At every opportunity to exploit a tragedy, gun control fanatics jump on their political soap boxes and scream about banning certain weapons and enacting more gun control legislation...But is more gun control legislation and the banning of certain weapons the simple cure all to tragedies like the shooting in Connecticut, or are there more serious and complicated issues at work surrounding these tragedies that need to be addressed?

Quote:"A possible motive for the Conn. school shooting is revealed by a friend of Nancy Lanza, the mother of the shooter, Adam Lanza. Nancy was in the process of having Adam committed to a psychiatric institution due to his recent behavior and Adam wanting nothing to do with this,...Adam knew Nancy was in the process of petitioning the court to have Adam committed and he was angry at his mother for doing this to him. All he could take in and understand was that his mother wanted him to go away."

http://www.examiner.com/article/conn-sch...connection

Charles Krauthammer responds:

Quote: "...We had a decade with an assault weapons ban fro the mid 90s, it lasted for a decade. If you look at the studies it had no appreciable influence on gun violence or the lethality of individual attacks. And there are three elements here. Yeah, it's the shooter, it's the weapon, it's the environment. And all that liberals and the mainstream media want to look at, of course, is the weapon. But there are other ways of looking at this....If you look at the shooter himself and the mental health issue, the fact that you cannot get a commitment on these kinds of people. I'm thinking mostly of Jared Loughner, the shooter in Tucson, Arizona. Everybody knew he was a grenade about to go off. Anybody who knew him, was in class with him said that. But you could only stop him after he killed....And we have moved so radically the last fifty years to making it difficult to commit people who are dangerous, that there has to be a shift in the other direction...."

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2...lence.html

Don't get me wrong, I am pro gun control, but I am astonished at how it is the only issue people seem to be concerned about. We need to have a discussion on the national level about mental health issues and bullying, too. Focusing only on the guns is simply starting the path to the next tragedy.

(December 19, 2012 at 9:30 am)Faith No More Wrote: Don't get me wrong, I am pro gun control, but I am astonished at how it is the only issue people seem to be concerned about. We need to have a discussion on the national level about mental health issues and bullying, too. Focusing only on the guns is simply starting the path to the next tragedy.

Absolutely...there's a lot more complicated issues surrounding these tragedies that need attention other than just focusing on guns...and mental health is one of them...

Do you think Obamacare will cover psychological exams for every gun owner?

Possibly the best perspective I've read on this yet:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/16...11009.html

Quote:I am sharing this story because I am Adam Lanza’s mother. I am Dylan Klebold’s and Eric Harris’s mother. I am James Holmes’s mother. I am Jared Loughner’s mother. I am Seung-Hui Cho’s mother. And these boys—and their mothers—need help. In the wake of another horrific national tragedy, it’s easy to talk about guns. But it’s time to talk about mental illness.

According to Mother Jones, since 1982, 61 mass murders involving firearms have occurred throughout the country. Of these, 43 of the killers were white males, and only one was a woman. Mother Jones focused on whether the killers obtained their guns legally (most did). But this highly visible sign of mental illness should lead us to consider how many people in the U.S. live in fear, like I do.

When I asked my son’s social worker about my options, he said that the only thing I could do was to get Michael charged with a crime. “If he’s back in the system, they’ll create a paper trail,” he said. “That’s the only way you’re ever going to get anything done. No one will pay attention to you unless you’ve got charges.”

That was a terrible article summer. I read it the other day; it's despicable...effectively lumping all children with mental health issues into the same camp as people who commit these atrocities. No, the writer of that article is not Adam Lamza's mother; she is not Dylan Klebold or Eric Harris' mother either. She is the mother of a mentally ill son, and should not make the massive assumptions she is making about him.

I would ask that you read some responses to the article, which I think make very good points about why the original author is only contributing to the problem:

http://www.disabilityandrepresentation.c...as-mother/
http://thegirlwhowasthursday.wordpress.c...as-mother/

The gun control piece of the puzzle - and it is just one piece - is probably the easiest one to accomplish. The other two questions: Why do we have so many crazies and why are we so committed to glorifying violence are a lot tougher.

I cannot imagine that there are fewer crazies on a percentage basis in other parts of the developed world so we can look at the carnage here and point to the absurd number of guns laying around as a cause but the triggers do not pull themselves.

Yes, the mass shootings get everyone talking but it also distracts us from the daily count of 82 dead on average. If we lost 82 soldiers in Afghanistan in one day people would consider it a bloodbath.

So, I was astounded to see that even the NY Post - normally slightly to the right of the Vőlkischer Beobachter - ran this editorial.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/edi...sOCZkPJ1XP

Quote:Has technology rendered the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution obsolete?

That is, has the application of modern military design to civilian firearms produced a class of weapons too dangerous to be in general circulation?

We say: Yes.

But even the Post is guilty of ignoring the rest of the problem. There is something about this country - or this people - which makes us different from the rest of the civilized world and we had damn well better start to figure out what it is.

For the first, I agree the privacy thing is an issue.

I didn't equate everyone with mental issues into the same camp. Does everyone else have that problem with lumping everyone together? I should think we at least on this board understand that not every atheist is a militant atheist. Or are we the only people capable of seeing in shades of grey?

Nor did I have trouble understanding that not every mass murder spree is the result of psychosis. She wrote it to say that there are people with violent tendencies who need help and aren't getting it.

Quote:By reducing ‘mental illness’ to ‘outward behaviour’ the article dehumanises the mentally ill and completely glosses over the inner mental life and experiences of those with mental illness.

Isn't a call to have more help and understanding about these things addressing this issue?

(December 19, 2012 at 11:31 am)Tiberius Wrote: That was a terrible article summer. I read it the other day; it's despicable...effectively lumping all children with mental health issues into the same camp as people who commit these atrocities. No, the writer of that article is not Adam Lamza's mother; she is not Dylan Klebold or Eric Harris' mother either. She is the mother of a mentally ill son, and should not make the massive assumptions she is making about him.

I would ask that you read some responses to the article, which I think make very good points about why the original author is only contributing to the problem:

http://www.disabilityandrepresentation.c...as-mother/
http://thegirlwhowasthursday.wordpress.c...as-mother/

All I can say is Wow!....unbelievable that a parent could do that to their own child...you know, maybe it's that mother who should be evaluated for a mental illness...no wonder that poor kid has issues....and no telling what that mother maybe creating in her own son...I have to agree Tib, it's despicable!

Quote:"He will know about his mother’s post. So will everyone who knows his mother: his teachers, his schoolmates, his friends, his neighbors, his community members. So will millions of strangers. How exactly does this article enhance her son’s functioning? His mental state? His sense of safety? His ability to navigate the world?
It pains me to imagine how he must feel right now to have his private conversations and actions broadcast on the Internet for all to see. It pains me to imagine how he must feel to read some of the horrendous things that people are saying about him.
And yes, his feelings matter. His feelings matter quite a lot. Because he is a child who needs help, and for that help to matter, he has to feel safe, and he has to feel respected, and he has to feel that his private life has boundaries around it.

---

(December 19, 2012 at 11:43 am)thesummerqueen Wrote: For the first, I agree the privacy thing is an issue.

I didn't equate everyone with mental issues into the same camp. Does everyone else have that problem with lumping everyone together? I should think we at least on this board understand that not every atheist is a militant atheist. Or are we the only people capable of seeing in shades of grey?

Nor did I have trouble understanding that not every mass murder spree is the result of psychosis. She wrote it to say that there are people with violent tendencies who need help and aren't getting it.

Quote:By reducing ‘mental illness’ to ‘outward behaviour’ the article dehumanises the mentally ill and completely glosses over the inner mental life and experiences of those with mental illness.

Isn't a call to have more help and understanding about these things addressing this issue?

"Isn't a call to have more help and understanding about these things addressing this issue?"....Yes...you're right, absolutely...but for a parent to bring attention to the issue by using their own mentally ill child and publicly lumping him together with mass killers who have mental illnesses is just beyond belief....as was pointed out the boy's school, his teachers, his friends...will read the article...this is not going to have a good impact on that boy.

(December 19, 2012 at 11:31 am)Tiberius Wrote: That was a terrible article summer. I read it the other day; it's despicable...effectively lumping all children with mental health issues into the same camp as people who commit these atrocities. No, the writer of that article is not Adam Lamza's mother; she is not Dylan Klebold or Eric Harris' mother either. She is the mother of a mentally ill son, and should not make the massive assumptions she is making about him.

I would ask that you read some responses to the article, which I think make very good points about why the original author is only contributing to the problem:

http://www.disabilityandrepresentation.c...as-mother/
http://thegirlwhowasthursday.wordpress.c...as-mother/

You are right. A sane person can do the same thing and Eric and Dylan were sane.

But she was a right winger nut who feared the government and just like the lady who owned the chimp that ripped a woman's face off, this mother in this case failed to understand that autism does not mean unintelligent, it is a disorder of the brain that can allow for smarts but not emotional maturity. That chimp was smart enough to learn how to unlock the house door and escaped a couple of times.

This kid was ahead of his grade, but still had the emotional maturity of a kid. He still had no business near guns anymore than Eric or Dylan did. Mentally ill or not, the signs were missed that in both cases that there was a problem. And I still do not see why a non military person needs military style weapons. Mentally ill or not.

I simply don't want your rightful statement to be used as an excuse to do nothing, because that is what we have been doing.