News Anchor & Her Camera Man Shot, Killed.

[DramatistDreamer]

After each senseless tragedy, I grow more weary because the media discusses gun violence as a result of mental illness or just plain venomous hatred in a way that stratifies everyone while providing absolutely no serious or sensible solutions. 

All we ever do is tread water until the next abominable tragedy.  Looking for the dead gunman's motives serves little value as it will not prevent the next tragedy from occurring.  Making it more difficult for just anybody to own a gun may have but having a serious thorough discussion is practically verboten in this country.  Would less guns prevent all shooting deaths from occurring?  Of course not, but it may put the U.S. more in line with other industrialized countries instead of resembling something out of the Wild West chronicles.

This Flanagan guy who had more alternate names than the cast of most TV shows, obviously was a troubled person who probably had a lot of mental disorders that perhaps got worse over time and environment.  I doubt his problems just happened over office politics and racism.  Lots of us (myself included) have experienced discrimination, prejudice and sexism and racism (I've experienced all of the above) but Flanagan's response was not that of a rational human being, it was the response of a truly sick mind.

 

This is a cynical thing to say but I'm waiting for the NRA to make some excuse or blame the reporters for not being fully armed during location reporting.  I'm also waiting for the inevitable canned response from the Republican Presidential candidates. 

 

After the piss poor Congressional response in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre, I don't expect much of anything in the way of sensible action to prevent the next spate of gun deaths.

I truly feel for the families of those journalists and hope they can somehow find peace at some point.  They were only in their 20s.

[ReddFoxx]

Jeb Bush was asked about the tragedy, but he didn't really bother to answer, saying that he had to go to lunch. Apparently, lunch was more important.

[MissLlanviewPA]

That's pretty common after shootings, though. After Columbine, the season 3 finale of Buffy was postponed (although Canada somehow wound up broadcasting it as scheduled anyway), that's happened before.

 

Chubbuck's family received the footage after her suicide, so if it wasn't destroyed, someone in her family most likely has it. There is a great documentary on Budd Dwyer called Honest Man, which included interviews with his widow and kids, and it showed both the speech he made beforehand and the shooting, uncensored. I had to turn away when they got to that part. What makes it worse is that Central Pennsylvania had been hit by a bad snowstorm that day, which means that there were several children home from school who witnessed it, and a few PA stations showed it uncensored during their evening newscasts.

 

Alison was only two years younger than me. Adam was a year older than me.

[DRW50]

I wasn't saying taking the episode off was uncommon - I was saying that the sight of reporters being gunned down like that (in the US at least) was uncommon.

[alphanguy74]

The other countries mentioned that have lower gun violence also have universal health care, which means easy access to treatment for mental illness. I think that plays an important part, too.

[DaytimeFan]

God dammit how many more people need to die before the United States restricts weapons?

[cassadine1991]

She just celebrated her birthday few days before her life was senselessly taken away

[MissLlanviewPA]

Oh okay, gotcha. That's definitely not common at all.

[alphanguy74]

Many people have said that if it didn't happen after Sandy Hook, then it won't happen ever. My personal opinion is that licensing, and banning of all semi autos which hold 10 rounds or more is perfectly reasonable. Handguns are an issue, too, because they can be concealed easily. This is speaking as someone who doesn't own a handgun, but a self loading 22 rimfire rifle made in 1947. Of course, the other side of the coin is most people who want a total gun ban, are people who live a bougie existence and don't need one, really.

[Khan]

I'd laugh if he hadn't been so clearly insane.

 

(Also, "working in the field" -- unless I've missed the context, that's terminology most, if not all, journalists use to describe getting the stories.  So, he was insane AND he was overly sensitive.)

 

Thanks, Carl and Vee, for this information.  It doesn't help me make sense of Flanagan's actions (nothing ever will) but at least I, and maybe a few others, have more of the facts.

 

[quartermainefan]

I think Republicans will see this as a call for more guns, and then as a free commercial for guns.   What can be better for republiicans than seeing people shot live on TV?  That's what they live for and orgasm over.   This just show hows effective guns are and why we all should have one.    If a school of kids won't convince these maniacs to restrict guns, the pay per view airing of two adults being killed won't move anyone. 

 

As long as people vote republican people will die from guns.  If you want to see more people shot on live TV, vote for your nearest conservative.

[SFK]

Peel and peel away the layers, and at the kernel, no one needs a gun.  Not for hunting, not for scaring away varmints, not for killing people, not for protecting ourselves from killers.  It's all about the choices we make, motivated by anything like convenience, protection i.e. fear, hobby, twisted desire...  I wish the bad guys didn't have them so the good guys wouldn't feel the need to have them but that's enough Karen MacKenzie Pollyanna out of me for one day.

[alphanguy74]

Yes, some people do need guns...it's something urban people simply cannot grasp, and don't want to.  This article is very good and insightful at laying all that out.

 

http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/america-has-lost-the-war-against-guns-1726676145

[dragonflies]

Too many. The NRA has Congress in it's back pocket and I don't think that's going to change any time soon

[alphanguy74]

You also have a huge amount of the populace that is not willing to give up any ground. this is one issue where drug dealers in the ghetto and rednecks in trailer parks agree, neither one is willing to give up their fire power.