The father of one of the shooting victims, Richard Martinez, is likely going to be someone we’re going to be seeing a lot of. He’s been plastered all over the media ever since the shooting, because he was on the stump immediately demanding gun control and badmouthing the NRA by association its members. I have to admit to being completely dumbfounded by this. When my mother died, I needed some time. I have to admit to not understanding people who can charge right into a political debate after losing a loved one.
“What has changed? Have we learned nothing? These things are going to continue until somebody does something, so where the hell is the leadership? Where the hell are these people we elect to Congress that we spend so much money on? These people are getting rich sitting in Congress, what do they do? They don’t take care of our kids.
My kid died because nobody responded to what happened at Sandy Hook. Those parents lost little kids. It’s bad enough that I lost my 20-year-old, but I had 20 years with my son, that’s all I’ll have. But those people lost their children at six and seven years old. How do you think they feel? And who’s talking to them now? Who is doing anything for them now? Who is standing up for those kids that died back then in an elementary school? Why wasn’t something done? It’s outrageous!â€
California has all the things that were proposed after Sandy Hook. All it takes in California is one cop willing to take a person in for evaluation for that person to earn a five year prohibition from buying or possessing a firearm. The shooters parents begged the authorities to do something. They did nothing. He wasn’t even worth a ride to a mental hospital. Because of that, the shooter was able to buy his firearms legally. I get the guy is angry, but his anger is entirely misdirected. He should be asking the authorities in California why they refused to take even the simplest action of taking him in for a 5150.
There is no manual for grieving. I give people a lot of latitude when they go through a loss like this. Better to blame people for taking advantage of him to further their cause.
Especially if having a villain gives him outlet for his greif.
Part of the reason people beleive in conspiracy theories is a way to attach a great meaning to events.
And that’s exactly what this man is peddling: conspiracy theories about some dark cabal thwarting the good and graceful.
And like any conspirary theoriest it doesn’t matter that California already had every gun law that Congress had on it’s plate last year.
And this isn’t even getting into “legislation by intent”. I’m sure if you pointed out that Cali already had those laws and it wouldn’t have made a difference he would have counted wtih “But passing that law would show they care! Show they’re not afraid of the NRA!”
Would this father call for the NRA and Congress at fault if he was shot by a robber?
Yes of course. I think he was already against guns way before his son was killed. He lives on the left coast so he most likely was a left winger way before this.
However, he lives in a fairly rural part of California and he’s a gun owner. He’s also a criminal defense attorney and they are typically pro-gun.
I think this is interesting. He’s obviously very familiar with the laws.
Which makes his Sandyhook comment all the more eyebrow raising.
Because if he’s not ignorant about what Congress was debading and he’s not ignorant of the current state of California law…
Then he’s knowingly uttering false statements to the media.
Geez, he just lost a kid… Don’t try to read reason into it. Any of our could react the same way.
When I lost my brother to a motorcycle accident, I didn’t blame Yamaha, or Hwy 1 in CA where the accident occurred, or the truck he was passing. I was just sad that I lost my brother.
So that’s how you reacted. All I am saying is that people react to loss in different ways. I’m not going to pile onto this guy.
Yes its very sad, yes he lost his son, yes people react in different ways.
But being a douche-bag is still a douche-bag.
I don’t believe that prohibition would have stopped this killer from acquiring guns. How many felons get their hands on guns in open violation of the laws? This psycho had enough money to get guns in the same places SoCal gang members get theirs.
The odds that any law or prior restraint is going to stop this kind of person are unlikely at best.
It’s not like contraband such as drugs are beyond the means of those with wealth and entertainment industry connections.
Course even without guns, this mutant would have been able to kill several people. Given that’s exactly what he did.
His kid knifed three men to death and ran over two cyclists with the BMW that Daddy had bought him.
He knew that his kid had some serious problems. But it’s the NRA’s fault that the kid snapped?
I smell “blame avoidance”.
Martinez is not the creeps father-he’s the father of one of the innocents.
“My kid died because nobody responded to what happened at Sandy Hook.”
WOW. That’s a reach!
Actually, it might be dead on – just not the way he proposes.
His kid’s dead because the State of California refused to do anything when people called in about the killer’s dangerous mental state.
“Take accusations of dangerous crazy seriously” is the most sensible response to the Sandy Hook killings.
And California didn’t.
My only guess as to why he wasn’t taken for an evaluation when the deputies went on the welfare check would be they felt at that time that he wasn’t a danger to himself or others. Just because someone seems off the rails isn’t the criteria, it’s the perceived danger at the time law enforcement makes contact.
^^^THIS^^^
Like I said in an earlier comment thread, the really dangerous crazies can be very good at faking something approximating “normal” when it really counts – like when the cops come around asking questions in response to the family’s concerns.
Either some will get missed, or a lot of non-dangerous but just “creepy” or “odd” people will get committed alongside the dangerous ones. Reality is simply an imperfect system.
People seem to think that the video vowing the “Day of Retribution” was available to the cops before they went to visit Rodger. It’s wasn’t. It was only posted about 10 minutes before he started shooting. (The LA Times had a timeline in one of their stories.) No one saw that video until it was too late to do anything. The rest of his videos were all “poor pitiful me” but they didn’t contain any specific threats.
Weren’t his parents saying he was a danger to himself and others?
His parents thought he was a danger to himself, that he might commit suicide.
The cops admitted that they didn’t watch any of the videos that were available at the time. Would have taken too much time out of their doughnut break.
Also, always remember, the courts have ruled that it is legal for police organizations to place a high cap on the IQ for their available candidates. Supposedly reduces turnover. It’s not Joe Friday knocking on the door, it’s Joe Dolt. IIRC, the cap is approx 110.
This is one of my greatest pet peeves I have against the Gun Control movement. Regardless of where horror occurs–indeed, in the case of Chicago, Washington DC, and New York City, it’s a focal point because so much horror happens there!–there’s a call for Gun Control. Yet the very laws that they are demanding are already in effect in the areas where the horrors they are lamenting took place.
And it’s this gall that makes me angry: the very laws they are calling for did nothing to prevent the tragedy, and the case can even be made that these laws contributed to it, yet they want *more* laws, as if that’s going to fix anything!
We need to do more to care for our mentally ill. We also need to see what we can do to reach out to gang culture, to convince them that murder and mayhem shouldn’t be a way of life…but the Gun Control movement will consider none of that, because they are so focused on the guns!
I think this guy is going backfire badly on the Democrats and the gun control movement.
Because the only significant ‘gun control’ left to pursue in Commiefornia is confiscation. So at the Federal level advocates are left pursuing gun control which already exists in California, and therefore they look like idiots since obviously the law they want would have made no difference. Or advocates are left openly calling for confiscation and abolishing the 2nd Amendment, which some editorialists already are!
Driving Democrats down the path of openly advocating an extremist anti-gun agenda is a really bad idea for them during an election year, and especially this midterm election year. Red State Democrats will get slaughtered.
Personally I’m with Joe the Plumber’s response.
How much is he being paid?