GeorgiaDon

I rather suspect that the number being floated around is disingenuous. Perhaps if you took the cost of the plane, salaries for the crew, and all the associated expenses for the year, and divided that number by the number of hours the plane is in the air, you'd arrive at $181,000/hr. But that way of calculating things is deceitful. Should the pilots and other crew get paid only for the hours they are flying, or should they be paid a salary so they are available at all times? Should the President be flown around by hourly wage workers? Where would such pilots and aircrew come from, some temp agency? How do you get a plane like Af1 on a by-the-hour charge? Don't you pretty much have to buy the plane if you want to retrofit it with all the communications and security gear? Can you point us to an accounting of that $181,000/hr that shows that that is an expenditure over and above the salaries of the crew and security staff, and the cost of the plane, all costs that would still have to be paid even if the plane is sitting on the tarmac? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Maybe. Do you habitually "just know" that people are dickheads based on something they may or may not have done? Can you also read minds about other things too? That must be really cool. Hey, maybe you could be a "professional jury"; no need for testimony, evidence, all that time-and-money-wasting BS. Just ask Muff, he always knows exactly what happened. You could save the judicial system a fortune! Get rich too, just charge 10% of the cost of a full trial for your services. You get paid, the courts save money, everybody's happy, right? Well, except maybe the guy on trial, but who gives a shit about him. If somebody says he's guilty, maybe puts something on the internet, well then it's a foregone conclusion, right? Any response to Bill's point that the family could have had the guy charged with assault, if their story is true? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

If true, the guy was a dickhead. Can anybody verify the story? If the part about the guy leaving the mountain in an ambulance and requiring surgery for a torn rotator cuff is true (and there certainly should be a paper trail to confirm or refute that), how do we reconcile the injury with the alleged behavior? Maybe the guy was a dick. I don't know, I wasn't there. Neither was anybody who has responded to the story in this forum. I think it's sad that anyone would allow themselves to be led to a conclusion (the guy is a dick) based on a one-sided presentation of an obviously biased and self-serving uncorroborated story. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I don't know what allows them to do this, maybe it varies by state? All I know is from only 2 sources, the highly biased piece in the first post, which is taken verbatim from the PR attack launched by the parents, and the more neutral news story linked by Arvoitus. In the latter, it says that after his surgery the plaintiff was told by his insurance that he would have to go to the kid's family for compensation. From this I infer that he had insurance, but they told him to go after the other party instead, which suggests that they denied his claim. My only interest in this whole thing (which is about exhausted) is the ease with which supposedly intelligent people allow themselves to be led around like lemmings on a leash by unsubstantiated, obviously one-sided internet shit-stirring. It doesn't help that the story plays to two inherent biases that most people have: lawsuits are only filed by assholes who are looking to get rich, and kids are by default seen as "blameless". I really wonder about the ability of people on average to 1) read, 2) comprehend, and 3) to think critically. Are they this gullible in real life, or just on the internet? Have they no interest in finding out what the actual facts of the matter are before jumping to conclusions? Unfortunately I guess the answer to those questions is all too apparent. No wonder politicians (of all stripes) are able to get away with the crap they pull off. Religious leaders too. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

- dislocated shoulder - a massive rotator cuff tear Yeap, Internet superhero much? I did miss that detail. In that case, I would have just let my medical insurance take care of it rather than make a little kid's life a living hell. Besides, he's the one that made the sudden turn into the kid's path, so the guy fucked up, not the kid. Apparently reading/comprehension is not your strong suit. His insurance company refused to pay and told him he'd have to go after the kid's family (who was insured by the way). It is also the responsibility of the uphill skier to stay clear of the downhill person. If the person coming from uphill cannot avoid the collision, they were aiming to pass too close to the downhill person. From your comment, I assume you have little experience skiing. If you are going to ski in control you have to look where you are going, which is downhill. If you are always looking behind (uphill) you aren't looking where you are going, and then you are very likely to crash at best, or run into an obstacle such as another person at worst. When you are coming up on another skier you have to assume they may turn or even stop; few people have the skill or desire to bomb straight down the hill without turning to avoid obstacles, bumps, or just to maintain a comfortable speed. For that reason you always give the downhill person a wide berth. Very much like the reason the low jumper has the right of way. If you get hit from above by someone pulling a 360 in traffic, would you say "oh my bad for being in the way"? I don't know how severe this accident was, or if the person suing is exaggerating their damages. Maybe he's being a dick, I don't know. But, he did get an ambulance ride and surgery out of the deal, and his insurance put him in the position of paying out of pocket or going after the person who is responsible for the collision. Legally the age of the uphill skier is irrelevant. If there is a "dick" in this, I tend to think it's the guys medical insurance for telling him he needed to go after the kid. It would be better if Colorado had a law like the Ohio law I cited above, so the insurance company would not be able to tell him it's not their problem. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Thanks for the explanation. I'd suspected something like that might be the case, but went with the guess that made lawyers look worse. My bad. I hope you, and all the SC regulars and irregulars, have a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2013. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

One thing that struck me as odd when I did a google search for skiing accident lawsuits, is that most of the suits were for $75,000, the same amount as in this case. Seems unlikely that 70-80% of skiing accidents would cause precisely $75,000 worth of damage (or $50,000 + lawyers fees). Seems more like a number that makes the case worth taking for the lawyers. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Been there, done that. They do grow up eventually, though. I guess you are a lot more cynical about the process than I am. Since we vote for these people and send them to office, at some level we ("the ones who will pay the costs") are not disconnected from the office holders. To the extent that there is a problem, it is self-inflicted. If we didn't allow politics to be such a contact sport, and if we chose people based on reflective consideration of their policies and qualifications rather than superficial sound bites or depth of the purse backing them, maybe we'd get better results. I'd love to get rid of the party system altogether, but I don't see that happening. Whose money should they be playing with? Who would ever run for office, if the only source of revenue for the government was the personal bank accounts of the elected politicians? It would be far beyond the scope of this thread, but some day I'd be curious to see a list of the activities that you think are legitimate for the Federal government. Is there even one thing that they do that you could support, or agree to pay taxes to support? I suspect that for most people (not you), they actually enjoy the myriad services the government provides. They just don't think they should have to pay for them. Who should pay? Well, somebody else. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Anyway, maybe Colorado should have a statute like this one from Ohio: “Like most ski states, Ohio has a ski statute (Ohio Rev. Code Ann. §4169.01 et seq.) which mandates that all skiers expressly assume the inherent risks of the sport and cannot recover for injuries sustained from those inherent risks,” notes David B. Cronheim, chief legal correspondent for First Tracks!! Online. “The court in this case found that the defendant’s actions were not reckless or intentional and that a collision between two skiers was an inherent risk of skiing. As an inherent risk, the plaintiff was not entitled to recovery. " With a law like this, the plaintiff's insurance company would have had to pay up as they wouldn't have been able to tell their client he needed to go after the kid's family to be compensated for his medical bills. Indeed, it would be nice to have laws like this to indemnify all sorts of facilities that have some inherent element of risk, such as water parks and drop zones. Imagine, no need for 30 pages of waiver, just a simple law that says "if you choose to do risky stuff you're responsible". Actually, Georgia has such a law for equestrian activities, so they could do it for DZs. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

You read it again. The family of the kid says this, well what else would you expect? Must it be true because somebody put it on the internet? The family admits at least that the kid ran over the older guy's skis and they BOTH fell down. Sounds like a collision to me. If you're moving on skis and someone runs over them and stops them from moving your body will continue forward and you're going to fall. Why was the kid passing so close to the guy that they were unable to avoid a collision if the guy turned or stopped? You give a driving story as an analogy, though I don't see the similarity. How about this. You're driving on a road that is four lanes wide, with an empty lane on either side of you. The guy in front of you slows so you apply the brakes, and someone behind you runs into you. They didn't go around, though they had room on either side, and they were too close/going too fast to stop in time. Would your response be "that's OK, don't worry about repairing my car or my medical bills or the month I'll miss from work"? Do you think the police will ticket you for slowing down, or the other guy for following too close? If the guy refuses to pay for the damage he did, would it make you a dickhead if you were to sue him? How does that fit with your concept of "personal responsibility"? Doesn't everyone know that there is risk associated with driving? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I am quite aware of that. I am also aware of the culture of not suing, and the reasons for it, and I would abide by that. I am also aware that the community, and DZs, almost always try to promote a culture of safety. Jumpers who make a habit of landing against the pattern, or who throw 360s in traffic, can expect a visit from the DZO and the S&TA. Anyone who decides to repack their pilot chute on the way to altitude with the door open can expect to have a loooong vacation from jumping. If I don't think safety is a priority at one DZ I can go to another where it is a priority. Also, when jumpers are injured the community often chips in to help. None of these things apply to the same extent on a ski hill. While I agree with this, I also think that "personal responsibility" goes beyond covering my own ass, and extends to taking responsibility for harm I may have caused to others through recklessness or negligence. Do you disagree? If you did something really stupid, and as a result seriously injured another jumper, would you really just wash your hands of it and say "sucks to be you" to the other guy? How does that further "personal responsibility"? Interesting that you write "barring gross negligence". What is gross negligence? Some would give the DZO a free pass if the plane crashed because they had failed to perform mandatory inspections, or had intentionally disabled a piece of equipment and so allowed the carburetor to freeze. Others would classify avoiding FAA mandated inspections as "gross negligence". Years ago I jumped with a fellow who was critically injured when several lines tore from his reserve; he lived but broke more bones than I knew we have, and will never jump again or even move without severe pain. When he learned that there had been other virtually identical incidents on that reserve, some fatal, and it was known for months that there was a problem with the stitching that caused lines to rip free from the canopy when it was deployed, yet the manufacturer failed to recall the reserves or even issue a service bulletin, he sued the manufacturer (not the DZ, not the plane manufacturer, only the reserve manufacturer). He was greatly criticized for violating the culture of "don't sue". Yet, doesn't "personal responsibility" in our sport include responsibility to meet basic safety or quality standards? If not, if people can do things like sell defective equipment and then when they find out there is a problem not bother to warn people their life is at risk, then the code of don't sue/personal responsibility can endanger our sport, by shielding people from their responsibility for extreme reckless behavior and encouraging them to do it again. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

That's pretty cool. Still hard to see anyone hauling a washing machine full of tannerite into a classroom and setting it off while the class just sits there. "Just here to do my laundry, kids." Plus, how would you go from room to room blowing them up that way? Any thoughts on my speculations re terrorists vs school shooters? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Except I never assumed anyone is a "dickhead", and certainly didn't call them that. All I said is that it's not unreasonable for this to go to arbitration, which seemed to be the plan (a hearing before a magistrate, not a jury trial) before the settlement was reached. One side says the older guy picked up the kid, shook him and cursed at him. The other side says the older guy was taken away by ambulance and had to have surgery on his shoulder. I would assume there would be a record of the ambulance bill, and medical records of the repairs done in the surgery, so it might be possible to reach a reasonable idea of whose story is more credible. Perhaps that has something to do with why a settlement was reached? In re-reading the first post I see the settlement was reached by the insurance company representing the kid's family, so they did have insurance. Good on them. So they are complaining about the time they had to spend on depositions, and lost work time. And the "moral outrage" they feel that little Johnny has to pay attention to people and not run over them. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I thought the "fiscal cliff" was intended to be a position that was so draconian that it would force the committee to come up with an alternative plan. Except of course that underestimated the power of entrenched suspicion and love of power. Don Yep. But nonetheless a compromise. Haven't compromises brought us here in the first place? Are compromises universally bad? Do you always dictate how to spend your free days, does your (reportedly) hotter-than-the-sun wife always dictate, or do you sometimes discuss and agree on things you both want to do? Politics is a human interaction, not quantum physics that operates according to invariant formulas, and mutual respect (compromise sometimes, or at least collaboration) is important for the long term success of any human interaction. Any cuts or tax increases are inherently political in nature; what is a boondoggle to one person is an essential service to another. Unless one party has a supermajority and can impose its will on the other, there will have to be (and should be) give and take concerning how to achieve goals in reducing deficit spending. The problem, it seems to me, has not been that one side is willing to give a little credence to the other. It has been that neither side has (until now, hopefully) seen any political mileage to be gained in actually cutting spending, as opposed to talking a big show but voting for unfunded wars and pet projects. As long as the parties can agree to a significant cut in deficit spending as a goalpost, I'm fine with give-and-take about how they actually get there. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I thought the "fiscal cliff" was intended to be a position that was so draconian that it would force the committee to come up with an alternative plan. Except of course that underestimated the power of entrenched suspicion and love of power. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Were you there and witnessed the accident? Perhaps you should contact the court so you can be called to testify? Or perhaps, have you been sucked in by uncritically swallowing hook line and sinker the one-sided self-serving propaganda dished out by this family? I don't know what happened, but the uphill skier has a duty to see and avoid the downhill person. If the skier coming from above runs into the lower skier because that person stopped or turned, they were aiming too close to them and skiing beyond their ability to control their trajectory and avoid the collision. As for the alleged altercation, no witnesses have been produced so it's one person's word against the other. On what basis do you assume the guy who was run into is a "dickhead"? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I signed a waiver at every DZ I have jumped at, so I explicitly make a voluntary choice about whether or not to sign away my rights. I have never been asked to sign such a waiver when skiing. The lift ticket has some small print on the back that says that the lift operator isn't responsible if I run into a tree, or off a cliff, or into a pole; basically they are not responsible for my lack of skill or poor judgement. That's fine, if I tackle moguls beyond my skill or ski out of bounds that's on me and no-one else. That does not give me license to run over people, spear them with my pole, or run them into the fence as I wish. Why are you opposed to having people take responsibility for their actions? Do you mean to suggest that as a general principle when people behave in a reckless manner and cause injury to people or damage to their property they should never be required to fix the mess they made? Somehow I guess I misunderstood that you were an advocate of "personal responsibility". I never would have guessed you were really a fan of "somebody else should pay for my personal irresponsibility". Live and learn I guess. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Not so easy. One must have a license to purchase dynamite or other explosives, and one must have gone through training and certification to get that license. Purchases of large quantities of ammonium nitrate are tracked and reported to homeland security. In the Bath School bombing the perp (who certainly seems to have been a complete psycho) worked as an electrical contractor at the school, which allowed him free access to the building for months, during which time he planted the explosives throughout the basement. While it is certainly true that he used a weapon other than a gun to kill a lot of kids, that was facilitated by his unique ability to access the school basement repeatedly for a long time without oversight. It's hard (for me at least) to imagine Adam Lanza storming the school while carrying a thousand pounds of dynamite, wiring it all up, and setting it off in the span of 6 or 7 minutes. Another thing I wonder about but have not seen discussed relates to the motivation of these mass shooters and their choice of method. Terrorists and mass shooters both want to kill a lot of people, but their reasons differ and so does the choice of method, it seems to me. Terrorists don't necessarily want to see their victims die, but mass shooters do. A bomb (a la the Oklahoma City bombing) can bring down a building and kill lots of people, including kids in the daycare, but when it went off McVeigh was far away, endeavoring to escape. For McVeigh the killing was remote and impersonal, almost an abstract concept, as politics is an abstract concept. People who shoot up theaters, malls, or schools have to aim and squeeze the trigger, for each and every victim, so they have to make a deliberate choice for each victim and they see directly the consequence of that choice. If they just wanted to kill a bunch of people a bomb would do the job, but instead they choose a method that makes each victim personal. Almost like the perp is keeping score or something, and certainly reflecting a different type of anger than the terrorist does with their bomb. So maybe (and this is obviously speculation) the argument that if school shooters couldn't get guns they would just use bombs or poison or something else is missing a big part of what motivates these people. Maybe the point is not simply to kill a lot of people, but to kill them in a way that allows the killer to see and "enjoy" each and every kill. If that is true, then guns fill the need nicely and other methods of mass killing do not, so maybe they would not simply turn to other methods. Just a thought. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

So yet another system of "let everybody else cover my ass?" Gee. Think stuff is expensive now, just wait until it's free. In the article Arvoitus linked, it says that the injured fellow was told by his insurance company to contact the family of the kid to arrange compensation for his medical costs. So the guy actually does have insurance, but it seems that insurance does not want to pay to cover the accident when they can pass the costs to some other party. Apparently no-one is disputing that the kid knocked the guy down. One consequence of the way medical insurance is structured in the US is that insurance companies have a huge incentive to limit costs (and increase profits) by using every possible excuse to deny claims. In this case, the injured guy had insurance, but was told by his insurance company that he would have to get the other party in the accident to pay. Does anybody think it is reasonable to expect that you will not only have to pay for insurance, but also have (in this case) $75,000 lying around just in case someone injures you, in order to be able to spend a day skiing? Arvoitus didn't say anything about "let everybody else cover my ass". Under single-payer systems, or systems where there are multiple insurers and everyone must carry insurance, everyone is insured and "can just walk into a hospital and get taken care of". People still have to pay for the insurance, through premiums or taxes depending on the system, and they know it. When my family in Canada speaks of "free health care" they simply mean "no out-of-pocket expenses that aren't already covered by what I pay in Provincial sales and income taxes". People often use shorthand phrases to cover more nuanced concepts, rather than spell out every detail, as a way to make conversation possible. All my family in Canada are well aware that health care is not free, as they are very aware of the taxes and OHIP premiums they have to pay and they know that medical costs are a very large fraction of the budget in every province. "Let everyone else cover my ass" is an American phenomenon, where it is possible for someone to avoid paying for health insurance, knowing they will still be treated if they are injured. In Canada, it is impossible to avoid paying provincial sales taxes, which are the primary means of paying for the health care system, so no one gets a "free ride". As far as the lawsuit is concerned, there seems to be agreement that the kid was uphill and ran into the downhill guy. There are conflicting claims about whether the downhill guy turned or stopped suddenly and the kid couldn't avoid knocking him down. I can see an argument that it's irrelevant if the guy turned or stopped, it's the responsibility of the one coming from uphill to stay clear. If I'm driving and the guy in front stops and I run into him, I'll be the one getting the ticket. There is also some dispute about whether or not the downhill guy got mad at the kid; the kid makes one claim, the guy who got run into another, and there are no neutral witnesses. Assuming that the medical costs are real and caused by the accident, this seems to me to be a legitimate case to bring before the court. It's irrelevant that the kid was 7 years old, if he caused the injury. I've seen very young kids with advanced skiing/snowboarding skills but little concern for other skiers on the slopes. The family of the kid has certainly launched an effective PR campaign to avoid dealing with their responsibility. It's a shame they didn't have a similar level of energy to motivate them to make sure they had some form of liability insurance. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I'm not saying if this allegation is true or not, or that I agree with it if it is true (actually, I don't), but isn't Facebook a private company that can do as it pleases wrt content? Do they have a stated policy regarding posting such comments, that subscribers agree to when they sign up? If not, then there may be a problem for them. If there is such a policy, and people have violated that policy, well if you don't like the policy use a different social media vehicle. We can't post jokes about pedophilia on Dropzone.com; I'm not saying that is the same as what Facebook is allegedly doing but if one wanted to one could accuse Sangrio of censorship. Too bad, it's his site and he can set the rules. Same for Facebook. Is MySpace still alive? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

OK, let's try a different tact here. What specific things about Adam Lanza, which existed before the school shooting, would you see as appropriate reason to take away 2nd amendment rights in any and all people who showed such behavior. Should all socially withdraw people be barred from access to guns? All people who were ever home schooled? (Remember Adam Lanza was 20 and had completed college level courses, so he wasn't currently being home schooled). What symptoms did Lanza display that would justify the police coming into your house and taking your guns if you had those symptoms? Again hindsight is 20-20, but here we are talking about foresight. What did Adam Lanza do that was such a strong predictor of what he was going to do in that school that you would feel comfortable taking a constitution right from anyone with similar behavior? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

What would stop this lawsuit craziness is if juries would stop awarding damages where none are warranted, and if insurance companies would stop "settling" so many frivolous claims because it is cheaper to settle than to fight. That's short term thinking that just encourages more frivolous lawsuits. Just like the situation with our politicians, where we get the ones we vote for, we "the people" have inflicted this lawsuit situation on ourselves by so often awarding "something" to undeserving plaintiffs for no better reason than that the "big corporation/doctor/school district/whatever" can afford it. If lawsuits were about actual restitution for actual damages, and not about "winning the lottery", there would be no incentive to take frivolous cases to court. Some limits on "punitive damages" would also make sense, I think, as long as there is also some criminal sanctions for reckless behavior that causes harm to others. If a company behaves in a manner that causes harm, and that harm was foreseeable, then company officials (i.e. real people) who approved that decision should stand trial. Awarding triple damages or whatever to the victim just encourages lawsuits over trivial matters, and it may not discourage the behavior if the damages are cheaper for the company than the cost of doing things safely, especially if monetary damages are passed on to shareholders who were not responsible for the reckless behavior. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Your list reads like 97% of the people who post in speaker's corner. Also a high percentage of the people on the real drop zone, considering the abundance of type A personalities in skydiving. There is no correlation between Asperger's and violent criminal activity, except perhaps that people with Asperger's are considerably less likely to be associated with violent crime. Also, Asperger's is a development disorder, not a mental illness. People with Asperger's syndrome don't hear voices telling them to do things, or have other symptoms of mental illness such as paranoia. If you disqualify someone from their 2nd amendment rights because of Aspberger's, logically you should also disqualify anyone who has ever been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, dyslexia, or left-handedness. Same thing for people who have ever intentionally cut/burned themselves (a common behavior in teenagers), or who have an eating disorder (anorexia or obesity) indicative of "mental illness". It's curious that you find unattributed comments from an anonymous "friend" of Nancy Lanza to be credible, but you suspect the Newtown police of lying about the gun that was found in the car. No doubt you think I'm picking on you, but really I'm just taking issue with all the speculation and post-hoc "reasoning" that is going on all over about this incident. I suppose it's natural enough, as people want to "make sense" of what happened and are impatient to wait for "the facts". Indeed we will probably never know exactly why Adam Lanza chose to do what he did, which will certainly be unsatisfying. It's always easy, but rarely accurate and fair, to "connect the dots" in hindsight and claim that the event should have been easily foreseen. Then people go on to propose laws to "fix the problem", often before they actually know the real facts. Some claim it is obvious that access to guns is the problem, and want to ban that. Others claim that Adam Lanza was an obvious loon that anybody can see should never have been allowed in the same household as guns. One path leads to restricting 2nd amendment right for everybody. The other leads to removing such rights from millions of people who have done nothing wrong, but are only socially awkward, or have common non-violent problems such as depression. Is that path any better? In a way, this is all much like the discussion in the Incidents forum before the actual facts of an accident come out. Some want to ban swooping, some to put size limits on canopies, without knowing if those things will solve the problem, or make new and worse problems. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

First, a quick google search (theater shooting San Antonio) does reveal that it was covered by numerous news outlets including some main-stream media. Second, this wasn't a shooting that targeted a theater, it sounds a lot more like the run-of-the-mill gun violence that happens multitudes of times every day and is so pervasive that only local media cover it. The shooting began in a nearby China Garden, then continued into the parking lot and eventually the theater. Not at all the same as the Aurora incident. Does the San Antonio news cover every shooting in Atlanta? Does it at least cover those that happen near a shopping mall, like out in the parking lot or on a nearby street? Of course not. Lessons? If you shoot at a police car you'll attract some attention? If you actually plan to target a theater, don't come in through the main entrance where security is stationed? Good job by the cop, who was "off duty" but it seems was working a second job as security detail. That is common practice around here. One aside that is perhaps interesting. In my city, a couple of years ago, an off-duty cop (who happened to be a friend of the family) was working security at a grocery store when she was attacked by a guy who used a butcher knife he got from the store. She suffered critical injuries and survived only thanks to an ER nurse who was shopping, and the fact that the store was just down the street from the hospital so she was able to be attended to very quickly. Here is the interesting thing: her police-department sponsored health insurance refused to pay for any of her medical costs, because they were sustained while she was working at a non-police-department job. Of course everyone who works these second jobs as security just assumes their work-sponsored medical insurance will cover them, but that is not the case. Friends spent about a year holding fund raisers, and I don't know if that covered all her bills, but I suspect not. Four months in the hospital, and another almost a year in a rehab center learning how to walk and hold a spoon all over again, adds up to pretty hefty bills. She is back on the force now, after a 2 1/2 year "vacation". Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

One down, how many to go? How many churches are there? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)