On this website we rarely write about issues unless we have something to say that others have not mentioned, and we always put topics in the context of the Media Class control over news and culture. However, the Sandy Hook school massacre cannot be ignored here or anywhere that news is covered. Let me first admit my personal reasons for writing, for these reasons must inevitably shape my views. I am a gun-owner and I have an 8 year old son who attends an Elementary school and his safety is always my first concern. Normally, I assume that when I hand him over at school, I have left him in a very safe place. At home I see my gun as an important defense against an intruder. Despite the similarity between my son’s daily situation and Sandy Hook, I cannot imagine the devastation in the lives of the parents whose children were suddenly gunned down on Friday morning. If this had happened to our son I don’t think my wife and I would have wanted to go on living another day.
Christmas is, for me, a children’s time. One of the many marvelous things Christianity has given to our European-founded civilization is the value of little children. The story of the birth of Jesus Christ and the way we have celebrated Christmas for centuries are inseparable. For the children of Sandy Hook to have been taken from their parents just before Christmas is a bitter irony and even those Sandy Hook parents who have surviving siblings will never ever be able to welcome Christmas time again.
It is inevitable that when a terrible event like this happens, we all look for explanations, things to blame and then ways to guarantee protection first for our children and then for ourselves. A rush to judgment is usually flawed, at least until all facts are known. When Islamic Imperialists have carried out massed murder against us, the Media Class, our President and his Leftist allies have been adamant that we cannot rush to judgment and we must not lay blame at the feet of Muslims or the teachings of the Koran. In fact they have been unwilling to lay blame anywhere. In contrast, the Media Class, our President and his Leftist allies have already seized the opportunity to blame the gun ownership of law-abiding Americans for the Newtown massacre. I suggest that these Media people and Leftists have more interest in advancing their agenda of disarming the law-abiding American citizens and for reasons they never come clean about.
First though let us look at this massacre in the context of similar events in recent times. The killers have always been male, young adults and teenagers and all have long exhibited tell-tale symptoms of mental illness. They have mostly been White and come from relatively affluent homes. All have been of average or above-average intelligence but they have all been chronically socially isolated from their peers. Nearly all have come from homes where, in their formative years, their parents have divorced. We can reasonably speculate that prior to divorce there were years of acrimony between the adults and that these had a damaging effect on the children.
For some years I worked in public mental health and had the legal power to commit individuals to mental hospitals when mental illness clearly indicated that they were a danger to themselves or others. This power was increasingly restricted as Academics and activists sought to categorize mental illness as either a sociological problem caused by an unjust and authoritarian society or that mental illness did not really exist but was a meaningless definition. This nonsense took hold in high places and resulted in ‘progressive’ legislation in the same way as juvenile crime was legislated out of existence and as ‘incarceration’ is now under attack from Leftist Academics. There is, of course an underlying but hidden agenda that these Leftists and their allies are pursuing and it has little to do with common sense or the protection of good citizens and their children.
It has to be said however that many mental hospitals (both publicly funded and private) and juvenile prisons were places where there was significant abuse, corruption and some outright cruelty. Reform and greater oversight were needed but ‘progressive’ legislation often received conservative support because of the (fallacious) promise of financial savings. That having been conceded, the consequences of closing mental hospitals and juvenile prisons and the legislation that has left mentally sick people and young thugs at large, has benefitted a few but been very dangerous for society at large.
Mental illness – and specifically schizophrenia, and I will include here autism in the young – is a tragedy for both sufferers and family – and not all, or even most schizophrenics are homicidal. Many are self-destructive, though modern medications can alleviate some of the worst symptoms and even restore a semblance of normal living. Nevertheless, schizophrenics are potentially dangerous, unpredictable and never fit enough to live unsupervised among us – at least within the limits of modern medication. Many are better off in asylums, even if asylums are poorly staffed and supervised. One has only to walk the streets of Downtown San Francisco on a cold night to see the evidence for my remarks.
It is human nature that some families will attempt to unrealistically care for and conceal the dangers of their sick child, brother, father or mother. It is also human nature that some families will attempt to incarcerate a member who is a nuisance or impediment to their lives. I came across more than a few wives who attempted to get husbands committed for financial and sexual reasons and there are mothers today who seek to have children diagnosed as autistic or disturbed (and medicated) when the real problem is inadequate parenting.
It is my opinion that the explosion of autism, mental illness and emotionally disturbed children is greatly rooted in the modern breakdown of marriage. This destruction of the two-parent family has been created by Leftist politicians, their attack on Christianity, their tax-funded welfare for single women and the campaigning of bitter Feminists. Mass immigration, creating an unmanageable ‘diverse’ and overwhelmingly urbanized population, is also a factor in producing a rootless, atomized and irresponsible society. It may also be that some medical procedures such as abortion, tests for fetal abnormalities and birth control are a contributory factor. Widespread drug abuse among the young may well be another. It seems likely that the increase in autism and schizophrenia – they have always been with us, just as most abnormalities have always been with us – has many contributory causes but none of the above will be explored because to do so would clash with modern Leftist ideology and political correctness. It is easier for simple minds to settle for more gun control, especially when the Ruling Media Class and its Leftist allies are seeking to make Sandy Hook and their man in the White House, an opportunity to disarm ordinary people and render them defenseless.
I have a gun, and like many other gun owners, I have no interest in killing our ever-decreasing wildlife for pleasure or food. Nor do I find any pleasure in handling guns or collecting them. I simply see gun ownership as the best means of defending my family and myself in the event of a home invasion and of protecting us when we hike in wilderness places where lions and bears might be a threat. Sometimes I wish I could carry a gun for protection when hiking in well-populated parks where human predators and dogs are a threat but I have to make do with a knife and a stick. I also value my gun ownership in case the day comes when law and order breaks down, or the feckless are emboldened further by the Holder Justice Department, or the State slides into totalitarianism. Since the re-election of Obama I suspect that many more citizens now share my fears. I do not want my family and me to become as defenseless as Jews in Germany and Poland in the 1930’s and early 1940’s. I also look at the UK where only the criminals have guns, where few criminals are incarcerated and the law-abiding in many cities are repeated victims of burglary and cannot walk the streets of their neighborhoods. I must add that in the UK the police are increasingly pre-occupied with persecuting Nationalists and protecting Leftist agitators and criminal immigrants. The plain fact is that here in the USA, wherever gun ownership by the lawful is widespread, there is little burglary and few home invasions. There are many States and parts of States where violent crime is rare because the good citizens are adequately armed and the bad predators are deterred.
Despite the Sandy Hook tragedy I oppose any significant restrictions on gun ownership as the lesser of two evils. There is no doubt that guns do enable the mentally deranged to kill more effectively and I do wonder at the people who collect large numbers of weapons and especially collect those guns that are really only appropriate for military use. Mrs. Lanza was at best a foolish woman and at worst a very irresponsible woman. It seems that she was unwilling to confront her son’s extremely abnormal behavior though this is understandable if her only motive was her mother’s love. If she was a drinker or a woman preoccupied with her social life then she was foolish and paid the price with her life. Unfortunately so did a lot of other caring parents in Newtown.
Collecting guns and introducing her disturbed son to guns was grossly irresponsible, but until – and if – we get to know all the facts we cannot make hard and fast judgments. So far, the Mainstream Media (MSM) has been cavalier with the facts and has been hell-bent on pushing an agenda.
Finally, I come to the least mentioned but most important cause of all the modern mass shootings. We are now ruled by a Media Class. It is a Class populated by morally sick and grossly dysfunctional people and it is creating, through a Revolution, a society that is self-destructive. Hollywood and the TV industry – the two most dominant sectors of our Ruling Class – are saturating our society with decadence and moral sickness. Each Movie has to be more violent than the last, more morally corrupt and more shocking. Movies are increasingly attended by the young but everyone of any age (except Radical and Right) is watching the same mind-rotting garbage on TV, night after night and many watch all through the day. Some of those who watch the worst stuff – often non-stop, alone and in homes where the parents are largely absent, are the most disturbed young people in our society. If they are not watching this, they are playing video games that are at best mindless and at worst only fit for Himmler’s SS exterminators. We can be sure that Adam Lanza watched his share of all this. Daily, we are confronted with the evidence of young people who are wholly alienated and sick – Goths, Punks and Rockers – and we pretend that these are kids simply going through the growing-up stages, when in fact there has been nothing like them until modern times.
Our Ruling Media Class, through TV, Movies and Video Games is destroying our culture and our people, peddling violent sensationalism, perverted sex and empty celebrity. Little wonder that sick and disturbed minds seek their moment of fame and celebrity in acts of the cold-blooded massacre of little children. I will let others comment on the hypocrisy of politicians and Media people who mourn the dead infants of Newtown but are happy to ignore the brutal killing of thousands of babies in abortion clinics, many of them starved or dismembered by nurses and doctors.
Weather – The UK has experienced much extremely cold weather and clearly winter has arrived early. Here in California we are getting lots of welcome rain and when it is not raining the temperature has been dropping to the low 30’s. No sign of global warming in Europe and North America!
Music Choice – The great pianist and composer Horace Silver has been featured before on this website but he deserves to be featured often. It is said that his grandfather was brought to America as a slave from the Cape Verde Islands, off the West Coast of Africa. His father was Portuguese. I recommend Silver’s recording of the “Cape Verdean Blues” – a catchy tune and foot-tapping rhythm. Recorded way back in 1965 the band includes the tragic Woody Shaw on trumpet, Joe Henderson on tenor, J.J.Johnson on trombone, Bob Cranshaw on bass and Roger Humphries on drums.