The American Apologist

Here are a few pet peeves I have:

– people who use their cell phones in the theater. As a parent with young children, I realize that you may need to get emergency phone calls, but put your phone on vibrate and leave it on your lap or in a pocket. When it vibrates, go outside and talk. Please, DO NOT carry on a conversation in the theater. Oh, and for you tech-savvy types, DO NOT think for a moment that having a text message “conversation” will not be intrusive and annoying to those around you in the theater — trust me, you are mistaken!

– men (and women, I presume) who don’t wash their hand after using the restroom. Seriously, dude, didn’t you learn this in kindergarten (or earlier!)? What about flushing the toilet. I know many public restrooms are now “automatic” — the urinal has a motion sensor, the sink has a motion sensor, the hand-towel dispenser or blow-dryer has a motion sensor — but I work in an office without these wonders of efficiency, so how about flushing the can when you’re done so the place doesn’t smell like one giant turd soaked in piss? What’s the matter, don’t you want to touch the handle because the last guy may not have washed his hands? My thought is this: would you leave a big pile in your mom’s toilet when you visit her? If not, then don’t leave it in the public john either! …and if you would leave it at mama’s house, then mama needs to get a switch and whip your butt!

– apparently, I’m not the only one concern about restroom efficiency. Almost every new construction seems to use motion sensors for flushing, washing and drying — well, how about putting an automatic door opener on the restroom? That way I wouldn’t have to touch the same doorknob as John P. Dribble when I leave with my clean hands!!! Just a thought…

– people who talk or text on the cell phone while driving… STOP IT, YOU’RE AN IDIOT! We recently had an 18 or 19 year old girl hit and kill a bike rider while she was downloading ringtones on her cell phone. If I understood the media accounts of this accident, she and the bike rider were both headed in the same direction (on the same side of the road) and she hit him with her driver’s side door — meaning she was almost totally off of the highway (yes, traveling at 50+ mph) when she hit him.

– people who don’t turn on their headlights when it’s raining, foggy or snowing heavily. In Illinois, it happens to be the law that you must turn on your headlights when there is precipitation in the air, yet over half of the drivers in my community seem to be “above” that law…

– I also don’t understand why people don’t clean snow off of their car in the winter. We can have 6 inches of snow all over our cars and they clear a 4 square inch patch off of the windshield directly in front of the driver’s face. They don’t seem to grasp the concept that the 6 inches of snow on the hood is going to fly back onto the windshield when they get up to about 30 mph. They also don’t understand why we can see their headlights and brakelights when they’re totally covered by the snow… numbskulls!

– people who cross the street well after the DON’T WALK signal is flashing. Now, I work on a busy campus and I realize many of these students have to get to class in a hurry, but we drivers only have a short window to make our left turns and having your selfish ass in the way doesn’t make it any easier! Part of the problem is the technology the students have — most have either a cell phone to their ear, or an mp3 player going and they simply don’t pay attention to the traffic. As a result, we’ve had 2 students killed in the last 5 years by buses making turns on campus. In both cases, the bus driver was not ticketed because the students literally walked into the side of the bus and were knocked down and run over and killed. Now, of course, our buses have to have 3 sets of yellow flashing lights along each side of the bus and each bus emits a highly-annoying chirping noise whenever the turn signal is activated.

Well, it may seem like I’m highly annoyed whilst driving or relieving myself, but these are just some of the things that have annoyed me in the past week or two. So what chaffs your common sense?

In the wake of the Valentine’s Day killing spree at Northern Illinois University (NIU), there has been (as expected) quite a bit of debate about gun control. In particular, I read one posting on the internet from Prof. Wei Zheng. Here is her text as posted by Jeong-Hwan Choi (jchoi52@uiuc.edu):

NIU tragedy=Loose gun control

What we learned from Virginia Tech’s shooting tragedy is that universities need better emergency plans and communication systems. NIU took that to heart and planned out and applied what was learned from Virginia Tech, but what went wrong?

The root cause for this kind of tragedies is easy access to guns. As demonstrated this time at NIU and before at Virginia Tech, people are much more likely to use guns to kill rather than protect themselves.
This NIU incident reflects a systematic problem about gun control rather than a random happenstance. Nobody did anything wrong. The vendor of guns did nothing wrong — they followed the procedures and found the gunner eligible to buy guns. The university did nothing wrong — they prepared and carried out well-designed safety strategies. The academic department did nothing wrong because the gunner was a good student and well regarded by students and faculty — nothing triggered special concern. So what is wrong is with the system, the system in which guns could be obtained fairly easily and used when people are not in the right frame of mind.

When we think of the future, we can’t close university campuses down to all outsiders, we can’t install weapon inspection machines at each building on campus, we can’t ask each student or each instructor to bring a gun to class to protect themselves, and we can’t ask an armed police officer to sit in each class we hold. Anyone who has the legal rights to obtain a gun (which is quite easy) and who goes out of his/her mind can use the gun – a very lethal weapon – to do harm without brushing any legal boundaries BEFORE anything happens. I think it is time to stop making patchwork to a crippled system. It’s time to raise concerns about gun control, rather than trying to find fault from the details of each incident. Such shooting incidents are very likely to happen again without stricter gun control.

Today when we think of Virginia Tech, we think of them as a victim. Now NIU has been added to that list, together with a lot more other campus shootings across the country. I don’t think it is enough now for us to say “bad things just happen”. No, they don’t. They happen as an inevitable result of a systematical error – that’s why same problems continue to occur. We have two choices. One is to shrug our shoulders and say sorry to NIU and wish that it will never happen near us. The other is that we can direct our attention to look further into the root cause of all the shootings and refuse to make another victim. We can forge alliances and mobilize resources to promote tighter control on guns. Now the tragedy is grabbing national attention, and we need to channel this attention to gun control issues. This way we truly emerge from our tragedy a stronger nation (rather than just a recovered nation), and our actions will mean saving countless lives for the future generations to come.

Feb. 26 2008

Prof. Dr. Wei Zheng
Counseling, Adult and Higher Education Department
Northern Illinois University

———————————–
This letter is sharing under her sincere requests.

Please examine Dr. Zheng’s argument closely:

What we learned from Virginia Tech’s shooting tragedy is that universities need better emergency plans and communication systems. NIU took that to heart and planned out and applied what was learned from Virginia Tech, but what went wrong?

Emergency plans are a great idea, but Dr. Zheng seems to be under the impression that the University’s emergency response plan should have stopped or prevented the attack from occurring. Common sense tells us that an emergency response plan kicks in AFTER the emergency has occurred. NIU’s goal (presumably) is to lock down the area and to notify its constituents as soon as possible in order to contain the situation. The plan attempts to “protect” the campus as a whole, not individual students. That happened as planned — so nothing “went wrong” contrary to Dr. Zheng’s assertion.

The root cause for this kind of tragedies is easy access to guns. As demonstrated this time at NIU and before at Virginia Tech, people are much more likely to use guns to kill rather than protect themselves. This NIU incident reflects a systematic problem about gun control rather than a random happenstance. Nobody did anything wrong. The vendor of guns did nothing wrong — they followed the procedures and found the gunner eligible to buy guns. The university did nothing wrong — they prepared and carried out well-designed safety strategies. The academic department did nothing wrong because the gunner was a good student and well regarded by students and faculty — nothing triggered special concern. So what is wrong is with the system, the system in which guns could be obtained fairly easily and used when people are not in the right frame of mind.

As all due respect, Dr. Zheng, you are wrong. Easy access to guns doesn’t cause violence — people commit violence. Furthermore, guns are used far more often for defensive purposes than criminal purposes (see these reports http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=321820 from Kovandzic & Marvell and http://johnrlott.tripod.com/Plassmann_Whitley.pdf Plassmann & Whitley — both are follow-up research to Lott & Mustard and Kleck).

You also state: “This NIU incident reflects a systematic problem about gun control rather than a random happenstance. Nobody did anything wrong.” YES! Yes! yes! — someone DID do something wrong. A clever, highly-motivated and mentally disturbed killer manipulated the 8,000+ existing guns laws in this country while he planned and carried out a vicious attack on his unarmed, defenseless victims. You may not consider this a “random happenstance”, but Mr. Kazmierczak is the rare exception to the rule, not the norm.

When we think of the future, we can’t close university campuses down to all outsiders, we can’t install weapon inspection machines at each building on campus, we can’t ask each student or each instructor to bring a gun to class to protect themselves, and we can’t ask an armed police officer to sit in each class we hold. Anyone who has the legal rights to obtain a gun (which is quite easy) and who goes out of his/her mind can use the gun – a very lethal weapon – to do harm without brushing any legal boundaries BEFORE anything happens. I think it is time to stop making patchwork to a crippled system. It’s time to raise concerns about gun control, rather than trying to find fault from the details of each incident. Such shooting incidents are very likely to happen again without stricter gun control.

Why can’t we let trained, registered teachers and students attend university while carrying their own means of self-protection? You say we can’t, but you don’t provide any reasoning behind your assertion. I understand your frustration with the situation — you say “without brushing any legal boundaries BEFORE anything happens.” — such is the case with MOST crime. Police don’t arrest people until after a crime has been committed. They also tend to investigate violent crime, not prevent it. In short, calling 9-1-1 is great, but don’t count on it to save your life in a life-and-death situation. Defend yourself!

The fault with your theory is this: criminals, and those hell-bent on creating a massacre (such as Columbine, Virginia Tech or NIU) are not law-abiding citizens. Whatever law you pass will only impact the law-abiding gun owners and those wanting to get a gun for sporting purposes or personal defense. The deranged and the criminal element will simply use alternative means to get what they want.

Today when we think of Virginia Tech, we think of them as a victim. Now NIU has been added to that list, together with a lot more other campus shootings across the country. I don’t think it is enough now for us to say “bad things just happen”. No, they don’t. They happen as an inevitable result of a systematical error – that’s why same problems continue to occur. We have two choices. One is to shrug our shoulders and say sorry to NIU and wish that it will never happen near us. The other is that we can direct our attention to look further into the root cause of all the shootings and refuse to make another victim. We can forge alliances and mobilize resources to promote tighter control on guns. Now the tragedy is grabbing national attention, and we need to channel this attention to gun control issues. This way we truly emerge from our tragedy a stronger nation (rather than just a recovered nation), and our actions will mean saving countless lives for the future generations to come.

Here is the crux of the arguement: “I don’t think it is enough now for us to say “bad things just happen”. No, they don’t. They happen as an inevitable result of a systematical error – that’s why same problems continue to occur.” I disagree. Bad things do happen because there are “bad people” out there willing and able to carry out some sort of plan like Mr. Kaxmierczak’s — and there always will be in a free society.

Where you and I differ is on how we analyze the “error in the system”. You believe guns (or at least the availablity of guns) are the error in the system. I believe that we have given these miscreants ample opportunity to engage an unarmed, untrained and defenseless audience of targets (people) for his/her intentions. Do you ever stop to think why these killers are targeting schools, malls and churches? Why aren’t they attacking police stations, military bases or shooting ranges? Why — because they know they would be stopped quickly before they could succeed in whatever “grand plan” they have concocted to bring themselves infamy. They choose schools precisely because of the unarmed nature of the population there. I do agree with you that, while we continue to have unarmed students sitting in “gun free zones” we will continue to have these sorts of shootings.

And, finally, while you would prefer greater gun control, I would point you to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) report which indicates a lack of effectiveness with gun control laws in controlling violence.

Six young, innocent students were murdered in their lecture hall at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, IL. The killer had been identified as 27 year old Steven Kazmierczak, a former NIU student and a current graduate student studying social work at the University of Illinois in Urbana, Illinois. The students were in their oceanography class in Cole Hall when shortly after 3:00 p.m. the gunman entered the hall from a rear stage door. He opened fire at the audience with a 12 gauge shotgun before using his 2 pistols.

According to The Chicago Tribune,

NIU Police Chief Donald Grady said the department received a 911 call from inside the auditorium at 3:06 p.m. Police arrived 29 seconds later and found the gunman dead, Grady said

In all, this sad event took less than 2 minutes to transpire. The gunman was a noted scholar and had no known mental health issues. It has been reported through several unconfirmed internet sources that he did not have a criminal record.

So… what set this guy off?

[Additional note:] Apparently, the University closed on Dec 10th because of a shooting threat, but it was a racially charged threat written in a woman’s bathroom — probably no connection.

[Second addition:] These photos are now available –>

[Third addition:] the authorities have now revised their statistics to say there were 5 students killed, plus the gunman who took his own life. News reports now say that the gunman had exhibited signs of erratic behavior in the last 2 weeks after he quit “taking his meds”. So apparently, there was some history of mental illness…