There has been no shortage of sorrow-filled words from Barack Obama following each of the tragic mass killings that have afflicted his presidency.
Obama described the wounding of congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and deaths of six other people, including a young girl, in Tucson, Arizona, last year as a "tragedy for our entire country" and called for a "national dialogue" on how Americans treat each other.
He struck much the same theme in July following the killing of 12 people at a Colorado cinema. A month later, Obama called for "soul searching" on how to reduce violence after a white supremacist murdered six people at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin.
The searing awfulness of Newtown on Friday saw the president in tears, declaring: "We've endured too many of these tragedies in the past few years.
"We're going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics," he said.
7 comments:
Obama's record on mental health issues illustrate a consistent failure to act...
Every single one of the killers you mentioned suffered from some sort of mental health disorder.
It's strange how the talk is about "gun culture" as if the very diverse firearms owning community was a real "culture", but we refuse to examine real cultural issues that underlie many of these types of shooting. From Breivik's frustration with immigrants (and he used a bomb, remember?) to Major Hasan's Islamic rage, to Canada's strange coincidence that no one wants to talk about, just ask Jan Wong, there sure seems to be some cultural tensions driving these guys.
Can we talk about the failures of de-institutionalization? Or the distinct society of Quebec that spawns so many killings? Or maybe the tensions and difficulties immigrants and their children have? Sure, I guess we could just ban all guns but that's just a chickenshit answer to a whole lot of questions people of a certain political viewpoint would rather not face.
Gee Rat, trying to paint the brush of mass murder much? Exactly where did Columbine involve immigrant rage or "culture issues"?
There are others in that list between 1999 and now that have nothing to do with "culture" issues.
Culture - Two bullied teens who felt out of place:
In Eric Harris's journal, he wrote about the bullying he received: "Everyone is always making fun of me because of how I look, and how fucking weak I am and shit. Well, I will get you all back: ultimate fucking revenge here. You people could have shown more respect, treated me better, asked for my knowledge or guidance more, treated me more like a senior, and maybe I wouldn't have been as ready to tear your fucking heads off...That's where a lot of my hate grows from. The fact that I have practically no self-esteem. Especially concerning girls and looks and such. therefore people make fun of me...constantly...therefore I get no respect and therefore I get fucking PISSED" and "Whatever I do people make fun of me, and sometimes directly to my face. I'll get revenge soon enough. fuckers shouldn't have ripped on me so much, huh! HA!"
Hmm, sounds like what a lot of immigrants feel when they come to Canada. I know, you don't want to talk about immigrants and the issues they face because that would be taboo, and we won't talk about mental illness or the differences in treatment of such between Canada and the US because that, too, is off limits. We just don't want to discuss any of the failings of the progressive state so instead we jump right to the gun.
Here is what I am talking about:
Jonathan Kay on the 'Anarchist Soccer Mom's post
Culture plays a part -- there are heavily armed countries with littlr or no criminal use of guns -- but they tend to be nations under immediate miltary risk and so the culture has adapted to a specific use of weapons. Weather that is possible in North America (and I include Canada) is far from obvious.
I agree that heavily armed countries like Israel don't have the same issues while interestingly enough Switzerland has lax gun laws with a low murder rate, but also Switzerland has no standing army and service in a militia is compulsory for all males between a certain age. I don't think you can really apply this to Canada to US.
As for why Obama did not act, I say be patient. He knows as well as anyone that if you make the wrong decision it could him on re-election and this would kill any attempts at tougher gun laws for a long-time. I suspect the Democrats polled the key swing states (New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, Colorado, and Nevada) and probably found tighter gun control were more likely to hurt their odds of winning those states. In US elections most states are irrelevant as we already know which party will win it so it comes down to who can win the swing states which Obama won all but North Carolina. Had the swing states gone for Romney he would have won. One can have certain views but most politicians have many things they want to do and the focus on what is doable rather than what isn't and also make sure if they do anything controversial, it is done right since it is not just what is done, but how it is done.
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