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  • Guns

    Like everyone horrified by the recent events at Sandy Hook Elementary, I want to find some explanation, however hard to swallow, some lesson or ground for progress to take from this horror. So, this piece from today's Washington Post caught my eye:

    By Peter Hermann and Michael S. Rosenwald,

    Saturday, December 15,

    NEWTOWN, Conn. — Adam Lanza lived among guns.

    His mother, Nancy, collected them. She showed them off to her landscaper.

    “Guns were her hobby,” said Dan Holmes, the landscaper of Nancy Lanza’s sprawling yard here on the edge of town. “She told me she liked the single-mindedness of shooting.”

    Holmes said she even spoke of taking her son to the firing range to practice his aim.

    As details of her son’s troubled life trickled out Saturday, the day after he gunned down 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School and his mother at their home, the portrait emerging is one of a detached killer who knew his way around a trigger and of a family that feared outsiders in the home.

    * * *

    Her former sister-in law, Marsha Lanza, told the Chicago Sun-Times outside her home in Crystal Lake, Ill., that Nancy Lanza wanted guns for protection. “She prepared for the worst,” Marsha Lanza told the newspaper. “I didn’t know that they [the guns] would be used on her.”
    I tend to land on the libertarian side of issues. So I am sypathetic to gunowners' interests -- though I don't own guns, never have, have shot one maybe three times (at a couple of Utah rifle ranges), and have always been timid to do it, worrying about the kick, etc.

    But also I am for freedom of consenting adults to have sex. And it seems we hear a lot more admonition about responsible sex than responsible gun ownership and use among those who claim to own guns purely for target practice, hunting and/or self-defense.

    I suppose guns do provide a measure of increased protection to ordinary folks outside of law enforcement. But it seems I hear a lot more about guns being deployed by seemingly ordinary folks to kill family members or other innocent ordinary folks than I do about a gun actually providing a means to the ownener's prtecting himself or herself from violent crime.

    One thing that that seems common sense and can be learned from Sandy Hook, is that having the kinds of firearms that Adam Lanza was exposed to around his house makes it easier to do what he did.

    There has been a lot of false information come out in the early frantic hours since the Sandy Hook catastrophe. I recogize that the stories now circulating about Nancy Lanza's gun fettishes and multiple gun and live ammo stashes around her suburban house and gun love indoctrination of her severely mentally ill son may turn out to be totally false.

    But if this information is true, Nancy Lanza does not seem to have engaged in responsible gun ownership. Certainly she knew better than anyone the fragile quality of her son's mental state, his loneliness and rage. It seems to have been questionable judgment to have included in her home schooling of wretched Adam Lanza a familiarity with and love of guns that can murder and main dozens of people in a matter of minutes or even seconds.

    So whatever the facts, I hope something that comes of this is increased gun owners' awareness of the need to be responsible gun owners; to exercise sound judgment. Maybe like alcohol, marijuana, tobacco and sex, the solution isn't banishment, but education and increased enlightenment that the high of gun ownership carries risk and tremendous responsilbity.
    Last edited by SeattleUte; 12-15-2012, 11:36 PM.
    When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.

    --Jonathan Swift

  • #2
    Originally posted by SeattleUte View Post
    Recently a BYU professor's own family member broke into his firearms stash and used it to murder the professor and his wife -- apparenlty in part to steal the guns.
    Nope. They were innocent. After sitting in jail for several months somebody else confessed to the murder.

    http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/54...ouple.html.csp
    "There is no creature more arrogant than a self-righteous libertarian on the web, am I right? Those folks are just intolerable."
    "It's no secret that the great American pastime is no longer baseball. Now it's sanctimony." -- Guy Periwinkle, The Nix.
    "Juilliardk N I ibuprofen Hyu I U unhurt u" - creekster

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    • #3
      Originally posted by Jeff Lebowski View Post
      Nope. They were innocent. After sitting in jail for several months somebody else confessed to the murder.

      http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/54...ouple.html.csp
      Good for them. What have I told you about prosecutors. What a nightmare, but unfortunately this happens. I'll redact that part from my essay.
      When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.

      --Jonathan Swift

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by SeattleUte View Post
        Good for them. What have I told you about prosecutors. What a nightmare, but unfortunately this happens. I'll redact that part from my essay.
        Yeah, it was quite a shocker. Every bit of news and evidence released by the police department pointed to the son and his wife and they were just waiting for trial. It looked like and slam dunk case. The son and his wife claimed that they were held hostage by two men right after the murder when he went to his father's house, but the way the story came out, it sounded fishy. Then a couple of guys were arrested out in Vernal on some other charge and they confessed to the murder, and it was exactly as the son had claimed.

        How awful would that be to be falsely accused of murdering your father?

        (sorry for the hijack - I realize this has little to do with the point you were making)
        "There is no creature more arrogant than a self-righteous libertarian on the web, am I right? Those folks are just intolerable."
        "It's no secret that the great American pastime is no longer baseball. Now it's sanctimony." -- Guy Periwinkle, The Nix.
        "Juilliardk N I ibuprofen Hyu I U unhurt u" - creekster

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by SeattleUte View Post
          though I don't own guns, never have, have shot one maybe three times (at a couple of Utah rifle ranges), and have always been timid to do it, worrying about the kick, etc.
          There are guns out there so exquisite that if you had an inkling of what you are missing you would be crushed and debilitated under an intolerable weight of despair and regret.
          "Seriously, is there a bigger high on the whole face of the earth than eating a salad?"--SeattleUte
          "The only Ute to cause even half the nationwide hysteria of Jimmermania was Ted Bundy."--TripletDaddy
          This is a tough, NYC broad, a doctor who deals with bleeding organs, dying people and testicles on a regular basis without crying."--oxcoug
          "I'm not impressed (and I'm even into choreography . . .)"--Donuthole
          "I too was fortunate to leave with my same balls."--byu71

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by Jeff Lebowski View Post
            Yeah, it was quite a shocker. Every bit of news and evidence released by the police department pointed to the son and his wife and they were just waiting for trial. It looked like and slam dunk case. The son and his wife claimed that they were held hostage by two men right after the murder when he went to his father's house, but the way the story came out, it sounded fishy. Then a couple of guys were arrested out in Vernal on some other charge and they confessed to the murder, and it was exactly as the son had claimed.

            How awful would that be to be falsely accused of murdering your father?

            (sorry for the hijack - I realize this has little to do with the point you were making)
            Thank you for clearing that up. It's an interesting story too.
            When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.

            --Jonathan Swift

            Comment


            • #7
              http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nati...icle-1.1220431
              When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.

              --Jonathan Swift

              Comment


              • #8
                I understand your point but I think your lack of involvement with the gun culture also separates you from the many points where the typical gun owner is encouraged to be responsible. That's not meant to be a comment on the subject shooting, as I know little about the details. But I think it is incorrect to suggest that the predominate influences in the gun ownership arena lack a focus on safety and responsibility.
                PLesa excuse the tpyos.

                Comment


                • #9
                  There is much knee-jerk reaction out there right now.

                  People are hurting and looking for some way to react.

                  This will pass with time.

                  As a nation we are not going to give up our right to protect ourselves... period.
                  "We should remember that one man is much the same as another, and that he is best who is trained in the severest school."
                  -Thucydides

                  "Study strategy over the years and achieve the spirit of the warrior. Today is victory over yourself of yesterday; tomorrow is your victory over lesser men."
                  -Miyamoto Musashi

                  Si vis pacem, para bellum

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                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Devildog View Post

                    As a nation we are not going to give up our right to protect ourselves... period.
                    It seems the only people we need to protect ourselves from is us.

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                    • #11
                      Thousand-dollar tax on each bullet. That's the solution. Make bullets a luxury. And no one would mind spending 1000 dollars on a bullet if they are really defending their lives. In fact, the government could give a tax break if someone actually has to expend bullets while using their gun in self-defense.
                      That which may be asserted without evidence may be dismissed without evidence. -C. Hitchens

                      http://twitter.com/SoonerCoug

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                      • #12
                        Originally posted by RC Vikings View Post
                        It seems the only people we need to protect ourselves from is us.
                        That seems vacuous. Care to expound?

                        As to the larger point, responsibility is very important. And most gun owners are.

                        As to the cries for gun control, we have 300 million and they are not going away. And the evidence doesn't seem to support the idea that taking them away makes us safer.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Jacob View Post
                          And the evidence doesn't seem to support the idea that taking them away makes us safer.
                          Wrong. Gun ownership correlates with successful suicide--not to mention accidents. You're right that it doesn't correlate with murder rate.
                          That which may be asserted without evidence may be dismissed without evidence. -C. Hitchens

                          http://twitter.com/SoonerCoug

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by SoonerCoug View Post
                            Thousand-dollar tax on each bullet. That's the solution. Make bullets a luxury. And no one would mind spending 1000 dollars on a bullet if they are really defending their lives. In fact, the government could give a tax break if someone actually has to expend bullets while using their gun in self-defense.
                            Thousand dollar tax on each abortion. That's the solution. (It will save more lives, too.)
                            τὸν ἥλιον ἀνατέλλοντα πλείονες ἢ δυόμενον προσκυνοῦσιν

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                            • #15
                              Agreed that guns aren't going away and that although most gun owners are responsible there are a lot that aren't. I talked to a guy a few weeks ago who said something like "Hell no I don't lock my guns up because what good is it if I need it quickly and it's locked up?" At the same time I think it's ridiculous for people who live and work in very safe environments to tell people who unfortunately have to live and/or work in much less safe environments that they can't defend themselves.

                              To me the better point to be made out of this horrible tragedy and also the shooting of Gabby Giffords and others in Arizona is that we've got to improve mental health services in this country and find a better way to keep mentally disturbed people who haven't yet committed crimes from getting guns.

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