Pulp Nonfiction: Why “We” Didn’t Stop the Virginia Tech Killings « Conservative Libertarian Outpost
Archive for April, 2007
Pulp Nonfiction: Why
April 28, 2007Pulp Nonfiction: Why “We” Didn’t Stop the Virginia Tech Killings
April 28, 2007Context matters.
Seung-Hui Cho’s violent and disturbing play, Richard McBeef, tells a disjointed story of a broken family and the murder of a 13-year-old boy. The writing is childish and unimaginative; the scene is surreal. How does this differ from movies like Saw or Reservoir Dogs? Context.
Many aspiring authors invent horrific scenes. Some progress to successful writing and directing careers. Most linger in obscurity. A minute number go on to commit violent acts. For those few, writing is less an act of creativity than an expression of anguish and rage. Knowing the difference before the fact is sometimes impossible. It’s a question that mental health professionals have wrestled with for decades.
Perhaps one of the distinguishing marks of writing-as-a-cry-for-help is the context in which it occurs. By all accounts, Cho was an isolated individual who behaved in a bizarre fashion. From an early age, he was described as uncommunicative and brooding, and his stalking behavior speaks of a young man who was baffled by the rules of normal social discourse.
So why didn’t someone stop him?
Sadly, they tried. In fact, several individuals correctly read the signs and tried to intervene. Professor Nikki Giovanni reportedly insisted that she would resign rather than continue to expose herself and her students to Cho’s threatening behavior. Giovanni’s department head, Lucinda Roy, was so troubled by Cho that she reached out to him, offering individual lessons and reporting his behavior to campus police. Another of Cho’s professors, Lisa Norris, is said to have approached her Dean regarding Cho’s behavior. Norris also reached out to Cho, referring him to the university counseling center.
Others did the right thing, too. After Cho was arrested for stalking, campus police took him to a psychiatric facility rather than the county jail, which might have been easier. Later, a judge recognized the signs of mental illness and ordered Cho to participate in outpatient treatment. Both the police and the judge could have let him slip through the cracks entirely.
These are cynical times for some people. In the American Psychological Association’s Monitor on Psychology, author Mary Pipher laments that, “we no longer live in a culture where we know most of the people we encounter.” The article was titled, “America: A toxic lifestyle?”
But many of the individuals who crossed paths with Cho responded appropriately – even compassionately – to a very troubled young man. If a finger of blame can be pointed in any direction, it is at the paradoxical notion of the collective “we.”
It is the collectivist’s willingness to trade individual liberty for the illusion of safety that has created gun-free zones that are so very attractive to killers like Cho. And, ironically, the same government that intrudes too far into our lives has withered in one of the few areas where one can make a strong case for government intervention in the lives of individuals: responding to the severely mentally ill.
According to a 2004 study by New York University’s Michael Almog, mental health care is difficult to obtain for “a population that is disproportionately and increasingly male, younger and of non-white race-ethnicity…. Psychiatric inpatients are overwhelmingly discharged to ‘the community’ and with a diminishing probability of discharge to a long-term psychiatric care facility.” The parallels to Cho’s life are eerie.
In the 1960’s, our country began dismantling the state mental hospital system, along with the infrastructure that allowed for the assessment and care of the severely mentally ill. Most noticeable among this group are young men, similar in age to Cho, who are experiencing their first severe psychotic disturbance.
In 1963, President Kennedy signed the Community Mental Health Centers Construction Act. It promised new outpatient mental health centers meant to replace state hospitals. State hospitals subsequently discharged their patients, but few of the new centers actually materialized. Even if the 2000 centers recommended by the National Institute for Mental Health had been built, decades of harsh experience have shown us that they are not equipped to handle severe mental illness. One of the biggest problems is that these patients simply don’t show up for treatment.
One of the reasons the state hospital system was dismantled was the promise of new medical knowledge. Another causal factor came from civil rights activists who regarded institutionalization as cruel and inhumane. Some activists seemed to regard mental illness as a right that should not be tampered with. “We” were willing to trade the safety of patients and the public for a utopian vision of boundless civil liberty. Now, the most severely mentally ill – those who were meant to benefit from deinstitutionalization – frequently end up homeless or in prison. They are too often the victims or the perpetrators of crime.
Clearly, “we” are confused about violence and civil rights. We force the responsibility of self-care on those who cannot manage it, while denying ourselves personal liberty and the means of self defense. But while collective confusion helped set the tone for the events at Virginia Tech, the wisdom of the individual nearly triumphed.
It was individuals – not an illusory collective – who acted heroically around Cho, even if they were unable to stop him. And it is individuals who will have the power and the responsibility to recognize and respond to the next troubled soul. Isolation, powerlessness, hostility, and pain: these are the context in which fantasies of violence can sometimes become reality. They are also the indication that it is time to follow the example of those who did what they could to prevent the tragedy at Virginia Tech.
References Almog, M. (2004). Managing United States mental healthcare policy: Changing patterns and trends in New York city acute psychiatry use, 1983-2000. Dissertation Abstracts International Section A: Humanities and Social Sciences, 64(7-A), 2640.
DeAngelis, T. (2007). America: a toxic lifestyle? Monitor on Psychology, 38(4), 50-52.
Moynihan, D. P. (July 12, 1999). Deinstitutionalization of the Mentally Ill. 106th Congress. Downloaded April 23, 2007 from: http://www.psychlaws.org/GeneralResources/article22.htm.
Torrey, E.F. & Zdandowicz, J.D. (1999). Deinstitutionalization hasn’t worked. The Washington Post, July 9, 1999. Downloaded April 23, 2007 from: http://www.psychlaws.org/GeneralResources/article17.htm
By Shawn Smith
(c) 2007
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Conservative Libertarian Outpost
April 27, 2007Your Gun Rights Could Soon Hang In The Balance
April 27, 2007— VA Tech shootings now spurring the most far-reaching gun control
in a decade
Gun Owners of America E-Mail Alert
8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102, Springfield, VA 22151
Phone: 703-321-8585 / FAX: 703-321-8408
http://www.gunowners.org/ordergoamem.htm
ACTION: Now that Congress is moving to restrict YOUR rights in
response to the VA Tech shootings, please make sure to take the
following three actions after you read this alert:
1. Urge your Representative to OPPOSE HR 297, the Dingell-McCarthy
legislation that is designed to take the Brady Law to new heights,
turning it into a law on steroids which could one day keep even YOU
from buying a gun. (Contact information and a draft letter to your
Representative are provided below.)
2. Gin up the e-mail alert systems in your state and forward this
e-mail to as many gun owners as you can.
3. Please stand with Gun Owners of America — at
http://www.gunowners.org/ordergoamem.htm — and help us to continue
this fight, as right now, we are combating this latest onslaught
ALONE in our nation’s capital. GOA spokesmen spent all of last week
doing radio and TV debates, interviews for newswires, and opinion
editorials for newspapers. This week, we begin the battle in
Congress to defeat legislation that could block millions of
additional, honest gun owners from buying firearms.
Monday, April 23, 2007
The biggest gun battle of the year is about to erupt on Capitol Hill.
Fueled by the recent Virginia Tech shootings, an odd coalition is
forming to help expand the number of honest people who now won’t be
able to buy a gun.
The legislation has been introduced by none other than the Queen of
Gun Control herself, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY). But she has
picked up a key ally, as the bill (HR 297) is being pushed by a
powerful gun group in Washington, DC.
On Friday, The Washington Post reported on the strange coalition.
“With the Virginia Tech shootings resurrecting calls for tighter gun
controls,” the Post said, “the National Rifle Association has begun
negotiations with senior Democrats over legislation to bolster the
national background-check system.”
Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), who was once on the NRA Board of Directors
but resigned when he supported and voted for the Clinton semi-auto
ban in 1994, is reported to be “leading talks with the powerful gun
lobby in hopes of producing a deal [soon],” Democratic aides and
lawmakers told the newspaper.
Rep. McCarthy admitted to the Post that her “crusades” for more gun
control have made her voice “toxic” in gun circles. “So Dingell is
handling negotiations with the NRA,” the newspaper reported.
“Dingell is also in talks with Sens. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) and Ted
Stevens (R-Alaska), House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio)
and Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner (Wis.), the senior Republican on the
House Judiciary Committee.”
Despite all this bad news, the Post article does go on to explain
that there are some potential pitfalls.
First, you will remember that this is the bill you helped kill last
year, when an avalanche of postcards was dumped on Congressional
desks by thousands upon thousands of GOA activists. That’s why the
Post says there is one huge obstacle — the members of Gun Owners of
America.
“The NRA must balance its desire to respond to the worst mass
shooting by a lone gunman in the nation’s history with its
competition with the more strident Gun Owners of America, which
opposes any restriction on gun purchases,” the Post reported.
SO WHAT DOES HR 297 DO?
Well, the rest of this alert will answer this question. This alert
is long, but it is important to read it in its entirety. We need to
“arm” ourselves with the facts so that we can keep pro-gun
Congressmen from being duped into supporting a bill that, as of now,
is being unanimously cosponsored by representatives sporting an “F-”
rating by GOA.
HR 297 provides, in the form of grants, about $1 billion to the
states to send more names to the FBI for inclusion in the National
Instant Criminal Background Check System [NICS]. If you are
thinking, “Oh, I’ve never committed a felony, so this bill won’t
affect me,” then you had better think again. If this bill becomes
law, you and your adult children will come closer to losing your gun
rights than ever before.
Are you, or is anyone in your family, a veteran who has suffered from
Post Traumatic Stress? If so, then you (and they) can probably kiss
your gun rights goodbye. In 1999, the Department of Veterans
Administration turned over 90,000 names of veterans to the FBI for
inclusion into the NICS background check system. These military
veterans — who are some of the most honorable citizens in our
society — can no longer buy a gun. Why? What was their heinous
“crime”?
Their “crime” was suffering from stress-related symptoms that often
follow our decent men and women who have served their country
overseas and fought the enemy in close combat. For all their
patriotism, the Clinton administration deemed them as mentally
“incompetent,” sent their names for inclusion in the NICS system, and
they are now prohibited from owning guns under 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(4).
HR 297 would make sure that more of these names are included in the
NICS system.
But, of course, Representatives Dingell and McCarthy tell us that we
need HR 297 to stop future Seung-Hui Chos from getting a gun and to
prevent our nation from seeing another shooting like we had on
Virginia Tech. Oh really?
Then why, after passing all of their gun control, do countries like
Canada and Germany still have school shootings? Even the infamous
schoolyard massacre which occurred in Ireland in 1997 took place in a
country that, at that time, had far more stringent gun controls than
we do.
Where has gun control made people safer? Certainly not in
Washington, DC, nor in Great Britain, nor in any other place that has
enacted a draconian gun ban.
IMPORTANT TALKING POINTS FOR CAPITOL HILL
Regarding Cho’s evil actions last Monday at Virginia Tech, your
Representative needs to understand three things:
1. If a criminal is a danger to himself and society, then he should
not be on the street. If he is, then there’s no law (or background
check for that matter) that will stop him from getting a gun and
acting out the evil that is in his heart. (Remember that Washington,
DC and England have not stopped bad guys from getting guns!) So why
wasn’t Cho in the criminal justice system? Why was he allowed to
intermix with other college students? The justice system frequently
passes off thugs to psychologists who then let them slip through
their fingers and back into society — where they are free to rape,
rob and murder.
2. Background checks DO NOT ULTIMATELY STOP criminals and mental
wackos from getting guns. This means that people who are initially
denied firearms at a gun store can still buy one illegally and commit
murder if they are so inclined — such as Benjamin Smith did in 1999
(when he left the gun store where he was denied a firearm, bought
guns on the street, and then committed his racist rampage less than a
week later).
NOTE: In the first five years that the Brady Law was in existence,
there were reportedly only three illegal gun buyers who were sent to
jail. That is why in 1997, a training manual produced by Handgun
Control, Inc., guided its activists in how to answer a question
regarding the low number of convictions under the Brady Law. The
manual basically says, when you are asked why so few people are being
sent to jail under Brady, just ignore the question and go on the
attack. [See http://www.gunowners.org/fs0404.htm — GOF’s Gun Control
Fact Sheet.]
3. Background checks threaten to prevent INNOCENT Americans like you
from exercising your right to own a gun for self-defense. No doubt
you are familiar with the countless number of times that the NICS
system has erroneously blocked honest Americans from buying a gun, or
have heard about the times that the NICS computer system has crashed
for days at a time, thus preventing all sales nationwide — and
effectively shutting down every weekend gun show.
Perhaps the most pernicious way of denying the rights of law-abiding
gun owners is to continuously add more and more gun owners’ names
onto the roles of prohibited persons. Clinton did this with many
military veterans in 1999. And Congress did this in 1996, when Sen.
Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) successfully pushed a gun ban for people who
have committed very minor offenses that include pushing, shoving or
merely yelling at a family member. Because of the Lautenberg gun
ban, millions of otherwise law-abiding Americans can never again own
guns for self-defense. HR 297 will make it easier for the FBI to
find out who these people are and to deny firearms to them.
GOA has documented other problems with this bill in the past. In our
January alert on HR 297 we pointed out how this bill will easily lend
itself to bureaucratic “fishing expeditions” into your private
records, including your financial, employment, and hospital records.
HR 297 takes us the wrong direction. The anti-gun Rep. Dingell is
trying to sell the bill to the gun owning public as an improvement in
the Brady Law. But don’t be fooled! The best improvement would be
to repeal the law and end the “gun free zones” that keep everyone
defenseless and disarmed — except for the bad guys.
CONTACT INFORMATION: You can visit the Gun Owners Legislative Action
Center at http://www.gunowners.org/activism.htm to send your
Representative the pre-written e-mail message below. And, you can
call your Representative toll-free at 1-877-762-8762.
—– PRE-WRITTEN LETTER —–
Dear Representative:
I am a Second Amendment supporter who strongly opposes HR 297 — the
NICS Improvement Act of 2007 — and I strongly agree with Gun Owners
of America that this bill should be defeated.
The minor improvements this bill makes to the Brady instant check are
insignificant when compared to the outrageous invasions of our
privacy it would permit.
Gun Owners of America has posted an analysis of HR 297 at
http://www.gunowners.org/110anatb.htm on its website, showing how the
bill will target millions of law-abiding gun owners, including
thousands of combat veterans who served our country bravely.
Supporters of this bill say we need it to stop future Seung-Hui Chos
from getting a gun and to prevent our nation from seeing another
shooting like the one at Virginia Tech. But honestly, what gun law
has stopped bad guys from getting a gun? Not in Canada, where they
recently had a school shooting. Certainly not in Washington, DC or
in England!
I think we’ve got to stop treating criminals like medical patients,
thus allowing them to slip through the cracks. If we are not going
to incarcerate dangerous people, then all the gun laws in the world
will never stop them from getting firearms.
Don’t be misled into thinking that this is a bill that gun owners
endorse. Most gun owners want Brady repealed, not “fixed.” The law
has done nothing to prevent criminals from obtaining guns, but it has
violated the Second Amendment rights of millions of law-abiding
Americans.
Sincerely,
GOA nails it yet again!
Virginia Tech and Neo Comms
April 17, 2007Once again we are a nation that must face a national tragedy. Once again we are faced with a barrage of unfounded quasi-logic. Our so-called leaders are spouting for more gun control based upon the false claims that generally accompany any crises. Some are claiming already that the defunct Assault Weapons Ban would have stopped the criminal. As if more laws would have any effect whatsoever on a criminal hell bent on destruction. Many cite the Japanese model yet, it too is a paper tiger ( see http://www.davekopel.com/2A/LawRev/Japanese_Gun_Control.htm ).
The utter chaos that happened, and continues to happen in places like Canada, Great Britain, and Australia since the implementation of draconian gun laws provides a template for disaster that we most certainly should not implement. While changes need to be made here in the United States more restrictive laws are patently not the answer.
Pandering by politicians of whatever stripe should be examined closely for logical fallacy and shear idiocy based upon emotion. The Neo Communist’s (Neo Comms for short) will without a doubt decry our freedoms; Without ever noting that more freedom, not less probably could have minimized the tragedy. They will, without a doubt fail to note how a law that would have allowed qualified persons to be armed at Va. Teck was quashed last year. They will, without any doubt deny any culpability whatsoever for preventing the victims of this latest shooting spree and the other incidents that we are all to familiar with from being able to effectively defend themselves and others. Indeed they will overtly deny that by passing the laws that turned our schools into target rich free fire zones they share guilt for every person harmed in any of these incidents.
Danny Dietz
April 14, 2007http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5469495,00.html
For any that are interested, the Freedom Riders, Colorado Spec Ops Association, and several other pro America groups will be at the July 4th dedication for the purpose of protecting the event from anti American traitors. See you there!
Conservative Libertarian Outpost 