Before Virginia Tech, before Columbine, there was Simon’s Rock. On 14 December 1992, Wayne Lo went on a 20 minute shooting rampage which resulted in 2 dead and four injured. In 2007, Lo spoke to Newsweek magazine:
There you have it, the words of a mass shooter.Do you believe that stricter gun control would help prevent such tragedies?
The people who do these things are people who don’t want contact. They wouldn’t be capable of going out there and stabbing people to death. But there’s such a disconnect when you’re using a gun. You don’t even feel like you’re killing anybody. The fact that I was able to buy a rifle in 15 minutes, that’s absurd. I was 18. I couldn’t have rented a car to drive home from school, yet I could purchase a rifle.You were from Montana, and a member of the NRA. Had guns and hunting been a part of your life?
That night was the first time I fired a gun. Why should a person who has never touched a gun be able to buy one and the first time he fires it, be able to kill people? You wouldn’t be able to drive a car without a license.What sort of gun control do you propose, then?
Ideally, guns should be eliminated, but I know that won’t happen. There should be stricter checks. Obviously a waiting period would be great. Personally, I only had five days left of school before winter break: school got out on Friday, and I did that on a Monday. If I had a two-week waiting period for the gun, I wouldn’t have done it.
"It wasn't my fault, it was the gun's!"
ReplyDeleteA while ago, we got the opinion of Sam Berkowitz. Now, this guy. You control freaks have odd sources.
ReplyDeleteAnon: To the contrary, Lo maintains the killings were his fault.
ReplyDeleteThe point gunloons miss is that firearms greatly enhance and facilitate the ability to kill. IOW, a gun gives a potential killer both the confidence that he will succeed in his crime while providing the knowledge that he really need not be concerned that he's going to be impeded and/or discovered.
Well said Jade.
DeleteOne of the problems with firearms is they combine lethality with being more prone than other weapons to be chose on impulse.
This is about impulsive behavior, maturity, and in some cases, about our absolute failure to address the issue of mental illness as well in conjunction with firearms.
As we learned with Jared Loughner, and more recently with the Mpls. mass shooter, Andrew Engeldinger, schizophrenia tends to affect males in certain age ranges more than other groups, and typically progresses from people not being a threat to themselves or others to violence in more advanced stages.
We see similar patterns with depression and firearms.
We can either deal with the reality of these facts, and take appropriate measures to address them.......
or we can listen to the drooling bullshit responses from the gun nuts who don't give a rats ass how many people are killed and injured, so long as guns remain cheap and too readily available (apparently to prop up their sagging sense of masculinity and as an antidote to their weakness).
Another good source and good post Laci - but there are none so dumb (in the intellect sense, not speech) as those who will not hear.
DeleteGoldilocks and Dog Gone, these psychotic shooters have an odd combination of characteristics, namely insanity and the ability to plan. They could equally well plan out the construction of pipe bombs or Molotov cocktails.
DeleteTo everyone else, Dog Gone particularly sees a set of facts, but can't accept that her conclusions are based also on what she values--safety and control. She believes herself to be superior without even understanding how she argues.
I am deeply saddened any time a criminal harms someone, regardless of the weapon they use. And I would love to see all violent crimes go away.
DeleteIf there is an efficient way to get mental health care to people with conditions such as Schizophrenia, I am all for it. What I cannot support is a situation where government bureaucrats insert themselves into my life for no particular reason and dictate what I can purchase or possess. I am not a child in kindergarten. Treating me as such is an insult and damages the spirit.
Why would "government bureaucrats insert themselves into" your life? Are you schizophrenic?
DeleteProper gun control would disarm some of the unfit ones. The responsible guys would have nothing to lose that's why I wonder why so many of you object so much.
Mikeb, why do you keep repeating that lie? You've told us your goals. I've shown you how those goals would be a lot for my side ot lose. You've yet to offer anything meaningful that you'd give in exchange. But keep being mystified as to why we object. That helps us win.
DeleteMikeb,
DeleteGovernment bureaucrats insert themselves into our lives when they threaten us with force if we fail to ask their permission to do something.
If a person is suffering from mental illness and multiple family members, neighbors, and coworkers report them as a threat to society, then I am in favor of a forced psychiatric evaluation and possible intervention. When everyday people -- whom no one has reported for mental illness -- need psychiatric evaluations or screenings to satisfy government bureaucrats before they can purchase, own, or possess property, it is flat out wrong. Whether the property is real estate, a car, canning jars, or a firearm it doesn't matter.
It does matter if it's a gun. You know this that's why you and your friends keep trying to say a gun is just another tool. It's not. It's purpose is to kill other humans and therefore it's deserving of special restrictions.
DeleteEven the Supreme Court has said as much. We're just haggling over how far those restrictions should go.
We're not haggling. You offer nothing that we want. We're at war, and unconditional surrender is the only acceptable end.
DeleteWe are haggling. Our side is offering about 5,000 fewer murders a year. But, I understand if you don't want to be inconvenienced.
DeleteExcept we've loosened gun laws, and violent crime keeps going down. Our technique is working. What else you got?
DeleteGreggy, per usual you are vastly delusional.
ReplyDeleteYou assume that because someone is psychotic that makes them stupid as NRA members. As we well know, psychotics are very often capable of logical thought in the wrong direction. Constructing a pipe bomb (that works) is more difficult than gunloons assume. Similarly, tossing a molotov cocktail has the twin difficulties of not being very effective and requiring the perpetrator to get very close to an intended target.
It must be an itch that you just can't scratch, knowing that my side is armed and there's nothing that you can do about that.
DeleteNot even mass murderers are as stupid as gun wack NRA members.
DeleteI'm an NRA member and a gun owner. Somehow, I've managed not to kill anyone. Strange how that's even possible.
DeleteGreggy, BTW, your open hostility toward women is duly noted.
ReplyDeleteI wonder...
Is this because of your failure to maintain a relationship with the opposite sex....or..?
What open hostility would that be? I think that Dog Gone is a snob and wrong about many things, but that's not because she's a woman.
DeleteThe hostility is a rather simian reaction to his intellectual and physical inadequacy in the presence of someone who challenges his fragile sense of masculinity and self-worth.
DeleteHence, it's need to compensate through bizarre statements and self aggrandizement.
I guess Greg needs something to fill his time when he is not preparing for the appearance of the abominable "black helicopters" or chasing UFOs. The computer in the basement provides a convenient escape from the government/martians which are coming to get him.
So many comments from people who know nothing about the subject. E.N., how about giving us your definition of masculinity? That should be much fun to read.
DeleteOf course, you don't respond to my points. You call them bizarre, even though they are in general agreement with the Founders of this nation and with many Americans today. You claim that I engage in self-aggrandizement, but what you mean is that I refuse to agree that a citizen is the property of the state. What's with your use of the pronoun, it, lately in referring to me? That illustrates my point.
I did get to go to the fiftieth anniversary of the Roswell incident. It was a lot of fun to watch the wackos, and I saw more aluminum foil being worn as clothing than I ever had before or since. The truth, of course, is that the crash was likely of a balloon used in Project Mogul. But then there was that episode of Deep Space Nine, titled "Little Green Men"...
It's good to see the mentality of criminals. Who better to tell us what's in their head, especially once they are rendered more sane by treatment while incarcerated? They know, better than us, what drove them to violence.
ReplyDeleteYup, please do trust what a killer like this has to say. Care to discuss buying the Brooklyn Bridge?
DeleteGun loon fascists love the ability to kill large numbers of people from a remote distance. Most gun owners are fucking cowards, who are frightened of chickens, rabbits, and dust mites.
ReplyDelete... except for the 80 million real people who own firearms.
DeleteI suppose there is a shred of truth in this comment. My 140 pound wife is a coward when two or three hulking men threaten to attack her. So is my 90 pound teenage daughter.
As for my wife and daughter loving the ability to kill large numbers of people from a remote distance, I have never heard them express anything of the sort. Come to think of it I have never heard any armed citizen express anything of the sort.
What kind of a sick fantasy is that, three hulking men attacking your wife. Maybe you should fantasize about your wife shooting herself by accident or in a moment of despair. That's more likely to happen.
DeleteHe didn't say that he fantasizes about it. He said that it's a possibility, something to be aware of. The fact that you can't tell the difference says more about your mental health than about ours.
DeleteJust a quick correction to Mr. Lo's statement.
ReplyDelete"You wouldn’t be able to drive a car without a license."
Not true, people do it everyday.