The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

‘How Dare You Let Your Mental Illness Disturb My Gun-Control Narrative?’

Posted on | December 23, 2012 | 33 Comments

That’s what Laura Beck was saying at Jezebel:

In light of last Friday’s tragic school shooting, some people are arguing that gun control is just a band-aid, and that access to mental health services in this country is the real problem. . . .
You’ve probably read the “I Am [the Creepy Little Weirdo's] Mother” piece that was on the front page of the internet [Dec. 16]. . . .
If we find out that [the creepy little weirdo] was schizophrenic, it just doesn’t matter. We’re not going to change the way we medicate all schizophrenics because of this. It’s irresponsible to say, “He had this! Liza Long’s son has this! People with mental illness are violent! Causation!” Two, three, ten people going on such a rampage — it’s a bad indicator of an entire population, it’s not statistically significant. . . .
Yes, we can talk about both guns and mental health, but we must prioritize action on guns — it’s concrete, and it’s doable today. Guns are a problem, a known commodity, and we must do something about them. . . .

You can read the whole thing, which is crammed with irrational gibberish that makes me wonder if Laura Beck is off her meds and, if so, whether she’s armed. Maybe cops should keep an eye on her.

Anyway, my point is that liberals instantly decided that the Connecticut school shooting story is about gun-control, and they become irrationally indignant if you disagree: “How dare you!”

Liberals would have us believe that we must generalize from this specific example to one — exactly one — policy prescription, namely new restrictions on firearms ownership, and that any other argument is invalid, an attempt to distract people from The One Solution.

This insistence that we know all the facts we need to know, and that what is needed now is national legislation – “Do something!” – has the effect of obscuring entirely the very specific facts in Newtown, which involve a divorced woman’s increasingly desperate attempts to solve the problem of her profoundly disturbed son:

Friends told AP and the Wall Street Journal that Nancy Lanza was planning to move across the country in order to enroll [the creepy little weirdo] in a “school or a center” in an attempt to draw him out from his insular world. “He wouldn’t be dwelling with her,” said Russell Ford, who added that [the creepy little weirdo] never spoke to him or even made eye contact.
“She knew she needed to be near him,” Ford added. “She was trying to do what was positive for him.” Mark Tambascio, owner of the bar Nancy frequented, told the Journal that she believed a school in Washington would be the right fit, and she was planning on selling her beloved Red Sox season tickets. “She was ready to move,” he said.
The Journal’s profile of [the creepy little weirdo] points to his parents divorce as a major breaking point for him; though they separated in 2001, they didn’t divorce until 2009. A year after the divorce, [the creepy little weirdo] cut off communication with his father, Peter Lanza. They note: “It is unclear why Mr. Lanza refused to speak with his father, who made repeated attempts to contact him, this person said, but the breakdown in their relationship came as Peter Lanza started to get serious with his girlfriend, whom he married last year.” By Christmas of 2010, he also had stopped speaking to his brother Ryan.

Why did Nancy Lanza think it made sense to stockpile firearms in a home with a son with such serious mental problems? (I’ve dubbed him “the creepy little weirdo” because I refuse to assist the media in conferring posthumous fame on this mass murderer.) Why should the foolishness of Nancy Lanza and the evil acts of her son automatically impose limitations on people who are neither foolish nor evil? And why did the media establishment peremptorily dismiss as implausible Wayne LaPierre’s call for employing armed guards to defend schools?

They’re liberals. Don’t confuse them with facts and logic — hater!

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Category: Connecticut, Crime, Media Bias

Comments

  • DavidD

    Wait. So we can’t generalize from this that people with mental illness may be prone to violence, but we can generalize from this that all gun owners automatically are prone to violence?

  • robertstacymccain

    Congratulations: You just passed the admissions test to the Liberal Blogger Community!

  • http://twitter.com/wjjhoge WJJ Hoge

    There you go with the random sarcasm again–which is one reason why I read this blog.

  • Quartermaster

    This blog is his meds. It allows him to sublimate his tendencies and we all benefit from his sarcasm.

  • jsn2

    GUNS SAVE LIVES

    A. Guns used 2.5 million times a year in self-defense. Law-abiding citizens use guns to defend themselves against criminals as many as 2.5 million times every year — or about 6,850 times a day

    ( Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz, “Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense With a Gun,” 86 The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Northwestern University School of Law, 1 (Fall 1995):164. )

    B. States which passed concealed carry laws reduced their murder rate by 8.5%, rapes by 5%, aggravated assaults by 7% and robbery by 3%; and If those states not having concealed carry laws had adopted such laws in 1992, thenapproximately 1,570 murders, 4,177 rapes, 60,000
    aggravated assaults and over 11,000 robberies would have been avoided yearly.

    ( Lott and Mustard, “Crime, Deterrence, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns.” )

    C. Nationwide. In 1979, the Carter Justice Department found that of more than 32,000 attempted rapes, 32% were actually committed. But when a woman was armed with a gun or knife, only 3% of the attempted rapes were actually successful.

    ( U.S. Department of Justice, Law Enforcement Assistance
    Administration, Rape Victimization in 26 American Cities (1979), p. 31.)

    D. Criminals are more fearul of a citizen with a gun than they are the police.

    ( U.S., Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, “The Armed Criminal in America: A Survey of Incarcerated Felons,” Research Report (July 1985): 27.)

    https://www.gunowners.org/sk0802htm.htm

  • http://alanye.com/ Dai Alanye

    The important thing is to do something quick and easy, even if it doesn’t work… because then we can all feel better about ourselves.

  • Garym

    Sarcasm is what attracted me to this blog.

  • http://www.facebook.com/david.lentz.921 David Lentz

    Back of the envelope, there are an estimated three hundred million guns in this country and circa about four thousand murders by gun. That makes that average gun much safer than the average, motor vehicle. physician or abortionist..
    No system in without flaws. It is true that some citizen s do murder a few thousand of our other citizens per year. However when a government disarms her citizens, the death toll is measured in the millions, see C’hairman Mao and the Cultural Revolution.
    Human society has not yet reached the point where an unarmed citizenry can trust their government to protect their liberty, property and life.

  • Dandapani

    The magical thinking of those on the Left. Unicorn Farts and Rainbow Dust.

  • JeffS

    Laura Beck demonstrates yet another example of the intellectual bullying lefties are indulging in.

    Thing is, they aren’t intellectuals, just bullies. Trying to work up to tyrants.

  • http://www.redstateeclectic.typepad.com AngelaTC

    No enumerated power gives the federal government the right to place armed personnel in the schools. But LaPierre picks and chooses the amendments that he deems important.

    I respect you for continuing the dialogue, but I’m pretty tired of trying to justify why the overlords should continue to allow me to keep my “rights.” We lose the incrementalism battles, every single time. Enough of that already. If they want the guns, then let them come. Let’s do this thing already.

  • http://www.facebook.com/david.lentz.921 David Lentz

    The armed personnel need not be a federal employee, nor even a teacher. Personally, I am in tavor or arming the janitorial staff. They are familar with using mechanical devices. have all the keys, know the layout of the building and devices to transport firearms.
    I even forgive LaPierre for stealing the idea from B.J. Cinton.

  • TheOnlyCoop

    1985???

  • Jay Dee

    Technically speaking, nothing says publicly funded schools have to exist at all. The modern industrialized school is another Progressive wet dream intended to create a Utopian society in their image. The original idea was good. The bloated monster it has become not so much.

  • dad29

    Let’s never confuse Wayne LaPierre for a Conservative. Proposing that Federal dollars (and thus, Federal control) be spent to hire armed guards for schools demonstrates beyond a doubt that LaPierre is an anti-9th and anti-10th Amendment kinda guy.

    IOW, a Lefty.

  • http://boogieforward.us/ K-Bob

    Yes, let’s definitely ignore all other evidence to the contrary. #ReasoningIsHard

  • http://boogieforward.us/ K-Bob

    A lefty made the claim to me, over at twitchy: “you have the strong desire to shoot a person and you are simply trying to justify it”

    So, I guess you are right. It’s only a matter of time that the gun I have, that was owned by two-generations of men before me (who never shot anyone) will compel me to shoot someone.

  • Taxpayer1234

    This post is top headline at badblue.com http://badblue.bitnamiapp.com/trendr8.htm

  • SDN

    To which the response should be “Not until I was exposed to you.”

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  • http://boogieforward.us/ K-Bob

    Heh.

    Guy was a real pill. Went through all the Usual Talking Points.

  • Papa Buckland
  • Papa Buckland
  • hazen

    I seem to have been booted from the comments sections of CNN because I dared to post soon after the shooting that this was a mental illness issue, that mental illness and an addiction to violent video and online games was a common theme among a lot of these shooters, that when I was in high school a lot of us had guns that we hunted with in our vehicles and knives in our pockets and it never occurred to anyone to use them to hurt someone else. At one time CNN was running 8 gun control stories(opinion pieces) at once and I made a point of commenting on all of them. Didn’t call names or get personal. I did something far worse: presented information that people that consider CNN to be a news site were never going to see.

  • dad29

    This is not the first time that LaP has PO’d conservatives.

    I happen to agree that the 2A is the only support for the rest of the Bill of Rights. But one cannot keep the respect of folks who understand the Constitution while slobbering and sniveling about “more Federal dollar expenditures” AND trampling all over the 1A at the same time.

    But go ahead: ‘splain ‘all the evidence to the contrary.’ I’ll be happy to hear about it.

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  • http://boogieforward.us/ K-Bob

    Any so-called conservatives who are mad at LaPierre need to get the hell out of the way. We don’t have time for posturing and backstabbing weasels.

    Conservatives (that would include LaPierre) are fighting back against this attempt to infringe on our Second Amendment rights.

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    For me it was the pic of Stacy in a Speedo…did I write that out loud?

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