I was saddened today to hear that there has been a run on gun sales all over the United States since this awful tragedy. They are stockpiling the very weapons and ammunition used in this tragic event because they fear they will be band in future. What is wrong with our society?

@visitior 55: “His first thought would have been to save himself then he would have immediately shit his panties and hid under his desk.”

Viz, you have Ablowme’s response correct — you just have the order of that response backwards . . .

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Allblow is an idiot. It’s so easy to sit in front of a camera days after a tragedy and be a Monday morning quarterback, so to speak.

I’m 100% certain that had it been “doctor” Allblow been in that situation, his first thought would not have been to reach for a gun and bring down the guy. His first thought would have been to save himself then he would have immediately shit his panties and hid under his desk.

Ablowme should just stick to being Glenn Beck’s personal psychiatrist; that’s a full-time job in itself . . .

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http://www.dailyfinance.com/2009/11/16/most-dangerous-military-towns/

Everyone being armed and trained does nothing to stop crime- If anything, it gives the offenders a better idea of who’s the biggest threat fighting back.

Oh, and Ablow claims to have been a criminal profiler at one point. I hope to God he didn’t do any shootings, because the reason they get victims even at bases and outside police stations is that it catches them enough off guard for the trained professionals to get caught off-guard. What would a civilian that happened to be armed do- especially if they find they can’t shoot another person, even in defense?

Q. What kind of psychiatrist would advocate the use of firearms?

A. A very bad one.

@labman57: Absolutely true.

The guy had a bulletproof vest, two semi-automatic handguns, and multiple rounds of ammo.
If you now put guns in the hands of inexperienced, panicked elementary school teachers in an environment with dozens of young kids in the crossfire … the would-be “heroic, gun-packing teacher” would mostly likely have accidentally contributed to the mayhem.

I wrote a cautious note last night as an outsider looking in. I fear that nothing will change and the killing will continue, or that if change is attempted the killing will get worse. I hope your country proves me wrong: http://behindthehedge.wordpress.com/2012/12/14/a-hesitant-note-to-my-u-s-neighbours-on-a-tragic-day/

Dr. Keith: All blow all the time.

One other thing: Those who call for gun control after incidents like this contribute nothing to the solution. Gunmen like Friday’s plan their actions, right down to wearing military garb. They could certainly procure illegal firearms or use incendiary devices to kill. I only wish the kindergarten teacher and principal in Connecticut had been armed.

Oh, dear… the stupidity.

There is a culture dedicated to glamorize the use of guns and violence, the bigger the better and the most bad ass.

The Hummer? Hey! You were buying something like the Army uses!

Gun shows? Hey! We are exercising our second amendment rights without gubbimint intrusion!

Military garb? Go to the library and find a magazine selling hats, jackets, boots, even carrying cases for your weapons.

Incendiary devices? OK. That is just stupid.
Dr. AllBlows has been watching too many Hollywood Fox movies and shows.

Let me just say, we don’t hear much about arson on the news.

Shootings…

Listening to Fox and Friends is bad for my health (high blood pressure). Cognitive dissonance does not even come close to defining what I’m hearing. Right now, they are talking about America having a violent culture but – to hear them – firearms have nothing to do with that. Oh no! Never, ever. The target right now is video games; earlier, it was poor parenting but that may not have been a winner. Oops, Allisyn is now talking about Aspergers.

The trio on the curvey couch is doing a lot of broad-reaching rabble-rousing today.

Forgot to add that a background check should include a list of all the firearms owned both in the past and currently. I can see no reason for anybody to have several arms … except the Goddess Kali, of course.

@aria. My preference would also be for a total ban on weapons that exist only to kill people but I am trying to be pragmatic because some boys simply won’t give up their toys. I have no problems with genuine hunters, aka the sort who can walk for hours to bag 5 or 6 birds. The ones that I consider to be fakes would quite happily exterminate anything that moves.

A background check would at the very least establish the principle that gun ownership is not a right but a privilege reserved to responsible individuals (like driving a car, actually). Even the constitution refers specifically to the need for a well-organised militia. The authors were not thinking about an armed mob, quite the opposite.

Now, if firearms were perceived as the dangerous things they are, people might even start keeping the friggin’ things under lock and key. Can you find out how many kids are killed each year simply because they found a gun just lying there? I’m pretty sure the annual average are more than 20.

My aversion to routine mental assessments is based on apprehension that we might go back to a time when women and other undesirables could be put away at the whim of someone with the money to pay for the likes of Ablow. A background check should bring up any examples of illegal behavior, especially violence and ownership of any arms that may have been used for crime. No need to worry about finding psychiatrists that actually know what they’re talking about.

Have been listening to Fox and Friends in hope of catching the next press conference and it’s been hard keeping my hands off the remote control. Guest after guest is shooting off a different list of things that people should be reporting as potentially dangerous. At this rate, they’d be confining over half the population of the USA in mental institutions.

There was a new legal analyst called Aidalla (sp) who sounded more reasonable than Judge nappy.

Right on Ray! I teach in an inner city school, so I understand what you mean, and FOX does not help, they hurt! Ablow is also a blowhard, using every horrible act, including mass murders of mostly five year old school children as a forum to advance their sponsors’ gun agenda.

2) background checks (not a mental assessment which is far too invasive of individual privacy);

I sort of agree with this, but at the same time… think about this, Bemused:

James Holmes was found to be mentally ill, and Jovan Belcher was claiming long concussions. Both were flagged, and the vendors who sold them their guns legally didn’t consider their mental health to be a factor.

Guns are literally the only type of weapon that have no purpose other than to hurt/kill people. Note I said type of weapon, not actual weapon. Their only two functions are to fire a high velocity piece of lead, and to be a club if it’s not in your best interest to pull the trigger. This is twice as much reason to flag potentially dangerous people around them.

And I do extend this to people who already own guns- when someone’s a suicide risk, they take everything that could easily be used as a weapon until the person’s no longer a danger to themselves. What’s wrong with the inverse?

The following has become such a trite phrase in the mouths of the foxies, but I do feel the need to thank you and your wife, along with all the serious and dedicated teachers in the world, for your service.

I was a teacher and principal in an elementary school for 38 years! The idea that I or fellow teachers would pack a gun is insane! Maybe this so called doctor needs a doctor as well! I am retired now but my wife still teaches at a local middel school. We never thought we were unsafe doing the work until now! I also get sick of heraing FOX and their pals on right bashing teachers and teacher unions! I guess putting themsleves in the line of fire to protect their kids as happend yesterday is not worth much to FOX and their union busting governors.

I agree completely with you, Ray, even though I don’t much like the idea of mental institutions per se. We do lock up convicted criminals, and it may be necessary to institutionalise the treatment of particularly serious cases of mental illness.

However, that should never be at the expense of programs that aim to address the root causes of mental illnesses.

Several guests, even on FoxNews (a cause of irritation to some of the hosts), have mentioned the consequences of severe cuts in funding for outpatient assistance to the mentally unbalanced (as well as for schools). The hosts prefer the likes of Dr. Ablow who’d want everybody to be carrying a gun thereby increasing exponentially the risks of mayhem and death.

So far, I’ve heard nobody mention the possibility that it would have been totally “normal” to buzz in the son of a teacher. If the hunting season is open as I suspect (late December), nobody would even have wondered why he was wearing camouflage gear and carrying a rifle.

There’s still an awful lot we don’t know and the police are behaving very professionally by refusing to say anything at all rather than say the wrong thing.

PS: The Fox reporter from NJ seemed awfully anxious to say that “he didn’t know where the story about the bodies in Hoboken came from”. It would be so refreshing if the foxies would just shut up for a minute and check the facts before speculating away.

Maybe the real problem is that our states have systematically closed down all the state mental institutions where people could go for treatment. This has left thousands of mentally ill patients on the streets! They receive neither treatment nor supervision and are only recognized when an event like this takes place. I am not a gun person by any means! They scare the hell out of me and should be better controlled but in addition so should all these mentally disturbed individuals as well. Society has failed to treat them. We pretend they don’t exist anymore and need state mental hospitals where they can be confined and treated until they are well. Yes, we decided to save money for foreign wars and other wasteful adventures at the expense of protecting society from the mentally ill and then we are shocked when these people act out and do things like this.