Shorewood Hills Police Chief Aaron Chapin said Jonathan M. Fitzgerald, 35, activated a front door buzzer at the school, 1105 Shorewood Blvd., around 10 a.m., requesting access to the building. When he was allowed in, he walked past the school office where visitors are required to check in, Chapin said.Based only on those facts, I would assume that he was trying to demonstrate that the children are not safe, that a person with an actual gun would not have been stopped.
A staff member followed Fitzgerald as he went down the hall to the classroom his child was in, Chapin said. “Fitzgerald made statements to the teacher in the room about being an intruder who was allowed access to the school and gave the teacher a piece of cardboard with the word ‘gun’ on it,” Chapin said.
Chapin said Fitzgerald left the classroom and went to the administrative office where he made similar statements and handed staff another piece of cardboard with “gun” written on it, then left the school building.
He was arrested. On what charge? Disorderly conduct. That is defined in the Wisconsin statutes as "violent, abusive, indecent, profane, boisterous, unreasonably loud or otherwise disorderly conduct under circumstances in which the conduct tends to cause or provoke a disturbance." The statute goes on to specifically provide that "a person is not in violation of, and may not be charged with a violation of, this section for loading a firearm, or for carrying or going armed with a firearm or a knife, without regard to whether the firearm is loaded or the firearm or the knife is concealed or openly carried." But, of course, a piece of cardboard with the word "gun" written on it is not a firearm.
ADDED: Meanwhile, in Allen Parish, Louisiana, they got a search warrant against teenager who made a comment about the way the square root symbol looks like a gun.
"The students were working together, and a student made a math symbol of a square root sign, which kind of looks like a pistol. And he was helping a weaker student, and the student says, 'Well, that looks like a pistol!' And he just made a comment [like] 'let's just get to work before I shoot you with a pistol,” said Superintendent Doucet.
Gossip turned it into a rumor about the student plotting to carry out a mass shooting at Oberlin High School. The rumor warranted a search of the student's home for guns.
Posts
114 comments:
The Dad did the community a favor. The question now is what will the community do about it. My bet is on nothing.
Look at the effort that goes into keeping the president safe and even so they shoot one every now and then. It is a fantasy to believe that you can make a completely secure school with a reasonable level of resources.
He didn't expect to make a mistake.
He made one mistake, he didn't bring his lawyer with him, and he didn't record the entire experience.
Two mistakes, he made two mistakes.
He didn't bring his lawyer with him, and he didn't record the entire experience, and he didn't have press coverage.
Three mistakes! He made three mistakes.
He didn't bring his lawyer with him, and he didn't record the entire experience, and he didn't have press coverage and he was acting rationally in the face of a school teacher and a school administrator. FOUR!....
Next thing you know we'll have real shooters in that school, and there won't be any room for them because of all the mistakes made by amateurs like this guy.
He was an asshole, but he didn't deserve to be arrested.
Parents have been banned from campus in my district for less.
The delusion levels on this issue are genuinely extraordinary.
1. The weapons part of that statute are unconstitutional as per Wisconsin law.
2. "Disorderly Conduct" is, most often, a matter of "disturbing a police officer" or requiring such to "do work".
He demonstrated that the shortcomings of a government institution, a school. Therefore he must be punished.
"The delusion levels on this issue are genuinely extraordinary."
I agree and that may cost you in the fall election where you might have expected the usual rebound in the second year of a president's term.
We had an FBI agent give us a seminar on "active shooter" at the recruit center in LA where I used to work.
He began by walking in with a pistol in a holster on his belt. The MEPS had two security guards and they watched him walk in.
Half way through the session, which was quite good, he asked where the backup weapons are kept.
There were none.
The Seattle MEPS had serious threats from Muslims.
It was interesting to see how poorly prepared they were.
"It is a fantasy to believe that you can make a completely secure school with a reasonable level of resources."
True. It also is fantasy to believe you can make passenger vehicle completely safe. The fantasy has led to aspiration which has resulted in progress. For example seat belts, airbags, child restraints, crash testing to improve vehicle designs and materials, improvements in the way roads are designed and built, driver training, etc.
So Wisconsin doesn't accept the 1st Amendment? How is this not protected speech?
I guess he could have walked in with a piece of paper that said 'satchel charge',
'claymore' or 'flame thrower'. And therefore....??
He was arrested for making the authorities look bad. Since there’s no law against that, they trumped up a charge.
"He was arrested."
And rightfully so. A paper cut is the worst kind of cut.
Wait, was this Althouse’s Madison Man?
Maybe he was taken away in paper hand cuffs, with a smiley face on them.
Seriously, does this not show the shortcomings of the current security system? As in, no security at all.
In what world does the legal guardian of a child not get buzzed in? Asshole.
Even assholes get buzzed in.
Home of the brave...
Everyone is so scared, and all they have to do is make firewood out of the insane.
You can't fix/treat insanity with gun laws.
He should sue the school for aiding terrorists.
This comedy has already been filmed:
Destitute and in love, Virgil attempts to change his life in one bold stroke.
I, uh, am pointing a gut at you.
That looks like "gub",
it doesn't look like "gun".
No, it's "gub". That's a B.
No you see, it's an N... G-U-N.
Now all parents get to provide multiple forms of ID and get wanded, even when school staff recognize them personally as legal guardian.
My kids school would buzz me in and let me waltz past the second security door to my kids classroom as well. Thats what I would expect for any parent they know by sight.
"In what world does the legal guardian of a child not get buzzed in? Asshole.
Even assholes get buzzed in."
That's the key part of the story that's missing. Did the buzzer operator recognize the aforementioned person?
He should insist on a jury trial as an aid to diagnose the level of insanity of the community and the political machine.
Well, he was disruptive in terms of shaking them up. He wasn't threatening. He may have been a bit disruptive, but it was the least possible disruption to demonstrate what he did demonstrate, surely? Well, I guess it depends on his actual conduct.
Anyway, if you are worried about your child's safety, a misdemeanor charge is nothing. I wouldn't consider it a deterrent.
But if they recognized him as a parent and let him in, then what would be the fix he wants? A different procedure at the door? An armed person there scrutinizing ID? I think if I were this guy, I would have talked to the neighbors and gone to the next school board meeting to discuss the matter. That might have been more productive.
I would like to hear how he thinks this should work, in practice. Exactly what measures does he want the school to take?
"The students were working together, and a student made a math symbol of a square root sign, which kind of looks like a pistol. And he was helping a weaker student, and the student says, 'Well, that looks like a pistol!' And he just made a comment [like] 'let's just get to work before I shoot you with a pistol,” said Superintendent Doucet.
Okay, we have a pistol grip, but until π has a detachable magazine and a flash suppressor it's totally legal.
Now that his kid is pretending not to know him. Mr. Fitzgerald will no longer get buzzed in.
Please recall from The Fountainhead when Roark blows up the building - test for the society - are there any who are his peers ?or no?
Mark, if they recognized him as a parent, I would expect them to buzz him in, yes. One doesn't generally expect parents to come in to their kid's school and start to shoot the place up.
Well, now he's banned from his kid's entire school district, so I am sure that's great for the kid. He's a grad student, and in the pic looks very young, so maybe this is just bad judgment.
They might ban any parent who didn't follow the rules and just wandered around the building like that.
The fuckups by law enforcement are adding up.
Now three other Sheriff's deputies were there and did nothing.
No wonder the shreiff went after the NRA.
Carrying a piece of cardboard is not "violent, abusive, indecent, profane, boisterous, unreasonably loud or otherwise disorderly conduct under circumstances in which the conduct tends to cause or provoke a disturbance."
His handing the cardboard didn't provoke a disturbance; surprise perhaps, but not a disturbance.
Case dismissed.
I hope they remember to recycle the cardboard when it's all overwith and don't just throw it away.
They might have him on passing a note in class.
Fitzgerald is stupid, but lucky.
Guy walks into a bank and hands a teller a piece of cardboard with the word "gun" on it -- and he gets charged with attempted armed robbery. Just because a gun has not been openly displayed does not mean that the recipient of the note might not believe that he has a gun on him. In fact, many robbery convictions are obtained under similar circumstances.
Give the same thing to a TSA agent at the airport and you might get hit with a terrorism charge.
Arrested?? They should give him an award.
mikee -- He also didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition.
He also didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition.
No one expects the Spanish Inquisition.
In my community, Facebook would have lit up like a thousand disco balls of misinformation. Then the school administrators would have sent out emails explaining the situation, and everyone would have argued for a week.
Poptarts and square root signs: Zero tolerance.
Elder abuse, FBI reports and threats of murder: Eh... let's roll the dice.
When I taught middle school, during the Anthrax Panic, one of my students called out to me that there was white powder on his desk. I looked at it, and wiped it off with my hand, and said, "It's only erasure dust. Let's not go crazy for nothing." I took a professional chance doing that, because there were other teachers and administrators in the building who would have raised the alarm and locked down the school for a day or two.
forgot to check the email followup.
"When he was allowed in, he walked past the school office where visitors are required to check in, Chapin said.
A staff member followed Fitzgerald as he went down the hall to the classroom "
--
Proactive!!
(reminds me of the various TSA/airport tests)
Had he walked in and handed them a card that read "Black Live Matter. Gun" he would not have been arrested.
"That looks like 'gub', it doesn't look like 'gun'. And what does 'apt natural' mean?"
Take the Money and Run
In Texas he would have been arrested for disturbing the peace.
There is better security at abortion chambers than at schools with unPlanned children.
You need to read only this comment in this thread by Lem, which I reproduce below:
"He was arrested for making the authorities look bad. Since there’s no law against that, they trumped up a charge."
On point, and 100% correct.
Yancey, if he handed the same thing to a bank, TSA, or guard at the State Capitol, he would be charged with much worse.
The straw in your straw man is showing.
We just need more laws! That would fix these problems. Can't you all see that?
Blogger Rob said...
He demonstrated that the shortcomings of a government institution, a school. Therefore he must be punished.
2/23/18, 6:13 PM
Well he proved parents shouldn't be allowed in school.
Derb says this week that everything is governed by hysteria. quote
You can, in your imagination, conjure up the way particular human types will react to some public event. How would a thoughtful, law-abiding, middle-class family man react? How would a vinegary old maid react? How would a ditzy teenage girl react? How would a hardened combat or law-enforcement veteran react? How would a control-freak ideological or religious fanatic react? How would an unintellectual working guy whose interest in news stops at the sports pages react? How would the proverbial Soccer Mom react? And so on.
The most-publicized reactions to unpleasant public events in recent years have been over at the vinegary old maid and ditzy co-ed end of the scale — hysterical.
Control-freak ideologues are in evidence, too: people who want us all thinking and behaving one way, their way, who want to stamp out all disagreement with their dogmas.
The ideologues are cheering on the hysterics from behind. Also guiding them: People whose emotions rule their intellects can easily be guided by skillful manipulators of emotion.
Hysterics under the guidance of ideologues: that's the picture I've been getting ever more clearly, from the Charleston church shooting three years ago, via the antifa riot at Charlottesville last year, down to this week's continuing reactions to the Parkland shooting.
unquote
When I was in the army an office I worked at failed a security exercise. Guy came in, presented someone with some obviously phony paperwork. Was able to get unescorted access to the computer room (programmers who worked there and you knew by name weren't supposed to be allowed in the computer room without an escort) where he left a sheet of paper with "bomb" written on it. The company commander was not pleased.
School buildings aren't designed with security in mind. And retrofitting them is going to be expensive and mostly ineffective. Security is a people problem.
You create policies and procedures, and if they are of any use at all, they create inconveniences. Security is always a trade. You sacrificial some measure of convenience for it. People hate that and will bypass it every time because they don't think they need the security, or at least they tell themselves that. That's why you have security audits and exercises and even that is useless if the people in charge don't support the security measures. Both vocally and by following them. Security professionals spend half their time convincing their bosses into allowing them to implement basic "best practices" and most of the time the argument is that if we don't and something goes wrong we will get sued. And even then there is consideration of the cost of implementing security vs likelihood of something happening and the cost to the company if it does. I've got a lot of experience in this stuff and a masters' degree relating to it.
If you really wanted to make a school safe, if by safe you mean inaccessible to an armed person with intent to shoot and kill people, you cannot do it. Not if they are willing to go to extraordinary lengths to get into the school. Even if you had a man trap situation with an outer and an inner door and two armed guards and someone to search the visitor (never mind the students, imagine how long it would take to get them all in every day, best just use metal detectors and pray.) In that case someone who really wanted access would just by-pass that entrance and find some other way in. Schools have to havefire exits which could be forced using explosives or the jaws of life, or just get an accomplice who attends the school to open one up for you. The alarm goes off, but you don't care. You can get away from that area quickly, before any armed response.
So I guess what I'm saying is that I don't think they guy should have been charged, but he really wasn't being helpful either. Its obvious that the security measures at most schools are completely ineffective and are just "security theater." Measures taken not because they add any actual security, but give the appearance of security so as to make people feel secure, even though in reality they aren't.
By the way, it turns out there were four sheriff's deputies cowering outside the school (establishing a perimeter I guess) that the city police encountered as they went into the school.
SDaly said...
His kid was in the school. As a parent, I've often been to my kids' schools during the day for various reasons. I identify myself, and they buzz me in. Is everyone supposed to be strip searched at every school entrance? Are we going to set up airport style security lines?
This is the inevitable result of the guns everywhere mentality. It stops being a civil society.
There's guns everywhere in Afghanistan.
This is the inevitable result of the guns everywhere mentality.
Guns aren't everywhere. Schools are gun free zones.
No they are not. There were armed guards at each of these shootings. The problem is the guns. It is too easy to get powerful weapons. At this point you would have to be a sociopath to believe that more weapons is the solution.
OK arm, start a movement to repeal the 2nd amendment and come up with a plan to confiscate the guns. Seriously.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTM3Z1pdl5M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRBcQSLgl20
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8coA75IK8M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5Qk07tNFFY
Now that it's been proved, at least in Broward County Florida, that firearms in the hands of police are pretty much useless it would be prudent to prepare for our own defense and the defense of our loved ones.
Oh. And please stay off of ARMS lawn or he'll take a hose to you.
Exactly what measures does he want the school to take?
Why "common sense" measures, of course. Those are always effective.
The rumor warranted a search of the student’s home for guns.
Did it really?
At this point you would have to be a sociopath to believe that more weapons is the solution.
That’s why you are not “reasonable,” beloved. You can’t even bother to try to understand the arguments of the other side. Presumably so that you can forestall any possible meeting of the minds on this issue.
Start by assuming the other guy is trying his best to be “reasonable.”
The evidence is already here. Guns everywhere has been a corrosive disaster. Too many killings relative to other countries. You have to ignore the evidence to think otherwise.
"There's guns everywhere in Afghanistan."
Things went bad in Afghanistan when Leftists came in and trying to force everybody to do things their way.
Not sure things were ever good in Afghanistan but it is au courant to blame Russia at the moment, so why not.
You say you got a real solution
Well, you know
We'd all love to see the plan
Ron, isn't every Starbucks a gun free zone?
I know my church is, my library is, my workplace is, as is our State Capitol building. Hell, the assisted living facility my Dad is gun free and low security.
If the sole reason people chose targets was necause they were gun free, there would not be so many schools selected.
If getting notoriety and fame via mass killing is your goal, killing children is going to make headlines across the country in a way that killing the accounting department of a business will not.
Schools are chosen by deranged shooters because they house kids, there are plenty of gun free zones that are never selected as they wouldn't gain the same fame.
This is not entirely correct. The schools are targeted in revenge attack by students or former students.
Disorderly conduct. That is defined in the Wisconsin statutes as "violent, abusive, indecent, profane, boisterous, unreasonably loud or otherwise disorderly conduct [...]
Well, it's a good thing the law is clear!
Literal circular definitions aren't void-for-vagueness?
There's guns everywhere in Afghanistan.
There's guns everywhere in Switzerland, too.
It's almost like "guns" aren't the problem...
Let's see everyone dropped the ball in Florida on a ticking time bomb who was pointed out to the FBI and local authorities, but another kid gets cast into boiling oil because he sees a resemblance between a square root symbol and a gun?
Can anyone say anarcho-tyranny?
So this was a piece of cardboard that just said "gun", not something that otherwise remotely looked like a gun, say a cutout piece of cardboard in the shape of a square root sign, err I mean pistol?
If that's the case, next the guy should as performance art walking into a football stadium and hand an usher a piece of cardboard that reads "nuclear bomb".
Mark, you make the point Lem made, but just don't understand it apparently.
mikeski said...
There's guns everywhere in Switzerland, too.
Guns and particularly ammunition are tightly regulated in Switzerland. The Swiss gun laws would be a big improvement over our current laws.
The Swiss gun laws would be a big improvement over our current laws.
Yeah..especially the one about every adult male being allowed to have a fully automatic rifle at home.
They have to be converted to semi-automatic and they have very little ammo. And even that is changing to conform to the Schengen Area rules.
So, what is it about the Swiss laws that would have prevented this kind of incident? All the Swiss laws do is make it onerous for law abiding citzens to buy guns (plural). From what I can see, everyone who can buy a gun in the US under current US gun laws would be able to buy a gun under Swiss laws.
Blogger Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...
"The evidence is already here. Guns everywhere has been a corrosive disaster. Too many killings relative to other countries. You have to ignore the evidence to think otherwise."
This evidence here, for instance;
https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/sorry-despite-gun-control-advocates-claims-u-s-isnt-the-worst-country-for-mass-shootings/
Quote; "But a study of global mass-shooting incidents from 2009 to 2015 by the Crime Prevention Research Center, headed by economist John Lott, shows the U.S. doesn't lead the world in mass shootings. In fact, it doesn't even make the top 10, when measured by death rate per million population from mass public shootings."
And no, it's not Afghanistan and South Sudan. It's;
"So who's tops? Surprisingly, Norway is, with an outlier mass shooting death rate of 1.888 per million (high no doubt because of the rifle assault by political extremist Anders Brevik that claimed 77 lives in 2011). No. 2 is Serbia, at just 0.381, followed by France at 0.347, Macedonia at 0.337, and Albania at 0.206. Slovakia, Finland, Belgium, and Czech Republic all follow. Then comes the U.S., at No. 11, with a death rate of 0.089."
My kids don't go to the Youth Indoctrination Prisons, so this is not a big concern with me. But I will point out that if Cruz had known he would get shot, he would not have gone to the school and killed 17 people. But he knew he would not get shot. And he was right. So never mind whether it's possible to make a school "completely safe". The question is whether schools would be safer if potential attackers thought they were bristling with weapons in the hands of trained adults.
Currently the Swiss have less than a quarter of the guns (per person) than in the US. If your perspective on this is epidemiological, as mine is, then that alone is a huge step forward. They have a 'no-fly' list for gun ownership and can arbitrary deny gun ownership to certain individuals. Background checks for gun ownership are mandated and the country's compulsory military service functions as an extended background check to identify people unsuited for gun ownership. Public-carrying permits are issued only rarely. Guns when transported must remain unloaded at all times when they’re not in use. There are very strong restrictions on the ownership of ammunition making it close to impossible to accumulate a significant stock.
And, it is worthwhile recalling, because of the high rates of gun ownership Switzerland has the highest rates of gun violence in Europe.
One problem with the Lott data is that there's zero attempt to manage the outliers in the dataset. In fact the conclusions rely on outliers. Yes Norway. And Norway has a lower population than Massachusetts. You could give Norway and the city of Boston and it would still have a smaller population than Massachusetts, minus Boston.
The most important point made by the Lott group isn't in their outlier-based conclusions, but in their critique of the data itself. They make a good case that European governments are sloppy with their crime data.
The analysts on the other side veer to their own side of sloppy. I love the charts that group the U.S. with China. It's as if the answer to mass shootings to have a population of a billion under the control of a totalitarian regime. Thomas Friedman would approve!
One thing that would make sense of the data is to compare U.S. states and regions to comparable regions in Europe with comparable gun laws, cultural mores, and proximity to more violent regions -- like Cyprus, or Washington D.C.. Massachusetts, for example, has a gun death rate comparable to Finland.
And, it is worthwhile recalling, because of the high rates of gun ownership Switzerland has the highest rates of gun violence in Europe.
That's an unfortunate "because". Because Serbia and Finland both beat out Switzerland in gun deaths per 100,000 per year. And Serbia, Cyprus, Sweden, Norway, France, and Germany beat out Switzerland in guns per 100 inhabitants.
Tell me, Mr. Epidemiological, what is your number-of-guns take on Honduras, El Salvador, Swaziland, Jamaica, Colombia, and Brazil?
Sadly, Finland is at the top of the European gun-deaths list because of suicides. Switzerland also has a high rate of suicide by gun. If you only look at gun homicides in Europe, neither country is remotely the most violent. Oh look. There's low-gun-ownership Portugal.
A guy wielding just a piece of cardboard with the word "gun" on it? That sounds like a case the Broward County Sheriff's Department could handle.
"Sadly, Finland is at the top of the European gun-deaths list because of suicides."
Quite possibly true, but Lott's study applied specifically to mass shootings. And the point is that Mr Evidence is completely oblivious to the evidence on the talking points he pushes.
And in any case, we all know that whenever America comes out badly in a comparison with other First-World nations, it's because we have our own little dispersed Third-World nation, population 13 million, occupying the slums of our major cities. Care to address that fact, ARM?
When I lived in NYC it was commonly believed that "disturbing the peace" was a convenient catch-all phrase used by the police when they couldn't nail you on anything else. It basidcally meant "disturbing the police." I knew a guy who carried an unloaded rifle from his Manhattan office to a car waiting for him near-by. The cops wanted to charge him with something because they'd had to leave their squad cards and/or the nearest donut shop; but there was nothing in the statutes to charge him with, so he got slapped with "disturbing the peace."
I was worried they might pull a similar scam on me when I was travelling through the theater district with a walking stick, and three cops descended on me, no doubt worried that I might use it against a mugger. They tried pulling it apart to see if it was actually a sword-cane, but it wasn't. They grudgingly let me go but were on the verge of confiscating my walking stick, but finally grudgingly had to give it back. Meanwhile, up Broadway I'm sure "youths" were holding up little old ladies at gun- or knife-point.
Henry, you need to provide links because your claims are not in line with most reporting on this subject.
That's because "most reporting" is your term for "the pack of lies circulating in my FakeNews(TM) echo chamber". He cited the Lott Group, and I provided a link. Knock yourself out.
He pointed out problems with the Lott story, which have been well documented.
"Lott’s assertion that more guns leads to more safety formally repudiated by a National Research Council panel, but he had also been caught pushing studies with severe statistical errors on numerous occasions. An investigation uncovered that he had almost certainly fabricated an entire survey on defensive gun use. And a blogger revealed that Mary Rosh, an online commentator claiming to be a former student of Lott’s who would frequently post about how amazing he was, was in fact John Lott himself. "
Here's the study, ARM;
https://crimeresearch.org/2015/06/comparing-death-rates-from-mass-public-shootings-in-the-us-and-europe/
If you know of a better one, cite it. Or I suppose you could just point out that an investigation has uncovered that fatsos like me shouldn't wear horizontal stripes, and I make frequent errors in diction and grammar. By the way, "phenomena" is the plural of "phenomenon". Might want to write that down.
WHAT AMERICA'S FAVORITE GUN RESEARCHER GETS WRONG ABOUT FIREARMS AND CRIME
Shooting Down the Gun Lobby’s Favorite “Academic”: A Lott of Lies
John Lott is not a very reliable witness.
Now don't get all hysterical ARM. Nobody is on your lawn.
The ALL CAPS were in the original, if you had bothered to look.
"John Lott is not a very reliable witness."
Well, certainly not up to the extremely high standards of the Pacific Standard, a pinko rag if ever there was one.
But I'm not citing him as a "witness", ARM. I'm citing his research, which shows that both the frequency of mass murders and the number of casualties are higher per capita in numerous nations we normally consider First World, despite their much more stringent gun controls. Are you suggesting that he and his colleagues made these figures up out of whole cloth? The link contains an extensive discussion of the many European mass murders that somehow never appear in the American MSM, with the exception of the Brevik murder they could label "right-wing". Are you suggesting that those murders did not occur? Has the Pacific Standard erased them, along with the rest of Lott's credibility? Maybe you should argue that those countries admit large numbers of Muslim immigrants, so of course they have lots of mass murders. That is a credible hypothesis, tho I don't know if it's borne out by the data.
His 'research' is bullshit. Google him. How do you just ignore all the published criticisms of his 'research', including by people on the right and even others in this thread?
So you are claiming that the murders cited did not occur?
The only mention of Lott by "others in this thread" was Henry noting that Norway is an outlier. That is hardly Lott's fault, nor does a single outlier refute the evidence of the 9 other nations with worse figures than the US. In any case, Henry went on to generally agree with Lott's conclusions. So it appears that *you* are the one citing non-existent sources.
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...
"The evidence is already here. Guns everywhere has been a corrosive disaster. Too many killings relative to other countries. You have to ignore the evidence to think otherwise."
So ARM, you say that Lott is discredited. I don't agree, but that is irrelevant. Lott et al have published certain figures, comparing rates of mass murder in different countries, in which the US comes in 11th. If Lott is wrong, then either the murders he cites for other countries did not happen, so their rates are lower, or else he left out murders that happened here. Which is it, ARM? And where is this "evidence" of which you speak? What "evidence" am I ignoring? You refer to "evidence", but I actually provided some. And you did not reply with your "evidence", you attacked mine. You're a lying troll, ARM. You have no evidence, and no idea whatsoever whether Lott is right or not. You will cheerfully repeat any lie that serves your purpose.
Did you actually read the critiques of Lott? Because if you didn't you are talking out your ass. Take one of the links I gave and show it is wrong. The consensus view is that Lott is a BS artist.
If you don't want to believe the popular press critiques here is an academic critique:
More Guns, More Crime
I'd still like someone to show me logically why A attacking B entitles C to attack [that is, initiate force against] D. (C being "liberal" State-shtuppers and D being peaceful gun-owners.)
William Chadwick said...
I'd still like someone to show me logically why A attacking B entitles C to attack [that is, initiate force against] D. (C being "liberal" State-shtuppers and D being peaceful gun-owners.)
Because B and D are both members of the set 'gun-owners'. If members of that set are not willing to adequately police fellow members of that set then it become a problem for the state.
ARM thus ignores the key word "peaceful"--the ethical equivalent of leaping the Grand Canyon--to lump people who aren't committing acts of aggression (group D) with a tiny minority who are (group C); thus justifying (in his head) aggression against people (D) who are minding their own business and not threatening anyone.
But then that's what "liberals" do.
This is why the NRA will fail in the long run. By refusing to acknowledge that B and D are members of the same set, by attempting to otherize the B's, they fail to address the problem, making state intervention inevitable.
So accepting your premise that group A (aggressors) are ethically equal or identical with group D (the non-aggressors), are you really willing to go down that road? Think about it. You're reasonable, right? We know you are because you keep telling us you are. If a group has an aggressive minority within it, the Mailed Fist should be unleashed against that whole group, both the peaceful and the aggressive? Sure--what could go wrong with that game plan?
Do society a favor, chief, and don't ever become a Professor of either Law or Ethics.
"Otherizing" . . . brilliant. You're damn right I'm "Otherizing." There's a world of moral difference between people who only want to live peacefully with society, and those
who want to prey on it. If you can't comprehend that distinction, please take yourself out of society immediately.
There is a continuum. Clearly there are many people who don't fetishize guns or killing. But there are some that do and there are some that act on those fetishes. It's not as clear cut as you want to believe. The NRA doesn't want to deal with the ambiguities, they are acting like children.
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