Claire Davis Dies From Wounds

Claire Davis

Claire Davis, the 17 year old student at Arapahoe High School in Colorado, has died.  She was shot point blank in the head on December 13, by fellow student Karl Pierson, and had been in a coma since then.  Pierson later turned the gun on himself when confronted by an armed security guard.

I have been praying for Claire's recovery, but some prayers are not answered.

Karl Pierson, arrived on campus in a state of rage, with a loaded shotgun, and began firing shots down hallways.  Allegedly, Pierson was looking to murder a teacher who had him suspended, but couldn't find the teacher, who had fled the school.  Claire Davis happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and Pierson shot her instead. She was a target of opportunity.   Now that she has died, they can chisel "murderer" into Pierson's epitaph, right next to the word "lunatic."

It appears to me that Pierson was emulating the two killers of Columbine High, intent on killing innocents and setting fire to the school before killing themselves. (In addition to his shotgun, Pierson was carrying three Molotov cocktails in a knapsack.  He detonated one in the school library, starting a fire.)

Students from surrounding high schools raised funds for Claire's medical expenses, and the singing group "One Direction" made a video for her.  Alas, Claire never got to see it.

Go with God, little lady.

Read more about it here.

Arapahoe School Shooting Victim Is In a Coma

Claire Davis

Claire Davis, the high school student shot last Friday, is described as "stable, but in a coma."

Davis, a 17 year old senior at Arapahoe High in Colorado, was shot in the head with a shotgun.  First responders saved her life in spite of severe head trauma.  She remains in critical condition while her fellow students pray for her recovery.  Others are raising funds to help pay for her medical expenses.

Claire Davis was apparently a random victim of fellow student Karl Pierson, who came to school last Friday with the intent to shoot his debate teacher for suspending him and kicking him off the debate team.  Pierson may have been emulating fellow nutcases Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, two students at Columbine High (also in Colorado) who committed mass murders at their school in 1999.

Fortunately for the students and staff at Arapahoe High, an armed guard was present.  When the firing started, the guard ran towards the sound of the gunfire.  It is believed his closing in on the shooter resulted in the latter ending his own life.

Read more about it here.

Arapahoe Shooter Identified: Was a Liberal Democrat Who Hated Republicans

Karl Pierson, Arapahoe Shooter

The Arapahoe shooter, who shot two students at Arapahoe High School in Denver last Friday, has been identified.  He was 18 year old student Karl Pierson.  His fellow students described him as someone with strong political opinions.  Indeed, his opinions were leftwing and anti-Republican.  According to the Denver Post:

Carl Schmidt and Brendon Mendelson, both seniors at Arapahoe High, knew Pierson. They said he had political views that were "outside the mainstream," but they did not elaborate.

Although described as very smart, Pierson was apparently a hot-head who threatened one of his teachers, Tracy Murphy, with death; the teacher had him suspended for the remark.  It was this teacher that Pierson sought to shoot on Friday, December 13, to exact revenge for the suspension.  Unable to kill Murphy (who fled the school), Pierson used a shotgun to shoot two students, wounding them, one critically, before turning the gun on himself.

On his FaceBook page, Pierson attacked Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand" theory of economics, and castigated Republicans for their opposition to Obamacare and other issues.  He wrote:

The Republican Party: Health Care: Let 'em Die, Climate Change: Let 'em Die, Gun Violence: Let 'em Die, Women's Rights: Let 'em Die, More War: Let 'em Die. Is this really the side you want to be on?

 About that gun violence, Pierson apparently died a martyr to hypocrisy.  Once again we see that the nut cases who go berserk with guns and start shooting innocent people are invariably left wingers.  Don't expect the mainstream media to point this out anytime soon.

Read the Denver Post article here.
Read the New York Daily News article here.

Stephen King, Leftist Hypocrite, Deplores Gun Violence and NRA (Photoshop)

Stephen King has written an essay called "Guns," in which he blames the National Rifle Association for recent massacres by mad men. Stephen King wrote:

"One only wishes Wayne LaPierre and his NRA board of directors could be drafted to some of these [violent] scenes, where they would be required to put on booties and rubber gloves and help clean up the blood, the brains, and the chunks of intestine still containing the poor wads of half-digested food that were some innocent bystander’s last meal."

It's too bad that Stephen King is a hypocritical leftist.  He has authored some of the best horror fiction ever written, novels like "Carrie," "IT" and "The Shining."  I have truly enjoyed his fiction and have savored his writing talent.  However, early in his career he wrote some dubious novels under the pen name of Richard Bachman.  One of those was a short novel called "Rage," in which a mentally disturbed student brings a gun to class, kills the teacher, and holds the classroom hostage while police gather outside.  I didn't like the story.  It was very violent but had no point, no moral message.  It was violence for the sake of violence.  There was no epiphany, no satisfying resolution.  I wondered why King would write such trash.

News Busters reports:

In subsequent years, numerous school murders occurred around the country with the assailants saying they had gotten the idea directly or loosely from "Rage."

One can only wonder if Adam Lanza, James Holmes, Jared Loughner, Seung-Hoi Cho, Eric Harris or Dylan Klebold got their ideas from "Rage."  All of these incidents involve some similarity to King's violent fiction, "Rage."  Indeed, Lanza, Cho, Harris and Klebold all carried out their gun murders on school grounds or campuses.  All four shot teachers and students to death.

Other documented cases connected with "Rage" are listed at Wikepedia here.

So when it's time to get the boots and buckets and mops to clean up the gore, maybe we should call on Stephen King, who has undoubtedly inspired mass murder with his fiction.  The NRA?  No.

Read more about it at News Busters here.

Statistics on Gun Use in Crime, Self-Defense (Graphic)

More good stuff from El Opinador Compulsivo:

A Posted Sign That Will Prevent Gun Violence In Schools

You decide.  (Hat tip:  El Opinador Compulsivo)

Actually, I think the sign on the right might prove too frightening to many. I would be satisfied by a sign that merely says "These premises guarded by armed and trained personnel."  Or even "These premises guarded by professional security" with an image of a uniformed guard.  No depiction of a firearm would be necessary -- it would be implied by the image.

UPDATE:  I photoshopped another alternative, less scary but possibly just as effective:

"An Opinion on Gun Control" Article Goes Viral

An excellent and informative essay on guns, crime and gun control has been posted at a site called Monster Hunter Nation.  The author is Larry Correia, a gun expert who has sold weapons to police and military, is widely knowledgeable of existing gun control laws, and has trained police and others in the operation of firearms and shoot/no shoot scenarios.  The article has gone viral, with thousands of people visiting the site to read it.

The article is An Opinion on Gun Control; it is a long article but worth the time to read.  Correia states important points like these:

Correia's Qualifications: 

Basically for most of my adult life, I have been up to my eyeballs in guns, self-defense instruction, and the laws relating to those things. So believe me when I say that I’ve heard every argument relating to gun control possible. It is pretty rare for me to hear something new, and none of this stuff is new.

Arming Teachers: 

No. Hear me out. The single best way to respond to a mass shooter is with an immediate, violent response. The vast majority of the time, as soon as a mass shooter meets serious resistance, it bursts their fantasy world bubble. Then they kill themselves or surrender. This has happened over and over again.

The average number of people shot in a mass shooting event when the shooter is stopped by law enforcement: 14. The average number of people shot in a mass shooting event when the shooter is stopped by civilians: 2.5. The reason is simple. The armed civilians are there when it started.

Gun Free Zones

Gun Free Zones are hunting preserves for innocent people. Period.

Think about it. You are a violent, homicidal madman, looking to make a statement and hoping to go from disaffected loser to most famous person in the world. The best way to accomplish your goals is to kill a whole bunch of people. So where’s the best place to go shoot all these people? Obviously, it is someplace where nobody can shoot back.

In all honesty I have no respect for anybody who believes Gun Free Zones actually work. You are going to commit several hundred felonies, up to and including mass murder, and you are going to refrain because there is a sign? That No Guns Allowed sign is not a cross that wards off vampires. It is wishful thinking, and really pathetic wishful thinking at that.

The only people who obey No Guns signs are people who obey the law. People who obey the law aren’t going on rampages.

Read it all here. Link it, refer it to others.

The NRA: Target and Scapegoat for the Hyper-Angry Left

Over at Twitchy.com there are many examples of hateful tweets put out by famous celebrities.  The latest hate-fest is against the National Rifle Association, a target of misdirected ire over the Connecticut school shootings of a week ago.  The latest is from author Joyce Carol Oates, who wants NRA members to be victims of gun violence so that they can better sympathize with other gun victims and allow gun control.

One of the characteristics of the loony left is a hair-pin trigger for anger, over-developed adrenal glands and a strong tendency to find a scapegoat for the cathartic expiation of their emotions.  When the actual source of their anger (the shooter) is not available for punishment, a substitute will do just as well.  They need someone or something to hate, someone to act as punching-bag for their anger, someone to blame.

Their strange logic goes like this:  crazy man gets guns, kills people.  The NRA supports the rights of gun ownership.  Therefore, the NRA killed those kids in Connecticut.  Brilliant logic. Or not.

Actually, the NRA has, for over 100 years, supported the safe and responsible ownership and use of rifles and guns.  They teach firearm safety courses.  When I was around 11 years old I went to one of them, as a precondition for going deer hunting with my father.

There are those on the wacky right (the Alex Jones types) who find scapegoats of their own, namely, antidepressant medications, which have nothing to do with the murderous rampages of the insane.  But blaming the medication satisfies a human need to find someone or something to blame.

So is anything to blame for the recent murderous rampages of the insane?  Yes.  Just supply your favorite pet peeve here:  keeping God out of schools; the deterioration of family values; income disparity among the populace, etc, ad infinitum.  However, I think there are objectively considered, real reasons for the violence.  They may (with emphasis on "may," as an admission that I don't have all the answers) include:

1.  The mainstreaming of the dangerous insane, rather than institutionalizing them.  Yes, we want to avoid institutionalizing the non-dangerous insane -- like the professor in "A Beautiful Life" or the man who believed in a giant rabbit named Harvey.  However, when a mental patient has a history of hurting people or expresses a reoccurring desire to harm or kill someone, he should be institutionalized if, say, two independent psychiatrists agree.

2.  The creation of target rich environments by specifying certain areas as "gun free zones."  This is nonsense.  There is no logic in assuming that making people defenseless will make them safer.  All areas where lots of people congregate should make provisions for defending against the occasional mad shooter, areas like schools, colleges, shopping malls, train stations, airports and movie theaters.

3.  Absurdly restrictive Gun Control Laws.  California is a good example of how absurd gun control can be. You cannot carry a loaded gun in public, concealed or unconcealed.  If you are caught doing so, you are subject to arrest and imprisonment, even when such incidences are accidental.  If you carry a gun in your car, it had better be locked up and in the trunk; it may not be loaded, and the magazine may not be close by the gun.  This is allegedly to prevent traffic rage incidents where drivers shoot each other.  It also prevents defense from carjacking or robbery while in the car.  We need the right to carry loaded concealed weapons, under a reasonable training and licensing program.

4. Overly Lax Gun Control Laws.  Those who wish to carry concealed weapons should know what they are doing and how to prevent accidental discharge of weapons.  Along with mandatory training, testing and licensing, I wouldn't be opposed to some kind of psych examination of applicants either, at the very least, a questionnaire:  "Have you ever murdered anyone?  Do you plan to do so?  Are you a lunatic?"  The usual background check for a criminal past should also be a requirement for licensing.

Conservatives tend to oppose any kind of gun control, but I think that is going to have to end.  No one should be able to buy a gun without a procedure for licensing, training and a background check.  No buying guns at pawnshops, Craig's List or gun shows, without first undergoing a licensing and training procedure.  Mark David Chapman murdered John Lennon with a pistol he bought at a pawnshop.

5.  Irresponsible Handling of Guns by Gun Owners.  Too often crazy killers get access to their parents' guns and then use them to murder.  Obligatory training courses for gun ownership should include restricting access to one's guns by unauthorized or unlicensed family members, with criminal penalties for those who fail to do so when such failure results in gun deaths.  Adam Lanza had access to his mother's guns and used them to murder school children.  The Columbine shooters also used their parents' guns to commit mass murder.

6.  Extreme Violence in Movies and Video Games.  It isn't clear how much the extreme violence in movies and video games contributes to insane gun rampages.  Logically, I would assume that they have some impact upon the impressionable and undoubtedly contribute to gun violence.   This would be especially true for psychotics who cannot differentiate between fantasy and reality.  More study is needed.

7.  One More:  Teenage Bullying in High Schools.  High school is a terrible time in the lives of many.  You are either one of the cool, in-crowd, or one of the despised and ridiculed masses.  Many teenagers love to bully, beat up and humiliate the less popular.  Sometimes the bullied get pushed too far and snap.  Harris and Klebold were two such teenagers, and finally struck back with mass murder.  Bullying in high schools cannot be allowed, with strict and swift punishment for those who practice it.

That's the way I see it.

Psycho + Guns = Tragedy: The Solution Is More Guns, Not Less

Taser:  A Tool For Stopping Violent Criminals

Adam Lanza has joined the pantheon of mass-murdering psychopaths in what might be called the SUPER "revenge of the nerds"  -- socially awkward people with mental problems who kill and then commit suicide.  Well, not all of them commit suicide -- take Jared Loughner and James Eagan Holmes, for example.

However, there is a distinct and predictable pattern here, expressed by the scientific formula:  psycho + guns + numerous available targets = tragedy.

How can we keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill?  That would surely decrease the number of mass murders.  We could ban all guns, forcing nut jobs to use knives, swords, baseball bats or bombs instead.  Then they might kill less (maybe more if bombs are used).  In any case, a young female school teacher would still be at a severe disadvantage when a Lanza enters her classroom looking for targets.  The size and strength differential between the teacher and psycho would be reduced to zero had the teacher a loaded gun.

The truth is, guns cannot be sufficiently banned to stop such incidents.  Outlawing guns means the criminal will have a gun and you won't.  What is needed is more guns, not less.  Teachers should be packing.  Anywhere there is a crowd of people -- in theaters, hospitals, schools and the shopping malls -- someone sane and trained needs to be armed and ready for psychos who show up with intent to kill.

Weapons for defense need not be limited to handguns.  Perhaps stun guns or better yet, tasers, could be issued to teachers, head ushers, hospital guards and others in lieu of traditional firepower.  Tasers can be used to floor someone from a distance, generally 15 feet for civilian tasers and 21 feet for police tasers.  The problem is that you only get one shot and if you miss, you're likely to be dead.  Still, a taser is a lot better than nothing.  Discussion, experimentation, training and research are needed to increase the options for civilians in dangerous situations.

We cannot disarm the bad guys, but we can arm their potential victims, so the latter will have a fighting chance at survival.

Related Post:  See Joseph Farah's article on How to Stop the Slaughter of Innocents.

Madonna Simulates Gun Violence to an Alarmed Denver Audience

From the start of her career, I never liked Madonna.  I like her even less today.  She is a disgusting has-been hack who must rely on shock and scandal in lieu of actual talent.  She is being criticized today for putting on a skit in her Denver "concert" where she "shoots" a man "dead," then simulates shooting into the audience, brandishing the same handgun she has used in other acts.

She is singing "Bang bang, shootcha dead," over and over.

The only thing that is dead is her career.  Read more about it here.

Sikh Temple Shooter Identified (Photos)

The dead shooter of the Wisconsin Sikh Temple has been identified as one Wade Michael Page, a 40 year old former Army soldier.  Apparently, he was a member of some sort of White Supremacist gang.  His motivation in shooting the Sikhs appears to be that they were just the wrong color for his tastes.

Page was a guitar player in a band called "End Apathy."  Examiner.com found their photos and logos on MySpace, and two of them are posted here.  The "End Apathy" graphics display a desire to beat up brown people and then to "self-destruct."  The first image shows a white fist smashing into a brown face, with the captions "Definite Hate" and "Violent Victory."  The second image shows a dead skinhead, festooned with tattoos, lying dead in a gutter, a police car nearby.

Apparently, Page followed his own propaganda to the letter:  attacked brown people and self-destructed in the process.  This was clearly a "suicide by cop" by an extremist who wanted to go out killing people he hated.

Page's "End Apathy" Myspace page is still up, and you can listen to "End Apathy" music there if you so desire.  The link is here.

The Liberal "Script": Gun Violence Motivated by "Conservative Anger"

Lawrence Auster isn't always right.  I've been meaning to rebut his odd post regarding the term "Political Correctness," but the Arizona shootings pointed my attention towards more substantial fare.  However, Auster is usually right and is again this morning.  He writes:

EVEN AS THE LIBERALS' BIG LIE ABOUT CONSERVATIVES' RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE MASSACRE IS BEING RAPIDLY DISCREDITED BY THE FACTS, THE LIBERALS CAN'T LET GO OF IT 

As reported in this morning's New York Times, the FBI has found written statements in Jared Loughner's home showing that he planned to murder Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, but has found no indications as to why he targeted her. The article goes on to mention Loughner's repeated disruptive behavior, in five classroom incidents involving campus police, which led to his being suspended from Pima Community College.

Notwithstanding the complete absence of any knowledge of Loughner's motives for seeking to kill Giffords, the Times ends the story with this:

Nobody knew for sure what compelled the gunman. Ms. Giffords, who represents the Eighth District, in the southeastern corner of Arizona, has been an outspoken critic of the state's tough immigration law, which is focused on identifying, prosecuting and deporting illegal immigrants, and she had come under criticism for her vote in favor of the health care law.

To repeat, there is no evidence that Loughner had any interest in the illegal alien issue or in Gifford's stand on it. Indeed, there is no more evidence that Gifford's position on the illegal alien law motivated Loughner's attack on her, than there is evidence that Giffords's position on Afghanistan or taxes or the funding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting motivated his attack on her. Yet the Times couldn't refrain from tossing off the hint that Loughner shot Giffords because of her opposition to Arizona's controversial law on illegal aliens.

But here, I think, is the silver lining. That final, cheap-shot paragraph in the Times article may be the fading echo of the leftist media's attempt to blame the Tucson massacre on the right. The facts showing that Loughner was a mentally ill person who had nothing to do with conservatism have been widely disseminated. The left realizes that they can no longer sustain their Big Lie that Loughner was a conservative motivated by "conservative anger." But the skunks at the Times couldn't completely abandon their pet notion that the massacre was caused by right-wing hatred, since that charge, as Robert C. insightfully shows in the previous entry, is central to their own ideological identity. "To the believer," Robert writes, "the unfounded accusation itself is offered as a testimonial of belief to other fellow believers."

Liberalism, as I have said many times, is not about reality; it is about the perpetual reenactment of the sacred liberal "script" in which virtuous, inclusive liberals demonstrate their virtue by suppressing bigoted conservatives.

Auster's post is here.  He makes reference to an email written by one Robert C of Nashville, which is also worthy of a read, as it has insights into the workings of the liberal mind.

Did Left Wing Hate Speech Cause the Giffords Shooting?

Only two days before Rep Gabrielle Giffords was shot in Arizona, a blogger at the left wing site Daily Kos criticized Rep Giffords.  The liberal blogger lives in Giffords district in Arizona and had voted for her and supported her for election, but now was quite upset that Giffords had voted against Nancy Pelosi for Minority Leader.  The blogger declared that Gabrielle Giffords was now "DEAD TO ME."  Interesting choice of words.  Did liberal assassin Jared Loughner read the Daily Kos post and internalize the headline as a suggestion to be taken literally?

The Daily Kos quickly scrubbed the post yesterday, but not before several conservative bloggers made a screenshot of it.  I got a copy of it from the American Thinker at this link and increased the size so it is more readable.  It is directly below.

UPDATE:  Michelle Malkin lists the Left's long legacy of political hatred and advocacy of violence, proving conclusively that liberalism is the author of violence and intolerance, NOT the Right.  See it here.

Thoughts on the Arizona Shooting Today

I was in a tax seminar all day and away from my computer, so just found out about the shooting in Arizona today.  Some FA shot a congresswoman through the brain and killed a federal judge and several others.  The perp was a 22 year old punk and his motivation is as yet unknown.  It could be that his only motivation was that he is insane.

Of course, the left will blame it on Sarah Palin, the Tea Parties, the GOP and conservatives. Their logic is that if we don't have communism, people will go crazy from want and start killing public officials.  Either that, or the perpetrator was driven lethally mad from listening to right wing talk shows or by reading Sarah Palin's Facebook page or from watching Fox News.  The left is entirely predictable and as usual, completely devoid of all decency as they attempt to make political hay out of a tragedy.

The lady congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) was shot through the brain but the report is that doctors are optimistic about her chances for recovery.  How this can be is not clear, but sometimes (if I remember right) if a bullet passes through the very middle of the brain, it only damages the connective tissue in the middle, and that particular tissue is not as critical as the gray matter on either side.  However, if the brain swells it can kill the victim, as happened when Robert F. Kennedy was shot back in 1968.  Let's all hope for the best for Rep Giffords.

Five other people besides the judge were killed and around a dozen wounded.  This doesn't appear to be a targeted killing so much as the rampage of a lunatic.  We'll have to wait to find out, of course.

Update:  Some sites are reporting that the suspect, one Jared Loughner, is a leftwing liberal who posted a video of himself burning the American flag on YouTube. See Atlas Shrugs and Moonbattery for details.

Now that we know the shooter was a liberal, it's time for a little backatcha:
What is it about "progressive" politics that drives men to commit heinous crimes?  Is it because liberals teach young people to despise their own country through years of anti-American brainwashing?  It it because these young people become intensely frustrated after being programmed with an enormous sense of entitlement?  It is it because the left has taught them that the world owes them a living, and that all the evil totalitarian regimes in the world are in the right while the USA is always in the wrong?

One can only wonder about Jared Loughner.  He was probably driven to madness by watching Rachel Maddow on MSNBC or Chris Matthews on Hardball, or perhaps by listening to leftist propaganda on NPR. No doubt the class warfare pushed by liberal politicians like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid had an important impact.

Oh liberals and Democrats, HAVE YOU NO SHAME for the evil that your hateful rhetoric and divisive polices have wrought?

UPDATE:  Atlas Shrugs has reported that Gabrielle Giffords is the first Jewish representative from Arizona.  Liberals have been spouting anti-semitic propaganda for some time now, demonizing Israel and praising their murderous Muslim attackers.  Yep, there is one more reason to blame the left for this tragedy, their hostility to Israel and left wing antisemitism.