Connecticut school massacre.

No words.

Comments

[Thomas]

Can we at least have that conversation now?

[Peggy Hickle]

All I can hear is the sound of hearts breaking.

[Brian]

Wishful thinking Thomas based on what I've seen already happen on people's FB posts on the topic. Does LaPierre now say this situation would have been different if only the kids were armed?

[Karen]

No. It's people posting over at the Washington Post that it would have never happened if the teachers had been armed. When asked for an example of anyone, anywhere ever stopped an armed gunman bent on this type of rampage, no response, just the sound of crickets.

We need to have that discussion, but who has the political balls to start it?

[sean coon]

obama hinted at it. he sure as fuck better follow up on it. aside from the economy and immigration, this is now his second-term issue.

[Brian]

A primer on these sorts of senseless actions is here.

[justcorbly]

We tolerate the intolerable. If we acquiesce to claims that the Constitution gives people the right to own and trade in automatic and semi-automatic firearms, then we are not the kind of people who deserve the Constitution.

A court ruling that the 2nd Amendment applies only to the types of firearms in existence at the time it was written seems a thoroughly conservative judgement that even Scalia could sign.

[Spag]

I'm with Ed.

To hell with all of the rest of you right now.

[Brian]

Spag - Ed chose five words. You chose slightly more. Words just the same. Thanks for the englighted contribution.

[Andrew Brod]

I don't feel like talking about gun control right now. Perhaps it's also not the time to damn others to hell... unless we're talking about today's shooter.

What's haunting me is the thought of how scared those children must have been, and how for 20 of them that fear was their final experience.

Shabbat Shalom.

[Ged]

I don't have kids myself, at times like this I am glad I do not. I can only imagine the utter horror and despair those parents and survivors are experiencing at this hour. How anyone can commit acts like this is beyond my understanding, and reports saying he was a *parent* at this school?! How f*cked up is that?

My heart is broken. I have a niece these kids ages and when I think of today's events I want to clutch her to me and never let her go.

[Ed Cone]

There's a tradition at Metafilter of posting, as an entire comment in a thread about mourning or loss, a single period. It symbolizes a moment of silence.

This is an open forum. There may be wrong things to say, but that doesn't mean it's wrong to say something. I hope you'll all be careful today.

Some of us just don't want to say much right now, or we lack the wherewithal to say it.

.

[sean coon]

i think the metaphor i used for our political leaders today, when having this very discussion about grieving and discussing real change to our ridiculously open gun laws, is that they are very capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time.

the families and friends of these victims are grieving in an explicit and hopefully private manner; people in that community are coping on another level, in another way; and the rest of us are removed, but so very connected. i think we can all agree that saddened, shocked, sickened and disturbed doesn't cover the range of emotions.

but what we saw from the president at 3:15pm today was him chewing gum and walking at the same time. he was obviously overcome with emotion, but for that very reason, he hinted that this type of terrorism (my word) needs to be dealt with in our society.

just let that marinate for a bit and i'm sure we can get back to it in a few days when everyone feels the itch to chew.

[Hartzman]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2Dcw-6_T8A

[Marshall]

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[formerly gt]

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[sal leone]

It really is a sad world when a parent cant send their kids to school and feel safe anymore. Being in law enforcement now going on almost 20 years I cant remember any training or issues of rapid deployment ot active shooter prior to columbine. The world has changed and everyone seems to want to go out with a high body count. I dont think gun control would of helped any, anyone that wants a gun will find one. I do think that teachers and SRO with guns can reduce risk but lets talk about that later, Andrew is right, lets just pray and monday night quarterback later.

[Ged]

If I had kids I would *never* send them to a school that armed their teachers. NEVER.

[Bill Yaner]

Most of the parents called to that firehouse were reunited with their children who had survived the shooting. But 20 parents were told there of their loss.

As a father of two, I cannot begin to imagine the horror of that moment. Good Lord, please bless those parents tonight and bring them the peace that passeth all understanding.

[Hartzman]

"in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia (Afghanistan is, notably, not included). They count 354 total drone strikes, 302 under the Obama administration, with somewhere between 2,597 and 3,398 people killed, including between 473 and 889 civilians—and 176 children."

http://mobile.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2012/12/14/dronestream_u_s_drone_attacks_on_twitter.html

Who are we?

[RBM]

The 1:21AM comment notes the 'tribe' nature of the mourning in this thread.

The mourning, ideally, would include the species tribe.

My condolences to all involved in the violence.

[MojoNixon]

In the span of 20 years we conceptualized and brought into existence broadband Internet, smartphones, social media, and God knows how many other technological innovations.

Yet we cannot design a safe school?

We're not going to arm teachers, and we don't have the national willpower to tighten gun laws.

But we MUST be able to figure out a way to make a school safe for 10 minutes under this sort of scenario to give law enforcement time to arrive and prevent mass murder. This school recently enacted a new security protocol that was rendered moot when the murderer shot through a window and bypassed a locked security door.

It is time for the installation and use of tools like incapacitating lights in hallways and other innovative concepts to buy time.

I don't claim to have any specific knowledge of how to do this.

But there has to be a way to buy 10 minutes of time. Maybe we have the national willpower to consider how to do that.

[sean coon]

ed, please have your tech team upgrade this blog so i can simply like mojo's comment. thanks.

[polifrog]

No words, Ed?

Sick sad world

World?

A sick sad individual.

I don't see how this individual is indicative of anything worldly aside from the fact that even a even a sick sad child can leverage gun-free-zone solutions against the safety of children and citizens alike.

[Andrew Brod]

This guy agrees with Frog.

[polifrog]

Any pursuit of safety that is not only repeatedly undone, by the insane, by the sick and by children, but also magnifies the danger those individuals pose to their potential victims should be questioned.

It would be crazy not to.

[Fred Gregory]

Saturday in Connecticut

"A little defensive equipment and some parent volunteers to monitor the entrances (and metal detectors?) would be steps schools could take next week. Or we could wait for unicorns to ride away with all the scary handuns, shotgus and rifles in America and the world. That would probably reduce random acts of homicidal violence but the meticulous planners (and I would put the Aurora shooter in that category) will find a way. Again, no one is asking but the worst school day in US history was May 18, 1927, the day of the Bath School disaster:

The Bath School disaster is the name given to three bombings in Bath Township, Michigan, on May 18, 1927, which killed 38 elementary school children, two teachers, four other adults and the bomber himself; at least 58 people were injured. Most of the victims were children in the second to sixth grades (7–11 years of age[1]) attending the Bath Consolidated School. Their deaths constitute the deadliest mass murder in a school in U.S. history and the third-deadliest non-military massacre in U.S. history, behind 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombing.

The bomber was school board treasurer Andrew Kehoe, 55, who died in a car bomb he set off after he drove up to the school as the crowd gathered to rescue survivors from the burning school.

On the morning of May 18, Kehoe murdered his wife by beating her to death, then set his farm buildings afire. As fire fighters arrived at the farm, an explosion devastated the north wing of the school building, killing many schoolchildren. Kehoe used a detonator to ignite dynamite and hundreds of pounds of pyrotol which he had secretly planted inside the school over the course of many months. As rescuers started gathering at the school, Kehoe drove up, stopped, and detonated a bomb inside his fragmentation-filled vehicle with his Winchester rifle, killing himself and the school superintendent, and killing and injuring several others. During rescue efforts searchers discovered an additional 500 pounds (230 kg) of unexploded dynamite and pyrotol planted throughout the basement of the school's south wing. Kehoe apparently had intended to blow up and destroy the whole school."

Whacha gonna do when they come for you ?

[prell]

.

[sean coon]

some things can't be stopped, obviously. the above incident fred relays is american ingenuity at work in terrorist-abulous fashion. how can you call something like that in advance and stop it? you probably don't. you clean up the mess, put some standard security measures in play and hope it doesn't happen again.

the killings yesterday may not have been prevented with gun legislation changes or even with TSA-like security. someone hell bent on destruction might just find a way to take so many innocent lives, but there would be a lot of work for someone to go through to carry a shit ton of guns and ammo into a school in a world with much stricter gun laws and even a modicum of smart security measures like mojo describes above.

my ideas on tightening gun laws:

1. no more guns available to the general public other than pistols and hunting rifles. feel free to argue about the eventuality of needing to fight the government; it makes you sound crazy. btw, the syrians seemed to be able to move from pistols and revolvers to tanks as it became necessary, so there's that if you were planning a move to montana. in my world, if someone is caught with a weapon other than the above and found guilty, sentencing is a minimum 10 years on each count. i apologize up front to law abiding citizen big gun owners for having to find another hobby, new items to collect or to defend your home only one bullet at a time, but i'd rather have less gun violence in our culture than more. all a bigger, badder gun does is kill more efficiently or blow shit up in a bigger fashion. the former is sick, and the latter is corny. play video games to get your rocks off.

2. an applicant for a firearm license must pass a detailed federal background check which considers criminal, mental and domestic violence records. like a driver's license, it must be re-upped, but not once every 5 to 10 years, once a year. and just like how your insurance rate goes up immediately after receiving and pleading to a moving violation, your gun license becomes revoked for 5 years after a domestic abuse charge/plea/conviction comes into play and then you'd have to do some serious explaining, in person, to get it back. sorry, but the standard for gun ownership should be that healthy homes can have guns, not the other way around. people need to learn to communicate, have patience with one another, be mentally sound and not have a criminal record before having the right to own guns. if people resort to a kitchen knife in a second domestic dispute, so be it. the smart money is on domestic killings still going down.

3. someone caught with a gun of any type, without a license, goes up the creek for a long, long time. this is how you get criminals to give up guns. it won't happen 100% overnight, but the decline in premeditated, trying-to-get-away-with-it crimes that involve guns will be sharp. similarly, all gun dealers must be federally-licensed firearms dealers. no more gun shows or dirt road gun stores flying under the radar. they must all comply to the paperwork and reporting the feds require. right now, 40% of all gun dealers aren't in play.

4. anyone who owns a gun must have it locked securely—like a shotgun in a cop car—when not in use. you want to keep it in a drawer or in a box, fine, no one will be checking your home, but you'll be taking a huge risk. if your gun is used by someone else, family member or friend or a thief in the night, in any type of crime—even a suicide or accident—you're an accessory. period. we sure do love our guns in america, but we treat them like toys. no more "responsible if you feel like it" approach with guns. if nancy lanza was incentivised to be ridiculously responsible with her guns, who knows what might have happened differently. what we do know is that guns wouldn't be so loosely shared and left laying around.

5. carry permits go bye, bye. you want to go hunting? have a permit to make it legal to have your gun in your car. same thing for shooting rounds in the friggin' desert. from point A to point B, you need a permit to travel with your gun. no more wild, wild west state laws that allow citizens to walk into a restaurant strapped while simultaneously having to step outside in the same establishment to smoke a cigarette. a carry permit is an absolutely crazy concept. for every argument about stopping a lunatic with a gun by carrying, i can point to 100 reports of that not happening... or the carry permit guy being the one shooting first. we also need to remove the term "gun enthusiast" from our lexicon. everyone with a gun is an enthusiast—career criminal or otherwise—but until we all can be guaranteed that the "otherwise" folks aren't going to turn into criminals through their actions, then guns need to be off the street. again, if you're caught and found guilty without one of those A to B permits in play, 10 in the clink.

essentially, less guns on the streets, less firepower and more responsibility for those who sell them/want them. this individualistic "kill or be killed" at the o.k. corral mentality is destroying our society.

wake up.

[polifrog]

Prell, it would have been best had Ed stopped with a "." as well.

Instead he ascribed responsibility for the actions of an individual to the world, to society, to you, to me, to your neighbor.

What does such a leap allow? --the foundation for arguments that society as a whole must in some fashion pay for the actions of an individual.

It is interesting that upon creating a group of would be victims unable to defend themselves without subsequently providing a defense for those it disarmed, government is not blamed. Instead Ed turns to not only to his neighbors, but, indeed, the entire world to ascribe blame.

[Spag]

No, he didn't.

[Worst person on the internet]

Methinks you're reading a wee bit much into this one Poli.

[Andrew Brod]

You say that like this is the first time.

[George Hartzman]

someone twittered the make and model rifle used on walmart's web site. how many are out there? every insident massively covered by the msm create further purchases. how much ammo has been picked up in the last 48 hours? r some suggesting confiscation? or inability to purchase? r there laws on the books regulating firearm locks around the mentally ill or etc...?

[Steve Harrison]

It's starting to look like the mom was a Prepper, who thought the best therapy for a troubled kid was to take him out on the shooting range.

But I'm sure those things had nothing to do with this tragedy...

[Hartzman]

"Let us assume you are in the school when Adam Lanza enters and begins to shoot children. You see him murder a child in cold blood. He has his back turned to you and beyond him is a solid concrete-block wall -- no innocent children or adults. On the table next to you, within arms reach, appears a loaded gun. You have 2 seconds to decide before Adam kills another child: Will you shoot Adam Lanza and stop his assault or not?"

http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=214983

[sean coon]

holy shit, hartzman, could you please jump into a time capsule and return to the day you discovered this blog and just go for a long walk? you're not provocative, you're an asshole.

[Hartzman]

Quite the emotional response Sean.

If there is to be an open debate as to solutions, other views than your own have to be heard.

I would assume many told women what you just told me when they were trying to get the right to vote.

[Andrew Brod]

Yes, you're exactly right. Sean's comment is tantamount to opposing universal suffrage.

[Hartzman]

I didn't say "tantamount to opposing universal suffrage" Andrew,
so I'll take that as another insult instead of arguing the question.

Christian preachers used to tell their flocks God said slavery is OK.

Now we have people saying if there was more God in schools
this wouldn't have happened.

Both wrong in my view.

We have a problem with mental illness.

We have a problem with people getting hypnotized by our national media.

Meanwhile, our government doesn't seem to have a problem
doing the same things in our name.

I don't trust the government to propose/adopt a viable solution.

We have been lied into killing hundreds of thousands
and now those who continue are in charge of disarming our population?

The government has no moral ground on which to stand.

[Hartzman]

"A possibility: People who have a different opinion (or certainty)
about what must be done in the wake of Newtown
are as horrified as you are about what happened
and think the solution you find obvious
is as nutty as you think theirs."

Ed Cone

[Hugh]

"We're not going to arm teachers,"

Tell that to this school in Texas:
Texas school where teachers carry guns prepared to protect students

"Besides special locks and security cameras, an undisclosed number of staff members and teachers carry concealed handguns."

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/12/14/4486104/texas-school-where-teachers-carry.html#storylink=cpy

[sean coon]

[...] "We have been lied into killing hundreds of thousands and now those who continue are in charge of disarming our population?

The government has no moral ground on which to stand."

=======

by removing access to ridiculously powerful guns, not all guns mind you, the government (who are us, btw) is "disarming our population?"

ok, let's call it a disarmament. in light of all these ridiculous shootings with automatic weapons, you're ok excusing their place in society *just in case* there's the need for a revolution down the road? george, we live in america, 240 years deep into the birthplace of modern democracy. if we lived somewhere in the mideast, africa, eastern europe, china, etc. that argument would have merit (well, within the countries that allow citizens firearms). as it is, your position is both paranoid and irresponsible.

let's be adults. hell, let's be men. let's learn to live without so many weapons to save just one child's life. it isn't a redaction of freedom; it's an evolution of responsibility.

[polifrog]

Spag:

No, he didn't.

and WPOTI:

Methinks you're reading a wee bit much into this one Poli.

Still think so?

Ed is just one of many. When enough like him blame the world rather than the individual for the actions of that individual, the liberties of the innocent and those uninvolved become curtailed.

I said:

Prell, it would have been best had Ed stopped with a "." as well.

Instead he ascribed responsibility for the actions of an individual to the world, to society, to you, to me, to your neighbor.

What does such a leap allow? --the foundation for arguments that society as a whole must in some fashion pay for the actions of an individual.

It is interesting that upon creating a group of would be victims unable to defend themselves without subsequently providing a defense for those it disarmed, government is not blamed. Instead Ed turns to not only to his neighbors, but, indeed, the entire world to ascribe blame.

How was I wrong?