how to behave NEVER works. Even if it is just your opinion.

I am glad they found the gun and am puzzled by how fast the child was cremated...wouldn't you want to make sure it is the right gun? I guess you can match up gun residue on someones hand with the gun used.

Also, she is going to grieve regardless of what people say and/or do on a public forum that she is oblivious to.

You may disagree, but that will not stop me from doing that. My opinion is that jumping quickly to blame a victim is usually a mistake. I dislike seeing that sort of thing. That is my opinion. Yours might differ from mine.

Clearly, I can't control what others do or write in any way, and I don't even try. I can, however, offer my opinion, for people to do with what they wish.

We both definitely like to share our opinions, no doubt.

what I want them to. Such are occasions for celebration.

I know what you mean, I have a few pictures of mine all lined up for supper.


Yes those are bird feathers at the bottom of the pic, someone couldn't wait for dinner.

rather than one I've taught them. They have trained me well, indeed.

The feathers are a nice touch, though!

I think that might be true of me also, they just let me pretend to be in charge. LOL. Just noticed there is a feather in that box...which of course became an instant cat castle with scissors and a few well placed holes. Kept them busy for about 2 months that box did, no telling how many birds they ate in there.

However, they do not have opposable thumbs, which is why they have chosen humans to be their servants. We are necessary in times of few birds and small rodents, and to open doors for them. We exist for their pleasure. When they do not require our services, we are ignored by our feline masters. They understand that we will do their bidding whenever required.

I need a better picture, my iPhone is not the best camera.

gun, if it was the one used.

on DU has any impact on her. That's patently absurd. It's a giant failure of logic. And I'd like to point out that the mother has sought out media exposure- from inviting the press into her house hours after the murder to appearing on Piers Morgan. If that's her way of grieving, fine, but she's the one inviting the world in.

Yours might differ from mine. I find jumping to blaming the victim in cases like this to be a giant failure of logic. Such cases are rare, indeed, when compared to all of the senseless shootings that occur in this country.

Occam's Razor applies quite nicely here.

I suppose playing Nancy Grace in these situations is an attractive thing for some. I find it noxious.

Again, that's my opinion.

I refuted them. Don't like it? Tough. Furthermore, I have never even seen Nancy Grace. Occam's razor actually doesn't fit nicely here.

I find it delusional that some people believe that comments on DU interfere in any way at all with the mother's grieving process, but claiming that gives you an opening to post your sanctimonious little lecture, I suppose.

Just my opinion.

Sarcasm goes no distance with me at all, nor does name-calling. But there it is. You will do as you please.

and hypocritical sanctimony goes no distance with me.

out one error: Sarcasm goes a great distance with you. Been reading your posts for years.

Carry on. I have no opinion on the topic of this thread whatsoever-- not sure why I even read it.

You certainly put on a clinic with your victim-blame-a-thon.

but I do find it amusing that when a real blame the victim op was posted you didn't post that you found it depraved, etc.

Not that I'm expecting one . . .

But, down the road, you'll claim that you were just asking questions instead of spreading repugnant innuendo.

Because you played the Susan Smith card prematurely and didn't have the grace to retract it.

based on nothing. Or very little. Power of suggestion.

has me thinking conspiratorily now--was this meme planted via FB or some other spurious news source????

To deflect the emphasis from a kid executing a kid in cold blood with a gun?

And one way to demonstrate this cleverness is to 'see through' a factual narrative and show their true penetrative insight.

99% of the time it's just lame conspiracy-mongering based on lazy intuition.

It's people who think that feelings trump fact-based inquiry.

"Sure, there was never any evidence the mother was behind it, but dammit something felt off."

and my gut feeling said, "we do not have enough evidence. Where's the gun?"

Then, when they arrested two people matching her decription, we had facts. I guess it was possible that the police hadn't checked out the mother's story, or that they failed to check for gunpowder residue, or that they just randomly arrested two kids who didn't attend class that day in nearby schools.

But, not likely.

she said a black guy did it. Everyone knows black guys are evil. <-sarcasm
I did actually believe her story at the start. It has made me more cynical now.
Unless there is a video I'm not taking anything at face value until there is
further evidence. Her story didn't ring true to me at first, now that there is
evidence I, of course, believe her.

because of Susan Smith so many are ready to see the same thing in this mother without enough evidence.

So you're saying you did go down the Susan Smith road in this case?

...the minor wounds to the mom and the fatal wound to the child appeared suspicious to me.

a couple of way out of control kids? Doesn't seem like they were trained hit men to me. Or the type of killer where you'd wonder at how any bullets got where they did.

Anyway you're not alone in seeing it that way. But I just wonder why the Hive Mind went wild on this?.............

...her word that there were boys involved. Can I assume there weren't any other witnesses to this crime? I haven't heard of anyone coming forward and saying "I saw what happened".
BTW What is 'hive mind'?

Hivemind is when two or more people come to the same thought at the same time because of the same circumstances but do not know each other beforehand (i.e. it cannot be an inside joke). This usually happens on internet message boards, and is especially noticeable when the thought reached is not a meme. The name is reflective of insects who act in unison with their hive (or nest) mates.

No witnesses apparently. But it sounds like the cops got there pretty fast.

schlock that DUers pull every time anyone in the news dies.

"What if the victims family sees this?!" as if grieving family members are going online to read stranger's opinions. It's bizarre--- if you want to see hundreds of posts just like this one, go look at the archives the day Reagan or Strom Thurmond keeled over. Beyond ridiculous.

and get back to the fact that it seems likely that a kid shot a kid in the face with a gun.

Let's talk about how that happens.

Crickets.

and what conditions led them to become violent robbers would seem to be more useful than trying to build a case against the victim out of whole cloth. Guns in the hands of teenagers who have no hope of joining society in a meaningful way are the problem. How those guns get in their hands and why they are locked into a life of poverty is the issue. Why do we not discuss that in threads with hundreds of replies?

The answer is that it is easier to play blame games with victims. By doing that, we believe we are contributing in some way to something, I guess. I don't see it, though. Today, there will be other victims of violent crimes committed by people who have few options but to use violence to make their way in this bizarre world. I think we should talk about that and see what the reasons for that are and how we might change society to make it less violent and more equitable for everyone.

That's the discussion we should be having, not a discussion of how we can turn a violent crime into some sort of weird reversed situation, where the victim harms herself and her child. That, to me, is a very, very strange way to look at situations like this one.

Again, though, that is just my opinion. I think it's a correct opinion, but others might disagree. I can do nothing but express my opinion, though, so I continue to do just that.

then it's easier not to talk about the other kind of insanity.

If the Mom did it out of insanity, you can just say "oh well" and go back to your knitting or your gun-cleaning. Cluck cluck.

If the kids did it on their own out of pure diabolical sociopathy...well then you have to look to society. You have to look at how they got the gun and why they did this wanton killing (rather than the usual vandalism). You have to fund the CDC et al to study it and find answers.

Kids doing it --black kids in ghettoes, white kids in suburbs. That's what people don't want to face when it comes to guns. The kids are killing.

They get the guns from adults. Manslaughter charges for the owners/providers of the guns.

But people don't want to talk about that........................................................................................................

...I don't see the harm in speculation.

I am not sure how we are keeping her from it. I think it is more like, "leave the mother alone and that includes conversation about her honesty" would be more accurate.

...which isn't really a debate, just Internet speculation, have pretty much exhausted all the possibilities already. Now we simply wait to see what the police investigation has to say.

Now only time will tell.

to set loose.

Imagine if the woman had been raped instead of shot and forced to watch her baby die.

Those engaging in the 'speculation' that it was her fault would be PPR'd as rape apologists.

I just happened to have it bookmarked because...well, I'm vain, okay? But I think it illustrates that sometimes suspicions and intuition are well-founded despite the lack of hard evidence.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014275892

time to lessen one's grip on them.

Instead, we had people doubling down with the victim-blamers putting up at least three "I told you so" posts trumpeting how they were right to suspect the mother.

After the arrests, etc.

That's what's caused the blow-up--those that got it wrong doubling down on the blaming of the mother based on bullshit.

It's all speculation at this point and we've probably gone as far as we can absent new information.

Until then, it's probably time to find something else to debate.

Not sure what else we need.

That's just silly.

Did they find the gun or was it planted?


.. and I do wonder why the mother keeps doing TV interviews, if she wants to be left alone to grieve

angle--the gun was planted!

And, she's giving interviews--she must be a murderer!!!

Jesus, just admit you were full of shit and learn from it.

But blaming some DU'ers is a safer approach for those in whose minds the teenagers are already guilty.

What do you got?

Keep repeating that piece of dog shit mendacity though- despite having been corrected dozens of times and not providing a link to a police statement clearing her of involvement.

One of the boys mom's pointed police to it.

Time to give it up.

members. So, please, get a clue.

Including those doing it right here at DU.

Fuck them with their wadded up tinfoil hats.

about the story...other than my normal anti gun rant, but this thread is all about piling on a couple or so DUers.

"Pointing fingers?" Get over yourself; comments on an internet forum are a dime a dozen. If the DUers that think the mother had anything to do with it were harrassing the woman in person, or calling the PD every hour, I would be concerned. But, it's a damned internet forum...and you must be nursing one hell of an ego to think comments on the web matter that much.

I see they've charged the boys with murder. Looks like that's about it, until the trial. Mom had nothing to do with it, except to lose her child to a senseless shooting. It got awfully ugly around here, I think.