a knife whilst bad, in many cases don’t cause the same kind of damage as a gun does.
Hello John and Mark, you’re on the money with your article above. Totally agree with your thoughts. Here in Australia in 1996 we had the Port Arthur massacre where following the deaths of 34 people the current Prime Minister moved quickly and banned certain weapons. Called ‘The National Firearms Agreement’ people could trade their weaponry in such as the lethal rapid-fire long guns. Australia suffered 13 mass murders before they tightened the laws here but afterwards not one since. Obviously you can’t remove guns from everyone and people bent on mass destruction will try to find a way but you have to make it as difficult as possible for people to own firearms. Can’t believe that the NRA has as much power as they have over there. A very sad and sick situation. Hopefully Obama will push as hard as he can now for tighter controls. Until that happens more innocents are going to die and we are going to look on horrified around the world at too familiar scenes of frantic American parents racing to schools. I know Australia and Europe have a different mentality when it comes the concepts of liberty and freedom but until the NRA are taken on and the current lax laws tightened the blood shed won’t stop. Because this current one is the most innocent blood we’ve seen in awhile it might help with more restraints. A sad business for the world. Prayers and hugging your children are one thing but I hope Obama keeps going and doesn’t give up on this one.
How did you get your picture on there?
NOT THE GUNS:….The meds that are given to these children and most adults.
“One of the most common side effects of psychiatric drugs is violent
outbursts and thoughts of suicide.”
I’m always going to find myself behind the line of pro-education and pro-gun rights. It’s possible to learn the warning signs which can apply in a school or workplace setting. Reference:
http://forensiseuropa.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/2011_theconceptofleakage.pdf
It may be a pessimistic approach but at least its something.
@ jessld:
Storage at a location other than a home can cause headaches for legitimate gun owners. For example, let’s suppose that you want to go on a camping or hunting trip. When can you check out your gun?
I do think placing the level of responsibility for gun ownership on par with a driver’s licence is reasonable. You have to be there at either the Secretary of State’s office or police station to verify identity, they take the photo and issue the licence, perhaps a safety class and a test, etc.
Another layer of this, however, is that at a certain level it’s unpreventable. Consider the incident in China. China is a police state. Despite all the gun laws and constant surveillance they still have mass attacks, serial killers and terrorists.
At a certain level, maybe we have to accept these things are like earthquakes: deeply tragic but unpreventable.
So lets say in order to purchase the weapons he had had to have a license, to obtain which he had to present himself in person to the local police who would in turn carry out checks to confirm his identity and to confirm he had no history of mental health problems.
Following this, he could only purchase weapons in person and upon presentation of the license, and on that license each weapon in his possession had to be listed and registered with the local police.
If the weapons then had to be stored in accordance with my suggestion above, he may have found it more difficult to plan the events of yesterday and instead someone may have noticed that there was a young man with a problem and in need of help for which there could have been a more positive outcome.
@ jessld:
I looked it up. The Sig Sauer that he used was supposedly registered to his mother.
There’s two possibilities. One is that his mother was a legitimate gun owner herself. Another possibility is that he falsely registered the gun to his mother. To get a gun licence you generally do not need to be present and only need things like a driver’s licence number and a photo. This appears true for Conneticut:
http://www.ct.gov/despp/cwp/view.asp?a=4213&Q=494618&desppNav_GID=2080
Therefore it would have been easy for him to obtain his weapons by stealing his mother’s identity.
Apparently you can’t currently get registration for a semiautomatic rifle in Connecticut, which makes me wonder how long he was planning or fantasizing about this before it actually happened.
What concerns me about this situation is that it is possible to buy these types of weapon legally. Owning a small handgun to use in self defence may be understandable, but no-one needs these types of weapon in the home where they can so easily fall into the wrong hands.
Whilst it will never be possible to fully prevent these kinds of incident, they could very much be reduced in their frequency.
I fully appreciate that there are genuine gun enthusiasts out there who are responsible with their weapons, but guns like these need to be kept out of the hands of those who are not sound of mind.
Making it tougher for these types of weapons to be purchased would be the starting point, but there needs to the introduction of controls on how they are kept once purchased.
Making it illegal to have this type of weapon in the home would be a start, instead insisting that they should be kept at registered gun clubs where they can be securely locked up and under 24 hour security. People who want to take guns out to go hunting can sign them out and sign them back in again to keep track of them.
I can see no reason why ordinary, responsible people would have a problem with this and it mean that the chances of your weapon being stolen and used to perpetrate such a tragedy as this would be greatly reduced.
This is a very interesting and meaningful dialogue. The simple fact of the matter is that if an able and determined individual is willing to forfeit his own life, it is difficult to stop him from causing mayhem. But that is no reason not to try to do what we can.
Sherry brings up another interesting point by saying that the suicide may be prompted by finally realizing what lies beyond the dramatic act. This is a significant aspect of every potential mass murderer’s psychic makeup – what he has or has not planned after the event – and we will take it up as the topic of a future post.
I believe you see this type of violence more in America than in other countries than in other countries because America is becoming more of a permissive society where anything goes. America accepts everyone rather than offend them which creates confusion in the mind of those who have grown up without proper guidance or moral instruction.
We are seeing more and more where society considers right to be wrong and wrong to be right and for the most part a seemily indifference to the lack of morality. Many young people are growing up today with very few responsibilities if any, and are not being taught that choices have consequences. There is no individual accountability.
Every action is someone else’s fault. The music young people listen to, the video games they play, the movies they watch, the news and even sentences handed down by judges in actual court cases could validate the lack of consequences for bad choices in a disturbed mind.
Unlike the generation I grew up in where children were taught that if you commit murder you’re going to prison for life and life meant you weren’t getting out except in a pine box.
Already the media is blaming the home life he grew up in as the reason for his actions because he came from a dysfunctional family, but that is no excuse because many children grow up in dysfunctional families and they don’t go out and kill people.
I think in many of these type of crimes the reason these individual commit suicide is because once they commit the crime they for the first time realize that now they must wake up each morning. look in the mirror and live with themselves and the knowledge of the murders they have committed for the rest of their lives.
I believe that maybe for the first time in a long time they suddenly have a conscience and realize that there is accountability if to no one else then to themselves and to God, but once the murder is committed it cannot be undone, and they realize that also, so they choose to end their lives rather than to bear the consequences of their actions.
Devastated.
Let’s remember that Norway has some of the strictest gun control laws in the world. These sadistic, narcissistic, sociopaths exist everywhere.
I would advocate for education. Educate yourself on the warning signs. Mass shooters are not people who just “snap”. These massacres are planned for weeks or even months prior. Learn the warning signs.
Studies have shown that in prior school shootings, that some individuals were aware the potential for violence and for one reason or another chose not to inform proper authorities. My heart goes out to the families and friends of the victims. Looking for an answer now is hopeless.
Gun control isn’t the answer, as proven by the last two episodes of mass shootings. Both sets of weapons were stolen from individuals who purchased and registered the firearms legally. This is just my opinion though.
I support what you say, Sherry. You are right that these inadequate nobodies think they can glory in the enormity of the negative influence they have on the world. You are also right in defining the suicide as cowardice, something I wouldn’t say about suicide in more common situations. And of course, criminals do not obey gun laws. I will just add this: In other civilized nations, mass murders are so uncommon as to cause lasting national trauma when one occurs, as was the case in Norway. Yet here in the United States, mass killings with guns are so commonplace that we have trouble keeping each incident straight from the others. What is the difference between those other countries and us?
I join you in praying for God’s sentence on the perpetrator and His grace and comfort to the good and innocent victims and their families.
Criminals do not obey Gun Laws, so outlawing guns is not the answer to these acts of violence. This tragedy took place in a no-guns allowed zone, but it didn’t prevent it from happening because some selfish individual wanted to cause suffering to others I suppose so he could feel that he had accomplished something in life, but was too cowardly to stick around for the outcome, but maybe that’s because there is no earthly punishment that a person could be sentenced to that equals the crime he commited, so God himself will give the sentence.
I really share your resentment for emotionally crippled people who are prone to sacrifice innocent people in order to feel better themselves. The problem is they still exist and they will continue to exist. There must be a way to stop them from doing wrong. I would suggest that public establishments like schools churches theatres be equipped with electronic devices that detect weapons and other similar threats.