Shooting at CT elementary school leaves at least 27 dead, 18 of them children

[J. J.]

Either way, why do we need to see his Facebook? Besides you of course being able to say "hey look what I found! I can use Google!"...

Well, because the news photo on Fox, and the claim that it was on were from Facebook. 

Why, J. J.?  What are you trying to achieve?

I generally do that.  Did this guy have an arrest record?  Some political agenda?  Jihadist?  Anti-Muslim?  Were there press reports about previous activities?  Was he a nice family guy with a good job?  Flunk out of school?  Brilliant academic record?  Part of a plot or a lone gunman?

I tend to look at biography. 

[Alcon]

For those playing Internet Detective, sources are simultaneously reporting:

1. That the Ryan Lanza who's a Quinnipiac grad from Newtown, and lives in Hoboken, N. J., is alive and upset, contacting friends and posting on Facebook, upset that his face is being plastered on cable news.

2. That police are searching the shooter's home in Hoboken, N. J.

In other words:

1. None of this makes any sense, and it will be a while before it's sorted out.

2. What is the point of this anyway?  What's happened has happened, and if you really want to know the gory details, wait a few days.  Hell, wait a few hours.  Seriously, what are you doing?

3. I know this is an emotionally trying time, but some of this obsessive news-watching in this thread comes across as almost excited, as does the outraged politicking/anti-politicking.  I know no one is genuinely glad this happened, and I think reasonable people can calmly disagree over the politics here (and whether they're appropriate to talk about)...but, really, this is nothing to get excited about.  Let's not subconsciously turn this into sport.

[© tweed]

3. I know this is an emotionally trying time, but some of this obsessive news-watching in this thread comes across as almost excited, as does the outraged politicking/anti-politicking.  I know no one is genuinely glad this happened, and I think reasonable people can calmly disagree over the politics here (and whether they're appropriate to talk about)...but, really, this is nothing to get excited about.  Let's not subconsciously turn this into sport.

this I can't stand.  who are you to tell people how they should react?  as if we are able to choose how we initially react.  what's wrong with excitement?  with all of life now filtered through these screens, these media forms, it isn't real for me, I can say that.  this is no different than watching people play roles in a movie, and I will have energy for listening to the details.

[CLARENCE 2015!]

I am sick over this... as a grandfather, I can only imagine the horror going through the minds of the parents and grandparents up there when hearing there's been a shooting at their angel's school...and the grief when the horrible news arrives
God help them

[Paul Kemp]

with all of life now filtered through these screens, these media forms, it isn't real for me, I can say that.  this is no different than watching people play roles in a movie, and I will have energy for listening to the details.

Right here, folks, is part of the problem.

[Boris]

For those playing Internet Detective, sources are simultaneously reporting:

1. That the Ryan Lanza who's a Quinnipiac grad from Newtown, and lives in Hoboken, N. J., is alive and upset, contacting friends and posting on Facebook, upset that his face is being plastered on cable news.

2. That police are searching the shooter's home in Hoboken, N. J.

In other words:

1. None of this makes any sense, and it will be a while before it's sorted out.

2. What is the point of this anyway?  What's happened has happened, and if you really want to know the gory details, wait a few days.  Hell, wait a few hours.  Seriously, what are you doing?

3. I know this is an emotionally trying time, but some of this obsessive news-watching in this thread comes across as almost excited, as does the outraged politicking/anti-politicking.  I know no one is genuinely glad this happened, and I think reasonable people can calmly disagree over the politics here (and whether they're appropriate to talk about)...but, really, this is nothing to get excited about.  Let's not subconsciously turn this into sport.

Fox News is reporting that the shooter is actually Adam Lanza, 20. Apparently he had Ryan's ID and the police and media f'ed up. I checked out Ryan's FB page like everyone else and was wondering how there could possibly be two people named Ryan Lanza in their mid-20s with connections to both Newton, CT and Hoboken, NJ.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Read more at http://www.travelerstoday.com/articles/3938/20121214/ryan-lanza-wrong-facebook-page-sandy-hook.htm#VLVPs2GRoWXDAJBJ.99

[Landslide Lyndon]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/12/14/every-day-is-the-day-to-talk-about-gun-control.html

I have a daughter in a public elementary school in the District of Columbia. When I read news of a school shooting, it touches a particularly intimate place in me. To be a parent is to be haunted by fears. I can contemplate my own death without unease, but every goodbye to one of my children is shaded by dread. What if?

That "what if?" has now darkened a whole town in Connecticut. But of course, it's not the first such darkening. Almost uniquely in the world, the United States suffers massacre after massacre after massacre: in schools, in workplaces, in movie theaters, on city streets. And after each such massacre, there follows a great hushing: don't you dare mention the most obvious reason for this unique American horror.

I experienced a small portion of this reaction personally today.

...

A permissive gun regime is not the only reason that the United States suffers so many atrocities like the one in Connecticut. An inadequate mental health system is surely at least as important a part of the answer, as are half a dozen other factors arising from some of the deepest wellsprings of American culture.

Nor can anybody promise that more rational gun laws would prevent each and every mass murder in this country. Gun killings do occur even in countries that restrict guns with maximum severity.

But we can say that if the United States worked harder to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people, there would be many, many fewer atrocities like the one in Connecticut.

And I'll say: I'll accept no lectures about "sensitivity" on days of tragedy like today from people who work the other 364 days of the year against any attempt to prevent such tragedies.

It's bad enough to have a gun lobby. It's the last straw when that lobby also sets up itself as the civility police. It may not be politically possible to do anything about the prevalence of weapons of mass murder. But it damn well ought to be possible to complain about them - and about the people who condone them.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Lol J.J.

[Simfan34]

with all of life now filtered through these screens, these media forms, it isn't real for me, I can say that.  this is no different than watching people play roles in a movie, and I will have energy for listening to the details.

Right here, folks, is part of the problem.

Agreed. I have to say since coming to college and not getting to watch much television, everything seems so much more distant, unimportant.  We all react to our little screens, here in the library, and get on with out lives. Nothing stops, not even for a moment.

[Alcon]

3. I know this is an emotionally trying time, but some of this obsessive news-watching in this thread comes across as almost excited, as does the outraged politicking/anti-politicking.  I know no one is genuinely glad this happened, and I think reasonable people can calmly disagree over the politics here (and whether they're appropriate to talk about)...but, really, this is nothing to get excited about.  Let's not subconsciously turn this into sport.

this I can't stand.  who are you to tell people how they should react?  as if we are able to choose how we initially react.  what's wrong with excitement?  with all of life now filtered through these screens, these media forms, it isn't real for me, I can say that.  this is no different than watching people play roles in a movie, and I will have energy for listening to the details.

Look, I'd never shame someone for their natural reaction.  If people are stimulated by looking into the details of this, that's human and it's ultimately harmless, even if they enjoy it (although that might be a problem in other situations.)  What I meant -- if you'd like to take the time you devote to being affected and put it toward understanding my post -- is that people use the Internet detective stuff and the fights over respect/politicization as a cover for a weird sort of exhibitionism of that excitement.  If people actually want to find out what happened, or are actually concerned about the discourse, I'm saying this is not the way of addressing either of those things.  If events like this are stimulating to them, and they're using those things as a cover for social acceptability, that's a different matter, but being exposed to that is both intensely unpleasant and useless for those who don't enjoy the frenzy that surrounds these events.

I may have phrased it poorly ("this is nothing to get excited about") but I stand by this point.  I don't like what it's done to this thread and I have every right to dislike it.

Edit: I might be making the problem worse, so I'm going to digress, but feel free to PM me about it if you want.

[Simfan34]

Inane insanity beyond comprehension.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Inane insanity beyond comprehension.

The word 'creep' doesn't even come close...

[Meeker]

This thread... this day... sigh...

[Boris]

http://myfox8.com/2012/12/14/elementary-school-shooting-suspect-is-20-year-old-with-ties-to-school/

and thus the facebook f'up is explained, for now. poor guy.

[All Along The Watchtower]

http://myfox8.com/2012/12/14/elementary-school-shooting-suspect-is-20-year-old-with-ties-to-school/

and thus the facebook f'up is explained, for now. poor guy.

Hope the guy sues.

[Vosem]

Very, very sad. My condolences to the family members of the victims.

A rather lively but one-sided debate on gun rights took place in math class.

[Negusa Nagast 🚀]

But how many times must this happen? How many times must innocents die until we wake up and say "enough is enough"! People say it's disrespectful to make this political so soon, and really what they mean is that it's bad business to talk about gun control, ever. What's disrespectful is never looking at the issue in the face and deciding to do something for once. America needs to talk gun control. Now. Not tomorrow. Not next year. Now.

How many people must die so that some can maintain the delusion that their "constitutional" right to overthrow the government can be maintained?

This is the best post in the thread.

We must stop invoking the self-imposed gag rule every time a shooting occurs. Every time we hear that it's "too soon, too sensitive." We need to have the conversation today so it doesn't happen tomorrow. We need to talk guns, we need to talk about our 24/7 media coverage of these events, and we need to talk about our society.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Oh, and...

[hawkeye59]

This is ridiculous. We need to talk about gun control and mental health now.

[Benj]

http://myfox8.com/2012/12/14/elementary-school-shooting-suspect-is-20-year-old-with-ties-to-school/

and thus the facebook f'up is explained, for now. poor guy.

Hope the guy sues.

I think he has other things on his mind... Like how his younger brother just killed his mother and 25 other people, mostly kids, plus some other unidentified relative, before committing suicide, and he first found out because everyone thought he did it.

[morgieb]

Horrible. Surely America should restrict guns for those with mental health issues or criminal records? Do gun rights activists like seeing deaths of school children?

[Antonio the Sixth]

The entire world facepalms at the US when events like this occur.

[© tweed]

Horrible. Surely America should restrict guns for those with mental health issues or criminal records? Do gun rights activists like seeing deaths of school children?

the toothpaste is already out of the tube.  the silly liberals only have their moralistic outrage and no coherent picture of the society.

[ingemann]

Horrible. Surely America should restrict guns for those with mental health issues or criminal records? Do gun rights activists like seeing deaths of school children?

Yes they should, but as this was adult committing the mass murder, I'm not sure it's a good case. In general adults can find way to get around gun control, especially if they plan an suicide mission. The important aspect is whether this was spontaneous (here gun control could help) or planned (here only investment in mental institutions can help)

[© tweed]

we've already "invested in mental institutions", the child is now more likely to be prescribed psychiatric medication than he is not.  toothpaste and the tube.