Transterrestrial Musings

Comments

The Army taught me to turn into and charge an ambush. I can't shake the thought that had even 2 or 3 unarmed students or faculty members charged the shooter, they could've taken him down. The reports of him lining up people and gunning them down (if true) are mind boggling. Once someone starts shooting like that, you have nothing to lose by attacking him. Even if all you did was disrupt his aim, you likely would be saving lives. A pistol has to be pointing at someone to hurt them. Compliant victims make easy targets. Despite what some schools are teaching, there are valid times to fight back.

Posted by Larry J at April 18, 2007 11:51 AM

From accounts, I give credit to Professor Lebrescu to doing just this:
Once someone starts shooting like that, you have nothing to lose by attacking him. Even if all you did was disrupt his aim, you likely would be saving lives.

Posted by Leland at April 18, 2007 11:56 AM

Ironically, infantilization -- or, really, keeping people adolescents instead of letting them turn into adults -- contributes to these sorts of ugly events.

Fantasizing about blowing away your girl because she rejected you, and also the RA who comes in to tell you you're overreacting -- and maybe a dozen of those bastards over in Engineering Hall who laughed at you last week for stuttering -- is not an uncommon thing when you're young. Feelings run strong.

It's the mark of maturity that you don't actually do such things, that you recognize the narcissism in your thoughts and compensate with perspective, judgment, self-discipline. Sometimes that maturity is helped and bolstered by the impression you get from those around you that you're an adult, you'll be held responsible for your actions, and no one is going to waste a lot of energy trying to figure out and sympathize with your motives if you do something bad.

On the other hand, when those around you give you the impression that you can't be fully held responsible for your actions yet, that you can be excused for bad action when you have strong feelings, like a baby, then maybe that maturity is delayed a bit.

Am I saying Geraldo and the New York Times with their 'Children's Crusade' depiction of the military helped create VT? Absolutely. Those of us who oppose a culture of irresponsible narcissism don't do so out of mere vanity or machismo, but because such a culture has real and deadly costs.

Posted by Carl Pham at April 18, 2007 12:21 PM

Ironically, infantilization -- or, really, keeping people adolescents instead of letting them turn into adults -- contributes to these sorts of ugly events.

Good podcast and discussion on this from Instacouple.

Posted by Leland at April 18, 2007 12:30 PM

My Dad taught me to how to fight. He taught me proper use of guns. The SCA trained me in close-quarters knife fighting. I know that at least twice in my life those skills came in handy, and probably save my life. Children who are not taught to defend themselves, and who are told not to defend themselves, can't: vide the students who debated for almost 20 minutes barricading their classroom.
Virginia Tech administration is guilty of disarming those students, and probably a lot of parents are equally guilty in not teaching their children to defend themselves.

Posted by Aleta at April 18, 2007 01:14 PM

What a bunch of bullshit. "If the students could defend themselves, this wouldn't have happened." "If they students were armed, this wouldn't have happened." Fine, and if the price of 30 lives weren't $571, this wouldn't have happened.

Posted by Brian Swiderski at April 18, 2007 02:53 PM

I have a wonderful idea, Brian.

Let's ban firearms! Why, just think of it! No one will ever be able to shoot anyone else-- not even themselves-- EVER!

We can have a gun-free America, just like we have a drug-free America!

Riiiiiiight.

Brian, place the blame for those shootings where it belongs-- on the shoulders of the VT administration. They declared VT a "gun-free zone", and by doing so, effectively hung a huge blinking neon sign for everyone to see, reading "Come and slaughter as many of us as you want! We can't shoot back!"

What a bunch of reckless idiots!

Posted by Hale Adams at April 18, 2007 03:08 PM

You can defend yourself without a weapon. True, if someone is shooting at you, it's very nice to have the ability to shoot back. However, simply waiting for your turn to be shot to death seems rather bizarre, at least in my world view. Like I wrote above, had 2 or 3 students charged the shooter, they very likely would've taken him out of action and stopped the killing. Compliant victims are easy targets.

From accounts, I give credit to Professor Lebrescu to doing just this:
Once someone starts shooting like that, you have nothing to lose by attacking him. Even if all you did was disrupt his aim, you likely would be saving lives.

If the reports about Professor Lebrescu are accurate, I agree. In the confusion following such events, it's all too common for the Press to get things wrong. According to the reports, he took decisive action and saved a lot of lives at the cost of his own. That was a courageous thing for anyone to do, even more remarkable for a 75 year old Holocaust survivor. Shalom, Professor Lebrescu. Shalom.

Posted by Larry J at April 18, 2007 03:09 PM

[I]f the price of 30 lives weren't $571, this wouldn't have happened.

True, Brian, and if people came from Krypton and were invulnerable to bullets, it also wouldn't have happened.

Problem is, we need to restrict ourselves to what is consistent with physical reality and the laws of thermodynamics. And the sticking point is that no one has yet found a way to raise the cost to madmen of taking the first human life much above zero. The best we seem able to do is raise the cost of taking the second life. Deputizing bystanders into an impromptu neighborhood watch equipped with deadly force seems to work out well where it's been tried. At least, it's never gone badly wrong so far -- we've never heard of something that ended up worse than Columbine or Virginia Tech because armed bystanders turned a little ol' one-man mass-murder spree into the shootout at the OK Corral.

By the way, just to pull your favorite chain, it sounds like you're saying vigorous interference in the internal affairs of others, even when you're not completely 100% sure it's going to work out well, is justified to prevent the possible acquisition of weapons that multiply how dangerous you might be to nearby innocents if you went crazy. How's that square with your WMD-in-Iraq stance? (The last is a rhetorical question, by the way. Please don't answer it. Or, if you do, discipline yourself to a mere five or six bullet points. I can infer the detail easily.)

Posted by Carl Pham at April 18, 2007 03:11 PM

I'm thankful that I have intelligent commenters, so that I don't have to respond myself to Brian's idiocy.

Why he keeps coming back for this, I don't know. Perhaps he's a (pseudo)intellectual masochist.

Posted by Rand Simberg at April 18, 2007 03:20 PM

Ah, but weapons in the hands of governments are never a problem, only weapons in the hands of individuals. For the ultimate American example of this kind of thinking, see tomorrow's anniversary -- fourteen years since 82 men, women, and children lost their lives in the name of gun control. That would be about two and a half Virginia Techs worth. Of course, given some of the things that are now coming out about the VT shooter, it's pretty obvious that several government agencies are to blame for those lives as well, given that none of them stopped him during the two years he was continuously threatening to kill people, nor during the two hours between the double murder and the massacre.

Posted by Jay Manifold at April 18, 2007 05:21 PM

"Why he keeps coming back for this, I don't know. Perhaps he's a (pseudo)intellectual masochist."

While we are on the topic of Brian's (if that really is his name) psyche, I think there are a couple more likely alternatives:

1. His ideology is his existential foundation. Hence, if he sacrifices the positions that arise from his ideology, he sacrifices himself.

2. His psyche is infantilized, and he requires attention where he is likely to get it. Posting here guarantees attention. Posting at Kos or myDD gets him no attention -- he is just another voice in the mob.

I suspect Brian is NOT a narcissist. When others voice disagreement, he addresses their comments individually, albeit within his own ideological structure. A narcissist would likely disparage the commenter and not address the comment.

[Addressing Brian directly]

None of the above is intended to slight Brian. Psychological dysfunction has a long history in my ancestry. I am just a layperson, but I have empathy for the psychological affliction that can create behavior like Brian's.

Respectfully submitted,

Posted by MG at April 18, 2007 05:25 PM

Posted by Brian Swiderski at April 18, 2007 02:53 PM

Brian...

you really need to explore your thoughts on a government nanny state world where people are not responsible for their own lives or protecting their own lives.

You need to sit and think about this...two of the four airplanes on 9/11 knew that the planes were going to do a suicide run and no one fought for their own survival...

that should scare you...

It does me.

Robert

Posted by Robert G. Oler at April 18, 2007 07:22 PM

Carl: "True, Brian, and if people came from Krypton and were invulnerable to bullets, it also wouldn't have happened."

That's my point, Carl. Rather than limit the power, mechanics, and price-availability of firearms like sane people, some are suggesting we turn America into Sparta and train our children in lethal combat. We might as well just practice rolling on asphalt instead of buckling seatbelts.

Carl: "The best we seem able to do is raise the cost of taking the second life."

Hence restricting weapons designed to provide a high rate of fire, including semiautomatics.

Carl: "Deputizing bystanders into an impromptu neighborhood watch equipped with deadly force seems to work out well where it's been tried."

How would that have prevented or limited this incident? Unless you deployed an armed posse to every single classroom, lecture hall, and dorm floor, in which case you might as well just shut down the school, the loon would have walked right past them and still chained the door.

"we've never heard of something that ended up worse than Columbine or Virginia Tech"

Wouldn't it be worse to cost more lives and still be ineffective? Neither Charles Whitman, nor Columbine, nor VT would have been stopped by deputizing and arming people on the street.

Carl: "How's that square with your WMD-in-Iraq stance?"

1. Guns actually exist.
2. The citizens of a free republic have a right to determine what level of mutual armament to accept in their society.
3. The UN Security Council has authority over how its resolutions are enforced, not George W. Bush.

Carl: "The last is a rhetorical question, by the way. Please don't answer it."

If you already knew, you wouldn't have asked a question whose answer rebuts your point.

Rand: "I'm thankful that I have intelligent commenters, so that I don't have to respond myself to Brian's idiocy."

Wouldn't want you to overexert yourself. Stupidity, after all, is a team effort, and we don't want that rapierlike wit of yours being damaged by use of any kind.

Rand: "Perhaps he's a (pseudo)intellectual masochist."

Keep working on those correspondence courses in psychology, Rand.

Jay: "fourteen years since 82 men, women, and children lost their lives in the name of gun control."

That's a contemptible and preposterous statement. The innocent victims of Waco died as a result of their captors' decision to violently fight off a legitimate arrest warrant, which does not become negotiable or excusable because you have a problem with the law in question. To absolve those murdering psychotics and blame their actions on the very laws they broke, which have been passed by the constitutional government of this country and sustained in a court of law, is reprehensible.

If you are set against a law, you seek to change it through the courts, through civil disobedience, and by winning the support of other citizens peacefully as responsible members of civil-f***ing-society; you don't retreat behind barricades with M-16s, murder law enforcement officers serving legitimate warrants, and then use your own children as human shields. How disgusting of you to implicitly defend those monsters and try to blame gun control.

MG: "His ideology is his existential foundation."

A claim in search of an existential foundation.

MG: "His psyche is infantilized, and he requires attention where he is likely to get it."

A rather odd conclusion, given how frequently I try to get Rand and his sock-puppets to discuss ideas constructively instead of fantasizing about my character.

MG: "Posting here guarantees attention. Posting at Kos or myDD gets him no attention -- he is just another voice in the mob."

If I understand correctly, you and "normal" posters come here in the hopes that nobody will see what you write, nobody will respond, and everyone will completely ignore you, thus making my desire to interact with people deviant? I hope you don't take this the wrong way, what with your People Magazine-educated knowledge of psychology, but you're talking out of the wrong hole.

MG: "A narcissist would likely disparage the commenter and not address the comment."

Now you're disparaging our host? Tsk tsk, bad manners.

MG: "I am just a layperson, but I have empathy for the psychological affliction that can create behavior like Brian's."

I appreciate your empathy, and have no doubt it is sincere, but please try to understand that not everyone regards intelligence, morality, and reason as afflictions, however much trouble they cause for those who have them. Not everyone longs for the "sweet embrace" of robotic unconsciousness that seems to characterize the right-wing personality, nor the moral vacuum they depend upon like fish in water. Such people would indeed see it as "masochism" to slow down, let alone stop, to avoid hitting a child in the road, and my deepest feeling for them is only pity; sadness for the screaming, shrieking, inescapable vacuum they inhabit, and their desire to drag the rest of the world into it with them.

Posted by Brian Swiderski at April 18, 2007 09:10 PM

Robert: "you really need to explore your thoughts on a government nanny state world where people are not responsible for their own lives or protecting their own lives."

Specialization is what happens in advanced societies, and there are both advantages and disadvantages.

Robert: "two of the four airplanes on 9/11 knew that the planes were going to do a suicide run and no one fought for their own survival..."

We know that one of them did, and I don't know how much time the other one had. Also, we're not talking about normal self-defense; even if they had time, they knew that almost every plausible outcome involved their deaths--that even if they killed three of the hijackers the pilot would dive the plane into the ground. That, coupled with the fact that their deaths would occur after a LONG plunge, perhaps tumbling with no way of knowing when it would end, would make it difficult for anyone to act once the hijackers were in control.

And if they do nothing, knowing that many others could die, maybe something--anything at all--could happen to at least delay the inevitable. This is human nature, not conditioned cowardice, and people have since been more than willing to risk themselves to stop potential terrorists before they gain control. The fear of being stabbed to death is a LOT less terrifying than the thought of being in a plane crash, and that's one irrational instinct that works against passivity.

Posted by Brian Swiderski at April 18, 2007 10:00 PM

As an outsider, I have a comment to make.

"The students at Virginia Tech were grown women and — if you’ll forgive the expression — men."

Not by the standards of many countries. By those standards, I would estimate that maybe 10% of Americans are adults.

Far too many times: "I want what I want and I want it NOW!!!"

Posted by Fletcher Christian at April 19, 2007 01:04 AM

Rather than limit the power, mechanics, and price-availability of firearms like sane people, some are suggesting we turn America into Sparta and train our children in lethal combat.

What would you propose, Brian? The VT guy used a 9mm and .22 pistol. Those are about the least powerful firearms that exist. You're not talking sense here. A gun is a thing that can kill in an instant, by definition. It hardly matters the size of hole it puts in you. And the number of bullets per second it fires only matters if there is an aggressive bunch of people trying to get you before you get off another shot. Like in a war. In a situation where people are hiding behind desks hoping you don't see them, it doesn't matter whether it takes 2 seconds between bullets or 0.2 seconds. You've got plenty of time. Have you ever heard of a murderer who didn't succeed in killing as many as he wanted because he couldn't pull the trigger fast enough? Because the SWAT team arrived between his first shot and his sixth? No you haven't. So limiting "power" is a total red herring, a feel-good measure without any real effect. It's like reducing the number of atomic bombs a country has from 20,000 to 5,000. Totally symbolic.

As for limiting the availability and/or jacking up the price -- have you noticed how well that's worked out with cocaine? Possessing cocaine is utterly illegal and savagely punished. It ought to cost millions of dollars per ounce and be nearly impossible to get. Neither are even remotely true. Why do you think we'd do better with guns?

Finally, you're missing the main point, which is that we do know a cheap and effective method of preventing a bad person from using a gun to commit murder (or at least a second murder): have a non-bad person point another gun at him. Works every time. That's why we give guns to the police.

No one (except Fletcher in another thread) is suggesting we train every adult male as a deputy sheriff and hold gladiatorial games to spread the proper martial attitude. All that's being said is that if people choose to supply themselves with weapons, and we take a few modest steps -- mandatory training, background check, no criminal or psychiatric record, gainfully employed, whatever -- to make sure they're at least as sober and sensible as your generic raw police recruit, then we'd probably all benefit from the presence of these auxiliary peacekeepers all around us.

And certainly it makes no sense at all, when the regular full-time peacekeepers have proven inadequate to the job once again, to suggest we make it a tad harder for citizen auxiliaries to step in. That's just suicidal.

Posted by Carl Pham at April 19, 2007 01:40 AM

"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."

Strange how it's only the second clause that the gun nuts ever read or quote.

Compulsory military training and service for 2 years was arguably why the rate of criminality in the UK in the 1950s was much lower than now. All crime, not just violent crime - the theory seems to be that the training was just about long enough to instil a sense of discipline, sadly lacking in most Western countries right now.

Relying on a reserve militia, rather than a large standing army, would also make it difficult for a President to start ill-advised military adventures for political gain - sound familiar?

It works rather well for the Swiss; they haven't been invaded since 1798. And that invasion didn't work too well for the invaders.

Posted by Fletcher Christian at April 19, 2007 04:51 AM

Strange how it's only the second clause that the gun nuts ever read or quote.

We're not "gun nuts." We're "Constitution nuts." I don't even own a gun.

A purpose clause doesn't change the meaning of the "the right of the People." It means exactly the same thing in the Second Amendment as it does in the first.

I always find it amusing when foreigners think they know more about American history and the Constitution than we do.

Posted by Rand Simberg at April 19, 2007 05:32 AM

B.S.: the "captors of the innocents" at Waco were the FBI and ATF. A Federal law enforcement publicity stunt was bungled badly, putting the innocent deliberately in harm's way; the final murderous assault was also a government decision. It was better for dozens to die than for government to admit wrongdoing against citizens by letting the innocent leave, or live.

Posted by Stewart at April 19, 2007 05:52 AM

Brian has convinced me that he will excuse any atrocity whatsoever as long as a Democrat is in the White House. Or that he's just a troll, given his stated belief in the legitimacy of law enforcement actions at Waco.

Stewart nailed it. The FBI were the captors. One-third of the residents of Mount Carmel walked out of the place of their own free will, unimpeded by anyone else inside. After the final catastrophe, the trial of the handful of survivors ended in acquittal on all serious charges. In other words, the jury unanimously disagreed that they were murderers, psychotics or otherwise.

(The judge, a Republican hack, imposed the maximum possible sentence for the minor charges that got convictions.)

And of course, the events of 4/19 were not the result of serving an arrest warrant, legitimate or otherwise. The 2/28 arrest attempt was a publicity stunt intended to burnish the ATF's image during budget hearings in the Senate and in the aftermath of allegations of misconduct at the agency.

Vernon Howell and anyone else at Mt Carmel could have been arrested without any fanfare whenever they left the property to run an errand. He, and many others there, had rap sheets a mile long, mostly for welfare fraud. The firearms charges were, well, a smokescreen; the Davidians were more lightly armed than the general population by about 50%.

I could go on at some length, but I've got better things to do. The one good thing about Waco was that it was so horrendous that even the Feds have managed to avoid repeating the mistake. Regarding it as anything other than a government-manufactured disaster is preposterous.

Posted by Jay Manifold at April 19, 2007 06:19 AM

If part of having a "well regulated" militia was ensuring the mental health and sanity of every individual who is allowed to own a gun, by some means of annual mental examination and certification, no different from the annual safety inspection of ones car, it could be argued that this event at VTech could have been avoided.

This may not sound so preposterous as advances in testing and scanning the brain are beginning to indicate. Simple tests of correlating violent images and corresponding illumnation of certain brain regions may easily allow the diagnosis of individuals with violent fantasies (pleasure in the image vs. revulsion) or predisposition to violence.

Posted by Toast_n_Tea at April 19, 2007 06:56 AM

"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."
Strange how it's only the second clause that the gun nuts ever read or quote.

In addition to a previous rebuttal to this, it needs to be remembered what "a well regulated militia" means. According to 10 USC 311 (a) and (b)(2), the militia is (more or less) all males between 17 and 45. Also, "well regulated" doesn't mean what you apparently think it does. In the context in which the words were written, it means "trained and equipped." Therefore, a more accurate reading in modern vocabulary would be "a well-trained and -equipped citizenry, being necessary to...."

Also, Brian's silly comment about banning guns--as is typical for gun grabbers--fails to account for the fact that, oddly enough, criminals don't obey the law.

Posted by Rick C at April 19, 2007 07:38 AM

Jay: I agree completely, except they did repeat the action at Ruby Ridge. Not since, unless it hasn't been reported.

Posted by LeslieB at April 19, 2007 09:42 AM

...they did repeat the action at Ruby Ridge.

Ruby Ridge happened before Waco, under the first Bush administration.

Posted by Rand Simberg at April 19, 2007 11:37 AM

"Brian, place the blame for those shootings where it belongs-- on the shoulders of the VT administration. They declared VT a "gun-free zone", and by doing so, effectively hung a huge blinking neon sign for everyone to see, reading "Come and slaughter as many of us as you want! We can't shoot back!"

err....the blame for these shootings belongs squarely with the shooter; let's not lose sight of that simple fact.

There may be enough culpability in failing to mitigate the consequences of such an event to go around, but the blame lies with Cho.

Posted by Andy at April 19, 2007 02:04 PM

Post a comment