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This is What Democracy Looks Like
Today's Note from a Madman
Monday, April 23, 2007
The NRA Cares(?)
The National Rifle Association joins the entire country in expressing
our deepest condolences to the families of Virginia Tech University and
everyone else affected by this horrible tragedy.
Our thoughts and prayers are with the families.
We will not have further comment until all the facts are known"
-Statement by the NRA, from NRA.org, April 18, 2007 (Click on Wayne
LaPierre's "What They Didn't Tell You" link)
It appears that, even after many, many more facts are now known about
the killings at Virginia Tech, that the National Rifle Association and
Mr. LaPierre's daily blog "What They Didn't Tell You" are keeping quiet
even after these new facts are known. Here are some of the facts:
FACT: A mentally disturbed young man obtained two handguns.
FACT: he obtained them legally in a state (Virginia) where not only are
you automatically given a gun permit just by asking, but you are legally
carrying a gun if you bring it in from outside the satte.
FACT: it's easier to get a gun permit than a driver's license in
Virginia and many other states.
You Can't Make This Stuff Up
I've heard an argument from the "Gun-Right" that if guns were permitted
on the Virginia Tech campus, there would have been many students with
concealed weapons, any one of which could have killed Cho Seung-Hui
before he murdered as many teachers and students as he did. Well using
that logic, why don't we just arm everybody on the New York City subway,
as my brother Michael suggests (in jest). In that way, we all stand a
gun-fighting chance.
In the last NRA news, which you can get by watching NRA.org or by
listening to Sirius radio, the shootings at Virginia Tech wasn't even in
the top ten news stories. In its stead was an attack of the Brady
Campaign to end gun violence. Wouldn't it be something if the NRA
actually tried to work with the Brady's, as they call them, instead of
battling them?
One more thing about the NRA: Their magazine (or one of them) is called
"First Freedom". Funny how they just leapt over that pesky little "First
Amendment". That's the one which guarantees Freedom of Religion, Freedom
of Speech, Freedom to assemble and petition the government with our
grievances and Freedom of the Press. Funny how our founding fathers put
this one at the top and didn't include a "Freedom to bear arms" in it.
If gun rights is Freedom number one to the NRA, just where does the REAL
first amendment stand?
Why are the likes of Wayne LaPierre so silent on the Virginia Tech
shootings? Someone ought to ask them.
-Noah Greenberg
More on Amendment Number 2
If the Second Amendment grants me the right to arm myself to the teeth
without restrictions, then I should be able to acquire an F-15 fighter,
a B1 bomber, or my own private army, complete with my own nuclear
warheads. If not, where then do we draw the line? I am Jewish. Half of
my cousins are Israeli. Can I legitimately claim the Uzi as part of my
heritage? After all, I fast on Yom Kippur and eat Matzo during Passover.
The Second Amendment, as ratified, states:
"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free
state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be
infringed."
I would like to see the second amendment amended to read as follows:
"A well regulated defensive force, being necessary to the security of a
free state, the right of citizens to defend their persons and their
country shall not be infringed."
This means you can't keep someone from serving based on their sexual
orientation. But is also means we don't have the right to 'pack heat.'
-Larry Furman
Some More Thoughts on Amendment Number
2
I forwarded your "Madman" concerning the Second Amendment to my cousin,
Jim Cunningham. Jim is a retired teacher (about 15 months younger than
me) who, for 31 years, taught AP American Government. Upon his
retirement, he worked as an Interpreter, at the Constitution Center in
Philadelphia where he very quickly became the "go to" guy for anybody
who needed further interpretation on complex Constitutional issues. As
you can see, he went well beyond my request for some clarification on
the Second Amendment. Jim said that he would welcome a daily dose of the
"Madman". Be advised, however, that he has a lot of time on his hands
now that he's retired and would probably be more apt to respond more
frequently to your emails.
As for the "Madman". You've really attracted some whackos, lately. I'm
referring specifically to two recent letters. In one, the letter writer
welcomes the demise of Don Imus and said it was time to get rid of the
others referring to the likes of Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sean Hannity.
She would be well advised to know that Alan Combs was also on that list
put out by "Media Matters", to which she was obviously referring. I
think it's very scary that some people are advocating "Thought Police".
Next thing you know, Noah, they'll be on your doorstep monitoring your
every word.
In another letter, the writer alleges a conspiracy in the auto accident
that almost killed Gov. Corzine. The Governor remains in critical
condition and we all hope for a recovery that now looks like will take
months. It now appears that the Governor's motorcade was responsible for
the accident. 91 mph and no seat belt! All of this while rushing to a
photo op in connection with the lynching of Don Imus! Interesting to
note that, at that meeting, the ladies from Rutgers found it in their
hearts to accept Imus' apology and forgive him.
-Bob Driscoll
From Jim Cunningham
Bob; It is always my pleasure to point out the constitutional
interpretations that have evolved over the 220 years since that amazing
document was first drafted. And then to add the First Ten Amendments in
1791 was a stroke of pure genius - praise be to Mr. Madison!!!
As to the Second Amendment - A well regulated Militia, being necessary
to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and
bear arms, shall not be infringed.
The Second Amendment is the only part of the Bill of Rights that has an
introductory clause defining its purpose. Because a militia is
"necessary to the security of a free state," the amendment says, "the
right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Some
legal scholars interpret the first clause of the Second Amendment as
giving the people the right to bear arms only as part of a "well
regulated militia." To these scholars, such a militia wood be today's
National Guard, which is the modern-day successor of the minutemen of
the colonial period [Which I might add was developed by the British
during the French and Indian War].
Other scholars [including me] emphasize that a militia, at the time of
the adoption of the Bill of Right, consisted of "the body of the
people," as affirmed in several state resolutions proposing that a bill
of rights be added to the Constitution.
As of 2002, the Supreme Court had not yet ruled definitively on whether
the Second Amendment protects an individual or collective right to bear
arms. In United States v. Miller (1939) the Court upheld the National
Firearms Act of 1934 against a Second Amendment challenge. The act
required sawed-off shotguns, a favorite weapon of gangsters [ the
Twenty-first Amendment wasn't passed until December, 1933. Oh yeah, the
Eighteenth Amendment, 1919, created Prohibition and such legendary
antiheroes as Alphones Capone and Chicago] to be registered. However, in
2001 a federal appellate court did rule that the Second Amendment
protected an individual right to bear arms outside the militia.
The Supreme Court has held that the Second Amendment does not apply to
the states, so it does not bar gun control measures by local or state
governments. In 1982, a federal appellate court upheld an ordinance by
Morton Grove, Illinois, that banned the possession of handguns in the
home. In Printz v. United States (1997), the Supreme Court did declare
the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act to be unconstitutional, but
not based on the Second Amendment. The Brady Act required local law
enforcement officers to run background checks before authorizing handgun
purchases - remember that the Second Amendment doesn't apply to the
local or state governments!
In Federalist 46, James Madison emphasized "the advantage of being
armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other
nation."
OUR NATIONAL DISGRACE
by Victoria A. Brownworth
copyright c 2007 Journal-Register
Newspapers, Inc.
The voyeurism over the tragedy in Blacksburg, Virginia on April 16th has
diminished, but is not quite over. It’s no longer the *only* news story
in America. But it is still occupying our attention in the way mayhem
tends to do.
Amidst all the endless news-gathering, hand-wringing and 20/20
hindsight, there has been little substantive commentary. Still, there
*is* much to be said about what happened last week in Virginia, much
that *needs* to be said, particularly if we want to avert similar mayhem
in the future.
I teach at a large university and have taught college writing courses
for more than 20 years. Writing courses are where students are most
likely to vent their inner turmoil and torment. For many young students,
writing is catharsis and pseudo-therapy more than it is actual
scholastic achievement. I have taught many students who are not meant to
be writers, but who definitely have needed the outlet of writing to
assuage their post-adolescent pain and frustration.
Much of the recent discourse about Cho Seung-hui, the 23-year-old
mentally ill senior who shot 47 people at Virginia Tech, killing 32 and
himself, has centered on his writing. His tales of incest and abuse,
rage and murder terrified and repulsed both teachers and fellow
students. Those writings, coupled with anti-social behavior that
included taking photos of female students in class, stalking female
students and threatening female teachers, were outrageous enough to have
forced some teachers to remove Cho from their classrooms.
The stalking incidents and threats were referred to police and resulted
in Cho being involuntarily committed for psychiatric evaluation in
December 2005. There he was mandated to have recurrent psychiatric
treatment and medication. There is no record that he ever did, however.
Yet despite this troubling behavior that unsettled a significant
population of the college, according to the Virginia Tech
administration, which is now struggling to absolve itself of any
responsibility in the killings, Cho’s actions in the years he attended
the school were not egregious enough to cause the university to expel
him.
This insistence by the administration that they bear no responsibility,
contradicts their own actions and ignores the reality that female
students and professors filed complaints not just with the university,
but also with police about Cho. On April 19th, Cho’s great aunt, Kim
Yang-soon, said Cho had been diagnosed with autism when he emigrated to
the U.S. when he was eight years old.
Therefore, Cho had been known to be seriously mentally ill for no less
than 15 years.
Not everyone who is mentally ill becomes a mass murderer. Nor are all
mass murderers mentally ill. The boys who committed the murders at
Columbine eight years ago were not mentally ill. Nor was the architect
of the Oklahoma City bombings, Timothy McVeigh. Nor was Mohammed Atta,
the leader of the 9/11 attacks.
But untreated mental illness is indeed a ticking time bomb: depression
can lead to suicide, psychosis can lead to murder. In Cho’s case, mental
illness led to both.
Yet it needn’t have. Cho could have been stopped, he could have been
helped; the deaths and injuries could have been averted. Mental illness
is chronic, not terminal. It can be treated.
It *must* be treated.
I grew up with a severely mentally ill mother who was often
catatonically depressed, frequently violent and periodically suicidal.
Mental illness can destroy families; it certainly destroyed mine.
But when I was growing up, no one talked about mental illness. In 2007,
mental illness is no longer a secret and should be a constant topic of
national discourse, because one in five Americans will suffer from some
form of mental illness in his or her lifetime. That’s 60 million
Americans who will have mental illness–far more than have breast cancer,
AIDS or even diabetes.
So why the silence? Because it is this silence that led to the tragedy
at Blacksburg.
Mental illness is not a crime, it’s a disease. Sometimes a crippling
one. Cho was clearly beset with demons most of us are fortunate enough
to have escaped. He was incapable of relationships with others. His
poetry instructor, Professor Lucinda Roy, a soft-spoken black woman with
a lilting British accent, said he terrified her. She also said that Cho
was the loneliest person she had ever met. Her compassion for him was
outweighed only by her fear of him. She was forced to remove him from
her classroom and tutor him alone because students ceased coming to
class because they were so frightened and disturbed by him. Roy and her
assistant had a code word for when Cho was there, in case police needed
to be called.
Having taught for two decades, I can attest–this is incredibly extreme.
And no instructor should be forced to teach under such circumstances. No
woman should be placed in such a dangerous situation with a male
student.
The inability to form attachments and feel empathy toward others is a
factor of autism and of some forms of mental illness, but there is no
indication that Cho was ever treated for either, even when he was
institutionalized. But it does explain why he became more and more
withdrawn, isolated and, apparently, delusional.
If Cho was diagnosed 15 years ago, doesn’t someone bear responsibility
for his being treated? His parents? The college acting *in loco
parentis*? The psychiatric facility that treated him? If Cho’s behavior
was becoming more and more erratic and dangerous, and there were
numerous accounts that it was and a long paper trail indicating the
escalating complaints against him, didn’t the university bear
responsibility for doing something about that behavior, even if it was
simply to expel him from the school?
Had Cho been expelled, or the school or police contacted his parents
(who have been disturbingly silent), this tragedy could have been
averted.
But then, there is also the matter of the guns. How was a man who had so
recently been *involuntarily* committed to a mental hospital, able to
buy guns at all?
The Virginia Tech mayhem as a clear indicator of how gun control is
unenforced in the U.S. It is so easy for anyone–including someone like
Cho, a recent mental patient with a history of stalking and threatening
behavior–to get not just a hunting rifle, but an automatic weapon.
Cho bought a 9mm Glock–a gun used by police. This particular gun can
fire close to 100 bullets in a minute. Cho shot each of his victims
three or four times, according to police. As I was researching
information on his weapon, this pop-up appeared: “Get new Bullets 9mm on
eBay Express. Happy Shopping!”
Good to know I can get my bullets on eBay so that I needn’t even leave
my house. Or dorm room.
The NRA–craven and repellent an organization as exists in America
today–said of the murders that they “deplored the tragedy,” but declined
to comment “until all the facts are known.”
The facts of the dead students and professors and mentally ill killer?
What facts are yet unknown? A mad man was able to walk into a gun shop
and, according to the gun shop owner (five other guns used in murders
have been bought from his shop, according to ABC news), buy his guns and
rounds of ammunition in “about 20 minutes. It was a simple transaction.”
A simple transaction that led to 33 deaths and 15 injuries and countless
traumas.
And yet there are those who have said the problem at Blacksburg was that
there were too *few* guns. That had other students and professors been
carrying concealed weapons, Cho would not have done the damage he did.
Or far more people would be dead, with bullets flying as if it were the
Wild West. Or Philadelphia, America’s gun capital.
Gun advocates were less equivocal than their parent organization, the
NRA. Mark Steyn and John Derbyshire at the conservative online magazine
National Review blamed the victims at Virginia Tech for not having guns
of their own and for not using force. (“Why didn’t they rush the guy?”
complained Derbyshire, who called the no-gun policy at the school
“absurd” and “sissifying.”)
Steyn and Derbyshire have castigated the Virginia tech students and
professors for “corrosive passivity,” apparently forgetting that two
professors, Jamie Bishop and Liviu Librescu, gave their lives for their
students. Bishop was a 35-year-old German professor and Librescu a
76-year-old Holocaust survivor and visiting Israeli professor. Both men
attempted to block the doors of their respective classrooms so that
students could escape through windows. Both men were killed. It’s
difficult to imagine how either man could have been more heroic, and
neither seemed to have suffered from what conservatives are calling
“liberal feminization and emasculation” of the American male.
Yet it was not emasculation of the American male that was the problem at
Blacksburg. Rather it was the institutionalization and rationalization
of violence against women that allowed Cho free reign to terrorize
female students and professors for several years, unrestricted and
unstopped. And then, on the day of the shooting, the Virginia Tech
administrators and president defended their inaction at even attempting
to notify the campus that two people had been murdered by saying, “We
thought it was *just a domestic*.”
The perception was that the killer had murdered his girlfriend and her
lover, as was repeatedly reported in the first hours after the event.
Had the university attached any real importance to the fact that Cho was
targeting women–fellow students and professors alike–for years, his
first victim might not have been a female student and the male RA who
came to her aid.
The media attention given to Cho’s rampage sans any useful
deconstruction of the events has been disproportionate at best. The
release by NBC news–followed quickly by rival networks–of the videotapes
Cho sent them between his first murders and the second wave of killings
has served only to ratchet up the trauma for those victimized. What’s
more, it provides a kind of primer for those like the three students at
three separate colleges who were arrested in the days after the event
for voicing their sympathy and appreciation for Cho’s actions. Copycat
killings after notorious murders are more and more frequent, as an FBI
specialist noted on April 20th. And the rage Cho felt is hardly
singular. The majority of murders in America are committed by young men
between the ages of 15 and 30. Cho is a statistical anomaly only in that
he was so obviously mentally ill. Most of America’s young male killers
are merely filled with rage and can access guns more easily than they
can self-control.
There are, of course, lessons to be learned from this senseless,
horrifying tragedy. One is that mental illness must be addressed in
America. We simply cannot afford to ignore its impact, particularly on
teens and young adults: Suicide is the leading cause of death among
college students.
Another is that violence against women is not some separate category of
violence. If walking up to a stranger and hitting them would get you
arrested, if stalking a stranger would get you locked up, then doing it
to a woman you know is no less criminal. Police, university
administrations, college boys–all need to comprehend that women are
equal under the law and “a domestic” is a crime in which a woman is
being beaten, raped or murdered by a man she knows. It’s a crime. For
Virginia Tech’s President Charles Steger to minimize the first murders
with that comment was egregious enough. But Steger minimized Cho’s
behavior toward female students and professors over several years, which
suggests his comments about the initial two murders are part of a
pattern that should make parents consider whether their daughters will
be treated equally at Virginia Tech to their male peers.
Finally, the media’s near-glorification of Cho through their endless
coverage has made him an idol for disenfranchised teenage boys all over
America just aching for revenge against those who bully them. In a
nation obsessed with its fifteen minutes, Cho achieved more than his
share of air-time and fame, even if it was posthumous.
Oprah told her audience the day after the murders than we should ignore
Cho and focus on those he murdered. No. We can’t learn from the victims,
we can only learn from the killer. Learn that mental illness is not a
cause for shame but a physiological disease that needs treatment like
asthma or diabetes or cancer. Learn that violence against women is no
less serious than violence against men. Learn that guns do indeed kill
people, no matter what the NRA’s sloganeering says and that there is no
sport but murder at the other end of a 9mm Glock. Learn that we add to
the atmosphere of violence when we engage in the kind of media voyeurism
that has been evidenced in the past week. And learn that when pain is
the only emotion someone feels, sooner or later that person will want
someone else to share it. Cho was as much a victim as those he killed.
And the true tragedy at Blacksburg is that if so many had not turned
their backs on him, he might never have turned a gun on others.
And Jenny Hanniver Contributes:
This outstanding, thoughtful article by Victoria Brownworth needs to be
read and circulated, and please do! I would like to applaud her
observations and add a few. My conclusion (and, I believe hers) is that
Charles Steger, the president of VPI, should be fired post-haste for
being one of the primary causes of this horrendous crime, and perhaps he
should also be prosecuted for failure to fulfill his public obligations.
Obviously he and the VPI corporation should be sued by survivors.
Although health conditions that can trigger murderous hostility surely
must be spread rather evenly throughout the world, all of us know that
in Western ("civilized") society, outbreaks of violence occur at a
significantly higher rate in the United States than in other Western
nations, especially in the so-called Bible Belt. It means that insecure
fantasists generally do not act out their fantasies where these are
denounced as crimes by society, but are more likely to do so where the
fantasies are perceived as socially acceptable to "he-men". Most
mass-scale assault weapon and hate-crime killings arise in cultures and
religions that have a large underclass of poor (insisting that it's
always their fault), foster male aggrandizement and militarism, resent
and suppress women, practice racial bigotry and homophobia, and make fun
of boys and men who deviate from the norm--differences being interpreted
as "gay" whether they are or not. "Deviation" equals "deviant" and
deviants are fair game to "he-men". Cho evidently suffered that sort of
put-down for years.
I've lived in many parts of the country and can attest that locally
acceptable attitudes affect personal moral standards. During grade
school and early high school I lived mostly in Illinois, but also in
Wisconsin and spent many summers in Minnesota. Both states impressed me
as civilized. Minnesota and Wisconsin have histories and outspoken
cultures of economic and social progressivism alongside economic (not
usually extremist) conservatism. Both were early leaders in women's
suffrage, both ratified the Equal Rights Amendment. Neither has a death
penalty, and like most of the non-death penalty states (the others are
Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, North Dakota,
Rhode Island, Vermont, and West Virginia) they have lower violent crime
rates than those states that do practice execution. Wisconsin has one of
the nation's lowest rates of violent crime. The highest rates are found
in places like Texas with its history of indiscriminate executions.
These statistics are no coincidence.
In contrast, I spent several childhood summers in rural Tennessee and
Nashville with relatives. In Nashville I observed swaggering neighbors
with names like "Buck" and "Bubba", both of whom, according to my aunt
and uncle, smacked around their wives. (They felt sorry for the wives,
but never did anything about it. No one did.) In 1951 my parents moved
to Florida where I lived for six years until I graduated from college
and went into the Navy. During marriage I lived in Virginia (including
Blacksburg) for almost ten years and Texas for four. Although some of
the cities--Austin, Arlington, Roanoke--have large liberal cultures,
local attitudes are heavily influenced by fundamentalist religion. This
is not the authentically Christian evangelicalism of Bill Moyers and
Jimmy Carter, but endless Sunday rantings, radio broadcasts,
televangelism, billboards and blogs fostering a retributive, power-mad
pseudo-religion of hell-fire, rapacious competition and male domineering
that wants women to stay "in their place," preaches white supremacy and
eradication of anyone perceived as different (including gays and
immigrants), wants to nuke every country where a leader says something
they judge to be demeaning to America, and convinces schoolboys that to
be masculine a guy has to swagger around and carry a firearm. In these
places, shooting other people is not only understood as acceptable, but
subtly preached. It can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, a ticking
time bomb.
As Victoria tells us, it doesn't have to lead to inevitable disaster.
Intervention could have saved all these people. But the top leadership
of mental health, firearm regulation, psychiatry, and, MOST IMPORTANTLY,
the university itself, utterly failed. Although that seems unbelievable,
Cho's obviously threatening behavior didn't cause his commitment to a
mental hospital or even expulsion from VPI. The first selected victim
being female, the male victim wrongly viewed as her lover, their deaths
weren't important enough to warn the students and faculty that a
murderer was loose on campus. According to VPI's president, it was "just
a domestic crime". Talk about fantasizing! Shame on my alma mater. Fire
Charles Steger,and get someone with common sense and civilized values
into that office.
Send your comments to: NationalView@aol.com or comments@nationalview.org
-Noah Greenberg