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27 Dead in Connecticut Elementary School Shooting

Jägermeister

By Jägermeister
in Off-Topic General

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I♥Wellwood Abbotsford Star

I♥Wellwood

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I think what I find most alarming about this is for me is that I feel absolutely no sadness or sympathy for the families or kids. It`s terrible it happened to them, I wish it never would have happened, but I literally feel​ nothing. I never do anymore. I am completely devoid of empathy. I read people posts about being in tears and could never imagine actually being sad enough about anything like this to actually personally care.

I have no idea what`s wrong with me. I am disgust with my self.

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Wetcoaster Canucks First-Line

Wetcoaster

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The Chief Medical Examiner has found no physical brain abnormalities when autopsying Adam Lanza - nor did he expect to do so. Next up a toxicology exam to test body fluids for psychiatric medications or illegal substances which will take several more weeks.

HARTFORD, Conn. — Connecticut’s chief medical examiner says he doubts genetic analysis of the body of the gunman who fatally shot 20 children and six adults at a school last month will explain his actions.

Dr. Wayne Carver autopsied the body of the gunman, Adam Lanza, and said an examination of Lanza’s brain showed nothing unusual.

Carver told the Hearst Connecticut Media Group that the testing was a “fishing expedition.”

Carver said Lanza’s brain showed no tumour or gross deformity, though he didn’t expect to find one.

“That would be associated with very severe disabilities,” he said.

A toxicology exam, which could take several weeks, involves testing body fluids for psychiatric medications or illegal substances.

Carver said the result could provide “potentially valuable information” in creating a full picture of Lanza.

The 20-year-old Lanza fatally shot himself after the Dec. 14 attack.

Lanza’s body was claimed by his father Dec. 27, and the public may never know what happened with the remains.

http://www.theprovince.com/news/irregularities+brain+Newtown+killer+says+coroner/7807032/story.html#ixzz2HhlsZ1go

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Wetcoaster Canucks First-Line

Wetcoaster

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New York State is the first jurisdiction to begin passing tougher gun control measures in the wake of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook School.

The definition of assault weapons is being significantly expanded to include semiautomatic rifles, shotguns and handguns with detachable magazines and one military-style feature. Any New York resident who currently has such a weapon must register it in a state database. Also magazines will be limited to 7 rounds and there will be monitoring of ammunition sales.

The legislation will increase penalties for gun crimes, require background checks for most private gun sales and create a statewide database of gun licenses.

The whole package sounds closer to what we have in Canada in some respects.

There are also provisions to try to keep firearms out of the hands of persons with mental illness.

Also if a first responder is murdered as occurred last month the sentence will be life with no parole possible.

New York Has Gun Deal, With Focus on Mental Ills

By THOMAS KAPLAN and DANNY HAKIM

ALBANY — Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and lawmakers agreed on Monday to a broad package of changes to gun laws that would expand the state’s ban on assault weapons and would include new measures to keep guns away from the mentally ill.

The state Senate, controlled by a coalition of Republicans and a handful of Democrats, approved the legislative package around 11 p.m. by a vote of 43 to 18. The Assembly, controlled by Democrats, has been strongly supportive of gun control. It planned to vote on the measure on Tuesday.

Approval of the legislation would make New York the first state to act in response to the mass shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., last month.

Mr. Cuomo had pressed lawmakers to act quickly in response to Newtown, saying, “the people of this state are crying out for help.” And the Legislature acted with unusual haste: Monday was the first full day of this year’s legislative session.“We don’t need another tragedy to point out the problems in the system,” Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, said at a news conference just before 9 p.m. “Enough people have lost their lives,” he added. “Let’s act.”

The expanded ban on assault weapons would broaden the definition of such weapons, banning semiautomatic pistols and rifles with detachable magazines and one military-style feature, as well as semiautomatic shotguns with one military-style feature. New Yorkers who already own such guns could keep them but would be required to register them with the state.

“The message out there is so clear after Newtown,” said the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, a Democrat from Manhattan. “To basically eradicate assault weapons from our streets in New York as quickly as possible is something the people of this state want.”

In an acknowledgment that many people have suggested that part of the solution to gun violence is a better government response to mental illness, the legislation includes not only new restrictions on gun ownership, but also efforts to limit access to guns by the mentally ill.

The most significant new proposal would require mental health professionals to report to local mental health officials when they believe that a patient is likely to harm themselves or others. Law enforcement would then be authorized to confiscate any firearm owned by the patient; therapists would not be sanctioned for a failure to report dangerous patients if they acted “in good faith.”

“People who have mental health issues should not have guns,” Mr. Cuomo said. “They could hurt themselves, they could hurt other people.”

But such a requirement “represents a major change in the presumption of confidentiality that has been inherent in mental health treatment,” said Dr. Paul S. Appelbaum, the director of the Division of Law, Ethics, and Psychiatry at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, who said the Legislature should hold hearings on possible consequences of the proposal.

“The prospect of being reported to the local authorities, even if they do not have weapons, may be enough to discourage patients with suicidal or homicidal thoughts from seeking treatment or from being honest about their impulses,” he said.

The legislation would also expand Kendra’s Law, which empowers judges to order mentally ill patients to receive outpatient treatment.

And it would require gun owners to store their weapons safely if they live with someone barred from possessing a firearm.

The legislative package which Mr. Cuomo said he believed would be “the most comprehensive package in the nation,” would ban any gun magazine that can hold over 7 rounds of ammunition — the current limit is 10 rounds — and require background checks of ammunition buyers and automated alerts to law enforcement of high-volume purchases.

The legislation would also increase penalties for gun crimes, require background checks for most private gun sales and create a statewide database of gun licenses.

Senator Jeffrey D. Klein of the Bronx, the leader of an independent faction of Democrats who have allied with the Republicans to control the Senate, said the measure met the goals of many lawmakers.

“Republicans, it’s very clear, wanted harsher criminal penalties for illegal guns, which is something I agree with,” Mr. Klein added, “but on the other hand we’re also going to ban assault weapons and limit the number of rounds in a magazine. So I think putting those two things together makes it a better bill.”

Among the other elements of the proposed legislation were a so-called Webster provision, named for the shooting deaths of two firefighters in Webster, near Rochester, just before Christmas, that would mandate a life sentence without parole for anyone who murders a first responder.

The package would allow judges to require weapons surrender by anyone who is the subject of an order of protection from a court.

And in response to a controversy that erupted after The Journal News, a daily newspaper, published the names and addresses of handgun permit holders in Westchester and Rockland Counties, the legislation would prohibit disclosure of the names on a new statewide gun database, and would allow individuals to exempt their own names and addresses from being disclosed by counties that have such databases.

The proposed package of gun laws posed the first big test of a new power dynamic in Albany. The Assembly remains controlled by Democrats, as it has been for decades, and is strongly supportive of gun control.

The coalition now leading the Senate, which had been controlled by Republicans generally opposed to new gun control measures, also includes Democrats supportive of gun control.

Senate Republicans indicated on Monday that they would not seek to block a vote. The deputy Republican leader in the Senate, Thomas W. Libous of Binghamton, described a new gun control bill as “inevitable.” In an interview on WGDJ-AM, Mr. Libous called the package a “split decision.”

“I’m not going to sugarcoat it,” he said, adding, “There are a lot of things here that true Second Amendment believers are going to have some issues with.”

Mr. Libous later told reporters he did not know how he would vote on the gun package.

“I have had thousands of e-mails and calls,” he said. “Certainly the emotion of the issue, as to what happened in Connecticut or Columbine or wherever, is something that touches all of us as individuals, but a lot of my constituents feel very strongly about the Second Amendment, and I certainly have to respect their wishes.”

The Legislature was scheduled to be in session this week only on Monday and Tuesday. Mr. Cuomo, eager for a vote on the gun package, said he had waived the three-day waiting period for new legislation that the State Constitution requires, something he has done in the past to allow for speedy votes on controversial legislative agreements.

The minority leader in the Assembly, Brian M. Kolb, a Republican from Canandaigua, objected to the move to expedite the process, saying, “I don’t think we should be rushing things just for the sake of headlines.”

But Mr. Cuomo said, “If there is an issue that fits the definition of necessity, I believe it’s gun violence.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/15/nyregion/new-york-legislators-hope-for-speedy-vote-on-gun-laws.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&smid=tw-share&

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Wetcoaster Canucks First-Line

Wetcoaster

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New York has now passed the gun control bill and Governor Cuomo has immediately signed it into law. it is known as the Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement (or SAFE) Act.

Oh yeah and the NRA is outraged.

New York passes major gun control law -- first since Newtown massacre

New York lawmakers on Tuesday approved the toughest gun control legislation in the nation, expanding the state's existing assault weapons ban and addressing gun ownership by those with mental illnesses in the first major legislative action in response to the Newtown, Conn., school massacre.

The measure passed the state Assembly 104-43 after passing the state Senate 43-18 Monday.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo quickly signed the legislation on Tuesday.

"This unfortunately required tragedies and loss of life to actually spur the political process to action," Cuomo said in remarks minutes before signing the bill.

"This will be the toughest gun control package in the nation," Sen. Jeffrey Klein, leader of the Independent Democratic Conference that shares majority control with Republican senators, had told The Associated Press. "All in all, it is a comprehensive, balanced approach that will save lives."

The National Rifle Association was "outraged" Tuesday calling New York's gun control bill "draconian," in a statement.

The vote came as lawmakers in other states as well as the federal government wrestle with how to reduce gun violence after a series of mass shootings.

President Barack Obama is set to unveil his own proposals -- based on recommendations from Vice President Joe Biden's gun task force -- on Wednesday. He is expected to focus on both legislative measures and steps that could be taken through executive action.

These steps could include cracking down on people who lie on background checks and focusing on improving school safety and mental health care. A federal assault weapons ban would require approval from Congress.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg applauded the state's bipartisan cooperation in a statement Tuesday, and suggested that it "sets an example for Washington to follow."

"The responsible and comprehensive gun reform bills the governor signed into law today will help keep guns away from criminals and others who are already prohibited from purchasing them," Bloomberg said.

Gov. Cuomo, who had called for an overhaul of gun laws in New York in his State of the State address last week, defended the provisions of the law.

"Seven bullets in a gun, why? Because the high-capacity magazines that give you the capacity to kill a large number of human beings in a very short period of time is nonsensical to a civil society," Cuomo said, according to Reuters.

New York's law, called the Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act:
  • Bans possession of any high-capacity magazines regardless of when they were made or sold. Only clips able to hold up to seven rounds can be sold in the state. Clips able to hold seven to 10 rounds can be possessed, but cannot be loaded with more than seven rounds. If an owner is found to have eight or more bullets in a magazine, he or she could face a misdemeanor charge.

  • Requires ammunition dealers to do background checks, similar to those for gun buyers. Dealers are required to report all sales, including amounts, to the state. Internet sales of ammunition are allowed, but the ammunition will have to be shipped to a licensed dealer in New York state for pickup.

  • Requires creation of a registry of assault weapons. Those New Yorkers who already own such weapons would be required to register their guns with the state.

  • Most controversially, requires any therapist who believes a mental health patient made a credible threat of harming others to report the threat to a mental health director, who would then have to report serious threats to the state Department of Criminal Justice Services. A patient's gun could be taken from him or her, as well.

  • Stipulates that stolen guns should be reported within 24 hours.

  • Tightens the state's description of an "assault" weapon. Previous state law defined an assault weapon as having two "military rifle" features, but the new law reduces that specification to just one feature

  • Requires background checks for all gun sales, including by private dealers -- except for sales to members of the seller's immediate family.

"People who are mentally ill should not have access to guns, that's common sense," Cuomo said, according to Reuters. "That's probably the hallmark of this bill, coming up with a system that allows for mental-health screens."

In a statement, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr. thanked legislators and said the bill will "provide law enforcement with stronger tools to protect our communities from gun violence, including provisions that better enable us to combat gun trafficking and violent gangs, and others that close the state gun show loophole and regulate large-quantity sales of ammunition and firearms."

Critics of the proposal had accused lawmakers of playing politics with citizens' rights and hundreds of gun manufacturer jobs.

"We haven't saved any lives tonight, except one: the political life of a governor who wants to be president," Republican Sen. Greg Ball, who represents part of the Hudson Valley, said Monday, according to the AP. "We have taken an entire category of firearms that are currently legal that are in the homes of law-abiding, tax paying citizens. ... We are now turning those law-abiding citizens into criminals."

Assemblyman Marc Butler, a Republican who represents the upstate district where gun-maker Remington Arms Co. is based, called the closed-door meetings by Senate Republicans and the Democratic majority of the Assembly "politics at its worst."

Remington, which employs 1,000 workers, makes the Bushmaster semi-automatic rifle that was used in the Newtown shooting and in the killing of two firefighters in Webster, N.Y.

The NRA expressed skepticism in its statement Tuesday: "While lawmakers could have taken a step toward strengthening mental health reporting and focusing on criminals, they opted for trampling the rights of law-abiding gun owners in New York, and they did it under a veil of secrecy in the dark of night."

"This legislation is not about hunters, sportsmen, or legal owners who use their guns appropriately," Cuomo said. "It is about reducing gun violence and making New York a safer place to live."

In New Jersey, one of 18 new gun bills submitted to the legislature would require gun buyers to submit to a psychological evaluation. A bill requiring gun owners to register annually, and another requiring all guns to be kept in lock boxes when not in use may be introduced in California. While in Connecticut, state Sen. Beth Bye, wants to limit access to assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and require that firearms be registered by model and serial number.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/15/16515653-new-york-passes-major-gun-control-law-first-since-newtown-massacre?lite

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Wetcoaster Canucks First-Line

Wetcoaster

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A New York Times editorial critical of the SAFE Act and the process by which it was enacted.

JANUARY 15, 2013, 1:30 PM

New York’s Gun Bill

By ANDREW ROSENTHAL

Governor Andrew Cuomo is trying to lead the nation in gun control, but he's picked a peculiar way of doing it. Mr. Cuomo negotiated in secret with a few other powerful politicians on a dog's breakfast of legislation that got no public discussion at all and was passed by state senators who had not even read it-because they were not given a chance to do so.

The resulting bill is hard to judge on the merits. It's a snarl of good ideas, strange ideas and ideas that seem quite bad. While some items should figure into federal gun control legislation, Washington should not take New York as an example of how to go about this difficult business.

The bill broadens the assault weapons ban to include any semi-automatic with a detachable magazine and one military-style feature, like a flash suppressor or a pistol grip. That would cover the type of rifle used by the mass murderer in Newtown, Conn., last month.

It requires tighter registration and reporting of arms sales; background checks for all sales, including private ones; and re-certification requirements for gun owners.

The bill also revokes automatic public access to gun permit records - a wild over-reaction to a Westchester newspaper's decision to publish the names of all local holders of gun permits. Publishing those names seemed to have no legitimate journalistic purpose, but closing off public records is not the right response.

New York's new gun control bill further includes a peculiar provision requiring mental-health professionals to report patients who they believe constitute a threat to themselves or to others. It outlines how law enforcement could go about revoking those patients' gun permits and/or confiscating their firearms.

That provision screams unintended consequences. Dr. Paul S. Appelbaum, the director of the Division of Law, Ethics, and Psychiatry at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, told The Times that such a requirement "represents a major change in the presumption of confidentiality that has been inherent in mental health treatment."

I hope, moreover, that the authors took into account the Constitution's rules on search and seizure - because the anti-gun-control crowd is already feeding off paranoia about confiscation.

For instance Steve Stockman, a Texas Congressman, ranted on Monday that he would file articles of impeachment against President Obama if he uses his executive power to "infringe on our constitutionally-protected right to keep and bear arms...Under no circumstances whatsoever may the government take any action that disarms any peaceable person - much less without due process through an executive declaration without a vote of Congress or a ruling of a court."

He added, "If the president is allowed to suspend constitutional rights on his own personal whims, our free republic has effectively ceased to exist."

It seems that Mr. Stockman has in mind widespread seizure of firearms via executive order, which would indeed constitute an outrageous abuse of power. But Mr. Obama has not shown any intention of doing anything close to that. Reportedly, his executive orders that will focus on the more rigorous enforcement of already extant federal laws.

Neither Mr. Obama nor Mr. Cuomo is getting ready to raid the homes of law-abiding citizens. Still, passing confusing legislation in the dead of night without public discussion is not a great way to prove that.

http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/15/new-yorks-gun-bill/

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  • 2 weeks later...
Mr. Ambien Canucks Star

Mr. Ambien

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Father from Newtown, CT, one of his children died in that shooting yet he's able to forego the emotional bandwagon of gun control:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqpzOSYqX3c

A hearing in another part of CT, Mr. Ong (an immigrant) also understands in light of this event preservation of rights is always important (and gets a very noticeable applause):

Dissenting Judge Kozinski, Silveira v. Lockyer (2002):

The majority falls prey to the delusion —
in some circles — that ordinary people are too careless and stupid to own guns, and we would be far better off leaving all weapons in the hands of professionals on the government payroll. But the simple truth — born of experience
— is that
tyranny thrives best where government need not fear the wrath of an armed people. Our own sorry history bears this out: Disarmament was the tool of choice for subjugating both slaves and free blacks in the South. In Florida, patrols searched blacks' homes for weapons, confiscated those found and punished their owners without judicial process.
See
Robert J. Cottrol & Raymond T. Diamond,
The Second Amendment: Toward an Afro-Americanist Reconsideration,
80 Geo. L.J. 309, 338 (1991).
In the North, by contrast, blacks exercised their right to bear arms to defend against racial mob violence.
Id.
at 341-42. As Chief Justice Taney well appreciated, the institution of slavery required a class of people who lacked the means to resist.
See Dred Scott v. Sandford,
60 U.S. (19 How.) 393, 417, 15 L.Ed. 691 (1857) (
finding black citizenship unthinkable because it would give blacks the right to "keep and carry arms wherever they went
").
A revolt by Nat Turner and a few dozen other armed blacks could be put down without much difficulty; one by four million armed blacks would have meant big trouble
.

All too many of the other great tragedies of history — Stalin's atrocities, the killing fields of Cambodia, the Holocaust, to name but a few — were perpetrated by armed troops against unarmed populations. Many could well have been avoided or mitigated, had the perpetrators known their intended victims were equipped with a rifle and twenty bullets apiece, as the Militia Act required here.
See
Kleinfeld Dissent at 578-579. If a few hundred Jewish fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto could hold off the Wehrmacht for almost a month with only a handful of weapons, six million Jews armed with rifles could not so easily have been herded into cattle cars.

My excellent colleagues have forgotten these bitter lessons of history.
The prospect of tyranny may not grab the headlines the way vivid stories of gun crime routinely do
. But few saw the Third Reich coming until it was too late.
The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed — where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once.

The court stated that the 2nd Amendment is an individual right and is incorporated against all states. Both Judge O'Scannlain and Judge Gould concurred that "the right to bear arms is a protection against the possibility that even our own government could degenerate into tyranny, and though this may seem unlikely, this possibility should be guarded against with individual diligence. And while the Second Amendment thus stands as a protection against both external threat and internal tyranny, the recognition of the individual’s right in the Second Amendment, and its incorporation by the Due Process Clause against the states, is not inconsistent with the reasonable regulation of weaponry." -- United States v. Emerson (2001)

^ There is indeed much wisdom in the debate that transcends knee jerk.

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Red Light Racicot Canucks Rookie

Red Light Racicot

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All too many of the other great tragedies of history — Stalin's atrocities, the killing fields of Cambodia, the Holocaust, to name but a few — were perpetrated by armed troops against unarmed populations. Many could well have been avoided or mitigated, had the perpetrators known their intended victims were equipped with a rifle and twenty bullets apiece, as the Militia Act required here.
See
Kleinfeld Dissent at 578-579. If a few hundred Jewish fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto could hold off the Wehrmacht for almost a month with only a handful of weapons, six million Jews armed with rifles could not so easily have been herded into cattle cars.

My excellent colleagues have forgotten these bitter lessons of history.
The prospect of tyranny may not grab the headlines the way vivid stories of gun crime routinely do
. But few saw the Third Reich coming until it was too late.
The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed — where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once.

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Wetcoaster Canucks First-Line

Wetcoaster

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For one thing, there are actually a lot of civilian firearms in Canada, especially in relation to the size of the political police and available internal security forces, however when it comes down to it, if the U.S. ever became an authoritarian state, Canada and most other Western nations would soon follow.

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