In the face of such horror all I can do is pray. Please pray.
Twenty-seven people are dead including 14 children after a gunman opened fire at an elementary school in Newtown, CBS News reports.
Officials say the gunman was also killed and apparently had two guns. It happened around 9:40 a.m. Friday at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
At least three people were injured, two children and an adult. All three were taken to Danbury Hospital. Their conditions are not known.
An 8-year-old student told CBS 2′s Lou Young he was on his way to the school’s office when he saw the gunman.
“I saw some of the bullets going down the hall and then a teacher pulled me into her classroom,” he said.
December 14, 2012 at 8:32 pm
I think it is not symptomatic of any country but may involve mental illness in that he killed his mother ( a teacher there) along with her students and seems to have killed his brother in Hoboken prior to arriving at the school. If it reflects on a nation, it might be in relation to how we deal with mental illness. These are not contract killers who are doing these things but rather are emotionally disturbed people partly bent on suicide as part of what they are doing.
December 14, 2012 at 9:21 pm
Guns are not the problem here. Atheism, materialism, Secularism and entitlement is what the country's issues are. Law abiding citizens will not benefit from gun control. Bad guys will be bad guys and will find a way to break the law. Here's a hint to you progressives: a federal law will not prevent someone from bringing a gun into school. There's a storm coming and it's rumblings are being heard from a distance. So precious few want to hear it.
December 14, 2012 at 10:41 pm
On CNN at 5:30 PM was an excellent psychiatrist who gave a brief history of how legislation built up for decades protecting people from being forced into psychiatric care. But she noted, we are now paying the price and she was sure the shooter's family knew he was dangerous and could do nothing under the law to force him into care or psychiatric custody. Her advice to society was to allow psychiatrists, not just judges and lawyers, more leeway as to confining or treating coercively those with serious problems. The subway train killing last week was another killer who should not have been on the streets.
December 14, 2012 at 11:28 pm
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and make perpetual Light to shine upon them.
December 15, 2012 at 3:21 am
"Honor thy father and mother" The fourth Commandment. There are many mentally ill people who do not kill. He would not have become a murderer if he had God to cling to. "…deliver us from evil."
December 15, 2012 at 3:51 am
Add that to the other 3,200 American children executed today and you have 3,226 dead kids for Dec 14.
God bless America.
December 15, 2012 at 4:08 am
The hypocrisy is yes, the President expressed his sorrow for the loss of these 'beautiful little kids' – at the same time he advocates and forces tax-payers to fund the murders of thousands of beautiful little pre-born children
ebery single day.
God, have mercy.
December 15, 2012 at 1:35 pm
I support ** and whart in their views. It is surreal to hear newscasters saying things like "today a tabu was broken–the slaughter of the most vulnerable in our society". What about the slaugher of the unborn on a daily basis! Why is Bryan Williams not outraged about that too. The Culture of Death prevails and will continue to prevail. Note: Wikipedia refuses to allow an entry for the "Culture of Death". Doesn't mesh with their liberal agenda. Doesn't exist folks, nothing to see here…
December 15, 2012 at 1:41 pm
All newscasters are stuggling to describe the enormity of what happened in Sandy Hook. "Culture of Death" would be a very handy term to describe what is happening in these mass shootings that occur with heartbreaking regularity. Blessed JP II, pray for us, pray that we will embrace your prescient term "Culture of Death", because that is what this society has created in the deaths of all the slain everywhere–in smarmy abortion clinics via vacuuming of body parts, by salinization, or by the blowing out of brains with guns in movie theatres, in shopping malls, etc.
December 15, 2012 at 4:11 pm
Mary, while it's true that there are a lot of mentally ill folks who don't kill, some do. These folks are so sick they have no comprehension of the nature of their crime. That's why for hundreds of years when a person was discovered to be mentally ill at the time of the crime, the verdict would be 'not guilty by reason of insanity". These folks were then sent to an insane asylum for many years or life depending on how severe the illness was.
December 15, 2012 at 8:49 pm
The main reason one is held "not guilty by reason of insanity" is various forms of psychosis. People with those conditions are divorced from reality, so they may be dangerous, through no fault of their own—they may kill to defend themselves from threats that aren't actually, y' know, happening.
This guy, however, was almost certainly not one of those kinds of mentally ill—only a very narrow category of mental illnesses meet the legal definition of "insanity". He seems to have had Asperger's, which involves some impaired socialization but has no effect on one's moral sense. Legally the guy was perfectly sane.
December 16, 2012 at 3:23 am
SF, I did a google search on Asperger's and I found out that there's a controversy about Asperger victims real culpability in criminal behavior going on in the legal and medical profession. So the verdict isn't in for either of or viewpoints yet.
December 16, 2012 at 6:30 am
There was Aspergers Syndrome 50, 100 years ago and plenty of guns, but no one ever went into a school and shot to death 20 schoolchildren. We live in a culture steeped in degradation and violence. Domestic violence, video games, abortion, pornography–all part of the culture of death and there are some personality types who embrace that culture–there are NO SANCTIONS against all of the above. When children in the womb are considered part of the human race and not disposable at the tune of 3200 children per day, then the healing will begin and not a moment before.
December 16, 2012 at 2:23 pm
RF, there may have been Asperger's Syndrome 100 years ago, but it wasn't described or discovered until the 1930's. As far as violence by the same, somebody with the syndrome's signs and symptoms 100 years ago probably would have been locked away in an insane asylum as a schizophrenic, as a child,long before he could have access to guns, for AS can mimic some of the signs and symptoms of that disorder.
December 16, 2012 at 8:47 pm
Bath, Michigan 1927
Cologne Germany 1964
Ma'alot Israel 1974
While I don't disagree with you re the culture of death, it is incorrect to say that this didn't happen in the past. Moreover, school violence was a tremedous problem in the 1800's – it just happened on a smaller scale with not as much publicity as there is now.
December 16, 2012 at 9:09 pm
Steve "scotju" Dalton: There is a possibility of devil possession, which will also bring a verdict of not guilty by reason of devil possession. Our problem is that with atheism not accepting God, the devil too, has been ignored. Adam Lanza's devil possession may have included his mother. I agree with Redfeather. Until the state takes a positive stand on our unalienable rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, the search for TRUTH, and return the Supreme Sovereign Being and virtue to the public square, there can be no healing.
December 17, 2012 at 11:38 pm
Beate, could you please fill us in on school violence in the 1800's?
December 18, 2012 at 12:00 am
MDV, I don't deny the posssibility of demonic possession, but right now, we don't know enough about Lanza and his mother to make such a judgement. All the facts we have available point to a unsuccessfully treated mental disorder as the primary cause of the tragedy.
Redfeather is incorrect. Lunatics and madmen have been committing shocking and savage acts of violence since the world began. While the culture of death may make things worst, as long as the human race is subject to the entropy that has existed since Adam's fall, IOW, you know what happens.
December 27, 2012 at 10:44 pm
Sorry Steve, I'm a rare visitor 😉 There is an interesting book called Violence in Schools: Cross-National and Cross-Cultural Perspectives. You can find an excerpt on Google.