Friday Sober Thread: Tragedy in Connecticut

(1) Technically he would have to do it in the opposite order, wouldn't he?
(2) Saying he did not own guns is like saying I do not have a couch, because the one in my apartment is owned by my roommate. You may be right in the legalistic sense, but when it comes time to sit down and watch football, surely we all can agree that I have a couch. The point being, if there is a gun in the same house as a mentally ill person, he essentially owns a gun.

This all supposes that "criminals" and "noncriminals" are sufficiently differentiable groups of society. And that if you took the guns out of the hands of "criminals," you could call it a day. In reality, is there a meaningful difference to be drawn between someone convicted of a shooting, someone guilty yet unconvicted of a shooting, and someone who has not yet committed his or her first shooting but will in the future?

In reality, often the shooters are us. They walk like us, talk like us, and don't-shoot-folk like us (until they do). They don't always walk around holding signs saying "I am the bad sort of folk who you should take guns away from!" and most of those who do send red flags are likely to never be shooters.

Adam Lanza had, as far as we know, never committed any other acts of violence. He'd never been institutionalized, and I haven't seen anything confirming he was medicated or in therapy. He's been described as a bit of a loner, but also as nice, smart, etc. He basically is us.

Edit: apparently a WaPo article did suggest he was on medication, in a second-hand, neighbor-says-so kind of way.

 

So, if his mom wasn't murdered in this tragedy, would she be an accessory? What if the guns were locked in a safe and Lanza hacked her email account to get the combination? What if she owned the guns to protect herself from her son?

I agree with what you're saying. There are thousands of people who are convicted felons who employ their spouses and family members to buy guns for them. This is very illegal, and it happens every day. How is this addressed? I have no idea, but as far as I'm concerned, this is where common sense, legislation, and guns intersect.

 

What I also noticed was in the first link, Calvo was bound and the process continued. The dogs being killed is senseless and the result of itchy trigger fingers and oversight, but if Calvo had a gun aimed at the officers like you claim would be your move, he would be dead on his floor, not going through legal processes. In the other cases, the attempted cover up or procedural fuck ups were the main issue.

I'm not justifying botched police work, but the presence of guns in those situations just leave more people dead. Kathryn Johnson took a shot. Sure she was innocent of what they came for, and her death tragic, but she still shot at armed law enforcement. And the Marine, also a sad story, but still had an assault rifle trained at law enforcement. Neither of those raids happened in the middle of the night when burglaries occur. I just think grabbing a gun and being ready to fire is far too reactionary in those situations.

 

Oh really? I am a foreigner, and I have had multiple interactions with police in the US, and NEVER had a problem. Neither have all of my American friends (regardless of their color or accent and what not), or my international friends. The police or government in my home country, on the other hand...Please, do try to visit anything other than Western Europe, and trust openly, and come back and tell us how that has gone for you, and then compare that to the police in the US.

 

I can't say you're flat-out wrong, but there is an issue with the mentality that has lead to you being right in this case. That is, the amount of power given to police without attached responsibility. Yeah, I'm going to quote fucking Uncle Ben, because those two things have to go hand in hand or else there is nothing to prevent the abuse of that power. I don't have the same persecution complex Dixie does, and I do not believe the man is out to get me, but police (and government in general, really) corruption is insanely widespread. Ten minutes on youtube can show you incidents that make Rodney King look like a run-of-the-mill encounter.

I'm digressing, but my point is, while yes pointing a gun at cops is never healthy, it shouldn't get to that point. Vanilla would rather reenact the OK Corral than risk the guys busting down his door being criminals rather than cops, but what does it say about our government that they would rather bust down a (often the wrong one) door either A)unannounced or B)announced in the same way criminals have imitated for robberies, and risk killing a citizen who as far as he knows is lawfully defending his home and self, rather than risk giving some dickhead time to flush a bag of cocaine.

I fully believe we need to review gun laws as well as the way we look at mental health in this country, but a citizen should never be in a position where he has even the slightest shred of reason to believe he needs to defend himself with a deadly weapon from police. In short, the idea of citizens NOT having the option to defend themselves form the police scares me almost as much as a repeat of what happened Friday, and removing the first will not prevent the second.

 

Also, Vanilla, you've hinted that it was illegal for Adam Lanza to have guns. Isn't that merely because he was too impatient to fill out the forms and/or wait five months? What other criteria did he cross?

 

Under 21. He could only legally own a rifle or shotgun, none of the weapons he used. Obviously moot point.

 

Reading this, I know it isn't his intent, but VanillaGorilla is coming off as a militant type who is armed to the teeth and begging for some kind of authority figure to break into his house so he can start his own miniature civil war against the government. I know he isn't that unreasonable, but that is how it reads.

Let me preface this by saying the following:

1) I am a white middle class male from a small, relatively safe town. May not seem that important, but if you think race and socioeconomic status don't matter in this debate, you're out of your mind.
2) I've never had any kind of issue with the police, and I've been friends with and had long conversations with police officers, so I somewhat understand their mindset.
3) I don't own a gun. I've never felt a need to own a gun. Even when I lived in a crappy part of a crappy town, I didn't feel the need to carry a gun. The only person I know who DOES own guns is my father-in-law, and he owns two hunting riffles, and that is it.

I forget who said it (apologize, too lazy to go back and look it up), but it really is just an arms race at this point between the police and civilians. Police carry handguns so citizens get handguns to carry concealed "just in case." So Police go out and get bullet proof vests to protect themselves, so citizens are now getting "cop killer" bullets that are designed to shoot through bullet proof vests, and higher powered riffles and automatic weapons. So now police need those same automatic weapons, so now civilians need even BIGGER automatic weapons because they're so afraid of the police.

Police are wary of civilians because they never, ever know who is going to be a crazy gun-toting asshole ready to shoot a cop in the face because that "fascist, corrupt" cop had the balls to pull the guy's car over (I'm looking in Dixie's direction). Think about it. An every day, routine part of their job could end with them dead if it happens to be a drug dealer or even just a reactionary crazy person with a gun and an authority problem. Congrats, officer, your kids are orphans because you pulled over a guy who's first reaction when seeing a police officer is "this guy wants to take everything I own on behalf of the government and I must shoot him now!"

Vanilla, think about the fact that you're so willing and ready to shoot a police officer. That could just be an officer that wants to go home to his kids, sit down, and just drink a beer and relax, but he's been told by his superiors that he is going on a raid of someone he is told is a drug dealer. Only, the addresses get confused, he accidentally heads into the (wrong) house due to some bullshit paperwork error, and suddenly his kids have no father, because the person inside's first reaction is "shoot this fascist mother fucker!" You know, rather than the rational response ("holy shit, why are you here, I'm innocent, don't shoot, lets clear this up"), he crashes into your house accidentally and you make his kids orphans. And, somehow, you'd actually feel good about and justified in this action. If you don't see how that is batshit insane, I don't know what to tell you.

Finally, as a point, maybe a rational law should be "if someone in your house has a mental illness, there shouldn't be guns in your house." Is it fair that a parent with a kid who has bi-polar disorder can't own a gun? Maybe not for the parent, but it certainly would prevent access to guns by people who should have ZERO access to firearms.

 

He was too young in the state of CT to possess those firearms. Minimum age is 21 there. The firearms were legally owned by his mother.

 

D26 covered a couple of my points above, but I would argue corruption centers more around excessive use of force and covering of one's asses as opposed to these "mistaken raids". I would really like to see the numbers on how many of these occur and when they occur how often do they result in any sort of injury. Its easy to make empirical judgments because of a few Huffington Post articles which lead heavily to availability biases. For example, the incident I mentioned linked where the dogs were killed. If the dogs weren't killed, thats simple a civil suit for punitive damages and it likely doesn't register outside of a regional news report. And I can't speak for others, but it wouldn't make me go "I need a gun so this doesn't happen again."

 

Once the door is kicked in there is no going back for either party. The family inside is subjected to flash bang grenades and watching their family pets killed. Whether it is the right house or the wrong house. Knowing they could make an error in doing this, isn't it their duty to you and I and the officers tasked with entry to be sure beyond any doubt that that is, in fact, the right house?

Perhaps, since the police have proven time and again, that they are incapable of doing it right every time, they should do away with 'no knocks' and de-escalate the whole thing. Not to mention the new fad of SWATing people, the risk-benefit just isn't there. A bag of cocaine or potentially dead cops and civilians....Sorry, I really don't care that much about the already lost war on drugs. Besides, police are tasked with keeping the peace, how is this activity keeping the peace?

 

I think is a far better point than the semantics and philosophies about what to do when a cop kicks down your door. Well said.

 

To go back to the gun control debate for a moment from the whole killing the SWAT team and fuck the police; I think we need to ask our politicians a question or two.

If our politicians are so keen on gun control, we should ask them to set an example and not allow their security to carry the weapons which they want banned and see what happens. Without saying it, their actions will speak for them. The message will be that gun control is for the little people their safety is more important than our safety.

 

Are you honestly proposing that an elected government official isn't fairly consistently a target for crazies/extremists/terrorists? This thread alone has posters claiming that the reason they own guns is because they distrust the government and government officials. But you're right, they're hypocrites because gun control is for the 'little people' and not for the government agency tasked with protecting them (i.e. the Secret Service).

The general, every day person isn't necessarily a consistent target; not in the way an elected official is. An elected official in a country where distrust of the government is a mainstream movement (see: Tea Party), is a constant target for attacks (See: Gabrielle Giffords). Shit, there are entire "militia" dedicated to hoarding guns in preparation for a civil war against the Government that they can't wait for. I'd venture the President and most elected officials have death threats lobbied at them regularly, whether from crazy American citizens or from terrorists, government officials are targets, and maybe they require a bit more security than Johnny Drunkard stumbling home from the bar with his gun in his belt, ready to shoot any cops that have the gall to arrest him for public intox.

Finally, back to the police thing briefly, I still can't believe people don't understand the police mentality of distrust. Again, a police officer on a routine pull over, or an officer going to a domestic disturbance, ends up dead because he is coming up on a house of a person who's only reaction to the police is to shoot first because "they're agents of a corrupt government that wants to take mah stuff!" These are usually just regular people who want to get home to their families, but they are literally in CONSTANT danger because of the civilian mentality that "all police are out to fuck with anyone who isn't a police officer for shits and giggles." I can't imagine a job that is more dangerous, and where the basic tenet is to protect the civilians, and yet they are still so consistently reviled.

All that said: are there corrupt, shitty cops? Of course. There are also, corrupt and shitty teachers, corrupt and shitty IT guys, corrupt and shitty company CEOs, corrupt and shitty retail managers, etc. Of course, only one of those groups is a daily target to get killed by nut bags with automatic weapons.

 

Read what I wrote again. Did I mention anything about who is threatened more? That has nothing to do with it and everything to do with holding politicians to the same code that they force upon us.

 

Read what I wrote again. You CAN'T hold elected officials to the same code (in THIS particular case) because their job inherently puts them in danger from extremists/terrorists, and therefore they require more protection than us. There is a reason politicians have secret service escort them places, while you and I don't get that luxury. We don't need it, they do. If you don't see that, honestly, I don't know what to tell you.

 

I was going to stay out of this thread and let it crash land into the earth at 1000 mph like these threads always do, but that statement is fucking bullshit.
Citizens aren't buying "cop killer" bullets. You can't even get the fucking things legally unless you're a cop. Most people don't give a shit what cops are carrying, and certainly don't base their firearms purchases off of that.
When I bought my AR-15 I was thinking "This is gonna be great for coyote and fox hunting", not "Oh fuck, the cops have AR's, now I'd better get one too!"
And do you even know what "automatic" means in terms of guns? Did you know that you can't own them without a federal license? Do you realize that it doesn't even fucking matter? If I wanted to walk into a place and kill a shit load of people, I could be just as lethal with a lever action or pump action weapon as I would with a tricked out AR-15 or an AK. I'd probably be more efficient, since I'd be trying to conserve ammo so I don't have to reload as much.

Even BIGGER ones, you say? Like what?
You sound like you're ten years old right there.

 

The point Vanilla is making isn't that he's eager to shoot up some cops that come barging into his house (I hope), but that when he's sitting in his bedroom and livingroom or whatever and armed intruders bust down his door he's going to defend himself with lethal force if necessary. Think about it. When you're in your home and all of the sudden your front/back door is getting kicked in and armed intruders are storming the place you have no idea whether or not it's the cops or criminals who will probably kill everyone in the home. So you as the homeowner literally have a split second decision: Do you guess it's the cops, and surrender peacefully, or guess it's criminals and put up a fight and hopefully drive them off? Sure, like Binary said in the event it's the cops the homeowner being armed only worsens the situation, but if it isn't the cops then if you have no means of fighting back then hope they don't decide to murder you after robbing/home invading the place.

In any event, ODEN is right: no-knock entries should be completely done away with except in the most dire of circumstances, such as a hostage situation.

 

I found this quite interesting:

The only reasonable article around Americas gun violence (and regular violence) that i've read throughout this media shitstorm.