Posted on 11/17/2017 4:32:30 AM PST by marktwain
I saw stats recently that something like 300/100K were institutionalized for their own safety (and society’s) 50 years ago. Now it’s down to about 12/100k!
The rest are walking among us, on meds, or off meds.
And what happens when (not if) the economy crashes, pharmacies are looted and never restocked, and millions of schizophrenics are all off their meds at the same time, during a period of massively increased social stress?
And very quick to reload in a hurry. On a ship, a pair of mates with “musketoons” could put down a mutiny.
I am reminded of the defense of the captain’s cabin from Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Kidnapped”
Remington model 8.
Designed by J.M. Browning.
Used by Frank Hamer.
A pretty decent pedigree.
“Kidnapped” was a really good book. Also the Walt Disney movie was outstanding.
Alen Breck Stewart. He bore a King’s name and fought like the devil.
I’d question just how much more “prevailent” mass shootings are once one considers the population difference from then to now along with the fact that first person shooter games primarily make the perpetrators extremely efficient at acquiring and engaging targets. Then you have a nationally connected instantaneous information system that blares every incident involving 2 or more victims often before its even ended.
There is a huge mass of people now that can disassociate to “game mode” and place shots on target consistently and not be rattled in the resultant chaos. Most of them aren’t evil (though I do think there are more evil roaming now). If someone of Alvin York’s skill set had flown off the handle in 1920 they’d have probably racked up a large body count with a bolt action rifle, but the discipline and economics required to reach that skill level probably weeded out all of the impulsive evil douchebags. Their lack of impulse control probably also got them ensnared into the legal system for lesser crimes long before they could graduate to that level of mayhem too.
What changed?
Before the 1970s, liberals had not slaughtered 50 million babies. Once you perpetrate such evil, any mass killing is easy.
Before the 1970s, communism was repellant to most Americans who cherished America and its ideals. Communism says the end justifies the means and killed 100 million people in the 20th century. Once you subscribe to such a system, any mass killing is easy.
When “Thou shalt not kill” is removed from schools and the public square, any mass killing is easy.
What do all three of these pathologies have in common?
Well, it’s clear that it’s not the guns, or rather, the guns are not the cause.
I was over on the grounds of the State mental hospital the other day. The existing hospital has 168 beds (but only about 30 available for new commitments). The other buildings, which in 1960 offered 6000 beds (SIX THOUSAND) have been nicely renovated for bureaucrats’ offices. Not, mind you, bureaucrats dealing with the mentally ill, but regular ones dealing with taxation, regulation, the “environment”, etc.
Six thousand beds in 1960. Thirty, more or less, now. And there are a LOT more crazy people now than in 1960.
And the analogy with Amendments I and III-X is not apt, because crazy people speaking, assembling, getting due process, etc isn’t the same as crazy people acting out with semi-auto rifles.
We don’t need more gun control, but we do need more crazy control.
“The phenomenon of mass shootings goes along with the collapse of the education system, the government sponsored destruction of Christianity, and the rise of Alinski Leftism.”
Exactly.
Jimmy Carter deserves the strongest condemnation for creating the monster known as the Department of Education, which removed public education from the local and state and put it under the leftist bureaucracy of the federal government.
A culling at a level only a Pope could appreciate.
Yup, once a society not only legalizes the murder of the most innocent and defenseless within it, but champions it, that society will tolerate and encourage most anything, and that society is doomed.
You have 2 phenomenon that are responsible for most of the increased violence in our society:
1) G-d has been removed from the classroom and the public square, resulting in a general decline of morals throughout society. The normal moral restraint on killing isn’t there for a lot of people.
2) The nuthouses have been largely emptied out since the early 1970s. While I feel genuine sympathy for these people, putting them in the real world - with all of its pressures - and medicating them - many times with substances that create MORE problems than they solve - has been pretty much an unmitigated disaster.
Combine the general decline of morality with more nuts on the loose, and more mass murders is a tragic, but predictable, result.
Yup, once a society not only legalizes the murder of the most innocent and defenseless within it, but champions it, that society will tolerate and encourage most anything, and that society is doomed.
Look at the Romans - completely sanctioned not only abortion, but infanticide by exposure.
Look at the Aztecs, with normalized human sacrifice and cannibalism.
The norm of history is the killing of anyone less powerful than you.
It is Christian society that is the outlier, and far above the moral insanity of nearly all other societies.
Trouble waiting to happen. Lots of ticking time bombs out there.
I wonder if the model 8 would be legal in California? heh..
I’d like to try a Model 8. I think I’ve only seen one.
There is a great chart of mass shootings with the inflection point being when God was removed from the schools.
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