Charlotte Allen: This massacre might not have happened if some manly men were working at the school rather than weak, helpless women.
Jim Daly: The massacre was horrible, but it’s Christmas!
Anthony Daniels: The problem is that people think they deserve to be happy. Also, psychology is bullshit.
Charles A. Donovan: It was all downhill from A Clockwork Orange for our culture.
David French: Trying to create policy solutions to avoid tragedies like this is pointless, because we are meant to suffer like Job.
Roger Kimball: Evil. Man, I don’t know.
Thomas Lickona: There are so many possible causes for this tragedy – like freely available guns, or the interference of demons – that we cannot truly ever know why it happened.
Emily Stimpson: Free will is part of God’s plan and Jesus loves us.
Heather MacDonald: School shootings are so rare that policy proposals may be overreactions. Therefore, we should study the problem more because we do not have enough data yet.
Father Gerald Murray: The massacre was horrible, but it’s Christmas!
Michael Pakaluk: We should all give thanks that we haven’t gone on a mass killing spree.
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God, you’re not even kidding.
I read your summary and hoped: perhaps he is exaggerating.
Nope: you did not.
But I’d add that Chuckie Donovan really said: It was all downhill from A Clockwork Orange for our culture. But, let’s lock up all crazy people, just to be sure.
This is depressingly accurate.
It looks like the narrative is going to end up being ‘Violence in the media and particuarly video games’ rather than things that require actual effort like Mental Health Services and All The Fucking Guns.
Nooooo, Anthony Daniels! You were so great as C-3PO, why do you have to shoot your mouth off like this?
… please tell me that’s not the same Anthony Daniels.
It’s still not as bad as the guy who said if they had someone brave like George Martinez there with a gun, the kids would be okay.
Don’t worry, his little bio would seem to indicate that he is a different person with the same name.
Also, the thing about A Clockwork Orange causing violence confuses me a bit. Couldn’t one just as easily make the argument that people are desensitized to the consequences of violence by media that portrays it as having none at all?
I live, and my 11 year old daughter goes to school, 30 minutes from Newtown so as you can imagine it’s been a very rough week. One of my coworkers is out all week on bereavement leave. I’m terrified that we will learn after the holiday that Newtown is the reason why.
My take is that the narrative is going to end up being, “Well neighbors say he had Asperger’s so even though the vast majority of people with actual medical degrees say that Asperger’s doesn’t cause people to become violent, his neighbors disagree. Who are you going to believe, elitists with newfangled degrees or the people who claim to our cameras that they knew him best?”
But I may be being a little oversensitive because my daughter is Spectrum and I’m definitely being hysterical. I’ve been that way since 11:00 AM Friday. I mean, Jesus. My closest friend lives one town over. I was just in Newtown 2 weeks ago. Hell, I grew up in Philly and even the MOVE fires were farther away.
But yeah, the NRO thing was no surprise. first I’ve been reading that crap all week and second, they’re the NRO. They’re freaking Mos Eisely.
An observation about Donovan’s segment: What kind of people cheer during a movie? Drunk people, that’s who.
“Charlotte Allen: This massacre might not have happened if some manly men were working at the school rather than weak, helpless women.”
…’cause there were no manly men at the Batman premiere.
It looks like all of the hundreds of comments so far are pointing out how stupid the entire article is. Especially Charlotte Allen’s piece.
@Peyton
Yeah. I hate how ill-informed (since there’s still no solid description of what, if any, disorders or non-typical mental stuff he had going on) people are going on about their new awareness of the “threat” posed by people on the spectrum. Once again, a mass shooting ends up stigmatizing people with mental handicaps/disorders/atypicalities/etc.
It also gives more ammunition to evil bastards like Mark and David Geier, which helps no one.
Dear Peyton
Yeah, three of my closest family members (and myself) are neurodivergent in some way or other. I think this is probably the best response you’re likely to find to the ‘omg lock up the crazy people!’ narrative that’s going around:
http://www.shakesville.com/2012/12/in-pursuit-of-doing-something-meaningful.html
Personally, I think they’re all trying to be bigger trolls than McArdle, who, let’s face it, is a walking example of Poe’s law (“Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of fundamentalism that someone won’t mistake for the real thing,”).
An aside, the Book of Job can basically be read in the exact same was as the Eddie Murphy movie Trading Places, with God and Satan as the Duke brothers, and Job in the role filled by Dan Aykroyd. Using it to say that we have to suffer because we’re sinful is not even logically consistent with a serious reading of the book. Job is not a serious contemplation on theodicy, unless you like the idea of a capricious god who has to show off to his pal, Satan, about how much we all love him.
I’ll say I agree with Heather MacDonald. Acting without thought won’t help, and these instances ARE statistically very rare. I’d rather a good and sensible solution be created as opposed to one birthed of fear and high emotion, as understandable as that would be for everyone.
The rest of them can go f*ck themselves.
They may be statistically very rare if you consider 26 people is a miniscule part of the population of the US.
But I still see “rare” as a poor excuse for ignoring the problem. Compared to just about any other “first world” nation on the planet these incidents are frighteningly common.
28,000 deaths by guns in the US vs 11 in Japan?
I have to agree that I do not think this is a problem of need of solving.
I don’t believe that it is a large enough problem to require having an armed guard at every school, nor do I believe it is a big enough problem to require taking guns away from everybody.
The fact is there are nut-jobs on both sides of this issue overreacting and looking to use this to either further their own unrelated agenda or they are proposing solutions from a hysterical mindset.
I’m not saying ignore it. I’m just saying it’s a horrible aberration, not the norm. Treat it as such.
“School shootings are so rare that policy proposals may be overreaction.”
I don’t see how you can argue with that unless your policy proposal is, “STOP WATCHING SO MUCH TELEVISION!”
Just another periodic sacrifice to moloch
In the universe where we cared, in addition to mental health care and gun control I’d add fixing the economy that has so many people so much more desperate and pressured and hopeless over the past ten years
“…’cause there were no manly men at the Batman premiere.”
Or Fort Hood, for that matter.
@Pat: I have to agree that I do not think this is a problem of need of solving.
In just this year alone there have been:
– Chardon (3 dead, 6 wounded)
– Jacksonville (1 dead)
– Oakland (7 dead, several wounded)
– Aurora (50 dead or wounded)
– Oak Creek (9)
– Portland (3)
– Newtown (26)
Two thirds of those at schools, and that’s not even listing the incidents where only the gunman was killed.
20 children killed in their elementary school is “not a problem in need of solving”?
@django: I’d add fixing the economy that has so many people so much more desperate and pressured and hopeless over the past ten years
Because nobody is working on that, of course.
To add to Sean’s list, this just in:
– Altoona (4)
which happened pretty much at the same time as the ridiculous NRA press conference this morning.
Also, Newtown was 27: 20 Children, 6 school employees and Nancy Lanza. Everybody seems to forget his poor mother.
@Peyton: Thank you. I hate how it seems to be that victims have to be “completely innocent” to be counted.
@Kate the Short
Hint: the “manly men” were supposed to act as bullet catchers, just like in Aurora.
I’m Newtown-ed out, TBH. None of the people on either side of the political spectrum are in concordance with my ideas, so I’m just crossing my fingers and hoping for the best.
None of the people on either side of the political spectrum are in concordance with my ideas, so I’m just crossing my fingers and hoping for the best.
Yeah, that always works to get things changed.