News and Current Events - 2012

[morrobay]

Well, I don't know why I'm surprised but I'm watching CBS Sunday Morning, and they're showing interviews with victims still in the hospital.  People really have strange priorites

[AZ.bbm]

Executing a mass murderer for his or her crimes is hardly done out of hate OR retaliation. It boils down to self protection, not of an individual but of society itself.

Well, so far, capital punishment clearly has not been an effective deterrent against mass murder...

As far as protection goes, our plan is to execute one cockroach, a retaliation, then wait for the next one to pop up?

[AZ.bbm]

Thank you Stan. There is such a high rate of mental illness in the population at any given time, that it affects most of us at some time or another. Most of us are not going out to commit mass murder of course, but more understanding of the processes involved in all kinds of mental disability would only be a good thing.
It is certainly not a good idea for the mentally unwell to have access to powerful weapons.
Gun control here in the UK is very tight indeed, but mass shootings still happen despite our best efforts.
Michael Ryan in Hungerford.
Thomas Hamilton in Dunblane.
Derrick Bird in Cumbria
etc etc etc.
All we can say is that it happens less here than it does in the USA.

AFAIK, the US Gov't under Pres. Ronald Reagan effectively ended the mental health programs, here.
The mentally defective were turned out onto the streets and became known as "the homeless."


2. The 'gun control' issue is a moot one, as the founding fathers envisioned for the U.S. an armed populace necessary to prevent the kind of tyranny they witnessed in Europe under monarchical-ecclesiastical rule. (They were suspicious of banks and newspapers, too, and rightfully so.)
Even if we got guns under control mass murderers and other criminals would still get their hands on them.

[huntinbuddy]

AFAIK, the US Gov't under Pres. Ronald Reagan effectively ended the mental health programs, here.
The mentally defective were turned out onto the streets and became known as "the homeless."


2. The 'gun control' issue is a moot one, as the founding fathers envisioned for the U.S. an armed populace necessary to prevent the kind of tyranny they witnessed in Europe under monarchical-ecclesiastical rule. (They were suspicious of banks and newspapers, too, and rightfully so.)
Even if we got guns under control mass murderers and other criminals would still get their hands on them.

I can't buy into this reasoning on several levels.   Reagan was president in 1981-88.   The little killer is 24 years old which means he was probably hatched the last year of Reagan's second term.   There is nothing mentally defective about someone who goes into such planning for such a crime.   Defective perhaps in what he did was wrong, but certainly not from the standpoint he did not know what he was doing.

What has happened in America is the capital punishment laws have all but been extinguished in most states.  In many cases people such as Holmes reason they can commit such a crime, and never have to pay the same fate.  Timothy McVeigh was killed for what he did, and this little critter deserves the same.   And if the capital punishment laws the founding fathers of this country established were still adhered to today, massacres such as this would be very rare.

[janjo]

I don't need to know why. I don't care why. There is no reason, no excuse good enough to make it alright. Knowing why will change nothing... not for the dead and maimed, not for the living and I include all of society in that. He's a mad dog, crazy or not, and should be put down as soon as possible. That will not happen. The humane society he is a part of will drag this out for years. The families will have to live and relive and relive this for years. Well, that's fair, right? After all, he has his rights.

But we do need to know why.
If we are to prevent this horror from happening again we must understand; it is essential.
Having a judicial system that will keep this running for years is not acceptable either. Just lock him up and throw the key away!

[oilgun]

[...]

What has happened in America is the capital punishment laws have all but been extinguished in most states.  In many cases people such as Holmes reason they can commit such a crime, and never have to pay the same fate.  Timothy McVeigh was killed for what he did, and this little critter deserves the same.   And if the capital punishment laws the founding fathers of this country established were still adhered to today, massacres such as this would be very rare.

There is no evidence that capital punishment acts as a deterrent.

[janjo]

I don't believe I said anything about people who are not "normal" or needing help or treatment from time to time.

And as for your question a while back about who will decide who gets the shaft... who decides what the speed limit is? Who decides what taxes we pay? Who decides when kids go to school and what subjects they take? It's part and parcel of the same thing.

Elected officials that we don't trust, on the whole.

[oilgun]

This is why I support the Greek and Spanish protesters, as well as the Occupy movement.  ANs (despite my previous post) call for the return of the guillotine, lol!

Wealth doesn't trickle down – it just floods offshore, new research reveals
A far-reaching new study suggests a staggering $21tn in assets has been lost to global tax havens. If taxed, that could have been enough to put parts of Africa back on its feet – and even solve the euro crisis.
[...]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jul/21/offshore-wealth-global-economy-tax-havens?CMP=twt_gu

[janjo]

As Dave Cullen writes, not all facts are known, it's unwise to jump to conclusions.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/22/opinion/sunday/the-unknown-why-in-the-aurora-killings.html?_r=2&smid=tw-share

Dave is just so right here.
Jumping to conclusions from half a story filtered through the media, is extremely unwise. It won't help us to understand, and it won't help us to prevent such things from happening again. At this stage we do not know what motivated this young man, and until we do there is nothing we can do to help prevent it happening again, or to help us to pick up the signs and symptoms of  the mental heath issues which as as societies we must address.

[janjo]

There is no evidence that capital punishment acts as a deterrent.

No evidence at all!

[janjo]

AFAIK, the US Gov't under Pres. Ronald Reagan effectively ended the mental health programs, here.
The mentally defective were turned out onto the streets and became known as "the homeless."


2. The 'gun control' issue is a moot one, as the founding fathers envisioned for the U.S. an armed populace necessary to prevent the kind of tyranny they witnessed in Europe under monarchical-ecclesiastical rule. (They were suspicious of banks and newspapers, too, and rightfully so.)
Even if we got guns under control mass murderers and other criminals would still get their hands on them.

Even the strictest gun control can't stop these "spree killers" from going on the rampage, it just makes it more difficult for the unhinged to obtain weapons and ammunition. It won't prevent these awful happenings, but it does help to keep them happening quite so often.

Can anyone think of a lawful use for 6,000 rounds of ammunition and a sub machine gun?

[huntinbuddy]

There is no evidence that capital punishment acts as a deterrent.

Really?

How about this.....in my local community, in the mid-80's, an attempted armed robbery occurred at a C-store.   The robber took shots at the owner, who was working the counter on that particular evening...hit him twice, yet he was able to regain the strength while the robber was going after the cash, the smokes and booze, and pulled a shotgun he had from under the counter.

The robber was found in several pieces all over the C-Store.  One of the two local newspapers, as well as a tv station showed what that looked like.   We went seven years here without ONE armed robbery after that.   If that is not deterrent, I don't know what is.

[AZ.bbm]

Remember, there's a big difference between personal self-defense, where one's life is clearly in imminent danger as appears to be the case, and capital punishment which is administered via due process by the State.

If the C-store owner was down with two rounds in him, risking his life by getting up off the floor to kill the robber is downright foolish, and hardly self-defense -- even less so if the perp was fleeing the scene..


+ It's appalling to think that any local newspaper or television station would place such a scene in front of its audience, especially one which might consist of children.

[oilgun]

Really?

How about this.....in my local community, in the mid-80's, an attempted armed robbery occurred at a C-store.   The robber took shots at the owner, who was working the counter on that particular evening...hit him twice, yet he was able to regain the strength while the robber was going after the cash, the smokes and booze, and pulled a shotgun he had from under the counter.

The robber was found in several pieces all over the C-Store.  One of the two local newspapers, as well as a tv station showed what that looked like.   We went seven years here without ONE armed robbery after that.   If that is not deterrent, I don't know what is.

First of all that is anecdotal (and gruesome) and secondly it is not capital punishment which is performed by the state.  Isn't shooting someone in the back kinda like murder?

[huntinbuddy]

+ It's appalling to think that any local newspaper or television station would place such a scene in front of its audience, especially one which might consist of children.

...and children weren't watching television last Friday night?