RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.countercontempt.com/archives/4364

First of all, I want to say that neither you nor I know all the facts about yesterday’s unthinkably horrific events in Newtown, CT. Intelligent people understand that no news reports can be considered reliable in the first 24 hours following a cataclysmic tragedy. Indeed, it will be weeks, perhaps months, before the facts of the shooting are known.

But with so many on the left exploiting the atrocity to call for new firearms regulations, I thought I might explore a different angle.

There have been reports that the shooter, Adam Lanza, had mental health issues. This would very much fit the profile of people who commit that type of crime, from Laurie Dann (who used a gun to murder schoolchildren) to Steven Abrams (who used a car for the same purpose) to Zheng Minsheng (who used a knife).

And here’s a fact you might not know – Connecticut is one of only SIX states in the U.S. that doesn’t have a type of “assisted outpatient treatment” (AOT) law (sometimes referred to as “involuntary outpatient treatment”). There’s no one standard for these types of laws, but (roughly speaking) these are laws that allow for people with mental illness to be forcibly treated BEFORE they commit a serious crime. Whereas previous legal standards held that the mentally ill cannot be institutionalized or medicated until they harm someone or themselves, or until they express an immediate intent to do so, AOT laws (again, roughly speaking) allow for preventative institutionalization or forced medication (I highly recommend reading the data cited in the link I provided in this paragraph, especially regarding what is known as “first episode psychosis”).

AOT laws vary state-by-state, and often bear the name of a person murdered by an untreated mentally ill person (“Kendra’s Law” in New York, “Laura’s Law” in California, etc.).

Earlier this year, Connecticut considered passing an AOT law (and a weak one, at that), and it failed, due to protests from “civil liberties” groups.

And here’s my point. I have NO idea, as in ZERO, as in NADA, as in ZILCH, whether that law, had it passed, would have made a difference in the case of the Newtown killer. I’m not claiming to know, and that’s not the point of this piece. My point is, when mental health experts advocated a law that might reduce the violence caused by mentally ill people who are untreated, “rights” advocates shot it down. The risk that innocent people might be murdered was not as important as the fact that the mentally ill might lose their “right” to walk around untreated.

Okay. So, “rights” trample safety. Got it.

But when it comes to the Second Amendment, these same “civil liberties” advocates say that rights DON’T trample safety. “Gut the Second Amendment! The Bill of Rights shouldn’t mean that our children can be murdered by a gun-wielding lunatic!”

All I’m saying is that earlier this year, Connecticut debated a bill that would have made it easier to treat mentally ill people who might pose a threat to the community. And “rights” advocates (including the ACLU) torpedoed it. “RIGHTS ABOVE SAFETY!” But when it comes to the Second Amendment, which, unlike the “right” to be a dangerous untreated schizophrenic, is actually part of our Constitution, rights must be curtailed in the name of “safety.” Never mind how many American lives are saved each year by the defensive use of a firearm. This particular right must be restricted, if doing so can prevent even one school shooting.

Well, where was that line of reasoning during the debate over Connecticut’s AOT law?

http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/comments/51796 Does evil stalk the world?  Of course it does: It always has and it is an integral part of our history as human beings.   The ferocious display of death within the animal kingdom is primarily undertaken to fulfill the need to find food in order to survive. In humans however there are hatred […]

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=1045

THE HOLIDAY HAS ENDED BUT THE LIGHTS OF ZIONISM REMAIN BRIGHT….THANKS TO PEOPLE LIKE YORAM ETTINGER…..RSK

The legacy of Chanukah – faith, patriotism, defiance of extreme odds and tenacity in the battle of liberty against tyranny – has underlined the American spirit since the early Pilgrims, enhancing the unique foundation of the US-Israel covenant: shared values.

For instance, the statue of Judah the Maccabee, the hero of the Jewish rebellion against the Syrian-Seleucid Empire, is displayed at the West Point Military Academy, the most prestigious US military academy, founded in 1802. The statue of Judah the Maccabee, known for his principle-driven leadership and daring battle tactics, is displayed along with the statues of Joshua, David, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Hector, King Arthur, Charlemagne and Godfrey of Bouillon – “the Nine Worthies.”

George Washington became acquainted with the spirit of the Maccabees, upon settling, in December (Chanukah) 1777, at his new headquarters at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, with ill-equipped, weary troops. Faced with a super-power, George III of Britain, Washington concluded that only a dramatic change could avoid a defeat. According to the diary entries of Louisa Hart, Washington told the Harts about a Jewish solider at Valley Forge who lit a Chanukah candle and explained its significance. Washington’s reaction was: “Perhaps we are not as lost as our enemies would have us believe. I rejoice in the Maccabees’ success, though it is long past…It pleases me to think that miracles still happen.” Six months later, on June 19, 1778, the Continental Army implemented the battle tactics of Judah the Maccabee, leaving Valley Forge in pursuit of the British, who were moving towards New York. Although the war would linger for five more years, Washington won a decisive victory.

Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were inspired by the Maccabees, proposing “Rebellion against Tyrants is obedience to God” as the American official seal. Just like the Founding Fathers, the Maccabees were a tiny minority of “rebels” – condemned by the “loyalist/pragmatist” Jewish establishment – rebelling against an oppressive super-power. They prevailed due to their conviction-driven determination. They knew that swimming against the stream gets one closer to the source. The Maccabees were a role-model for Paul Revere, who was referred to as “a modern day Maccabee” and the organizers of the Boston Tea Party, who realized that there were no free lunches for freedom-seeking nations.

“In God We Trust” was inspired, also, by the Maccabees’ battle cry, which adopted Moses’ battle cry against the builders of the Golden Calf. A literal translation of the battle cry is “Whoever trusts God; join me!” The Maccabees’ sacrifice and political-incorrectness, also, inspired Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty or give me death.”

http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=295994

Hungarian MP detained for burning Israeli flag

Balazs Lenhardt participated in an anti-Semitic event where demonstrators shouted “Filthy Jews,” “to Auschwitz with you all.”
Independent parliamentarian Balazs Lenhardt was detained by Budapest police on Friday evening for burning an Israeli flag at an anti-Zionist demonstration in the Hungarian capital, Hungarian daily Politics reported.
A hundred demonstrators participated in the event organized by the Guardians of Carpathian Homeland Movement and the Guard Federation held in front of the Hungarian Foreign Ministry, according to Politics.

Demonstrators shouted anti-Semitic slogans like “Filthy Jews” and “To Auschwitz With You All.”

The Hungarian Foreign Ministry condemned “the shameful, instigatory speeches insulting a minority,” as well as the burning of the Israel flag that the ministry considered “an act suited for instigating hatred against a country, against a nation,” Politics reported. Lenhardt is a former member of the radical nationalist Jobbik party.

This isn’t the first Israeli flag burning incident in Hungary. In October, members of the Jobbik party reportedly burned an Israeli flag in front of a a Budapest synagogue.
Last month, Jobbik MP Marton Gyongyosi caused an outrage after suggesting the government drew up a list of Jews in Hungary who posed a “national security threat.”

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/ IF YOU NEEDED A REASON TO BE HOPEFUL ABOUT SYRIA… Obama is inviting Sheikh Mouaz Alkhatib of the Muslim Brotherhood, current head of the Syrian rebels, to Washington, who has expressed pro-Israel opinions in the past, such as writing that one of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s positive legacies was “terrifying the Jews.” Sheikh Mouaz […]

First: I have had a home in Newtown, Connecticut since 1965. My children spent all school and summer vacations there. My grandchildren all learned to swim there and we enjoyed countless barbecues, lawn parties, and family milestones there. My home is not in the borough of the Sandy Hook district where the unspeakable tragedy occurred. However, as facts emerge, I am learning from neighbors about their friends and family members who were directly affected. Newtown is a lovely place to be. It is a town where neighbors help one change a flat tire, volunteer as ambulance drivers and firemen, and rush to plow one out in a blizzard, or help pump out flooded cellars or clean up lawns after severe storms. It is also a town where so many people own and use guns for recreational shooting and target practice. My husband owned and collected handguns for three decades. He was also a doctor who always responded to neighbors’ need for medical help in emergencies or second opinion advice.

The happiest years of my life were spent there. On Independence Day in 1996, the rescue in Entebbe occurred and my non Jewish friends rushed to my home with joy to break the news and we all danced a hora on the lawn. I love Newtown and I pray for its citizens confronted with this tragedy.

Second: There is another irony. Newtown is the home of Fairfield State Hospital, which was a psychiatric hospital in Newtown, Connecticut, which operated from 1931 until 1995. At its peak the hospital housed over 4,000 patients. It is set on beautiful and rolling hills, and the patients were housed in lovely and well maintained old brick buildings which rivaled any of the famous Ivy League campuses. It was closed during the de institutionalization movement which left so many of America’s mentally ill homeless and in the streets of America. Read Rael Isaacs book:
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Madness in the Streets : How Psychiatry and the Law Abandoned the Mentally Ill by Rael Jean Isaac and Virginia C. Armat (Aug 1, 2000).

My hope is that this will not disintegrate into another hysterical demand for banning guns. My friend Daniel Greenfield says it best:

THE ONLY WAY TO STOP A MAN WITH A GUN IS WITH A GUN

America now has its second worst mass shooting. And it, as usual, accompanied by calls for gun control. It’s no coincidence that we have had quite a few spree killings in such a short time. The lavish coverage of every shooting by the media encourages every shooter to think that he will be famous if he goes out and kills. And that is exactly what happens.

Our shooters are creatures of the media, not the NRA. A media that turns killers into celebrities and then warns that the only way to stop more shootings is by cracking down on firearms.

But no amount of media coverage ever stopped a man with a gun. It only encouraged him. It takes a gun to stop a man with a gun. That is the hard truth of human affairs. It is why we have a Second Amendment, it is why we have armies and police, and it is why people own guns.

There is no going back to a time before people owned guns. There is no going back to a time when violence did not exist. There is only the reality that killers stalk the streets and that we can either defend against them or take comfort in empty outrage.

Guns stop shootings. Not all the time and not every time, but they do. Gun control does not. Media coverage calling for gun control does not.

Gun crime was up 35 percent in the UK which has harsh gun control laws. And Europe has had plenty of its own school massacres.

“Figures showed the number of crimes involving handguns had more than doubled since the post-Dunblane massacre ban on the weapons, from 2,636 in 1997-1998 to 5,871.”

Thomas Hamilton killed 16 children in the Dunblane school massacre in 1996 using 4 handguns.

In Germany, in the Winnenden school shooting in 2009, Tim Kretschmer, killed 16 people, including 9 students. In the Erfurt massacre in 2002, Robert Steinhäuser killed 16 people with a handgun and a shotgun.

In Finland, in the Jokela school shooting of 2007, Pekka-Eric Auvinen killed 8 people.In the Kauhajoki school shooting, Matti Juhani Saari killed 10 people.

The media will pretend that this sort of thing only happens in America. It doesn’t only happen in America. It happens where killings do.

Gun control isn’t about putting an end to horrors, it’s about controlling people. And people who are used to being controlled have even less ability to cope with the uncontrolled and the uncontrollable.

Regulators think about the big picture. They don’t think about the individual. They think only about how to control people who follow rules. But shooters, by definition, do not follow rules. They are men who have stepped outside the system and care nothing for its rules. They want to kill, and they will find a way. And when they come, the only way to stop a gun is with a gun.

http://markdurie.blogspot.com/ Mark Durie is an Anglican vicar in Melbourne, Australia, author of The Third Choice, and an Associate Fellow at the Middle Eastern Forum See here for my recent media foray over the proposed invitation of eminent Meccan Sheikh Al-Sudais to Melbourne in March 2013. I was interested to read the response of Mr Razvi […]

http://www.theage.com.au/national/fiery-imam-invited-to-speak-here-20121211-2b7td.html IT’S billed as the ”largest, the biggest and the best-ever Islamic event in the history of Australia” – a three-day festival for an expected 20,000 Muslims – and it will be held in Melbourne in March. But the chief attraction is a Saudi imam who has called for violent jihad. The description above comes […]

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/335709/doctor-won-t-see-you-now-mark-steyn A few years ago, my small local hospital asked a Senate staffer if she could assist them in obtaining federal money for a new building. So she did, expediting the process by which that particular corner of northern New Hampshire was deemed to be “under-served” and thus eligible for the fed gravy. At the […]

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/335716/blasphemy-and-islam-andrew-c-mccarthy In Cairo on Wednesday, a Coptic Christian blogger named Alber Saber was convicted of blasphemy and “contempt of religion.” There’s a tragic irony: As any of the country’s Christians can tell you, contempt of religion is not merely permitted but encouraged in the new, post-Mubarak Egypt. What is criminal, what has become increasingly perilous, […]