How many of you are aware that in its continuing illegally waged multiple wars (i.e. without the approval of the both House of Congress as necessary under its Constitution) since 1960, the good ol USA has killed/murdered more than 5 million UNARMED CIVILIANS i.e. men, women & children…let’s say that figure would conservatively be more than 1 million children.

More than 3 million unarmed civilians were murdered in Vietnam alone.

Anyone?

The USA is a broken society and this most unfortunate, and on a global basis comparatively minor event, will be replicated somewhere else acroos its homeland in the not too distant future.

Hell..one of Obama’s drone hit list targets might kill 50 innocent men women & children in the Middle East…I wonder if he weeps for them too…

Anna, he did shed a tear or six. We all have. I believe Rundle was referring to the fact that everyone knew what had happened as soon as it happened - who the assailant was, what the weapon was, and how the scenario was playing out. Chilling also that the teachers went into “lockdown” mode because they were trained to expect something like this. In other words, unlike the attack on the Twin Towers, this was not something completely out of the norm and unexpected.

Really? Perhaps, Mr R you can enlighten us on how a parent and a community is supposed to act after twenty children have had their heads blown open with some 11 bullets each!!

I would question that what you witnessed was shock maybe?

Further more, while you thought of your literary piece did you even shed a tear when you were there? Did you speak with any of the bereaved parents?

Fortunately I can’t believe you are as heartless as your piece makes you out to be.

Time and a place! It was a time for community mourning and I don’t believe that such events should ever be held up to some journalist’s perceived standards of how they should be run.

http://www.deanfromaustralia.com

Based on a quick analysis of reported statistics in the civil war in Syria, an average of 56 civilians a day are dying, and this hardly registers as a “blip on the radar scope” of the media. Yet the deaths of 27 civilians in the USA attracts disproportionate attention which can only be considered to be racist.

One has to seriously question the objectivity of all forms of media, print, television and radio when their prime objective is attracting attention. Whilst the pursuit of the advertising dollar can be understood on the basis of commercial media, where voyeurism sells product, there is no excuse however for the ABC which similarly involves itself in the media feeding frenzy when some of these so-called disasters occur.

In considering the fragile mental state of the perpetrators of mass killings, one is inescapably drawn to the conclusion that posthumous recognition is possibly a strong motivating factor for the mentally unbalanced, and that the media will provide this recognition to the point of obsession because of the commercial value of advertising time associated with consumer voyeurism. Accordingly a more balanced and objective presentation is required, at least for those sections of the media claimed to be representing responsible journalism.

That’s enough for me. As appalled as I was by the act, I found the television coverage just awful.

There are some news stories, yeah I know, you won’t believe it, but some stories are better read about some distance after the event. God knows if the glorification of it all doesn’t inspire the next massacre.

While not necessarily despising the televisual media coverage, or even most of the newspapers, I can’t help thinking that they are making money broadcasting this news.

There comes a time like this, the tsunami in Japan, and again in Indonesia, where it seems obscene that a corporation is making money from the coverage of the event. Perhaps a voluntary code of giving up all advertising revenue for that half hour news bulletin, or that edition, would assuage my feelings of capitalist-gone-mad angst.

Am I the only one that thinks in such tangents?

Don’t answer that!

Israel and Switzerland have “well ordered militias” and *only in conjunction with that* high rates of firearms ownership, but don’t have this sort of thing going on among the general population. There’s a big difference between bearing arms being seen as a right and being seen, as in these two nations, as a *social responsibility*, one only allowed within a framework of military discipline and structure.

Of course you could also see bearing arms as a privilege, which is how all other developed nations regard it.

Mass murders seem to be another symptom of the illness of our modern society.

This piece ties in with Friday’s Crikey article noting that republicans are stocking up on guns in the wake of Obama’s election win. In this light, good luck trying to get them to hand the guns back.