--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues" > <curtisdeltablues@> wrote: > <snip> > > There have been a bunch of good points about many aspects of > > this problem and lots of good counters. The fact is that this > > kid had mental problems and "went off". Plenty of people > > saw "warning signs" but there lots of kids showing "warning > > signs" so perhaps greater awareness of risky kids might help, > > and maybe not. We can't exactly just lock up all the risky > > kids. This situation may not have a solution. > > Total agreement on this. I might feel differently if > I'd ever lost anybody in one of these horrors, but > I'd rather take the risk of the exceedingly rare > event than that of locking people up unnecessarily. > > It's not going to eliminate the problem; not all mass > murderers give warning signs. And of people who do, > it's exceedingly iffy to predict their future behavior. > > Seems to me that today's climate is not a good one for > taking even tentative steps toward reducing anybody's > civil liberties
Despite saying what you do above about reducing civil liberties, below in two places you advocate doing exactly that: - gun control (although you do not advocate it in this particular circumstance) which is a civil liberty in the 2nd amendment; and - freedom of the press (publishing Cho's photo) which is a civil liberty in the 1st amendment. On the freedom of the press question, out of curiosity, how do you feel about the media: 1) publishing oodles and oodles of photos of Abu Ghraib; 2) NOT showing the full beheading videos (there are at least 5 of them on the internet) or the photos of people jumping out of the windows of the World Trade Centre? > in any situation. We've got more than > enough to do to keep Bush from extending his incursions, > and then eventually rolling those back. > > We'd be better off without any guns, but that's not > doable at present. And even tightening gun control > laws, which we very badly need to do, isn't going to > stop people like Cho, so gun control is really > irrelevant to this situation. > > <snip> > > So we may never find a fix for situations like this one. It > > may just be something that happens occasionally that we have > > to deal with and lose tears over. > > Yup. > > I do wish NBC hadn't released Cho's videos and photos. > They've given him instant icon status; he's now larger > than life, rather than just being a sicko punk. His > motivations are irrelevant because they make no sense. > > And I really resent having such vivid images of him > taking up space in my memory banks that should be > devoted to the consequences of what he did. > > All we really need to recognize is that we don't have > a good way of dealing with his kind of craziness. > The only thing we can actually *do* about it is put > more effort into research figuring out how the mind > works, how it can get fouled up, and how to tell when > something has gone wrong and fix it. But that's very > long term. >
