The TRUTH(?) About the Connecticut Shootings

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You don't then, as an American citizen, feel in any way responsible for what the USA does?

You don't feel the need to express grief/sympathy with the families who have lost children to American drone strikes because what the USA, your country, your elected representatives, does has nothing to do with you? Whereas what one lone American male does is somehow your concern, just because he is on the autism spectrum like you ... or just because you are afraid of what people will think of you because of it?

I can understand why you might feel the need to apologise for a family member's acts, I think, if I felt that I had been in any way a cause of that family member behaving in that way, ( as their mother for example ), but don't understand why you feel responsible for what Adam Lanza, a total stranger to you, did, but not for what your country does.

I have felt uneasy on a few occasions about living in a country which does x, y and z, but feel powerless to change what it does ... and unable/unwilling to make the sacrifices necessary to find and move to another country whose politics/actions I feel happier with. Luckily I live in France, ( since leaving UK in 1998 ) and have less to "apologise" for than some, because French foreign policy is on the whole a lot less aggressive and destructive than that of the USA for instance, or the UK.

But I feel sad and sorry on a regular basis, and also somewhat guilty about, the way in which various European powers have behaved and still do, in the Middle East and Africa for example.

I don't think that expressing sympathy with Sandy Hook's grieving families because you want to prove that Autists are capable of empathy shows much empathy myself. :lol

I think that it actually looks as if you do believe that autism *was* responsible for Adam Lanza's acts and/or are simply afraid of the backlash, which is self-interested and not a very attractive reason for offering sympathy.

And it is in pretending otherwise, ( that your "empathy" is *not* almost purely self-interested "performance" ) that you end up unfortunately *looking* racist, because if your defensive fear/desire to show that autists are "actually ok" is *not* a factor there is no more reason for you to sympathise with the victims' families in Sandy Hook than those in Afghanistan ... except their whiteness and/or American citizenship.
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As I said on page 3 of this thread:

I stumbled across a very interesting article today examining/exploring a similar idea, about how significant it is that 61 out of 62 mass killing in the USA have been carried out by white males, and how little attention is paid to this: imagine that 61 out of the 62 massacres had been carried out by women and see how weird it is? And how this almost certainly has something to do with the construction of masculine identity in the West, and the way in which American identity, the ultimate model for most men, has become increasingly bound up with foreign military action, with its self-created role of "the world's policeman" going after perceived threats etc.

http://www.alternet.org/gender/what-it- ... paging=off


Adam Lanza's behaviour, this entire event, is in fact highly political; the intersection between the USA's profoundly dysfunctional "identity/self-image" and associated foreign policy and middle-class-white-masculine identity and sexual politics.

PS. It occurs to me that perhaps I understand something of how and why someone on the spectrum might get caught up in/swept up by extremely stereotypical sexual/gender-identity-acting-out/role models ... having alternately almost slavishly submitted to and then fought against the various rules and requirements of social construction of "femininity", rules which I saw in black and white, and took quite literally, being especially disabled by the overriding one for women in our society of "selfconsciousness", in the same way as Adam Lanza may have taken literally the "rules" of masculine identity in our society/the USA in particular, especially the militaristic/violent element.
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Last edited by ouinon on 19 Dec 2012, 5:02 am, edited 1 time in total.

I have found in the past that sometimes people react with hostility when it's pointed out that the number of deaths caused by the American invasion of Afghanistan far exceeded the number of deaths caused by 9/11, and that the vast majority of those who died had nothing to do with any terrorist action. I did and still do find the invasion of Afghanistan a reprehensible act of bloody revenge, not a war that needed to be fought to protect American sovereignty (as it has been presented).

I do not see any logical reason to not offer some kind of sympathy to the families of the victims, as this is unquestionably a horrible and traumatic event, but I do not see the point of getting emotionally upset about how others react to it. My own emotional response is fairly mild, and mostly a matter of frustration that this keeps happening and people who should not have died that day are dead, and that every single time the US circles exactly the same discussion without ever touching on the necessary topics we absolute must address if we're ever going to deal with spree killings. It's always "too early" to discuss stricter gun control, but it's never too early for anyone to discuss and even petition the US government to preemptively profile mentally ill people as potentially dangerous. And somehow people forget to mention that mental illness means it is far more likely that one is targeted for violence than one perpetrates it. Or that a tiny minority of mentally ill people have actually gone on spree killings.

That's aside from the rush in the media to label the perpetrator with something followed by commentary on that something, which is usually Asperger's Syndrome. At this point, if I do not see the perpetrator's medical records or the diagnosis is not a matter of record in a court of law, then I am going to simply disbelieve it.

This page discusses gun death statistics: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2 ... xperience/

If outrage is necessary over the Sandy Hook shootings, then outrage really should be necessary every single day in the US. The sheer death toll due to firearms in the US is extremely high and senselessly tragic.

Interesting posts, ouinon.

I'd also add that the US society's almost obsession of people "succeeding" to some ideal (social, educational and vocational), that people push their children to be; the same thing is purveyed with parents of autistic children who feel that people like Temple Grandin and Bill Gates give them comfort in that it's possible for people with autism to be like them, to have fame and money and a "normal" life. The same thing is on Facebook, it's in school (not just bullying), it's in social life, it's on TV, it's on YouTube, and all of this points to someone possibly feeling like a failure, especially when they're isolated and on the edge of life, looking at it from the outside.

Throw in an emotionally and socially disabled person who sees everyone around him working towards this ideal, and his parents, siblings, and greater society as a whole, still having expectations of this, and said disabled person feeling "useless" and with no hope.... Throw in the glorification of the military life and its actions (both good and bad), as you point out, some other emotional turmoil, and...bang. Literally.

This is far closer to the real reason for why these things happen (still rare, but you know).

Verdandi,

The US doesn't really have a much higher murder rate than most places (4 per 100,000; Oz and UK are 1 per the same). Sure, lots of people are killed by firearms each year, but that's just a means; you need to look at the actual murder rate and compare it to other countries to get an accurate picture.

When you do this, you find that firearm availability actually has little impact (see Switzerland in comparison to South Africa, for example).

It's a social problem.

There are many places that are higher, but the US does not have the same murder rate as Australia and the UK. The US is 5.22 per 100,000, Australia is 1.23 per 100,000, and the UK is 1.57 per 100,000, at least in 2008. Per this: http://chartsbin.com/view/1454

China is 1.21
India is 2.77
Most of Europe is below 2.00, and many are below 1.00. Norway, as the nation in which Breivik had his spree, is .64. Switzerland, as far as nations that allow gun ownership are concerned, is a statistical outlier and really should not be used as a demonstration of how relatively unrestricted firearm ownership does not lead to a higher homicide rate.

The wiki actually makes it look worse for the US:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... death_rate

In that list, the US has 9.2 per 100,000 as compared to the UK's .25 and Australia's 1.05.

I can't find a source that says the US' murder rate is similar to the UK and Australia. The Wiki list puts the US at #12 in the world, after El Salvador, Jamaica, Honduras, Guatemala, Swaziland, Colombia, Brazil, Panama, Mexico, Philippines, and South Africa. Many of these nations tend to be troubled for various reasons.

The US has a higher murder rate than most of the world.



Switzerland is unusual in many ways. For example, many people own guns, but few have ammunition in their homes. The way guns are handled there is not comparable to how they are handled in the US. For example, much of this has to do with being in the national militia, coupled with training in the use of firearms, strict control of ammunition and conversion of automatic weapons into single shot varieties once one is no longer enrolled.

The question is, does the greater availability of firearms per that 100,000 justify the higher murder rate at this time, say 5 per 100,000 for the US (it's sometimes reported around 4) in comparison to 1 per 100,000 in Oz* or the UK? Would it be a cause? Would it be less if the firearm laws were similar to the UK and Oz?

As you say, lots of countries with high murder rates and low firearm availability (legally) are "troubled", but is the US "troubled"?

I agree that Switzerland is unique; all individuals in the militia are given a genuine Assault Rifle or a defensive pistol, but they're allowed to use them freely for personal use (the ammunition supplied by the government isn't a part of this personal use). Why do they have such a small murder rate in comparison to the US (5 times more likely to be murdered in the US than there, just like in comparison to the UK and Oz). I think it's more to do with the actual society itself.

*For Oz, the murder rate has stayed the same since the greater restrictions; murders by firearms have gone down, but murders by other means have risen so as to equal it out.

There's something else going on here.

(I'm excluding suicides, because that's been shown to have little effect. Look at Japan.)

Also, just say the entire reason that the US has 4 more murders per 100,000 people than Oz is due to firearm legislation (which wouldn't be correct). It is enough to make legislation on? 5 per 100,000 isn't much different to 1 per 100,000 for the common person, even if it is five times more likely.

Last edited by Dillogic on 19 Dec 2012, 5:49 am, edited 1 time in total.

Reading the article again, and paying more attention to the time span of the mass murders listed: http://www.alternet.org/gender/what-it- ... paging=off

It is possible in fact that all these men, mainly white middle-class men, who over the last 30 years have carried out 61 of the 62 mass murders, are the USA's "vehicule"/medium for a form of self-punishment/penitence/flagellation for its "sins" abroad.

Perhaps Adam Lanza was driven, unconsciously, ( or perhaps not ), as a "failed" member of the group which most corresponds to American identity, still that of the white-middle-class-male, to express the country's suppressed guilt for all the killings of innocents that it carries out overseas, by taking out some of its own innocents in unconscious reparation or punishment ...

And perhaps "failed"/disturbed young white middle-class men ( hyper-invested in and/or brainwashed by/extra-vulnerable to the model of American masculinity ) will carry on doing this for as long as the USA continues to kill so many innocents overseas ...
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Regarding men,

Yep, it's men.

I think that's is more likely due to male's innate desire to lash out at others over that of female's which is the cause (hormonal), in addition to a society that fosters a complex based on glorification of violence; the appropriate* way to lash out when one feels that there's nothing left is by making this violence, exerting it onto others. It's how they feel success.

*It's everywhere in media

Luckily, only so few go this way, but I can see it becoming worst and worst over the years in regards to frequency.

This story is interesting.

Interesting in that it says non-firearm related murders didn't increase. I recall reading that it did increase when I researched it for a criminology/criminal justice class when using official data straight from the various state police agencies. I'll have to look that up again. They're wrong regarding suicide though; it's been thought to be other factors (such as awareness of depression); got that one straight from a textbook near me.

The latest study says:



This latest one seems to be regarded as the most accurate, as a few of those prior were biased for or against (lobby groups on either side), whereas the latter group wanted to provide an impartial and accurate view. This one actually shows that murder by firearms didn't actually fall (which is new to me; I recall that it did fall a little in my research. Though reading their methodology, I can see why it hasn't actually fallen in their study. I think though that they need several more years to get an entirely accurate view).

What are the numbers for robbery, assault and rape?

Those are three crimes that often aren't discussed in terms of guns saving vs guns taking lives.

You can change the subject all you want. I'm not getting involved in your agenda. Period.

I'm frankly sick of people crapping on gestures of kindness just because they don't fit into their own political agendas.

I'm not apologizing for my actions just because they aren't enough for you.

If these issues are so all fired important to you, why are you wasting your time crapping on other's well intentioned efforts? Go do something to support your own agenda, instead of this. This doesn't help your cause. All it does is put an unfavorable light on you.

If I believed that your threads really were about "kindness" I would probably not have felt the need to comment in this way on them, but as I have now said a couple of times I think that they seem more like self-interested ingratiating self-protective anxious attempts to ward off/preempt a backlash against people on the autism spectrum, ( because of Adam Lanza's being referred to as Aspergers ), to "prove" that we are in fact capable of empathy.
I'm sorry if this looks as if I "have an agenda". I just dislike pretence/fake sympathy etc v much and what it often, by omission, ends up looking like ( unjustified preferences/favouring of certain groups of people ).

What does your sympathy with the victims' families of Sandy Hook *feel* like?

It doesn't look v real to me from where I am, but perhaps that's because of all the ways in which you have "framed it" with arguments about proving people wrong, proving that we are capable of empathy, worrying about the consequences of people believing that Adam Lanza is on the spectrum, implying that your interest is based on the sort of "responsibility" you feel as a fellow aspie, as if autism was/may actually have been an important factor, etc, etc etc.

Don't understand why you think that I have an agenda. But having read a few more of the other threads on WP about this whole event/issue I am beginning to understand just how scared a lot of people on the spectrum ( and their families ) are about the backlash against us that this may cause, and was v aware of this when seeing my son's formteacher about something else the day before yesterday she told me that he had been held back for a couple of minutes at the end of a class a couple of weeks ago now, for apparently threatening to cut the sweatshirt of one of two fellow students who have been regularly teasing him in a particular class. Luckily the teachers all like my son, ( he's a model pupil :lol ... so far ... ) and understood that he had no intention of genuinely cutting someone's sweatshirt and had simply been expressing how annoyed he was by these two ( known troublemaker ) students' behaviour to him ... but ... I thought of Adam Lanza and wondered if any of the teachers, or students, had made a connection ... and how this might express itself. ...

Do you really genuinely believe that your threads are about/expressing kindness or even empathy? They look more like calculated and insecurity/fear-driven "performances/appearances" of sympathy to me.
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I gave genuine condolences to all those affected by this sad tragedy. I cried a bit. So yeah, I know I'm not the only one too, many members here have children of our own. And I'm not just being a show pony for others, no 'forced' sorrow. That might be the case with you, but I am genuinely very sad right now.

ouinon, I think what you are doing here is lack of theory of mind [duh]
many people are really really hurting right now
[even if you are not because of aspergers syndrome]
you really need to grasp that dude,
if you expect NT to show sympathy for the autistic condition
you can start by showing some sympathy for theirs
especially at this juncture in time

Yes, I realise that I may have trouble understanding others' feelings because of being on the spectrum, for instance it is only just dawning on me how scared people are that this will negatively affect attitudes to/beliefs about and treatment of/behaviour towards people on the spectrum, as I said above.

But about feeling sad about this particular massacre ... if I felt sad about every senseless killing/death reported in the media I would feel sad all the time, unendingly sad. ... [ Ed. In fact I think I do. ]

I generally just feel anger that people kill others, innocent others, etc. And occasionally I feel specially sad about a particular death or tragedy; I cried massively on hearing about the Twin Towers for example, and when Princess Diana died. But I would not create or post on a thread expressing sympathy with victims of any such incident because if one why not *all* the other "less popular" tragedies, the unreported/less visible, the thousands of children dying faceless, unnamed, etc?

I don't understand the reasons for a special thread about these particular deaths, here on WP, as if it has something especially to do with us, people on the spectrum, more than the deaths of hundreds in factory fires, or recent tornadoes, or in Afghanistan, Africa, the Middle East etc. That's all. I really really do not get why special threads have been created about this particular event and not about all the other mass killings or deaths occurring constantly around the world ... except in so far as it represents insecurity and fear of backlash and/or feelings of misplaced responsibility for Adam Lanza's actions, etc as I've already said.

Would a thread about the constant continuing deaths of children in Afghanistan get stickied?
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