What is it about nice people that attract total idiots?Nice people are martyrs. Idiots are evangelists.

SOCK IT TO ME BABY!!!

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Another name goes into American lexicon- Sandy Hook

I'm not writing this post to expose facts (of which I have few) or to expose opinions (because mine lead to no answers).  I just want you all to think.  And I've said my prayers in private, so I won't be going into the tragedy per se.

Quite a bit was put on FB yesterday about people "taking advantage of a tragedy to politize" by bringing up, yet again, gun control.  My friend Mynx- an Aussie- put up an excellent post on the subject.  I do want to share with those of you who don't hit links my reply:

There’s definately two sides to the story. I see no reason why anyone outside a soldier needs automatic or semi-auto assault style weapons. On the other hand, I remember reading in the last year or so that assaults on schoolchildren were being more and more common in western China- but all of those were with knives, axes, machetes, etc. Like everything else in America, there doesn’t seem to be any ground between “all guns should be legal” and “all guns should be illegal.” It boils down to a fallen humanity in which people are sometimes led to do horrible things, and all the weapon bans you think up won’t stop it.
A commenter on FoxNews turned it into an indictment of our mental health system. But that is just as flimsy as making it a gun control issue. You can’t lock up everyone who might be a nut, and you can’t take away every weapon. There comes a point where you just have to do the things necessary to make yourself safe. The dude came in through a door that you SHOULD have to be buzzed through, with 2-4 assault weapons. The security system was only as good as the person operating it. Did he get in without being looked at? Was the door unlocked? We don’t know, but somewhere along the line, a system that SHOULD have been good enough to prevent this failed. And that is the why of it, not gun control or mental health.
And the what of it you covered at the very beginning. The thought that someone would do that to little kids sent me to work with tears in my eyes.

And moments later I came across this story, which I then confirmed on China's Xinhua:

22 students stabbed in central China attack

English.news.cn 2012-12-14 20:46:01
ZHENGZHOU, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Twenty-two school children and a villager were injured in a knife attack at the gate of a primary school in central China's Henan Province on Friday morning, according to local authorities.
All the injured people have been sent to three local hospitals and at least two of them, one student and an 85-year-old woman, are in serious conditions, said police.
The attack happened at around 7:40 a.m. at the entrance of Chenpeng Village Primary School in Wenshu Township of Guangshan County in the city of Xinyang, a police officer said on condition of anonymity.
Local police said they had seized a suspect, a 36-year-old villager named Min Yingjun.
At around 7 a.m. on Friday, Min burst into the 85-year-old woman's house, which neighbors the school, and an argument ensued, according to the woman's daughter.
Liu is thought to have seized a knife at the house and attacked the elderly woman. He then left, rushed into the school campus and slashed students, according to villagers.
The suspect was unknown in the village and might be mentally ill, some villagers said.
The elderly woman and most of the injured students suffered head wounds. And some of them were in shock, according to the People's Hospital of the county, which received most of the people injured in the attack.
"I want to go home!" cried a 7-year-old pupil surnamed Wei, who arrived at the hospital in a serious condition with a skull fracture.
The boy's coat was stained with blood and he was quite scared after being wounded, according to the boy's relatives.
The case is under investigation.

Notice that it happened the SAME DAY.  Gun control would NOT have prevented this.  The Hartford Courant, where I found the story looking into Sandy Hook, added this:

There have been a series of attacks on schools and schoolchildren around China in recent years, some by people who have lost their jobs or felt left out of the country's economic boom.

The rash of violence has prompted public calls for more measures to protect the young in a country where many couples only have one child.

In 2010, a man slashed 28 children, two teachers and a security guard in a kindergarten in eastern China.


And I remember that that story was at a time where it was a part of a list of at least three similar attacks.  Why does this kind of thing happen?

Perhaps our scientific friends who espouse evolution rather than creation could best answer that.  I'm surprised they haven't said what I'm about to.

Down through history, overpopulation has been a problem on local levels.  Even in nature, there are examples of it, and nature's responses- including the only slightly true story of lemmings charging off a cliff.  In the early days of history, wars and disease were easily able to solve the problem.

But man became smarter, ate and lived healthier.  Wars and disease had to become more than local to meet the problem- see the Black Plague.  But then, man figured how to combat disease, and the burden shifted to war.  The Thirty Years War, the Wars of Napoleon, and finally World Wars I and II increasingly upped the stakes, bringing civilian populations increasingly into their scope, even adding mass genocides in the last two.

But now, war has changed.  Very rarely do two significant armies meet in the field.  It's now just terrorism and guerrila actions.  And nature needs a new killer.

The climate changes, and monsters like Katrina and Sandy strike.  HIV and flesh eating viruses elude defeat by wonder drugs.  Drugs assault society, both in the actions of foreign and domestic drug lords and in local joes robbing stores for oxycodone and meth ingredients.

And nutjob killers spring up, killing random people in shopping malls and kindergartens.

Now, I'm not saying that nature is responsible for mass-killers.  But, given the "logic" of evolution, I'm surprised that no one else has.

Of course, when you figure that the people who most fervently support evolution also support policies that include the banning of guns, maybe it's not so surprising.



 

16 comments:

  1. I haven't posted on FB or blogger about this and I am not watching the news coverage. I just can't. I have no words. I'm reading, though. Amidst the gun control and mental health debates, I think some of us are realizing there really is no solution. It is a societal and cultural problem. Really, this kind of thing has been going on since the beginning of time but by different means. It's scary because, as a teacher, I know how our system works at school and there is really no perfectly safe way. People are buzzed into the school, but lots of different people pick up the kids- not just their parents- and through a door, you can't really tell who is there to pick up a kid and who is not. I just don't know anymore.

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  2. There clearly isn't any logic to any of this. But rest assured that the activists and politicians will harp on gun control and anything else they can rather than a real issue that could prevent this in the future. No, the woman didn't likely need a semi auto rifle in her suburban neighborhood, but if she felt as though for what ever reason she needed the semi auto pistols, fine. She obtained them legally, so the gun control laws likely wouldn't have been in play here. As for the security doors, who knows? I do know though that if a whack job wants into a building, he will find a way.

    In the end, we will never know why or how to stop it from happening again. We can just hug our kids and make sure they know that they are our world... and while we are at it, hug someone else's kids and let them know that they are too... just in case their own parents don't do it.

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    1. Exactly right, Juli. Even a complete weapons ban will only keep shop owners from shooting robbers. A relative posted a group of stats about hand gun deaths last year- Japan had 48, Switzerland 34, Canada 52, Germany 48- and the USA, 10,798. Trying to make everyone believe how monstrous we are. But when you account for the population difference, you get Japan 3.75%, Switzerland 4.29, Canada 1.5, Germany 5.86- and the USA, 3.46.

      Fort Wayne is up to 28 handgun deaths this year. Each of them from thugs using illegally possessed weapons. The effect of a gun ban on that number would be exactly nada. Here in Fort Wayne, we could lower that number if police chief Rusty York and Mayor Tom Henry would have the FWPD actually do patrols in the high crime areas of the city instead of being afraid of the NAACP suing for profiling and sending cops into safer areas to escort drunk county commisioners home.

      Mass killings are dramatic, but the problem isn't in them, it's in the one or two at a time that local pols either don't have the funds- or the gonads- to do anything about. Look over the racial stats of killings in Ft Wayne and you'll see, at least here, the problem is that eliminating gang-bangers by natural selection is cheaper than a civil rights lawsuit.

      As for the extreme events like this, you are dead right. Your last paragraph means more than all the stuff written anywhere by anyone on this sad story.

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    2. Yes... and that's why I've been hugging random children lately. :) Thankfully, they all know me and just think I'm just weird and not "icky".

      Have a great Christmas my friend. :)

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  3. According to our Founding Fathers, we do not have a Second Amendment right solely for the sake of personal protection. We also have a Second Amendment right in order to protect us from a tyrannical American government turning military forces against We The People.

    Therefore, the whole argument against civilians being allowed to possess more high-powered weaponry does not hold water.

    Second, guns have not gotten smarter over the last several decades, organzied themselves, and turned against We The People. No one should be blaming the guns, because the guns are just as stupid and unorganized as they ever were.

    HOWEVER, something definitely HAS changed over the last several decades and has caused public shootings of random citizens in various places such as malls, theaters and schools to become a fairly commonplace and tragic occurrence.

    Anyone want to venture a guess what has been removed from American culture that might cause more people to randomly shoot people?

    It's not that the previously civilized guns have become "un-Godly"; it's that the people holding the guns have become "un-Godly". And why? Because God and His principles have been all but totally removed from the public square.

    And lastly... this is an irrefutable fact: If law-abiding citizens carried guns, tragedies such as what happened at Sandy Hook would not involve so many innocent deaths.

    While a nut with a weapon is always going to do some damage, if the good citizens were also armed, they could/would "take out the nut", keeping the tragedy to a bare minimum. In other words, yes, a nut with a gun is going to shoot some people, but if people around him were also armed, he wouldn't be killing 20+ people in an elementary school. It's just simple logic.

    Here in Airheadzona, the people are allowed to carry concealed weapons. And yet a lot of stupid store owners post signs saying "No Weapons Allowed". Let me tell you something... if I were the clerk in a 24-hour convenience store, I'd damn sure like as many armed citizens around me as possible! Because the guy who walks in with the intent to rob me at gun-point, he damn sure isn't going to obey the "No Weapons Allowed" sign; he's already determined to break an even bigger law! But if some of my good customers are armed, chances are the robber is going to take 30 rounds in his butt before he ever robs and kills me!

    Like I said, it's just simple logic. But here in Amerika, logic is about as rare as the mention of God and His principles in the public square.

    ~ D-FensDogg
    'Loyal American Underground'

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    1. Your theory on the cause of these shootings is much the same as mine. Remember, Jesus spoke of Satan as "a murderer from the beginning". The removal of God's hedge of protection is I believe the major factor in the proliferation of such incidents nowadays.

      My opinion is in favor of an assault weapon ban, though; the death toll in such a situation might well be halved or quartered if the nutjob has to fire one at a time. But I say this, as I did in my reply above, with full knowledge that it would not significantly affect the total numbers.

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  4. I do believe there needs to be a presence of God back in our schools, however, our country has become so diverse it's impossible to represent everybody's God. I want my daughter to grow up the way I did. We celebrated Christmas and Chanukah in the classroom every year. I don't understand the fear of mentioning the word God in school, I don't care if it's called Higher Power at this point. Kids have lost all sense of morals, not all kids, but many, and it shows. Material items have become more important than their core values.

    Teaching people about guns instead of banning them would accomplish more, in my opinion. As would enforcing the laws already on the books rather than creating more laws that are not going to be enforced and making it more difficult for responsible gun owners like me to purchase a gun or ammo.

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    1. "As would enforcing the laws already on the books rather than creating more laws that are not going to be enforced " Well said. Just like anything else there are too many loopholes for criminals, nutjobs, conscienceless collectors, and lazy law enforcement to slip through.

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  6. Nuclear bombs don't kill people; people kill people. Unfortunately, all of history is rampant with people killing people. Some were just senseless killings, some were out of greed, some for power, some because of mental illness. For goodness sake, there were many wars fought in the name of someone's "Lord" and you see where that has gotten us. It seems as though there are very, very few people who believe in the sanctity of life or who really and truly observe the Commandment "Thou shall not kill." And yet, whenever tragedies such as Sandy Hook occur and the mass media exploits the situation in order to gain an audience, people react with shock and dismay. People overall are hypocrites.

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    1. Kinda cynical,dontcha think? I'm not really sure, Roland, what you were directing this at. I would say that my point- and that of most commenters- is that the tragedy has nothing to do with gun control or the mental health system, but in that you will have people like this. People who slip the bounds of morality and society's norms and commit things like this. I think that people are reacting to Sandy Hook in a manner befitting a people who DO still believe in the sanctity of life (News media excepted- they have their ratings as first priority). Even the ones fighting the political battle on FB are just trying to release their grief that such a thing can happen. Can you tell me you haven't thought about what you'd do if you could have a moment in the same room as Adam Lanza? I know I have.

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  7. Wow, kids and teachers are shot down and you go straight to defending the right to have assault weapons. I hope I never become such an idealogue that I ignore human suffering in my rush to defend my positions.

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    1. Hey anon, try reading the whole story and you'll see I posted this:
      "I see no reason why anyone outside a soldier needs automatic or semi-auto assault style weapons. "
      I hate to tell you, but you are already such an Idealogue. You turn every gun into an assault weapon and only read for key words. That must be the reason you were only brave enough to post as anonymous. If you like, I did a post not too long ago about people who post anonymously, feel free to check yourself out in the mirror. In the meantime, I'll thank you to either READ what you are commenting on or keep your rubbish to yourself. Either way, thanks for being an example of the kind of shoot-my-mouth off without looking idiot I referenced in my next post.

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  8. CWM:
    Good post and some decent comments.
    I agree that we need to ENFORCE the gun laws already in palce, and we DO have the technology to do so...had it for a while now.
    But I ALSO agree with the "psychs" they had on the news...
    We DON'T really have a viable mental health care system in the manner we used to have.
    My post today (Monday) mentions just that.

    There are telltale signs to look for even when people are younger than high school age, and yet, we allow the mainstreaming of such people out of sense of "fairness" to all...
    And we can see the results manifested in later years.
    It's not a gun problem (as evidenced by wholersale massacres in Africa done BY MACHETES), but a people problem.

    Again, well spoken sir.

    Stay safe up there.

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    1. It is definately a people problem, and Stephen up above hit on the core of why it is happening here so much more often now.

      The thing is, it is hard to eliminate the people problem. A profile to take such people off the street would likely take ME off the streets. Fact is, there are a lot of people "painfully shy", "nerdy", tech-head," "raised around guns", "picked on", and the vast majority would NEVER think of something like this. And there are plenty of anonymous voices like the one above that contribute nothing but stupidity to the conversation.

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