Newtown's Big Tradition of Gun Rights

I wondered --- and others may have as well --- but what got into Nancy Lanza that she became such an unabashed lover of firearms? Perhaps one factor is the deep cultural tradition of gun ownership in Connecticut. The Los Angeles Times reports on the region's huge local defense of Second Amendment rights. See, "Newtown's firearms tradition clashes with gun-control push":

NEWTOWN, Conn. — When the wind blows a certain way across the tree-topped hills, Gary Bennett can stand in his yard and hear echoes of gunfire from his hunting club five miles away. The sound comforts him.

"It's a huge tradition here," said Bennett, a retired electrician and former president of the club, which helped defeat a proposal to tighten Newtown's gun ordinances in September. "I'd rather see more gun clubs come to town, training people with the use of firearms so that everyone's doing it safely."

Anguished families are still burying the 20 children and six women who were shot to death by a lone gunman last Friday just after the morning Pledge of Allegiance at Sandy Hook Elementary School. But a surprising local undercurrent has emerged: Many gun owners here say the slaughter has sharpened their view that guns alone aren't the problem.

"I wish that at that school somebody was armed," said Kuthair Habboush, a software engineer who keeps a weapon at home for protection. "If a security guard or a teacher or a principal had been armed, somebody could have taken the [killer] out" before his lethal rampage.

Firearms are deep in the culture of this corner of New England. Two of America's most storied weapons manufacturers, Colt and Winchester, were based in Connecticut. Some historians say the West was won in Hartford — the state capital and birthplace of the Colt revolvers favored by lawmen and outlaws alike beginning in the 1830s.

Today, dozens of gun dealers, gun instructors, gun repair shops and shooting ranges do a brisk business in Newtown and nearby cities and towns. Private hunting clubs are widespread, many with waiting lists for membership.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation, a powerful lobbying group for gun retailers, has its headquarters across the highway from Sandy Hook Elementary School.

"You'd be surprised," said Sean Eldridge, owner of Parker Gunsmithing, a gun repair shop in nearby Danbury, referring to his customers. "They're regular people and they have an arsenal in their basement."

That was the case with Nancy Lanza, a wealthy divorced mother who enjoyed jazz, craft beer and frequent visits to shooting ranges. She kept at least five weapons, all legally registered to her, in the large Colonial-style house she shared with her 20-year-old son, Adam.

Continue reading.

Actually, the Times' report was out last week, so it's not true that Newtown's still burying its dead. See the New York Times, "Newtown Mourns Last of Its Children Killed in Massacre."

Gun Sales Surge After Newtown

At the Jackson Clarion Ledger, "Gun sales spike, armored backpacks promoted after Newtown shootings."

And from CNN last night, an interesting segment:

More at Bloomberg, "Guns Out of Stock at Wal-Mart as Magazine Prices Surge on." (At Memeorandum.)

Mental Illness and the Gun Control Debate

A thought-provoking essay from Robert Leider, at the Wall Street Journal, "Breaking the Gun Control Stalemate."

Read it at the link.

It doesn't make sense for gun control proposals to ignore the history of mental illness in all the recent shooting massacres. If progressives go after guns without mental health reforms, they'll have no credibility. And mind you, I'm being charitable as it is. I'm taking the president at his word, and Senators Feinstein and Schumer. Democrats will go for a big play on firearms. Of course, confiscating guns is what the left's program is all about. They don't give a s*** about the mentally ill except as a hammer to beat opponents. Once they get their legislation going it'll be all about screwing the "evil" gun lobby.

But again, I think Leider's piece is interesting. I just doubt far-left partisans will be as rational about things.

Shameful Media Coverage of the Newtown Massacre

A Matt Lewis commentary, at The Week, "The media should be ashamed of its Connecticut coverage":

...transparent society demands reporting newsworthy incidents — and this definitely qualifies. But it should be done responsibly. And that is not what we have witnessed. We have instead a feeding frenzy that is all about beating the competition — not disseminating information.

It's about being first, beating other media outlets, and making a name for themselves. It's a ghoulish mentality that stokes controversy and violence — for business purposes. It's a sort of "if it bleeds it leads" mentality that causes cable networks to create logos and theme music for such tragic events (all the while, they feign maudlin concern and outrage.)

Come to think of it, the media is guilty of doing what they criticize big business for — putting money (in this case, ratings, newsstand sales, and web traffic) ahead of humanity and decency. Just as greedy businessmen put profit and personal gain ahead of ethics, so too do our media outlets.

More at that top link.

Also see Hugh Hewitt, at The Washington Examiner, "The Media Vultures Gather."

It's a big story, no doubt, marred by lots of erroneous reporting and more of the same ghoulish Democrat politicization that we've seen after all of the last mass shootings, from Tucson to Aurora. And of course President Never-Let-a-Crisis-Go-to-Waste will be up with some gun control legislation faster than you can say political exploitation.

Gun Violence and the Mentally Ill

From Rick Moran, at PJ Media, "Can We Keep Guns Out of the Hands of the Mentally Ill?"

And from Gabriella Rosen Kellerman, at the Atlantic, "Diagnosing Adam Lanza."

RELATED: From Robert Stacy McCain, "Criticism From a Friend: Can We Help Victims of Random Sarcasm Syndrome?"

Tim's Light Reading (12-15-2011): The Non-Western Mind, Politics And Intellectuals, The Psychology Of Terrorism, And The 1992 Affect

1. The Mind In The History Of Psychology: Contingency And Psychohistory

Josh Rothman of the Boston Globe's Brainiac blog considers (or rather ponders what two psychologists have considered on) the limitations and possibilities of theories of the mind contingent on whether psychology had developed outside of Western culture. Rothman's piece focuses on the various terms for mind around the world: maum, kokoro, dusa, etc.

This pointer drags up a thought that has been hovering on the edges of my consciousness in relation to USIH historiography. Are intellectual historians afraid of psychology? Except for Lasch and Hofstadter, who among recent intellectual historians has embraced, or embraces, a philosophy of history that deeply engages psychology? Is psychohistory a cultish swamp of historiography, like cliometrics? Or has psychological theory been banished to biography? If so, then I would think that USIH folks, with their penchant for biography, would be embracing psychological theory in trying to capture the essence of their particular persons.

2. The Moral Psychology of Terrorism

Speaking of psychology in recent history, the East Carolina University plans to hold a conference on the "Moral Psychology of Terrorism: Implications for Security" in April 2012. Here are the first few paragraphs from the CFP:

The terrorism of the past decade has been driven by the interface of psychology, morality, faith, religion, and politics. This modern terrorism reflects terrorists’ pursuit of their beliefs and even aggressive promotion of the exclusivity of their world-views at the expense of the lives of those who do not share them. In this sense, the act of terrorism is fueled by arguments of morality and views that are rooted in the psyches and beliefs of terrorists.

Recent terrorism, wherever it spreads, under the banner of major monotheistic religious traditions or Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism, brings into the forefront the need to better understand the moral psychology of terrorism. This need is more critical in the areas where youths might be recruited and socialized or ‘brain-washed’ by terrorist leaders. The heinous events committed by terrorists and sympathizers against the citizens of New York, London, Madrid, Bombay, and various cities of Pakistan and Afghanistan further emphasize the need to understand terrorists’ moral psychology.

3. Intellectuals And--Or In---Politics

The NYT's Stone weblog, which covers philosophy, recently featured a post by Gary Cutting, a philosophy professor at the University of Notre Dame, titled "Intellectuals and Politics." Cutting says he's going to discuss "the role of intellectuals in American politics," but I think he's really discussing the politics of real or purported intellectual lives among practicing, active politicians. Historians will typically wish, as I did, that the post had a few more concrete examples from a usable past---of traits, situations, and politicians whose work has gone wrong, or well, due to intellectual associations. Some of us appreciate the nuggets of truth in the maxim uttered by Henry St. John, Lord Viscount Bolingbroke: "History is philosophy teaching by examples." [In his Letters on the Study and Use of History, 1770, p. 14--or 15, depending on your version.]

4. The 1992 Affect

Writing for Vanity Fair, Kurt Andersen argues that the cultural landscape of 2011 is really just a sorry echo of the affections of 1992. We're consuming and recycling the past rather than creating anew (a consequence of hip-hop sampling?*). You might say that we're more Kurt Cobain than Kurt Vile, Kurt Busch, or Kurt Angle. ...Yes, these are my lame attempts at present-day pop culture obscurity. Anyway, here are the first two paragraphs of Andersen's intriguing analysis:

The past is a foreign country. Only 20 years ago the World Wide Web was an obscure academic thingamajig. All personal computers were fancy stand-alone typewriters and calculators that showed only text (but no newspapers or magazines), played no video or music, offered no products to buy. E-mail (a new coinage) and cell phones were still novelties. Personal music players required cassettes or CDs. Nobody had seen a computer-animated feature film or computer-generated scenes with live actors, and DVDs didn’t exist. The human genome hadn’t been decoded, genetically modified food didn’t exist, and functional M.R.I. was a brand-new experimental research technique. Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden had never been mentioned in The New York Times. China’s economy was less than one-eighth of its current size. CNN was the only general-interest cable news channel. Moderate Republicans occupied the White House and ran the Senate’s G.O.P. caucus.

Since 1992, as the technological miracles and wonders have propagated and the political economy has transformed, the world has become radically and profoundly new. (And then there’s the miraculous drop in violent crime in the United States, by half.) Here is what’s odd: during these same 20 years, the appearance of the world (computers, TVs, telephones, and music players aside) has changed hardly at all, less than it did during any 20-year period for at least a century. The past is a foreign country, but the recent past—the 00s, the 90s, even a lot of the 80s—looks almost identical to the present. This is the First Great Paradox of Contemporary Cultural History.

And here's Andersen's explanation behind the phenomenon:

Why is this happening? In some large measure, I think, it’s an unconscious collective reaction to all the profound nonstop newness we’re experiencing on the tech and geopolitical and economic fronts. People have a limited capacity to embrace flux and strangeness and dissatisfaction, and right now we’re maxed out. So as the Web and artificially intelligent smartphones and the rise of China and 9/11 and the winners-take-all American economy and the Great Recession disrupt and transform our lives and hopes and dreams, we are clinging as never before to the familiar in matters of style and culture.

Fun. Let me know what you think. - TL

* Andersen covers this: "And in pop music, thanks to sampling, even the last genuinely new form, hip-hop, made an explicit and unapologetic point of recycling earlier songs." ...Yes, indeed, I posted this article for your consumption before having read every word of it---I liked it that much.

"My Psychopharmacologist and I"

I'm planning on doing a section on psychiatry and psychology in the United States for my US Intellectual History survey in the spring. I haven't decided yet whether to make it a theme that we touch on a few times throughout the semester or whether it should be a separate week or two. My plan right now is to start with James, move to Terrible Honesty and Freud in America, then show a Woody Allen film (probably Annie Hall), then talk about the current debate over the effectiveness of anti-depressants (there is a nice opinion piece with responses in last week's NY Times). The title of this post comes from an amazing musical titled Next To Normal that is about a woman with bipolar disorder and the weight of her disease on her family. I'll probably play the song "My Psychopharmacologist and I" for the students. I agree more with the New York Times opinion piece about the importance and effectiveness of pharmacology and psychiatry, but I find the emotions of Next to Normal intensely powerful. The lyrics are after the jump:



DAN
Who's crazy, the husband or wife?
Who's crazy to live their whole life
Believing that somehow things aren't as bazaar as they are?

Who's crazy, the one who can't cope?
Or maybe, the one who'll still hope?
The one who sees doctors or the one who just waits in the car?

And I was a wild twenty-five,
And I loved a wife so alive.
But now I believe I would settle for one who can drive.

DR. MADDEN
...The round blue ones with food, but not with the oblong white ones.
The white ones with the round yellow ones, but not with the trapezoidal green ones.
Split the green ones into thirds with a tiny chisel, use a mortar and pestle to grind…

DIANA
My psychopharmacologist and I.
It's like an odd romance:
Intense and very intimate, we do our dance.

My psychopharmacologist and I.
Call it a lover's game.
He knows my deepest secrets.
I know his... name!

And though he'll never hold me
He'll always take my calls.
It's truly like he told me
Without a little lift, the ballerina falls.

CAST
Do doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo.

DR. MADDEN
Goodman, Diana: Bipolar depressive with delusional episodes.
Sixteen year history of medication.
Adjustment after one week.

DIANA
I've got less anxiety but I have headaches, blurry vision, and I can't feel my toes.

CAST
Ahh, ahh, ahh, ahh.

DR. MADDEN
So we'll try again. Eventually, we'll get it right.

DIANA
Not a very exact science, is it?

CAST
Zoloft and Paxil and Buspar and Xanex, Depacon, Chronaphin, Ambien, Prozac,
Ativan calms me when I see the bills.
These are a few of my favorite pills.

DIANA
Ooh, Thank you, doctor, Valium is my favorite color. How'd you know?

DR. MADDEN
Goodman, Diana: Second adjustment after three weeks.
Delusions less frequent, but depressive state worse.

DIANA
I'm nauseous and I'm constipated, completely lost my appetite and gained six pounds, which, you know, is just not fair.

CAST
May cause the following side effects, one or more:
Dizziness, drowsiness, sexual dysfunction,

GROUP 1
Headaches and tremors, nightmares and seizures.

GROUP 2
(unknown), constipation, nervous laughter, palpitations,

BOTH
Anxiousness, anger, exhaustion, insomnia, irritability,
Nausea, vomiting,

DIANA
Odd and alarming sexual feelings

CAST
OH! And one last thing:
Use may be fatal.
Use may be fatal.
Use may be fatal.

DR. MADDEN
Goodman, Diana: Third adjustment after five weeks.
Reports continue: mild anxiety and some lingering depression.

DIANA
I now can't feel my fingers or my toes. I sweat profusely for no reason.
Fortunately, I have absolutely no desire for sex.
Although, whether that's the medicine or the marriage is anybody's guess.

DR. MADDEN
I'm sure it's the medicine.

DIANA
Oh, thank you, that's very sweet, but my husband's waiting in the car.

DAN
Who's crazy, the one who's half gone?
Or maybe, the one who holds on?
Remembering when she was twenty, and brilliant and bold.
And I was so young, and so dumb.
And now I am old.

DAN
And she was wicked and wired.
The sex was simply inspired.
Now there's no sex, she's depressed
And me, I'm just tired, tired, tired, tired
Who’s crazy
The one who’s uncured
Or maybe the one who’s implored
The one who has treatment, or the one who just deals with the pain

DIANA
And though he'll never hold me
He'll always taken my calls
It's truly like he told me
Without a lift the ballerina falls.
My psychopharmacologist and I...
He’s at every sight I lie
Without you I die
My psychopharmacologist and I


DAN
They say love is blind...
But believe me, love is insane.

DR. MADDEN
Goodman, Diana: Seven weeks.

DIANA
I don't feel like myself. I mean, I don't feel anything.

DR. MADDEN
Hm. Patient stable.


**Picture from the NY Times Review of Next to Normal

"My Psychopharmacologist and I"

I'm planning on doing a section on psychiatry and psychology in the United States for my US Intellectual History survey in the spring. I haven't decided yet whether to make it a theme that we touch on a few times throughout the semester or whether it should be a separate week or two. My plan right now is to start with James, move to Terrible Honesty and Freud in America, then show a Woody Allen film (probably Annie Hall), then talk about the current debate over the effectiveness of anti-depressants (there is a nice opinion piece with responses in last week's NY Times). The title of this post comes from an amazing musical titled Next To Normal that is about a woman with bipolar disorder and the weight of her disease on her family. I'll probably play the song "My Psychopharmacologist and I" for the students. I agree more with the New York Times opinion piece about the importance and effectiveness of pharmacology and psychiatry, but I find the emotions of Next to Normal intensely powerful. The lyrics are after the jump:



DAN
Who's crazy, the husband or wife?
Who's crazy to live their whole life
Believing that somehow things aren't as bazaar as they are?

Who's crazy, the one who can't cope?
Or maybe, the one who'll still hope?
The one who sees doctors or the one who just waits in the car?

And I was a wild twenty-five,
And I loved a wife so alive.
But now I believe I would settle for one who can drive.

DR. MADDEN
...The round blue ones with food, but not with the oblong white ones.
The white ones with the round yellow ones, but not with the trapezoidal green ones.
Split the green ones into thirds with a tiny chisel, use a mortar and pestle to grind…

DIANA
My psychopharmacologist and I.
It's like an odd romance:
Intense and very intimate, we do our dance.

My psychopharmacologist and I.
Call it a lover's game.
He knows my deepest secrets.
I know his... name!

And though he'll never hold me
He'll always take my calls.
It's truly like he told me
Without a little lift, the ballerina falls.

CAST
Do doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo.

DR. MADDEN
Goodman, Diana: Bipolar depressive with delusional episodes.
Sixteen year history of medication.
Adjustment after one week.

DIANA
I've got less anxiety but I have headaches, blurry vision, and I can't feel my toes.

CAST
Ahh, ahh, ahh, ahh.

DR. MADDEN
So we'll try again. Eventually, we'll get it right.

DIANA
Not a very exact science, is it?

CAST
Zoloft and Paxil and Buspar and Xanex, Depacon, Chronaphin, Ambien, Prozac,
Ativan calms me when I see the bills.
These are a few of my favorite pills.

DIANA
Ooh, Thank you, doctor, Valium is my favorite color. How'd you know?

DR. MADDEN
Goodman, Diana: Second adjustment after three weeks.
Delusions less frequent, but depressive state worse.

DIANA
I'm nauseous and I'm constipated, completely lost my appetite and gained six pounds, which, you know, is just not fair.

CAST
May cause the following side effects, one or more:
Dizziness, drowsiness, sexual dysfunction,

GROUP 1
Headaches and tremors, nightmares and seizures.

GROUP 2
(unknown), constipation, nervous laughter, palpitations,

BOTH
Anxiousness, anger, exhaustion, insomnia, irritability,
Nausea, vomiting,

DIANA
Odd and alarming sexual feelings

CAST
OH! And one last thing:
Use may be fatal.
Use may be fatal.
Use may be fatal.

DR. MADDEN
Goodman, Diana: Third adjustment after five weeks.
Reports continue: mild anxiety and some lingering depression.

DIANA
I now can't feel my fingers or my toes. I sweat profusely for no reason.
Fortunately, I have absolutely no desire for sex.
Although, whether that's the medicine or the marriage is anybody's guess.

DR. MADDEN
I'm sure it's the medicine.

DIANA
Oh, thank you, that's very sweet, but my husband's waiting in the car.

DAN
Who's crazy, the one who's half gone?
Or maybe, the one who holds on?
Remembering when she was twenty, and brilliant and bold.
And I was so young, and so dumb.
And now I am old.

DAN
And she was wicked and wired.
The sex was simply inspired.
Now there's no sex, she's depressed
And me, I'm just tired, tired, tired, tired
Who’s crazy
The one who’s uncured
Or maybe the one who’s implored
The one who has treatment, or the one who just deals with the pain

DIANA
And though he'll never hold me
He'll always taken my calls
It's truly like he told me
Without a lift the ballerina falls.
My psychopharmacologist and I...
He’s at every sight I lie
Without you I die
My psychopharmacologist and I


DAN
They say love is blind...
But believe me, love is insane.

DR. MADDEN
Goodman, Diana: Seven weeks.

DIANA
I don't feel like myself. I mean, I don't feel anything.

DR. MADDEN
Hm. Patient stable.


**Picture from the NY Times Review of Next to Normal