Elementary School Shooting: Newtown, Connecticut. 28 confirmed dead, 18 were children

[j2legend]

^^ yup. Not sure if this was posted. But I got this from Reddit.

Let me tell you a story. The day after Columbine, I was interviewed for the Tom Brokaw news program. The reporter had been assigned a theory and was seeking sound bites to support it. "Wouldn't you say," she asked, "that killings like this are influenced by violent movies?" No, I said, I wouldn't say that. "But what about 'Basketball Diaries'?" she asked. "Doesn't that have a scene of a boy walking into a school with a machine gun?" The obscure 1995 Leonardo Di Caprio movie did indeed have a brief fantasy scene of that nature, I said, but the movie failed at the box office (it grossed only $2.5 million), and it's unlikely the Columbine killers saw it.

The reporter looked disappointed, so I offered her my theory. "Events like this," I said, "if they are influenced by anything, are influenced by news programs like your own. When an unbalanced kid walks into a school and starts shooting, it becomes a major media event. Cable news drops ordinary programming and goes around the clock with it. The story is assigned a logo and a theme song; these two kids were packaged as the Trench Coat Mafia. The message is clear to other disturbed kids around the country: If I shoot up my school, I can be famous. The TV will talk about nothing else but me. Experts will try to figure out what I was thinking. The kids and teachers at school will see they shouldn't have messed with me. I'll go out in a blaze of glory."

In short, I said, events like Columbine are influenced far less by violent movies than by CNN, the NBC Nightly News and all the other news media, who glorify the killers in the guise of "explaining" them. I commended the policy at the Sun-Times, where our editor said the paper would no longer feature school killings on Page 1. The reporter thanked me and turned off the camera. Of course the interview was never used. They found plenty of talking heads to condemn violent movies, and everybody was happy.

 

[lobotomybeats]

Regardless of the time and place, do you honestly think that the White House will pass a stricter gun control bill especially with a Republican led House? Think about it.. less than 2 years ago a Congresswomen (Gifford) was shot in the head by one of these gun trotting mad men and what gun control laws were passed after that?
How many?
ZERO!
The only noise came from all that was a bill INTRODUCED by Rep Peter King that was 'dismissed' by the GOP.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/pol...-peter-king-gun-control-bill-article-1.153906
Get a clue folks.. the gun culture here is not going anywhere. Sure the Govt may pass some minimal regulation law just to appease the public but for the most part NOTHING will change.

"Regardless of time and place?" I was responding to Ninjahood's ludicrous claim that the President would have spoken about guns at the vigil had he thought the legislation stood a chance. That's all my post was in reference to; Ninjahood's moronic (putting it lightly) statement.

 

[shoelyesses]

 

[lyonbc1]

^^ yup. Not sure if this was posted. But I got this from Reddit.

Let me tell you a story. The day after Columbine, I was interviewed for the Tom Brokaw news program. The reporter had been assigned a theory and was seeking sound bites to support it. "Wouldn't you say," she asked, "that killings like this are influenced by violent movies?" No, I said, I wouldn't say that. "But what about 'Basketball Diaries'?" she asked. "Doesn't that have a scene of a boy walking into a school with a machine gun?" The obscure 1995 Leonardo Di Caprio movie did indeed have a brief fantasy scene of that nature, I said, but the movie failed at the box office (it grossed only $2.5 million), and it's unlikely the Columbine killers saw it.

The reporter looked disappointed, so I offered her my theory. "Events like this," I said, "if they are influenced by anything, are influenced by news programs like your own. When an unbalanced kid walks into a school and starts shooting, it becomes a major media event. Cable news drops ordinary programming and goes around the clock with it. The story is assigned a logo and a theme song; these two kids were packaged as the Trench Coat Mafia. The message is clear to other disturbed kids around the country: If I shoot up my school, I can be famous. The TV will talk about nothing else but me. Experts will try to figure out what I was thinking. The kids and teachers at school will see they shouldn't have messed with me. I'll go out in a blaze of glory."

In short, I said, events like Columbine are influenced far less by violent movies than by CNN, the NBC Nightly News and all the other news media, who glorify the killers in the guise of "explaining" them. I commended the policy at the Sun-Times, where our editor said the paper would no longer feature school killings on Page 1. The reporter thanked me and turned off the camera. Of course the interview was never used. They found plenty of talking heads to condemn violent movies, and everybody was happy.

I can agree with this, there was a vid posted in the Aurora shooting thread with a psychologist I believe who said the WORST thing that happens is that these lowlife scum get so much notoriety and become infamous, he said they need to stop plastering pictures of them and should just cal them the shooter.....I can name the guy who shot the Aurora theater but I can't remember one of those innocent victims names sadly.

Just in watching national news the past few days, I've seen pics of this creep as a little 6 yr old (which to me makes no sense and is actually insulting to the victims) and pics of him as an older teen and everything....let the police and the fbi and other organizations analyze the guy's mind and mentality in the background....I'll give the news agencies credit for showing the children and broadcasting their stories from their familes and everything, but it should be the primary focus in instances like this, not the jack*** who murdered all of these people.

I could give a damn about the shooter and his history to be honest. Let the FBI and local PD and ATF look into all of that, but as we all know ratings and driving paranoia are what these news channels are about for the most part.


Sad reality that honestly disgusts me the most, is that I doubt much will change, and this will likely happen again somewhere in this country and it makes me sick...how many of these tragedies do we have to go through before something is done?

 

[debso]

As a pretty far left liberal...

let's blame this on video games and guns and not talk about mental health. Lets pass that so called "assault weapons" ban but do absolutely nothing about mental health.

Are ppl not aware that:
-nearly all guns are semi automatic at this point
-so called assault weapons are replicas at best Iif the real thing
-there isn't much of a difference between what could have went on using an AR-15 or a glock 19?
-gun laws are already strict in a lot of the NE and he obtained those guns by stealing them and shooting the person he stole them from multiple times, killing her.

Would a knife attack or a bomb have been better? It's not about dance dance revolution, call of duty, the expendables or a bushmaster .223. This guy was insane and would have done what he wanted to do regardless of what he got his hands on.

But banning AR's does nothing when one can just insert a 33 round magazine into a pistol and get the same outcome.

again, I say this as a liberal from NYC.

 

[lyonbc1]

I understand that these instances are rare, but try telling those numbers to these families in Columbine or Sandy Hook or any of the other places it has happened.

Those odds are also MUCH higher than any other 1st world country around the globe I'd bet.

Lightining strikes you can't do anything about, most drownings in bathtubs are ACCIDENTS, most people getting shot by police are criminals (obviosuly there are innocent people as well but more often they are criminals), people getting executed by the government are on death row likely for murder or other horrendous crimes. All states don't even have the death penalty so that is a useless statistic.

ALL schools across the country are susceptible to something like this. I would hope the odds of an innocent child trying to learn and being shot up would be significantly lower than a person who committed murder and is serving life in prison or waiting to be executed or other accidental incidents like drowning in bathtubs....ain't nothing accidental about school shootings, and we'd have even more problems in American society than we do today if the likelihood of that were closer to some of the other things they described.

Actual useful numbers to me would have been how much more likely is a child or student to be killed by a gunman in school in America vs the rest of the world.....then we'd see some stats that show we have a problem here.

EDIT: And I looked at the twitter account linking to the facebook post made by "Libertymaniacs"....they really posted that the DAY OF the shooting...thats really not the time for something like that imo.

 

[celticsfan9783]

Anyone else think that it was odd that family members of some of the victims were already on TV giving interviews as quick as 24 hours after the shooting? If my parent, sibling, or child died in a massacre like this, I couldn't bring myself to address the media. No way. Don't know how they mustered the courage to do that.

 

[lyonbc1]

As a pretty far left liberal...

let's blame this on video games and guns and not talk about mental health. Lets pass that so called "assault weapons" ban but do absolutely nothing about mental health.

Are ppl not aware that:
-nearly all guns are semi automatic at this point
-so called assault weapons are replicas at best Iif the real thing
-there isn't much of a difference between what could have went on using an AR-15 or a glock 19?
-gun laws are already strict in a lot of the NE and he obtained those guns by stealing them and shooting the person he stole them from multiple times, killing her.

Would a knife attack or a bomb have been better? It's not about dance dance revolution, call of duty, the expendables or a bushmaster .223. This guy was insane and would have done what he wanted to do regardless of what he got his hands on.

But banning AR's does nothing when one can just insert a 33 round magazine into a pistol and get the same outcome.

again, I say this as a liberal from NYC.

So why can't we ban AR's and all semi-automatic weapons AND put limitations on magazine size?? And truth be told, yes a knife attack would have been "better" (obviously no attack would be best and these kids and teachers would've gotten to celebrate the holidays with their families) but for sake of argument....you think somebody can murder 27 people in that situation with a knife man?? He only got into the school because of the semi automatic weapon, he was able to shoot through the glass, doors were locked the school had some semblance of a security system in place. Look at China, those kids will survive, the kids and teachers at Sandy Hook died instantly, with 11 bullet holes in each of them.

People act like it takes skill to use these weapons....an AR has virtually zero kick back and it is VERY accurate, its lightweight, and you can fire as many rounds off as quickly as you pull the trigger. It takes NO training or formal skill to do that type of thing, which is why its even more frightening. it takes knowledge and at least some "skill" (Hate using that word to describe this) to build a bomb.

And I agree the mental illness awareness needs to be heightened in this country, its not video games or movies that cause this...last I checked these things are available in Europe and Asia but it still happens wayyyyyy more often here.

 

[Comparison Ford]

Button it sir, bleeding libs on da left were DYING to hear him rally against
Guns right then & there. We're on da net.. i read posts from everywhere.

Da net isn't always da best indicator of how da general public thinks.  If you based your perception on who you thought would become da president based off of youtube comments, you'd think Ron Paul or Gary Johnson was a shoe-in.  Da fact of da matter is that Obama realizes that he wouldn't only receive gigantic backlash from conservatives, but also a good portion of liberals and moderates that would say it was "too soon" to politicize da event.  

 

[ninjahood]

Regardless of the time and place, do you honestly think that the White House will pass a stricter gun control bill especially with a Republican led House? Think about it.. less than 2 years ago a Congresswomen (Gifford) was shot in the head by one of these gun trotting mad men and what gun control laws were passed after that?
How many?
ZERO!
The only noise came from all that was a bill INTRODUCED by Rep Peter King that was 'dismissed' by the GOP.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/pol...-peter-king-gun-control-bill-article-1.153906
Get a clue folks.. the gun culture here is not going anywhere. Sure the Govt may pass some minimal regulation law just to appease the public but for the most part NOTHING will change.

"Regardless of time and place?" I was responding to Ninjahood's ludicrous claim that the President would have spoken about guns at the vigil had he thought the legislation stood a chance. That's all my post was in reference to; Ninjahood's moronic (putting it lightly) statement.

i would put my whole sneaker collection on da line, thats how CONFIDENT i am that obama would've said something about anti gun legislation RIGHT AT THAT VIGIL

had he felt he had enough support to pass legislation.

Bloomberg been flapping his gums about guns before, DURING, and AFTER da tragedy.

you think to highly of these politicians b. i'll let you slip on that banana peel all you want sir, capitalizing on current events is what these folks do for a living...or have

we forgotten about da election campaign battle royale? 

 

[rashi]

In 2009, of the 13,636 homicides that occurred in the United States, 9,146 were committed with a firearm. More than two out of every three homicides. You know how many were committed with explosives? Two. Not 2%, two total. Or .01%. So much for your bomb "argument."
Or wait, are you saying that if guns weren't available to the people who killed those 9,146 people using guns that each and every one of those homicides would still have occurred, the only difference is that people would have used different means for doing so? Like making homemade bombs and throwing them at people? Please tell me that's not what you're arguing...

As stated previously, I used the bomb making as ONE example. Obviously there are other means in inflicting harm on someone, right?

Nobody is smart enough to predict if those homicides would've been mitigated, or even if more fatalities would've occurred with or without guns. I bet the people in favor of the War on Drugs had the same thinking as you. "Well, if we just make x,y,z illegal it will be harder to get and thus crime rates will go down." meanwhile the opposite has occurred.

 

[ninjahood]

In 2009, of the 13,636 homicides that occurred in the United States, 9,146 were committed with a firearm. More than two out of every three homicides. You know how many were committed with explosives? Two. Not 2%, two total. Or .01%. So much for your bomb "argument."
Or wait, are you saying that if guns weren't available to the people who killed those 9,146 people using guns that each and every one of those homicides would still have occurred, the only difference is that people would have used different means for doing so? Like making homemade bombs and throwing them at people? Please tell me that's not what you're arguing...

As stated previously, I used the bomb making as ONE example. Obviously there are other means in inflicting harm on someone, right?

Nobody is smart enough to predict if those homicides would've been mitigated, or even if more fatalities would've occurred with or without guns. I bet the people in favor of the War on Drugs had the same thinking as you. "Well, if we just make x,y,z illegal it will be harder to get and thus crime rates will go down." meanwhile the opposite has occurred.

chicago is seeing this first hand.

 

[deuce king]

there's a REASON obama said nothing about guns in his speech during da CT funeral, absolutely politically impossbile to pass, and a proven loser for democrats.

You have alot to learn ninjahood, alot indeed champ.

Button it sir, bleeding libs on da left were DYING to hear him rally against

Guns right then & there. We're on da net.. i read posts from everywhere.

As it as already been pointed out in here there IS a time and a place for everything champ, some folks know that concept, and some folks obviously don't.  President Obama even said in his speech that he would in the upcoming weeks use his political capital as President to bring the issue of gun control to the forefront. 

Sure the Govt may pass some minimal regulation law just to appease the public but for the most part NOTHING will change.

With a mentality like this, obviously nothing will change.  However if the mindset of folks like you and others like you that feel this way evolves then yes something can change.

 

[lyonbc1]

In 2009, of the 13,636 homicides that occurred in the United States, 9,146 were committed with a firearm. More than two out of every three homicides. You know how many were committed with explosives? Two. Not 2%, two total. Or .01%. So much for your bomb "argument."

Or wait, are you saying that if guns weren't available to the people who killed those 9,146 people using guns that each and every one of those homicides would still have occurred, the only difference is that people would have used different means for doing so? Like making homemade bombs and throwing them at people? Please tell me that's not what you're arguing...

As stated previously, I used the bomb making as ONE example. Obviously there are other means in inflicting harm on someone, right?


Nobody is smart enough to predict if those homicides would've been mitigated, or even if more fatalities would've occurred with or without guns. I bet the people in favor of the War on Drugs had the same thinking as you. "Well, if we just make x,y,z illegal it will be harder to get and thus crime rates will go down." meanwhile the opposite has occurred.

chicago is seeing this first hand.

Yall realize that a city having a ban does help, but if the neighboring states and counties don't have any regulations then it doesn't matter?? It needs to be done on a national stage. Look up Australia as an example for weapons bans (I'm not even a proponent of banning all guns, but certain ones need to be eliminated from stores and gun trade shows)

Mexico has strict gun laws, you know why there's tons of gun crime there? Because our country is the wild wild west comparatively and they can get the weapons easily funneled through here to the cartels. If we had more laws regulating gun purchases here we would see a drop, plain and simple.

 

[celticsfan9783]

The war on drugs seems like a different issue vs. banning certain firearms regarding crime rates. Two completely different markets. People can live without firearms. Addicts physically need heroin, cocaine, etc.

Give your average addict their fix. He/she is all good. Take it away, withdrawal occurs, desperation sets in and some type of property crime is the "likely" outcome. Take away your average gun owner's AR-15, is he going to feel that same sense of desperation and/or extreme need to have that illegal item? I don't see it.

 

[lobotomybeats]

i would put my whole sneaker collection on da line, thats how CONFIDENT i am that obama would've said something about anti gun legislation RIGHT AT THAT VIGIL

had he felt he had enough support to pass legislation.

Bloomberg been flapping his gums about guns before, DURING, and AFTER da tragedy.

There is a HUGE difference between Bloomberg, a mayor, and Obama, the President.

 

[SoleByThePound]

People will really sacrifice arms for security .

It's scary how much some people are willing to sacrifice for a false sense of security.

 

[-Red-]

In 2009, of the 13,636 homicides that occurred in the United States, 9,146 were committed with a firearm. More than two out of every three homicides. You know how many were committed with explosives? Two. Not 2%, two total. Or .01%. So much for your bomb "argument."
Or wait, are you saying that if guns weren't available to the people who killed those 9,146 people using guns that each and every one of those homicides would still have occurred, the only difference is that people would have used different means for doing so? Like making homemade bombs and throwing them at people? Please tell me that's not what you're arguing...

As stated previously, I used the bomb making as ONE example. Obviously there are other means in inflicting harm on someone, right?

Nobody is smart enough to predict if those homicides would've been mitigated, or even if more fatalities would've occurred with or without guns. I bet the people in favor of the War on Drugs had the same thinking as you. "Well, if we just make x,y,z illegal it will be harder to get and thus crime rates will go down." meanwhile the opposite has occurred.

It's pretty clear to anyone with any semblance of common sense that there would be far less homicides in this country if guns weren't readily available to basically any and everyone. It is asinine to think or speculate or play the "no one knows for sure" card in this situation.

On another note, drug prohibition and gun control are two entirely different things. The violence associated with the drug trade has been facilitated directly through the astounding availability and accessibility of firearms in this country. So your argument is invalid.

I'm not at all a fan of the "War on Drugs" but this is a completely and utterly different issue and is not comparable...

 

[-Red-]

People will really sacrifice arms for security .

It's scary how much some people are willing to sacrifice for a false sense of security.

Indeed, it is. So many people are willing to sacrifice thousands of lives every year, lives that have been snuffed out by gun violence, in order to protect the false sense of security that comes with owning a firearm. Scary, indeed...

 

[Rootin4EverybodyBlack]

Indeed, it is. So many people are willing to sacrifice thousands of lives every year, lives that have been snuffed out by gun violence, in order to protect the false sense of security that comes with owning a firearm. Scary, indeed...

Word.

Nobody in here is even proposing a ban on all firearms, just military style assault weapons that NOBODY needs.

I've been in a number of different situations, from the hood to the 'burbs and there's NEVER been a second in my life I've said "damn, I wish I had a AR-15 right now".

 

[pepperjackchees]

Are there guns where you have to reload after every shot? I think those are the only ones that should be allowed.

 

[shoelyesses]

I understand that these instances are rare, but try telling those numbers to these families in Columbine or Sandy Hook or any of the other places it has happened.
Those odds are also MUCH higher than any other 1st world country around the globe I'd bet.
Lightining strikes you can't do anything about, most drownings in bathtubs are ACCIDENTS, most people getting shot by police are criminals (obviously there are innocent people as well but more often they are criminals), people getting executed by the government are on death row likely for murder or other horrendous crimes. All states don't even have the death penalty so that is a useless statistic.
ALL schools across the country are susceptible to something like this. I would hope the odds of an innocent child trying to learn and being shot up would be significantly lower than a person who committed murder and is serving life in prison or waiting to be executed or other accidental incidents like drowning in bathtubs....ain't nothing accidental about school shootings, and we'd have even more problems in American society than we do today if the likelihood of that were closer to some of the other things they described.
Actual useful numbers to me would have been how much more likely is a child or student to be killed by a gunman in school in America vs the rest of the world.....then we'd see some stats that show we have a problem here.
EDIT: And I looked at the twitter account linking to the facebook post made by "Libertymaniacs"....they really posted that the DAY OF the shooting...thats really not the time for something like that imo.

so like i stated this isnt about violence... nor is it about gun violence, its simply about trying to curb/prevent gun violence that occurs in certain areas, in certain environments, in areas with a certain group/race of ppl. I stated earlier the % of gun violence, illegal vs. legal, and cases instances like this. And all ppl keep saying is oh well since we dont think, dont care, or think its impossible to come with resolutions for gun violence in general, lets try to solve the issue of gun violence that hardly occur, in certain areas, in certain environments, to certain groups/race of people.

Cause all the answers ppl have given have specifically address only this facet of gun violence. So based on roughly thosands of comments in this thread... it comes across as we need to come up with preventive measures to ensure small, homely, appear to be innocent and quaint, small town sectors, predominate white, dont experience an already low very low % of murders do to firearms...

 

[andee]

People will really sacrifice arms for security .

Aren't you the same dude who is so concerned about violence in the black community?

 

[fraij da 5 11]

I don't own a gun... I'm good.

 

[deleted]

I'm so ******g sick of the media man.