[cpbell0033944]

Profile of the shooter in the NY Times.

That has to be one of the most frightening things I have ever read.  Even so, thanks for posting it.  I can't pretend it gets me any closer to understanding why, but will anyone ever truly know the answer?  I doubt it.

[Lingster]

That has to be one of the most frightening things I have ever read.  Even so, thanks for posting it.  I can't pretend it gets me any closer to understanding why, but will anyone ever truly know the answer?  I doubt it.

Seems like he was just born crazy and mean.

[cpbell0033944]

Here's an article that provides a different perspective on things.

http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=123346&ran=30837

[Lingster]

Somebody named a kid "Truman Capone"?

[cpbell0033944]

Somebody named a kid "Truman Capone"?

Exactly!  Doesn't it also refer to Capone as being "she"? 😮

[AlexG]

Read this yesterday in the Chicago Sunday Sun-Times, thought I'd pass it along.

Source: Mark Steyn On-Line

http://www.suntimes.com/news/steyn/351710,CST-EDT-STEYN22.article

“I like a good story well told. That is the reason I am sometimes forced to tell them myself.”
~ Mark Twain / Samuel Clemens (1907)

[ze fly]

First, sincere condolences for this tragedy. As for the debate on weapons' control. Being european, my opinion is of course biaised: here guns are for hunting, firearms are reserved to the police (or gangsters) and machine-guns for the soldiers (and gangsters). So i won't judge a country I don't know, even if i say to myself: why do they believe so much in fire power??

Louisiana was a French colony acquired after the formation of the United States.  It has parishes, not counties, and its state law is more strongly influenced by French and Napoleonic code than English common law, which the other 49 use as the basis for their civil code.  Its citizens are highly tolerant of political corruption, and large government projects there typically suffer enormous waste from corruption.

Glad to see we let a part of our country there…  :-

That's interesting, Lingster: whilst I knew of Louisiana being French originally (I presume New Orleans was once called Nouveau Orleans with an acute accent over the "e" in "Orleans")

In fact, it was Nouvelle-Orléans

the upside is that we don't feel the need to pass judgment on other peoples around the world, a failing to which Europeans often succumb. 
It seems that the practical outcome of the recent phenomenon of European multiculturalism is that Europeans are not allowed to hate and disparage anyone but Americans.  And you spend quite a bit of time doing that.  .

Yet you US citizens weren't very tender with us, poor french cowards… (which we are not, we are only lazy and selfish) 😛

More evidence of British perfidy.

"Perfide Albion" Remember Crecy!! (1346). Well, in fact, its a disguised way to not raise prices: you reduce the quantity of product instead of increasing the price of the merchandise…

I'm getting a little tired of you acting all 'superior' to Americans. 

Well, we french aren't so ostracizing toward you, since we despise ALL other countries… Germans are obtuse, Swiss are slow, Italians are thieves, Spanish are lazy, portuguese are dirty, belgians are dumb, Dutch are stingy and english are… well english. ::) And we french, well all above!! (except english god help us…)
You know why we chose the rooster as national symbol? because that's the only bird which sings with the fett deep in shit… ;D

In the U.S. we would have given Tony Martin a medal, not a prison term.

Here in France, it would be considered homicide, even if unintentional. And the guy would have suspended sentence at least or worse, depends the facts.
Instead of self-defense, our courts believe in proportional response: you can't shoot a man only because he is in your house…
I've got that example: some time ago, a guy caught burglars in the act into his house,  but they weren't armed and ran away. The guy pursued them in the street and shot both of them in the back. Is it still self-defense: I think not…

Well, thanks anyway for all of you for the history and geographic lessons. That was very interesting.  😉
As far as for the psychological profile of the murderer… I remember that some time after Colombine, reporters said that there were obvious signs that they were potent murderers and that the police did all wrong and so that the disaster could have been avoided. That's so easy after to say that… "what if.." Yeah, finding easy culprits(parents, police, teachers) and using "ifs" is so reassuring and easy. :-
Guns are a symptom (a serious and worrying one >:( ), but not the origin of the problem. It's a society's question. our society is more & more violent. As for the why, I truly don't really know. The result of the conjonction of many criterions, surely… 🙁

[Lingster]

Instead of self-defense, our courts believe in proportional response: you can't shoot a man only because he is in your house…
I've got that example: some time ago, a guy caught burglars in the act into his house,  but they weren't armed and ran away. The guy pursued them in the street and shot both of them in the back. Is it still self-defense: I think not…

If they run out into the street, you can't shoot them here, either.  The laws vary from state to state.  For example in most of the northeast I think you still have to be clearly under threat before the law says you can open fire.  Down south, generally, if a man has broken into your house you're free to fire on him.  The trend is toward the southern approach, I think the related term in the law is "castle doctrine". 

I don't own a gun and don't like 'em.  But I've been to the shooting range and I know how to load, fire and clean a handgun, because that's my responsibility as an American and a penis-bearer.

Update: Here's Castle Doctrine at Wikipedia.

[ze fly]

Update: Here's Castle Doctrine at Wikipedia.

Very interesting and enriching, thanks.  🙂
The "duty to retreat" seems to be quite equivalent to what is put into practise here.

[Lingster]

For those of you foreigners intrigued by federalism and Constitutional limits in the U.S., here's a great story.  Basically, the U.S. Gov't signed the Vienna Convention treaty in 1963, promising that it would provide foreign nationals with legal counsel from their home governments. 

Texas wants to execute a rapist and murderer who is a Mexican national and received no assistance from the Mexican consulate.  The president of the U.S. (a former governor of Texas, btw) has ordered Texas not to execute the inmate following a ruling from the "International Court of Justice".  Texas has told the president to go scratch, because the inmate was charged, tried and sentenced under state laws, and Texas is not a signatory to the Vienna Convention.

So the question is which will take precedence: the principle of states being free to conduct their sovereign jurisprudence, or of the U.S. President being the sole conduit for foreign policy.

[Author]

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