There’s a story in the New York Daily News today that the clerks at the gun shop in Binghampton knew the guy was nuts, but felt they had no legal grounds on which to deny him the two guns (and many bullets) he purchased. (Or they wanted the sale, and put a better spin on it to the reporter.)

In any case, Second Amendment or not (and I don’t say that lightly, being a card-carrying member of the ACLU and all), we need either better gun laws, or better enforcement. I don’t think our Founding Fathers intended the Bill of Rights to guarantee lethal weapons to madmen.

I was just watching a re-run of the West Wing last night, and in it, Tobey (Richard Schiff) argues that the right to bare arms was created not for idiots in their Durangos. Michael Moore’s “Bowling for Columbine” also showed (in it’s own slightly altered reality) just how easy it is for someone in this country to purchase a weapon, and create havoc. I can understand (though not…. in a manner that suggest I like…) those who own a rifle and hunt as a “sport”. But handguns? Seriously… what purpose do they serve aside from being instruments to be used in the murder of our fellow man?

As I recall a quote from the West Wing (and this may or may not be true, but damnit it sure sounds correct) … “England, Ireland, Sweden, Finland, Spain, France, Germany, Austria, Poland,…(he goes on)… Together they have a population equal to our own. Last year we had 30,000 shooting deaths… they had 226. Why is that? Is it because we’re homocidal psychopaths? Or is it because all of those other nations have gun control laws?

A fair point Mike, absolutely. There’s no “simple” answer to what is going on. The creation of jobs is an absolute, but what kind of jobs? What can we do to ensure that the new jobs are “secure” or deliver “fair pay”? Our national minimum wage still places people well below the poverty line. Some wages are better than no wages, this much I know… but to say we need to create jobs… makes me wonder what jobs specifically there are to create.

The great depression was in part bailed out by a world war where America created a demand for their manufactured wares. I think it was a previous column of yours Mike (or one similar I had been reading) that mentioned the idea of creating more carbon neutral energy sources here in the states, and increase manufacturing jobs in clean energy resources… But in doing that, will it create ENOUGH jobs for qualified people out there? I can only hope so.

You’re right to say there’s no easy way to figure out “crazy”… and certainly these pressing times are pushing on people’s mental health badly enough as it is. To defend myself and Martha though, I think she and I were just making a point about the “need to defend ourselves” versus the present loose gun laws that exist in our country. As it stands, it’s too easy to get a gun, make a bomb, etc… and no laws we create will stop those seeking these devices from finding/making them. Ultimately, we need a better solution, and as you’ve said, creating jobs may very will lead to that.

Let’s hope so.

I don’t think we can blame the World Economy or our nation’s unemployment for the motivations of a bunch of irrational nut-jobs. By it’s very definition there is NO rationale for an irrational act. What was Timothy McVeigh’s employment history? Did the 9-11 terrorists have jobs? What these people are doing isn’t just WRONG, it’s CRAZY and WRONG. I not only can’t see a justification for it, I can’t see any rational motivation. It’s EVIL, CRAZY and WRONG.

Here’s one irrational motivation that I want to eliminate: INFAMY. I don’t want nut-jobs thinking that if they commit some heinous crime, like murdering John Lennon, ANYBODY will remember their names or try to decipher the twisted mess of self-pity and self-loathing that led them to their crime. I don’t want nut-jobs interviewed in Prison. Let them wallow in obscurity. We care about their victims NOT for their opinions. Their actions should prove to us that their opinions don’t matter.

And Mike, you forgot to mention the 23 year old man who stabbed and killed his 17 year old sister, decapitated his 5 year old sister (this was during the 5 year old’s Birthday Party) and was shot to death by police as he tried to stab his 9 year old sister.

Can senseless evil like this have a cause? It would be comforting to think that there is a contagion or cause for this spate of random, senseless, violent and evil acts. I would sleep easier if I could believe that once the Economy was doing better, this Evil might be ameliorated or contained. I’m just not that optimistic. The acts are senseless and random. The causes and motivations (blech) are legion.

I’m tired of the Cult of Jack-the-Ripper, Ed Gein, Charles Manson, Mark David Chapman or Timothy McVeigh. Whoever! I can name too many Crazy F**Ks by name! I’m tired of our collective morbid curiosities. I actually worked with a guy who wanted to be a Modern Jack-the-Ripper. The fact that he only killed two people and wounded a third was not the fault of limited aspirations!

It’s my understanding (flawed though it may be) that the purpose of the Second Amendment is to allow citizens to rebel against the Government, something I support, although in my own pacifist way.

The problem is that when you combine lethal weapons with the frustration you discussed, you get impulsive slaughter. It’s true that crazy people might also make bombs, but first they have to learn how and assemble the ingredients. With a gun, you just point and shoot.

I’m entirely in favor of more jobs (and me, first, please). I’m also in favor of better anger management, and early childhood lessons in conflict resolution. In fact, those could be some really useful jobs to create.

Ah, nothing like a good gun control debate to snap me out of the dumps. I think everyone’s comments have a point so here’s my two cents-I freely acknowledge the fear and pain the current recession is causing people but I’ve always thought this-if you want to put a bullet in someone start with yourself and go from there.

I know I’m skipping over tons of ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ but murder is murder and I feel no one has the right under any circumstances to decide to take anyone else out regardless of the cause.

Yes-there are some things worth dieing for but that decision belongs to each and every one of us if we so choose-NOT to some punk asshole who has just ‘had enough.”

I know how it feels to be scared, hungry and how it feels to have more than one person in my life murdered. I also know how it feels to know someone who has committed murder-my feeling are the same-I don’t care what happened to you in your life -if you go on a mass murder spree and if your punk ass does not kill yourself at the end of it like the coward you are then you should be tortured slow on TV by EVERY family member of a person you killed.

I’m a member of the NRA not because I believe in everything they stand for but for one reason and one reason ONLY-that’s so if someone decides to come into my home and threaten my family I can…

B L O W T H E M T H E F U C K A W A Y with a choice of weapons I learned how to use safely with the help of NRA programs…and Ray Ray from the hood.

Yes-we need more jobs but we also need to let people know that losing a job and your lot in life is never a reason to hurt anyone. Like I said you want to put a bullet in someone start with yourself.

BTW-thanks Mike!

70-80 years ago the media were not nearly as much in the business of blowing up a problem into a crisis. Modern television news has 24 hours a day to fill with only a limited amount of actual events. This is why so many things that would never have made the nightly news as little as ten years ago are now talked about for hours, even days.

When there was a shortage of flu vaccines, it was touted a flu “crisis”, almost guaranteeing that there would be a FLOOD for the vaccines that most people don’t bother getting in the first place. Every news item with a shred is import is bled for days. The negative aspects of the stories are played up, especially on how they can affect YOU personally.

There was a piece on the news a few weeks back about a little girl who tore open one of those singing greeting cards and swallowed the little battery. She had a horrid reaction to the chemicals in the battery, and once they were able to figure out what had happened she was fine. The story was teased before the break as “A little girl who nearly died from something that you may have in YOUR HOME”. I predicted it was peanuts, but the point was, the implied fear that the same thing could happen to you kept you watching.

The media are so good at turning minor inconveniences into a national tragedy, when they have a REAL crisis on their hands they don’t know what to do. It’s like being used to adding your own sugar to coffee, and then someone hands you pre-sugared coffee and you add your own anyway out of habit.

People watch the news, the way things are spun, the utter soul-crishing finality of it all, and it’s no wonder that some people are driven to violence or depression. People see so much bad news that people are convinced that this economy may still result in them losing homes that they own outright.

there was more of a sense of ulterior optimism during the great depression, a sense that “we’ll get through this”. I don’t see as much of that now., at least not on TV. I love watching the morning shows, where they’ll have a financial advisor on to talk about how to survive in this economy, followed immediately about which air of five-hundred dollar sunglasses look best on your face.

Obama has done a good job of talking up the strength of America, but now that he’s the President, it’s the job of the media to pick him apart at every turn. So they do the pieces about “has he done enough?” and all the other stuff to undermine faith in him.

Yes, things are bad for many people, but part of the issue is that the Media is making it seem even worse than it actually is. And that’s a hell of a job to pull off.

Vinnie is oh-so-right about the news highlighting the negative. Tangentially, have you noticed that all newscasts lead with “Breaking Story” headlines? Just a few years ago, the local news led off the news with a breaking news story that featured video tape of the breaking news. It was the 11pm newscast, and the video was in bright daylight. The report was in December, where it gets dark before 5pm. Breaking news? I hardly think so.
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I have 4 friends and 1 acquaintance who are NRA members. The 4 friends are all Democrats. All five of these people could tell me where to purchase a handgun, and I’m sure all of them would If I asked them. Hell, 3 of them would likely sell me one of theirs. All of us are smart enough to remove identifying marks if we wanted to.
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It is my opinion that the second amendment does not give individuals the right to own arms, but the states as a right to protect themselves. However, I also feel it is a useless enterprise to argue that point. The De Facto law of the land is that every man and woman has the right to owns arms unless they give that freedom away with their actions. Too much time is wasted every year arguing moot points.

I’ve been following this article’s comments with great interest. Sadly, as a close family friend, I went to the funeral for a wondrous 18-year-old, Galen Gibson, one of six students, workers and professors who were attacked and murdered by a student, Wayne Lo, at Simon’s Rock College in Massachusetts in 1992. Lo had just purchased an automatic weapon and cut loose. One of these funerals is too many. This was years ago, but you never, ever forget.

Mike, what stands out to me in your passionate article–one that hit home–was your connection between the near daily violent mass murders and employment. Can we fairly compare life in the Great Depression and now? Sure, there are similarities but I believe there are also vast differences. Life’s pace, expectations (fair or not), the aforementioned microscopically detailed and lightning fast media scrutiny, and numbers of people are just some of the factors in the underbelly of the times. On the surface–and below–is the overriding lack of spirit–another sign of our era’s polarization and discontent.

Ultimately though, for me, the common denominator between the 1930s and now can be reduced to two words–class distinctions. Though I’m no communist, I don’t think some of the theories of Marx and Dubois, Debs and the Wobblies are completely wrong. I think there are lessons to be learned from many sources.

Who guided us into our current debacle? Not pointing fingers at specific political parties but at a thinly veiled upper-class composed of less than 5% of the American populace.

Look at some of the recent decisions as well. Obama is getting advice from some of the very people (Summers and Geithner stand out here) who had the helm and watch when we hit the iceberg. Are these two (and many others in the their posse) deeply feeling this Depression? I think not.

Mike, your article–and many of the comments–ties together so many important pieces. But when we reference history (as you do) I feel it is important not to neglect the roll of class and race. MLK understood those factors all too well–after all, why was he in Memphis when he was assassinated? To support a garbage strike. In that one, although one man died, millions suffered.

@Mike,
On the money!
“We’ve got to get good jobs for fair pay going. We’ve got to put America back to work.”
Yes!
I agree as well with your point about the destruction of the middle-class. I’m thinking that five years ago not too many would have conceived the party would implode so damn fast.
Mike, hat’s off to you–a Wobblie! I curtsy in your honor. Undoubtedly you know this that follows but for them’s that don’t, please allow me to spout:

In the ’30s, whole parts of America remained agrarian, albeit with industrialization a near fait accompli. As you pointed out in your column, what “saved” the Depression-ravaged Midwest as well as urban centers was a manufacturing boom in the 1940s.

Much of the genesis of the now- former middle-class came during the post-WWII aftermath. Clearly, that party ended and a new boom emerged from a fortunate dovetailing of whiz kids and technology in the last three decades. I agree with your point about the party’s music abruptly changing with the Reganomics of the 1980s. It took Bush and his cronies to nail a coffin set in place by the previous four administrations. How many of these people are affected in the least by this latest Depression.

The lines in the sand seeping through a fragile hour-glass are clearly drawn. A whole new directionless flock of Have-Nots is still forming under the gathering storm clouds. Truly, America is more polarized than ever.

We desperately need jobs–and as you state–”good jobs for fair pay.” Sure, band-aids are better than gangrenous gaping wounds. But minimum wage “positions” with little future are not going to provide long-term solutions. As long as they keep people from The Street, that’s fine for now. What’s next? Surely, tax breaks are not helpful to those of us (nearing 20 million) lacking jobs.
Money for re-training? I’m all for it. It requires work and responsibility on the part of those seeking a new future.
If more of the previously allocated funds were diverted from some of the fortunate institutions to assist in this educational effort that led to new vocations, I fail to see how that would be a bad thing. There’s still time for some. In the meantime, all I can hope is that those disaffected souls on demented fringe leave the rest of us in peace.