Another mass shooting. These things never happened in my grandparents' day. They didn't have television or air conditioning, they had porches. They knew their neighbors and neighborhood.
Over at The Ace of Spades they tout a pair of pictures, the Tucson shooter and this nut in Colorado. The expressions on those two faces are more or less identical. It's really not that hard to notice a nutcase, and today we see them all the time. Mostly wandering the streets having loud arguments with someone nobody else can see. Most are mainly just a pain in the butt, making noise, pooping in doorways, panhandling, etc.
They would actually be better off in an institution if only we could find staff that doesn't either abuse them or ignore their needs, along with doctors that didn't believe they owned the patients for the practice of bizarre theories.
After the left tried very hard to make the Tucson shooting a right wing plot the public eventually found out that Loughner was an apolitical nut who should have been involuntarily committed if the local law enforcement had been doing the job. He would have then had to jump through more hoops to get his gun, perhaps even discouraged by the initial official refusal.
We will probably eventually read or hear about James Holmes, the accused shooter being somewhat strange. I've already read about "shy but intelligent". The simple reality is that no one just wakes up and decides to off a bunch of strangers. It takes time for such a mental state to grow. In the old days people would notice. As we saw in Tucson, people did notice but, again, law enforcement failed. In my grandparents' day he would have been hauled downtown, perhaps with a minor tuneup along the way. The second or third time he would have been committed.
We let crazies roam the streets because of their "rights". Nobody mentions the rights of the people who have to put up with them. And the Loughners and Holmses have their "rights". No one mentions the rights of the folks in that theatre. The same crowd that excoriates the Second Amendment, the NRA and the Tea Party would never allow the Holmses and the Loughners to be locked up. That would be judgemental. Somehow a lack of judgement has become a virtue. No wonder we have Joe Effin' Biden as VP.
1 comment:
You're absolutely correct. In the old days we all knew our neighbors, whether we liked or loathed them... because it was likely that we'd need each other at some point.
Now? I know two or three folks by name in my hood. It's different.
"The same crowd that excoriates the Second Amendment, the NRA and the Tea Party would never allow the Holmses and the Loughners to be locked up. That would be judgemental."
Yep.
Post a Comment