"A 13-year-old boy planned to carry out a school shooting before he shot himself inside a Ohio middle school bathroom last week, police said.... The messages say he was planning the shooting for weeks, and wanted it to be 'bigger than anything this country's ever seen.'... The seventh-grade student died after shooting himself in the head Feb. 21. He brought a rifle to school that morning and was observed leaving a bathroom holding the gun....”
USA Today reports.
He would have been famous, but we're not even told his name.
March 2, 2018
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Comutative and noncomutative operations.
Take a deep breath and jump into the water is much different from jump into the water and take a deep breath.
Schools obviously need metal detectors at all entrances.
Famous and dead is probably not as fabulous as you seem to imagine.
Am curious to see the Venn Diagram describing his life and Cruz's. How much overlap?
I suggested that schools be as secure as courthouses and was mocked as wanting to put kids in prison from birth. There is only a single acceptable solution to this problem for the left.
I saw this last night. What is turning kids horrific? He had a .22 plinker of some sort. If we're banning the Nylon 22 then the Constitution is a piece of paper. It's as if the Joker had put something in the water supply that turns a few random kids into zombies or CHUDs. They had .22 rifles in 1920 and they had bullying, and kids didn't do this.
How horrible! At last he came to his senses, or failed the gut check, or whatever, and instead of killing others only murdered himself. Althouse, is that what you mean by courageous self-defense of others? I'm more put in mind of the pain in that boy's heart that led him to a) plan murder and b) do self-murder, instead of just turning himself into the principal's office.
We note that Florida governor, Rick Scott, has proposed some new gun laws for his state, including a ban on arms sales to citizens under the age of 21. We assume Mr. Scott argues that those younger than 21 are too unstable to own firearms responsibly, and he may have a point. That, however, brings up the subject of the enfranchisement of 18-year-olds. If too crazy to own a gun, are they not also too crazy to vote?
If it must be done then this is the way to do it. As Althouse observes, this is the kid the media should make famous.
Bad Lieutenant, you put it better than the post I typed and erased.
I don't understand the pain and rage that convinces a 13-year-old that this is the thing to do. If he had to kill someone I'm relieved he chose himself. I just wish he could have seen he didn't have to.
I think this stems from wanting to be infamous. He said he wanted this to be the biggest school shooting this country has ever seen. Why would he say that unless he was wanting to be infamous. Kids see the fame and attention you can get from doing this. The complicit media splashes them all over the TV, papers, magazines, and social media. What was different in 1920? The media.
I don't know if this qualifies as a potential "Copycat" killer, but there is a problem of crazed media publicity causing some evil, confused person to up the ante.
Something to consider.
When I was 13, to settle differences, we had fistfights. Sure, there were some fun triumphs, mixed in with humiliating losses. But there were no shoot-outs.
Something to consider.
Bad Lieutenant said...
"I'm more put in mind of the pain in that boy's heart that led him to a) plan murder and b) do self-murder, instead of just turning himself into the principal's office."
Yeah. I find myself feeling the same way when I look at the pictures of Cruz. What have we done to these poor children, that they want to murder other children? That it is heroism when they merely murder themselves?
I think the modern school is a toxic environment. Children are supposed to learn by being around adults. Allowing children to set up and operate their own independent status systems is a bad idea.
Coulda been someone......coulda been a contendah....
Blogger JPS said...
"I don't understand the pain and rage that convinces a 13-year-old that this is the thing to do."
I do. When I was that age, I woke up every morning dreading the gauntlet I would have to run for the next 8 hours. I didn't think about guns, but I very seriously considered taking a knife to school and killing one of my tormentors. Many years later, I got to know one of the teachers at that Hellhole, who told me that many of the other teachers said I was a smartass and it served me right to be bullied. Looking back on it, it's those adults I'd like to put some holes in.
I coulda had class. I coulda been a contendah. I coulda been somebody instead of a bum, which is what I am, let's face it.
A student told faculty . . .
That's enough to confer hero status on someone? And not only hero status, but publicity and celebrity status as well? Let's have parades then for the people who repeatedly alerted law enforcement in the Florida case.
I coulda had class. I coulda been a contendah. I coulda been somebody instead of a bum, which is what I am, let's face it.
Ah, Quaestor! One of my favorite films.
He would have been famous, but we're not even told his name.
Nor should we.
He would have been famous, but we're not even told his name.
The media is punishing him for not giving them a spectacle for pushing their anti-freedom agenda and a weapon to bash their political opponents with.
What was different in 1920?
The family
FIFY
I keep seeing what may be bogus statistics to the effect that only one or two of the last xx school shooters (looking at the most "successful") were raised by their natural father from birth through the event. It's a possible correlative explanation, if true, of why we see more of these now than earlier in our history. But I don't trust some of the fake news stats going around. Fox, to be safe, just goes with "vast majority."
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/02/19/missing-fathers-and-americas-broken-boys-vast-majority-mass-shooters-come-from-broken-homes.html
I think maybe some of you are missing Ms. Althouse's point. The article is sloppily written- almost embarrassingly so.
I've always said that when someone goes on a shooting spree and kills themself at the end, it's a shame they didn't try it in reverse order. This kid did! Hurray for him!
Looks like he shot the right person first.
Yea, I said it.
Quaestor said: "We note that Florida governor, Rick Scott, has proposed some new gun laws for his state, including a ban on arms sales to citizens under the age of 21. We assume Mr. Scott argues that those younger than 21 are too unstable to own firearms responsibly, and he may have a point."
Dick's Sporting Goods and WalMart have chosen to do just that, presumably for the same reasons. People under 21 lack judgment and reasoning skills required to make these serious decisions.
In related news, Planned Parenthood is reviewing their policy regarding "executing" abortions on women under 21. (Sarc. Alert)
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/2018/02/27/of_27_deadliest_mass_shooters_26_of_them_were_fatherless_435596.html
I think the presumably correct stat about deadliest mass shooters (26 of 27 not raised by natural father) is being bandied about/misapplied to school shooters. Would like to see the broken family analysis applied to school shooters from say the last 20-30 years but cannot find it. I think several of the worst shooters lived with their natural fathers.
That any 13 year-old wanted to commit suicide breaks my heart.
We assume Mr. Scott argues that those younger than 21 are too unstable to own firearms responsibly, and he may have a point."
Wouldn't it then follow that those younger than 21 are too unstable to also:
1. Be drafted into the military and be given guns to use to kill other people?
2. Become firefighters, EMTs, Policemen because all of those are jobs that require stability and possibly ...eeeeeek.....guns.
3. Drive a car which is responsible for more injuries and deaths than guns (when you exclude the deaths by suicide by gun). After all if GUNS are responsible for deaths then cars must be as well. Right?
4. Be given jet airplanes with really really big guns,in the military to fly.
5. Be allowed to have children because they are too unstable to be able to raise them.
6. Operate heavy equipment or dangerous construction tools
Perhaps "children" under the age of 21 should be warehoused in their Mommy and Daddy's basements until they are 26 years old. Children forevah!!!!!! Peter Pan would be so happy.
We need to ban selling rifles to 13 year olds!
Wait, what do you mean that's already illegal?
(Ref above posts ... yeah, the reason people do mass violence at schools, apart from a sick desire for fame, probably is that schools are horrible hellholes for lots of students.
And, naturally, nothing will ever be done about it, because that would be work, and also because we'd have to criticize The Holiest Of Holies, teachers, to begin the process.)
The article is sloppily written- almost embarrassingly so.
Or would be if USA Today were embarrassed about anything
Well, he tried! He should get a trophy or something. Right?
TODAY'S SIGN THAT THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US:
Where I agree wholeheartedly with a post by my nemesis Bad Lieutenant.
Bad Lieutenant said...
I saw this last night. What is turning kids horrific? He had a .22 plinker of some sort. If we're banning the Nylon 22 then the Constitution is a piece of paper. It's as if the Joker had put something in the water supply that turns a few random kids into zombies or CHUDs. They had .22 rifles in 1920 and they had bullying, and kids didn't do this.
How horrible! At last he came to his senses, or failed the gut check, or whatever, and instead of killing others only murdered himself. Althouse, is that what you mean by courageous self-defense of others? I'm more put in mind of the pain in that boy's heart that led him to a) plan murder and b) do self-murder, instead of just turning himself into the principal's office.
Let's add; the kid's phone contained a message from the kid that he thought about target locations but had preliminarily chosen his school because it was essentially such a soft target.
I'm still not clear on the weaponry. Did the kid have a .22 rifle, and then also a pistol of some kind? Where does a 13 year-old get a pistol?
Remember the futility of the "background checks" argument after Sandy Hook. There, the kid took his mother's guns, which she owned perfectly legally; assassinated her as she slept in her bed, and then went to Sandy Hook Elementary School.
"I think this stems from wanting to be infamous. He said he wanted this to be the biggest school shooting this country has ever seen. Why would he say that unless he was wanting to be infamous."
I think this has to do with kids feeling great pain or anger over something, (and anger often comes from pain). They want the world--really, everyone who was in their orbit--to know the terrible anguish they had felt. It's the old "You'll be sorry when I'm dead" switched to "You'll finally know how much I suffered."
Compare and contract what will happen to this story with the millions of dollars leftists poured into using the Parkland School Students as political props and throwing the name Nicolas Cruz around all over the country.
It isn't like when the police responded to incidents of violence by Cruz dozens of times.
It isn't like when leftist policies to reduce the "school-to-jail pipeline" led them to not charge Cruz with assault and other violent threats numerous times. With those convictions on his record he would have been ineligible to purchase his gun.
It isn't like when the FBI did not follow up on very specific tips about Nicolas Cruz becoming a school shooter.
No leftists spend millions on a campaign to take freedom from political opponents. They are enemies of freedom. It is what they do.
Should we lower the voting age to 16 or even 13 year olds?
Well, If "kids" under the age of 21 are too unstable to......
Why the HELL would we allow them to vote and make life decisions for OTHER people? We can't have it both (or all different) ways.
Too young and unstable to do XYZ...yet magically stable enough to ABC.
"Remember the futility of the 'background checks' argument after Sandy Hook."
Futility?
Just because a policy doesn't always work doesn't meant it's futile. No policy is 100% effective. Seat belts don't save everyone's life, but they have greatly reduced fatalities. The measurement of a policy's effectiveness is how much or how little it achieved desired ends.
According to this, school shootings have decreased in frequency since the 1990s, so, perhaps policies that have been implemented in the past 20 years have been effective to some degree. Whether this is so or not requires an analysis of why school shootings have decreased in frequency.
And, naturally, nothing will ever be done about it, because that would be work, and also because we'd have to criticize The Holiest Of Holies, teachers, to begin the process.)
You'd do better to start with the administrators.
YES! Raise the age to buy a firearm or vote to 21. If things don't improve, raise both to 25. If you are in the military, then 18 years old gives you the right to own a firearm and vote.
Kill yourself and it's oh, poor troubled young man.
Kill other people and you are a mass murdering psycho that makes entire societies question their existence.
Gee.
Stop news coverage of these assholes.
I was told by EDCI (education, curriculum, instruction) Department head that this magazine is the go-to in "every school in the nation", read by "all the teachers" as an instructional guide for (social justice) lessons, from K to 12:
https://rethinkingschoolsblog.com
A sampling of what you will find inside:
TEACHERS CAN RESPOND TO TRUMP’S RACIAL HATRED WITH EMPATHY AND INQUIRY
OVERCOMING HATE IN OUR BACKYARDS
CYBER MONDAY: STOCK UP ON SOCIAL JUSTICE RESOURCES FOR EDUCATORS
THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY WAS FOUNDED ON THIS DAY IN 1966: HERE’S WHAT WE DON’T LEARN ABOUT THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY IN OUR SCHOOLS — BUT SHOULD
BACKPACK FULL OF CASH: NEW DOCUMENTARY NARRATED BY MATT DAMON EXPLORES SCHOOL PRIVATIZATION
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS: NO MONUMENTS FOR MURDERERS
TAKING THE FIGHT AGAINST WHITE SUPREMACY INTO SCHOOLS
- snippet:
[This important article from Rethinking Schools editor Adam Sanchez was first published by the Zinn Education Project (where Adam works developing curriculum and organizing) and Common Dreams. We are republishing it now because the fall issue of our magazine — which has five cover stories and an editorial focusing on Making Black Lives Matter in Our Schools — is hitting mailboxes and newsstands this week. Adam is the co-author of one of the cover stories in the magazine, “What We Don’t Learn About the Black Panther Party — but Should” along with another Rethinking Schools editor, Jesse Hagopian.]
THE ROLE STUDENTS AND EDUCATORS PLAYED BEFORE NFL PLAYERS PROTESTED ON SUNDAY
LINDA CHRISTENSEN ON THE SECOND EDITION OF READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP, WHAT ROLE THE CLASSROOM PLAYED IN REVISION, AND WHAT NEEDS TO CHANGE IN HOW WE TEACH
and on and on.
Here's the online edition of the "magazine"
https://www.rethinkingschools.org
I believe parents have little or no idea of the indoctrination camps our public schools have become. The few with whom I have shared this website are sure this is a joke, that surely this is not the reality of what's happening every day in classrooms across the country. It is. The damage is immeasurable.
From Rethinking Schools "about" section:
"Throughout its history, Rethinking Schools has tried to balance classroom practice and educational theory. It is an activist publication, with articles written by and for teachers, parents, and students. Yet it also addresses key policy issues, such as vouchers and marketplace-oriented reforms, funding equity, and school-to-work.
Brazilian educator Paulo Freire wrote that teachers should attempt to "live part of their dreams within their educational space." Rethinking Schools believes that classrooms can be places of hope, where students and teachers gain glimpses of the kind of society we could live in and where students learn the academic and critical skills needed to make that vision a reality."
(see Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
https://www.marxists.org/subject/education/freire/pedagogy/index.htm
Pedagogy)
Paraphrasing VA David Beatty: "Something seems to be wrong with our bloody kids today. And something wrong with our system . . ."
IOW, like Beatty's ships, the kids keep blowing up.
There was a kid in Vermont who bought a pump action shotgun from Dicks in Rutland, with the intention of perpetrating a school shooting. He is in jail now, awaiting some kind of judicial action. I guess that beloved would find this course of action an horrific injustice.
The thing that would Make America Great Again, would be to repeal all the Amendments to the Constitution, and instead just rule by Executive Order.
But given that scenario, we might as well rejoin Great Britain.
Why have a President, when you can have a King William and Queen Kate!
Entienne @ 12:36
We tried that with Obama. The voters decided they don't like royalty.
I want mandatory gun safety classes in grade school and I want schools to offer competitive shooting sports. I want more kids going hunting for deer. I want kids to grow up knowing about guns, knowing what they are for, how to use them safely, and the damage a gun can do when fired into flesh. THAT is one thing that kids today are missing.
I want drugs legalized so that kids who get into that industry can do it above board. The way it is now, business disputes are settled with violence because they cannot be settled with lawsuits.
I want kids to have FAR more recess time than they do now. I want kids to have unscheduled time for daydreaming and running and experimenting and building and planning and learning to play sports without grownups around. I want grownups to leave kids alone and stop planning every spare second of the time they have out of school.
I want kids to grow up with gradual increases in independence so that they are managing adult stuff before they are adults. I want kids to be able to do ordinary kid stuff (which unfortunately includes foolishness like sexting) without the threat of arrest and the sex offender registry. I want people to remember that sex is just sex and not a cause for panic. Adults can still advise and teach kids but please stop managing their every moment and protecting them from every danger, real and imagined.
I want schools to abandon the damaging 'zero tolerance' policies that prevent bullied kids from fighting back. I want kids to learn how to deal with difficult situations--the bullies, the bad teachers, the creepy neighbor--without "tell an adult" being the only solution given them. I want kids to be self-reliant and unafraid of going against the grain. I want adults to realize (and remember) how many really great lessons they learned when they were NOT under supervision. Learning how to fall, to get back up, to bandage wounds, to get help...all without Mom and Dad and without teachers and school administrators and coaches.
Kids have high levels of anxiety and depression and I think that never ever being out of sight of the grownups has a lot to do with it.
DBQ
Plus let's have a military where the first time a recruit has touched a gun is when was inducted. Let's not have country kids who can drop a deer at 500 yards or a passing widgeon. That is just not who we are.
Why have a President, when you can have a King William and Queen Kate!
Elizabeth I did a splendid job as Queen. Elizabeth II does an admirable job as a figurehead but not a ruler. I can't imagine any of today's royals being effective as rulers or figureheads.
Kids have high levels of anxiety and depression and I think that never ever being out of sight of the grownups has a lot to do with it.
I see it quite differently. Back in the day, there were many farm families or other small family businesses where every child had real responsibilities. Little or nothing is expected of today's youth and they feel worthless. Real self-esteem comes from accomplishment, feeling needed and important to the family unit.
Amen, prairie wind!
When I was 13 I was trying to get to second base with Sally Thomas, who had the biggest guns in home room.
You want to stop school killings? Start with securing the school buildings and grounds to the best extent you can.
Instead of many dead, this incident presents us with one sad confused child who at least had the instinct not to define his own life by mass murder, despite the urges that he felt.
But there he was, in the school with the gun.
Another adult fail.
Kids have high levels of anxiety and depression and I think that never ever being out of sight of the grownups has a lot to do with it.
I see it quite differently. Back in the day, there were many farm families or other small family businesses where every child had real responsibilities. Little or nothing is expected of today's youth and they feel worthless. Real self-esteem comes from accomplishment, feeling needed and important to the family unit.
I think we agree on that point, mockturtle. I believe that today's anxiety and depression come from not having responsibilities and not having control over anything. My brothers grew up with farm chores and their self esteem came from the knowledge that they could do everything needed to run a healthy herd of cattle. My sisters and I got our self esteem from the chores assigned to us and to our own accomplishments.
We all grew up knowing that we could survive whatever befell us. Today's kids are not given the chance to come up hard against bad stuff.
Rusty said...The voters decided they don't like royalty.
Maybe just a prejudice against African Kings and Queens.
At least William and Mitt Romney speak French. We can make Mitt the Prime Minister, and bring over Marine Le Pen to run the INS.
"What can you say about a courageous hero like this?"
As little as possible. RIP.
Virgil Hilts said...
I keep seeing what may be bogus statistics to the effect that only one or two of the last xx school shooters (looking at the most "successful") were raised by their natural father from birth through the event.
The most common denominator in prison inmates, period, for any crime except possibly multiple DWI, is fatherlessness. I knew a mass murderer from 1976- his family, including his father, were the 4 victims. In 1976, kids weren't drugged with Ritalin and similar drugs. He was bullied in school- a lot. Outside of school also. Gotta wonder if today he would go after the school instead. So having a father at home doesn't make one immune from committing infamous crimes, but it does seem to be a preventive.
FYI, my parents divorced between my 5th and 6th grade years. Mom had custody, was an alcoholic. I've raised a successful bunch of kids and have a successful marriage by using my father as a role model. Whenever I wasn't sure what to do, I look what my father did or would have done- then do something different. Somehow I figured out early on we're each responsible for our own behavior, and conducted myself accordingly. So lacking a father figure at home combined with a dysfunctional family doesn't mean a life of crime, but it's a good predictor.
There is no good or universal explanation of bad people and the crimes they commit. Could be the very old explanation- some people are simply born evil.
We all grew up knowing that we could survive whatever befell us. Today's kids are not given the chance to come up hard against bad stuff.
So true, prairie. How does one develop coping skills when not allowed to develop them?
Gospace, while one has to agree with the strong correlation between fatherlessness and crime, one can't necessary infer cause and effect. There could be a genetic factor, as well.
Blogger Etienne said...
Rusty said...The voters decided they don't like royalty.
"Maybe just a prejudice against African Kings and Queens."
Yeah. I hate arrogantly stupid people.
But it doesn't seem to be genetic in your case, Gospace! ;-)
In a deeply disturbed individual confusing feelings of rage, despair, and hopelessness can be turned inward or outward and can consequently lead to either suicide or homicide. Maybe in certain cases it's like a flick of a switch? Or maybe this kid never really planned to go through with his mass shooting and just wanted to leave people with unanswered questions. At least then people would be talking about him.
oops 50 yards!!! my limit. Not 500 yards. I would be famous around town if I could be accurate at 500 yards.
Michael said: Plus let's have a military where the first time a recruit has touched a gun is when was inducted. Let's not have country kids who can drop a deer at 500 yards or a passing widgeon. That is just not who we are.
Well, 500 yards is a pretty long shot. The best I've been able to do was about 120 yards (Mule Deer Madeline Plains Ca) and was thankful that I had some extra guys with me as that was a hella long way to go get and retrieve a 130 plus pound deer, and then take back to camp :-) They didn't think I could do it, actually neither did I ...but I tried not to act surprised. Usually 50 yards was my maximum limit/range.
Geese, ducks, and other game birds are plentiful here. I can practically throw stones at them and certainly annoy them with a wrist rocket. There are hundreds just across the river. Since I no longer have Chesapeake Retrievers to get the birds, I don't shoot them anymore and just take photos instead. Although if we get hungry enough the geese across the river and the deer who are always eating my apples and roses (little bastards) are fair game. Also a possible cow or sheep could be considered.
But....I get what you are getting at. Responsible gun usage, education, safety and experience all will make for better military recruits and better citizens.
Guns are tools and like any tool can be dangerous in the hands of the untrained, careless idiots and mentally ill
Edit: typo in yardage
I want more kids going hunting for deer.
Awaiting Trumpit's meltdown over that one.
Cookie wrote: "Just because a policy doesn't always work doesn't meant it's futile. "
You are creating a straw man argument. No one is saying that a policy or law should work ALL the time.
It is futile when it rarely, if ever works.
Cookie wrote: "Just because a policy doesn't always work doesn't meant it's futile. "
You are creating a straw man argument. No one is saying that a policy or law should work ALL the time.
It is futile when it rarely, if ever works.
Blogger seems to be on the fritz.
Plus let's have a military where the first time a recruit has touched a gun is when was inducted. Let's not have country kids who can drop a deer at 500 yards or a passing widgeon. That is just not who we are.
Dad told me that when he was sent in, along with lots of others, to quell riots in Detroit that none of the City Slickers knew firearm protocol, and that they were a real hazard. (Dad grew up with a .22, in contrast).
Shows to go you...Everybody thought he was a really top notch school shooter, but inside he felt that he was not very good at all.
I'm confused.
"He would have been famous, but we're not even told his name. "
WHO GIVES A FUCK WHAT HIS NAME IS.
'He would have been famous, but we're not even told his name. '
Who cares what his name is? He was a mass murderer to-be. Rot in Hell.
All Marxists should eat their guns.
...The More You Know. . .
Too young and unstable to do XYZ...yet magically stable enough to ABC.
A but not B is a very long list.
Maybe young people should not have access to force multipliers.
Voting is a force divider.
Maybe young people should not have access to impulsivity multipliers, like alcohol.
The military is an impulsivity divider.
I'm not necessarily agreeing with my maybes -- just pointing out the flaw in the "if A why not B" arguments.
Sounds like he was motivated by fame, not the NRA. Maybe it's time to have a conversation about common sense media control.
Am curious to see the Venn Diagram describing his life and Cruz's. How much overlap?
Only one of them is murderer and only one of them is dead.
I wonder if there are anti-depressants involved in any of these shootings. We know that they can increase suicidal and even homicidal behaviors.
There is a certain, sickening and yet numbing horror in this story and in our society. Bad LT expressed it well. A 13 year old kid plans to commit mass murder and instead kills himself. We are thankful he made himself the first victim (and thus only) and yet we are thankful that a kid a kid killed himself. This is just insane. I'm sixty two years old. Fifty years ago neither I or anyone I knew in my age group ever thought about committing mass murders or suicide. All we wanted to do as twelve and thirteen year olds was get laid (as if we could or even would know what to do if the opportunity arose) and get drunk ( or possibly smoke some MJ to get high). To be sure a lot has improved over the last fifty years but on balance maybe we are worse off as a society civilly today than back then. I don't recall back then hearing about all of these mass killings and other horrors we read about happening back then. Guns were just as prevalent then as now, perhaps more so. Something in our society has gone very badly to get to where we are. Perhaps it's a combination of many things, each one not particularly problematic but all in combination seem to be very toxic.
Huh, comments are being moderated. Maybe common sense media control has already begun.
He would have been famous, but we're not even told his name.
Doesn't fit the meme.
Most shootings are ignored by the media. That's how you know the ones which are blasted 24/7 were specifically-selected to promote particular viewpoints.
In the 1930s, a little shit like Cruz would not still be in school, terrorizing the other students for years, at the age of 19.
He would have been expelled, and sent to juvie, or he'd be working alongside grown men whom he couldn't bully, and who could maybe set him straight, or he would have been in prison.
And in the 1930s, we weren't stupid enough to have "gun free zones."
According to Akron Beacon-Journal - the kid's name is Keith Simons.
Couple of thoughts apropos .... 15 minutes of fame, maybe?
1. Watching an Amazon Prime video, as we do every evening, accidently opened the metadata showing the STARS of the film. There were 50+ of them. Included in the array were "receptionist at hospital" and "man at end of bar."
2. Reading the local e-rag aloud, as we do every morning, we keep seeing above the fold articles with quarter page picture of kids like:
..8 Year Old Karate Aficionado Garnering Trophies; or
..Elvira Olivares Middle School Powerlifters Readying for District Competition (showing four kids, mixed ectomorph and endomorph, standing in V formation with arms crossed, aggressive posture and stern expression).
Jebus! What does a kid got to do to be FAMOUS these days? Shoot hisself?
"Cookie wrote: 'Just because a policy doesn't always work doesn't meant it's futile.'
"You are creating a straw man argument. No one is saying that a policy or law should work ALL the time.
"It is futile when it rarely, if ever works."
So...where's your demonstration that it "rarely, if ever works?"
Oh for the good old days of the 1920s and 1930s when the young murderer focused on <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_Face_Nelson'>robbing banks</a>. That's the problem with the youth of today. No ambition.
It may take many more gun massacres before the majority gets fed up and demands that the 2nd Amendment be thrown in the trashcan and guns be banned from civil society. I'm sorry, but many more innocent victims are required to get the necessary change. Only freaky weirdos like guns.
I'm not sure is the murderer in the 1927 Bath School Madssacre was raised without a father. He waited until he was 55.
"The non-profit RAND corporation spent two years and $1 million on the analysis, searching for evidence of benefit from gun control policies. RAND’s analysis looked to establish connections between gun policies and rates of homicide, suicide, self-defense gun use, hunting, and other categories. The vast majority of those categories went unaffected by legislation, however, according to NPR. Most of the effects that we were looking for evidence on, we didn’t find any evidence,” Andrew Morral, who lead the analysis."
NPR and RAND - not exactly right leaning organizations.
Guns, like scalpels, vacuums, etc. are dual-use tools. However, unlike the latter, which are responsible for around one million premeditated abortions annually in America alone, the former, in the majority, are abused by self-abortionists and criminals. The liberal justices may want to consider a religious pardon for the former and legalizing the latter a la abortion rites.
That said, I wonder if they could rechacterize scalpels, vacuums, and other instruments of Planned Parenthood as recreational, self-defensive, and life-preserving tools. Only at the twilight fringe.
Anyway, guns are part of a risk management protocol a la vaccines, and other drugs, which are known to cause injury and even death in a minority of the population. We should probably close the "fast and furious" loophole.
connections between gun policies and rates of homicide, suicide, self-defense gun use, hunting, and other categories. The vast majority of those categories went unaffected by legislation
Law-abiding citizens do not generally commit elective abortions, or exhibit other forms of mental instability. Legislation does not affect elements who benefit from the "fast and furious" loophole, or the Planned Mother loophole, or criminals who do not, as a matter of principle, respect the law.
Is hero really the right word?
I mean, I guess better himself than a bunch of bystanders, but violence is violence. If you've got enough anger to do that to yourself then you'd probably do it to others, and vice versa.
It's why Republicans will continue to keep our mass shooting rates at sky-high levels; they keep persisting in believing that it's only a problem of individual inclination. But there will always be people with these inclinations - and many more the younger they are in life. The only issue is how many weapons of mass murder you want to leave available to them in the hopes that they are truly just militia recruitment material like you believe every American is - until they do things that get them put into a cell where lo and behold that sacred right somehow isn't as individualized and "natural" any longer as you kept claiming it was.
Follow his example, Ritmo.
According to Akron Beacon-Journal - the kid's name is ...
Well, Thank Goodness they reported that!!
News you need to know.
Jim at said...
Follow his example, Ritmo.
There you go, encouraging violence and self-harm - the only things Republicans know.
Why not just admit that you mass murder enablers don't have the right tools to get the job done?
Guns, like scalpels, vacuums, etc. are dual-use tools.
For putting big holes into living things in order to cause massive exsanguination and death.
So, a "dual-use" killing tool.
Because 320 million Americans must all have an equal individual interest in/need to kill, I'm sure.
Even though less than a third of American households own a firearm.
Maybe they're just not as in love with inanimate killing machines as you are?
And less paranoid of getting killed by a fellow American or his representative self-government.
Fear, love of killing devices and callous hatred for dead schoolchildren are basically your motivators, and what make you different from nearly 70% of your country.
You are in the minority, and not in a good way.
Trumpit: "It may take many more gun massacres before the majority gets fed up and demands that the 2nd Amendment be thrown in the trashcan and guns be banned from civil society."
Hmmm, no wonder the lefties love "Promise" programs where troubled kids committing crimes are not reported or prosecuted for those crimes which makes them eligible as "law-abiding" citizens to aquire guns.
Kind of goes hand in glove with the lefties protecting illegal alien violent criminals and desperately trying to get as many islamist supremacists into the country as quickly as possible, and handing untraceable actual assault weapons to mexican cartels without even bothering to inform the nexican govt.
"For the children..."...at least the ones that dont end up as surplus body parts to be sold off by Planned Parenthood...
"Kids have high levels of anxiety and depression and I think that never ever being out of sight of the grownups has a lot to do with it."
I see it quite differently. Back in the day, there were many farm families or other small family businesses where every child had real responsibilities. Little or nothing is expected of today's youth and they feel worthless. Real self-esteem comes from accomplishment, feeling needed and important to the family unit.
Hopefully Republicans will get their wish of dialing back the clock on our economy by 150 years and then your wish will come true!
Self-reliance like no other. Sure, we will have way more poor-farmers than we need or know what to do with, but I guess we can always artificially create (subsidize) demand for what the market doesn't need them to do.
And we won't be competitive globally. Imagine how much harder it will be to pay off the debt that the Republicans keep raising if we took output down by a couple orders of magnitude and stopped all production that was non-farm based!
Sure, it will make it even harder to pay the Chinese creditors that Republicans keep putting America in deeper and deeper hock to, but that's nothing that the Trump-u-tards can't be talked into spinning as a good thing.
Republican Paradise!
There you go, encouraging violence and self-harm - the only things Democrats understand.
FIFY!
I love abortions. It helps prevent unwanted children. There are far too many people as it is. Just because some dude screwed some chick in the heat of passion, doesn't confer on the embryo personhood. An embryo, like the spunk that helped create it, is just so much snot.
We're in trouble if these potential murderers realize their fame lasts longer if they remain alive.
Assuming his family didn't drive him to it, I think they deserve a little privacy.
one of the things the news never tells us is what drugs the kid (or adult) was using. Adderall, Prozac, Chantix and others seem to have psychotic outbursts as a side effect.
OF COURSE the news never mentions this. Never bite the hand that feeds you and they, esp TV get some very large portion of their revenues from drug ads.
I think all prescription drug advertising should be banned except to doctors, pharmacists, hospitals and the like.
We don't need a law or even an executive order. The FDA commish could do it on his own authority.
Re the kid's name, I think there is a policy, maybe even a law, against publishing a minor's name in a criminal case. (I could be wrong)
In any event, as Paul Harvey used to say when reporting on stuff like this "He'd want us to know his name." and would then move to something else without giving it.
John Henry
I'm very glad they didn't publish the poor kid's name. In fact I'd support legislation to change every mass murderer's legal name to "Some Asshole" before allowing it to be published.
In other news, President Trump recently authorized the release for sale to civilians of 100m US Army surplus assault rifles. Not the wimpy 23 cal like the AR15, either. Full on, semi-automatic, 8round clip M1 Garands. These are now available.
100m surplus 1911 semi-automatic 45 caliber pistols will be released for sale "real soon now"
I love that man more and more every day. I am so glad he decided to stay on after 2020. Maybe we should start working on repealing the 22nd Amendment.
John Henry
Psychotic people tend to have psychotic outbursts.
Trumpit, I'll raise a glass to you tomorrow when I have my delicious venison stew for dinner. Yum, yum, Bambi sure tastes good!
Blogger Henry said...
I'm not sure is the murderer in the 1927 Bath School Madssacre was raised without a father. He waited until he was 55.
Nor did he use an assault rifle. Though I guess you could claim that dynamite is an assault weapon.
44 dead.
John Henry
Little or nothing is expected of today's youth and they feel worthless. Real self-esteem comes from accomplishment, feeling needed and important to the family unit.
Most kids, when I was growing up, got jobs and earned their own spending money. I sure did.
Now, many of those jobs are filled by illegal aliens.
The only kid that I knew who had a gun that he carried around was a fat bully who killed himself about age 20.
One problem is these giant high schools that are warehousing kids. You put 3000 kids together and one will be a psychopath.
We could change the law so that if a kid threatened to shoot others with a gun carried onto school property, or even just threatened to shoot up the school, he was charged with a crime and that crime became a part of his record after he was eighteen, a record available to law enforcement and to those who carry out background checks. This is a change that would have prevented a school shooting - the parkland shooting - and many other crimes as well. The kids protesting at Somerville high school in Massachusetts are saying that several kids have brought guns into their school but the fact is not on those students' records. And I wonder how many other students in other places are threatening with guns and having the fact washed away by the fact they are students? Maybe we should gather a few facts on the hidden story of school threats with guns by students.
Now, many of those jobs are filled by illegal aliens.
I picked berries as a kid. Every summer when I was in elementary school. All the kids in the neighborhood rode the buses to the farms.
Alas, the farms are all paved over now. Concrete, asphalt, and tract homes. Houses so close together you can hear each others toilet flush.
John Henry,
Is that the SoKo M-1 return that the Obama administration stalled? I just got CMP status for purchases, so that would make me very happy with the Trumpster!
I hope the community will turn out for the funeral and to support the parents of this kid. Even though he was planning evil, he didn't carry it out, but this is going to be almost unbearable for the parents and they won't feel like they can reach out to anyone given what their kid was planning.
exiledonmainstreet said: "Trumpit, I'll raise a glass to you tomorrow when I have my delicious venison stew for dinner. Yum, yum, Bambi sure tastes good!"
We had venison spaghetti earlier this week. It was terrific. The leftover spaghetti was even tastier. From my perspective, I prevented a roadkill and the subsequent automobile damage and turned it into a delicious organic meal. Organic is a thing now, right?
mockturtle said, I see it quite differently. Back in the day, there were many farm families or other small family businesses where every child had real responsibilities. Little or nothing is expected of today's youth and they feel worthless. Real self-esteem comes from accomplishment, feeling needed and important to the family unit.
I agree. I mean it's a hypothesis that I don't know how to test. But my guess would be that this is the key difference between now and the recent past.
Organic is a thing now, right?
Not as big a "thing" as processed factory food.
Republicans still believe in factories, don't they? I thought they believed only "snobs" get their food in a way raised by the elements.
The Toothless Revolutionary said, Hopefully Republicans will get their wish of dialing back the clock on our economy by 150 years and then your wish will come true!
Self-reliance like no other. Sure, we will have way more poor-farmers than we need or know what to do with, but I guess we can always artificially create (subsidize) demand for what the market doesn't need them to do.
I don't think that's a possibility. If we had a Great Depression now, I don't know what would happen. I think it would be much, much worse.
I worried about that in 2007-2008 when it looked like we were going into that. It seemed to me that if things got bad, that the great majority was going to be absolutely helpless.
It wasn't that way during the Great Depression. People did amazing things. They were poor, but they still accomplished a great deal.
Part of it is that most people were farmers back then. We forget that. They weren't that far from self-reliance. And even for the minority that weren't farmers, the majority of them were less than one generation removed from farming. They had some understanding of what it takes to survive.
In other news, President Trump recently authorized the release for sale to civilians of 100m US Army surplus assault rifles. Not the wimpy 23 cal like the AR15, either. Full on, semi-automatic, 8round clip M1 Garands. These are now available.
100m surplus 1911 semi-automatic 45 caliber pistols will be released for sale "real soon now"
I love that man more and more every day. I am so glad he decided to stay on after 2020. Maybe we should start working on repealing the 22nd Amendment.
Make America as bloody as a battlefield again. The citizens aren't committing enough warfare against each other. "American carnage" indeed.
It wasn't that way during the Great Depression. People did amazing things. They were poor, but they still accomplished a great deal.
You miss it then, don't you?
Don't worry. Republicans are great at bringing them on. The deregulated 19th century economy that they want America to return to had a great many of them.
Look Pedro! You could buy a seal!
http://bit.ly/2F7gWhr
Yes, 19th century America had a many recessions. All of them were short. Rather unlike the recession that lasted for most of Obama's presidency.
It also seems worth remembering that the unregulated, small government, and relatively libertarian 19th century America featured some of the most dramatic economic growth that the human species has ever seen.
It's true that Japan, South Korea, and China have all shown more rapid growth than 19th century America. But there's a considerable difference in context. Most of Japan, South Korea, and China's rapid growth has been catch-up. It's still a huge achievement but they were copying or adapting to their circumstances what had already been achieved elsewhere.
Nineteenth century America was only playing catch-up to Great Britain, and by the middle of it we weren't all that far behind, and by the end of the 19th, we were probably leading.
It seems to me that you, the Toothless Revolutionary, put a value on regulation, bureaucracy, and centralized power that isn't warranted.
TTR: "Make America as bloody as a battlefield again. The citizens aren't committing enough warfare against each other. "American carnage" indeed."
See if you can explain why obama initially approved the sale of these rifles.
We'll be waiting.
In the early 1930's my grandfather gave my Dad a gun one Christmas when he was about 10 years old. He passed it on to me about 20 years ago and it sits in the corner of my closet, I haven't shot it since I was about 16. It is a Stevens "Little Scout", a scaled-down .22-cal, single shot rolling block rifle built for 8-12 year old boys. Stevens made about 7 million of them between about 1910 and 1940. Dad said when he was a boy growing up in rural south GA that all the boys had them. He would even take it along sometimes when he walked to school.
I have a friend in TX who has an M1, given to him by an elderly WWII veteran before he died. A lady friend of his invites him out to her east TX ranch periodically to help her clear out the feral hogs damaging her property. He has found the M1 to be the best thing for the job.
My only experience with an M1 was using one for drill in JROTC in high school. Learned to break it down, clean-it, and put it back together. Had a timed final exam task to assemble in, in the dark, blind-folded. I really liked it and wish I had had the opportunity to shoot one. A great example of mid-20th century American ingenuity and manufacturing prowess. Still a great rifle today.
The Toothless Revolutionary said...
Make America as bloody as a battlefield again. The citizens aren't committing enough warfare against each other. "American carnage" indeed.
It is fun watching the Nazi left lose on another attempt to disarm their political opponents and froth with rage.
Knives kill more people than AR-15's.
Hammers kill more people than AR-15's.
Bare hands kil more people than AR-15's.
Now continue on with your stupid ranty diatribes against republicans. You are a perfect little tribal tool for the people who own the democrat party.
See if you can explain why obama initially approved the sale of these rifles.
Um, to avoid the wrath of the powerful NRA lobbying organization?
Knives kill more people than AR-15's.
Hammers kill more people than AR-15's.
Bare hands kil more people than AR-15's.
Usually by people that know them. But as a typical - and by "typical" I mean "sociopathic" - Republican, you're a bigger fan of the mass casualties caused by mowing down dozens of unknown bystanders. Massacres appeal to your Republican "heart" - (and I use that term ironically. I'm talking about the tiny organ in your chest that in normal humans would be called a heart). Remember, the shooter was a freedom fighter - or at least fighting for his own cause (and as a racist his cause was similar to causes you endorse) - using the tools that you like best. Mass casualty killing machines are things that Republicans are particularly attached to. They have a fetish for them, you know. This killer murdered those kids so that you could be free. He too, I'm sure, believed in an overly armed society. He too loved firearms in the same, unnatural and anti-social way that you relate to.
Should the NRA shut its doors will 300 million guns vanish?. Trumpit put it best when he called for guns to be removed from civil society, but not in the way he intended. Uncivil society would hold on to theirs. That much can be counted on.
As it happens I discovered that a handgun, a U. S. Navy issue Smith and Wesson 38 revolver which my father brought home from the war, has gone missing in a recent bit of house construction. Must have been borrowed by one of the movers. Alas. Perhaps it will be used to kill another low life.
An authentic replacement runs over $1,500. I think I will satisfy the nostalgia by buying a new model 10 which is identical but for the U S Navy inscription on the barrel and the laniart swivel on the butt.
Should the NRA shut its doors will 300 million guns vanish?.
The propaganda inflating an artificial demand for that many would.
Trumpit put it best
No he didn't. He never does.
when he called for guns to be removed from civil society, but not in the way he intended. Uncivil society would hold on to theirs.
They already are and do. To great effect.
That much can be counted on.
That you will not make a point worth making can be counted on.
Yes, 19th century America had a many recessions.
No. They were actually depressions, numbnuts. Regular recessionary cycles remain with us to this day.
All of them were short. Rather unlike the recession that lasted for most of Obama's presidency.
You mean the one that was artificially extended by Republicans refusing for the first time since 1932 to provide the stimulus for ending it?
The Republicans knew this would worsen and deepen the recession and did it anyway because they felt it would help their chances at the election as an opposition party. Duh. Many even here have approved of the tactic so we know it's not like they had a moral opposition to doing whatever they thought was necessary to damage Obama, even if it meant holding the economy hostage to him.
Imagine Trumpit, the arbiter of "Civilized Society".
It's interesting how one person does something bad, and the discussion goes to how everyone else no where near the incident should be punished.
My idea is simple. The family can bury the kid. Instead of punishing people elsewhere, give them even greater rights to protect themselves. Then the kid would really be a hero. He would have given his life so others could have more freedom.
ritmo has the feels. How sad.
I sure hope he doesn't have access to firearms. I think his anger will put some republicans lives at risk.
Trumpit. If you really are concerned about the wildlife in this country go buy fishing and hunting licences in every state you visit. Federal and state duck stamps too. None of the money you pay goes to advocacy but directly toward conservation. Put your money where your feels are.
You put 3000 kids together and more like 150 will be psychopaths. Almost none will go the violent route - but wow, that's a lot of pressure on the counselors to spot the 150 every year and keep them under observation for their whole four years.
My daughter attends a school of almost 4000. It's crazy.
Why is everyone acting like *all* of today's children are doomed because life is not the same world as they grew up with?
There are millions more kids who solve their problems without weapons than with, yet it seems everyone today act like today's kids are all Cruzes and Klebolds. That is an insult to them.
Just because you did not hear of mass shootings when you were a child does not mean that evil and tragedy did not occur. In my day, the end of the world was seen as a mushroom cloud. Angel Dust destroyed families. We never talked about child abuse, which remained a hidden nightmare in homes. Racism was alive and open in the north and south. Kids were bullied, often to the point of suicide, but we did not have the internet to tell us everything in less than a second.
This in 2018. We have different technology, but the same problems. And like in the past, there are more people, especially children who go through hell and do not solve things at the end of a gun. Our kids are strong and smart. Why don't we focus on the Marys and Davids and Trevons, and SoonYees that succeed rather than those who destroy in such a sick display? These kids may not be scientists and presidents, but they go through everyday life and its struggles without killing anyone.
Just because you did not see such violence *your* past does not mean that bad things did not occur. After all the first school shooting in the US occurred in 1979. By a girl.
In the words of Billy Joel's "Keeping the Faith"
The good ol' days weren't always good
And tomorrow's not ain't as bad as it seems
Ritmo, you are mistaken. Modern economists don't use the word depression, everything is a recession. Economists in the 19th century talked about depressions, but it isn't part of the modern vocabulary or to say it another way, it has no objective definition. (I don't know why there was the change in vocabulary.)
I'm a bit stunned that you think that the major economic downturn that ran from the end of the Bush presidency to possibly even now was artificially extended. Nothing could be further from the truth.
In fact, there has never been a recession in the history of America, including the Great Depression, that has received more artificial stimulus. There was not only massive fiscal stimulus, that is expenditures of government money intended to stimulate economic activity, but there was a much more massive and still ongoing printing of money. If the past is any guide this is the sort of thing that leads to the collapse of nations. Many modern economists have somehow convinced themselves that we can safely do this, but the fact that we are probably has more to do with what politicians want than what economists think.
The political reality is that the Democratic Party saw an economic downturn coming and was perfectly willing to sacrifice our future to prevent that downturn from happening. Now it may be that the Republican Party if it had been in power would have made the same choice, but possibly not, and at minimum there would have been an argument.
Anyway it all seems like ancient history now. We are no longer in that place. We will pay the price at some point, though I don't know when. But I no longer feel like this is the major issue of our times. Our major problem is that our schools and universities are completely dominated by fascists. And that one of our two political parties, the Democratic Party, is rabidly racist. What is and will happen to our economy in the future seems almost a side-show compared to that horrible reality.
You mean the one that was artificially extended by Republicans refusing for the first time since 1932 to provide the stimulus for ending it?
Democrats controlled both chambers from 2006 to 2010, and passed a $787 billion stimulus package.
Who does Ritmo blame for President Boyfriend's shitty economy? Republicans.
No, you missed it. Shooterboy is Ann's hero because he shit (himself) and saved the other schoolchildren from (himself).
Yes, Ann is one sick fuck. But I take her point. It's simply reminds me of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, where the crewmam with the earwig, the black guy with Chekov, kills himself before the earwig makes him kill Kirk. (Do I remember that right?)
As if there were a demon in the boy, and no Gadarene swine at hand.
Purportedly, DIs prefer untutored shooting pupils because they have no bad or unorthodox habits to unlearn.
You mean the one that was artificially extended by Republicans refusing for the first time since 1932 to provide the stimulus for ending it?
Um, according to the UCLA School of Economics (a notorious fascist front operation), it was FDR who prolonged the Depression by about six years with his economic meddling.
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