Good VDH Piece that partially explains why Aaron Alexis is no longer in the news....

[BaiHu]

http://nationalreview.com/article/359316/our-truest-lies-victor-davis-hanson

There's a larger message here, but there is a relevant/recent message about the Naval Yard shooting. Here's a snippet of a long piece:


...Alexis had somehow passed at least two background checks, legally bought a shotgun, modified it, and for 30 minutes shot and reloaded it to slaughter the innocent. Are we to outlaw the owning of shotguns despite background checks and lawful purchases? Vice President Joe Biden, remember, had recently urged Americans to obtain old-fashioned, all-American shotguns for protection rather than dangerous semi-automatic assault rifles. If a shotgun could be used to commit mass murder in the middle of a military installation, how could any gun-control law, short of the confiscation of all guns, ensure that such heinous crimes could not be repeated?

Few seem interested in other, less politically correct, less melodramatic solutions. It was reported that Alexis had been treated for severe bouts of mental illness, yet apparently without endangering his security clearances. Like the deranged Sandy Hook mass murderer, Adam Lanza, Alexis was also pathologically addicted to playing violent video games for hours on end. Further controversy arose over the fact that most military personnel are not allowed to carry weapons at facilities like the Navy Yard.

Unfortunately, few of our elites dared to question the mental-health industry’s approach to treating the unstable, especially its resistance to properly monitoring whether those being treated as outpatients are taking their medications. Few faulted the entertainment industry for the savage genre of the modern video game. Should we also blame the incompetence of the agencies that conducted the background checks? Was the Pentagon to blame for not allowing military personnel and contractors to carry weapons while on their own federal military facilities?

After all, none of those considerations served the larger progressive purpose of restricting gun use and ownership. More likely, these other disturbing truths threatened liberal assumptions about First Amendment rights and freedom of expression. If the white extremist Timothy McVeigh, the iconic anti-government terrorist, long ago showed us how generic right-wing extremism could lead to atrocities such as the Oklahoma bombing, then the African-American, pro-Obama, Buddhist, Thai-speaking Aaron Alexis, who murdered without an AR-15, was hardly useful as an indictment of much of anything deemed Neanderthal.

[will_1400]

The implication that playing violent video games is a factor in "making people slaughter innocents" is more than a bit annoying; it's no different than McCarthy claiming that rock'n'roll was a Communist tool or the PMRC implying that all metalheads are satanic. But I do like how they talked about how broken our mental health system is and why Alexis isn't being trumpeted like Zimmerman or Lanza.

[RoyGBiv]

A good read. Thanks.

[BaiHu]

I agree, will.

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[jetfire]

The implication that playing violent video games is a factor in "making people slaughter innocents" is more than a bit annoying; it's no different than McCarthy claiming that rock'n'roll was a Communist tool or the PMRC implying that all metalheads are satanic. But I do like how they talked about how broken our mental health system is and why Alexis isn't being trumpeted like Zimmerman or Lanza.

Agreed. I would love for the gun owning community to stop knee-jerk blaming "violent video games" for every mass shooting. It's just passing the buck to a different object to divert attention from our object. Violent video games didn't make Alexis shoot up the Navy Yard any more than those eeeebiiiiil guns did. He shot up the Navy Yard because he was a crazy asshole, and now he's a dead asshole. Time to move on.

[Drang]

Just about any thing Hanson writes is worth reading. OTOH, and FWIW, far as I can recall, this is the first time Hanson has written anything on the subject of guns/gun control. Mind you, as a (retired) farmer he likely enough owns a shotgun and/or .22. (Considering what he has written about the crime situation around Selma, CA, he should look for some tacticool accessories for the scattergun.)

[LHS]

Agreed. I would love for the gun owning community to stop knee-jerk blaming "violent video games" for every mass shooting. It's just passing the buck to a different object to divert attention from our object. Violent video games didn't make Alexis shoot up the Navy Yard any more than those eeeebiiiiil guns did. He shot up the Navy Yard because he was a crazy asshole, and now he's a dead asshole. Time to move on.

This. It's no different than people blaming Dungeons and Dragons in the early 80s, or rock music later on.

[will_1400]

This. It's no different than people blaming Dungeons and Dragons in the early 80s, or rock music later on.

As an avowed fan of Vampire the Masquerade, I often chuckle at the mental image of the conniption fit those idiots would have if they only knew about Worlds of Darkness.

[BLR]

The mental health issue is, when discussed in the context of liberty and freedom, a dangerous path. How do you define mentally healthy in terms we can use to remove someone's freedoms and liberty?

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[Kyle Reese]

The mental health issue is, when discussed in the context of liberty and freedom, a dangerous path. How do you define mentally healthy in terms we can use to remove someone's freedoms and liberty?

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Simple, comrade. Anyone not with the Party program can be declared to be insane. Abuse of the mental health system for political ends was rampant in the former CCCP.

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[fixer]

I like the article. According to the script about video games, I'm a walking, breathing, outlier. I also remember the old script run by Al Gore and Donahue when metal music was cause du jour. Again a walking outlier.

So...is there another variable in all of this that can be looked at? It isn't guns. It isn't video games. What is driving the mental health aspect of all of this?

[BLR]

Simple, comrade. Anyone not with the Party program can be declared to be insane. Abuse of the mental health system for political ends was rampant in the former CCCP.

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I know I want politicians who think Guam could tip over because of an unbalanced population making calls that influence my life, liberty, and rights.

I can't stop thinking about Hot Fuzz and the greater good.

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[RoyGBiv]

How do you define mentally healthy in terms we can use to remove someone's freedoms and liberty?

Adjudication by a court of competent jurisdiction.

[BLR]

Adjudication by a court of competent jurisdiction.

I'd say that is a gross over simplification, glossing over the practical and ideological issues with this.

How are you going to put such a court together? And more to my point - who makes up the definitions/standards?

I have no desire to make my life and behavior into your definition of "sane." I want to be left alone. I'm sure the CCCP had a court of competent jurisdiction.

And not to beat up on MDs and the like, but they have a difficult time actually quantifying anything. Much less, quantifying mental state or condition. At least not to my satisfaction. In support of that assertion, how many studies (mental or physiological) have been accepted as true to be debunked in a year or two.

And all this assumes you can find a court that doesn't have a political and/or ideological agenda. Good luck with that.

[joshs]

An adjudication of dangerousness to self or others or incapacity to handle ones own affairs are some of the most common ways to be found a "mental defective" (which carries a permanent firearm disability, unless the person's rights are restored) under current law. The other ways to fall into the federal disqualifier include being found not guilty by reason of insanity, mentally incompetent to stand trial, or enough of a danger to be involuntarily committed to a mental institution.


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[NETim]

An adjudication of dangerousness to self or others or incapacity to handle ones own affairs are some of the most common ways to be found a "mental defective" (which carries a permanent firearm disability, unless the person's rights are restored) under current law. The other ways to fall into the federal disqualifier include being found not guilty by reason of insanity, mentally incompetent to stand trial, or enough of a danger to be involuntarily committed to a mental institution.


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I can go with that BUT I fear An adjudication of dangerousness to self or others in some people's minds anyway, is defined by possession of firearms.

[BLR]

An adjudication of dangerousness to self or others or incapacity to handle ones own affairs are some of the most common ways to be found a "mental defective" (which carries a permanent firearm disability, unless the person's rights are restored) under current law. The other ways to fall into the federal disqualifier include being found not guilty by reason of insanity, mentally incompetent to stand trial, or enough of a danger to be involuntarily committed to a mental institution.


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*not directed at joshs

Bolded part - this just makes my skin crawl. Especially when compared with the phrase "God given right."

I don't want nut jobs out there with guns, either. But what's to prevent gasoline bombs? Homemade chem warfare? Vehicular murder? Axe murder? And so on.

If Lanza started chucking mason jars of gas into rooms, would we be discussing a ban on gas? Even a mental health check for the purchase of gas? Or what if he used a baseball bat?

If I lose a work contract and get mad, should my friends/family turn me in because I might lose it and I have all these guns laying around?

There's billions of people in the world, and while the percentage of bad/disturbed people might be small, the number is quite high. All the mental health access and forfeiture of rights won't stop bad things from happening. We've been hacking/burning/drowning/stabbing/suffocating/choking/beating/starving/etc each other since the beginning. Take away guns or whatever, we'll continue along using another tool...'cause we are good at making and using tools.

[RoyGBiv]

I'd say that is a gross over simplification, glossing over the practical and ideological issues with this.

How are you going to put such a court together? And more to my point - who makes up the definitions/standards?

I have no desire to make my life and behavior into your definition of "sane." I want to be left alone. I'm sure the CCCP had a court of competent jurisdiction.
While I appreciate your frustration over this issue, the reality is that every law and regulation we live under is subject to human fallibility and the norms of the day. The legal definitions of mental competency are defined today and the system has/will evolved over time, same as everything else. Perfect? Certainly not.

[BLR]

Yup. True enough.

Problem is, the mental health law would be preemptive. Burglary or attempted burglary is reactive. That is my issue. You're attempting to predict my actions based on a biased, politically driven, quasi-science. Because the less you can quantify something, the more biased and politically driven/abused it will be.

We are now throwing the background check and mental health people he interfaced with under the bus. What should the shrink have done? Preemptively institutionalized him? With accompanying loss of rights and freedom on the doc's good word/judgement? Thanks, but no thanks. I don't think I want part of that system. Or the investigators? He played video games, therefore he should be arrested?

You cannot predict future events, especially via a quasi science.

[RoyGBiv]

Yup. True enough.

Problem is, the mental health law would be preemptive. Burglary or attempted burglary is reactive. That is my issue. You're attempting to predict my actions based on a biased, politically driven, quasi-science. Because the less you can quantify something, the more biased and politically driven/abused it will be.

We are now throwing the background check and mental health people he interfaced with under the bus. What should the shrink have done? Preemptively institutionalized him? With accompanying loss of rights and freedom on the doc's good word/judgement? Thanks, but no thanks. I don't think I want part of that system. Or the investigators? He played video games, therefore he should be arrested?

You cannot predict future events, especially via a quasi science.
I could split those hairs a bit differently and suggest that burglary is an indicator of future bad behavior, as is specifically defined aspects of mental illness/mental illness derived behavior... I'm not disagreeing with your concern, just saying that "in a perfect world", a well defined set of parameters could be useful without running across the boundaries of "pre-crime".

There NEEDS to be some rules re:mental health and guns.

The paradigm you describe is, alas, more likely to be implemented. A broad brush approach, rather than a tabula rasa well-thought-out program. I could argue that a "good" (bias acknowledged) continuum of rules/processes could be constructed, 1. Warning/evaluation, 2. early intervention, ........ X. Loss of rights. But I'm not naive enough to think anything truly fair and functional would ever get implemented. Not with a bunch of bureaucrats running the show. (mental image: "The shoulder thing that goes up").

So... Your position is certainly warranted, but it doesn't have to be that way.

[BWT]

I'd say let people carry. That way if someone slips through the hundreds of millions of dollar bloated bureaucracy some propose, the guy can just be shot instead of trying to figure out why and then analyze everyone else to determine if they're a threat too and erode rights further.

[Odin Bravo One]

The implication that playing violent video games is a factor in "making people slaughter innocents" is more than a bit annoying; it's no different than McCarthy claiming that rock'n'roll was a Communist tool or the PMRC implying that all metalheads are satanic.


Agreed. I would love for the gun owning community to stop knee-jerk blaming "violent video games" for every mass shooting. It's just passing the buck to a different object to divert attention from our object. Violent video games didn't make Alexis shoot up the Navy Yard any more than those eeeebiiiiil guns did. He shot up the Navy Yard because he was a crazy asshole, and now he's a dead asshole. Time to move on.


It's no different than people blaming Dungeons and Dragons in the early 80s, or rock music later on.

Indeed.

Just one of the many reasons I have no use for Grossman or his views "On Killing" or "On Combat".

[ToddG]

As someone who has spent more hours with an XBOX controller in his hand this year than a firearm, I've got to agree. I think Grossman has some good information and some good ideas, but he also has some crazy bad ones.

"Guns don't kill people. Little metal media disks with garish logos on them kill people!"

[Mr_White]

Little metal media disks with garish logos on them kill people!

Belt buckle shuriken with built-in USB flash drive. PM me for the address to send my check to.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7418/9955564796_94fb152434_o.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/52790396@N08/9955564796/) Belt Buckle Shuriken (http://www.flickr.com/photos/52790396@N08/9955564796/) by OrigamiAK (http://www.flickr.com/people/52790396@N08/), on Flickr

[jetfire]

Indeed.

Just one of the many reasons I have no use for Grossman or his views "On Killing" or "On Combat".

It feels good to not be alone on this one.

[BLR]

I could split those hairs a bit differently and suggest that burglary is an indicator of future bad behavior, as is specifically defined aspects of mental illness/mental illness derived behavior... I'm not disagreeing with your concern, just saying that "in a perfect world", a well defined set of parameters could be useful without running across the boundaries of "pre-crime".

There NEEDS to be some rules re:mental health and guns.

The paradigm you describe is, alas, more likely to be implemented. A broad brush approach, rather than a tabula rasa well-thought-out program. I could argue that a "good" (bias acknowledged) continuum of rules/processes could be constructed, 1. Warning/evaluation, 2. early intervention, ........ X. Loss of rights. But I'm not naive enough to think anything truly fair and functional would ever get implemented. Not with a bunch of bureaucrats running the show. (mental image: "The shoulder thing that goes up").

So... Your position is certainly warranted, but it doesn't have to be that way.

I cannot come up with anything that doesn't send a chill up my spine.

Should someone with an OCD be "allowed" to have guns?

How about someone with an eating disorder?

Depression?

I'd rather put up with the risk of being involved in an incident than forfeit my rights to the bureaucrats. Lets face it, the gov't has killed more people thru incompetence and corruption this year than all the "mass shootings" have combined (bit of hyperbole).

Mental health is no more an effective direction of focus than video games. Both involve Mommy and Daddy Bureaucrat deciding how I should live my life.

The ease of committing crimes is the principal cost of a free society. Throwing mental health into the works only allows gun-grabbing morons a more firm foothold to leverage more laws and strengthening the license front. I see no benefit to even entertaining this idea.

[LOKNLOD]

I'd rather put up with the risk of being involved in an incident than forfeit my rights to the bureaucrats.
....
The ease of committing crimes is the principal cost of a free society. Throwing mental health into the works only allows gun-grabbing morons a more firm foothold to leverage more laws and strengthening the license front. I see no benefit to even entertaining this idea.

Well said.