Althouse: "This killer’s father is now lecturing us on the need for gun control and he says he has no idea how or where his son got the guns."

October 6, 2015

"This killer’s father is now lecturing us on the need for gun control and he says he has no idea how or where his son got the guns."

"Of course he doesn’t know. You know why he doesn’t know? Because he is not, and has never been in his son’s life. He’s a complete failure as a father, he should be embarrassed to even show his face in public. He’s the problem here."

Wrote Bobby Jindal in a post titled "We fill Our Culture With Garbage, And We Reap The Result," which I read because Talking Points Memo was trashing it. Josh Marshall said: "Bobby Jindal appears to be a seriously disturbed, morally degenerate individual."

61 comments:

Gahrie said...: Based on your quotes...I agree totally with Bobby.; 10/6/15, 6:09 PM
Gahrie said...: Having gone and read Bobby's article, I still totally agree with him.; 10/6/15, 6:11 PM
rcocean said...: Someone needs to look into his relationship with the Kid. He's a white Englishman who immigrated to California with his Black wife. Then got divorced in 2006 and never saw his son again.

BTW, every Limey who's lived in the USA - at least since Kipling - has been in favor of gun control. Typical dumb English, they can't imagine why what's good for England might be bad for the USA.; 10/6/15, 6:13 PM
Fandor said...: ZIP IT BRIT!; 10/6/15, 6:20 PM
Sam L. said...: As if we'd believe TPM.; 10/6/15, 6:23 PM
CStanley said...: Ouch, the truth hurts. To qualify that a bit, I don't know if there is any explanation other than neglect for this father's absence, but unless there was some very extenuating circumstance, Jindal is right. Boys need fathers, and those with psychological problems even more so.; 10/6/15, 6:24 PM
chickelit said...: Didn't Josh Marshall have an absentee father? If so, then maybe the truth hits a little too close for comfort.; 10/6/15, 6:28 PM
Diamondhead said...: I know a newly minted English PhD who's spent the last week posting arguments for gun control on facebook. Then I happened to see he'd commented on a discussion about how to teach kids to stand up to bullies that if parents taught their kids not to bully it would be a non-issue. In some circles it's also considered inappropriate to teach girls to defend themselves against possible rapists for the same reason. Maybe the same should go for murder? No need to bother with gun control.; 10/6/15, 6:28 PM
Geoff Matthews said...: The divorce happened in 2006. That was 9 years ago. Chris Harper-Mercer was 26 when he murdered these people. That's 9 years ago, when Chris was 17.
How do you not keep in contact with your adult son?; 10/6/15, 6:28 PM
Abdul Abulbul Amir said...: Another fatherless young man commits mass murder. Quick, let's talk about inanimate objects.; 10/6/15, 6:28 PM
Unknown said...: Most of the recent "mass shooters" were fatherless young men. Maybe we should ban single motherhood?; 10/6/15, 6:30 PM
chickelit said...: Typical dumb English, they can't imagine why what's good for England might be bad for the USA.

They don't don't even know what's good for themselves as more people get hacked to death in the streets over there while their helpless "men" look on.; 10/6/15, 6:33 PM
Michael K said...: "they can't imagine why what's good for England might be bad for the USA."

I'm not ready to acknowledge that it is good for the English (as opposed to the British, which includes all the Pakistanis).

Crime is spiking and the police are clueless. A homeowner was arrested for chasing some vandals with a piece of lumber after they threw rocks in his windows. When I was there a few years ago, a well-to-do man was murdered when he opened his doors to two thugs in Chelsea.

My friends live in a south coast city and, as they pointed out, "if you see a brown face on the street, it will be a doctor from the NHS hospital in town." The white English are self segregating to the south east if they can afford it or to southern France where the English ex-patriots are taking over villages abandoned by the declining French population.; 10/6/15, 6:40 PM
pm317 said...: Yeah, Jindal is the disturbed and morally degenerate here. Not the absentee father who didn't know what was going on in his son's life.; 10/6/15, 6:43 PM
Phil 314 said...: I appreciate Marshall's detailed and we'll thought out rebuttal.; 10/6/15, 6:50 PM
Skeptical Voter said...: I dunno, it's always appeared to me that Josh Marshal is a seriously disturbed morally degenerate putz, Bless His Heart. [The all purpose Southern euphemism which excuses any slanderous description of another human being).

Actually I'm beginning to wonder whether any person on the left can argue other than in an ad hominem fashion, accompanied by a lot of smoke from burning straw men.

Jindal was a little vigorous in his denunciaton but he is neither disturbed (the Oregon shooter was) nor morally degenerate. And Josh Marshal is not necessarily disturbed or morally degenerate, he's just more your garden variety liberal putz.; 10/6/15, 6:50 PM
Marty Keller said...: Josh Marshall makes no case whatsoever for his characterization of Gov. Jindal. He's obviously just singing to the choir, which is all TPM does anyway. As Skeptical Voter notes, ad hominem invective, "accompanied by a lot of smoke from burning straw men," is the MO of most of the Left, whose moral turpitude results from abandonment of reason to an ever-increasing klaxon of emotional violence designed to browbeat opponents into acquiescence. If Jindal was "a little vigorous in his denunciation" that's increasingly necessary in the cacophonous world our lefty friends have created.; 10/6/15, 7:03 PM
Freder Frederson said...: Crime is spiking and the police are clueless.

Well it would be awful if it was, but it isn't. You and chickelit are full of shit.; 10/6/15, 7:07 PM
JCC said...: I watched the video of the father raniting about guns...none of this would have been possible iof guns were not so available, etc. He didn't say anything about the long-standing mental illness that apparently went untreated and unremarked - at least by him - and that the family didn't seem to think anything was wrong with granting the son access to 14 expensive firearms that pretty clearly weren't purchased on the salary of an LPN.

By the way, the reporter didn't seem to question the father much over the inherent contradictions in the rant, that is, so much concern now, but so little prior.

So I'd say the criticism is legitimate. If the absentee father wants to jump in, this is a full contact debate. And TPM falls somewhere between Pravda and Salon as a reasonable source of commentary.

This thread is kind of an echo chamber though, isn't it? Maybe I should create a new identity and post a New Age Bolshie or something, so we have someone to bash.; 10/6/15, 7:10 PM
Marty Keller said...: "You and chickelit are full of shit." More ad hominem invective from the Left. How's it feel to be motivated by rage 24/7, FF? Certainly hope you don't own a gun.; 10/6/15, 7:17 PM
Sebastian said...: Yes, it's true, in Prog universe saying the obvious is degenerate.; 10/6/15, 7:21 PM
Freder Frederson said...: More ad hominem invective from the Left.

Stating that someone is full of shit when they don't know what they are talking about is not ad hominem. It is a simple statement of fact. Check the link I provided.; 10/6/15, 7:28 PM
Etienne said...: I would sign up to Jindal's Crusade if he wanted a Crusade.

I've served less competent warlords.

Insane people should not free-range. Especially if they are armed. We can lobotomize them and the country can then move into the 21st Century.; 10/6/15, 7:33 PM
Freder Frederson said...: How's it feel to be motivated by rage 24/7, FF? Certainly hope you don't own a gun.

This, on the other hand, is a perfect example of an ad hominem attack.; 10/6/15, 7:35 PM
Michael K said...: Oh if Freder says so...

"The large rise in rapes and other sexual offences was partly due to increases in offences involving children, according to statisticians. The police figures record 13,090 sexual offences involving a child under the age of 13 in 2013, the highest reported total for a decade, and an increase of 32% on the previous 12 months. They include a 54% increase in rapes and sexual assaults on boys under 13 which rose from 1,775 to 2,727 last year. The number of sexual attacks on girls under 13 rose by 25% to 7,611 last year."

That doesn't matter, Freder. No mass shootings.

idiot. Oh, and I checked it,

Idiot.; 10/6/15, 7:38 PM
traditionalguy said...: Jindal knows his subject.

It is a hoot that the trained gun nut is not to blame, says his family who supported his fantasy, because the guns should have been banned for everyone so they would never have to say no to their son who owned them.; 10/6/15, 7:55 PM
Michael said...: Ok, control the guns. Let's start with Chicago which has some of the toughest gun laws in the country. Let's all work together to make them tougher than tough and maybe even a tad tougher than that. Like super duper tough. Let's try that. Let's test drive Chicago as a good get-tough-on-guns place. Including, I hate to suggest this, that people get put in jail for a long time if they disobey the law.; 10/6/15, 7:57 PM
Freder Frederson said...: idiot. Oh, and I checked it,

But apparently you stopped as soon as you could salvage one point that appeared to back your contention that "Crime is spiking and the police are clueless".

The next two paragraphs read:

"Statisticians said that the rises reflected similar recent figures from the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, which attributed some of this increase to the impact of the Jimmy Savile case. They said that media coverage of Savile and the police investigation into historical sex crimes, Operation Yewtree, had prompted victims to come forward.

The 2013 crime figures are the first full-year data after the Savile disclosures, and the "Yewtree effect" is starting to decline, statisticians say. While allegations relating to current offences rather than historical allegations accounted for only 21% of the increase in the crime figures six months ago, they now account for 50% of the increase in this latest set."

idiot. Oh, and I checked it.

Idiot.; 10/6/15, 7:57 PM
Michael K said...: "While allegations relating to current offences rather than historical allegations accounted for only 21% of the increase in the crime figures six months ago, they now account for 50% of the increase in this latest set."

Idiot. Jesus you don't learn, do you ?; 10/6/15, 8:01 PM
phantommut said...: Jindal hit a nerve.; 10/6/15, 8:35 PM
phantommut said...: "Then I happened to see he'd commented on a discussion about how to teach kids to stand up to bullies that if parents taught their kids not to bully it would be a non-issue."

Because until we live in the perfect world, I will sacrifice the health and well-being of my child to the bad intentions of those not as morally evolved as myself.

The sad thing is it takes a lot of education to make people that stupid.; 10/6/15, 8:40 PM
JCC said...: @ Freder -

The figures you cite are for 2013, right? That was a low year everywhere, including in the US. However, there has been widespread and credible reporting in GB that the police have been fiddling with the crime statistics, and further, the CY 2014 early reporting shows a rather dramatic increase in all categories of violent crime. For instance, see here

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11362013/Violent-crime-surges-16-in-new-figures.html

but of course, there are plenty of other, reputable cites as well.

In addition, in GB, there is no right to remain silent, so no 5th A right as we know it. Neither is there a 4A right as we know it against search and seizure (The cops don't need a judicial warrant to search a home, for instance). A homeowner has no right of self-defense, but rather, has an affirmative duty to retreat in the face of an intruder, and could face charges if the burglar is injured. There is no 1A right to a free press, as the government can order the media to not to print or publish in cases of national security. Free speech is another right we enjoy that has a somewhat tenuous understanding in GB, as hate speech, verbal or written, is criminalized.

So perhaps your defense should be tempered with some details first. GB has lots of problems.

How about this? "Save a Life. Surrender Your Knife" So, banning guns aren't enough. Now, it's banning anything with a blade.

http://surrenderyourknife.co.uk/support/police-force/

What's next? Cricket bats? Tennis rackets? Cars?; 10/6/15, 8:40 PM
JCC said...: @ Freder -

And thank you for posting. This thread was altogether too sane and polite.; 10/6/15, 8:43 PM
The Godfather said...: My first reaction to Jindal's statement was that I wished that the Pope had said it, or someone else who wasn't seeking political office. I figured that a Jeremiad like this would end any politician's career.

On the other hand, this is a strange time in politics. An out-of-nowhere Socialist senior citizen is challenging the anointed of the Democratic Party. A reality TV show star continues to lead the Republican polls. Maybe an Indian-American evangelical Jeremiah will turn out to be who Americans have been looking for.

Anyway, he's at least 90% correct about the mass murderer and his "father", so I'm glad he spoke up.; 10/6/15, 9:01 PM
CWJ said...: If I cared enough to click through, perhaps I might come up with a logical progression from Althouse's quoted title and first sentence to her final Josh Marshall quote, but for the life of me I don't see how you get from A to B. I'm open to an explanation. Perhaps Freder now that he has reached the ripe old age of 30 might provide one.; 10/6/15, 9:18 PM
Static Ping said...: Josh Marshall is not big on content these days, huh?; 10/6/15, 9:27 PM
William said...: I think both parents screwed up monumentally. He's an absentee father, and the mother, eerily like Adam Lanza's mother, thought that encouraging her flaky son to own and shoot guns would help him with his mental problems.......If there is one useful lesson to be learned from these cases it is that mothers should not buy their children guns if they're acting sullen and withdrawn.; 10/6/15, 9:27 PM
Big Mike said...: Did Josh Marshall even bother to read what Jindal wrote? Because there's nothing there that is in any way exceptional. I imagine that Marshall basically assumed that if a Republican wrote it then it must be wrong and the writer must be s degenerate.; 10/6/15, 9:36 PM
hombre said...: Josh Marshall thinks Jindal is a moral degenerate? Jindal is an observer of evil. Marshall is a moral relativist who wants to put it to a vote - of one.

"War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength." Orwell, 1984.; 10/6/15, 9:48 PM
Gahrie said...: Maybe I should create a new identity and post a New Age Bolshie or something, so we have someone to bash.

Don't bother. Comrade Cookie will be along before too long.; 10/6/15, 10:10 PM
Michael K said...: I would have been more polite to Freder if he hadn't been so nasty about shit and things like that.; 10/6/15, 10:14 PM
retail lawyer said...: What kind of parent names their son Josh anyway?; 10/6/15, 10:36 PM
cubanbob said...: Marshall and Co. would rather strip the rights of tens of millions of peaceful law abiding Americans rather than deal with a few thousand free-range nutters. All of these mass shooters who aren't terrorists are crazies and were known crazies but it would violate their rights to be on a do not sell guns to list as per the left. Lets start with gun control with Democrat politicians as in they don't get to have weapons and they don't get armed protection. None of them are that important. So if they get killed, no biggie. Its not like someone of value would be lost.; 10/6/15, 10:45 PM
Unknown said...: -Check the link I provided.

Right. The story said rapes are up 20 percent (the BBC says 29%). Oh wait, the Guardian says its up by 31%. And that’s probably religiously-based underreporting.

Oh.... its only rape.; 10/6/15, 10:46 PM
Anonymous said...: I don't understand. I thought believing in 26-year-old children was strictly an Obama thing.; 10/6/15, 11:24 PM
Kirk Parker said...: William,

"mothers should not buy their children guns if they're acting sullen and withdrawn."

That sentence is twice as long as it needs to be.

I have nothing against women and guns, mind you--I've taught many a woman to shoot and even helped a few pick out their first handgun--but if at all possible it's the father who should be involved in these endeavors with his sons.; 10/7/15, 1:32 AM
Derve Swanson said...: I liked the story Jindal shared about his father paying off the hospital bill for his child's birth on installments.

He paid... the bill.
He paid... the bill for his wife/woman to bear his child.

Just let that sink in a minute...
(Do those of you from the Baby Boom and up generation understand what that means? Less and less men pick up that tab for their baby's birth. The government pays for these children, from the start... from the mother's pregnancy vitamins all the way to the child coming "home".

We let the government pay for the children (hooray! hoooray! Up the Birthrate. Make a Baby! It's Good for the Country! They will take care of you in old age, and pay your Social Security. Society NEEDS these children, ANY children, no matter the family foundation...) from the start.

Except, the government is not there for the child, like a parent is...

God Bless Bobby Jindal's father, who loved his son, and provided for him, from the start. You can tell, in how Bobby turned out. Good thing he's dark, or some segments of the population would attribute this to "white privilege", not the fact that his family invested in their child, and didn't sit back and whine about how the government owed him something, or had too many non-regulated products that made the kid go bad...; 10/7/15, 3:03 AM
Achilles said...: The left needs to not call people moral degenerates.

A man goes into a gun free zone, line people up, and shoots the Christians in the head.

A hero charged the shooter and was shot 7 times. If he had a gun he would not have been shot and fewer people would have died.

If you are advocating for gun control after this incident you are the one who is morally depraved.; 10/7/15, 3:05 AM
iowan2 said...: we have feral kids roaming the streets, we reap what we sow.

What the federal govt (any govt) subsidizes we get more of. (Climate science ring any bells)
Paying single mothers to have babies........gets you more babies that have no father in the home. Why is anybody surprised cities like Chicago have areas that are 'Lord of the Flies' when that is exactly what the govt is paying for?
"I need a man like a fish needs a bicycle". Thats taken as a fact. It is 100% wrong, if in fact a women wants to raise children. A man is critical to the rearing of children. Today's situation on the ground proves that. Intact homes rear the best children. Any model that deviates from that, produces black males that shoot up colleges.; 10/7/15, 6:01 AM
damikesc said...: Well it would be awful if it was, but it isn't. You and chickelit are full of shit.

The UK assiduously ignores crimes to avoid cries of "racism". Rape of kids is a huge problem that they are still trying to ignore and the Left here is trying to normalize in sites like Salon.

Also, nice to see that disassembling a clock warrants a White House invite but taking 7 bullets to save others does not.; 10/7/15, 6:50 AM
Rusty said...: Michael said...
Ok, control the guns. Let's start with Chicago which has some of the toughest gun laws in the country. Let's all work together to make them tougher than tough and maybe even a tad tougher than that. Like super duper tough. Let's try that. Let's test drive Chicago as a good get-tough-on-guns place. Including, I hate to suggest this, that people get put in jail for a long time if they disobey the law.

Lets look at Detroit. Where the chief of police recommended that residents buy a gun.

But by all means blame the inanimate object.; 10/7/15, 7:38 AM
Michael K said...: Poor Freder. Leave him alone. He's been beaten up enough. He can't help being stupid.; 10/7/15, 7:41 AM
William said...: One should not undertake infringing on a constitutional right lightly - especially one so fundamental to the protection of our liberty. The argument that the only way to prevent these dreadful killings is to erode/limit our constitutional right to bear arms is too high a price to pay and could never be effective. Even if the government were to search each and every home in our country and confiscate every gun they could find a determined psychopath would still commit mass murder through poison gas, driving a car through a crowd, poisoning water supplies, bombings, or other means. And the millions of peaceful gun owners would be unnecessarily deprived of an effective self defense to all the threats to our personal liberties.; 10/7/15, 7:57 AM
TrespassersW said...: Yes or no question: Do individuals have a fundamental right to defend themselves, their loved ones, and their property?; 10/7/15, 8:23 AM
James Pawlak said...: If we consider the murderous outcome of their parenting, neither the father nor the mother should be considered credible witnesses in this or any human behavior matter.; 10/7/15, 9:08 AM
Kyzer SoSay said...: I would rather chew off my tongue millimeter by millimeter than click on a link directed at TPM. Of all the lefty sites out there, they are one of the least deserving of traffic.; 10/7/15, 10:34 AM
Cruising Troll said...: One thing I'd like to point out. It's not a defense of THIS particular father (I don't know the circumstances), but of fathers in general.

The d'bag's parents were married. Then one of them got a divorce. The odds are it was the mother. 70% of divorces are sought by the wife. It is therefore more likely that the father was absent BECAUSE THE MOTHER KICKED HIM TO THE CURB, not because he bailed. (Note: the probability that "he deserved it" is balanced out by the probability that he divorced her "for cause", i.e. it's a wash, so don't waste time going down that path.) It is, of course, unthinkable that watching his mother betray his father is going to have any adverse impact on a 17 year old boy's perspective on relationships with women. Nor can such an experience possibly contribute to him having no girlfriends.

Right?

So, while it is certainly possible that this d'bag had a father that was/is a POS who is, after the d'bag himself, the individual most responsible for screwing up the d'bag, tis not the most likely scenario.; 10/7/15, 1:18 PM
Fred Drinkwater said...: Roy, I answered that question years ago this way: "I have the right to defend myself. I have the right and responsibility to defend those who depend on me."; 10/7/15, 1:22 PM
Fred Drinkwater said...: But as it happens, the only time this was really an issue for me, it was about a complete stranger.; 10/7/15, 1:23 PM
Lydia said...: Interesting piece here about the "rise of the militant narcissist" being the cause of these mass murders -- an excerpt:

"So, no, the problem here isn’t about guns, or guns’ availability. It’s the problem of a culture in which the worst narcissistic personality traits are being nurtured, a culture in which children and young people are encouraged to believe their self-esteem is paramount, that they are entitled to affirmation and praise, and undeserving of criticism and rejection; a culture in which what matters above all else is one’s self-identity, and screw those who fail to affirm and respect it. This isn’t a problem confined to the US. In the UK, too, it’s possible to glimpse a mass-shooter mentality in the young narcissists flirting with the Islamic State, and al-Qaeda before it. Their knowledge of Islam may be shallow, but their craving for affirmation, and perception of slights, of offence, is profound.

To focus on gun culture is to miss the real the problem in our midst – the rise of the militant narcissist, the individual to whom the world must be a mirror, no matter what."; 10/7/15, 2:21 PM
Nichevo said...: Just for the record, this schmuck helped produce a mass murderer, I think all opprobrium should be first on him and the brood sow or whatever is the analog of the splooge stooge. Let them eat dirt. Kindly don't produce murderers!; 10/7/15, 5:11 PM