Florida mother kills infant son in murder-suicide attempt,

[bowens43]

http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/04/justice/florida-baby-killed/index.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_topstories+%28RSS%3A+Top+Stories%29

(CNN) -- A 20-year-old Florida woman was in critical condition Friday after she shot and killed her 6-month-old son and then turned the gun on herself, police said.

Another dead baby , how nice. Right?

[Eleanors38]

1. Do you really care about these poor folks, or are you more concerned

with tearing down others? First passionate words you have are to condemn fellow Democrats. Sheesh.

[sarisataka]

2. There is a recurring theme

that it seems to be more about politics; young victims are always better

Yet there are always comments about gunners not caring about the victims. Probably just forgot that statement of this being a senseless act, the sorrow the family must feel ,the anguish that led the mother to choose this course of action and the never ending pain she will feel if she recovers from her mental state...

[Puha Ekapi]

3. +1

[MightyMopar]

5. Another child's blood sacrificed to the tin god

If the gun pushers really want to do something good for America's children they would turn their guns in.

[Puha Ekapi]

8. How many cases...

...of mothers killing their children involved the use of a gun? I don't know the figures, but I do know of cases where mothers killed their children with knives, drowning, poison, fire etc. If this woman was sick enough to kill her own poor child, the lack of a gun probably wouldn't have stopped her.

[Dog Gone at Penigma]

37. there are cases

of either parent doing that.

It doesn't mean they are crazy, it can, but it can also be retaliation and revenge. There is too little information here and I'm not sure that a lot of speculation is helpful.

[Dog Gone at Penigma]

41. there is ample evidence

in the form of studies on suicides and murder suicides that show a higher level of impulsive action associated with guns, to the point where guns being available are actually considered one of the catalysts or initiating factors in gun caused suicide, and in related murders. Guns are significantly different than knives, drowning, poison, suffocation or strangulation in how people behave.

Lack of a gun might have stopped her; in the various literature from academic research on suicide (and murders in conjunction with suicide) reducing access to the chosen means to do violence to one's self and others does reduce both; the technical term is substitution in the literature, and there is far less of that than people might expect.

There is also a marked lack of similar lethal success with other means than with firearms.

[Ilsa]

53. ITA. And consider the physicality of

plunging a knife into a body, the strength it might take, as well as the effort involved in strangulation or drowning. It seems to me that a person, while performing the act of knifing or strangulation, might have a moment of clarity and regret and stop the assault. But they can't take back the bullet going through a brain if they experience regret.

[sarisataka]

12. I think it would be more effective

to de-stigmatize and support treatment for postpartum depression; my internet MD believes that is a more likely cause than mind control by gun.

[Puha Ekapi]

14. I agree...

[Marengo]

31. And yet another child's blood sacrificed to the tin god...

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/11/01/babysitter-charged-with-killing-kids-due-in-bond-court/#photo-1

Well, most likey a steel alloy rather than tin.

Ready to turn your knife in for the good of America's children?

Edited to add...That's just the first google cite I found, there were MANY others. Pages worth.

[Remmah2]

36. How many kids are born addicted to drugs?

How many kids are killed because their parents won't put them in their car seats?

How many kids are neglected to death?

Kiss my brass.

[Ruttersville]

63. Another child's blood sacrificed to the porcelain god

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Yates

Seeing as this one occurred 5 miles from me, and involved 5 (FIVE) children, I felt it very clearly demonstrated your lack of logic.

If plumbers really want to do something good for America's children they would only install showers!

[Dog Gone at Penigma]

35. there are mothers who don't love their children

there are people who do horrible things not because they are crazy, but because they are that vindictive.

We don't have anything from the news article that says she had a mental health problem.

I'd like to know how a woman who has been established to be violent, with a restraining order AGAINST her, is allowed to keep her child without some kind of really strict supervision.

[sarisataka]

48. I support mothers and children together

but not without qualifications. I have seen several families where, IMO, the father or other relative would better have custody of the children.
I am in agreement with you that this situation was not properly supervised.

[unblock]

7. the year is young, this post is in the running for rotten post of the year.

the o.p. posted a story and deplored the death of a baby.

your reply questions the o.p.'s feelings and motives and take a post that has zero mention as politics as an insult to democrats.

[Eleanors38]

13. Take a lesson, unblock: the OP was and IS an a continuing string

of holier-than-thou invective regularly posted here by those accusing pro 2A Democrats of having no sensitivity about murdered kids; yet these inquisitors never reveal what They feel. They strut morally about, thinking their rage and fault-finding implies compassion. It doesn't, and I'm surprised you don't see the obviousness of this. Perhaps you don't want to.

Anyone who has compassion about these or any death should express it FIRST before questioning anyone else's.

[unblock]

16. i'm quite aware, but i think it's important not to drag baggage along.

if you feel it appropriate to be wary of certain posters, fine. nothing wrong with that.

but save your powder for when they actually do something objectionable.
the o.p. was not objectionable, and was not targeted at democrats.

if the poster did something objectionable in another thread, object there.

if you object here in anticipation of something objectionable being said as follow up, the topical metaphor here would be "itchy trigger finger" or "jumping the gun" or something like that.

and by the way, the o.p. DID express compassion for the death of a baby. it might not have been phrased as sweet-sweet compassion; yes, there was perhaps frustration, futility, and sarcasm in there, but i think it's clear the o.p. felt quite unhappy that a baby was killed.

[Eleanors38]

29. Respectfully, I'm not buying this. Read the OP's history

Re: Gun control, and her opinions of pro-2A Democrats, yes DEMOCRATS. This is another in a long line of evidently sanctioned insults and implied character attacks, as if folks in this group are to blame.

Check out the unchecked attacks on Democrats in this group over the last 2 weeks. Singling out my opinion is like finding a squirrel fart in a hurricane.

"We" are not the enemy, nor are we punching bags.

[Dog Gone at Penigma]

47. maybe you should take a longer look at how partisanship is shaking out these days

While there are '2A' democrats, they tend to be the pro-hunting variety, seldom the paranoid self-defense nut gotta have more guns type jobs that seem to be unique to the right wing.

Gun ownership is declining steadily among democrats, while going up among republicans.

Gun attitudes have become one of the partisan issues:
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/18/in-gun-ownership-statistics-partisan-divide-is-sharp/

But the odds vary significantly based on the political identity of the child’s parents. If they identify as Democratic voters, the chances are only about one in four, or 25 percent, that they have a gun in their home. But the chances are more than twice that, almost 60 percent, if they are Republicans.

Whether someone owns a gun is a more powerful predictor of a person’s political party than her gender, whether she identifies as gay or lesbian, whether she is Hispanic, whether she lives in the South or a number of other demographic characteristics.

It will come as no surprise to those with a passing interest in American politics that Republicans are more likely to own guns than Democrats. But the differences have become much more stark in recent years, with gun ownership having become one of the clearest examples of the partisan polarization in the country over the last two decades.

In 1973, about 55 percent of Republicans reported having a gun in their household against 45 percent of Democrats, according to the General Social Survey, a biennial poll of American adults.

And given the role of ALEC and the NRA in promoting lax gun laws, using almost exclusively conservative legislators ie Republican and Tea Party legislators, I think that is a fair criticism of Republicans not Democrats.

[pipoman]

52. Many (if not most) gun owners don't hunt...including Democratic gun owners..

[Eleanors38]

59. The OP is hard-line and extremist. She isn't in this group to muse on the tragedy

The OP was to accuse and cast blame.

I doubt your figures, but since polling organizations are now in the "NRA talking points" camp or not it's pointless to deal with that topic.

[pnwmom]

55. You are determined to avoid the point of the OP.

The person who posted it isn't required to prove his or her compassion to you.

[Eleanors38]

57. Again: Her's/His remarks are hateful, and show yhe

poster's real priorities. You don't want to face the hard, clear fact that you enable such transparent animosity. Maybe you think if someone gets all morally worked up enough it justifies any crude behavior.

Check out the last few weeks of attack and smear, and face that.

BTW, I don't have to justify my compassion to you or any poster who leads FIRST with attack. And little else.

[pnwmom]

58. The OP isn't hateful. Let's stick to the current thread,

per DU rules.

[Eleanors38]

60. I stand by what I said. She isn't musing, she's accusing. nt

[Eleanors38]

64. Just what is the purpose of the thread?

[pnwmom]

65. I didn't post it and I'm not a mind-reader. But it's not hateful. n/t

[Eleanors38]

66. Please see #40 and #49. This IMO sums it up. nt

[Straw Man]

32. Wrong.

the o.p. posted a story and deplored the death of a baby.

The OP said this:

Another dead baby , how nice. Right?

This doesn't "deplore the death of a baby." It sarcastically accuses others of being insensitive to that death. Big difference.

[Dog Gone at Penigma]

40. but isn't the death of the baby

something to which the pro-gun crowd and conservatives ARE insensitive?

They don't do anything effective in response to it.

I think that sarcasm is about how numb people have become to these kinds of deaths.

[Straw Man]

49. Who's insensitive?

but isn't the death of the baby

something to which the pro-gun crowd and conservatives ARE insensitive?

They don't do anything effective in response to it.

The OP suggests nothing either. Defamation is the whole point.

The woman was out on bond for domestic battery. In Florida, this would mean automatic suspension of a concealed weapons permit, but not automatic confiscation of all firearms. That would require adjudication and conviction, or at the very least, the issuance of an order of protection. Perhaps Florida law should address this, requiring a surrender of firearms until the case comes to trial.

This could be problematic in the case of mutual accusations, however. A stalker could accuse a victim in order to disarm him/her. A judge's discretion based on circumstances -- prior convictions, etc. -- might be warranted.

Is that constructive enough for you?

[Eleanors38]

61. Thanks for making my point. You have no moral

high ground, even as you try to claim it. Your proposition is de-humanizing and you can't even see it for all the moral swagger.

[Dog Gone at Penigma]

33. What?

you are wrong.

[Dog Gone at Penigma]

39. where do you see anything about democrats?

Florida is a predominantly Republican state, at least so far as their governor and state legislature are concerned.

Did you read anything written here, or are you just extemporizing (a polite word for making stuff up)?

[Eleanors38]

50. This is a Democratic site, a Democratic group...

Again. Re-read the post of this arch-prohibitionist and how she CLEARLY implies that this death is "nice. Right?" as far as the pro-2A Democrats here are concerned.

Please quit making excuses for and enabling this shoddy behavior. You are not being intellectually honest.

[pnwmom]

54. Democrats? I think the OP is pointing to another gun tragedy, because a gun

was available for a sick and impulsive act.

What does this have to do with Democrats?

[Eleanors38]

62. Answered upstream. nt

[Bay Boy]

4. Are we blaming the gun here?

Because I'm pretty sure absent a gun she could have figured out
another way to kill her baby.

[MightyMopar]

6. But she didn't she used a gun!

[sylvi]

9. Someone insane enough to kill their own child

Someone insane enough to kill their own child is unlikely to be deterred by a gun law, or even the fact of not having a gun.

It's not like a six-month-old baby is going to put up a struggle.

[MightyMopar]

10. Most murder suicides use guns. Have a rebuttal to that!

[gejohnston]

11. show evidence of that

BTW, murder suicides like this case is fairly common, other than the weapon, in Japan. The difference is that the National Police Agency would list both of them as suicides.

[MightyMopar]

21. 90% use guns, it's just so easy and effective

The Violence Policy Center estimates there were nearly 1,500 murder-suicides in this country in 2011, and that 90% of them involved some kind of gun.


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/lupica-gun-heinous-crimes-easier-article-1.1212024#ixzz2H4grE68w

[gejohnston]

22. second hand from a propaganda mill

How about a source that isn't trying to sell something? Better yet, one that is completely full of shit? FBI for example?
VPC's founder is Josh Sugarmann, who seems to spend most of his time scribbling nonsense at HuffPo. One more thing,

if you run this class one FFL, federal gun dealer's licence, it belongs to Josh Sugarmann using VPC offices as his business address 1-54-000-01-8C-00725

Oh yeah,
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+NRA+is+right%3b+but+we+still+need+to+ban+handguns.-a05010444

some more reading stuff
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2095754

[MightyMopar]

23. How about wikipedia? Reality has a liberal bias!

Though there is no national tracking system for murder–suicides in the United States, medical studies into the phenomenon estimate between 1,000 to 1,500 deaths per year in the US,[4] with the majority occurring between spouses or intimate partners, males were the vast majority of the perpetrators, and over 90% of murder suicides involved a firearm. Depression, marital or/and financial problems, and other problems are generally motivators.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder%E2%80%93suicide

[gejohnston]

24. check the end notes,

who said anything about liberal? There are right wing Brady supporters and gun control advocates. The original founder of Brady, before the name change, was one of them. Sylvester Stallone and George Will are a couple of others.

That end note uses VPC as a source, same place you are claiming.
Last time I looked up stuff on the New Deal it was edited by conservatives citing their sources. Anyone can edit a Wiki page. That is why teachers don't accept it as a source.

[Remmah2]

38. It's not bias if it gives you the bias answer you want.

[Dog Gone at Penigma]

45. Reality doesn't have a bias, much less a liberal one

although conservapedia has a bias that puts there spin on things into the dead center of make-shit-up-land

[TheMadMonk]

17. Really. In my country it's the bath or pillow and pills.

ADULT suicide pacts are more likely to involve a gun, but even so, stories of one or the other throwing up and surviving are more common in the news than those involving guns.

[sylvi]

25. Why would I bother rebutting it?

It's irrelevant to this subthread.

[Dog Gone at Penigma]

28. states with stricter gun laws have fewer deaths - murder or suicide

This is a perfect example of the kind of thing that requiring liability insurance to buy or otherwise own a gun would keep them out of hte hands of someone like this. And you could further make it more difficult if not impossible to commit this kind of murder suicide if you required proof of liability insurance to buy ammo for an owned gun, with microstamping of the ammo.

It would not be 100% effective; nothing claims to be. But gun regulation does work to reduce deaths from guns.

The substitution factor comes into play again; most people intending to commit suicide - and to a degree, homicide, restrict their choices to one or two means, and if one of those methods are not available, they don't go through with it.

http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/9/07-043489/en/index.html

Methods of suicide: international suicide patterns derived from the WHO mortality database
Vladeta Ajdacic-Gross a, Mitchell G Weiss b, Mariann Ring a, Urs Hepp c, Matthias Bopp d, Felix Gutzwiller d, Wulf Rössler a
Introduction

Restricting access to the means of suicide is an important component of comprehensive strategies for suicide prevention. To improve prevention efforts, better knowledge of national, regional and local suicide patterns is vital, and better understanding of underlying mechanisms is absolutely crucial.

and

http://www.crisis.org.cn/UploadFile/ReadParty/Methods--lethality.pdf

Choice of suicide means probably depends
largely on availability and acceptability, although
evidence on reasons for choice is quite limited.17
Availability of suicide means can influence suicide
occurrence.18–25 Restricting availability of certain
means has been associated with decreased method specific
suicide rates, and may decrease overall
suicide rates.16 19 26–29

[TheMadMonk]

15. Was that lame sarcasm, or are you an idiot?

WHat part of: "...she shot and killed her 6-month-old son and then turned the gun on herself..." did you fail to comprehend?

[Tuesday Afternoon]

18. it was the lamest attempt at sarcasm so far this year. it was fail at a major level.

[TheMadMonk]

19. Ah, so not "or" but "and". /nt

[Tuesday Afternoon]

20. pretty much, yeah.

[Dog Gone at Penigma]

34. she had a previous restraining order in place

for having attacked her boyfriend with a base ball bat.

However ease of use is a factor in guns being used. We don't know what else she might have done, but not having such easy access to firearms would have shortened up that list.

More to the point - why was this woman allowed to continue to care for this child?

[Dog Gone at Penigma]

42. Not necessarily

guns have, from academic studies of suicides and murder suicides found that guns have a unique correlation to impulsive violence, as distinct from those which are carefully planned over a period of time.

One of the things most agreed on is that lack of access to the chosen means to kill oneself or another person reduces those occurrences. People do not in fact substitute another means as often as some people believe.

In that sense, the gun is something which can quite fairly be blamed as a factor.

[rightsideout]

56. Exactly

"impulsive Violence"

[Shrike47]

26. She would have killed the child whether or not a gun was available.

I used to have a job which required me to attend hearings at the state mental hospital. We had several woman who had killed their children, all by smothering or drowning. The issue is the mental illness, not guns. In this case, all the gun did was give her an option for attempted suicide.

[Dog Gone at Penigma]

43. not supported by the science

I suggest you do some reading on substitution research in suicide and murder / suicides, especially as relates to guns.

Besides that, your experience relates only to mentally ill women. We don't know that this woman was mentally ill. Not all murder suicides are because of mental health problems.

[Dog Gone at Penigma]

46. yes, but there is strong correlation to guns and violent impulses, includign suicides

We don't know the issue here is mental illness. Nothing in the news account said so.

Don't jump the gun, pun intended.

[Dog Gone at Penigma]

27. This is horrible

but this is also lax gun law state Florida, which gives out permits to people in state and outside the state like candy on Halloween.

They were giving carry permits to people who should never have had them; they are sloppy, lax, pro-gun in a bad way.

Want to take bets this was a legally purchased gun, belonging either to her, or her boyfriend or a family member?

[Eleanors38]

30. You can blame guns; I blame her: She murdered. nt

[Dog Gone at Penigma]

44. They are not mutually exclusive; we can blame both, and should

Guns lead to impulsive actions in a way that other means do not.

Guns when used are more lethal, more successful in killing more often, than other means as well.

Therefore it is appropriate to blame the gun - or the ease with which she obtained a gun - as much as this woman herself.

I think there is also room for some blame to those who issued a restraining order against her for baseball bat violence, but didn't take the kid away from her, or initiate more supervision of her and the child.

[rightsideout]

51. Add the infant to the daily body count

643 gun deaths since the Newton Tragedy. Keep killing each other America.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2012/12/gun_death_tally_every_american_gun_death_since_newtown_sandy_hook_shooting.html