The Other McCain

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

Guns Don’t Kill People …

Posted on | December 15, 2012 | 48 Comments

. . . people we don’t like (and who actually have nothing to do with the crime) kill people:

Michael Graham actually did a very sensitive and thoughtful column about the Connecticut shooting, but the idiot liberal troll who hates Graham — a popular Boston talk-radio host — decided to blame him anyway, because that’s how trolls are.

Their hatreds define their existence.

Meanwhile, the New York Times has a story about the shooter’s first victim, his mother. Something that crosses my mind: You start your murder spree by shooting your own mother in the face, and end it by killing yourself — why kill 26 women and children in between?

Evil.

Adam Lanza wasn’t “autistic” or suffering from an “illness.” He was evil.

UPDATE: Ann Althouse cites research by Clayton Cramer that shows — unexpectedly! — there were fewer crimes committed by crazy people when it was easier to send crazy people to the loony bin.

Seems to me like this is scientific evidence in support of “The Dangerous Lunatic Incarceration Act of 2013.”

Category: Crime

Comments

48 Responses to “Guns Don’t Kill People …”

  1. Finrod Felagund
    December 16th, 2012 @ 12:25 am

    What else would you expect from a troll that can’t even spell ‘quirky’?

  2. JeffS
    December 16th, 2012 @ 12:28 am

    Their hatreds define their existence.

    Hell, their hatred fuels their existence. No hatred, they’re dead. It’s all they have.

  3. MrPaulRevere
    December 16th, 2012 @ 12:44 am

    Missing in the various discussions of this event is the role of the father Peter Lanza. He ran away from his responsibilities. He failed to provide a baseline of moral and ethical behavior to his child. Peter Lanza might make a million bucks a year as a GE tax attorney but I see him as a piece of garbage.

  4. I Like Shooting, Too
    December 16th, 2012 @ 12:53 am

    Your title references the quote, “Guns don’t kill people, people do,” but it is worth noting that guns do kill people, as well as people. Guns are the weapons that people use to kill people. Try killing people without guns. It is much harder. YES, it is possible to kill people with other things besides guns, but it is harder. If this person was using a knife, he wouldn’t have killed 20 or more people, because knifes have less range. Furthermore, if he did use a knife to kill people, it would still be true that the knife killed people.

  5. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    December 16th, 2012 @ 1:10 am

    Autism really had nothing to do with this (despite that fool Piers Morgan going off about it). There are over a million people (probably closer to two million) on the autism spectrum in the United States. How many autistic related murders (let alone mass murders) do you remember?

    I am sure Lanza was disturbed. He may have been a victim of bullying as a child. But he was not insane in a criminal sense. He knew what he was doing was wrong. He just did not care. Adam Lanza wanted attention. He wanted to feel important. And possibly he wanted revenge. And he did so by killing first graders and kindergarten kids.

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    December 16th, 2012 @ 2:04 am

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  7. Joseph
    December 16th, 2012 @ 2:21 am

    What we need to ask ourselves about the 2nd amendment is where “arms” ends as far as what citizens should be allowed to possess. An RPG launcher is technically “arms,” but no one would say that a person on the street should be allowed to purchase it. “Arms” in the time of the framers included muskets and dueling pistols. I don’t see it as a violation of the second amendment to prevent citizens from having weapons whose only real-world use appears to be mass killings.

  8. ReaganiteRepublican
    December 16th, 2012 @ 2:45 am

    “…there were fewer crimes committed by crazy people when it was easier to send crazy people to the loony bin.”

    Careful with that, the Soviets found the whoopie wagon VERY useful for rounding up troublesome opposition figures while avoiding the legal system entirely… now watch Obama come up with a ‘deal’ for Boo-Hoo Boehner were he supports locking-up more nuts if the GOP just signs-off on some new gun control… and hey, aren’t those TP clingers kind of nuts, John ?

  9. Finrod Felagund
    December 16th, 2012 @ 3:46 am

    The deadliest act of mass murder at a school in United States history occurred in 1927 and didn’t involve anyone getting shot by a gun.

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

  10. Finrod Felagund
    December 16th, 2012 @ 3:54 am

    Penn and Teller got it exactly right in their episode of their Showtime show Bullshit! when they dealt with the Second Amendment. The purpose of the Second Amendment is to keep the populace sufficiently armed so that if they have no choice but to overthrow the government, they have the firepower and armaments to do so.

    Hence I disagree with your last statement. If it would be a useful weapon should the citizens need to overthrow the government, in my mind the Second Amendment says the federal government cannot deny it to us.

    The musket was the AK-47 of the late 1700s. Ponder that for a while.

  11. Sandy Hook « Chockblock's blog
    December 16th, 2012 @ 6:07 am

    […] “discussion” about guns ends with the left calling for a police state. No guns, no freedom to disagree. […]

  12. JeffWeimer
    December 16th, 2012 @ 8:54 am

    Well, we already have that type of system (and have since 1934), so what’s your point?

  13. Neo
    December 16th, 2012 @ 9:25 am

    The massacre in CT can be laid at the feet of the our government …

    Last night it also emerged Nancy was a member of the Doomsday Preppers movement, which believes people should prepare for end of the world.

    Her former sister-in-law Marsha said she had turned her home ‘into a fortress’. She added: ‘Nancy had a survivalist philosophy which is why she was stockpiling guns. She had them for defense.

    ‘She was stockpiling food. She grew up on a farm in New Hampshire. She was skilled with guns. We talked about preppers and preparing for the economy collapsing.’

    … Trillion dollar deficits lead to the massacre .. but who is responsible for that ?
    The Mayans ?

  14. jsn2
    December 16th, 2012 @ 10:02 am

    United States – 498 dead since 1897 from rampage killers using firearms.

    Russia/Stalin – 20,000,000 dead between 1924 and 1953 because civilians had no firearms to protect themselves from their government.

    China/Mao – 40,000,000 dead between 1949 and 1975 because civilians had no firearms to protect themselves from their government.

    Cambodia/Pol Pot – 3,000,000 dead between 1976 and 1979 because civilians had no firearms to protect themselves from their government.

  15. Conservative Girl
    December 16th, 2012 @ 11:16 am

    Google bomb making and see how many hits you get. Heck there are even videos on you tube giving you step by step instruction. The shooter in CO turned his apartment into a death trap. His goal was to kill the police officers even after his own death/capture. Evil will always find a way. If he didn’t have access to a gun, he could have made a bomb from materials that are quite easy to purchase. Many more could have been killed in that scenario.

    Also, you cannot have an honest discussion about these problems in this country until you do discuss how hard it is for the families of the mentally ill to get help for their loved ones. While I don’t want to go back to the horrors before the laws started to change in the 60’s, we went too far in the other direction.

    Families are helpless to help anyone over the age of 18, and the majority of mental illnesses don’t become readily apparent until the late teens and early 20’s.

  16. JeffS
    December 16th, 2012 @ 11:55 am

    This is cherry picking writ large. Finrod covers is nicely, but your argument comes down to ignoring the context of the Constitution, and creating definitions that fit your own ideology. Piers Morgan got his ass handed to him on this approach. You should follow the news more closely.

  17. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    December 16th, 2012 @ 12:16 pm

    Good point. Rampage killers are also not a USA problem exclusively.

    How do we prevent such rampages in the future?

  18. tdperk
    December 16th, 2012 @ 1:35 pm

    He was evil only to the extent he understood that what he was doing was wrong, which I think was not damn much.

    http://news.yahoo.com/school-adviser-gunman-loner-felt-no-pain-235416864.html;_ylt=A2KJ3CcE4s1QKj4A0YfQtDMD

    This is someone who should not have been “mainstreamed”.

  19. tdperk
    December 16th, 2012 @ 1:37 pm

    As for private/militia possession of anything short of WMD’s, I’m down with that.

  20. Quartermaster
    December 16th, 2012 @ 3:11 pm

    The Kook Control Act of 2013 would be better. That way we can institutionalize all of the moonbats and save the country. Some, of course, are detached from reality we’d be forced to euthanize them as it would be more humane than allow them continue such a detached existence. That would take care of people like Grayson, Waters, and Dingy Harry Reid.

  21. Joseph
    December 16th, 2012 @ 4:43 pm

    The obsession with overthrowing the government is so ridiculous and bizarre that to take it seriously is depressing. What happens is all of these gun nuts arm themselves to the teeth and then people like Adam Lanza’s mother have guns lying around for young people and other nuts to abuse. How many dead kids from accidents/suicides/mass killings are you willing to accept? Gun nuts are just paranoid wimps who think they are big men for having killing machines. Quit living scared and nut up for once in your lives.

  22. Teeing it up: A Round at the LINKs (Losing Ourselves Edition) | SENTRY JOURNAL
    December 16th, 2012 @ 4:57 pm

    […] THE OTHER McCAIN: Guns Don’t Kill People … […]

  23. richard mcenroe
    December 16th, 2012 @ 5:01 pm

    Joseph, whether it is ever exercised or not, the Founders recognized the potential of armed revolt against tyranny as a fundamental right of free men. After all, they had just exercised it.

    And it becomes less and less bizarre as day after day the Federal government, regardless of which President is involved, ramps up the means of coercion against its own citizens and infests their society with more and more armed enforcers with ill-defined missions and limits.

  24. Bob Belvedere
    December 16th, 2012 @ 5:31 pm

    Quit living scared of the people and believing that the preservation of your freedom and liberty lies with those who administer our government. The repository of our Life, Liberty, and Property lies with us.

  25. Bob Belvedere
    December 16th, 2012 @ 5:35 pm

    We do have to be very careful. This is why I keep saying that none of the victories we achieve in restoring our freedoms and liberties will last if we do not wage a war within ourselves to restore Republican Virtue, and that requires we resolve to accept God’s Virtue within our souls.

  26. Bob Belvedere
    December 16th, 2012 @ 5:37 pm

    And that’s the low end of Leftist murder figures you cite.

  27. Bob Belvedere
    December 16th, 2012 @ 5:39 pm

    Naw…I say put them all on a big island, wall-it so they can’t get off, and watch what happens [on Pay-Per-View, in order to help us retire our debt].

  28. Finrod Felagund
    December 16th, 2012 @ 5:41 pm

    George Carlin had a very similar idea, actually; the only difference was that he would wall off the state of Kansas and use that.

  29. Bob Belvedere
    December 16th, 2012 @ 6:24 pm

    Well, Carlin hated flyover country, so I’m not surprised.

    It should be located somewhere the Bolshes love.

    I first heard it proposed for murderers and pedophiles by radio talk show host Gene Burns in the early 1990’s.

  30. Wombat_socho
    December 16th, 2012 @ 8:47 pm

    As soon as the media agrees that the First Amendment doesn’t apply to anything more modern than the 18th century wood-frame press, I’ll sign up with your silly-ass plan.

  31. DaveO
    December 16th, 2012 @ 9:34 pm

    Read the Darwin Awards. Killing is extremely easy, as Cain discovered. Human beings are apex predators – we can kill anything – just ask Nietche.

    Guns, knives, bats, union thugs, and garrotes are tools that have no morality – they are just things that do as they are manipulated to do. Of their own volition, neither the gun nor the knife look at a human and decide upon murder.

    Reducing the argument to the absurd: does the gun kill a person? Or the bullet? Or the holes and tears in body tissue that destroys the integrity of the body to hold blood? If you said ‘holes and tears’ you’d be correct!

    Maybe we should outlaw humans.

  32. Paul H. Lemmen
    December 17th, 2012 @ 8:20 am

    Robert Heinlein discussed it in the 1950’s in his sci-fi novels. He termed it “Coventry”

  33. Paul H. Lemmen
    December 17th, 2012 @ 8:24 am

    Amen Bob! Honor is not possible without virtue and virtue is learned, inculcated by one’s family and church. Neglect teaching this and we get what we have now …

  34. Rob Crawford
    December 17th, 2012 @ 11:25 am

    “Escape from New York” had the right idea.

  35. Rob Crawford
    December 17th, 2012 @ 11:26 am

    Oh, wow. Not content to go after guns, they’re trying to turn this into a “demonize the prepared” moment as well?

  36. Rob Crawford
    December 17th, 2012 @ 11:27 am

    Guns have neither self will nor moral agency. They are inanimate objects, incapable of acting on their own.

    You seem desperate to blame anything but the people who commit the act. Why?

  37. Rob Crawford
    December 17th, 2012 @ 11:28 am

    ‘The “press” in the time of the framers included simple printing presses with cast type and wood carvings for illustrations. I don’t see it as a violation of the 1st Amendment to prevent citizens from having access to mass communication media.’

    Just as stupid as your argument.

  38. Rob Crawford
    December 17th, 2012 @ 11:31 am

    Hoplophobes are just bullies who live in fear that one of their targets will be armed.

  39. Quartermaster
    December 17th, 2012 @ 3:57 pm

    That could be part of the Kook Control Act 2013.

  40. ReaganiteRepublican
    December 17th, 2012 @ 5:53 pm

    Amen

  41. matthew w
    December 17th, 2012 @ 6:50 pm

    Why is it when a senile old geezer in Florida mistakes the gas/brake pedal, runs over a dozen people on the sidewalk……….

    We don’t blame the car?

  42. I Like Shooting, Too
    December 19th, 2012 @ 1:37 am

    Guns do kill people. Have you not been paying attention to the news? A crazy guy just used a gun to kill 20 people. What did he use to kill people? Answer the question and then you will not be able to defend your assertion that guns don’t kill people.

  43. I Like Shooting, Too
    December 19th, 2012 @ 1:39 am

    How does “outlawing humans” protect human life? You are trying to destroy human life in order to save it. Great.

    But the fact is, very few humans kill people, and even a human who wanted to kill someone but didn’t have access to a gun would have a tough time doing so. Guns are a lot easier to kill with than other kinds of weapons. Guns let you attack from long range, and guns are much more deadly. If that crazy guy used a knife for the attack, he wouldn’t have killed 20 people. He would have killed many less, because he would have had to run up to them and stab them multiple times, which is a lot less effective, and so he would have been stopped before he killed 20.

  44. I Like Shooting, Too
    December 19th, 2012 @ 1:44 am

    I guess I should copy and paste the facts into every comment: Guns are much easier to kill people with than other weapons. You can use guns to attack from long range.

    Knifes can only be used for short range, and they don’t usually have the same force as a bullet from a gun.

    You mention bombs. Bombs are used in relatively few murders compared to guns. You have to make them then get them to the right place undetected, which results some of the time in people not making them properly, such as the Columbine Killers, and some of the time in people getting stopped before they can use them, such as a lot of terrorist suspects like the Times Square Bomber and That Bomber Who Wanted to Bomb the NY Subway But Was Under Survelence and Caught. It’s just a fact that guns are the most common instrument for murder, the reason being, because murderers choose the easiest instrument, so if murderers used other instruments, there would be less murders because they would be less successful.

  45. I Like Shooting, Too
    December 19th, 2012 @ 1:46 am

    Guns are used for most murders.

    So cool that you found a link about one time when a mass murder happened without a gun. That doesn’t contradict the facts at all. Guns are used for most murders. If you disagree with that statement, then tell me why, rather than arguing an irrelevant point. Apparently you think that “most murders” and “one murder in 1927” are the same thing.

  46. I Like Shooting, Too
    December 19th, 2012 @ 1:48 am

    That Crazy Guy Who Shot Up the School wasn’t a “survivalist” was he? I mean, survivalists are irrational and wrong, considering that the United States is one of the safest and stablest countries in the world, but how does survivalists being wrong equate them to murderers? That would be like saying that Justin Beiber is responsible for the shooting just because he is wrong.

  47. Zog
    December 22nd, 2012 @ 4:36 pm

    If you’re talking about mass murders in general and not those that took place at schools, how about the work of Timothy McVeigh? No gun involved there, and his score was equal to the total of several shootings.

  48. Zog
    December 22nd, 2012 @ 4:49 pm

    You obviously don’t know much about bladed weapons. Many years ago, I lived in the Philippines where the quaint custom of going “amok” with a bolo [machete] surfaced every few months. Attacks were usually in confined spaces against defenseless people and, yes, I do remember one instance where the toll was more than 20. I also remember one attack, on an inter-island ferry, where the toll had reached 14 when a passenger rushed from the other end of the ship with a presumeably illegal .45 and blew the bastard away. Interestingly, the Constabularly never pressed charges against the “knight” who could have served serious time for his actions. Practical folk, the Filipinos.