Clearly, we cannot sit by and hope this situation will improve. How many more deaths will it take before someone does something?It's time for a conversation and perhaps a commission... about common sense control....
I know what you're thinking: Free societies are inherently messy. And what about the First Amendment?
I'm not suggesting we completely abolish the media. But perhaps we should curtail it. Isn't it time for some common sense media control?
December 17, 2012
"The founding fathers never envisioned the damage that could be done by a 24-hour news cycle."
"The media incentivizes killers by giving them attention, and they put innocent people in danger."
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I propose a ban on mentions of the perp's name, and displays of his picture.
WE MUST DO SOMETHING!!!
Isn't it time for some common sense media control?
No. Next question.
Phil said...
I propose a ban on mentions of the perp's name, and displays of his picture.
There's a precedent - sports broadcasts cut away when some idiot runs onto the playing field.
The problem with the 24 hour news cycle is that they have a lot of airtime to fill, most often with nothing other than rampant speculation and uninformed opinion. There's something to be said for actually waiting until you know something is true before reporting it. Nah, who am I kidding?
WE MUST DO SOMETHING!!!
Lots of hand-wringing at times like this, that's the ticket!
The left also loves the terms "media policing" and "gatekeepers."
Hear about that a lot on FB.
Oh, for the good old days of 1966 when there were only three TV networks, and they all read the NY Times in the morning and broadcast the NYT stories at night!
We also need to confront the school system.
If the kids were not so tightly packed and congregated, there would not have been a tragedy like this.
Indeed, any gathering of any kind over ten people should likely be tightly regulated, as it is in places like that where all these tragedies occur.
Clearly we need to stop reporting school shootings. And while we're at it we should stop reporting on wars too. And all violent acts. Obviously we can't be responsible for our own actions.
Sorry for the reductio ad absurdum, but I get tired of this being brought up after every incident. There is no comfortable, easy solution to deal with situations like these.
Professor Althouse, I'm not sure whether you got punked or if you get that this article is satire and are endorsing it's specious point.
It's time to rethink the 1st Amendment as hard as liberals are trying to ban the 2nd.
My idea on media. Shame them. Use that to increase their internal limiters on what they say.
Doubt it would work well. But, the answer to free speech is supposed to be more free speech.
Oh and lest you call me crazy, when I go to lib blogs I keep seeing calls to ban the 2nd very explicitly.
Maybe Larry King can have a special on media coverage, special guests will be the reporter who leaked the anguished woman photo.
Part of the problem now is even when people go outside their homes they can take their tv's and internet and cell phones, etc. w/them.
A vicious cycle as going outside to smell the roses is a distant memory for many ...
shiloh - GET OFF MY LAWN YOU YOUNG INTERNET SAVVY WHIPPERSNAPPERS!
Part of the problem now is even when people go outside their homes they can take their tv's and internet and cell phones, etc. w/them.
I blame Netflix.
Free press is the issue.
This is a dangerous bait and switch. The Internet is target for rational regulation numero uno of all the imaginary hoax purveyors working for the Governments. It is the un-trickable watchdog they fear.
The TV images are interesting and what we seem to watch in a crisis when they are good sources at raw footage levels prior to editing for narrative creation 30 minutes later.
So TV excesses will be shown to us as an excuse to shut down free internet expressions.
That is a law of Governmental Power. Like the Law of Gravity, it never goes away.
Imagine all of the sycophancy and boot-licking found in editorial departments nationwide codified into law!
Quelle horreur!
I agree that this is one of the issues that this tragedy has exposed, that needs to be addressed. At least at the local news level, could they not lose the "if it bleeds, it leads" mentality, by putting those kind of stories into a 5-minute news block at the end of the newscast? Or something similar? This would de-emphasize this kind of news, while still getting the information out there.
Alex said...
It's time to rethink the 1st Amendment as hard as liberals are trying to ban the 2nd.
The problem with advancing this as a potential threat to leftists interests is that left already believes in commmon sense restrictions to the first amendment, as long as you understand common sense restriction to mean whatever is in their interest at that particular moment.
"It's time to have a national conversation... about the media."
Good. That means we're all done with our national conversation about race.
if it bleeds, it leads" mentality, by putting those kind of stories into a 5-minute news block at the end of the newscast? Or something similar? This would de-emphasize this kind of news, while still getting the information out there.
They could have the Bad News Desk, where the bad news anchor (Peter Finch?) would relay all of the awful news stories of the day.
Or here's a novel thought: Stop watching.
What an elaborate set of dance steps we resort to in hopes of avoiding the simple answer of: In case of a murderous gunman - shoot him first.
Or at least second, but let's stop waiting for him to do it himself as his curtain closer. How pathetic is it that mass murders have to kill themselves, because nobody else shows up with a gun?
Only a modern society with lots of well educated people would struggle with this while their children get massacred.
Interesting "media" question with 1.5 million android devices selling a day. All of which automatically upload pictures and video to your Google account. Wait 5 years and most will have a Google Glass attachment sold with them.
At that point we will be ever present at every event.
You want first person view of that accident a mile from your house? Wait 5 minutes it will be online from 5 different angles.
Want to see what the people in the theater saw before they were killed? Wait 5 minutes and you can watch it from the perspective of 10 different people.
The good: sharing experiences with family and friends.
The bad: sharing horrors with all of us train crash watchers.
A BBC interview with an American forensic psychiatrist after a German school massacre.
I could do without whoever edited in the music to the interview.
I've often thought that the media should embargo any mention of the killer's name or photo, or at least if one is to publish the name do so discreetly. Otherwise it gives them all of the fame they sought.
This may not be applicable to whackos though.
But it has to be voluntary, like the sports venue streakers and such.
Simple solution:
Remove the current exemption, for politicians and public figures, from the libel and slander laws.
That ought to improve things right quick.
The Progressives, especially, would be quickly disarmed, and the Media would immediately get much more careful.
The problem is that Liberals would probably agree with you about revoking the first two Amendments.
The media overplays this stuff. It desensitizes us to hear about over and over again. Like listening to someone retell a horrible accident story or horrible illness story again and again and again.
Let's get rid of that scary freedom of the press quick because it's messy and chaotic and...and...it's NOT SAFE!
It doesn't matter. Mass shootings are a very very very tiny blip in the death rate, completely unnoticeable.
Lightning will get you several times over first.
Its problem is it attracts women viewers, and displaces any public debtate with their twaddle interests.
"It's time for a conversation and perhaps a commission... about common sense control..."
No way, lets talk about gun control, yeah that's the ticket.
Other than Althouse, I haven't seen anything about the lack of treatment for the mentally ill, just gun control.
EMD said...
Or here's a novel thought: Stop watching.
This hits the nail on the head. As long as it brings in viewers, the networks will do it.
Nothing exceeds a commission in taking up time and space and maybe issuing a report, after which nothing more happens.
It doesn't matter. Mass shootings are a very very very tiny blip in the death rate, completely unnoticeable.
Lightning will get you several times over first.
I think this view completely underestimates the trauma done to the community, not to mention entire groups of friends and family.
There was a book back in the 70's by ??? that suggested a media strategy wrt terrorism: treat them as clowns and downplay the damage. It suggested the whole point of Black September hijackings and airport shootings was to grab headlines, and denying them those headlines (and/or using the headlines to demean them) would make the tactic unproductive. You can't scare people if the media paint you in a clown face every time.
Maybe something like that, here.
I think this view completely underestimates the trauma done to the community, not to mention entire groups of friends and family.
Do you think a federal action, that may or may not ever address these outcomes, means more to the community than the actions of the community itself?
@rhhardin "Its problem is it attracts women viewers, and displaces any public debtate with their twaddle interests."
Don't know about that. I do know lots of women AND men got freaked out because it is a reminder that their child could be taken in a horrific manner. Nothing like looking at the pictures of murdered kids to make you fearful for your own kids.
And media knows this, so they show it. More eyes for more ads to sell.
Maybe any felony committed with a firearm should get the death penalty.
Iroquois style.
denying them those headlines (and/or using the headlines to demean them) would make the tactic unproductive. You can't scare people if the media paint you in a clown face every time.
But to our J-school friends, these are heroic freedom-fighters lashing out against the man, or the system, or injustice!
Quite the opposite to what you suggest.
...It's time for a conversation and perhaps a commission... about common sense control....
And the conversation will be meaningful.
The Republicans ought to offer a block grant for mental health to states that require their mental health professionals to report potentially dangerous clients, not just those who announce imminent harm.
As Ann said a couple days ago, we need crazy person control more than gun control.
Maybe any felony committed with a firearm should get the death penalty.
Doesn't address the Adam Lanzas of the world, who seek death via their crimes.
See "Ethical Problems of Mass Murder Coverage in the Mass Media," Journal of Mass Media Ethics 9:1 [Winter, 1993-94] 26-42.
An examination of the way in which statistically disproportionate coverage of mass murders by Newsweek and Time encouraged at least one copycat crime, and may have caused others. First Place, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Ethics Prize, 1993.
Go look at the British.
Now days CCTV spies are EVERYWHERE. You are banned from having any 'offensive' weapon, and that includes folding knives that have lock back blades. You do NOT have the right to remain silent. You can be jailed for quite a long time without charges.
They have lost their 2nd and FIRST Amendment rights (well they never had them really as they are 'subjects' not CITIZENS.)
And yes, we are slowly going the same route. All in the name of safety (but now in the U.K. gun 'crimes' are up 100 percent, muggings up, thefts up, and spying by the police is up.
Oh yes, and they have UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE.... and they let them DIE slowly in the hospitals.
Remember folks the BILL of RIGHTS is there for a reason. Loose that and you will be SLAVES. And the 2nd Amendment protects all the others.
We can take back our government, the Brits can't. They, after all, are 'subjects'.
When you have ex-Marines like Mark Shields saying automatic weapons are easy to buy, you know the fix is in. They are HAVING a conversation, and they are lying through their teeth. Why do you expect them to change? They're winning.
Well, Mr. Matt K. Lewis, what did you think about Journolist members? If we're going to have a conversation, how about controlling media members that are willing to push forth a though/idea, even if it isn't true. Clean up your own act first.
WE MUST DO SOMETHING!!!
You left out ..for the children!
They have lost their 2nd and FIRST Amendment rights
and 4th and 5th as well. Still no danger of troop-quartering, though.
Paddy says:
"We also need to confront the school system.
If the kids were not so tightly packed and congregated, there would not have been a tragedy like this.
Indeed, any gathering of any kind over ten people should likely be tightly regulated, as it is in places like that where all these tragedies occur."
I know you are kidding, but your point is a good one. We need to regulate weirdos, misfits and losers, too.
My wife is extrememly emotionally distraught over this. Three of our kids go to Catholic grade school, one goes to public high school. She's ready to consider any option that prevents anything similar. Taking all guns away, metal detectors at every entrance, etc. She knew she was not thinking rationally, and admitted it. I was a good listener and only sparingly offered opinions. Yet, in conclusion, I think I convinced her that the only fail-safe solution for kids to be safe in schools from a crazed gunman intent of killing an entire class is home schooling. That is not a viable society-wide solution to a society-wide problem. The practical realities of the current educational and socialization system require kids to be compartmentalized and wedged into very tiny desk-spaces.
Personally, I loathe being packed in any space with too many other humans. Malls, theaters, stadiums, even church pews make me edgy. I was in NYC three years ago and felt suffocated by the density of ultra-urban life. Downtown Milwaukee is a relative haven of Lebensraum.
I always look around and think where I would move to, climb, or otherwise escape from a lone threat or a crowd-panic stampede when I am wedged into crowd situations. I factor into my plan the number of family members I am with, their physical abilities, and adjust accordingly. I've never had to use my escape-ability yet, but better to be prepared than not. I don't own, much less carry, but I am rethinking that choice.
How can the media not fully report the mass murder of 26 innocent people, including twenty children?
You really want them to put that story at the end of the news broadcast following the weather report?
METEOROLOGIST: "So while we'll see some rain showers in the next day or two, after that it will be warm and sunny."
NEWSCASTER: "Sounds good! Before we go, we might just mention that 20 young children were gunned down in a school in Connecticut...."
How can the media not fully report the mass murder of 26 innocent people, including twenty children?
You really want them to put that story at the end of the news broadcast following the weather report?
METEOROLOGIST: "So while we'll see some rain showers in the next day or two, after that it will be warm and sunny."
NEWSCASTER: "Sounds good! Before we go, we might just mention that 20 young children were gunned down in a school in Connecticut...."
You see how this works. A horrendous and horrific murder of very young children and their teachers occur, and then the post traumatic assessment is that we have to do something. The do something disease starts to rear its ugly head and in this case, it isn't the request to curtail the 2nd amendment, now it's to go after the first. Fascists everywhere would be proud.
How about the national media display some initiative in responsibility and instead of rushing to be first to report, that they actually exercise some restraint and back off a bit to be somewhat objective and get some kinds of facts. They can easily report that a shooting took place, but they can withhold details until they can corroborate them. What that would do is make them look like actual journalistic professionals trying to bring you the facts to the best of their abilities, but what it also does is temper the emotional component and depoliticize the event. No one loses their 1st amendment rights, people can react somewhat rationally while absorbing the horror of it all, and they wouldn't look like sensationalist vultures either.
Will that happen? Nope, but it's a nice sentiment anyway.
The only way to stop someone from carrying out a murder-suicide fantasy is to provide reasonable suspicion that more than one person is armed at their chosen target location.
It doesn't have to be all. It doesn't even have to be a majority.
Just the fairly certain probability that 1-3 people at a chosen target location will be able to respond and kill the violent fantasizer before he can accomplish his goals would be enough to get him to look somewhere else.
And if concealed carry is broad and open enough that there is no place that the thug can be reasonably sure no one will fire back, then he'll choose some other way to end his life.
It would help if the media would highlight successful defensive gun uses, like at that Denver Church, and when someone with a gun stopped someone from a knife-slashing rampage, and other such incidents.
But our news media is suffering from a form of regulatory capture, a Stockholm Syndrome scenario where the objectives of the liberal politicians have been fully embraced by the journalists who are supposed to cover them with at least a modicum of adversary spirit.
...but I like that reminder that the best response to bad speech is more speech.
Because the analogy that follows is the best way to stop the murderous use of guns is more guns.
btw, does anyone know if there were any men working at that school on the day of the shooting?
I know there were several adults. Seems a bit odd, a disparate impact, if you will, if they were all women.
commission for common sense control
beautiful
but what kind of peoples would want to serve on such a commission
i rather think though george orwell might be grinning in his grave.
There's a precedent - sports broadcasts cut away when some idiot runs onto the playing field.
I always thought that was the wrong approach. There's more of a deterrent factor in seeing the drunk idiot being laid out flat by a 250-lb linebacker.
"I know what you're thinking: Free societies are inherently messy. And what about the First Amendment?"
That is pretty much what I'm thinking!
"I'm not suggesting we completely abolish the media. But perhaps we should curtail it."
That certainly creates an utopian image, but utopian thinking is for liberal fascists.
Say, whatever happened to all those manly liberals who were urging us to shrug off 9/11?
the other thing is no one WANTS to hear what works against such violence.
Teamwork.
Example one - and this was to occur on THE SAME DAY as the event in CT
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/12/15/a-second-mass-shooting-avoided-on-friday/
This is quite sensible.
After all, much as the 2nd Amendment was written in the time of muskets and not semi-automatic pistols the 1st Amendment was written in the time of newspapers and not CNN and MSNBC.
I would like to reach out to my brothers on the left. I will happily agree to their bans on weapons that did not exist in 1792 when they agree to my ban on information sources other than newspapers, books, and pamphlets.
Let us not apply rights developed for the technology of 1792 to the technology of 2012.
Similarly, means of search other than direct physical search are clearly not restricted by the Fourth Amendment. Those benighted founders had no idea of speed radar, thermal imaging, and so on. Clearly restrictions on searches couldn't have meant to include those things as they didn't exist.
This is fun. Wonder what other things I can make okay by this logic.
Nathan Alexander said...
the best way to stop the murderous use of guns is more guns.
Thoughtful piece re this position in the December issue of The Atlantic, "The Case for More Guns (And More Gun Control)". Excerpt:
"I am sympathetic to the idea of armed self-defense, because it does often work, because encouraging learned helplessness is morally corrupt, and because, however much I might wish it, the United States is not going to become Canada. Guns are with us, whether we like it or not. Maybe this is tragic, but it is also reality. So Americans who are qualified to possess firearms shouldn’t be denied the right to participate in their own defense. And it is empirically true that the great majority of America’s tens of millions of law-abiding gun owners have not created chaos in society.
A balanced approach to gun control in the United States would require the warring sides to agree on several contentious issues. Conservative gun-rights advocates should acknowledge that if more states had stringent universal background checks—or if a federal law put these in place—more guns would be kept out of the hands of criminals and the dangerously mentally unstable. They should also acknowledge that requiring background checks on buyers at gun shows would not represent a threat to the Constitution."
encouraging learned helplessness is morally corrupt
Or here's a novel thought: Stop watching.
My thoughts exactly. I hardly turned on the TV all weekend. When I did, the media just looked like clowns. They interviewed an aquaintence of the shooter's brother who was able to inform us that he didn't even know his friend had a brother. Very helpful.
Its a form of twisted entertainment - like when people go out of their houses to watch when an emergency vehicle stops in front of a neighbor's house, or when people slow down to get a good look at an accident scene.
I caution my daughter on such occasions: people don't want you staring at them at their worst moments.
Its different if you are able to assist or provide actual help, but that's not what most people are doing. They are just interested to see what's happening.
If you want stay informed, wait for the facts to solidify, then read or watch someone reputable recount the facts.
IMHO
Why does everyone get so crazy about the mass killings?
I've posted this before, but 13,000 Americans are murdered every year. That's many, many, many more than the twenty or so that are killed now and then in these group settings.
If we are concerned about children, swimming pools are regular killing-and-disabling machines:
A swimming pool is 14 times more likely than a motor vehicle to be involved in the death of a child age 4 and under.
An estimated 5,000 children ages 14 and under are hospitalized due to unintentional drowning-related incidents each year; 15 percent die in the hospital and as many as 20 percent suffer severe, permanent neurological disability.
Yes, I'm horrified when some disturbed guy goes into a crowd and shoots up a bunch of people, especially if the victims are children. If there were some straightforward way to prevent these mass killings, I'd be for it, but I don't see any realistic method available.
z52 said...
How can the media not fully report the mass murder of 26 innocent people, including twenty children?
You really want them to put that story at the end of the news broadcast following the weather report?
METEOROLOGIST: "So while we'll see some rain showers in the next day or two, after that it will be warm and sunny."
NEWSCASTER: "Sounds good! Before we go, we might just mention that 20 young children were gunned down in a school in Connecticut...."
It's true that they have to report stories like this. I just wish they had the responsibility to actually find out some facts before broadcasting them to the world. Remember back to last Friday and think about what we were being told at the time - most of it turned out to be inaccurate. I suspect that a great deal of what we think we know about the story right now is also inaccurate. It may be weeks before we really know what happened and we may never really know what caused him to do what he did. All we got last Friday were talking heads rumor-mongering and stating uninformed opinions.
The trouble is that current communication devices are just so much more efficient than those that our founding fathers knew. What we should do is just limit free speach to use of speach technologies that were available in 1787 (or their closest equivalents). Individuals today just have no need for the type of automatic information transmission devices currently available -- whis are of the same type and level of effectiveness as even our government uses.
If these kids were under my care all day, and parents left them with me expecting them to be safe, I would refuse the job unless I could be armed or have armed staff always available. It doesn't matter that it is rare and a low probability, because 1) it's quite possible, 2) the result is horrendous, 3) Having some armed staff is very easy to accomplish. 4) They're my damned responsibility, and I'm not gonna stand by and watch some asshole kill them.
I don't know how school administrators and teachers can live with themselves if they don't change their suicidal and irresponsible approaches. The only reason they don't is ideological blindness. I think parents should hold some people responsible. They refused to take easy steps to protect those children from being murdered. Simply refused.
Dad used to say that when people were three generations off the farm thei common sense disappeared. Dad was right.
Easy way to control this media frenzy would be to ban commercials when spending more than 10 minutes per hour on killings. That should shut it down pronto--and in addition, prevent triggering homicidal fantasies in other deranged minds.
Easy way to control this media frenzy would be to ban commercials when spending more than 10 minutes per hour on killings. That should shut it down pronto--and in addition, prevent triggering homicidal fantasies in other deranged minds.
Show me the links between commercial sponsorship of news programming, the news programming itself, and homicidal fantasies in other deranged minds.
turn the fucking tv off if you don't like it.
It's just like libtards bitching about Fat Gasfuck-turn the radio station if you don't want to listen to the fat fuck.
I don't think it's perverse to want to know the killer's name and see their picture. I think that is part of a valid news report.
I have a high tolerance for listening to terrible news, but even I had to shut this down over the weekend. Every time I turned on the news, there was a news conference in progress or one waiting to happen. It was just too much. I don't think the news should be government regulated, but an industry review of ethics and decency are certainly in order.
Totally realistic: Arming every school in America. Also, every hospital, day care center, movie theater, workplace, sporting event, etc etc etc
Totally realistic: Arming every school in America. Also, every hospital, day care center, movie theater, workplace, sporting event, etc etc etc
I do believe a number of people here think so, and wouldn't argue with you on that point.
Politicians and entertainers should show the way by giving up their guns and armed security. After a reasonable test period to assess the change in policy disarming the populace would follow if warranted.
The 1st Amendment is in just as much danger from this event as the 2nd.
A spokesman for the Newtown Police Force this morning claimed that the authorities would be prosecuting anybody who posted on social media sites information about the shooting that did not come from the police.
I don't believe he said exactly what law he figured they could be prosecuted for.
Question for the anti-gunners ...
Should politicians, movie stars, and television personalities with armed guards be forced to talk about gun control with the following disclaimer:
"I myself have had X number of body guards who carry guns to protect me."
Because it seems to me that they just might think that THEIR protectors should have guns. But, then complain that OUR protectors shouldn't have guns.
Curious.
@garage and phx
I seem to remember seeing armed people at professional and high school games. And at schools with a high risk of violence. And at hospitals. (Lots at hospitals because they seem to collect violent people at times ... odd that).
Wonder how hard it would be to have principles, vice-principles, and office staff to be trained in bear level pepper spray or weapons.
I'm not okay with regulation, by I am okay with lawsuits when it comes to the commercial media.
Simple solution:
Remove the current exemption, for politicians and public figures, from the libel and slander laws.
That ought to improve things right quick.
There is no such exemption.
Whether this is a parody or not, the point is that people need to exercise some self-control. Self-control can be taught and expected. If people won't or can't use self-control, then we are forced to control their murderous intent with our own deadly force.
Controlling the media is so far from the point it can barely be seen. Why should we take rights and freedoms away from everyone in the hope that a tiny fraction of a percent of people will be restrained by that? I think we have ample proof of the futility of that course of action.
garage mahal said...
Totally realistic: Arming every school in America. Also, every hospital, day care center, movie theater, workplace, sporting event, etc etc etc
Tubby McTubby, tell me again how the gun free zone works?
We need common sense ink control. No one needs more ink than what you get in a single ballpoint pen. And we should do something about the office supply store loophole, too.
In the words of Jackie Brown, everyone needs to shut their raggedy asses up and sit the fuck down.
This is getting absurd. Gun control is absurd. Curtailing the first amendment is absurd. The Connecticut shooting was a tragedy. Absurdity is not an appropriate response to tragedy. We don't pull unconscious bodies from pools and throw pies at them. Pieing unconscious people won't revive them. Spilling ink on ridiculous proposals won't resurrect the victims of Sandy Brook.
But it's about the future, right? Preventing the next massacre? By what means, sorcerer, are you going to predict the next one? If the press tamed its coverage and another shooting happens, what then? If you confiscate the gun of every law-abiding citizen and another shooting occurs, what then? Do you think someone intent on committing the ultimate sin will be repelled by the legal niceties of subordinate crimes? "I'd blow that fuckers head off, but I have to wait three days to buy and register a gun, so I won't."
Sit down. Shut up. Cool your goddamn jets. Everyone.
Now if you'll excuse my absence, I'm going to eat my soup and sandwich. And if--God forbid--I choke on my spoon and die, and the newspaper reports on the tragedy of my spoon-induced death, somebody, please, speak on my behalf and proclaim: "Say no to spoon control! He would not have wanted this!"
"Totally realistic: Arming every school in America. Also, every hospital, day care center, movie theater, workplace, sporting event, etc etc etc "
No, just the ones where the person in charge takes their responsibility seriously.
My workplace is armed. Sporting events have armed staff. Many theaters and other public places have armed guards.
What do you think is easier, allowing authorized permitted people to have arms at their place or work, or trying to prevent everyone from being armed at all times in all these places. We already see what happens with your approach.
I'd like you to explain to the mourning parents how, although it would be easy to have armed teachers, you just don't think it's worth it all the work of simply telling teachers they may be armed if they want. That's all it takes.
Tubby McTubby, tell me again how the gun free zone works?
Hopefully a gun free zone is any place with you in it.
Obama was sure quick to jump into the Sandy Hook shoot-up, but is yet to show any curiosity about Fast & Furious.
Seems to me that Sandy Hook is just the sort of thing that was anticipated , and was set
to be eagerly exploited to push for gun control, by Holder and the Fast & Furious program-hatchers - if only a Fast & Furious walked-gun had been found to be the murder weapon.
That is what is so criminal about Fast & Furious. They let the guns walk, not caring if they were subsequently used in a Sandy Hook type event.
Sons of bitches, every last one of them.
WE MUST DO SOMETHING!!!
Lots of hand-wringing at times like this, that's the ticket!
I clutch my pearls at you sir! Oh, wait. I don't have any pearls.
Never mind.
But it's about the future, right? Preventing the next massacre? By what means, sorcerer, are you going to predict the next one?
The Department of PreCrime is on the case. Or would be, if in fact it existed.
WE MUST DO SOMETHING!!!
I'll count us lucky if we don't get another TSA out of it.
It's time to have a national conversation about your ducts..
"The founding fathers never envisioned the damage that could be done in a 24 hour news cycle."
But they could and did envision the damage that can be done in limiting free speech. They could and did envision the damage that can be done when the right to bear arms is infringed. The founding fathers were well aware of human nature and they had historical perspective that they didn't try to deny.
Awesome satire by Matt Lewis. Hopefully (but not likely) this article will give some lefty media people the perspective to put greater value on liberty.
Wyo sis,
Great points (as usual). Our founding fathers were revolutionaries, they killed and were willing to be killed to wrest their freedom from a tyrannical government. They knew how important liberty is and that citizens need to be armed to preserve that blood stained liberty from oppressive governments (if need be).
It is pathetic and deplorable that lefties nowadays are so profoundly unwise that they are willing to throw away our liberties for illusory safety. It is amazingly stupid and/or cynical that lefties nowadays work so hard to inexorably increase the size and power of the fed gov and decrease our freedom. They have learned nothing from history.
I remember what finally turned me off about the 9/11 coverage (not the day of, because it was a live feed)was the interminable re-running of the same video footage, the same group speak flooding diarrhea-like across the airwaves and not lending anything. Endless speculation. Same on a smaller scale at Newtown. How about the networks running a fifteen minute broadcast every twelve hours with stuff that really is new. And confirmed, not the ridiculous and untrue rumors. That reminds me of the Katrina coverage. Utter BS from the likes of Anderson Cooper about massacres in the Superdome. And never a word of apology after. Smarmy Scott Pelley on CBS acknowledged the falsehoods the other night, but then tried to weasel out by saying "We were told." Sorry Scott. That's bad writing--too passive. You reported and we believed you and your falsehoods.
Herb Nowell, Lucien --
You're onto something here. Look, we don't let civilians own one of these--why should it be any different for one of these? They even work by the same principle--an electric motor driving the mechanism! What's worse, the big names in the latter type of machinery are ones like Heidelberg, Mergenthaler, Gestetner, etc... they're Germans! That's right, the same folks who started WWII. Clearly there's a problem here.
I think we need to adopt the position that all the first amendment protects is unamplified, non-broadcast speech, and printed materials produced on a hand-operated press. Then we'd be safe...
garage mahal,
Of course it's not realistic to "arm every xyz" using your favored statist approach. However, simply allowing those law-abiding adults to carry who want to will go a long way; the only things the government needs to do (in most states, that is, where the concepts of self-reliance haven't been totally and permanently destroyed) are:
1. Roll back any state-imposed gun-free zones, except the few that are actually necessary and reasonable (e.g. court facilities), and requiring metal detectors, gun-storage for carriers coming in, and adequate armed security to back up the checkpoints. (Washington state already does the first 2 fairly well, so it's not like we have zero experience at this sort of thing.)
2. Impose a regimen of strict liability for privately-mandated gun-free zones. That will shut down the stupid lawyer/insurance-company-driven mall/theater gun bans, just by the companies' financial interest, w/o the government having to be heavy-handed and actually ban gun-free zones.
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