Coming Apart: Blood flows in troubled America

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by Tiassa, Apr 5, 2009.

  1. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    37,883
    I swear by Almighty God
    To tell the whole truth,
    And nothing but the truth.
    Guns, guns!
    They torture all the women and children!
    Then they've put the men to the gun!
    'Cos across the human frontier,
    Freedom's always on the run!
    Guns, guns a-shaking in terror—
    Guns, guns killing in error—
    Guns, guns guilty hands—
    Guns, guns shatter the lands!


    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .—The Clash, "Guns On the Roof"

    Those easily frightened by rumors of social unrest might wonder if the new revolution is finally beginning. And they feel no obligation to make sure they don't get fooled again.

    It's a bit difficult, though, to understand what Richard Poplawski was trying to achieve—perhaps "SBC", except in that case he failed—when he ambushed Pittsburgh police responding to a 911 call. Three officers are dead of gunshot wounds; a fourth was shot in the hand, and a fifth suffered a broken leg in some manner that involved a fence.

    Paul Sciullo III, age 37, and Stephen Mayhle, age 29, were each shot in the head upon arrival at the Poplawski residence. Both had been with the police department for two years. Eric Kelly, 41—a fourteen-year veteran of the department—was off-duty when everything went wrong for his fellows. Responding to the incident, he joined his fallen brothers. These three mark the first Pittsburgh police officers killed in the line of duty in eighteen years.

    Police Chief Nate Harper said the motive for the shooting isn't clear, but friends said the gunman recently had been upset about losing his job and feared the Obama administration was poised to ban guns ....

    .... "It appears he was lying in wait for the officers," Harper said.

    Kelly, who was on his way home after completing his overnight shift when he heard the call for help, rushed to the scene and was killed trying to help Sciullo and Mayhle, Harper said. SWAT teams and other officers arrived and were immediately fired on as well.

    Don Sand, who lives across the street from Poplawski, said he was woken up by the sound of gunfire. Hunkering down behind a wall in his home, he saw the first two officers go down and then saw Kelly get shot.

    "They couldn't get the scene secure enough to get to them. They were just lying there bleeding," Sand said. "By the time they secured the scene enough to get to them it was way too late."

    Deputy Chief Paul Donaldson, who lives nearby, was one of the first officers to arrive. He saw Mayhle by a bush to the right of the door; Kelly was in the street and McManaway, his hand injured, was kneeling beside him, yelling that Kelly needed help.

    Donaldson suggested using a police van to get them. They draped a bulletproof vest on the window to protect the driver and several officers got into the van to get Kelly and McManaway ....

    .... Poplawski had feared "the Obama gun ban that's on the way" and "didn't like our rights being infringed upon," said Edward Perkovic, his best friend.

    Perkovic, 22, said he got a call at work from him in which he said, "Eddie, I am going to die today. ... Tell your family I love them and I love you."

    Perkovic said: "I heard gunshots and he hung up. ... He sounded like he was in pain, like he got shot."


    (Plushnick-Matsi and Nephin)

    Still, though, the motive is unclear. Aaron Vire, another longtime friend of Poplawski acknowledged the concern about the new president, but said the gunman "wasn't violently against Obama".

    So Poplawski's motive remains unclear. Before people start either chewing their nails or cheering the revolution, there are some other factors to consider.

    Perkovic told reporters that Poplawski had washed out of U.S. Marine Corps boot camp after attacking a drill sergeant. Vire noted that Poplawski once ran a scarcely-viewed Internet talk show. Sand recalls that Poplawski fought with neighbors, including a couple of fistfights. Furthermore, Joe DiMarco, another friend of Poplawski's, said the gunman was distressed over being laid off his job at a glass factory in recent months. And the original 911 call was placed by Poplawski's mother, who sheltered in the basement of the house through the shootout.

    The idea, then, that Poplawski was in some way responding to the Obama administration's idea of common sense with guns may not hold up. Which, of course, would mean the revolution isn't on yet. After all, violent crime increases in frequency and magnitude during times of economic difficulty. Indeed, three thousand miles from Pittsburgh, in my corner of the country, shockwaves are rippling through the Puget Sound region on the news that in Graham, Washington has allegedly shot his five children—ages seven to sixteen—to death and taken his own life.

    And we might pause to consider that if one is worried that a president is going to take away your guns at some point in the future, it probably isn't the best idea to make the point by shooting up the local police department.

    The American culture has been tiptoeing along the edge of an abyss for some time. And at the moment many at home and around the world wonder if perhaps this time we might actually fall. People are starting to panic. Mass murder is not unheard of in the United States, but some are looking around at recent headlines—the last month has seen fourteen dead in New York, eleven dead in Alabama, four police officers dead in Oakland, six dead in Santa Clara, and eight dead in North Carolina—and wondering what is happening to people.

    Meanwhile, across the nation, hearts are breaking and souls weep tears of ice. Part of me really does want to look at some of the politicians and say, "Didn't see this one coming, eh?"

    But this is the price we pay for progress, isn't it?

    Got a gun, fact I got two;
    But that's okay, man, 'cause I love God.


    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .—Pearl Jam, "Glorified G"

    • • •​

    Guns, guns! There's guns on the roof!
    Guns, guns! They're made to shoot!


    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .—The Clash, "Guns On the Roof"
    ______________________

    Notes:

    Plushnick-Matsi, Ramit and Dan Nephin. "Gunman 'lying in wait' kills 3 Pittsburgh officers". Associated Press. April 4, 2009. WashingtonPost.com. Accessed April 4, 2009. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/04/AR2009040400792.html

    Gillie, John. "Five children found dead in Graham-area home". The News Tribune. April 4, 2009. TheNewsTribune.com. Accessed April 4, 2009. http://www.thenewstribune.com/331/story/699284.html

    Michaud, Chris. "Police say N.Y. immigrant shooter's act no surprise". Reuters. April 4, 2009. Reuters.com. Accessed April 4, 2009. http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE5324JP20090404

    Kekis, John. "Items seized from home of suspected NY gunman". Associated Press. April 3, 2009. Yahoo! News. Accessed April 4, 2009. http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE5324JP20090404

    WBBH. "Alabama shooter kept list". March 12, 2009. MSNBC.com. Accessed April 4, 2009. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29655662/

    McKinley, Jesse. "Oakland Seeking Answers in Police Killings". New York Times. March 22, 2009. NYTimes.com. Accessed April 4, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/23/us/23oakland.html

    Stannard, Matthew B. et al. "Santa Clara shocked by 6 murder-suicide deaths". San Francisco Chronicle. March 31, 2009. SFGate.com. Accessed April 4, 2009. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/03/30/MNFN16PCHC.DTL

    Dewan, Shaila. "Alleged Gunman's Wife Worked at Nursing Home". New York Times. March 30, 2009. NYTimes.com. Accessed April 4, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/31/us/31shooting.html
     
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  3. TW Scott Minister of Technology Registered Senior Member

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    Actually this is the price we pay for some of the societal changes that occured thanks to the industrial revolution, telecommunication, and the information age.

    The result is that instead of living in close knit communities where everyone knows everyone, we concentrated ourselves into anonymous communities where it is all to easy to experience social ennui. We are all to replaceable cogs that will hardly be missed.

    Now many people have the mental fortitude it requires to exist this way. We have the skills and know how to make a core group of friends and we recognize that it doesn't matter if the whole city knows us as long as our friends do. After all who needs to be center of attention all the time.

    Unfortunately some people are not wired that way. Perhaps they can't make friends that quickly or they need to be important to everyone they meet. Or they just can't handle the truth that if they die tomorrow it isn't likely even to be mentioned in gossip. They lose all sense of self worth. Now admittedly this is a small percentage of people and most of them do get psychological treatment or are completely harmless. Some turn to attention seeking and cope that way. And a tiny percentage decide that it's all too much, they either commit suicide in a flashy way or decide to take out some of the epople who they feel have in some way wronged them.

    All in all the avialbility of guns would change nothing. Would be mass murderers have too many choices left to them to be hindered by the absence of guns. In fact the only peple hindered by an absence of firearms is the average law abiding citizen.
     
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  5. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    The promise of the American Dream has failed many people. The converging emergencies of a failed credit-based economy, peak oil, global warming, and a failure to invest in ourselves thanks to Republican ideology means that the natives are growing increasingly restless and are looking for someone to blame. It's possible that this anger will lead to some rocky political outcome, they may seek solice in some radical ideas, or just lash out irrationally. Society will inevitably congeal again in a working form. Those who see the writing on the wall will concentrate on boring but sustainable practices- local agriculture, non-fossil fuel based transportation, new urbanism...
     
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  7. hypewaders Save Changes Registered Senior Member

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    spidergoat "boring but sustainable"

    Good point. Change is all around us, but most of it doesn't fit into current information marketing. Sensationalist media programs us to associate change with dramatic scenes, and to expect desperate and senseless acts to have over-arching meaning. Glimpsing the horizons of change requires taking in a much wider temporal and spatial context than hyped-up and dumbed-down major-media packaging can contain.
     
  8. swarm Registered Senior Member

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    4,207


    When dealing with a guy in a bullet proof vest who has already killed innocent people, please aim for the head.
     
  9. hypewaders Save Changes Registered Senior Member

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    12,061
    Wow, you're my hero, swarm. Who would have thought of it.

    What other rare and violent scenarios do you fantasize about? ...Never mind, don't tell me.
     
  10. Challenger78 Valued Senior Member

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    7,536
    We won't get fooled again- The who.

    Anywho,
    Guns are the final solution, to disillusionment anyway.
     
  11. candy Valued Senior Member

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    1,074
    The officer who broke his leg was attempting to go over a fence that gave way under his weight.
    Poplawski's mother had called 911 to get him out of the house after an argument over a dog. He seems to have put on a bulletproof vest and got his guns to be ready when they arrived. One of the first 2 to arrive was apparently not killed by the first shot so Poplawski used his handgun to administer 2 shots to the head to finish the job before retreating upstairs with his AK47. The guy is a good enough marksman to have gotten a shot in the gun portal of the swat vehicle.
    Pittsburgh channel 2 (kdka) is reporting that the ADL is saying that Poplawski is a racist who posted to a neo-nazi website known as strormfront. They attributed 2 user names to Poplawski. How they would have come by that information I have no idea. It is also reported that his friends say they never heard him make anti-Jewish remarks.
     
  12. Roman Banned Banned

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    The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
     
  13. swarm Registered Senior Member

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    I'm trained as a French commando.
     
  14. swarm Registered Senior Member

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    4,207
    The problem with distopian fantasies is they easily become self fullfilling prophecies.
     
  15. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    But in that context ...?

    Yes, but does this one count, do you think?
     
  16. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    I was thinking about Billy T's prophecy when I heard about this. Unravelling at the seams. How many such "nut with gun goes berserk" stories have there been in the last year?
     
  17. Roman Banned Banned

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    If I had to bet money, I'd say the guy on the force for 14 years was complicit in some pretty ugly tyranny.
     
  18. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    Don't blame the gun.
     
  19. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Lots of bad things happen when the economy collapses. I can think of several tragedies going on right now with some friends of mine. People that were already living on the edge can't even maintain that. We have been sleepwalking into the future for some time now, the hippies knew the deal, but we had to sideline them as unrealistic idealists or drug addled hedonists.
     
  20. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

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    Because he was a cop! That seems to be an unreasonable assumption.
     
  21. Roman Banned Banned

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    Really? I bet he had buddies who planted false evidence or beat black criminals for being black, and he didn't do anything about it. I bet he had more friends do that than I do, precisely because he is a cop.

    Liebling's an ex-cop. She quit the force because there was too much corruption.
     
  22. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    F the Police ... but, still ....

    Shooter gets a trial. Dead cops didn't.

    If, by comparison, the cop died according to his corruption, or in some related irony, I would actually raise a glass to that point. But this was ... this was random. This was stupid. This was insane.

    Cops may well be, as a general rule, hideous, corrput, evil people who don't deserve to poison the sunlight with their foul being, but their upbringing and the generations of tacit and sometimes explicit endorsement of such poor behavior isn't necessarily their fault.

    Either way, you don't just gun 'em down. Not until the blood of revolution is already flowing in the streets, and there's nothing left to do but wipe 'em out.

    Arbitrary crime is not proper revolution anymore than the victim of a spontaneous hit-and-run vehicular homicide had it coming because he might have gotten on his daughter ten years ago.

    The connection between guilt and retribution is essential to a paradigm in which the guilty should pay with their lives.

    Take Bobby Jindal, for instance. If he died in a random car wreck, that wouldn't have much to do with anything. But if he died in a volcanic eruption (he thinks federal geology money is wasted, after all), yeah, the irony would be worth something. Same thing here. The dead cops might as well have been hit by meterorites.
     
  23. Roman Banned Banned

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    I guess I have a hard time sympathizing with mercenaries getting shot. Live by the gun, die by the gun.

    Also, people getting killed by meteorites is just hilarious. If I was religious, I'd have to say it was a sign.
     

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