There's just no stopping it
As everyone has heard by now, a nut with a deep-seated hatred of women opened fire inside a Bridgeville fitness club Tuesday night, killing three women and wounding nine more before turning his gun on himself. This will no doubt spark a new round of hang-wringing by supporters of strict gun controls. Those calls to rid our streets of guns should be met with a strong dose of reality. Handguns will never be banned in this country. We can try to minimize the number of mass killings by putting limits on assault weapons or perhaps clip sizes, but as we saw Tuesday, a determined lunatic with a couple of handguns can wreak just as much deadly havoc. The bottom line is that when a sick individual hatches a hate-fueled plot of kill people, there's really not much that can be done to prevent it. No matter what type of controls you put on weapons, a determined psychopath will find a way to circumvent them. We are a nation of gun owners. We always will be. And one of the side effects of that is the occasional mass murder. It's horrible, but it's inevitable.
Labels: Crime, Government, Guns, Politics
posted by Brant at
12:08 PM
31 Comments:
Golly -- I guess if all those women had been exercising while wearing the guns that people keep trying to take away from them, three of them would still be alive.
There's a reason a person is called a "gun nut." However, this guy had deeper problems, as anyone who read his website can deduce. Somehow he had the idea that he could kill with impunity because Christ had died to forgive us all our sins. Just goes to show you that no matter how clear the message, it can still be bent by personal interpretation.
You're right Brant: no one is safe. Best to accept that and live each days as if it were your last.
You're an idiot.
And the guy had double magazines containing 30 rounds. Those types of clips apparently were illegal before the assault weapons ban expired in 2004. No civilian needs 30 rounds in a 9mm, and if they do, they're living the wrong type of life.
I can't wait until you guys go ahead and attempt to defend that one.
By the way, that idiot comment was directed at Anon #1. There ain't no way anyone is going to exercise while carrying. Give me a break.
MJ, guess you never did time in the Army?
MJ -- ever hear of sarcasm? That usually comes in single shot.
Chuck, I'm wondering what Mike's military background has to do with anything. Is there something specific in what he said that you're referring to?
Yea, the gun control folks will be out in force again after this one. But, that will subside like all other hysteria a few days afterward.
Of greater concern is the "thought police." Now that his website has been exposed, and people read about his thinking, soon the cry will be "why didn't somebody do something, knowing his hatred of women?" This is the problem with the hate crimes legislation, in any form, somebody trying to decide the merits of a crime based upon background thinking. Will there be an outcry for a new set of task forces, scouring web sites, or other places of written material, looking for those who have put their bizarre thoughts down for others to read? But, wait a minute. What constitutes "bizarre" thoughts? Who is to say what constitutes thinking out of the mainline, ... oops, now we need to define "mainline."
This combination of gun ownership, and publication of material considered by most to be out of the norm, makes for a arena where some politician will want to tread. The reasoning will be "for the good of the people." Yea sure, wait until somebody determines your thinking doesn't fit the mold "for the good," then you will be on the hook.
The "thought police" already have been hard at work trying to draft hate crimes legislation. This case will be "red meat" for those folks.
Actually, I was hoping it was sarcasm, but that doesn't convey as easily over the internet. I apologize.
MJ said "There ain't no way anyone is going to exercise while carrying. Give me a break."
Guess he never did anytime in the Army? I've carried taking a shower, while I slept, during pt and o yeah... while using a cat hole.
Good point. But in the civilian world, where does the concealed weapon go in spandex pants while a person is doing his/her jazzercise routine at the gym?
Also, these are Mt. Lebanon/Castle Shannon/Bridgeville/S.Fayette chicks at the gym... I doubt anyone is trying to "Take their guns away..."
I'd bet you could give guns away at the Market District and none of these ladies would be inclined to carry one...
Just because it's technically legal to eat baloney and toenail sandwiches, doesn't mean that everyone is actually going to eat baloney and toenail sandwiches
I haven't been to that area in PA in years. What has the police chief been saying, does he need more officers? Is there this huge out cry for gun control there? Does the community know that even a blind squrriel will find a nut?
MJ made a point, I think those clips have been banned. The man that murdered these ladies did what he wanted regardless of the laws. Coward even turned out the lights so he didn't have to see what he did. There is no way you could ever protect against a nut job like that. Even if the gym manager was packing, he/she would still would have had nightvision.
Did that gym have a key card system for entry? It's sad when a place like a church or a gym gets shot up, what are the normal people to do? I don't want to see any area ever become like Oklahoma City. Oklahoma has become a police state. Thier Sheriff Department is huge! When I was there, you couldn't drive thru the city without 15 different cops running your tag. Sounds crazy, but since April 19, 1995 that is just the way it is.
The Anonymous One: I don't think a larger police presence would've stopped this because it's such a small township anyway. It was over in about a minute anyway, so police response wouldn't have mattered. The guy had a membership to the gym and apparently walked through twice earlier in the day, but so many people come into that place that the staff probably wouldn't have thought that was strange.
And I couldn't agree more about the coward shutting off the lights. He didn't care who he killed, just that he killed. And that's what is most frightening about this thing.
My boss asked me to deconstruct the "lights off" thing at lunch today... You can lead THAT horse in all kinds of directions... There's a whole volume of of inference in that single action
No amount of police presence can account for every possible scenario or idiocy. America does a damn good job of allowing freedom -- we have to take the bad with the good.
I have this great idea for a haunted house this halloween. Is it to eary?
Want to know why he did it? Simple.
Watch or listen to the news. He's a star, at least in his mind. Don't think so?
OK, quick, What's the man's last name? Most people know.
Now, name one of the victims. Most can't.
This pathetic loser has received more air time than any one of us law abiding citizens will in our lifetime and there are other people out there right now who are considering doing the same thing because of it.
That should frighten you.
I won't get into the gun debeate now, because if you can't see the danger of letting anyone have EASY access to a gun after this situation, you never will. Just collateral damage, as they say.
I wonder about his blog. If someone read it and did nothing, can they be involved in this case?
Several years ago, the local paper here in Richmond did an undercover story about drugs, guns and all of the violence inherent in the thug life. Participants were guaranteed anonymity.
One person still stands out in my mind: he was 15 at the time, and was a lookout for the street dealers. He carried a 9mm semi-automatic pistol with a fully loaded clip, plus a fully loaded spare clip. The reporter asked him how he was able to get the gun and the bullets. The kid laughed and told him that the gun cost him $5.00 and a CD.
The gun control zealots can piss and moan all they want, cite statistic after statistic and regurgitate whatever moral platitudes come to mind, but the fact is that if someone wants a gun he or she can get it. Like anything else, it's a matter of knowing the right people.
At least coverage of this supplanted Michael Jackson coverage. We'll hear about this for a while, then it will fade as the next horror story arrives. Nothing will be done because there's little that can be done.
I don't understand why anyone wants to own a gun, but it's a right to do so. Gun control won't advance because of this. People who shouldn't have guns will still be able to get them. Seemingly sane people will have problems bubbling under the surface that will erupt into violence.
The sad part about this is that this guy was normal. He had been consistently rejected by women. Who hasn't been rejected? Who hasn't been lonely, or bothered by religious zealot co-workers, as this guy's blog indicates he was? Reading his blog, it's obvious that the guy was obsessed with sex -- he complained that he'd been reading the blog of a teenage girl who claimed that she had sex with her boyfriend three times a day -- he was livid that she would have more sex in a month than he had had in his life. He complained that his dad never interacted with him, that his brother was bully, that his mother was a bitch. He hated his job. Again, how many of us can say the same thing? To me, it sounds like he was looking for people to blame for a life that didn't turn out the way he'd planned.
Should someone have recognized that he had a problem? Maybe, but it appears he didn't interact with many people. And do any of us really know what our neighbors and friends are up to? Is that guy lifting weights next to you carrying a AK47 in his bag? We don't know. When was the last time in a case like this that someone said, "Oh, we knew he was sick and would kill someone someday"?
Bottom line -- the guy's brain was not wired correctly. He said that his pastor had convinced him that he could be a mass murderer and still get into heaven because Christ had paid for all our sins. Maybe I'm going to the wrong church or sleeping through the sermon. It's not the message -- it's the interpretation of the message.
Why is it the media can't resist the urge to find every tenuous connection of the victims, then parade around asking how they feel about being shot or nor being shot? How do you think they feel? Don't give me the argument about wanting to "make sense of it all." You can't make sense of something like this. The murdered were in the wrong place at the wrong time. The shooter was a nut. That'sworth a few stories, but not daily, horly coverage of what the victims were wearing and what they ate that morning.
All the media outlets are now linking to the killer's youtube videos. What a joke. I will not watch them.
If that guy took in a butcher knife and turned out all the lights and started hacking people up, I wonder if people would want to ban those too?
What about a pack of straws? You know if you take your thumb, place it over one end and stab a tater it will go in, now in the right hands that will go thru your neck. Lets place a ban on straws!
I doubt he would have been able to kill multiple people plus himself with a knife... He may have injured a bunch of people... but you can't really do a Virginia Tech with a machete.
We are lucky that clown wasn't trained as a 11b. There was something very wrong with that man. My wife thinks he was a gay man, that didn't want to come out to himself. I mean hell, if he wanted laid I'm sure he could have gotten some, could have paid for it. A knife wound in the right area could kill you faster than a 9mm. What if he had a bow? Flinging arrows? Should we ban the bows next?
The point is, if your going to kill, you will find away to get the job done. He could have walked in there with a bags full of two step snakes and tossed them on the floor. Started a fire, ban matches? If you don't understand that man was a nutcase, it's pointless.
You doubt, Elipses, that he would have been able to walk into a crowded room and stab and kill three people and then himself? Come on.
And wounded nine more. I doubt he would have been able to stab a dozen people before a few of them jumped him. It's not like he was Andre the Giant.
I'd bet you a million bucks that if 100 guys went into 100 gyms and tried to stab 3 people to death, their level of success would make the pirates look like an allstar team. Can you imagine how hard it would be to stab to death 3 physically active people in a roomful of physically active people? That's the thing about knives... With a gun, you can still get 'em when they are running away. Once the jig is up with a knife, you need to start catching people. There's a reason we hunt with guns, Dale... I don't know how quick you are, but I don't want to have to catch a deer.
No instead Ellispes, the sexual motivated spree killer uses a bomb as the weapon of choice or develops into a serial killer because of the lack of the gun. It does not change that he is a killer and it does not change that people die.
But hey, blame the inanimate object for the deaths, that is always the easy way out for people that fail to understand the underpinings of these types of crimes.
Thank you Dale for being the only person at the OR that seems to be from Washington County.
1) I have no problem with most guns, especially handguns
2) yes, he could have killed a bunch of people in any number of ways. That doesn't change the fact that a gun is usually the easiest... Which was my point. If someone wants to kill a bunch of people, we should at least make then work for it
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