Posted on 12/20/2012 6:51:52 AM PST by SeekAndFind
The school shooting in Newtown was so horrific and heartbreaking that it is only natural to call out for whatever it takes to make sure nothing like it ever happens again. It is hard to disagree with those who are demanding stronger gun-control laws and better mental-health oversight of unstable people. But how workable are such measures — and how effective? And are we asking the right questions?
The proposed gun-control legislation sponsored by California senator Dianne Feinstein sounds reasonable. But it is not clear that it would make a difference. It would stop the sale and manufacture of some semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines. But would it prevent an Adam Lanza from carrying out his deranged plan? A very large number of such devices are already in circulation. A determined killer can murder and maim dozens with an ordinary pistol or shotgun. Some will say we should implement radical gun control and prevent nearly everyone from having access to firearms. But, like it or not, law-abiding American citizens have a constitutional right to bear arms that would surely prevent mass civilian disarmament.
A more promising solution is to strengthen the nation’s mental-health services. But would counseling have been enough to stop the Columbine or Newtown killers? Sociopaths are good at beating the system. There is no known cure for their condition. In any case, Adam Lanza appears to have had some professional attention. So did one of the Columbine shooters. There have been calls to institutionalize or forcibly medicate mentally unstable people who show a propensity for violence. That can be appropriate in cases where the person poses a clear threat to himself or others. According to one news story, Lanza shot his mother because he believed she was about to place him in a psychiatric facility. How awful it is that she did not succeed. There is an urgent need to provide frightened parents with more treatment options and support. Still, forced institutionalization carries its own risks.
What about those odd, anti-social loners found in every high school? There seems to be widespread agreement that we should keep a closer watch over them. But, according to a 2002 study by the U.S. Secret Service and Department of Education, few school shooters fit that profile: “The largest group of attackers for whom this information was available appeared to socialize with mainstream students or were considered mainstream students themselves.” Nearly two-thirds of the killers had rarely, or never, been in trouble before at school. As a 1999 FBI study, “The School Shooter,” reminds us:
Reliably predicting any type of violence is extremely difficult. Predicting that an individual who has never acted out violently in the past will do so in the future is still more difficult. Seeking to predict acts that occur as rarely as school shootings is almost impossible. This is simple statistical logic: when the incidence of any form of violence is very low and a very large number of people have identifiable risk factors, there is no reliable way to pick out from that large group the very few who will actually commit the violent act. . . . At this time, there is no research that has identified traits and characteristics that can reliably distinguish school shooters from other students. Many students appear to have traits and characteristics similar to those observed in students who were involved in school shootings.
It is natural and human to demand solutions in the face of moral catastrophe. Still, we have to be careful that whatever we do, we don’t create a civil-liberties nightmare that ensnares millions of innocent people.
Why killers like the Columbine and Newtown shooters do what they do is as mysterious as the problem of evil in general. There will be no easy solution. But here are the hard questions no one has answered: Why now? Why us? Americans have always had easy access to guns. But, until fairly recently, no one thought to go to a school to slaughter first-graders. There have always been sociopaths among us. But we seem to have created a society where they feel empowered to act.
— Christina Hoff Sommers is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Her new book, Freedom Feminism, will be published this spring by AEI Press. Follow her on Twitter: @CHSommers
The Lord helps those that
seek and ask for HIS help.
We used to learn that as a child in every area of life .. not just church.
It was upheld and supported outside of church and the nuclear family ...
Was it just me, or did anyone here ALSO get disciplined after school disciplined me?
My best friend's mom whacked us both on the back of our legs (little boys in shorts) for throwing mud balls on their car, sent me home, dialed my mother, and I got it again.
America USED TO look out for each other.
America USED T'BE on the same page in the same book
I find little comfort in this statement when I remember we have this "Right" only as long as five of nine politically appointed lawyers on the Supreme Court agree we have it.
That is one of the many reasons this last election was so important. When Obama has an opportunity to appoint another Jurist on the Supreme Court, and he will, our Second Amendment Rights will be no more.
They have been there since the 1980s.
They are designed to disengage the child from the parent and from any belief in God.
Most kids are immune to it because they have very healthy relationships to begin with.
Some kids don't fare so well.
Everyone is looking at the guns, what the mother did or didn't do, etc.
The problem is in having kids go through a form of psychoanalysis by untrained personnel.
It is a real perfect storm for those who want a socialist America.
They create a populace with a socialist bent, a few crazies (by their design) are let loose, and a demand for gun control gets put on the front burner.
These programs create sociopaths. And we are paying for it with our tax dollars.
It wasn't just you. My parents knew all I had been up to before I even got home...
The "grapevine" was alive and well. We never knew where, we never knew how, but they always seemed to know.
But then again, they paid attention, too.
When they get as wild as this kid seemed to be, I think a prefrontal lobotomy might be the most charitable decision. Post lobotomy he can live in the community as calm as can be. No one would be in danger from him.
"[Fecal material], that ain't no mystery. Brothers and sisters know what guns sound like. Some crazy [person with an unhealthy sexual obsession with his mother] starts busting caps, you know you got to run away or get behind something solid. Stupid [thin and crisp bakery products] got to stick their heads up and try to see what's going on."
A remarkably astute observation, I think.
Not quite correct. We have the Constitutionally-recognized inalienable right to keep and bear arms. An inalienable right is a natrual right that, short of due process, cannot be taken away, denied, or transferred.
In my case, it didn't help matters that my father's sister .. my aunt .. worked in the lunchroom of my junior high school, and then she and my mother worked in the lunchroom/cafeteria of my senior high ...
It did teach me to be resourceful though ...
A right does not does not disappear when some voice in black says it does. On the contrary: when that traitor speaks, then it is clearly the time to exercise that right.
When’s the last time a person shot up a police station or a gun shop? We put armed guards in banks and on armored cars, school kids are far more precious. We should have armed guards in every school ; it would be a good job for retired cops and MPs
Moreover, the price would go up and guns would start flowing into the country from Central and South America to meet the demand - one more profitable import for the Cartels.
Politicians and certain celebutards have armed protectors.
Who is more important to us, the politicians and the celebutards or our kids?
Take the preatorian guard away from the politicos and the celebutards and have them watch over the kids.
They took 20 minutes to arrive. It was all over by the time they got there.
Suggestions like this just make us look crazy.
[What could have stopped Adam Lanza?]
Not unlocking a locked door to let him in.
Dint'cha ever learn; sticks n' stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me ?
I agree - but even this might be used against us. Look for unintended consequences.
I read that he tried to buy a gun but was turned away for two days.
He used his mother's gun. Were the guns just laying around? Were they in a safe?
How easy or difficult was it for him to access his mother's guns?
The whole point of her article is advance just that disagreement. It is the claim that she is countering.
(I guess sometimes it is useful to read beyond the first couple of sentences in an article...)
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