I'm going to talk a little about the horrifying acts that have been dominating the news media recently, The Oregon Mall Shootings, the Connecticut tradgedy, etc, because, honestly, what can we possibly say about it.
It's horrifying, hell words don't begin to describe how awful this is...
I won't however fall into the trap of "We have to do something about this problem!" which seems to have become rampant over watercoolers on talking head shows, and in the news media.
Why don't we "Have To Do Something?".
Because, we've done everything we can, we've restricted guns, hell, the areas of these incidents were in fact "gun free" zones.
Gun laws are nearly as plentiful as the tax code, and do little if anything to dissuade someone bat shit crazy enough to do something like this.
Remember the College shootings? Gun free zone, in fact, you'd get arrested in most of those places even if you had a license to carry concealed, or like a lot of college kids, you were military on the GI bill, and had spent time in a warzone already, sorry, we don't trust you here... You might have been trusted with the protection of our nation, but we sure as hell don't trust you to protect yourself.
How about the Dark Knight Colorado theater shooting? yep, no guns there, either...
So will letting folks carry guns in these places, will that save lives?
Well, do you remember the Oregon Mall shooting a little while back? Yeah, I know it was bumped from media coverage by the Connecticut shootings, but it still happened. (This is sarcasm, directed at major media outlets, you know, the ones who decide what we are supposed to know or think?)
Remember how that happened?
Let me solve that for you, I just now googled Oregon Mall Shooting and clicked News and simply opened the first handful of pages I found...
Oregon mall shooting victims described as 'caring,' having 'zest for life' - CNN.com
Lots of stuff on the victims, and a link with everyone's twitters from inside, of course all of the attention faded as the other shooting dominated,
I get it, I really do, after all, it's news and a higher body count, young kids at a school, versus a mall shooting, it's obvious why one story would be tops.
And no, I don't think the media (alright, some may actually care, but as a group) really gives a shit, it's news, it sells, nothing more.
What about;
Oregon Mall Shooter Jacob Roberts Quit Job, Was Going to Hawaii - ABC News
In the days before he stole a semiautomatic weapon and stormed into an Oregon shopping mall, killing two people in a shooting spree, Jacob Roberts quit his job, sold his belongings and began to seem "numb" to those closest to him.The bold and underlined emphasis is mine, as it is the article that seems to explain what the soundbites are confirming, Okay He stole a semiautomatic weapon (and AR)... I'd like to understand how he did, but so much for that helping the call for laws on restricting the purchase of... well, that's an old argument on gun control,
Roberts' ex-girlfriend, Hannah Patricia Sansburn, 20, told ABC News today that the man who donned a hockey mask and opened fire on Christmas shoppers was typically happy and liked to joke around, but abruptly changed in the week before the shooting.
Roberts unleashed a murderous volley of gunfire on the second floor of the Clackamas Town Center on Tuesday while wearing the mask and black clothing, and carrying an AR-15 semiautomatic weapon and "several" magazines full of ammunition. He ended his barrage by walking down to the first floor of the mall and committing suicide.
And like is so often reported, he ends his barrage by committing suicide.
And of course, we also have the New York Times,
In Oregon Mall Shooting, a Lower Toll, Including Gunman Jacob Tyler Roberts - NYTimes.com
Law enforcement officials here expressed a kind of bleak gratitude on Wednesday that a masked 22-year-old gunman armed with a semiautomatic rifle and extra magazines of ammunition did not kill or wound more people in an attack at a suburban mall filled with holiday shoppers on Tuesday afternoon.
Okay, lots more information in this post, about the kid who did the shooting, but this paragraph really summed it up. There was a lot of exposition, and now I know (because the NYTimes tells me so) that he stole the gun from a friend, and with loaded magazines, and no apparent history of mental illness, friends, former girlfriend, family, etc, all stating that he was really a nice guy...
You know, the official, we don't understand what happened reasons.
Okay, no one saw it coming.... But you can't really prevent it then can you?
I mean, your simply hanging out in the mall and this happens, it's like we are all just waiting to be victims in this life sometimes isn't it?
End of story right?
I mean, the police reports, the media reports, that's all of it... And of course, everyone moved onto a (admittedly) larger tragedy...
But the guy randomly kills two people, then kills himself... He had multiple 30 round magazines for an AR, so we are talking hundreds of rounds here...
Yeah, I'll be the first to admit that people who do this are not sane, and I really shouldn't be surprised that there is no sane explanation to his actions, but I did find this blurp on the MSN website as a side to the (Wrap up?) coverage.
It was dealing more with the "gun control debates" that have followed the shootings.
Nick Meli, who had a concealed weapon, thought about shooting Oregon mall killer
As gun control debates rage after the Newtown tragedy, new details about last week’s Oregon mall shooting are heating up the argument. It turns out the murderer was not the only one with a gun. Shopper Nick Meli was legally armed, and, while the killer’s rifle jammed, had the maniac in his sights. He did NOT pull the trigger, however, for fear of injuring a bystander behind the shooter. The killer then retreated and took his own life. So what does this prove? Did a concealed carrier end the rampage? Or show the limits of armed civilians fearful of injuring one another in emergencies?Stop...
Go back and read it again.
Never mind, because I tracked down the origin from the story, the only local coverage that included this little tidbit.
Clackamas man, armed, confronts mall shooter | kgw.com Portland
PORTLAND -- Nick Meli is emotionally drained. The 22-year-old was at Clackamas Town Center with a friend and her baby when a masked man opened fire.
"I heard three shots and turned and looked at Casey and said, 'are you serious?,'" he said.
The friend and baby hit the floor. Meli, who has a concealed carry permit, positioned himself behind a pillar.
"He was working on his rifle," said Meli. "He kept pulling the charging handle and hitting the side."
The break in gunfire allowed Meli to pull out his own gun, but he never took his eyes off the shooter.
"As I was going down to pull, I saw someone in the back of the Charlotte move, and I knew if I fired and missed, I could hit them," he said.
Meli took cover inside a nearby store. He never pulled the trigger. He stands by that decision.
"I'm not beating myself up cause I didn't shoot him," said Meli. "I know after he saw me, I think the last shot he fired was the one he used on himself."
The gunman was dead, but not before taking two innocent lives with him and taking the innocence of everyone else.
"I don't ever want to see anyone that way ever," said Meli. "It just bothers me."
Okay...
Decide for yourself if this guy was instrumental in stopping a killing spree or simply a witness to the events. As I've said, you can't put reason into an insane mind, so we'll never know...
But this post is about the media coverage primarily, and I'm curious why this was so under reported.
Just, think about it...
In the weeks and months to come, the "gun control" debate will get highly politicized (maintaining that no actual facts will be discussed) and any national "talk" on these matters will primarily be thinly disguised attempts at further removing any civil liberties that this country has left.
From the TSA, to Drunk Driving checkpoints, each little liberty we give up; Protesting the wars? First your unamerican, then your a dissident, then your aiding the enemy (What the fuck, so I guess the first amendment only counts if your agreeing with what your told huh?).
What about sobriety checkpoints and random TSA sexual assaults?
Well, that whole unreasonable searching is okay, if we can prevent one person from driving drunk. After all, that's what the government is for, protecting us from ourselves, right?
A sobriety checkpoint? Really, Psshftt, hell, most folks don't even remember what the Fourth Amendment was, so just harass the hell out of them until they comply with MA AUTHORITA!
And what the hell is wrong with getting rid of the second amendment, it's only around so that people can shoot bunnies with AK-47s after all, right?
Next time you hear the debates, listen for things like sporting uses, and collectors, and any number of other uses combined with "Our Children" and statistics that are best dubious
Statistics are a way of quantifying something that should not be.
After all, Statistically deciding the number of homosexuals that might live in an area, or how prone an african american may be to end up in jail are nothing more than shallow ways of trying to enforce either a biased opinion or influence your own opinion.
Why do we have these rights, ALL OF THEM... Why are they being debated for their constitutionality when it's pretty clear from the wording of the constitution that they are not granted or made more or less legal by any government at all...
They are inherent.
The second amendment you can debate to the heavens fall, but it's there, and it's a moot point...
Why? So that you can defend yourself against crazy insane batshit people if you have to...
But even that isn't what it seems to be intended to have been included for...
The more I think about it, read federalist papers, and study history... I think the second amendment was included as the back bone to their other freedoms, The highest of course is the first amendment, but without the second, you can and will be silenced at the whim of a ruling party...
Our rights are violated every day in a thousand small paper cuts to our individual liberty...
(Yeah, I kinda like that line... And no, it's mine, you can't have it. Edit; Okay, it's not that great, so use it if you wanna.)
But I'm off on a tangent (naturally) so let's get back to the media and what they hath wroth.
They are calling this a reason for more restrictions on rights...
Connecticut has the 4th most restrictive gun laws in the country, and your required to get a purchase permit, a carry permit (both open and concealed), A partial assault weapons ban, plus registration on pre ban weapons, a state database of registry for all sales, public AND private sales, which have to be registered, and of course you cant be guilty of any of the following;
- Criminal possession of a narcotic substance;
- Criminally negligent homicide;
- Assault in the third degree;
- Reckless endangerment in the first degree;
- Unlawful restraint in the second degree;
- Riot in the first degree;
- Stalking in the second degree;
- Has not been convicted as a delinquent for the commission of a serious juvenile offense;
- Has not been discharged from custody within the preceding twenty years after having been found not guilty of a crime by reason of mental disease or defect;
- Is not subject to a restraining or protective order issued by a court in a case involving the use, attempted use or threatened use of physical force against another person;
- Is not subject to a firearms seizure order issued for posing a risk of personal injury to self or others after a hearing; or
- Is not prohibited from possessing a firearm for having been adjudicated as a mentally incompetent under federal law.
So...
Connecticut is practically the poster child for gun safety and has far greater restrictions than those states in the south where your supposedly given a gun, Hell, In Texas your required to own a gun to claim residency there...(Okay, maybe that last line was bullshit, but it wouldn't be hard to believe, would it?)
So, how much of your liberty do you want to give up to be safe...
Post a facebook post and say the wrong thing and you can be imprisoned, after all, the first amendment must have some limitations, right?
Want a gun because your afraid you might be a victim of a violent crime? Nah, we are gonna make it too expensive or too many hoops to jump thru, you know... to make you safer. And if someone does break into your home or mug you in the streets, just give the cops a call... they'll come along to take any information.. well, if your still alive.
Don't like having your junk groped by the TSA? Too bad...
It's for your own safety...
Hell, They can't prevent crime in fucking PRISON, so how the hell can they prevent it anywhere else?
They can't... All they can do is clean up afterwards...
But occasionally a bystander can make a difference, the examples are out there, and not just limited to the Oregon Mall shooting, but occur every day.
But you'll have to search if you wanna find em...
They don't get reported for some reason...
You can decide why for yourself....
So what can we do? Us, not our loving parental/nanny elected hand wringing figureheads. but the every day person, how do we prevent this?
Fact;
The laws able to prevent this don't exist in any place but a police state.
And even that is suspect...
The shooter in connecticut shot his mother FOUR TIMES IN THE HEAD, then took her guns and went to the school, it's still not clear, nor will it probably ever be, what his motivation was.
You can't prevent crazy... In many ways, I think the more we try and prevent it, the more we cause it.
Everything from simple ignorance, to not understanding the warning signs (face it most folks are so self centered in life, they can't get their faces out of their I phones long enough to avoid walking into traffic some times. People text each other because they are too fucking lazy to walk into the next room in their home,)
What causes this?
Human nature?
Tell you what, you want to prevent this, want to prevent another tragedy that may happen in the future, then log off the computer, close the laptop, put the fucking smart phone in your pocket, then walk into the next room, and give your significant other, your family, your parents, or your children, your sibling, a huge hug and tell them that you love them.
When's the last time you did that?
Take the phone back out of your pocket but this time use it (Yes! I know! You can do this, they have the ability!) and DIAL A LOVED ONE'S PHONE NUMBER... actually use your voice, do not text, do not IM/PM, or any of that other shit... TALK to them, if you can't physically be there, and simply tell them that you were thinking of them and ask if they are okay.
TELL them that you love them, and hope their doing okay.
If someone would have taken a moment to stop and talk to any of these shooters years ago, or even every now an again, and let them know that they mattered, that they were loved....
Who knows....
I know It might be just my liberal hippiness bleeding out (Yeah, I swing both ways... POLITICALLY, you fucking pervert, argh, always the perv, you are...) But don't be such a stoic "they should know how I feel" idiot.
WORDS MATTER...
So, since you didn't listen to me before, close the fucking page, log off, or simply back away, close the laptop, Ipad, notebook, smartphone, and do what I told you.
Maybe one of you will prevent a person from going down that dark path and while you may never know it, you may actually make a difference in a life...
And if you don't do it...
Well, I hope you end up trapped in an elevator for a couple of hours with someone suffering from irritable bowel syndrome who just ate a spicy burrito and washed it down with buttermilk.
And if your still here, and it's you that needs to hear that voice,
I hope you get a phone call, I honestly do...
before it's too late.
SeerSavant...
