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David Mitchell

I just lost a 30 typing effort before submitting - so you are all the beneficaries. In short;

In addition to a shockingly true comment from "Himself" today............

1) A lot of talk today about violent video games and their effect on these kids. Experts all denying "any link", but I completely disagree. We all learned to repeat and love much of the stuff we saw and heard on our own early form of "Social Media". You remember, we used to call it "Television".

We loved every Cowboy and Indian hero and wanted guns and horses and coonskin caps. We memorized hundreds of verses of commercial jingles and punch lines. ("where's the beef?" - or "it's Howdy Doodie time" - or  "Born on a mountan top in Tennessee!")

Need I go on?

Can somebody explain how hese ultra violent graphic "killing games" do not make any impression?

2) Also a lot of talk about the "DARK WEB" - a deeply secure bit of the internet that we hear about but know little (some of you maybe). A commentator on PBS News last night explaining how these groups hang around on these sites, sharing "how to do it", cheering each other on, and keeping score when each incident happens. Seveal groups are preparing large numbers of memers for the "coming Race War". One of the sites ("8chan") even admitted last night that their site contained too much of this evil and agreed to shut down. Commendable!  

David Mitchell

JIm,

I'd be elated if my grandkids could just be taught longhand. 

Janie Albright (Blank)

I just sent out an email with all the details about our class trip to the Henry Ford Museum/Greenfield Village in Detroit Sept. 9. I may have messed up the dates. Jack and I seem to have a mental block on this but Clare has it right! Of course she does! Don’t pass up this opportunity to be with your oldest friends! 

Monday September 9 Tuesday September 10  

Life is short! Take the trip! 

James Hamilton, M. D.

I do not want this to be political because the problems are not. I do not blame any politician for the crimes of El Paso or Dayton. The blame lays on the shooters. I do not know what was in their deranged minds, nor do any of you. Manifestos may or may not state what they actually believed or believe. In fact, they may have been written to merely create chaos within society. Do I think that social media or violent movies and video games played a role in these killings? I don't know. Could they have been a factor in other mass murders? Very likely. Are these individuals mentally unstable? Definitely. Would stricter gun laws have prevented these crimes? Doubtful, since cities (Chicago) with some very strict gun laws have the highest gun related violence and death rates. Can Congress solve this problem? No. Can they help? Maybe. Can this problem be solved? Probably not. Can it be minimized? Hopefully. By whom or what? Federal government? Doubtful. Money? Hasn't helped many things before. Families? I think so. Education? If done correctly. Churches? If started early enough. Role models? Only the good ones. The list goes on and we all have our biases. 

As for the mental health aspect, this is what I think/know:

There are​​​ not enough mental health ​professionals/providers in the country to meet our needs. 

Politicians ​​​​and the laws of America often inhibit the ability of mental health workers from preventing dangerous patients from being sequestered from society for evaluation and treatment prior to them committing crimes. 

A person with a severe mental illness (psychosis) cannot be treated/cured as if he/she had a strep throat and just needed a shot of penicillin. That treatment is often long terrm, perhaps lifetime, and needs medication, psychotherapy, other measures and many resources.

In a free society such as ours, there are no easy answers. Will it be necessary to suspend constitutional rights for those who are a threat to our society before they commit crimes? That could certainly lead to abuse and a "slippery slope" scenario. 

I​​​ don't see any one solution to this complex problem and the "blame game" is not helping. It is just a distraction. 

Jim 

John Jackson

Jim, you’re absolutely right that the underlying causes are complex and to solve the problem at the source requires long and difficult effort across among many fronts.  But until we make that investment can't we get an awful lot of symptomatic relief simply by reforming our insane and permissive gun laws?

Other countries have crazy people too but we’re the only one that empowers our crazies to perform unspeakable acts by glorifying gun culture and making military-style guns cheap and easy to get.

And, sorry, while I accept that our Divider-in-Chief did not himself pull the trigger, he has risen to power by demonizing and stoking fear of “the other”, a tactic that only encourages, (and in their minds, provides cover for) the fevered crazies to act out their worst fantasies.  

James Hamilton, M. D.

John, your last sentence is interesting. It seems to me that many of those on the left who are "rising to power" are attempting to do so by vilifying conservatives as racists, white supremacists and several other "-ists" monikers which, in your way of thinking, could and may have already incited others to commit mass murders. Maybe you do but as I said, I do not know what is in their deranged minds.

Jim 

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

More food for thought:

There have always been guns in America, and the same can be said for mental illness, racism and ideological extremism.  If this were simply a problem of mentally unstable people with guns, or racists with guns, or ideological extremists with guns, we should have observed a relatively consistent rate of mass shootings.  But we do not, what we can observe is an eruption of mass shootings in the past 12 years.  The rise of social media, the internet, and video gaming have created a cyberspace obsession which has had the effect of  increasingly detaching us from the physical world and each other…..ironically, our "connectedness" has made us "disconnected".  The reality is that we have become a nation littered with numb, detached, desensitized people.  Mass shootings are the manifestation of that reality.

Underlying all of this is our diminished sense of  the transcendent…a rejection that there is any higher purpose to human life.  As our nation has grown increasingly secular and as God, the very source of morality, virtues and life itself, has been purged from all of our institutions, we see darkness, chaos, evil, violence and human suffering grow to fill in the gap.

While I certainly do not condone the vitriol of current political personas....there is quite enough evidence of enmity emanating from all sides of the political spectrum. 

https://youtu.be/nw9kyYEwg2A

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/08/06/dayton-ohio-shooting-governor-mike-dewine-gun-changes/1930220001/

Frank Ganley

In this world there are great tragedies, some of nature, some are accidents and others are man made. Getting rid of the guns ,impossible ! There are too many ! That barn door has been open since we were American. Where there mass shootings then , no. Guns took too long to load for one but the main reason for no mass murders is they had God in their lives. I know some will scoff at that thought but let us look at just our lives as these are the only lives we’ve lived. This won’t be a oh back in the old days, no it is a question as to what is different or missing in today society. For most of us we went to a catholic grade school and prayed everyday and were taught how important it was to have, to quote Dylan” with God on our side”. We looked forward to our First Holy Communion, Confirmation and all that went with it. Most people regardless of their faith went to Church on Sunday! Why? Everyone has some contact with God, They renewed their faith and prayed for whatever their intentions. Christmas season everyone had a crib, every government building agorned with stables, Wise Men surrounding the Christ. Easter was almost as big with everyone going to their religions customs. The world for the most part was peaceful except for those damned Russians! What happened God was sued and he lost. Like Jackie Paper he came no more. Something must takes it place, something must take people away from the light. Video killing games, call of duty, and the like. We had cowboy guns and rifles, we had army guns and rifles but because they weren’t real we knew it was fake with no consequences except from the argument”i got you, did not” . Though some may not believe any longer but explain, since we have kicked God to the curb. Expelled from our schools how much has this effected our lives. 10 Commandants , are you kidding we don’t need them, Fear of the Lord and the loss of our soul are gone, there is nothing after this life. It is almost to the point where some think Groundhog day is real and tommirow we start all fresh. God needs to be reinvited and included in our lives before these events will stop     

James Hamilton, M. D.

MM and Frank, 

By all means a lack of God in the lives of particularly the young has had a negative effect on the morals of our nation. Although we were raised in a more fearing than loving Church that is today, it provided - and still does - a basis of behavior in a civilized society. Those basics seem to have stayed with us whether we have stayed with the Church or not. Combine the lack of this influence with the other factors I mentioned above and the stage is set for major problems. 

Jim 

​

Michael McLeod

Call me selfish but I am just so grateful I no longer have to cover these events or even the ones that are more or less commonplace and with fewer fatalities.Some writers can continue to do it. I don't know how they managed it and I never asked. I just know I reached my limit. The peculiar thing -- I guess it's not peculiar, it's just what sticks with me -- is that there is no difference between someone who was married to a astronaut who died when the shuttle blew up and someone who only lived because they left a gay nightclub a few minutes before their lover did. Grief is just grief. A broken heart is a broken heart. The closer you get to them the less you think about politics or belief systems.

Joseph D. McCarthy

I tried to send a memo/ravelogue last nite when I reached Bloomington, IL but the hotel computer kept logging me out after just minutes saying I was timed out.

I have been providing start/departure and stop/arrival times each day.The only problem was that I was using LOCAL time, and the first two days I entered a new time zone that added an hour to arrival times.  Monday Ideparted North Platte, NE just prior to 8:00A.M. and arrived at Bloomington,IL at approximately 7:30P.M.; withno time zone change.  Today I departed Bloomington, IL around 7:50A.M. and arrived in the Hilliard area around: 3:25P.M., WITH a time zone change. I don;t worry about the lost time; when I return to California I will re-gain those three hours of youth.

Now for a little bit of the things I wanted to say but ran out of tijme each night.  For those who have never traveled much of this country by driving I say you are missing so much, and I've done it round trip att leastthirty or forty times (use to take different routes). Coming out of Park City, Utah you start through some beautiful canyons of Red cliffs that are about 100 feet high.  In Wyoming I started to see many Fields of Wind Generators, with "blades" that are each about 100 foot long.  Also I started seeing row after row of 8 foot high snow fencing.  The rows of fencing went on for miles. Cheyenne,Wyoming is a definite place that is worth stopping atfor the history.  The rivers, such as the PlatteS, because there is more than one, are pretty full.  Speaking of more than one, We crossed the continental divide multiple times while driving straight East on I-80.

Gasoline has gone from the $3.59 to fill the tank before we left California, to a low of around $1.99. Thankfully my Ford Expedition can work on cornpower, err I mean that stupid additive that is destroying gasoline engines.  Yes, the lowest price was for 85 octane, I usually using 87 Octane.

Yesterday we went through Omaha and I had hoped to stop and lunch with an old acquintance "W.B.", but couldn't locate him inthesort time we had.  Wait, you didn;t think Imeant the Oracle of Omaha.  I was refering to "Waylaid Billy".  After Omaha we drove around (northern route) Des Moines, Iowa. For years when we returned from or trip to Columbus we always stopped at an Eastern suburb of Des Moines called Ankenny.  About a mile from the hotel was one of the best seafood restaraunts we have eaten at.  It is afamily operationwithtwo spotsaround Des Moines.

Tonight we decided to just go a block away to the Skyline Chilli on Fishinger by I-270.  The waitress made the mistake of asing how everything was. So in my best face,Dave taugght me that, I said is wasworth the drive.  Her second mistake was saying "Oh did you drivefar?"  My serios reply was " just about 2,500 miles"   She calmly asked where from I said North of San Francisco.  She said "are you here for any particular reason?"  Drum Beat,Just wanted to have some Skyline Chilli.  Then we bothstarted laughing. 

Enough for now, I do needsome sleep.

Frank Ganley

There is no difference in the grief borne to the relatives of anyone who passes. Whether it our dearest old Grandpart or the parents of someone who was killed in the commission of a crime. It is a loss a great loss but that is not the premise of my thoughts . With no God and children or adults who are consummed by these violent video games. To win you mustkill and with every kill the player is more immune to to the remorse it become to them a norm. Having these games rule their lives may not be the cause but it sure adds to the lack of morals . Bring back discilpine in school and if a parent complains about how their little johnnie was so unjustly treated, they are then senrenced to be a classroom monitor for a month

David Mitchell

I agree with those of you who say there are other contributing factors to the violence, from violent games influences, lack of moral guidnace, growing loneliness in society, and the (not mentioned) argument about "toxic masculinity" (recall the Gillette Ad controversy a few months ago). 

But I am also intrigued by answers to what I specifically did NOT say.

I did not say "take away guns". I said I thought there was "No reason for a private person to own a "semi-automatic" weapon. (unless you are a paranoid coward, or a really lousy shot)

I also heard that "would not solve the problem". I did say it would NOT solve the Whole problem. But it wuld mitigate some of the violence. If partial results are not helpful then so be it. By that reasoning, why not allow "fully automtic" weapons? There seems to be a fundamental misunderstandning as to what the difference is. Simply put, if you can shoot faster, you can kill more in a given period of time. If that sounds condescending or too elementary for some to grasp, then I'm sorry.

But consider this;

Recall back in about 2011 U.S. Rep Gabby Giffords was shot by a young (yes, white male) gunman who used a "semi-automatic" pistol (with extra large 33-round clips - another item I advocate restricting). At the time, there were two (private carry) armed young men in the crowd hiding behind planters in the parking lot who could have taken the shooter down sooner, but could not get along enough break to get up and open fire because the rapid fire and extra long clips made it impossible.  

My point is NOT a political one - it is a meerely a logistical one. Faster killing power equals more killing power.

IS THAT SO HARD TO GRASP?

* And one more point that makes no sense at all. In Mary Margaret's quoted piece from Matt Walsh, in Mr. Walsh's second paragraph he says,  "mass shootings are exceedingly rare".

Who the hell is he kidding?  Or what the hell is he drinking?  

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

Welcome back to Buckeye country, Joe!  The landscapes across America are something to behold, thanks for the travelogue.  

John Jackson

By most accounts, we are one of the most religious nations on earth but our rate of mass shootings and  ordinary garden-variety gun violence is off the charts – our gun homicide rate is on average ten times higher than other advanced nations: https://www.cnn.com/2017/10/03/americas/us-gun-statistics/index.html.   

Are our mental health problems ten times worse?  Are we ten times more godless?  Do we play video games ten times more?   Are our societal norms and social cohesion that dysfunctional?

I totally agree with Dave – there is no reason that any American needs to own a military-style weapon.  Can’t we at least start by banning them along with high capacity magazines?

But, apart from mass shootings we have a huge problem with everyday gun violence, and banning assault weapons does not seriously address that problem.  If you like to hunt, I have no problem if you want to own a hunting rifle or shotgun.  I live in a safe community but I recognize that others may not be so fortunate and if keeping a gun (not an assault rifle) in your home provides a sense of security, I’m OK with that. 

But the need for Americans to run around with guns (openly or concealed) ended about 150 years ago when we ceased to be a pioneer nation. If for any reason you think you need to carry a handgun around, before you do so I’d say you need to demonstrate a really good reason to a judge.  By no means would this solve all our problems (we will still be awash with guns) but it will help in curbing the casual, spur of the moment violence so common in our inner cities.

I've said my piece and will get out of the way for others to have the last word.

Michael McLeod

If I can just add something quite simple to something you said quite well, John.

I wish everybody could see what bullets that are made to tumble through a body can do to a human being.

Particularly a child.

I wish everybody could see the difference between the entry and the exit wound, though calling it an exit wound doesn't do it justice. It's really quite astonishing. 

And then I wish everybody could ask themselves how in the hell we can be so stubborn and so stupid and so willfully ignorant and so prideful as to not do everything we can to keep that kind of ammunition and those kind of weapons out of the grasp of madmen.

James Hamilton, M. D.

Mike and others interested in ballistic wounds, just type in the name Colonel Martin Fackler on your search engine. Marty was a surgeon at Ft. Carson who later directed the Army's ballistic lab, developed ballistic gel and authored hundreds of articles on the subject. He died a few years ago.

Jim

P. S. By the way, it seems like many of us agree on not having assault weapons available to the civilian population. 

David Mitchell

If I may change the subject for a moment.

Back in my post #5871 (boat photos - second photo of the post), I pointed out Keith, my '60's hippie friend who worked on and hid out in the boat the night of the launch. And I shared his funny passion for posting great shots of strange and wild looking VW buses. I just saw this tonight.

He never ceases to bring a smile to my face. We could all use a smile tonight.

James Hamilton, M. D.

As if some on the left in the movie industry could not crawl any lower, a film to be released 27 September 2019 called "The Hunt" reaches new depths. Look it up. Talk about promoting hatred...

Jim 

Mark Schweickart

As with Dave's post below, here's my contribution to suggest something of a more feel-good nature in these dark times. Let me highly recommend the film Yesterday, that is playing in most cities currently (I hope). I am not one generally drawn to Fantasy or Sci-Fi premises, but occasionally a magical-realism piece comes along (like Groundhog Day way back when) that really is utterly beguiling and heartfelt. The premise here is that after a weird, momentary, world-wide electrical blackout, certain things have disappeared from our collective past -- in this case, it is (primarily) the Beatles and their music. They never existed. Except, that is, in the mind of one second-rate, aspiring musician who begins singing their songs as if they were his own. This is as funny and beautifully shot, acted, and edited a Rom-Com as I have seen in years, if ever. Treat yourself to a breath of fresh air, and hurry out to see it. (Oh, and the still of Ed Sheeran below is a bit misleading. He has a wonderful supporting role in this, but is not the main character.)

David Mitchell

Mark,

I was just about to ask if you had taken a long nap. I also promoted this film a few weeks back. I hope it  is still in the theaters. It is everything you said it was. Just good clean fun. 

Frank Ganley

John as Joan Baez sang “there but for fortune go you or I”. Thank God most of us, not just the class but americans live in nice safe quiet neighborhoods. And in our minds we are safe and feel at this time there is no need of personal protection, thank the Lord. But today with hate displayed towards our President and those that surpport him has been ramped up to a fever pitch by the left that no if but when cival unrest takes place. With economic inequality being piched, and where’s mine? Type of demands, the spread of antifa, black lives matter, gay rights and political correctness being preached as this is now the norm and if those that support our President will be dealt with. You say how stupid an idea that those of the left will rise as if it was the south. Rod Serling, with his pipe or ciggy looks into the camera and says” picture for a moment, Americans are boarding up their homes to help stop roving gangs of antifa and the like giing through neighborhood and culling the right as if seperating the wheat from the shaft.  Impossible you say! With the lefties running for President who are preaching equality for all in everything. Free college, free health care, free free and exhorting their supporters to resist, rebel and and preach the white conservatives have destroyed the opportunities for the lower strata of our citizens. They are the ones to be feared. Boy it doesn’t take much imagination to conjure up Hitler ranting about the dangers of those who will not follow the nazis. Kill the jews, kill the white man. So john and the rest that want to get rid of assault weapons, and ultimately all guns, remember that was Hitlers first action when he was elected. Next came the jews. Listen well my friends this acceptance of antifa etc will destroy america. As Lincoln said a nation devided against itself can not survive.  

Michael McLeod

Guess I missed all the stories about antifa massacres, Frank.

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

In sifting through some internet research, I came across an article from FiveThrity-Eight (originally owned by Nate Silver, now owned by ABC/Walt Disney, stated as left-leaning).  The statistics cited were a compilation from 2012-2014 cited by the CDC.  

"In light of recent tragedies, America has become fixated on terrorism, mass shootings, police officers killed in the line of duty and civilians killed by officers. Yet, of the 33,000 annual gun deaths analyzed, nearly two-thirds of annual gun deaths in the United States are suicides, with more than 85 percent committed by males. Homicides, which trend toward 12,000 every year, make up the other third. Of those victims, more than half are young men, and two-thirds of those victims are young black men." 

Given this information, will more gun laws prevent more tragedies?  Presently, access to guns is controlled by law under a number of federal and state statutes.  "These laws regulate the manufacture, trade, possession, transfer, record keeping, transport, and destruction of firearms, ammunition, and firearms accessories.  They are enforced by state agencies and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).  Wikipedia 

Many advocate for banning all assault weapons.....what specifically is included in an assault weapon.  Are we talking only military "style" assault weapons?  Semi-automatic?  Long rifles and guns included? Pistols and revolvers?  Should magazines be restricted?  How many is too many?  5, 10, 20, 30?  What if you live in parts of the U.S. that are home to bear, moose, coyote, mountain lions, wild pigs, etc and your livelihood demands that you may encounter such an animal? Would carrying a 5 magazine fiream firearm be sufficient?   https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a19138318/how-guns-work/

I worry that the more restrictive the federal government becomes in issuing federal laws against certain guns, the more power we grant them. Ergo, the more power they have to regulate every area of our lives. There already seems to be enough of the population willing to turn their lives over to the whims of the state and forego personal responsiblitiy.  With each new law the state, and the elitist class who feed it, continues to garner ever more power over us through increased taxation, healthcare, education, political correctness,  Where does it stop?  How many freedoms do we sacrifice?   Where else might we focus our attention?  Provide more mentoring to young aimless men?  Investigate the reasons so many turn to alcohol and drugs?   Encourage men who father children to remain present to raise their own children?  I am sure we can all think of many more areas where we can do better as a society to foster the virtues of faith, hope, charity, prudence, temperance, courage, justice and fortitude.

James Hamilton, M. D.

When I go out into "the wild" to photograph my only defense againt 4 and 2 legged critters is bear spray. Good for ~45 feet and hope the wind is not blowing toward me. If I ever decide to take a firearm it would be a handgun with either considerable fire power or a large capacity clip. Even then, there is no guarantee it would stop a charging bear. But carrying a rifle would not be an option for me, what with all the camera stuff and tripod slung around my shoulders, I could never get a rifle positioned quickly.

Jim