Gunman shoots in elementary school in Connecticut

[freein05]

As has been said, Free, firearms aren't magic...

As to your understanding of "clips", the utility and nature of "assault weapons", the tactics involved in a confrontation, and the state of the art in modern training practices, I find you uninformed. I would be happy to point interested parties to quality training and educational programs.

I was in the army and was trained in the use of many weapons including machine guns. We were not playing soldier we were soldiers. For those who want to play with weapons join one of the military services. With all of the training we were never issued live amo unless there was an immediate need or danger. Even as highly trained as we were the army knew that having fully armed troops all the time was not a good situation.

Edited to add: I will say that a some people have the ability and mental capacity to own firearms.

[Gregg]

Just trying to understand what some of you mean about removing the stigma of mental illness??...

It sounds like it wasn't the system that let this shooter down, but rather his mother, who tried to cover it up.

In a way CathyA you just asked and answered your own question. Why would the mother try to cover her son's mental challenges up if such a condition was socially acceptable? I'm not sure if she did or not, but a lot of people seem to do exactly that. I know quite a few people who view mental illness differently than say...cancer. It's like you can't help it if you get cancer, but you should be able to work through significant mental issues if you're strong enough. If you can't overcome it that means you are weak and that, here in the John Wayne republic, is something you should be ashamed of. Aka, it's stigmatized. I have to confess to my own assumptions along those lines earlier in my life because that was a prevailing mindset when and where I was raised. We just didn't talk about people with serious mental issues in polite company. Knowing that is wrong doesn't necessarily make it easy to overcome. I can not offer any hard evidence or statistics, but I get a real feeling that we (as a society) still tend to treat afflictions of the mind differently than those of the body. Does that make any sense?

[freein05]

The following is from the Huffington Post. The killing with guns were all in one day in America. We should be ashamed of our nation to let this gun violence to continue.

Another Day, More Deaths: Two Police Officers Shot And Killed In Kansas... 3-Year-Old Accidentally Shoots Himself, Dies... Gunman At Large After Shooting Victim 4 Times... Man Shoots Wife, Keeps Cops In Standoff For Hours... One Person Shot In San Antonio, Gunman Later Shot By Cops... Woman Shot At Campground... Woman Shot To Death, Son 'Thought She Was Sleeping'

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

[Gregg]

I was in the army and was trained in the use of many weapons including machine guns. We were not playing soldier we were soldiers. For those who want to play with weapons join one of the military services.

Should I be required to attend Juilliard before I buy a piano?

[bae]

I was in the army and was trained in the use of many weapons including machine guns. We were not playing soldier we were soldiers. For those who want to play with weapons join one of the military services.

And now I find you uninformed, and offensive. Cheers.

[ApatheticNoMore]

I don't see the stigma either. So I really think "stigma" is a code word for FUNDING, which is certainly a topic to debate, but it's often pressing hard against limits of funds. There is not a healthcare plan imaginable where if full mental health services were included costs wouldn't increase (and medical care is already basically pushing unaffordable, for individuals, for companies, I don't think Medicare is broke, but at the state level even for government), state funding right now is drying up for Medicaid. However this shooters circumstances, um they lived in a very upper class place, so I'm not really convinced they were struggling economically.

[CathyA]

Thanks for that perspective Gregg. I'm still confused as to how we would even deal with the incredibly long continuum of mental illnesses. If we took the "stigma" away..........what would that lead to? Would that mean more people would be institutionalized? More people would be on drugs? Would we just ignore people who seemed crazy and accept it as more normal? I'm just not sure how that would present itself. And where is the line drawn between just having idiosyncrasies and mental illness?
I thought this article that I provide a link for was interesting. The mother is really struggling and has acknowledged her son has a problem, but how to fix it? I'm not sure (and I guess none of us can be sure) why the shooter's mom didn't seek out help for her son. It may be more about who she was, her own psychological/mental make-up, rather than a fear of some stigma. Some people just don't want to expose themselves or anything about their lives to other people.
Here's that link: http://thebluereview.org/i-am-adam-lanzas-mother/

[Miss Cellane]

Don't forget there was a father in the home, until 2009, when the shooter would have been about 17. What influence did the father had on the treatment/non-treatment of his son? There was clearly money enough for treatment.

And once the shooter turned 18, he was a legal adult and could refuse treatment if he wanted. The parents would have had a much harder time at that point to force him to get treatment.

At what point does the right of the individual to refuse treatment become such a public danger that we have to force the treatment on him/her?

My brother was diagnosed with a heart condition a few years ago. The standard treatment is a pacemaker. He didn't want a pacemaker. It's his right to refuse to get a pacemaker implanted.

And the doctors were cool with that. They just calmly informed him that he could refuse the pacemaker. But they'd have to notify the Registry of Motor Vehicles, because he couldn't be allowed to drive, as he might pass out at any moment, and would be a danger to himself and other behind the wheel of a car. Dear Brother decided to get the pacemaker.

There was direct, clear, significant consequence for my brother if he didn't get the pacemaker. Do we need something like this for certain types of mental illness, as well?

[JaneV2.0]

I don't see the stigma either. So I really think "stigma" is a code word for FUNDING, which is certainly a topic to debate, but it's often pressing hard against limits of funds. There is not a healthcare plan imaginable where if full mental health services were included costs wouldn't increase (and medical care is already basically pushing unaffordable, for individuals, for companies, I don't think Medicare is broke, but at the state level even for government), state funding right now is drying up for Medicaid. However this shooters circumstances, um they lived in a very upper class place, so I'm not really convinced they were struggling economically.

The reason medical care costs twice as much as it does in other countries is that we've insisted on a for-profit system for the last fifty years or so. There's not much profit in mental illness, apparently. Except for Pharma.

[ApatheticNoMore]

Thinking about it, it does seem odd that most of these shooters are actually not the disadvantaged, who really in many ways are treated the worst by society, but seem more often to be people with quite a lot of economic advantages. I know having money isn't everything, their home life could be horrible abusive etc., but is it an upper middle class phenomena?