JCC school shooting in Conn.

Handling guns and target shooting =/= being responsible and safe around weapons.

 

We don't actually know if he was mentally ill -- the media are saying yes, people who actually knew him don't appear to be so certain.

Pistols and shotgun would (IMHO) have been a far more deadly choice. Pistols are far handier and shotguns are designed so that precise aiming isn't that necessary.

Tell that to the Military! They seem to operate on the principle that it is -- I was taught gun-safety and how to shoot firstly by my father, then by the Combined Cadet Force at my school.

 

Civilians =/= the military

 

Yes, we do, definitionally. Psychopath. Case closed. That's entirely different of course from whether he'd have been found legally insane for the purposes of criminal culpability.

 

I was never in the actual military -- yet they taught me to do target shooting with smallbore and standard calibre weapons. They also mounted a very effective demonstration (for everyone from 8 to 12) of how not to approach firearms!

 

Are you by any chance a qualified psychologist/psyciatrist to be able to make that judgement?

 

If 'psychopath' does not include people who kill twenty people in a primary school, the word is useless.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy

 

Psychopathy has a fairly clearly defined set of characteristics, some of which overlap with other mental illnesses. Like I said in the Gun Control thread, one official has stated that Adam Lanza had Asperger's Syndrome, which has a few similarities with psychopathy, but a lot of differences. You can read a little bit of a comparison of the two here.

 

Uhhh, actually if we make the word 'psychopath' include everyone who kills twenty people in a primary school regardless of specific mental health symptoms and pathologies, then that would make the word useless.

 

Knowing how to safely operate a gun and to shoot accurately with it is not the same as being taught how to be morally responsible about it. We don't know that Mrs. Lanza did, and it certainly isn't something that automatically happens when you go shoot at a shooting range.

EDIT: Also not getting all the love heaped on the "I Am Adam Lanza's Mother" blog post. Seems kind of suspect and sensationalistic to me.

 

"Never, never let your gun,
Pointed be at anyone,
That it might unloaded be,
Matters not the least to me."

 

Fun nursery rhyme.

 

Actually part of "A shooter's advice to his son"; sound, practical advice that's done me (and others) absolutely no harm at all!

 

Not saying that you were done any harm. Just saying that taking your kid to a shooting range and showing them how to use a gun does not necessarily equate to good training. Proper training is definitely something that needs to be properly regulated, and something that should be required before you are allowed to own a firearm.

 

Will the exams be written, practical or a combination of both? And who makes the assessment, seeing that I've heard of one police vs criminals shoot-out that left three policemen and ten bystanders dead -- and the criminals got away unharmed. Even in my country, they make serious mistakes -- one guy shot dead for carrying a wrapped-up table-leg home; for example!

 

Okay, my bad with the psychopath. But, whenever stuff like this happens again, I reserve the right to quietly hiss:
ssssssssssssssssy-cho...

 

Correct, the First Amendment does guarantee your right to imprecise, incorrect, ill-informed use of language.

 

I think your example just goes to show that the discharge of firearms is never safe, which just improves the argument in favor of mandatory training for gun ownership. As for how the exams will work, who knows? Probably a combination of written and practical, and ideally administered by rigorously trained and certified professionals. Yes, accidents and mistakes will happen, but that's no reason not to regulate. That's like saying we should issue drivers licenses because accidents happen anyway. It's a disingenuous argument.

And just FYI, there's no internet practice I find more aggravating in a serious discussion (I don't care in a jokey thread) than editing the language of someone's post. It's a cheap rhetorical tactic and you can make your point in your own words without disrupting mine, thank you.

As for the point you made by manipulating my post, I think you've hit upon a problem here. Both my version and your version are correct. There's no way to be sure that a parent will or won't properly teach there child to use firearms safely and responsibly. You just can't tell if. So of course, the best way to be sure that everyone gets the proper training is through a properly regulated mandatory training regimen that is a prerequisite for gun ownership.

 

It doesn't

 

Well she said on Erin Burnett's CNN show last night that she doesn't own a gun, nor would ever own again, so I think the point is moot in regards to her.

 

From what I've read, Lanza's mother taught him how to handle and shoot because she thought it would teach him responsbility and respect. And people who knew him from high school say he was very responsible and respectfully handled them. These guns were also most definitely kept locked up. Also, all witnesses claim that whatever caused him to do this, must have happened after he graduated high school.

And yeah, the FBI are saying that he did not go on a shooting rampage because he was mentally ill, and that it doesn't even seem like he was mentally ill, just had social anxiety problems. They're saying he put a lot of planning into this, and acted to destroy any evidence for his motivation.

So it's definitely possible that this guy had no serious mental health issues at all, and just had a reason (which he wanted to hide) for killing those 20 kids and 6 adults. Which makes it more horrific, in my opinion. It's a scary reality, but not every mass murderer has (or has to have) a mental illness.

 

I dunno...he may not have had anything clinically wrong with him, but I don't think these kind of plots are hatched by people who are necessarily sane.

 

The reasons given for such actions will creep you out, I think; examples are:

"I wanted to be somebody, to get myself a name"; and,

"I was doing something about the population explosion"

Both of those from real-life incidents.