About the Lanza Family - Mother and Son

NYT

Nancy Lanza loved guns, and often took her sons to one of the shooting ranges here in the suburbs northeast of New York City, where there is an active community of gun enthusiasts, her friends said. At a local bar, she sometimes talked about her gun collection.

It was one of her guns that was apparently used to take her life on Friday. Her killer was her son Adam Lanza, 20, who then drove to Sandy Hook Elementary School, where he killed 26 more people, 20 of them small children, before shooting himself, the authorities said. 

Ms. Lanza’s fascination with guns became an important focus of attention on Saturday as investigators tried to determine what caused Mr. Lanza to carry out one of the worst massacres in the nation’s history. 

Investigators have linked Ms. Lanza to five weapons: two powerful handguns, two traditional hunting rifles and a semiautomatic rifle that is similar to weapons used by troops in Afghanistan. Her son took the two handguns and the semiautomatic rifle to the school. Law enforcement officials said they believed the guns were acquired legally and were registered.

There's no more excuse for allowing troubled Adam access to the guns than there would be to allow a 2-year-old. Too often, gun enthusiasts don't take safe storage of the weapons seriously enough. Sometimes it has disastrous results.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Gail Collins on the Mass Shootings

NYT

We know the story. The shooter is a man, usually a young man, often with a history of mental illness. Sometimes in a rage over a lost job, sometimes just completely unhinged. In the wake of the Newtown shootings, the air was full of experts discussing the importance of psychological counseling. “We need to look at what drives a crazy person to do these kind of actions,” said Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington, one of the highest-ranking Republicans in the House. 

Every country has a sizable contingent of mentally ill citizens. We’re the one that gives them the technological power to play god. 

This is all about guns — access to guns and the ever-increasing firepower of guns. Over the past few years we’ve seen one shooting after another in which the killer was wielding weapons holding 30, 50, 100 bullets. I’m tired of hearing fellow citizens argue that you need that kind of firepower because it’s a pain to reload when you’re shooting clay pigeons. Or that the founding fathers specifically wanted to make sure Americans retained their right to carry rifles capable of mowing down dozens of people in a couple of minutes.

Exactly. What's your opinion?

Please leave a comment.

Pro-Gun Video Full of Lies

via my Facebook friend Mayuka who thinks this video is just "amazing."



The lies:

1. Ever since the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution was first written this was a hotly contested issue.

2. Cars kill WAY more people each year than guns do.

3. Out of those gun deaths about 80% are suicides.

4. Guns are used about 2 million times a year to stop crime.

5. You can pass all the laws you want and they (the criminals) will still have access to these weapons. Alan Keyes

More about the Connecticut School Shooting

The Chicago Tribune reports with video of the medical examiner's statement.

The mystery deepened as Newtown education officials said they had found no link between Lanza's mother and the school, contrary to news reports that said she was a teacher there. Investigators said they believe Adam Lanza attended Sandy Hook Elementary many years ago, but they had no explanation for why he went there on Friday.

Lanza shot and killed his mother, Nancy Lanza, at the home they shared, then drove to the school in her car with at least three of her guns, forced his way inside and opened fire in two classrooms, authorities said. Within minutes, he killed 20 children, six adults and himself.

On Saturday, Chief Medical Examiner Dr. H. Wayne Carver said all the victims at the school were killed up close with a rifle and were shot more than once. All six adults killed at the school were women. Of the 20 children, eight were boys and 12 were girls. All the children were 6 or 7 years old.

So, his mother did not work at the school, but he himself had been a student there.  Also, contrary to earlier reports, a long gun was used.

Las Vegas Murder Suicide on The Strip

USA Today reports

A man shot and fatally wounded a woman, then killed himself Friday at the Excalibur hotel-casino on the Las Vegas Strip, sending many frightened patrons fleeing.

The shootings happened at about 8:30 p.m. near the high-rise hotel's front entrance, Las Vegas Metro Police Lt. Ray Steiber said.

The man shot the woman, who was a vendor at Excalibur's concierge desk, then turned the gun on himself, Steiber said. The man died at the scene, and the woman was pronounced dead later at a local hospital.

I'm guessing it was a domestic dispute, everyone knows guns are bad news for women.  Also I figure the guy was a lawful gun owner with a concealed carry permit.  About that, we'll never know because many concealed carry permit holders commit crimes and go undetected as such. You see, when murder happens, it suddenly becomes unimportant if the guy had a license to carry a gun or a library card.  No one checks.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

The 2nd Amendment and Killing Kids

 Consortium News

The idea was to enable the young country to resist aggression from European powers, to confront Native American tribes on the frontier and to put down internal rebellions, including slave revolts. There was nothing particularly idealistic in this provision; the goal was the “security” of the young nation.

However, the modern American Right and today’s arms industry have devoted enormous resources to twisting the Framers into extremist ideologues who put “liberties” like individual gun ownership ahead of all practical concerns about “security.”

This propaganda has proved so successful that many politicians who favor common-sense gun control are deemed violators of the Framers’ original intent, as essentially un-American, and face defeat in elections. The current right-wing majority on the U.S. Supreme Court has even overturned longstanding precedents and reinterpreted the Second Amendment as granting rights of individual gun ownership.

Now, that makes sense, doesn't it.What do you think?

Please leave a comment.

The 221st Anniversary of the 2nd Amendment

Video from Pix 11

What does the 2A have to do with the Connecticut massacre, you ask? Well, let's see.

It's a distorted understanding of the Amendment which fuels the gun culture in the US. Whenever pressured or placed in a corner, gun-rights folks, whom I blame for the countless tragedies, proffer the old justifications, "it's a right." 

Actually, it's not.  I say that in spite of the recent mistaken rulings by the conservative and gun-lobby-influenced Supreme Court, rulings which by the way I believe will be overturned in years to come.

ACLU POSITION

Given the reference to "a well regulated Militia" and "the security of a free State," the ACLU has long taken the position that the Second Amendment protects a collective right rather than an individual right. For seven decades, the Supreme Court's 1939 decision in United States v. Miller was widely understood to have endorsed that view.

The Supreme Court has now ruled otherwise. In striking down Washington D.C.'s handgun ban by a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court's 2008 decision in D.C. v. Heller held for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to keep and bear arms, whether or not associated with a state militia.

The ACLU disagrees with the Supreme Court's conclusion about the nature of the right protected by the Second Amendment.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.