Last week’s murder of six and wounding of 14 in a Safeway parking lot in Tucson has led to a lot of discussion in both the blogoshere and the traditional press. Did heated political rhetoric in the media fuel the confrontation? Why didn’t the clearly erratic behavior of the alleged gunman tip-off authorities? I can speak from some experience in the latter case and feel that — for better or worse — teachers and administrators simply don’t extrapolate beyond their own social groups when assessing possible damaging behavior. I know I didn’t.
Thirty years ago I was teaching at Stanford University. One of my students was in a graduate program in the School of Education. He was, well, erratic at best. Both his attendance and his work were inconsistent. He either sulked in class or was prone to outbursts. Several of the women in the class told me he made them uncomfortable; he was too much in their faces and very aggressive about asking them out. Then one day he submitted a paper I had seen in the same class the year before.
Making women uncomfortable and being late or argumentative in class don’t cut to the heart of the educational process the way plagiarism does. The former are often issues of style and poor taste, but cheating is cheating, so I went to my department chairman for advice. He told me to continue as normal but privately confront the student and get him to rewrite the paper. Either that or we’d have to turn him in to the academic council, which would probably expel him for violating the Code of Conduct.
During the next class I asked him to stay after and speak with me. He didn’t. The class after that he came five minutes late and left five minutes early. This went on for a couple weeks so my chairman finally called the head of his program at the School of Education.
This was 30 years ago, remember, but those folks over in Education didn’t appear to know what they had on their hands, nor did they seem particularly inclined to learn about their problem student. He hadn’t seen his academic adviser in months. Weeks passed while they were doing what appeared to be nothing. Finally, two weeks to go in the term — two weeks before graduation for my student — the Ed School told him in a letter that they were kicking him out.
That’s when he finally showed up in my office. Some people smoked in offices back then and he was a smoker. I remember him, unkempt and nervous, unable to look me in the eye, sitting next to my desk smoking one cigarette after another using each to light the next. He could smoke an entire cigarette in about a minute, he was so nervous or high.
“Can’t you just give me a D? ” he pleaded.
I told him a D was the best he could hope for, but only if he rewrote the paper to my satisfaction. I wanted to know, too, what his plans were after graduation? He was going to teach at a middle school. Was the school aware of his issues?
No.
I couldn’t see sending him alone into a crowd of teenage girls so I added to my conditions that he find a different job — one where they knew what they were getting.
A suitable internship was available and he took it. The paper was finally finished the night before graduation, and one more Stanford grad went out into the working world.
And about three months later he started writing me hate letters.
I had ruined his career and his life. I was responsible for his lack of success after Stanford. If I hadn’t been so demanding and unreasonable in my assignments he wouldn’t have had to cheat.
So I deserved to die.
About this time a Stanford math professor was killed by a former graduate student who found him working late in his office, killing him with a hammer. That former student didn’t really have much to do with the professor, as I recall. The professor just happened to be the department chair and therefore represented the institution, I guess. My buddy Kirk, who was Doug Engelbart’s research assistant at SRI, rented a room in the professor’s house and I remember him quickly harvesting his marijuana crop when the cops said they were coming over to interview him.
I worked late at night back then in creaky old Redwood Hall. Sitting there grading papers at midnight every sound seemed to be an unwanted footstep. The math professor didn’t get any hate mail, to my knowledge and here I was getting a letter nearly every week.
Then they stopped.
My former student had taken his life, parking his car in the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge and jumping to his death.
I felt only relief.
If there is a lesson here in the context of last week’s events in Tucson it’s that I thought of my student and that student’s career, I thought of the values of the university, I thought of the safety of those middle school students, and I thought about myself, but it never occurred to me that my problem student would get a gun and shoot 20 people in a Safeway parking lot, killing six.
It’s hard to think more than a step or two beyond our experience. The fact that the teachers and administrators at Pima Community College didn’t see their guy being a mass murderer shouldn’t be surprising. On the other hand I suppose that they — and I — played the odds to some degree.
Much of this comes down to not really knowing people. The Education School accepted my student not knowing what he was like, nor did they seem to put much effort into knowing him once he was there. They were incredulous that I even cared. So too this guy in Arizona. Maybe he had long been on this path but nobody knew it because nobody cared.
That’s the way it is with people who are pains in the ass, and all the more reason to know them best of all.
So how can this experience translate into deciding whether or not to allow someone to buy a gun? That is really the question to be asked. Whose responsibility is it to determine who is mentally unbalanced? One cannot assume that such a person is going to seek psychiatric help, where a professional (legal?) diagnosis can be rendered. This one should generate a lot of heated discussion, Bob, thanks for stirring the pot on the issue.
It’s a tough call. Canada has a 28-day waiting period for handguns, maybe that would do it. But keeping people from BUYING guns isn’t the same as keeping them from HAVING guns. In the case of my student I was fixated on hammers, not guns. We can’t license hammers, can we? Though mass murder by hammer is much more difficult. In the end the solution lies in these people being known rather than ignored. Once he was expelled I’m sure Pima Community College didn’t give their guy another thought.
Every time there’s some big shooting spree in the US, there’s talk of gun control, with the likes of the NRA and Caribou Barbie peddling the facile mantra that “guns don’t kill; it’s people who do the killing”. Here in the UK, shotgun and firearms licences must be applied for through the police, and handguns are, effectively, completely banned.
Recent statistics show that in the US there are around 12,000 gun-related homicides per year whereas here in the UK (roughly 1/4 the population) the 2008 figure was 42. I just don’t know why so many Americans find this so hard to grasp. More guns = more killing.
— I just don’t know why so many Americans find this so hard to grasp. More guns = more killing.
Stupidity. Jingoism. Self-absorbtion. And so on. There is no *good* motivation for this. And there is not the Right does it and so does the Left. This is a purely Right Wingnut phenomenon. And they like it. The founders were profoundly wrong in allowing small, rural populations such power. Rural habits are just anti-intelligent, always have been. Read up on 19th century American politics.
This idea that tools act instead of people is just ridiculous. Laughner’s crime was committed by Laughner, not by the gun that he used. He could have killed those folks with a knife, a hammer, a small bomb or any of a thousand other devices. If he could not have purchased the gun, he would have found another weapon to use. If the guns tore owner had said, “no,” do you really think his response would have been, “OK, I guess I won’t try to kill the Congresswoman”?
What other weapon could kill so many in such a short period of time?
Also, every citizen should have the right to carry bombs (up to and including a nuclear bomb). It’s not the bomb that kills people…
How about taking an axe or a chainsaw to a crowd of people? How about spraying Clorox around? How about crashing a truck into a crowd?
If you really think you need guns to commit mass murder really quick you’re at the very least unimaginative.
It’s amazing how much people focus on the effects instead of the cause. They look at how people like this end up and don’t look back at how the person came to be.
Education starts at home. That’s the sad and simple truth. People who were brought up properly are unlikely to become murderers, thieves, sexual deviants etc. A lot of society’s problems of today (gun control, sex offenders, murders, “protecting” the children from video games) are self-produced problems that stem from poor parenting. And poor parenting and education is caused by deep-rooted issues, that people don’t see or prefer not to think of: loss of values, overworked parents, bad public educators.
Bring your child up right and he’ll manage as an adult. A spanking as a child may prevent a shooting years later. But nooo, beating up children is a no no! Better let them run whild. Boys will be boys, eh? Here’s a news flash: children lack values and experience. They need to form them from outside influence. Without it, they form a crooked view of the world.
“Rural habits are just anti-intelligent . . .” -Robert Young
It’s such a po’ shame I’s growed up onna farm an’ awl. Why missah Young I’s kin barely even READ dis’ here column!
Just check the income, SAT, employment, graduation, under age pregnancy statistics and any other measure you feel shows brains. The dumb states are the rural states. I guess it must hurt, but there it is. Sarah is from one of those states. Most of the Right Wingnuts are from those states. The major intellectual centers are the cities. A Hayseed’s a hayseed. Not being judgmental (beyond pointing out the obvious).
And another staunch defender of the First Amendment:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_alabama_governor_christians
And from You Know Where. The evidence keeps mounting: guns, God, and Meth.
Robert Young, check up on the percentage of those gun-related deaths that are committed in the cities vs the rural dumb-country as you like to think of it. Haughtiness is such an ugly character flaw.
Good point, Brad. There are more than enough ignorant, uneducated people to go around, urban or rural, and the crime stats put violent crime, disproportionately, in large population centers. My guess is that the stats on holier-than-thou liberals who see everyone who doesn’t agree with their prejudices as “wingnuts” are pretty clear, too.
Robert Young said [about rural populations], “Just check the income, SAT, employment, graduation, under age pregnancy statistics and any other measure you feel shows brains. The dumb states are the rural states. I guess it must hurt, but there it is. Sarah is from one of those states. Most of the Right Wingnuts are from those states. The major intellectual centers are the cities. A Hayseed’s a hayseed. Not being judgmental (beyond pointing out the obvious).”
I believe this is borderline (arguably outright) “statistical racism”. Presumably, when you talk about rural populations like this, the implication is that you are talking about white people, so no one gets offended.
However, if you really wanted to, you could pull up a lot of unflattering statistics about the black population in the USA. Of course, people get upset when you do that.
Since we’re generalizing, why not just say “the lower class”? Lump rural populations in with inner-city blacks, and most of your stats probably hold.
They are many more factors involved. Take for example Switzerland, where every male is handed a fully automatic rifle and ammo to keep at his home, and every female is encouraged to do the same. Yet they have very little gun-related crime.
If we were to take the UK as an example, the US should ban guns and we’d magically reduce our gun crime. If we were to take the Swiss as an example, the US should issue everyone a machine gun and ammo, and we’d magically reduce our gun crime.
The simplistic formula of “more guns = more crime” or “more guns = less crime” does not work.
You forget to mention that the Swiss army weeds out mental cases. You’re judged unstable, dangerous? Sorry fella, you’ll never get anywhere near a weapon, in the army or outside the army.
Also, each citizen soldier gets the assigned weapon and no other and every single bullet assigned to the soldier has to be accounted for periodically. If a burglar enters your home you should forget about getting your weapon out and whack him on the head with a chair instead, because the paperwork involved for reporting firearms discharge is absolutely endless.
Finally, it is extremely difficult for any person in Switzerland who is not a soldier to get any kind of pistol.
How about NON-gun related homicides, Dave?
David Stewart said, “Recent statistics show that in the US there are around 12,000 gun-related homicides per year whereas here in the UK (roughly 1/4 the population) the 2008 figure was 42. I just don’t know why so many Americans find this so hard to grasp. More guns = more killing.”
That’s an interesting statistic, but it’s insufficient to prove “more guns = more killing”.
I live in the city of Chicago where guns are illegal, yet there is plenty of gun-related violence.
The UK and USA have a few more differences than gun laws, not to mention cultural differences. I’m sure the disproportionate gun-related homicide ratio isn’t explained exclusively by gun availability.
…oh, and how can it possibly be a “right” to own an instrument which can end someone’s life in half a second??
David – Not to take sides, or state the obvious, but there are historical reasons why an American citizen has the right to bear arms. These rights are directly related to the other country you mentioned in your post.
In 1787 the weapons of the Army were the same as the weapons of the farmer. Never forget this. That is the context of the Second Amendment; and the only context in which it has gravity. That stopped being true once the Army acquired artillery and Gatling guns. The notion that US Army would be halted by a handful of Christian Militiamen in Montana is stupid. The fact that the US Army has become an organization of Christian Soldiers is far more frightening.
“That stopped being true once the Army acquired artillery and Gatling guns. ”
News flash… Artillery predated the 2nd ammendment by centuries.
The issue is the US Army *having* significant numbers of explosive *anti-personnel* artillery. Not whether it had yet been invented. Most used during the Revolution, by both sides, were solid shot, used against fortifications. For those who might not know: L’Enfant put all those squares and circles in DC as artillery stations so the Army could deal with the inevitable attack of the rabble.
The 2nd amendment was meant to ensure that the citizens could not be oppressed by an overreaching government, or more likely in those days, a despot (remember, before George Washington, it was pretty much unprecedented for a ruler to voluntarily step down from control of a major government). In 1791, allowing the rural farmers to own guns put them on close enough to equal footing with the military that it would have been possible for a civilian militia to stop or even overthrow the government if it ceased to represent the will of the people. “Government of the people, for the people, by the people,” remember. But, as Robert noted, that balance of power hasn’t existed in a long while. You can argue about the exact date that it occurred, but the fact is that no number of civilians with any amount of legal weaponry could make a dent in today’s US military.
I’m not saying this is reason enough to ban guns. I’m just saying that if the core of your argument for guns is “because the 2nd amendment says so,” that doesn’t cut it, considering the change of context since then. Also consider that the reason amendments exist in the first place is because the forefathers wanted to make sure we can modify the rules to keep up with the times. If there is a new or better reason to allow guns, let’s hear it… but in that case, it’s time to amend the 2nd amendment.
Just so ya know, ya lied about the point I made, which was that the weapons of the farmer and of the Army were congruent until the widespread deployment of artillery in the Army. When artillery was invented is irrelevant. In 1787, the weapon was the musket; both farmers and soldiers used them. The Americans were better shots with their Squirrel Guns just because they had much practice, living in the wild as they did. Widely regarded as a reason we won.
And there’s the problem of militia:
The text:
A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.
A reasonable person could conclude that the use of muskets as part of those militias (which were the Gummint, btw not as today’s wingnuts).
Read this (and weep):
https://www.guncite.com/gc2ndmea.html
You don’t think people should own hammers???
40,000 on average will die this year in automobile accidents.
There are over 62,000,000 automobiles in the US.
There is no waiting limit on purchasing an automobile.
We must stop the madness!
But you need a drivers license to drive that weapon… here in AZ, you don’t need any license for open or concealed carry. No training, no background check (at least at gun shows) just plunk your money down and walk away with most any weapon.
I really feel safer since anyone without safety training can carry a weapon into bars, stores, etc. In fact our State House has a bill that would allow concealed carry at our Universities.
Don’t for a minute think I an anti-gun, just anti-irresponsible gun ownership.
“…oh, and how can it possibly be a “right” to own an instrument which can end someone’s life in half a second??”
Yeah … like a Chevy.
Simple. The people who govern you have guns, and hence the capability to end your life in a fraction of a second. THAT’S why it’s your right to have a gun.
Maybe … and this is an idealistic MAYBE … we need to exclude everyone from gun purchases, unless they can demonstrate that they are worthy of such an awesome reponsibility. We test and license doctors, lawyers, teachers, nurses, insurance agents …. we test and license automobile drivers, truck drivers, motorcycle drivers, and in an increasing number of states we even license drivers of boats which operate with more than just the lowest powered engines.
What would happen if we made the assumption that no one was deserving of the ability to manage and use a weapon outside of their own home or on their own property unless they could pass a background check, demonstrate their knowledge of the applicable laws, and demonstrate the safe loading, aiming, shooting, unloading, and cleaning of a firearm?
To have the authority to ban guns or impose stringent controls, the government must usurp it’s authority – “shall not be infringed” is the limit set. The genie of the firearm is already out of the bottle, and your idealistic viewpoint of controlling it requires the cooperation of people familiar with the wiles of would-be tyrants. It may seem reasonable now, but history shows it doesn’t usually end well for the disarmed.
Thus my knee jerks and I respond no, hell no, and no way. In this particular case, the killer was a nut, there are fewer nuts than guns, so why don’t we just lock up all of the nuts, who are after all the actors in these tragedies? Well-meaning people succumbing to the ideation of the inanimate object as cause are not doing much to prevent massacres.
Ditto for being elected to government. And maybe for having babies too.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Robert X. Cringely, Abdul Jaleel K.K and others. Abdul Jaleel K.K said: Strangers in our midst http://bit.ly/gqjolW […]
A powerful story; one of your best. Thought provoking, without giving the answer. Thanks.
I wonder if there’s a way to figure out the statistics of things like this, if someone hasn’t already thought this out. Maybe there’s a way to find and isolate people who might be problematic, and get them the help they need before there’s ever a problem? Schools would be a logical place for such a thing, but there have to be other avenues that can be taken.
Bob,
You can have either a free society or a police state. There are pros and cons for either one. Are these outbreaks of violence really that important? Look at how many people are killed in car crashes every year. Now that is a problem that should be addressed. Random acts of violence can be frightening to the individuals involved, but the general public only gets frightened because the media wants to stir up excitement to help its ratings or readership. In the old days, how often did people experience or hear about random acts of violence? Once every 10 or 15 years maybe? Now it’s more like once every week maybe?
You can’t solve every problem that becomes public knowledge due to the media.
Looking forward to the TV shows about your Startup Tour. Any ideas on when these will begin?
That is ridiculous. Deciding who gets a gun and when does not make a “police state” any more than a speed limit makes a police state. Since I can’t drive 120 MPH on I-5 whenever I want, am I in a police state? I mean, my “freedom” to drive whatever speed I want is curtailed, right?
Bob was talking about detecting crazy people and what to do with them once you have found them. He wanted to keep these crazy people from committing random acts of violence. At least that’s what I got out of his comments.
If the government really wanted to keep these crazy people from hurting others, they could use informers to detect them (there would be no laws about the right to privacy) and then they could throw the crazy people into a concentration camp. That is how a police state could protect its citizens from crazy people.
These are things that a free society cannot do. Thus a free society might have to tolerate certain random acts of violence as there may not be any practical way to prevent them.
You were right to criticize my comments, as I did not explain myself very well.
However, I don’t believe that I mentioned gun control or speed limits in reference to a police state.
— However, I don’t believe that I mentioned gun control or speed limits in reference to a police state.
That’s a rather duplicitous sophism.
Robert,
I almost feel honored to be mocked in such an elegant fashion. Almost, but not quite.
I don’t think I advocated anything other than getting to know and understand better the people in our lives. This isn’t a function of government or education, it is a function of society. We just need to know our neighbors better than we do and to make protecting our communities a task that can be pursued on an individual level.
There’s simply too much buck-passing. The school figured-out that this guy was a menace so they got rid of him. In retrospect we easily find all these postings and pictures — posts and pictures that were, in part, the basis for his expulsion so they were known before any crime was committed. We can’t stop every crime and, as readers have noted, a few murders pale compared to what drunk drivers do every day. But what about what these people do to themselves?
Who is caring about the interests of a deranged man who will now be of no productive use to society or to himself for the next 60+ years?
Robert X. Cringely said, “I don’t think I advocated anything other than getting to know and understand better the people in our lives. This isn’t a function of government or education, it is a function of society. We just need to know our neighbors better than we do and to make protecting our communities a task that can be pursued on an individual level.”
Hard to argue against that.
Part of the problem, it seems, is that technology may actually be hindering our ability to maintain neighborly communities. A few generations ago, it seems, most houses had porches that faced the neighbors’ porches. People lived close to their families, because proximity used to be the best way to maintain a relationship. Friendships were made on public transportation.
Now why should I get to know my neighbors? When I’m not so busy with my immediate responsibilities (job, family), I only have a little time left, and that is for existing relationships that are precious to me. And for those I have Internet-based video phone, social networking, email, and other technology tools to help keep these relationships alive, even if the other party lives in another country.
I’m not trying to make an anti-technology statement, I’m just pointing out that our communities are now more “virtual”. The social technology allows us to focus on exactly who we want, and easily ignore the nut jobs.
Charles’ post is incontrovertible proof of why we need more moderation on blog postings and more gun control.
Yes, that would certainly solve most of the problems the world has, wouldn’t it?
However, since my interests have recently strayed from computer technology to financial matters, I think it best to no longer post to this forum.
(Gee, I guess those people who attacked me were right after all.)
In view of the fact that Bob’s interests have also strayed into financial matters, you still fit right in. Like Bob’s, your comments are thought-provoking even when they don’t present a solution to the “problem”, they at least expose how a “solution” may cause more problems.
In view of Ronc’s kind and thoughtful comments, I may make a reply or two in the future. But I certainly deserved the criticisms I received. Some of my comments were impulsive and lacked concern for other people’s feelings.
The world is full of loonies who I am not happy to have access to weapons.
But only .0001% of them are actually dangerous (and thats still a lot of people!) so its difficult to blame the various institutions for not identifying him as a problem; so many of their students look unreliable
The right to bear arms is incompatible with a modern urbanized society. The cowboys are gone. Bush too.
I had to get this far into the comments to find sanity. But, I did find it. My thanks.
It’s really true. Too bad a modern, urbanized society is incompatible with the needs of humanity.
The side of the firearms debate that rarely gets any attention is the part where firearms have prevented or stopped criminal activity. Based on your statement, apparently there is no crime in modern urbanized society to protect against.
The humorous part of their cities/urbanized_environ/guns argument is that the cities are where the great majority of the gun-related violence comes from, and the cities also happen to the be place where a fewer % of the population owns a gun. We’re all looking at the same statistics – some of us just don’t enter with preconceived notions of how to run other people’s lives and ignore our wise founders.
Apples and oranges. Street crime, gun related or otherwise, is an urban phenomenon. Mass killings using (semi-)automatic weapons, on the other hand (and from memory, I’ll admit), have been most often by Good Ole Boys, from gun lax states. And I’ll toss in OK City bombing, too.
Apples and oranges.
Nothing like painting everyone with a broad brush.
Given the nearly 100 million killed by government in the 20th century, perhaps it’s time to ban government from possessing weapons.
One thing about events such as this is that they really overshadow other, more serious, problems. That isn’t an easy thing to say, because shootings by people of poor mental health are very, very difficult to cope with, particularly for the families of the victims. Such shootings are difficult to cope with because there is no solid, unquestionable reason as to why it was their loved ones who were killed. The minds of people such as those are twisted wreckage with so little logic. Here in Arizona, mental health programs have been slashed in an effort to reduce the budget deficit. Would better availability of mental health services have helped the shooter?
But in the larger picture, these deaths are very few. Just look at the number of people who die every year in car accidents where alcohol is a factor. Gang violence, drug overdose, all of these cause far, far more deaths. But they are commonplace, and occur one person at a time.
As unpleasant as random, violent shootings are, i fear drunk drivers and organized criminals far more. These are also more preventable.
You know, most countries in the world just don’t let people own guns the way that the US does.
I know that goes against what most people in the US think is right – but the whole right to hold and bear arms was written before anybody dreamed of the sort of mass availability of weaponary that is possible today.
No country in the world has an answer to selective gun ownership. Most just pretty much ban them. Most of those countries have far less deaths from guns. There is no good other answer to the problem that has ever been found. Its simple – if you allow people to have guns freely, you have to expect them to be used occasionally. If there was a better answer to this problem, someone would have worked it out by now.
It could be worse – if the right to hold and bear arms had been interpreted to include semi automatic weaponary and small tactical nuclear weapons – then a single deranged person would do much more damage.
As it is, 20% of the population get depressed at some time in their life, 1-2% get mania, schizophrenia or some other psychosis. Put these people near guns, and bad things can happen. And then there are people who are simply sociopathic, angry or afraid.
I don’t think there is an easy answer to this one, other than the obvious one.
Michael
Nothing is absolute. You cannot have complete anarchy without inviting trouble upon yourself inevitably nor can you tolerate complete restrictions on all human activity in the name of public safety without demoralizing and numbing population. We walk a frustrating fine line.
Well, reading all this from Australia it makes me wonder as always why you guys love your guns so much!? A ‘right’ to own a gun! Are you nuts over there?! Totally with Nigel on this. Then your loonies may be unstable but regular mass killings would be unlikely.
I was in Melbourne 14 years ago when some guy murdered 35 people and wounded 21 in Port Arthur. Tasmania.
Thats a higher victim count than any mass murder in the United States.
Craziness knows no national boundaries.
I remember the incident with the hammer, it made the news in L.A.. One difference was that it took five days to get a handgun in California. ( I live in Chicago now. Don’t know if that’s still true.) Thirty round clips were out of the question. There wasn’t a federal background check, but the state was very thorough. You could buy a rifle the same day, but they’re a lot harder to conceal than a handgun or a hammer.
FYI: Threat studies show indirect threats are more likely to be carried out.
A person who says ‘I’m going to harm you.” is less dangerous than one who says “People like you get what they deserve.”
My take on this story is that the stigma of need physiological help is a bigger issue, as well as the lack of available or affordable physiological help. While reading through the comments to this article I see the phrases “loonies” and “crazy people” used. Why would anybody seek help early, if this is the label that is going to be placed on them. This could start with simple pressure to succeed in grade school. Then success at that level brings on more pressure to become the valedictorian of high school. If a kid succeeds, it could be greatness in the making or it could be the next “former student with a hammer”. If the pressure turn to unmanageable stress, and if the kid I describe is the least bit self-conscious, I can see how this person could put off getting help (or never) with the stress to avoid the stigma of phrases suck as “loonies” and “crazy people” leading to the next “former student with a hammer”. I also read in the comments here, that I have not looked to confirm, “20% of the population get depressed at some time”, and “Here in Arizona, mental health programs have been slashed in an effort to reduce the budget deficit”, could not cutting the budget and somehow reducing the stigma of getting or needing mental healthcare help the shooting in Tuscon to be avoided? I don’t know, I am just adding my take from a well written article.
A thoughtful article. Here’s an angle. Humanity has potential for good and bad. The ban guns solution does not work when the only ones left with guns are governments not to be trusted. Look at countries where the mafia is the government, such as Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. In Ukraine guns are illegal leaving the population free to buy bee-bee shooter replicas. Think outside the box Westerners. At what point can trust between people get so low that it costs $3000 for a government job (in Ukraine), most police are on someone elses payroll and “every judge” is on the take too? Think it can’t happen in the US? (not saying it will or will not – just the possibility) They didn’t in the USSR either. The USA is a wonderful country and extreme fear of isolated tragedies in a population of 300+ million is creating conditions for idealistic decision-making.
Lets not forget the young man at Virginia Tech who 3.5 years ago killed 32 before taking his own life. He too was showing signs of serious mental problems before the massacre.
Mental illness is a real sickness. For centuries it has carried such a stigma. Even today when we know better its medical treatment is not as good as it should be. Until the passage of Obama-Care mental illness was often not a covered expense in many medical plans. Think about that — the victims of a specific type of illness were discriminated against. Regardless of what one thinks about Obama-Care, it is pretty bad when the government had to step in and correct this specific problem.
There is another aspect to this problem. Periodically one hears of a family where the kids have not been immunized or have been denied medical care by their parents. Usually the parents do this based on a religious belief. Often the courts get involved and the kids get their shots or medical care. This example raises another problem — when is it right to invade ones life? Often with mental illness the victim does not know they are sick. They may resist advice and reject help. The process to get someone evaluated and treated is very difficult if the patient is uncooperative. For society to have been able to intervene and help Seung-Hui Cho or Jared Lee Loughner, there would have been civil rights issues. When there are difficult legal issues and court hearings, the process to get someone help can take months or years.
There will always be people who need help. Our challenge as a society is to recognize the need exists, but aside our prejudices, and stop coming up with excuses not to act.
Great article, Bob (er, Mark).
It’s really easy to be the armchair quarterback after-the-fact. Even with the upcoming trial, we may never really know why Jared Loughner did what he did, or acted they way he did before. I want to know why his parents didn’t do something. I’m not necessarily blaming them, but he did live at home, and they should have been more in touch with their son.
This is not about gun ownership. The number of guns in the US has remained relatively constant for years, despite various gun control initiatives. Gun violence is not directly proportional to availability of guns. Witness places like the District of Columbia, where guns were banned for years (although readily available across the river in Virginia and elsewhere) but violent gun crime was among the highest in the nation.
As far as the 2nd amendment argument about context and military weapons, citizens do NOT have the right to own grenades or anti-tank weapons (although there are a few individuals that own de-militarized tanks, that on occasion have proven just as capable of crushing a car or two), so I view your argument as specious. I guess if you can’t blame Sarah Palin, blame guns. I’m sure you probably blame Sarah, too.
We as a society don’t do enough when we come across people like this, figuring this is someone else’s job, or that they have the ‘right’ to be a little odd. We say that about the homeless guys at the freeway offramps every day. Whether or not they are actually homeless, we don’t bother to find out, and if they are homeless, maybe they chose to be that way, right? Problems like this really started coming to the forefront in the early 70’s when California started revamping their state hospital system, pushing thousands of people out of the asylums and into mainstream society. Before then we were blissfully ignorant of their problems, and were quite happy to have them swept under the rug out of view. In the intervening years we’ve largely done nothing to better the situation, under the guise of not wanting to interfere with the civil rights of people who in some cases arguably can’t really make decisions on their own in the first place. We as the society don’t care.
The only jingoists here are those who roll out the knee-jerk ‘Ban Guns!’ reaction every time some disturbed individual shocks us for a few minutes. But then it’s over until the next time. We continue to either keep our windows rolled up at the offramp and ignore the smelly tramp or give the guy a buck to make ourselves feel better on our way to Starbucks and then not give another thought about it.
I guess either way we don’t really have to deal with the real problem.
“As far as the 2nd amendment argument about context and military weapons, citizens do NOT have the right to own grenades or anti-tank weapons”
The gov’t asserts we don’t have such a right. History suggests otherwise. AFAICT every gun control law is about disenfranchising some minority or gov’t appropriating some authority to which it is not entitled.
This issue is not about guns. It is about nuts. A high tech society offers plenty of opportunity to commit mass murder, why doesn’t it happen everywhere, all the time? I suspect it’s because most people are not psychotic.
60 Minutes has a great piece on this last night. You can probably still watch it on their web site. The Secret Service had two people study assassins so that they could better understand how to predict who was a threat, deal with them, etc. Almost all followed a very specific path. None of them were politically motivated in the end and all had chosen their target years before the event. All began detaching themselves from their lives in the days before the event, etc. And all had regret because the event itself did not accomplish what they had hoped to accomplish. All were happy to participate in the study with the hopes that perhaps there would be less of this type of violence in the future.
I went to junior high school and high school with a guy who was always very strange. And strange in a sometimes creepy sort of way. Back in the day, this was one school. The kid was reasonably smart. We were part of the “smart” group that was in the top level class of each subject through the six years. About five years after high school, he kidnapped three cheerleaders from a nearby junior college and murdered one of them. At the time, I was in graduate school three hundred miles away. He cooperated with police and was quoted in the newspaper article from which I learned about the crime. I could just hear Kermit’s voice saying those quotes. It took something like 15 years, but he was finally executed for the crime. It was newsworthy at the time because he was the first white man executed for killing an African American in North Carolina in some long number of years.
The point of this story is that while Kermit was alway strange, he never seemed violent. I sympathize with those whose job it is to try to figure out how to stopped these lone gunmen.
On a different note, my question in terms of gun control is this. How does someone with a single pistol shoot 19 people? Even with a 32 bullet clip, that’s better then a hit for every two bullets. Was the crowd packed so tightly together that a shot could not fail to hit someone?
I always have problems conveying my thoughts on the issues of gun control and “nuts with guns” to people who have never owned a weapon, never been trained to use one, and have no conception or empathy for my views on them. The basic problem is that a lot of people want to blame the tool and not the individual who used it.
My basic argument is that a gun, even when loaded, and placed on a table top is not a weapon. It’s an inert piece of metal and plastic with no function or purpose when just lying there. It needs a person to pull the trigger, a person to be motivated to shoot at someone with it. I can pick it up an put it in a holster and it still will not be an “evil” thing unless I decide to use it unlawfully. It takes an evil will of an individual to use a “tool” (which is still just what a gun is) for evil purposes.
I can just as easily use a hammer, a kitchen knife, a baseball bat or even a bomb made from household chemicals to accomplish the same evil act. Granted a gun is more efficient to use for long range killing by those with less skill in doing it, but it is still just a tool. Take a gun away and leave someone without it who wishes to do evil, and they’ll just have to try harder by using some other tool. And if they’re dedicated enough and motivated enough to kill, they probably will still succeed. Sure using a gun makes it easier to kill, but it doesn’t make the motivation for killing any less of a crime. We all have been angry, hateful, jealous, hateful and have wished bad things on others who have wronged us or just pissed us off. The difference is we have coped and others who do violence don’t cope with these feelings. They are dangerous, we aren’t.
The only way to prevent violence is to a) decrease the motivation for it, b) profile those who are most likely to be violent and give them help if they take it (monitor them if don’t want help) and c) provide justice equally to those who commit it regardless of the tools they used or social position they have if they break the law. Murder is murder no matter if you use a knife or a gun. Taking away guns might lessen the body count, but won’t solve the problem of why people kill and what motivates them. Until you can solve that the problem will never go away, not even if you take a tool away.
I won’t go into arguments about self-defense. I possess a weapon permit that allows me to travel through two-thirds of the US with a loaded gun for defense, yet I have never had to defend myself with a weapon. My attitude and my friendly disposition is my best defense versus the violence of others.
I’d just like to say that, yes I own guns, but I am also skilled in using other weapons such as knives, swords, tomahawks and my bare hands to kill if I needed to. I study these as a martial art not to kill people, but to understand how to defend myself from others with evil intent and as an academic interest. I consider myself stable but have had times when I’ve been angry at others. If I was to kill I could use ANY tool to do it. Try a rolled up magazine, if striking in the proper place it can kill you just as dead as a knife or gun. If I had the desire to kill I would succeed if I was motivated enough to do so. I however choose to live my life by not hurting others. I just hope that others respect that right as well in my daily dealings.
In the meantime my odds are better that I’d get killed crossing the street, driving my car, die by a health problem (like my high blood pressure) than get killed by another person with malicious intent. As far as I’m concerned, banning guns won’t change those chances one whit.
Sorry for the long post but my closing idea on Martin Luthur King’s birthday is that we must all learn to love each other before we can find peace on earth. Banning tools or ignoring the pain/mental illness of others won’t solve the problem. It may be too big a problem to solve, but in the long run it’s an evolutionary problem to be solved for our own good.
Best of wishes to you all.
“…a gun, even when loaded, and placed on a table top is not a weapon. It’s an inert piece of metal and plastic with no function or purpose…”
Have to disagree with you there. A gun is always a gun. A knife can be used to serve food to a hungry person. A hammer can be used to help shelter a homeless person.
His point is that a gun is a tool of self-defense. As has been pointed out previously, the Swiss have lot’s of guns and a very low crime rate thanks to the deterrent effect.
The Swiss government gives “everyone” a gun because these people are their Army. It makes more sense than everyone waiting in line to get their weapons in the (extremely unlikely) event that Switzerland is attacked.
I would bet that you won’t find the Swiss swaggering down the streets of Geneva or Zurich with their guns as you would Americans in Texas or Arizona.
You would be incorrect. If you live there, it is not uncommon to see a reservist toting an uncased rifle. Once every five years during the Swiss Federal Shooting Festival, it is actually common. The strangest I’ve seen was a rather cute female reservist, with a slung machine gun, pushing a baby stroller.
My point exactly, these are reservists carrying their RIFLES not swaggering showoffs carrying open or concealed hand guns.
— very low crime rate thanks to the deterrent effect.
Or because there’s a history of military neutrality. The Swiss don’t go about invading neighbors or foreigners to take their stuff. Who’s going to invade Switzerland, after all?? There’s a history of national non-aggression. Counter that with the history of the US. We killed off the indigenous populations. We imported blacks and Asians, whom we killed off as needed. We killed off the Spanish and the French at various times.
Military neutrality reduces crime in society…
Really?
ROTFLMAO
Well to complete the puzzle… guns are used daily to feed millions.
“The only way to prevent violence is to … b) profile those who are most likely to be violent and give them help if they take it (monitor them if don’t want help) …”
Would you be willing to submit to profiling? Isn’t that a violation of your Constitutional rights? How is that any different from gun control being a violation of your Constitutional rights? The Constitution is filled with contradictions, as are the Courts’ interpretations.
The way to prevent violence is to stop the inflammatory rhetoric on both sides of an issue and work toward constructive compromise. But wait, wasn’t that the intent of the Constitution in the first place?
Mental health issues are real. If you’ve ever been clinically depressed or been the obsessive target of someone who is depressed and angry, you’ll get what Bob is trying to say. If you notice, the big tragedy in Bob’s case was the guy jumping off the bridge. Nobody else was hurt, but in the end that was someone’s son, maybe someone’s brother, or uncle or friend. If it was my son that jumped off a bridge or killed a professor with a hammer I’d be devastated.
The case of murder that Bob referred to was that of Theodore Streleski. Details are available at Wikipedia. In his case, he had been kept in a Ph.D. program for 19 years. He had been alternately ridiculed, then encouraged to stay in the program. That is no excuse for what he did. But to Bob’s point, getting to know someone should include being honest about what you’re doing to someone. Healthy people walk away from abuse, and unhealthy people react unpredictably. Ethical people avoid abusing others in the first place.
They don’t let you just stick around for 19 years. The guy had been out of the system for more than a decade as I recall.
I think, Bob, you missed the distinction between people who are irritating (me with too much coffee), people who are psychotic (Kaczynski, Loughner, etc), and people with focal cognitive disabilities (Asperger’s).
I mean, incidentally, “psychotic” in the medical sense (delusional, hallucinating), not “psychotic” in the movie sense (cruel, vicious).
Your intervention was probably ok for someone who was irritating, but less effective for someone who was psychotic or who had a focal cognitive disorder.
Thirty years ago my college managed my schizophrenic roommate with considerable compassion. (His twenty year outcome, by the way, was shockingly good. It probably helped that he was genuinely a genius.)
We are slowly, and painfully, moving to a world where, at a given time, we can put a person in one or more of those categories, and choose an intervention that makes sense.
Give us another twenty years.
WHAT intervention? I was just a cog doing my job. That’s why there are rules.
A couple of things.
First, Great Britain had relatively liberal gun laws until 1920, then they got afraid of all the vets returning from WWI armed. Thus, gun control always has been and always will be about controlling people.
Now just to show that gun control has virtually no effect on crime look at the UK, almost always held up a paragon of gun safety. As late as 1950 gun ownership was relatively easy in the UK, today gun control laws have effectively banned gun ownership with the exception of shotguns. Gun control is so tight that the UK Olympic shooting team has to practice OUTSIDE the UK. Yet since 1950 the overall homicide rate has doubled. The homicide rate in the UK was 6.2 per Million in 1960 was 14 per Million in 1997. Now this is still 1/4 the rate of the US but it shows the fallacy that gun control in and of itself can lower the homicide rate.
Further, Switzerland which has 600,000 fully automatic weapons in civilian hands has a homicide rate of 12 per Million.
Gun control advocates never seem to mention Switzerland.
Not only can gun control advocates not show causation between tighter gun control laws and lower homicide rates, they can’t even show correlation.
Regards,
Joe Dokes
Firearms are strictly controlled in Switzerland. If 2nd amendment advocates in the US really bothered to all take an actual look at Swiss laws they would stand up as one and declare that Switzerland is a bloody totalitarian dictatorship, when it comes to firearms.
Swiss laws make it virtually impossible to discharge any weapon outside some extremely strict limits. Swiss laws have penalties for any citizen using his service weapon for uses other than the defence of the republic. Swiss laws make it nearly impossible for a citizen to own multiple weapons which are not directly related to his military service.
“The right to bear arms is incompatible with a modern urbanized society. The cowboys are gone. Bush too.”
How is this right incompatible? Are people mindless sociopathic killing machines that need to be prevented from being allowed near a weapon because they will slaughter indescriminately? Then gun control is a futile effort because the only possible result of an urbanized society is everyine being killed anyway.
Guns make it easier to kill people, but they do not cause the killings. People murdered each other long before guns existed. Robert is right in the point not being what new controls on liberties we need but on the need for society to care and notice its members so that those who need help or are dangerous can be adressed. It is far harder to do this and impossible to legislate caring but that is where the real benefit will lie.
Right on. A knee-jerk delegation of authority to the gov’t has already proven unsuccessful.
There is a profound dysfunction in America, hard for me to pinpoint, but because of our unique history, there is a legacy of isolation, alienation and bitter disappointment. This latter, I think, is because of our expectations about the American Dream, whatever that is, and it seems to involve ridiculous materialism for most people, but it seems that at the first signs of adversity a lot of us crumble, descending into self pity, paranoia and substance abuse, and then real mental illness. Remember Obama’s campaign speech about “guns and religion”? It was an apt remark that created a furor (again). Every heavily armed person I know is afraid, and pissed off, no matter what they say, and they are a risk to the rest of us. Ban portable firearms, and persist with huge class action suits against the manufacturers and states with lenient controls.
Pinpoint = heavy metals. So, ignore this fact and insanely keep trying all the other treatments that don’t work. Remember, the very definition of insanity is to keep doing the same wrong thing over and over again expecting a correct result. Heavy metal poisoning is common. Let me say that again – Heavy metal poisoning is common. Yes common. The detection and treatment is easy and not very expensive. Don’t believe me? Ok. Keep doing the same insane wrong thing. And be surprised at the next person acting out in whatever crazy fashion.
Unbelievable.
From my experience, the worst thing about dealing with people suffering from mental illness is that there are so few rewards for standing up and doing something to help.
If you help tutor a student with cancer with homework, you’re a hero. If you donate blood to help someone in a car accident, you’re a hero. If you show up in court to defend someone who is mentally unstable, people will ostracize you when all you are trying to do is help out someone who desperately needs help. People who are mentally ill do not generally get help in prison. Sometimes they become worse. Much worse.
I am not sure how gun control would have prevented Jared Loughner from shooting Gabrielle Giffords. He was motivated to get a weapon and spray a crowd with bullets no matter what the outcome. If the gun wasn’t available, he would have found a really good weapon to replace it.
Bob, had you taken the time to track down the student, meet with him and get him the help he needed in turning in a better paper and helping him boost his grade, chances are he’d still throw himself off the Golden Gate Bridge. You didn’t ruin his life. I think receiving a D at Stanford is still better than getting an A at a community college.
This is gutsy Bob, I’m very glad you were brave/honest enough to write this. Food for thought. Thanks.
The issue is that there were people close to Jared (and these other troubled individuals) that should have taken the responsibility of trying to help with the mental issues. The responsibility in this case falls on the parents shoulders. Being a parent is a hard job. It takes a lot of work to raise up a socially adjusted individual even if there are no medical issues. If there are mental/medical issues, it’s even harder; but it is the parents’ responsibility! When a marriage or children become difficult, we must entrench and deal with the issues. Of course dealing pre-emptively with issues is best, but that takes attentiveness and awareness. I know, I know… easily said. What makes me angry (speaking as a husband of an elementary school educator) is when parents expect teachers to “fix” their children at school. These are the same parents that when teachers call home, the parents defend their child… “My little Johnny would never do that. You’re being too tough on him”. Now I’m getting riled up. I better end this message.
I appreciate your honesty at your student’s suicide (“I felt only relief.”). I do not know what you felt when typing the words. . .and then leaving them in your post; but I understood for my own reasons.
It presently remains just a feeling – not yet a theory or reasoned conclusion, but Loughner seems to be another example of fringe conditions entering the mainstream. Technology seems to play big here. It was hard to be pornography addict when you had to sneak into a store on Broadway and head to the movie booths in back. That was just enough friction to keep most from succumbing to any temptation. Then the VCR came, making it easier; more succumbed Then the Internet, and so many succumbed it is not regarded as a epidemic by some. Church’s have made it a regular part of recover ministry. What?
Loughner may have been proclaiming to the ether, but the Internet seemed to factor large, even if only in his mind, in giving voice to his increasing darkness. The illusion of connectedness, the legitimization, if you seek it, of the most bizarre notion, ideas. . .
Fringe conditions entering the mainstream.
Typo. . .sorry: Then the Internet, and so many succumbed it is NOW regarded as a epidemic by some.
I am very leery, ever since 9/11, of anyone using a tragic event to spread fear. Almost always this fear is then used to take away people’s liberties and rights.
This is not solely a “right” or “left” issue. It seems to me the metaphorical bus can run you over from either side of the street. It’s best to look both ways before crossing.
I implore everyone; please pay close attention to ulterior motivations before blindly giving in to fear. We owe our children freedom just as much as we do safety and a clean planet.
I’m with Bob on the core issue of the article; how many of us take the time to actually get to know people like our coworkers and neighbors? Where I live, everyone just sort of hides inside their homes- no porches, nobody comes outside for any reason except to go running with earbuds firmly in place. Kids get packed into cars to go somewhere else to play.
This is how the fear grows; we don’t even know our next door neighbors anymore, let alone a coworker or student.
It’s far easier to demonize someone we don’t know just because they have a different belief system from ourselves. We’ve got to get together as a community and remember we live here together.
That means we make “room” for each other- this “my way or the highway” ethos in politics is unhealthy because we don’t have any room for compromise. How it all got started I don’t know or care, but it has to change if we are going to improve society for everyone.
In short, we’ve got to get to know each other again.
That was my point, thanks.
Hmm,
My upstairs neighbor is a 50 something year old suicidal mentally ill woman dumped here by here family. No one comes to see her. The guy to the right of me is a mean drunk and sex pervert that arranges for blow jobs out of his apartment by some of the local whores. There have been drug dealers making crystal meth in the apartment to the left of me – that boy got sent to jail. He was replaced by a horrible drunk/pervert/drug addict that was using his apartment to sell sexual favors out of. I had to BEAT THE CRAP out of his pimp friend to get them to leave. There have been convicted sexual offenders in this building and several others in the neighborhood. A convicted serial killer murdered two girls one mile away from where I live. The one computer guy living in my building has been convicted of tax fraud and I really don’t trust him. So I sit here in my dark little apartment and try not to get murdered by my neighbors. What sort of unreality are you living in?
I suggest you move.
Why? Let me explain my interrogative. Years ago our family had a friend who was really sharp. A real standout. Working at a local hardware supply company he was known for his ability to take multiple verbal customer orders simultaneously without the need to write anything down. When Home Depot was in its infancy he went to work there and eventually made a fortune. On easy street as they say. One day he and his mother were murdered in her kitchen while drinking coffee by two robbers who were later caught and convicted.
There is no safe place. One spot is as good as the next.
Anyway, now that I’ve go your attention please read “Depression Cured at Last” , “Detoxify or Die” and anything else by Sherry
A. Rogers. She will give you the basics of molecular biochemistry. Just enough for you to understand how people get degenerative diseases, including depression and cancer. If you don’t have $20 for a book chances are you can find copies at your local library.
That’s just my $20 worth. I’ll shut up now.
Still though, it sounds like you still might want to move.
“I suggest you move.” While I agree with your advice, doesn’t it run counter to your column’s theme about getting to know people so you can help them. Perhaps the advice is “get to know your neighbors…then move.”
“What other weapon could kill so many in such a short period of time?”
Pipe bomb.
As far as i know pipe bombs are illegal. Thus, your argument seems to suggest that high power guns should be illegal too. I’m not suggesting that all guns be illegal. Rather, there should be a point at which a sane person would say the cost benefit analysis just doesn’t make sense. A 30 round cartridge? How about a 200 round cartridge? How about a 1000lb bomb? What about a nuclear warhead? At what point does the risk/destruction capability outway any benefit these weapons could provide?
I personally don’t see the benefit to a 30 round cartridge but i can surely see the downside…
but pipes are NOT illegal
There’s a pretty solid argument that the more American’s kill each other, the better for the rest of the world. It’s just that guns are such a horribly inefficient way to do it (and a pity for the folk getting shot). Give every loon a 1000 pound bomb in a pick-up, I say, make a proper job of it.
Interesting idea. Historians (those who actually are professional historians, and historical economists, and such) are convinced that the mass extinctions of the Great Plagues are what led to the existence of a middle class: enough peasants were killed off that the wages of survivors skyrocketed. I’ve wrote a post on the subject a couple of years ago.
Easier to just let them be and go about their damage than to have health services (which would have costs—something American’s hate having—and would give someone something for nothing). I suppose this recent lunatic will either be jailed for life or hanged. But, in the long run, this line is cheaper in dollars. It’s the pain to the innocent that hurt so much.
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