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niyad

(113,636 posts) Sat Nov 28, 2015, 02:49 PM Nov 2015

Our culture and laws enabled the Colorado shooter, whatever his motive

Our culture and laws enabled the Colorado shooter, whatever his motive

The Planned Parenthood shooter had easy access to guns and a movement dedicated to demonizing reproductive choice. Is his motive really a question?

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An unidentified woman is escorted to an ambulance by police in Colorado Springs, Colorado on 27 November 2015. Photograph: Daniel Owen/ZUMA Press/Corbis

There has been plenty of political demagoguery about the perceived threat of accepting Syrian refugees (the vast majority of whom are women and children) but America’s real enemies wield guns, not visas. We have so much more reason to distrust and fear the American-bred shooters with seemingly unlimited access to weapons one Walmart away than someone fleeing a war.
Obama urges gun control after Colorado Springs shooting: 'Enough is enough'

That became even more apparent on Friday when two civilians and a police officer were shot and killed at a Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs, Colorado – one of the central hubs of the evangelical movement – and nine more were injured. It’s the second time this month that innocents have been killed by a man walking around Colorado Springs with a collection of armaments that many people feel he should never have had.

The notion you might get shot by a motivated-but-irrational person with a gun isn’t considered terrorism in America: it’s a fact of life. Obama in a statement early Saturday morning condemned the violence and seemed exasperated with the seeming status quo.
We can’t let it become normal. If we truly care about this – if we’re going to offer up our thoughts and prayers again, for God knows how many times, with a truly clean conscience – then we have to do something about the easy accessibility of weapons of war our streets to people who have no business wielding them.

. . . .

What we do know is that Friday’s shooting was the latest in a long string of violent attacks at facilities where women can access abortion and other reproductive health services, and that there’s been a recent spike in violence at such facilities since the release of the misleadingly edited undercover videos.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/28/planned-parenthood-colorado-springs-shooter-culture-gun-laws-motive

3 replies

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Our culture and laws enabled the Colorado shooter, whatever his motive (Original Post) niyad Nov 2015 OP

Price gunners expect us to pay to ensure access to their next lethal weapon. Hoyt Nov 2015 #1

The notion you might get shot by a motivated-but-irrational person with a gun ... etherealtruth Nov 2015 #2

Absolutely. Igel Nov 2015 #3

Hoyt

(54,770 posts)

1. Price gunners expect us to pay to ensure access to their next lethal weapon.

Reply to niyad (Original post)

Sat Nov 28, 2015, 03:11 PM

Nov 2015

Anyone with an axe to grind, seeking publicity, etc., can grab a gun. Why give someone seething in hate the means to kill innocent people?

etherealtruth

(22,165 posts)

2. The notion you might get shot by a motivated-but-irrational person with a gun ...

Reply to niyad (Original post)

Sat Nov 28, 2015, 03:18 PM

Nov 2015

... isn’t considered terrorism in America: it’s a fact of life.

Sickeningly true

Igel

(35,374 posts)

3. Absolutely.

Reply to niyad (Original post)

Sat Nov 28, 2015, 03:43 PM

Nov 2015

He also had freedom of movement and cheap, easy access to a vehicle. No checkpoints, no limits on where he could have driven to (provided he had money or the means to borrow money).

He was allowed to live as a recluse on private property, scheming and plotting as those who hole up on private property are want to do, his comings and goings not subject to constraints or regulations.

He had no minder, nobody that checked up on him regularly and monitored his activities. Who knows what kinds of communication he had with others that the authorities should have been aware of?

If he's mentally ill, and authorities had learned of his mental illness (but not of his plotting and scheming), it would have been difficult to coerce him into being helped. Didn't use to be that way, of course, and it's far from that way in other countries and cultures.

Family ties are weakened, laxed, in the US. He felt comfortable being isolated, and this wasn't seen as extremely warped. In other cultures, families would have been sure to check up on him, applying pressure to ensure conformity.

Etc.

It's easy to pick just those liberties and cultural attributes we want restricted and say they're the only way that our laws and culture enables murderers. We ignore laws and cultural attributes we like that also serve to enable murderers.

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