Oh, I think there’s a lot to say, all the way from Barack Obama’s reluctance to speak the word “gun” when making his repeated de riguer commiserative statements to the families and loved ones of massacre victims, to the fact that the silence from law enforcement officials on the matter of assault rifles, banana clips, body armor, and even the so-called “cop killer” bullets, is absolutely deafening.

Which brings me to this. The early reports of the weapon or weapons used said that Lanza used the pistols to kill the children and adults. They also said that the assault rifle was found in the back of the automobile he used to get to the school. If that is true, then he must have arrived with two assault rifles since, according to the medical examiner who supervised the autopsies, all of the children were killed with an assault rifle.

My point is, that the chink in the NRA armor IS the availability of high-capacity assault rifles. Very few people would support any firearms regulation that would deprive people of keeping a pistol or two in their house for defensive purposes. Likewise having a shotgun or rifle for hunting purposes is not going to be stopped.

But assault weapons designed for the purpose of shooting human beings are another matter. Just now, I’d bet the ranch that most americans would unequivocally support a total ban on the importation, sale, or even possession of assault rifles, or maybe even high-capacity magazines for pistols.

Given this…terrible opportunity, it’s telling that Obama is clearly not interested in confronting the gun-nuts and the gun industry. With a clear majority of americans willing to place SOME restrictions on assault weapons, Obama, “skilled politician” that he is, is willing to make a tepid statement that he supports a ban on assault weapons, but he will not send a bill to congress that would do that. It would force the congressmen and women on the take from the NRA and the firearms industry to stand up and be counted, one way or the other, and along with other hot-button issues, this president has no more spine for doing that than a paramecium.

As Soledad Obrien said, in the future we’ll be talking about the same thing, again, instead of doing anything about it.

The Sojourner article I cited elsewhere quotes Ch. Heston as referring to his weapon being/having “sacred stuff.” A very scary mindset that thinks of the gun rights and the NRA as a religion. We are really round the bend on this topic. There certainly should be adequate, not illusory, background checks and a prohibition on the war weapons called “assault weapons.” Just as some substances are illegal, some of this weapons should not be accessible. There was some hope after the Brady bill, but we have seen that progress eroded. Thanks for your post. (Edit….I really do not understand that kind of lust for a bunch of lethal arms; DO not get it.)

(Glenn, More Statesman writing on the cancer story; I hope you will keep that topic alive.)

Yes, this is obviously Obama’s fault. So is my cold. And the sick tree in my front yard. I’m sorry for the snark. But right now all political haymaking seems cold to me. Tomorrow, maybe, it won’t.

This is worse than 9/11.

S’posed to have been reply to tanbark @1

I’ll put it like this:

What we need right now isn’t presidential tears. There are plenty of tears.

We need some presidential froth on the presidential chin.

After 4 years of watching this guy bend over backwards to avoid offending the people who most despise him for nothing more than being only about 90% of a corporate tool, and for being the “wrong” color, I can’t figure out what he’s afraid of. He doesn’t have to worry about winning another term; the only consideration along that line is that if he plays out another 4 years of lame-duckery, the republicans will win a landslide in 2016.

At this point there is really no reason to think that he’s troubled by that possibility.

Thanks Glenn for expressing the silence and the emptiness so many of us are feeling.

I know and have known a lot of minds; many more twisted than any of us care to acknowledge.

I have not found it useful to try to understand deeply or devise methods of sorting them out and labeling the dangerous. The fact is, within this massive organism comprised of billions of individual humans there occur in large numbers, if still only a minority, those who will do anything simply because they can.

It seems pervasively human that we never think of the things we make possible to do until after someone has done it. I recall but can’t cite the reference, a mathematician who worked on developing the nuclear bombs. After waxing eloquent in pride of this intellectual accomplishment he commented that “of course we never expected it to be actually used on humans.”

This is not to say I, as the church, would ban the free access to new knowledge or innovation but counsel that we at least accept the reality of our collective nature and devise ways to minimize the ability of the some unrestrained by conscience, empathy or wisdom to act on their destructive impulses.

That is really the foundation for most law and why we have laws. You simply can’t expect everyone to be good and wise. To, in a libertarian, frenzy of libertinism dismantle common sense laws has to suggest the idiots have indeed gained the field.

Well said Glenn. It’s 48 hours later and I still have nothing to say.

We could argue for better gun control. We could argue for national mental health care. We could argue about which politicians have failed. We could call for the shuttering of the NRA.

None of these things matter, though. They will not be heard in this vast echo chamber, filled with ideologues and crusaders.

We’re not going to change anyone’s mind today.

20 families are going to bury their kids in the coming days. 20 families that probably have Christmas presents bought and a tree in the living room, waiting for a child who will never open those presents. A child that won’t sit in the light of that tree ever again.

What the hell is there to say?

Glenn, stop setting up straw horses; I never said it was Obama’s fault. None of the people posting on here who are asking “where’s Obama?” are blaming him for this.

But since you’re posting (and for that, I thank you…) let me ask you:

Do you feel he’s pushing hard enough for more gun regulation?

Specifically, would you have liked to see him AT LEAST mention the word “gun” in his latest I-am-distraught-and- upset-but-not-enough-to-use-the-G-word sympathy speech?

I mean, I’m just wondering, is sadness is all you feel after this latest atrocity, and if, somehow, there’s some anger and frustration mixed in, wouldn’t you like to see Obama mention something about the obscene profits made by the firearms industry in America?

It’s not asking a lot of cowardly politicians to think about putting a fee on every gun sale to go directly into Mental Health Care for the public. Make it no middlemen, no congressional hands ever on it.

It’s the least they can do.

Kris, thank you. Well said.
Glenn, thank you for this post too.
It appears that 31 pro-gun Senators refused to go on the morning talk shows today. I guess they had nothing to say either, but I bet (as I said on AmericaBlog comments) that when it was their time to serve their country at least 25 of the 31 chose not to serve.
Louis (Goober) Goehmert said today that the Principal should have been armed as well as the teachers at Sandy Hook. Just plain stupid, that man.

You’ve clearly missed the entire point of this post.

It has nothing to do with politics or politicians.

Your insistence on badgering Glenn to talk about Obama is pretty sickening, frankly.

I have something to say about this. I am numb. I am so sick of these types of incidents occurring in our society that I have turned away from the news so I don’t have to be exposed to the sickening glorification of horrific events manipulated to feed the “news junkies” out there who like the whores they are slurp this shit up like so the so many slugs they are.
We enable this sensation spewing “news” media by continuing to pay attention to these kinds of absolute filth that is reported as “news”
What ever happened to “responsible journalism”? Why do these events even get more than a mention i n the press?
This whole event isn’t about guns, in my view, and the responsible use of them as a protection against real harm coming to an individual or family.
I say thet guns have a real roll in our society, especially in light of the fact that we have an evolving Fascist government. Those guns are the one protection the elites fear and with good reason. God Bless the Guns that Americans keep in their homes!
NO! This is about us not keeping vigilant in watching those in our communities who are mentally ill. I’d say that most of these to occur when mentally deranged individuals wind up with weapons and no community alarms are set off.
There are families out there with mentally ill individuals out there who need help in monitoring the actions of these people WE, all of US are at fault for not seeing these warning signals.
I am sad for these children and their families, but we have to move on and commit to being more vigilant, but this is no reason to take guns from responsible people, even if they don’t happen to love the current government. They, we, and I don’t own a gun, are required by our founding fathers to maintain the ability to cut the head off of tyranny at any time and guns in the hands of citizens are the only guarantee of that left to us!
God Bless America, for all of our great faults, still the bastion of freedom in the world!

I heard the Ct governor a little bit ago talk about that weapon. They have an assault weapon ban in the state but this one apparently slipped through. He suggested that the manufacturer “describes” the gun that makes it other than an assualt weapon. ( I also heard someone who seemed knowlegeable say this was not an assualt weapon.) My point is this is going to be a tough slog to ban these weapons, whether at the state or federal level. The NRA, the gun lobby and the gun owners, and maybe one political party will not go down easily. We can only hope there is enough will this time to ban those weapons ( Obama did try once). But beyond that it will need enforcement. And that means money at a time when the cockroaches in DC won’t pay to mow the lawn.

I also think a ban is only the beginning. Something has to be done about mental health. To save money the states have cut back on this sort of help. More, the background checks will have to be more thorough and that may need federal help.

This whole thing is very troubling. There are no easy answers but it will require an effort across all political boundaries. That is the part that troubles me.

That’s a fair question that deserves an answer, even if I’m reluctant in this context simply ’cause I’m heartsick at events. Anyway, I’m not sure government would do any better on guns than it has done on drugs. America is addicted to violence, as if there is always redemption or regeneration through violence (to quote Slotkin). That’s the problem. So, no, I don’t think the President should have brought it up at this time.

I say thet guns have a real roll in our society,

If you can’t use ‘roll’ vs. ‘role’ properly, you shouldn’t own a firearm.

especially in light of the fact that we have an evolving Fascist government.

Right. Because your Glock or your AR-15 and a couple hundred rounds would have any effect on the United States Military. Even if there were 10 million of you, try to take out a tank. A single tank. Your guns protect you from nothing.

Those guns are the one protection the elites fear and with good reason

This is baseless and idiotic. Sheesh.

God Bless the Guns that Americans keep in their homes!

There is no God. Grow up.

God Bless America, for all of our great faults, still the bastion of freedom in the world!

Just watch this.

The delusions in your comment are staggering.

Well I probably doon’t have a damned thing to add, but I think the folks who’ve mentioned the need for better mental healthcare, in this contest, are probably on the right track. What seems to escape us is just how powerless psychiatry is to help; to identify, much less to derail impending mass suicidal killing. It’s clearly a suicidal impulse, but what clues are there?

I’ve had two good friends commit suicide. In both cases I was very much surprised. They had both seemed a little subdued lately, but in either case I would never have anticipated it. It wasn’t like we hadn’t been here before. Both had had professional help and their psychiatrists were as surprised as anybody.

I knew Charlie Whitman, his wife and my wife were college room mates. I didn’t like him, I thought he was a twit, but a mass murderer? And he started by killing this mother and Kathy, which seems a pattern. He was seeking help and had seen the University medical center psychiatrist several times. He was as surprised as me. For a fact, that seems another common thread.

“I was always unable to see past their eyes, to even begin to comprehend the coldness inside.”

Boy you got that right, I knew one who was identifiable by his eyss when he was six. Everybody knew it. He killed as expected and was killed in an auto accident. Everybody heaved a huge sigh of relief. They’re killers, maybe even serial killers, but those guys are not the suicidal mass killers we’re talking about here.

Maybe neurobiology will give us a clue. Psychiatry don’t seem to help.

“Can I think about what kind of demons convince a man that he can purge some other kind of demons from his tortured soul by slaying innocent children? Well, at least this puts a brief puff of air in a balloon, more a memory of an old thought, not a new one. As a young journalist, I covered Texas prisons. Interviewing the most violent convicts I was always unable to see past their eyes, to even begin to comprehend the coldness inside. They were another species from another planet. That’s not much of a thought, but at least it is one.”

I don’t think (of course I don’t really know) this young man was such as you describe, even though his crimes were terrible, unthinkable, monstrous. My own autistic nephew wrote me this morning about the incident, and, describing the shooter taking his life, he said – ‘he gave his life.’ This really struck me. I do not believe there was coldness inside this young man. I think there was turmoil.

I had a dear, dear friend who also ‘gave his life’, some years after struggling with his own personal agony of having a son beset by demons as you describe must have been happening to this boy, this child of his father and brother of his older sibling. A book my friend wrote may still be available – “The Angel and the Dragon” by Jonathan Arthur. This book helped me with my own family distresses and in looking from a distance at the mental health epidemic which has beset this country and has not been properly addressed here. It has been fitting that many posts at fdl and elsewhere have included the mentally distressed in their pleadings for a pathway forward.

Over 5700 children were killed by guns in this country during 2008/09.

I’m out of here.

Thank you for the post Glenn.

“So, no, I don’t think the president should have brought it up at this time.”

I can’t think of a better thing for him to do than to close his statement of condolences with:

“And this week, I will be asking the Senate Majority Leader to introduce a bill for the coomplete ban of sales and ownership of assault weapons. I’m not interested in negotiating. I’m not worried about expending “political capital”. I’m not worried about losing a vote before I begin a new term. I want an up-or-down vote, and I want it soon.

Thank you.

He’s been in office for 4-plus years. In that time there have been other mass shootings, and he simply won’t talk about doing anything to curtail the availability of, at least, the assault weapons which are so useful for them.

When do you think would be a good time for him to do that?

“…Is pretty sickening, frankly.”

Well, here’s a little “badgering” for you, pollyanna:

So, you, too, have no problem with Obama’s years-long “hands off” policy on gun control?

I mean, as I criticize him for that, and that IS what he’s been doing, when you accuse me of being “sickening”, for asking Glenn if he thinks that Obama should bring up the issue immediately, I can only say that your willingness to countenance Obama’s do-nothing policy on this matter means you’re part of the problem, not the solution.

But we’ve all a sacred right to carry….but not, you know, to kill. It really is all beyond me.

Thank you for this. I wish I had put it differently, and I will in the future.

Assault *WEAPON* is the keyword in that business. That would be an assault RIFLE if it were capable of (full) automatic (machinegun) fire. When congress banned assault weapons before, the did identify the high capacity magazine, but otherwise were reduced to naming specific weapons. It’s largely a cosmetic distinction; automatic weapons have been illegal for years, and still are. The high cap magazine is a real issue, now that’s something we should do something about.

There are so many sacred cows, skeletons in the closet, elephants in the room, pink elephants floating in the air, pigs at the trough here. Most of all, there are so many scaredy cats and that we need a revised and updated version of Animal Farm. You know, the story where some are treated more equally than others, where a double standard of justice and fairness for the fortunate and the less so, is completely acceptable. A cornucopia of strutting peacocks, cock o’ the walk roosters, plain old jackasses and fat hogs using political tactics rivaling those of a jackal. Why are we surprised when the vultures keep hangin’ around, keep circling.

didn’t he have a brain tumor?

Excuse my ignorance here, but if the gun is not sold with a high capacity mag, can one be made for it? If so, you can imagine a cottage industry making them. then the whole idea of banning them becomes somewhat more problematic.

I heard that the children were all shot with the pistols. I haven’t heard that statement from the ME. Seems a little premature of him to pronounce the weapon that caused all the deaths (unless he does autopsies at a phenomenonal rate – which may be the case, he probably can get lots of help in such a disaster.) Has he filed an actual report?

I don’t guess two assault rifles would be that far fetched. I don’t think it’s much trouble to tell the wound made by a .223/5.56mm assault rifle from that of a 9mm pistol, especially at that close range. S’pose the ME can determine that the murder weapon was full automatic?

LOL. A new cottage industry.

I heard that, but lots of people have brain tumors without shooting up the whole countryside.

I guess I right back to the original point. Who knew?

I also had a good friend who committed sucide. You never would have suspected it. He had a lower level executive position and everyone liked him. I don’t think he was being treated for anything. something seems to happen to people. sometimes they take others lives. But this guy in CT seemed to have been trending there for a lot of years from what we heard and yet, no one identified him and actually got him any help. I don’t think there is enough public mental health services out there anymore. Gotta save money you know.

Still it would be nice to have better gun control.

It was the rifle and the ME said it had special ammunition that stayed in the body. Can you believe that? Who sells that stuff?

This quotes the Chief Medical Examiner as having performed 7 autopsies himself

Lanza blasted his way into the building and used a high-power rifle to kill 20 children and 6 adults, including the principal who tried to stop him, authorities said.

Hp post on the shooting.

Hp is also reporting that the Dems will introduce an assualt rifle ban in congress.

Thank you for this Nothing to Say post.
Some people need to “spew”, or “share” or just rant about their favorite and only issue.
But, I appreciate your Sunday morning posts. Always.
Some folks have a lot of things to say, and sometimes, There Are No Words.
Hugs.

Cheeze, Chris, you are on a tear!

I had two typos in my first paragraph @ #17. I’m sorry.

I’ve heard the point about the powerlessness of the people if arrayed against the Army (against M1A3 MBTs being a pertcularly telling image), but I’m not so sure. Soldiers don’t live in tanks. The insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan seemed dangerous. We could bat this around for a while, but a real issue is what these American Soldiers would do about American insurgents.

That’s not a nebulous as it once was; now that we have a professional army (“all volunteer army” is a clever euphamism), and lots and lots of true mercenairies. I expect they’d happily butcher a few, like the PDs do, but it might go downhill fast.

It’s probably better to not get personally insulting on these kinds of post.
I’m sorry for you that you felt it was okay to do that.

I’m confused anyway, especially just now. So:

“It was the rifle and the ME said it had special ammunition that stayed in the body. Can you believe that? Who sells that stuff?”

Everybdy. Nobody uses military ball ammo to hunt with.

Book Salon up with Pilar Marrero’s Killing The American Dream: How Anti-Immigration Extremists Are Destroying The Nation hosted by Sam Quinones

I feel you, but my first response was can’t we deal with the guns now, and frankly I don’;t think that’s a crass response. I have a child. She goes to preschool three days a week. She was at preschool on Friday. I want to feel like at least this modicum of protection my government can provide my child. That it can at the very least make an effort to stop gun massacres, we’ve had seven this year, from happening. That’s not a policy discussion. It’s not crass. It’s a human response to a parent’s worst nightmare. If we’d had six massacres this year where the weapon was a bomb strapped to someones chest, everyone would say how do we stop this? No one would call that response crass. No one would call that politics, or a policy discussion.

Top ten gun manufacturers in Connecticut

Colt Defense

Colt Mfg.

Conntech

GE credit Union

Gunx

Martin Firearms

OF Mossberg & Sons

Sturm Ruger & Co

US Firearm Mfg.

Widley Guns

Sow the wind reap the whirlwind > Did one of the relatives of these kids make the guns or bullets to take out these kids ?

I’m sorry I’m so dumb. I don’t think I was actually offended by what KrisAinTX said, just that it seemed out of character. Kris is usually so cool. Can’t imagine why I thought it was any of my business. Thanks, demi.

He “gave his life”? Too bad he didn’t give it before he repeatedly pumped multiple bullets into 6-year-olds at close range over and over and over.