Sunday, April 5, 2009

Pittsburgh Tragedy - 3 Dead Policemen

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports on the terrible tragedy that took place early Saturday morning leaving three police officers dead and the shooter in custody. This is the sad story referred to by our frequest commenters Microdot and Il Principe. Stephen Mayhle, Eric Kelly and Paul Sciullo III died in the line of duty responding to a domestic violence call. May their families and loved ones somehow find peace and acceptance.

The shooter, "Richard Andrew Poplawski was a young man convinced the nation was secretly controlled by a cabal that would eradicate freedom of speech, take away his guns and use the military to enslave the citizenry." The timing of this sad incident comes like punctuation at the end of our discussions of just yesterday and the day before.


"He was really into politics and really into the First and Second amendment. One thing he feared was he feared the gun ban because he thought that was going to take away peoples' right to defend themselves. He never spoke of going out to murder or to kill," said Edward Perkovic, who described himself as Mr. Poplawski's lifelong best friend.

Mr. Poplawski's view of guns and personal freedom took a turn toward the fringes of American politics. With Mr. Perkovic, he appeared to share a belief that the government was controlled from unseen forces, that troops were being shipped home from the Mideast to police the citizenry here, and that Jews secretly ran the country.
What comes to mind for me is that Poplawski is a textbook example of that McVeigh-type character who can be poisoned by the right wing rhetoric. How rare are they? How rare are these massacre-type shootings? To the first question, I'd say they're not as rare as we'd like to think. To the second, I'd say, the incidents in which one of these lunatics kills only one person are probably not rare at all but simply escape the national spotlight. I agree with Charles M. Blow in saying the problem is very real.

What Paul Helmke mentioned the other day on his Brady Blog comes to mind. When nine people died from tainted peanut butter, the government was mobilized into action. But, when an incredible, perhaps unprecedented string of high profile shootings take the lives of three times that number within a couple weeks, there's relative silence from the government. Of course there was that ominous comment of Biden's the other day with regards the shooting in New York State.



We’ve got to figure out a way to deal with this terrible, terrible violence.

What's your opinion? Do you think the Vice President is making reference to future legislation that will restrict arms purchases? Do you agree with me that, combined with other initiatives, such measures might help? Can you understand how some of us feel the only way to keep dangerous people from getting guns is to necessarily deny some of them to law abiding citizens as well?

Do you feel Mr. Poplawski should be a candidate for the death penalty? Do you think his paranoia and other mental conditions should be considered in judging his culpability?

In a country where we have over a hundred hand-gun killings a day between murders and suicides, do you think more guns and fewer restrictions would help or hurt the situation?

Please feel free to leave a comment.

13 comments:

  1. "Do you feel Mr. Poplawski should be a candidate for the death penalty?"

    Yep!

    "Do you think his paranoia and other mental conditions should be considered in judging his culpability?"

    Nope!

    "In a country where we have over a hundred hand-gun killings a day between murders and suicides, do you think more guns and fewer restrictions would help or hurt the situation?"

    Nope, would make things worse:
    http://www.claytoncramer.com/gundefenseblog/blogger.html

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  2. This is why I freaked to read Bob S's comments yesterday about FEMA Concentration Camps and then telling us to read the paranoiac sweat crazed rantings on the far right web sites he gets his information from as if there was any credence, a thread of reality to back this insane talk up.

    I mean, who is the tool, who is the fool here?

    I refuse to take anyone who spreads this insane blather seriously.
    This is immature, simplistic idiocy...behoodlement of the nth degree.

    I want a better, nobler world and these guys want to encourage unstable individuals to participate in the destruction of our society to build their new world order.

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  3. Hmmmm. Yet another criminal that could not legally possess firearms. Yep, we need even more laws for him to violate--murder wasn't enough. If he could have violated some more gun laws everything would be all better.

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  4. Okay MikeB,

    You've called us to be polite yet approve Microdot's attack on me...Can you say double standard.

    Note that Microdot was completely off base on what I said

    I quote:
    Do you know anything about the FEMA concentration camps?
    Maybe you should be looking into them instead of just condemning people talking about them.


    I didn't say the FEMA camps existed as the criminal claimed, I didn't claim they were concentration camps, I just suggested that you look into the issue instead of slamming someone for talking about them.

    And yet you allow someone on your side to make personal attacks.


    Does Microdot offer any information on the refutation of the "concentration camps", does he offer anything to advance the debate?

    What standard are you applying to your comments?

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  5. Bob, You're right. Micro was a bit strong. But, even he himself admitted that he "freaked," and then attempted to explain why.

    What's your point about the so-called FEMA concentration camps anyway? Isn't the use of the words, "concentration camps" something to be questioned. Would you agree that Beck was using them to incite? And then doesn't it follow that simple-minded people are liable to be incited to do stupid things?

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  6. Bob S...just the fact that you are trying to advance this claim and repeating the words of a self admitted "rodeo clown" who is being paid millions to use political hate as "entertainment" is alarming enough.

    I fervently believe in free speech, but I also believe in personal responsibility for ones speech.
    When a bully pulpit such as national radio and television is being used to systematically twist and lie to create inflaming sensationalist ratings, and the effect is a palpable rise in criminal, anti social acts based on the false beliefs of the statements, then the originator of this stuff should be held accountable.

    You haven't been looking at any of the Sniper School web sites for private security forces lately have you? There's an ad floating around with Obama's head in the cross hairs of gun sight. Subtle, eh?

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  7. MikeB,

    You prove my point again:

    What's your point about the so-called FEMA concentration camps anyway? Isn't the use of the words, "concentration camps" something to be questioned.

    I heard about these "concentration camps" a while back. So I did what a responsible person should do; I investigated the issue.

    You heard about them and what did you do?

    It appears you repeated what you heard without looking into the issue.

    And then doesn't it follow that simple-minded people are liable to be incited to do stupid things?

    Since you've repeated the issue without understanding it, without investigation.....doesn't it follow that you are the "simple-minded" person that was incited to do something?

    You've repeated have posted information without authenticating the source or validating the truth of that information.
    Witness the flap over "90% of firearms", eh?

    I posted my comment to find out if YOU KNEW about what you were talking about. Yet again I find out that you don't know what you are talking about.

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  8. Microdot,

    See my comments to MikeB.

    Bob S...just the fact that you are trying to advance this claim and repeating the words of a self admitted "rodeo clown" ..

    What is it with most people on the left and their inability to comprehend what they read?

    I wasn't trying to advance the claim, I was trying to determine if MikeB knew about it and what he knew. I have found out, as normal, MikeB knows nothing.

    who is being paid millions to use political hate as "entertainment" is alarming enough.

    This is another favorite trick of so many on the left. If they say something it is free speech, if someone says something they disagree with it is "hate speech". Nice...nobody can say anything you disagree about without it being turned into "unacceptable free speech". How ironic and how wrong.

    I fervently believe in free speech, but I also believe in personal responsibility for ones speech.
    When a bully pulpit such as national radio and television is being used to systematically twist and lie to create inflaming sensationalist ratings, and the effect is a palpable rise in criminal, anti social acts based on the false beliefs of the statements, then the originator of this stuff should be held accountable.


    So how often have you condemned Air America?
    Huffington Post?
    Daily Kos?
    Thousand of others on the left continue to inflame and twist as much as on the right...yet where is your condemnation for the left?

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  9. Hey, if you wanna do tit for tat, I'd say the righties lose. At least since the days of the Weathermen back in the 60s, the left has not been guilty of anything like the crap that comes from Rush and the others.

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  10. Unless you count Reverend Right, The Huffington Post, Daily Kos, The Brady Campaign, Violence Policy Center, Air America, Al Franken, Ward Churchill, Just about EVERYBODY in Hollywood, or in the Rock Music industry....

    Man my hands are getting tired....

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  11. Classic MikeB,

    Absolutely Classic denial response.

    The left doesn't do "hate speech" only those on the right.

    Why, because the people on the left get to define "hate speech".

    Standard Bullshit tactic #19.

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  12. And he won't bother with discussing my list of hateful lefties that in fact ARE "More Guilty than Rush Limbaugh" (tho besides being a pill popper, and possibly an adulterer, I can't think of any crimes he's "guilty of")

    Hell give me a little time I could come up with enough JOE FUCKING BIDEN quotes to fill a whole blog post that are 100X worse than Limbaugh's stupidity (and Limbaugh's rhetoric IS stupidity, that's the point he's an entertainer not a lawmaker...unlike Biden)

    So it's an SOP here.

    Step 1: Make a flawed argument
    Step 2: Read responses.
    Step 3: Ignore
    Step 4: Change Subject.

    (you loose)

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  13. No, this is not an example of a flawed argument. This is simply another example of our expressing differing opinions, extremely differing opinions. The only problem is you guys seem to think someone's right and someone's wrong even when we're expressing personal opinions. You think the left is more hateful than the right. I don't agree with that. But how does that make my opinion a "bullshit tactic."

    ReplyDelete