Arming School Teachers: Trump's Dumbest Idea Dumber As He Doubled Down

 What an NRA whore - president looks like.

"The proposal to arm teachers is a sign of civilizational failure."  - Jeffrey Goldberg, Editor of The Atlantic

On watching Trump's recent photo op at the White House - where he's listening to the victims of school shootings, including those who lost friends or relatives at Stoneman Douglas last week  -  it was easy to be teased into thinking this POS would actually do something. That hope was dashed yesterday when he recycled the wacko idea of arming hundreds of thousands of  teachers, a  fool's errand properly shot down by most of those at the listening session.  This A-hole is actually contemplating finding funds to "train and arm one million teachers."

At the White House press briefing on Thursday afternoon, Raj Shah, deputy press secretary, was asked if it was practical to expect teachers to carry concealed handguns to protect their students from shooters.  The half wit imp replied:

“When you have a horrific situation, what you think and do not think is practical can change,” Shah said.

Proving neither he nor anyone else in the Trump White House has the mental capacity to do a full practical thinking exercise on likely outcomes. They just blow this effluent out their asses and believe it's a solution.

Two major teachers’ unions rightly expressed shock and skepticism that any such plan could be feasible or effective.

On Thursday, Trump tweeted: “20% of teachers, a lot, would now be able to … immediately fire back if a savage sicko came to a school with bad intentions. Highly trained teachers would also serve as a deterrent to the cowards that do this.  They know they come into our schools they're gonna be dead."

Dead? THEY'RE going to be dead? "THEY" having possession of a military assault weapon that can unleash 30 rounds in a couple minutes facing off against a likely female teacher (76 % of teachers are female) with only a standard handgun? Are you out of your effing mind?   What? Are you taking LSD and coke with your MickeyD burgers at night?

This is a fantasy that in the olden days, (1950s) - growing up in Milwaukee -  we'd call beer talk.  Big talk from some loopy guy too tanked up on fifteen Schlitz beers to even walk a straight line, but able to spout bollocks.

Let's put it more bluntly in case any starry eyed, wannabe gun heroes think this is a grand idea.  That arming 20 or 40 percent of teachers at each school means no bad guy in his right mind would want to take any chances in that school. Just like the would be burglar who spots a "Beware of the Dog" sign in a front yard and figures it's best to go try the next place.

For Trump, low IQ ignoramus that he is, it's all very simple:  "The teacher's there with the gun - concealed carry of course - then pulls it out and shoots the guy."

But this is fantasy bullshit and ignores the fact that an armed deputy was actually just outside of Bldg. 12 at Stoneman Douglas High while the AR-15 was firing.  As teacher Sean Simpson put it: "Armed with only a handgun he'd have been a fool to confront the madman with an AR-15".

He's correct.   This explains why the school deputy (Scot Peterson)  didn't step toward the firing scene  for a full four minutes.  This was according to Sheriff Scott Israel - who also, by the way -  doesn't believe it's a capital idea to have armed teachers, e.g.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/375003-florida-sheriff-comes-out-against-arming-teachers-teachers


Excerpt:

“I don't believe teachers should be armed. I believe teachers should teach,” Israel said.

Adding:

“But that's exactly what's wrong with this country. We have people in Washington, D.C., representatives, senators and legislators telling teachers what they should do without asking teachers, 'what do you want to do?"

He also went on to say no 18 year old should be able to purchase such a weapon, and their numbers - the AR-15s and dozens of other assault models- need to be controlled.  As he put it, "when you keep doing the same thing over and over and it doesn't work, that's insanity"

I do hope all the "gunnies" that quoted Israel before in a different context also take time to quote him now, because he is spot on correct. It is not a teacher's place to carry a concealed weapon, for potential use against a far better armed active shooter  who in most cases will be using a military assault rifle like an AR-15. Besides, as Columbine teacher Paula Reid put it when interviewed on MSNBC two nights ago: "If a troubled student knows that I'm armed - because I don't wear those clothes that make concealed carry easy - he can literally take my weapon away and use it against others."

Good point, and this could even apply to an alleged "trained teacher."

Now, let's get more into the  fine details of why arming 700,000 odd teachers is a dumbo idea, although it might sound plausible and do-able to those who entertain fantasies a la the vigilante Paul Kersey - in the movie  "Death Wish".

Start with the fact that if a trained school deputy armed with only a handgun didn't feel competent  to take on the shooter, why the hell would a teacher? Especially if an assault rifle -armed shooter already has the advantage in being able to empty a whole magazine before you're likely to get the safety off  your handgun.  If deputy  Scot Peterson didn't feel able to  take on Nikolas Cruz what would make anyone believe a teacher could?

That deputy likely didn't respond because he heard the rapid shots fired and the screams as he visualized the carnage It paralyzed him and I promise it would be no different for an educator forced to suddenly take on the fantasy role of "Rambo" with an inadequate weapon.

Could a well -trained teacher armed with only a handgun bring down the bad guy with an AR-15?  Uh, yeah, IF..... the time is available to stand there and aim his-her handgun at the shooter.....

AND.... the shooter obliges by standing there frozen like a deer in the headlights,  allowing the teacher to do it.   In addition, the shooter - even if standing still as a statue - would have to further  cooperate by deciding not to fire his assault weapon at the teacher with the handgun.

Pause now, collect your breath, and seriously tell me how you rate the probabilities for any of these to materialize.  Let's also add for completeness, that even if all these conditions are met, the teacher would have to have a clear firing line - no students in the intervening space.  Ideally, this would have to take place outside in a hallway, not inside a classroom where any number of students could become collateral damage.

Hell, the teacher herself - if holding a gun - can become collateral damage if law enforcement rushes onto the scene, guns drawn, and spots her as the only one wielding a weapon. As security specialist Malcolm Nance noted, given law enforcement officers are trained to react at the first sign of danger, the teacher would be shot on the spot.  He emphasized all the loopy nonsense about arming teachers omits a key factor in any confrontation: target identification, which can become damned difficult amidst chaos and gunfire.

When you dissect the scenario the notion of arming teachers it clearly doesn't appear so easy or straightforward.  But see, simple minds, e.g. simpletons like  Dotard Donnie Trump, always imagine an ideal scenario for their fantasy to unfold. Say like placing their handgun hero in hallways in a school, to take down a suicidal shooter .

Even given these hare- brained fantasies,  there  is another fact the Trumptard purveyors of this idiocy don't want you to know: most bullets fired by even trained police officers miss their targets.  The most frequent reason is the target isn't cooperating with being shot, he's on the move and maybe firing his own weapon.

One more thing, there is NO  - I repeat NO form of training -  that replicates the experience of going up against a real assault weapon that has already blown off the faces, arms, and legs of kids who were alive just minutes ago. There is no freaking training that duplicates the emotional, psychological experience that a teacher would encounter in an actual bloodbath scenario that is rapidly unfolding and in which the shooter has every advantage with his assault rifle.  And what pray tell does the teacher do -  now confronted with the shooter -  who's already killed his students while the teacher himself is only armed with a handgun? (Note here for another set of fools: Even a Glock 9mm would be no match against an AR-15, and oh btw, I seriously doubt Trump and his gov't will cough up the $ for 700,000 Glocks!)

I'll give you one clue: it doesn't end well for the teacher.  Indeed, the deputy armed with only a handgun at Stoneman Douglas may have processed the same, which is why he didn't engage the shooter, Nikolas Cruz. And make no mistake, no teacher this side of reality is going to be more accurate than a trained deputy or policeman will.

Idiot Trump meanwhile, with his demented fantasies, would put teachers in the position of  using a handgun under unimaginable pressure and possibly killing one or more of their own students in the process by mistake.  Oh, and do you believe if there are accidental killings of a teacher's students, the Trumptard government will rush to pay off liabilities? If so you are eating way more MJ candy than the users here in Colorado.

This is what you find when the bullshit is stripped away from these imbecilic armed teacher fantasies. Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers union said in a statement: “Anyone who wants guns in schools has no understanding of what goes on inside them – or worse, doesn’t care.”

To top off yesterday's bravura performance of idiocy and ideology there was NRA honcho Wayne LaPierre squawking at CPAC about "losing liberty" and accusing the activist students and teachers, parents of exploiting the tragedy. This foul piece of ambulatory excrement barked:

"What they want are more restrictions on the law abiding. Think about that. Their solution is to make all of you less free."

Of course, he's a total moron as well as ideologue. He is also totally ignorant of 2nd amendment limits, which I cited before in the case of District of Columbia vs. Heller, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2018/02/sorry-you-have-no-constitutional-right.html

This case and Scalia's ruling makes it abundantly clear there is no unregulated, 2nd amendment right to own any assault type weapon. No one's "freedom" depends on it, and as Stoneman teacher Sean Simpson put it:   "That's absolutely stupid to believe you and some neighbors  armed with AR-15s could even handle a battle ready company with machine gun choppers, tanks, and RPGs firing!"

The Right's screechy ideologues - like LaPierre -  also appear more obsessed about "crazies" and "Baker acting" them than the facts.Which are that not all active shooters are crazy, just mad - as in angry enough to get an assault weapon and exact vengeance. Thus, the Columbine killers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, weren't sick or crazy just enraged after months being bullied by the school's football jocks who also took turns stuffing them into lockers and dipping their heads into toilet bowls. (This,according to one of Harris' few pals interviewed on a '60 Minutes'  episode.).  Andrew Carneal, who carried out the West Paducah, KY school shooting,  also wasn't nuts. He was just tired of being forced to run a daily gauntlet which entailed being smacked on the head with King James Bibles by hyper  Xtian classmates..

While WSJ  resident right wing harpy Kimberley Strassel, predictably wailed today (p. A11) about Democrats "willing to capitalize on dead teens" and "empty posturing"  she said nary a word about the one thing that can change the equation: doing what Australia did after the Port Arthur tourist massacre in 1996. To jog memories, the Aussies banned all automatic and semiautomatic weapons and adopted new, more rigorous licensing requirements. They also bought back and destroyed more than 600,000 civilian owned firearms of the military -style, most lethal type. Result?  Incidents in which a gunman killed 5 or more dropped from 13 in the 18-year period before 1996 to zero after. As I said before the proof is in the pudding. It's a cliche but it applies here.

Meanwhile, Donnie Dotard doubles down on this screwball solution (something only a screwball dope would do given 2 x a bad idea doesn't make it better) and  calls the NRA lobby "patriots" when the only thing patriotic they want to do is make as much money as possible for the corporate weapons industry -which is why both the NRA and Dotard love the idea of arming teachers. It adds millions more gun sales to the profit margins..

See:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/kali-holloway/77917/is-the-armed-teacher-debate-americas-lowest-stupidest-media-moment

Update (2/26):

"For him to insert himself into that grief, that if only Trump were there your child would have been safe, is totally vile.  Using this ugly fantasy -  in my view -  is such a vile violation of the grieving that's going on in Florida. This is something of which only Donald Trump is capable."
-  Lawrence O'Donnell on 'Last Word'

"He's  afraid of life, afraid of sharks, afraid of blood....  He's always trying to be the hero, but he never can, because he isn't made of  stuff. He's an empty, damaged soul and a coward at heart. We don't ask him as president to run unarmed into a building with an active shooter, but to do his damned job and govern!"  - Jennifer Rubin on 'Last Word'


In another boffo display of idiocy and braggadocio - bravado, Trump insisted at a meeting with governors today that if he'd been on the premises of that school shooting he'd have barged in -even without a weapon - and taken the shooter on.  See e,g,

https://www.salon.com/2018/02/26/trump-claims-he-would-have-fought-off-parkland-shooter-without-weapon/

Can anyone say "dead man walking"?  Because that is what this asshole would have been - and likely with about 15 AR -driven holes - compliments of Nikolas Cruz. That's assuming he' d actually have attempted such an obvious (to sane people) suicide mission. Which, when you strip away the beer talk  and grasp Dotard's MO, was simply intended to shame the deputy (Scot Peterson) and any others who may have been on the scene but didn't place themselves in the line of fire of bullets traveling at 2800 ft/ sec. .  Indeed, he prefaced his bold claim by saying about the Broward deputies  "those guys weren't exactly medal of honor winners".  This from a POS who used bone spurs to secure 5 deferments from military service in the Vietnam era.

In other words what Donnie Dotard would REALLY have done is maybe approached within 20 yards  of Bldg. 12 at Stoneman Douglas, then -  on hearing the deafening rounds  - pissed his panties, then shit them up before running away at lightning speed.   Don't believe me? Then reference these comments made about himself in a Howard Stern interview:

"I'm not good for medical stuff, you know. So in other words, like if you cut your finger and there's blood pouring out...I'm like gone."

Wowser! Big, fuckin' tough guy hero to be!  See, e.g.

• That time Trump watched a man bleed to death and did nothing but run away
  

See also:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/23/opinion/brian-mast-assault-weapons-ban.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region


And:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/feb/22/wayne-la-pierre-nra-cpac-hate-bingo

And:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-c-koehler/77849/the-cheapening-of-human-life

Should An Author Be Held Responsible For Mass Shootings?

The news (New York Times, Sunday, p. 1) that the 18-year old German -Iranian mass shooter was in possession of the book, 'Why Kids Kill: Inside The Minds Of Mass Shooters', has again triggered questions of whether the author (Peter Langman) must somehow share responsibility.   The perpetrator in Munich, like the Columbine killers he idolized, evidently was bullied like they were and also suffered from depression.

Like the psychotic Colorado killer Karl Pierson, German authorities in Munich found the gunman had been bullied, and seemed to have few friends. No link to religious extremism or Islamic State zealots have been found.

Alas, the book by Langman was also found in the possession of Arapahoe High School student Karl Pierson, an honor student who shot to death a fellow student, Claire Davis. Pierson barged into the school hallway armed with a shotgun and Molotov cocktails. He was angry and looking for a debate coach with whom he wished to settle a score.  He fired a blast that struck Claire in the face at point blank range and sent her into a coma, dying after lingering unconscious for a week. Friends and family prayed that she'd come out of it - but that didn't happen..  Pierson wrote in his diary that he was psychopathic with a superiority complex.  According to author Langman: “I think he was right and correctly identified himself as a psychopathic personality from my book.”

However, is a coincidental profiling of oneself from the subject matter of a book on mass shooters  enough to impute blame to the author? Probably not. And Langman himself has made it clear he gave absolutely no details concerning techniques or strategy, nor did he deliver gory details.
 

But this may not matter in the end, because a certain niche of intelligent potential shooters can become obsessed and ensnared with their own divergent psychological manifestations. Then  - with self diagnosis - these misfits often end up analogizing themselves to Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, the infamous Columbine killers.
 

In a Mother Jones analysis of Langman's book from 2012, it appeared that many school shooters had become mesmerized by the story of Klebold and Harris. The Colorado duo's violent actions then formed the template for dozens of subsequent shootings. In particular, the pair's sense of isolation, plus the relentless bullying they endured from the jocks at Columbine High School. Add in their single-minded objective to deliver payback to those who they believed tortured them and the nefarious stage was set.
 

Thus, the MJ conclusion was that this template might be taken to heart by others, even if no particular strategies were given, or gory details.  But Langman himself has downplayed the bullying aspect though he wasn't specific on causes, noting in a UK Guardian piece (7/23):

“Sometimes there’s a revenge factor. Sometimes they are full of rage and lashing out against the world.  Sometimes they are wanting to make a name for themselves. As a nobody, they see the only way to be a somebody is get international recognition for killing people.”
 

Well, the inverted fame may also be a part, but it could also be that certain beliefs arising from the Columbine template are also in play. Also there is no gainsaying the fact that since Columbine the two killers have emerged as the "anti-heroes" of a misshapen death cult that idolizes the pair. The MJ  article noted other mass killers have been obsessed with the Columbine attack, drawing on a wealth of information in books and movies, fan websites dedicated to the shooters, and even a Broadway show. 

In this super-heated environment of self-absorption and  lunacy a single author can hardly be blamed for the dastardly acts of a series of misfits entranced by Columbine's killers.

Sue Klebold - Dylan's mother -  has even said she still receives mail from young women across the country professing their love for her son.  Twisted? For sure, but again if true - and there's no reason to doubt Mrs. Klebold - it might also help explain the ongoing demented fascination with the whole Columbine incident and why its infectious memes continue to generate offshoot killings. As for Mrs. Klebold, in her recent book  A Mother’s Reckoning,  she leans to the idea her son suffered from a "brain disease"

An alternative explanation has been advanced by Tahir Rahman, a forensic psychiatrist at University of Missouri. In his recent paper he argues for the need to examine "the extreme overvalued belief"  This term was coined originally by Carl Wernicke, a German neuropsychiatrist. He used it to describe ideas that dominate a person's mind causing non-delusional but extreme behaviors. Anorexia nervosa has been cited as one example in which extreme beliefs of body image dominate minds. (To the point of starvation.).

The same can be said for racists, anti-Semites, anti-Muslims,  psychotic anti-liberals or any person gripped with hatred toward a target group. (Often because of his own lack of adequate information, knowledge).  Most don't act out in violence, reach for an AR-15 and shoot twenty people. But those who become fixated on the misshapen justification of their hate can and do.  Thus, we beheld the demented Orlando mass shooter acting out his overvalued ideas, just as we also saw  the confused, alienated teen in Munich doing the same. .


The danger of all such overvalued beliefs is their propensity to become amplified by the possessor,  fulminating in the mind until the beliefs dominate. For example, the belief that Obama is a Muslim and is guilty of aiding the cause of radical Islam in some weird way.  It is difficult to deal with these people because their beliefs are magnified out of rational proportions, and tied to emotional over-investment. This disposition is also associated with an abnormal personality, e.g. the schizoid type or submerged personality manifested by James Holmes. .

As an example, Eric Harris idolized Hitler, and felt the human race was totally worthless. Being a hostage to such beliefs, then having them confirmed by being picked on by jocks, led him to conclude the only solution was to annihilate as many fellow students as possible.  This led to joining forces with Dylan Klebold to kill 13 and injure dozens more on Hitler's birthday (April 20) in 1999.

The danger of Trumpism now is sowing many more minds with such hateful, overvalued beliefs, in this case centering on white superiority and ridding the nation of immigrants, gays, and liberals ("libtards").   This morning, while grabbing a quick breakfast at McDonald's I even overheard three local wingnuts complaining loudly about no American flags seen at the DNC. One said: "What do you expect from these Muslim lovers? And they haven't even mentioned the word 'Isis' yet!"  Another fed into the first guy's overvalued idea by asserting: "Yeah, and they have a fence all around their Convention center but don't want Trump to build a wall!"

Could I have interjected reason with these guys? Not likely! Short of a brain transplant I'd have had no more success than trying to convince a denier like Kort Patterson of the reality of man-made global warming.  Reason and evidence simply play no role for the brain committed to an overvalued idea.

Hillary Clinton clearly has her serious defects  and disadvantages but may be the only "antidote"  to preventing a nation based on extreme overvalued beliefs. Kind of like using the toxins delivered via chemotherapy to eliminate a cancer.

Or, mayhap we need a "political physician" as Jill Stein describes herself, to clean house of these nasty overvalued, extreme memes warping the minds of so many of our citizens. People might wish to watch Dr. Stein's extemp speech to Sanders and other supporters outside the Wells Fargo center, e.g.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTG67z0yUag


See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/dave-lindorff/68284/no-sociopaths-in-the-white-house-i-m-with-jill-stein

Jo-Kar and Tammy: A Case of Macho-ism Run Amuck

As the pundits mull and chew over the background of the two Boston bombers, the younger one now captured, their range of theories have spread far and wide. They may be Chechen Terrorists, taking their grudge match with the Russkies to our shores now. They are radical Islamic crazies, probably with some yet unknown ties to al Qaida.

I have an even simpler hypothesis: they were losers (as their Uncle Ruslan noted) who were overtaken by hyper-Macho bravado. My hypothesis, which I will elaborate on in this post, names the older bro, Tamerlan, as the one most infected who then managed to bully Dzhokhar ('Jo-Kar') to follow him into perdition and infamy- likely by insulting his manhood.


So how did this happen? From the stream of news yesterday, we learn Tamerlan arrived in the U.S. from Kyrgyzstan sometime in 2005. He got married, had a child and then saw hell making friends and keeping a job. As some commentators have noted, one of his oft-proclaimed sayings was “I can’t make any American friends!”

Of course, cultural differences may have been operating, and let’s face it, it’s much more difficult to integrate into a foreign culture at the age of 18, 19 or 20 than it is at the age of 8 -when his brother Dzhokhar arrived. Not surprisingly, Dzhokhar appeared to integrate well, attending American public high schools as he made many friends – a number of whom described him as a ‘great, friendly guy’ on yesterday’s ‘Good Morning America’. They also noted how he apparently won a scholarship at his high school.

Getting back to ‘Tammy’:

In 2011, he traveled to Russia where he remained for six months. We don’t yet know the details of his stay there, who he contacted or what was discussed. But there’s a good bet he may have met with radical Chechens who turned him towards a violent outlook and possible mayhem as an alternative to being emasculated (in his mind) as an unemployed, stay-at- home dad. Now, are some Chechens radical Islamists? Yesssss…..but not all are, and let’s bear in mind the Chechen independence battles have been going on for more than 300 years. My point is that we mustn’t let possible tenuous Islamic connections distract us in interpreting the Tsarnaev brothers deeds.  So we do not want to inflate them,  as the Right Wing media have already displayed a penchant to do, see e.g.
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/eric-boehlert/49166/boston-and-the-right-wing-medias-collapse
and:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/max-blumenthal/49150/far-right-shock-jock-michael-savage-concocts-conspiracy-blaming-muslims-for-boston-bombing-and-the-g

Clearly, the Right has a bug up its ass and likely also a boner to turn this into another frothing Benghazi investigation.


So, ‘Tammy’ returns to the U.S. after his Russian 6-month sojourn and feels pumped, more manly and determined to make a stand to confirm his masculine bona fides. In his disturbed mind, what better way to do it than a quasi-terror attack? However, he wants to recruit his younger brother since he doesn’t want to be later designated as a “lone wolf”. To him, the term is dismissive and reduces his macho stature. Much better to be in league with another conspirator and who better than Dzhokhar, 7 years his junior? Besides, the “limp wristed” little wuss needed to grow up and be a MAN! He’d been coddled and pussified in the American cocoon his whole life, now was the time to man up!

Tammy envisaged the putative attack conceived in his febrile brain as a way to ensure the younger brother’s coming of age.  Also, a way to eradicate some of his latent Americanization .

When the plan is first bruited, Dzhokhar would have expressed shock and objected strenuously. “WHY ME? I’m a second year med student! I have a scholarship! I’m happy!”

Tammy: “Tough shit! What are you, a sissy or a MAN? Our Chechnya is being plundered and you want to stay in your little girlie cocoon? It is time to MAN up, you little faggot!”

And so, not wanting to disappoint ‘Tammy’, Dzhokhar agrees to whatever fell plan is being laid. He cringes as Tammy explains the pressure cooker and pipe bombs they will build, wondering why this extreme is needed to prove manhood. Why must so many people be harmed?

Tammy is resolute: “It just has to be! This way we will get our names in the lights and be seen as MEN! Besides, we are fighting for Chechnya, little brother! You DO remember Chechnya, don't you?”


Is this too far out? Not at all. The commission of  mass mayhem, as a passage to "manhood", is a long standing meme.  It accounts for why many schizoid personalities, sociopaths and other dysfunctionals use it to hyperbolically claim what they can't otherwise, i.e. in more normal settings.  Insecure within themselves, they associate violence and physical brutality with manhood....which is also why so many American youth rush to join the military if the warmongers sound the notes of "patriotism" and "becoming a man" at the same time. Join the Peace Corps as a viable option? "Not on yer life! I wanna be a man and carry a big gun! "  Well, ok, just don't step on any mines or get in the way of IEDs! You'll really be tested waiting for that first disability check!

The Columbine killers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, in their diaries (including video), wailed and wrung hands for many months about how “balless” and “submissive” they felt being picked on by all the jocks at their High School. They conceived of a mass killing – which originally included bombs – to reclaim their stolen masculinity from the football jocks. They got their "manhood" all right - and it lasted all of maybe 3 hours. Now, they're dead and buried with it.

Twisted? Foolish? Nutso? All the above!

In the case of the 2 Boston bombers, two losers – one defined by an inability to assimilate into American society or make friends- coerced his more amicable younger sibling into his nefarious plans by exploiting male insecurity. It's an age-old tactic that works on everything from getting an ordinary punk kid (minus even any whiskers to shave) to join the Marines, to getting ordinary street kids and toughs to join a gang like the Crips or Bloods.

Major terrorists and part of some extended “Islamic” cell based in Chechnya? Doubtful! More like two-bit punks who resolved in the most pathetic and tragic way possible to spread fear, gain a brief notoriety and in so doing….grasp what they believed to be the touchstones of masculinity.

They were too browbeaten, brain-damaged or brainwashed to grasp that true masculinity doesn’t reside in how many people you kill, beat with bottles or baseball bats, or how long one spends fooling around with guns and bombs, but in how much one cares for and about others.

Many theories will be spun about these two characters in the days ahead, including the best way to get ‘JoKar’ to talk, but I don’t believe even if they water board him he’ll have much to say. In many respects, he went along for the ride, believing if he did so he’d impress brother Tamerlan and also show him he was as much a man as he was.

See also:
http://www.salon.com/2013/04/20/tsarnaevs_got_the_attention_they_wanted/

Time to Reel in the U.S. A. Gun Culture Zealots

The horrific tragedy in Aurora, Colorado this morning, leaving at least 12 dead and 58 wounded, stands beyond belief in the annals of state mayhem. Hundreds of people throng joyously into an Aurora Century 16 cinema, to see the midnight premier of 'The Dark Night Rises' only to be greeted by gunfire 25 minutes into the film. The shooter, evidently armed with two large  (0.40 cal) Glock automatic handguns, and a Smith and Wesson MP15 assault rifle, mowed down fleeing theater goers at will, as blood spattered all over the cinema floor. Many of those who survived did so not by fleeing (because the shooter waited for victims to bolt to the exit), but by lying low or playing dead between the seats.

We have seen such scenes play out before, as with the April, 1999 Columbine massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, barely 20 miles down the highway from Aurora. In the wake of that tragedy in which 12 were killed and more than a dozen injured, there emerged a faint hope that once and for all the zealots of U.S. gun culture would be brought to heel. But it was a mirage. Quickly, the NRA called its main meeting in Denver, featuring spokesman Charlton Heston who gave his usual full-throated cry: "You can pry this gun from my cold, dead hands!"

Then there was the Virginia Tech massacre, and again a hope emerged to contain the zany zealots of gun culture, but nothing was done. The NRA lobby once more exercised its powerful influence on our lawmakers, but as usual they capitulated. It doesn't take a lot to capitulate, even a passive failure to veto an onerous piece of legislation that promotes gun insanity. Case in point, the 2009 credit card bill (which reined in interest rates and fees) but for which a "rider" amendment was attached by the Repugs allowing people to carry weapons into National Parks. By all rights this perfidy ought to have been forthwith vetoed by Obama, but it was signed into law. An opportunity to send a message to the insane gun zealots had passed, message not received. Bring whatever guns you want, into National Parks! We believe in "the Second Amendment"! Horse manure!

Given such wimpishness in facing the gun lobby and its defenders it's little wonder we stand out as having so many massacres, such as Columbine, Virginia Tech and now Aurora.  It is evident that we are a nation that treats gun ownership, and by that I mean any kind, as more important than the lives of citizens. This perhaps is no surprise. Of all the nations on Earth, ours is the most lax in providing protection for citizen information, privacy. No wonder then we yearly suffer from a plague of not only identify theft, but serious incursions into our information and files. We don't even see a problem with the NSA setting up a monster 2 million square foot spy -atorium in Utah to spy on everything from Twitter messages, to cell phone texts to ....you name it.  Hey, it's "national security'"! In our best interests! If we don't protect citizens at this basic level, why protect their life and limbs from insane gun- toting nuts? Bottom line: our politicos are more worried about "politics" and how it'll play in Peoria, or Pensacola...than the national welfare.

Then, no surprise at the spate of record -setting wacko gun legislation in individual states,  such as we beheld in Florida-  implementing a reckless law known as "Stand your ground". This nutso law basically confers the right of ultimate self protection (as in being judge, jury and executioner rolled into one)  if a person feels or senses that his life is threatened. On this basis, we then beheld George Zimmerman acting "pre-emptively" to neutralize a vague threat that had become entrenched in his sense perceptions - triggering the fear circuits in his amygdala.

Zimmerman encountered Trayvon Martin  (a young black kid in a hoodie) passing through his gated Sanford, FL neighborhood - and suddenly felt his life threatened. He insists Martin threatened to kill him by planting some blows on his head so he had to act, but then insists it was "God's plan" that he did so. (In an interview with Sean Hannity). Sorry, Georgie, but you don't get to invoke "God's plan " when you off somebody!

Now, think of laws like this all over the nation (we also have one in Colorado called "Make my Day" after the famous catch phrase in the first 'Dirty Harry' flick - where you can shoot and kill anyone entering or already inside your home if you believe he poses a threat to your life) and the inevitable results. Those include the perception that retribution is only a carry permit away.

My point is that the ease with which extremist gun culture is dignified by legislation, makes it feasible that gun use is legitimized in the public square. Add then one more ingredient: a wacko with grudges galore - maybe against his wife or girlfriend, maybe against a thesis advisor or boss, or perhaps against his peers....or even against life....and you have the formula for mass tragedy as beheld at Columbine, High School, at Virginia Tech and now at Aurora.

We still don't know what the Aurora shooter (James Holmes)  back story is - other than he was supposedly pursuing a Ph.D. in neuroscience (if you can believe it), but we know the Columbine killers  - Eric Harris and Dylan Kliebold- had grievances saved up for two years against the entrenched "jock culture" at Columbine, and also against the students (mainly girls) who adored it, fawned over it. In their televised diary Harris and Kliebold frothed at the mouth at what they intended to do, and the vengeance they'd wreak against jocks and jock lovers. They were as good as their word.

The Virginia Tech killer, Seung -Hui Cho, who killed 32, had a similar laundry list of grievances against those who bullied him. Add to that a serious mental instability and purchasing a Glock 19 and Walther P22 with the ease of buying chocolate bars, and you had the formula for massacre. The refrain heard by the NRA puppets in the wake was the usual one: "Guns Don't Kill People! People Kill People!"  Yeah - nice try, but the part left out is that guns kill people more efficiently when used by people to kill other people.

If Harris, Kliebold or Cho had been limited to large knives, they'd never have wrought so MUCH carnage. Maybe five at most would have been killed before the perps were taken down. It was the availability of the automatic or semi-automatic weapons that conferred the massive kill numbers and kill -to-wounded ratio. Ditto in the case of the Century 16 slaughter.

And no, once more I am not an anti-gun lib. I have owned and used rifles and fired off shotguns as well in target practice. However, I've never owned anything automatic, with multicapacity clips!

I am not for banning all guns, but for regulating the use and magazine capacity to a rational standard. In other words, IF you really are a hunter, you don't require an AK-47 or an UZI!  A true hunter, out for deer say, can get by very nicely with a good, old -fashioned Remington 30.06, the tried and true standard. If you need a weapon for protection, you do not need a Glock 9 or a Glock 19, you can get a .38 revolver and with enough shooting practice be just fine.

In other words, I am arguing for rational standards on gun ownership, not anything goes. I argue by similar analogy for rational pet ownership. No, you ought not be able to own as many jaguars, anacondas, Burmese pythons, or tigers as your little heart desires! THAT is irrational, and moreover those WILD animals can't be contained properly in captivity. That is also why so many pythons (estimated at 30,000) have now made their home in the Florida Everglades, not to mention hundreds of monitor lizards, because pet owners couldn't control them once they grew too large, or too feisty. (I won't even go into the character in Colo. whose pet python ate him several years ago, while he was sleeping with the snake in his queen bed.)  Now, the "liberated" -by- owners pythons are upsetting the whole ecology of the glades.

In the same way, zealot gun crazies have upset rational gun ownership "ecology" and culture in this country by their extreme demands and desires. They make the rest of us appear also like crazies, because of their inordinate demands for weapons which do not fit any normal use for citizens.

Until our legislators finally get some balls, as opposed to kowtowing to the NRA and kissing their butts, we can expect to see more tragedies like today's here in Colorado. And that is a damned tragedy!