[Laura Heidy-Halberstein]

Originally Posted by Tim Murphy

What Quincy is saying. I had a young cop bang on my door at 3 AM in August, shining a flashlight, with an unholstered gun. I answered with a much brighter flashlight and a much bigger gun. She ran away.

This is not even believable much less somehow impressive.

[Pedro Poitevin]

John: Interestingly, Switzerland ranks much higher in gun homicides per 100,000 inhabitants than any of its culturally proximate neighbors. (Its rate is at least three times that of Germany, for instance, and it ranks higher than Italy, which has significantly more social turmoil.)

Since the Second Amendment is not going anywhere in the foreseeable future, I would at least like to see a federal semi-automatic weapon ban, especially when the data is so clear about the frequency with which these weapons are used in mass-shootings, and what common sense tells us about how much damage they inflict.

Right-wing utopias involving God-fearing Republican Rambos discreetly peppered throughout the nation leave me cold—I don't want them near my children, frankly, plus the game theorist in me suspects strongly that the more Rambos there are out there, the higher the potential for other forms of violence.

Left-wing historicist apologies for the Second Amendment leave me baffled.

I'm with Alfred.

Pedro.

[Charlotte Innes]

People with guns = dead people. Somewhere, sometime.

Where's that saddle? Janice, was it? I need to get on it too.

Gregory, not all Americans are insane--although of course I grew up in England! And it took me many years to understand the frontier mentality that still exists here.

However, there isn't a frontier any more. Or rather the frontier has moved to the kind of neighborhood David R. just described so frighteningly and well. (I was almost in tears, David.)

Also, the shooter in Connecticut apparently had Asperger's syndrome (a form of autism). Not all kids with Aspergers are violent. However, I have met at least one kid who was--who walked around school threatening to kill people. Supposing he had had a gun?

OK, I've said my piece. Peace....

Charlotte

[John Whitworth]

I don't think kids with Aspergers are any more likely to be violent than anyone else. My brother has it, a most peacable man, and my younger daughter is a teaching assistant caring for a ten-year-old boy with it. He throws tantrums all right but he never harms, or tries to harm anybody else at all.

The Swiss stuff is interesting.

[Rick Mullin]

I don't like our tendency to diagnose the killer--clinically establish him as "the other" so that we can exonerate ourselves from dealing with an enormous societal problem. It's rather unfair, in this case, to people diagnosed as autistic (haven't been following the minute-by-minute, but I've heard that the term "autistic" is in play).

[Andrew Mandelbaum]

Just to be clear, I was venting a bit about the societies priorities and negligence. I am super fascinated by autism and in no way meant to tie autism to violence. If it came off that way, I apologize.

[David Rosenthal]

Quincy,

First of all, if a bunch of people on the BART platform where Oscar Grant was shot had firearms and brandished them at the cops, it is much more likely that many more people would have died than that Grant would have been spared. Secondly, the Oakland cops often approach suspects with the assumption that the suspects are armed and that many standersby are as well. Often this assumption is correct. It doesn't seem to stop them, or make them "think twice." Nor do many of the armed standersby ever fire on the cops. Why? Because they don't want to be slaughtered by a much superior force, which is not to beg your point again, but suggest that RTC laws would not come close to creating a balance of force.

Secondly, If the problem is that the state has a massive armed apparatus at its disposal, that this apparatus is used and institutionally predisposed to be used in oppressive ways, and that individuals occupying roles in that apparatus are susceptible to grandiose exercises of force (and I do heartily agree that all of that is a huge problem), then the answer is not to arm the citizenry but to disarm the state. The problem with the latter solution is not that is impractical, but that the armed apparatus is a definitive aspect of the state. No military/police force, no state. It's like saying the way to end economic oppression is to give everyone access to the means of production so they can have an equal shot at exploiting each other. That leads to Ayn Rand, not equality. No, the answer is to change the mode of production so that the means are shared. But then it isn't a state anymore, unless you actually believe in the fantasy of the "dictatorship of the proletariat." Oppose oppression, Quincy, don't adopt its strategies and methods in an attempt to even the playing field.

David R.

P.S. -- I too am a Malcolm X fan. Remember he said the ballot or the bullet, not the bullet no matter what. He was prophesizing violence more than advocating it. In the same interviews and speeches where he advocated for protestors and civil rights workers to defend themselves against Citizens Councils, he also said things like "the only real power a poor man in this country is the power of the ballot."

[Janice D. Soderling]

I would like to reiterate what Michael said; Thank you, Rhina, for an articulate and meaningful response to the subject under discussion and for the diagram. The Atlantic is a source I trust; it is one of the few news magazines from the US that I continue to subscribe to but I missed that article. Probably in the stack of unopened mags, I'm going to go look for the entire article.

The last significant national gun control legislation, the assault weapons ban, expired in 2004.

Michael said

What we have to do is flood our Senators and Representatives with messages, demanding that they grow a backbone.

I made the same suggestion on a Facebook thread when I heard of this tragedy. No one will read a thousand twitters and no one will read a thousand postcards either but cards are physical evidence.

I'd like to relate a brief anecdote. About three decades ago the national newspaper I subscribed to broke with an old policy to not print sex-trafficking advertisements from sex clubs, escort services etc. A friend of mine, a journalist on another paper, and I started immediately a campaign to urge all our friends to send a postcard to the editor-in-chief protesting this. It helped that I happened to attend a couple of conferences that week where all the delegates were women who had extensive networks of their own. Within two weeks the newspaper ended that new page and it has not started it again since. It was a simple action and gave results.

If every person in the United States who wants gun control sent targeted post cards to key decision-makers, say the congressmen and senators representing their state, the President, and others who influence. Don't be content to send only your postcards, use your social media to get your friends to do the same. And why not use the social media at the same time. But I do believe that sackfuls of postcards are a message themselves.

That is much more effective than bemoaning all the things you perceive to be wrong with the society as in post 55. Get off your butts and onto the bandwagon.

And send postcards protesting or supporting bills in preparation such as these below.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/congress-legacy/the-112th-congress-addresses-gun-control-20121214 (updated in Dec. 2012)

Here is a video of the history of gun controls. (CBS news) http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_1...ol-laws-video/

Do it.

[Charlotte Innes]

Originally Posted by Charlotte Innes

Also, the shooter in Connecticut apparently had Asperger's syndrome (a form of autism). Not all kids with Aspergers are violent. However, I have met at least one kid who was--who walked around school threatening to kill people. Supposing he had had a gun?

Charlotte

Hold on, guys. Please note what I said. However, yes, I did jump in there without checking data. Here's a link on that. It looks like the connection between Aspergers and violence needs to be further explored.

Charlotte

[Rick Mullin]

Andrew, my comment regarding autism was not prompted by what you wrote, which I found quite cogent and comprehensive!
RM