It’s remarkable how confident so many people are that they know what causes – and how to prevent — horrific massacres like the one Friday at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.
In a TV interview over the weekend, one observer insisted that the mass-murder in Newtown was all too predictable, given America’s failure to implement a desperately overdue reform. “Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage?” this individual demanded, showing no hint of uncertainty about exactly what needs to be fixed.
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What a cop out. Yes, everyone is reacting, as they did after 9-11. But significant changes came out of that massacre, and significant changes should come from this as well. I don't know if it's the time of year, the location, or the scope of the event itself, but the pat excuses don't seem to be cutting it this time. We have a re-elected President, a new Congress, and a rising tide of public, moral outrage. Even the NRA appears to be reading the tea leaves. This isn't about gun rights; it's about common sense.
We know we can't abolish evil. We CAN take steps to increase human safety.
There are many ways in which change can be enacted to reduce the risk of this type of mass murder. Tougher gun laws clearly could have made this less likely to happen. But also, having a father in the home may have prevented this. This kid was video game junkie-so strict laws in video gaming may have played a role.
Parents who can't get along and don't love each other are probably not the answer. Mother's survivalist mentality (irony alert!) didn't help either. As for the video games- yes they may have played a role. But this kid had some problems regardless, didn't he.
Yes, let's all sit back and do nothing about this issue, it's just the way it goes here in America. Absurd column.
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Hello Jeff, We generally like people who care for others and engender a sense of community among us all, but we never seem to really want to pay for these things. The government has largely relingquished is responsibilities in the areas of mental illness and community organization. We are a transient society and, unfortunately, highly tribal - "I'll associate with folks that think like me because all others are strange and/or evil." Politics only accentuates this divide by dividing and conquering, ie the 1%, 99%, 47%, Muslims are bad, Mormons are bad, Christians are bad...we do not really advocate the fact that we are all in this together because it goes against specific interests - guns, education, taxes, faith - we all have. We are individualistic and care too much about "winning" over others rather than getting along. Take care!
Yes. Cultivate human goodness... and take away their guns.
Well I will give Jeff credit. He was creative enough to turn stating the obvious into a column. Accomplishing that he was able to meet his contractual obligation for the week. Outside of that he said absolutely nothing.
"Good laws never abolish evil." There you have it folks Jeff has told you something you never realized. He has opened the conversation with a glaring sign stating the obvious. I'm not even sure how folks are getting into a debate on this. Oh wait, the comments are more interesting than the article.
I think most folks know you can't abolish evil any more than you can legislate against really bad articles.
It is easy for everyone to assign their cause as the reason this tragedy occurred, but the reality is that unless Adam Lanza were alive to confess or left some manifesto of his need to take the lives he did, everything is simply conjecture. There is probably more than one reason for this crime to have been committed and probably they all were viewed as isolated issues. Had they been seen as the whole of the individual, then someone may have recognized that there was a serious problem brewing. But again, people are becoming so narrowly focused on THEIR issues, co-existence of issues is unfathomable. As much of an impact that the Internet has had on the world, the World is not digital, made up of ones and zeroes, either on or off, yes or no, up or down. The thing that makes the World special is the variety and differences and how these come together to make something completely different, yet familiar. Only when the isolationist view of the world can be tempered with the reality of the co-mingling of perspectives will the World take a step forward in diminishing the senseless violence being enacted upon others.
Conjecture or not, there have emerged commonalities in the single-event mass murders committed in recent times. To assume that Adam Lanza is completely different is to ignore existing data.
"Only when the isolationist view of the world can be tempered with the reality of the co-mingling of perspectives" Wow! When's that going to happen?
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Do a Google Images search for the Bushmaster .223 Here's one: nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2012/12/major-gun-maker-to-be-sold.html And in related news everyone can just calm the blank down. It's not an assault weapon people, it just looks a little like one. According to Michael Graham, who said so yesterday. So, guns are still good, nothing to see here, move along.
It's the capacity to inflict pain on other human beings that can't be eliminated. All the other suggestions that the author lists are the ones that need to be considered. Maybe a combination of all or some of them will curb the appetite for evil of the human race.
Jeff you moron: the nation needs to take its cue from other countries, such as the UK, which with its laws only TEN people last year were murdered by guns, as opposed to the US' 10,000 plus. Of course evil will always be with us, but mass murder, the way it takes place here, can definitely be curbed by gtting tougher on assault weapons. Perhaps the NRA has you by the short and curlies, too.
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I agree Jeff, let's just ignore this and concentrate on making more white babies. After all, you can always make more right? But only the good kind-no more bad ones. How simple was that?
Americans have grown into cocky experts on everything. Just what is an American in 2012? We are either sheep-like, or completely divided. We are combative, gluttonous, and carry a narrow view of the world. We are highly critical and reactionary. We are no longer united; and so it goes..."divided we fall". Babies, American babies have died here--in America by an American. Terrifying, but not terrorism. Perhaps not even hate but sickness and total distortion of life and rights of others to live. How basic is that? This reality, this tragedy is the worst imaginable. If this tragedy does not give every American pause to reflect, to be thoughtfully sorrowed, to be humble for a time to recognized this tragedy for what it is...then we have the answer of what an American is and it does no American proud. Peace.
I overhead someone I know with very strong libertarian views say in a conversation over the weekend that you can't legislate away harm. Such an Alfred E. Neumanish, devil-may-care embrace of small government is small-minded. Do you have a solution - either comprehensive or singular in nature? I look forward to your further treatises on the "cultivation of human goodness"?
Oops. My last question mark should have been a period.
Jeff Jacoby is the Skip Bayliss of the Boston Globe.
Ok Jeff, you've finally hit the bottom with this one. Save for the main assertion - that nothing we do will result in the end of 'evil'- the rest of this article is a lazy collection of quotes masquerading as thoughtful reflection. None of the quoted were responding to whether or not we could 'get rid of evil'(except maybe Huckabee), they were offering up opinions on things we could do that would help. Your link in support of the notion that mass shootings aren't becoming more prevalent is pretty weak too(one quote from a Northeastern U. expert making that flat assertion with no relevant supporting detail). I think it's pretty clear that as a society we've abdicated on controlling firearms and offering support for those with mental illness and that these mass shootings will continue until we address these issues.
This article is stunningly irresponsible. "Can't we all just get along?" Part of being an evolved and thoughtful society is realizing that we can and do affect good and evil in our midst. Gun control and the care of our mentally ill are front and center in this endeavor. Violent computer games? Let's have parents step up and be real parents.
There wil be a hue and cry for stricter gun control. Congress will hold hearings in 2013, a little more time will go by and nothing, nothing will change.
The NRA has a chance to take a resposible position and lead here. They can create an agenda to eliminate large clips of bullets, they can lead with a position to eliminate weapons with the capability of rapid automatic fire. No one needs weapons like this for hunting, target shooting, or even self-defense. The liberals cannot do this, but the gun people can.
Let's at least try to take the "mass" out of mass murder.
There are no weapons (that you can buy) with the capability of "rapid automatic fire."
incredible1, you're fussing over semantics. face the facts- public opinion is leaving you behind.
"Nightmares like the one in Newtown are rare." Not rare enough. Not nearly.
What a seriously worthless article. This writer disdains the very notion of even attempting any change of the status quo. Inaction is his solution! With a grand climax of a self-reverential article of his very own: "The cultivation of human goodness", of course! Oh what a wise and humble man to have come up with such a philosophy. Never try to change anything, it's just the way things are. Don't be naive. Oh vey what can you do. And here I thought that "good laws" would abolish every last scrap of evil in the world. My advice to JJ's children- as soon as you're old enough, get out of the house as often as you can.
blind Hollywood:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-connecticut-shooting-samuel-jackson-gun-control-20121216,0,2690925.story
I agree laws alone won't fix things. But laws should reflect a consensus about what tradeoffs we are willing to make in our society. Laws set the initial conditions and influence behavior. When those laws are out of sync with the values in our culture then the law needs to be changed or it will continue to support the status quo.
Would an assualt weapons ban have prevented these tragedies? We can never know. But what we do know is that it is easy and lawful for a suburban mom to acquire military style weapons and a massive arsenal of bullets designed to impact maximum damage. When the only answer to "why did she have those weapons?" is "because she could!" or "none of your business, it's her 2nd Amendment right!" I think the law needs to change. What is different today from a week ago is I believe the majority of people in America--while they might not agree on gun control specifics--would agree that something is wrong with the scenario above and we ARE NOT POWERLESS to change the preconditions that make it possible.
The law in MA at least says that her guns had to be locked up, so her disturbed son wouldn't have had access to them. I've read that the Conn. gun laws are stricter even than ours. What is everyone's solution to those people who don't obey the law no matter what it says?
Barbara did you see in the media reports what this kid did? It's been in the news, I'm surprised you missed it. You don't think this kid was capable of getting to the guns despite locks?
Is it evil to be mentally ill? That's the question this column raises for me because I think it is reasonably apparent that this killer suffered from a mental problem. That being the case, was the evil his parents' failure to get him help? We have yet to see any evidence that he was receiving or ever had received mental health care.
I've read that there is a pretty simple mental screening test that could be done in high schools to detect children who suffer from depression, which is the base cause of many of situations and also of teenage suicides. Is the evil here that this test isn't mandatory in all high schools in America?
In short, what we label as "evil" when it comes to these mass shootings and other crimes is frequently a mental health issue exacerbated by easy access to massive fire power. Putting the label "evil" on this behavior is just an easy way to wash your hands of it and say there is nothing that can be done, when in fact there is much that can be done.
IT's an ongoing interesting question, evil vs. mental illness. With the latter, someone can think he hears voices telling him to do bad things in order to save others. With the former, someone might just want to make people feel pain.
It doesn't matter much what you say, eh, Jeff? What a bunch of morons!
What do you call it, mass-murder or terroism?....
It is possible to mitigate a problem without totally solving it.
Sometimes I am happy the Boston Globe has a conservative voice. Other times, however, I wish they chose someone who could craft better arguments. You quoted several people in your article who have come out and said that we need to do something to prevent future massacres. Your conclusion seems to be that this is silly, since bad things will always happen, and no one solution can solve the entire problem. This, of course, neglects the fact that none of the people you quoted said their solution would wholly erase all of human evil. None of them made the claim that you attributed to them, yet you somehow attributed to all of them. Aside from the obvious straw man, your conclusion is absurd. What, then, is the point of any debate in politics or public policy? Should we resign ourselves to the fact that nothing we do will entirely eradicate evil? And just sit on our hands? Or, instead, should we, as citizens, make various proposals, and consider which are good, and which are bad? The goal is never to completely solve the problem. Serious people, including everyone you listed, knows this. And I think you know this too. But you had a deadline, I guess?
We cannot cure the evil that exists in the human heart through legislation. Right. We cannot prevent tragedies like Newtown from ever happening again. Right. We don't really understand the causes of these horrific massacres. Right. Therefore there is nothing we can or should do. Wrong. We can make it more difficult for disturbed individuals to have access to rapid-fire weapons. We can supply more and better psychiatric care for those individuals who need it. Surely we can at least try to make mass murder less frequent in this country.
Really do not know anything about guns. Can someone tell me the difference between the Bushmill rifle (and others like it) and a handgun that can also shoot rapid fire (albeit w/ less ammo)? Is it just the amount of bullters the clip can hold?
http://all-about-guns.com/ http://www.allaboutguns.net/HOME.html
Thanks honestman. In reading, it says The CZ 75 9mm Parabellum (aka 9mm Luger, 9 x 19mm) semiautomatic pistol
Are rifles like the Bushmill alos semi-automatic?
Proof that gun control is possible and effective: http://abcnews.go.com/International/autralia-model-successful-gun-control-laws/story?id=18007055#.UNH3nqwtyIQ
Thank you Kate for highlighting the Australia story. I was going to draw attention to this as well, see Nicholas Kristof's column of four days ago, and I quote the amazing news about Australia below. Maybe Jeff Jacoby could visit Australia and come back with some more explanation of why what they did could not possibly work here? Please consider it Jeff, the stakes are rather high.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/opinion/sunday/kristof-do-we-have-the-courage-to-stop-this.html?hp
"The law ('national firearms agreement') did not end gun ownership in Australia. It reduced the number of firearms in private hands by one-fifth, and they were the kinds most likely to be used in mass shootings. In the 18 years before the law, Australia suffered 13 mass shootings — but not one in the 14 years after the law took full effect."
Wonderful commentary, Jeff, thank you for sharing an understanding of reality. Americans especially, as a group, want to fix things, hate to admit that sometimes bad things happen and there are no easy solutions. This is to our credit, but the usual knee-jerk responses are guaranteed to create other problems. Fortunately, because of the Second Amerndment, we will remain free to continue the ongoing battle for a better world.
You are ready to accept the murder of 12000 people a year, including small children for your sacred amendment. That's your better world? Do you even know what it says? "In respect to a well ordered militia...". With flintlock rifles, no less. That's one shot every thirty or forty seconds with no range to speak of. Take you amendment and shove it.
What battle do you think you are fighting and against whom?
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Oh what to do, what to do, we can't stop bad things happening, its so difficult. Wait, Japan and England have strict gun laws. They have 11 and 35 deaths respectively. The US has 12000. Could that be a sign, a hint? No. Many years ago a bunch of men with wigs gave us the right to form a militia with flintlocks so we have to stand by our God-given right to have forty weapons for protection, (military style is best) is from our neighbors who also have God-given rights. Im putting my wig on and going down to the gun store before they tramp all over the constitution, which is a religion in itself to any red-blooded doomsday prepper.
Poor, God...I can't help but think God had nothing to do with the second ammendment...
but then, my vision of God includes a man who was crucified without a fight...
We can't eradicate evil, so let's make no effort.
We can't stop death, so let's stop producing medicine and training doctors.
We can't educate all the children, so let's not waste money on schools.
We can't solve world hunger, so let's stop using valuable land for farming.
We can't get rid of toxins in our environment, so let's deregulate industry.
We can't trust everybody, so let's trust nobody.
We can't stop crime so let's get rid of the police force.
We can't stop all traffic fatalities, so let's get rid of speed limits and auto regulations.
We can't end poverty so let's get rid of minimum wage laws and unions.
I think I am beginning to understadn the "conservative mind" for the first time....
And that my friends is the reactionary/libertarian mindset, in a (pardon the pun) nutshell.
Amazing -- because we can't save everyone, let's save no one. But no one one is talking about a "guarantee" that a massacre will never recur, or that these things should be "aboslutely impossbile." What people want is an appreciably reduced possiblity that they or their loved ones will die because an unstable person has a massively dangerous weapon. So, we're not trying to "abolish human evil," Jeff -- just stop crazy people from being able to buy the Bushmaster rifle.
Good grief the comments on the "obvious" went from the sublime to the paranoid. They're coming to get our guns? I haven't heard anyone say they want my shotgun or my 308. I do understand they don't want me to have the AR-15 I had in the Nam, probably not the M-60 I handled for a short time, nor the M-79 grenade launcher. I suppose they would be great for deer killing, I say killing because hunting with those weapons would be pointless I'd end up with road kill.
I suppose they would be handy if I found it necessary to fight the US government, but then I still think the 1st Infantry can kick my butt even if I had every Rambo wannabe in the country. Some of these Libertarians are as paranoid and as unhinged as the people who commit these atrocities. Just incredible that anyone can honestly believe that their country even the current President who they hate, even George Bush or Mitt Romney is out to get them. Now that's paranoid and you know what kind of evil too.
No, they're not out to get them, but some ARE out to outlaw our rights.
Let's declare guns as weapons of potential mass destruction and then ban them!
Bloomberg reports, Wal-Mart, the biggest retailer in the US and the world, has stores in at least five states where guns are now completely out of stock.
And what I'm supposed to be pleased or perhaps shocked. As a soldier and a hunter I will continue to say the only purpose an assault weapons serves is to kill people, it is its only purpose. You point out a good part of the population is paranoid and I'm supposed to be happy or shocked, all I am is depressed by so many wannabe's.
The question is, what people is its purpose to kill? As a soldier, having a weapon whose purpose is to kill is important when one is under assault by someone else's determination to kill, no?
True, ultimately if we survive as a species we will have to evolve to the point where "human goodness" is the norm. In the meantime to say that because laws will not prevent evil is no argument for not having them. By the same logic would you expunge murder?Or rape?Or Child abuse from the legal codes since theses laws have not prevented theses actions?
So it comes down to the point where your columns are completely meaningless and empty. It's all archtypal now, is it? GOOD vs EVIL. The stats from the UK and Japan irrelevant, it's all about the eternal struggle. This is the best that you have to offer on Newtown? Sad. Pathetic. Who is your editor? Please?