Patterico's Pontifications

12/14/2012

Mass Shooter Was Autistic: How Relevant Was This?

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 8:27 pm



The Atlantic Wire:

According to the Associated Press, Ryan described his younger brother to authorities as “somewhat autistic” and said he suffered from a personality disorder.

Ann Bauer, from 2009, writing about her autistic son:

I went into his room, took some clothes from the closet, handed them to him. And hinting at what he was about to do only with a small sigh, as if to say, “I’ve had enough,” my son picked me up and threw me across the room.

I had three broken ribs and a bit of damage to my liver that made my doctor fret. Still, who among us hasn’t wanted to toss our mother across the room when she’s nattering on and making cheerful sounds in the morning? I dismissed it as an aberration until a couple weeks later when Andrew decked his elderly tutor, knocking her onto a concrete sidewalk and breaking her hand. He went on to attack several staff members at the group home, grope the mentally handicapped young women who attended his transition program, and finally to accost his 14-year-old sister right in front of my eyes.

. . . .

Secretly, as if committing a sacrilege, I searched online using keywords such as “autism” and “violence” and “murder.” What I found was confusing. There were roughly a dozen recent articles about heinous acts committed by people with autism and Asperger’s syndrome, but each was followed by editorials and letters written by autism advocates vigorously denying a link. There were a few studies from the ’80s and ’90s, but the results — when they showed a higher rate of violent crime among people with autism — appeared to have been quieted or dismissed.

The whole article is worth reading. And the incidence of violence by those with autism is worth discussing. Not to demonize those with autism, but to confront facts and be aware.

UPDATE: I want to make something very clear. I have no desire to demonize autistic children. I know people with very sweet-natured children who are autistic or Asperger’s. The link in the article was sent to me by someone with a severely autistic child who had personally experienced or witnessed violent tendencies of the sort described in the article. I had never heard of this possible connection before and thought it worth raising.

I have not read the studies mentioned in the article, but I am concerned about the author’s representation that some studies indicate a relationship between autism and violence — yet the results of those studies have been minimized. IF this is the case, and I’m not saying it is, it should concern everyone — but especially the parents of autistic children.

I understand how people with autistic children could have a negative emotional reaction to the post and the linked article. It is not my intent to upset such people. Again, I am not trying to demonize anyone. I am raising a possible connection that interested me because I had not heard about it before yesterday.

833 Responses to “Mass Shooter Was Autistic: How Relevant Was This?”

  1. Ding.

    Patterico (8b3905)

  2. Lots to talk about, but I don’t think “give them all guns” is going to be the consensus answer. From all news reports, the weapons were his mother’s. If so, you just gotta ask: shouldn’t they have been more secure?

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  3. WTF are you guys talking about? This is a mental defective whose mother bought him guns. And some bigger mental defectives gave her a job in a .kindergarten

    nk (875f57)

  4. it is to the small sighs that attention must be paid

    happyfeet (5553f5)

  5. Patterico, I’m sorry.

    But an idiot, raising an idiot, should not have loaded guns in the house. And she should not be working in a school.

    nk (875f57)

  6. Also, the “autism spectrum” covers quite a broad range of issues, and one can be called that and be seriously mentally ill. If this guy was able to buy a gun legally, they really need to look into that.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  7. Instead of rethinking our gun laws maybe we should rethink our institutionalize the crazies laws.

    kaf (81bcc7)

  8. writing about her autistic son:

    Sheesh.

    “And other than THAT, Mrs Lincoln, how was the play?!”

    To say there were warning signs is an understatement. The killer now reminds me to an even greater degree of Nidal Hasan, who also left a trail of hints that he could easily go berserk.

    Have we learned a damn thing about such a person, about the type of situation surrounding him?! No. The military still is infused with political correctness gone off the deep end. If anything, the extremism of Islamism is tolerated to an even greater degree now than before (hello, commander in chief of Obamaland!).

    Then there are murder-ridden places like Chicago (hi, Obamaland!), which still promote gun control as fervently as ever before.

    Meanwhile, the mental-health industry (with the support of groups like the ACLU) still wants all of society to tell psychologically disturbed people (homeless ones, at that): “Your rights are sacred and shall be honored, above and beyond anything else!! Who are we to say you’re troubled and leading a mad existence!? If it feels good, do it!”

    Thanks, liberals. You’re all so beautiful and wonderful, and our society reflects that.

    Mark (94cc2f)

  9. WTF are you guys talking about? This is a mental defective whose mother bought him guns.

    Hogwash. There is nothing to suggest this is the case.

    JD (318f81)

  10. I don’t think referring to autistic people as crazies adds much to the discussion.

    JD (318f81)

  11. Then how did he get them, JD?

    nk (875f57)

  12. KevinM–they were apparently his mom’s guns. Legal and registered. The problem is that he had access to them. The “she was a teacher- no she was a teacher’s aid–no she was a substitute teacher” seems to be falling apart. (Like so much that was reported today.) Now some at Gateway are speculating that with that artillery she may have been some sort of LE.

    elissa (d0c7e2)

  13. “And she should not be working in a school.”

    nk – What disqualifies her from working in a school?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  14. “Still, who among us hasn’t wanted to toss our mother across the room when she’s nattering on and making cheerful sounds in the morning?”

    Until now, I thought I was the only one who thought this way and it was my secret shame. Now I realize I am not alone.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  15. NK, along with many details in the story, the “worked at the school” one is evolving. She maynnotmhave currently working there, and when she did, it was in the capacity of helper or volunteer.

    Sarahw (b0e533)

  16. JD: his brother said he was autistic, had Aspergers, and a”personality disorder”. I was aiming at the last one.

    kaf (81bcc7)

  17. I’m apologizing all the time, here, it seems.

    He was a f***ing crazy and he used guns, and ammunition, his mother, a teacher’s aide, bought.

    Your witness, counsel.

    nk (875f57)

  18. i still think he’d been watching cnn pimp the shopping mall thing and a lightbulb went off

    happyfeet (5553f5)

  19. Do’h! This post by Patterico confused me. Why are the details of another woman and her son necessarily relevant to the case in Connecticut?! For all we know, today’s killer may have exhibited a comparatively mild-mannered form of autism.

    Mark (94cc2f)

  20. Kaf – sorry, I wasn’t specifically referring to you. My bad. I have just seen a lot of autistic/aspie are crazies to be institutionalized at other places.

    Nk – WTF are you guys talking about? This is a mental defective whose mother bought him guns.

    There is nothing to suggest that she purchased the guns for him, bought him guns, etc … It seems she legally purchased the guns, and they were properly registered.

    JD (318f81)

  21. Wait.
    How do the lefties know the shooter wasn’t provoked by a You Tube video ?

    Elephant Stone (65d289)

  22. How did he escape the court system, being this violent?

    htom (412a17)

  23. There are over 300,000,000 people in the United States. Today one of them did a particularly horrendous crime. It is terribly sad, and in one way we would like to say, “if only X” in order to put the tragedy in a box and push it aside so we can say, “won’t happen again”.

    I thought I read where in Israel they have people in the schools that are armed to protect against teoorists; people that are not in uniform as security guards, just some of the teachers, or grandparent volunteers as hall monitors, etc.

    We really don’t know much for sure about the person’s mental state. I had never heard about people with autism being prone to violence, but then again it is a wide spectrum of function. Anything that alters basic human interaction and interferes with bonding interferes with having empathy. Lacking empathy makes it easy to be a criminal.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  24. People should read that article.

    Patterico (8b3905)

  25. That’s me but apparently I’m not logged in as admin.

    Patterico (8b3905)

  26. He apparently was considered well enough to attend high school. Bet you there are some classmates there feeling a little iffy tonight.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  27. That he had access to deadly weapons in the first place is disturbing, but there is no indication she gave him weapons.

    Maybe he stole a key or jimmied a locked cabinet, or hacked the code on her safe.

    Sarahw (b0e533)

  28. I read the articles linked. Frankly, I have no clue if and how much autism played in this – we don’t even know for sure that he was indeed autistic. And we don’t know what went on behind the closed doors of his home. Mostly, it feels unseemly to be speculating at this point when everything is so raw.

    What I do know after reading Ann Bauer’s article (2nd link) about her son, is that some parents end up with children they cannot reach, and worse, cannot save. That must be the ultimate nightmare – the one where even your fiercest love and hope cannot penetrate the wall, let alone stem the increasing tidal wave of violence. That was once a lovable baby welcomed into the arms of his parents. They knew him before he became a monster. And the same with Adam Lanza.

    My heart goes out to the families who lost loved ones today and will never be the same again. But also toward another family that was utterly destroyed from the inside out.

    Dana (292dcf)

  29. Kevin – an honors student who graduated three years early.

    Sarahw (b0e533)

  30. He is reported to have a congenital pain insensitivity syndrome, I don’t know what type. He might have walked arms down stiffly with hands in pockets to avoid injury. He hated to talk. Some kids with this problem bite off the tip of the tongue in infancy., or worry about mouth injury.

    Sarahw (b0e533)

  31. People should read that article.

    I guess it makes sense that someone naive enough to write about “insisting that autism is beautiful, mysterious, perhaps even evolutionarily necessary” would have been going to an Obama inauguration party.

    Dave (in MA) (016fb2)

  32. Not to demonize those with autism, but to confront facts and be aware.

    It’s a shame anyone has to caveat a statement about confronting facts and raising awareness has to caveat at it with a preface that he’s not out to demonize anyone. But that’s the world we live in.

    Since it is, let’s confront another set of facts. These mass shootings are not in any way related to the availability of guns. They are the result of conscious policy choices that result in a society that requires childproofing.

    We have to have a society that’s safe enough for the Gerald Laughners of the world to run around unescorted. Committing people such as the Gabby Giffords shooter would be “demonizing” them. We must live among them cheek by jowel. And the people who insist we must then go on to insist that the rest of us live by the same rules the Gerald Laughners have to live by to keep us safe from the Gerald Laughners who can’t be locked up.

    Even those not clinically insane are taught they’re incapable of exercising self control. How many generations of school children have been raised under the philosophy that you’ll never prevent teenagers from scrogging like goats, so you might as well hand out free condoms and let them go at it. And then there are the zero tolerance rules for weapons. Because of course just the sight of a miniature toy gun or some kid making the shape of a gun out of his hand on the playground will turn kids into stone killers. Because guns are apparently capable of possessing people like Satan.

    Essentially kids are growing up learning that they must be protected from themselves. They need some authority to separate them from objects that they’ll just hurt themselves with because, like their genitals, they’ll just use them.

    I hear of the rules my friend’s and relative’s kids have to put up with in school and I don’t see how they put up with it. A kid expelled for bringing a Swiss Army knife to school? When I was in school who didn’t have a Swiss Army knife on them? I recall going on field trips and we were supposed to bring sheath knives. It was on the list of things they’d send home with us. So there we are before school hanging out in the parking lot waiting for the bus to show up to take us on the field trip. A bunch of 10 or 11 year olds all wearing sheath knives on our belts. No one got stabbed or cut.

    Today somebody would have called a SWAT team.

    But it isn’t like the kids growing up today know a different way to live. They’ve been groomed since childhood to believe being micromanaged is for their own good.

    This is in a British newspaper, but it applies here as well:

    How children lost the right to roam in four generations

    When George Thomas was eight he walked everywhere.

    It was 1926 and his parents were unable to afford the fare for a tram, let alone the cost of a bike and he regularly walked six miles to his favourite fishing haunt without adult supervision.

    Fast forward to 2007 and Mr Thomas’s eight-year-old great-grandson Edward enjoys none of that freedom.

    He is driven the few minutes to school, is taken by car to a safe place to ride his bike and can roam no more than 300 yards from home.

    Kids today know nothing but the nanny state. And the nanny state is predicated on the idea that the lowest common denominator is the norm.

    The people creating generations of children who can’t control themselves because they’ve never been expected to, and those who demonstrate they can such as Christian athletes who remain virgins are vilified…

    ‘Virgin Sh**’: Critics Blame Lolo Jones’ Virginity for Her 4th Place Olympic Finish

    while single teen moms get their own TV show, are deliberately creating a collection of individuals unable to govern themselves.

    It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Good subjects not only can’t control themselves but are praised for recognizing they can’t (see the above about Christians who are too stupid to know that) and that they need a benevolent master to govern them.

    They are good subjects, not citizens, and subjects can’t be trusted with weapons.

    Steve57 (25fb74)

  33. It seems to me we just spent a lot of time arguing that young women need free birth control.

    But it seems to me perhaps young men (young people) need free mental health screening.

    The shooters lately are these early 20 year old men with delicate mental stability. Do families have the support they need when they see their young men going off the rails? Do people know what to look for?

    MayBee (085e06)

  34. Correction: Jared Loughner.

    Steve57 (25fb74)

  35. Maybee, here’s the nub of the problem:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/11/us/hole-in-gun-control-law-lets-mentally-ill-through.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

    …Connecticut last year passed another law, the first of its kind in the nation, that allows the police to obtain a court warrant to seize any guns from a person who, in their judgment, is a danger to himself or others. Soon after the law took effect last fall, the police used it to confiscate five guns from a man in North Branford who was depressed after being suspended by his factory for an assault and had told officers he was going to kill his neighbors and co-workers.

    Connecticut not only has strict gun laws but they can confiscate guns (I’m confused by the NYT’s use of the term “court warrant” as I understand the police can confiscate guns without a court order) from the mentally unstable.

    But they can’t do anything about leaving someone who’s mentally unstable to walk the streets, and possibly steal a gun.

    It isn’t the gun that people need to be protected from; I’m at a loss to decide who’s crazier. The loon who’s hearing voices that tell him to kill people, or the pols who leave the loon out in the community while patting themselves on the back that the gun’s off the street.

    Steve57 (25fb74)

  36. Why in the world did the brother have to be publicly handcuffed and perp-walked? That seems pretty outrageous to me.

    I understand the need to talk to him, but why go to his work, cuff him, and march him around? He’s just finding out his mother was killed and his brother did something heinous, and he’s treated like that? Awful.

    MayBee (085e06)

  37. some of the comments on here are so very ignorant.
    examples:
    1) How did he escape the court system, being this violent?

    2) Lacking empathy makes it easy to be a criminal.
    (my response: dear idiot , i have aspergers & 37 y/o
    with no criminal record, explain how its “easy”)

    3) maybe we should rethink our institutionalize the crazies laws. ( comment from ignorant individual if “crazies” refers to aspergers & not psycosis)

    AspiesAreGettingAbadRap (73a5a9)

  38. Steve- yeah. Although even beyond guns. There are a lot of parents who have unstable adult children (who probably aren’t going to shoot people) and they have no idea what to do with them.

    MayBee (085e06)

  39. I don’t know about Connecticutt, but in Illinois treatment for mental illness or addiction is not reportable, or even discoverable in a criminal or civil proceeding. Even a commitment proceeding. That’s how the nutcases get by “the system”.

    I agree with the law. I want people to look for help without fear of stigma.

    I believe Ronald Reagan initiated the closing down of “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” snakepits.

    nk (875f57)

  40. Patterico- thanks for that article. It was very interesting, and I found the part talking about the way autism is also treated as a mystical, special state very true. The politics surrounding autism has been fascinating for a while now. From the anti-vaccination lobby to the kind of craze to have your child diagnosed as autistic, the parents of autism-spectrum kids don’t make it easy to discuss the facts, or even figure out what they are.

    MayBee (085e06)

  41. It’s not the autism – it’s the SSRI (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor) drugs or more specifically, the lack of them. Go back and look at most of these mass murders and you’ll find the drug evidence present in all of them. Many will say, “they were being treated with drugs”, but if that’s what happens with the drugs, then that’s still a huge failure. Discontinuing SSRIs trigger all sorts of major psychotic episodes, many which don’t reach the national news, but are tragic and horrible nonetheless.

    The drug lawyers provide all sorts of weasel clauses with their medications, but none of that matters when it comes down to an individuals actions. I’m sure the shooter could care less.

    All that said, this type of thing takes planning and coordination. There’s more here than simply someone being out of touch, or flying off the handle.

    Chris (59349e)

  42. Twenty children are dead!

    The mother****’s mother bought him allowed him access to guns. Some other mother*****s allowed her access to children.

    This is not a f***ing philosophical discussion.

    nk (875f57)

  43. We don’t have autopsy results yet. He may have beaten/tortured her into giving him access to the guns.

    Icy (e74af9)

  44. The mother****’s mother bought him allowed him access to guns. Some other mother*****s allowed her access to children.

    You have something to show she allowed him access to her guns? Why should she not be allowed to be around children?

    JD (9adec8)

  45. All that said, this type of thing takes planning and coordination. There’s more here than simply someone being out of touch, or flying off the handle.
    Comment by Chris (59349e) — 12/15/2012 @ 3:24 am

    — WHAT “type of thing takes planning and coordination”? His crime? Bulls***.

    Icy (e74af9)

  46. Don’t you see, JD? Every person that works at a school should undergo a background check so rigorous that it includes an evaluation of all your relatives to determine if any of them are potential school shooters.

    Icy (e74af9)

  47. Sorry, nk. I just think we should be more careful with the known facts. Which at this point, are more likely to be wrong than right. The fact that 20 children are dead does not give us license to create a narrative unmoored from the facts.

    JD (318f81)

  48. This ‘article’ is anecdotal and i am disgusted to read it hear. My son has Asperger’s (soon to be eliminated from the DSM and brought into the autism spectrum disorder). People wioth autism also suffer from other complicating ‘mental ailments’ a responsible parent is in tune with their child and gets them the proper help and care-my son wouldn’t even raise his voice to me…should Iwrite and article about how gentle he is, never hurts anyone and basically show he is the exact opposite of this woman’s son…then will that be proof that people with autism are non-violent. “Confront the fact”? Blow it out your ass…this article is self-serving given the information about this murderous scum. I hate top break it to you but I work in a prison with violent felons on a regular basis…few to none I have come across exhibit any signs of autism-mostly borderline personality disorders and signs of having been raised by piece of crap parents. You Patterico should be well aware of this given your job! Thanks for making my places to stop on the internet 1 less!

    Pamela (90e140)

  49. deep calming breaths think of the color blue

    blue

    blue

    happyfeet (5553f5)

  50. Thank you for providing the link to the Bauer article.

    NCC (dc318a)

  51. Pamela, Pat ASKED the question. He didn’t claim it was the cause.

    You’ll be missed! /sarc

    Amalgamated Cliff Divers, Local 157 (721840)

  52. the cnn says that planned violence is rare in autistic people most violence you see with them is *reactive* violence and the article seems to support that I think

    plus soledad knows an autistic kid and she says they’re not violent

    soledad needs a tissue btw if you are in the area

    happyfeet (5553f5)

  53. I participate in a little group of ladies, some of whom have children afflicted and they are FURIOUS THAT ANYONE WOULD EVEN SUGGEST AUTISM IS RELATED to violent acts in young adult males. Really completely resistant. I figure because they need to be.

    SarahW (b0e533)

  54. what I wonder more is if there’s maybe a more pronounced tendency to commit suicide among autistic people than you see in general pop

    lots of them have to be lonely and frustrated

    happyfeet (5553f5)

  55. I don’t know what exactly was wrong with the Sandy Hook mass killer. I suspect it was more than Aspbergers. There’a photo of him – either mugshot or driver’s liscense, and I suspect more like the former – that carries an all too familiar expression. The eyes, wide, staring at nothing, round and blank – suggest a medication straighjacket or insanity.

    Maybee – I think police at first weren’t sure Ryan Lanza was innocent of involvement. I think they are now.

    SarahW (b0e533)

  56. Of course for all I know that’s a school photo.

    SarahW (b0e533)

  57. The Brady Camp rates CT gun-laws as the 4th or 5th most restrictive in the Nation, which means they like them.
    All that being so, how would tightening those laws prevent this shooting?
    As nk knows, IL has the most restrictive gun laws in the country (not counting DC), yet gun violence is no stranger to its shores.
    BTW, nk, how do you know the weapons were kept loaded in-the-home?
    How do we know that they weren’t kept secured?
    Has something been said by the brother to either issue?
    Since this is an act of an individual with some personality issues (a mental disorder of some kind), perhaps we need to wait until all of the relevant medical history is released before fingers are pointed.
    If there were incidents in this individual’s past that are markers, we need to also ask why the medical community didn’t have him under closer observation. Which also brings up the issue of when do the Rights of mental-health patients trump the safety issues of the community at large?
    The ACLU has something to answer for on this subject.

    Finally, we have to remember, that you can have all the laws and security in the world, but if a lone individual is determined to commit an act such as this, with complete disregard for his own safety and outcome, there is virtually nothing that can be done to stop it.

    There is Evil in the World, and it will always be with us.
    It is our job to confront it and to say: STOP!

    askeptic (2bb434)

  58. SaraW–I read/heard somewhere last night that Adam the shooter had an old ID of Ryan’s on his person when the police searched his body. Take that with a grain of salt like all other info about this case, of course. But if true it may help explain the police’s mistake and the early focus on Ryan. It also may suggest that Adam had “issues” with other members of his family, too, if he tried to implicate his bro.

    elissa (416a98)

  59. he swatted his brother?

    happyfeet (6a13cb)

  60. or the pols who leave the loon out in the community while patting themselves on the back that the gun’s off the street.

    The same pols who have made certain disabilities (such as blindness) not only that which should not be struggled against, but something which should even elicit pride in the afflicted. Disabilities that should be worn (and treated) like a mantle of respectability. Where even the word “handicap” is more and more frowned upon compared with the word “disability.”

    There are activists — sort of in keeping with the pro-GLBT crowd — who actually claim it would be politically/socially inappropriate or a violation of a person’s rights to perform a medical procedure (should one ever become possible or fashionable) that would give sight to a blind person or hearing to a deaf person.

    All of this revolves around the ethos promoted in certain schools (public and private) where trophies — or the designation of “winner” — are handed out to everyone in team sports, regardless of who won the game or not.

    I understand the need to talk to him, but why go to his work, cuff him, and march him around?

    Well, I guess that’s not too different from the way the maker of an obscure video posted to Youtube was treated by the government (hello, ObamaLand!) following the act of terrorism at the American consulate in Benghazi. Or rather similar to the way George Zimmerman was (or has been) treated in a if-I-had-a-son-he’d-look-like-Trayvon-Martin manner by various Americans.

    I’ve heard some people (mainly — or entirely — on the right) use the phrase “age of insanity” to describe the socio-political trends in our modern society. And that was being said some time ago, well before the era of Obamaland. Now, in 2012, and if anything, we’ve grown more socially, ideologically insane than ever before. So the trappings surrounding the Connecticut massacre — including types like Bob Costas wailing about handguns but not saying a peep about an increasingly crass, shameless culture — perhaps are a fitting symbol of America (and the Western World) in the 21st century.

    Mark (94cc2f)

  61. Here, from NBC is a brief description of the “oops”.

    Law enforcement officials initially told NBC News that the gunman was Lanza’s brother, Ryan, and they had sent out a bulletin to local and federal law enforcement agencies to that effect.

    But when authorities went to Ryan’s home in Hoboken, N.J., to search it, they unexpectedly found him there.

    Ryan told police he was not involved and that his brother has a history of mental health issues and might have had his ID even though they had not seen each other in two years, officials said.

    A senior official later said that Ryan was nowhere near the shooting, was not believed to be involved, and was cooperating with the investigation

    elissa (416a98)

  62. Here is an NBC link where that b&W photo of A. Lanza can be found. http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/14/15911025-authorities-id-gunman-who-killed-27-in-elementary-school-massacre?lite

    The story headline is about the still unknown motive.

    Elissa – I wonder if the younger used his brother’s ID for any purpose linked to the crime (I thought at first it might just be some piece of paper in the car.) For example, perhaps credit card applicaiton sent to Ryan’s old addy – maybe purchases, internet or otherwise, for body armor or other sundries. An old school ID seems just as possible or even more easily got.

    SarahW (b0e533)

  63. I like gay people and I would hold a kicking and screaming deaf kid down while someone made his ears work good to where he could hear birdsong and oncoming trains and when someone is opening a bag of tasty cheetos

    happyfeet (88b774)

  64. mark, all reports say the mother was more houseproud than average, in a nice, socially pleasing beautiful living way. Very “involved” with her kids. She was a pleasant and social person.

    But some hint that she was not at all content with everyone’s a winner trophies. One relative described her as rigid and overbearing. Another friend of the family says she really pushed her son to not only succeed but excel academically (which he seemed to accomplish in HS.)

    A streak of perfectionism can get in the way of dealing with infirmity. I don’t know what went on, but working backwards from how wrong everthing went, acceptance/recognition of limitations from disability could be an issue.

    SarahW (b0e533)

  65. Have you tried those fire cheetos? I snuck one in a moment of curiosity and weakness from my husbands generally inedible mansnacks. It was bright red. I cried and drank a glass of milk.

    SarahW (b0e533)

  66. The problem is not autism or mental illness, the problem is that we as a society downplay bad behavior. “Oh, you’re just racist, judgmental, full of fear,” the bien pensant scold. So a homeless guy throws a brick at us and we walk away; just a bad day for an alternative lifestyle guy. Our kid smashes us across the room; oh, it’s just a meltdown.

    We need to be more judgmental and to have violent, mentally ill people in some kind of custody.

    We also need the media to stop cinematizing them, but that’s another story.

    Patricia (be0117)

  67. Asperger’s and Autism are a lot like poor eyesight:We are talking about a range of behavior from intense anti-social actions to “kinda odd.” It makes no sense to speculate, except to note that Autism is growing — or at least diagnosis are increasing. Likely we will learn that this guy had a lot more going on than Autism.

    ukuleledave (5f2a17)

  68. Or maybe, as considered in the article in the top post, everything really starts to go haywire in young adulthood because of hormonal surges or the natural history of whatever condition he’s got.

    SarahW (b0e533)

  69. I love the fire ones but I think they have a really different (worse) nutritional profile than regular ones

    I would have to ask the googles to be sure but that’s what’s in my head

    happyfeet (88b774)

  70. I believe Ronald Reagan initiated the closing down of “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” snakepits.

    No doubt you believe that. Pity it’s not the truth.

    Rob Crawford (d8dade)

  71. Hello, everyone. I have not seen any comments discussing the perps father. Why is this?

    Felipe (3243af)

  72. She was a pleasant and social person.

    That and descriptions of her son make me wonder if there are aspects of this case that parallel the “Batman” murderer in a Denver movie theater earlier this year. Prior to that, I know the guy who tried to kill the Arizona Congresswoman almost 2 years ago was identified as favoring leftist politics, while the guy in Denver described himself as being middle of the road.

    Beyond the political ties, these people are very much hooked into modern culture and technology—an increasingly desensitized one, at that.

    cbsnews.com: He was an honors student who lived in a prosperous neighborhood with his mother, a well-liked woman who enjoyed hosting dice games and decorating the house for the holidays. Now Adam Lanza is suspected of killing his mother and then gunning down more than two dozen people, 20 of them children, at a Connecticut grade school before taking his own life.

    Lanza’s aunt said her nephew was raised by kind, nurturing parents who would not have hesitated to seek mental help for him if he needed it. Marsha Lanza described Nancy Lanza as a good mother and kind-hearted. If her son had needed counseling, “Nancy wasn’t one to deny reality,” she told The Associated Press late Friday.

    Catherine Urso, who was attending a vigil Friday evening in Newtown, Conn., said her college-age son knew the killer and remembered him for his alternative style. “He just said he was very thin, very remote and was one of the goths,” she said.

    Adam Lanza belonged to a technology club at Newtown High School that held “LAN parties” — short for local area network — in which students would gather at a member’s home, hook up their computers into a small network and play games.

    “My brother has always been a nerd,” Ryan Lanza said then, according to Milas. “He still wears a pocket protector.”

    Joshua Milas, who graduated from Newtown High School in 2009, said Adam Lanza was generally a happy person but that he hadn’t seen him in a few years. “We would hang out, and he was a good kid. He was smart,” Joshua Milas said. “He was probably one of the smartest kids I know. He was probably a genius.”

    Lanza and his mother, Nancy, lived in a well-to-do part of Newtown, a prosperous community of 27,000 people about 60 miles northeast of New York City. Lanza’s parents filed for divorce in 2008, according to court records. His father, Peter Lanza, lives in Stamford, Conn., according to public records, and he reportedly works as a tax director for General Electric.

    A neighbor in Newtown, Rhonda Cullens, said she knew Nancy Lanza from monthly get-togethers the neighborhood women had a few years back for games of bunco, a dice game. “She was a very nice lady,” Cullens said. “She was just like all the rest of us in the neighborhood, just a regular person.”

    Mark (94cc2f)

  73. It makes no sense to speculate, except to note that Autism is growing — or at least diagnosis are increasing.

    When you declare something to be a “spectrum”, with a wide range of applicability, then its reported incidence increases because cases that would have not met the threshold before are suddenly part of the “spectrum”. If we changed from hard definitions of “overweight” and “obese” to a “fitness spectrum”, then — voila! — obese people are on the same “spectrum” as marathon runners.

    For me, I remain convinced that most claims to have Ass-burger’s syndrome are made by people who are just hate-filled sacks of pus trying to escape the consequences of their actions. Throw in the pop-psych rumor that it’s “more common among the intelligent/creative/whatever” and it lets them add a bit of self-flattery to the BS diagnosis.

    Rob Crawford (d8dade)

  74. Hello, everyone. I have not seen any comments discussing the perps father. Why is this?

    I believe it’s because the perp was formed through parthenogenesis.

    Rob Crawford (d8dade)

  75. 2) Lacking empathy makes it easy to be a criminal.
    (my response: dear idiot , i have aspergers & 37 y/o
    with no criminal record, explain how its “easy”)

    Comment by AspiesAreGettingAbadRap (73a5a9) — 12/15/2012 @ 1:15 am

    How about a little bit of courtesy.
    The initial discussion was about the possibility of autism. People with severe autism don’t even interact with people as human to human interaction, so how could they have empathy?
    One characteristic of sociopathic personality disorder and similar things is a lack of empathy. I was simply thinking out loud what, if anything, might make someone with autism at a higher risk to be violent.

    I wasn’t even talking about people with Asperger’s. While people with Asperger’s may sometimes have trouble reading some social cues, I have no reason to think they lack empathy.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  76. As nk knows, IL has the most restrictive gun laws in the country (not counting DC), yet gun violence is no stranger to its shores.
    BTW, nk, how do you know the weapons were kept loaded in-the-home?

    No, Illinois, does not. Chicago does. And Morton Grove is the model.

    The general law in Illinois is that you must have a FOID. You may carry any way you wish in your own abode, on your own land, or in your fixed place of business.

    You may not carry concealed, travelling in any incorporated area, or public highway.

    You may carry openly in an unincorporated area.

    Far cry from DC.

    And, yes, I am ranting about the mother. I don’t know the facts, I’m just sad and angry.

    nk (875f57)

  77. we as a society downplay bad behavior.

    We are (and have become) the flip side of the extremism found in the Middle East. Places where women run around in head-to-toe burkas and punishment is meted out by the offender being stoned or his hands cut off.

    I wish all the deranged liberals in the Western World could be gathered in a room full of deranged Islamicists in the Middle East, sort of a variation of Mad Max’s “Thunderdome.” I honestly don’t know who’d I root for or against. (I say that with just a tiny bit of sarcasm.)

    Mark (94cc2f)

  78. You may not carry concealed, travelling in any incorporated area, or public highway.

    You may not carry a firearm which is not made inoperable and locked up travelling in any incorporated area or public highway, and you must have a FOID.

    And the Seventh Circuit just told Illinois to get its rules more intelligible in line with McDonald.

    nk (875f57)

  79. Reuters has a report this morning regarding the investigation findings,

    “Our investigators at the crime scene … did produce some very good evidence in this investigation that our investigators will be able to use in, hopefully, painting the complete picture as to how – and more importantly why – this occurred,” Connecticut State Police Lieutenant Paul Vance told a news conference.

    Dana (292dcf)

  80. A few things:

    Felipe’s link is very good in terms of a lot of antisocial behavior in society. Yes, Teenage Delinquent Elephants.

    congenital pain insensitivity syndrome

    Well, who knows when and if we will ever get reasonably accurate background on this fellow. My little knowledge of pain insensitivity syndrome is that it is a terrible diagnosis for child and parents. Toddler child chewing on fingers bites down hard, sees blood, thinks it’s cute, red magic marker to write on walls, parents flip…

    Blaming SSRI and SSRI withdrawal, I don’t think so. And even if there is a relation I think it has more to do with the quality of medical care these days rather then the meds themselves. I doubt if people want to start a running debate on that here.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  81. Patricia @67, the problem is that we not only downplay bad behavior, we encourage it.

    Bad behavior requires big government solutions to sustain.

    How dare you, for instance, discriminate against single teen motherhood as a lesser moral choice than waiting until getting married to have kids. You are judging; you are stigmatizing them.

    The fact that over half of the children born to single moms live in poverty while fewer than 10& of the children born to married parents do merely means we need a huge welfare state to support these noble teen moms making this noble choice.

    The Obama administration is embarking on a race-conscious school disciplinary quota system.

    ACLU Hails Obama Administration’s Supportive School Discipline Initiative

    “Maintaining a positive school climate is a critical responsibility of schools. Relying on exclusionary discipline practices, such as suspension, expulsion and arrest have not been found to make schools safer or more productive. Improper school discipline undermines the educational mission of our nation’s schools,” said Deborah J. Vagins, American Civil Liberties Union senior legislative counsel.

    …Students of color and students with disabilities bear a disproportionate burden of these punishments when compared to their white, non-disabled peers. African-American students are nearly three times as likely to be suspended and 3.5 times as likely to be expelled, and Latino students are 1.5 times as likely to be suspended and twice as likely to be expelled.

    Not only must we downplay bad behavior in the classroom, lest we unfairly “stigmatize” these poor miscreants, we must not exclude them from the classroom. Hell no; leave them there so they can set the example. (Primarily harming other Black and Latino students who might otherwise have learned something if the delinquents weren’t disrupting the class, but that simply results in other fertile fields for the ACLU to till in the future).

    Like single moms, these kids will probably get their own reality show.

    Making things worse is job security for the big government liberals who promise solutions that are, like H.L. Mencken observed, elegant, simple, and wrong. By design, because as I said making things worse is job security. Wash, rinse, repeat.

    Encouraging bad behavior creates a lowest common denominator society, which can not be “stigmatized,” that is their greatest ally in their quest.

    Steve57 (25fb74)

  82. I’m curious if any commenters live with an autistic person or know someone well who has autism — especially a male in his late teens or twenties. If so, did you see any aggressive or violent tendencies?

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  83. California has or maybe has had entitlement programs structured to where an aspbergers diagnosis on your kid can be a very advantageous dealio for you and the kid

    happyfeet (07fe35)

  84. No, Illinois, does not. Chicago does. And Morton Grove is the model.

    I take it you’ve never been to East St. Louis, nk.

    Steve57 (25fb74)

  85. Doesn’t Patterico’s stalker also have this diagnosis? Perhaps law enforcement could notice the connection to the online behavior of those who shall not be named and their potential for real violence in real life. It’s not just a twitter war.

    JoNobody (3f1b67)

  86. I know three families with autistic male children, only one family do I have regular contact with and he is in his mid to later teens. Nothing I would call violent, and not really anything aggressive, though at times he might do something a bit inappropriate like grabbing someone’s arm. I imagine if he felt threatened and cornered he would probably instinctively push someone away.

    I appreciate his reaction when he thinks the music at church is too loud- he puts his fingers in his ears.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  87. feets, perhaps California has more resources for a child with Asperger’s, but life is hard growing up as it is without having more than the usual challenges of learning to get along with people.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  88. Have you asked any of these families if they see aggressive or violent tendencies, MD?

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  89. Well my ICD-9-CM has pages of diagnoses of personality deviance.

    Autism is a continuum of deviance from the ‘norm’ on which Asperger’s lies. These are not all isolated, introverted and emotionless. Indeed, some are extroverted, ebullient.

    The problem here is an overlay, undiagnosed deviance:

    http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012/12/criminal-psychologist-on-sandy-hook-massacre-every-one-of-these-episodes-is-proceeded-by-undiagnosed-mental-illness-video/

    Unlike Loughner who had no business on the outside, this fellow was not obviously messed up, nonetheless, he was.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  90. what I mean to say Mr Dr is there is a lot of… question about how valid all these diagnoses are

    see maybee at #40

    happyfeet (07fe35)

  91. I take it you’ve never been to East St. Louis, nk.

    Comment by Steve57 (25fb74) — 12/15/2012 @ 9:34 am

    No, I have not, Steve.

    I have walked around Marengo, with a .22 and a 20-gauge.

    ?

    nk (875f57)

  92. One issue that we may keep in mind is familial traits.

    Asperger’s is a very broad association of traits only half of which are necessary for diagnosis. If an individual demonstrates some of the traits, from 6 of a dozen or more groups, they are ‘diagnosed’.

    These people as adults often marry another. Nature vs nurture is a worse muddle here than otherwise.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  93. “Autism” is …. I did a conservatorship for a disabled person who reached adulthood. He was diagnosed “autistic” in the official papers. What he had used to be called cretinism. Malnourished brain and body in mommy’s belly.

    nk (875f57)

  94. I have walked around Marengo, with a .22 and a 20-gauge.

    With Napoleon? Or were you with the Austrians?

    SPQR (768505)

  95. I believe Ronald Reagan initiated the closing down of “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” snakepits.

    No doubt you believe that. Pity it’s not the truth.

    Actually, it is. I lived through that period in California (circa 1970-2) and was following that issue — my high school civics class visited a “snake pit” as a current events field trip.

    The idea was that many people would do better with community-based help rather than institutionalization, which was actually quite poor. From what I saw, “warehousing” would have been a step or two up.

    So, they closed down many of the State Hospitals, keeping only the dangerous patients and the money saved was supposed to go into establishing local community mental health centers to support the released patients. Of course, the state spent it elsewhere, the towns and cities didn’t want to pay for it (and the few who did became mental illness magnets), so the former patients were largely left to fend for themselves.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  96. nk, that’s a shame, I had some questions about Kellerman’s cavalry deployments.

    SPQR (768505)

  97. 84.I’m curious if any commenters live with an autistic person or know someone well who has autism — especially a male in his late teens or twenties. If so, did you see any aggressive or violent tendencies?

    Comment by DRJ (a83b8b) — 12/15/2012 @ 9:32 am

    The one I spoke about, DRJ, was frightened of the world and wanted to be held. Hands were enough. He was no danger to anyone.

    nk (875f57)

  98. Kevin M., the mentally ill also did not cooperate in their treatment.

    SPQR (768505)

  99. late teens or twenties

    I believe we did the conservatorship at 21.

    nk (875f57)

  100. 93. I take it you’ve never been to East St. Louis, nk.

    Comment by Steve57 (25fb74) — 12/15/2012 @ 9:34 am

    No, I have not, Steve.

    I have walked around Marengo, with a .22 and a 20-gauge.

    ?

    Comment by nk (875f57) — 12/15/2012 @ 10:02 am

    I don’t know if East St. Louis has lost its crown as the most dangerous city in the US per FBI crime stats. But it’s still got to be in the top three.

    Crime in East St. Louis, Illinois (IL): murders, rapes, robberies, assaults, burglaries, thefts, auto thefts, arson, law enforcement employees, police officers

    Comparing violent crimes per 100k to the US average, East St. Louis had over 3k compared to 223.

    What I found interesting was that the nearby Illinois cities of Centreville, Alorton, Sauget, and Brooklyn at least deserve honorable mention if not actually competing for a top-ten spot amongst the most dangerous cities in America.

    Just saying, Illinois has more than its fair share of garden spots outside of Chicago.

    Steve57 (25fb74)

  101. I’m curious if any commenters live with an autistic person or know someone well who has autism — especially a male in his late teens or twenties. If so, did you see any aggressive or violent tendencies?

    I have worked over the years with people exhibiting Asberger’s symptoms (particularly the inability to see body language or otherwise sense emotion). They tend to make good engineers and programmers. It took me some time to understand how to communicate with them — it can be very frustrating when people don’t pick up on non-verbal communication and you expect them to. Some OCD there, too.

    I had a cousin (now deceased) who had moderate schizophrenia, and was finally institutionalized in his 40s. That’s not considered autism spectrum, but some behaviors seem similar (particularly the inner life and OCD things).

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  102. Oh, the rest of that. The people I worked with were older and didn’t have such violent tendencies — overly peaceable to a fault. My schizophrenic cousin eventually became a danger, but that’s not autism.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  103. Kevin M., the mentally ill also did not cooperate in their treatment.

    Some did, some didn’t. The ones that did congregated around the few local facilities. Some were cared for at home(see above). Others disappeared into the streets. Back then if you saw someone talking to thin air on a street corner, you knew they were nuts. These days it’s harder to tell.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  104. “Back then if you saw someone talking to thin air on a street corner, you knew they were nuts. These days it’s harder to tell.

    Bluetooth.

    SPQR (768505)

  105. Lanza reportedly tried to buy rifle, was denied
    NBC’s Pete Williams reports that Connecticut school shooter Adam Lanza attempted to purchase a rifle earlier this week at a sporting goods store in Danbury, Conn.

    NBC video

    SarahW (b0e533)

  106. Per the video above

    11 Dec: Tues, went to Danbury, waiting period prevented purchase.

    13th Dec: went to school got in argument with four staff members.

    SarahW (b0e533)

  107. SarahW, because he was under 21? Or because the clerk thought he was nuts? What about the waiting period? (14 days in CT I think.)

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  108. 109. cross posted. It ought to be telling when someone wants a gun so bad that he won’t tolerate the waiting period.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  109. The waiting period in CT is 14 days but with a few exceptions. None of which likely applied to him.

    SPQR (768505)

  110. Wpnder if he used his brother’s ID to be over 21?

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  111. It should be easier to commit people for evaluation, IMO. And once committed, release should be predicated on either lack of illness, or mandatory followup. No more “lost to follow-up” – if you are release to the community, you have to show up, get any ordered treatment, or you are picked up and re-committed and released only if determined to be stable.

    SarahW (b0e533)

  112. I’ve heard Psych professionals joke that half of academics in our institutions of higher learning have Asperger’s.

    For instance, Amy Bishop. Pathologies of all sorts accompany intelligence.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  113. them sporting goods people should sacrifice a goat to the gods for to thank them for their good fortune

    happyfeet (07fe35)

  114. FWIW, Here is another (the latest) version of how he gained entry:

    Police have also determined Lanza, 20, was not buzzed into Sandy Hook, where he was once a student.

    “He forced his way into the school,” Vance said. He did not provide specifics and said that broken windows at the school may have been shattered by police who responded to the emergency.

    SarahW (b0e533)

  115. Mental health professionals should be required to place individuals on a “no guns” list if their diagnosis shows such a danger, and renew it annually as needed.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  116. Gary – And the same strange narcissism with Bishop.

    SarahW (b0e533)

  117. 114.It should be easier to commit people for evaluation, IMO.

    You need a criminal act.

    It’s a good rule, and it works both ways. I would rather have a client held at Chicago Read than in Cook County jail.

    nk (875f57)

  118. I think jindal has a damn good idea about making the pill available over the counter

    happyfeet (07fe35)

  119. 111.109. cross posted. It ought to be telling when someone wants a gun so bad that he won’t tolerate the waiting period.

    Comment by Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 12/15/2012 @ 10:42 am

    It could be someone in imminent fear for their life. Restraining orders are a notoriously ineffective defense against someone bent on murder.

    Steve57 (25fb74)

  120. Mental health professionals should be required to place individuals on a “no guns” list if their diagnosis shows such a danger, and renew it annually as needed.

    Comment by Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 12/15/2012 @ 10:55 am

    Make the exercise of a constitutional right dependant upon the whim of an individual – a private individual ? Great idea.

    SPQR (768505)

  121. Make the exercise of a constitutional right dependant upon the whim of an individual – a private individual ?

    Better a private individual than a state functionary or committee. An individual that the patient has chosen, btw. How would you do it, without making it public? The current standard of “one free meltdown” doesn’t seem to be working.

    We already put people on temporary “no guns” lists for lesser reasons, such as being subject to a restraining order.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  122. It could be someone in imminent fear for their life

    Point taken. See also “Panic in the Year Zero.” Although it is still “telling”.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  123. Temporarily, SPQR. I think crazy person control is the only way to go. Professionals should have liability and their own professional licensing on the line. Add the necessary due process to review and I’m down with it.

    SarahW (b0e533)

  124. Add the necessary due process to review and I’m down with it.

    Perhaps a 90 day posting, with peer review required to go longer? Oh, and there is no need to tell the patient; most won’t seek a gun anyway and the shrink ought to find out if they already have some.

    Yes, there are problems with this — I admit it is half-baked — but the Colorado shooter and Amy Bishop and this guy might have been stopped that way. This guy used Mommy’s guns, so it’s not a perfect defense.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  125. A first-hand devastating look at a politician’s work to reform mental health practices for his own schizophrenic son and other families, and the sad realization that his efforts have made things worse for the mentally ill. It is a nightmare to be faced with the Herculean task of finding the correct diagnosis and necessary help.

    http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-10-15/national/35500616_1_mental-illnesses-mental-health-large-mental-hospitals

    Dana (292dcf)

  126. Another father trying to cope with an Asperger son. AP writer covering the White House, Ron Fournier writes eloquently of the arduous journey of diagnosis and learning to accept and give his sin the tools to make it in a world where he cannot connect emotionally.

    Both linked articles are must-reads for those who think just do x, y, and z to fix these complicated issues.

    http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/how-two-presidents-helped-me-deal-with-love-guilt-and-fatherhood-20121129?mrefid=site_search&page=1

    Dana (292dcf)

  127. to amalgamated

    “The whole article is worth reading. And the incidence of violence by those with autism is worth discussing. Not to demonize those with autism, but to confront facts and be aware.”

    That has no question mark in there…it’s a statement. This article shares nothing of statistical significance that violence is attributed to autism other than one parent’s experience with their child. All incidence of violence is worth studying and discussing. Did you know based on the DSM that ALL adults show 1 to 2 symptoms of autism spectrum disorder? Therefor-any crime committed should thus forth be attributed as a result of autism-and we should malign the entire population because it will make us feel a whole lot better about what happened in CT by having an ‘explanation’ and something to blame.

    Silly of me to have checked back looking for an intelligent response…just a lot riding @Patterico’s coat tails seeking to protect him from a mean nasty person like myself who points out this article is bullshit!

    Pamela (90e140)

  128. “No, Illinois, does not. Chicago does. And Morton Grove is the model.”

    nk – Many other municipalities unfortunately followed the City of Chicago/Morton Grove model but are now revising their statutes since the Heller decision and the Hale DeMar case in Wilmette.

    I have no idea whether your earlier comment on mental health and addiction treatment not being reportable and subject to discovery in civil or criminal matters in Illinois was purely focused and limited to the technical legal aspects of what is “reportable” and what is formally “discoverable” from otherwise confidential relationships, but my experience is that a person’s mental health and addiction history is often introduced into court even without a breach of doctor/patient confidentiality.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  129. @ukuleledave PERFECT comment and spot on!!! Thank you -you said very precise and succinctly what I could not through my fury of emotions!

    “Asperger’s and Autism are a lot like poor eyesight:We are talking about a range of behavior from intense anti-social actions to “kinda odd.” It makes no sense to speculate, except to note that Autism is growing — or at least diagnosis are increasing. Likely we will learn that this guy had a lot more going on than Autism.

    Pamela (90e140)

  130. Pamela,

    For what it’s worth, I have no desire to demonize autistic children. I know people with autistic or Asperger’s children who are VERY sweet. But I got the link from someone with an autistic child who had experienced this type of situation. I have not read the studies mentioned in the article, but am concerned about the representation that there are studies that indicate a relationship between autism and violence, but that the results of those studies have been minimized. IF this is the case, and I’m not saying it is, it should concern everyone, but especially the parents of autistic children.

    I understand how you could have a negative emotional reaction to the post and the linked article, but I urge you to give me the benefit of the doubt and understand I am not trying to demonize anyone.

    Patterico (8b3905)

  131. 119. Narcissism, it’s hard to imagine anyone more quintessentially narcissist than John Kerry.

    I suppose an inablility to suffer seeing ‘not self’ on gazing outward in many of these disorders.

    Bishop resembles ‘Explosive Personality Disorder’ to me, but I have no training.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  132. Also, I will note for readers of this thread that Pamela is not a drive-by commenter or a troll. She has commented before and had sensible views. She is not happy about the post and I understand why. I want her to know that I respect her and her views. Please avoid sarcasm when discussing this topic with her, for all our sakes.

    Patterico (8b3905)

  133. Patterico – Heretic

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  134. Apparently there is one survivor among the 4 adults at the school who tangled with Lanza the day before he came back to kill everybody.

    NBC says this person is talking with investigators; for the rest of us, what happened and what he was doing there the day before is still a mystery.

    His attempt to buy weapons on the 11th doesn’t auger for a benign purpose, though I suppose something specific about the meeting could have widened his murder spree.

    I’m very curious about how he presented when he arrived on the 13th. Was the fight because he was asked to leave? Was he on about something odd – was he lost in some delusion – and how did they handle it?

    Was he asking for his Mom? Could he have had a capgras delusion? How did they get rid of him? What chance for intervention was missed?

    SarahW (b0e533)

  135. I have added an update:

    UPDATE: I want to make something very clear. I have no desire to demonize autistic children. I know people with very sweet-natured children who are autistic or Asperger’s. The link in the article was sent to me by someone with a severely autistic child who had personally experienced or witnessed violent tendencies of the sort described in the article. I had never heard of this possible connection before and thought it worth raising.

    I have not read the studies mentioned in the article, but I am concerned about the author’s representation that some studies indicate a relationship between autism and violence — yet the results of those studies have been minimized. IF this is the case, and I’m not saying it is, it should concern everyone — but especially the parents of autistic children.

    I understand how people with autistic children could have a negative emotional reaction to the post and the linked article. It is not my intent to upset such people. Again, I am not trying to demonize anyone. I am raising a possible connection that interested me because I had not heard about it before yesterday.

    Patterico (8b3905)

  136. Nancy Lanza was described by an aunt as being ‘rigid’, a characteristic of Asperger’s.

    In extreme cases some Asperger’s individuals are devoted to their ‘routines’. Whether she shared an autistic pathology with her son, rigidity is a common feature the two would have shared guaranteeing they would lock horns over, perhaps daily.

    The MMPI indicates ESFJ types are preferentially educators. Their rigidity is at times legendary.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  137. 132. “Growing” indeed. Psychology is a field given to fads. Unfortunately, there is money to be made.

    On the otherhand Asperger worked 70 years or so ago and his studies haven’t been a focus of the discipline for more than a quarter century.

    It’s also possible that today’s parents are failing.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  138. 132. …you said very precise and succinctly what I could not through my fury of emotions!

    Comment by Pamela (90e140) — 12/15/2012 @ 11:54 am

    I’m trying to be sensitive to your situation, and with all due respect, but a fury of emotions isn’t a basis for reasoned discourse.

    Exploring whether or not there’s a link between autism and violence is a legitimate area of inquiry.

    I realize there are a lot of people who are emotionally invested in seeing that no such link is found. I find it hard to imagine, but there may be people with a vested interest in finding a link.

    But for the vast majority of people it’s not about demonizing anyone. Hence my comment that it’s a shame that someone like Patterico has to preemptively apologize for advancing the idea we ought to follow the evidence and see where it leads.

    Also, please note that the author Ann Bauer is not merely discussing her experience. She does note that of another academic and author, Trudy Steuernagel, who unfortunately can’t personally relate her experience because her autistic son beat her to death. And that doctors have told her this is “one awful direction” adult autism can take.

    Admittedly anecdotal. And Bauer admits as much. She isn’t, and I don’t think anyone here is, claiming there’s an established link between autism and violence. But the possibility of such a link ought to be explored because otherwise no one can do anything about it if it does exist.

    Steve57 (25fb74)

  139. This autistic (Aspberger’s) son’s murder of his dad in his own class room – with a crossbow to the chest – is not that old. (He also murdered other family.)

    He declared one motive for animus against his dad, that his dad passed Aspberger’s on to him.

    http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/02/15624271-dying-teacher-battled-son-after-attack-in-classroom-saving-students?lite=obinsite

    SarahW (b0e533)

  140. Comment by Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 12/15/2012 @ 10:12 am

    Reagan succumbed to a Feel Good Moment after a chilling expose of what was happening in the State Hospitals, and bought the assurances of “Big Daddy” (Assy Speaker Jesse Unruh) that a comprehensive system of out-patient clinics would be set up with the saved funds.
    As usual, the Dems lied.

    As to Lanza’s attempted purchase of a rifle:
    GCA-68 mandates a minimum age for purchase of longarms of 18-yrs; 21 for handguns.
    ATF regs require sellers (FFL’s) to deny a sale (even prior to submitting a NICS check) if they (FFL’s) feel any “Red Flags” are raised by the actions and/or words of the prospective purchaser.
    This may have been the reason for his denial, particularly if he over-reacted to the information of having to wait 14-days for the actual transfer.

    askeptic (2bb434)

  141. so on the day the shopping mall horror happened our friend Ryan decides he wants to buy himself a gun?

    coincidence?

    happyfeet (07fe35)

  142. SarahW, they do this because they can’t be “judgemental”, which would be succumbing to their base-instincts, which are “bad”.
    Guns, OTOH, are just things, and are known sources of mind-rays that warp and twist our actions.

    askeptic (2bb434)

  143. happy, it well may be a coincidence.
    One would have to look at the time-line, taking into account the two very different time-zones, and when the news hit the media.
    What time was it in CT when news of the OR shooting went public,
    and what time was it when he went into that sporting-goods store to buy the rifle?

    askeptic (2bb434)

  144. good questions Mr. skeptic

    happyfeet (07fe35)

  145. Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

    Boy, you don’t hear Liberals quoting ol’ Ben Franklin any more, do you?

    Pious Agnostic (20c167)

  146. my wee baby niece person texts that we’s supposed to wear blue on monday

    happyfeet (07fe35)

  147. Psychology is a field given to fads

    And, as with the mainstream media (of course), academia (grade schools and colleges), religion (eg, Protestantism), AARP, YMCA/YWCA, Hollywood, Wall Street (ie, tycoons like Michael Bloomberg, Warren Buffett) and, most certainly, the government (local, state and federal), corrupted over the past several decades by modern-day liberalism. Call it a form of metastasizing cancer.

    a comprehensive system of out-patient clinics would be set up with the saved funds.

    But even if such a system had been set up and fully funded, the everyone-and-anyone-has-rights crowd (eg, the ACLU) still would demand that the preferences of the mentally impaired or deranged must be respected and honored at all costs. What they want, we must want. What they favor, we must favor.

    Kumbaya, y’all.

    Sort of similar to the mindset in the US Army that allowed Nidal Hasan to casually spout off like an anti-US, pro-Islamic loon right up until the day he shot up Fort Hood.

    Mark (94cc2f)

  148. The Clackamas mall shooting began between 3:20 and 3:30 PST. It was on twitter right away, 6:30ish ET but began breaking hard on TV news about 7:30 pm ET.

    Sarahw (b0e533)

  149. 143, 145, 147. I’m thinking the CO Batman shooter had some input in the CT scheme.

    Another Asperger’s type, BTW.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  150. NBC wrote: Officials also told NBC News that Lanza unsuccessfully tried to buy a rifle at a Dick’s Sporting Goods store in Danbury three days before the slaughter, but later said they could not confirm the report, which was based on information from members of the public.

    Not sure if there is any source that says what time of day this occurred.

    Sarahw (b0e533)

  151. For over 30 years, I’ve worked in the computer industry as a software engineer. I have also played tabletop role-playing games (D&D, etc.,) since high-school.

    These are two cohorts where folks with Aspergers, diagnosed or otherwise, are very, very common. I count these folks among my closest friends and colleagues. In my life, I’ve interacted closely with scores of individuals up and down the spectrum.

    This is admittedly only my own experience, but I’ve never known one to give in to violent impulses. Take this for what its worth.

    Pious Agnostic (20c167)

  152. 155. Oh, and no one I can think of is in any danger with me. Karl Rove, maybe.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  153. I’ll bet a reluctance on the part of parents to inculcate a modicum of personal responsibility for the feelings and responses of others on the part of children with a weakness in that area bears a majority of the burden here.

    Feral kids are also notorious for a lack of empathy.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  154. Commenter Mike K. Has an insightful post up at his blog regarding the shootings and mental illness, and how the closure of institutions severely impacted communities. As a doctor, his thoughts are worth reading and give a first-hand professional’s take on the matter.

    http://abriefhistory.org/?p=3643

    He also gives a more comprehensive look at mental illness in our country at the following link.

    http://abriefhistory.org/?p=501

    Dana (292dcf)

  155. daleyrock’s, this is not official, but it’s the closest linkable I could find of the Illinois confidentiality act. http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs3.asp?ActID=2043&ChapterID=57

    There is a case of a lady (2nd division) whose mental health treatment records were held to be inadmissible without her consent in an involuntary commitment hearing, but I cannot link that.

    nk (875f57)

  156. Pamela,

    Blame me, not Patterico, because I’m the one who raised this topic. I understand why you don’t like it.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  157. “There is a case of a lady (2nd division) whose mental health treatment records were held to be inadmissible without her consent in an involuntary commitment hearing, but I cannot link that.”

    nk – Again, you are focused on the technicalities of confidentiality of records, which does not prevent the subject of mental health or addiction being raised in civil or criminal proceedings. I have seen people placed in 72 hour psychiatric custody and independent evaluations ordered in cases of disputed protective orders and custody disputes. The fact that prior records are not discovered frequently means nothing to the issue at hand.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  158. And again a decent exploration of another dangerous pathology:

    http://www.rightwingnews.com/column-2/no-way-out/

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  159. Mr. Feets – Do you know where your friend nishi is today and what she is doing?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  160. Also, Pamela, some psychiatrists think there is a need to research the relationship between pervasive developmental disorders and violence.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  161. I also have, daleyrocks. The judge would do my client a favor by sending him to Chicago Read instead of Cook County.

    I was talking about a generally available database for mental ill treatment history, that another commenter brought up. And “treatment” is the operative word. That is what is confidential, and unlawful to disclose in Illinois.

    And but.. but… but.. Cook County State’s Attorneys I have dealt with, wanted a criminal act along with “he’s nuts”. Otherwise, there was no case.

    nk (875f57)

  162. From CNN, about that day-before altercation at the school:

    “The disagreement was between Lanza and four adults, three of whom were killed Friday, the source said. It’s not clear whether the altercation happened inside or outside the school, but it had something to do with Lanza trying to enter the school, the source said.”

    Sarahw (b0e533)

  163. DRJ, I have talked about this before.

    When my daughter was in second grade, her best friend was a fine boy, with red hair and freckles, in third grade, who needed one on one teaching aide assistance. They were both loners, somehow they connected.

    He was transferred to a stonger special needs program but he comes around once in a while.

    I do not like stigmatizing kids, and I do not like the labels doctors place on them.

    nk (875f57)

  164. Would that they had called police. Would they had told the police he was not rational. Would that he had been locked up and or his mother advised to secure her weapons.

    Sarahw (b0e533)

  165. 168. A good link, but frequency of 2.5 per 10K is I would say very dated.

    I also would say characterizing it as a developmental disorder is not orthodox. The development of a moral sense, certainly would be, but current thinking is Asperger’s is hardwired and of genetic origin.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  166. @patterico
    meh- honestly I’m over it… People who have not lived with it and navigated through the childhood and adolescence of a child with the disorder cannot possibly understand. I just find highlighting this article to be self-serving as far as finding a reason which we all so desperately want for what happened! I have worked in the community with the disabled even before my son was born-there is no set type of person with disabilities-they are as different and as individual as you & I. How many times have we seen articles with people with schizophrenia committing violent acts (like pushing people in front of trains!) then there is the out cry that statistically schizophrenics are non-violent? This is much the same! I just find it frustrating because with autism/Asperger’s the degrees are so far from one end of the spectrum (non-verbal/self-injurious) to barely noticeable (like my son who just like things very routine and regimented). Though I have learned at a young age what is worth aggravating myself over and arguments on the internet…well …they aren’t one of them 😉

    Pamela (90e140)

  167. Woulda, coulda, shoulda.

    We don’t do those things because we don’t wish to be seen as “meddling”.
    A Letter-to-the-Editor in the hometown weekly about a car parking in a handicap space sans placard, and the confrontation that resulted from a complainant eventually involving the police, but no ticket issued; resulted in multiple responses to the effect that the gentleman who complained, confronted the illegal parker, and caused the police to become involved, should have just minded his own business!

    And so it is.

    askeptic (2bb434)

  168. 168. Cont. Here’s what I’m thinking:

    http://www.center4familydevelop.com/helpromanian.htm

    Children raised without physical contact thru their infancy and toddler hood are so damaged they cannot bond with even devoted parents and never establish empathetic connection with others.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  169. Contradicting the Conventional Wisdom…..

    http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2012/12/daniel-zimmerman/clackamas-shooter-confronted-by-ccw-holder/

    Now, how many died in Clackamas, v. how many died at Aurora, etc.

    askeptic (2bb434)

  170. Also fm Instapundit…..

    “BLAME: Obama administration, Congress quietly let school security funds lapse. Well, they needed money for Solyndra.”

    askeptic (2bb434)

  171. Children raised without physical contact thru their infancy and toddler hood are so damaged they cannot bond with even devoted parents and never establish empathetic connection with others.

    Comment by gary gulrud (dd7d4e) — 12/15/2012 @ 2:51 pm

    And children held by their daddy constantly, and sung to, and their first full sentence being “I love you”, to him, at age ten and a half months? And learning to be family oriented and not peer oriented. A child’s hardest job is raising her parents.

    My daughter has real bows and real swords. I was looking to start her shooting but then things happened. She can learn later if she wants to.

    nk (875f57)

  172. Silly of me to have checked back looking for an intelligent response…just a lot riding @Patterico’s coat tails seeking to protect him from a mean nasty person like myself who points out this article is bullshit!

    Really? You must have missed this part of the article:

    Whether there is a definitive link between autism and violence — between Trudy Steuernagel’s situation and mine — I cannot say

    But your anecdotal evidence is absolute, right? Geesh!

    Amalgamated Cliff Divers, Local 157 (721840)

  173. nk and Pamela,

    I think you are letting the mental aspects of autism impact this discussion. Frankly, I think autism is a medical disorder, not a mental disorder. Thus, while I agree every child is different, that doesn’t mean we can’t study, label, and help those who need help — just as we study, label, and help children with juvenile diabetes and juvenile RA.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  174. I don’t like labeling and stigmatization for the heck of it either, but our oldest would have had a much better time of it, along with his parents, if we had caught on to his ADD about 6 years earlier.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  175. nishi is I know not where but I hope a happy christmas finds her wherever she may be

    I know it’s been said many times many ways but a holly jolly christmas sure beats a stick in the eye

    happyfeet (07fe35)

  176. Comment by askeptic (2bb434) — 12/15/2012 @ 2:57 pm
    That confirms my version of conventional wisdom, but it does fly in the face of the usual propaganda.

    If one of youse would just figure out a way to sue for journalistic malpractice we would all get rich in a hurry…may Mr. Zimmerman prevail in his defamation suit.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  177. wee baby niece texts with update

    no blue on monday

    where green and white… that’s their school colors

    happyfeet (07fe35)

  178. *wear*

    happyfeet (07fe35)

  179. Comment by gary gulrud (dd7d4e) — 12/15/2012 @ 2:51 pm

    reactive attachment disorder, when a child has a very deep and fundamental issue with feeling safe,loved, and bonded, is very, very, tough. Not impossible, but a major effort in and of itself.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  180. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9746935/Teachers-sacrificed-themselves-to-save-their-pupils.html

    the finest moments in our country by ordinary people, being the extraordinary

    EPWJ (d3a1a0)

  181. This was linked in comments on the radio station site whcih told of the concealed carry confrontation. Long but some interesting points. http://sociological-eye.blogspot.com/2012/09/clues-to-mass-rampage-killers-deep.html

    Sarahw (b0e533)

  182. “That is what is confidential, and unlawful to disclose in Illinois.”

    nk – We are talking about two different things, which is what I was trying to clarify with my original comment. You are focused on databases and confidentiality laws, whereas I was focused on what is actually discussed in court.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  183. DRJ, I never distinguish mental disorders from medical disorders; the former is a subset of the latter in my way of looking at things.

    Sarahw (b0e533)

  184. Sarahw,

    I think many people, even some medical professionals, view autism as a mental rather than a medical disorder. I submit that’s why so many school districts are the primary diagnosticians for autism and related disorders.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  185. Parents often permit labeling to get special help for children who are not doing well in school.

    It makes sense in the case of a child with Downs or Angelman’s. In the case of a kid who just wants to daydream and play …?

    nk (875f57)

  186. I had never heard about people with autism being prone to violence,

    This is probably one of those “dirty little secrets” that lots of people know but no one outside that group discusses.

    I hadn’t heard about it, but I know someone with an autistic child (about 4yo) and I could see how the temper tantrums of youth could get worse with improper social conditioning by the caregivers.

    Most of the public depictions of autistics in the past have generally suggested that the violence tended to be self-directed, but it would not amaze that some might turn that around to externalize it.

    IGotBupkis, Legally Defined Cyberbully in All 57 States (8e2a3d)

  187. How many generations of school children have been raised under the philosophy that you’ll never prevent teenagers from scrogging like goats, so you might as well hand out free condoms and let them go at it.

    Not to completely disagree with you, Steve, but the real problem here is the infantism of teens.

    “Romeo and Juliet” — Romeo is 13 or 14, Juliet is 12 or 13. Does the overwrought emotionalism and impatience of these kids now make FAR more sense than if they were in their 20s? Yet, from the story itself, we know Romeo is out sparring and fighting to defend his family’s honor. And in the opening scene, the Capulets are discussing getting Juliet married lest she become an “old maid”.

    It’s a fictional story, but recall “Unforgiven”… Eastwood leaves his 10yo son in charge of caring for — and hunting for food for — his younger sister. The father makes sure the neighbors will check in on him but he has no compunction or concern that this 10yo will prove incapable of going out hunting — with his rifle — and putting food on the table for himself and his sister.

    We have, in this last century or so, infantilized our teens, taken from them key responsibilities which they are historically availed. They are not stupid. They sense this wrongness.

    Teens are proto-adults — they are adults in training. When we steal from them this authority, this responsibility, for their own lives, is it any wonder they rebel? Is their angst so surprising?

    This doesn’t mean you hand the 14yo the keys to the liquor cabinet and the car and go off for a week or two… In some ways, it’s a much more complex world fraught with problems… but there’s a middle ground, and all too many people fail to Get It as parents.

    Back to the original quote:
    It is fairly unreasonable to expect teens to resist impulses they historically have not had any REASON to resist — if you weren’t married by 15 or 16 you were an abnormality, not the norm, and hence 15 and 16yo did not NEED to resist their natural urges to procreate. While I believe that we very definitely should encourage them to resist those impulses, I don’t think it’s rational to act as though they will to the point of not encouraging them to “practice safe sex” if they DO.

    Use social and peer pressures to encourage them to hold off… but don’t act like they will, that’s just the path to excessive unwanted teen pregnancies.

    IGotBupkis, Legally Defined Cyberbully in All 57 States (8e2a3d)

  188. the real problem here is the infantism of teens.

    Hrm.
    …the real problem here is the infantilism of teens.

    IGotBupkis, Legally Defined Cyberbully in All 57 States (8e2a3d)

  189. Someone wrote a book about the creation of the concept of “adolescence” and how its done that.

    SPQR (768505)

  190. I believe Ronald Reagan initiated the closing down of “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” snakepits.

    NK, it was in direct response to lawsuits initiated in the 1960s by the ACLU that had resulted in court decisions forcing de-institutionalizing them.

    I think the old system was itself in serious need of revision, but I don’t think booting them out on the street with a hearty “Hail, and Farewell!” was a particularly good alternative.

    IGotBupkis, Legally Defined Cyberbully in All 57 States (8e2a3d)

  191. Clayton Cramer has been writing about the problem of mental illness, especially schizophrenia, and now has a book on Kindle titled “My Brother Ron” that uses his family’s experiences as a starting point for discussing this.

    He talks in detail of the history of deinstitutionalization – including the misrepresentations made by the ACLU to push it.

    SPQR (768505)

  192. soledad needs a tissue btw if you are in the area

    LOL, LMAO… despite the seriousness of the subject event, I do love good snark.

    IGotBupkis, Legally Defined Cyberbully in All 57 States (8e2a3d)

  193. All that being so, how would tightening those laws prevent this shooting?

    Exactly. This is the simple question I’ve been posting anywhere some imbecile GC nutjob blathers and bloviates on why we need still more.

    Short of full, UK-style confiscation, what POSSIBLE alterations to the Law regarding possession and use of guns do you imagine would have had ANY effect on this tragedy?

    While one notes lots of attempts to bloviate past that question, one never hears anything but a call for more [generic] laws.

    IGotBupkis, Legally Defined Cyberbully in All 57 States (8e2a3d)

  194. One of the problems with the infantilization of teens is that it has been pushed up into the 20’s, and we have a generation of adults who have never “grown up”.
    Then, we wonder where all the Obama voters came from.

    askeptic (2bb434)

  195. Full Blown Confiscation, ala Great Britain; and GB still has mass murders.
    And, let’s not forget that school incident in Osaka, Japan where the nut-job used a knife to kill 8 kids.

    askeptic (2bb434)

  196. akeptic, China has been having a streak of mass knifings often at schools.

    SPQR (768505)

  197. Knife violence in the UK has also sky rocketed. There’s always a way, if you are so inclined.

    Gazzer (a4a9c9)

  198. 189. An impressively detailed and persuasive argument.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  199. 187. One night on NPR during a return from WI I listened to the heroic effort of a adoptive mother of a Russian orphan to establish the bond. Already having other adult children, she held a child her size in her arms for hours.

    In depth stories, the only thing NPR is good for.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  200. A modern authority on Aperger’s is a physician or psychiatrist named Atwood or something like. I think he pushes an occurance of 1 in 200, more common than Autism per se.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  201. Hats off to our MSM news services:

    http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012/12/children-murdered-at-sandy-hook-were-6-and-7-years-old/

    They don’t seem to have gotten anything right the first, second or third time ’round.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  202. Sarahw #189,

    Thank you for that link.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  203. This link includes further (lay) description of Lanza’s congenital pain insensitivity syndrome, by a school district security head, Richard Novia, among some other “student history”:

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/15/adam-lanza-pain-loner-teacher_n_2308641.html

    SarahW (b0e533)

  204. Link is at Huffpo, but is an AP story.

    SarahW (b0e533)

  205. From 2003, brief discussion of pain insensitivity/indifference http://89.16.177.37/medicalinformation/conditions/azlistings/c645.html

    SarahW (b0e533)

  206. Pamela,

    I don’t know if you are reading the comments but, in 2002, one of the few long-term studies of families with autistic children (link at page 6) reported that “approximately a quarter of the [autistic] children were described by their parents as aggressive.” That strikes me as statistically significant.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  207. Pain threshholds differ among people, and pain drugs bring them down, hurting the person instead of helping him. Sometimes in very bad ways.

    Pain is the weakest of all stimuluses (yes, I know Caesar said stimuli). An itch is a stronger stimulous than pain. So is a tickle. When a baseball hits your elbow, you rub it to make it feel better.

    Get it? This pain-insensitivity stuff is nonsense. You don’t need to scream like a little girl for pricking your finger with a rose thorn to be normal.

    nk (875f57)

  208. Doesn’t Patterico’s stalker also have this diagnosis?
    Comment by JoNobody (3f1b67) — 12/15/2012 @ 9:35 am

    — Not sure, but it WOULD explain imdw’s behavior.

    Icy (f2bdbd)

  209. NK, nah, there are real wired-up wrong syndromes.

    SarahW (b0e533)

  210. In my limited experience, violent reactions from my relative tend to be focused on his father, and me. But it is never planned, and I have never seen it go beyond those directly targeted. By that, if he goes after his father, the scope does not expand to include others present, we have no idea what sets off the incidents, and it got harder as he got older, bigger, and stronger. It started off as playful pinching as a child, then hair pulling, grabbing, and now sadly, actual violence, hitting, biting, throwing aginst walls, tearing doors off hinges, pulling hair from scalp. It is terrifying, and heartbreaking. One thing that we found out was that the incidents tended to happen around changes in season, and were worse in the winter. Lack of sunshine, and outdoor activities, especially physical activities. Hard to tell, with a subject of 1 to draw data from.

    JD (65eef4)

  211. “This pain-insensitivity stuff is nonsense.”

    nk – I have no idea what you believe you are talking about. I had a friend in high school who after a leg injury had one leg through which he could feel no pain from approximately the knee down, but otherwise functioned perfectly fine. He would gross people out by doing nasty stuff like putting boiling water on it, stabbing it, etc., but he played soccer and ran track.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  212. http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl/2002_3599098/mom-upset-autistic-kid-handcuffed.html

    I witnessed this incident personally, this child was not receiving the care from his parents either IMO

    EPWJ (d3a1a0)

  213. I have peripheral neuropathy, daleyrocks. Left leg is dead below the knee. Right foot numb.

    But I also had a high pain threshold from birth. You just rub it, pour cold water on it, or ignore it.

    nk (875f57)

  214. From gary at #213, we learn that mommy bought the guns and taught him how to shoot. No father in the house. Older brother has moved out. Oedipus only tore out his own eyes.

    nk (875f57)

  215. 206.Knife violence in the UK has also sky rocketed. There’s always a way, if you are so inclined.

    Comment by Gazzer (a4a9c9) — 12/15/2012 @ 5:36 pm

    http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/britain_seeks_ban_on_pint_glasses/

    The BBC reported recently that the British Home Office is seeking a new design for pint glasses that it hopes may reduce the number of incidents in which people attack each other with pint glasses. According to official statistics, 5,500 people are attacked with glasses and bottles every year in England and Wales. (Probably lots more in Scotland, though maybe they just use swords.) This public safety emergency has spurred the government into action, seeking a design that cannot be used as a weapon.

    Dumbing people down and encouraging them to act on their baser instincts so the government has to bban everyday objects until there’s nothing left that can bue used as a weapon is national suicide.

    No nation ever survived as a sea-to-shining-sea daycare center.

    Steve57 (25fb74)

  216. nk, we’ll have to see. So far, everything reported in the media has turned out to be false.

    SPQR (768505)

  217. @196,

    I don’t think you really contradicted anything I said. For another comment thread I linked to a chart showing the out-of-wedlock birth rate for the 20th century and the first decade of this century.

    It was stable for the first half of the 20th century; about 7% of births were out-of-wedlock. Given the availability of legal birth control and abortion before 1950 I’m certain teenagers weren’t having nearly as much pre-marital sex as their later counterparts.

    But then although they weren’t getting married at Romeo and Juliet age they were no doubt marrying at a younger age than today. Since few people went to college, more people started careers and families right out of high school.

    Plus there were far more familial and social supports for avoiding pre-marital sex. Government hadn’t yet eliminated its rivals in its quest to become all things to all people and hadn’t yet destroyed the influence of family (oldsters experienced social security in the form of the kids taking care of them as opposed to being warehoused), church, and other civic associations.

    Steve57 (25fb74)

  218. On the same level there is a relationship between deafness and violence. Or between lesbian relationships and violence.

    scable (7271f8)

  219. “I have peripheral neuropathy, daleyrocks. Left leg is dead below the knee.”

    nk – Exactly why it is nonsense to say the matter is nonsense. High pain threshhold is something is completely different, probably a Spartan genetic trait.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  220. At least AP had direct quotes from a named source. Also, Pain indifference not the same as pain insensitivity.

    SarahW (b0e533)

  221. 217, 221, 223. Sounds like classic autism.

    214. I really don’t know why this kid was in public school. Yeah it might have broadened him, but, leaving aside the developments post-school, what point was there?

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  222. Why does ‘Cool Hand Luke’ pop into my head:

    http://althouse.blogspot.com/2012/12/curiously-during-period-before.html

    Hands in my pockets here Boss.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  223. Numb skin just means nunb skin. It does not mean a mommy who bought you four pistols and a rifle, and taught you how to shoot them, and how to use “your gun”.

    nk (875f57)

  224. This guy used Mommy’s guns, so it’s not a perfect defense.

    There are ways to deal with this, too. Requiring that all weapons be kept in a manner unavailable to the presumed dangerous…

    I dunno. One thing here is that this is, I’d presume, a Poisson distribution event. While there’s been a steady spate of them lately… what do we know that would suggest it’s not like the arrival of four major hurricanes in 2005, to be followed by the longest “hurricane drought” in recorded US history?

    IGotBupkis, Legally Defined Cyberbully in All 57 States (8e2a3d)

  225. “Numb skin just means nunb skin.”

    nk – Why is talking about just numb skin making you angry?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  226. I think that I should think that we are not getting the facts from the MFM. For one thing, a lady getting a quarter million in alimony is not likely. And she would not be working as a teacher’s aide, if so.

    nk (875f57)

  227. 109. cross posted. It ought to be telling when someone wants a gun so bad that he won’t tolerate the waiting period.

    Waiting periods kill. There was a widely-publicised story years ago about a woman whose ex threatened her, so she went to buy a gun, and while she was waiting the required period he killed her.

    Milhouse (15b6fd)

  228. Bonnie Elmasri

    Milhouse (15b6fd)

  229. my wee baby niece person texts that we’s supposed to wear blue on monday

    Um, why?

    Milhouse (15b6fd)

  230. Here’s a modest proposal: it should be illegal to publicise mass-shootings on television or in newspapers with a circulation of more than 20,000. And it should be illegal to mention the names of the shooters except in legal briefs and dry academic papers that people can look up if they really need to. This may seem like a draconian restriction of first amendment rights, but anyone willing to compromise on the second amendment should be equally willing on the first. And if it saves even one life, wouldn’t it be worth it? It’s at least more likely to be effective, with less impact on the lives of ordinary people, than the various suggestions made by the gun-grabbers.

    Milhouse (15b6fd)

  231. I heard on a report this morning that all of the victims had been shot multiple times with a rifle… first mention that a rifle had been used in the shooting and not in the back of the car.

    I guess having a totally erroneous story to tell right away is considered better than actually being accurate.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  232. 242. At least the margins are emerging. Both sides of the family wealthy. Mother a bonvivant, survivalist, kid tolerated as a modest impediment. Dad workaholic.

    Altercation the day prior with perp attempting entry? No stakeout?

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  233. The massacre in CT can be laid at the feet of the our government

    Last night it also emerged Nancy was a member of the Doomsday Preppers movement, which believes people should prepare for end of the world.

    Her former sister-in-law Marsha said she had turned her home ‘into a fortress’. She added: ‘Nancy had a survivalist philosophy which is why she was stockpiling guns. She had them for defense.

    ‘She was stockpiling food. She grew up on a farm in New Hampshire. She was skilled with guns. We talked about preppers and preparing for the economy collapsing.’

    … Trillion dollar deficits lead to the massacre .. but who is responsible for that ? .. the Mayans ?

    Neo (d1c681)

  234. cnn is reveling in the aftermath like a kid on christmas morning

    it’s beyond obscene

    happyfeet (5c85cb)

  235. Mr. Milhouse my little niece person said no blue we’re supposed to wear green n white cause of that’s the school colors of the school in connecticut

    hell if I know where she’s getting that from but her earnestness is very sweet I think

    happyfeet (5c85cb)

  236. I don’t think we can assume anything about the mother or the father. Autistics like this, even high-functioning ones, alter their families in profound ways. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn the mother basically watched Adam full-time, and spending time at the school was her only escape. If so, that may be why Adam resented and targeted the school.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  237. 233. People with pain insensitivity aren’t numb, NK.

    Sarahw (b0e533)

  238. 236. I think that I should think that we are not getting the facts from the MFM. For one thing, a lady getting a quarter million in alimony is not likely. And she would not be working as a teacher’s aide, if so.

    Comment by nk (875f57) — 12/16/2012 @ 2:19 am

    Only a woman with other means of support could have afforded to maintain her home, lifestyle, son, and avocation of working as a teacher’s aid. If that’s even what it was, and not a purely volunteer position. No one seems to be sure of anything about what Nancy Lanza did except that she didn’t work for a living.

    Steve57 (25fb74)

  239. the republican party has been blindsided by this

    there’s 20 dead kids just lying there waiting to be exploited and the democrats are having a field day and obama is having fun with the pretend tears thing and CNN already has two weeks of festivities planned

    but the republicans? They’re still trying to understand what happened

    happyfeet (5c85cb)

  240. Most don’t have ‘the deatheater’ gene, an interesting sidenote, one of the spendings cut by DOJ was school resource officers,

    narciso (ee31f1)

  241. I have also reas tha t the mother was a control feak and always pushing her kids to excel. They did but the younger one lost the ability, drive or motivating or drive to sometime in high school and was then homeschooled.

    Mother may have been disapproving and continually harped on it to him. She may have also expressed her shame of him as friends and neighbors say she very rarely mentioned him.

    And it’s also telling the older son hadn’t been home and seen his brother in two years. Was it the brother he avoided or the mother?

    The story starts with what was going on behind this family’s closed doors.

    Dana (292dcf)

  242. If we would outlaw public schools, then there would never be another mass shooting at a public school.

    Elephant Stone (65d289)

  243. Thumb typing. Meh.

    Dana (292dcf)

  244. Hey Pamela, you have more dragons to slay.

    Amalgamated Cliff Divers, Local 157 (721840)

  245. Don’t know what happened to the link. My HTML-fu is weak today.

    Amalgamated Cliff Divers, Local 157 (721840)

  246. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn the mother basically watched Adam full-time, and spending time at the school was her only escape.

    There was something quite amiss with the son, with the school that he originally attended, and reports of her apparently being a devotee of weaponry (she felt the need to own 5 guns?!) and appeared to be nonchalant enough about her son — mentally unstable though he was — to train him to use such guns?

    abcnews.go.com: The aunt of Connecticut shooter Adam Lanza said the shooter’s mother pulled him out of Newtown’s public school system because she was unhappy with the school district’s plans for her son.

    Marsha Lanza, who is Adam’s aunt and Nancy’s ex-sister-in-law, called her former sister-in-law an “awesome … giving person.” She also [said] that Nancy had once been a classroom aide at the Sandy Hook school.

    Marsha…said that Nancy had home-schooled Adam after pulling him out of the Newtown public school system. “She mentioned she wound up home-schooling him because she battled with the school district,” said Marsha.

    According to police, a Glock handgun, a Sig Sauer handgun and a Bushmaster rifle were recovered after the shooting at Sandy Hook. Authorities say that Nancy Lanza had five weapons registered to her, including a Sig Sauer, a Glock and a Bushmaster. Police have not confirmed that hers were the weapons used in the slayings.

    nypost.com: Weapon-loving Nancy Lanza regularly took her awkward loner-son Adam to shooting ranges, where the painfully shy boy — who suffered from the autism-related Asperger’s syndrome — blasted away targets using his mom’s small arsenal of guns.

    “She’d take them to the range a lot… Nancy was an enthusiast — so much so that she wanted to pass it on to her kids,” said her former landscaper and occasional drinking buddy Dan Holmes. “Whenever I finished work and went inside to chitchat, she spoke often about her fascination with firearms. Nancy had an extensive gun collection, and she was really quite proud of it.”

    ^ The mother may have been prone to very poor judgment, in tandem with her fascination with guns. Just a bit of flippancy when I wonder if that made her analogous to one of the notorious rappers who are sometimes in the headlines.

    Mark (94cc2f)

  247. “the republican party has been blindsided by this”

    Mr. Feets – The Republicans should propose a law against mass shootings immediately to avoid allowing the Democrats from seizing all the momentum on this tragedy, plus propose a law putting all Honor Roll students in high school on a DHS watch list, because that is obviously what caused Adam’s life to go horribly wrong.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  248. “Mass Shooter Was Autistic: How Relevant Was This?”

    The only way you could have prevented this was by locking the guy up BEFORE he did what he did, only he doesn’t appear to have ever done anything wrong before he went nuts and started blasting.

    At least according to the information currently available.

    Dave Surls (46b08c)

  249. This seems to tail with the link suggesting confrontation ends the rampaging:

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/16/adam-lanza-shot-himself-a_n_2311483.html

    Re official’s comment on ABC This Week.

    SarahW (b0e533)

  250. that’s a good start Mr. daley but I fear it’s too little too late

    obama and the cnn have these 20 little corpses in a death grip and they’re not letting go

    happyfeet (5da4d0)

  251. I find it utterly ironic that the president complained about McCain and Graham “politicizing ” Benghazi as they attempted to get to the truth of the matter, and yet he was perfectly comfortable politicicizing this tragedy of epic proportion with his first comments to the public. His hypocrisy knows no bounds. His deftness in tapping into public sentiment and seizing the opportunity is unparalleled.

    Never let a crisis go to waste, indeed.

    Dana (292dcf)

  252. No, I find it sadly predictable, he was totally responsible for Benghazi, from committing us to Libya, to arming the militias to stripping the consulate of security,

    narciso (ee31f1)

  253. Dave – he did. He showed up at the school the day prior and had conflict with four people, about entering the building. All four of whom, BTW, he shot the next day after breaking into the building. One of them survived and is able to talk with investigators, apparently.

    SarahW (b0e533)

  254. 5 whole guns, Mark? Wow, that is soooo many. Definitely an “arsenal” …

    /sarcasm

    SPQR (768505)

  255. if he’d had even a fraction of that day-prior conflict with a flight attendant he woulda had his freedom of action severely curtailed almost immediately

    happyfeet (5da4d0)

  256. “that’s a good start Mr. daley but I fear it’s too little too late”

    Mr. Feets – That is what is wrong with today’s Republican Party. They are just not prepared to get on TV on a moment’s notice and make blithering idiots of themselves spouting nonsensical policy pronouncements in the wake of tragedies in an effort to politicize them. It is a failure of leadership.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  257. but with televised interfaith vigil we can make the healings

    everyone be sure to tune in

    happyfeet (5da4d0)

  258. “Dave – he did.”

    As far as I can tell, he was never in ANY kind of trouble…until he went nuts and killed a bunch of people.

    Dave Surls (46b08c)

  259. “obama and the cnn have these 20 little corpses in a death grip and they’re not letting go”

    Mr. Feets – Any word yet on how many of the little corpses looked like Obama’s dead little son or daughter?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  260. Guns, OTOH, are just things, and are known sources of mind-rays that warp and twist our actions.

    Not only that, but they’ve been shown to have a direct connection to Global Warming…

    Smock Puppet, 10th Dan Snark Master and Gravitationally Distortive Object (8e2a3d)

  261. Mr. daley we can’t rush the investigation that information will be forthcoming in the coming days weeks and months as the connecticut navel-gazing network continues to explore the contours of this tragedy

    happyfeet (5da4d0)

  262. “Earlier reports that the suspected shooter, Adam Lanza, had an altercation with four adults at the school on Thursday have been investigated and are not accurate, according to a law enforcement source with knowledge of the investigation.”

    “Lt. J. Paul Vance of the Connecticut State Police noted in a news conference Saturday that he knew of no reports about Lanza being involved in any altercations at the school.”–CNN

    This kid looks like he was squeaky clean…right up until the moment he went wacko and started blasting people.

    At least according to the information currently available.

    Dave Surls (46b08c)

  263. That’s interesting Dave. Just as details were getting more specific (he tried to enter the school the day before) it suddenly didn’t happen. I think something did, though – they just don’t like the characterization of it being an “altercation”. Liability would flow from that.

    I think he showed up there on the eleventh, and perhaps left without too much fuss.

    SarahW (b0e533)

  264. “Squeaky clean” – maybe, in the criminal sense – (although I wonder. His juvenile record is not really available for our inspection)

    Absolutely not in the mental-health sense. His mother paid the ultimate price for her lack of wisdom in allowing her abnormally functioning son to master the use of deadly weapons.

    SarahW (b0e533)

  265. Probably, he was ‘casing’ the place, look for access points,

    narciso (ee31f1)

  266. A Letter-to-the-Editor in the hometown weekly about a car parking in a handicap space sans placard, and the confrontation that resulted from a complainant eventually involving the police, but no ticket issued; resulted in multiple responses to the effect that the gentleman who complained, confronted the illegal parker, and caused the police to become involved, should have just minded his own business!

    A gentleman who I am close friends with is 87 years old. About 2 years ago he suffered a stroke that left him quite functional but apparently affected the capacity to drive effectively. He seems to have lost just enough of his spacial self-awareness that, while he could probably drive fine in an emergency he seems all too likely to cause a minor fender-bender.

    So he’s given up driving. He has bad knees, however, so he does have a handicapped hang-tag.

    I routinely drive him these days where he wants to go. As a result, we are almost always parked in an HC spot. Since I move much faster than he does, I often do things ahead of him — carry the groceries to the car, etc. — so someone could easily look at me moving around the car and take offense at “my” use of the decal while being “unencumbered” by a disability.

    They’d be rather embarrassed when he came walking up asking what the problem was… ya think?

    It’s also pertinent to make another point — that not all problems may be visible. He has bad knees. Anyone could have bad knees, and not really show it. Ditto with a bad back preventing walking long distances.

    So it’s not so much a “mind your own business” thing in this case so much, to my lights, as “Figure it out: you don’t have the slightest clue”. Along with “Is it really so massive an offense that you want to make a scene over it?”

    Yeah, people do abuse them, no argument. But it’s not worth making a scene over. The world has much bigger problems you should be using your time and mental acuity to deal with.
    😉

    IGotBupkis, Legally Defined Cyberbully in All 57 States (8e2a3d)

  267. the republican party has been blindsided by this

    Feets, the GOP leadership would be blindsided by rain occurring in a hurricane.

    This is “dog bites man”, not “man bites dog”.

    *sigh*

    IGotBupkis, Legally Defined Cyberbully in All 57 States (8e2a3d)

  268. yes there are produce managers at kroger what respond more adroitly to changing circumstances

    I understand boehner is busy putting together a fundraiser for the federal government but the rest of Team R needs to be engaged i think

    happyfeet (5da4d0)

  269. ‘“Squeaky clean” – maybe, in the criminal sense…’

    Maybe some additional information will come out, but the way it looks now is that this kid never did anything wrong in his life…up until the moment he started shooting people.

    No trouble with the law, no trouble at school, no in and out of mental institutions. No nothing.

    So what are you going to do, if that’s the case?

    Nothing, because there’s nothing we can do, except clean up the mess after it’s over.

    Dave Surls (46b08c)

  270. I’m not buying it, they always send up flags,

    narciso (ee31f1)

  271. No trouble with the law, no trouble at school, no in and out of mental institutions. No nothing.

    We qualify “nothing” differently. His abnormalities and inability to interact with others normally – was manifest to anyone who observed him. He apparently had an IEP, diagnoses that marked him as afflicted by neuro-psychiatric problems.

    He was “prone to outburts” “deeply troubled for sure” – to people who were not neuro-psychiatrists.

    His diagnoses should have been enough to bar him from handling firearms, in my view, barring some due process to either overthrow his diagnoses or establish stability and conformity with monitoring for change.

    SarahW (b0e533)

  272. We qualify “nothing” differently. His abnormalities and inability to interact with others normally – was manifest to anyone who observed him. He apparently had an IEP, diagnoses that marked him as afflicted by neuro-psychiatric problems.

    I wonder if this could have been prevented had we had random mental health screenings, and summary euthanasia of those who fail. This would be a lesser burden on freedom than a ban on guns, because a ban on guns would affect everybody, but forcibly euthanising the mentally ill only affects the mentally ill.

    Would sacrificing the rights of the mentally ill be worth it to prevent tragedies?

    Michael Ejercito (2e0217)

  273. Michael, there’s probably something to do between nothing and euthanasia.

    SarahW (b0e533)

  274. Would sacrificing the rights of the mentally ill be worth it to prevent tragedies?

    So your “modest proposal” is to do the very thing you’re trying to prevent, in order to prevent it.

    Milhouse (15b6fd)

  275. It was stable for the first half of the 20th century; about 7% of births were out-of-wedlock. Given the availability of legal birth control and abortion before 1950 I’m certain teenagers weren’t having nearly as much pre-marital sex as their later counterparts.

    Steve, you’re overestimating the age at which people got married in earlier times. I recall watching the 1960 movie ‘Gypsy’, about Gypsy Rose Lee, in which, IIRC, GRL’s sister, around whom the family’s vaudeville act, eloped with another troupe member and got married in Oklahoma at 14. Yes, that was the legal marrying age in the time you discuss. I’d suggest to justify your argument you need to look into average marrying ages in the first half of the century. I’d lay odds they were under 18, probably under 17. And I’d suspect out of wedlock births were undercounted, it had a considerable social stigma back then.

    I’m not so much disagreeing with you, BTW, as much as calling attention to a radical change in the last century or a bit more in terms of what we expected of teens, and even children. Until this nation “got rich” (ca. 1890 or so), children weren’t used as a labor force because they were easy and available, they were used as a labor force because they were NEEDED. A nation without mechanized agriculture, and without a substantially developed industrial base, could not support that many unproductive mouths.

    The problem is that we’ve been steadily ripping away all individualism, all independence and autonomy, and all self-responsibility, and the “moral fiber”, to use a now quant term, that comes with those things.

    “As to the species of exercise, I advise the gun. While this gives a moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise, and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be the constant companion of your walks.”

    – Thomas Jefferson, 1785

    Just walking around with a gun in your hand as “simple exercise”. How things have changed…

    This has always been the battle of humanity — trying to support the unproductive mouths that did the kind of essential work that advanced civilization to make it capable of supporting still more unproductive mouths (‘uproductive’ in the sense that they weren’t employed in producing basic needs, not ‘doing nothing useful at all’)

    … And now, of course, we are in the egregious position of having TOO MANY unproductive mouths that aren’t useful to society at all.
    :-S

    IGotBupkis, Legally Defined Cyberbully in All 57 States (8e2a3d)

  276. a lot of people in that town, including Adam’s mom, had not been paying their fair share Mr Bupkis

    maybe at the televised interfaith vigil Obama can tell them about the balanced approach

    happyfeet (5da4d0)

  277. Michael, there’s probably something to do between nothing and euthanasia.

    Like what? We can not exactly plug flash drives into people’s skulls to upload the latest bug fix to fix mental problems. Nor can we afford to wait to develop this ability.

    Euthanasia is the most effective method of keeping the mentally disturbed from obtaining arms, and the most narrowly tailored method of doing so.

    And yet, even sacrificing the rights of a small proportion of people may be too high a price to pay to keep us safe.

    Michael Ejercito (2e0217)

  278. “His diagnoses should have been enough to bar him from handling firearms, in my view…”

    I see no evidence that he was diagnosed with ANYTHING.

    Not so far, anyway.

    Dave Surls (46b08c)

  279. ‘He was “prone to outburts”’

    I haven’t seen any evidence supporting that contention either.

    Like I said, all the available evidence says he was never in any kind of trouble, period.

    Maybe some evidence will come out, but so far…zippo.

    Dave Surls (46b08c)

  280. cancy crowley is also prone to outbursts

    happyfeet (5da4d0)

  281. candy crowley i mean

    happyfeet (5da4d0)

  282. So now we’re blaming the mother because she wanted the best for her children and pushed them to excel?

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  283. Yes, DRJ, because nothing a person does is their own responsibility. Don’t worry. You will hear none of this is the mother’s fault either. It’s the nice, impersonal Right Wing that is to blame.

    Simon Jester (608160)

  284. i think we’re blaming the mom cause she maybe forgot to lock the gun cabinet one day

    i doubt she left them out for weirdo to play with while she was running errands

    happyfeet (5da4d0)

  285. I have a great deal of respect for the regular commenters here but I’m not sure you understand how little medicine knows about autism, how difficult it can be to live with the disorder when you don’t have any tools to deal with it, and how easy it is to blame the families when you can’t comprehend what some parents face.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  286. happyfeet,

    My guess is she was afraid to live alone in an expensive, remote home and felt she needed protection. Maybe she liked guns, too — a lot of people do. But I agree that, living with an autistic, she should have been very, very careful with her guns.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  287. I don’t want to alarm anyone, but this Civilization thingy we’ve gotten entrenched in doesn’t seem to be working out.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  288. it sounds like she was detail-oriented and liked things just so

    did she let Adam have a key to the guns?

    it doesn’t sound like she let him have a key to his own car

    happyfeet (5da4d0)

  289. It’s relevant, because it is part of the background to this story.

    His being autistic (or peculiar maybe) explains why he was rejected by other people, (almost certain in general – if he was not rejected outright, what he wanted to do, and what he didn’t want to do was rejected) and the fact he was rejected by other people was a key ingredient in his deciding to kill a lot of other people. (plus the fact probably that once he’d killed his mother, all subsequent killings were “free”)

    It likely was a necessary but a far from sufficient condition for this to happen.

    So , it’s relevant, but just one ingredient that went into this.

    Sammy Finkelman (dcc9ca)

  290. I’ve seen reports he attended Sandy Hook and another saying he attended another ‘Reid Elementary’.

    So why do you choose 1st graders to kill for revenge? Did he really identify with little children? No doubt they scared easily.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  291. A picture of Lanza in Elementary shool seemed entirely normal, even angelic. No elongation of the face.

    Wonder if there weren’t endocrine issues, like the pituitary.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  292. So now we’re blaming the mother because she wanted the best for her children and pushed them to excel?

    Comment by DRJ (a83b8b) — 12/16/2012 @ 12:35 pm

    I don’t think I’m blaming the mother. There is, from reports we’ve read, a rigidity to her and she had high expectations. She was a well practiced shooter, decked her halls grandly, and had grown up to be pretty self-sufficient from her New Hampshire upbringing. It would naturally follow that she imposed these on her sons (we know she did regarding academics). With one who is mentally fragile and already pulled from school, how did he cope with the pressure? Was mom able to rein it in proportionately to his capabilities? Did he hate her for it? Was he pressured too much? There is a reason he chose to kill her first.

    What does pique my interest is a father no longer being in the home. Normal teenage boys are difficult to usher through adolescence with both parents in the home; how much more when one is as ill as the young Lanza was?

    These are reasonable obsvations and questions – if the info we have is credible.

    Dana (292dcf)

  293. Bupkis, per census bureau data the median age at marriage has risen from 26.1 for men and 22 for women in 1890 to 28.2 for men and 26.1 for women in 2010. The lowest median age was recorded in both 1950 and 1960 when it was 22.8 for men and 20.3 for women. At no point did the median age drop into the teens for either sex.

    The statistics bear out the anecdotal evidence that I heard from people of my grandparents’ and parents’ generations. It was more typical to marry shortly after high school. Yes, one could get married earlier, but that wasn’t the norm.

    However, currently not only is the average age at marriage the highest ever recorded but fewer than half of all US adults at marriage. So marriage is no longer the norm either.

    Hence the higher out-of-wedlock birth rates. People delaying marriage if they even get married at all.

    Steve57 (25fb74)

  294. 295.I have a great deal of respect for the regular commenters here but I’m not sure you understand how little medicine knows about autism, how difficult it can be to live with the disorder when you don’t have any tools to deal with it, and how easy it is to blame the families when you can’t comprehend what some parents face.

    Comment by DRJ (a83b8b) — 12/16/2012 @ 12:55 pm

    You are right, DRJ, we don’t. Thank God.

    We are mostly talking out of our ears.

    I’ll stop.

    nk (875f57)

  295. Dana,

    Some spouses grow closer but others leave because it’s too stressful to live with autism. As for the siblings, I think most families encourage their normal children to leave — for their own protection and so they can lead normal lives. They’ve lost enough by simply living with autism as children, and it’s not fair to expect them to live with it as adults.

    As for rigidity, it’s the autistic that forces parents to be rigid. Part of autism is the demand that everyone conform to their agendas and behaviors. It takes every ounce of energy to fight it and parents of autistics quickly learn to pick their battles.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  296. This.

    Nancy and Peter Lanza divorced in 2009 after 28 years of marriage. The break up was traumatic, leaving the couple’s sons devastated. Ryan Lanza was living away at university, meaning that his brother Adam, four years younger, was left at home alone with their mother at their £350,000 house.

    http://www.businessinsider.com/adam-lanza-very-very-bright-and-a-deeply-disturbed-kid-2012-12#ixzz2FFmvPkQv

    How muc more devastating to one not well?

    Dana (292dcf)

  297. My last link should have said “living with mental illness or autism.”

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  298. They lasted 28 years, Dana. I’m not going to throw stones at the parents or this family.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  299. nk,

    I don’t want to stop this discussion. I’m the one who initiated it because I think it needs to be discussed.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  300. DRJ, I was not throwing stones. Its an ugly thought. I am deeply upset by this as most of us are and am giving it a lot of thought. The question of fathers, trauma via divorce, and absence of fathers (also in your link) seem relevant.

    It may be more personal for some. It may be more awful for others.

    I’m out.

    Dana (292dcf)

  301. Dana:

    There is, from reports we’ve read, a rigidity to her and she had high expectations. She was a well practiced shooter, decked her halls grandly, and had grown up to be pretty self-sufficient from her New Hampshire upbringing. It would naturally follow that she imposed these on her sons (we know she did regarding academics).

    If you replace New Hampshire with Chicago and guns with exercise/diet, this could be a description of Michelle Obama. In other words, aren’t these normally good qualities — especially in today’s world when high-functioning but different children are mainstreamed with other children?

    I have no problem with questions but you could just as easily see this as a mother who believed the hype that autistics need rigid behavioral intervention to succeed. You do realize that intensive behavior intervention is the main therapy endorsed by medical professionals for autism, don’t you?

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  302. I’m not trying to be ugly or stop you from talking, Dana. Let me leave instead of you.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  303. My daughter’s best friend in second grade, red hair and freckles, that I wrote about, is being raised by a mother whose husband left her, and as I understand, whatever he’s learning it’s mostly from “home-schooling”.

    Teachers, principals, teachers’ aides don’t want to work hard.

    We transferred our daughter out of that place, too, for different reasons.

    nk (875f57)

  304. If DRJ goes, I go.

    nk (875f57)

  305. No, regardless of his impairment, he was responsible in the way he targeted those children,
    that’s the point that is missed in these exercises.

    narciso (ee31f1)

  306. i vote anderson cooper goes

    he’s ruining christmas

    happyfeet (5da4d0)

  307. Will this mindless speculation ever end? We don’t know what happened. We can never know much of what happened because the witnesses and perp are dead. People are making stuff up and arguing about the stuff they make up. Pointless and futile…

    WarEagle82 (97b777)

  308. They are moving him to the late night slot, a ‘more selective’ audience for him,

    narciso (ee31f1)

  309. We have been doing Patterico an injustice. He was asking for a plebicite on MacNaughten. How nuts?

    nk (875f57)

  310. no this mindless speculation will never end

    you must not have cable

    happyfeet (5da4d0)

  311. they tried to de-oprahfy him by sending him to israel but damn it the ceasefire came before they made any progress

    too late now… he’s burbling about grief sharing techniques as we speak

    happyfeet (5da4d0)

  312. I know this is a hard topic to discuss, so I’m going to think about this wonderful young lady and heroic teacher, Vicki Soto.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  313. if she’d even just had a tazer we might could have had a happier ending here

    happyfeet (5da4d0)

  314. 5 whole guns, Mark? Wow, that is soooo many. Definitely an “arsenal” … /sarcasm

    SPQR, 5 does seem excessive, although I do admit to gender stereotyping and using that as the context to describe the hobby of collecting guns as being more unusual for a female compared with a male.

    If the killer’s mother had experiences with her son even somewhat like what’s described in the piece posted by Patterico yesterday, then she had no business being so complacent about such weaponry being anywhere near a teenager who was so mentally unstable. Or being so casual about imposing her hobby — and interest in gun use — upon the shoulders of her son. If he truly was a handful, then that showed extremely poor judgment on her part.

    I’m curious which direction her politics leaned? I know that Connecticut is a typically uber-blue, liberalism-is-beautiful Northeastern state, but I envision Adam Lanzer’s mother as being an ideological chameleon, similar to an Arnold Schwarzenegger or Florida’s Charlie Crist. However, it would be fascinating if she were, in actuality, a staunch Republican, but one with deficient common sense when it came to her son.

    Mark (94cc2f)

  315. Oh, for the sake of fack, Mark.

    JD (318f81)

  316. I don’t know about you, JD, but to me something about the following rings a weird bell. Something about this seems off or peculiar, both darkly obsessive and strangely naive:

    nj.com: Adam Lanza was too young to own guns under state law. But he was a frequent visitor at a shooting range near his home, according to a former classmate who said the 20-year-old gunman in the deadly rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School first learned how to fire a weapon from his mother, a gun enthusiast who often took him to the range for target practice.

    “She took Adam to the gun ranges with her,” said Emily Edgerton, who attended Newtown High School with Lanza. “He knew she had these guns, and she shared the gun hobby with Adam.”

    ^ I’m giving Nancy Lanza the benefit of the doubt and at least assuming the little routine with her son wasn’t going on well after his early teens, or perhaps around the time she apparently noticed his mental issues were becoming excessive.

    Mark (94cc2f)

  317. “I’m giving Nancy Lanza the benefit of the doubt”

    Mark – Not really when you make assumptions that she was “so complacent” about having guns anywhere near her son.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  318. who is this Emily and why was she stalking Adam

    happyfeet (5da4d0)

  319. 300. …No doubt they scared easily.

    Comment by gary gulrud (dd7d4e) — 12/16/2012 @ 1:22 pm

    That would have appealed to him if he was taking revenge on the world for having been bullied all his life in school. He may have found the idea of facing down older kids too daunting, even with a gun in his hands. And who knows; given the vague nature of what people describe as his personality disorders he may have viewed younger children more as his peers than people his own age.

    If he had been bullied it would explain a lot. Why he dropped out of HS, for instance despite being extremely intelligent and, if I recall correctly, on the honor roll.

    Or he might not have dropped out; he might have been pulled out by his mother. Which he may have found even more humiliating; to have his mom rush in to protect him from high school like he’s a little kid.

    This is pure speculation, of course, but quite a few school shooters are of a type. Geeks, goths, a bit “odd,” and extremely intelligent. They’re not lashing out because they’re one of the cool kids. Nobody shoots up the school because they’re taking the head cheerleader to the prom.

    None of this should imply I’m blaming the mom. I’m sure she did the best she knew how by her son. I can’t even blame her for the fact he accessed her guns. Undoubtedly she did have them locked up. A Connecticut State Trooper might have observed her security precautions and pronounced them satisfactory. But by all accounts Adam was extremely intelligent. If the reports are accurate, though, she was homeschooling Adam after he left HS for whatever reason. He would have had plenty of time to observer her. He would have figured out where she kept the key to the strongbox/gunsafe if there was a key. Or the combination (most people write it down and hide it somewhere). And in fact many safes have both a key and a combination lock and can be opened by one or the other.

    Steve57 (25fb74)

  320. 328. “I’m giving Nancy Lanza the benefit of the doubt”

    Mark – Not really when you make assumptions that she was “so complacent” about having guns anywhere near her son.

    Comment by daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 12/16/2012 @ 3:13 pm

    daley, we don’t know she was complacent. She might very well have secured her guns.

    In any case, Adam did have friends from school. Recall his brother saying he’d get together for LAN parties with them. So if he couldn’t get the guns from his mom, he’d have figured out how to steal them from someone else.

    That’s exactly what other school shooters have done when their parents didn’t have guns they could get a hold of.

    Steve57 (25fb74)

  321. when you make assumptions that she was “so complacent”

    daleyrocks, I actually should say she was enthusiastic — meaning she was far more than complacent — about sharing her hobby with her son and teaching him the finer points in gun use. My big question is how long did that go on?

    Mark (94cc2f)

  322. Mark,

    I see you are trying to make sense of all this – guns were not what killed that day – it was an ill person,probably without the faculties to comprehend the damage he has done.

    Its not the time to disarm, in fact – its quite the opposite….

    but I see you are trying in the best of intentions to protect the next 26 innocent

    good for you, dont let anyone persuade you otherwise

    just as a thought though, a gym teacher or a janitor trained and armed with a 380 would have saved dozens of lives

    EPWJ (9b9c02)

  323. cnn sounds way more like a cheesy telethon than anything resembling news

    still, this is one of those rare instances where they’re covering a story for their lord obama pretty much the same way they’d be covering it if it had happened under mr. bush

    happyfeet (5da4d0)

  324. If we are interested in learning and discussing some general information it is a profitable discussion. Analyzing this particular situation is likely not to get real profitable, as in the first place we are dependent upon very incomplete 2nd , 3rd, or 4th hand information.

    Back in the last century I read selections from a book written in a previous century called (in the translation I had) Letters from the House of the Dead. As I recall, being a mere undergrad at the time no less, it was a collection of short story/character sketches where Dostoyevsky described things he saw and learned, but with little commentary, as if it was all he could do to retell the stories and he was still trying to make sense out of them. For example, 2 men in jail for murder provoked by a wife having an affair. One had killed his wife, the other had killed the other man. Why did they direct their anger differently? Was there “good reason”? was it a whim, the given opportunity? In other words, one can learn a lot about a person or a situation, but then there is also a degree of mystery, the unpredictable, the requires life be lived. As they say if sports, “That is why they play the game”.

    I am speaking from my general fund of knowledge and experience here. Ever since man gave names to all the animals (I like Bob Dylan’s rendition), we have been “lumpers” and “splitters”, trying to group things in ways that make some sense and are helpful to us. Take the common condition of “being depressed”; we associate a number of things in what we see in a person, how they act, how they talk. While there may be a specific list of things we group together, in actuality that person could be looking that way because of hypothyroidism, a degenerative neurological disease, a short term psychological reaction to a set of difficult circumstances, or some primary disorder of brain chemistry that we do not well understand (actually, maybe one of several different neurochemical disorders). For some purposes all of that gets lumped together as “being depressed”, but for other purposes, such as treatment, differentiating one from another is huge.

    I don’t know if the “autism spectrum” is actually “one thing” with differing severity, or more than one thing overlapping. I am not sure on what basis anybody can say for certain.

    Some of the families I am aware of seem to have “all normal people” except the person with autism. Others have one or more individuals among the parents or sibs who have their own oddities of psych or developmental issues. Is a parent “stiff” and “inflexible” because they had to be to cope with an autistic child? Perhaps. Is a parent stiff and inflexible because that is part of their own brain “hard wiring” and some how related to a much more severe expression of a similar thing in the child? Maybe. Is it some of both that interact to some degree. Probably sometimes. I once knew a family with 2 boys with significant mental disabilities long ago, no idea of the specifics. At one point in time one of them was clearly the aggressor and bully between the two. Several years later their “roles” switched. I have no idea what happened to make that shift.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  325. On PowerLine they have a picture of an Israeli teacher with her rifle slung over her shoulder with her class. That would prevent it.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  326. Mark @332, the big question should be how well-adjusted or maladjusted did her son Adam appear to be?

    It’s easy to look back now that we know how it turned out and say his mom should have seen the danger signs.

    Current reports (and these people in the MFM keep getting things wrong so keep that in mind) are that he shot his mom several times in the face while she lay in bed. Undoubtedly asleep.

    I somehow doubt she would have let him handle her guns if she suspected that eventuality was a remote possibility.

    Steve57 (25fb74)

  327. someone suggested that he was at the age when schizophrenia can emerge

    that makes as much sense as anything

    happyfeet (5da4d0)

  328. No, pikachu, they would be blaming Obama for having let it happen, at all,

    narciso (ee31f1)

  329. 336. On PowerLine they have a picture of an Israeli teacher with her rifle slung over her shoulder with her class. That would prevent it.

    Comment by MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 12/16/2012 @ 3:48 pm

    Texas Teachers Packing Heat

    By Eddy Ramírez
    August 19, 2008 RSS Feed Print

    By now, you probably know about the rural school district in northern Texas that will allow its teachers and staff to carry concealed handguns to schools this fall. The news, first reported by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, has made headlines around the world. Here are some of the more irreverent ones:

    “The American school where teachers carry a pen, a ruler … and a gun”—from the Guardian (Britain)

    “Don’t mess with any teachers in Texas”—from the New Zealand Herald…

    You’ve got to love the MFM. That is, love to laugh at them, because what you won’t read in the reporting is that the Wilburger county sheriff admits it could take 20 minutes for his department to respond to an emergency in unincorporated Harrold TX.

    So the good people of Harrold decided that’s just too long to wait if someone goes off their nut and starts shooting up a school.

    But, yeah, that’ll stop ’em.

    Steve57 (25fb74)

  330. guns were not what killed that day – it was an ill person,probably without the faculties to comprehend the damage he has done.

    Exactly, EPWJ.

    I somehow doubt she would have let him handle her guns if she suspected that eventuality was a remote possibility.

    Steve57, I do recall how I jumped to an overly hasty conclusion a few months ago when news first came out about Lance Armstrong and his being stripped of his medals. What I’ve learned about him since then has been surprising — and disconcerting — and forced a “d’oh!” reaction out of me. So I do admit that my current take on the tragedy in Connecticut is 100% pure conjecture.

    Meanwhile, the left in America is happily politicizing the massacre in order to play into the hands of the anti-gun lobby. Some of them cite strict bans on weaponry in countries like Japan and what they deem are therefore automatically corresponding lower rates of crime and murder. But they conveniently sidestep the situation in societies like Mexico, where similar laws haven’t exactly cut down on large numbers of gruesome, dark-ages-type murders from bullets.

    To the liberals out there, I’ll tell you what. When the USA stops being so socially-politically effete and aimless — so much into Oprah-ized, feel-good, I’m-okay-you’re-okay thinking — and starts treating the left the way it apparently is dealt with in Japan, then I’ll begin to listen to your theory about guns vis-a-vie a country across the Pacific.

    However, there are some odd ideological contradictions (and interesting, ironic labeling of parties) in Japan. But I still have more confidence in the sanity of people there compared with much of the electorate here in 2012, in Obama’s America.

    independent.co.uk, December 16: Three years after being dumped from power and written off by some as a political force, Japan’s conservative Liberal Democrats have scored a remarkable electoral comeback in a victory with potentially ominous implications for the rest of Asia. With votes still being counted from today’s general election, the LDP was projected to win control of the 480-seat lower house with coalition partner New Komeito.

    The hawkish LDP leader Shinzo Abe, who has pledged to revive Japan’s stagnant economy and aggressively defend its territorial interests, is now certain to become the nation’s next Prime Minister – its seventh in six years.

    The LDP’s liberal-left rival, the Democratic Party, was pummelled at the polls for breaking electoral promises on welfare, tax and defence, shedding more than 200 seats. The Prime Minister, Yoshihiko Noda, who lost much of his public support by backing a tax rise and supporting nuclear power, conceded defeat last night.

    Mr Abe wants to boost spending on public works and restart Japan’s nuclear reactors, most of which are idling in the wake of last year’s Fukushima nuclear disaster. His remedy for the economy, which is sliding into its fifth recession in 15 years, involves forcing the nation’s central bank to buy billions of yen in special government bonds. “What’s first and foremost is to achieve an economic recovery and pull Japan out of deflation,” he told a television station last night.

    ^ FWIW, there are facets of Japan’s new prime minister that are strangely amoral or overly rightwing for my tastes. But the leftism of Obama, and Euro-Western civilization overall, is far worse to me.

    Mark (94cc2f)

  331. I googled terms autism full of rage

    That search pulled up many, many links; the hope had been to find families or autistic people in discussion about any connection.

    One of the more interesting was a discussion board from 2010 of mothers/relatives of autistic persons talking about the article linked in the top post. It’s worth paging through

    Another was a discussion of autistic mothers and at least one autistic woman describing the experience of rages.

    They aren’t in tortoise mode warding off stories that might stereotype their children, and they are very candid.

    Dave, you wrote earlier that you were skeptical of the reliability the schoolmate’s assertion that he was known for having “outbursts.” I’m not very much, really, and less so all the time.

    Another classmate, this one from elementary school, describes his memorable trait of standing apart at recess, away from other children, straining to make his face red and making animal noises. She described it as a raging, like he was really really angry but wouldn’t tell anyone why.

    SarahW (b0e533)

  332. the comfort dogs have arrived in newtown so that’s good cause of you can get at least three or four segments out of comfort dogs and it’s just good tv

    happyfeet (5da4d0)

  333. …I’m curious which direction her politics leaned?…”

    Isn’t it curious that we haven’t heard of the results of a check of the Voter Registration Rolls for the Lanza’s?
    Whenever there is a misbehaving pol, you can usually determine their political affiliation by the end of the first paragraph:
    If they’re a Dem, there is no mention of affiliation; and if they’re a Rep, it is almost always in the first ‘graph.

    As to CT Gun Laws….
    21 is the minimum age for purchase of a handgun;
    there is no minimum age for purchase of a long-gun.
    http://www.cga.ct.gov/2007/rpt/2007-R-0369.htm

    askeptic (2bb434)

  334. Comment by Mark (94cc2f) — 12/16/2012 @ 4:11 pm

    Due to the nuts running NoKor, and the expansionism of the ChiComs, there is a building groundswell in Japan to renounce the restrictions on a military within the MacArthur imposed constitution. This could have played a part in the win by the LD’s in today’s (got to love that International Date Line, where today’s election happened yesterday) election, and the rise to the top of the party of someone with views that could be considered “more traditional” within Japan, but a bit hawk-like in the USA.

    askeptic (2bb434)

  335. Just like the more hardline Likud slate, after the Hamas interlude,

    narciso (ee31f1)

  336. so he was taking a schizophrenia drug it says …fanapt

    happyfeet (5da4d0)

  337. cnn is not going to be happy about this

    happyfeet (5da4d0)

  338. views that could be considered “more traditional” within Japan, but a bit hawk-like in the USA.

    It’s ideologically topsy-turvy in Japan, because some of that country’s new prime minister’s views are what I’d characterize as socialistic/leftwing (eg, forcing banks to buy government debt), while others are (such as his refusing to acknowledge the extremism of militarist Japan over 60 years ago) classically ultra-rightwing.

    Common sense can be so fragile, at any time, with any person, in any society.

    Just like this event here

    At least more of the French electorate appears to have appropriate buyer’s remorse, since their ultra-liberal president has lower ratings in polls than what’s currently true of many American folks’ opinion of their “Goddamn America” president.

    The massacre in Connecticut may be a sadly fitting symbol of this nation during its Age of Insanity.

    Reuters: France’s opposition UMP conservative party won three by-elections on Sunday despite its own internal problems, in the latest sign of trouble for Socialist President Francois Hollande.

    Approval ratings for Hollande and Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault hit new lows in December, a poll showed. The president’s backing slipped by four points to 37 percent in December, the worst rating since he became France’s first Socialist president in 17 years in May, according to an IFOP poll published for weekly newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche.

    With unemployment at 14-year highs of 10 percent, there was clear political advantage for Hollande to lock horns with Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal to save the plant. But the result was at best a no-score-draw, and the tactics used – anti-business rhetoric and the threat of nationalization – could damage his wider reform effort.

    gallup.com, December 13: President Barack Obama’s job approval rating has increased slightly to 52% since Election Day, after averaging 50% in the month prior to the election. All recent incumbent presidents who ran for re-election saw at least a slight increase in their approval ratings after the election. The average bump is six percentage points for all presidents and four points for those who, like Obama, won re-election.

    Mark (94cc2f)

  339. Well the LDP, is a center right party. but it is based along the mercantilist cartel economy of the Kureitsu

    narciso (ee31f1)

  340. How many more people have to die for Obama’s approval rating to rise?
    Why hasn’t he made our hearts light, and brought us to a new era of compassion and togetherness?

    askeptic (2bb434)

  341. we’re probably gonna need a LOT more comfort dogs mr. skeptic

    happyfeet (5da4d0)

  342. In a nutshell (pardon the pun), guns didn’t kill those people—personality disorder did.

    Elephant Stone (65d289)

  343. Well, Congress should pass a law banning PD.

    askeptic (2bb434)

  344. Most were babies. Mother****ing mother**** w**** of a gun-loving b****.

    nk (875f57)

  345. No, Adam Lanza, did and I don’t particularly care why,

    narciso (ee31f1)

  346. Well, they were very young, but I don’t believe anyone considers 6-7-8 year-olds as “babies”.
    I concede though that a Mother will consider a child, no matter what their age, as her “Baby”.
    But, the fact that these children were not “babies” does not make this crime any less outrageous.

    askeptic (2bb434)

  347. We are focusing on this piece of dog****, who should have been thrown in a cold crevasse, his piece of dog**** mother, and not on the death of the innocents and the pain of their parents.

    nk (875f57)

  348. You don’t have children, do you, askeptic?

    nk (875f57)

  349. In watching TV today, what I saw was a bunch of politicians using those two points to attack the NRA and the 2nd-Amendment, neither of which had anything to do with this tragedy.

    askeptic (2bb434)

  350. Not having children does not make one more or less sympathetic to the pain that this guy has introduced into that community, and the community-at-large; at least that is my opinion. I try to take a detached view of these situations, for it is far too easy to fall into the deep-end in these discussions letting emotions cloud judgement.
    As you should know counselor, hard cases make bad law, and we are on that slope if we allow ourselves to descend it.
    I’m more a Freedom & Liberty type, who acknowledges that no-one can be totally safe in the world, but that each of us is responsible for our safety, and the safety of those around, and close, to us.

    askeptic (2bb434)

  351. narciso,

    Actually, friend, I think it is important to focus on whether or not Lanza was afflicted by a medical condition or by mental illness.
    The reason is that the lefties believe that guns murdered all those people, rather than Lanza. And as a result, they’ll want to be coming after law-abiding people’s guns.

    If Lanza was afflicted by a legitimate medical condition, and/or by mental illness, the water cooler discussion should revolve around that.

    There are millions of law-abiding Americans who own guns, yet do not run out to a movie theatre, schoolyard, or shopping mall to gun people down en masse.
    That point will need to be illluminated during the forthcoming national conversation about gun “control.”

    Elephant Stone (65d289)

  352. I understand, ES, but it seems like a convenient crutch, and an undue stigma on many autistic adults as well as children, still don’t see the connection between whatever his issue is, and slaughtering almost two dozen children,

    narciso (ee31f1)

  353. hello he was taking an anti-psychotic

    that means he had far deeper issues than asperger’s, no?

    happyfeet (5da4d0)

  354. If they still sell strike-alone kitchen matches, I can show you how to make a gun, from $5.00’s worth of plumbing, that you can use to kill a cop and take his 17-round Glock and spare magazines.

    nk (875f57)

  355. So, because Lanza used firearms to deal his perfidy, we will attack the Rights of all gun-owners.
    Did we, following the incident at the Selma bridge, round up all the dog-owners and take their dogs just because Bull Connor used dogs to attack the marchers?

    askeptic (2bb434)

  356. Comment by nk (875f57) — 12/16/2012 @ 5:59 pm

    And this is news?

    askeptic (2bb434)

  357. sarah will know

    happyfeet (5da4d0)

  358. “anti-psychotic” depends on the dosage. 1 mg is …. 80 mgs is, well, maybe, anti-psychotic. They give this junk out like candy.

    nk (875f57)

  359. I’m sure that if Lanza was on scripts, his doctor will have to justify each and every one he wrote for him.
    The potential malpractice suits are horrifying to think about.

    askeptic (2bb434)

  360. And this is news?

    Comment by askeptic (2bb434) — 12/16/2012 @ 6:00 pm

    The information is out there, already, yes.

    nk (875f57)

  361. They were making those when I was in HS back in the fifties.
    Also, you can just use a Louisville Slugger.

    askeptic (2bb434)

  362. I trained for cop, dropped out. My hearing was tested at 20 kz. It’s hard to sneak up behind a cop.

    nk (875f57)

  363. oh.

    i wonder if you ever go off them once you start

    happyfeet (5da4d0)

  364. Atypical antipsychotic and tx of autism:

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2171144/

    He was self-harming (burning his ankles with a lighter), said his mom to some guy in a bar.

    SarahW (b0e533)

  365. narciso,

    I understand the skepticism about how youths are over-diagnosed with ADHD, and learning disabilities, and therefore extended excuses for misbehaving, et al,—really I get that.
    I don’t know much about autism or Asperger’s. It is possible he had one of the two aforementioned conditions, compounded by other mental issues.

    But if this kid was long known to be dysfunctional, anti-social, and possibly even mentally impaired, or mentally ill, then I think there may be some liability to lay at the feet of his parents or potentially his doctor, as to why he was knowingly allowed access to guns.
    It is possible that he ought to have been living at a developmentally disabled adult group home, or even at a mental hospital.

    Major Nidal Hassan at Fort Hood was known to be a bit of a nut, yet the bureaucracy of the Army did not want to do anything disciplinary toward him, partly out of fear of being perceived as “anti-Muslim,” etc.
    In Hissan’s case, as well as with Lanza’s, we need to find out what warning signs were missed—or ignored.

    Again, otherwise the guns will be blamed, rather than the shooters.

    The mainstream media are going to want to focus on gun control, rather than focusing on if Lanza was afflicted by a medical or mental issue.

    Elephant Stone (65d289)

  366. Comment by EPWJ (9b9c02) — 12/16/2012 @ 3:34 pm

    just as a thought though, a gym teacher or a janitor trained and armed with a 380 would have saved dozens of lives

    Somebody on one of the Sunday news shows mentioned the idea of a M-4 rifle in a locked cabinet in the principal’s office. The principal then could have shot him in the head. What, are they all trained SEALS?

    He was wearing a bulletproof vest, so I guess that’s why he says head. Or maybe that’s general principles now by him. But the first shots would miss. Or hit others. And you’d have to realize what is going on.

    None of the 31 pro-gun Senators wanted to go on the shows, or someone from the National Rifle Association.

    As it is, a silent alarm to the police went out right away – and that stopped it after a while because as soon as the police got near he stopped, afraid he might not get a chance to kill himself, I guess. The principal also set off the loudspeaker system, which broadcast sounds of screaming and crying throughout the school, so all the teachers knew they had to lock the doors and hide the children. They had actually had some kind of training. They didn’t know who the armed men outside were. Maybe part of an attack. When police came in and said they were police and asked to be let in, many said no. They said their training told them to say no. They said if you are really the police, you can come and get a key.

    Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6)

  367. Some people seem to propose going on a witch hunt for shooters.

    Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6)

  368. ok… so there’s nothing to say he was psychotic per se

    happyfeet (5da4d0)

  369. What seems to me the best idea – not for preventing shooting but for preventing them from reaching this scale – is mentioned in this column in this Sunday’s New York Times by Nicholas D. Kristof:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/opinion/sunday/kristof-do-we-have-the-courage-to-stop-this.html?hp&_r=0

    The fact of the matter is, certain kinds of guns shouldn’t be around. They shouldn’t be owned even by the police. In New York City the police have instructions, not always followed, never to shoot more than three bullets at a time. Then they are supposed to stop and assess the situation.

    These guns should not be manufactured or manufactured in extremely limited quantities. And what’s out there should be bought back in large enough quantities to drive up the price.

    This seems to be precisely what has happened in Australia.

    In Australia in 1996, a mass killing of 35 people galvanized the nation’s conservative prime minister to ban certain rapid-fire long guns. The “national firearms agreement,” as it was known, led to the buyback of 650,000 guns and to tighter rules for licensing and safe storage of those remaining in public hands.

    The law did not end gun ownership in Australia. It reduced the number of firearms in private hands by one-fifth, and they were the kinds most likely to be used in mass shootings.

    In the 18 years before the law, Australia suffered 13 mass shootings — but not one in the 14 years after the law took full effect. The murder rate with firearms has dropped by more than 40 percent, according to data compiled by the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, and the suicide rate with firearms has dropped by more than half.

    We have made certain kinds of guns illegal, or nearly so.

    What’s well known is machine guns. But there is another kind of gun also made illegal. They started to be manufactured in the 1930s. They were called gadget guns. Guns that didn’t look like guns. Some James Bond movies show things like that. As a result just about all guns look like everybody’s picture of a gun. There is no technical reason they have to do so. The gun lobby has gone along with that. There is also now even a law against making a toy gun look real, or a real gun look like a toy gun.

    So, similarly other kinds of guns, like those that shoot many bullets could be made illegal.

    Another idea is that maybe some people should know about someone having a gun. Not a psychiatrist or other expert attempting to rely on some imaginary principle, but ordinary people, who just might know what’s really going on with someone. It’s subjective but the jury system is subjective

    I thought maybe it should be ten or 12 people, not all of the same sex. I’m not sure how this would work, and how you would decide something has become dangerous. Anyway Canada has something similar, but more limited. Which Nicholas D. Kristof calls clever.

    Canada…. now requires a 28-day waiting period to buy a handgun, and it imposes a clever safeguard: gun buyers should have the support of two people vouching for them.

    Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6)

  370. A reportedly mentally ill person, was refused permission to buy a weapon several days before he went on a murderous rampage. The gun control laws in Connecticut worked exactly as expected.

    But the reportedly mentally ill person murdered his mother, stole several of her legally purchased weapons and used them to commit a heinous crime.

    There isn’t a law that will prevent someone bent on murder from murdering to illegally acquire weapons to commit additional murders.

    In fact, “gun-free zones” work about as well as “drug-free zones” and that is why people commit violent crimes and sell drugs in both places. The risks to the criminals are far less in these places.

    Just because mentally disturbed people sometimes commit heinous crimes with weapons doesn’t mean weapons are the problem…

    WarEagle82 (97b777)

  371. Comment by narciso (ee31f1) — 12/16/2012 @ 5:52 pm

    I understand, ES, but it seems like a convenient crutch, and an undue stigma on many autistic adults as well as children, still don’t see the connection between whatever his issue is, and slaughtering almost two dozen children,

    The important point is that he didn’t get along that well with his mother. Maybe you could add to it, whether or not he had a conscience.

    He had some kind of an argument with his mother and he killed her. We might learn what it was perhaps. It could have been a continuing issue.

    After that he had nothing left to lose. He knew that within a matter of a day or two, he’d be caught, maybe less. So now what could he do with his life? Well, maybe kill people. He only needed the littlest reason to do so.

    The big deterrent is that we are a civilized society, but once that’s irrelevant, somebody can goon like this.

    Even so,he stopped when the police showed up.

    He wasn’t crazy, any more than San Francisco Board of Supervisers member Dan White was, who, after he killed the mayor, decided he might as well kill somebody else too.

    If you think he was crazy, I guess you can at least draw comfort from the fact they may not be making any Twinkies any more.

    Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6)

  372. He was wearing a bulletproof vest, so I guess that’s why he says head.

    People who don’t know better mistake load bearing vests for bullet proof vests all the time.

    Steve57 (25fb74)

  373. The fact of the matter is, certain kinds of guns shouldn’t be around.

    Thankfully it’s written into the Constitution and after Heller, Sammy, your notions of what guns shouldn’t be around will be impossible to act upon.

    Steve57 (25fb74)

  374. A reportedly mentally ill person, was refused permission to buy a weapon several days before he went on a murderous rampage. The gun control laws in Connecticut worked exactly as expected.

    And yet, this person was not apprehended on site for internment or euthanasia, as appropriate.

    Michael Ejercito (2e0217)

  375. SF: The fact of the matter is, certain kinds of guns shouldn’t be around.

    Comment by Steve57 (25fb74) — 12/16/2012 @ 7:26 pm

    Thankfully it’s written into the Constitution and after Heller, Sammy, your notions of what guns shouldn’t be around will be impossible to act upon.

    The constitution doesn’t really protect an individual’s right to own a gun, except maybe through the 9th amendment. It’s a collective right – the right to have a militia or something similar. The Canadian idea of having severeal people involved looks very good.

    In any case, when it comes to types of guns, everyone agrees machine guns (not to mention Surface to Air missiles and what not) can be kept out of general circulation. And the same thing goes for James Bond type gadget guns. So also, therefore, guns that shoot many bullets without a need to reload.

    Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6)

  376. We have made certain kinds of guns illegal, or nearly so.

    Do you know what the consequences of guns bans are?

    Ask Jon Hammar.

    He was chained to a bed in a prison controlled by a drug cartel, and his family received an extortion letter demanding money. This is a direct consequence of Mexico’s gun laws.

    Michael Ejercito (2e0217)

  377. The constitution doesn’t really protect an individual’s right to own a gun, except maybe through the 9th amendment. It’s a collective right – the right to have a militia or something similar.

    A collective right? The Supreme Court says otherwise.

    What is next? The Holocaust never happened? Separate but equal is the law?

    Michael Ejercito (2e0217)

  378. Sammy, why are you now making up long debunked nonsense about the Second Amendment? You don’t know what you are talking about, but I guess that’s not likely to slow you down.

    SPQR (768505)

  379. Nick Kristof is a moron who can’t get correct what the current laws are, nor what Australia did, nor why what Australia did would be unconstitutional in three different ways in the US.

    So of course Sammy admires his incoherent column.

    SPQR (768505)

  380. The reason is that the lefties believe that guns murdered all those people, rather than Lanza. And as a result, they’ll want to be coming after law-abiding people’s guns.

    If Lanza was afflicted by a legitimate medical condition, and/or by mental illness, the water cooler discussion should revolve around that.

    Are internment or euthanasia being considered as options?

    People keep saying we need to keep guns out of the hands of lunatics, and interning or euthanising lunatics would be an effective means of doing so.

    Michael Ejercito (2e0217)

  381. Comment by Steve57 (25fb74) — 12/16/2012 @ 3:16 pm

    That would have appealed to him if he was taking revenge on the world for having been bullied all his life in school.

    This idea occurred to me. I don’t know if he targeted the first grade, but it could be that’s where it really happened.

    He couldn’t go after the children who had done that to him – and it may not have been anything more than rejecting him – because they had grown up and scattered, but he go after other children.

    Or – he wanted everybody else to be as unhappy as he was.

    But most likely anyway he only went ahead after he’d already killed his other.

    This belongs in the category of somebody who kills a family member in a family dispute and then decides to go ahead and kill some other people too, which happens more often than you think.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/nyregion/13stab.html?pagewanted=all


    The arrest was the climax of a 28-hour drama in which, the police said, Mr. Gelman killed his mother’s companion as well as his former girlfriend and her mother in knife attacks at two apartments in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, then seized a car, stabbed the driver, fatally struck a pedestrian and sped away.

    The swirl of violence stunned the Russian and Ukrainian communities in Sheepshead Bay, where Mr. Gelman had lived for years and was known to neighbors as a troubled, unemployed man with a drug habit and a hair-trigger temper.

    Investigators said his last rage may have been touched off by the refusal of his mother’s companion, Aleksandr Kuznetsov, 54, a private-ambulette driver, to let him use the family Lexus.

    I think another article somewhere had more of the exact sequence.

    Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6)

  382. If someone is a criminal, they say he is a criminal. If someone is not a career criminal, then they want to say he has some kind of disease which maybe should have been diagnosed before and they want to maybe lock him up in advance – yet the most predictable dangers come from people who have committed crimes. Gang members even more so.

    Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6)

  383. In Mexico what you have is the consequences of there being no police who are not afraid or bribed. Law and order has broken down.

    The slogan the drug gangs have is silver or lead.

    And they’ve got some kind of religious icon too.

    Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6)

  384. “In Australia in 1996, a mass killing of 35 people galvanized the nation’s conservative prime minister to ban certain rapid-fire long guns…The murder rate with firearms has dropped by more than 40 percent, according to data compiled by the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, and the suicide rate with firearms has dropped by more than half.”

    Since 1994 the overall homicide in the United States has fallen by 50%…but, we DIDN’T pass a law like that.

    Go figure.

    Long term effect of gun control laws in the countries I’ve studied…they make homicide rates go up, not down.

    I’d be against gun control laws, even if they DID lower homicide rates…but, they don’t.

    Dave Surls (46b08c)

  385. “The constitution doesn’t really protect an individual’s right to own a gun…”

    Oh, my aching skull.

    Dave Surls (46b08c)

  386. 381. Happyfeet, on the other hand:

    at least a subset of individuals with autism frequently experience psychotic phases involving auditory and visual hallucinations, similarly to acutely ill patients with schizophrenia (16). Based on this, it has been suggested that individuals with autism are at increased risk of developing psychosis and that the presence of neurodevelopmental deficits typically associated with autism may represent an alternative “entry-point” into a common final pathway of psychosis

    link

    Affected Gene networks for autism and schizophrenia are similar/have overlap
    http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/774642

    SarahW (b0e533)

  387. I’m already feeling kinda newtowned out

    they’re really burning this one at both ends

    happyfeet (5da4d0)

  388. so given what he did it’s not silly to hypothesize a psychotic break

    for some reason that makes me feel better to think that

    happyfeet (5da4d0)

  389. Comment by Michael Ejercito (2e0217) — 12/16/2012 @ 7:41 pm

    A collective right? The Supreme Court says otherwise.

    They held so, because they didn’t understand what’s going on. But they didn’t hold it absolute either. I think what they have now is incoherent, and nobody knows what the law is, except maybe that arbitrary licensing is not allowed, and guns that every policeman can have, can also be owned privately.

    Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6)

  390. Sammy, the Supreme Court held so because there was a huge body of legal academic work that said so.

    And your summary of the holdings of Keller and McDonald cases is flat out wrong.

    SPQR (768505)

  391. I don’t think one can forget such a horrible crime, pikachu, but the use of this event, as a policy tool, is truly revolting,

    narciso (ee31f1)

  392. I can’t wait to see what prompts Roberts to sell out on the 2nd Amendment. Watch Obama gut this second to last firewall in the constitution with the help of Roberts.

    I can see the 6-3 vote coming now banning private ownership of firearms. Obama won’t even need to make an appointment for this…

    WarEagle82 (97b777)

  393. Authorities say an Indiana man who had 47 guns and ammunition in his home has been arrested after allegedly threatening to kill people at an elementary school near his home.

    I personally think our mass media, which glorifies dramatic violence, has created a nihilistic culture. That and drug abuse have combined to exacerbate mentally ill psychos… which we can’t institutionalize, as Sarah has noted.

    Maybe that’s wrong. I can’t help but feel like the world is pretty much upside down.

    Dustin (73fead)

  394. yes Mr. narciso it’s state-controlled media at its most sophomoric

    like what hamas does

    happyfeet (5da4d0)

  395. What did Kristof get wrong about Australia? He claims that certain rapid fire long guns were banned.

    The only reason these guns exist is because gun manufacturers want to sell more guns, and their customers already own guns, so it has to be new and improved so to speak. But in what kind of scenario would they prove useful? Is there going to be a whole mob of armed men being held off by only one person with a gun? A scenario like what happened in that school is much more likely, and anyone who wanted to go against the shooter wouldn’t need and probably shouldn’t use a rapid fire gun. Has any gun like that even one time proved useful in the United States?

    Maybe in Benghazi it might have – if nobody in the crowd was armed.

    And also of course talk of gun control boosts sales because the idea that it might be the last chance to buy always stimulates sales.

    Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6)

  396. Sammy, you are as ignorant as Kristof. The “only reason” these guns exist is that they’ve existed for over 100 years. The first patent for a self-loading gun dates back to the late 19th Century. Self-loading firearms are not a new invention and your belief that they are is only another sign that you form your strongest opinions where you are most ignorant.

    SPQR (768505)

  397. First commercial self-loading pistol – 1893 designed by Hugo Borchardt. Hiram Maxim developed the machine gun 10 years before. Mannlicher started selling the first self-loading rifle in 1895.

    Yep, the latest “new and improved” …

    SPQR (768505)

  398. That Indiana man did not threaten to kill people at an elementary school.

    He threatened to kill his wife, and then to top it off, go to the elementary school and try to kill as many more people as possible.

    To scare his wife, of course.

    Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6)

  399. First self-loading shotgun on sale in the US … the Browning Auto-5 first manufactured in 1902.

    Gee, that’s so new, I gotta have one.

    SPQR (768505)

  400. Is there going to be a whole mob of armed men being held off by only one person with a gun?

    So no person was ever murdered by an angry mob?

    Michael Ejercito (2e0217)

  401. He was not charged with conspiracy, just with making threats.

    Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6)

  402. This seems to be precisely what has happened in Australia.

    Meanwhile, that nation’s ancestral homeland has experienced the following…

    politics.co.uk: Unlike in America, there is little debate between pro-gun control and pro-gun ownership lobbies in the UK. There is general public consensus against ownership of handguns, which is enforced under strict legislation. Guns for sport are more readily accepted, but are controlled by a strict licensing regime.

    Despite these strong sentiments, the UK has not averted gun crime by any means. Particularly prominent within public memory is the Dunblane massacre. In 1996 a disturbed former boy-scout leader named Thomas Hamilton shot dead sixteen young children and their teacher at Dunblane Primary School before turning the gun on himself. This was the second time in a decade that unarmed civilians had been slaughtered by a legally licensed gun owner.

    The combined impact and subsequent public outcry motivated the Conservative government at the time to amend the existing legislation on gun ownership. The Firearms Amendment of 1997 completely banned handguns for private ownership.

    Fourteen years after Dunblane, the mass killings in Cumbria carried out by another lone gunman, taxi driver Derrick Bird, once again provoked shock, horror and disbelief across the UK. Twelve people were shot dead on 2nd June, 2010, before the perpetrator, another licensed gun owner, turned the gun on himself. The Home Secretary acknowledged that the shootings would prompt further debate on Britain’s gun laws.

    Despite the handguns ban imposed under the 1997 Firearms Amendment, research carried out following the implementation of the act saw a 40 per cent increase in the number of gun crime incidents in the UK.

    While the number of homicides from gun crime remained largely static for over a decade, 2007 proved a decisive year for this issue. A wave of gang related incidents were committed by teenagers against other teenagers, with some high profile cases ending in fatalities. London, Manchester and Nottingham were most notably affected.

    In August 2007, these attacks culminated in the murder of an 11-year-old Liverpool schoolboy, Rhys Jones, hit whilst playing football outside his local pub. Following a lengthy police investigation and a trial lasting over two months, an 18 year old youth, Sean Mercer, a member of the ‘Croxteth crew’ gang, was convicted in December 2008 of the murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. Other gang members were convicted of offences connected with the murder, including 21 year old James Yates, whose initial seven year sentence for providing the handgun used by Mercer was increased by the Court of Appeal to 12 years.

    The then prime minister, Gordon Brown, came under constant pressure to resolve the issues driving these murders. Commentators highlighted a range of social problems which might be responsible including inner city poverty, family breakdown, and the absence of positive black role models in the UK.

    The government also faced questions over the apparent availability of guns, which had remained strong despite the handgun ban. Some commentators also suggested the government’s legislation, specifically punishments for carrying a gun, were exacerbating gun crime amongst the young.

    ^ Britain not having a tragic history as a slave-holding nation has greatly benefited its modern-day population. So much less social dysfunction evident there compared with America. Far fewer fatherless homes, far fewer welfare-dependent mothers/families, far fewer single girls with children, far fewer dangerous cities. But just as much (or, actually, even more) of the wonders of I’m-okay-you’re-okay, do-your-own-thang socio-political liberalism found in the US.

    God save the Queen.

    Mark (94cc2f)

  403. Sammy, Jeanne Assam found a semi-automatic 9mm pistol very useful successfully going up against and stopping a man with a semi-auto rifle attacking her church.

    SPQR (768505)

  404. Wait, you mean a total ban on firearms, didn’t prevent gun crimes, shocker?

    narciso (ee31f1)

  405. In Australia in 1996, a mass killing of 35 people galvanized the nation’s conservative prime minister to ban certain rapid-fire long guns…The murder rate with firearms has dropped by more than 40 percent, according to data compiled by the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, and the suicide rate with firearms has dropped by more than half.”

    Comment by Dave Surls (46b08c) — 12/16/2012 @ 8:01 pm

    Since 1994 the overall homicide in the United States has fallen by 50%…but, we DIDN’T pass a law like that.

    Go figure.

    Good point. Also the one about England.

    The overall crime rate is a very important factor.

    However I heard argued on TV like this:

    The crime rate for everything has gone down – except mass shootings. That the proliferation of what do you call them, rapid fire guns is therefore bad.

    Long term effect of gun control laws in the countries I’ve studied…they make homicide rates go up, not down. <.i

    The causation is probably the other way around: homicide rates going up causes gun control laws.

    Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6)

  406. “A collective right? The Supreme Court says otherwise.”

    Give the SCOTUS some credit on that score. They’re not right very often.

    Dave Surls (46b08c)

  407. I’d be against gun control laws, even if they DID lower homicide rates…but, they don’t.

    They may lower them, just not enough to be separated from the noise. Or, other factor s swamp it.

    One thing I read – shootings are actually going up now. Crime is starting to go up. (they freed people from prison when they reduced the Rockefeller drug laws – neglecting the fact that sometimes people pleaded guilty to that when other crimes were really at issue)

    The homicide rate is still going down – but that’s because we are now rescuing more people.

    Trauma centers are now better because of lessons learned from the Iraq war. We now save about 10% more people, since about 2007, from shootings and stabbings than we did in the year 2000.

    Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6)

  408. Mass shootings haven’t really gone up either, they are rare enough that you can’t really develop a statistical trend. And their frequency is a function of mental illness not equipment.

    SPQR (768505)

  409. Comment by SPQR (768505) — 12/16/2012 @ 8:31 pm

    Sammy, you are as ignorant as Kristof. The “only reason” these guns exist is that they’ve existed for over 100 years. The first patent for a self-loading gun dates back to the late 19th Century. Self-loading firearms are not a new invention and your belief that they are is only another sign that you form your strongest opinions where you are most ignorant

    I didn’t say they were only invented now. The military has had things like that for some time.

    I said the only reason they exist (in the commercial world) is in order to sell guns to people who already own them.

    I didn’t say anybody had just invented them. I gave a commercial reason.

    Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6)

  410. Also the police – they’ve gone in for more rapid fire guns.

    Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6)

  411. The worst school murder in the US took place in 1927, killed 44 people including 38 kids and injured 60.

    With explosives.

    SPQR (768505)

  412. Sammy, you gave an idiotic reason. And by the way, semi-auto pistols, rifles and shotguns were available to civilians before any military adopted them.

    SPQR (768505)

  413. Clayton Cramer, who has written a lot recently on schizophrenia, the destruction of the ability to institutionalize mentally ill patients and such, will be on CNBC Squawk Box Monday at 7:30 AM Eastern Time.

    SPQR (768505)

  414. Also the police – they’ve gone in for more rapid fire guns.

    And they are not needed. They only cause trouble. As I said, police are taught never to fire off more than 3 shots at time.

    I;’ll tll you also something else wrong. You may remember that incident near the Empire State Building where the police wounded some nine individuals I don’t remember how many. It was unnecessary. It was stupid,even though legally justified. Their protocol was wrong.

    What happened was someone laid in wait for someone else on 33rd St and murdered him and then quietly sauntered off. Two construction workers followed him. And they quietly told two policemen standing in front of the Empire State Building.

    Now what foolish thing happened after that?

    They confronted him!!

    Now, if he really hadn’t done that, everything would be all right.

    But if he had?

    Well, he pulled out a gun. They were able to get him before he fired off his gun, and he died, but in the course of that they fired many bullets, wounding many pedestrians. They maybe didn’t even realize it was over right away.

    Now, what was the point of confronting him then and there?

    Was that the safest thing to do?

    No!

    He wasn’t firing any more bullets. They should have followed him, or had him shadowed, til he got to place where there was nobody else around or fewer.

    That would have been a better bet.

    And the cop’s extra bullets only hurt innocent people.

    There’s almost no purpose for such guns.

    .

    Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6)

  415. Sammy, the more you write, the sillier you look.

    SPQR (768505)

  416. Yes, SPQR, and the U.S. Army stopped using the Gatling Gun because it used up too much ammunition.
    Military’s, no matter what country they defend, are rarely on the cutting-edge of technology; witness that “generals tend to train to fight the last war”.

    askeptic (2bb434)

  417. Comment by SPQR (768505) — 12/16/2012 @ 8:58 pm

    The worst school murder in the US took place in 1927, killed 44 people including 38 kids and injured 60.

    With explosives.

    Ah – explosives. Someone has to be specially skilled to do that. Guns are a lot easier, but kill fewer, cars even easier but kill even less.

    Someone on TV was saying you could earn explosives – actually no. If someone attempts to build a bomb, the most likely results are either

    A) It is a dud – it does not create a big explosion – it blows itself apart before that can happen.

    B) It blows up while being built, severely injuring or killer the bomber.

    Adam Lanza – he also had to learn how to use a gun before.

    Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6)

  418. Sammy, never say never.
    It may be that they NYPD is taught that tactic, but that doesn’t mean that it is universal.
    Also, the NYPD has a horrific record when it comes to actually hitting what they are aiming at.

    askeptic (2bb434)

  419. I can’t believe some of the silliness you are writing, Sammy. Your beliefs about firearms are laughable and your beliefs regarding police tactics beyond belief. Police are not going to allow an armed suspect to just keep sauntering out into the public once confronted. The idea that they could reasonably predict that a better moment to confront the armed suspect would be long in the future is just … just indescribably stupid. Police tactics involve fortune telling now?

    And this nonsense about being trained to fire no more than 3 shots, where did you get that? From some video game? Its horse manure.

    SPQR (768505)

  420. Clayton Cramer, who has written a lot recently on schizophrenia, the destruction of the ability to institutionalize mentally ill patients and such, will be on CNBC Squawk Box Monday at 7:30 AM Eastern Time.

    All we need is an executive order interning the mentally ill and they will not be able to get guns.

    There is a certain piece of property at 5001 Highway 395, Independence, CA 93526, which would be a perfect site for an internment camp.

    Michael Ejercito (2e0217)

  421. Sammy, you don’t have to be “specially skilled” to use explosives. The murderer in the Bath Michigan school incident was a farmer. And Al Queda trains f**king illiterate goat herders to use explosives.

    You really don’t have a clue.

    SPQR (768505)

  422. I’ll tell you what, liberals throughout America. Let us on the right worry about the issue of handguns, and you worry about the breakdown of socio-cultural standards, self-control, sense of shame and decency.

    Thank you,
    xoxoxo

    Mark (94cc2f)

  423. Explosives….specially skilled

    Yes, it is so difficult to go down to the hardware store*, buy a case of dynamite, and a box of blasting caps, use an awl to punch a hole in the end of a stick of dynamite and insert that blasting cap, and light the fuse.
    Takes lots of training, which is why farmers were constantly failing to remove those tree stumps from their fields.

    *Prior to NFA-34 and GCA-68, hardware stores were a primary source for firearms and explosives. The only “gun stores” were usually small shops operated by gun-smiths, whose main support was from the repair and refinishing of guns, and the sale of ammo and accessories.

    askeptic (2bb434)

  424. Christ on a pogo stick, I first learned to blow up tree stumps on my grandfather’s farm in Oklahoma … at the age of 12.

    SPQR (768505)

  425. The constitution doesn’t really protect an individual’s right to own a gun, except maybe through the 9th amendment. It’s a collective right – the right to have a militia or something similar.

    Bullsh*t. That is absolute bullsh*t, Sammy, and you damn well know it. Nobody has ever seriously believed this “collective right” nonsense; nobody could. Every person who has claimed to believe it has not been telling the truth. What does it tell you that the only time it came before the Supreme Court, nine out of nine justices rejected it?

    Milhouse (15b6fd)

  426. Evidently Sammy thinks I’m not entitled to own a handgun more modern than a Colt Lightning … or a rifle more recent than a Krag-Jorgensen.

    SPQR (768505)

  427. The following liberal comes a lot closer to the nub of the issue, although the irony is too thick for words. Namely, that a person of the left, connected to an industry in love with the left, all full of the ethos of “if it feels good, do it!,” and “self-control and shame are old-fashioned and boring concepts!,” should be associated with an “ultra-violent” movie that comes out on Christmas (or “Winter Holiday”) day.

    Again, the irony is so thick that even the sharpest knife wouldn’t cut it—pardon the violent metaphor.

    nation.foxnews.com: Hollywood has responded to the rampage at a Connecticut elementary school by pulling back on its offerings, and one star says the entertainment industry should take some responsibility for such violence.

    Jamie Foxx, one of the industry’s biggest stars, said Saturday as he promoted Quentin Tarantino’s upcoming ultra-violent spaghetti Western-style film about slavery, “Django Unchained,” that actors can’t ignore the fact that movie violence can influence people.

    “We cannot turn our back and say that violence in films or anything that we do doesn’t have a sort of influence,” Foxx said in an interview on Saturday. “It does.”

    Mark (94cc2f)

  428. SF: It’s a collective right – the right to have a militia or something similar.

    Bullsh*t. That is absolute bullsh*t, Sammy, and you damn well know it.

    There have been strained explanations but thy all have it wrong so maybe it seems this is not collective.

    You should read the text it replaces in the Articles of Confederation. I’ll post it tomorrow. That will make it clear what’s going on here.

    The word “people” in the second Amendment means the same thing it does in the Tenth amendment.

    A militia is not everybody but an organization.

    And keeping and bearing are pretty much the same if it’s a single individual we are concerned about.

    Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6)

  429. Jamie Foxx, one of the industry’s biggest stars, said Saturday as he promoted Quentin Tarantino’s upcoming ultra-violent spaghetti Western-style film about slavery, “Django Unchained,” that actors can’t ignore the fact that movie violence can influence people.

    “We cannot turn our back and say that violence in films or anything that we do doesn’t have a sort of influence,” Foxx said in an interview on Saturday. “It does.”

    He may be on to something.

    Mein Kampf inspired the Holocaust, after all.

    Michael Ejercito (2e0217)

  430. The murder rate with firearms has dropped by more than 40 percent, according to data compiled by the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, and the suicide rate with firearms has dropped by more than half.

    That qualifier “with firearms” is a great big red flag that you should have spotted. And I don’t trust the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, any more than I trust Kristof.

    (I’m convinced the entire Plame affair was Kristof’s fault, not Wilson’s; he made up details that Wilson didn’t tell him, but which were later conflated with what Wilson himself wrote. That “at Cheney’s behest” phrase, for instance, which is what really caused everything that followed.)

    Canada…. now requires a 28-day waiting period to buy a handgun,

    Waiting periods kill. When you need a gun because you suddenly find yourself in danger, you need it now, not in 5 days, let alone 28.

    Milhouse (15b6fd)

  431. Sammy, you’re usually good at these things. Google Heller and/or McDonald in the Supreme Court, Moore v. Madigan in the 7th Circuit.

    nk (875f57)

  432. Finkelman, your “explanation” of the Second Amendment is the modern invention of the gun control movement. It is at most a few decades old. It was understood as an individual right when written, it was understood as an individual right throughout the 19th Century.

    And it was utterly refuted in the legal academic community in recent years with the work of Sandford Levinson, Eugene Volokh, many others like Clayton Cramer, whose work was cited in the Heller decision.

    As Milhouse mentioned, the view could not get the support of a single supreme court justice in Heller’s dissenting justices.

    Its a joke that you even bring it up.

    SPQR (768505)

  433. But in what kind of scenario would they prove useful? Is there going to be a whole mob of armed men being held off by only one person with a gun?

    Um, yes. Why would that be at all unlikely?

    Has any gun like that even one time proved useful in the United States?

    Plenty of times, when one person has had to hold off a mob. I know you’ve heard of the Ku Klux Klan, Sammy; and I know Kristof has heard of them too.

    Milhouse (15b6fd)

  434. The crime rate for everything has gone down – except mass shootings. That the proliferation of what do you call them, rapid fire guns is therefore bad.

    Sheer illogic. First of all, their rate hasn’t gone up, it just hasn’t gone down. OK, so what’s special about them? They’re still very rare, and kill very few people; the only thing special about them is that they get a lot of publicity, and therefore cause a lot of public anxiety. The publicity also causes copycat attacks, and the notoriety the shooters achieve encourages certain losers to emulate them. So surely the most obvious thing to blame is not the guns but the publicity. Why not ban that, instead of the guns?

    Milhouse (15b6fd)

  435. If we’re going to amend or ignore part of the bill of rights, why should it be the second amendment and not the first?

    Milhouse (15b6fd)

  436. “A collective right? The Supreme Court says otherwise.”

    Give the SCOTUS some credit on that score. They’re not right very often.

    When they’re unanimous, they’re more likely to be right. And on this they were unanimous.

    Milhouse (15b6fd)

  437. They may lower them, just not enough to be separated from the noise. Or, other factor s swamp it.

    Then what is the point? You want to amend the bill of rights for something that has such an insignificant effect?!

    One thing I read – shootings are actually going up now. Crime is starting to go up. (they freed people from prison when they reduced the Rockefeller drug laws – neglecting the fact that sometimes people pleaded guilty to that when other crimes were really at issue)

    How would that affect anything outside NY state?

    Milhouse (15b6fd)

  438. Comment by SPQR (768505) — 12/16/2012 @ 9:20 pm

    Sammy, you don’t have to be “specially skilled” to use explosives.

    Not to use them, but to manufacture them. Of course if you get them ready made, with instructions, either in person or in writing, then someone can use them.

    They aren’t sold on the open market now.

    The murderer in the Bath Michigan school incident was a farmer.

    Who regularly used explosives, and purchased them,

    And we also see the usual – life falling apart – an eviction is especially likely to trigger this.
    (The Wikipedia article says actually he had enough unused farm equipment that he could have sold it to pay the mortgage. But that wouldn’t have saved his wife from tuberculosis. He killed his wife first, by the way)

    And Al Queda trains f**king illiterate goat herders to use explosives.

    Use maybe, not build.

    Only a very few people can build suicide belts. That’s why they’ve gone out of style. The people who knew how to build on are modtly dead.

    Israel killed the one or two who knew how to build one in their area and they stopped being used against Israel.

    It requires special skill to build a car bomb. That’s why that Pakistani failed in New York.

    Ramzi Youssef had to come over here to build the 1993 World Trade Center bomb.

    Terry Nichols had to travel to the Philippines to learn how to build the bomb that destroyed the building in Oklahoma City in 1995.

    I was talking about now not 1927 when you just can’t readily buy this stuff. Even use requires a little training, And people don;’t have it

    So people won’t do bombs so easily.

    Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6)

  439. Milhouse @446, don’t forget about the Rodney King riots.

    The Christian Science Monitor: L.A.’s darkest days

    Late in the afternoon of April 29, 1992, a ruddy haze of smog was softly lit from above by cool, fading sunlight. As Mira Jang switched channels on her living-room TV, she realized that the city’s signature layer of stagnant gauze would soon be harshly lit from below – by flame.

    Fires were erupting in neighborhoods throughout the city, and local news was in full panic mode. Roving, van-top “action cams” showed arsonists and demonstrators advancing block by block like urban guerrillas.

    A Korean immigrant just 14 at the time, Ms. Jang was in her home on the affordable fringe of Beverly Hills, far from the action. But violence was rampant in the stucco sprawl of the South-Central district, near Koreatown where her parents worked. And Jang’s ethnic group seemed to be a particular target. As she watched, the news featured vivid images of Korean shopkeepers defending their stores with shotguns and pistols.

    “I thought, ‘Where are the police? Why are these store owners having to protect their own property with guns?’ ” she recalls.

    The MFM can’t get anything right. These riots were before the ’94 Clinton ban on effective anti-riot weaponry.

    There were a ton of ARs, AKs, and in Koreatown Daewoo DR-200s (the civilian version of the ROK K1 and K2).

    http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-eZVTzTLnA7o/Tkt7UYMQs1I/AAAAAAAACeY/QGWGw6ReYmg/s1600/Korean%2BShopkeepers%2BArmed.jpg

    That’s a Mini-14 in the foreground.

    Steve57 (25fb74)

  440. All we need is an executive order interning the mentally ill and they will not be able to get guns.

    I’m beginning to think you’re not just offering a “modest proposal”, and it’s frightening. Your solution to maybe reduce the incidence of mass murder is to deliberately engage in mass murder!

    Milhouse (15b6fd)

  441. Even if it were to be effective, what would be the point?

    Milhouse (15b6fd)

  442. “They may lower them, just not enough to be separated from the noise. Or, other factor s swamp it.”

    That’s certainly a possibility, however, the fact remains that no matter how many gun control pass (and in the US and UK, they’ve passed thousands), the homicide rate doesn’t go down…it goes up.

    In the United States the homicide rate is about FOUR TIMES higher than it was in 1900!

    Gun control is completely useless, when it comes to reducing homicide rates.

    So, says all the available evidence.

    Dave Surls (46b08c)

  443. Comment by SPQR (768505) — 12/16/2012 @ 8:37 pm

    First self-loading shotgun on sale in the US … the Browning Auto-5 first manufactured in 1902.

    Gee, that’s so new, I gotta have one.

    If you didn’t have one before, if the company didn’t sell one, if the company didn’t sell one that fired as many rounds as quickly, it’s new and improved.

    Even if it isn’t new technology.

    Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6)

  444. It requires special skill to build a car bomb. That’s why that Pakistani failed in New York.

    I suppose it does. More than a camel molester would have. You need a half-full tank of gas, a tank of medical oxygen for people with COPD, and two electrical wires.

    nk (875f57)

  445. Sammy, Nichols had to go to the Phillipines to learn how to build a bomb from ANFO … something farmers have been doing for a freaking century. You really are clueless.

    And semi-auto firearms are not “new technology”, they are not new at all. And they are barely “improved”, Sammy. Civilians in the US were able to buy semi-auto pistols 19 years before the military adopted them, semi-auto centerfire rifles 31 years before the military adopted them.

    You really are in space.

    SPQR (768505)

  446. Comment by Dave Surls (46b08c) — 12/16/2012 @ 10:04 pm

    the fact remains that no matter how many gun control pass (and in the US and UK, they’ve passed thousands), the homicide rate doesn’t go down…it goes up.

    In the United States the homicide rate is about FOUR TIMES higher than it was in 1900!

    It;s been going down since about 1990. You said it yourself, saying that however there had been no massive gun control laws passed.

    Thy say things are back to the early 1960s, late 1950s maybe.

    When was the lowest rate?

    Gun control is completely useless, when it comes to reducing homicide rates.

    So, says all the available evide

    Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6)

  447. The evil-looking gun ban was Bush ’41, Steve. First by executive order and then legislation.

    nk (875f57)

  448. Here’s the bottom line, Sammy. Every belief you have about police tactics? False. Every belief you have about police training? False. Every belief you have about firearms design? False. Every belief you have about the Second Amendment? False.

    Notice a trend yet, Sammy?

    SPQR (768505)

  449. The word “people” in the second Amendment means the same thing it does in the Tenth amendment.

    And the first, fourth, and ninth. Are those also “collective rights”?! Whom do you think you’re fooling? You can’t possibly believe this yourself.

    Milhouse (15b6fd)

  450. What we need to do to prevent these mass shootings is ban all media reporting about them.

    These mass shootings just inspire the nuts and if they didn’t hear about them, they wouldn’t commit them.

    After all, the media is only about profit. And why should they be allowed to make money off of tragedy when it only inspires more tragedy?

    So what if a few people’s first amendment rights are trampled?

    SPQR (768505)

  451. 452. So people won’t do bombs so easily.

    Comment by Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 12/16/2012 @ 9:56 pm

    That’s a relief to know, Sammy. Thanks. Because otherwise Ramzi Yousef in New York, Anders Behring Breivik in Oslo, and those clowns in London and Madrid might have killed hundreds and injured thousands if bombs were easy to make and place with minimal training.

    Oh wait, they did.

    Steve57 (25fb74)

  452. The evil-looking gun ban was Bush ’41, Steve. First by executive order and then legislation.

    Who was president in 1994, nk?

    Milhouse (15b6fd)

  453. I’m beginning to think you’re not just offering a “modest proposal”, and it’s frightening. Your solution to maybe reduce the incidence of mass murder is to deliberately engage in mass murder!

    It is modest because the only people who would be affected are the mentally disturbed, as opposed to gun regulations which will place burdens on mentally sound people.

    It is also constitutional. See Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944)

    Michael Ejercito (2e0217)

  454. Milhouse, I think nk is thinking of Bush Sr’s import bans.

    SPQR (768505)

  455. http://www.volokh.com/2012/12/11/moore-v-madigan-key-points/

    Supreme Court in Heller (I didn’t look up Heller yet) held Second amendment was a personal right to self defense.

    With what? Anything you can think of?

    Judge Posner says 2nd circuit is re-arguing Supreme Court case.

    (The problem here is I think the second amendment is only collective, like the right to assemble – prohibition of personal right may have been thought unthinkable, partly because maybe it was no big deal to make them. In 1865, General Grant let members of Lee’s army keep their personal weapons.)

    Sammy Finkelman (6f4cf5)

  456. Sammy, you don’t just double down on wrong, you triple down.

    SPQR (768505)

  457. I was buying AKs and AKSs in 1989. Don’t, just f***ing don’t!

    nk (875f57)

  458. What we need to do to prevent these mass shootings is ban all media reporting about them.

    These mass shootings just inspire the nuts and if they didn’t hear about them, they wouldn’t commit them.

    After all, the media is only about profit. And why should they be allowed to make money off of tragedy when it only inspires more tragedy?

    Yes, it’s commercial speech, which deserves less protection, right? And they’re corporations, which they insist are not protected at all, right?

    And we needn’t be radical. After all, freedom of expression exists for some very good reasons. People have the right to know what is going on around them. So the ban should only apply to broadcast media, and to publications with a circulation of more than 30 000, and web sites with more than 100 000 hits a day.

    And the killers’ names should be subject to the same “reasonable restrictions” that we already accept for alleged rape victims, and minors charged with crimes. Surely that would be OK, wouldn’t it?

    Milhouse (15b6fd)

  459. Thank you, SPQR.

    nk (875f57)

  460. Milhouse, no one needs to be able to speak to more than … oh, 1,000 people at a time.

    Ban “High Capacity” media.

    SPQR (768505)

  461. 461. The evil-looking gun ban was Bush ’41, Steve. First by executive order and then legislation.

    Comment by nk (875f57) — 12/16/2012 @ 10:11 pm

    Bush ’41 didn’t ban them. He banned the importation of “assault weapons.” And the BATF defined banned by features. So the aforementioned Daewoo DR-200 had to have this silly looking (although it didn’t effect handling) “thumbhole” stock as well as the bayonet lug ground off. While the US-made AR-15 could still be sold with a bayonet lug and a pistol grip entirely separate from the rest of the buttstock.

    Steve57 (25fb74)

  462. “It’s been going down since about 1990.”

    In the early/mid-1990s, despite the passage of thousands of gun control laws, homicide rates in the United States had reached a level of over 9 per 100,000 inhabitants, peaking out at 9.8 per 100,000 in 1991…then the rates started going down, and now they’re about half of what they were in the 1990s.

    Why?

    Who knows?

    But, it sure ain’t because of gun control laws.

    Dave Surls (46b08c)

  463. It is modest because the only people who would be affected are the mentally disturbed, as opposed to gun regulations which will place burdens on mentally sound people.

    What difference does that make? How is the latter’s blood redder than the former’s?

    It is also constitutional. See Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944)

    Korematsu was not imprisoned; he was free to go anywhere except the areas where a possible invasion was feared, by an enemy he was suspected of having sympathy for. And he certainly wasn’t executed, as you suggest. What enemy are we at war with, that the “mentally ill” suspected of supporting? Oh, but that’s right, you subscribe to a bizarre set of ethics that refuses to recognise that war is different.

    Milhouse (15b6fd)

  464. California has about the strictest “assault weapon” ban … so here’s a legal version of an AR15 that complies with the law.

    Just look at it. Its hilarious how silly the bans are, because they have to list cosmetic features that are easily designed around.

    SPQR (768505)

  465. The problem here is I think the second amendment is only collective, like the right to assemble

    The right to assemble is only collective in the sense that it’s impossible for one person to exercise it. It’s not a “collective right”, whatever that means; it’s possessed by each individual in an assembly. And what of the people in the fourth amendment, is that also a collective right?

    Milhouse (15b6fd)

  466. “Blackstone described the right of armed self-preservation as a fundamental natural right of Englishmen, on a par with seeking redress in the courts or petitioning the government.”

    Milhouse (15b6fd)

  467. Believe it or not, Steve,

    We had Valmets (high quality AK variant) imported, that were “disabled” from full auto by just a pin that blocked the selector. Back then, my loves were Mausers, and I never bought ones, but I bet others did, and there’s a bunch under mattresses.

    nk (875f57)

  468. nk, perhaps you can explain to Sammy just how old the Mauser C96 Broomhandle semi-auto ( and full auto varients …) is.

    SPQR (768505)

  469. 481.“Blackstone described the right of armed self-preservation as a fundamental natural right of Englishmen, on a par with seeking redress in the courts or petitioning the government.”

    Comment by Milhouse (15b6fd) — 12/16/2012 @ 10:39 pm

    Who cares? I do not need permission for self-preservation.

    nk (875f57)

  470. nk, I think he’s quoting Eugene Volokh on just how early the individual right interpretation is.

    SPQR (768505)

  471. I believe you already did, SPQR. The Borchardt was 1893? The Mauser was 1896? The Browning 1903? The Luger 1908? The Villar-Perosa 1917? The BAR also 1917?

    nk (875f57)

  472. Scalia did the same thing, and its moot since nobody made me judge, but July 4, 1776.

    nk (875f57)

  473. 479. California has about the strictest “assault weapon” ban … so here’s a legal version of an AR15 that complies with the law.

    Just look at it. Its hilarious how silly the bans are, because they have to list cosmetic features that are easily designed around.

    Comment by SPQR (768505) — 12/16/2012 @ 10:37 pm

    For a while companies were marketing a kali-legal AR variant with a fixed magazine. It was permanently attached to the lower receiver, and you had to break open the action to load the mag with stripper-clips (or just pop in the individual rounds). Easy enough to do with an AR and its separate upper and lower receivers.

    Then somebody looked at Kali law and realized that they didn’t need to go that far. As long as you couldn’t remove the mag without tools it wasn’t considered a detachable mag. So they created a receiver that got rid of the mag release button. Now to own a legal AR (or AK or what have you) you need a “tool” to release the magazine. The tip of the bullet of the next round. Instead of pressing the mag release button with your finger, you insert the bullet tip into a hole in the receiver and press an internal mag release button.

    Ain’t these public safety laws grand?

    Steve57 (25fb74)

  474. then the rates started going down, and now they’re about half of what they were in the 1990s.

    Why? Who knows?

    In such matters, the left, when trying to understand social-cultural dysfunction, has always focused on the “hardware,” rarely or never giving a damn about the “software,” referring to human behavior.

    Liberals originally theorized that high crime rates were due to (again, the “hardware” of society) lofty unemployment rates, lack of free daycare, lack of welfare, lack of subsidized healthcare, lack of subsidized school lunches, or, of course, lack of gun control. Or too much racism and discrimination.

    I still recall liberals’ claims over 15 years ago being countered by those (mostly on the right) who noted that excessively high levels of crime — common during the 1970s, 80s and apparently peaking in the 90s — didn’t exist during the Great Depression. Or a time well before the “War on Poverty” and “March for Civil Rights.”

    When it comes to criminality of the recent past few decades, and now that the United States is becoming ObamaLand, I wonder if this society is going to see a gradual (or quick) return to its good ol’ past.

    Mark (94cc2f)

  475. The Argentinian 1905 is likely the most beautiful pistol ever made.

    nk (875f57)

  476. Here’s a link to a website that explains how there is effectively no longer a ban on “assault weapons” in Kali anymore.

    Ten Percent Firearms: CA-AR15

    Since Kali can no longer ban guns by series, as in “AR series” or “AK series,” but must list each receiver to be banned by specific make and model, the fact that gunmakers have figured out how to build “featureless” rifles, and the fact that the law defines a detachable mag as one that can be removed without using a tool or disassembling the firearm, it’s meaningless.

    Because the there’s no difference between an “assault weapon” and any other rifle except meaningless aesthetic features.

    Frankly, the fabricated category of “assault weapon” courtesy of the PR folks at the Brady bunch doesn’t include especially fearsome rifles. They are no more effective than any other rifle you might buy. And in many ways less. These civilian rifles that look similar to assault rifles (an actual identifiable category that has meaningful characteristics) don’t use especially powerful cartridges. Because in order to fire a weapon on full-auto you must keep recoil energy down.

    Frankly that’s a shame, as semi-auto rifles are ideal for shooting powerful rounds since they use recoil energy to cycle the action. So these rifles are easier on the shooter. Browning makes a semi-auto .338 Winchester Mag, which is beyond some people’s ability to shoot in a fixed breech firearm.

    But since assault weapons are built to look like military rifles that fire automatically, and automatic weapons can’t use heavily recoiling rounds, neither can the look alikes that are designed around the same low to moderately powerful rounds. They, too, can’t use the more effective heavily recoiling rounds.

    I just thought I’d toss that info out there while Sammy is puzzling his way through the Second Amendment and trying to come up with some sort of rationale for claiming these relatively ineffective firearms are so dangerous they shouldn’t exist.

    Steve57 (25fb74)

  477. Actually, the Luger was 1900. The 1908 was the 9mm chambering, basically just the .30 Luger necked up as the German army wanted a bigger bullet.

    Machinist (b6f7da)

  478. Forgot to mention that if you could make a full-auto .338 Win Mag driving a 250 grain bullet with 65 grains of powder would melt that barrel into slag in short order. Even if the shooter could stand the recoil you’d need to build a rifle that requires wheels to stand the heat (and pounding) of rapid fire.

    It’s much easier to build a rifle rugged enough to stand up to rapid fire when the bullet only ways 55 grains instead of 250 grains, and the powder charge only 25 or 26 grains instead of 65.

    Steve57 (25fb74)

  479. What difference does that make? How is the latter’s blood redder than the former’s?

    Fewer people would be affected by the former.

    Michael Ejercito (2e0217)

  480. Machinist! Missed you. Y’okay?

    nk (875f57)

  481. Since this has shifted into a gun thread.

    Guns are not magical wands. They spit out little pieces of metal which can be dangerous.

    And in this instance fell into the wrong hands.

    nk (875f57)

  482. What difference does that make? How is the latter’s blood redder than the former’s?

    Fewer people would be affected by the former.

    No, they wouldn’t. There are a lot of “mentally ill” people; far more than there are victims of crazy people who take it into their heads to go on a killing spree.

    Milhouse (15b6fd)

  483. The Second Amendment was included as a protection, a remedy for tyranny. Seems silly to limit arms when the need is on the upswing.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  484. the cnn kiddie death porn isn’t adding anything of value to the situation I don’t think

    happyfeet (0c6883)

  485. This fellow, who was a bit of a donkey, back during Bush’s reelection, concurs;

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PezlFNTGWv4&feature=player_embedded#

    narciso (ee31f1)

  486. that first link is excellent Mr. narciso

    happyfeet (0c6883)

  487. You know it’s a bearded spock universe when Al Jazeera as well the BBC, are more sensible on the tax question, and personal self defense, than the nets,

    narciso (ee31f1)

  488. If only the media would publicize all of the times someone with a legal gun prevented or stopped crime it would give some proper perspective.

    But giving proper perspective is not what most media is about.

    Too many people in America still think we can live in perfect peace and comfort if only the government makes the right laws and enforces them. This broken world is not so easily fixed.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  489. @ DRJ #182
    Unless things have changed-the only way an accurate diagnosis of autism can be determined is at autopsy- until then it is rather subjective as far as how a diagnosis is derived-although they try to make it as uniform and scientific as possible-it is all based on interviews/questionnaires and subjective evaluations. How can you label and study something as a medical condition when you do not have a physically distinctive marker that clearly identifies the “medical condition”…this is NOT like juvenile diabetes, MS, etc which have clearly defined symptoms that can be quantified and tested. Lord knows myself, and millions like me, would love to have a pinpointed biological cause so that research could be sharply focused and offer hope for a cure.

    Pamela (90e140)

  490. Pamela, what finding on autopsy can diagnose autism?

    I agree with your basic point and discussed it above at #335, that some classifications are actually a lumping together of things with no clear “one test” that makes a diagnosis. This actually happens quite often when an illness is first recognized but not understood, such as “Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome”, which was the name given to a set of symptoms before it was known if it was from poisoning or infection or what.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  491. If only the media would publicize all of the times someone with a legal gun prevented or stopped crime it would give some proper perspective.

    I agree.

    Just think of the tremendously increased crime in heavily gun controlled places like England and Chicago. Just think of the way almost all massacres are in gun free zones. We will never really know how many crimes were prevented by the deterrence of lawful armed citizens, but it’s a large, large number.

    I don’t want this country to go the way of heavy gun control, and while human rights is a big reason, the bigger reason is actually that such a policy would lead to far more violence.

    The only people gun control can control are the law abiding people who can deter and in rare cases stop a violent criminal.

    Dustin (73fead)

  492. It’s not really rare for a gun to be displayed to stop a crime in progress. I was referring to shootings where a civilian shot the shooter.

    The straw man argument is that that occurrence is the situation gun rights advocates envision for every shooting. The truth is that the vast majority are simply deterred.

    Dustin (73fead)

  493. Dustin, indeed – every public shooting since 1950 where more than 3 people are killed have taken place in “gun free zones” …with only a single exception, the attack by Loughner on Congresswoman Gifford.

    SPQR (768505)

  494. Pamela, diagnosis with more specificity may become possible through evaluation of genetic networks, and functional and morphological imaging instead of clinical signs.

    I linked a couple of things above that touch on overlap/commonalities in affected genetic networks.

    One was a paper exploring inflammation as affecting these networks and influencing/distinguishing the type of illness.

    The other was medscape piece discussing research on genetic networks and links between autism and schizophrenia.

    The Psychiatric Times forhttp://www.psychiatrictimes.com/schizophrenia/content/article/10168/1822823

    considers implications for diagnosis – getting better at it in particular.

    There may be a time in the near distant future where diagnosis is more accurately tailored to the patient.

    SarahW (b0e533)

  495. Determined mass murderers go where the sitting ducks are.

    SarahW (b0e533)

  496. To quote Roberta X

    27 people, most of them children, are murdered in a picturesque little whitebread Connecticut town and the media and politicians are all over it, with plenty of emoting and shrill cries to “do something.” In Chicago, over 30 people, most of them young adults and most of them nonwhite, are murdered and it’s “a typical month.” (But remember, the media and the mostly-Democrat pols who are all over the Newport outrage couldn’t possibly be racist — nope, nope, nope.)

    Oh, and as for my little sarcasm above about banning “mass media”, there is actually a psych who says that the media is the real problem.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=PezlFNTGWv4

    SPQR (768505)

  497. Pamela,

    I agree that most autism diagnoses are subjective. Unfortunately, some are even essentially made by school diagnosticians rather than medical personnel. But you are wrong to suggest that live persons can’t be diagnosed with autism. There are a number of known genetic forms of autism and researchers are identifying more as we speak. I know this because our son is one of them.

    As for biological or medical causes, obviously we don’t have all the answers yet but that doesn’t mean we can’t identify and try to address common symptoms and problems. By the way, are you familiar with neuroimmunological autism?

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  498. SPQR,

    I was in college in the 1970’s and the school and city media intentionally and collectively blocked reporting of all suicides on campus, because they said it encouraged copycats.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  499. No, they wouldn’t. There are a lot of “mentally ill” people; far more than there are victims of crazy people who take it into their heads to go on a killing spree.

    If they are a threat to public safety, what is wrong with interning or euthanising them?

    Michael Ejercito (2e0217)

  500. Pamela,

    Here are a couple of links: here and here. It’s very interesting.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  501. DRJ, and indeed in a school or other such grouping of young people, a suicide would result in a cluster of copycats.

    SPQR (768505)

  502. 507. One such grab bag is schizophrenia. I believe the largest biochemical causal relation collects about 40% of victims.

    Then if, by trial, one finds a treatment that works, the patient starts feeling better, moves away, finds work and gives up the meds as unnecessary.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  503. 462. Comment by SPQR (768505) — 12/16/2012 @ 10:11 pm

    Here’s the bottom line, Sammy. Every belief you have about police tactics? False.

    I read certain things.

    Ever since an incident in California around 1970, one policeman is not supposed to confront a person alone (unlike the way it was in the Sean Bell case)

    In New York City also police are not supposed to fire more than three bullets without pausing.

    What they did with the shooter near the Empire State Building was in line with tactics – the tactics were stupid. Although they did prevent him from getting off any shots, they themselves shot many people, albeit not in a life threatening way. It should have been forseen what’s going to happen if the innformants were right and the person they were speaking to had indeed just killed someone. They had enough foresight to be prepared to shoot him – but that was not enough.

    Every belief you have about police training? False.

    You want me to locatre references?

    Every belief you have about firearms design? False.

    Isn’t it a fact that there are many more guns with extended clips than before? How did that happen? Didn’t the gun companies sell people what are in effect, new models?

    Every belief you have about the Second Amendment? False.

    No I’m pretty sure I’m right about that.

    Notice a trend yet, Sammy?

    There’s an awful lot of misinformation out there. I noticed that.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  504. DRJ:

    One link says: There is no reliable screening test.

    It’s all guesswork.

    In all probability, there is no specific effects, any more than you can make a diagnosis of stroke, and then say what body parts or abilities are affected and how..and you diagnosis’ of strokle made when there wasn’t a stroke, too.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  505. Sammy, and you are the one repeating false information.

    SPQR (768505)

  506. If they are a threat to public safety, what is wrong with interning or euthanising them?

    Since you are clearly a threat to them, what would be wrong with them “euthanising” you?

    Milhouse (15b6fd)

  507. 517. 1) “Mast-cell activation may contribute to gut-blood-brain barrier disruption and brain inflammation.”

    Vegetarians point to the gut-blood barrier as their holy grail. Foreign protein ostensibly bridges the ‘barrier’.

    2) A layman might think if this hypothesis were true, prednisone might work as well as NSAIDs, to light the way.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  508. Re: Second amendment I wrote: “You should read the text it replaces in the Articles of Confederation. I’ll post it tomorrow. That will make it clear what’s going on here.”

    http://www.usconstitution.net/const.txt

    A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the
    right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

    The corresponding text in the Articles of Confederation:

    https://docs.google.com/document/d/1L7_Up5HRn3iBvkDFN_MxJrYGyBw1KyxpvInqaXwPNS0/edit

    Article VI.

    No state, without the Consent of the united states in congress assembled, shall send any embassy….nor shall any body of forces be kept up by any state, in time of peace, except such number only, as in the judgment of the united states, in congress assembled, shall be deemed requisite to garrison the forts necessary for the defence of such state; but every state shall always keep up a well regulated and disciplined militia, sufficiently armed and accoutered, and shall provide and constantly have ready for use, in public stores, a due number of field pieces and tents, and a proper quantity of arms, ammunition and camp equipage. ….

    The prupose of the Second Amendment was to allow that to continue.

    This makes very clear what a “militia” is. It is not all men of a certain age. Congress did write that definition into law in 1903, but that was the result of lobbying by the National Rifle Association and it’s utter nonsense. A miltia is an organization today called the National guard in all states exccept maybe New York where it is also still known as the militia. National Guard was a nickname used one time in 1865.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  509. Keep means public stores. Bear means take out of stgorage. People means it is not strictly just states.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  510. They said people to include Vermont.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  511. 521. Comment by SPQR (768505) — 12/17/2012 @ 9:25 am

    Sammy, and you are the one repeating false information.

    Now about police tactics, I’m pretty sure it is right.

    My problem with the shooting in August near the Empire State Building is that they had the whole confrontation in that spot in the first place.

    A lot of what I said hasn’t been said by anybody else. I mean how many people have drawn the connection to the language in the articles of Confederation? Quite often yes both sides are wrong.

    The point is this:

    It was the collective right that the framers were worried could be violated.

    An individual right would only come under the 9th amendment. I don’t know why you wouldn’t want to switch to the Ninth amendment. The Supreme Court has not recognized it as doing much of anything that’s why.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  512. Comment by gary gulrud (dd7d4e) — 12/17/2012 @ 9:12 am

    Then if, by trial, one finds a treatment that works, the patient starts feeling better, moves away, finds work and gives up the meds as unnecessary.

    No treatment works. Slipping out of the medical system – that works.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  513. Comment by DRJ (a83b8b) — 12/17/2012 @ 8:58 am

    Unfortunately, some are even essentially made by school diagnosticians rather than medical personnel.

    Are they any better? Are you poayinbg any attention.

    They are just coming out now with DSM-V. It is clear:

    1> All the “diseases are arbitrary conconctions 0 often with point systems.

    2> They are designed not with truth in mind, but for consistency in diagnoses between one person and another. They are also designed so as to enable people to get reimbursed by insurance companies and other medical payers..

    3> Even when some practuctioner uses his own opinion, it is really quackery.

    4> Treatment is even worse quackery,

    This is true even if there may eb soemthing real going on.

    This is very much like making a diagnosis of “stroke” and then trying to tell you the effects of the disease.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  514. Sammy, your claim that the purpose of the Second Amendment was to continue the militia clause of the Articles of Confederation is simply false. The Constitution has a militia clause already. Its in Art I. The Second Amendment existed because the new Constitution strengthened the powers of the Federal government and the entire Bill of Rights was to respond to criticisms of that strengthened power.

    SPQR (768505)

  515. 431. Comment by askeptic (2bb434) — 12/16/2012 @ 9:16 pm

    Sammy, never say never.
    It may be that they NYPD is taught that tactic, but that doesn’t mean that it is universal.

    In fact I think it’s pretty much unique to the NYPD – firing three shots and then pausing to assess the situation. Whether this actually happens or not is another story.

    Tthe other tactic I mentioned, always having two policemen not one confront an individual, is virtually universal.

    Also, the NYPD has a horrific record when it comes to actually hitting what they are aiming at.

    If that is the case, taht would be true of everybody else. The NYPD has the lowest record of deaths at the hand of police in the country.

    http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/24/opinion/odonnell-police-shooting/index.html

    The officers had to take into account the risk of the gunman hurting potentially many people in the vicinity were he not stopped.

    That was the problem. I think this was assessed wrong because of the terrorism mindset.

    He had already walked some distance and gone for some time after the shooting without shooting anybody else. That meant at most he had another target somewhere else. But he probably wasn’t going to do anything imminently. There was time to pick a spot.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  516. Sammy,

    I acknowledged that many autism diagnoses are subjective but researchers have identified hundreds of genetic abnormalities associated with autism, and autism is strongly genetically determined.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  517. Yes, Sammy, I’m paying attention.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  518. You think autism is a fake disorder and anyone who diagnoses it is a quack. You also view treatment as quackery. I’m not a fan of some of the treatments, either. This isn’t a one-size-fits-all disease.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  519. Do you know someone who was diagnosed incorrectly?

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  520. Um DRJ I never said it couldn’t be diagnosed…not even sure where that came from..I said there is no true medical diagnostic test to identify it… the screenings for it are subjective-left to the psychologist/psychiatrist and neuro-psychologists. They may find genes that people may be pre-disposed but there is not a medical diagnostic test to conclusively prove or disprove autism. Not all with those genes have ‘autism’. There is no brain scan, mri etc. It isn’t like in Alzheimer’s where there is an obvious degeneration in the hippocampus…there are generalized similarities found-in autopsy- in those diagnosed through subjective testing (prior to death) with autism but even those are similarities-not definitive like a mass on a lobe, or some degeneration of a specific area of the brain. The thing that further concerns me…is autism encompasses so many with all varying degrees of functionality and the new DSM lumping in Asperger’s with autism and the wide latitude across the spectrum paints the entire population with too broad a brush and risks maligning those diagnosed with the condition based on the action of one or a few. At one end of the autism spectrum you have those who are non-verbal, self injurious and severely developmentally & socially disable then at the other end you have those who simply struggle with speech, or struggle with age appropraite social interaction. The sad thing is so few in the public truly know what it is, they fail to understand it, and in an instant they judge those with it based on a headline from a paper.

    Pamela (90e140)

  521. 528. “Slipping out of the medical system – that works”

    We can readily understand cause for unhappiness. As a consumer of healthcare for a couple of autoimmune ailments and father of a 4-year old I do not see a suitable option.

    I have a major in Bio, focussing on evolution(although mainly unfocussed at the time) so I feel a more informed consumer than most. Blowing off healthcare pays–primarily for healthy, active, young males.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  522. but every state shall always keep up a well regulated and disciplined militia, sufficiently armed and accoutered, and shall provide and constantly have ready for use, in public stores, a due number of field pieces and tents, and a proper quantity of arms, ammunition and camp equipage. ….

    This makes very clear what a “militia” is. It is not all men of a certain age

    What are you talking about? How does that follow from what you quoted? On the contrary, what you quoted is perfectly consistent with the definition of the militia as the armed population. The Articles required the states to maintain an armed and trained population, and to supply them with field pieces, tents, etc., that they could not be expected to supply themselves. Firearms the militia supplied themselves, since it was expected that anyone who could afford weapons would have them.

    Milhouse (15b6fd)

  523. 538. We are all wise to work and study to direct our own healthcare.

    For my part, I struggle, post-fact, with staying engaged on my daughter’s care. Unlike her mother I tend to hang back an let providers lead, which is sometimes a mistake.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  524. Pamela,

    So you acknowledge that low-functioning autistics can be self-injurious (and thus violent?), but you are resisting that possibility when it comes to high-functioning autistics because it could be used to limit their opportunities. Is that correct?

    I understand that concern if that’s what you are saying, but if so then what convinces you this is solely a low-functioning problem?

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  525. Comment by Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 12/16/2012 @ 10:04 pm

    Several years back, Browning discontinued the Auto-5, but at S.H.O.T.-2012, they announced that they were putting it back into production due to popular demand.
    This has also happened (discontinued and reintroduced) with Winchester’s signature lever-gun, the Mdl-1894; which I could have purchased new as a teen-ager in the 50’s for IIRC $59.95, but now costs over a $1K.

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  526. I had and aquaintance, a runner, who saw seven physicians before receiving a satisfactory diagnosis for a pain in his thigh.

    It was a bone cancer bisecting his femur.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  527. It is more art than science, gary.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  528. 545. Indeed, and I don’t see myself making it past the 3rd physician.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  529. Comment by Steve57 (25fb74) — 12/16/2012 @ 11:07 pm

    Steve, doing some catching up, but….

    The “bullet button” that is commonly sold here in CA replaces the mag-latch spring, and push-button, with a new spring, a non-depressable “button”, and an internal (fits into the hole in the new “button” engaging the threads on the shank of the mag-latch) circular nut that the operator depresses with a “tool”, but is recessed preventing its movement by a finger.

    CA actually has two lists of guns that are banned.
    There is the “named” list under the Roberti-Roos AW law, and there is the list of banned-features.
    http://oag.ca.gov/firearms/awguide
    Then there is the exception for any center-fire rifle with a 10-rd, fixed magazine (bullet-button time), which allows you to have all of the “evil” features that get knickers twisted:
    Pistol grips, folding or collapsible stocks, muzzle devices (just don’t use one that is cataloged as a “flash hider” – buy the same one under a different part number that is cataloged as a muzzle compensator), etc.

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  530. I know what you’re saying, gary. I don’t like to go to the doctors over and over for the same thing, but we’ve done it for our kids. We saw 55 doctors for one of our kids — face-to-face and in less than six months — and we got bills from a couple of dozen more that we never met, but who provided services behind the scenes. You do it when it’s your only option.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  531. Comment by Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 12/17/2012 @ 10:00 am

    Your “3-shots and reassess” is not unique to the NYPD, but it also is not a universally accepted tactic, especially in civilian self-defense courses –
    there seem to be as many theories as there are trainers.

    As to confronting a bad-guy without back-up:
    I think that this may go back to the “Onion Field Killers” (book by Joe Wambaugh about a real incident in the LAPD, which was a 2-man car IIRC), but we have single-man cars in PD’s across the country. My home town in suburban L.A., with a pop of 100+K, and a PD of 120+ sworn officers, uses 1-man cars to patrol our 12 sq.mi. It’s a cost v. territory issue.

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  532. 416. Comment by SPQR (768505) — 12/16/2012 @ 8:44 pm

    Sammy, Jeanne Assam found a semi-automatic 9mm pistol very useful successfully going up against and stopping a man with a semi-auto rifle attacking her church.

    I’m trying to figure out how amny shots she fired and how much time she had.

    http://www.5280.com/magazine/2012/12/jeanne-assam-still-waiting

    From Assam’s hiding place, the rifle shots are deafening. She can hear the man mumbling between rounds. He fires again. Assam is calm and alert. She wants to shoot the gunman when he passes, but it seems too risky. There’s nowhere to run if he sees her first. God, please be with me, she thinks. Assam steps from behind the wall, gun stretched from her body. Murray is 20 yards away. “Police officer!” she yells. “Drop your weapon!”

    The man jerks his rifle toward Assam. She fires five quick shots. Murray falls backward. Assam moves to the middle of the corridor and rushes forward. She’s a few dozen feet from Murray now, exposed in the middle of the hallway. “Drop your weapon, or I will kill you!” she yells. Murray sits up to face her. He’s still holding the rifle. Boom-boom-boom. Bullets rip past her and pepper a wall. While Murray shoots, Assam fires three times.

    Through the haze of gun smoke, Assam sees the man struggling on the floor. He props his head against a wall. Her weapon is up, trained on the man. She sees his hands moving near his shoulder. He’s trying to pull the pin on a grenade. He’s going to kill everyone around here, Assam thinks. She instinctively steps back and fires two more shots.

    I also found a claim that the church knew he was coming!

    In the comments at http://notmytribe.com/2011/jeanne-assam-rogue-private-security-shooter-friend-of-george-w-bush-to-be-honored-in-colorado-springs-for-being-gay-822649.html

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  533. 550. “He was bent on an armed rampage, but does that excuse Assam shooting him from a concealed position, without even an attempt at apprehension?”

    Oh, I think so.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  534. 537. This could be like a diagnosis of “stroke” where you cannot say anything about what kind of effects the stroke had – and even to the extent you can, nobody works that way. They do not say, OK this person has trouble with using the right hand, therefore this person must have trouble speaking, or this person has paralysis om the right side therefore we should expect to find trouble in speaking, and even more so when it gets into fine detail, but instead every deficiency is assessed on its own merits.

    It’s minimal to moderate brain damage, probably caused by an auto-immune process, quite possibly triggered or amplified by a vaccine or an infection.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  535. 550. And she did say “Drop your weapon.”

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  536. I still say that if we ban public schools, there’d probably be no more mass shootings at public schools.

    Elephant Stone (65d289)

  537. “I still say that if we ban public schools, there’d probably be no more mass shootings at public schools.”

    Elephant Stone – If we banned malls, we could stop mall shootings cold.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  538. MD in Philly has stated it the best, I believe.

    Autism is a wide spectrum of language. My client, I thought was hypothyroidism. It would have been called cretinism in an earlier time. Autism is kinder.

    nk (875f57)

  539. 530. Comment by SPQR (768505) — 12/17/2012 @ 9:53 am

    Sammy, your claim that the purpose of the Second Amendment was to continue the militia clause of the Articles of Confederation is simply false. The Constitution has a militia clause already. Its in Art I.

    The Congress shall have Power To….To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

    To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress

    Congress can organize and arm the militia, and make rules, but Congress doesn’t have to. If Congress doesn’t do anything what happens? It would seem maybe you could think there’s no militia!

    Comes the Second Amendment to say:

    A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,, the
    right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

    This means even if Congress does nothing there is a right to establish a militia.

    Perhaps this means that arms can be collected even before Congress does anything or outside of it..

    The Second Amendment existed because the new Constitution strengthened the powers of the Federal government and the entire Bill of Rights was to respond to criticisms of that strengthened power.

    Right. They didn’t want one source of power.

    There are various ways to split up power.

    Military appropriations were limited to two years
    in advance. Other apprpropriations could be for a longer period of time – now we have an annual budget and it doesn’t work.

    Even to the extent this might be here a nod to the power to revolt, we are not relying on that now, but if we are, or were in the past, it can’t be individuals anyway, but whole units. Parts of the military.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  540. Comment by MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 12/17/2012 @ 6:57 am

    “Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome”, which was the name given to a set of symptoms before it was known if it was from poisoning or infection or what.
    I think I kn

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  541. nk,

    Autism is far more than language deficits. Our son initially had a large vocabulary but has been non-verbal for years, yet that’s the least of his problems.

    I think Sammy is right that autism is “brain damage, probably caused by an auto-immune process, quite possibly triggered or amplified by a vaccine or an infection.” I also think our genes have a lot to do with whether the triggers occur.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  542. Sammy,

    Did you read Heller and McDonald like I suggested?

    Are you sticking to a foolish consistency?

    Guns are bitches. My father used to say, a rifle and a mule think to kill their owners twice a day.

    nk (875f57)

  543. 535.Comment by DRJ (a83b8b) — 12/17/2012 @ 10:06 am

    You think autism is a fake disorder and anyone who diagnoses it is a quack.

    It is a fake disorder in the sense that nothing very much specific can be derived from the diagnosis. Even if it is correct. Because like “stroke” it may be diagnosed when something else is going on. (nobody of course gives a diagnosis of stroke except in the acute stage)

    What may be true is that things affecting the immune system may make it better in most cases – just like giving blood thinners may minimize the damage of strokes. But to talk of specific damage – nonsense. That only comes from observation, and nothing inevitably goes with anything else, even if certain things tend to run together. So it’s mostly a fake disorder even if there is something real going on.

    You also view treatment as quackery. I’m not a fan of some of the treatments, either. This isn’t a one-size-fits-all disease.

    That’s the whole point. In fact, it’s not even really a “disease”, with characteristics to be expected. Proceeding this way is worse than futile.

    You wouldn’t try to give a description of the disease of “stroke” beyond maybe what can precipitate it, risk factors, etc. This makes no more sense.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  544. It is my understanding the Jeanne Assam fired those five shots in less than five-seconds – it could have been considerably less.
    I’m sure she wanted to put as many pieces of lead into her target as possible while it was still visible, and she was still able.

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  545. Comment by DRJ (a83b8b) — 12/17/2012 @ 11:51 am

    I also think our genes have a lot to do with whether the triggers occur.

    I agree.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  546. 536. Comment by DRJ (a83b8b) — 12/17/2012 @ 10:07 am

    Do you know someone who was diagnosed incorrectly?

    I know someone diagnosed with a stroke incorrectly (if it was a serious diagnnosis)

    Whe

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  547. DRJ, forgive me, I was referring to the “language” used by diagnosticians. The words they use to label the children. Justice Holmes used “imbecile” in Buck v. Bell. I am glad that is not acceptable anymore. That’s what I meant to say.

    I guess I have language deficit. 😉

    nk (875f57)

  548. nk,

    My fault, but thanks for clearing that up so graciously.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  549. Sammy,

    As MD alluded to above, many disorders are a constellation of symptoms that manifest in different patients in different ways. Many autoimmune disorders work that way, but we still benefit from labeling the disorder to differentiate it from other disorders.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  550. We are polygenic, polymorphous, pre-natal, post-natal, developmental, environmental, all interlated.

    There’s likely a thousand factors, pick from any of the menus above, that made me 6’2″plus and stroked out.

    nk (875f57)

  551. Sammy,

    Do you know anyone diagnosed with autism or are your comments based on something else? If you do, are they high-functioning or low-functioning autistics? I’m not asking this to discount or question your opinion, but I’m curious where you’re coming from.

    I can see how people might argue about the proper diagnosis of some high-functioning individuals, but the characteristics of low-functioning autistics strike me as more consistent and distinctive.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  552. thanks for clearing that up so graciously.

    Comment by DRJ (a83b8b) — 12/17/2012 @ 12:05 pm

    Well, while you’re at it, thank me for not stealing you’re wallet, too.

    nk (875f57)

  553. Heh.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  554. 443. Comment by Milhouse (15b6fd) — 12/16/2012 @ 9:38 pm

    (I’m convinced the entire Plame affair was Kristof’s fault, not Wilson’s; he made up details that Wilson didn’t tell him, but which were later conflated with what Wilson himself wrote. That “at Cheney’s behest” phrase, for instance, which is what really caused everything that followed.)

    IIRC, the CIA said something that Cheney doubted..that Saddam Hussein had tried to get uranium from Niger. (and failed)

    Cheney wanted it verified. (or more probably somebody who worked for Cheney)

    The CIA then proceded to do a fake verification.

    They sent Joe Wilson to Niger who returned with a report that I guess could be read both ways.

    What did Joe Wilson say?

    http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/opinion/06WILS.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5007&en=6c6aeb1ce960dec0&ex=1372824000&partner=USERLAND

    Vice President Dick Cheney’s office had questions about a particular intelligence report. While I never saw the report, I was told that it referred to a memorandum of agreement that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake — a form of lightly processed ore — by Niger to Iraq in the late 1990’s….

    He reported that no such transaction could be successfully carried out without people knowing.

    Later on Joe Wilson claimed he had reported that this wasn’t true but that was not the way the CIA treated his report at the time.

    The report, remember, was that Saddam Hussein had wanted to import uranium. Not that he had actually done so. Joe Wilson’s report said nothing about whether a contract had been drawn up. Only that no transaction had ensueed. And the famous 16 words never claimed he had actually done so.

    Now the thing about that claim was, if it was true, it would mean Saddam Hussein was even further away from a nuclear bomb than anyone imagined! If he had tried to buy yellowcake, that meant his program was set back all the way to the beginning because before he had nuclear fuel.

    Failing to buy would mean he was absolutely nowhere and that the sanctions were working.
    (unless you were to assume he might have bought uranium from another country.)

    It was originally, of course, Iraqi disinformation. Joe Wilson never said the documents were bogus. I don;t know who told taht to Kristof.

    By the way I found out something about Marcy Wheeler, who had that twitter argument with Patterico.

    She is very closely tied in to that whole story.

    And in the beginning of 2007 FireDogLake and the Daily Kos jointly published a non-electronic book by her called Anatomy of Deceit: How the Bush Administration Used the Media to sell the Iraq War and Out a Spy.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  555. “The report, remember, was that Saddam Hussein had wanted to import uranium. Not that he had actually done so.”

    Sammy – The 16 words from George Bush’s 2003 State of the Union Address did not claim Saddam had completed a transaction either. What is your point?

    16 Words – “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  556. Heard the other day, we individuals average 500 non-nominal genetic variations, departures from an ‘ideal’.

    Nature used to be selective against more radical complements. Fortunately we’ve conquered Nature.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  557. “I’m not asking this to discount or question your opinion, but I’m curious where you’re coming from.”

    Sammy – Like DRJ, I’m curious about how you are forming your opinion.

    It seems to be that autism is like stroke only different.

    I could also say that cancer is like stroke only different.

    Neither statement adds a whole lot of value to the discussion, but that’s just my uninformed opinion.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  558. All Life wants is perpetuation, gary. Live long enough to make a baby and raise it to an age where it can make and raise a baby.

    In-between, we make communities. We live, and try to make life worth living.

    nk (875f57)

  559. Dana,

    If you are still reading, I wish you would come back because my earlier comment to you was unfair. In retrospect, I think you asking the completely valid and important question about whether a home with two parents could have avoided this. We know two-parent homes generally lead to better outcomes for children, and I think that may be twice as true in homes with autistics. Support from another parent makes a huge difference.

    Maybe my response was too sensitive because of my personal involvement with autism, but knowing how hard it is to parent these children makes it hard me to blame any parents who seemed to be trying to help their son.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  560. “Comes the Second Amendment to say:

    A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,, the
    right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

    This means even if Congress does nothing there is a right to establish a militia.

    No, that’s not what it says. The Article I provision already allows states to set up militia. And the Second Amendment confers no “rights” upon states. It confers a right upon the people.

    The drafters of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights explicitly wrote “states” where they meant states and “people” where they meant people.

    You are still utterly lost, Finkelman, and are repeating arguments debunked decades ago.

    SPQR (768505)

  561. Here’s an interview with the guy I was thinking about.
    There were no public school mass shootings until it was made illegal to carry firearms in a school, it seems.

    http://www.newsmax.com/newswidget/Lott-guns-Connecticut-shooting/2012/12/15/id/467903?promo_code=1031D-1&utm_source=www.powerlineblog.com&utm_medium=nmwidget&utm_campaign=widgetphase1

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  562. I haven’t seen this linked yet, but it pertains to the personality of Adam Lanza:

    Shooter’s Persona Drew Concern at School

    Not long into his freshman year, Adam Lanza caught the attention of Newtown High School staff members, who assigned him a high-school psychologist, while teachers, counselors and security officers helped monitor the skinny, socially awkward teen, according to a former school official.

    Their fear wasn’t that he was dangerous. “It was completely the opposite,” said Richard J. Novia, the director of security at Newtown School District at the time in 2007. “At that point in his life, he posed no threat to anyone else. We were worried about him being the victim or that he could hurt himself.”

    Long before Mr. Lanza allegedly killed his mother and then blasted his way into a Connecticut elementary school on a rampage that left 27 dead, authorities were concerned about a young man who was unusually withdrawn and socially maladroit. The scrawny teenager with a mop of brown hair evoked feelings of sympathy, not fear, from teachers and the few classmates who even noticed him.

    This raises more questions than it answers IMHO.

    Earlier I speculated that he might have been bullied. On the other hand, he may have not been but rather resented the smothering he received from well meaning adults trying to protect him from potential bullying.

    He appears to be the kind of kid no teachers remember ever having in their classes. Quiet, shy, sitting in the back. Never saying much but getting by, even excelling, on the strength of their test scores and written work. So we’ll probably never know much except that whatever sent him over the edge he was highly unlikely to have ever told anyone about.

    I’m not going to play amateur psychologist, except to point out that our public schools tend to be dominated numerically by women. What appears to be male aggression to them when boys play isn’t. The rough-housing, the chasing, the mock conflict is vital to a boy’s social, emotional, and intellectual development. When that’s actively discouraged the boys suffer.

    That could have been at play here, although I don’t know to what degree Adam Lanza’s autism may have hindered him in that regard, either. As people have pointed out the term autism can be applied to a wide range of behaviors.

    And now to play amateur investigator, I’m sure I’m not telling anyone anything they don’t already know but when a killer pumps multiple bullets or inflicts multiple stab wounds into a victim it demonstrates a huge amount of pent up passion.

    Which is what Adam Lanza did, if the reports are accurate (and clearly I always doubt the reports are accurate because they haven’t been). He’s reported to have shot his mother several times in the face while she was still asleep. Each of his victims at the school, per reports of the coroner’s comments, had three to eleven gunshot wounds each

    Just looking at the rage endemic to this crime, and his choice of targets, it seems to me possible that he wasn’t your typical school shooter (if there is such a thing) lashing out at his peers who rejected and bullied him.

    He could have blamed his mom and the school for his social isolation for smothering and infantilizing him.

    Clearly the fact he picked out the youngest children in the school to kill means they had some sort of symbolic importance to him. He obviously couldn’t have had any real or imagined grievances against them, like others believe they have when they shoot up their own classmates.

    Steve57 (25fb74)

  563. Multiple victims of The War on Boys!

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  564. O/T, but perhaps we need a break…..
    I see that there is speculation that Deval Patrick will name Michael Dukakis to replace John Kerry if Kerry is confirmed as SecState.
    Did MA change their proceedures for replacing Senators AGAIN?
    When Teddy died, there had to be an election; now it’s a Gubernatorial Appointment?
    Are they afraid that Scott Brown might run and win again?

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  565. (I’m convinced the entire Plame affair was Kristof’s fault, not Wilson’s; he made up details that Wilson didn’t tell him, but which were later conflated with what Wilson himself wrote. That “at Cheney’s behest” phrase, for instance, which is what really caused everything that followed.)

    IIRC, the CIA said something that Cheney doubted..that Saddam Hussein had tried to get uranium from Niger. (and failed). Cheney wanted it verified. (or more probably somebody who worked for Cheney). The CIA then proceded to do a fake verification. They sent Joe Wilson to Niger who returned with a report that I guess could be read both ways.

    That is not the point. The entire affair, from beginning to end, was caused by the claim in Kristof’ article, not in Wilson’s, that he had been sent at Cheney’s “behest”. Without that one phrase, the whole affair would have never happened. And it doesn’t appear in Wilson’s later article. It’s not Wilson’s claim, it’s Kristof’s. But the press conflated the two, and the narrative everyone started out with was that this (originally anonymous) ambassador had been hand-picked by Cheney to personally investigate the rumours about Niger. That is what drove the press to question Cheney about why he had rejected Wilson’s report. And of course Cheney had no idea what this was about, he had never heard of Wilson and had never received any report from him, so he set about finding out what the hell was going on, and informing the press that they were mistaken. Without that one phrase from Kristof, the whole thing would never have happened.

    Wilson’s own article, when he eventually came out, wasn’t so specific. It did falsely assume that his oral report “must have” reached Cheney, but it didn’t claim that Cheney had personally sent him, or that he had definite knowledge that Cheney knew of his findings.

    He reported that no such transaction could be successfully carried out without people knowing.

    The significant part of his report (made to the CIA, not to Cheney’s office) was not that the transaction would have been impossible to carry out, but that Iraq had indeed attempted it. That’s what the CIA told Cheney’s office had been confirmed, though they didn’t bother telling them how, let alone who had gone and why he was chosen.

    Now the thing about that claim was, if it was true, it would mean Saddam Hussein was even further away from a nuclear bomb than anyone imagined

    On the contrary, it confirmed that he was actively looking for yellow cake. Suppose your friendly neighbourhood drug dealer told you that your teenager had tried to score from him but he had turned her down; would you feel relief and confidence, or would you be sick with worry?

    Failing to buy would mean he was absolutely nowhere and that the sanctions were working. (unless you were to assume he might have bought uranium from another country.)

    Well, duh. Who wouldn’t worry about that?

    I have wondered whether it’s even remotely possible that Wilson had misheard Bush saying “bought” and had never seen a recording or transcript with the correct word, or even that he was ignorant of the word “sought”. I wouldn’t have thought that was possible, but nk recently showed us that he has no idea what “risible” means, and that’s about as unlikely as someone not knowing what “sought” means.

    Milhouse (15b6fd)

  566. The Article I provision already allows states to set up militia.

    It doesn’t even do that. It recognises the states’ role in organising the militia that exists with or without them. The militia is the armed population; the states train them and appoint their officers, while Congress makes rules for them, but neither “sets them up”.

    Milhouse (15b6fd)

  567. Milhouse, indeed as the states already had militias when the constitution was adopted. But you know that is just going to confuse Sammy more.

    SPQR (768505)

  568. Did MA change their proceedures for replacing Senators AGAIN?
    When Teddy died, there had to be an election; now it’s a Gubernatorial Appointment?

    No, when Teddy died there was an appointment. Because they changed the law right after Teddy died, in order to allow it, so that the Ds would have the 60 votes they needed to pass 0bamacare. Don’t you remember how loudly Republicans complained about it at the time?

    Milhouse (15b6fd)

  569. Comment by SPQR (768505) — 12/17/2012 @ 4:06 pm

    Don’t even tell Sammy about the various Militia Acts (1792/1862/1903) or he would look like Linda Blair.

    Comment by Milhouse (15b6fd) — 12/17/2012 @ 4:19 pm

    That had completely slipped my mind. TKS.

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  570. Are they afraid that Scott Brown might run and win again?

    They would have to renominate Coakley.

    Michael Ejercito (2e0217)

  571. The Militia Act of 1903 was the result of lobbying by the National Rifle Association. They wrote the bill, I suspect. That bill completely mixed people up as to the history, as intended.

    What people used to call the militia, they now call the National Guard, thanks to what that bill did.

    All attempts to say that the word militia means all able bodied males between the ages of 18 and 45, without them having to enroll in anything, that date from before 1903 are deliberately misleading.

    The 1792 Act doesn’t say anything like that.

    What’s in the 1862 act? If you quote it, I’ll show you it doesn’t say it.

    Sammy Finkelman (372aad)

  572. No, I don;t know anyone. I do know of a supremely stupid offhand diagnosis of “a series of small strokes” by my mother;’s cancer doctor at Sloan Kettering to explain her memory problem. (it was beriberi, I later figured out, and this probably happens in most advanced cancers)

    I would agree low functioning autistics, whom I assume are people without speech, are about the same, so long as you are talking about symptoms related to speech, and maybe that’s most of what would come to your attention, because it is so vital.

    Sammy Finkelman (372aad)

  573. Sammy, now you are giving away just which whacky gun control organization’s propaganda you’ve been reading.

    SPQR (768505)

  574. SPQR, it’s not propaganda, m’kay?

    It’s soooper sekrit intel.

    Steve57 (25fb74)

  575. No, Steve57, its horse manure that Sammy has googled up and is dumping here. Its long debunked nonsense, that Eugene Volokh and others debunked a decade and a half ago and more.

    All wrapped in an NRA-Is-A-Conspiracy looney toons package.

    SPQR (768505)

  576. 577. Article I, Section 8, doesn’t talk about states. Article I talks about Congress.

    It says Congress has the power to organize it. Congress has the power to arm it. Congress has the power to discipline it (make rules) And when they are federalized, it has the power to govern it.

    What the states can do is appoint the officers, and train the militia, but according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.

    So you might think, perhaps, that you can’t organize a militia, or arm a militia, if Congress does not provide money or instructions.

    The Second amendment makes clear that, no you can. A militia does not need the approval of Congress.

    I’ve looked now at the 1998 Volokh testimony and appendix. He doesn’t know anything about what’s in the Articles of Confederation. He cites a lot of state constitutions. They began to say “right to bear arms in defense of themselves and the state.” Actually this phraseology goes back to Pennsylvania in 1776.

    Now the key question here is: what are “arms?”

    I think it means military grade weapons. And I don’t think it’s talking about personal defense, each man from the other, but a common danger.

    Sammy Finkelman (372aad)

  577. 590. Which on? I’d like to know. Because I’m not reading aanything.

    Sammy Finkelman (372aad)

  578. Sammy, you are completely lost. Yes, you are googling this crap up and I know where.

    You write: “Article I, Section 8, doesn’t talk about states” and then admit that it does: “What the states can do is appoint the officers, and train the militia”. So you can’t even write coherently – still.

    Really, you think that Eugene Volokh does not know what is in the Articles of Confederation? You are a joke. The Articles are irrelevant to the discussion, because the Constitution does not rely upon them, it replaces them entirely.

    SPQR (768505)

  579. It remains that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights explicitly distinguish between the “people” and the “states”. And the Second Amendment confers no rights upon states, but upon people. Just as the First, Fourth etc. amendments do.

    Your claim that the Second Amendment is a collective right was false and is false. And isn’t constitutional law today.

    SPQR (768505)

  580. “Sammy, you are completely lost.”

    SPQR – The goal posts are a blur.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  581. C’mon, SPQR. When has SF ever stated he didn’t know more about a topic than experts? Ever?

    He is truly a world class expert.

    Personally, I would pay big money to watch his act against Eugene V. in real time. But then, SF wouldn’t be able to Google furiously, then cut and paste giant Wall O’ Texts.

    Simon Jester (b26f73)

  582. Oh, and this…

    “…Because I’m not reading aanything…”

    …needs to go on the Wall of Fame at Patterico’s. It’s not quite as funny as “I work here is done,” but it does have that flavor.

    Simon Jester (b26f73)

  583. Sammy! Go to sleep! You should know you’re in trouble when you make Milhouse look good.

    nk (875f57)

  584. Sammy,

    I know you are focused on the Second Amendment issues but I’d like to address your comment about autism and language. It’s true that checklists for toddlers focus on whether they’re developing speech, but autism is a constellation of symptoms and not just difficulty with language. Being nonverbal is called aphasia, as you probably know because it’s a common side effect of a stroke.

    By the way, the link is to the Mayo Clinic website regarding childhood autism, but it briefly addresses teenage autism:

    As they mature, some children with autism become more engaged with others and show fewer disturbances in behavior. Some, usually those with the least severe problems, eventually may lead normal or near-normal lives. Others, however, continue to have difficulty with language or social skills, and the teen years can bring worse behavioral problems.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  585. Simon Jester, since I found exactly what Sammy was cribbing from, you can imagine how hard I laughed.

    SPQR (768505)

  586. Also, I’m sorry about your Mom’s health problems.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  587. 594. No, Steve57, its horse manure …

    Comment by SPQR (768505) — 12/17/2012 @ 8:16 pm

    You say horse manure; Sammy says sooper sekrit inel. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

    Do you really think, SPQR, I’m any more convinced by Sammy’s posturing on the 2nd Amendment than I was by the contortions he went through to explain just how one might possibly construe the administration’s shifting positions didn’t amount to lies about Benghazi? That is, if you squinted real hard and ignored the most obvious falsehoods?

    Steve57 (25fb74)

  588. That was in 1995. They tried to send her away to a far away hospice and lie about the possibility of coming home from that. (Sloan Kettering)

    And there was a hard time getting her out of the hospital. They didn’t want to discharge her without a discharge plan. You can get trapped in the hospital almost.

    They really wanted to send her away. They didn’t want anyone to die in the hospital and they didn’t anyone to cured, of course, by somebody else. When I saw that big portrait of Frank Sinatra I had proof (to myself) there was something very wrong there.

    We did hospice at home, which was OK only because it started out as the Visiting Nurse Service. I gave her Vitamin B1. She didn’t have pain till the last week, just tiredness.

    I called Hatzolah (ambulance) at the end -really after it was over but to get confirmation I guess and I think the hospice people got a little angry at this. You are not supposed to do that or you get disenrolled.

    They had come up with an anti-pain protocol that they had to know didn’t work, never worked I am sure, but probably damaged the liver more. Pain continued, then morphine and lying about that.

    Sammy Finkelman (c54611)

  589. 526. Keep means public stores. Bear means take out of stgorage. People means it is not strictly just states.

    Comment by Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 12/17/2012 @ 9:31 am

    Are you OK, Sammy? Because the above indicates not. Do you actually expect this drive to redefine words to work?

    Steve57 (25fb74)

  590. Just so you know, Sammy, I don’t dislike you. I just don’t understand how your mind works.

    Steve57 (25fb74)

  591. If your patients all die, there’s no bad word of mouth.

    Sammy Finkelman (c54611)

  592. The last hospitalization. Or was that in May? They arranged for an ambulette. It turned out to be basically a (Russian) car service that was harder to get into than a regular car, and charged more ($45 versus about $28 then) than a plain ordinary car service you could have arranged yourself would have done.

    Anything “medical” always costs more, but the real point here is itnotonly cost more, but it was worse.

    I think the Coumadin she got prolonged her life. The doctor was surprised later. Of course they never took any notice.

    Sammy Finkelman (c54611)

  593. Patients are famous for the fact they don’t have relatives who miss them when they die. Hence no bad word of mouth when you kill them.

    Steve57 (25fb74)

  594. There was one young doctor in November (1995) I saw puzzling over her bleeding. I hadn’t yet figured it out, but she had ALL the symptoms of beriberi.

    That’s what it was.

    Sammy Finkelman (c54611)

  595. Comment by SPQR (768505) — 12/17/2012 @ 8:16 pm

    NRA-Is-A-Conspiracy looney toons package

    The NRA is a conspiracy. One hundred and forty years old.

    To sell guns.

    But not just that. To spread nonsense.

    And in the 1871-1903 period they did a really good job. The big promotion then was that every (loyal to the Union) man had a duty to buy a rifle.

    Sammy Finkelman (c54611)

  596. The NRA is absolutely silent right now. It’s run from the top down apparently..They realy shouldn’t be silent.

    People here have something to say. Congressman Louie Gohmert was on TV. Made an argument about how the principal could have had an M-4 rifle in her cabinet that day. Apparently they are actually doing similar stuff in Texas. Preparing for active defense against shooters, sort of.

    The NRA is in lockdown, public relations wise.

    Sammy Finkelman (c54611)

  597. SPQR: The Article I provision already allows states to set up militia.”

    As I think he pointed out later, they already existed.

    Except for the fact that the militia is something that only assembles from time to time.

    Comment by Milhouse (15b6fd) — 12/17/2012 @ 4:05 pm

    It doesn’t even do that. It recognises the states’ role in organising the militia that exists with or without them. The militia is the armed population;

    No it isn’t, and to say it is, is to torture the English language.

    I really would like to hear the story of who was responsible for the Dick Act and getting that kind of language into the law in 1903..

    Go ahead and try to find out how the name National Guard got started. It;s nonsense. Because it really got started by the NRA.

    Somewhere there must be some detail about this.

    The militia is an organization with members, which may or may not exist.

    the states train them and appoint their officers, while Congress makes rules for them, but neither “sets them up”.

    To “organize” is to set up.

    Sammy Finkelman (c54611)

  598. “Keep means public stores. Bear means take out of stgorage…”

    Nah.

    A keep is a castle, and a bear is an animal that shits in the woods.

    And Sammy is a synonym for pecan or cashew.

    He’s a sweet guy…but, he’s coocoo for cocoa puffs.

    Dave Surls (46b08c)

  599. 26. Keep means public stores. Bear means take out of stgorage. People means it is not strictly just states.

    Comment by Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 12/17/2012 @ 9:31 am

    Comment by Steve57 (25fb74) — 12/17/2012 @ 10:11 pm

    Do you actually expect this drive to redefine words to work?

    We are talking about the right of “the people” to keep and bear arms, not solitary individuals.

    I’m talking abut original intent. I’m not changing anything. Just telling you what it sounds like to me.

    And arms means weapons suitable for war..

    It was the NRA that redefined the word “militia” in the late 19th century, (and an Act of Congress incorporated this redefinition in 1903) to make militia mean everybody who could be enrolled in the militia, and with that declared that the militia existed anyway regardless of what anybody did or did not do.

    The NRA actually had to get all the state organizations to stop calling themselves the “militia” to make that redefinition work. That campaign took years, decades in fact. The NRA came up with the term “National Guard” as a substitute.

    But “militia” is not another word for men of military age.

    Sammy Finkelman (c54611)

  600. We are talking about the right of “the people” to keep and bear arms, not solitary individuals.

    So there is no individual right to petition the government? And no individual right to be secure in ones person, house, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures? And no individual rights retained under the 9th amendment nor any individual powers reserved under the 10th? Are you bloody serious?

    Milhouse (15b6fd)

  601. You notice all the constitutions Volokh quoted in his testimony linked in comment number 448?

    Only the word “bear” is in most of them.

    Not “keep”

    Only Rhode Island((1842) – he otherwise went up to 1820, but 1842 was the first constitution of Rhode Island – and Tennessee (1796) have “keep”

    And both were probably simply quoting the Second Amendment.

    Keep as well as bear is also in the proposed amendments from both the Virginia and New York conventions.

    Earlier, in Blackstone, in 1765, in a footnote, there is only “bear”, although the laws he is talking about are about the ability to “have arms for their defense” That equaled “bear” in his book. (there was not a general right to have arms in the 1688 British Bill of Rights, only for Protestants not to be discriminated against. Protestants had been disarmed by James II)

    Sammy Finkelman (b394b7)

  602. OK, I’m finally getting to the point, or getting my thoughts together.

    Not letting people keep arms is a more severe restriction than not letting them bear arms – or to put it another way, for an individual, if bear is there, keep is unnecessary.

    A separate “keep” only makes sense in the context of a communal organization. There, indeed, you might be able to bear arms, without also “keeping” them, because they’d all maybe only be in individual hands, so a distinct right to “Keep” arms is necessary that is not covered by a right to “bear” them.

    They didn’t want a standing army “kept” very much.

    Sammy Finkelman (b394b7)

  603. Militia has a broad range of meaning. In the Soviet Union, for example, it meant the civil police.

    Sammy is there, somewhere, maybe just a little bit off course.

    nk (875f57)

  604. Keep and bear, can mean in your gunsafe or waist, Sammy?

    I have guns, I don’t carry them in my neighborhood. My neighbors are my defense.

    ?

    nk (875f57)

  605. Militia is always an organization.

    Also:

    While, keep does not imply bear, bear implies keep, except if you are talking about something like a militia, where the arms might possibly not be kept separately by the militia, but remain in widely scattered individual’s hands.

    Sammy Finkelman (b394b7)

  606. Sammy – During the Revolutionary War, The Continental Army, at least in the early years, followed the militia model, whereby individual soldiers supplied their own weapons. I think your fundamental misunderstanding of this concept explains your grand confusion, but it also provides a ready explanation of the origin of the keep and bear language in the second amendment. Individuals owned the weapons they used in armed conflicts.

    “Such prewar supply measures as colonial leaders took were within the framework of their experience with the militia system. Under that system militiamen reporting for an expedition against the Indians brought their own arms and accouterments. Their guns might be any kind, from muskets to fowling pieces, or even none at all. In most colonies the local authorities maintained an emergency supply of powder and weapons paid for by the towns or counties. Militiamen brought their own provisions as well, for expeditions were usually of short duration. If accomplishing their objective required more than a few days, colonial authorities customarily appointed one or more commissaries, or agents, who served only for the duration of the expedition. The commissary purchased any rations that were needed, but since the prescribed articles of food could be readily procured, no prior logistical planning was required.”

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  607. I wonder how many people you have to have before they start growing rights?

    according to Sammy, one person alone doesn’t have any rights, so how many do you need?

    Ten, Twenty, a few million?

    Dave Surls (46b08c)

  608. DRJ, we’ve had our many trips to Mayo, but I doubt if I can imagine your pain.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  609. gary,

    I’m a big Mayo fan. Our family has been going there for years. I also trust the information at its website.

    Sammy,

    This website has a helpful and more even-handed analysis of gun rights and gun control. In addition, are you sure the NRA was responsible for the use of the term National Guard instead of militia? As the link explains, the NRA was founded after the Civil War to promote training for more accurate shooting because the soldiers were terrible shots. Apparently the NRA was still a limited training organization when the Militia Act of 1903 established the National Guard.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  610. This is rank speculation but there is a report that the mother planned to move to Washington State:

    So is Lanza’s relationship with his mother, a former stockbroker at John Hancock in Boston, who told her friend Mark Tambascio a week and a half before her death that she planned to move to Washington state with Adam so he could attend a four-year college for special-needs students there.

    “She told me she was moving,” said Tambascio, one of the owners of My Place, a local restaurant and pub. “She had been thinking about it for one year at least. She was always trying to find ways to help his condition. She did everything in her power to help him. She was always concerned. She wanted him to have a regular life. She wanted to make sure he could be on his own.”

    Even though this sounds like a good thing for Adam, I wonder if he would see it that way. As a rule, autistics don’t like change and I wonder if it angered him for his mother to be thinking about changing his life so dramatically.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  611. Here’s the link for the report from which that quote was taken.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  612. Sammy writes some more gun control propaganda: “The NRA is a conspiracy. One hundred and forty years old.

    To sell guns.

    This is a common refrain from gun control organizations. They try to explain away and deny the fact that the NRA is a grass roots organization (even as the reality is that gun control organizations have failed as grass roots themselves and exist only because of money from a handful of billionaires and foundations). They do this by claiming that the NRA is a gun manufacturer’s lobbying organization.

    That’s just a lie flat out. The NRA gets very tiny amounts from gun manufacturers ( not least because its not really that huge an industry in terms of revenue and profits ), mostly in the form of a small amount of advertising for its magazines. The reality is that the NRA is a very successful grass roots organization. One way to tell, the NRA actually has something around 3 to 4 millions members (I don’t have the exact number handy) but if you poll people and ask if they are NRA members, ten times that many will say “Yes”.

    SPQR (768505)

  613. Comment by SPQR (768505) — 12/17/2012 @ 8:27 pm

    Really, you think that Eugene Volokh does not know what is in the Articles of Confederation? </I.

    Has he ever mentioned it? It's not in that 1998 testimony, which has a lot of other things.

    Here it does come up, in footnote 32, where he's quioting the Oxford English dictionary. But he didn't look at it himself.

    http://www2.law.ucla.edu/volokh/common.htm

    He's really stuck on the idea that the militia is everybody, and not a subset.

    When you say: "every State shall always keep up a well regulated and disciplined militia, sufficiently armed and accoutred" the militia CANNOT be everybody.

    One of the things he quotes in his 1998 testimony (link at comment 449) does not support the idea that the weapons are for self-defense, nor his definition of "militia"

    http://www2.law.ucla.edu/volokh/beararms/testimon.htm

    Thomas Cooley, Principles of Constitutional Law (1898)

    Section IV. — The Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

    The Right is General. — It may be supposed from the phraseology of this provision that the right to keep and bear arms was only guaranteed to the militia; but this would be an interpretation not warranted by the intent.

    But if the militia is everybody, this is a distinction without a difference!

    The militia, as has been elsewhere explained, consists of those persons who, under the law, are liable to the performance of military duty, and are officered and enrolled for service when called upon.

    So here he says the milituia are people enrolled.

    Actually that’s the members of the militia. But that’s still not the National Rifle Association and 1903 act definition.

    But the law may make provision for the enrolment of all who are fit to perform military duty, or of a small number only, or it may wholly omit to make any provision at all; and if the right were limited to those enrolled, the purpose of this guaranty might be defeated altogether by the action or neglect to act of the government it was meant to hold in check. The meaning of the provision undoubtedly is, that the people, from whom the militia must be taken, shall have the right to keep and bear arms,

    The militia is a PORTION of the people. He says it.

    it implies the right to meet for voluntary discipline in arms, observing in doing so the laws of public order.

    What Arms may be kept. — The arms intended by the Constitution are such as are suitable for the general defence of the community against invasion or oppression, and the secret carrying of those suited merely to deadly individual encounters may be prohibited.

    NOT individual defense.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  614. Comment by Steve57 (25fb74) — 12/17/2012 @ 2:14 pm

    He’s reported to have shot his mother several times in the face while she was still asleep.

    She was dressed in pajamas. I don’t think we’ve got a timeline. Did you actually hear or read anywhere that she was asleep.

    It could not have happened too late in the morning as he spent a lot of time destroying his computer. It wasn’t that he got into an argumebnt with his mother, shot and killed her, and tehn decided to go to the school. It could have been like taht but he must have a lot of the night to think.

    There must have been things he didn’t want people to read. A person to protect? He didn’t want them analyzing why, so that a second shooter would have a better chance?

    Each of his victims at the school, per reports of the coroner’s comments, had three to eleven gunshot wounds each

    That’s because of the rifle he had.

    Just looking at the rage endemic to this crime, and his choice of targets, it seems to me possible that he wasn’t your typical school shooter (if there is such a thing) lashing out at his peers who rejected and bullied him.

    Not unless he wanted to get back at them, knew he couldn’t, and decided another generation of students would be just as good.

    He could have blamed his mom and the school for his social isolation for smothering and infantilizing him.

    He was supposeed topo move to a college – not a regular one but one for special needs, which he probably didn’t like, because that’s not real, and his mother was going to follow him to the same town and sell the house.

    Clearly the fact he picked out the youngest children in the school to kill means they had some sort of symbolic importance to him. He obviously couldn’t have had any real or imagined grievances against them, like others believe they have when they shoot up their own classmates.

    If he wasn’t going to have a happy life nobody else was going to have a happy life. Maybe.

    He hated the whole human race, except maybe for his computer and gaming friends.

    Sammy Fiinkelman (d22d64)

  615. Sammy, your comments get more bizarre and evidently you can’t keep them straight. The Cooley treatise predates the legislation that redefined the militia as you yourself claimed. Now you are claiming that Cooley is contradicted by a later definition?

    And the whole time, you are ignoring what the Cooley quote actually says. Remember that even if you disagree with Cooley, the point of quoting him in the first place is to rebut claims that the individual rights interpretation is a modern invention. Indeed, that’s your claim, Cooley rebuts it and you don’t even deal with that.

    Incoherence, Sammy, is what you’ve descended to.

    SPQR (768505)

  616. Oh, and Sammy, Eugene Volokh writes legal scholarship on various Constitutional law issues, and teaches Constitutional law at UCLA Law School. He’s heard of the Articles of Confederation.

    SPQR (768505)

  617. Comment by DRJ (a83b8b) — 12/18/2012 @ 7:39 am

    Sammy,

    This website has a helpful and more even-handed analysis of gun rights and gun control. In addition, are you sure the NRA was responsible for the use of the term National Guard instead of militia? As the link explains, the NRA was founded after the Civil War to promote training for more accurate shooting because the soldiers were terrible shots.

    Well, that’s their excuse. I think it was to sell guns. Who was bbehind it I don’t know.

    Apparently the NRA was still a limited training organization when the Militia Act of 1903 established the National Guard.

    Maybe there is/was a second organization involved?

    By 1903 a lot of state militia had changed their names. The NRA was founded in New York and the whole renaming started in New York.

    This doesn’t tell you what’s really going on here, but it does tell you approximately when:

    http://usmilitary.about.com/od/guardandreserve/a/anghistory_2.htm

    In all sections of the country, the late 19th century was a period of growth for the militia. Labor unrest in the industrializing Northeast and Midwest caused those states to examine their need for a military force. In many states large and elaborate armories, often built to resemble medieval castles, were constructed to house militia units.

    It was also during this period that many states began to rename their militia “National Guard”. The name was first adopted before the Civil War by New York State’s militia in honor of the Marquis de Lafayette, hero of the American Revolution, who commanded the “Garde Nationale” in the early days of the French Revolution.

    Now actually, the New York State Militia never was renamed the National Guard. We’re getting here public relations. This was used to get other states to rename the militia.

    Another website:

    http://www.dngroa.org/NationalGuardHistory.html

    The 2nd Battalion, 11th Regiment of Artillery, New York Militia, voted to rename itself the “Battalion of National Guards” in 1824 in tribute to Lafayette’s command of the Paris militia. New York, by state statute, adopted the term National Guard for its militia during the Civil War. Many states followed New York’s lead
    after the Civil War by renaming their ilitias “National Guard.” The term was not recognized as the militia’s formal title by federal legislation until the 1916 National Defense Act.

    It’s hard to find a reliable source close enough to the facts.

    http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100929135704AAOBXY6

    In my LET class (Army JROTC), my instructor is teaching us about the Army National Guard. In our text book it is stated that “by 1896, only three states had retained the word ‘Militia’ in their official designation.” He is offering extra credit to whoever can name those three states, but after an hour of searching, I can’t find it! He’s not asking for Naval Militia or any of the other militia names before 1896, just those three states. Thanks in advance!

    And then you get an answer that says this:

    Your instructor doesn’t know the history of the militia and the NG and the textbook is wrong. The militia and the NG are two separate entities. See the Congressional Record of 7 August 1940 and a report from the Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1982. This report said in part, “Congress has organized the National Guard under its power to ‘raise and support armies’ and not its power to ‘Provide for organizing…the militia’.”

    The National Guard is not the militia. It is a reserve component of the national army.

    Yes, I think I read that claim too.

    Actually it is both. If the national Guard is not the militia, where did the militia go? Well, the NRA will tell you, the militia is just everybody eligible to bear arms.

    There’s somebody out there trying to confound and confuse people about all of this, and they’ve been at it for over 130 years..

    Sammy Fiinkelman (d22d64)

  618. The NRA gets very tiny amounts from gun manufacturers

    The lobbying organization for the “Gun Industry”, is the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) whose members are comprised of manufacturers, importers, distributors, and dealers.

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  619. Sammy, in the vernacular:
    You don’t know $hit!

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  620. Sammy, first of all, you keep writing: “Well, that’s their excuse. I think it was to sell guns.

    And you have no foundation for this claim of yours. Gee, how often have I seen you do that? Make a speculation and then treat it as proven fact? At this point, I’ve abandoned the idea that you are just clueless.

    Secondly, there are legal differences between a militia and a National Guard – they are not legally equivalent – based upon the amount of control that Congress has exerted upon the structure and enrollment of members. Constitutionally, the National Guard straddles the boundary between militia and Congress’ power to raise armies.

    SPQR (768505)

  621. Finkelandia is a bizarro world.

    JD (661f29)

  622. 631. Gateway is reporting that Lanza became aware of his mother’s petition of the court for ‘conservatorship’ and her intent to commit.

    Son of local pastor, a vet, is the source.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  623. Sammy,

    Here’s what the official military website for the National Guard says about its origins:

    The colonial militias protected their fellow citizens from Indian attack, foreign invaders, and later helped to win the Revolutionary War. Following independence, the authors of the Constitution empowered Congress to “provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia.” However, recognizing the militia’s state role, the Founding Fathers reserved the appointment of officers and training of the militia to the states. Today’s National Guard still remains a dual state-Federal force.

    Prior to the Militia Act of 1903, it’s my understanding there were only state militias/guard with limited federal funding. That’s why the use of the term National Guard originated with the 1903 Act, which significantly increased federal funding for militias and established comprehensive National Guard legislation and modern militia rules.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  624. gary,

    If so, that’s very sad.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  625. NRA made a statement that they were being quiet out of respect for the victims and their families (i.e., take a hint all you other folks) and would have an announcement on Friday.

    Apparently (by a factual sounding story-either that or someone is really sick making up the story) one 6 yo child escaped by pretending she was dead. She ran out covered in blood saying, “I’m OK mommy, but all my friends are dead”.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  626. Here’s a report regarding what gary gulrud mentioned in comment 643.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  627. When you say: “every State shall always keep up a well regulated and disciplined militia, sufficiently armed and accoutred” the militia CANNOT be everybody.

    Why on earth not? How are those contradictory?

    Milhouse (15b6fd)

  628. Comment by MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 12/18/2012 @ 3:34 pm

    That is a scene I would not have wanted to witness.

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  629. When you say: “every State shall always keep up a well regulated and disciplined militia, sufficiently armed and accoutred” the militia CANNOT be everybody.

    If you revised the original Militia Act in accordance with current concepts of age, race, and gender eligibility, everyone who is entitled to bear arms (those without legally disqualifying events) would be entitled to be, and would be assumed to be, members of the militia – except government officials.

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  630. Yes, I agree that’s a horrible moment. This story about a neighbor who took in 6 of the children is pretty bad, too.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  631. It’s all hard to read but especially the last paragraph.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  632. SF, there is the Organized Militia (and there are still official state Militias scattered about the country), and there is the Un-organized Militia – which is pretty much everybody else who fits the criteria, with the revisions that should be applied that I mention in 650.

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  633. If you think you need to have your kid committed, and he lives in your house, secure your weapons.

    Sarahw, Secretary of State the Obvious. (b0e533)

  634. Hindsight is, wonderfully, 20/20.
    The real world, somewhat less perfect.

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  635. I’m not sure that all that much foresight is required in such cases. No argument of course, that it was lacking. I’ll be cruel enough to call it bad judgement to let someone you yourself believe to be unstable, self harming, and in need of a conservatorship and commitment against his will to mental treatment, access to a collection of deadly weapons and ammunition he’s been trained to use.

    Sarahw, Secretary of State the Obvious. (b0e533)

  636. If the report is true that the mother, Nancy, was thinking of committing her son, Adam, then I have to give credit to Dana’s earlier comments about the absence of the father. Nancy may have felt overwhelmed from taking care of Adam but, if the parents had stayed together a little longer, they might have been able to keep Adam at home and in his routine.

    But that’s a lot of “ifs” and, at some point, Adam’s life would have changed — if only when one or both of his parents died. Change is what autistics seem to fear the most, but change is inevitable in life. It sounds like Adam was like a bomb and it’s a terrible shame that he exploded at this place and time and manner.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  637. I agree about securing the weapons, Sarahw, but it would be interesting to learn how they were stored. Adam sounds smart enough that he might have been able to get them, even in a gun safe or with trigger locks.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  638. Conceded, DRJ. I’d like to know how he got access to them. If he were my kid, and that had been my assessment about his condition, they’d be in some arsenal somewhere out of the house, save one for me to defend myself with.

    Sarahw, Secretary of State the Obvious. (b0e533)

  639. I agree but it’s a hard call, Sarahw. There are so many things in a home that can be dangerous — cars, stoves, knives, even the gas connection — and it’s hard to tell what interests them because their behavior is so different. Normal teenagers aren’t easy to read, but autistics are even harder.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  640. A glock I’ve trained the kid to use? I believe your that its hard, and suspect there is a boiled frog aspect to some of the unconcern. Yet, If it were to reach, in my own view, a belief there were need for commitment, deadly weapons get secured. I think I’d have had my * kid * out of the house as soon as he started burning himself with lighters, to tell you the truth.

    She might have locked up the weapons well, though, as you suggest, and he just defeated her measures.

    Sarahw (b0e533)

  641. Maybe she was thinking of committing him but most of the reports suggest she was looking for colleges. It’s hard to reconcile those two things.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  642. Maybe she was thinking of committing him but most of the reports suggest she was looking for colleges. It’s hard to reconcile those two things.

    I thought it was both; she was going to commit him to a “special” college.

    Milhouse (15b6fd)

  643. You can force someone to go to college and stay there?

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  644. Or she wanted him out of her life? One way or another?

    nk (875f57)

  645. I think with a conservatorship she would,be able to force him into treatment in the special program that includes a range of services. He would not be able to have his own bank account or credit, or do a number of other things. She would not only hold the purse strings in the usual “as long as you are under my roof” sense, but in a “you can’t go off on your own” sense.

    Sarahw (b0e533)

  646. Comment by SPQR (768505) — 12/18/2012 @ 12:50 pm

    Sammy, your comments get more bizarre and evidently you can’t keep them straight. The Cooley treatise predates the legislation that redefined the militia as you yourself claimed. Now you are claiming that Cooley is contradicted by a later definition?

    No, no no. Cooley contradicts the later definition. Eugene Volokh didn’t know there had been any definition change. The 1903 law is cited as the historical or perhaps, one and only definition of militia. Cooley shows that Eugene Volokh’s one and only definition is wrong.

    And the whole time, you are ignoring what the Cooley quote actually says. Remember that even if you disagree with Cooley, the point of quoting him in the first place is to rebut claims that the individual rights interpretation is a modern invention.

    I never said the individual rights definition is something only from the last decades. The individual rights interpretation started sometime in the 1800s.

    What’s interesting about Cooley though is that the individual right is not that of self-defense a la the “Wild West” By him, it’s the right to keep military weapons such as are used by an army.

    Only automatic weapons, we might say today, and NOT pistols and shotguns.

    Incoherence, Sammy, is what you’ve descended to.

    Perhaps brevity, I don’t know.

    Sammy Finkelman (f5a3af)

  647. Sammy,

    I don’t think it’s wise to assume Volokh doesn’t know as much as you do about Constitutional issues.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  648. Maybe Nancy told some people Adam was going to college so they wouldn’t be curious about why he was gone. There are private (and expensive) facilities that care for mentally impaired adults, including autistics, and a few innovative ones. If so, she might have decided to sell her home and move so she would have more funds to pay for Adam’s enrollment and long-term care.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  649. 669. Sounds reasonable that she was using the college story while covertly working on a real solution.

    CT law might force the court to inform the subject?

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  650. Who’you gonna sue?

    nk (875f57)

  651. Comment by SPQR (768505) — 12/18/2012 @ 1:28 pm

    Sammy, first of all, you keep writing: “Well, that’s their excuse. I think it was to sell guns. ”

    And you have no foundation for this claim of yours.

    The stated reason you give – to promote training for more accurate shooting because the soldiers were terrible shots – doesn’t make any sense. For what war? The war was over!

    In any case, you notice it is called the National Rifle Association. It promoted the idea that every person should own a rifle – that it was somehow supposed to to happen in the scheme of things.

    Gee, how often have I seen you do that? Make a speculation and then treat it as proven fact?

    There would be no point in speculating if you didn’t carry it further. You then see what happens.

    You see if if you run into a contradiction or if it starts to explain other things- or perhaps it does it only with another speculation.

    The longer the chain of reasoning, of course, the better the chances one link or more is wesak.

    There should actually be different lines of speculation, and if things fit together then it is probably all correct

    Secondly, there are legal differences between a militia and a National Guard – they are not legally equivalent – based upon the amount of control that Congress has exerted upon the structure and enrollment of members.

    The same group of people are now an army reserve and the 1787 militia.

    Anything where the Governors (or the states) appoint the officers, but they seem otherwise to not to be creatures of that state but part of the national armed forces – is the militia.

    Constitutionally, the National Guard straddles the boundary between militia and Congress’ power to raise armies.

    Sammy Finkelman (f5a3af)

  652. Comment by askeptic (b8ab92) — 12/18/2012 @ 3:50 pm

    SF, there is the Organized Militia

    There is no such thing as the “unorganized” militia. That is piece of nonsense invented probably by the NRA about 120 or so years ago

    This concept of an “Organized” and an “unorganized” militia comes from misreading the constitution of the United States

    (and there are still official state Militias scattered about the country),

    I think in all 50 states.

    and there is the Un-organized Militia – which is pretty much everybody else who fits the criteria,

    There is no such thing, but you have to say that if you define the term “militia” as everybody eligible to join the militia.

    Sammy Finkelman (f5a3af)

  653. Comment by nk (875f57) — 12/17/2012 @ 12:03 pm

    Justice Holmes used “imbecile” in Buck v. Bell. I am glad that is not acceptable anymore.

    Originally,”imbecile” did not have an invidious meaning, or at least the people who coined it claimed it didn’t. (they may not have regarded all human beings as equal and entitled to respect)

    Human nature and the way people used that word made it invidious. You cannot call somebody stupid without it being invidious, especially if it is accompanied by a lack of respect for their feelings, even an assertion that there is no reason their feelngs, and deprivation of rights.

    Sammy Finkelman (f5a3af)

  654. I did not see any mention of Nancy Lanza’s not so secret plans for Adam in the news broadcasts, but I would expect them to be slow to pick up on this. If true, or even strongly sourced, this should show up tomorrow somewhere.

    It would make these murders make a lot of sense. This is exactly what would precipitate that. That would have been an extremely strong motive.

    Although it is not so clear why he went after the schoolchildren. It could be that after that, he hated the entire human race.

    Sammy Finkelman (f5a3af)

  655. A key ingredient for mass murders like that is that the perpetrator’s life is falling apart, and it really doesn’t happen without that.

    Sammy Finkelman (f5a3af)

  656. I don’t know who elects whom to which post in the National Rifle Association, and neither apparently do any of the people editing the Wikipedia article.

    All I could find out is that it governed by a very large (usually 76-person Board of Directors, but not who picks the directors.

    And that the president (who typically changes every year – Charleton Heston was an exception ) is a front man and the real power is held by the Executive Vice President, Wayne LaPierre (since 1991)

    It did promote marksmanship in its early days, and there’s even confusion about it having a parent organization in England, which actually has nothing to do with it.

    who sets policies, who decides what to do with donation money, etc. — 78.50.191.25 (talk) 00:48, 8 August 2012 (UTC

    Sammy Finkelman (f5a3af)

  657. “The same group of people are now an army reserve and the 1787 militia.”

    Sammy – Aren’t they getting pretty old to be in uniform?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  658. Sammy – If civilians were not disarmed by the government after the Revolutionary War, you can pretty much throw your originalist collective right, militia only theory of the right to keep and bear arms out the window.

    Were civilians banned from owning arms or not?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  659. “The stated reason you give – to promote training for more accurate shooting because the soldiers were terrible shots – doesn’t make any sense. For what war? The war was over!”

    Sammy – After the Civil War everybody reverted to blowpipes and sling shots for hunting and self defense because the only reason accuracy in rifle shooting is required is to kill people in war. The answer has been in front of us all along.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  660. even an assertion that there is no reason their feelngs, and deprivation of rights.

    Comment by Sammy Finkelman (f5a3af) — 12/18/2012 @ 10:07 pm

    The girl was sterilized, Sammy.

    Drop this.

    If not for the NRA, I would not know how to shoot. And that involves knowing when and whom to shoot and who else is in your line of fire.

    nk (875f57)

  661. Even as the ‘facts’ about the little creep are on the jiggle table Asperger’s, at least, is being exonerated:

    http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/12/18/police-find-no-evidence-connecticut-gunman-was-on-medication/

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  662. Protecting the public flies under the radar:

    http://wolfhowling.blogspot.com/2012/12/when-seconds-counted-police-were-20.html

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  663. What’s interesting about Cooley though is that the individual right is not that of self-defense a la the “Wild West” By him, it’s the right to keep military weapons such as are used by an army.

    Only automatic weapons, we might say today, and NOT pistols and shotguns.

    Wrong. You’re making exactly the same mistake as 0bama did in his assumption that bayonets are some relic of the past. Both pistols and shotguns have military uses; even the short-barreled shotguns that were the subject of Miller were being used by the armed forces, as the lower court would have discovered had it ever held the hearing the Supreme Court ordered it to hold.

    Milhouse (dabb58)

  664. Here’s an article about the mother who looked for her son at the neighbor’s house (linked in my comment 651, above).

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  665. The denial is strong, and mental illness is the problem.

    I can’t remember if I commented before about the medical examiner doing genetic tests. The first thing I noticed about Lanza was his eyes, and the second his very long face, rather different from other members of his immediate family. It made me think of an FMR1 mutation or fragile X, though he was noted to have high cognitive function. However, mosaicism or various pre-mutations could give him aspects of fragile X. The latter can actually result in higher than average intelligence.

    He might only ever have had an array test, which is inadequate and obsolete to test for FMR1 mutations.

    SarahW (b0e533)

  666. 687. Wiki link for Fragile X. Would seem there’s a little room for genetic slop in there.

    Just what do you do, Teach?

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  667. Heres the link for mosaicism, deep stuff:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_(genetics)

    He seems to have taken a developmental dive in grade school. Understandable that a high flyer like Mrs. Lanza was behind the curve and couldn’t reverse course.

    Never heard of ‘anticipatory mutation’ B4.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  668. SF: What’s interesting about Cooley though is that the individual right is not that of self-defense a la the “Wild West” By him, it’s the right to keep military weapons such as are used by an army.

    Only automatic weapons, we might say today, and NOT pistols and shotguns..

    Comment by Milhouse (dabb58) — 12/19/2012 @ 6:18 am

    Wrong. You’re making exactly the same mistake as 0bama did in his assumption that bayonets are some relic of the past. Both pistols and shotguns have military uses; even the short-barreled shotguns that were the subject of Miller were being used by the armed forces, as the lower court would have discovered had it ever held the hearing the Supreme Court ordered it to hold

    I was thinking this could be the case, still under this interpretation, automatic weapons and artillery are more covered by the Second Amendment than mere pistols.

    Sammy Finkelman (291318)

  669. Finkelman, US vs. Miller (1939) [which by the way, contradicts your claims about the composition of the militia in its dicta] states: ” … is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense.”

    Ever heard of sidearms? The military only buys … oh, hundreds of thousands of pistols. The M9 buy was just recontracted for a 100K M9’s, on top of the more than half a million already bought and that’s not the only pistol issued currently. SOCOM buys M1911 clones, several services issue SIG’s etc.

    SPQR (768505)

  670. Comment by Milhouse (15b6fd) — 12/18/2012 @ 5:01 pm

    she was going to commit him to a “special” college.

    According to today’s (Dec 20) New York Daily News, the whole idea of her trying to get him committed to psychiatric facility is wrong. But that’s not the same thing as a conservatorship (which is rare mostly because it costs a lot of money for the lawyers, but she had money) The source (an anonymous, sex unknown, friend of Nancy Lanza) doesn’t mention anything like that, though, but does say she was trying to get him to move out of the house, and he didn’t want to. He became increasingly withdrawn and stayed in his room, refusing to greet guests of his mother.

    She had sent him to see a psychiatrist. (which is a legal requirement for commitment – a psychiatrist cannot sign anything without talking to the person in question)

    The friend’s information may not 100% up to date.

    She had taken a trip to New Orleans – last year also? but Adam had refused to go along and stayed home, so she only went with her other son.

    Newtown Massacre / Unfathomable Violence / Mom’s Push (Exclusive in the New York Daily News, Dec 20, 2012, page 5)

    Bill Ritter wrote something in his blog about her having come back from a trip now, so maybe she was only back a day or a few days.

    We don’t know what they said to each other the night of December 13th before she went to sleep.

    But the friend says this:

    (The following – and some other things – it’s been shortened – is missing from this version of the article online)

    But in the printed newspaper I read:

    Nancy’s pal urged her to use a bit of tough love and stand her ground with Adam. In one of their last conversations, she agreed with the friend that that was good advice.

    “She told me she was going to talk to him again about it,” the friend recalled. “She laughed a little and made a joke about having an empty nest.”

    The friend says there was never any hint of violence with him, or act of violence anyway, just screaming and yelling. His mother said he acted like a child.

    Sammy Finkelman (c54611)

  671. We are talking about the right of “the people” to keep and bear arms, not solitary individuals.

    Comment by Milhouse (15b6fd) — 12/18/2012 @ 12:00 am

    So there is no individual right to petition the government? ?

    A petition generally involves more than one person, and this immediately follows assemble. For purposes of argument, the amendment is assuming that was is being petitioned for has general public support.

    Here is something you can lose sight of here. The collective right would be prohibited first. The more public, the more people involved, the more likely maybe some laws could be passed against it. When it comes to weapons, a tyrannical government would be more concerned about people acting in concert.

    This is true even so for freedom of speech. Only really totalitarian governments try to squelch speech in the privacy of one’s home or among a few people. And the press, is something that reaches a lot of people. There were places the press was censored in the immediately preceding centuries , but not manuscripts.

    Collective rights would be infringed BEFORE, not AFTER, individual rights, and that’s why the Second Amendment would concern a collective right. Some of this is by its very nature collective – some weapons are expensive, and would most likely only be bought by people acting together.

    And they need the right to keep them (under their control) not just be allowed to bear them from time to time under regulations set by Congress.

    And no individual right to be secure in ones person, house, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures?

    It’s a general right that people live in such a place where those rights are respected. That is, you benefit from other people having such rights.

    Since “their” is used further in the sentence, a collective noun is used at the start.

    And no individual rights retained under the 9th amendment nor any individual powers reserved under the 10th?

    A “power” that can be exercised by an individual. (If it was something tat could be exercised by an individual, it would be called a “right” While in the case of he Ninth, the word “people” is used to give an overview, I think the Second amendment uses the word “people” in the same sense as the Tenth.

    And in the same sense as the Preamble to the Constitution.

    We the people…ordain and establish this constitution

    This is not a rhetorical flourish. It’s a legal justification. Because the Articles of Confederation could only be amended by a congress of the United States and any amendments needed to be ratified by every single state legislature.

    That’s what it says in Article 13. While the new constitution says that if conventions, not the legislatures, in nine states ratify it, it goes into effect.

    They just ignore and throw out all the old law. On what basis? On what authority can they do this? The reasoning is: The “people” are doing it- something higher than governments. That’s the kind of people the Tenth and the Second amendments are talking about. Natural law. A certain right to do things, if enough people agree.

    Are you bloody serious?

    Yes. It’s a collective right. Keeping automatically follows from bearing if it is an individual right and it is not necessary to say both.

    It hardly follows they would have been more amenable to stopping individuals from having weapons. It’s the collective right that would be interfered with first. And also, of course, is talking about military weapons. That is the meaning of “arms.” Maybe a little bit more things of defensive use, rather than offensive. It was really an anti-standing army clause – and the Third Amendment is also a right against an army.

    Sammy Finkelman (fe51bd)

  672. But that’s not the same thing as a conservatorship (which is rare mostly because it costs a lot of money for the lawyers, but she had money)

    Whe I still could, I did kids’ work, mostly custody and support, but also guardianship and adult onset conservatorship, pro bono. (Without charge.) And if I did not, the Cook County State’s Attorney or Public Guardian would.

    No, a conservatorship is not necessarily “a lot of money for the lawyers”. There may be a bond for the guardian, for the child’s property, but that goes to an insurance company.

    nk (875f57)

  673. BTW, Sammy, a collective right does not exclude an individual right.

    nk (875f57)

  674. Comment by SPQR (768505) — 12/17/2012 @ 1:26 pm

    The drafters of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights explicitly wrote “states” where they meant states and “people” where they meant people.

    No, they wrote “persons” when they meant individuals, and they wrote “people” when they meant something that was more sovereign than the states, and individuals aren’t sovereign. That’s what “People” means in the Preamble, and in the Second and the Tenth Amendments.

    The Fourth amendment has both the word “people” and “persons” – it’s a right that everybody collectively benefits from, as without that, anything that people attempted to do together, could be interfered with.

    You are still utterly lost, Finkelman, and are repeating arguments debunked decades ago.

    Sammy Finkelman (fe51bd)

  675. You can walk into any courthouse, ask for the forms, ask for help in filling them out, ask to be relieved of the fees if there are any in the first place, and the people will help you.

    Badges Lawyers? We doan need no stinking badges lawyers. Not in these cases.

    nk (875f57)

  676. I am mostly not repeating arguments, and how many have you heard before?

    And where has the connection of the Second Amendment to the clause in the Articles of Confederation about every state being obliged to keep up a well regulated and disciplined militia with field pieces and tents, and arms, ammunition and camp equipage been debunked?

    It’s just been forgotten, that’s all.

    What that really goes to, of course, is the meaning of the word militia. It is something that doesn’t necessarily exist. It also shows you that regulated means trained (and I never said otherwise)

    Now the Second amendment doesn’t say states because this goes over and beyond states, and could include local communities in he wilderness, and of course, Vermont.

    Sammy Finkelman (fe51bd)

  677. Sammy,

    I agree with you to this extent: It should not need a lawyer to interpret any Constitutional provision.

    But the Second? “Free State”? “Right”? “Shall Not Be Infringed?” “People”? Where else do you see these words, all put together?

    nk (875f57)

  678. Yes, Adam Lanza does look a little like this:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fragile_x_syndrom.png

    But people with Fragile X syndrome have an average IQ of 40!!

    Of course you could still say there’s some kind of relation between the shape of his face and …something, but this is really like Abraham Lincoln and Marfan’s syndrome. The facts don’t quite fit.

    Sammy Finkelman (fe51bd)

  679. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/adam-lanza-wanted-join-marines-article-1.1224217

    The New York Daily News reports that Adam Lanza may have wanted to join the Marines. This was in 2009, right after he’d dropped out of Western Connecticut State University.

    But his mother thought that was not right for him, and apparently thought other branches were not any better.

    She stopped her son from trying by playing on his autism/Aspergers.

    He didn’t like to be touched, she told him, but if he was injured, he’d be touched, she told him.
    (Why didn’t talk about the medical examination? Probably because she didn’t know about it)

    This comes from a woman named Ellen Adriani who says that she never actually met Adam Lanza.

    She told this to the Connecticut Post. It could be she’s the anonymous source for the other article, where, not too long before she was killed, she says Nancy Lanza told her she’s going to act a little tougher with him about
    moving out of the house.

    Sammy Finkelman (fe51bd)

  680. Sammy, you really have confused yourself utterly.

    SPQR (768505)

  681. Comment by DRJ (a83b8b) — 12/18/2012 @ 4:41 pm

    There are so many things in a home that can be dangerous — cars, stoves, knives, even the gas connection — and it’s hard to tell what interests them because their behavior is so different.

    He was a fan of shooter games, I read, and it is possible even, that because she saw this interested him, she took him out to shooting ranges, or maybe just to shoot in some informal place, because there was a whole controversy going on that town about people doing shooting – the regulations against hunting didn’t seem to apply.

    Sammy Finkelman (fe51bd)

  682. This indicates that there is still an intellectual deficiency when there is mosaicsism ( avariety of numbers of repeats) in Fagule X syndrome.

    http://www.chp.edu/cs/Satellite?c=Document_C&cid=1189459382765&pagename=CHP%2FDocument_C%2FGeneric_Document_Template

    Fragile X syndrome, would seems from this to cause its effects by preventing something called FMR1 protein from being made. This is all neither here nor there,

    Sammy Finkelman (fe51bd)

  683. Sammy – You can talk all you want about the irrelevant Articles of Confederation, use pretzel logic to misinterpret clear wording of the Second Amendment, claim it’s subordinate clause is actually its governing clause, but you run into huge problems claiming your theories are originalist when you compare them to how militias of the day actually functioned. You also have to refresh yourself on the Militia Acts of 1792.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  684. 699. Comment by nk (875f57) — 12/20/2012 @ 8:08 pm

    I agree with you to this extent: It should not need a lawyer to interpret any Constitutional provision. </i.

    The U.S. Constitution is particularly simple. Federal laws don't look anything like it.

    Amendments are shown by simply inserting more text. When they first amended it, a proposal was hat it should read something like "In Article I, Section 9, clause, clause 4, strike this, add this – but they didn't go that way.

    Sammy Finkelman (fe51bd)

  685. Sammy,

    I notice you linked several New York Times’ articles. Do you get a lot of your information from the Times?

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  686. This is all neither here nor there.

    Sammy said that !?!?!!!!!

    JD (eab2dc)

  687. The last two paragraphs in 706 above are mine. I didn’t catch the missing Greater Than sign, right after the i

    But the Second? “Free State”? “Right”? “Shall Not Be Infringed?” “People”?

    Free state – meaning a state that did not have a standing army – that is, a state stayed free by not having one. That was a belief of some people at the time.

    “right” — this assumes this is one of a number of pre-existing rights.

    “shall not be infringed” – you don’t interfere with at all. Don’t limit it. Infringing is less severe than prohibiting. Once it says “infringed” it is not necessary to use a word like “prohibited”

    In the second amendment. we see only “infringed” is used. Now “keep” as well” as “bear” is used.

    Now if this were an individual right, “keep” would be an unnecessary word.

    “People” – this is the sovereign “people” Over, above and beyond governments, or maybe they are the government.

    Sammy Finkelman (fe51bd)

  688. Sammy, not at all as simple as that. In fact pre-mutations can have high intelligence.

    Sarahw (b0e533)

  689. “That was a belief of some people at the time.”

    Sammy – Can you give some examples of that belief? It seems more typical belief is that a free state is one that has its own government and/or is not a colony or possession of another country or state.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  690. “Now if this were an individual right, “keep” would be an unnecessary word.”

    Sammy – No, that is just your pure speculation and pretzel logic. Individuals must be able to keep guns in order to bear them against enemies or a tyrannical government. Bearing them is carrying them and potentially using them.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  691. Comment by nk (875f57) — 12/20/2012 @ 8:08 pm

    But the Second? “Free State”? “Right”? “Shall Not Be Infringed?” “People”?

    Where else do you see these words, all put together?

    Says Google: http://constitution.org/mil/militia_debate_1789.htm

    This is mostly actually various versions, not really a debate. But very interesting and informative.

    At one point, late in the process, the amendment read:

    “Article the Fifth. A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the People, being the best security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed, but no one religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person.”

    What;s going on here is that they are contemplating that everybody might be drafted into the militia, and because of that put in a conscientious objector clause. How you would render military service not in person, I’m not sure, but that might mean maybe you could be allowed to send a substitute, as Grover Cleveland and others did in the Civil War. (The whole militia would not be called out at the same time. If it was all called out at once, well, then they couldn’t require anything – there has to be a practical way of avoiding it)

    At one point, there was an additional amendment that went like this:

    “That each State respectively shall have the power to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining its own militia, whensoever Congress shall omit or neglect to provide for the same. That the militia shall not be subject to martial law, except when in the actual service in time of war, invasion or rebellion; and when not in the actual service of the United States, shall be subject only to such fines, penalties, and punishments as shall be directed or inflicted by the laws of its own State.”

    Notice here, where I put in italics, that some people were worried that Congress might not organize a militia, or arm it, or give it rules. Also, he states are really doing it.

    A rejected addition to the amendment was:

    “that standing armies, in time of peace, being dangerous to Liberty, should be avoided as far as the circumstances and protection of the community will admit; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by the civil Power. That no standing army or regular troops shall be raised in time of peace, without the consent of two thirds of the Members present in both Houses, and that no soldier shall be inlisted for any longer term than the continuance of the war.”

    Richard Henry Lee to Patrick Henry, 14 September 1789 thinks the word people means the people of the entire United States, and the boundaries have sort of like disappeared.

    Fisher Ames to George R. Minor. 12 June, 1789 says in part: “The rights of conscience, of bearing arms, of changing the government, are declared to be inherent in the people.”

    Sammy Finkelman (fe51bd)

  692. Comment by daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 12/20/2012 @ 8:55 pm

    You also have to refresh yourself on the Militia Acts of 1792.

    That may have talked about all males of a certain age being in the militia, not because that was inherently the militia, but because they contemplated drafting everybody in it – and isn’t there a conscientious objector clause.

    Sammy Finkelman (fe51bd)

  693. Comment by DRJ (a83b8b) — 12/20/2012 @ 9:03 pm

    I notice you linked several New York Times’ articles. Do you get a lot of your information from the Times?

    A lot – in absolute terms yes, but even more from other places.

    The New York Times web page is easy to search, not like some other newspapers, so if you want to prove a point it;s easy to come up with articles, and if you read something it’s not too hard to link it. It still is a little difficult.

    The New York Post and the New York Daily News are much harder, and the Wall Street Journal isn’t so easy.

    The New York Time is the easiest newspaper source (outside of pure web pages) to link, and it also has a lot, although there are things missing from it that are easily encountered other places. The politics is kind of denatured, and it sanitizes the news.

    The sheer quantity gives you a number of good things, though. Even when the coverage of something is spotty, there may have been so much there you can get what you are looking for. And as I said, it is a whole lot easier to search – and link to. It is a whole lot easier to search than other newspapers, and there is a whole lot more, and it has things Wikipedia for instance does not. I’d use the Wall Street Journal a lot more (for contemporary news and politics)if it was easier to search through and post. I am not sure just what there is behind a pay wall and not. With the New York Times you can send links freely.

    In the case of the three articles, I’d read I think only the one in the Science section (in gun debate, a misguided focus..) before I searched and found three from this week sort of making the same point. One of these was only online. I don’t routinely read it online except when I’m searching.

    Sammy Finkelman (fe51bd)

  694. Comment by askeptic (b8ab92) — 12/18/2012 @ 1:19 pm

    The lobbying organization for the “Gun Industry”, is the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) whose members are comprised of manufacturers, importers, distributors, and dealers.

    That’s based right out there in Connecticut, in Newton.

    http://www.nssf.org/shooting/

    There are not many degrees of separation in small communities like Newtown, and so, not surprisingly, we had family, friends and acquaintances that were affected. We are weighed down by their heartbreaking stories and the sorrow that has blanketed our community.

    That does not exclude control or influence over the NRA.

    They can ask for a lot more specific things and this group, by the way, doesn’t indicate so fast it’s in any way a trade organization of gun manufacturers. Look at its name!

    Sammy Finkelman (fe51bd)

  695. Having a large membership doesn’t make the NRA a grass roots organization. How is the Board of Directors selected? I can’t find out. At least not using Google.

    Maybe here: (I got this via Yahoo – same search terms, I think, as didn’t help the other day with Google)

    http://www.netgunsmith.com/2012/04/the-nra-election-and-the-nra-board-of-directors/

    Were you one of the 7% of NRA members who actually voted in the NRA board of directors elections for 2012?

    The NRA election is something of a private matter, even searching on the internet; you might have some time invested in the research of the matter before you actually find something. So for those who aren’t indoctrinated into the NRA culture, don’t subscribe to the American Rifleman, or otherwise just have some interest in the 2012 NRA election: here you go….

    s a final note: of the 31 candidates on the ballot for the 25 open positions, 29 of them come hand selected by the nomination committee, with only Maria Heil and Mr. Schreiner making the ballot via the petition avenue.

    The voting system weights candidates who receive votes where they are the only candidate selected, more heavily than a full ballot. The so-called bullet ballot method helps to get candidates who are perhaps only separated by a tiny fraction of votes into the board of directors who would otherwise not be well known enough to get on the board. ..

    OK. It’s pseudo-democratic. It’s actually controlled by insiders. It;s like a corporation.

    Sammy Finkelman (fe51bd)

  696. You can get a few independent people on to the board, but it means nothing. They don’t shape the agenda.

    Sammy Finkelman (fe51bd)

  697. Now if this were an individual right, “keep” would be an unnecessary word.

    The US Supreme Court thinks you are wrong.

    JD (26a557)

  698. SF: Now if this were an individual right, “keep” would be an unnecessary word.

    Comment by JD (26a557) — 12/20/2012 @ 11:10 pm

    The US Supreme Court thinks you are wrong.

    The Supreme Court has been wrong about a lot of things, hasn’t it?

    And I never sent them anything before the decision, so they couldn’t very well have told me or anyone else I was wrong.

    They never were exposed to this argument.

    Sammy Finkelman (fe51bd)

  699. 700. “IQ of 40”

    I’ve noted in the past, sarcastically, that Arab, Muslim men, average an IQ of just above 70.

    That expression elides tha fact that they do not test well. Autistics include some very uncooperative people.

    Tandem repeats of codons in ‘unread’ areas of the chromosome mutate at higher rates than important areas, those carrying genetic info. A selection of these areas are examined by means of PCR for DNA identity testing, ‘fingerprinting’.

    It wouldn’t shock me to find a wide range of functionality, competence, morbidity among Fragile X victims.

    Moreover, I doubt that its contribution where its preponderance is found in neural protein could result directly in the physical characteristic noted, the elongated face.

    I’ll bet that was indirectly produced via the hypothalamus and pituitary.

    Cleary SarahW would have a more informed view.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  700. “That may have talked about all males of a certain age being in the militia, not because that was inherently the militia, but because they contemplated drafting everybody in it – and isn’t there a conscientious objector clause.”

    Sammy – Militia Acts of 1792 were two laws passed by the U.S. Congress. Since they were timely and dealt with the raising and maintenance of militias by states, they might give you a few clues about the thinking of the times rather than continuing your tortured analysis of the meaning of words.

    Interestingly, one of the Acts specified that people called for militia duty were responsible for bringing their own musket when they reported for duty. It’s almost like Congress was saying individuals had a right to keep guns individually right there in the body of the Act. Otherwise, how could they expected to report for duty with one if they were ever called up?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  701. On diagnosing Fragile-X versus premutations:

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK1384/

    Tandem repeats of greater than 200 codons required for full FMR1 mutation.

    Wonder if the shooter noticed his decline, or was obsessed with his atrophy?

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  702. Breitbart: “Nancy Lanza once lived in New Hampshire and her brother is a retired police captain in Kingston”.

    So, if FMR1 is the cause, the mutation was possibly transferred to Mrs. Lanza via meiotic error. Her brother is evidently quite normal.

    Her mother is still lucid.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  703. “That may have talked about all males of a certain age being in the militia, not because that was inherently the militia, but because they contemplated drafting everybody in it – and isn’t there a conscientious objector clause.”

    Which was dropped because of arguments 1) the right of exemption was a not a natural right but rather something granted by the benevolence of the legislature and 2) just what kind of religious belief would qualify was full of uncertainty, and this ought to be defined by the legislature. They had also considered and amended the text to read that no one should be compelled to render military service in person.

    One thing that caused this whole clause to be dropped is that the same people who opposed joining an army also opposed paying an equivalent or finding a substitute.

    Comment by daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 12/20/2012 @ 11:33 pm

    Sammy – Militia Acts of 1792 were two laws passed by the U.S. Congress. Since they were timely and dealt with the raising and maintenance of militias by states, they might give you a few clues about the thinking of the times rather than continuing your tortured analysis of the meaning of words.

    The militia also seems to consist of everyone in Federalist number 29. I think there must have been legislation or practice before 1792.

    Hamilton thought a militia (that was not a select corps) was useless and harmful. He goes on for quite a bit.

    Interestingly, one of the Acts specified that people called for militia duty were responsible for bringing their own musket when they reported for duty. It’s almost like Congress was saying individuals had a right to keep guns individually right there in the body of the Act. Otherwise, how could they expected to report for duty with one if they were ever called up?

    The focus was on possibly prohibiting or just preventing a trained militia. Individual ownership would be taken away last, although there is the story of how in 1781, in a military crisis Governor Thomas Jefferson of Virginia had prohibited individual ownership because he didn’t want the members of the army to go home and take their muskets with them.

    Sammy Finkelman (8cff4d)

  704. Finkelman, there is nothing secret about the NRA election of the Board of Directors. I get a ballot – as does every NRA member – every year.

    SPQR (768505)

  705. Sammy wrote: “The militia also seems to consist of everyone in Federalist number 29. I think there must have been legislation or practice before 1792.

    You didn’t read US vs. Miller. It quotes back to British law regarding what was the militia.

    SPQR (768505)

  706. And the idea that adding the word “bear” means its not an individual right out of some semantic nonsense is also very silly Sammy.

    SPQR (768505)

  707. Almost requires Zombie Graham Chapman, to step in,

    narciso (ee31f1)

  708. In terms of individuals it might be a certain class of people maybe might be prohibited.

    An amendment proposed by the New Hampshire ratifying convention went like this:

    TWELFTH Congress shall never disarm any Citizen unless such as are or have been in Actual Rebellion.

    One thing to remember is, that at that time, all firearms were custom made. There were no big factories to make them. They did not have interchangeable parts. Interchangeable parts didn’t exist I think, until Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1793.

    Sammy Finkelman (febafc)

  709. From the Congressional Register, 17 August 1789

    The House went into a committee of the whole, on the subject of amendments.

    The 3d clause of the 4th proposition in the report was taken into consideration, being as follows;

    “A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free state; the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, but no person, religiously scrupulous, shall be compelled to bear arms.”

    Mr. Gerry — This declaration of rights, I take it, is intended to secure the people against the mal-administration of the government; if we could suppose that in all cases the rights of the people would be attended to, the occasion for guards of this kind would be removed.

    Now, I am apprehensive, sir, that this clause would give an opportunity to the people in power to destroy the constitution itself. They can declare who are those religiously scrupulous, and prevent them from bearing arms. [? I thought the choice is made by the objector]

    What, sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty. Now it must be evident, that under this provision, together with their other powers, congress could take such measures ith respect to a militia, as make a standing army necessary.

    Whenever government mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins. [if militia meant the body of the people by definition, he’d mean getting rid of the people, but that’s not what he means here, of course]

    This was actually done by Great Britain at the commencement of the late revolution. [1770s in Massachusetts]

    They used every means in their power to prevent the establishment of an effective militia to the eastward. The assembly of Massachusetts, seeing the rapid progress that administration were making, to divest them of their inherent privileges, endeavored to counteract them by the organization of the militia, but they were always defeated by the influence of the crown.

    Sammy Finkelman (8cff4d)

  710. didn’t exist I think …

    This is where Sammy generally goes off the rails, Where his thoughts become possible, then plausible, then facts.

    JD (4cf319)

  711. Exactly, JD.

    Sammy, there were factories making firearms. You’ve confused the idea of assembly lines, interchangeable parts, that style of manufacturing. There were factories and arsenals that produced standard design muskets in the US at that time. They were handmade and did not embody the concept of interchangeable parts but they existed.

    SPQR (768505)

  712. Comment by SPQR (768505) — 12/21/2012 @ 10:22 am

    And the idea that adding the word “bear” means its not an individual right out of some semantic nonsense is also very silly Sammy.

    No, not adding the word “bear” – adding the word “keep” to “bear” If it an individual right, if you have the right to “bear” arms you surely have the right to “keep” them unless the bearing is of arms you do not own. In which case “bear” would be a collective right. IF bear is an individual right, you don’t need the word “keep”

    But a militia may need the ability to keep arms as well as to bear them, because they might be only supplied by the central government and they might very well not have control of them when not in use. When bear is a collective right you also need the word keep.

    Sammy Finkelman (8cff4d)

  713. “Individual ownership would be taken away last”

    Sammy – Exactly. So your undiscovered grand theory uncommunicated as of yet to the Supreme Court of why they have misinterpreted the Second Amendment for over two hundred years because it contains a superfluous word and how the U.S. has consciously misgoverned itself in contravention of the Constitution for more than two hundred years is an amazing feat of scholarship that deserves front page coverage in the New York Times at the very least.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  714. Comment by daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 12/20/2012 @ 9:52 pm

    It seems more typical belief is that a free state is one that has its own government and/or is not a colony or possession of another country or state.

    The word for that is “independent”

    The Declaration of Independence uses both words in the last paragraph.

    Perhaps free does tend to have the meaning of free of foreign rule, but it also means free of tyrannical rule. The whole focus at the time was on preventing tyranny.

    http://constitution.org/mil/militia_debate_1789.htm

    Samuel Nasson to George Thatcher. 9 July 1787

    I find that Amendments are once again on the Carpet. I hope that such may take place as will be for the Best Interest of the whole. A Bill of rights well secured that we the people may know how far we may Proceade in Every Department then their will be no Dispute Between people and rulers in that may be secured the right to keep and bear arms for Common and Extraordinary Occations such as to secure ourselves against the wild Beast and also to amuse us by fowling and for our Defence against a Common Enemy you know to learn the Use of arms is all that can Save us from a forighn foe that may attempt to subdue us for if we keep up the Use of arms and become well acquainted with them we Shall allway be able to look them in the face that arise up against us for it is impossible to Support a Standing armey large Enough to Guard our Lengthy Sea Coast and now Spare me on the subject of Standing armeys in a time of Peace they allway was first or last the downfall of all free Governments it was by their help Caesar made proud Rome Own a Tyrant and a Traytor for a Master.

    Sammy Finkelman (8cff4d)

  715. I think maybe Adam Lanza did not hate those children. He was jealous of them and envied them and didn’t want them to have what he did not.

    Sammy Finkelman (8cff4d)

  716. Sammy, “… the right to keep and bear arms for Common and Extraordinary Occations such as to secure ourselves against the wild Beast and also to amuse us by fowling and for our Defence against a Common Enemy …” is not describing a collective right but an individual one.

    SPQR (768505)

  717. A “free state” means a republic, I think – no king.

    Sammy Finkelman (8cff4d)

  718. Or foreign ruler.

    Sammy Finkelman (8cff4d)

  719. NRA Elections……

    Elections for the Board of Directors of the NRA are by secret ballot.
    To be eligible to vote, one must have been a continuous member for several years, or be a Life Member (or better – there are several steps up from a Life Member, you just have to pay more money).
    All eligible voting members are provided with a ballot in the magazine that comes as a perk of membership (mine comes in American Rifleman, which is the mag I, and I believe the majority of members, choose to receive).
    Also, there are provisions in the By-Laws allowing insurgent candidates to mount a challenge to the nominating process, and acquire ballot access.

    It is much more open than the BoD of your local PBS station (for instance).

    Also, since the Newtown (not to be confused with Newton) shooting, the NRA has been adding 8K+ people a day as members (and I’m getting damn tired holding a gun to their heads – Heh!).

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  720. How Many Billions a Year Will the DSM-5 Cost?

    There are profound economic consequences to where boundaries are set between what is normal and what is considered a mental disorder. Diagnosis of mental illness brings on a cascade of costs, including doctor visits, tests, medications (and treatment for their complications), forensic and prison costs, disability obligations, the siphoning of educational resources and absenteeism.

    We are already experiencing an inflation in psychiatric diagnosis and an explosion in the use of expensive, and often unnecessary and harmful, psychotropic drugs.

    Now, the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders will add new categories of mental illness with very high prevalence rates in the general population. A new diagnosis here, a new diagnosis there, and pretty soon you have millions of new patients and billions of dollars in expenditure.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  721. The real cost of “disability” is for the services.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  722. Comment by askeptic (b8ab92) — 12/21/2012 @ 11:33 am

    To be eligible to vote, one must have been a continuous member for several years, or be a Life Member (or better – there are several steps up from a Life Member, you just have to pay more money).

    All eligible voting members are provided with a ballot in the magazine that comes as a perk of membership (mine comes in American Rifleman, which is the mag I, and I believe the majority of members, choose to receive).

    Also, there are provisions in the By-Laws allowing insurgent candidates to mount a challenge to the nominating process, and acquire ballot access.

    The same thing is true for most major corporations.

    It is much more open than the BoD of your local PBS station (for instance).

    That would not be saying too much.

    There aren’t too many contested seats are there?

    I saw that some nominees are candidates of the gun manufacturing companies.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  723. Chatter of Doomsday Makes Beijing Nervous

    Alarmed by spreading fears in China that Dec. 21 will bring global apocalypse, security officials across the country have been rounding up members of a renegade Christian group whose members have been aggressively promoting the notion that devastating earthquakes and tsunamis will coincide with the end of the 5,125-year Mayan Long Count calendar.

    In recent days, the police in nine provinces have arrested nearly 1,000 devotees of the clandestine sect, the Church of Almighty God, whose adherents recently have begun holding outdoor prayer vigils and handing out pamphlets that warn nonbelievers that the only way to avoid extinction is to join their ranks.

    Branded an “evil cult” by the Communist Party and maligned by mainstream Christian groups for claiming that God has returned to earth as a Chinese woman, the Church of Almighty God latched on to the Mayan end-of-days legend soon after the Hollywood disaster film “2012” took Chinese theaters by storm.

    The movie, which gives China’s military a starring role as the savior of mankind, was a huge success here three years ago. A 3-D version that opened last month across the country has already earned $22 million, a substantial box office take in China.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  724. “The word for that is “independent””

    Sammy – What is the difference between independent and free? Also, I am waiting for examples from you to support your belief that people of the late 18th century believed that a free state was one ” meaning a state that did not have a standing army – that is, a state stayed free by not having one.”

    So far, you have provided nothing to support your claim.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  725. Sammy Prolificman

    Colonel Haiku (baccfe)

  726. Squid Ink Sammy

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  727. So, Sammy, a candidate for the BoD who is endorsed, or supported, by a gun-manufacturer is not a valid candidate?
    Is that how you lose your rights?
    You are aware that some gun manufacturers have less than 50 employees, some even less than 25?
    But, again, I emphasize, that the NRA is not an industry group, it is an organization of gun OWNERS, though you may find it difficult to believe that any employee of a gun-maker would actually own one of the products that he/she makes.
    I suppose that’s why so many Ford employees take the bus.

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  728. BTW, and O/T, I see that Politico is saying that now that Boehner has pulled Plan-B from the table, that if we go over the cliff, the GOP will be blamed.
    Excuse me?
    The GOP was always going to get the blame from the WH/media.
    If we go over the cliff, don’t go over the cliff, raise taxes, slash taxes, if the Moon crashes into Miami – the GOP will always be portrayed as the ones at fault!
    That is the political/media climate that we live in, so get over it!

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  729. “But a militia may need the ability to keep arms as well as to bear them, because they might be only supplied by the central government and they might very well not have control of them when not in use. When bear is a collective right you also need the word keep.

    Comment by Sammy Finkelman (8cff4d) — 12/21/2012 @ 10:59 am”

    Sammy – Before you were arguing that the arms used by militias at the time of our country’s founding were supplied to volunteers by the individual states and stored centrally when not in use. You were clearly proven wrong on those points yet are now raising an even greater strawman that people were concerned that the central government might hypothetically distribute weapons to individual state militia members in peace time rather storing weapons until militias are called up. It is a complete 180 turn from your prior argument and a direct contradiction of laws such as the Militia Acts of 1792 passed at the time.

    Can you admit your comments are pure conjecture at this point?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  730. More like butt-pulls of the first magnitude.

    askeptic (2bb434)

  731. Sammy, you’ve demonstrated to all that you just make things up, and that you pay no attention when your speculations turn out to be nonsense.

    Further, your claims that the NRA is a creature of gun manufacturers is a claim you’ve utterly failed to back up but with this vague claim:

    “I saw that some nominees are candidates of the gun manufacturing companies.

    Comment by Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 12/21/2012 @ 12:50 pm

    The gun manufacturing companies do not propose candidates for the Board of Directors. They have no power to do so. Some people who are in the gun industry are also famous personalities who are popular among gun owners. Like Larry Potter of MidwayUSA (not a manufacturer but a retailer) who has donated large sums of money to the NRA and sponsors a program whereby his customers can donate money through him as a part of their purchases.

    You really have a very annoying habit of pretending to comment with knowledge on subjects you have none.

    SPQR (768505)

  732. Comment by daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 12/21/2012 @ 5:04 pm

    Sammy – Before you were arguing that the arms used by militias at the time of our country’s founding were supplied to volunteers by the individual states and stored centrally when not in use.

    No, I didn’t say any such thing.

    What I said, or meant, was that the only way “keep” could be an individual right and still not be superfluous, was if “bear” was not an individual right, but if “bear” was an individual right, “keep” was unnecessary. I also said Governor Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, in 1781, in a crisis, had prohibited individual ownership of muskets, because he wanted them all for the army, and maybe somebody can check into the details of that. I read that in a book about Jefferson by some major biographer of his years ago. It had something to do with people leaving the army and taking their muskets with them. I didn’t quite exactly understand it – I don’t think it was completely explained.

    At the time of the Revolution, it was usual for people to own their own muskets, and bring them with them when called up, but the militia itself stored other items, too expensive or too bulky or too unusual for people to have, and extra arms.

    The Articles of Confederation mentions that each state “shall provide, and constantly have ready for use, in public stores, a due number of field pieces (cannon?) and tents,and a proper quantity of arms, ammunition and camp equipage.”

    It also says they shall be “sufficiently armed and accoutred.”

    If somebody brought something of their own, well and good, but you couldn’t rely on that.

    And then, do you remember the ride of Paul Revere? What was that all about?

    Intelligence Throughout History: Paul Revere”s Midnight Ride (according to the CIA)

    They’re only repeating what everybody knows, so this is probably not wrong.

    Nonetheless, they had good sources of their own, and saw through the cover story the British had devised to mask the march of 700 Redcoats on Concord to seize Patriot stores of munitions and arms.

    Arms collectively owned. There was a little shooting , and in the meantime:

    The caches of munitions and arms the British expected to find had long since been removed by the alerted Patriots.

    Sarah Palin was quite correct in 2011 to say that Paul Revere’s ride was about Second Amendment Rights. The Second Amendment is not about an individual’s right to keep arms, and that wasn’t either. The British were not trying to confiscate individually owned arms, but only certain collectively owned arms.

    Sammy Finkelman (9c245c)

  733. “No, I didn’t say any such thing.”

    Sammy – Really? Should I take the time to find the comments?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  734. “At the time of the Revolution, it was usual for people to own their own muskets, and bring them with them when called up”

    Sammy – Sounds almost suspiciously like an individual right to keep arms.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  735. Really bizarre. Sammy, you sure go through a lot of contortions to avoid the obvious conclusion.

    SPQR (768505)

  736. “No, I didn’t say any such thing.”

    Sammy – You said the 2nd Amendment was a collective right and the only reason individuals were allowed to hold onto guns was in the context of militias, in which not everyone served. That was only after I supplied links showing that militias at the time of the Revolutionary War depended largely on individuals supplying their own weapons, as did the Militia Acts of 1792. Comment #443 from this very thread:

    “SF: It’s a collective right – the right to have a militia or something similar.

    Bullsh*t. That is absolute bullsh*t, Sammy, and you damn well know it.

    There have been strained explanations but thy all have it wrong so maybe it seems this is not collective.

    You should read the text it replaces in the Articles of Confederation. I’ll post it tomorrow. That will make it clear what’s going on here.

    The word “people” in the second Amendment means the same thing it does in the Tenth amendment.

    A militia is not everybody but an organization.

    And keeping and bearing are pretty much the same if it’s a single individual we are concerned about.

    Comment by Sammy Finkelman (fac2c6) — 12/16/2012 @ 9:36 pm”

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  737. Your comment #526 also from this thread:

    “Re: Second amendment I wrote: “You should read the text it replaces in the Articles of Confederation. I’ll post it tomorrow. That will make it clear what’s going on here.”

    http://www.usconstitution.net/const.txt

    A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the
    right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

    The corresponding text in the Articles of Confederation:

    https://docs.google.com/document/d/1L7_Up5HRn3iBvkDFN_MxJrYGyBw1KyxpvInqaXwPNS0/edit

    Article VI.

    No state, without the Consent of the united states in congress assembled, shall send any embassy….nor shall any body of forces be kept up by any state, in time of peace, except such number only, as in the judgment of the united states, in congress assembled, shall be deemed requisite to garrison the forts necessary for the defence of such state; but every state shall always keep up a well regulated and disciplined militia, sufficiently armed and accoutered, and shall provide and constantly have ready for use, in public stores, a due number of field pieces and tents, and a proper quantity of arms, ammunition and camp equipage. ….

    The prupose of the Second Amendment was to allow that to continue.

    This makes very clear what a “militia” is. It is not all men of a certain age. Congress did write that definition into law in 1903, but that was the result of lobbying by the National Rifle Association and it’s utter nonsense. A miltia is an organization today called the National guard in all states exccept maybe New York where it is also still known as the militia. National Guard was a nickname used one time in 1865.

    Comment by Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 12/17/2012 @ 9:30 am”

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  738. “At the time of the Revolution, it was usual for people to own their own muskets”

    Sammy – At what point in this country’s history did it become unusual for people to own a firearm? I recognize there are obviously differences between areas of the country, urban, suburban, rural in gun ownership statistics and some of the statistical differences are obviously driven by regulation. For your theory to hold any water, however, there must have been a cross over point when individuals stopped owning guns because they no longer felt obligated to do so by the potential of a mandatory militia call up. When was that?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  739. For a better understanding of the Founder’s attitude towards arms, go read Federalist 46.

    For example, this passage:

    It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops. Those who are best acquainted with the last successful resistance of this country against the British arms, will be most inclined to deny the possibility of it. Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  740. “At the time of the Revolution, it was usual for people to own their own muskets”

    Comment by daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 12/26/2012 @ 12:51 pm

    Sammy – At what point in this country’s history did it become unusual for people to own a firearm?

    That’s a good question to ask. I think it started to become rarer after the Civil War, or maybe even before, and the National Rifle Association was founded in 1871 to encourage people to buy rifles. It’s a little bit of a frontier thing.

    And at this point somewhere between 1/3 and 2/3 own some weapon, but there is a vast disaprtiy between Democrats and Republicans.

    http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/18/in-gun-ownership-statistics-partisan-divide-is-sharp/

    December 18, 2012, 12:39 am 528 Comments

    Party Identity in a Gun Cabinet

    By NATE SILVER

    An American child grows up in a married household in the suburbs. What are the chances that his family keeps a gun in their home?

    The probability is considerably higher than residents of New York and other big cities might expect: about 40 percent of married households reported having a gun in their home, according to the exit poll conducted during the 2008 presidential election.

    But the odds vary significantly based on the political identity of the child’s parents. If they identify as Democratic voters, the chances are only about one in four, or 25 percent, that they have a gun in their home. But the chances are more than twice that, almost 60 percent, if they are Republicans.

    Whether someone owns a gun is a more powerful predictor of a person’s political party than her gender, whether she identifies as gay or lesbian, whether she is Hispanic, whether she lives in the South or a number of other demographic characteristics…..</b

    Now this is the suburbs. In the cities it would be much less, and Nate Silver doesn’t give a fiugure for exurbs or rural areas.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  741. I recognize there are obviously differences between areas of the country, urban, suburban, rural in gun ownership statistics and some of the statistical differences are obviously driven by regulation. For your theory to hold any water, however, there must have been a cross over point when individuals stopped owning guns because they no longer felt obligated to do so by the potential of a mandatory militia call up.

    When was that?

    Maybe the Civil War.. that was the last time there was some attempt to call up the militia, and that fcrm of organization didn’t work so well, so it got abandoned.

    http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/army/militia-civil-war.htm

    The Civil War opened with a call for 75,000 militia to serve for three months. The disaster which ensued at Bull Run practically put an end to the use of militia during the war. A great Volunteer Army of citizen soldiery was called into being which prosecuted the war as a national force.

    And before the Civil War maybe it as 30 years or so already since the militia really had been used. I’m just giving impressions but that web page also says “during this period [1815-1861] the interest of the people at large in military affairs and their knowledge of the art of war gradually decayed.

    I don’t the militia was much used in the Wild West or else mention of them they would have shown up in westerns all these years.

    I think what tended to disgrace the militia (a little) was the use of the militia in the 1877 railroad strike.

    http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3189

    Soon, violent strikes broke out in Baltimore, Chicago, Kansas City, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and San Francisco. Governors in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia called out their state militias. In Baltimore, Charles A. Malloy, a 20-year-old volunteer in the Maryland National Guard, described the scene: “We met a mob, which blocked the streets. “They came armed with stones and as soon as we came within reach they began to throw at us.” Fully armed and with bayonets fixed, the militia fired, killing 10, including a newsboy and a 16-year-old student. The shootings sparked a rampage. Protesters burned a passenger car, sent a locomotive crashing into a side full of freight cars, and cut fire hoses. At the height of the melee, 14,000 rioters took to the streets. Maryland’s governor telegraphed President Rutherford Hayes and asked for troops to protect Baltimore….

    `

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  742. That must have been the Maryland Un-organized Militia, as they don’t sound to have been “well regulated”.
    (snark off)

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  743. “That’s a good question to ask. I think it started to become rarer after the Civil War, or maybe even before, and the National Rifle Association was founded in 1871 to encourage people to buy rifles. It’s a little bit of a frontier thing.

    And at this point somewhere between 1/3 and 2/3 own some weapon, but there is currently a vast disaprtiy between Democrats and Republicans.”

    Sammy – So basically advancing an ahistoric theory with no idea when it began to comport with your conception of reality causes you no discomfort?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  744. Sammy – Where are the largest clusters of Democrat voters?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  745. The NRA was created in 1871 not to encourage people to buy rifles, but to establish a program of Marksmanship Training due to the dismal record of both volunteers and recruits during the Civil War.

    Fm Wiki:

    “...The National Rifle Association was first chartered in the state of New York on November 17, 1871.[6] by Army and Navy Journal editor William Conant Church and General George Wood Wingate. Its first President was Civil War General Ambrose Burnside, who had worked as a Rhode Island gunsmith, and Wingate was the original Secretary of the organization. Church succeeded Burnside as President in the following year.

    Union Army records for the American Civil War indicate that its troops fired about 1,000 rifle shots for each Confederate soldier hit, causing General Burnside to lament his recruits: “Out of ten soldiers who are perfect in drill and the manual of arms, only one knows the purpose of the sights on his gun or can hit the broad side of a barn.”[7] United States infantry armed with potentially accurate rifles often fought using volley tactics, devised for earlier inaccurate smoothbore muskets,[8] because the United States Army had failed to keep pace with European military training for tactical advantage from rifle technology…”

    I suppose Burnside was just interested in re-starting his gunsmithing business…..

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  746. For his next trick, Sammy will be quoting Michael Bellesiles to us on how rare gun ownership was …

    SPQR (768505)

  747. SPQR – Sammy’s butt must be bigger than Mary Poppins’ carpet bag given all the things he pulls out of it.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  748. It’s interesting how many people in government and media who love to tout the wide and zealous membership and influence of AARP aren’t able to see the bookend similarities with the NRA, and its wide and zealous membership who drive its influence and agenda.

    elissa (32e69f)

  749. elissa – Which do you think rakes in more bucks, the NRA or the AARP?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  750. It depends on if you’re talking about bucks from the Government.
    The AARP has a line in the HHS budget.

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  751. Sammy – Where are the largest clusters of Democrat voters?

    a little known fact
    teh Left gathers in gaggles
    known as fusterclucks

    Colonel Haiku (02cf51)

  752. “It depends on if you’re talking about bucks from the Government.”

    askeptic – I wasn’t differentiating.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  753. 767. Comment by daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 12/26/2012 @ 1:29 pm

    Sammy – Where are the largest clusters of Democrat voters?

    The big cities of the Northeast, Great Lakes and California.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  754. 759.“No, I didn’t say any such thing.”

    Comment by daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 12/26/2012 @ 12:41 pm

    Sammy – You said the 2nd Amendment was a collective right and the only reason individuals were allowed to hold onto guns was in the context of militias, in which not everyone served.

    I didn’t say that at all. I said or mean the Second Amendment is concerned with the militia.
    I said itw protected the right of “the people” to keep and bear arms, and keeping and bearing could only be separate activities if “the people” wasa collective. At least “bearing” would have to be a collective.

    There might be an individual right, but that’s not in the Second Amendment.

    I said a government would first take away the right to act in concert, before they would go after every individual. I mentioned, as an examole, what the British wanted to do but didn’t succeeed in doing because of the midnight ride of Paul Revere. There you had a collective keeping arms (not yet bearing them) and the government was going after them, but it was not going after arms held by individuals.

    Now we think the other way – that a government would go after individuals before a collective.

    We also think the Second Amendment concerns non-military weapons, or so Justice Scalia said, when it actually concerns military weapons.

    Later state constitutions, cited by Eugene Volokh, (starting actually with Pennsylvania in 1776) say

    the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the state

    That was only after I supplied links showing that militias at the time of the Revolutionary War depended largely on individuals supplying their own weapons, as did the Militia Acts of 1792.

    It may have been an a right few people thought might be violated. the right they were concerned that might be violated was to assemble a large body of armed men and act in concert.

    But anyway, the Articles of Confederation seem to envision arms being centrally stored, so this idea of people bringing their own weapons with them must have been for want of a better alternative. If you organize something from scratch, that’s what happens.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  755. Comment by daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 12/26/2012 @ 3:35 pm

    daley, a quick Google search revealed that the NRA’s budget for 2012 is approx. $220MM.
    The AARP, in 2008, received royalty payments from various insurance companies in the range of $652MM. They also received about $120MM in advertising fees for ads placed in AARP pubs.

    AARP membership is said to be 38MM;
    NRA membership is said to be 4-5MM.

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  756. 762. Comment by Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 12/26/2012 @ 1:00 pm

    For a better understanding of the Founder’s attitude towards arms, go read Federalist 46.

    That was by James Madison. Alexander Hamilton, writing in Federalist number 29, had a whole different opinion on the value of a militia.

    http://www.foundingfathers.info/federalistpapers/fed29.htm

    “The project of disciplining all the militia of the United States is as futile as it would be injurious, if it were capable of being carried into execution. A tolerable expertness in military movements is a business that requires time and practice. It is not a day, or even a week, that will suffice for the attainment of it.

    To oblige the great body of the yeomanry, and of the other classes of the citizens, to be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and evolutions, as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated militia, would be a real grievance to the people, and a serious public inconvenience and loss. It would form an annual deduction from the productive labor of the country, to an amount which, calculating upon the present numbers of the people, would not fall far short of the whole expense of the civil establishments of all the States. To attempt a thing which would abridge the mass of labor and industry to so considerable an extent, would be unwise: and the experiment, if made, could not succeed, because it would not long be endured.

    Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the people at large, than to have them properly armed and equipped; and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year.”

    “But though the scheme of disciplining the whole nation must be abandoned as mischievous or impracticable; yet it is a matter of the utmost importance that a well-digested plan should, as soon as possible, be adopted for the proper establishment of the militia. The attention of the government ought particularly to be directed to the formation of a select corps of moderate extent, upon such principles as will really fit them for service in case of need. By thus circumscribing the plan, it will be possible to have an excellent body of well-trained militia, ready to take the field whenever the defense of the State shall require it.

    This will not only lessen the call for military establishments, but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens.

    This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist.”

    Hamilton points to something else, called the POSSE COMITATUS, which is

    simply calling in people to help.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  757. What some peole now call the “unorganized militia” (no such thing) was in Federalist number 19 called the Posse Commitatus.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  758. At the time of the Revolution, it was usual for people to own their own muskets, and bring them with them when called up”

    757. Comment by daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 12/25/2012 @ 11:52 pm

    Sammy – Sounds almost suspiciously like an individual right to keep arms.

    That’s only practice, not rights. If a right, that would be an unenumerated right, possibly covered by the Ninth Amendment.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  759. * Federalist number 29, not 19..

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  760. Fm Wiki….
    What some peole now call the “unorganized militia” (no such thing) was in Federalist number 19 called the Posse Commitatus.

    Oops……..

    Fm Wiki:
    “…The reserve militia[3] or unorganized militia, also created by the Militia Act of 1903 which presently consist of every able-bodied man of at least 17 and under 45 years of age who are not members of the National Guard or Naval Militia.(that is, anyone who would be eligible for a draft). Former members of the armed forces up to age 65 are also considered part of the “unorganized militia” per Sec 313 Title 32 of the US Code.[2]…”

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  761. “Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn’t so.”
    -R.Reagan

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  762. Comment by daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 12/21/2012 @ 2:18 pm

    Also, I am waiting for examples from you to support your belief that people of the late 18th century believed that a free state was one ” meaning a state that did not have a standing army – that is, a state stayed free by not having one.”

    State of Virginia constitution: (1776)

    That a well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power

    Virginia ratification convention:

    Seventeenth, That the people have a right to keep and bear arms; that a well regulated Militia composed of the body of the people trained to arms is the proper, natural and safe defence of a free State. That standing armies in time of peace are dangerous to liberty, and therefore ought to be avoided, as far as the circumstances and protection of the Community will admit; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to and governed by the Civil power.

    New York convention:

    New York: . . . That the People have a right to keep and bear Arms; that a well regulated Militia, including the body of the People capable of bearing Arms, is the proper, natural and safe defence of a free State; That the Militia should not be subject to Martial Law except in time of War, Rebellion or Insurrection. That Standing Armies in time of Peace are dangerous to Liberty, and ought not to be kept up, excess in Cases of necessity; and that at all times, the Military should be under strict Subordination to the civil Power.

    Discussion of the Second Amendment in an appendix to an 1803 edition of Blackstone’s book: A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep, and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

    This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty . . . . The right of self defence is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms, is under any colour or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction. Joseph Story, Familiar Exposition of the Constitution of the United States (1840)

    It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace, both from the enormous expenses, with which they are attended, and the facile means, which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled rulers, to subvert the government, or trample upon the rights of the people. The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them. And yet, though this truth would seem so clear, and the importance of a well regulated militia would seem so undeniable, it cannot be disguised, that among the American people there is a growing indifference to any system of militia discipline, and a strong disposition, from a sense of its burthens, to be rid of all regulations. How it is practicable to keep the people duly armed without some organization, it is difficult to see….

    Samuel Nasson to George Thatcher. 9 July 1787

    …Spare me on the subject of Standing armeys in a time of Peace they allway was first or last the downfall of all free Governments it was by their help Caesar made proud Rome Own a Tyrant and a Traytor for a Master.

    Only think how fatal they ware to the peace of this Countery in 1770 what Confeusion they Brought on the fatal 5 of March [the Boston Massacre] I think the remembrance of that Night is enough to make us Carefull how we Introduce them in a free republican Government — I therefore hope they will be Discouraged for I think the man that Enters as a Soldier in a time of peace only for a living is only a fit tool to inslave his fellows.

    The idea here was that a miltia – well regulated, that is trained, so that it would be effective – was a substitute for a standing army, and a state stayed free by not having a standing army. I don’t mean to say that the definition of free is not having a standing army and having a militia instead, rather, that was thought of as a requirement:

    A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

    Necessary, because the alternative would either be to be conquered by a foreign power or to have a standing army, and the army might seize power in a coup or be used by whoever commanded it.

    Now, of course we manage to avoid this problem wven without a militia, because surely it not just the National Guard of the various states that stands in the way of tyranny.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  763. Comment by askeptic (b8ab92) — 12/26/2012 @ 4:27 pm

    Fm Wiki:

    “…The reserve militia[3] or unorganized militia, also created by the Militia Act of 1903 which presently consist of every able-bodied man of at least 17 and under 45 years of age who are not members of the National Guard or Naval Militia.(that is, anyone who would be eligible for a draft). Former members of the armed forces up to age 65 are also considered part of the “unorganized militia” per Sec 313 Title 32 of the US Code.[2]…”

    Yes, THAT PIECE OF NONSENSE WAS ENACTED IN 1903 as a result of lobbying by the National Rifle Association or somebody.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  764. Bizarre, Sammy. Very bizarre.

    SPQR (93dc35)

  765. “The idea here was that a miltia – well regulated, that is trained, so that it would be effective – was a substitute for a standing army, and a state stayed free by not having a standing army. I don’t mean to say that the definition of free is not having a standing army and having a militia instead, rather, that was thought of as a requirement:”

    Sammy – Sure, although you are supporting your argument by referencing constitutions of individual states among a confederation of states rather than the policy of the nation itself, which is rather disingenuous.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  766. Sammy @777 – English please.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  767. The duty of the citizen to respond to “Hue and Cry” was an old principle of English common law. It hardly rebuts the principle of an individual right.

    SPQR (768505)

  768. “It hardly rebuts the principle of an individual right.”

    SPQR – Neither does circular reasoning.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  769. Sammy reasons in circles?
    Does that make him a Big Wheel?

    askeptic (2bb434)

  770. And, do you notice how every piece of legislation mentioned has been enacted at the behest of the NRA?
    I wonder how much the NRA spent on lobbying in 1903?

    askeptic (2bb434)

  771. Oh, Rats!
    Someone call Wiki and tell them this is wrong, that it was all the doing of the NRA.

    “Militia Act of 1903:
    The Militia Act of 1903 (32 Stat. 775), also known as the Dick Act, was initiated by United States Secretary of War Elihu Root following the Spanish–American War of 1898, after the war demonstrated weaknesses in the militia, and in the entire U.S. military. The act formulated the concept of the National Guard and also ensured that all state military forces were simultaneously dual reservists under the authority of the Army Reserve. This last measure was to prevent state governors from using National Guard forces as “private armies”, in many ways as had been done in the American Civil War and to ensure that the President could, at any time, mobilize state military forces into the federal armed forces.
    U.S. Senator Charles W. F. Dick, a Major General in the Ohio National Guard and the chair of the Committee on the Militia,[1] sponsored the 1903 Act towards the end of the 57th U.S. Congress. Under this legislation, passed January 21, 1903, the organized militia of the States were given federal status to the militia, and required to conform to Regular Army organization within five years. The act also required National Guard units to attend 24 drills and five days annual training a year, and, for the first time, provided for pay for annual training. In return for the increased Federal funding which the act made available, militia units were subject to inspection by Regular Army officers, and had to meet certain standards…”

    askeptic (2bb434)

  772. askeptic – The folks over at PowerLine also excerpted a portion of Chief Justice Taney’s opion in the Dred Scott case which makes mince meat out of Sammy’s theory:

    [I]t cannot be believed that the large slaveholding States regarded them as included in the word citizens, or would have consented to a Constitution which might compel them to receive them in that character from another State. For if they were so received, and entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens, it would exempt them from the operation of the special laws and from the police regulations which they considered to be necessary for their own safety. It would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognised as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went. And all of this would be done in the face of the subject race of the same color, both free and slaves, and inevitably producing discontent and insubordination among them, and endangering the peace and safety of the State.

    It is impossible, it would seem, to believe that the great men of the slaveholding States, who took so large a share in framing the Constitution of the United States and exercised so much influence in procuring its adoption, could have been so forgetful or regardless of their own safety and the safety of those who trusted and confided in them.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  773. 792. Comment by askeptic (2bb434) — 12/26/2012 @ 7:54

    And, do you notice how every piece of legislation mentioned has been enacted at the behest of the NRA?

    What?? How many pieces of legislation have been mentioned? The NRA has influenced legislation, even the 1994 Crime act.

    I wonder how much the NRA spent on lobbying in 1903?

    The NRA denies doing any lobbying before 1934, or maybe 1975, but I don’t believe them.

    They claim they didn’t do any lobbying in 1934, when it formed the Legislative Affairs Division.

    It says it only sent out legislative facts and analyses to members, and they lobbied.

    I suppose something of the same nature happened in 1903. It’s all very obscure. The 1903 law is called the “Dick Act” but I haven’t found anything that explains how it got passed. It certainly was very much in tune with the NRA.

    For example: The Wikipedia article on the NRA says:

    The Civilian Marksmanship Program was authorized by Congress in 1903 and run by the United States Army from 1916 to 1996 to transfer obsolete military firearms to United States civilians to learn and practice marksmanship skills with NRA so they would be skilled marksmen if later called on to serve in the U.S. military.[11]

    And http://www.nrahq.org/history.asp says this:

    The NRA’s interest in promoting the shooting sports among America’s youth began in 1903 when NRA Secretary Albert S. Jones urged the establishment of rifle clubs at all major colleges, universities and military academies.

    The NRA claims to have supported both the National Firearms Act of 1934 and Gun Control Act of 1968. This only happens when you successfully lobby tp affect the contents of the bill.

    The 1934 actually is also called the Firearm Owners Protection Act (!) (It was the first law to(effectively) make illegal possession of any kind of weapons (by most people) Because of concerns about Interstate Commerce, I presume, it didn’t outlaw machine guns and short-barrel firearms, including sawed-off shotguns but merely taxed them prohibitively. ($200 for every transfer but that was a lot)

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  774. “The 1903 law is called the “Dick Act” but I haven’t found anything that explains how it got passed.”

    Sammy – Which explains why you claimed it was passed based upon NRA sponsorship.

    The logic is becoming clearer.

    Let the Finkel Fog continue!

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  775. 795. Great. I should be a MSM reporter. Nickname ‘Gullible’ in HS.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  776. Interesting case that dealt with the Second Amendment:

    http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/migrated/gunviol/docs/vietnamese.authcheckdam.pdf

    VIETNAMESE FISHERMEN’S ASSOCIATION, et al., Plaintiffs,
    v.
    The KNIGHTS OF THE KU KLUX KLAN, et al., Defendants.
    Civ. A. No. H-81-895.
    United States District Court, S. D. Texas, Houston Division.
    June 3, 1982.
    Final Judgment June 9, 1982

    An injunction against defendants’ military activities does no violence to the Second Amendment.[FN12] By its express language, that Amendment prohibits only such infringement on the bearing of weapons as would interfere with “the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia,” organized by the State. United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174, 178, 59 S.Ct. 816, 818, 83 L.Ed. 1206 (1939); United States v. Birmley, 529 F.2d 103, 107 (6th Cir. 1976).

    Here, the State of Texas, which absent contrary federal action is “the sole judge” of the steps to be taken to maintain its militia, see Hamilton v. University of California, 293 U.S. 245, 260, 261, 55 S.Ct. 197, 203, 79 L.Ed. 343 (1934), has itself statutorily prohibited the operation of private armies. Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann., art. 5780 s 6 (Vernon).

    In short, the Second Amendment does not imply any general constitutional right for individuals to bear arms and form private armies. See United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174, 59 S.Ct. 816, 83 L.Ed. 1206 (1939); United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542, 553, 23 L.Ed. 588 (1876)

    At that time also the Second Amendment had not been incorporated into the 14th (the way the Supreme Court does these things – it’s bad doctrine, actually the privileges and immunities clause should extend the Bill of Rights to the state,, except for the establishment clause) but here the judge said that anyway it didn’t give any individual right (as against the state, at least)

    Regardless of what the Supreme Court said now, the idea that the Second amendment in it’s true interpretation (and not possibly the Ninth amendment) protects an individual right is very tenable.

    The Second amendment maybe did presume that individuals would have weapons, but it was not written to protect that but only to protect the right to act collectively, when the people acting collectively could be said to be “the people” in general.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  777. Sammy – Have you ever written for ThinkProgress?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  778. 798. The reason I say it passed with NRA sponsorship is taht it is constantly cioted by the NRA and the like as proiving what the word “militia” means. That is historical and linguistic nonsense. It therefore follows that only lobbying got that into the bill. The bill also contained stuff the NRA wanted.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  779. 795: Justice Taney in the Dred Scott case, where he gives a list of consequences of declaring Blacks could be citizens, enumerates rights which he believes were the privileges and immunities of citizens:

    the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased,

    (There were many laws in many states against freed slaves remaining there, or freed slaves or blacks moiving into them. Note: If you study the constitution carefully, you will see, in fact, that it was the states and not the federal government, that primarily, or only, had the power to regulate immigration. The constitution only gave the federal government the power to regulate naturalization , not immigration, just like it gave it the power to regulate bankrupty without giving it the power to write a commercial code. The Constitution also said, and/or was understood to say, that states could not bar citizens of the United States from moving into that state. But non-citizens is another matter. This is what Taney is talking about. The federal government might have some power to regulate immigration as a byproduct of the right to regulate foreign commerce, although maybe this is also considered an inevitable aspect of sovereignty, like the ability to acquire territory.)

    to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went.

    Taney does not explain what this right to 1) keep and 2) carry arms wherever they went = bear was based on, but this might be based on the doctrine of equality – whatever rights white men, blacks would also have to have.

    After all, Taney seems to recognize some restrictions on the right of free speech (states were prohibiting the advocacy of the abolition of slavery and antio slavery pamphlets from being mailed into the state) so the principle he really has here is equality.

    If this sounds like the 14th amendment – it is because there is actually a similar clause to one of its provisions in the orioginal constitution:

    Article. IV. Section. 2. Clause 1.


    The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.

    Taney does say both keep and carry but that is because keep is the easier permission to get – once you have the right to carry, you certainly have the right to keep.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  780. “Taney does say both keep and carry but that is because keep is the easier permission to get – once you have the right to carry, you certainly have the right to keep.”

    Sammy – Taney probably says that because the right to keep arms is a right that can’t be infringed by the government under the Second Amendment, not some other made up reason.

    That Vietnamese Fishermen vs. KKK case is about the lamest citation I have ever seen and says nothing about the private ownership of guns. It deals exclusively with the formation of private military groups and the parading of arms in public.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  781. Sammy – You should take some time to read through U.S. v. Emerson decided in the 5th Circuit in 2001, which upheld the 2nd Amendment as an individual right, but which also contains a very extensive historical discussion of the Amendment. The Supreme Court denied cert on the decision.

    “We agree with the district court that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to privately keep and bear their own firearms that are suitable as individual, personal weapons and are not of the general kind or type excluded by Miller, regardless of whether the particular individual is then actually a member of a militia.66”

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  782. Q: now that all the victims of the crazed autistic killboy have received proper burials, is it time for flags to be returned to full mast?

    A: yeah pretty much

    happyfeet (b6f0da)

  783. Believe HotAir is reporting that Cuomo’s confiscation plans are DOA. Estimate is 1 Million ‘assault’ weapons in NY worth $1K on average.

    Kelo NA.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  784. The Vietnamese case was dicta at best, and is now bad law post Heller and McDonald, Sammy. Your citation to a case that is bad law is noted.

    SPQR (768505)

  785. 807 pretty much covers all of SF’s cites.

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  786. “The 1903 law is called the “Dick Act” but I haven’t found anything that explains how it got passed.”

    Comment by daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 12/27/2012 @ 12:50 pm

    Sammy – Which explains why you claimed it was passed based upon NRA sponsorship.

    I mean I haven’t got proof. (no counter-evidence either)

    My assumption that this is due to the NRA is based on the fact that the act has been constantly cited as proof as what the word militia meant in 1789, and that there was an “”organized militia” and “unorganized militia” and I know the NRA was active in trying to get all the state militias to change their name to the “National Guard”

    And that any kind of reading of any kind of writing dating from the 18th century will make clear that the definition of “militia” for which the 1903 Act is cited is total nonsense. And anyone who does any kind of reserach – like the NRA pr itys supporters, which has all these quotattions would know it. The 1903 apparently doe snot say it’s notw chanmging names.

    And the NRA very much USED SOMETHING in the 1903 act.

    So it is probable the NRA got that nonsense enacted, because who else would have done it.

    But I haven’t the slightest clue exacttly how that was done.

    If people keep on asking me, maybe I’ll find the proof.

    The logic is becoming clearer.

    Yes. It’s the best explanation for this being in the act. You have to know why hypothesis to reject. It is not that militia is an organization – militia indeed means an organization that may or may not exist – there’s no doubt possible about that.

    The hypothesis to reject it is that the 1903 act is an honest bill and reflects a correct recognition of history.

    And if it is idiotic, somebody must haave lobbied that into the bill – lobbied for that whole bill. The oinly real candidate in sight is the NRA. The NRA was active at the time, the NRA lies, it;s the National Rifle Association. QED

    What I’m noting, though, is that I want more proof than logical deduction. And that I don’t have. But the absence of evidence indictes that there is no commonly known explanation of that bill – whio was for it and so on like that. And that has weight.

    I note also that that 1903 act tends to be cited in isolation.

    I think the whole thing – getting that nonsensical and ahistorical definiton of militia into the act, changing the name of the militia to the National Guard, forgetting about the posse commitatus, – the whole thing, was just designed to try to convince people there was some obligation to own weapons.

    And who would want people to thinmk that?

    Gun and Rifle manufacturers!

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  787. So, the NRA was formed in 1871 to encourage marksmanship training within the civilian community to enhance the performance of soldiers when inducted.
    Thirty-two years later, with the passage of The Dick Act (Militia Act of 1903) they finally prevailed in getting the Federal Government to respond.
    Now that’s one fantabulous lobbying organization….it only took 32-years.

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  788. Sammy, you are aware that the NRA is the largest firearms training organization outside the Federal Government?
    And in fact is used by that same Federal Government to provide training to non-military members of the Government in the use and function of certain weapon systems such as machine-guns (boy, that’s going to stimulate a lot of civilian sales…..
    Oh, wait, no NEW machine guns are allowed to be registered to civilians since 1986, only existing registered weapons may be transferred.

    Again, the NRA is a member-organization of gun-owners, not manufacturers or dealers (unless individuals engaged in those occupations wish to join) whose sole mission is the protection of the 2nd-Amendment Rights of its members, and the citizenry at-large.

    Sammy, you know not of what you speak, and/or write.

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  789. 805. Sammy – You should take some time to read through U.S. v. Emerson decided in the 5th Circuit in 2001, which upheld the 2nd Amendment as an individual right, but which also contains a very extensive historical discussion of the Amendment. The Supreme Court denied cert on the decision.

    “We agree with the district court that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to privately keep and bear their own firearms that are suitable as individual, personal weapons and are not of the general kind or type excluded by Miller, regardless of whether the particular individual is then actually a member of a militia.

    http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-5th-circuit/1332436.html

    Let me see what it says:

    In the last few decades, courts and commentators have offered what may fairly be characterized as three different basic interpretations of the Second Amendment.  

    The first is that the Second Amendment does not apply to individuals;  rather, it merely recognizes the right of a state to arm its militia.9  This “states’ rights” or “collective rights” interpretation of the Second Amendment has been embraced by several of our sister circuits.10  The government commended the states’ rights view of the Second Amendment to the district court, urging that the Second Amendment does not apply to individual citizens.

    The 1982 court case in Texas that I cited would seem to fit there.

    Proponents of the next model admit that the Second Amendment recognizes some limited species of individual right. However, this supposedly “individual” right to bear arms can only be exercised by members of a functioning, organized state militia who bear the arms while and as a part of actively participating in the organized militia’s activities.   The “individual” right to keep arms only applies to members of such a militia, and then only if the federal and state governments fail to provide the firearms necessary for such militia service.   At present, virtually the only such organized and actively functioning militia is the National Guard, and this has been the case for many years.   Currently, the federal government provides the necessary implements of warfare, including firearms, to the National Guard, and this likewise has long been the case.

    Thus, under this model, the Second Amendment poses no obstacle to the wholesale disarmament of the American people.   A number of our sister circuits have accepted this model, sometimes referred to by commentators as the sophisticated collective rights model.11  

    This is really the same thing as the first. The government on appeal switched to that.

    The third model is simply that the Second Amendment recognizes the right of individuals to keep and bear arms.   This is the view advanced by Emerson and adopted by the district court.   None of our sister circuits has subscribed to this model, known by commentators as the individual rights model or the standard model.   The individual rights view has enjoyed considerable academic endorsement, especially in the last two decades.12

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  790. The opinion (actually the Miller opinion) cites a book by Herbert L. Osgood that was written in… 1904 (according to http://archive.org/details/17thcenturycolonies03osgorich)

    Hmmm. Right after the 1903 Act was passed..

    Other sources say 1907. But somewhere someone says July 1904?

    The book claims:

    In all the colonies, as in England, the militia system was based on the principle of the assize of arms.   This implied the general obligation of all adult male inhabitants to possess arms, and, with certain exceptions, to cooperate in the work of defence.’ ”

    That book even contains the claim: A year later (1632) it was ordered that any single man who had not furnished himself with arms might be put out to service . . .

    Now, whatever that was, that would have been a special regulation, not the general situation.

    The question isn’t asked: Is what is in that book, true? (esoecially its generalizations)

    And:

    Who brought it to the attention of the Miller court?

    And:

    Where did Osgood get his information from?

    And:

    What if anything was Osgood’s connection to the National Rifle Association?

    His 1907 (or 1904?) book was the start of a big magnum opus, published poisthumously in 1927 (he died in 1918)

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  791. You sure Osgood wasn’t a member of The Elders of Zion?

    askeptic (b8ab92)

  792. “This is really the same thing as the first. The government on appeal switched to that.”

    Sammy – The government lost the case and the decision was entirely consistent with the Miller decision the gun grabbers love to cite. You should spend time with it to correct you misunderstandings of the historical application of the the militia concept.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  793. Anyway, the 2001 opinion says:

    And, as used throughout the Constitution, “the people” have “rights” and “powers,” but federal and state governments only have “powers” or “authority”, never “rights.” 

    There are few instances of the usew of this term “the people” in the constitution so it is hartd to draw conclusiuons.

    But, first of all, the constitution itself, is an exercise of “power” by “the people”

    We the People of the United States…do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America

    “establish” seems to me to be the exercise of a “power”

    But anyway, the judge is half right. “the people” is something other than just merely states. But it is a collective. Individuals do not have “powers”

    It is impossible to understand the 10th amendment as referring to individual rights:

    http://constitutionus.com

    The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

    How can individuals have “powers?” “People” is therefore something greater than individuals, but not necessarily any pre-existing established body. The reason “the people” have a right is because this is right against the federal government.

    The judge quotes United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U.S. 259, 110 S.Ct. 1056, 1060-61, 108 L.Ed.2d 222 (1990), where it says:

    “ ‘[T]he people’ seems to have been a term of art employed in select parts of the Constitution…”

    Right. What does it mean? It may not mean states, but it doesn’t mean individuals either.

    It appears clear that “the people,” as used in the Constitution, including the Second Amendment, refers to individual Americans.

    It can’t. Individuals DON’T HAVE “POWERS”

    It’s a term of art whose meaning the judge has not fathomed.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  794. 815.Comment by askeptic (b8ab92) — 12/27/2012 @ 4:08 pm

    You sure Osgood wasn’t a member of The Elders of Zion?

    He was on the faculty of Columbia University.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  795. Ah., Osgood’s furst book came iout in 3 volumes, not published at the same time. the first in 1904.

    http://books.google.com/books?id=f-B4o3F4YLIC&pg=PA156&lpg=PA156&dq=herbert+osgood+militia&source=bl&ots=xQiIc6cZIM&sig=PlQKwWL4lgXlY1OaY60xHFq1_Jc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=A-fcULXQI8qw0AHs7IHYDA&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=herbert%20osgood%20militia&f=false

    There’s got to be some connection between what he says about everybody having an obligation to own arms and the 1903 act. Because I don’t think that’s true, in any real sense.

    Wikipedia says the assize of arms refers to two proclamations by two Kings of Englands in 1181 and in 1252 – reallu in 1181 and it required certain poeple to have arms:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assize_of_Arms_of_1181

    Some in the United States have claimed that the Assize of Arms is an ancient right to bear arms, though this claim is disputed.[1] The Supreme Court of the United States ruling regarding this right in District of Columbia v. Heller referred only to the English Bill of Rights of 1689 as earlier precedent.

    Now, Footnote 1:

    Schwoerer, Lois G. (2000). “Tö Hold And Bear Arm: The English Perspective”. Chicago-Kent Law Review. “There was no ancient political or legal precedent for the right to arms. The Ancient Constitution did not include it; it was neither in Magna Charta 1215 nor in the Petition of Right 1628. No early English government would have considered giving the individual such a right. Through the old militia laws —Henry II’s Assize of Arms (1181) and Edward I’s Statute of Winchester (1285)— early governments had imposed a responsibility on subjects, according to their income, to be prepared”

    That makes a little more sense than what Osgood has.

    Lois Schwoerer also wrote this book:

    http://www.amazon.com/Standing-Antiarmy-Ideology-Seventeenth-Century-England/dp/0801815630

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assize_of_Arms

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  796. One Wikipedia commentator or editor:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Assize_of_Arms_of_1181

    From my recent edit experience at The right to keep and bear arms my guess is that it is be being done by certain editors who seem bent on linking a supposed legal right to bear arms with some form of ancient legal grant of rights. Such attempts are nonsense and rather amusing because they are putting the “right” back to 1181 when in fact, the right to bear and keep arms in English Law would have been a common law right way back in time immemoriable. It was not until parliament started passing legislation restricting that right that the right began to be restricted under statute law.

    But what we have hear is a claim of a general obligation to own arms.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  797. Now that Libs have lost the surge against ‘assault weapons’ they’re talking about adding handgun proscriptions to the legislation.

    Meanwhile the latest urban pastime is setting homeless people afire.

    Don’t kids know there’s a drought on, haven’t they heard about open flame restrictions? There oughta be a law against civil ignorance.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  798. “Individuals do not have “powers””

    Sammy – Powers is the plural of power, you git.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  799. “Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn’t so.”
    -R.Reagan

    askeptic (2bb434)

  800. 794. This gives me some leads.

    Sammy Finkelman (64e777)

  801. Not enough yet to explain where and how the nonsensical language of what the militia was got into it. And it peculiarly changed a lot of things for not very clear (totally unstated in fact) reasons. And it actually didn’t do anything practical.

    Sammy Finkelman (64e777)

  802. Sammy Finkelman, the language you call “nonsensical” without any basis comes from British common law definitions. And of course the Magna Carta did not list an individual right – are you utterly ignorant of the character of the Magna Carta? The Magna Carta was not a bill of rights for individuals, it was a bill of “rights” of the nobility versus the king.

    Sheesh, Sammy, how is it that you work so hard at being so dense?

    SPQR (768505)

  803. “So it is probable the NRA got that nonsense enacted, because who else would have done it.”

    “And if it is idiotic, somebody must haave lobbied that into the bill – lobbied for that whole bill. The oinly real candidate in sight is the NRA. The NRA was active at the time, the NRA lies, it;s the National Rifle Association. QED”

    Sammy, as a demonstration of your reasoning powers, those comments of yours I’ve quoted above look more like a cry for help. Is your blood all getting above your neckline OK?

    SPQR (768505)

  804. http://www.history.army.mil/documents/1901/Root-NG.htm

    According to this, under the old militia act of 1792, the President could issue a call for troops, with the War Department setting a quota for each state and the Governor would ask for volunteers. Many refused, and others failed the physical examination the army gave, and civilians were directly recruited by the state to go into the army, and they wound up with a cadre of Guard officers and noncommissioned officers and large numbers of enlisted men with no prior military training.

    Now there was this Congressman Charles Dick, chairman of the House Militia Affairs Committee and a long-time Ohio National Guard officer. (He’d also served in Cuba in the Spanish American War. You notice here Ohio is one of the states where the name had been changed)

    Since 1882, it says, “some National Guardsmen” had been lobbying for Congress to repeal the Militia Act of 1792, officially designate the Guard as the Army’s reserve force, and greatly increase the federal government’s support of state units with funds, equipment, and supplies.

    Equipment and supplies = guns and other things sold by private businesses.

    “When Root created a board of officers to study how to reform the Army, he included on it a Guard officer, and the board allowed prominent Guard officers to contribute to its deliberations on militia matters.”

    So far the NRA is not mentioned, but lobbying has been, and I can see where the NRA can show up.

    The act gave the president the authority to call up what was now called the National Guard for nine months. If states didn’t prepare the Guard properly, they’d lose their federal support. Any person who refused a call up would face court martial. In 1908 the nine month limit was eliminated. The appropriation was increased and the War Department established the Division of Militia Affairs. They were still using the word militia, you see..

    This was still not a ready reserve and there was too much infantry. Training now took more time, but some of it was boring, and/or unpaid and people quit and they stopped trying to do real training, had inadequate armories, and the Regular army didn’t do all the inspection, and it didn’t believe in this.

    “Based on the Regulars’ evaluation of the Guard’s shortcomings and a 1912 ruling by the Judge Advocate General that Congress was in error when it approved the use of the Guard outside the United States, the General Staff concluded that the Guard as an institution was now unsuitable for modern war and could never be an effective reserve force for the Army.

    The staff’s consequent “Continental Army” plan more than doubled the size of the Regular Army, created a permanent federal volunteer reserve force–the Continental Army–and limited the National Guard in federal service to repelling invasions, suppressing rebellion, and enforcing federal laws.

    The plan also called for Congress to repeal the 1908 provision giving the Guard preference over any wartime federal volunteer force.

    While Guardsmen lobbied vigorously against the plan, it was defeated in Congress early in 1916 for other reasons: doubts that the Continental Army could recruit sufficient men; concern that it would be too expensive; dislike of ceding more power to the federal government; and fear that the plan was a militaristic threat to American democracy.

    In 1916 Congress passed the National Defense Act. All members now were dual enlistees into the militia and the army reserve. The War Department got more control, and the Regulars got their own reserve. Once called up, they were reorganized and after World War I, National Guardsmen were discharged individually and not as units. In 1920 here was an attempt to get rid of the idea of the National Guard as a reserve, but it was defeated. The National Guard lobby was too strong, I guess.

    Nothing here though, about the genesis of some ideas, and why name changes happened and who was for it. You can see how spurious history or description was inserted in the Militia act of 1903, with its “Reserve militia” (or unorganized militia) and it’s “Organized Militia” which was everything that used to be called the plain old militia.

    Sammy Finkelman (64e777)

  805. Capsule biography of Congressman (later Senator) Charles William Frederick Dick, (1858 – 1945)

    http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=D000302

    Dick was sort of like second to Mark Hanna, and replaced him in the Senate. He was not able to get re-elected in 1910. According to the New York Times, he tried to get back into the Senate as late as 1926 (not just 1922)

    Sammy Finkelman (64e777)

  806. http://www.ngaus.org/about-ngaus/ngaus-awards-program/charles-dick-medal-merit

    Major General Charles Dick was president of the National Guard Association of the United States from 1902 to 1909.

    So maybe it was the National Guard Association and not the National Rifle Association that twisted the law??

    Sammy Finkelman (64e777)

  807. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Guard_Association_of_the_United_States

    The National Guard Association of the United States was founded in 1878 as a congressional lobbying organization for National Guard issues….

    Sammy Finkelman (64e777)

  808. SF has this fixation on the NRA.
    A shrink would have a field day over his neurosis.

    askeptic (2bb434)

  809. I focused a little too much on the NRA. It would be simpler if things were as simple, but they are not. But there’s not nothing here.

    I don;t know who changed all this language about militia buit it is not historically correct.

    In the meantime I haven’t answered some questions and I haven’t written about iother things.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)


Powered by WordPress.

Page loaded in: 0.3989 secs.