Yet another school shooting

[Gob]

I'll move it Keld, fair doos.

[Gob]

Article on assault weapons moved to new thread.

[Gob]

A magistrate has ruled a Canberra teenager accused of killing animals is mentally impaired and does not belong in the criminal justice system.

But the Education and Training Directorate has said the boy, who has homicidal fantasies quelled by medication, is not welcome back into mainstream schools.

Magistrate Peter Dingwall on Monday dismissed under mental health laws four charges of aggravated animal cruelty causing death. He was satisfied the 16-year-old, who cannot be named, suffered mental impairment and it was appropriate to remit him to the care of the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal (ACAT).

The boy spent about eight months on remand after expressing homicidal fantasies after his arrest for the animal cruelty offences earlier this year.

Two psychiatrists diagnosed him as having Asperger's-type autism with probable youth psychopathic traits.

The ACT Children's Court heard the boy began experiencing homicidal impulses at preschool, imagining ramming a pencil up someone's nose.

But psychiatrists expressed the view the bright student with a high IQ could mask both his mental illness and the murderous fantasies because of his intellect.

The doctors were satisfied that, while he understood the nature of the alleged crimes, they were a manifestation of his impairment. And the court was told while the condition was likely to be life-long, medication reduced his fantasies to zero and allowed him to experience emotions he had never before felt.

The teen was released on extremely strict bail conditions earlier this year. They amount to almost 24-hour scrutiny in out-of-home care, except when in his room, and prevent him from accessing the internet.

Conversations, except those with his parents, are reported to youth justice staff and effectively he has zero contact with peers.

The boy's lawyers argued their client had already served as much jail time as likely, given his age and the two-year maximum penalty applying to the offences.

Mr Dingwall was faced with a good-behaviour order mirroring the bail conditions, or placing him under the auspices of the tribunal.

"Clearly, in this case there is a very real concern that [the teenager] by reason of his mental impairment is likely to cause serious harm to others," he said. A good-behaviour order would have an eventual expiry date but a mental health treatment order would be a longer-term solution.

One treating psychiatrist, John Kasinathan, said a mental health order alone would be "toothless" without criminal sanction.

But Mr Dingwall said the tribunal had the power to make restrictive orders which would provide appropriate safeguards. However, he declined to make any order until 2013 to give the tribunal time to put restrictive orders in place.

The teenager has previously flagged a desire to return to the college system.

But prosecutor Anthony Williamson told the court the directorate was not prepared to let him "due to the concerns the director-general has for the safety of the student population".

The court heard the directorate was working to find another arrangement for the boy's education, and "he will not be abandoned by the territory".



Read more: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-new ... z2FRyh1aoq

[Econoline]

Meanwhile, out yonder on Planet Michigan...

Just a few hours before the shootings in Connecticut, the state legislature passed and sent to the governor a bill that would allow concealed-carry in what are now designated "gun-free zones"--including schools, day care centers, sports arenas, bars, places of worship, hospitals, dorms and casinos--and Governor Rick Snyder is actually still considering signing it.

http://www.examiner.com/article/michiga ... ry-schools

UPDATE: Common sense (and overwhelming public opinion) prevails: after four days of consideration, Snyder vetoed the bill.

[Big RR]

When a young couple is kidnaped off the streets, enslaved, rapped, torture and murdered it does not even make the national news, evidently it is not news.

When did this occur and where?

Who knows how often it happens; I learned of this years later and purely by accident. Our country is sick and we don’t even know how sick it is.

Channon Gail Christian, 21, and Hugh Christopher Newsom, Jr., 23, were a couple from Knoxville, Tennessee. They were raped, tortured and murdered after being kidnapped early on the morning of January 7, 2007. Their vehicle had been carjacked.[1][2] Five suspects were arrested and charged in the case. The grand jury indicted four of the suspects on counts of capital murder, robbery, kidnapping, rape and theft, while a fifth was indicted on the federal level

I recall that case,a nd it got a good amount of play in the media. I don't live anywhere near Knoxville, and heard about it pretty extensively--I even could have named the vicitms. Indeed, I imagine most people here have heard about it.

edited to add: Our country may well have problems, but it does not stem from the media ignoring violent incidents; indeed, it appears the media trumpets them to get viewers/readers. Torture and muder of homeless drug addicts or gang bangers killing their own (or perhaps people in their neighborhoods) might not be as loudly broadcast, but the torture and murder of a youn, attractive, and perhaps white, couple sells papers and TV news almost as much as a crazy mother accused of killing her child does. I've rarely seen it ignored.

[Lord Jim]

Two psychiatrists diagnosed him as having Asperger's-type autism with probable youth psychopathic traits.

Geez, a psychopath with Aspergers....

That's a serial killer just waiting to happen...

[Big RR]

I agreed with your point re the schools and discipline. And referred you to my earlier post in this thread which made much the same point though with wider application (some of which you might not agree with).

You also may not agree with my conclusions which basically are that society today gets what society of today encourages - rude, disrespectful, selfish children who grow up to be rude, disrespectful, selfish adults . . . who see nothing wrong with shooting kids, adults, goldfish, whatever, because "self" is the only important thing.

I think dgs posted somewhere here that if only all people were Christians, these kind of things wouldn't happen. I disagree with that statement - I think it should be something like, if all people were genuine Christians . . . or if all people were genuine Buddhists . . . or if all people were genuine humanists . . . The point being that if people truly adhered to a valuable moral code - whatever it might be - these things might not happen as frequently - people would be less broken than they are. As it is, the majority worldview promoted by the media and by society is that morality is situational and "it doesn't matter" if X is promoted or Y is approved of. Therefore there is no adherence to a valuable moral code - only to selfish actions of value to "me" regardless of the consequences.

Meade

Meade--while I understand your post, what moral code is entirely devoid of the situation? For example, judeochristian morality teaches killing (or murder) is wrong, yet we are also told killing in self defense is acceptable, as is killing in a war (even travelling to a place to do your country's bidding and kill those who are calssified as your enemies, whether you believe they represent any threat to you or not), perhaps captial punishment is OK, etc. All moral codes generally have this ambiguity; indeed, how could a one size fits all situations moral code really be developed?

[MajGenl.Meade]

Sorry Big RR but I do not equate a shooting war (say against Adolf Hitler) with a person walking into a school and shooting down little kids. There are a couple of differences. The Judeo-Christian moral code might (as you say) allow the first but I know of no MORAL code that endorses the second.

And I was careful to say that adherence (true adherence) by all people to a valid moral code (whether Christian or other) would probably not eliminate all reprehensible actions by lunatics.

Meade

[Lord Jim]

I'm 100% with Meade on this one.

I see no moral "ambiguity" whatsoever between a person who machine guns innocent people, and executing a person who machine guns innocent people, for example.

Those are two actions which from a moral standpoint could not possibly be more different. The difference is stark, striking, and obvious.

[Miles]

Geez, a psychopath with Aspergers....

That's a serial killer just waiting to happen...

Actually Aspergers is not a diagnosis for psychotic behavior. While there may be cases of such it is not the norm.

[Lord Jim]

I understand that Miles; I know that the vast majority of people with Aspergers are not violent or psychotic, and represent no sort of threat to society. In fact, even in this case, everything I've read says that the shooter, while considered an "oddball" who kept to himself, (have you noticed that not one single person has come forward to say they were friends with him, or socialized with him, or even knew him at all? That's very strange.) he never exhibited any sadistic, (no history of torturing animals, for example) violent, or threatening behavior towards anyone prior to his rampage.

I was referring specifically to the article Strop posted which indicated that the kid in question had both Aspergers and evidence of psychopathic behavior....

[liberty]

Texas school superintendent: Disarming faculty, staff invites mass shootings

We had an interesting conversation earlier this evening with David Thweatt, schools superintendent in the small town of Harrold, about 150 miles northwest of Fort Worth.
His one-campus district in 2008 approved a policy that allows some teachers and staff with concealed carry licenses to be secretly armed while at school.
He said this definitely hedges against mass shootings like the one Friday morning at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
Here’s our article from that interview.
But, like most newspaper articles, we had more info than our available space, so we'll share it here.
For example, Thweatt said the so-called "guardian plan" is patterned after the Federal Air Marshal program, in which plain-clothes officers guard airline flights, but passengers are not supposed to know who they are, or that they’re armed.
Likewise, the school district in Harrold does not announce which teachers are "packing."
The program is set up under the same Texas laws that allow school districts to have uniformed police officers on campus, Thweatt said.
Participating teachers, however, must be approved by the school board to conceal weapons on school grounds.
There is also extra training to ensure accurate shooting.

C Participants are required to use ammunition that will stop a human but not penetrate walls, Thweatt said.
These measures, he noted, are intended to limit collateral damage.
Still, the strategy draws criticism.
A common challenge, Thweatt said, is the possibility of an angry student, in a fit of passion, wrestling a concealed handgun away from a teacher.
But that’s not an issue, Thweatt said, as long as students don’t know which teachers have guns.
There has not been an incident, and Thweatt doesn’t expect one. In his opinion, declaring a campus "gun-free" is inviting a mass shooting.
"What we know about these people is they know where to go to get a bigger body count," Thweatt said. "I think they’re mostly after infamy and it’s just evil."
-- Bill Miller

Read more here: http://blogs.star-telegram.com/crime_ti ... rylink=cpy

This is the only way to insure the safety of school kids, especially the little ones. This program is modeled on the federal air marshal program. No one except the principle and his assistant knows which teachers are armed and only select evaluated and trained teachers are used.

The fact that the news media chose to glorify this guy by publicizing his face and name makes it more likely it will happen again. There is another sick person that wants the glory too and if there is not someone there to stop him it will happen..

[Gob]

This is the only way to insure the safety of school kids, especially the little ones. .

Oh there are other ways.

[Rick]

Lib when the gunman comes in wearing Kevlar and shoots the teacher he ends up with another weapon...

[Sean]

This is the only way to insure the safety of school kids, especially the little ones. .

Oh there are other ways.

Isn't it time that these little kids were tooled up for fucks sake? It's not that there are too many guns around... the problem is that there just aren't enough!
Most spree killers would run like fuck when faced with 30 six year olds packing uzis...

Job done!

[liberty]

This is the only way to insure the safety of school kids, especially the little ones. .

Oh there are other ways.

What are they?

[liberty]

This is the only way to insure the safety of school kids, especially the little ones. .

Oh there are other ways.

Isn't it time that these little kids were tooled up for fucks sake? It's not that there are too many guns around... the problem is that there just aren't enough!
Most spree killers would run like fuck when faced with 30 six year olds packing uzis...

Job done!

Now don’t be silly you know no one is talking about arming children.

[liberty]

Lib when the gunman comes in wearing Kevlar and shoots the teacher he ends up with another weapon...

What if he shoots the cop and ends up with another gun. Or are saying that teachers are not capable of being trained as guards or police. True some would not qualify, but there would be those teachers that could do it.

[Sean]

Now don’t be silly you know no one is talking about arming children.

Well maybe we should be dammit!

[Rick]

Lib when the gunman comes in wearing Kevlar and shoots the teacher he ends up with another weapon...

What if he shoots the cop and ends up with another gun. Or are saying that teachers is not capable of being trained as guards or police. True some would not qualify, but there would be those teachers that could do it.

No Lib that's not what I'm saying, what I am saying is a pistol bullet will not penetrate most "bullet proof" vests. Unless every teacher is wearing one they are still outgunned.