We Can’t Make Sense of Senseless Violence
I wrote a bunch of songs when I was younger, mostly in law school. This is from one of them:
The TV man was mad
At the senseless violence
Would it make him feel better
If somehow it made sense?
I thought of these lines this morning as I hopped online and saw stories discussing the mystery of “why” James Holmes decided to dress up as the Joker and kill a six-year-old child, a woman who narrowly escaped a shooting a month earlier in Toronto, Anita Busch’s relative, and nine others. As if learning the reason will cause us all to nod knowingly and say: “Oh, OK. Now I understand.”
Don’t misunderstand me. I want to know the motive too. It’s a natural focus for our curiosity. When I file a murder case, I am always asking what the motive is. When I try one to a jury, I want the jury to understand why the murder happened. We don’t have to prove motive to a jury, but it sure helps everything make sense if we can.
So yes, try to learn the motive, but remember certain things as you do:
First of all, this is not a mystery. There is no doubt who the killer is.
But more important, I have this feeling that people believe that if they can just understand why this happened, maybe we can structure a society in which such things don’t happen again. Just pass some new law or regulation, and young men armed with heavy weaponry won’t shoot bullets into crowds with young people and children.
It’s not so. We can’t control everything. And evil exists, and always will.
Nice portrait of the victims here. And Anita Busch sends this link to an L.A. Times story about Micayla Medek.
I’m ready to talk about something more cheerful, by the way. Any ideas?
Patterico (feda6b) — 7/22/2012 @ 11:24 amWe can’t control everything. And evil exists, and always will.
When my 11 year old asks, that’s what I tell her.
aunursa (7014a8) — 7/22/2012 @ 11:33 amLive your life to the fullest. Don’t put off your dreams. Let your family and friends know how much you love them and how much they mean to you. Tell them again — they cannot hear it often enough.
On the night of October 16th my younger brother seemed to be in perfect health when he liked my Facebook post. Fourteen hours later he was brain-dead. We disagreed on politics and on some of our personal decisions in life. But, and although I miss him every single day, I am comforted by the fact that he never missed an opportunity to explore the world. He lived his life the way he wanted to live. And the last time I saw him I let him know how much I loved him and that I was very proud of him.
My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families and friends.
aunursa (7014a8) — 7/22/2012 @ 11:35 amHe looks at the city where no one had known him.
Neo (d1c681) — 7/22/2012 @ 11:36 amHe looks at the sky where no one looks down.
He looks at his life and what it has shown him.
He looks for his shadow it cannot be found.
— “Sniper” Harry Chapin
HIs specific choice of crazy is less interesting than what makes people crazy, and how crazy “works”.
I just saw some video, per ABC of the teenaged JH giving a presentation on a science topic that had caught his interest: temporal illusion.
That choice was interesting to me, because abnormal temporal distortion/perceptions are linked to schizophrenia and theorized to account for some featured of the disease.
FWIW, HIs shy mannerisms/ slight oddness are on display, though not out of the common way of any of my sciency friends in high school. His eyes would have made me a little uncomfy if I’d been his peer.
Sarahw (b0e533) — 7/22/2012 @ 11:43 amhttp://abcnews.go.com/GMA/t/video/james-holmes-video-alleged-killer-released-16830275
I can’t disagree that controlling every bad thing that happens is impossible. However I part ways with the suggestion that there is no point in attempting to understand the crime/the actors/the disease that would have an effect of reducing such terrible events.
THere is a point – it is possible to intervene and deal with mental illness and the mentally ill in different ways that would have the real effect of reducing such terrible events.
Sarahw (b0e533) — 7/22/2012 @ 11:55 am_________________________________________
That choice was interesting to me
I’m just as interested in why he apparently rooted for the bad guys in movies, why he’d sympathize with the “Joker” instead of “Batman.” I’m assuming that reaction wasn’t necessarily spur-of-the-moment, light-hearted or full of jest, but that it was perhaps instinctual, rooted in some aspect of how he perceived the world.
Mark (a346be) — 7/22/2012 @ 11:56 amWell, Patterico, at RM blogger bash last night, we toasted to Jan 2013.
SPQR (f7a984) — 7/22/2012 @ 11:58 amHis mother knew they had the right person. On some level she knew her son was capable of this. SHe is a psychiatric nurse. Reforms have swung too far. We now rely on persons wtih next to no insight into their own condition to manage it.
Identification of mental illness, access to treatment, mechanisms to intervene can all improve, and must improve. The way we deal with the mentally ill is inhumane and dangerous and completely inadequate.
Sarahw (b0e533) — 7/22/2012 @ 12:02 pmIf they made sense we wouldn’t call them crazy. Some people are just not working on a 1:1 with the real world. Unfortunately they are still in the real world with the rest of us.
roy in nipomo (d31d1e) — 7/22/2012 @ 12:06 pmYears ago I realized there was no rational explanation for irrational acts.
Sometimes a monster like James Holmes says he did it for this or that reason, but close examination most often indicates a bewilderingly convoluted set of confused contradictions usually involving extreme self-loathing and it’s various masks projected onto innocent others.
Try as we might, eventually we’re forced to conclude the perpetrator of inexplicable horrors is as unable to identify his true motivations as we are.
Some of us look human but act like mad dogs and must be put down.
ropelight (f2dc7e) — 7/22/2012 @ 12:08 pmMark,
I don’t know why this specific person was attracted to the bad guys, but I will observe that as a rule of thumb actors consider the bad guys to be the meatier roles. I don’t think this is limited to actors either. I think that in and dramatic presentation, the bad guy will tend to be the key to how good or bad the story is. I think that this also explains the popularity of the anti-hero; it is an attempt to bring to the hero some of the fascination of the villain.
Think about the Start Wars movies; the first three had a superlative villain in Darth Vader. The newer ones failed at least in part because neither the writers nor the actor were up to showing how a hero became Darth Vader; their Vader was a sniveler.
C. S. P. Schofield (4feea2) — 7/22/2012 @ 12:31 pmI suggest watching the video posted by SPQR in the previous thread. Makes the world look a lot better.
Old Coot (0d0cc0) — 7/22/2012 @ 12:51 pmOnce we shot mad dogs and I guess we still do, ol’ yeller or not, but rabies shots make it less necessary to begin with.
If not strictly analogous, there is some point in preventative action made possible by identifying/treating/developing some kind of social quaratine.
Sarahw (b0e533) — 7/22/2012 @ 12:59 pm_______________________________________________
I will observe that as a rule of thumb actors consider the bad guys to be the meatier roles. I don’t think this is limited to actors either.
The general bias among many in the movie industry is that showing the darker, seamier side of life is a reflection of one’s more serious, sophisticated and oh-so-hip mindset. It’s closely related to such people believing that their being a soft touch about the underbelly of society is a sign of great compassion and good intentions.
Beyond that, many people of all political stripes do perceive a story as being more riveting and interesting when it contains “bad guys” or villains. But those of Holmes’ ilk appear to get a cheap thrill out of seeing the good guy or hero losing the battle. Call it a variation of “Michael Moore-ism.”
Reforms have swung too far.
The way that society over the past several decades has dealt with mental illness — and the ensuing amount of chaotic homelessness in American cities certainly similar to LA — is a manifestation of the thinking behind rulings like the following. Or where everyone becomes a professional victim, and their civil rights therefore must be treated as sacred or devout. So the thinking goes: “James Holmes may be a mental case, but it’s mean and inhumane to impose too many restrictions on people like that! Society must bend over to accommodate our weakest links, not the other way around!”
Mark (a346be) — 7/22/2012 @ 1:11 pmThis is obviously a depressing topic but the article on Micayla Medek made me feel a little better. Her family inspires me.
DRJ (a83b8b) — 7/22/2012 @ 1:17 pmMotive for Colorado shooting…
Coastal Eddie (6f5427) — 7/22/2012 @ 1:30 pmNo one else would have a gun,
Escape was virtually assured.
I think you can say, as a general rule, that there isn’t anything so senseless, that you won’t find some people who would want to do it.
Start an epidemic? There are people who would find a reason to do it.
Prevention has to rely on deterrence and teaching morality, not on hoping that some things just don’t make any sense.
Every person has different ideas. Whatever you mention, to some person it might make sense. It might make sense even at the cost of life in prison.
Sammy Finkelman (f560b6) — 7/22/2012 @ 1:35 pmThroughout history, there have been hideous and horrific acts of violence and mass murder, and yet even in the midst of those, the amazing spirit of the human heart reveals itself in unbelievable acts of self-sacrifice and heroism. I cannot think of a more penetrating way for a parent to know at the end of the day that they raised noble sons who lived – and most preciously, died most honorably in their sacrifice. They set the bar about as high as one possibly can for their girlfriends. Any other young men to come in these young women’s lives will be measured against such self-sacrifice.
It humbles me to the core of my being.
Dana (292dcf) — 7/22/2012 @ 1:38 pmYou’re lyrics reminded me of this:
And I know it would not hurt any less
Even if it could be explained
from Hard to Get
Rich Mullins (October 21, 1955- September 19, 1997)
http://www.christianmusic.com/rich_mullins/hardtoget.htm
I [RM] wrote a song* that said, “You know, someday I’m going to die, and I wanna die good.”
*”Elijah”, of which he said, “My [RM] favorite song that I’ve ever written is “Elijah.”
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 7/22/2012 @ 1:38 pm(Written about 1982-3 early in his career, ironically enough it was a featured “single” on the radio from a collection of “greatest hits” at the time of his unexpected death.)
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 7/22/2012 @ 1:39 pmYou’reyour, obviouslyThis is far more cheerful. More great Americans, making sacrifices and pushing the big rock uphill because they believe in what they are doing. Hats off to them.
Dana (292dcf) — 7/22/2012 @ 1:49 pmGood comment, Sammy.
DRJ (a83b8b) — 7/22/2012 @ 1:50 pmJoker’s Fun House is on clearance at ghetto Target for like 18 dollars I picked it up and thought about getting it but I decided to leave it for someone else
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 7/22/2012 @ 1:56 pmBut more important, I have this feeling that people believe that if they can just understand why this happened, maybe we can structure a society in which such things don’t happen again. Just pass some new law or regulation, and young men armed with heavy weaponry won’t shoot bullets into crowds with young people and children.
It’s not so. We can’t control everything. And evil exists, and always will.
Some would say this is one way of looking at a major underlying difference between the liberal sentiment and the conservative. The liberal sentiment is bent on making things as near-perfect as possible for everyone, utopia, with the goal being impossible- essentially a return to the Garden of Eden, if only figuratively (…and we’ve got to get ourselves back to the Garden… from Woodstock, J. Mitchell)
The conservative sentiment realizes one will never rid evil from the world, so settle for dealing with it the best you can. Of course just what that looks like and how to do it is open to infinite opinion.
I think this is what the quote about being liberal when young and conservative when old is about. We would all like to think the world around us can be made near-perfect where there is no suffering, at some point we realize that will not happen, but decide how we will respond to the evil and pain we see.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 7/22/2012 @ 1:58 pmI never looked at it like that but I think you’re right, MD. I also wonder if young people’s view of the world is framed by their experiences in school, where everything is controlled by administrators. Perhaps it’s hard for them to adjust to the real, less controlled world so it’s comforting to think of government as filling that administrative role.
DRJ (a83b8b) — 7/22/2012 @ 2:06 pmThe conceit of man knows no bounds and it kills.
But whhhhhhy do so many in Islam seek a caliphate? Millions are gonna die unnecessarily because we refuse to see.
Ed from SFV (1c1abc) — 7/22/2012 @ 2:07 pmMaybe that is a factor, DRJ, but I think it is even earlier than that. A child’s assumption is that mom and dad are going to keep me safe and fix whatever gets broken, “Can I kiss your boo-boo and make it better”. In child development this was #1 of Erickson’s Boxes, “Basic Trust”, is the world a good place to be or not, and why infants, and baby chimpanzees, need more than a nipple of milk in order to thrive.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 7/22/2012 @ 2:14 pmeven thriving chimpanzees have a tendency to rip people’s faces off
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 7/22/2012 @ 2:16 pmeven thriving chimpanzees have a tendency to rip people’s faces off
Comment by happyfeet — 7/22/2012 @ 2:16 pm
Especially ones still bitter about being in psychology experiments without their consent.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 7/22/2012 @ 2:24 pmIt saddens my heart to see everyone now a days jump on the bandwagon, that when someone does something like this, “He must be mentally ill”. You have all been conditioned by the psych pop culture that has sprung up during the 60’s and since. Face it, EVIL exists in this world, and EVIL people exist to do EVIL things.
It has become too commonplace to immediately attribute mental illness to acts that we cannot contemplate or begin to understand because we don’t want to acknowledge the existence of evil. Instead, we are more comfortable ascribing it to mental illness.
I have no doubt that this evil person’s attorneys will get all types of psychiatrists to say that he is mentally ill in court, but most psychiatrists that I have met or seen on television interviews seem to be a little tetched in the head themselves.
Just like Major Nidal Hassan, a truly evil person, but also a psychiatrist trying to claim that he was insane. Nope, not at all, just pure unadulterated evil personified.
peedoffamerican (606d27) — 7/22/2012 @ 2:31 pmI would agree that Hassan had a motive that we would typically understand as “rational”, in that we generally understand people do choose to do things out of ideological convictions and need to be held accountable for them. (Though in a more philosophical sense we could say that such beliefs are “irrational” in a moral framework). Hitler and Manson, as two examples, had a rational framework of sorts for what they did and why, and we hold them accountable, even if in some ways they were irrational as well.
I agree that the existence of evil needs to be accepted. But then again, a person with a severe mental illness may be seeing things through a grid which distorts their perception of right and wrong. That does not excuse their behavior, but I think it does alter to some degree how we in society treat the individual involved and how we think about preventing similar acts in the future.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 7/22/2012 @ 2:42 pmWhen someone does a powerpoint presentation on the need for jihad, that is not merely crazy but evil,
narciso (ee31f1) — 7/22/2012 @ 2:59 pmas for Westboro Baptist Church, the jury is still out.
Has any professional ever seriously suggested that Eric Rudolph, Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols were mentally ill? Evil, yes. Other than a known politicalish motivation and the number of casualties, is the planning, prep, and execution of the Olympic Park and OK City terror that much different from Holmes’ recent “work”? I’m not sure.
elissa (3e127e) — 7/22/2012 @ 3:21 pmThe WaPo is reporting that it could have been so much worse.
Dana (292dcf) — 7/22/2012 @ 3:50 pmIn Holmes case there’s some considerable smoke to suggest the fire.
At any rate It’s a false choice between evil or physical morbidity. Understanding the latter- or managing it better- can help stop evil.
Sarahw (b0e533) — 7/22/2012 @ 4:05 pma change of pace…
teh band who wore mime make-up and were produced by Todd Rundgren:
http://youtu.be/GIxTix5UfMI
Colonel Haiku (275250) — 7/22/2012 @ 4:07 pmand one from a very underrated guitarist… Bill Nelson & Be Bop Deluxe:
http://youtu.be/OR09AoE-ES8
Colonel Haiku (275250) — 7/22/2012 @ 4:09 pmalways dug the intro on this one…
http://youtu.be/fjkVYOArUQM
Colonel Haiku (275250) — 7/22/2012 @ 4:19 pmI wonder … does anyone in here who has kids (especially kids who have reached teenagerhood) not believe that control is an illusion ?
Alasdair (2cd241) — 7/22/2012 @ 4:20 pmhttp://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/07/22/massacre-suspect-james-holmes-gun-range-application-drew-red-flag-for-owner/
Stangely, this gun range owner had sense enough to reject the application…because of the crazy.
Sarahw (b0e533) — 7/22/2012 @ 4:33 pmhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3LykrFs8C0&feature=relmfu#
Colonel Haiku (275250) — 7/22/2012 @ 4:36 pmComment by Dana — 7/22/2012 @ 3:50 pm
Heck, that puts a whole new perspective to our navel gazing I must confess as one who asked why he gave up so willingly, and a rebuke to being too confident in speculation with limited facts.
A few years ago a bank robber in Philly used an assault rifle (an “SKS” I believe for you who know about such things). The first patrol officer encountering the suspect was killed, the second killed the robber only because the guy’s gun jammed, other wise he would have been dead patrolman #2. Standard issue handguns for Philly police will not penetrate the best body armor, and standard issue body armor the police use will not stop high-powered weapons. In Philly (at least at the time) the only police who had anything other than a handgun were the SWAT teams, no cars on patrol had any rifles, shotguns, etc. (many did though buy their own handguns of higher power than standard issue).
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 7/22/2012 @ 4:39 pmSo, if he had been of the mindset to have a shoot-out with police he might have taken quite a few until someone showed up with the firepower to stop him, and that after perhaps more deaths in the theater.
“Some men aren’t looking for anything logical. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.”
Alfred Pennyworth, in The Dark Knight, to a Bruce Wayne struggling to understand the Joker’s motives.
MostlyRight (4f90a6) — 7/22/2012 @ 5:08 pm“That also struck me as very, very strange,” Rotkovich said. “Who says ‘Cheers?’”
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 7/22/2012 @ 5:12 pmhere come a riddle… here come a clue…
http://youtu.be/zIZ1rV6qJHQ
Colonel Haiku (275250) — 7/22/2012 @ 5:22 pmhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vfhk5ZcPbfA
What an “I certainly do not want this fellow on my gun-range” message might sound like.
He called Holmes to follow up, he said, and to make sure he could attend the mandatory pre-membership orientation and safety rules training. That’s when he heard the strange message, which when Rotkovich tried to imitate it, sounded like a mix of moaning in the background and movie-character-like exaggerated squeals and laughter.
Sarahw (b0e533) — 7/22/2012 @ 5:44 pmNo spare magazines for the rifle? Or for the pistol? No reloads for the shotgun?
He tried to talk his way away, according to the same WaPo article, pretending to be another SWAT officer in his armor.
I still hold that he chickened out when faced with armed police instead of unarmed theater goers. Likely, he was already pooping his pants inside the theater or he would have cleared the jam and/or reloaded.
nk (875f57) — 7/22/2012 @ 5:45 pmhe may have, nk, but I’m going to try to keep my virtual mouth shut for the moment
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 7/22/2012 @ 5:55 pmI’m probably the last to realize this but I didn’t realize Aurora and Columbine are both suburbs of Denver. I think this cinema is less than 20 miles from the Columbine high school.
DRJ (a83b8b) — 7/22/2012 @ 7:03 pmNice touch, Patterico, where you say “we can’t control everything.”
Larry Reilly (1f0e8d) — 7/22/2012 @ 7:33 pmBy that logic, we shouldn’t have laws against the sale of alcoholic beverages to minors or, for that matter, crack cocaine(apparently some people can manage crack addiction without bothering the rest of us.)
I suppose you believe that 100-round clips and assault rifles are fine and good, and any non-felon who wants such gear should be able to buy it in an unfettered hurry, since the arrangement probably increases the efficiency of, oh, rabbit hunting.
Even the NRA was for some sensible gun control not that many decades ago. Now you’re parroting their balderdash.
Comment by Larry Reilly — 7/22/2012 @ 7:33 pm
Oh, please go away. You missed the point. You make about as big of an impression as a chihuahua nipping on the heals of a mastiff.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 7/22/2012 @ 7:41 pmLarry Reilly, what we need is schizophrenic control. And that’s what you would fight, for obvious reasons of self-interest.
SPQR (26be8b) — 7/22/2012 @ 7:42 pmDRJ, Columbine High School is actually located in the town of Littleton, which is indeed a suburb of Denver metro area. Its southwest of Denver whereas Aurora is east of Denver proper.
SPQR (26be8b) — 7/22/2012 @ 7:44 pmLarry Reilly is a lying idiotic JournoLister. /spit
JD (b22d65) — 7/22/2012 @ 7:57 pmBefore the thread is too hijacked, I think the music I referenced at #19 is worthwhile, certainly more worthwhile than some distractions from the original topic.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 7/22/2012 @ 8:08 pmStealing Tam’s insult, because it fits Larry Reilly:
“…and I’m telling you, he knows what the windows on the short bus taste like.”
SPQR (26be8b) — 7/22/2012 @ 8:13 pmDamn, Tam’s line is so good, I think I’ll use it for tye too.
SPQR (26be8b) — 7/22/2012 @ 8:13 pmHere’s something I had not heard before. Our local ABC affiliate reporter who is in Denver just said that Holmes had been one of 6 students in his Colorado doctoral program to get a federal NIH grant in neuroscience. This is awarded to outstanding students based on the university’s recommendation. The reporter estimated it was in the range of $2300 a month. People have been wondering where Holmes got money to buy his weapons and accoutrements. I’m so afraid the taxpayers of the USA may have inadvertently helped fund his massacre. It just keeps getting more horrible.
elissa (3e127e) — 7/22/2012 @ 8:29 pmUm, yeah. Other nation states do not have fewer incidents of mass death. Other states don’t have stricter controls on 100 round magazines (but only for deer!). This happens multiple times a year. The trade, of course, is dead 6 year olds for AR15s. And, hey, I’m starting to think I need to learn how to use one, because the calculus only bends downwards.
Freedom?
Jamie (ee4a20) — 7/22/2012 @ 8:29 pmComment by elissa — 7/22/2012 @ 8:29 pm
I think most of the purchasing was done in the last few months, I don’t think he was worrying about how much he was putting on his credit cards.
Other nation states …
Comment by Jamie — 7/22/2012 @ 8:29 pm
other nation states lose millions of people to their own oppressive governments and civil wars.
but only for deer! not at all. The second amendment was not intended to allow hunting, it was to protect the public from a crazy person like Hitler ordering all firearms to be collected so the secret police can terrorize whoever they want.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 7/22/2012 @ 8:38 pmI must say that when the 2nd amendment was written the available firearms were very self-limited in what they could do, and what the public needed to theoretically protect itself from.
Larry… do we still sell guns to minors?
SteveG (831214) — 7/22/2012 @ 8:41 pmOf course not… because “guns taste like the windows on the short bus to them!!”
On Saturday, I happened to eat lunch at a restaurant that was showing CNN, where I saw a live report from outside Holmes’s apartment. Police were saying, according to CNN, that the apartment was booby-trapped, and that they were trying to clear various homemade bombs from the apartment before entering it. If the report is accurate, it suggests that Holmes planned a double whammy — kill unarmed victics in the theater, then kill police when they went to investigate his booby-trapped apartment. Anyone else heard anything about this?
Robin Munn (67f4b8) — 7/22/2012 @ 8:52 pmWe had dinner tonight with a couple who run a College and Career group at their church. One of the gals in their group was lab partners with Holmes at UCR. They said she was just mystified by the shootings. According to her, Holmes was absolutely brilliant, fairly quiet, yet very nice.
Dana (292dcf) — 7/22/2012 @ 8:55 pmComment by Robin Munn — 7/22/2012 @ 8:52 pm
What I read (and linked somewhere above) was that his door was left unlocked (and maybe slightly ajar) and he had a timer set to turn on his music LOUD at midnight, with the intention of having a neighbor investigate and set off the explosion in a different part of town before/as he did his damage at the theater. A neighbor from the apartment below went up to complain, knocked, and almost went in, but decided against it- apparently saving her own life and others in the building.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 7/22/2012 @ 9:08 pmThis is beginning to look like a copycat attack, to a degree, with the Brevik attack.
Main diff is Brevik targetted children of governing party, whereas here, a random assembly.
gary gulrud (dd7d4e) — 7/22/2012 @ 9:09 pmI’m ready to talk about something more cheerful, by the way. Any ideas?
Comment by Patterico — 7/22/2012 @ 11:24 am
— We could chat about Governor Moonbeam’s $24 billion water tunnel project. 😉
Icy (b03626) — 7/22/2012 @ 10:11 pmHe’s a copycat except for the part where he did things totally different; right, gulrud?
Icy (b03626) — 7/22/2012 @ 10:13 pmGood comment, Sammy.
Comment by DRJ — 7/22/2012 @ 1:50 pm
— That’s one way to look at it.
Icy (b03626) — 7/22/2012 @ 10:15 pmComment by Larry Reilly — 7/22/2012 @ 7:33 pm
Nice touch, Patterico, where you say “we can’t control everything.” By that logic, we shouldn’t have laws against the sale of alcoholic beverages to minors or, for that matter, crack cocaine(apparently some people can manage crack addiction without bothering the rest of us.)
— Everything this maggot did on the night in question was illegal, just like selling alcohol to minors (or selling crack at all) is. The question is: How do you enforce the law? Go ahead, Mawry; tell us how you would like the law to be enforced. GO!
I suppose you believe that 100-round clips and assault rifles are fine and good, and any non-felon who wants such gear should be able to buy it in an unfettered hurry, since the arrangement probably increases the efficiency of, oh, rabbit hunting.
— Ironically, one armed patron, with one bullet, could have ended the carnage early on. Hmmm . . .
Even the NRA was for some sensible gun control not that many decades ago. Now you’re parroting their balderdash.
Icy (b03626) — 7/22/2012 @ 10:35 pm— You there: F*** off. And when you get there, f*** off from there, too. Then f*** off some more. Keep f***ing off until you get back here. Then f*** off again.
Oscar Wilde or someone like that once quipped (paraphrasing), “The contemporary aspiration of the human race is to find a system of government so perfect that we don’t have to be good.”
Jim S. (cd346f) — 7/23/2012 @ 2:09 amPoint taken. Yet much of the potential for close analogy is stripped by differences in culture and station.
Norway is a wealthy, socialist, homogeneous culture with the singles significant antagonist of imported unassimilatable socialist underclass.
Holmes is from a disintegrating, disparate culture.
Brevik, a generation older uses farming cover to obtain material, Holmes internet and public funding. Brevik plans for years, Holmes months.
Both attempt significant distractions. Both use automatics, both attack unarmed crowds and 71 are shot.
Brevik is a crusader, Holmes a super hero.
Brevik plays war games, Holmes lab experiments.
Pretty weak, so what?
gary gulrud (dd7d4e) — 7/23/2012 @ 6:10 amDid Mawy miss the fact that this happened in a gun-free zone?
JD (b22d65) — 7/23/2012 @ 6:19 amT.S. Elliot wrote, “The problem with the human race is we want a system of order so perfect we do not have to be good.”
Icy (b03626) — 7/23/2012 @ 7:00 am==I think you can say, as a general rule, that there isn’t anything so senseless, that you won’t find some people who would want to do it==–(S.F.)
And they do not have to be technically “crazy”. I came back to this point of Sammy’s after re-watching a true crime program last night. It was about the thrill murder of 13 year old Bobby Franks by two brilliant University of Chicago students in 1924. The murderers were Leopold and Loeb. They were defended by Clarence Darrow. The victim was a distant relative of Loeb’s to whom they offered a “friendly” ride. They lived the privileged and seemingly near perfect lives of men from wealthy families. They wanted and planned to kill and to perform a “perfect crime” and get away with it because they considered themselves super men with super intellects. They planned for months and used feints such as a rental car which would not be recognized in their neighborhood. They threw in a kidnap note and ransom demand to occupy the police, but the boy was already dead. The ransom note was generic because it had been composed and typed prior to them even choosing their victim. Of course they made mistakes and got caught–rather quickly.
The senselessness of that crime made me think of Ted Kaczynski and now this Holmes. All of them apparently towering intellects to whom the planning and cunning may have been as, or even more, important to them than the deed itself. Murdering people made sense to them. Ugh.
elissa (1e20c3) — 7/23/2012 @ 7:35 amDana, an “assault rifle” is a machine gun. You mean an “assault weapon”, but an SKS is not counted as one of those, either. At least not in stock configuration.
Us “gun nuts” mostly believe the confusion regarding “assault whatsits” was intentional.
Phillep Harding (1b8b26) — 7/23/2012 @ 9:21 amLarry Reilly, if you are limited to the legacy media, you would not be aware that the Korean store owners in Los Angeles used, among other things, semi auto Kalashnikovs to defend their stores and their employees during the Rodney King riots. If you are not paying attention, you would not be aware that flash mobs have already begun to form and beat random individuals, or that home invaders sometimes form large mobs when they hit homes. A co worker and his father and uncle had to use Kalashnikovs to defend their ranch down in Mexico (they were able to obtain full auto AKs in spite of the draconian gun control laws of Mexico). (Such firearms are NOT commonly availible at flea markets in the US, in spite of what the anti gun nuts want us to believe.) That sort of gang violence is moving north, into Arizona and Colorado.
Phillep Harding (1b8b26) — 7/23/2012 @ 9:30 amJamie, we’ve seen mass shootings in Canada, Norway, Germany, Britain, and more. All of which had more restrictive gun laws than the US.
Your understanding of the issue is juvenile at best.
SPQR (26be8b) — 7/23/2012 @ 9:37 amActually, Norway is not that homogenous anymore, recall we suspected this was initially a jihadist
narciso (ee31f1) — 7/23/2012 @ 9:52 amattack, because of an attempted extradition of Mullah Krekar, an Iraqi born, Kurdish militant, founder of Ansar Islam, this is even more true
in Sweden next door, as Lapidus’s pitch noir tales, which revolve around Serbians, Arabs, and Latins
to use three examples.
They wanted and planned to kill and to perform a “perfect crime” and get away with it because they considered themselves super men with super intellects.
Comment by elissa — 7/23/2012 @ 7:35 am
Sounds like Crime and Punishment, except that ended with the murderer realizing he was wrong.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 7/23/2012 @ 10:03 amDana, an “assault rifle” is a machine gun. You mean an “assault weapon”, but an SKS is not counted as one of those, either. At least not in stock configuration.
Us “gun nuts” mostly believe the confusion regarding “assault whatsits” was intentional.
Comment by Phillep Harding — 7/23/2012 @ 9:21 am
Phillep,
I’m not sure why you made this comment to me???
Dana (292dcf) — 7/23/2012 @ 12:01 pmDana,
Phillep may have confused you with MD in Philly. MD’s comment #43 discusses assault weapons and his comment began with your name because was responding to an earlier comment you made.
DRJ (a83b8b) — 7/23/2012 @ 12:06 pmComment by Dana — 7/23/2012 @ 12:01 pm
Dana, “Phillep” is responding to a comment by the Doc, who was responding to you – @ 4:39pm.
AD-RtR/OS! (b8ab92) — 7/23/2012 @ 12:08 pm> The TV man was mad
> At the senseless violence
> Would it make him feel better
> If somehow it made sense?
yes, of course it would. at least for me, it would.
it’s much easier, emotionally, to come to terms with something if it makes sense, if I can see where the other person is coming from and what their motivation was. if I can *understand* it, then it’s much easier to *accept* it.
That said, it’s pretty clear that this is just one of those things; every so often someone loses his mind and goes on a killing spree. It’s not caused by anything in particular other than that person’s mental problems; it’s not something that we can prevent by either fixing some systemic problem trying to stop people from getting guns. It’s just part of life, and we have to accept that it happens. (This isn’t to say we shouldn’t punish the perpetrators; but it is to say that we shouldn’t spend lots of time and energy trying to figure out how to prevent something which is at the end of the day not preventable).
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Hollywood Beach Hotel (67f90e) — 7/30/2012 @ 2:33 am