"Killers of Children" by Richard Sale

 

"A murder is always the work of a violent, irritable self-will working in perverse directions from the bulk of ordinary, hard working, persevering human beings. A killing embodies the principle of hostility. It has its roots a disease of self-exultation that ridicules efforts and the stature of ordinary humans and disdains their welfare. Killers have had no sound notion of anything. They look down on all others because of their fictitious merits which leads them to believe that they are superior to anyone else on Earth. Killers have no honest or reliable way of measuring values. The ones I knew had crude, coarse, repulsive personalities that looked at ordinary people with no aerial perspective. By narrowing their views and shrinking their capacity for sympathy, killers build a structure in which their figure towers above everybody else. They have no common humanity. Besides them, there is nothing. They are diseased dwarfs that think themselves as mighty and as invulnerable as Everest." continue reading this piece by  Richard Sale

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Comments

[euclidcreek]

Thank you for this essay, it is helpful in clarifying events that are so hard to understand.

[Clifford Kiracofe]

This is a useful 2002 Report by the US Secret Service and Dept of Education on School Violence.
http://www.secretservice.gov/ntac/ssi_final_report.pdf

The issue is not gun control. In this case, the deranged boy's mother appears to have legally owned the weapons and legally collected firearms of various kinds.

[Mj]

OK, it's not about gun control and everyone know it's our god-given right to own 223 bushmasters.

[turcopolier]

MJ

That is just nonsense. The .223 Bushmaster is just another hunting, self defense, and target rifle and it was not used in this crime. pl

[Mj]

“This is a very devastating set of injuries,” said Dr. H. Wayne Carver II, the chief medical examiner for the state. He said that it appeared that all of the children had been killed by a long rifle that the gunman was carrying, one of several weapons police recovered from the school.

[Mj]

Which part is nonsense, the god part?

[turcopolier]

MJ

Come on! You are an old soldier. You know that these poor children could be killed with any sort of weapon. What do you want? pl

[Mj]

I don't no sir. To just take things the way they are? Say nothing can be done? Listen to people like Huckabee? I don't know.

[John Minnerath]

I'm sure MJ wants some one to agree with him that a Bushmaster rifle somehow had some ulterior meaning in this tragic affair. I'm sure he thinks they must be evil.
It does seem that this guy was in fact carrying that rifle in the school according to recent reporting, but with all the understandable confusion surrounding the event could change yet again.
An horrific thing to happen and I think illustrates again just how difficult it can be to know when and why a person will go over the edge.

[Mj]

Baloney. I don't give a damn who agrees or doesn't agree with me. I carried an M-14 in Korea and an M-16 in Vietnam, don't put words in my mouth.

[turcopolier]

MJ

Nobody is disputing your creds. IMO we need to find out what happend here before we offer an opinion as to correctives. pl

[John Minnerath]

Sorry, your first comment left me questioning your motive.

[Mj]

I agree, it took a long while for the real story of Columbine to come out. Here's what interests me. You are a soldier, scholar and gun enthusiast. I don't think for a minute you are not as impacted by this as anyone else. People with your credibility are going to have to be part of any effort to address this problem in our country.

[Joe]

I would bet the pharmaceutical industry is to blame. Non of the data in any of these mass murderers drug usage is disclosed. Many of your psychiatric drugs have severe affects on individuals. Some commit suicide others mass murder.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhO0Pul_FcE&feature=youtu.be

[Clifford Kiracofe]

Here is some data on "Youth Violence" which is an overlapping category with "School Violence."

CDC:
http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/youthviolence/index.html

Johns Hopkins:
http://www.jhsph.edu/research/centers-and-institutes/center-for-prevention-of-youth-violence/

Surgeon Generals Report on Youth Violence
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK44294/

School violence/youth violence is not a new issue.

In the Columbine mass murder case, one of the young shooters autopsy revealed theraputic doses of prescription mood control drugs, I forget which. What drugs might this deranged boy have been taking to make him feel more comfortable or even nothing when doing this? There are a lot of factors here that hopefully law enforcement will soon clarify. Connecticut law enforcement has handled this tragic case with great professionalism. and the FBI seems to be all over the case as well in several states. So we should have a better picture soon enough.

Why should a deranged boy's evil action result in the loss of Second Amendment freedoms for over 300 million US citizens in the ensuing hysteria?

[Bobby Murray]

God bless us all.

[Clifford Kiracofe]

A profile is emerging on the boy. He is said to be into "Goth" alternative culture and heavily into violent video gaming.

On the "Goth" youth subculture see Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goth_subculture

On Goth music/death metal music scene:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gothic_metal_bands

This is a similar pattern to the Columbine shooters. Also, the Virginia Tech shooter was said to have been into violent video games.

Press reports say the boy's mother took the kids target shooting. Thus, he had some practical shooting skills which combined with a deranged mind produced a tragic result.

"Catherine Urso, who was attending a vigil Friday evening in Newtown, Connecticut, said her college-age son knew the killer and remembered him for his alternative style.

“He just said he was very thin, very remote and was one of the goths,” she
said.
Adam Lanza belonged to a technology club at Newtown High School that held computer gaming parties."
Read more: Catherine Urso, who was attending a vigil Friday evening in Newtown, Connecticut, said her college-age son knew the killer and remembered him for his alternative style.

“He just said he was very thin, very remote and was one of the goths,” she
said.
Adam Lanza belonged to a technology club at Newtown High School that held computer gaming parties.
Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4699332/newtown-school-gunman-adam-lanza-a-loner.html#ixzz2FAtJp2Gf

"Adam Lanza, like many young boys of his generation, collected Pokemon cards and played violent PlayStation video games like Dynasty Warriors, where animated characters waged brutal battles with an array of weapons"

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/conn-gunman-learned-shoot-mom-article-1.1220893#ixzz2FAuga7lZ

[Fred]

Thanks for posting this. Definitely sobering. I hope it gets more press than Huckabee's comments.

[Babak Makkinejad]

All:

List of rampage killers: School massacres in US and elsewhere

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers:_School_massacres

List of rampage killers: (excludes schools)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers#School_massacres

[The Twisted Genius]

I know we had a discussion like this after an earlier such tragedy. I and a few others thought that a much more effective mental health system would be a big part of any solution. I still believe that.

Huckabee's solution of more discussion of religion and citizenship in the schools is not the answer. I attended a school in Connecticut that made a concerted and successful effort to embue us with the values of responsible citizenship and community. We still produced the perpetrator of the worst mass murder in the history of Connecticut… until two days ago. I knew him. I fought him. I came to an understanding with him. Years later he killed nine people with a tire iron and fire.

Gun control is not the answer. Owning a firearm in Connecticut requires enduring a rigorous and thorough procedure that includes a police check, FBI check and a waiting period. The weapons used at Sandy Hook were obtained legally. The mother was a firearms enthusiast who brought her son to the range. Perhaps the mother used this range time in an attempt to reach out to her disturbed son. Maybe it helped. Maybe it hurt. I don't know.

Lack of money did not prevent effective treatment of the murderer. The family was loaded. Were the parents aware of the probable autistic disorder of their son? Did anyone in the community make an educated effort to treat him? Again, I don't know. I do know that it takes courage and superhuman effort to confront autistic disorders in the family. And it takes competent professional help to have any chance at a good outcome. An effective program to protect our children and young adults and to educate us all would be skilled manpower intensive and expensive. To address this challenge we would need a "we choose the moon" national effort. I don't think our present society is up to the task and our politicians aren't even close to being up to this task.

[turcopolier]

mj
I am not a "gun enthusiast." I do own a few guns and will continue to do so. This issue is largely political. I refer ant-gun rights "enthusiasts" to Federalist # 46. If BHO wishes to break his teeth on an issue, this would be a likely candidate. pl

[Bill Wade]

My then 14 year old grandson (he's 15 now) was arrested in Tampa about 5 months ago, along with 3 other kids, for the crime of being in the backyard of an abandoned house with a grapefruit tree, they were throwing grapefruits at each other. He pled guilty to trespassing and was sentenced to 6 months of probation which mandated he be in his home from 7PM until school the next morning. He'd rather be outside playing but he's stuck in his home for now, one month to go. He's 6 feet tall, weighs about 170 or so and looks like a linebacker or, "scary". I doubt he'll ever kill anyone but is thinking about joining the Marines. There really isn't any justice.

[Medicine Man]

This breaks my heart too, because the vast majority of kids who are into the things you mention above are not spree murderers. Nevertheless, there will be blowback on those who fit the profile, just like after Columbine.

[Clifford Kiracofe]

Yes, school violence and youth violence require a major national effort. The USG studies I posted indicate that there is awareness of the issues and that the issues have received considerable analysis.

But these issues have not been made a national priority and so funded.

Our national priority has been intervention in the Middle East and we have spent an estimated $5 trillion (by 2020) on the Iraq and Afghan wars. Our national priority is to defend Israel and to engage in imperial wars. Meanwhile, our country is falling apart as to infrastructure and much else.

Already the response to this tragic event by the press and politicians is "gun control". But the issues are "school violence" and "youth violence" as USG studies already demonstrate.

These issues fall into a broader "public health" category as well as into the law enforcement category.

[Clifford Kiracofe]

An analysis of the historical context of the right to bear arms by the US Senate Judiciary Committee:

"The right to keep and bear arms as a part of English and American law antedates not only the Constitution, but also the discovery of firearms. Under the laws of Alfred the Great, whose reign began in 872 A. D., all English citizens from the nobility to the peasants were obliged to privately purchase weapons and be available for military duty.1 This was in sharp contrast to the feudal system as it evolved in Europe, under which armament and military duties were concentrated in the nobility. The body of armed citizens were known as the "fyrd".

While a great many of the Saxon rights were abridged following the Norman conquest, the right and duty of arms possession was retained. Under the Assize of Arms of 1181, "the whole community of freemen" between the ages of 15 and 40 were required by law to possess certain arms, which were arranged in proportion to their possessions.2 They were required twice a year to demonstrate to Royal Officials that they were appropriately armed. In 1253, another Assize of Arms expanded the duty of armament to include not only freeman, but also villeins, who were the English equivalent of serfs. Now all "citizens, burgesses, free tenants, villeins and others from 15 to 60 years of age" were obliged to be armed.3 While on the Continent the villeins were regarded as little more than animals hungering for rebellion, the English legal system not only permitted, but affirmatively required them, to be armed...."
http://www.constitution.org/mil/rkba1982.htm

Why should the evil actions of a deranged boy vitiate the Consitutional rights of over 300 million citizens of this Republic?