Free Republic

Former Vice President Joe Biden pushed back Monday evening on President Trump’s characterization of mental illness as the cause of an El Paso, Texas mass shooting over the weekend. “Hatred is sick, but it's not a mental illness,” Biden said in a Monday interview on CNN. "White supremacy is wrong. But it's not mental illness." The suspect in the shooting, which killed at least 22 people on Saturday, has been tied to a racist, anti-immigrant manifesto that was posted online just before the attack began and speaks of a Hispanic “invasion” of the U.S. Although President Trump condemned white supremacy...

Only when cops entered Rodger’s nearby apartment did they find his first victims: three multiply-stabbed men whose names were withheld Saturday night, pending family notification. It remained unclear Saturday night if any of the three were Rodger’s two roommates. He had written in the manifesto that he would “have to kill” them so he could turn the place into “my personal torture and killing chamber.” “I will start luring people into my apartment, knock them out with a hammer, and slit their throats. I will torture some of the good looking people before I kill them, assuming that the good...

Just in time to exploit the one-year anniversary of the Dec. 14 spree-shooting at Newtown, Conn., the December issue of the journal “Pediatrics” runs a study claiming that screen images of guns and gunplay make our children more violent. The study, “Gun Violence Trends in Movies,” authored by Dan Romer, Adolescent Communication Institute of the Annenberg Public Policy Center and Brad J. Bushman, a professor of communication and psychology at Ohio State University, has already been cited in editorials calling for federal regulation of movies and video games. “It’s disturbing that PG-13 movies are filled with so much gun violence,”...

People say America is a free country. But what if you want to drink, have a cigarette or make a bet? Government often says "no" to protect us from ourselves. It's as if the government is still run by the Puritans who settled this land four centuries ago. They said pleasure and luxury are sinful. Today's government has a better argument when it seeks to restrict activities that might harm others, but I notice that even then, it often focuses more on things that upset modern-day Puritans. Drinking and driving can be fatal. But government data show that sleeplessness and...

People are quick to point the finger or dismiss the effect of violent video games as a factor in criminal behavior. New evidence from Iowa State researchers demonstrates a link between video games and youth violence and delinquency. Matt DeLisi, a professor of sociology, said the research shows a strong connection even when controlling for a history of violence and psychopathic traits among juvenile offenders. "When critics say, 'Well, it's probably not video games, it's probably how antisocial they are,' we can address that directly because we controlled for a lot of things that we know matter," DeLisi said. "Even...

The Obama administration's assault on the Second Amendment in reaction to Newtown is not a serious solution. It's a Band-Aid on cancer. The NRA's call for armed guards in every school also misses the point. When is anyone going to get serious? The problem is violence, a violence of monstrous and horrific proportions that has infected America's popular culture. The Hartford Courant reported on Sunday that during a search of Newtown grade-school killer Adam Lanza's home after the shootings, "police found thousands of dollars worth of graphically violent video games." Detectives are exploring whether Adam Lanza might have been emulating...

Bernalillo County Sheriff Dan Houston and one of his top investigators said during a news conference this morning that 15-year-old Nehemiah Griego had been planning violence for “at least a week.” Investigators are still trying to determine who, if anyone, he told about his plans. Among those detectives are considering as someone who may have known is Griego’s 12-year-old girlfriend. ~~snip~~ Houston said that although he has numerous arrests in his past, it does not appear Greg Griego was a convicted felon. [Sheriff’s Lt. Sid] Covington said it appears some of the guns owned by Greg Griego — including possibly...

The horrific Newtown, Conn., mass shooting has unleashed a frenzy to pass new gun-control legislation. But the war over restricting firearms is not just between liberals and conservatives; it also pits the first two amendments to the U.S. Constitution against each other. Apparently, in the sequential thinking of James Madison and the Founding Fathers, the right to free expression and the guarantee to own arms were the two most important personal liberties. But now these two cherished rights seem to be at odds with each other and have caused bitter exchanges between interpreters of the Constitution. Many liberals believe there...

Guns, guns, guns. Love, love, love. America needs guns and love. As humans, we have an inherent right to life. Our right to life (or self-defense) is a natural right and does not come from any document, even the Constitution. The Bill of Rights or the first ten amendments to the Constitution simply acknowledge our natural rights. Specifically, the Second Amendment recognizes our natural right to bear arms for self-defense. Guns are the reactive, defensive answer to evil in the world. Love is the proactiveanswer to evil. We need both—guns and love. LOVE Good men express themselves through love; love...

In the wake of past mass shootings, when the "national conversation" has focused exclusively on guns, I have argued that our appallingly inadequate mental health system was a better subject of reform. At least half of the shooters in the rampage killings that are ripping our hearts out are young men with serious mental illnesses, and our system has neither the legal nor the financial resources to get them the treatment and/or restraint that they, and we, desperately need. This time, mental health reform has received passing mention, along with the usual pleas for gun control, better security at schools,...

MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin (CNN) -- All Nathan Moore says he wanted to do was smoke pot and get drunk with his friends. Killing Rex Baum was never part of the plan that day in 2004. "It all started off as a game," Moore said. The 15-year-old and his friends were taunting the homeless man -- throwing sticks and leaves -- after having a couple of beers with him. No big deal, Moore says, but he's sorry for what came next.

At the Charles Schwab company's call-center headquarters in Phoenix, human resources vice president Chip Luman has learned a secret about financial services technology and the employees who operate it: Video-game players often display exceptional business skills. ``The people who play games are into technology, can handle more information, can synthesize more complex data, solve operational design problems, lead change and bring organizations through change,'' said Luman, 38. Luman is among a host of professionals -- in fields including business, medicine and education -- who have noticed a surprising number of social benefits from the increasing time that Americans are spending...