What's the frequency, Colorado?

[davidm]

Every news media outlet in the world is obviously going to cover this event to some extent. The question is whether they will cover it soberly and responsibly or sensationalistically and luridly. Already we saw the hideous Drudge site, with its giant picture of the Joker and "Why so serious?" plastered in blood.

Do we "know" that sensationalistic media coverage of crimes like these spawn copy-cat crimes? If we know that, why would think that other influences are not equally likely or perhaps more likely to spawn such crimes? I'm not sure why the news media, even if sensationalistic or not, gets the onus here, while the violence that saturates practically the whole of pop culture, including music, movies, videogames and the like, gets a provisional pass (if I'm reading your post right). My own view is that the U.S. is inherently and extremely violent culture, and always has been. The violence in our popular culture is a mirror of the violence that already exists in society, and perhaps magnifies that violence and in turn is magnified by it.

ETA: and perhaps the real, practical focus here should be: when are we going to defy the NRA and get real gun control?

[lisarea]

No, you're not reading my post right.

The point is: This is not a trend. It's not a national tragedy or a jumping off point for hysteria. Crimes like this have always existed, and they've always been rare. It's never been a national crisis, and it's not becoming one.

According to the handful of people who do study and specialize in these types of crimes, though, mainstream news coverage and public attention is a huge motivating factor. Here's another profiler saying so.

There aren't enough mass killers to reach any kind of statistical conclusions about them, so if you're looking for explanations or something, the best you're going to get is to ask the few experts who've interviewed them, and those experts are saying that media attention is a huge motivating factor, and one that's likely to spur copycats.

If you want to talk about potential effects of pop culture media and whether it's making people more violent, or about mental health issues that aren't being met, or talk about gun control, do that. But do it in the context of some kind of actual trend rather than trying to tie it into a horrific but isolated incident that is still ongoing for the victims and their families.

I know the media's going to stretch this out as long as they can, and people are going to rubberneck. That's inevitable, but I'm not going to play along with this polite fiction that it's some productive discussion that needs to be had in this context.

It's not. It's just prurient.

[Janet]

The sad thing is that assassination of a famous person or mass murder really is the easiest way to fame for the average person. Any more traditional method takes years of work an almost endless determination and resilience/tolerance of failure.

I was talking to someone about a recent book claiming that John Wilkes Booth was motivated to murder Lincoln because he was jealous that his brother Edwin was more famous. I told her Johnny was right. He is more famous than Edwin now and probably always will be, and it only took one act to do it.

[davidm]

Well, I have not claimed that this episode represents any kind of trend. In fact I entered this discussion by indicating that I thought there was pretty good reason to think that exposure to violence in the media, and that would include sensationalist and lurid news accounts, could prompt someone to go off. So I'm not sure where we disagree or even if we disagree.

[Watser?]

There was this discussion I remember the media here used to have about suicide and how writing/reporting about them would sometimes lead to an 'epidemic' of copycats. So then of course at some point the discussion began to eat its own tail as they figured out this whole discussion about whether one should write/report about it was another form of writing/reporting about it.

[Ari]

One of the things I don't quite get is why he took the effort to build bombs and trip wire his apartment, and then tell police it was trip wired?
I do wonder if the media we consume does change how these attacks play out, since he does seem to have at least some bomb making skills and yet chose a gun attack instead of a bomb.

[livius drusus]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

livius, can we split off the media and societal connection to violence discussion

I'm having a hard time picking out the media and society posts because they're interlaced with the event. Can you list the post numbers you'd put in a new thread?

[Clutch Munny]

I don't know about a trend; but it seems legitimate to wonder whether mass (or attempted mass) shootings are happening at a greater frequency per capita in the US than they used to. When one has just happened is fairly apt time to wonder this. The nauseating aspect is the media's celebration of the asshole-du-jour's particular mix of selfishness, petulance, anger and sociopathy; and, relatedly, the pornographic confabulation of titillating explanations and backstories.

[LadyShea]

43
45
50
51
60-the end

[Stephen Maturin]

This item could go here or in the Arizona thread. Former AZ State Senator Russell Pearce -- who remains persistently disgrace-proof -- wrote a rambling, breathtakingly idiotic Facebook post Saturday morning essentially claiming that the people in that theater were candyasses for failing to arm themselves and try to stop the shooter.

"Where were the men of flight 93????" Pearce whined. Lives were lost not because the psycho shooter was armed "but because noone [sic] was prepared to stop it."

Later on he wrote another crazed Facebook post accusing the Arizona Republic of "mischaracteriz[ing]" his earlier statement, followed immediately with another rambling idiocyfest that proved the alleged mischaracterization correct in all respects.

Both posts have since disappeared.

Oh, and Russ? The men of Flight 93? Dead since September 11, 2001. Every last one of them.

[Ari]

2 of the 12 killed were soldiers. Clearly anti gun candyasses! How dare they not be armed with a 50 cal riffle just incase. This is America not a safe Iraqi green zone. They should have known better to go to the movies without body armor!

[Watser?]

Here's one of those heroes now:

A licensed concealed handgun owner from Waco, Texas hurt more than his pride on Monday when his weapon accidentally discharged while he was reaching for his wallet at a Dallas Walmart store.

Police said that Todd Canady, 23, was in the checkout line when he fired the pistol he was carrying inside his pants.

“The bullet struck Canady in the buttock, then ricochet on the floor and broke into pieces,” KDFW reported. Two children and a woman were also wounded when they were struck by bullet fragments.

Concealed gun owner shoots own buttocks and wounds children at Dallas Walmart | The Raw Story

[LadyShea]

It happens in Walmart kind of a lot. A couple of months ago Kiddo was a few steps away from a man who dropped his concealed handgun on the floor of the men's room. Luckily it didn't discharge!

The Daily Advance

Man Accidentally Fires Gun In Walmart Bathroom: Arizona Man Andrew Seals Could Face Endangerment Charge

http://www.njeffersonnews.com/local/...endale-Walmart

[Ari]

Originally Posted by Watser?

Clearly the woman and children should have been packing, they could have stood their ground and returned fire!

[davidm]

What is needed is for every man, woman and child in America to be decked out in SWAT team regalia, with daggers between our teeth. Each of us should cary an AK-47 assault rifle, and a passel of hand grenades in leather pouches. We should have Batman utility belts festooned with fun futuristic weaponry like anti-matter darts. Then no one would mess with us, but the liberals will never let this happen because they hate our freedoms.

[ChuckF]

That sound of an armor-piercing bullet ricocheting off of a Wal-Mart bathroom urinal? That's freedom ringing. LET FREEDOM RING

[Stephen Maturin]

Jared Wright, the Republican running for election to the state house of representatives from HD54 (mostly rural Mesa County), recently resigned his job as a police officer for the City of Fruita. Mr. Wright wants us to know that his resignation has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with an ongoing internal affairs investigation. Nope, not at all! He resigned solely because running an effective election campaign is "a full-time job."

So what's the competition that renders running an effective full-time campaign necessary? Basically, there ain't none. The district is about as Republican as a state house district can possibly get. The Dems couldn't get anyone to run at all. Wright's only "competition" is a card-carrying lolbertarian that no one knows about. Clearly, the competition is nothing to quit a job over.

I'm betting the IA investigation has something to do with abuse of power, financial corruption and/or naked minors. Time will tell.

[LadyShea]

This ruling applies only to the plaintiffs who challenged the suit- a Catholic owned HVAC company that is self-insured- and will not prevent the rule from going into effect next Wednesday. But just because the ruling is narrow in its application doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be taken seriously. In order for the judge to issue the injunction he needs to believe the challenge would likely succeed on the merits. In this case it means Judge John L. Kane, a President Carter appointee believes the court could ultimately find the policy unconstitutional.

Read more: Birth Control Mandate Blocked By Colorado Judge | Care2 Causes

I do not get this. The company cannot require their employees to be Catholic or whatever, nor can they know their employees medical business, but they think they should be able to decide if their employees can have birth control under their insurance policy?

How does this work legally?

[Stephen Maturin]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

How does this work legally?

Goofily.

The plaintiffs are this company along with its directors and officers. The business manufactures and sells sheet metal components and other equipment for HVAC systems through plants and distribution centers in Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona.

The business itself is 100% secular. However, the four siblings who own all the stock in this closely-held corporation claim to be devout Catholics who insist on running their business in accordance with religious principles. In an apparent attempt to give credence to this lawsuit, the owners filed an amendment to the company's articles of incorporation on June 25, 2012 stating that the company must accomplish its purposes by "following appropriate religious, ethical or moral standards."

The company doesn't qualify for the various religious exceptions to ACA's birth control coverage requirement. The company runs a self-funded employee benefit plan that includes health care coverage. Plaintiffs' contention is that the birth control coverage requirement is unlawful as applied to them because Holy Mother Church, though A-OK with raping children, frowns upon birth control. Thus, requiring the plaintiffs to provide birth control insurance coverage would violate their religious freedom.

No shit. That's really the argument.

The judge's order (pdf, 18 pages) is here. The only issue decided is whether the court should preliminarily enjoin enforcement of the birth control coverage requirement as to the plaintiffs pending the final outcome of their lawsuit.

The party asking for a preliminary injunction must prove to the court's satisfaction that there's "(1) a likelihood of success on the merits, (2) a threat of irreparable harm, which (3) outweighs any harm to the non-moving party, and that (4) the injunction would not adversely affect the public interest." Under 10th Circuit case law, if the equities of the case tip heavily in the moving party's favor, s/he can establish a likelihood of success on the merits simply by showing that the substantive issues are "so serious, substantial, difficult, and doubtful as to make the issue ripe for litigation and deserving of more deliberate investigation."

The standard sounds squishy because it is squishy, by design.

The judge found that the equities weighed heavily in the plaintiffs' favor because being forced to provide contraceptive coverage against their religious beliefs (starting on 11/1/12) is an irreparable harm that dwarfs the government's interest in enforcing the requirement. The public interest in free exercise of religion also favored granting an injunction. (NOTE: If it seems like the judge is assuming the existence of free exercise rights on these facts, it's because that's exactly what he did.)

As for success on the merits, the plaintiffs raised a bunch of arguments. The judge didn't even address plaintiffs' claims that the requirement violated their rights under the Speech and Religion Clauses of the First Amendment because he found that a federal statute provided an adequate basis for the injunction.

The statute in question is the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). In 1997 the Supreme Court held RFRA unconstitutional as applied to state and local governments, but the statute remains binding on the federal government.

As applied to this case, Congress may not pass a law that "substantially burden[s] a person's exercise of religion" unless it proves that the law "is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest" and "is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest." RFRA basically codifies the "strict scrutiny" standard that courts use in constitutional cases involving laws that burden the exercise of constitutional rights deemed fundamental.

The court's reasoning on the "substantial burden" component of the RFRA claim basically boils down to Argumentum ad Juggalo, as in "Exercise of Religion: How Does it Work?" The burden of providing the coverage falls on the corporation, not on the individual plaintiffs. Can a corporation exercise religion? Does it make a difference that this corporation is closely-held rather than publicly traded? Is there some sort of veil-piercing rationale under which the free exercise rights of the owners are also those of the corporation?

We don't know! These are tough questions that "merit more investigation." That's enough to support issuing an injunction, at least according to Judge Kane.

On the "compelling governmental interest" and "least restrictive means" elements, the judge ruled that the government hadn't established either for injunction purposes. The judge pretty strongly intimated that the government could never prove what it needs to prove here, especially with regard to the "least restrictive means" issue. I wouldn't be looking forward to the next round of briefing in this case if I were representing the government.

Orders granting preliminary injunctions are immediately appealable, and I wouldn't be surprise to see the government take advantage of that here.

[BrotherMan]

Argumentum ad Juggalo

Mother fuckin lawyers always lyin' and gettin' me pissed.

[LadyShea]

The court's reasoning on the "substantial burden" component of the RFRA claim basically boils down to Argumentum ad Juggalo, as in "Exercise of Religion: How Does it Work?" The burden of providing the coverage falls on the corporation, not on the individual plaintiffs. Can a corporation exercise religion? Does it make a difference that this corporation is closely-held rather than publicly traded? Is there some sort of veil-piercing rationale under which the free exercise rights of the owners are also those of the corporation?

We don't know! These are tough questions that "merit more investigation." That's enough to support issuing an injunction, at least according to Judge Kane.

Since Corporations are people now, perhaps they can exercise religious freedom?

I still don't understand how paying for an insurance policy through a third party provider as a benefit to the employees of your secular business in any way impedes an owner's ability to pray or go to Church or whatever is considered exercising religious freedom.

[Vivisectus]

It is worse: on the basis that you hold a religious belief, it is now your right to excuse yourself from laws that other people have to respect, so you can keep a person from doing something things that your, not their, beliefs dictate.

[godfry n. glad]

Did you ever stop to think that raping children was the Catholic answer to contraception?

[Stephen Maturin]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Since Corporations are people now, perhaps they can exercise religious freedom?

Corporations have been people for Fourteenth Amendment purposes since the late 19th century, but the notion takes on heretofore unheard-of levels of idiocy in the Free Exercise Clause context.

Originally Posted by LadyShea

I still don't understand how paying for an insurance policy through a third party provider as a benefit to the employees of your secular business in any way impedes an owner's ability to pray or go to Church or whatever is considered exercising religious freedom.

There's no insurance policy or third-party insurer in this case because the benefit plan is self-funded, but I don't think that matters. The argument is that the coverage mandate compels the plaintiffs to act in contravention of their own religious beliefs, which violates their First Amendment rights.

In constitutional law terms, it's a dumb argument. This letter signed by 170 lawprofs explains why. That's probably why the judge in the Colorado case relied on RFRA.

[LadyShea]

NM I Googled Self Funded.