Mail Bombs Are Just Another Example Of Increasing Political Violence From Both Sides

The big news this week has been the pipe bombs mailed to a number of left-leaning political figures and media outlets. Although none of the bombs has detonated or led to injuries or deaths, the attacks come at a time when tensions are already running high. There is little doubt that the string of attempted bombings will further stoke tempers in an already precarious situation.

President Trump denounced the attacks in a speech at a rally in Wisconsin. “No nation can succeed that tolerates violence or the threat of violence as a method of political intimidation, coercion, or control,” the president said. “No one should carelessly compare political opponents to historical villains, which is done often,” the president continued. “It’s done all the time. “

Trump then turned his attention to one of his favorite targets, which was also a target of the bomber, saying, “The media also has a responsibility to set a civil tone and to stop the endless hostility and constant negative and oftentimes false attacks and stories.

Thus far, political leaders have been quick to denounce political violence from the opposing team but slow to critique their own side. In fact, even though radicals on both sides have carried out attacks on the other, few on each side seem to acknowledge or remember acts perpetrated by their own side. If you have friends on both sides of the political spectrum, as I do, you’ll see posts from both sides claiming that the other side is perpetrating all the violence while theirs is as pure as the driven snow.

Even though no suspect has been arrested in the mail bombings, many on both sides seem to have made up their minds already as to the motive of the perpetrator. Since the targets of the bombs are all people who have been rhetorically attacked by President Trump, it’s reasonable to assume that the bomber is a Trump supporter.

On the other hand, with no supporting evidence at all, some on the right are beginning to make the argument that the bombs are a false flag operation (to use Alex Jones’ favorite phrase) to make Trump supporters look bad. Similarly, in the wake of the Charlottesville car attack, some on the right falsely claimed that James Alex Fields, Jr. was a “radical leftist” and Clinton supporter.

Let’s set the record straight. Both sides have violent extremists and both sides are increasingly violent. James Fields was a white supremacist. James Hodgkinson, who attempted to kill Steve Scalise and other Republican senators, was a liberal Bernie Sanders volunteer. Right-wing activists launched an armed occupation of a federal wildlife refuge and staged an armed resistance to the arrest of Cliven Bundy. Leftist Antifa radicals have rioted in numerous cities. Leftists have used the threat of violence to deny conservatives such as Ben Shapiro the right to speak. President Trump threatened riots if he was denied the Republican nomination. A Trump supporter threatened to shoot Boston Globe reporters because the newspaper was an “enemy of the people.” Liberals have taken to confronting conservative politicians and media figures in restaurants. Right-wingers did the same thing to Nancy Pelosi.

In this age of mass media directed to different niches, the two sides are increasingly separated into camps that have little contact with the other. A recent conservative meme series refers to liberal supporters as NPCs, nonplayer characters, that are faceless, generic subhumans that don’t think for themselves. The left seems to think the same of the right, frequently referring to the president’s supporters as “Trumpbots.” It shouldn’t be surprising that as both sides dehumanize the other, the potential for violence increases.

Leaders of both sides need to come together for a bipartisan statement that rejects the increasing political violence. This needs to be done with no caveats. Republicans and Democrats should both tone down their rhetoric and instruct their supporters to make their voices heard at the ballot box, not in the streets.

If the leaders won’t take this action, it is up to the American people to reject violence. Don’t condone and excuse violent rhetoric or behavior just because it comes from your team. One way to address the problem is to shame people who take part in this sort of behavior. The second Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville was smaller than the first, in part because neo-Nazis from the first rally were publicly identified and shamed online. Perhaps a similar strategy could be used against Antifa and the Proud Boys.

Reject hatred and violent rhetoric online. The anonymous and isolated nature of social media makes extremism thrive. Unlike and unfollow radical accounts and pages. Report users who violate the terms of service and community standards. Point out the hypocrisy of supporting your own side’s violence while condemning the other.

Both sides claim to want to take their country back, but I suspect that the people who really want their country back are the exhausted middle who are tired of the constant crises and outrage-of-the-day from both sides. It is these moderate and independent Americans who decide elections and they can make a difference by rejecting those who condone violence. These are people who can hold America together while politicians and activists try to rip it apart.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Who Was Las Vegas Shooter, Stephen Paddock?

Police have identified Stephen Paddock as the mass murderer in last night’s Las Vegas shooting. Paddock was found dead in a room on the 32^nd floor of the Mandalay Bay casino on the Las Vegas strip after the shooting. Paddock’s death was an apparent suicide.

Who was Stephen Craig Paddock and why would he want to senselessly slaughter scores of people who were peacefully attending a concert?

Paddock, 64, was a resident of Mesquite, Nev. Mesquite is a small town about 80 miles to the northeast of Las Vegas on Interstate 15. Multiple sources report that police there had never had any problems with Mr. Paddock, but NBC has reported that he was “known” to authorities. The Las Vegas Review Journal reported that Mr. Paddock bought a 2,018 square foot home in Mesquite in 2015 for $369,000 and lived there with his girlfriend, Marilou Danley.

Danley was originally considered a person of interest in the attack, but seems to have been cleared of involvement at this point. NBC News reports that Paddock may have used her identification, but that she was out of the country at the time of the shooting. Police have reportedly already spoken with Danley. The Daily Wire, citing Facebook posts, claims that Danley may be married to a man named Geary Danley.

The Telegraph reports that Paddock had previous addresses in Reno and Henderson, Nev. as well as Melbourne, Fl. and several locations in California. NBC reports that the family grew up in Sun Valley, Calif.

Another brother, Bruce Paddock, told NBC that Stephen had earned a living as the owner and manager of apartment buildings. He was not a military veteran per The Telegraph.

Contrary to some reports, Mr. Paddock apparently did not have an active Facebook page. Heavy.com notes that the photo of Mr. Paddock holding a shot glass was actually taken from Marilou Danley’s Facebook page.

Paddock’s brother, Eric Paddock, 55, of Orlando, said that the murderer was “just a guy” without any serious health or money problems. Eric Paddock said that Stephen lived a quiet retirement life and would often go to Las Vegas to play poker and slot machines.

Stephen Paddock is also reported to have had a pilot license. NBC reports that the last time that he was known to have flown a plane was in 2010 and that he had owned two airplanes.

Authorities report that 10 guns were found in the hotel room with Mr. Paddock’s body and that guns and ammunition were also found in a search of his home. So far, there has been no indication that any of the guns were illegal. Paddock is known to have been a hunter with an Alaska hunting license.

The Associated Press reported that Islamic State claimed that Paddock converted to Islam several months ago. The AP notes that ISIS did not provide evidence of the conversion and authorities say that there is no known connection between Paddock and international Islamic terrorist groups. His brother said that Paddock had “no affiliation to anything.”

Thus far no motive has been established in the killing spree. Most recent mass shootings have been perpetrated by either Islamic terrorists or people with untreated mental illness. As of this writing, there is no indication that Stephen Paddock fits into either of those categories.

“As they drill into his life, there will be nothing to be found,” Eric Paddock said of his brother.

Originally published on The Resurgent

How Mentally Ill Esteban Santiago Flew His Gun Across the Country… Legally

After Esteban Santiago murdered five people in the Fort Lauderdale airport last week, the obvious question to emerge is how Santiago managed to get a gun through airport security. The question of Santiago’s weapon is two-fold since there are reports that he had shown signs of mental illness as well as the fact that the shooting occurred in an airport, normally considered to be a gun-free zone.

Santiago, an Iraq War veteran who served with the Puerto Rico National Guard, reportedly visited the FBI office in Anchorage, Alaska and complained, according to an FBI spokesman, “that his mind was being controlled by US intelligence agencies. During the interview, Mr. Santiago appeared agitated, incoherent and made disjointed statements. Although, he stated he did not wish to harm anyone, as a result of his erratic behavior, our [FBI] agents contacted local authorities who took custody of Mr. Santiago and transported him a local medical facility for evaluation.”

The spokesman said that Mr. Santiago, who had lived in Alaska for several years and worked there as a security guard and a member of the Alaska National Guard, was not placed on a no-fly list. “During our initial investigation, we found no ties to terrorism. There is currently no indication that Mr. Santiago was working with other individuals when he planned and carried out yesterday’s attack.”

With respect to Santiago’s mental health, a spokesman noted, “There is a federal law with regard to having a gun by somebody who is mentally ill, but the law requires that the person be ‘adjudicated mentally ill,’ which is a difficult standard. This is not someone who would have been prohibited [from owning or possessing a gun] based on the laws that they had. I think that law enforcement acted within the laws that they had. We’re a country of laws and they operated within them.”

There are laws that prevent the mentally ill from possessing guns, but the right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental right and due process must be followed to restrict that right. Federal and Alaska law state that firearms ownership and possession are prohibited if a person has been “adjudicated as a mental defective or has been committed to a mental institution.” Neither seems to have applied to Santiago, whose gun was returned after a mental health screening in connection with his statements at the FBI office according to the Anchorage Daily News.

“Unless there was some sort of a court order requiring involuntary commitment for mental health treatment, under existing gun control legislation, he could not be deprived of his constitutional right to possess a weapon,” Paul Callan, former New York homicide prosecutor told CNN. “People who submit to voluntary mental health treatment don't lose their right to possess firearms under current US law.”

Health care workers are required to notify authorities if they believe a patient may pose a danger to themselves or others. Privacy laws may conflict with this duty to warn, however. With many mass shootings in recent years, the perpetrators have exhibited signs of mental illness before their shooting sprees. Until a law is broken, such as making a threat, people who are mentally ill and potentially dangerous must voluntarily seek treatment.

Since Santiago was not committed or judged to be mentally ill, he had broken no laws and was free to travel. Esteban placed his weapon in a checked bag for his flight to Florida. NBC News reports that the Glock 9mm pistol was in a gun case that was carried in the baggage compartment of the airliners that flew Esteban from Anchorage to Minneapolis and Fort Lauderdale.

According to TSA rules, guns and ammunition are allowed on airliners if they are placed in a checked bag that is hard-sided and kept locked. Passengers cannot carry guns, ammunition or parts of guns such as magazines or clips in the cabin of the airliner. Ammunition can be placed in the same locked container as the gun.

Esteban would have checked his gun case and declared his firearm when he checked in at the airport. He would then have gone through the TSA security screening and traveled unarmed. Baggage claim areas are outside of the secure area of the airport.

Esteban reported left the secure area of the airport and retrieved his gun case at baggage claim upon arrival in Fort Lauderdale. At that point, he took the gun and ammunition out of the case and killed five people.

At this point, it seems that gun laws were followed in the case of Esteban Santiago. The gun was legal, Santiago owned and possessed it legally and he legally transported it across the country.

The failure in Fort Lauderdale seems to the same failure that contributed to so many shootings in the past few years. Law enforcement and the mental health system failed to identify a troubled individual who was in need of treatment. Perhaps instead of calling for more gun control, we should revisit privacy laws that prevent doctors, employers and law enforcement agencies from sharing information about potential killers. Consideration should also be given to reforming commitment laws so that potentially dangerous people can be given treatment without their consent.

Keeping guns out of the hands of the mentally ill is not a gun control issue. It is a public safety issue. If mass shootings continue unabated, the left’s outcry for more gun control may lead to sweeping laws like those of New York that restrict all gun ownership, rather than sensible laws that target the real problem.

Originally published on The Resurgent

'Mad Vlad' Putin is no conservative hero

Many conservatives are applauding Russian President Vladimir Putin for his decision to intervene in the Syrian civil war. Even though the US-led coalition has been bombing ISIS for more than a year, many feel that Putin has taken a leadership role in the war in comparison to President Obama’s lackluster resolve.

A good example of the conservative applause for Putin comes from Robin McFee of Family Security Matters who applauded Putin for his “moral clarity” in pointing out the failures of the Obama Administration in the Middle East. Going even further, Walid Shoebat, a former terrorist who converted to Christianity, called Putin’s intervention in Syria “a holy war,” saying “it is the latest crusade of our time.”

“Putin is the St. Constantine of our time,” writes Shoebat, referring to the Roman emperor who stopped the persecution of Christians and legalized Christianity. “For like that priestly king of old,” he continues, “he has unsheathed the holy sword of the Church to strike down the enemies of God for the cause of humanity.”

Even Franklin Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham and founder of Samaritan’s Purse, said, “What Russia is doing may save the lives of Christians in the Middle East.” Franklin continued, “You understand that the Syrian government for their good and for their bad over the history of this country, they have protected Christians, they have protected minorities from the Islamists.”

Graham’s view is likely close to the truth. Putin and Russia are not intervening to save Syrian Christians. They are intervening to save the Assad regime. The possibility that some Christians might be saved in the process is purely incidental to Putin’s primary goal.

On American Thinker, Fay Voshell writes that the “former KGB agent is now a devout Christian whose faith informs policy” and that “Putin's religious values are rooted in Russian Orthodoxy and personal religious experiences, including his wife's car accident in 1993 and a life-threatening house fire in 1996.”

Nevertheless, Putin’s actions in the two decades since his supposed conversion more closely resemble a Machiavellian strongman than a principled Christian. In 1999, when, as prime minister of Russia, Putin sent troops into Chechnya, it was to stop “the collapse of the Soviet Union,” not to protect Christians in the mostly Muslim republic. As World Affairs notes, Putin blamed Chechen terrorists for a series of bombings in Russia, but when an unexploded bomb was found, Russian agents were revealed to be the perpetrators of the false flag attack.

Putin’s concern for the innocent was not evident in his reaction to the hostage taking at Beslan School No. 1 in North Ossetia in southern Russia in 2004. Security forces responding to the terrorist attack used flame throwers and grenade launchers when they assaulted the school according to the Moscow Times. The attack resulted in the deaths of more than 330 of the 1,200 hostages. Most of the dead were children.

Putin invaded two other countries as well. The 2008 invasion of Georgia and the 2014 invasion of Ukraine bear many similarities. In both cases, Russia used the pretext of protecting ethnic Russians to seize outlying provinces from independent nations. In both cases, Russia seems unwilling to stop with its early gains. The Guardian describes a Russian border fence around South Ossetia that grabbed additional Georgian territory overnight. Likewise, the war in Ukraine is still raging and the country is bracing for a possible full-scale invasion.

After Russian-backed rebels in Ukraine shot down an unarmed Malaysian airliner in 2014, killing 298 people, Putin was quick to blame Ukraine and has continued to use the incident for propaganda against Ukraine. In the United Nations, he has blocked attempts to create a tribunal to investigate the incident.

Putin can be accurately described as a dictator, having been the de facto ruler of Russia since 1999 when he succeeded Boris Yeltsin as president. He served two terms as president until 2008 when Russia’s term limit forced him to step aside. Undaunted, he was appointed prime minister by Dmitri Medvedev and promptly had the constitution changed. When Medvedev’s term ended, Putin was elected to a third term in 2012.

Putin’s alleged Christian convictions did not stop him from ordering the deaths and imprisonment of countless political opponents and journalists. The list of Putin’s Russian victims is long and spans 20 years, not including his time as a KGB officer. The most infamous murder was Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB officer turned dissident. In a plot worthy of James Bond, Litvinenko was poisoned with radioactive polonium in London in 2006.

Even Putin’s alleged concerns about Islamic radicalism are suspect. Both Syria and Iran have long been client states of Putin’s Russia. Syria’s relationship with Russia goes back to the days of the Soviet Union. Unknown to many, it is Russia that is building Iran’s nuclear program that now threatens, not only Israel, but Europe and the United States as well. Likewise, Russia has supplied Iran with modern fighter aircraft as well as air defense systems that would make an attack on those nuclear facilities difficult and costly. Putin is also a major supporter of President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. Business Insider points out that Putin actually took credit for the deal.

Although Putin’s support for Iran predates the Syrian civil war, Russia and Iran have found common cause there as the two main supporters of the Assad regime. Bashar Assad is a Shia Muslim as are the Iranians. The opposition to Assad is primarily Sunni. Russia and Syria have had a nonaggression pact since 1950 and Russia has had military bases in Syria since 1971. Fox News reported in August that the commander of the Iranian Quds Force, designated as a terrorist by the US, secretly traveled to Russia to meet with “senior Russian leaders.”

For hundreds of years, Russian foreign policy has been built around two goals. First is the desire to build a buffer zone to protect their borders from invasion. Second is the quest for a warm water port. Many Russian ports are blocked by ice during winter. Other Russian ports are blocked by narrow straits and potentially hostile neighbors. It is likely that Putin’s venture into Syria, in addition to propping up a friendly regime, is about making sure that Russian naval power is not expelled from the Mediterranean.

Russia’s intervention might also be economic. Russia has been battered by international sanctions and low oil prices. The ruble has lost half of its value and inflation for the year is predicted to be 18 percent according to Investopedia. Russia’s imperial wars may be both a distraction from the economic mess at home and an attempt to stabilize and increase the price of oil.

At his core, Putin is an opportunist who is seeking to restore the Russian empire. He seems to take Rahm Emanuel’s advice to “never let a crisis go to waste” when he can use it to expand Russia’s borders or sphere of influence.

In short, Putin is everything that conservatives fear that Obama is. He is a dictator who changed the constitution to stay in power and doesn’t have qualms about killing people who threaten him. He is known to have used false flags to justify war against Chechnya and Ukraine and works world crises to his advantage. Putin is no hero for conservatives.

Originally published on Conservative Firing Line

Santa Barbara murderer had much in common with other spree killers

By now, most are familiar with the story of Elliot Rodger, the Santa Barbara mass murderer who killed six people last weekend before turning his gun on himself. Rodger’s loneliness, angst and longing for meaningless sex are now well known. What may be less well known is that Rodger shared many characteristics with a number of other recent spree killers.

As Examiner reported last year, a number of features are common in the random mass killings that seem prevalent in recent years. First, almost all of the mass killers are known to be habitual players of violent video games. Second, the killer often comes from a broken family. Finally, in most cases, the killer can be reasonably determined to have undiagnosed or untreated mental illness. Elliot Rodger fits into all three categories.

Rodger’s own writings, excerpted here in the Daily Mail, say that he was “immersed entirely” in “online games like World of Warcraft.” Other reports, including this one from World Net Daily, suggest that Rodger used phrases from the game in his manifesto.

Frequent use of video games alone does not explain Rodger’s actions. Millions of people around the world play video games, even the most violent games, without descending into madness. There is the possibility, however, that violent video games can trigger violent behavior in some people. Lt. Col. (ret.) Dave Grossman, a former West Point psychology professor, has long studied the phenomenon in a field that he calls “killology.”

Two other factors that may act as triggers are broken families and mental illness. CNN reports that Rodger’s parents had divorced in 1999 when he was seven years old. While the specifics of Rodger’s family life are not known, it is well established that children, particularly boys, do not fare well in single parent families for reasons that vary from economic insecurity to inadequate supervision and time with their parents.

Mental illness was also a factor in Rodger’s actions. According to Hollywood Life, his mother said that he had Asperger’s syndrome, the same form of autism that Sandy Hook murderer Adam Lanza was known to have. A friend of the family told Radar Online that Elliot had “heard voices” and suffered from “extreme paranoia.” The source also said that Rodger had been prescribed a psychiatric medication, but refused to take it. Before moving to Santa Barbara, Rodger had been under the care of a psychologist.

There were warning signs. Rodger had posted violent threats on the internet before. About a month before the killing spree, the videos prompted his mother to send the police to his apartment. According to the Washington Post, the murders were not his first brush with violence. He had splashed hot coffee on girls who didn’t smile at him, shot people in a park with a Super Soaker filled with orange juice, and, shortly before his last birthday, tried to push girls off a 10 foot high ledge at a party.

Culture, like video games, cannot bear the brunt of the blame, but also likely played a role. Cultural icons have spent decades giving children and teenagers the message through movies and television that sex can – and perhaps should - be free of love and commitment. The normalization of pornography and the hookup culture, while seen as empowering to women by some feminists, does much to dehumanize and objectify women. This may be especially true to boys from broken homes who lack positive male role models to show them how women should be treated.

Rodger’s ramblings show that his sense of entitlement was complementary to his view of women as nothing more than sexual playthings. He believed that his family status and connections entitled him to sex with beautiful girls and he resented the boys that were chosen over him. He viewed wealth as a means to attract girls and blamed his parents for not providing him with the money he needed for a lavish lifestyle. He felt that his mother should have remarried to a wealthy man and was angry that his father’s failed documentary, “Oh My God,” had caused the family financial hardship.

The easiest solutions to the problems that created Elliot Rodger and the other spree murders deal with reforming how we treat mental illness. After the Sandy Hook massacre, psychiatrist E. Fuller Torrey described the federal mental health failure in the Wall St. Journal. Speaking on the May 28 episode of Michael Medved’s radio show, Torrey listed several reforms that would make future spree killings by the mentally ill less likely. First, he cited the need to reform commitment laws for those who are mentally ill and refuse voluntary treatment. Second, HIPAA privacy laws need to be reformed to make it easier for doctors and government officials to communicate about potentially threatening patients. Third, more beds are needed in mental health facilities to treat patients. Finally, mental health experts should perform evaluations. Currently, police who are not trained in mental health make field determinations about whether someone is potentially dangerous.

As the list of mass murders by the untreated mentally ill grows, it should be possible to get a bipartisan agreement on mental health reform. In a time of close scrutiny of federal spending, most Americans would probably agree that preventing the violently ill from arming themselves and committing mass murder would be money well spent.

 

Read the full story on Atlanta Conservative Examiner

Navy Yard killer shared traits with other rampage murderers

Already there are voices calling for increased gun control in the wake of Aaron Alexis’ murders of 12 people in the Washington Navy Yard yesterday. As Examiner reported, traditional gun control seems to be counterproductive in reducing crimes and mass killings, but an analysis of this and other shootings reveals several common threads between many perpetrators of rampage killings. Diagnoses are made more difficult by the fact that the killers in many of the rampages are often killed themselves, but in many cases, the killer had been diagnosed with some form of mental illness or can plausibly be considered to have an undiagnosed mental illness. Other factors, such as video games, movies, or broken families are also common.

Aaron Alexis is reported to have been undergoing treatment for mental illness with the Veterans Administration according to the Washington Times. The report indicates that Alexis had reported hearing voices in his head and suffered from paranoia. NBC News reports that Alexis had two prior arrests for gun related crimes. In 2004, he allegedly shot out the tires of another man’s car during “an anger-fueled ‘blackout’” in Seattle. In 2010, he was arrested in Texas for shooting his gun through the ceiling of his apartment. The bullet went through his ceiling into the apartment upstairs. Alexis told police that the shooting was accidental. According to Seattle police, Alexis was present at the September 11 attacks and was an “active participant in rescue attempts” [at the World Trade Center according to the Telegraph] and may have suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The Daily Mail also reports that Alexis’ best friend, Nutpisit Suthamtewakul, 31, of Ft. Worth, said that Alexis was obsessed with violent video games. Mr. Suthamtewakul said that Alexis would often play “zombie” shooter games for much of the night. Mr. Suthamtewakul also said that Alexis was a “hard core drinker.”

Atlanta’s 11 Alive News also reported a third arrest in Georgia. On August 10, 2008, Alexis was arrested in DeKalb County for disorderly conduct. There was no indication that a weapon was used. He was also discharged from the Navy Reserve in 2011 for unspecified misconduct. None of this prevented Alexis from obtaining a security clearance to work as a navy contractor. CNN reported that Alexis’ security clearance was renewed in July.

The full details of Alexis’ family and childhood are not available, but reports of the family make no mention of his father. A Newsday article quoted a former neighbor of the family’s apartment in Brooklyn who noted that the family consisted of a mother, a daughter, and two boys. Mr. Alexis reportedly lived with his grandmother in Seattle.

In the case of last year’s shootings at Newtown, Ct., the Hartford Courant and NBC’s WPTV reported that Adam Lanza was a frequent player of violent first-person shooter video games. Police report that Lanza destroyed his computer before his rampage, so the exact extent of his video gaming may never be known. Lanza was known to have been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism and had not seen his father since 2010.

Peter Bell, executive vice president of programs and services at Autism Speaks told PBS that some Asperger’s patients do have trouble controlling aggressive thoughts and behavior, but that there is no evidence linking the condition to violence. Nevertheless, Randi Rentz, a teacher specializing in Asperger’s, notes that some of her students exhibit hostility. There is also the possibility that other undiagnosed forms of mental illness were present along with the Asperger’s.

James Holmes, who went on a rampage in a movie theater showing “the Dark Knight” in Colorado in July 2012, apparently came from an intact family, but had seen three mental health professionals at the University of Colorado according to CBS News. Any diagnosis is unknown due to a gag order imposed by the judge in the case, but Holmes reportedly mailed a package to one of the school’s psychiatrists. Because of the gag order, not much information is available about Holmes’ mental state, but Fox News has reported that he was a frequent player of video games including “World of Warcraft,” a role-playing game. One friend told the Telegraph that Holmes preferred “Guitar Hero” to shooter games.

The Week reported that a local gun range owner flagged Holmes after he attempted to join the range. The man called Holmes’ answering machine “bizarre or freakish” and told employees to refer Holmes to him before letting him do anything there. In the months before the killing spree, Holmes’ grades had fallen and he had dropped out of graduate school. Apparently, one of the psychiatrists at the college had become concerned that Holmes might be a potential threat, but he dropped out before her concerns could be addressed according to a report from the local ABC affiliate.

Jared Lee Loughner, who shot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and killed six others in Tucson in January 2011, was both mentally ill and a video gamer. Several sources, including the Wall St. Journal, report Loughner’s obsession with games. Loughner had a long history of mental illness according to Time. He had made threatening and nonsensical comments to fellow students and teachers at his college. His tests and writings included bizarre and sometimes violent phrases. At times he seemed paranoid and unable to function socially. He was also a frequent user of marijuana which may have made his condition worse. He apparently was rejected for military service due to a failed drug test. He also had stalked several women and, at one point, was involuntarily committed to a mental institution.

A Wall St. Journal investigation of Loughner’s posts in online video game forums showed a number of disturbing posts. He pondered whether one should “hit a Handy Cap Child/Adult” [sic] and theorized that women enjoyed being raped. He also lamented his inability to find a job. According to the report, Loughner played role-playing video games such as “Starcraft,” “Diablo,” and “Earth: 2025.”

Cho Seung-Hui, who killed 32 people at Virginia Tech in 2007, had been diagnosed with mental health problems at an early age according to a well documented report on the massacre by the State of Virginia. In elementary school, he was diagnosed with emotional issues that led to communication problems. In middle school, he was diagnosed with social anxiety disorder, lack of verbal skills and immaturity. In 1999, after the Columbine murders, Cho wrote a paper for his English class that indicated that he wanted to carry out a mass murder as well. He was diagnosed with selective mutism in social situations and depression. At this point, he was given a prescription for antidepressants, after which his condition improved.

Cho had an above average IQ and, with special accommodations in high school, his grades were high enough that he was accepted at Virginia Tech. In eleventh grade, he had improved enough that he was able to stop the counseling sessions and never resumed them after he graduated and began attending college.

As a college sophomore, Cho’s grades began to drop. He changed his major to English, a subject that he struggled with. He became disruptive in class and his creative writing assignments reflected dark and violent themes. He was accused of stalking a female student and had stabbed the carpet with a knife at a party. A friend reported that Cho had threatened to kill himself and Cho admitted to having depression and anxiety, although he denied having suicidal thoughts according to ABC News. Cho talked to three counselors, but failed to come to counseling appointments and pursue treatment. Throughout his school career, Cho was known for not speaking or speaking in barely audible tones.

Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, the Columbine killers, reportedly had different motives and illnesses. According to an assessment published in Slate, Klebold may have suffered from depression while Harris was likely a psychopath. Based on his journal, a panel of psychologists, psychiatrists, and FBI agents point to Harris’ contempt for others and his total lack of empathy and conscience as evidence of his psychopathic tendencies. Dr. Peter Langman, formerly a clinical director at Kids Peace Hospital and author of “Why Kids Kill,” agrees. His analysis of the writings of Klebold and Harris agrees that Harris was a psychopath while Klebold apparently suffered from a variety of psychoses including depression, paranoia, delusions and disorganized thinking. The two teens famously enjoyed violent video games as well.

Michael Brandon Hill, the gunman who invaded a school in Decatur, Ga. last month, also had a history of mental illness and a criminal record according Examiner. A quick-thinking school receptionist was able to convince Hill to surrender after exchanging shots with police.

There seems to be broad support for a system of screening students for mental illness. Dr. Harold Koplewicz wrote in the Huffington Post that 75 percent of psychiatric disorders appear by age 24 and that early intervention greatly improves the prognosis. Dr. Bill Knaus of the Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy network points out that many mentally ill people are not aware of their illness and therefore will not voluntarily seek help. A particularly dangerous time seems to be when people stop taking their medication, especially if they do so abruptly and without supervision.

One solution to the problem of the mentally ill committing massacres would be reforming laws to allow state and local governments more flexibility in involuntarily committing people who might be a danger to themselves and others. This should include follow up visits to confirm that they remain on their medication and that their condition remains stable. This may also require that privacy laws be amended so that information can be shared between agencies. Such an approach has been used in Colorado where Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, reformed the state’s involuntary treatment laws in the wake of James Holmes’ killing spree.

A second strategy is to change popular culture. As Lt. Col. Dave Grossman describes on killology.com, violent images and games can condition children to kill in much the same manner that armies condition soldiers to be able to pull the trigger. Although popular culture does not turn all children into remorseless killers, the combination of cultural cues and mental illness may combine to push some people over the edge.

Finally, acting to preserve the family would help to grow stable adults. Children from single parent families and broken homes are far more likely to turn to crime and violence than children who come from stable families as Examiner previously reported. Single parent families are also far more likely to live in poverty and require government assistance as well.

There is a legitimate role for governments to play in keeping firearms out of the hands of potentially dangerous mental patients. However, addressing the underlying issues is much more difficult than returning to traditional and ineffective forms of gun control.

Originally published by Atlanta Conservative Examiner

Gun control and mass killings

When Aaron Alexis used several guns to commit mass murder at the Washington, D.C. Navy yard yesterday, it was only the most recent in a string of mass shootings in areas where strict gun control is in force. In fact, statistics from past rampage killings show that mass shootings and killings are more likely to take place in states with rigorous gun laws.

The Citizens Crime Commission of New York City lists 27 mass shootings (defined by the FBI as four or more victims killed) in the United States from 1984 through August 2012. When geographical location is considered, the majority of these shootings took place in states with strict gun control laws. Two of the states with the most restrictive gun control laws, Wisconsin and Illinois, were both the site of mass shootings. Two mass shootings occurred in Wisconsin. Four mass shootings took place in California, despite its gun control initiatives. Connecticut was the site of two previous mass killings before last year’s Newtown massacre, even though the state’s gun laws are considered some of the toughest in the nation according to a Washington Post article that cites studies by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and Brown University.

Likewise, the District of Columbia’s gun laws are also tough. For years, the District had an outright ban of private weapons until it was struck down in the Supreme Court’s landmark Heller decision. Crime rates began to drop after the ban was ruled unconstitutional according to the Wall Street Journal. Because the District is not a state, it does not rank on the Brady Campaign’s list of state gun control laws, but “Guns and Ammo” magazine ranked it dead last among the “Best States for Gun Owners for 2013.”

A common argument is that gun control fails because criminals buy weapons in states with lax gun laws. If this is true, then mass shootings should be more common in states that allow freer access to guns. In reality, many states with unrestrictive gun laws saw no mass shootings. When shootings did occur in these states, they often happened in places such as schools where guns were not allowed. In the Aurora, Co. movie theater shooting, the theater did not permit guns. In Fort Hood, Tx., like the Washington Navy yard, military personnel were not permitted to carry weapons on base.

There is a striking similarity to the map showing locations of mass shootings and blue states from past elections. Although the comparison is not perfect, the red states across the south from Louisiana to North Carolina had no mass shootings. Likewise, the Midwest experienced few mass shootings while liberal meccas like California, Illinois, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, and New York all made the list.

The failure of gun control to prevent mass shootings is even more stark when other countries are considered. This is true even though the United States is one of the few countries in the world where the ownership of firearms is legal and common for civilians. In fact, of the top ten rampage killings listed on Listverse.com, only two occurred in the U.S.

Lists compiled by Wikipedia concur that mass shootings are not an American phenomenon. The worst mass shooting in the world occurred in Norway in 2011 when 68 people were murdered and 110 were injured by Anders Behring Breivik. Breivik also killed another eight people with a car bomb. The second worst shooting occurred in South Korea in 1982 when a man killed 62 people and wounded another 37 before committing suicide. The worst mass shooting in the Americas occurred in Bogota, Colombia in 1986 when a man used a variety of weapons to kill 30 people and injure another 15.

In one interesting case, the same man perpetrated two mass killings in Africa. William Unek murdered 21 people with an axe in the Belgian Congo in 1954. He escaped to Tanganyika where he went on another rampage three years later, this time using a rifle as well as an axe to kill 36 people.

In Europe there have been a surprising number of mass shootings in the past few decades in spite of onerous laws against the private ownership of guns. According to the Associated Press, in addition to Norway’s Anders Breivik, there were mass shootings in the United Kingdom in 2010 and 1987, Switzerland in 2001, France in 1989 and 1995, Russia in 1999, Finland in 2007 and 2008, Germany in 2009 and 2002, and Spain in 1990. In 1996, sixteen kindergarteners were murdered in Scotland by a gunman who then committed suicide.

Even communist China, a literal police state, is not immune to mass shootings. A man killed 23 people and wounded as many as 80 in Beijing before being shot by police in 1994. Other mass murders in China used other weapons. In 2001, two Chinese men killed 14 people in China with guns and knives. In 2006 in Gongyi, China, 12 kindergarteners and four adults were killed with knives and a gasoline fire. A man killed seven children and two women with a meat cleaver in Xian in 2010. In Hebei in 2010, a man ran over 17 people with a shovel loader tractor.

Knives and explosives have been used to kill large numbers of people on many occasions. In 1950, a man killed 22 people in India with a knife. The worst school massacre in American history used explosives, not guns. According to Listverse.com, in 1927 a former school board member in Bath Township, Mich. set off three bombs that killed 45 people and wounded 58.

Conversely, legal guns in the hands of citizens have prevented several massacres. Days before the Sandy Hook shooting, Portland’s News Channel 8 reported that a concealed carry holder confronted a man who had already killed two people in a mall in Clackamas, Wash. When he saw that he was confronted by an armed civilian, the murderer then killed himself before he could take any more lives.

It wasn’t the first time that citizens had prevented such a tragedy. In 1997, an assistant principal retrieved a pistol from his car to stop a shooting spree at Pearl High School in Mississippi. In 2002, two students used their personal guns to help end a shooting spree at the Appalachian School of Law in Virginia. In 2007, a churchgoer shot a man who had killed four people in a Colorado Springs church. A Salt Lake City gun owner stopped a man who suddenly began stabbing shoppers in a grocery store. There are many other reports of armed citizens saving lives as well.

In spite of the perception that mass shootings are becoming more frequent, criminologists say that random shootings are not happening as often as in the past according to the Associated Press. Grant Duwe, a criminologist with the Minnesota Department of Corrections and the author of a book on mass murders in America, says that mass shootings increased between the 1960s and 1990s, but that mass killings have decreased since 2000. Duwe says mass killings in the U.S. peaked in 1929. In spite of the emotional impact of random killings, the majority of murder victims know their killer.

Portions of this article were originally published by Examiner on Dec. 19, 2012

Published on Atlanta Conservative Examiner

The system worked for George Zimmerman

Although many Americans are upset about the not guilty verdict handed down by the jury for George Zimmerman, the case is actually proof that the judicial system still works and is not controlled by politicians and interest groups. George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old black man, on February 26, 2012. Although the circumstances of the killing were uncertain, many in the media rushed to judgment and fanned the flames of race almost immediately.

Media reports immediately claimed that Zimmerman was a racist who shot Martin because he was a black man who was walking in Zimmerman’s neighborhood. As Examiner reported at the time, Zimmerman’s neighborhood was racially mixed and had suffered a large number of burglaries in the months leading up to the shooting. Martin was staying at his father’s girlfriend’s house, which was in the same gated community where Zimmerman lived. Logically, Zimmerman would not have been shocked to see a black man in his neighborhood.

The only evidence that the shooting was racially motivated seems to be the color of the men’s skin and a telephone call that Zimmerman made to the Sanford police while he was following Martin. Originally described as a 911 call, Zimmerman actually called the police department’s nonemergency line. A recording of the call was edited by NBC’s Today Show to make Zimmerman appear racist.

According to Reuters, NBC deleted several seconds of the call to make it appear that Zimmerman initially volunteered information about Martin’s race. In reality, Zimmerman only mentioned that Martin was black when queried by police. An NBC producer was fired over the incident and George Zimmerman is suing the company. The complete transcript of the call is available on Document Cloud.

Zimmerman does not dispute that he followed Martin, but says that Martin confronted him and began assaulting him after he began to return to his truck after getting out to look for a street sign. No one knows for sure what happened because there were no witnesses to the start of the fight.

In a July 2013 CNN interview, Sanford police chief Bill Lee said that there was no probable cause to arrest Zimmerman on the night of the shooting because the evidence supported Zimmerman’s story. One investigator did favor arresting Zimmerman for manslaughter, but Lee says that the evidence did not even support that charge and that an arrest would have violated Zimmerman’s Fourth Amendment rights. Lee said that the investigation was “taken away from us.” The mayor released the telephone tapes before the investigation was completed and Gov. Rick Scott appointed a special prosecutor in the case less than a month after the killing. Lee said that he was pressured by city officials to arrest Zimmerman, even without evidence of a crime, to placate the public. Around the same time, President Obama made a statement that, “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.” Lee’s department presented a capias request to the state attorney to determine whether there was sufficient evidence to arrest Zimmerman, but was removed from the investigation before the request was answered.

The facts in the case must be judged on their own merit. The facts do not include sensational, and often erroneous, media reports. The skin color of the victim and his accused murderer are not relevant to the question of whether Trayvon Martin’s killing was justified. There is an old saying that “justice is blind.” Justice should also be colorblind.

The accumulated weight of hundreds of years of repression and discrimination of blacks cannot be placed upon George Zimmerman’s shoulders. Zimmerman is responsible for his own behavior and no one else’s. The banished institution of slavery was not on trial in Florida. Neither was the separate-but-(not quite) equal system of “Jim Crow” laws. In 1923, white mobs killed at least six blacks and destroyed most of the black town of Rosewood, Florida. George Zimmerman was not part of that mob. America has checkered past when it comes to race relations, but America was not on trial.

Many of Zimmerman’s critics are angry about the fact that he shot an unarmed man. Florida’s self-defense law does not require that an assailant be armed for someone to defend themselves with a gun. According to a survey by CNN, “nearly all states allow use of deadly force to protect yourself inside your home, based on the Castle doctrine,” a concept that dates back to Roman times. At least 33 other states have expanded the right self-defense to homes, offices and other areas as well. Zimmerman’s defense did not hinge on the Castle Doctrine according to Bill Lee. According to his testimony, Zimmerman could not retreat since he was pinned by Martin.

Florida law provides that a person is justified when they “reasonably believe that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm.” George Zimmerman told police that Martin attacked him and told him, “You’re gonna die tonight, mothaf____!” according to Business Insider. At that point, Zimmerman said that his gun became exposed and both men reached for it. Zimmerman was able to get the gun and shoot Martin. Zimmerman’s critics may disagree with the law as it is written, but the jury was required to decide the case based on current law, not what pundits believe the law should be.

In American jurisprudence, criminal defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty. Jurors should not enter the trial with preconceived notions about the defendant’s guilt or innocence. It is up to the prosecutor to prove the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. This means that it is “beyond dispute that any reasonable alternative is possible” and “that no other logical explanation can be derived from the facts” according to West’s law encyclopedia. In practice, this means that the American justice system defaults to a position where guilty men sometimes go free so that fewer innocent men will go to jail.

In the end, for both Bill Lee’s police investigators and the jury, there was simply not enough evidence to charge or convict George Zimmerman. The prosecution seems to have been pushed for political reasons to answer the media and public calls for Zimmerman’s arrest. The pressure may have emanated from as high as President Obama’s Department of Justice. The prosecution of George Zimmerman was an attempt to subvert justice for political reasons. In the end, in spite of the pressure, the system worked.

Originally published by Atlanta Conservative Examiner

Two robberies show need for gun rights

Citizens of the small Georgia town of Villa Rica got a lesson in gun control last week. On two consecutive days last week, armed robbers attacked local businesses in the normally quiet suburb of Atlanta. In each incident, a man was killed by a gun. Ostensibly both were victims of “gun violence,” but for circumstances were very different. After a weeklong manhunt, the final suspect was arrested this morning in Atlanta.

According to the Villa Rican, the first incident occurred on Tuesday, June 25, when a 19-year-old man wearing a hoodie and ski mask entered Junior’s Food Store, a local convenience store and gas station, around 9:45 p.m. The man, Durante Octavious Ashley, 19, was a part-time employee of the store, but that night he pulled a gun on the clerk who was on duty and demanded money. The clerk opened the cash register and, when Ashley turned his attention to the money inside, pulled his own gun and shot the robber, killing him.

Store owner Rosh Patel confirmed to Examiner on July 2 that because the shooting was in self-defense, no charges are expected against the clerk, whose name was not released. Mr. Patel said that the clerk was very shaken by the incident and was taking some time off from work.

Less than 24 hours later, four men entered a jewelry store on the other side of town. Inside the store, they took out hammers and began smashing jewelry cases to steal the contents. Before the incident ended, one of the men shot and killed store owner Mitch Mobley. Although other people were in the store at the time of the robbery, no one else was injured according to the Villa Rican, although others, including one of Mobley’s sons, were also in the store.

WSB reported that Urarahy Rodrigues, the 34-year-old owner of Defkon One Fighting and Fitness, saw the four killers run past his gym in the same shopping center as the Mobley Company. Rodrigues took a cell phone video of the fleeing suspects and then chased after them. He caught up to 16-year-old Eric Billings, the alleged trigger man, and held him in a choke hold until police arrived.

The four robbers fled after the murder. As of this writing, three of the four men have been arrested. According to WTOC, the sixteen-year-old, Eric Billings, and Raphael Rucker, 23, were arrested on June 27, the day after the murder. On Saturday, June 29, WSB reported that 20-year-old Gregory Clifton was captured by police. The fourth suspect, 21-year-old Cranford Phelps, was arrested in Atlanta in the early hours of July 2. The three adults all had prior criminal records. Since Eric Billings is a juvenile, his record could not be verified.

The two incidents illustrate the difference between armed and unarmed victims. At Junior’s, because the clerk was armed with a legal gun, he was able to act to save his own life. Mitch Mobley, who was apparently unarmed, was at the mercy of the four robbers who burst into his store. In both cases, the police were unavailable to protect the victims during the robberies. All too often the role of the police is to arrest murderers in the days after the crime. This is a necessary and important role, but arresting his murderers won’t bring Mitch Mobley back to life. In fact, if it weren’t for Urarahy Rodrigues, who says “I am not a hero,” the perpetrators might have escaped.

Mobley was mourned by the community. Villa Rica had lost more than a business leader and a family man. He was also a philanthropist who organized charity golf tournaments to benefit causes such as cancer research. His store may have been targeted by the men from Atlanta simply because it was near Interstate 20.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics notes that the number of gun homicides has declined 39 percent from 1993 through 2011 (the most recent year for which statistics are available). There were 11,101 fatal firearm homicides that year. According to the Centers for Disease Control, there were 31,672 gun deaths in 2010 (compared to 33,687 motor vehicle deaths).

The decline in gun homicides comes at a time when the total number of guns in the U.S. has increased sharply. There was a surge in gun sales after the election of Barack Obama and in 2011 Gallup found gun ownership at a 20 year high. Gun violence also declined amidst the Great Recession even though crime is traditionally assumed to spike in times of economic distress. The data calls into question the effectiveness of traditional gun control methods and seems to confirm economist John Lott’s groundbreaking 1998 study, “More Guns, Less Crime.”

Another gun control issue brought into question by the report is the effort to impose background checks and waiting periods at gun shows. According to the BJS report, less than two percent of criminals bought weapons at a flea market or gun show. The vast majority obtained their gun from family or friends (37 percent) or an illegal source (40 percent).

The BJS report notes that in about one percent of nonfatal violent crimes (about 4,600 incidents), a victim reported using a gun to defend themselves. About 0.1 percent of victims of property crime also used guns in self-defense. Without guns for self-defense, the number of gun homicides might rise by almost 5,000.

No one can know for sure whether Mitch Mobley would be alive today if he had kept a gun in his jewelry store. What can be said for certain is that when the gang of criminals burst into his store, he, his staff and his customers were at their mercy. They gave him none.

Originally published as Atlanta Conservative Examiner

Kermit Gosnell and America’s Holocaust

Abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell was recently found guilty of a laundry list of crimes including three counts of first degree murder for the killings of several babies that were born alive at his abortion clinic. Gosnell was accused of cutting the necks of the babies in violation of Pennsylvania law and basic human decency.

Gosnell has received virtually no support or sympathy from the pro-choice crowd. The head of NARAL Pro-Choice America said that Gosnell will “get what he deserves” in a statement. Before his arrest, her view of Gosnell would likely have been different. Many abortion clinics in surrounding states referred late term patients to Gosnell for abortions because it was common knowledge in the abortion industry that he was an abortionist who had little regard for state laws limiting abortion to 24 weeks according to the grand jury report.

It is also interesting to note that the same pro-choice activists who now throw Gosnell under the bus still fight for the right to perform abortions. If the babies that Gosnell murdered had still been in the womb, pro-choice activists would have rallied around him as a martyr. In the past, pro-choice groups have opposed any meaningful restrictions on abortion, even fighting against a ban on brutal partial birth abortions in which a baby is delivered except for the head. The abortionist then punctures the baby’s skull, still inside the woman’s body, and inserts a catheter to suck out the brain. Partial birth abortions were performed on babies much older than the 24 weeks mandated by Pennsylvania. Pro-choice groups have also opposed parental notification laws, clinic inspections (Gosnell’s clinic was appallingly unsanitary), and limits on when abortions can be performed.

Godwin’s Law dictates that the longer an internet discussion goes on, the more likely it is that someone will make an analogy about Nazis. Consequently, comparisons to Nazis or the use of “Nazi” or “fascist” as an epithet are so overdone that they have lost much of their effectiveness. Nevertheless, from time to time, a situation arises where a valid comparison to Nazis can be made. The case of Kermit Gosnell is one of these situations.

Gosnell’s Women’s Medical Society was every bit as much a murder factory as the German concentration camps. The babies, the majority of the victims of Gosnell’s crimes, were dehumanized in the eyes of their murderers, just as the Jews and other victims of the camps were dehumanized in the eyes of their Nazi captors.

This dehumanization began with what is standard practice for pro-choice activists: the refusal to call an unborn baby a “baby.” When a baby becomes a “fetus” it is easier to think of it in less than human terms, an “inanimate lump of cells” in the words and minds of some pro-abortion advocates. This is directly analogous to the way in which Nazis dehumanized Jews, Slavs and others as “untermenschen,” sub-humans.

When someone is viewed as sub-human, they are easier to kill. At some point during the nearly 40 years of his practice, Gosnell and his staff members graduated from killing unborn “fetuses” to killing living, breathing babies who had “precipitated,” the office euphemism for birth.

Like the Nazi executioners, the staff of the Women’s Medical Society became so desensitized that they even joked about the babies they were killing or played with them before they cut their spinal cords according to grand jury testimony. Gosnell was said to commonly joke after killing big, late term babies that they could have “walked me to the bus stop.”

Testimony of the Holocaust includes tales of kindness from Germans at one moment followed by cold-blooded, businesslike killing the next. The book “Hitler’s Willing Executioners” details the account of German soldiers who found a group of hidden Jewish orphans. Feeling pity for the untermenschen children, they put them at the head of the line for extermination so that they would not suffer.

Undercover videos by the pro-life documentary group Live Action reveal that the practice of dehumanizing unborn babies is common. In most cases, the abortionists never utter the words “baby,” “kill,” or “die.” Instead, a “pregnancy” is “terminated” or “fetal demise” is ensured. In violation of state and federal law, as well as human decency, the undercover activists are repeatedly assured that if the baby survives the abortion, the clinic workers will not help it live.

For other abortion clinics, the dehumanization also extends beyond killing the baby in the womb. One abortionist in the Bronx, where a baby is as likely to be aborted as born, tells the undercover filmmaker to “flush it” if she delivers her baby away from the clinic. LeRoy Carhart, known for performing late term abortions, is unusually direct and blunt, telling patients that they will have a dead baby inside them for three days that will be softening up like “meat in a crock pot.” More typical is the Bronx abortionist who says, “We don’t use the word ‘kill.’” Likewise, the Nazis also used a number of euphemisms for their killing, including several that are the same or very similar to terms used by abortionists.

Like the Nazi camps, abortion clinics, Gosnell’s in particular, are assembly lines of death. The grand jury report notes that Gosnell’s clinic was subject to a constant stream of patients, some coming for abortions, others for illegal drugs. Gosnell’s untrained and uncertified staff would promptly sedate the women coming for abortions because Gosnell didn’t like it when women screamed or moaned in pain. The women were also given drugs to induce labor, often in Gosnell’s absence. Because Gosnell often came in late, babies were often born alive; one or two each night according to the testimony, often entering the world into the toilet in Gosnell’s clinic. Gosnell allegedly preferred it when babies were born alive because it made his job easier. An abortion procedure could take up to half an hour. It was much quicker to kill a living baby and just suck out the placenta.

Also like the Nazis, Gosnell and other abortionists profit handsomely from their killings. According to the grand jury report, Gosnell’s take from his clinic was estimated at $1.8 million per year, most of it in cash. Police found $240,000 and a gun hidden in his 12-year-old daughter’s closet when they raided his house.

Abortion is profitable for other clinics as well. The American Center for Law and Justice points out that 51 percent of Planned Parenthood’s income comes from abortions. Planned Parenthood, a for-profit business that also receives taxpayer funds, receives more than $164 million per year from abortions. The sale of body parts from aborted babies for medical and pharmaceutical research is rumored to be a multimillion dollar underground industry (Nazis experimented on their victims as well). In spite of the lucrative nature of the abortion business, as noted earlier on Examiner, abortion clinics are often unsanitary and ill equipped. Infections, complications and even deaths of women resulting from the substandard conditions in abortion clinics are not uncommon.

Nazi death camps and abortion clinics also share common roots in the racist scientific theories of the early 20^th century. Hitler’s ideas were rooted in eugenics, a pseudoscience popularized in California, which held that humanity could be improved by controlling the genetic makeup of society. According to PBS, Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was also a proponent of eugenics.

Hitler took eugenics one step further by totally eliminating - killing - those he deemed unfit. From the 1920s until after World War II, the mentally handicapped were sometimes the subject of forced sterilizations due to American eugenics laws. In 1918, a U.S. Army doctor, Paul Popenoe, had suggested executing “defective” people to “keep up the standard of the race” according to George Mason University. Hitler seized these ideas, which had been funded by Americans like Andrew Carnegie and John Rockefeller, and began sterilizing German undesirables almost as soon as the Nazis came to power. In 1940, two years before the Final Solution for the Jews was formalized, the Germans began euthanizing – killing – the mentally retarded, the physically handicapped, and the mentally ill. Even today, the possibility of birth defects remains a main rationalization for abortion, a legacy of eugenics.

The Holocaust stands as one of the great tragedies of human history. Not only Jews, but other untermenschen and undesirables such as Slavs, gypsies, political prisoners and others were killed by the Nazis. The BBC estimates that the total number of civilians murdered by the Nazis was about 15 million over the 12 years of the “thousand year Reich’s” existence. Politifact estimates that there have been 50 million abortions in the U.S. since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973.

Perhaps the most positive thing that can be said about the Gosnell trial is that most Americans are shocked by the revelations about the U.S. abortion industry. When people are shocked by Gosnell’s behavior, they are not yet desensitized to the slaughter of innocents among us. When abortionists must cover their deeds with euphemisms, lies and a media blackout there is hope that the American public will become aware and angry enough to act.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List, said it best in a statement on the group’s website: “The few inches that separate a child in the womb from a child outside the womb should never determine whether its intentional ‘demise’ is permitted by law or whether a ‘right’ to kill it no longer exists.”

Originally published on Examiner:

 

http://www.examiner.com/list/kermit-gosnell-and-america-s-auschwitz

Abortion doctor guilty of killing babies

Kermit Gosnell, the Philadelphia abortionist who ran a little shop of horrors that churned out a steady stream of scarred and battered women along with untold numbers of dead babies, has been found guilty. Gosnell may be the first abortionist ever convicted of killing babies.

Gosnell was convicted on three counts of first degree murder for the killings of three babies born alive at his abortion clinic. After the babies were born, Gosnell cut their necks with scissors, a practice that was allegedly common in the clinic. Gosnell was also found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the drug overdose death of Karnamaya Mongar, an adult patient at the clinic. The jury found Gosnell not guilty in the case of a fourth baby’s murder.

Gosnell was also found guilty of a host of lesser charges. According to NBC Philadelphia, the guilty verdicts included an additional count of infanticide, two counts of conspiracy, 21 of 24 counts of abortion of an unborn child of 24 weeks or more and 208 of 227 counts of violating Pennsylvania’s informed consent of abortion law.

Prosecutors have indicated that they will seek the death penalty for Gosnell, who is 72 years old.

Yahoo News quotes a statement by Ilyse Hogue, chairman of NARAL Pro-Choice America as saying, “Now, let's make sure these women are vindicated by delivering what all women deserve: Access to the full range of health services including safe, high-quality and legal abortion care.” Hogue added that the verdict means that Gosnell will “get what he deserves.”

The revelations from the case about the late term abortion industry have sparked a growing debate that is causing some abortion supporters to reconsider their views. Examiner reported that a prominent blogger and a reporter covering the trial were among the people swayed by testimony about the killings that went on in Gosnell’s clinic.

Originally published on Examiner.
http://www.examiner.com/article/abortion-doctor-found-guilty-of-killing-babies

Abortion doctor trial is changing minds… in spite of press blackout

The trial of Kermit Gosnell has put abortion on display in America. This is in spite of mainstream media attempts to ignore the grisly story of Gosnell’s little shop of horrors in Philadelphia. Previously Examiner reported how Gosnell and his employees were responsible for the death of at least one woman at his clinic and caused serious damage to the health of others. While many of Gosnell’s victims were the women who came to him, they were only the tip of the iceberg.

The other victims of Gosnell and his employees were too numerous to count. Gosnell had worked as an abortionist since 1972. The grand jury report on Gosnell makes a conservative estimate that Gosnell did 25 abortions each night for three nights per week. That works out to an estimated 3,900 abortions per year or 148,200 abortions in the 38 years he practiced until his arrest in 2010. The take for Gosnell’s work was an estimated $1.8 million per year… most of it in cash. A search of Gosnell’s house turned up $240,000 in cash hidden in his daughter’s closet along with a gun.

Gosnell will never be punished for killing the majority of the 148,200 babies who died at his hands. Many were under the legal limit of 24 weeks in which abortions are permitted in Pennsylvania. For others, many of whom were older than 24 weeks, Gosnell apparently destroyed the records, although he recorded the age of hundreds of babies as “24.5 weeks,” just over Pennsylvania’s legal limit.

Seven babies bear mute testimony to the horrors of Gosnell’s “Women’s Medical Society.” Some of these babies were photographed by staff members after they were killed. Others were discovered in the office when police launched a drug raid in 2010. Police found fetal remains “in bags, milk jugs, orange juice cartons, and even in cat-food containers. Some fetal remains were in a refrigerator, others were frozen” according to the grand jury. Forty-five sets of fetal remains were discovered in the clinic. Gosnell admitted to detectives that “at least 10- to 20 percent” were older than 24 weeks. The medical examiner determined that two or three of the babies were viable. The seven babies that Gosnell is accused of murdering are referred to by the letters A through G since they never acquired names.

Baby Boy A was 18 to 19 inches long and weighed about six pounds when he was born alive in Gosnell’s clinic. In spite of the fact that the baby boy was breathing, Gosnell slit his neck and put the body in a shoebox. The baby continued to move. A neonatologist testified to the grand jury that this means that the baby was still alive and in “a tremendous amount of pain.” Several staff members took photographs of the baby because of its unusual size. The details in the photograph showed hair, a developed scrotum and other features that indicated a development of 32 weeks.

Baby C was delivered by one of Gosnell’s employees, Lynda Williams. After delivering the baby, Williams placed it on a counter while she tended to the mother. Baby C was moving and breathing for about 20 minutes. Williams played with Baby C according to testimony and then slit its neck. Williams is among several clinic workers to plead guilty to murder.

According to testimony, it was not uncommon for Gosnell to perform late term abortions on babies that were viable outside the womb. In many cases, babies were born alive, often because Gosnell would arrive late, and then be killed by Gosnell or his staff. Many of these babies could move or cry on their own. When babies were born at the clinic, Gosnell or other staff members would cut the baby’s spinal cord or slit its throat. Gosnell is reported to have preferred it when the babies were already born because it made his job easier. He often made jokes about the size of the babies that he had killed.

Gosnell flagrantly disregarded the law. In Pennsylvania, abortions must be performed prior to 24 weeks, but the grand jury report notes that Gosnell had a reputation as a doctor who would perform abortions “at any stage without regard for legal limits.” Gosnell also disregarded Pennsylvania’s 24 hour waiting period law, often performing abortions on the same day as the initial consultation “as long as the patient paid in full, typically in cash.”

The revelations of Gosnell’s killings have already changed the abortion debate. Roger Simon wrote in Pajamas Media how he and his wife were affected by the Philadelphia atrocities:

“Both lifelong ‘pro-choice’ people, after watching only seconds, we embarked in an immediate discussion of whether it was time to reconsider that view.  (Didn’t human life really begin at the moment of conception?  What other time?) Neither of us was comfortable as a ‘pro-choice’ advocate in the face of these horrifying revelations.  How could we be?”

It is an uncomfortable truth for pro-choice advocates that the legal line between a “fetus” and a baby is arbitrary and perilously thin. What Gosnell and his staff did is the logical extension of legal abortion where babies are dehumanized as inanimate growths in a woman’s body.

A number of prominent liberals made comments before Gosnell’s atrocities that come close to advocating his brand of post-birth abortion. Noted atheist Richard Dawkins said in a video clip available on Youtube that he could find no moral objection to infanticide on babies up to a year old. Princeton philosopher and bioethicist Peter Singer has written in support of after-birth abortions and infanticide for more than 20 years. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said in a televised congressional debate on CSPAN in 1996 that “I think when you bring your baby home, when your baby is born … the baby belongs to your family and has all the rights [of a person].” In 2001, then-Senator Barack Obama argued against a bill in Illinois that would have required abortionists to provide treatment for infants who were born alive during abortions. The audio of the session is on Youtube. A 2011 article in the Journal of Medical Ethics argued that after-birth abortion should be permitted, even when the newborn is not disabled. In March 2013, a Planned Parenthood lobbyist told the Florida legislature in a video on the Weekly Standard that if an infant was born alive during an abortion, the “decision [of whether to kill or seek treatment for the baby] should be between the patient and the health care provider.”

If support for infanticide is shocking, it is only separated by a degree from Gosnell’s crimes and that by a degree from legal abortion. Beyond all the euphemisms and carefully chosen words is the reality that abortion kills a living human being that, in many cases, would be viable to survive on its own. According to the law, it is legal to kill a baby up to the 24 weeks old as long as it is inside the mother, but if it is born, killing it is murder. The difference in abortion and infanticide is only a short trip through the birth canal.

JD Mullane, a Pennsylvania reporter and one of the few journalists covering the Gosnell trial, reconsidered his pro-choice views after hearing testimony at the trial. Mullane told Mike Huckabee, “Gosnell pulls the curtain back from the inherent violence of abortion. You can't sit in that courtroom and learn about what abortion does to the unborn child and to the woman in many cases … you can't sit there day after day and week after week and listen to that testimony and not be changed, and not have a change of heart, or at least reconsider your position.”

The idea that people will see abortion for what it is and reconsider is exactly what the pro-choice members of the media are afraid of. The Apostle John wrote, “Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed” (John 3:20). To put it in modern terms, “sunlight is the best disinfectant.”

Read for yourself about the crimes of Kermit Gosnell and the Women’s Medical Society. The grand jury report detailing the charges against Gosnell and the clinic workers is available online at:

http://www.phila.gov/districtattorney/pdfs/grandjurywomensmedical.pdf

 

Originally published on Examiner.com:

http://www.examiner.com/article/abortion-doc-trial-is-changing-minds-spite-of-media-blackout