The two recent emails from John Farnam below are well worth reading.
-Gary
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10 Aug 12
Church shootings? Nothing new:
On Sunday, 30 June 1985, a deadly shooting rampage took place at the First Chinese Baptist Church, located in the Chinatown District of Los Angeles,CA.
A disgruntled, former member of the church, armed with a handgun (1911) and several spare magazines, showed up just minutes before the morning worship service was about to begin. He walked up the aisle and immediately murdered the church’s senior deacon, an assistant pastor, and one parishioner. Two victims were dead at the scene. The third died that evening at a nearby hospital. All shots were to the head at contact distance or nearly so.
There were 350 other worshipers seated in the sanctuary that Sunday morning, among whom was an off-duty Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy, Donald Leverence, who was attending with several friends.
The perpetrator, Dang Bong Jow, described by church officials who knew him personally as ’emotionally disturbed,’ was then shot and killed by the heroic deputy, who, using his service pistol, stood up in his pew and fatally wounded Jow.
Jow was DRT. Leverence was unhurt.
Jow had abruptly left the Church several years before, after being divorced. His estranged wife and their children continued to attend. There was some speculation that Jow was looking for her, but she was not in the sanctuary at the time.
There was also speculation that Jow would have continued firing at worshipers until he ran out of ammunition, had not our dauntless deputy gunned him down. Or, Jow may have planned on committing suicide in front of the congregation. Of course, we’ll never know. In any event, the Deputy cut short his rampage!
As is the case with more recent violent incidents in churches, the only thing that stops rampaging murderers, now called “active-shooters” (when using guns, not sure what they’re called when using knives, bludgeons, machetes, et al), is good men and women, who carry guns on a regular basis, who happen to be there, and who are willing and prepared to defend the innocent.
Nothing else- not all the conspicuously-placed signs, interminable ordinances, endless CCTV cameras (connected to monitors that no one watches), and maudlin speeches by mayors and assorted other politicians we can muster, seems to deter active murderers in the slightest.
Imagine that!
“Our most persistent delusion is that evil is curable through legislation”
TB Reed
/John (John S. Farnam)
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11 Aug 12
Insane? This from a friend in the medical system:
“Milos Forman’s 1975 feature film, ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,’ starring Jack Nicholson, based on Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel of the same title, made a clever and passionate case against in-patient care for the chronically mentally-ill.
That side of the argument eventually prevailed!
Mass murders of the innocent are nothing new, as pointed-out in your last Quip, but they are more frequent today than forty years ago, and the reason has nothing to do with guns!
Nearly every wanton murderer currently in the headlines is insane, practically by definition. After the fact, it invariably comes out that everyone around them, particularly immediate family, knew full well they were insane. But, there was little anyone could do.
Here’s why:
Forty years ago, this society collectively decided that in-patient care for the chronically mentally ill was not cool, an attitude reflected in the above-noted film. Thus, mental hospitals, and what used to be called ‘insane asylums,’ were, one by one, shut down. Residents who could conceivably be treated as out-patients (and many who couldn’t!) were unceremoniously jettisoned into the street to fend for themselves. The cynical euphemism was ‘main-streaming.’ Many, probably most, joined the ranks of the ‘homeless,’ as families, in many cases, wanted nothing to do with them. Some did rejoin their families, but subsequently received little in the way of professional care and treatment.
‘Neighborhood clinics’ that were supposed to assist them, for the most part, never materialized.
Most among the chronically mentally-ill never commit violent crimes, but among them there are a few extremely dangerous lunatics, and they are at large in our society. They used to be called ‘criminally insane,’ although we’re not allowed to use that term any more. And, there is no mechanism in place for even monitoring them.
In fact, it has been said that the Cook County Jail in Chicago, and the LA County Jail in CA, are in direct competition for the dubious title of ‘world’s largest insane asylum!’
So, as a society, we’re currently suffering from this forty-year-old mistake. We do need mental hospitals after all, as does every civilization! The chronically mentally-ill will be with us, in one form or another, no matter what we do, or don’t do. There needs to be places where their families can send them for treatment. The only other choice, in many cases, is to abandon them, and that is currently the fate of many.
Pretending they are not there has not worked out well, as we see!”
Comment: At the risk of repeating myself, as a taxpayer I don’t like paying for mental hospitals, any more than I like paying for jails and prisons. However, as we’re learned, and continue to painfully re-learn, it is ultimately money well spent!
/John (John S. Farnam)
