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Go Home Mass Shootings Are on the Rise--And 2012 Has Been Deadlier...

PLANK DECEMBER 14, 2012

Mass Shootings Are on the Rise--And 2012 Has Been Deadlier Than Ever Before

BY AMY SULLIVAN

"As a country, we have been through this too many times," said President Barack Obama on Friday afternoon as he wiped tears from his eyes while addressing the horrific shooting at a Connecticut elementary school. He might have added, "this year." Because it's not your imagination--while mass shootings have terrified and grieved us over the past three decades, this year has been the worst by far. With more than 140 casualties (injuries and deaths), the toll from mass shootings in 2012 has been nearly twice that of any other year. 

And that isn't even counting other shootings that have captured national attention, such as the attack in a Portland-area mall this past weekend or the gunfire at a suburban Cleveland high school in the spring. The FBI defines a mass shooting as one in which at least four people are killed, not including the gunman, so those incidents don't count in the statistics. It can be difficult to get a sense of the scope of mass gun violence when we look at individual tragedies--especially when, as now, it is so hard to get past the heart-stopping thought of all those children and all those families. So let's look at the facts, the hard numbers.

As of today, there have been 70 mass shootings in the United States between 1982 and 2012, leaving 543 people dead (assuming the reports of 27 fatalities from today's shootings are correct.) Seven of those 70 shootings occurred this year. Sixty-eight of those 543 victims were killed this year. If the scenes of horror and heartbreak are now familiar, it's because the past six years have been particularly bloody. Fully 45% of the victims of mass shootings in America over the past three decades were killed since 2007. That is a crisis.

It's time to stop sniping at each other on Twitter over whether we should blame mass shootings on guns or on mental illness. Both gun control policy and our laws regarding the mentally ill could use radical rethinking. Just as it's time to stop insisting that the debate is over new gun control or stricter enforcement of existing laws when Americans support both. It's time to stop issuing statements of sorrow and then holding our breath until the next man with a gun mows down his fellow humans. It's time to stop pretending that mass gun violence could be limited if only more of us were armed. Do we seriously want armed guards in every elementary school in America? It's time to stop letting gun manufacturers speak on behalf of gun owners, who are far more likely to support gun restrictions. 

And it is long past time to stop taking seriously anyone who would claim that God allows gun massacres in response to U.S. Supreme Court rulings or what they believe to be insufficient levels of religious belief. They do not speak for my God, and I pray that their words do not add to the already crushing grief of the families who mourn today.

I can't say exactly why mass shootings have become such a menace over the past few years, and especially in 2012. But I can say that this is not a problem without answers. The time may even have come to change our very American embrace of guns. Such a huge cultural shift usually requires a dramatic impetus. September 11 changed overnight the way we think about the balance between security and personal freedoms. Surely the killing of little children among their tiny chairs and big pencils should prompt us to take steps to make mass shootings as rare as they once were.

A note about sources: We started with Mother Jones' comprehensive report on mass shootings in the U.S. over the past 30 years, which was published in July 2012 and updated in September. We then checked each of the 59 incidents they mapped (as well as 11 qualifying attacks that they didn't) against news reports to confirm the number of fatalities. 

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

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91 comments

As the father of an elementary school student I feel the weight of today's tragedy very acutely, and I also feel that any serious discussion of gun control needs to aim for policies that address all types of gun violence. I agree that "both gun control policy and our laws regarding the mentally ill could use radical rethinking". It is also important to recognize that over 10,000 people are murdered with firearms every year in this country, with the vast majority not being killed in mass shootings. A policy that only addresses the tragedies of mass shootings is myopic. That said, many steps can be taken that will help to reduce all types of gun violence - Restricting gun ownership from anyone who has a restraining order placed on them, anyone who has been recently institutionalized, and anyone convicted of any violent crime would be a good start. Holding gun owners responsible for failing to secure their guns and reporting stolen guns is also needed. Restricting the sale of large capacity clips and magazines will not just help in mass shootings, but also reduce the number of rounds fired in gang drive by shootings. Unscrupulous dealers need to be cracked down on mercilessly. People lose the right to operate a car on a regular basis, and have their cars taken from them. Gun owners need to be held to the same standard

- Attrill

December 15, 2012 at 2:33am

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The gunman's mother collected guns. The gunman had a history of extreme tantrums. The mother was the fist killed. The gunman went to the school where his mother was a teacher. The gunman proceeded to do the massacre. Incredible horror. And in China attacks of school children by knives has been a recurring problem. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/world/asia/man-stabs-22-children-in-china.html?hp&_r=0 Man Stabs 22 Children in China By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: December 14, 2012 BEIJING (AP) — A man wielding a knife wounded 22 children and one adult outside a primary school in central China as students were arriving for classes on Friday, the police said. The attack, in the village of Chengping in Henan Province, happened shortly before 8 a.m., said a police officer from Guangshan County, where the village is located. The attacker, Min Yingjun, 36, was subdued by security guards and taken into custody by the police, said the officer, who declined to give her name, which is customary among Chinese civil servants. Guards have been posted at schools across China after a spate of attacks in recent years. A Guangshan County hospital administrator said there were no deaths among the nine students admitted to the hospital, although two badly wounded children were transferred to better-equipped hospitals outside the county. A doctor at Guangshan’s hospital of traditional Chinese medicine said that seven students had been admitted there, but that none were seriously injured. It was not clear how old the wounded children were, but Chinese primary school students are generally 6 to 11. A notice on the Guangshan County government’s Web site confirmed the number of wounded and said an emergency response team had been set up to investigate the stabbings. No motive was given for the attack, which resembled a string of similar assaults against Chinese schoolchildren in 2010 that killed nearly 20 and wounded more than 50. The most recent such attack took place in August, when a man broke into a middle school in the southern city of Nanchang and stabbed two students before fleeing. Most of the attackers have been mentally disturbed men involved in personal disputes or unable to adjust to the rapid pace of social change in China, underscoring grave weaknesses in the antiquated Chinese medical system’s ability to diagnose and treat psychiatric illness. In one of the worst attacks, a man described as an unemployed, middle-aged doctor killed eight children with a knife in March 2010 to vent his anger over a thwarted romantic relationship.

- JAIMECHUCH

December 15, 2012 at 2:59am

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Look, that may be China's problem. Americans have a different one. Let's concentrate on our own problems. Hunters and collectors should unite to use their influence in the NRA to combat excesses and call for tighter controls over types and numbers of guns up for sale.

- kras

December 15, 2012 at 4:00am

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"The gunman's mother collected guns." What is the source for this comment? I read many accounts of the shooting in the NY Times and elsewhere but couldn't find any statement about the gunman's mother collecting guns.

- arnon1

December 15, 2012 at 8:32am

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I just read the story about the Chinese situation. The link on this site (unlike the link at the other site this article was posted) worked fine. I don't see much relevance of the situation in China (a country of billions of people) to the shooting in our country. Still, that mentally unhinged adults would attack and kill elementary school children is pretty amazing. I t argues for cowardice (among other mental traits as a factors) in these attacks. We need to do both protect our school children better and to make it harder to acquire guns. Interesting that the knife attacks in China didn't kill nearly children as this one attack did in Connecticut: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/world/asia/man-stabs-22-children-in-china.html?hp&_r=0&pagewanted=print "Most of the attackers have been mentally disturbed men involved in personal disputes or unable to adjust to the rapid pace of social change in China, underscoring grave weaknesses in the antiquated Chinese medical system’s ability to diagnose and treat psychiatric illness. "In one of the worst attacks, a man described as an unemployed, middle-aged doctor killed eight children with a knife in March 2010 to vent his anger over a thwarted romantic relationship."

- arnon1

December 15, 2012 at 8:42am

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Here is the link to the article above. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/world/asia/man-stabs-22-children-in-china.html?hp&_r=0

- arnon1

December 15, 2012 at 8:44am

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In my part of the country, one has to assume that the other fellow is carrying a gun, it's so easy to get a permit and the gun culture is so strong, so it's wise not to aggravate the driver who cuts you off in traffic or the rude shopper at the mall who says something about your mother or gives you the finger. Of course, the irate sports fan is so common many people refuse to attend professional, or even children's, sports events, and angry comments posted on the internet, even in TNR, are common. This Tuesday morning in my small community, a popular county commissioner who attended the same church as I do was found dead floating in the intra-coastal waterway with his hands bound and a gunshot through his head, his wife having reporting him missing in the early hours of the morning when he did not return home from his regular Monday night poker game with his buddies. Local law enforcement believes he was killed by a professional, but I suspect that the commissioner may have offended another driver as he drove late at night across the long causeway to the island where the commissioner resided, so many times have I witnessed irate drivers on the causeway using their vehicles as weapons in response to some real or imagined slight. While riding my road bicycle in the remote stretch of road on the north end of the island I've encountered irate drivers many times who are so offended that I would ride my bicycle in the road and might cause them to arrive at their destinations a few seconds later that they will use their vehicles as weapons and either threaten or actually run me off the road. How do I respond? By doing nothing, no gestures or words, no letter to the local newspaper, no call to local law enforcement, because if I do the next time I encounter that driver she may shoot me with the gun she most likely carries. We are an angry, trigger happy nation with a gun wielding culture that, combined, is lethal. And, in our cult of celebrity, we want to be noticed. The difference between the irate shopper, driver, sports fan, blogger, you name it, and the gunman in Connecticut is only of degree. We spend billions and endure irrational intrusions in order to create the appearance of safety when we travel, yet we are more likely to be killed by a gunman at the mall, at school, or at work. Maybe we are all nuts.

- rayward

December 15, 2012 at 8:44am

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Apparently the NY Times article doesn't allow links to its "print' page.

- arnon1

December 15, 2012 at 8:45am

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rayward, what does the murder of the man in your article have to do with the crazy elementary school attack in Connecticut? At least Jaime's article was about attacks on school children.

- arnon1

December 15, 2012 at 8:48am

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The people of the US, through their constitutional processes, have decided to allow this sort of thing to happen. It's too late to do anything about it. We've just got to live with it.

- BillW

December 15, 2012 at 9:27am

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Thank you, Anton Scalia! Thank you, John Roberts! Thank you, Anthony Kennedy! Thank you, Clarence Thomas! Thank you, Samuel Anthony Alito!

- BillW

December 15, 2012 at 9:31am

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Well. I think rayward's comment is on the nose. He's talking about our culture. Our culture is gun happy, angry, starstruck and trigger-happy - to the point where if you write a letter or call the police, in rayward's neck of the woods, maybe you have to fear lethal retaliation. These mass shootings are not coming out of the blue. They're part of a culture. Thinking about it, before I was 5 or 6 I had toy six shooters. Bang bang. At least in my family nobody wanted handguns or military weapons. My mom was a target shooter (22's) and my dad hunted. So I am familiar with guns and absolutely hate them and what they do. But culturally, guns are a huge part of America's self-image and origin myths and also, were responsible for decimating the bison and the indigenous people and Winning The West. Swell. We need a cultural reset. AND we need better social safety nets, connections and more money spent on health and education.

- Sophia

December 15, 2012 at 5:26pm

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Oh ps. My niece's best friend was murdered in a school shooting. This can happen to ANYBODY. We have to do something.

- Sophia

December 15, 2012 at 5:32pm

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Sophia, I have the utmost respect for you and 97% of the content of your almost invariably articulate and insightful comments, but I disagree with you on this one. There's truth to what you say, but I find the picture of America you paint to be a liberal caricature (not that I haven't noted your own personal and family experience with guns), and a pessimistic exaggeration of certain points of our culture. Perhaps it's just me--I've never thought of guns as being central to our founding myths, just an accoutrement of the times. Besides, most Western nations have rather more war-filled histories than we do (admittedly only using firearms in large numbers during war since the 16th century, or perhaps a little earlier. I don't recall the precise advent of the Spanish Square). This strikes me as being similar to the war to end all wars between the fascists and the communists that the former would have had us believe was our only option to save civilization as it was. By this I mean that both you and the NRA seem to accept (rather strangely, to my way of thinking) that guns are central to America's culture, but, myself, not adhering precisely to either pro or anti gun-control camp, don't see it that way at all. Fuck it. Can we just have some sensible gun control already, like limits on magazine size (and, perhaps, fines for use, sale, or purchase of existing expanded capacity magazines?), laws that don't piss off gun enthusiasts (the 90s assault weapons ban, once it got through the sausage-making process, focused, bizarrely, on largely cosmetic features like pistol grips that made the law nonsensical to those used to guns, thus alienating them from the concept of moderate, sensible control)?

- Curran1

December 15, 2012 at 6:13pm

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"Perhaps it's just me--I've never thought of guns as being central to our founding myths,...."" It wasn't. Sophia means well, but she needs to read a little more of John Adams and and Jefferson (not a hero of mine). Perhaps she could start with the letters between John and Abigail Adams. Or the correspondence between Jefferson and Adams.

- arnon1

December 15, 2012 at 9:06pm

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Rayward, you should consider a move to Iowa, or Idaho. Sure, everyone owns a gun, but the rate of gun homicides is not much different from that in Sweden or Germany. Hawaii, Wyoming, Vermont, New Hampshire... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States_by_state (2004 data)

- nehocm002

December 15, 2012 at 11:52pm

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So, this is like the "white girl kidnapping" phenomenon, in which we suddenly find the resolve to deal with a problem that festers every day, but does not bother us much since it is not really about people like us. I think it will be helpful to have an honest discussion about confiscating a hundred million semi-auto guns from civilians, many of whom will view it as the beginning of a totalitarian coup. Short of this, and maybe even with this, it will be impossible to keep such weapons away from potential mass murderers.

- nehocm002

December 15, 2012 at 11:59pm

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nehocm002, one would think that there would be fewer deaths in Idaho than Sweden or Germany since there are fewer people there per square mile. Still why is it that there are fewer deaths from guns in Iowa than Idaho: http://www.statemaster.com/graph/cri_mur_wit_fir-death-rate-per-100-000 Idaho ranked 19 and Iowa ranked 42. Now, Idaho ranked 44 in terms of pop per square mile and Iowa ranked 36. Since Idaho is less densely populated you would expect fewer deaths than Iowa and far fewer than Massachusetts which is number 50. Hell one cold hardly find anyone to shoot in Idaho or Montana but the latter state is number 13. Now Mass and NY have some of the strictest gun control laws in the country and they rank 50 and 46. How do you account for that, nehocm02? As for your threat that "I think it will be helpful to have an honest discussion about confiscating a hundred million semi-auto guns from civilians, many of whom will view it as the beginning of a totalitarian coup." Yea, let's be honest. If it becomes a choice between our children and your guns guess what a majority of us would support confiscating your fascist and totalitarian badges which you call semi-auto guns. Most people even those loaded for bear are law abiding and would turn in their guns voluntarily and the few that don't the lawful authorities will disarm them willy-nilly. btw: i didn't look up your statistics about gun deaths in Germany or Idaho but I wouldn't take your word for it.

- arnon1

December 16, 2012 at 12:40am

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arnon, the Times has reported that the mother collected guns and spoke frequently of her interest in guns and that she took her sons target shooting. The weapons used in the massacre were registered to the mother. Sniping about whether the problem is lack of gun control or inadequate mental health programs is indeed beside the point, but only because that is a settled question. Mental health services or the lack thereof are irrelevant, because the Venn diagram of mass shooters and the medically diagnosed mentally ill shows very little overlap, and even in the cases wherein a shooter did come to the attention of the mental health establishment as in the case of the Va Tech killer, it was impossible to predict beforehand the evils they would commit. There were 7 mass shootings in 2012 you tell us. Just how many skinny, socially awkward, sexually frustrated 18-25-year-old weirdos are there out there who spend most of their time alone behind closed doors plotting who-knows-what? I'm betting there are thousands, tens of thousands even. Should we lock all of them up preemptively? Never mind that most of them just fill their days playing World of Warcraft and masturbating to Internet porn and give no serious consideration to killing anyone in the bricks-and-mortar world. The whole suggestion is complete bullshit. These crimes are common in the United States of America--uniquely so--for one reason only: it is only in the United States of America that without any meaningful restriction other than prior felony conviction or history of major mental illness, citizens are allowed to possess semi-automatic weapons with high-capacity magazines designed for no other purpose than killing large numbers of people in short periods of time. I defy any "gun enthusiast" to explain to me what legitimate sporting or personal defense need they might have that would not be served by either a pump-action shotgun with a three shot magazine or a single-shot high-powered rifle. And if you insist on retaining access to handguns--stupid in my opinion, since banning handguns would reduce street crime and domestic murders (i.e. husbands shooting wives)--why not limit them to revolvers? In what circumstances will five or six .44 caliber shots not be enough for the civilian gun owner? Why do average people need to be after to fire twelve shots as quick as they can work their fingers and then reload in seconds by slapping in a new clip?

- AaronW

December 16, 2012 at 7:43am

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...And if you insist on retaining access to handguns--stupid in my opinion... Heller does that.

- basman

December 16, 2012 at 9:00am

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AaronW, your post is confusing, are you saying that we can't do anything, or are you saying that we need stricter gun control measures? If the latter it took you a while to get to the point and most people here would agree with you. As for improving mental health care, there is a need for that and not just to stop rampaging young nuts with handguns.

- arnon1

December 16, 2012 at 9:47am

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Arnon1, your stats include suicides and accidents, while mine were about homicides. But more importantly, you entirely miss the point I was making about eliminating privately owned semi-auto weapons in the US. You and many others seem to think that passing a law solves the problem, which only demonstrates that you have not thought about any of this. Then the resort to insulting ad hominem slurs completes the picture of your sophisticated self-righteousness. AaronW, you are correct that semi-auto rifles and pistols with high-capacity magazines do not serve any particular sporting or hunting needs. It is also fairly clear that Congress could outlaw or severely restrict possession of such weapons, as it did with fully automatic weapons. The point I was trying to make is that large numbers of these weapons are in the hands of citizens who believe they have a fundamental political right to them, and understand perfectly well what purpose they serve. Feel free to believe that these people are crazy, but deal with the the real implications of attempting to confiscate.

- nehocm002

December 16, 2012 at 12:07pm

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I don't understand how a ban on assault weapons would be hindered by the number of such weapons already "out there." They are in important ways separate problems. And a start is a start. Tailored confiscatory laws, reward for return policies, very stiff laws for possession of outlawed weapons, and other gatherng in techniques would also be a discrete start. It seems to me self evident that lessening the availability of these unjustifiable weapons will have an impact on their criminal use. And on a lesser note I wouldn't dismiss the effects such policies and the clear national enunciation of the values underlying them, IE words and deeds, might have on the culture of violence providing context for so many homicides, albeit a war against this particular culture being a much more difficult and amorphous proposition.

- basman

December 16, 2012 at 1:21pm

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arnon, I'm saying that we need stricter gun control measures and that relating events such as the Newtown massacre to failures in our mental health system is a lot of hooha intended to obscure the salient fact that the problem is the availability of semi-automatic weapons. Twenty-year-old men have conceived the murder of rooms full of children for millennia (see Book V, Chapter III of Brothers Karamazov) and likely will continue to do so. The society that delivers into their hands the means to make such evil ideas reality is nearly as demented as they are. nehocm, if what you're saying is that a ban on ownership of semi-automatic weapons with a plan to confiscate/buy-back such weapons would make a large number of people very unhappy, I certainly agree. If, on the other hand, what you're saying is that such predictable unhappiness would make such a law impracticable, then I must strenuously disagree. Legal abortion makes a sizable minority of the population intensely unhappy and yet it remains the law of the land.

- AaronW

December 16, 2012 at 1:24pm

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I'm butting in but AaronW your first point in your just above comment makes no sense, and is like that of the guns nuts who argue the issue is mental health and not guns. The real issue is their intersection fuelled in part by cut backs in mental health care which results too often in extraordinarily sick people having in their hands extraordinarily lethal weapons. I have no issue with your concentration on guns laws and regulation and restriction of guns but I'm struck by how falsely binary so many of the arguments floating around on these issues are. Why the need to pronounce on high what, singularly, "THE PROBLEM IS" when it's so clearly what emerges from the confluence of many terrible problems, which all need addressing?

- basman

December 16, 2012 at 2:02pm

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Semi-auto weapons have been around for a long, long time (more than a hundred years). They are enablers, but they are not the cause. Humans have long had the ability to wreak considerable havoc on the fellow man in polite society, but they've refrained from doing so. Why so much so recently? Salt Lake Trib reports this morning that mass killings peaked in 1929, with 32 in the 19080's, 42 in the 1990's, 26 in the aughts, and dizzying numbers, at least it seems, beyond that. I suspect the non-stop "celebration" of each event by the media has something to do with this. I put celebration in quotes, because if you are crazy, it certainty seems a way to get your point across. If you feel your voice is NOT being heard by enough, then the surest way to get your point across is to go big. Upon doing so, every minute detail of your life will be slowly dripped out over months. Everyone will know who you are. To me, this is the biggest change from 100 years ago, or even 25 years ago. In order for banning guns to work, every gun must be found and destroyed. That will not happen. There are far too many. Curran writes: "Fuck it. Can we just have some sensible gun control already, like limits on magazine size (and, perhaps, fines for use, sale, or purchase of existing expanded capacity magazines?)" First, can you identify mass shootings in which this law would have had an impact? Versus carrying 10 clips? Passing a law that doesn't cure the ills means more of the same will continue to happen. Arnon writes: "nehocm002, one would think that there would be fewer deaths in Idaho than Sweden or Germany since there are fewer people there per square mile." Look at homicides per 100K to better understand, as the other figures include suicides and accidents. Yes, Alaska can get pretty lonely I suspect. But note especially that NJ and NY are almost indistinguishable in their murder rates via gun, and spite of being just a river apart, and NYC having the toughest guns laws and NJ having pretty typical gun laws. Aaron writes: "Mental health services or the lack thereof are irrelevant, because the Venn diagram of mass shooters and the medically diagnosed mentally ill shows very little overlap, and even in the cases wherein a shooter did come to the attention of the mental health establishment as in the case of the Va Tech killer" Sorry, but there is a lot of overlap. The aurora shooter and this most recent guy are folks knew them to be dangerous. Ditto with Loughner and Cho. But today, the only choice is jail or on the streets. There isn't a place for the crazy people to go. Remember One Flew over the Cuckcoo's nest? That was the beginning of the end for locking up crazy people. Now they live on the streets. Aaron writes: " I defy any "gun enthusiast" to explain to me what legitimate sporting or personal defense need they might have that would not be served by either a pump-action shotgun with a three shot magazine or a single-shot high-powered rifle." Here's a hint: It's fun to someone. Just like driving fast is fun to someone. Just like smoking pot and cocaine are fun to someone. Just like hookers are fun to someone. Just like motorcycles are fun to someone. Just like gay bathhouses are fun to someone. These are all things that take a toll on humanity, but we permit them anyway. Legalizing pot will ruin more lives than automatic weapons, I can promise you that.

- seattleeng

December 16, 2012 at 2:38pm

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My point makes no sense? Pronouncing on high? I'm merely stating the obvious, basman. The mental health angle on crimes such as these is a smokescreen. The facts are these: 1) Most mass murderers have neither sought treatment from nor been referred to a mental health professional prior to committing their crimes. 2) Most frustrated, schizoid loners who fit the profile for mass-murder/mass-murder-suicide never commit such crimes, nor do they have treatable mental disorders. 3) To the degree that mass shooters are found have diagnosable psychiatric disorders--many of them don't other than depression, which is about like saying that people who commit suicide have high rates of depression--the diagnoses take the form of personality disorders such as antisocial PD, narcissistic PD and schizoid PD (see DSM-IV) all of which are notoriously resistant to treatment. 4) The overwhelming majority of people diagnosed with mental disorders, including all of those mentioned in point three, never commit mass murder. The prevention of mass shootings through improvements to or increases in mental health services represents a screening problem, a MASSIVE screening problem. To be effective, we would have to be able to distinguish ahead of time those most likely to commit mass murder from the thousands of similar sufferers who will never commit such crimes in order that we might either treat their illnesses (successfully) or segregate them from society. Given the general impossibility of predicting individuals' future behavior, the rarity of events such as the Newtown and Aurora killings, and the high prevalence of the kind of loneliness, social awkwardness and personal misery that seems to be associated with these crimes, it should be obvious that any screen tight enough to catch the future shooters would also catch up thousands upon thousands who would never offend. You might argue that intervening in the lives of these many would in and of itself be of benefit both to them and to society, and that prevention of mass murder would really be just a welcome side-effect of improving the mental health of the larger population. The trouble with that proposition is that psychology and psychiatry have remarkably little to offer in the way of treatment for the kinds of derangements that culminate in mass murder. Assuming you can get them into the clinic in the first place--no mean feat--what sort of treatment are you going to offer to these legions of physically weak, socially awkward, chronically dysthymic young men who have never been on a date and have no prospects for doing so, whose inflated ideas about their own intelligence are not supported by their dodgy academic records? Are you going to cure their shyness? Teach them to take more responsibility for their social failings and stop blaming others for their repeated rejections? Inculcate a stoic disregard for the pain of rejection and lead them to sublimate their unfulfilled social and sexual desires into creative work? All I can say is, good luck.

- AaronW

December 16, 2012 at 4:11pm

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And so Aaron, if we could flip a switch and every semi automatic weapon would vanish, where would these mass shooters turn? Is your assertion that they'd stop shooting? Why wouldn't they just switch to doing their killing with revolvers which would be almost equally effective? Get a jacket with 6 pockets, carry in 6 revolvers, drop each one as you fire the last shot. Just as lethal as a fancy semi auto with an extended magazine, isn't it?

- seattleeng

December 16, 2012 at 5:55pm

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Lots of interesting posts since I was here last. I needed a break from this story and the Boston MFA was just the thing. They don’t usually have great shows but their permanent collection is always interesting. I’ll answer some of the post addressed to me: 12/16/2012 - 12:07pm EDT | nehocm002 “Arnon1, your stats include suicides and accidents, while mine were about homicides.” Gun violence is gun violence, self-inflicted or other-directed. Idaho is a more violent place than Massachusetts which as I said has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation. I know because I helped put someone away for many years for threatening to shoot someone. “But more importantly, you entirely miss the point I was making about eliminating privately owned semi-auto weapons in the US. You and many others seem to think that passing a law solves the problem, which only demonstrates that you have not thought about any of this.” I don’t know who you are talking to but neither I nor anyone I know who supports gun control thinks it will solve “the problem.” There is no such thing as a single problem in any single social difficulty. However, gun control will help cut down the murder rate. If you don’t agree and are very sure that you are right why not try a five to eight year moratorium on selling semi-automatic weapons and let’s see what happens. “Then the resort to insulting ad hominem slurs completes the picture of your sophisticated self-righteousness.” This too is a lot of hooey. I was answering your charge that in order to enforce gun control the government would have to confiscate “a hundred million semi-auto guns from civilians, many of whom will view it as the beginning of a totalitarian coup.” I repeat this is such crap. The government will only confiscate illegal weapons if and only if the country votes to ban these weapons through their elected official or through some ballot proposal to ban them. This will hardly amount to “a coup,” not unless you think that majority vote is tantamount to “a coup?” My response was and is that the “totalitarians” are the ones defying legal regulation not the ones enforcing them.

- arnon1

December 16, 2012 at 6:11pm

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seattleeng "And so Aaron, if we could flip a switch and every semi automatic weapon would vanish, where would these mass shooters turn? Is your assertion that they'd stop shooting? Why wouldn't they just switch to doing their killing with revolvers which would be almost equally effective? Get a jacket with 6 pockets, carry in 6 revolvers, drop each one as you fire the last shot. Just as lethal as a fancy semi auto with an extended magazine, isn't it?" You obviously haven't fired many weapons, engineer. Carrying six guns is a pretty heavy load. Than you would have to have the presence of mind to take them all out so they would be ready at hand to be picked up. Guns have a way of misfiring or jamming. In the meantime the people you are shooting at wouldn't be standing still. They would rush you and beat the crap out of you, Seattle Eng. You come up with interesting fantasies, but that's all they are.

- arnon1

December 16, 2012 at 6:16pm

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12/16/2012 - 1:24pm EDT | AaronW “arnon, I'm saying that we need stricter gun control measures and that relating events such as the Newtown massacre to failures in our mental health system is a lot of hooha intended to obscure the salient fact that the problem is the availability of semi-automatic weapons.” I am not disagreeing with this, Aaron. There is no single measure, though, that is the answer to murderous inclination some people have. Gun control is an important aspect of controlling un violence, but so is better mental health services. It’s not an either or. Btw: the kinds of violence people dream of and perpetrate these day were never dreamt of in the theology of Dostoevsky. They do so without the benefit of a nihilistic ideology.

- arnon1

December 16, 2012 at 6:24pm

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Ok, Seattle, no doubt what you say is true, people want to own powerful, high-capacity semi-automatics because shooting them is fun. But if so, let them say so. Let them not say that they need such weapons of war for self-defense or for hunting. Let them stand up and proudly proclaim that their requirement for fun making noise and fucking shit up on the range or on the back forty trumps any duty to forstall mayhem both here at home and even moreso south of the border. Blowing stuff up with hand-grenades would probably also be a lot of fun. Even so, we consider it prudent and appropriate to outlaw civilian ownership of hand grenades. And your history of semi-autos is accurate but incomplete. While semi-automatic actions have been around for a long time, high-power, small-caliber ammo and high-capacity magazines are a much more recent development. Possibly more importantly, for most of their history, semi-automatics remained mostly where they have a role: with the military. Gun ownership has increased dramatically over the past 40 years, but the proportion of weapons sold that are semi-automatic, both handguns and long arms, has increased even more dramatically and the proportion with magazine capacities >10 has increased from essentially zero prior to about 1970. So semi-autos may have been around for a long time, but semi-autos of the kind that facilitate mass killings have only been in civilian hands in large numbers quite recently.

- AaronW

December 16, 2012 at 6:43pm

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arnon writes: "Carrying six guns is a pretty heavy load. Than you would have to have the presence of mind to take them all out so they would be ready at hand to be picked up. Guns have a way of misfiring or jamming. In the meantime the people you are shooting at wouldn't be standing still. They would rush you and beat the crap out of you, Seattle Eng." Six revolvers is not a heavy load. All six guns would weight about 8 pounds. An assault rifle weighs in at 10 pounds. As soon as shots are fired, everyone runs away. There is ample time to pull out another handgun with the left hand. Nobody will rush you if you have a gun out and raised as most have no idea if another shot is ready or not. A trained person might know how many shots are left if they can ID the model. arnon writes: "Guns have a way of misfiring or jamming. In the meantime the people you are shooting at wouldn't be standing still. They would rush you and beat the crap out of you, Seattle Eng." Revolvers do not jam. They are the most reliable gun their is. Semi autos do jam. But a revolver isn't a semi auto. And thus, you are left unable to refute that person carrying 6 revolvers would be just as lethal among untrained civilians as a person carrying an assault rifle.

- seattleeng

December 16, 2012 at 7:33pm

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AAron writes: "So semi-autos may have been around for a long time, but semi-autos of the kind that facilitate mass killings have only been in civilian hands in large numbers quite recently." I think you ignored my key question: If all semi-auto guns were gone tomorrow, and a person wanted to make a big exit with revolvers, could they be almost as effective in their goals? How would CT have changed? How would Aurora have changed? How would Gabby Giffords have changed? How would the VA campus changed? How could Columbine have changed? They all would have still happened, right? And the deaths would have been almost if not just as high, would they not?

- seattleeng

December 16, 2012 at 7:40pm

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Also, Aaron, the Thompson sub machine gun (tommy gun) was widely available during prohibition, and LEGAL for citizens to have. There were almost 2M of these made. A drum magazine could hold 100 rounds. Why did we not have people killing kids in schools with machine guns back then?

- seattleeng

December 16, 2012 at 7:51pm

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"And thus, you are left unable to refute that person carrying 6 revolvers would be just as lethal among untrained civilians as a person carrying an assault rifle." I don't need to refute a fantasy. Do you know of any case were someone (an individual) did resort to six or even four guns to carry out a massacre? You say: "As soon as shots are fired, everyone runs away." Not true, even at the Connecticut elementary school the School principle and another teacher tried to stop the gunman. Had he had a single gun they would have stopped him or at least slowed him down. Each victim had multiple wounds had the killer had six hand guns (assuming your fantastic scenario) far fewer people would have been killed. " There is ample time to pull out another handgun with the left hand." Your little fantasy, Eng. shows the unreality of ultra-conservative thought. These views are as fantastic in gunfights as in economics.

- arnon1

December 16, 2012 at 7:58pm

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@ AaronW I contend that holes in America's methods of dealing with guns, with the mentally ill leads to a terrible intersection of the two. First from a report on specific cases. A Virginia review panel set up by Kaine after the 2007 mass killing at Virginia Tech concluded that gaps in both Virginia’s mental health system and its guns laws contributed to the Virginia killings. Cho's emotional problems had been looked at when he was in public school and Virginia Tech personnel were concerned but only suggested him to get counselling. In 2005, after police were called over his bothering by harassing a woman on campus--he sent her a text message threatening to kill himself—alerted campus mental health authorities. He was assessed and it was recommended that he involuntarily committed. Then a shrink and someone else evaluated him and released him merely on the basis of outpatient treatment. Cho never sought out that treatment on being released. Said the Virginia panel: “Virginia’s mental health laws are flawed and services for mental health users are inadequate. Lack of sufficient resources results in gaps in the mental health system including short term crisis stabilization and comprehensive outpatient services. The involuntary commitment process is challenged by unrealistic time constraints, lack of critical psychiatric data and collateral information, and barriers (perceived or real) to open communications among key professionals." As did Loughner, Cho bought a gun but from a licensed dealer. Federal law proscribes the sale of guns to anyone found to be a danger to himself or others and mandates federal background checks (or comparable state ones) of gun buyers but doesn't require states to provide info to the federal agency doing the checks. In fact Cho escaped notice because Virginia state officials mistakenly believed only those involuntarily committed for inpatient treatment were subject to getting gun restrictions. In 2008, even after Virginia, Arizona sent only 4,465 records to the feds out of 121,700 it should've sent. For years before, Loughner showed signs of serious mental illness, outbursts during his high school classes and complaints about voices in his head. Nevertheless, he was able legally able to buy and a weapon and ammo. Even if Arizona had been sending all its reports, Loughner wouldn’t have been flagged because though he was seeing a shrink he was never ordered by a court to get mental health treatment. His college had kicked him out for 5 days after a number of incidents with campus police. And after his college told him that to come back he'd need a mental health clearance but this was reported to no one. Recently only a few states strengthened the need to get treatment even while gun regulation in some states has been getting looser. So generally: Each case and the others show a failure of the American mental-health system. For example, the “Dark Knight” guy too had sought help at various times before he went on his rampage. And maybe the underlying issue here is that the U.S. doesn’t have a national health-care system trying to maintain standardized records of "at-risks" and trying to enforce a nationwide standard of care. Of course that won't stop all these killings. But some. There is a general failure to connect mental health to mass murder. For mass shootings in the U.S. over the last 30 years, from what I've read, of 61 of them—24 in the last seven years alone--80% got their guns legally and acute paranoia, delusions, and depression were pervasive among them, with at least 35 of the killers committing suicide on or near the scene. At least 38 of them displayed signs of mental health problems prior to the killings.

- basman

December 16, 2012 at 8:10pm

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P.S. not to take unearned credit, the above is my paraphrasing of some of what I've collected and read on these issues.

- basman

December 16, 2012 at 8:12pm

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How many Thompson sub-machine guns were actually in the hands of citizens, Seattle? I don't know, but I'm betting that the overwhelming majority of those 2M units were sold to govt entities, both in the US and abroad. Adam Lanza's mother owned the three weapons he used at the school including the M-4 carbine and took her son to the range to practice shooting it. How many ordinary-type moms in the 1930s owned Tommy guns do you reckon? How many lonely young men had access to sub-machine guns much less had the opportunity to train in their use? The point at issue, you see, is not when the technology came into existence or the history of laws regarding ownership of weapons, but the history of the prevalence of these weapons in civil society.

- AaronW

December 16, 2012 at 8:12pm

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"At least 38 of them displayed mental health problems prior to the killings..." Yup. And so did thousands of others who never harmed anyone. If your point is that lax enforcement of existing firearms laws regarding denial of purchases to the diagnosed mentally ill constitutes a failure of the mental health system, I'll grant you that, but it seems to me that that's really more of an argument for limitation of access to firearms. Nothing you have presented about any of the cases persuades me that any of the killings could have been prevented through enhanced psychiatric treatment.

- AaronW

December 16, 2012 at 8:26pm

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arnon writes: "I don't need to refute a fantasy. Do you know of any case were someone (an individual) did resort to six or even four guns to carry out a massacre?" A fantasy? Most of these guys are already carrying multiple guns. The CT shooter had 3, the Columbine kids had several. The Aurora shooter had several. The VA shooter had several. These guys ALL travel with 20+ pounds of guns. And you believe if semi-autos were illegal they'd revert to carrying a single 1.2 pound revolver with just 6 shots? That's a laugh. arnon writes: "Not true, even at the Connecticut elementary school the School principle and another teacher tried to stop the gunman. Had he had a single gun they would have stopped him or at least slowed him down." Again, if he carried 3 semi automatic guns, what makes you think he'd carry a single revolver if semi-autos were outlawed? Their efforts would have been met with a similar fate. Swapping from one revolver to the next takes 1 second. Assuming the good guy arrived at an opportune time, he'd have just 1 second to react. Not enough time. Any other time, he's just as screwed as if the guy had an AR15 Now, if the principal were armed, then it's a different story.

- seattleeng

December 16, 2012 at 8:37pm

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AAron writes: "The point at issue, you see, is not when the technology came into existence or the history of laws regarding ownership of weapons, but the history of the prevalence of these weapons in civil society." The prevalence doesn't matter. The fact is: In the 1920's a person could walk into a store and legally buy a thompson machine gun. No checking. No waiting. If they had it, you walked out with it. Why did this not result in people shooting up schools?

- seattleeng

December 16, 2012 at 8:40pm

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I am with basman on the issue of mental illness. As I said above, there is not single way of dealing with social problems. In the case of gun violence, both gun control and better mental health facilities is part of the answer. I am guessing that Aaron doesn't want mental health professionals meddling in the life of individuals because of first amendment concerns. I am am also guessing that from now on many if not most elementary schools will have police people protecting the schoolchildren. This too will be part of the way of dealing with madman with guns. I am guessing that Aaron doesn't want mental health professionals meddling in the life of individuals because of first amendment concerns.

- arnon1

December 16, 2012 at 8:40pm

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.....Three days before 20-year-old Adam Lanza killed his mother, then opened fire on a classroom full of Connecticut kindergartners, my 13-year-old son Michael (name changed) missed his bus because he was wearing the wrong color pants. "I can wear these pants," he said, his tone increasingly belligerent, the black-hole pupils of his eyes swallowing the blue irises. "They are navy blue," I told him. "Your school's dress code says black or khaki pants only." "They told me I could wear these," he insisted. "You're a stupid bitch. I can wear whatever pants I want to. This is America. I have rights!" "You can't wear whatever pants you want to," I said, my tone affable, reasonable. "And you definitely cannot call me a stupid bitch. You're grounded from electronics for the rest of the day. Now get in the car, and I will take you to school." I live with a son who is mentally ill. I love my son. But he terrifies me. A few weeks ago, Michael pulled a knife and threatened to kill me and then himself after I asked him to return his overdue library books. His 7- and 9-year-old siblings knew the safety plan—they ran to the car and locked the doors before I even asked them to. I managed to get the knife from Michael, then methodically collected all the sharp objects in the house into a single Tupperware container that now travels with me. Through it all, he continued to scream insults at me and threaten to kill or hurt me. That conflict ended with three burly police officers and a paramedic wrestling my son onto a gurney for an expensive ambulance ride to the local emergency room. The mental hospital didn't have any beds that day, and Michael calmed down nicely in the ER, so they sent us home with a prescription for Zyprexa and a follow-up visit with a local pediatric psychiatrist. We still don't know what's wrong with Michael. Autism spectrum, ADHD, Oppositional Defiant or Intermittent Explosive Disorder have all been tossed around at various meetings with probation officers and social workers and counselors and teachers and school administrators. He's been on a slew of antipsychotic and mood-altering pharmaceuticals, a Russian novel of behavioral plans. Nothing seems to work. At the start of seventh grade, Michael was accepted to an accelerated program for highly gifted math and science students. His IQ is off the charts. When he's in a good mood, he will gladly bend your ear on subjects ranging from Greek mythology to the differences between Einsteinian and Newtonian physics to Doctor Who. He's in a good mood most of the time. But when he's not, watch out. And it's impossible to predict what will set him off. Several weeks into his new junior high school, Michael began exhibiting increasingly odd and threatening behaviors at school. We decided to transfer him to the district's most restrictive behavioral program, a contained school environment where children who can't function in normal classrooms can access their right to free public babysitting from 7:30 to 1:50 Monday through Friday until they turn 18. The morning of the pants incident, Michael continued to argue with me on the drive. He would occasionally apologize and seem remorseful. Right before we turned into his school parking lot, he said, "Look, Mom, I'm really sorry. Can I have video games back today?" "No way," I told him. "You cannot act the way you acted this morning and think you can get your electronic privileges back that quickly." His face turned cold, and his eyes were full of calculated rage. "Then I'm going to kill myself," he said. "I'm going to jump out of this car right now and kill myself." That was it. After the knife incident, I told him that if he ever said those words again, I would take him straight to the mental hospital, no ifs, ands, or buts. I did not respond, except to pull the car into the opposite lane, turning left instead of right. "Where are you taking me?" he said, suddenly worried. "Where are we going?" "You know where we are going," I replied. "No! You can't do that to me! You're sending me to hell! You're sending me straight to hell!" I pulled up in front of the hospital, frantically waving for one of the clinicians who happened to be standing outside. "Call the police," I said. "Hurry." Michael was in a full-blown fit by then, screaming and hitting. I hugged him close so he couldn't escape from the car. He bit me several times and repeatedly jabbed his elbows into my rib cage. I'm still stronger than he is, but I won't be for much longer. The police came quickly and carried my son screaming and kicking into the bowels of the hospital. I started to shake, and tears filled my eyes as I filled out the paperwork—"Were there any difficulties with… at what age did your child… were there any problems with.. has your child ever experienced.. does your child have…" At least we have health insurance now. I recently accepted a position with a local college, giving up my freelance career because when you have a kid like this, you need benefits. You'll do anything for benefits. No individual insurance plan will cover this kind of thing. For days, my son insisted that I was lying—that I made the whole thing up so that I could get rid of him. The first day, when I called to check up on him, he said, "I hate you. And I'm going to get my revenge as soon as I get out of here." By day three, he was my calm, sweet boy again, all apologies and promises to get better. I've heard those promises for years. I don't believe them anymore. On the intake form, under the question, "What are your expectations for treatment?" I wrote, "I need help." And I do. This problem is too big for me to handle on my own. Sometimes there are no good options. So you just pray for grace and trust that in hindsight, it will all make sense. I am sharing this story because I am Adam Lanza's mother. I am Dylan Klebold's and Eric Harris's mother. I am Jason Holmes's mother. I am Jared Loughner's mother. I am Seung-Hui Cho's mother. And these boys—and their mothers—need help. In the wake of another horrific national tragedy, it's easy to talk about guns. But it's time to talk about mental health treatment. When I asked my son's social worker about my options, he said that the only thing I could do was to get Michael charged with a crime. "If he's back in the system, they'll create a paper trail," he said. "That's the only way you're ever going to get anything done. No one will pay attention to you unless you've got charges." I don't believe my son belongs in jail. The chaotic environment exacerbates Michael's sensitivity to sensory stimuli and doesn't deal with the underlying pathology. But it seems like the United States is using prison as the solution of choice for mentally ill people. According to Human Rights Watch, the number of mentally ill inmates in U.S. prisons quadrupled from 2000 to 2006, and it continues to rise—in fact, the rate of inmate mental illness is five times greater (56 percent) than in the non-incarcerated population. With state-run treatment centers and hospitals shuttered, prison is now the last resort for the mentally ill—Rikers Island, the LA County Jail and Cook County Jail in Illinois housed the nation's largest treatment centers in 2011. No one wants to send a 13-year-old genius who loves Harry Potter and his snuggle animal collection to jail. But our society, with its stigma on mental illness and its broken healthcare system, does not provide us with other options. Then another tortured soul shoots up a fast food restaurant. A mall. A kindergarten classroom. And we wring our hands and say, "Something must be done." I agree that something must be done. It's time for a meaningful, nation-wide conversation about mental health. That's the only way our nation can ever truly heal. God help me. God help Michael. God help us all.

- basman

December 16, 2012 at 8:44pm

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"Now, if the principal were armed, then it's a different story." I knew that this was the conclusion your argument was leading too. I don't think in the future principles will be armed, but I do think that elementary schools will be patrolled by the police. In fact your fear of government intervention into the lives of people will come about more readily by not dealing with fire arms than by outlawing semi-automatic weapons. "Again, if he carried 3 semi automatic guns, what makes you think he'd carry a single revolver if semi-autos were outlawed? Their efforts would have been met with a similar fate. Swapping from one revolver to the next takes 1 second. Assuming the good guy arrived at an opportune time, he'd have just 1 second to react. Not enough time. Any other time, he's just as screwed as if the guy had an AR15. In many massacres there were people who tried to stop the shooter or gave their lives protecting others as did the Judge when the congresswoman was shot or the Professor who gave his life helping students flee through a classroom window at the Virginia Tech massacre. If the shooter carried six or even ten no automatic guns his chances of doing as much damage (as they have done recently when carrying semi-automatic guns) would be diminished. Again, if you think you are right, why not allow for a five to eight year moratorium on semi-automatic weapons to see if banning them will indeed make a difference?

- arnon1

December 16, 2012 at 8:56pm

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Australia, where I live and work as a physician, does have a public health service, but public mental health services are woefully underfunded and from my direct experience are no more readily available than in the USA. I routinely manage suicidal overdoses on my medical service only to have the psychiatry consult service recommend discharge to the care of a general practitioner because of lack of inpatient psychiatric beds. Outpatient psychiatric and psychological care is, for all intents and purposes, nonexistent for those without money to pay for them. And yet since access to firearms in Australia was drastically limited after the Port Arthur massacre in 1994, there has been not a single repeat event.   Yes, Oz's population is 1/15 that of the US, and maybe we're due for a massacre of our own, but I'm pretty sure the difference over the past 15 years is statistically significant, and the relevant variable is availability of firearms not availability of mental health services.

- AaronW

December 16, 2012 at 9:02pm

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Sounds like you HOPE that if semi-autos are banned, you hope that massacres will become less lethal. They might. But they'll still happen. And the body counts will be almost as high. Arnon writes: "Again, if you think you are right, why not allow for a five to eight year moratorium on semi-automatic weapons to see if banning them will indeed make a difference?" Because a reasonable person understand that a revolver is just as effective against unarmed population as a semi-auto. Your exercise will not show what you hope it does. Here is a trained person using a revolver. He shoots 12 shots in 3 seconds, each hitting a target, and including a manual reload. Watch the video. www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLk1v5bSFPw I'm not sure you quite understand what a revolver is. But it is what this guy is shooting. This gun isn't a fancy military gun. Revolvers shoot as fast as you can pull the trigger. Nobody is talking about banning these things. These are NOT semi automatic guns. Let's assume for a moment that the federal gov provided the budgets to keep specially trained officers in school that were skilled in dealing with gunman intruders. The goal would be to have the officers able to mount a counteroffensive moments after it started. Would this be useful in your mind?

- seattleeng

December 16, 2012 at 9:56pm

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The forum software ate the link. Here it is again. Watch the video and tell me if you think this guy is a threat or not if his goal was to hurt people. www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLk1v5bSFPw Don't eat the linkDon't eat the linkDon't eat the linkDon't eat the linkDon't eat the linkDon't eat the linkDon't eat the linkDon't eat the linkDon't eat the linkDon't eat the linkDon't eat the linkDon't eat the linkDon't eat the linkDon't eat the linkDon't eat the linkDon't eat the linkDon't eat the linkDon't eat the linkDon't eat the linkDon't eat the linkDon't eat the linkDon't eat the linkDon't eat the linkDon't eat the linkDon't eat the linkDon't eat the link

- seattleeng

December 16, 2012 at 9:58pm

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Aaron, it's hard to disagree with what you say since even in the US the States were there is hardly and gun control laws such as Ala., and Miss., have the highest rate of deaths from gunshot wounds. And as I said above, here in Mass where we have pretty strict gun control laws the number of death is much fewer. I don't know if mental health facilities may play a factor, but I'll live that to mental health professionals to decide.

- arnon1

December 16, 2012 at 10:04pm

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Seattleeng, I don't agree that non automatic guns will be just as lethal. Let's leave it at that because neither of us will convince the other. However, it seems to me that if I were frightened of government having too much power I would want to do everything possible to limit and not expend police power and presence. You may keep your precious semi-automatic but when policeman start showing up at elementary schools all over the country and little kids become used to policeman (which is the face of government to most people) as friendly people whom they can trust then these kids will grow up thinking that police power isn't such a bad thing. However, you slice it, government will be more involved in our lives in the future than it is now and a generation will grow up not minding that, at all.

- arnon1

December 16, 2012 at 10:10pm

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Arnon writes: "I don't agree that non automatic guns will be just as lethal. Let's leave it at that because neither of us will convince the other." Did you watch the video? Re cops in school... The cost to put 2 cops in every school will be prohibitive. I don't worry about it. We have 50M kids in school, if each school is 500 kids, that is 100K schools. At 2 cops per school, that is 200K cops we'd need to hire, and at 80K salary + retirement per cop that is $16B a year. If the cops managed to save 15 lives, that would be a cost of $1B per life saved. I'm sorry, but the government doesn't spent $1B to a save a single life. Ever. Now, what if a few teachers in each school were willing ot take the same training the cops would have taken? Would you increase their salary by $1K/year? Would you buy them a gun and vest and a locked safe for their room? I sure would.

- seattleeng

December 16, 2012 at 10:28pm

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"Also, Aaron, the Thompson sub machine gun (tommy gun) was widely available during prohibition, and LEGAL for citizens to have. There were almost 2M of these made. A drum magazine could hold 100 rounds. Why did we not have people killing kids in schools with machine guns back then?" Mass killings were the highest in US history during that period. Do some research first; oh wait, that would mean everything you bring up here is a lie. Can you for once, you idiot, quit spouting right wing lies and bullshit? Kids were killed at a high rate during the 20's but of course you won't bother to find out what happened, you and your ilk are happy spreading lies since you are part of the worship cult of death. There was a reason such weapons of mass destruction were banned. And that's what they are, weapons of mass destruction, and guns give us body counts that make the US look like a war zone inside it's borders. My wish is the likes of you get to find out first hand what your fetish and love for death has brought this country.

- tmmats

December 16, 2012 at 10:46pm

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Arming teachers??? Makes as much sense and arming the 6 yr. olds. Come to think of it, watch the gun fetishists like seattle suggest that next. The next step in making America like Iraq or Afghanistan. You prove the NRA = Taliban. Why don't you take yourself up on your suggestion if you're serious. We're waiting.

- tmmats

December 16, 2012 at 10:53pm

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I'll watch your video if you watch this video: ‘Newtown, You Are Not Alone,’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lK2G06bvAUw

- arnon1

December 16, 2012 at 10:58pm

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"The cost to put 2 cops in every school will be prohibitive." You are full of statistics, as Eng. usually are. People are not statistics and they to keep their children safe they will pay whatever it costs. Yes, it will cost a lot and you will pay for it in higher taxes.

- arnon1

December 16, 2012 at 11:00pm

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I saw your video and I am more convinced than ever that you are wrong. The average nut massacring people isn't a "world champion." Emotion will slow him down as will the reaction of people screaming and some trying ton jump at him. This is the difference between an automatic or semi-automatic weapon and a single shot pistol With the automatic the machine is in control, with the single shot pistol it's the human being who has to control the machine. Few have the training necessary to filter out background noise, and when that "noise" comes from the human voice it's even harder to filter out. Now, why are you against outlawing semi-automatic weapons? What is your real reason?

- arnon1

December 16, 2012 at 11:06pm

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My sister-in-law and her husband were shot, in the parking lot of the hospital where she worked as a nurse, by a sniper who had moments before shot and killed an EMT (the mother of 4) as she was coming off shift. The police arrived on the scene quickly and a 4 hour long pursuit of the gunman eventually resulted in his death. This was in a small town in Montana. It barely got any statewide coverage, and of course wasn't even on the radar in terms of national coverage. The shooter had no connection to his victims -- he was a "loner" who had moved to town two years earlier (from Utah) and was so solitary that it took several days to identify him -- in a town of barely 2500 people, almost no one knew him. It made me wonder how often tragedies like this occur -- some stranger with a gun tries to kill as many random strangers as he can but ends up not being successful enough at it, is unable to kill and wound an impressive enough number, to gain any real notice and attention. Also, I know how traumatic these events have been for my then 9, now 12, year old niece and nephew (twins). Three years later they are still dealing with consequences of this devastating blow to their sense of security. Some of those consequences will probably last a lifetime -- and their parents weren't killed. When, as a culture, the whining voices of those who mourn for any sensible restriction on their right to have fun with any kind of gun are given more attention than the voices of those who ask that consideration be given to the shattered lives of those who, on a daily basis, are being harmed by our attitude of carelessness with, and careless, about guns and gun violence, we have, as a culture, degraded ourselves.

- esmense

December 16, 2012 at 11:45pm

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esmense, do you know what kind of gun that sniper used? There have been mass casualty attacks by snipers using bolt-action hunting rifles, which no one is suggesting should be banned. Well, maybe not no one.

- nehocm002

December 16, 2012 at 11:59pm

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Now, what if a few teachers in each school were willing ot take the same training the cops would have taken? Would you increase their salary by $1K/year? Would you buy them a gun and vest and a locked safe for their room? Oh Jesus Christ on a swivel stick that is about the dumbest thing I ever heard. So while gun shot are going off outside I have to go over the safe in the closet, patiently dial the combination while the students are doing God knows what...screaming, crying, thinking of running out to the hall...and then I have to go and hunt down the gunman instead of maybe getting my own students to safety. Or do I crouch down waiting for the gunman and when another armed teacher walks in accidently shoot them because I am so freaked out. And if you are going to say don't use a combination lock use a key for the safe. Yeah, that is smart. Go to the bathroom, forget your keys in your desk and some kid thinks it is funny to unlock the safe and flash the gun around. And what kind of gun is this? A semi automatic? And what if I miss and hit a bunch of children myself, and what if a cop comes in another door, sees me and then shoots me. After all, I would have a gun. What kind of engineering school did seattle go to? the downstairs engineering school of engineers r us? nehocm, it is called reasonable restrictions. I am prepared to live in a society where people will misuse a bolt action hunting rifle. I am not prepared to live in a society where people can buy bazookas. Are you? If a bazooka is not fine by you, then why is an assault weapon? So we have a different sense of what is a reasonable restriction, but you agree with the concept of reasonable restrictions. If not, if you think people should be able to own bazookas or rocket propelled grenades then you are basically nuts.

- blackton

December 17, 2012 at 12:14am

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"The prevalence doesn't matter. The fact is: In the 1920's a person could walk into a store and legally buy a thompson machine gun. No checking. No waiting. If they had it, you walked out with it." Dead wrong. First, the fact that would-be mass killers in the early 20th century had legal access to sub-machine guns does not mean that they had practical or financial access to sub-machine guns. If you can show me evidence that Thompsons were available at a reasonable price in every general store, I'd love to see it, but until you do, I'll stick to my hunch that, legal or not, Tommy guns took some doing for the average Joe to get his hands on. Secondly--and more importantly--you fail to acknowledge to which possession of the weapons precedes and even precipitates conception of the crimes. Tools call out to their owners to be put to proper use, and that applies just as well to tools for killing as it does for tools for carpentry or felling trees. Adam Lanza never made a decision to purchase an M-4 and a Glock--his mother did that for her own reasons--and I would be astonished to be informed that his first thoughts about shooting up an elementary school preceded his first handling of these weapons. The weapons in his hands not only gave him the power to commit the crime, they gave him the power to conceive the crime. The weapons in his hands took murder out of the realm of fantasy and made it real for him, a real choice. Would he have committed the crime had he been required to go out and procure the guns of his own initiative? We cannot know, but there is reason to think that maybe he would not.

- AaronW

December 17, 2012 at 12:24am

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If all teachers went to school armed the largest effect would be a marked increase in the number of murders and on-the-job suicides committed by teachers.

- AaronW

December 17, 2012 at 12:27am

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It's a dumb idea to arm teachers. Most of them i grade school are women and probably hate guns. The killers mom was an exception.

- arnon1

December 17, 2012 at 12:34am

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arnon writes: "This is the difference between an automatic or semi-automatic weapon and a single shot pistol. With the automatic the machine is in control, with the single shot pistol it's the human being who has to control the machine. A revolver (what you call a single shot pistol) shoots as fast as I can pull the trigger. Just like a semi-auto. The man in the video was shooting a revolver NOT a semi-auto. NOBODY is talking about banning those. Nobody. The shooters in Aurora and CT are using a semi-auto. Every time they pull the trigger a bullet is fired. Once per pull. Same as the revolver. A world champion can run the 100 meter in sub 10 seconds. A person without any training is only 40% slower. Your average fat american go run a 100 meter just 40% slower than the world champion. A world champion shooter can fire 12 rounds in 3 seconds, including reload. If a person without any training is half as fast, that's still 12 shots in 6 seconds without any training. On a gun that NOBODY wants to ban. Now, tell me, how banning semi-auto will ensure someone can cause all this harm with a revolver? Arnon writes: "Now, why are you against outlawing semi-automatic weapons? What is your real reason?" Because the difference between a semi auto (what everyone wants to ban) and revolver (which NOBODY is talking about banning) is practically zilch.

- seattleeng

December 17, 2012 at 12:51am

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blackton writes: "And what kind of gun is this? A semi automatic? And what if I miss and hit a bunch of children myself, and what if a cop comes in another door, sees me and then shoots me. " The premise was the teacher had the same training as the cop. All your questions apply to a cop being on campus too.

- seattleeng

December 17, 2012 at 12:53am

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Aaron writes: "Dead wrong. First, the fact that would-be mass killers in the early 20th century had legal access to sub-machine guns does not mean that they had practical or financial access to sub-machine guns. If you can show me evidence that Thompsons were available at a reasonable price in every general store, I'd love to see it, but until you do, I'll stick to my hunch that, legal or not, Tommy guns took some doing for the average Joe to get his hands on." But the guns used in mass killings today aren't in every general store, either. Nor are they cheap. Your assertion that we've only recently had serious firepower available for people to buy is just plane wrong.

- seattleeng

December 17, 2012 at 1:21am

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"A revolver (what you call a single shot pistol) shoots as fast as I can pull the trigger." Seattleeng, how is this different from what I said. "Now, tell me, how banning semi-auto will ensure someone can cause all this harm with a revolver?" I made it clear above that a revolver will not cause the same damage as a semi-automatic. Yes some professional can shoot very fast at a target. But shooting at targets is very different from shooting at people. I have said this above and I am not going to repeat myself. In any case I am not for banning revolvers, I am only for banning semi-automatic weapons.

- arnon1

December 17, 2012 at 1:44am

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But if a revolver and semi auto each shoot a single bullet each time you pull the trigger, and each must be aimed, how are they any different?

- seattleeng

December 17, 2012 at 2:16am

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But if a revolver and semi auto each shoot a single bullet each time you pull the trigger, and each must be aimed, how are they any different? A semiautomatic has more powerful rounds and can fire faster. I've shot both on target ranges, I was astounded how much faster a the semi-auto was, it wasn't hard to make it mimic a slow automatic weapon The revolver wasn't even close. Plus the semi-auto can hold huge magazines without reloading. Goddamn you are an imbecile and liar, I don't which of the two makes you more dangerous. What an inhuman robot you and your gun-loving taliban is Seattle, children are executed in cold blood due to our gun-fetishistic culture and you defend it. You're part of the problem,the sick, human-hating, death-fetish right-wing "culture". The quicker the lot of you vanishes from the planet the better humanity becomes.

- tmmats

December 17, 2012 at 8:46am

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The premise was the teacher had the same training as the cop. Yes, because teachers all ready don't have enough responsibilities already, they have to be Dirty Harriets as well. Again, no fucking way would I ever teach if I were told I also had to be expected to engage in a gun battle with a psychopathic suicidal rampager with a semi automatic. And I notice you ignored how the hell the police are supposed to know who is who. And as to a nut carrying 6 pistols with you saying, hell it is only 50 pounds...I guess you never had a kid. And there is a reasonable way to overcome that, limit pistols to one per licensed adult with it being matched up to your social security. It is called gun control. And what if the psycho dresses as a cop? Do you think the teacher in that case is going to know? And a real cop comes in seeing one person shooting at what looks like a cop, what would the real cop do? And your idea is to pay them one thousand dollars? I tell you what, you do it then.

- blackton

December 17, 2012 at 8:50am

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"But if a revolver and semi auto each shoot a single bullet each time you pull the trigger, and each must be aimed, how are they any different?" The similarities are obvious and as you say, but irrelevant. The difference is what matters, with a semi-automatic you pull the trigger and keep it depressed, an automatic gun will automatically fire a continuous round of shots until there are no more cartridges left or until you let go of the trigger. You can't do that with a revolver. Think of the revolver as a typewriter and the semiautomatic a keyboard computer. Both type letters that is how they are the same, but with a computer keyboard you can do a lot more that is the salient difference. It's the difference that matters, Eng.

- arnon1

December 17, 2012 at 11:42am

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arnon writes: "The difference is what matters, with a semi-automatic you pull the trigger and keep it depressed, an automatic gun will automatically fire a continuous round of shots until there are no more cartridges left or until you let go of the trigger. You can't do that with a revolver" I'm not sure you understand the technology here. We aren't talking about auto (keep the trigger depressed and it keeps firing). Those are illegal. We're talking about one bullet per squeeze from a semi-auto (used in Aurora, CT, etc). In that regard, a semi-auto and revolver are nearly identical. Without any training at all, a person can squeeze a revolver 6 times in 6 seconds and fire 6 rounds. Drop the revolver, grab another out of your pocket, do it again. The cops are 7 minutes away. The killer has 15 pounds of revolvers in his pocket--60 shots total, likely very lethal rounds as selected by the killer. Most any bullet you can get for a semi-auto you can get the same bullet in a revolver. Thus, a revolver is just as lethal as a semi-auto if the shot hits. I'll ask for the last time: How does making semi-auto illegal change the end game of these madmen killers? It does not. Even if all semi-auto were illegal, these same types of killing occur with revolvers with just as much frequency and almost as much lethality if the supply of crazies remains. Like I said, if I could push a button and send the world back to no guns I would. But we can't go back. People can make a semi-auto gun in their house these days. Banning semi-auto is like declaring a gun free zone. It sounds great on the surface, but then you must face the details.

- seattleeng

December 17, 2012 at 1:17pm

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blackton writes: "Yes, because teachers all ready don't have enough responsibilities already, they have to be Dirty Harriets as well. Again, no fucking way would I ever teach if I were told I also had to be expected to engage in a gun battle with a psychopathic suicidal rampager with a semi automatic. " Of course you wouldn't blackton. You will fight for nothing, that was established long ago. The type of person that lays sobbing in the classroom as the shooting grows louder isn't cut out for this stuff. But luckily, there is a type of person that would do the opposite. And if a gun was an option, they'd use it effectively. These shooters are cowards. They have zero training. As we just saw in the Oregon mall, where a rampage shooter faced a citizen with a gun, the shooter immediately killed himself. They will shoot until they run out of bullets or face the slightest resistance. And some teachers, not most, but some, would view the training here as some view coaching wresting or football: An extra curricular activity that they do, not because of the money, but because they enjoy it. But make no mistake, Blackton, at no point did I figure you'd be this type of person. Don't worry :)

- seattleeng

December 17, 2012 at 1:30pm

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SeattleEng: I have fired both: pistols and semi-automatic and I do know how they differ and how they are the same. I also fired (i the Service) M16. Any if there is no difference between the two in your mind, why do you object banning them? "Like I said, if I could push a button and send the world back to no guns I would. But we can't go back." We do ban many types of weapons, so we can ban semi-automatics. "People can make a semi-auto gun in their house these days. Banning semi-auto is like declaring a gun free zone. It sounds great on the surface, but then you must face the details." The few nuts who will make semi-automatics after they are banned are not the ones I worry about since they probably wouldn't be the ones perpetrating mass murder. And if the do, they will pay the ultimate price." There is nothing special about banning semi-automatics except that the NRA has been browbeating cowardly congresspeople. The States with the least gun regulations like Alabama and Mississippi have the highest rate of death by gunshot. This must stop.

- arnon1

December 17, 2012 at 1:47pm

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@ Aaron W ...."At least 38 of them displayed mental health problems prior to the killings..." Yup. And so did thousands of others who never harmed anyone. If your point is that lax enforcement of existing firearms laws regarding denial of purchases to the diagnosed mentally ill constitutes a failure of the mental health system, I'll grant you that, but it seems to me that that's really more of an argument for limitation of access to firearms. Nothing you have presented about any of the cases persuades me that any of the killings could have been prevented through enhanced psychiatric treatment.... Just briefly. The last sentence of your first paragraph is a non sequitur. We have a bunch of demented people "out there" misdiagnosed, under-treated, unmonitored even in the face of tests like "danger to one's self or others." The problem gets worse as funds shrink for their looking into and looking after. How does it help any argument you're trying to make to note "thousands never harmed anyone?" A guy puts bombs in his shoes, some kind of explosives I liquids or gels, and whole protocols get born. On your logic, it's not worth it; on your logic, look at the %s who fly and do no such thing. Yet we deem trying to prevent the happenstance of the odd plane getting blown up as worth all the invasion of privacy, screening, body searches and so on, understanding that all that preventative action is fallible. Surely 20 or so slaughtered little kids serve to raise the same preventative stakes, let alone all the other victims of these recurrent monstrous killings. What principle distinguishes that kind of preventative action and trying to ensure better screening and proactively dealinb with the crazies amongst us? One can in each of these instances of mass slaughter pin point where but for systemic lapses and individual error, they wouldn't have happened. "persuaded me...enhanced psychiatric treatment:" whatever are you talking about? Read the histories. The issue is not enhanced treatment; the issue is modicums of treatment, and competency in treatment, and the provision of treatment itself. When austerity impoverishes systemic mental health provision augmenting the likelihood of individual negligence and malpractice gets merges with irrational laxity in gun regulation and restriction and further merges with a toxic culture of violence unique in the developed world, you get the spate of mass killings peculiar to America with lines flowing between the insanity of assault weapon availability and both for-profit and austerity fuleing lapses in mental (and other to be sure) health care provision.

- basman

December 17, 2012 at 2:31pm

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Yes, agree the answer is how to prevent. But eliminating semi-autos doesn't prevent these tragedies. They will still happen. And then what? arnon writes: "Any if there is no difference between the two in your mind, why do you object banning them?" There is no difference in a school setting, where you are facing an unarmed and innocent population and you have 7 minutes to roam about and kill as you wish with no challenges and zero worry that someone with a gun will confront you. If your enemy is armed (home intruder), or if you have just 20 seconds to fight, or if you can only carry 1.5 pounds of gun, then there is a big difference between a revolver and a semi-auto. A semi-auto has a much lighter trigger, and having 9 or 10 shots instead of 5 or 6 matters. That, I suspect, is why cops moved to semi-auto pistols. Does nobody remember the principal that met a shooter with a 45 cal? Probably not. But after a student shooter killed 2 and wounded 7, the assistant principal raised a gun and forced the student shooter to the ground until cops came. And the guy with a concealed carry permit in the Oregon mall just recently drew down on the shooter (after he'd killed 2) and the shooter then killed himself. The evidence thus far is clear: The shooters in these situations are not trained, and facing the least bit of resistance (eg someone else with a gun) they fold like cheap suits and the cowards that they are. The evidence so far is also clear: Absent a serious threat, these pieces of garbage roam freely killing at will until the cops show up, and then they kill themselves. Outlawing semi-autos won't change this one bit. Arming willing teachers will.

- seattleeng

December 17, 2012 at 2:45pm

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Versus what, Malahat? Recall Columbine, Aurora (and Connecticut, based on early reports), the cops show up and WAIT IN THE PARKING LOT BEHIND POLICE CARS while the shooting continues. A parking lot full of small town cops, scared shitless, wondering what to do. Inside, people were bleeding out waiting for help that would never come. You are a fool to think banning semi-autos changes how these tragedies end. They will still happen. And as I've asked before: Then what?

- seattleeng

December 17, 2012 at 3:39pm

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Notice that SeattleEng can't answer the question about a moratorium on semi-automatic. He keeps on repeating himself and then adds this bit: "Does nobody remember the principal that met a shooter with a 45 cal? Probably not. But after a student shooter killed 2 and wounded 7, the assistant principal raised a gun and forced the student shooter to the ground until cops came." Gee killed two and wounded 7 as opposed to killed dozens and wounded dozens more with a semiautomatic. And if the Assistant principle hadn't stopped him others would have. Interesting how to Eng all shooters are experts and perfect marksman while people being shot at are cowardly rabbits. He wishes. I support a ban on semiautomatic because I want to give people being shot at fair chance at getting at the evil asshole and tearing him apart. They will probably not tear anyone apart but they will stop a massacre, or at least have a better chance at doing so. I hope the people in the town in Connecticut were the kids were killed sue the gun manufacturers. They should also sue the NRA/

- arnon1

December 17, 2012 at 4:17pm

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I would support a ban on semiautos if I thought it'd help. But it won't. The people being shot, whether by revolver, shotgun or semi auto, are sitting ducks if they don't have a gun themselves. Arnon writes: "I support a ban on semiautomatic because I want to give people being shot at fair chance at getting at the evil asshole and tearing him apart. " A fair chance? A fair chance? What in the heck are you talking about? You think an unarmed person has a fair chance against someone has a coat full of revolvers loaded with 357 hollowpoints? Are you kidding? There is nothing fair about one person having a gun and another person unarmed.

- seattleeng

December 17, 2012 at 4:47pm

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It would help tremendously if the membership of the NRA would stand up to its leaders. Over 70% of members want reasonable regulations. The NRA is basically a gun-buying club. Most people join to get discounts. The leadership represents gun manufacturers, and they want to sell as many weapons as the market will bear. They actually tweaked a law a few years ago to protect the right of mentally ill people to load up with firearms. I don't mind gun-buying clubs, but the NRA leaders are out of control. And they're cowardly. They took down the NRA Facebook page today, and they won't talk to the media. I imagine many NRA members are already contacting their loony leaders. Good for them. Now we need more of them to stand up for their beliefs. By doing so they may save the lives of helpless little children.

- magboy47.

December 17, 2012 at 4:49pm

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arnon writes: "Notice that SeattleEng can't answer the question about a moratorium on semi-automatic. He keeps on repeating himself and then adds this bit:" We've had a ban on assault weapons for 10 years (1994 to 2004). Your task is to show that crime dropped in a meaningful way during that time. And then show that crime increased after the assault weapons ban. Neither happened. The law did nothing.

- seattleeng

December 17, 2012 at 4:57pm

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seattleeng "I would support a ban on semiautos if I thought it'd help. But it won't." If it won't help than you don't have anything to worry about. Support the ban and you can crow that it didn't help. "We've had a ban on assault weapons for 10 years (1994 to 2004). Your task is to show that crime dropped in a meaningful way during that time. And then show that crime increased after the assault weapons ban." No, that is your task and it should be easy since you think it's so obvious that a ban doesn't reduce fatality. WE are not talking about crime in general Eng we are talking about massacres using semi-automatic weapons. Changing the terms of the debate won't help your case, Eng.

- arnon1

December 17, 2012 at 5:08pm

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basman, you're a perceptive, intelligent man, so I don't understand why my points about mass shootings and mental health services should be so hard for you to grasp. I wonder whether your (feigned?) lack of understanding of my contentions is a rhetorical ploy. Or maybe I have failed to clarify my position. Let me take another stab at it. You have proposed that enhanced deployment of mental health services in the USA could at least partially mitigate the mass-shooter problem by better identifying persons at risk for committing mass murder and treating them in such a way as to render them less likely to commit such crimes. For such a scheme to be effective either or both of the following must be true: (1) individuals at highest risk for committing mass murder must be recognizable a priori and distinguishable from the background mass of the more routinely miserable/distressed/mentally ill who are not at risk for committing violence in order that such high-risk individuals may receive targeted intervention and/or be segregated from society so that they do not offend or (2) an effective intervention or set of interventions must exist that is applicable to the broad mass of people with the sorts of problems and traits that seem to be associated with mass murder that can mitigate such problems and render the whole population of treated individuals less likely to produce the next Adam Lanza or Dylan Klebold. I contend that neither proposition is true. Mass shooters are not recognizable a priori. For every "warning sign" that appears so clear in retrospect, I can find you a thousand other people who display the same signs who never offend. Your examples of mass shooters who did, in fact, seek mental health treatment before they committed their crimes provide further evidence on this point; they were examined by professional psychologists and still their potential for violence went unrecognized. Before they begin having thoughts about killing people, future mass shooters are literally no different from any other miserable, disturbed person, and after they begin having such thoughts, they are usually cagey enough to hide the fact. How many times after such horrible events as Newtown have we heard shooters' acquaintances say, "He was quiet. He kept to himself. I guess I thought he was a little strange, but I never thought he was capable of something like this"? The fact is that most people who are quiet, keep to themselves and who are perceived as strange by those around them do not resort to violence. How are we supposed to distinguish them from those who will? We can't. Okay, so then maybe we should round up all the miserable loners and intervene to make their lives less miserable and lonely. Great idea. We could thereby serve the utilitarian end of decreasing aggregate suffering at the same time that we stop the one-in-a-million killers from progressing to murder. Unfortunately, no effective interventions have been identified. The kinds of psychological problems that tend to be associated with mass murder are DSM Axis II disorders, personality disorders, and they are frustratingly resistant to treatment. We're not talking about people who have organic brain disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or classical unipolar depression, illnesses that present acutely and respond at least partially to medication. What we're talking about here is people who have developed deeply dysfunctional strategies for interacting with the world over an entire lifetime. Even if you can get them into psychotherapy--often you can't--they simply don't get better. (Ask any psychiatrist what she thinks about Axis II diagnoses. "Such patients are completely fucked," is the professional opinion I hear most often.) Often they drift out of therapy once it becomes clear that they aren't getting any better. And, yes, often they are depressed, but depression for such people is more a symptom than a treatable diagnosis. The use of SSRI antidepressants has skyrocketed over the past 30 years, and yet there has been negligible effect on the rate of completed suicide (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17316717). How do you imagine we are supposed to implement a treatment strategy to prevent a behavior as rare, as extreme and as unpredictable as mass murder?

- AaronW

December 17, 2012 at 6:13pm

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AaronW I'm gonna give your last comment some thought, thanks for it, and reply tomorrow, if at all possible, but reply I will for sure.

- basman

December 17, 2012 at 8:49pm

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Arnon writes: "No, that is your task and it should be easy since you think it's so obvious that a ban doesn't reduce fatality." Wiki says that "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention studied the "assault weapon" ban and other gun control attempts, and found "insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of any of the firearms laws reviewed for preventing violence."[6] The DoJ National Institute of Justice found should the ban be renewed, its effects on gun violence would likely be small, and perhaps too small for reliable measurement, because rifles in general, including rifles referred to as "assault rifles" or "assault weapons", are rarely used in gun crimes.[8] So there you go. And not only that, CT **has** a ban on assault weapons, and yet the Bushmaster used was legally sold. Arnon writes: "WE are not talking about crime in general Eng we are talking about massacres using semi-automatic weapons." But as we've covered, semi-auto isn't required to deliver this kind of carnage. You have yet to articulate a plan except "hope" 1) Making all guns illegal will not stop this 2) Placing cops in each school is too expensive 3) Once this starts, the cops cannot come quickly enough to stop it. And even if they can, they will not enter a building where shots are being fired without at least a few minutes of planning. Cops in most all cases are there just to write the reports. They come AFTER the crime has been committed. And so what? What is your response given the cops cannot protect you and that laws cannot stop this? How do you defend against an attacker with a coat full of revolvers amidst a room full of innocent children? Hope? Pray? Sticks? The only way to certainly stop an aggressor is with aggression and comparable if not superior strength. I know you don't like that, but it's a fact that the cops understand better than anyone else. If there was a way around that rule, they'd have figured it out by now. But they haven't. Take it as fact.

- seattleeng

December 17, 2012 at 10:33pm

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On contemporary subjects which have become controversial wiki is not a reliable source. The article there tend to bew politically motivated. Anyways, this is my last post on this subject here. Eng. likes to believe that if he posts lasts he has won the argument. In my eyes at least he hasn't proven that pistols are as deadly than semiautomatic weapons or that a ban on them wouldn't work and wouldn't reduce crime. All his palaver is based on wishful thinking.

- arnon1

December 17, 2012 at 11:20pm

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April 7, 2012 there was a school shooting in Rio de Janeiro using 2 revolvers held by a single gunman in which 13 were killed and 12 injured. The shooting stopped when the gunman was shot by a brave cop. Had the cops not entered the school, the gunman had another floor of terrified kids to visit. As I said, a revolver is just as deadly as a semi auto in school shooting situations. Only a fool believes otherwise. The Rio school is your proof. And the shooter in that case relied on reloading instead of just dropping and grabbing another gun. Still, the shooter managed 60 shots from those revolvers. Considering most gun crimes in this country involve just 1 person being shot, a revolver would be equally effective there, too. Semi-autos are involved in all these crimes because that is the most common gun. But make no mistake, from school shootings to gun violence to suicides to whatever, 99% of the time a revolver is just as effective. A world in which we only have revolvers is just as sad and deadly as it is today. PS. Wiki may not be reliable, but those reports came from the DoJ and CDC, both of which are reliable. I have presented real data here showing revolvers are just as effective in an public attack. You have reports from the DoJ and CDC saying assault ban didn't do jack. Any sense I have of "winning" this debate will come from the fact that you haven't refuted those items. You just keep asserting over and over that everything will be fine if we get rid of semi-auto. There world is full of proof points that say you are wrong.

- seattleeng

December 18, 2012 at 2:09pm

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aaronW AaronW your first paragraph of your last comment is a nicer version of my would be last paragraph of my last comment, which I cut to keep things impersonal. I’ll say that this exchange as accompanied by what I’ve kept reading and hearing on these issues has refined my understanding of them, though, as you, I’m no less persuaded from my angle on them. After your accurate representation of my general position, you say it’s necessary to my position that: 1. We need to be able to identify those with the potential to commits these slaughters out all those who are mentally ill so we can deal with them appropriately. I agree that that’s essential to my position. 2. We must be able to implement the means of dealing with them after identifying them. I agree as well thatl that’s essential to my position. But, different from you, my understanding and argument is that both are practically possible with proper funding, an integrated and rational system of health care and as a matter medical diagnostics. I don’t want this argument to descend into mere semantics but I want to be careful about your language “recognizable a priori.” The issue at this branch of the argument isn’t, to be sure, predicting who will necessarily be a shooter. And I’m not saying that you’re saying that. I just want to be clear. The issue is recognizing who might be a shooter and then dealing appropriately with that recognition. And it’s at this point many factors start to converge. My understanding is that there are indicia of a propensity towards this kind of mass slaughter. For example, it usually will be an incident of the most sever sort of psychic malady like schizophrenia, radical bi polarity, psychotic e or sociopathic episodes. Prior acts of conscienceless violence and cruelty are among the indicia. Analogous forms of acting out are as well, even if not violent in nature. Sometimes these indicia will reveal themselves in younger kids. When they are kids, they have the possibility of their parents guiding them to treatment. Even here, as the other factors converge, the treatment is inadequate; follow up is inadequate; lack of mandated outpatient care is all too common; lack of hospital beds and lack of treatment infrastructure to substitute for lack of beds due to cutbacks also inform such inadequacy. Then the kids, if it’s not too late, think Columbine, get beyond parental control. It’s a medical truism, I understand, that these most severely ill, often very intelligent, with “recognizable” propensities for violence don’t think of themselves as ill. So then, as the factors continue to converge, the legal availability of assault weapons and the reporting and treatment gaps merge and they, some of them get such weapons and unspeakable tragedy happens. Too, one answer to your query about the distinguishing the likely from the unlikely is that, even if that’s as unwieldy as you say, with which of course I don’t agree, they should be getting treatment adequate to their illness. The provision of that treatment to the point where necessary of involuntary medication and separation will mitigate such tragedies. Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, a shrink by the way, who has made his life’s work the study of these matters estimates in rough numbers that more than half of these mass shootings are done by the most severely ill amongst Americans and that identification and proper treatment would have a significant minimizing impact. Buried in the above is the assumption that Dr. Torrey and others are right and that proper treatment is functional within the terms we are discussing. I can’t within my own competence take it further than relying on what they say but they seem sensible to me and I don’t believe the medical case is as forlorn as what you say. Finally, a component of my argument here is more on the policy, legal and institutional side of things. These recurring and increasing mass slaughters suggest to me the need for a policy regime, as I argued before, as proactive by analogy with the measures taken to prevent acts of terror in the U.S. Right now, from what I understand, the approach to the sickest of the sick functionally operates on a criminal law model, of dealing with people after the deed is done. I argue that these unspeakable acts call for a more aggressive interventionist model that aims at prevention through mandated measures, including involuntary confinement, where that case can be made, and involuntary medication, mandated outpatient terms and monitoring balanced with rights, and premised on the perfect not being the enemy of the good. I can see the civil rights and liberties concerns informing arguments against but at a minimum hat is a debate worth having, rather than the concern for better mental health treatment being an important component of an approach to trying to ameliorate a terrifying, monstrous and uniquely American problem in the developed world. And as is patent, this component does not vitiate the need to scream and act loudly and clearly for sane gun regulation and restriction.

- basman

December 18, 2012 at 2:44pm

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That last paragraph is a bit garbled: part of my point was to say that that is a debate, at a minimum, worth having rather then being dismissed out of hand.

- basman

December 18, 2012 at 7:45pm

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........."A second explanation is the deinstitutionalization of the violently mentally ill. A 2000 New York Times study of 100 rampage murderers found that 47 were mentally ill. In the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry Law (2008), Jason C. Matejkowski and his co-authors reported that 16% of state prisoners who had perpetrated murders were mentally ill. In the mid-1960s, many of the killings would have been prevented because the severely mentally ill would have been confined and cared for in a state institution. But today, while government at most every level has bloated over the past half-century, mental-health treatment has been decimated. According to a study released in July by the Treatment Advocacy Center, the number of state hospital beds in America per capita has plummeted to 1850 levels, or 14.1 beds per 100,000 people. Moreover, a 2011 paper by Steven P. Segal at the University of California, Berkeley, "Civil Commitment Law, Mental Health Services, and U.S. Homicide Rates," found that a third of the state-to-state variation in homicide rates was attributable to the strength or weakness of involuntary civil-commitment laws."......

- basman

December 19, 2012 at 11:02am

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d

- arnon1

December 19, 2012 at 12:35pm

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"April 7, 2012 there was a school shooting in Rio de Janeiro using 2 revolvers held by a single gunman in which 13 were killed and 12 injured. " Do you have a link to this incident? "Wiki says that "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention studied the "assault weapon" ban and other gun control attempts, and found "insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of any of the firearms laws reviewed for preventing violence." I like your "wiki says." Does wiki also say that the Center for Disease control also supported and supports such a ban? Criticizing the shortcomings of a law is not the same as saying that laws relating to gun control are useless. On this issue, Eng is a total pessimist who tings nothing can be done. Thank goodness that many Congress people are now changing their minds about gun control.

- arnon1

December 19, 2012 at 12:43pm

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