This is the worst of the worst that could have happen. An adult goes out and simply kills young children in cold blood. This guy is monster, it’s clear. But the reasons why it’s happening in the USA are a lot deeper than one may think. We live in the over-developed society, but lots of people are not ready to live their lives in such a stressful society as the USA. Lots of people become mentally unstable. Lots of people start taking antidepressants at the young age. The Pharmaceutical companies are pushing people to be on drugs. Missing a pill can turn some people into psychos.
The USA is a free and liberal country and they don’t lock people in the psychiatric institutions unless they present clear and obvious danger to the society. But many of such not so obviously crazy people live among us, while they should be living in some kind of closed communities under surveillance of the professional medical doctors.
Of course, the first reaction of many people is that the assault weapon should be banned. OK, if no semi-automatic guns would be allowed this guy would have killed not 20, but 5 children. Is this our goal? I don’t see it this way. Don’t blame the knife if you cut your fingers. The goal is to identify unstable people and limit their chances to kill. I’m not qualified to judge is this gunman belonged to a mental institution, but at least as soon as he showed some signs of abnormality, his relatives should have been forced to surrender their legally purchased weapon. This cold blooded killer would not have a chance to use the guns purchased by his mother.
Any prescription of the anti-depressant drugs has to be reported to the police, which should trigger an investigation of the patient’s surroundings. If a person is diagnosed with any form of autism his relatives can’t have any weapons.
We started seeing such tragedies way too often. The Malcolm Gladwell’s book “The Tipping Point” explains the laws of the society that can lead to the epidemics as soon as certain little things reach a tipping point. I believe if the situation with treating unstable people won’t change, we’ll see massacre epidemics here in the USA.
My heart goes out to all the relatives of all Newton’s victims, but first – to the parents of these little innocent children. Their parents are not dead, but they are not alive either.
yakovfain.com 
If 5 intead of 20 means 15 alive children, then banning assault weapons worth it. It’s not ideal but no solution is ideal.
Sure, saving lives by any means worth the effort. But the root of the problem is not the type of a weapon, but who can get a hold of this weapon.
Let see:
– that gunman is a product of his parents [teachers in that school]
– guns are registered on parents [main targets of gunman]
– shotting was right in a morning [so urgent, no wait to end of the day]
I think the “monster” had his reasons, and i will not blame right on pills, drugs, video games, sports, ….
Since not everyone in USA, wakes up in a morning with a harsh to shoot somebody, i am sure this is just one in a million case.
The root of the problem is the easy access to guns, not “who can get a hold of” guns. Parents have a right to keep their children alive that trumps anyone person’s right to own a gun, in any and all cases.
We need to abandon the notion that using a gun to commit mass murder is a problem for therapists. To persist in arguing that is simply to provide solace to gun fetishists.
We are a sick demented culture because we value the right to own a gun more than we value our own lives.
If you think about the number of cases (more than a million per year) in which guns help people to protect themselves or their things, you’ll realize than having a gun isn’t just a fetish.
My position on that is:
– guns shouldn’t be banned.
– but the buying and possession of guns should be thoroughly controlled. No guns (any guns) for persons who ever committed any reported violence, who have been caught DUI, who’s ever (well – last N years) been prescribed antidepressants or sedative. Apparently, no assault weapon or semi-automatic assault rifles without full dedicated mental inspection by qualified psychiatrist.
By statistic, in high-developed countries ~ 15% of population needs a psychological help. (In US – it’s about 45 mil.)
Somebody has psyhological problems from the born, but somebody gets psychological break-downs during the life.
The people with some forms of personality disorders – for fast restoring psyhological health – should live in friendly, home atmosphere.
I think, very hard to detect the moment when a man with personality disorders is ready for dangerous acts.
From my point of view, the families with unstable members should have more higher level security of guns handling. (Limited access to gun store – for example)
Also, main members of family shouldn’t lost control over current state of unstable person(s).
Today I ran into this blog post, which perfectly illustrates what I was writing about in my blog: http://anarchistsoccermom.blogspot.com/2012/12/thinking-unthinkable.html?m=1.
This Michael is a walking time bomb, and at the very least the society has to protect itself by making sure that there are no guns in Michael’s family.
I agree with you, Yakov.
But i have several questions
– As I know, killer was a mental unstable person and his family knew about it. At the same time, he had access to the three different types of weapons. So who bought it? Himself or his mother?
It’s absolutely unacceptable to sell any weapon for the mental-impaired persons.
– Not of all of the schools has an effective security inside. Some of the teachers may be armed.
His mother bought the guns.
Schools are locked during the classes. This would be good enough if the crazy or stoned people wouldn’t have access to weapons.
I can only guess that since his mother worked in this school he knew (and then killed) the security guard(s). Let’s wait for the official police report. For now they just say that “he forced his way into the school”.
I should admit Yakov, the story of the 13 year old boy you gave me feared me WAY more than any stories about massacres. I just realized this guy will grow up, go out of control of his parents (well, he is already actually is!) and so on. We have may be 20 massacres per year in US, which is frankly not that hell many (it’s hard for me to say that but still), but we probably have hundreds thousand mental-impaired dangerous persons, who are really fucking dangerous without any assault weapon.
Regarding this kid – I believe even now he is already a danger for people around him. What will be the case in 3-4 years? His mother will hide with his sibling in garage when this boy is in the bad mood? Isn’t it more fair to just put him behind the bars now? It’s not his fault he is danger for others, but… who cares? If a person is a danger for others, society has to make sure he or she doesn’t have any way to hurt others, regardless – whether this person is guilty in committed crimes or just had bad luck to be born mentally deceased.
Those who want to ban guns look to harvest some low-hanging fruits, but none proposes real solution to handle dangerous mental-impaired persons.
And school was chosen not by the accident, and parents are responsible for that homegrown terrorist.
Gunman killed himself at the end, which means he shot others not for the entertainment, and i am sure that killing, in this case, was inevitable.
Firearms should be banned, there’s no reason for civilians to have them. Since the invention of bombers and ballistic missiles “a well regulated militia” is pointless for “the security of a free state”.
Firearms should not be banned.
You have to be able to protect yourself and your family
Another case – rules to sell it should be changed. If some person in your family have mental problems its too dangerous to buy any weapons.
It’s police’s job to protect people.
There’s been Supreme Court ruling saying that it’s you own responsibility to protect yourself and your loved ones, back in 80-th, you could find.
Briefly – police job is to maintain the statistics or crims within limits – no more than X murders per 100.000 capitas per year. But in each particular case of murder they have no responsibility to protect you, nor do they have any kind of SLA (service level agreement) to protect you as an individual.
So you are taking responsibility (or right) to decide for the whole country, that the second amendment should be abandoned?
Yes, sir, you should respect my authority. After all, I am a guy from the internets and this is not my real name.
Oh yeah, the Power of the Legion, how could I forgot…Apologies
I think, the lesson is that parents should not keep weapons close to their mentally unstable children, and maybe that his doc was not really good or caring. As for political side, our pres really wants us be totally disarmed and helpless against ever more powerful government, read this: http://www.wnd.com/2012/12/standing-firm-for-freedom/
The words “parents should” are wrong. This has to be enforced by law.
Do you mean something like “parents of mentally unstable kids can’t buy firearms”? Or “If their kids get access to the firearms parents should be held fully responsible for that”?
Here’s the good read on the subject: http://www.businessinsider.com/im-just-not-ready-to-accept-that-we-have-to-have-mass-shootings-all-the-time-2012-12
Control “some” guns (by government) ? Hmm… Remember Russia?..
I’ve been to Sandy Hook 10 yrs ago, seemed like sleepy beach town. How about that one: http://www.wnd.com/2012/12/expect-more-sandy-hooks-not-fewer/ ?
Hi Yavkov,
Now a days computer games and movies are horrible. Each and every computer game is played for killing other characters in the game by a horrible way. It is really bad to play these games. Recently i saw Universal solider Day of Reckoning (2012) for 10 minutes and then i decided not to see the movie. I believe that these movies and games affect mental health of people. People require to socialize well with the society and they require to make more friends and relatives. I believe that it is very good to meet a friend or a relative in their home and not by social networking site or sending SMS.
Muthu, I agree with you 100%. These violent games and superhero movies turn some of people into zombies.
Well, there are tens of millions young people playing violent video games like Mass Effect or Call of Duty – yet nearly 0.001% of them at most get crazy.
Yeah, it’s a goddamn music, movies and video games that pushed Cain to kill his brother Abel, and all the brutal kills through our human history.
I see you people always looking for someone or something to blame, not to find the roots of the problem. And the simple way[for you] is to forbid, which is not fixes the problem[remember days of “prohibition”].
You will chop the ill part of the body, rather that locate and fix actual point that cause the illness.
Yakov, please ask your sons about this age of entertainment(music, games, movies, apps, …), and do they agree with you.