I normally like the work of psychologist Martin Seligman, author of such books as What You Can Change and What You Can’t: The Complete Guide to Successful Self-Improvement and Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life. However, I was troubled by an op-ed he wrote for the Washington Post entitled “Evil vs. crazy: What’s in the minds of mass murderers?” In response to the Sandy Hook mass murders, Seligman writes:
I have spent most of my life working with mental illness. I have been president of the world’s largest association of mental-illness workers, and I am all for more funding for mental-health care and research — but not in the vain hope that it will curb violence. …
I conclude from all this that progress in reducing violence through either helping the mentally ill or curbing the impulses of violent, non-crazy people will be very slow in coming, perhaps even fruitless. That is not where the leverage is.
Crazy people and evil people can commit mass murder, and they always do it with guns. Our society’s only real leverage, at least in the near term, lies in reducing access to guns. Our national experience with another lethal menace, cigarettes, shows that government regulation massively saves lives. High taxation on cigarettes and restricting access to them has markedly cut smoking rates and improved health. High taxes on guns and strong restrictions on their availability are the only realistic hope for avoiding many more Sandy Hooks.
Seligman is a smart guy, so why is he falling prey here to such PC rhetoric? First off, yes, crazy people and evil people can commit mass murder but they don’t always do it with guns. Does he think that because he is writing for the liberal Washington Post, that facts are unnecessary? He could have said they often do it with guns or sometimes but always? Did he check to see that the deadliest mass murder in a school in US history was in Bath Township, Michigan where 45 children and adults were killed and 58 injured by using mostly explosives and a fire? Or what about when women commit mass murder, they often have alternative ways to do so other than guns. For example:
On a Thanksgiving Day afternoon in 1980, a black woman driving a 1974 black Lincoln decided to plow into people on the sidewalk on North Virginia Street in Reno, Nev. The woman stared straight ahead as she accelerated, striking several people without stopping. She drove 100 feet down one sidewalk, then over 300 feet down another, and finally drove two blocks down yet another one. She might well have continued, but a witness drove in front of woman’s car to force her to a halt. She was then arrested. And she was angry that she’d been stopped….
Twenty-four people had been seriously injured, and five had been killed at the scene by this reckless driver. Two more would die after being taken from the scene to the hospital. Witnesses likened the scene to a battlefield.
It’s also sad and troubling to hear that such that such an eminent psychologist as Seligman thinks our profession has so little to offer that we cannot help those who are mentally ill not to be violent and focus in that area is futile. My experience in the profession has been different–I think that we can get help to people who want to commit violence before they strike at times. Is intervention perfect? No, of course not but we have judicial rulings like Tarasoff for a reason–to try and prevent violent acts before they occur. Sometimes stopping someone potentially violent and getting them help is enough to keep them from attempting something with dire consequences. But then, maybe I’m just a Pollyanna psychologist.
Most troubling to me is Seligman’s lack of insight into the problem of prevention and even more so, his willingness to put the burden on the law-abiding citizen. Just get rid of the guns and mass murder will end. It is nothing but PC rhetoric to make him and others feel good with no solution in sight. Why such a simplistic solution to such a complex problem?
“such an imminent psychologist as Seligman”
Probably not the word you were looking for. eminent, perhaps? Autocorrect blues?
I think the Doc knows what she’s talking about.
Seligman would be imminent if were projecting or leaning over. His unusual posture might distract a mass murderer long enough for the police to get there.
Or somebody could say to the killer, “Hey, Seligman is imminent!” – in this case meaning he’s likely to occur at any moment. The crazy person might decide to wait and see if Seligman materializes, again giving the police time to respond.
Either of these actions would be more effective than his gun control proposal.
…either helping the mentally ill or curbing the impulses of violent, non-crazy people…
Curing crazy people is not a reasonable solution. We don’t want to cure them, we want to prevent them from getting guns. Let’s start with that, shall we?
Yes, and then we can limit access to knives, then baseball bats, then cars, gas, and the 1000s other perturbations of items that in the wrong hands could harm another human being.
Maybe its better to place these people in a padded room, rather than pad society for the lowest common denominator.
But that is not the Regressive way. The Regressive prime directive, to destroy individual freedom and the institutions of Western civilization that promote and protect it, demands that we punish the virtuous and the competent, and protect the pathological.
Now you understand left/liberalism.
Sorry John. The Supreme Court has ruled that we are not allowed.
Actually, the U.S. Constitution, John Locke, reason, and basic human decency say you neo-fascists aren’t allowed.
YOU folks are the progressives; but like most progressives, you’re too dishonest and stupid to recognize what you propose for the tyrannical evil that it is.
Either that, or you’re psychopaths yourselves.
Instead of getting rid of guns, less just get rid of crazy people?
The logic is the same.
It is sort of the same thing… can’t cure crazy people, so just get rid of guns. Problem is… can’t get rid of guns, so….
But you know, as limited as *curing* crazy people might be as a strategy, we shouldn’t be locking up mentally ill people in prisons as the only alternative to leaving them at the mercy of themselves or families that can’t cope or don’t know how to get available help. The “subway pusher lady” had been arrested before. There were reports that Lanza’s mother was trying to get him committed. It’s great that people want to take care of family members, but sometimes you can’t. I can hardly take care of myself and my healthy family.
There used to be options for people who needed constant supervision and care.
Amazing. Walt C, points out that you are making a more horrifically anti-liberty version of the same argument as the gun-control crowd; and you agree with him.
“There used to be options for people who needed constant supervision and care.”
There was. It was called “Action T4″ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_T4
We hear from reports that the Newtown shooter was a Goth who worshiped Satan.
That’s not crazy, that’s evil. And you’re not going to cure Satan worshipers with mental health programs.
First thing we do, we lock up all the Goths. Then we lock up all the other Satan worshipers.
A Goth that worshipped Satan, eh? I’d really like to see a reliable source link to that- ’cause I haven’t seen that anywhere I’ve read.
Hey, Paul, got any cites or links to that? The only reports I’ve read is that he was a nutter who, like 90% of normal boys, happened to enjoy video games and movies that involve combat.
It is obvious that Dr. Seligman is not using rational arguments. He is following his own dogma (yes, liberals can have dogma as well). He is against guns, pure and simple. He will use any argument to suit that prejudice, regardless of facts. Perhaps we need to start to call all of these people “hoplophobes” (apparently those who have an irrational fear of firearms) and treat them as people in need of treatment. After all, when I was young, I could be cleaning my little .22 rifle in my bedroom. If I slid the bolt back and forth, my German Shepard/Collie mix dog, who would be on the other side of the house, would eventually come slinking into my room, afraid of the noise. Maybe that is why, they are afraid of the noise. My dog was also afraid of fireworks. I can see why she would be afraid of the noise. No excuse for the adult humans though.
“He is following his own dogma (yes, liberals can have dogma as well).”
I wasn’t aware liberals(leftists) follow anything but dogma. They certainly aren’t allowed (or even capable of in many cases) independent thoughts lest they risk watching their worldview crumble.
“For every problem there is always a solution that is simple, obvious, and wrong.”
- Mark Twain
Well said. It’s discouraging to see a mental health expert – one in a position of some authority – basically give up. Sorry to sound mean, but if this expert can’t suggest a way for us to detect and deal with obviously insane and dangerous people like Seung-Hui Cho, James Holmes, William Spengler, Adam Lanza, and Jared Loughner, then what the hell are we paying him for?
Funny you should mention Seung-Hui Cho, since you’d be hard pressed to find a better example of how the system, if not the doctors, utterly failed. Not mentioned in the Wikipedia section I liked to is that the state did not follow up to make sure he got his court ordered out-patient treatment.
If Seligman either believes in deinstitutionalization or believes it will never be reversed he’s got a point about the limitations on what experts can do. All the detective ability in the world is pointless if there’s no way to then deal with what is found.
James Holmes is also probably a good example of this, or at least according to our best available information his university psychiatrist was sufficiently concerned about his potential for violence to break patient confidentiality, but it appears the university washed their hands of him after he withdrew.
Interesting that the psychiatric profession has yet to address the connection between SSRI drugs and suicide and homicide.
One might begin to think the profession’s pecuniary interest in prescribing these drugs is affecting their ability to perceive reality.
Perhaps Dr. Seligman, you have met the enemy, and he is you.
Interesting that you don’t provide any evidence of such a link.
Not denying it, just getting tired of hearing about it. There were spree killers and mass murderers before SSRI’s, you know, and they’re not any more common now than in the past.
“Suicide and Neuropsychiatric Adverse Effects of SSRI Medications: Methodological Issues” (http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/01/04/pc-rhetoric-wont-stop-mass-murder/?replytocom=449277#respond ) is an excellent overview of the difficulties of conclusively establishing a causal relationship. It is easy to find papers and testimonials (as well as legal decisions) for both positions. What is notable is that no large national study has ever been done . Such a study would cost far less than the currently popular ridiculous proposals, for example the banning and consfiscation of scary guns, and oversized metal rectagular boxes with springs inside.
In a somewhat sane society any plausible cause or conributing factor of akhasia (restlesss leg syndrome, inability to be still), emotional blunting and psychotic decompensation ( crudely: a complatte breakdown between waking and dreaming state) ought to be the focus of intnse study. But a large scale national study would be expensive. The drug companies wont fund it since it can only harm them. None of tf the FDA,NIH or NIMH will fund it since it can only show them to have made mistakes. Congress wont fund it because mental patients dont make political contributions, nor do the families of mental patients or the potential victims of psychotic decompressions (any contributions they do make would be dwarfed by those of big pharma and federal regulatory lobbying). It is easier to ignore the potentially unecessary morbitity of some mentally ill patients, ignore the constitution and instead do something we have already PROVEN beyond any reasobale doubt has NO effect whatsoever. Perhaps our country can ignore the metally ill so easily because our president and a majority of the voters who put him where he is are themselves not entirely well .
link should be :http://psychrights.org/Research/Legal/Evidence/MarisonSSRIsUnderDaubert.htm
Speak for yourself. SSRIs saved my life. You can have mine, as the expression goes, when you pry them from my cold, dead fingers.
Seligman is a psychologist and does not prescribe any medications, not even SSRIs.
Scientological fear reflex?
Trey
Psychologists can now prescribe many drugs.
If he admitted there might be SOMETHING he could do to prevent a violent act, then if he failed anytime in the future (or past) to prevent a violent act he’d feel responsible for that act. So, he denies he has any such influence and puts the blame entirely on an inanimate object.
It’s easier than understanding that bad things happen, that you should be prepared for them, that the world is not perfect, and that sometimes you have to take difficult actions.
(Plus, he gets to polish his bona fides as a member of the Ruling Class.)
Bin Laden and McVeigh were unavailable for comment.
Yeah, I too noticed that he also forgot about the Oklahoma City bombing and 9/11. No doubt his rationalization would be that those mass murders were “terrorist attacks” and thus don’t qualify.
I guess Seligman hasn’t yet figured out the intricacies of Google, huh?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Chinese_school_attacks
Then again, I doubt Seligman has much time for such trivialities when he’s writing Terribly Important Books!, jetting to Very Important Seminars!, and delivering Brilliant PowerPoint Presentations!
“Why such a simplistic solution to such a complex problem?”
He may have just seen the article pointing out how so many of the young males who go on these killing sprees have no male figure in the background… the father is long gone and not available as a role model or disciplinarian.
This is utterly non-PC and has to be rejected, and I theorize he’s reacting to it.
Nasty of me, isn’t it?
Why such a simplistic solution to such a complex problem?
“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”
Mencken wasn’t always wrong.
But laws would require some specific set of facts, in order to deny to some person a constitutionally-secured right. If the bar is set too low, that any visit to a therapist can result in immediate confiscation of a person’s firearms, no one will ever go to a therapist again. Especially since private therapists have essentially been deputized by the state, to make a dispositive determination, and no longer are loyal to the client/customer.
The duty belongs to the family. If you don’t have complete trust in one of your family members, then you are duty-bound to deny firearms access to that person.
Here’s an thought. What if the background check also allowed for a direct family member input to recommend that a person should not be sold a firearm. And the reaons that the blocking family member is afraid of guns, is not a sufficiently good reason. Obviously, the devil is in the details.
It’s an extension of the small-town principle: if you don’t trust them, deny them access to your firearms, don’t let them have/store firearms in your house, and walk around to all the stores and make sure that nobody will sell them one.
Agree with your first paragraph. This issue is always on my mind when discussing gun control. I’ve been treated for depression, but I’ve never been suicidal. According to liberal logic, though, the mere presence of firearms increases the risk of suicide. So will the fact that I’ve been to a therapist and taken SSRIs automatically disqualify me? And even if the depression occurred many years ago, would any reasonable psychologist or cautious judge pronounce me now fit to own a gun?
I’m in favor of keeping guns away from…people who need to have guns kept away from them. Deciding who those people are, fairly, will be difficult.
“If the bar is set too low, that any visit to a therapist can result in immediate confiscation of a person’s firearms, no one will ever go to a therapist again.”
Really? No one?
Lets toss that around for a bit.
a) you don’t own a gun and don’t want to (describes many many people, over 3 million in CT, only 170k pistol permit holders). Presumably you don’t care about this? If there was such a requirement (like, on SSRIs, can’t own a gun) you probably wouldn’t even know about it, let alone care. Who studies gun licensing rules except for those trying to get a gun legally?
b) you can’t own a gun for another reason (too young, felon, otherwise disqualified – sex offender, already nutz, etc). Again, hard to see why this person would care about the no gun rule
c) actually care, but still want to see a shrink, so you go anyway – surely this describes some people.
I would venture a guess that only a small minority of the folks who see shrinks would be deterred by a “no guns for you” rule, in fact, I would guess that only a small minority would actually be aware of it or care about it. Especially, as I assume would be the case, the “no guns for you” rule would be temporary, i.e. until you weren’t on SSRIs (or were otherwise officially not nutz).
“Crazy” people are not stupid – in fact they are usually very bright. If they are determined to kill they will find a way, via bombs, cars, planes – doesn’t matter, they will do it. Same with “evil” people. It’s hard to get a handle on someone “evil” (or perhaps sociopathic) until it’s too late, but signs are there, as they are with people mentally unstable. And with mentally unstable most people who are aware of their problems have drifted away from responsibility towards them because it simply wears family members down coping with the ups and downs of extreme emotions. No one wants to go back to the hellholes of psychiatric wards and hospitals of days past – these are very tough issues with which to deal. But getting rid of guns is not the answer. It wasn’t that day when Charles Whitman was shooting people from the University of Texas tower. Men of Austin who were hunters went and got their rifles and sought to protect the people of their town, and it was one of those and an off-duty cop who brought Whitman down. And even back then there were people who knew something was “off” about Whitman. It’s knowing that something is “off” and knowing how to do something about it that’s the key point.
Happy to see the the good doctor make a distinction between ill people and evil people. Hopefully he can continue to find help for the ill ones.
But leaving me defenseless in a world with evil people is evil in itself.
He’s one of those that believes cameras are the cause of child pornography, condoms are the cause of rape, pens are the cause of forgery, tongues are the cause of slander, … the list is approximately endless (there are, after all, only a finite number of things on the planet.)
The tools magically cause the illegal uses; the solution is to magically regulate the tools.
Ah, an “external locus-of-control,” which only self-centered young children or irresponsible adults manifest. Being a left/liberal means never having to grow up… and, clearly, not allowing anyone else to do so either in order to look good.
The emotionally unstable and those lovingly referred to as crazy and evil, are ‘normal’ people — until they ain’t! But that is not the crux of the debate relative to gun control. The point of question is, how does society determine who, and at what point, any given person is potentially going to act out in a socially unacceptable manner — criminal manner.
Take for example, the high numbers of people on this site alone who display through their thought, a perpensity towards violence — especially those who are ardent activists for gun rights.
Take for example, the numbers of folks who suffer from delusion, fantasy and phobia’s of a tryannical government for which they advocate violence towards.
Take for example, the numbers of folks who have rationalized that anybody who votes democrat are the “enemies” of ‘their’ own justifiable worlds.
Should these kinds of people be ‘clincially’ determined as the kinds of people who should own guns?
We are sadly at a point in our american history where never before, is so much of society walking around as ‘normal’ but with potentially serious, clinically diagnosable mental defects.
As a glaring example. Most recently, a law enforcement officer kills his wife.
If we’re to honor the Second Amendment we had better be willing to have far better means of determing who is more ‘reasonably’ qualified to own weapons and who aren’t.
“If we’re to honor the Second Amendment we had better be willing to have far better means of determing who is more ‘reasonably’ qualified to own weapons and who aren’t.”
Or, just take responsibility for your own safety and that of your loved ones and stop demanding the innocent be punished to give you an illusion of safety.
“Take for example, the high numbers of people on this site alone who display through their thought, a perpensity towards violence — especially those who are ardent activists for gun rights.”
*snort*
Thoughtcrime!
Yep, you make the perfect argument advocating anarchism!
Anarchy? An armed society is a polite society.
Violent crime rates are absolutely coorelated to gun control laws. ALL of these troublesome killing sprees in the last 5 decades have occurred in gun free zones, with the exception of the Gabby Giffords attack, which was Sarah Palin’s fault.
Projecting are we. A quick look at the comment section of Daily Kos, Huffington Post or the Democratic Underground will show more hate, violent imagery or elimination rhetoric then any gun rights oriented blog. Law abiding gun owners regardleess of the political affiliation show more reason and even temper then your side of the fence.
I guess you’re right! More than 12,000 homicides (2011) in the U.S. all presumably committed by democrats is proof enough of your point.
That was an intelligent response. Do they pay you well for trolling?
50% of our homicides are commited by African-American gangbangers.
Here is a Chicago Magazine article on the relationship between the Democratic Machine and the city’s gangs:
http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/January-2012/Gangs-and-Politicians-An-Unholy-Alliance/
Then of course there is the LA City Democratic Party’s relationship with the gangs:
http://thecampofthesaints.org/2011/07/07/breaking-fox-news-report-deals-death-blow-to-janice-hahns-credibility/
Looks like a significant part of the murders are done by affiliates of the Democratic Party
Serendipity!
Perhaps Zeke has sarcastically stumbled across a significant point and the path to a political solution. As it turns out, the Justice Department doesn’t track crime statistics by party affiliation of the perpetrator (pity). Never the less, Zeke’s got me curious.
Since the Justice Department can’t directly provide the metric we are interested in, let’s make some inferences from what is available. According to the JD (2009 data, latest I could find), of the homicides where the race of the offender is known, 52% were black. Exit polling shows that 96% percent of Black Americans voted Democrat – 96% of 52% = 50%. Zeke already has half of the annual homicides linked to Democrats. No racism, just math.
That was pretty straight forward, but what about the other half of the killers? The other races aren’t as predictable in terms of party preference, what else do we know? We know the geographical location of the crimes and the results of the latest election by precinct, township, county or state. We could match those facts up and will find that Zeke is substantially correct. Metro areas are highly likely to be blue and are where murder rates are significant. No doubt an in depth correlation analysis would indicate that there is a strong relationship between a person’s party affiliation and the probability of them committing a murder. No wonder the Democrats tried so hard to get the vote for prisoners, it’s a rare felon that’s a conservative, and vice versa.
A win-win-win solution for everybody, Democrats get what they want for their constituents, Republicans will please those they represent, guns will be kept out of the wrong hands. Simply require everyone who registers to vote to specify their party preference. Independent? Same as it’s always been, Democrat? Their name goes on the FBI’s permanently barred from possessing firearms list. Republican? Your voter registration card is also a nationwide CCW permit.
Obviously, this is all tongue in cheek , and would never work. Those same deep blue counties with the high murder rates already have the strictest gun control laws, and it simply doesn’t stop Democrats from getting guns and doing the unthinkable.
Pretty sly person you are — that is if one reads your snipets of information without reading the entire report you reference. By the way I have previously posted most of the report source you site for FY 2011.
I supose you only accidently ommitted the statistics for whites and again forgot to include the percentage of data for which is ‘unknown’ of the total murders reported.
Durn, don’t you just hate when somebody comes along and rains all over your self serving parade?
Zeke,
No, I didn’t accidently forget to report on whites, as I stated, only blacks have a predictable party preference, killers from other racial groups require different approaches to infer likely party preference such as geographic location and political demographics. Nor did I forget killers of unknown race, (obviously they weren’t apprehended), I simply assumed that the percentages in the unknown group track pretty closely with the known group. I think it’s a valid assumption, but if you want to build a case that the unknown group has some statistical bias that makes it different, it’s certainly possible. Perhaps almost all the killers that aren’t caught are actually Republicans who are able to evade capture due to some intellectual advantage. You could have a point.
A few facts that can’t be debated are that locations with high per capita murder rates are predominately democrat, and that there is strong negative coorelation to legal gun ownership and per capita CCW permit issuance. Based on these facts, it isn’t logical that gun ownership or concealed carry can be the problem, there is an inverse relationship. On the other hand, it would be entirely logical to conclude that the problem could be due to the elevated percentage of Democrats, since there is a strong positive relationship. Coorelation isn’t necessarily causation, but coincidence isn’t tenable as the ratio is close to 1:1.
The data isn’t saying that Democrats are likely to be murderers, just that murderers are likely to be Democrats. The Democrat party is the party of peace (and voting rights for incarcerated violent felons). Since Democrats want to throw out the 2nd amendment anyway, and we realize that the dangerous elements in our society are likely to be a subset of that group, and the chances that Democrats would ever join a well regulated militia to defend the security of our free State is remote (in case you’e still holding on to that fig leaf), let’s simply allow Democrats to abdicate their right to keep and bear arms collectively as an entire party.
Conversely, those broad red regions of the political map that have enviably low crime rates, high levels of gun ownership, shall issue CCW laws [and States with balanced budgets], let’s not mess that up simply because of the actions of a very small minority of Democrats who happen to be homicidal.
What about people like Jeffery Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, the Green River killer, and hey, Jerry Sandusky (who’s victims are going through hell.) No guns, just lots of bodies. So why do mass murderers get the print while serial killers’ methods aren’t talked about.
Then there’s Andrea Yates, who drowned her five kids in the bathtub, in Texas. She was getting psychological care, but still snapped.
Yates was apolitical, but sure, all the rest were Democrats.
Your point is well taken, we can’t stop all Democrat homicides just by banning guns. We would have to ban Democrats, which is impossible since it would violate one of those low numbered Constitutional amendment thingies and would infringe…infringe…I don’t know why that word keeps popping into my head recently. Perhaps some vague memory I can’t quite put my finger on.
Ah, but much-wiser-that-though left/liberal dimiss such examples as merely “anecdotal”… even if banning guns and taking away everyone’s 2nd Amendment rights to self-defense saves only one life it’s worth it, they’ll then add (with smugness galore).
Keep in mind that “Dr Happy” has come under fire for implementing his largely untested happiness program for $125 million–Seligman has received millions for putting a positive spin on things… http://truth-out.org/news/item/268:army%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%9Cspiritual-fitness%E2%80%9D-test-comes-under-fire. Nothing wrong with earning millions–but when it’s poorly tested because it’s “obviously” beneficial, then it’s not science, shouldn’t be treated as such, and certainly shouldn’t be having over a hundred million tax dollars being spent on it.
And I thought that the biggest mass killing in the US in the last 15 years was done with aeroplanes.
When the need arises for a leftist to drop his emotional pants in front of the world, there just isn’t any time for distracting stuff like facts, truth, logic, reason, shame, sense of dignity, etc.
Well, if firearms did not exist none could be used. But they do exist. Heck, blacksmiths in Afghanistan successfully copy the AK47, including full-auto mode. Any auto repair shop, and a great many home tool users, would have no trouble at all making firearms such as the Sten – which was designed for manufacture by such places. mmunition could be banned – but it is not difficult (only a little dangerous for first-timers) to make gunpowder and use it with a closeable tube: musket, wheelock, flintlock, etc all easy to make with today’s materials available at any hardware store – or Amazon, or…
The City of Rome banned knives carried outside the kitchen, even paid bodyguards could only carry clubs – ask the ghost of Julius Caesar if it worked.
If there were more crazy drivers like that woman in Reno, would Seligman opine that we should outlaw cars? Guns are preferred to cars not because they’re more deadly, but because our news and entertainment industry emphasize them as the quickest tool to achieve fame and notoriety. That’s not the fault of gun owners, and if he’s going to infringe on the 2nd in his crusade, wouldn’t it be reasonable to consider restrictions on the 1st to lessen the appeal of guns to criminals?
His simplistic analysis ignores the good guns can do in the hands of honest people, thus potentially reversing whatever small decrease in rare mass-shootings it could achieve. I’ll be charitable and assume Seligman is speaking simply from ignorance (though a smart man should know better than to spout off on the national stage about subjects he personally knows little about), but many researchers who started from his assumption were won over by the data and ended up concluding that gun ownership was a net positive. I’ve been covering this issue for over 20 years, and I’ve yet to hear of a researcher whose assumptions were reversed in the opposite direction.
“If there were more crazy drivers like that woman in Reno, would Seligman opine that we should outlaw cars?”
Probably. At least for the non-elites.
One of our worst mass murders was by an arsonist — I don’t have the exact facts but a disgruntled employee set a nightclub/restaurant on fire and 85 people died. I never understand, though, how he was charged with 170 counts of murder.
That said, it is still true that killers like Lanza and Holmes tend to use firearms. Firearms do make a slaughter easier than does a knife or a club. One can acknowledge this fact and still believe that no plausible legislation is going to improve the situation.
Happy Land Social Club, 1990, New York City. There were 87 fatalities, leading to twice that many counts of murder (some quirk of New York law). He committed this mass murder with $1 worth of gasoline. (There was testimony about the amount he bought.)
A larger mass murder in Puerto Rico the same year involved labor union organizers who started a fire in a casino as an organizing effort. There were 98 dead because of it.
Dr Helen, I don’t want to seem insulting but I think psychologists tend to be less interested in psychotics, who commit most mass murders, because they can only be treated with anti-psychotic drugs, something that tends to fall into psychiatrist’s domain. We have seen repeated attempts by psychologists to treat patients with “talk therapy” when it is ineffective or to even create new diseases, like “recovered memories” that can be treated with talk therapy. The recovered memory phenomenon got to be huge and national psychology meetings were conducting courses in how to identify and treat recovered memories. Then a father and ex-husband who had been accused of molesting his daughter by her and his wife who had become convinced the accusations were true, succeeded in winning a lawsuit against a “therapist” and hospital here in Orange County, CA.
Malpractice insurance companies announced they would no longer provide coverage for the treatment of recovered memories. That condition vanished over the next year except for a few sad people who still believed they had been molested. The Amauralt family in Massachusetts and other true victims never recovered their lives.
I think psychologists can do much good but there is a rivalry with psychiatry over drugs that creates such myths as an SSRI role in psychosis. Nobody seems to mention the role marijuana plays in psychosis. The psychologist who wrote that article is one I would stay away from if I had a relative who needed help.
As for evil people who commit murder, there is a lot of evidence that real psychopaths are untreatable and should be locked up for everyone’s best interest, including perhaps the psychopath’s.
Gun control only disarms the law abiding. To see the next logical step look at England where you can be prosecuted for self defense within your own home. Not with a gun but even with a club.
Good point doc. Most of the SSRI angst I run into is either from the black box warning on Zoloft or disinformation spread by Scientologists.
Yeah, the neurological origins of some sociopathy is frightening and hopeless. I have heard psychologists say that the best you try for with sociopaths is to make them less rash and more thoughtful about their anti-social behaviors in hopes that some of them decide to act more moral because they are persuaded that it is in their best interest.
Or something!
Trey
FACS — “As for evil people who commit murder, there is a lot of evidence that real psychopaths…”
Would you be contending that there are not a very substantial number of lawful gun owners who are psychopaths and others who suffer equal mental defects? Everybody keeps conveniently forgetting that most citizens are deemed ‘sane’ until they aren’t, by some showing of carrying out an unacceptable social behavior such as murder or some other means of violent or lesser serious crimes with guns.
Most family members will not report mental health issues just as physicians don’t report their drug and addictions abuse or mental issues to their patients or certifications boards. Does that mean all is ‘well’ for those walking around lawfully with guns or an MD license on the wall?
Guns are part of the culture so crazy and/or evil people gravitate toward them when they decide to go on a spree. It doesn’t mean that if guns were taken away that they would. It say “no gun so I guess I can’t kill anyone.” Absent a gun they would use a different method. Everybody focuses on James Holmes guns, but suppose he decided on an IED? This is not so far fetched as it took 24 hours for EOD to clear his apartment. Or he could have used gasoline like the guy who set fire to that nightclub in Rhode Island. Guns are an inefficient way to kill large numbers of people in a short period of time. Explosives and fire are much better suited for that.
As for shrinks, they are worthless. Who told me that? My best friend who spent 15 years working for NCS as a psychologist.
That people so lacking in common sense rise so high in American society is most disturbing.
Would it not be better to crowd-source our entire society?
I would trust the collective intelligence of 311,000,000+ Americans over the putative intelligence of sundry Ivy Leaguers of dubious expertise.
It’s disappointing and disconcerting to read Seligman’s solution to mental illness and related issues. Basically, he’s the expert and he’s given up.
“Why such a simplistic solution to such a complex problem?”
Thats’s easy – the goal is not to protect the children, its to get the guns.
Does anyone know where and how the biggest civilian (non-political) mass murder was carried out? It was a guy in China who used rat poison to poison the soup in a popular restaurant and killed several hundred people.
No guns involved whatsoever, and it isn’t like China isn’t a well-policed society.
I read in the Tampa Tribune this morning that they are proposing a local gun buy-back program. It seems to me that a gun buy-back is a textbook example of adverse selection. The people who are the most peaceful, law-abiding and civic minded would be voluntarily giving up their weapons, while those who pose the greatest risk get to keep theirs.
That or you have a very rusted or otherwise damaged gun you want to use as a trade in for credit towards a new one.
Its also a great way to get rid a weapon used in a crime. You get paid for it and there are no questions aked.
Yes, many of the guns turned in in “buyback” programs are stolen.
It’s pretty evident that Mr Seligman isn’t an epidemiologist. Attempting to draw some kind of parallel between gun violence and cigarettes is misleading. Cigarettes are one of those things that cause increasing harm at increasing levels of use. Make them harder to get and usage goes down, illness goes down. It’s a pretty linear equation, and there is no known safe level of use.
But deaths via firearms are episodic- more like car accidents- and like automobiles, there is a safe level of use. You don’t penalize the good drivers for what the 25 yo DUI does by taking away everyone’s car. In fact, gun laws are the equivalent of taking away your car, giving it to the drunk kid and letting him run you over with it.
The American Medical Association did a study of doctors smoking. In 1950 it was about 60%, by 1980, it was about 20% and by 1990, it was less than 10%. Smoking cessation had nothing to do with government action. It was collective wisdom after the harm from smoking was shown, starting in 1950.
I wonder, how did he think that the governmental anti-smoking crusade was analogous to any gun control legislation? While I am philosophically opposed to any and all gun control measures, I would be very happy right now to agree to have all gun regulation throughout the United States mirror the regulations we have imposed on tobacco, including the ridiculous false advertisements that must be posted on the packaging. I believe that would pretty much amount to no gun sales to minors and no random shooting in public places. Oh, and stupid, low production value, unpersuasive PSA’s telling me how bad my guns are for me.
It’s remarkable that someone with that degree of education would construct an argument worthy of an 8th Grader’s overdue term paper.
k.i.s.s. = keep it simple stupid. wise words indeed.
guns are not necessary to kill lots of people. i just googled ‘drove into crowd killing’ and got umpteen dozen hits. 12-26-12 a chinese guy drove into a crowd of students on purpose. all it takes in today’s mechanized world is a desire to kill. as we discovered on 9-11, powerful weapons take many forms.
our little would-be dictator isn’t about saving children from rampaging madmen. heck, as madmen go, selling thousands of untagged guns to murderous drug cartels and then destroying evidence, and then finally telling everybody asking questions (including congress) to go screw themselves, qualifies as a madman to me. this p.o.s. wants any guns that might give the American Militia a good fighting chance against whatever he and his sociocommiefascists have cooked up to overwhelm us.
i remember decades ago when a similar debate was happening in the u.s., that one city in Ga. made everybody buy a gun. kennesaw i believe it was. crime actually went from some expected number to zero almost overnight.
guess bad guys prefer easier pickin’s.
“all it takes in today’s mechanized world is a desire to kill.”
That’s all it’s ever taken.
Ironic. He describes the APA as the largest association of “mental illness workers” when the bulk of his career has been focused on changing the image of psychology. He’s (self?) described as the father of the “positive psychology movement.” Maybe the new opportunities in the field are now back to the roots — figuring out how to fix people with problems, not make them happy …wait …did I say that out loud?
Anyway … Agree with most here. Ban cars because they’re responsible for so much death and destruction.
Both the manufacturing designs, who can have the priviledge of owning and driving and the uses of automobiles on roadways are highly regulated. Most fatalities involving automobiles come by way of accidents and violations of operation. Is it possible you were thingking of something else to equate to gun ownership regulations?
I was thinking that if people want to do harm they can use whatever tools are at their disposal. “Cars” was a facetious example, but I have no issue with background checks and licensing of gun ownership/use along the lines of automobile licensing. But we could just ban stuff we don’t like. It worked with drugs. Oh…wait…
I understood your point.
There is no stopping homicides and criminal injury to people in this country or any other country for that matter. You can hang a dozen high tech weapons on everybody and if so predisposed, one person or a group, will figure out how to overcome such perceived resistance or threat of everybody being armed. ‘Ingenuity’ regardless of ones education and intellect, seems to be ever prevelent for many who are faced with challenges such as overcoming armed resistance in committing lots of serious crimes. There are endless ways to commit mass homicides without ever being confronted by some armed good guy — sad reality, but reality nonetheless!
Why such a simplistic solution to such a complex problem?
What makes you think that his “solution” is intended for this particular “problem” at all, Dr. Smith?
If there’s one thing about the Left that makes them so formidable, it’s this tendency on the part of people to underestimate the depths of their bad faith.
When seconds count the police are minutes away. How long did it take the police to respond? Twenty minutes…OMG…you got to be kidding me.
And after we take all the guns away…and some foreign sleeper terrorist cell attacks multiple schools with weapons smuggled in, or furnished via diplomatic channels..then what…..grow up people…blame the only guilty party here..the shooter…
I was thinking about this on the subway earlier this evening. Looking at all the people and realizing that I had no idea what was going on in any of their minds. They all had the same expression – bored. Inside, who knows? One guy might have paradise inside his head, the guy next to him might be living in mental hell.
I wondered about the killers we read about, and the words “nobody cared” popped into my head. Somebody was suffering, somebody was crazy, somebody was dangerous but nobody cared. When I went through my bout with depression years ago, it was pretty obvious that I was in bad shape – obvious to me, anyway. But nobody cared. It was nobody’s problem but my own. And when I see an obviously sick person on the street, I tend not to care either. It’s not my job to intervene.
But then I thought, what if somebody did care? Would it do any good? When I was depressed, did I want total strangers bugging me, telling me to get some help, reporting me to the authorities, costing me my privacy, getting me mixed up with the mental health and legal systems against my will? Could the word of one anonymous person screw up my entire life – the real life, not just the one in my head which was already screwed up? Would I really want other people to have that much power over me?
I’m just wondering about unintended consequences. Having some means of reporting mentally sick people sounds great. I’d love to be able to get them help or at least get them off the street and away from guns. But what if somebody decides *I’M* the crazy one?
You’re obviously right. Much better to just give everyone guns.
Do you know what a “false dilemma” is, douchebag? You seem to propose a lot of them in your comments.
“High taxation on cigarettes and restricting access to them has markedly cut smoking rates and improved health.” Has it really?
Sorry, ‘ol Buddy Boy. It’s much more likely that the negative health effects and diminished acceptance and image of smokers is responsible for reduced smoking. To many people the cost of cigarettes doesn’t matter any more than the cost of gas matters to someone who drives a $100K Hummer. Try again.
Charlie
And, as time passes and data accumulates it will with little doubt show that decreased smoking will have done dittly in the numbers of cardiac, pulmonary and respitory presents and deaths. The latter may yield to some degree, to advances in protocol treatments saving life for some period of time. Smoking has never been claimed as this cause of cardiac, pulmonary and respitory disease — only A contributing factor. My grandpappy smoked cigars, roll’em ups, chewed plug tabbacy, smoke a pipe and drank a pint of whiskey a day right up to his dying peacefully in bed one night — at just short of 99 years old. Grammy died at 92 probably because she was tired of his drinkin, fiddle playin and singin.
Smoking has never been claimed as this cause of cardiac, pulmonary and respitory disease — only A contributing factor”
You gotta be kidding. You absolutely have got to be kidding.
“My grandpappy …”
Good for him. Go ask a doctor what he thinks.
Now techno! You really think I just pulled that comment out of thin air?
“A person’s risk of developing Lung Cancer decreases every year after they have quit smoking as healthy cells begin to grow and replace cells that have been damaged in their lungs. After approximately fifteen years of not smoking, the risk of developing Lung Cancer in former smokers approaches that of a non-smoker.”
If smoking is an ‘absolute cause’ of cancer, at what timeframe and under what circumstance does it present? If smokeing is an absolute cause of cancer then why do so many around the world go to the daisy garden at ripe old ages having no presentation of cancer?
Sure, smoking is not a wise thing to do for most, but to claim it an absolute ’cause’ of cancer is……
Using the ‘Pack-Years’ system of prediction: “Out of persons who smoke two or more packs of cigarettes each day, approximately one out of seven of them will die from Lung Cancer.”
From that same source:
“Lung Cancer is very strongly tied to cigarette smoking. Ninety-percent of Lung Cancers begin as a result of using tobacco, and the risk of Lung Cancer increases with the number of cigarettes a person smokes over time. Doctors rate a person’s risk for Lung Cancer in terms of, ‘Pack-Years.’ For example; if a person has smoke two packs of cigarettes each day for ten years, they are considered to have a twenty, ‘Pack-Year,’ smoking history. The risk of Lung Cancer is increased with a ten, ‘Pack-Year,’ history, and persons with a thirty, ‘Pack-Year,’ history are considered to be at greatest risk for developing Lung Cancer. Out of persons who smoke two or more packs of cigarettes each day, approximately one out of seven of them will die from Lung Cancer”
Yes, quitting smoking is good for you – and that’s been an important message to get out because it provides an incentive (and an alternative to “hey, I’m gonna die anyway”).
But the message is clear – as long as you smoke, you are at an increased risk of lung cancer. To use an analogy: As long as you travel in a car, you are at an increased risk of being in a traffic accident. The moment you STOP traveling in a car, that risk drops to zero (or close enough – I guess a car could fall on you or something). But from that, you can’t therefore conclude that driving in the car only “contributes” to the risk. No, it’s the CAUSE of the risk.
And you’ve skipped over entirely the evident risks of circulatory diseases and other cancers.
@ Techno
“Aboslute” and any such inference to ‘cancer’ from smoking, was the issue I was addressing. The greatest risk is that of lung ‘cancer’ and as the long term studies shows the ratio is approximately 1:7. As to other ‘cancers’ in which tobacco/smoking products contribute, the ratios are considerably less. ‘Diseases’ other than cancer, in which smoking contributes, is quite a different story.
Hey! Have a great new year techno!
Hang on … you wrote:
“And, as time passes and data accumulates it will with little doubt show that decreased smoking will have done dittly in the numbers of cardiac, pulmonary and respitory presents and deaths. The latter may yield to some degree, to advances in protocol treatments saving life for some period of time. Smoking has never been claimed as this cause of cardiac, pulmonary and respitory disease — only A contributing factor”
Now you’re restricting your comments to cancer alone, and you’ve added “absolute” to your claim. Dear oh dear …
Now techno! You really think I just pulled that comment out of thin air?
“A person’s risk of developing Lung Cancer decreases every year after they have quit smoking as healthy cells begin to grow and replace cells that have been damaged in their lungs. After approximately fifteen years of not smoking, the risk of developing Lung Cancer in former smokers approaches that of a non-smoker.”
If smoking is an ‘absolute cause’ of cancer, at what timeframe and under what circumstance does it present? If smokeing is an absolute cause of cancer then why do so many around the world go to the daisy garden at ripe old ages having no presentation of cancer?
Sure, smoking is not a wise thing to do for most, but to claim it an absolute ’cause’ of cancer is……
Using the ‘Pack-Years’ system of prediction: “Out of persons who smoke two or more packs of cigarettes each day, approximately one out of seven of them will die from Lung Cancer.”
Back in the 60′s the mental heath profession promoted the idea that there were no mentally sick people, but sick societies, sick cities. Being crazy was just a normal healthy reaction to the horrors of our society. Really! The chief of planning of NIMH in 1969 actually said that. Closing down the state mental hospitals came as a result of that approach. And of course this fit in well with the counterculture of the time; tune out, drop out, do drugs and the men in the white coats will still not come for you.
I suppose that if you have a medical degree and no idea what you are doing, that is a suitable argument to explain your failures. Aside from that, building 3600 Community Health Centers to replace 50 state hospitals sounds like a good idea if you want to promote your profession. Of course, they only built 20% of those centers and only a small percentage even had facilities to keep patients over night. And saying you had to fix all of society rather than lock up a few crazy people would give such mental health professionals a lot of power as well. It was kind of Global Warming for the 60′s.
Dr. Seligman is just parroting a new version of this same basic idea. “We, the mental health profession, in reality have no idea what we are doing. So you can’t lock up people based on what we know, which is very little. So lock up all the guns instead, and we won’t have to develop some actual useful clinical skills or else learn to say ‘Do you want fries with that?”
I am also amused by the contradictory logic that it would be horrible to restrict Adam Lanza’s gun rights because of invasion of privacy etcetera etcetara, so lets take away everyone’s gun rights. Much less invasive.
Ivory Tower Tunnel Vision is all it is.He needs to get out in the Real world more so his eyes can clear from the vapors of having his head up his A__.
106,000 people were shot in 2010 in the US, and either killed (31,500) or injured badly enough to present at a hospital. This information is readily available from the CDC, it’s no secret.
In response to a comment in another thread, I queried the numbers and found that children in the US, aged 16 and under, are about 6 times more likely to be shot than drown. Yeah. Seriously.
The mass-shootings do tend to focus the public mind, but even without them the US has a very serious problem with gun violence. Its first-world emergency medical services mean that its homicide rate is only about 4 times the UK’s or Australia’s, but the human toll is still evident.
Mental health services cost money. The one thing I think we can ALL safely bet on is that, after shifting the blame from the easy availability of semi-automatic weapons to mental health, american conservatives will then vote against any increased funding for mental health services.
In any case, I don’t think anyone would have really seen the fort hood shooting coming, or the columbine shooting, or probably even the aurora shooting. Things are “obvious” after the fact but the rarity of these things mean that any profile is going to be inevitably skewed toward the most recent shooting.
Of course, if you break down those numbers a little further, you would find that a healthy percentage are shooting at each other in the ‘hood / barrio. But to notice such facts would be RAAAAACIST, so you won’t. Another healthy percentage are suicides. Which ties back to ineffective mental health. Sorry, not giving up the civil right of self-defense for the criminal or the crazy.
Sure. Judging by the homicide figures, a LOT of those shootings are probably black people shooting at other black people. Not that it matters, I guess, if you don’t consider them to be important, or anything.
But a “healthy proportion” are also NOT those less important RAAAAACES. And as one pointed out in another thread … these mind-focusing mass shootings seem to be overwhelmingly perpetrated by middle-class white kids.
But hey – whatever lets you ignore the problem, that’s fine. Just keep your guns locked away if you’ve got kids. Free advice.
Someone in another thread tried to “prove” that white americans (non-hispanics, obviously – they’re another one of those hood/barrio RAAAACES, and therefore don’t count – your point, not mine) had the same rate of homicide as europe. Try as he might … he didn’t quite succeed.
Techno, it’s not that it isn’t tragic when an inner city thug (who, statistically is probably black or Hispanic, depending on the area), or that those races aren’t important. It’s that tighter gun control laws wouldn’t do anything to stop those deaths. Most of those inner cities already have stringent gun restrictions, and they hardly inconvience the gang members at all. Even a nation wide gun ban couldn’t stop the gangs from shooting each other, as it hasn’t in the UK, where gun violence (primarily in gangs as well) is sadly on the rise. There are to many guns out on the streets to forcibly collect them all, and they are too easy to import or even make.
You are indeed right that it is smart to keep your guns in a place inaccessible to children however. It’s common sense, but that isn’t as common as it should be. I really wish we had mandatory gun safety classes taught in our schools- basic stuff like how to safely handle a gun, and never point it at anyone. That would cut down on the accidents a ton.
Hi Jordan
Your response made a lot more sense that SDN’s, that’s for sure.
“It’s that tighter gun control laws wouldn’t do anything to stop those deaths”
Yep, they could.
“Most of those inner cities already have stringent gun restrictions, and they hardly inconvience the gang members at all”
And ALL inner cities already have laws against shooting people. You’re quite right. That’s obviously not the solution.
“as it hasn’t in the UK, where gun violence (primarily in gangs as well) is sadly on the rise”
Actually, no. It isn’t.
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/crime-stats/crime-statistics/period-ending-june-2012/stb-crime-in-england-and-wales–year-ending-june-2012.html#tab-Offences-involving-firearms
“There are to many guns out on the streets to forcibly collect them all”
Too many to collect all at once, absolutely. And it’s unnecessary (not to mention unconstitutional) anyway.
If the US really wanted to solve this, it would be a decade-long commitment. As I’ve posted elsewhere, the first thing is to introduce mandatory registration, and mandatory notification of transfer. Don’t make the process onerous – just pop into a police station with ID and the gun, and they’ll write it up – maybe they’ll take a photo and give you a license for it. Back that up with a federal law that means if you’re caught with an unregistered gun, you’re off to the clink for a year, you get a criminal record, and all your guns are confiscated.
Obviously, you’d start with a 12 month amnesty and the judge would have some leeway for honest mistakes (although they’d still lose the guns)
And make it a federal crime to transfer a firearm without notifying the police so that they can run a background check. THAT’S the pointy end. Pro-gunners like to demand that the state keep guns out of the hands of bad guys, but then lobby against any measure that might keep the guns out of the hands of bad guys. The ATF tried to investigate gun show sales, the NRA complained to congress.
Start with that. In a decade, if that’s enforced, you’ll be in a position to effect meaningful rules on who should be allowed to own semi-automatics and what sort of training or storage is required. Until registration and transfer rules are effective and enforced, it’s meaningless to even talk about further changes.
“and they are too easy to import or even make”
Heard that before. Everyone’s very excited about “printable guns” at the moment, too. I have my doubts. The equipment to make proper guns has never been hard to get. The problem is the skills. The “printable” thing moves the goalposts a bit, but I doubt if it’s going to be the revolution it’s made out to be. Genuine bad guys aren’t going to risk their wellbeing on something like that. My bet is that they’ll be toys, at best. The sort of thing that gets kids taken to hospital with facial injuries. 10 years from now, nobody’s going to be panicking about printable guns.
First of Techno You are a Bloody Liar!
LIAR!
I said that children were 28 times more likely to drown than to be shot Accidently in the home. Not shot in general where gang bangers as young as 13 shoot each other.
Apples and Oranges!
So quit lying!
“When adjusted for frequency – your child is 22 times more likely to drown(and die) by accident in your swimming pool than to shoot himself or a friend by accident (shoot not kill) with you ‘gun in the house.’”
There are a lot of qualifications in there. I didn’t just restrict the drownings to “your swimming pool” either. And don’t see where you restricted the locations of the shootings – you simply scare-quoted “gun in the house”.
But ok, I’ll see your “13 year old gang-banger” and lets’ just look at accidental shootings vs drownings for victims aged 10 or under.
Fatal and non-fatal accidental shootings: 36 + 362 = 398
Accidental drownings: 620
Now … you claims various multiples, like “22 times” or “28 times” are kids more likely to drown.
Am I still a liar?
Absolutly YES!
Because you have not adjusted for the Number of Homes with Swimming Pools (8.6 million) vs. the number of homes with Guns (80 to 100 million depending on who you talk to).
When factoring a Likelyhood the raw numbers (which show a close to 2 to 1 likelyhood in your example) you have to factor the opportunity which is Ten Times more likely in the case of guns which alters the 2 to 1 in your example to 20 to 1.
So Yes you are still a LIAR!
You’re just grabbing numbers and shoving them wherever you can to get a result you like.
Your estimates of gun-owning households are probably out by a factor of 2. You’re assuming that a pool is only ever used by the members of the household (or assuming that only drownings of members OF that household count), you assume all households have an even distribution of children under 10, you make no allowance for how often kids go swimming vs get hold of their parents’ guns … and even then your numbers don’t come out right.
Go see my commentary in the “less lethal ammunition” thread.
Any time you want to admit where you got those numbers from, is fine by me.
“Our national experience with another lethal menace, cigarettes, shows that government regulation massively saves lives.” They why does Democrat big gov’t encourage legalized Marijuana then? Tobacco is icky bad, but pot is okay?
It’s bizarre, isn’t it? I can think of some reasons …
(1) tobacco has already proved to be an appalling public health disaster, costing people and states billions annually. Even if you’re not one of those countries that publicly covers any of the cost of treatment, the money that gets spent by individuals dealing with the health problems caused by smoking is not, in any way, economically productive – and neither is dying early. A sensible person might ask – if tobacco had never existed, if somebody came along today and tried to introduce it to the market, knowing the health problems, would it be legal? In most developed countries, the answer would be “no”.
So if tobacco has been a disaster (and it definitely has), then why go legalise another one? Smoking mary-jane still has direct cancer risks. And (knowing that I’m going to open a can of fire-worms with this following statement) it is a known trigger for schizophrenia in a portion of the population – and a more terrifying mental illness, I can’t imagine.
(2) The US seems to have a particular historical obsession with hemp. I’m half inclined to believe the stories about du pont and the cotton companies, primarily because it’s exactly the sort of thing that WOULD happen.
Disclaimer: Yes, I smoked dope in uni. And I inhaled. It messed badly with my ability to remember things, to the point where I couldn’t remember, one day, why I’d called a meeting with my post-grad supervisor. That’s when I stopped. I don’t have a problem with people who use it, but I also had some friends who would have been far better off if they hadn’t.
In some australian states, dope is already decriminalised – it can be grown for personal use in small quantities, and possession just attracts an on-the-spot fine (if it’s prosecuted at all)
Wayne LaPierre was right. Arm up!
What more important tasks do the police have than protecting students who required by law to attend school? With no net increase in aggregate resources, police could assign manpower from swing and midnight shifts. Without question, we should require teachers to carry guns or non-lethal weapons.
Gun free zones are not just dangerous, they are an infringement on the right to self defense. If an employer or property owner refuses to allow a citizen to have the means to defend himself, doesn’t the regulator assume the responsibility for security?
In the 22 years before enactment of ‘gun free school zones’ there were two mass school shootings.
In the 22 years since enactment of ‘gun free schools’ there have been 10 mass school shootings.
Not only has the bill utterly failed to protect our children it appears to have placed them in danger,”
…Congressman Steve Stockman
71 dead, 201 wounded, 242 held at gunpoint – between 1986 and 1990.
I submit to you that the shootings since the mid-90′s have merely been more effective – suggesting that perhaps a study of the types of guns the shooters have used would be in order.
https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/publications/Abstract.aspx?id=130997
“The study focused on the increasing gun violence that is occurring in and around public and private schools since September 1986. Information for the report was abstracted from more than 2,500 school violence-related news stories recorded in newspapers across the Nation during the past 4 years. A total of 227 incidents were identified. The study found that in addition to the 71 people who have been killed with guns at school, another 201 were severely wounded; and 242 persons had been held hostage at gunpoint. Shootings or hostage situations in schools had occurred in at least 35 States and the District of Columbia. Males were most often the offenders as well as the victims. Teens from the ages of 14 to 17 were most at risk of gun violence at school, and such violence occurred most often in the hallways and classrooms. Gang or drug disputes were the leading cause of school gun violence. A handgun was most often the firearm used. One reason why gun violence is increasing in schools is the availability of guns to students. According to the 1987 National Adolescent Student Health Survey of 11,000 8th-grade and 10th-grade students, 40 percent of the males and almost 25 percent of the females reported that they could obtain a handgun.”
Techno – Do you have any profile data of serial and mass murders with guns or otherwise? Would also be interesting to see such profile data on those charged with the relatively new federal and states terrorist statues as it becomes available. I’m assuming, based on this sites commenting on the subject of gun control at least 50+% will be black, with stolen weapons, criminal records and or adjudged mentally incompetent.
“I submit to you that the shootings since the mid-90′s have merely been more effective – suggesting that perhaps a study of the types of guns the shooters have used would be in order.”
thus showing the effectiveness of Gun Free zones allowing the shoot Free Fire for the time it takes someone with a gun to arrive and stop them.
Unlike Portland Mall (2 dead before an armed citizen stopped him) and San Antone (zero dead before an armed theater goer shot the perp down) where there wasn’t a mass shooting because it WASN’T in a Gun Free Zone.
This also explains why these things NEVER happen at a Gun Show.
Zeke – I’m not sure how you think those comments are relevant to what I posted.
Anon –
“thus showing the effectiveness of Gun Free zones allowing the shoot Free Fire for the time it takes someone with a gun to arrive and stop them”
Or a more frequent use of semi-auto weapons.
“Unlike Portland Mall (2 dead before an armed citizen stopped him)”
Just exactly how did the “armed citizen” stop the shooter? The guy kept going, chose not to shoot another person for reasons we’ll never know, then went off and killed himself in another part of the building.
“This also explains why these things NEVER happen at a Gun Show”
Have a bit of a google. The number of deliberate shootings is way down, but a disturbing number of accidental shootings still happen. Which is astonishing, given all the rules and regs in place.
Thank You Dr. Smith.
“First off, yes, crazy people and evil people can commit mass murder”
Really? I was under the impression — given by YOUR OWN, YOUR HUSBAND’S, AND OTHER PJM AUTHORS’ EXPLICIT STATEMENTS — that only crazy people commit mass murder AND that ALL crazy people commit mass murder.
Where is your article (or your husband’s, or Clayton Cramer’s, or PJM’s) arguing for the preventive permanent incarceration of all evil people who might POTENTIALLY commit mass murder? Or, is it just all POTENTIALLY evil people?
Will POTENTIAL evil — warranting PREVENTIVE LIFE IMPRISONMENT — be determined by psychologists like yourself?
Or will POTENTIAL evil be determined by Law Professors?
Or, maybe by Software Engineers and statistically-challenged “Historians”?
Either way, we’d better get cracking on PRE-EMPTIVELY locking up anyone who MIGHT have the POTENTIAL for evil. These round-ups don’t happen by themselves.
“But then, maybe I’m just a Pollyanna psychologist.”
No, you’re a delusional and raving psychopath, and ought to be be imprisoned for life.
Nice shirt, NAZI!
“Death. Been there. Done that.”
In Hell, Himmler is smiling.
Except, I think you left out the word “Camps”.