Yet another school shooting

[TPFKA@W]

twenty-three children stabbed in a class room of young children in China. In China the purchase of a large knife must be reported to the government.

The bottom line is whatever illusion of safety you live with daily, in your society of gun culture, or your society of gun banning, your safety is only an illusion if there is a determined nut job loose.

I need to go be ill now.

[Lord Jim]

What was he thinking?

Well, it's obviously very early, but if I had to speculate based on what we know so far, it seems pretty obvious to me that this was most likely all about the mother...

Probably some very serious family estrangement issues...I think it's quite possible that the killing of the kids was, (in this scumbag's twisted mind) a way of punishing his mother....It wouldn't surprise me to learn that he might have shot them first in front of her and then killed her...

He also grew up in this community and attended that school, so he may also have had some sort of twisted grudge against the community for some reason, and this was a way of "punishing" them for some imagined wrongs that he believed were done to him.

As the days unfold, we'll have a much clearer picture.

[Big RR]

I now appears that the police got it wrong; the shooter was 20 year old Adam Lanza. His brother, Ryan, is being questioned in NJ, but no evidence that he is/was involved.

It also appear that all the dead kids are kindergartners. Tragic for all concerned.

[Gob]

Am I alone in wishing these fucking cunts didn't off themselves?

[Big RR]

To what end?

[Lord Jim]

Am I alone in wishing these fucking cunts didn't off themselves?

I certainly don't share that sentiment. The shame is that he didn't do it with the first bullet.

[Gob]

[Big RR]

Or possibly at home before he left--why expose the kids to a suicide, if that's the end he wanted?

[Crackpot]

latest 20 children 6 adults 1 shooter 1 adult dead at secondary scene.

[Crackpot]

To what end?

to give society the chance to take from him as he took from others.

[Big RR]

Well I personally feel no satisfaction in the death of anyone, except that the dead person is removed as a threat (which he was here), but I imagine there are many who would disagree, and I won't attack them for that. Just as i disagree with the governor saying "evil" visited the community; we don't need any abstract evil to visit, we are quite capable of wreaking havoc and destruction upon ourselves--always have been and, I fear, always will. A sad but true truth.

[Scooter]

I'm waiting to see how Pat Robertson manages to blame this on gay people.

Did anyone see a picture of the (perfectly legal) weapon he used? It looked like a freaking submachine gun. And yet there are those who claim that stricter gun controls would not be any help?

[Joe Guy]

And yet there are those who claim that stricter gun controls would not be any help?

How would stricter gun control laws help?

[Lord Jim]

Well Big RR, we're obviously never going to agree on the existence of evil, and I'm really not interested in re-visiting that subject...(we'll get nowhere)

CP:

Even if the state had a death penalty, (which Connecticut doesn't ) in a case as heinous as this, there's really no way for our society to mete out to the perpetrator the punishment he truly deserves...(For that to happen they would not just have to get the death penalty, they would have to be tortured repeatedly and horrifically for years first, and no modern society is going to sanction that.)

As a practical matter, the ones who get truly punished by having someone who has done something like this walk away alive from the crime are the families of the victims and the community as a whole, who get to relive this terrible tragedy as the case winds it's way through the legal system and the attendant media coverage, culminating in a trial that takes place months or years after the monstrous deed....

No, they've suffered more than enough; much better they should be spared that.

[Scooter]

How would stricter gun control laws help?

Perhaps by preventing people from buying weapons that look like submachine guns.

[Big RR]

Jim--I agree with you, oftentimes trials can have a very negative effect on the families of victims, especially when they are played out on a national stage. Trials can be empowering, allowing the victims and families to have their say, but other times they are not.

And thanks for not trying to debate the existence/nonexistence of evil; it was not my intent to revisit that debate and, especially, I did not want to hijack this thread. Like you, I just accept others have different views on the subject (as well as societal retribution), which is fine with me.

And FWIW, the only benefit I could see in this man not killing himself would be the possibility of studying what drives people to do things like this and, hopefully, prevent future occurrences, but I don't see it as all that great a tradeoff.

and Scooter, do you see weapons that look like "submachine guns" more of a threat than weapons that fire the same rounds at the same rate but do not resemble submachine guns? And if so, why?

[Scooter]

I know next to nothing about guns, but the one this guy used looked like something that could fire off dozens of rounds rapidly without reloading. I don't see any reason why anyone needs a gun that can fire more than 6 or 7 rounds without reloading. If such a law had been in place no way the carnage today would have been anywhere near as high.

[Joe Guy]

How would stricter gun control laws help?

Perhaps by preventing people from buying weapons that look like submachine guns.

Are you saying that making guns that look like submachine guns illegal would prevent criminals from owning them?

[Scooter]

I would say that this BOY wouldn't have known where to buy an illegal gun if a smuggler slapped him upside the head with one, and that would have meant that fewer people would have died today.

[Big RR]

OK Scooter, that does make some sense; if the rifle held a high capacity magazine (and it may well have given all the dead, I don't know) it could have been much more dangerous in attacks of this sort than one that held a magazine of less capacity.