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10531. iiibbb - 12/17/2012 6:55:26 AM Want to do something about gun deaths in the U.S.
1) address poverty
2) subsidize care for disturbed individuals like these people
3) legalize marijuana, which would undercut harder drugs and curtail drug related gun deaths.
orders of magnitude more effective that re-enacting the assault weapons ban -- which merely affects cosmetic features, not function or lethality. For that matter the main reason the military favors these guns is that tehy are lightweight and lethal enough in the hands of a trained soldier. You take these weapons away, and a shooter will replace them with a pump action shotgun and a quiver of speed-loaders with the same end result. 10532. arkymalarky - 12/17/2012 8:14:11 PM We need to limit access. Felons in most states are never allowed to own guns. We should regulate them like we do so many other things. Just because people drive drunk doesn't mean you eliminate DUI laws; same goes for limiting access to weapons. And people need to be held accountable. That woman paid with her life for having a stockpile in the same house as her disturbed son. If we can't agree that incompetent people should no more handle guns than kids should drive cars, then we're going nowhere. We are the only nation in the world with this problem. It's time we got a clue. 10533. arkymalarky - 12/17/2012 8:16:06 PM I agree with your list. 10534. thoughtful - 12/18/2012 4:08:59 PM Letters of Condolence can be sent to PO Box 3700, Newtown, Connecticut 06470
Perhaps if we can turn this tragedy into a movement to spread kindness, compassion and generosity, some good can come out of all this pain.
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/17/15972814-inspired-to-act-26acts-of-kindness-to-honor-those-lost-in-newtown-conn?lite
Of course, I would want to make that 28 acts of kindness as both Adam and Nancy Lanza were in terrible pain as well....those acts don't arise out of nowhere, but out of a lifetime of distress. And I feel so badly for Peter and Ryan who have lost half their family so tragically, yet are excluded from the sympathies of so many. 10535. arkymalarky - 12/19/2012 12:21:34 AM I was reading about their family. Very average people, it sounded like. I always feel for families with members they can't reach. They feel responsible even when there's nothing they can do. Fortunately the vast majority don't end like this, but these families stay in fearful limbo, often for decades, as long as those members are alive, over what might happen. 10536. arkymalarky - 12/19/2012 12:29:49 AM Somehow I want to emphasize how much I love my profession and my specific job and my kids and their families, many of whom were once my students. Just to say. I've thought anout that a lot at work the past two days. The vast majority of kids are so good, each in their own way, and there's nothing more rewarding than seeing one you had worried about do well in life, meaning they're happy and belong. I tell my kids all the time that the purpose of our education system is to help them find their place in the world. And so often, that's exactly what happens. 10537. thoughtful - 12/19/2012 2:57:31 PM Arky, I'd like to point out that these people were not average in a significant way. They were among the wealthiest in the country....Nancy Lanza, the mother, received nearly $290,000 in alimony this year. Father Peter was remarried and afforded a nice place in Stamford (very expensive area to live) on top of that. He also worked at a large company so had access to more health and mental health benefits as well as income to afford treatment centers or doctors or medications or whatever might have helped Adam over the years.
There is a lot of talk that mother was in deep denial about her son's mental health and there was clearly something "off" about their relationship....she took him out of high school and home schooled him before he graduated, and she told people that he would be going off to college soon and she was going to move with him to wherever he went. That is beyond helicopter parenting to downright smothering... 10538. thoughtful - 12/19/2012 3:04:12 PM A former babysitter of Adam was also told to never turn your back on him, or leave him alone, even to go to the bathroom....that, I don't believe, are normal instructions to give a babysitter. 10539. arkymalarky - 12/19/2012 3:07:12 PM I knew about the wealth and their concerns about him. Didn't know the extent of her behavior. I was thinking socially/emotionally when I wrote that, but that's certainly not average, tho the denial part is all too common. She sounds more and more like she had serious problems apart from her son. 10540. robertjayb - 12/19/2012 5:56:39 PM "NEW YORK (AP) — President Barack Obama has been named Time magazine's "Person of the Year" for 2012."
What is the sound of one hand clapping?
10541. robertjayb - 12/19/2012 6:39:33 PM "NEW YORK (AP) — President Barack Obama has been named Time magazine's "Person of the Year" for 2012."
What is the sound of one hand clapping?
10542. judithathome - 12/19/2012 8:23:02 PM Not as loud as these two..... 10543. Wombat - 12/20/2012 12:24:21 AM Or a loud as Concerned's head--or wherever he keeps his thinking apparatus--exploding. 10544. arkymalarky - 12/21/2012 6:07:19 PM I'm witnessing the death of the NRA as a political force in this country. Thank God. 10545. arkymalarky - 12/21/2012 6:30:16 PM The school security this psycho refers to would be the first to be popped by a gunman with an assault weapon. Most teachers have had at one time or another armed security. They can have them still if that makes them feel better. But in most schools filling those positions with qualified people is a non-occurrence. 10546. judithathome - 12/21/2012 9:50:50 PM The NRA
i AND
John Boehner are both becoming non-entities. 10547. judithathome - 12/21/2012 9:51:40 PM Sorry...that should have been AND...so used to quick HTML. 10548. thoughtful - 12/23/2012 4:33:25 AM Doesn't delight me in the least about losing the NRA. I want to continue to have access to an "equalizer" and if legislation that is being bantered about by legislators who know nothing about guns is passed, we will be far worse off than we are now. And responsible gun owners would lose access to rational gun safety and training courses that they get now.
Worst of all, it would be my fears come true...that they will pass some knee-jerk reaction laws that will not be effective, but they will all congratulate themselves thinking the job is done...until the next tragedy. Meanwhile much needed mental health funding, family and youth counseling programs, training and security for schools and other public places will come under increasing budget pressures and no fundamental attempt to get at the root causes of this kind of crime will not happen. Moreover, tv, movies and video games will continue to become more violent, kids will become even more inured and better practiced at committing murder and the border between virtual and actual reality will become increasingly blurred. And those of us who have guns for protection will need them more than ever. 10549. judithathome - 12/23/2012 5:23:21 AM That's quite the bleak assessment....even for a pessimist like me. 10550. arkymalarky - 12/23/2012 6:58:46 AM Other countries have similar modern entertainment without the mass slaughters we have. Yet the vast majority of our kids become productive citizens. We do a poor job of dealing with our fringe element. I think we will see positive steps to deal with what is predominantly an American problem among modern cultures. But I have a very positive outlook wrt American kids. These killers are almost always aberrations whose family and acquaintances know have serious problems.
I have guns too, but I am not afraid of our society, or what our kids are becoming. In fact, the longer I live and work around today's kids the better I feel about it.
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