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As with Little Nell… I am out of tune with the spirit of the age. My first reaction was to laugh out loud:
The grandson of prominent anti-gun campaigner Pat Regan has been arrested on suspicion of stabbing her to death.
– Yahoo/ITN News
It is not just the paradox. It is the way such an incident – horrific in reality though it no doubt is – puts the lie to all such sentimental campaigns.
Children are not angels corrupted by contact with mundane implements; they are social animals, small brutes that will grow into large brutes unless civilized. A civilized man ought to be able to carry a gun without offering to shoot anyone under any provocation short of violence offered. A brute will assault you with whatever comes to hand if he feels slighted, and the last thing society needs is for him to have is greater self-esteem. [(1) – (2)] Fetishising mere tools just further exculpates violent people in their own minds.
Am I too cynical, or too idealistic?
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Oh well, at least I wasn’t the only one.
I’d say ‘realistic’.
I laughed too. You’d need a heart of stone not to.
A woman whose politics you disagree with is stabbed to death by her mentally ill grandson … you’re right, that is pretty funny.
I laught!
Irony is still the best comedy!
To Michael Farris:”Lighten up, Francis”
Laughing at the irony of it all is not the same as laughing at murder.
On the other hand, you have already given the murderer an excuse: the poor sod was mentally ill. He has not been examined yet, but according to you it wanst his fault.
Poetic justice in it’s purest, most humorous form.
She should have got herself a gun.
from the independent:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/anticrime-campaigner-murdered-838360.html?service=Print
“the arrested man is a relative who has been receiving treatment for mental health problems”
yeah, I’m sure she would have had no qualms about blowing away a grandson.
“The mother-of-six started campaigning against gun crime when her son Danny was shot dead in 2002”
I guess she should have gone on to campagin to get more guns into the hands of more 20 year olds. Or perhaps we should berate her for not sufficiently arming her son.
“Speaking at the time, she said: “… we shouldn’t have to bury our own children.”
Sentimental fool, we’re talking about guns here!
“She had met government officials to discuss how to tackle the problems of guns and gang-related crime.”
I suppose her direct experience with guns might be a little different from Mr. Herbert’s.
I suppose it might be. Which is rather the point. Laws should not be based on sentimentality, and they shouldn’t be based on the understandable prejudices that come from one’s experiences. Pat Regan has every reason to want to ban guns, based on her experiences. And for every Pat Regan in the world there are at least as many whose lives have been saved because a gun was handy to use in self-defense when they were attacked. Pat Regan’s personal sob story is not a basis for law. The right to self defense is. Indeed, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that someone who has lost a son to gun violence should fail to be objective about the issue. Which is why Mr. Herbert is right on point to call it “fetishiizing.” Because anyone who retains their common sense about these things knows that violent people don’t suddenly become good citizens when separated from guns.
My point is, Mr. Herbert sees the headline and sees “anti-gun campaigner” and “stabbed to death” and thinks it’s all jolly fun.
I saw “stabbed to death” and “by grandson” and am horrified by what her last moments must have been like being slaughtered by a loved one.
The idea that a gun probably wouldn’t have done her much good in that situation was a decided afterthought.
Joshua wrote:
Absolutely right. Here in the States, we have the ghastly new idea of naming proposed laws after children; thing’s like “Megan’s Law”, on the grounds that this sentimentalizing will make opposing the bills more difficult. Either that, or they come up with idiotic acronyms.
Here in New York, we just had a 10-year-old kid murdered. What’s the response?
Never mind that the acronym is inaccurate; what really incensed me is the idea that we should increase penalties on the basis of emotional responses: why only increased penalties for killing an under-12? Why get a lesser penalty if your victim is 13? Or 19? Or a 37-year-old rich white FLDS preacher?
Actually, I’m engaging in understatement. “Incensed” isn’t the right term; “filled with incandescent rage” is more like it. These people don’t care. They don’t have good intentions. (Note how quick they usually are to suggest that anybody who doesn’t agree with their proposed laws doesn’t care about kids, and watch their reaction if you ever suggest they don’t care about kids.) Their intentions are to arrogate more power to themselves; if they have to exploite dead kids to do it, so much the better.
michael farris,
My point is, Mr. Herbert sees the headline and sees “anti-gun campaigner” and “stabbed to death” and thinks it’s all jolly fun.
No, I don’t. You have wholly misunderstood my point.
My humour is black. The point is – he did not require a gun to kill her. I think that civilisation is a defence against murderousness, and that ‘controlling’ guns (i.e. denying them to the law-abiding) is irrelevant. I’m not one of those people that thinks if only she had had a gun she would have survived. He would undoubtably have had a gun. I think that the sort of sentimental narrative that anti-gun campaigners promote, that violent gangs are somehow victims of the existence of guns, rather than autonomous beings adopting a murderous way of life deliberately, is profoundly dangerous.
I, for one, rise in defense of the right to have conflicting and inappropriate emotions as a God-given or natural right.
The irony here is heavy and tragic. In fact, the story could be a Greek tragedy with a change in technology.
But the story is ironic, and naturally-occurring irony has the power to startle and produce amusement of greater or lesser grimness. And I’m sure that that’s why, long ago and far away, irony was drafted into the service of comedy.
But as Tolkien wrote, “Not all who laugh are in a comedy club.” Or something like that. Maybe it was Aristophanes.
No doubt the powers that be will simply use the event as another excuse to ban knives. Communal kitchens have long been a dream of the left “why do you need to cook at home – have you got something to hide?”
As for Guy’s comments – they are (of course) taken from Mr Wilde’s (a socialist) comment on Dickens death of Little Nell (the title should have told Mr Ferris that).
“You would have to had a heart of stone – not to laugh”. The death of the lady is certainly not funny – but her belief that X, Y, Z regulation could save her ……
However, Mr Ferris seems to believe that laws banning things prevent murder – even though murderers (by definition) commit murder, which is already banned.
It reminds me of the sign in various places “gun free zone”.
I see, so someone who is prepared to commit murder is going to be unwilling to break a “gun control” regulation.
My apologies – it was Mr Farris, not Mr Ferris.
An “Independent” newspaper reader it seems.
I looked at the front cover of that newspaper today – a lot hypocritical shock/horror about the murder of a man in Zimbabwe.
Graphic picture and words to attract readers (anything for money it seems) and hypocracy because Comrade Bob (who the newspaper makes a big show of opposing) is only putting into practice the socialist principles of the writers of the newspaper – the “land reform” and “public ownership” they would like to see in Britain.
It is hypocrtical to advocate a thing whilst expressing surprise and horror and the consequences of that thing – whilst continuing to advocate it.
By the way, did the story even mention that Comrade Bob is a life long dedicated socialist simply (like Chevez and so many others, past and present) putting into practice the political principles so popular among the “enlightened” elite (the people who dominate the universities and so on) in the West itself?
Or did this fact slip their minds again?
From the Times Article
“Danny Regan, her youngest son, died aged 26 in 2002 when a killer with a pump action shotgun burst into his home in St Helens, Merseyside, and shot him in the chest. His death, which remains unsolved, bore all the hallmarks of an underworld hit.”
Mr Regan was killed after the ban of 1997.To coin a phrase,”They are the bad guys,they are always going to have guns”.
If guns are banned,then only those who intend to use them will have them.
It’s funny and sad at the same time.
Thoughts and condolences of course to the family, but story is comical..
Mel Brooks -“Tragedy is me cutting my finger; comedy is you falling down a manhole and dying.”
Now would be a good time to outlaw knives and forks! All food should be finger food! It’s so obvious!
Further thought shows that chopsticks COULD also be used in a lethal way, and you can get splinters from them! China plates no doubt could be lethal! And some foods have BONES in them! Bones can be used as weapons! Around here, in OZ, you can even point a bone at someone, and they might think themselves to death!
I think we’ll need to ban ALL food, just to be safe! And this ‘water’ stuff can be frozen, and then used as a weapon….. It’s a worry!
Nick G., you are so right. I think the ultimate solution is here.
Here goes again.
You,ve got me all wrong, Alisa! I want to stop people from being killed! I want to stop them even if they want to die! (Libertarianism is all about LIFE and liberty, etc.)
Part of me wants to agree with Guy’s sense of irony, the other wants to share Michael Farris’s expression of horror at what has happened and dislike of someone trying to make a point out of it. I must say this post made me feel somewhat queasy.
A post that everyone agreed with would be entirely pointless.
I am continually distressed by a world in which the recieved wisdom is in conflict with what my own mind tells me is good sense. But I contemplate the possibility of just thinking whatever ‘right-thinking people’ are supposed to think, and it seems to me that that is close to not existing at all.
Johnathan Pearce wrote:
‘Part of me wants to agree with Guy’s sense of irony, the other wants to share Michael Farris’s expression of horror at what has happened and dislike of someone trying to make a point out of it. I must say this post made me feel somewhat queasy.’
and he hits the nail on the head.
All humour is based (in some degree) on the misfortune of another, or of oneself.
But there are degrees. Most humour is based in imagination, and this situation is all-too-real.
I’m sure that this woman died a horrible death, made (no doubt) more so by the knowledge that it was her own family member that did it to her.
She committed no crime, she broke no law, she merely had a different opinion than most of those here, and she expressed it. And, for having and expressing a differing opinion, her horrific murder is to be reduced to an opportunity for an easy indulgence in humour?
Dehumanize much?
Guy Herbert – don’t feed me the line that this is just ‘dark’ humour – this amounts to nothing more than giggling over the violent death of an innocent person, just because you happen to disagree with her. Are your political opinions so sacred, so inviolable, so immutably correct in every respect, that any person who disagrees is somehow ‘less’, and if they should pay a heavy price for their error of opinion, then you have license to make sport of them in their error?
This is the kind of doctrinal absolutism that we expect from the likes of the Kos kids. I had hoped for better here.
And of course I grasp the irony. And of course I see the analogy to Oscar Wilde’s famous quote. But Little Nell was a character in a novel – Ms Regan was very much a live, and now is very much not. And in this case, Wilde’s famous quote is turned on its head – you would have to have a heart of stone if your first reaction is to laugh at a tragedy like this – in public, at least. It is perhaps a natural human trait to see the irony in a situation like this – but our ability to resist the urge to revel in the great misfortune of others is what sets us apart from the lower orders. And the political point can be made perfectly well without resorting to mocking and belittling the victim.
I go further and suggest that those who are quick to make a joke out of something like this have never had to be nose-to-nose with a brutal and violent death. It’s easy to make sport in this way from a comfortable, middle-class armchair. I would like to hear from eg combat veterans, or serving LEOs like regular contributor Sunfish, who have no doubt seen things like this up-close-and-personal. It’s my experience that people who have had to deal with this in the first person generally are not so quite so quick to use it as an oppotunity for a cheap laugh.
Bah. Disappointed and (as JP said) vaguely queasy. is that the best you can do?
llater,
llamas
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
llamas,
I hate to admit this, but I chuckled too.
I know I shouldn’t. It’s tragic, but the irony was…well, I don’t like to say it, but it was a little funny in a tasteless sort of way.
My first death scene, well, all I’ll say is that I somehow managed to avoid throwing up until after I finished up and left. But I also popped off some pretty raw jokes about it that night. Cold, callous, inappropriate, yeah, probably. But irony is generally funny and people laugh at ironic things, even when they shouldn’t be funny.
It’s like the joke P.J. O’Rourke wrote: folks who will tell you that you SHOULDN’T laugh at the blind are probably right. People who tell you that you CAN’T laugh at the blind are wrong, as anyone who’s ever heard the one about Helen Keller falling down a well and breaking three fingers calling for help can tell you.
I can’t believe I went there. I’m going to bed.
Sunfish – obliged to you.
Yes, I saw the irony in it at once. I didn’t chuckle, but I did have some thoughts in the area of comeuppance.
I’m well-familar with cop humour at very, very nasty situations. It is a coping mechanism. I’ve indulged in it myself. However, I think you’d agree that what you say in a closed group of those who have to deal with something very bad is not the same as what you would say in public. It is perhaps as well that most cop humour does not get past the locker-room door.
The Helen Keller joke is funny. I laugh at it, you laugh at is, most people laugh at it. But it is imaginary, for all that it makes cruel fun of the afflicted. The instant case is real.
When I heard the story of Timothy Treadwell, the ‘bear man’ who thought that the grizzly bears of Katmai were just big happy lugnuts who wanted to party with him, and got himself et by a bear for his pains – I laughed. The fool brought his fate upon himself, in the face of all experience and advice, for all that it was a horrible death. That doesn’t mean that I laugh every time that someone gets killed by a bear. Circumstances are everything. In this case, the woman died a horrible death for reasons having nothing to do with her personal opinions. I don’t find that a suitable basis for public humour. And the political point (which is perfectly valid) can be made, even with the full application of the inherent irony, without laughing at the woman’s fate.
As always, obliged to you.
llater,
llamas
They’re already agitating about knives. I’m a computer tech. I frequently walk the streets with a piratical array of sharp objects. Am I going down? Are they going to take my set of posidrives? And then bang me in chokey?
Alisa. I have seen that site before. All I have to say to them is, “You first folks, lead the way”.
Paul, don’t say it! Communal kitchens. Oh God! I can see it now. They could also ensure that the food was carbon neutral (ie cold) and that we all got our “five a day”. Don’t give them ideas.
llamas,
I’d have thought I’d be the last here to be accused of doctrinal absolutism.
If you think I’m laughing at someone’s death because they (presumptively) disagreed with me, then you have me very wrong indeed. I wouldn’t be amused by the simple fact of anyone’s death. Context is what makes this what it is.
Guy Herbert wrote:
‘If you think I’m laughing at someone’s death because they (presumptively) disagreed with me, then you have me very wrong indeed.’
Well, I’m always prepared to see where I completely misunderstood what someone said. So help me understand what you mean. When I read your words – ‘My first reaction was to laugh out loud’ – the conclusion I drew was that you were ‘laughing at someone’s death’. But perhaps the subtle nuance of your words was lost on me. It happens.
As you say, ‘Context is what makes this what it is’, and the context here is that an innocent woman who has done nothing to anybody has been brutally, violently mudered for reasons which (as far as we know) have absolutely nothing to do with her political opinions or expressions. And your ‘first reaction was to laugh out loud’. You’re laughing, and she’s dead. Please help me to ‘contextualize’ that.
Laughing at the misfortunes of others whose opinions we disagree with, when those misfortunes are not connected with those opinions, is a pretty poor sort of humour, it seems to me. Hypocrisy – sure. Double-standard – staple of humour through the ages. Lying, cheating, deception – all perfectly fit objects for our derisions. But brutal murder for no good reason – not quite sure that I’m seeing it as the basis for yukking it up. Your comments are a short step away form the delightful sentiment expressed above by another poster, who opined ‘good riddance . . . ‘. Yeah, those folks whose opinions we don’t like – who cares if they die?
Incidentally, I have done some (possibly-insufficient) searching and it would appear that her campaign was not against guns or knives per se, but against crimes committed with guns and knives. Well, guess what – I’m against crimes committed with guns and knives as well.
llater,
llamas
Nick, I stole it from Cats.
llamas,
I don’t know how to make it more clear than I did in the original post. My first reaction was to the headline, the terse description of one moral panic being trumped by another.
Llamas:
Coming from the USA, it might be hard for you to comprehend the way in which do gooders and special pleaders rule our lives in Britain. Whenever anything bad happens, there is always an outcry to ban whatever might have been used by a criminal, be it a knife, a gun, the internet, whatever. So there is a certain grim irony in seeing one of these campaigners, in this case an “anti-gun/anti-knife” campaigner hoist by their own petard. It would have made more sense for her to have addressed the point that her late son was a drug dealer and her grandson was a mentalist, but that might have forced her to confront a few home truths about herself. Better to ban a few inanimate objects, that’ll do the trick. Well, I’m so pleased that the fact I can no longer practise target pistol shooting saved this lady from the fate of being shot by her grandson, rather than stabbed by him.
I hereby propose a new agency to tackle the problem of gun and knife crime, the Child Reform Action Plan. I am sure that CRAP will be able to put a stop to this menace in our society. If it saves the life of one anti-gun busybody it will be worth it.
Sorry, llamas, but I don’t agree with you on this. Heavy irony such as this always merits a snort of amusement (although obviously not prolonged guffawing).
It reminds me of the line by Burt (the survivalist) in the movie “Tremors” (one of my favorites; don’t laugh) as they’re being rescued from his compound: “Food for five years. A thousand gallons of gas. Air filtration. Water filtration. Geiger counter. Bomb shelter . . . underground goddamn monsters?!” How can you not laugh? Burt has spent his entire life preparing for every conceivable sort of disaster, and then something completely unexpected threatens to do him in. It’s the same in Ms Regan’s case. Her death isn’t amusing, but the irony of its form is. It seems to me that one would have to be an unreconstructed gun control advocate not to appreciate the irony in the situation, and irony and humor are joined at the hip.
Incidentally, we often take pleasure in the misfortunes of others, especially those with whom we disagree; that’s why the lovely German word “schadenfreude” is so useful. Calling that “a pretty poor sort of humour” is unfair and, I think, incorrect. In any event, it’s a completely human response.
Your out of tune with the imposed hegemonic discourse of the ruling class; nothing else.
Fuck them.
Her son according to her “a legtimate businessman” was in fact a serious drug dealer and was the victim of a gangland hit inside his fortifed house (not a casual or drive by shooting, btw). I would suggest that he was not a vicitim of “guns ‘n knives” but rather his career choice.
What very interesting is to read all the newspaper coverage and see how few mention any of this background to the brave campaigner.
I find it hard to summon up anything other than contempt for her, certainly not admiration, sorrow or pity. Mind you there’s not much to laugh at either but I’ll take what I can get.
John K – I lived in England for many years. Apparently, things have changed significantly since I left.
Laird – I don’t lack a sense of humour, and I agree that irony is one of the strongest foundations of what’s funny. And I agree with you – in some part.
New York governor caught hiring hookers after crusading against the white-slave trade? I laughed my ass off.
Idaho senator caught cottaging (see? Who would know that term but one who lived there a long time?) after denouncing the gay lifestyle? I unshipped a rib over that one.
Innocent woman boltered in her own blood? Not quite such a yuk-fest, that one.
“Schadenfruede” is often defined as ‘malicious delight in the suffering of another, which is seen as trivial and/or appropriate’, and I am hard-pressed to see what is appropriate or non-trivial about being stabbed to death. But I think that the ‘malicious’ part fits perfectly here, as does the ‘delight’ part – it was delightful enough to cause a ripple of happy laughter.
I guess we shall have to disagree.
llater,
llamas
Llamas:
You wouldn’t know the place. Don’t bother coming back, there’s really no point.
Schadenfreude – making the world a better place to be!
(Link)
I guess we’ll just have to disagree.
Llamas,
I agree with you.
If Josef Fritzl were gang-raped in prison: hilarious – let’s all laugh, given the appalling sexual abuse he committed against his own child.
However, an elderly, innocent woman, trying to make a difference (no matter how misguided her efforts might appear to some) is hacked to death just yesterday by her grandson and, today, the circumstances of her ‘ironic’ death are being laughed at here, on a publicly-accessible website.
A few thoughts immediately come to mind:
– lack of decency;
– inappropriate;
– disproportionate…
Some of the same thoughts – and worse – that I have in relation to the fact that some dumb YouTube posters post comments mocking people suffering from terrible deformaties, or people actually dying, in response to videos of the deformaties and deaths uploaded by other dumb YouTube afficionados purely for entertainment.
Normally, one hopes, there is a little alarm bell that rings in someone’s mind called ‘judgement call’ between their having a private snigger, or a private joke with friends, and posting something genuinely offensive.
This little bell does not seem to have rung – or has been unheeded – on this occasion.
DavidNcl wrote:
‘Her son according to her “a legtimate businessman” was in fact a serious drug dealer and was the victim of a gangland hit inside his fortifed house . . ..
The murdered son of this murdered woman was a drug dealer?
A drug dealer?
Well, why didn’t you say so? Of course, that changes everything.
Her fault entirely that she got stabbed to death by her own grandson. Deserved it, really. A trivial matter, her murder is entirely appropriate to her circumstances and, of course, a perfectly-fit subject for all decent people to make jokes about.
/sarcasm off/
llater,
llamas
She didn’t merely “have a different opinion”. She worked hard to make sure that people other than herself were disarmed by the power of the state. That means that she did what she could to deliver the old, the weak, and the unprotected to a world where the strong and cruel make the rules.
She got the fate she demanded that others risk without having a choice. Better her than some innocent person.
There’s little that I can call “innocent” about what she was campaigning for. Demanding lengthy jail sentences for people in possession of illegal firearms (without taking into account to their motivation) is not innocent.
Lashing out at anyone and everyone so you can divert attention away from your own failed parenting skills is not innocent either, or honest.
Next time anyone thinks of sympathising with people like this, think of Tony Martin (who would probably still be behind bars if these people had their way) and then reconsider.
What was it organisations like MAV and MAG were campaigning for again? Mandatory five year jail sentences for anyone caught in possession of an illegal firearm for whatever the reason (the law was passed in 2003) ?
Does spending five years in jail because the government wishes to preserve the lives of scum like Fred Barras at the cost of your property (and often, your life and the lives of your family) strike you as being a little…disproportionate?
Not when, like me, you’ve been on the receiving end of this person’s sanctimonious “campaign work”, it doesn’t.
llamas,
Your concern is good and I prefer your reaction to be the default mode people take when they are evaluating the fates of others.
Some thoughts on this particular case. You and several others are calling this woman ‘innocent’. Yes. Legally innocent of any crime against another. But so is a drug user who overdoses.
From what other commenters have said in this thread and a bit I have read on the net, it sounds like this was a very nice person who lived her life in proactive denial. Her son was a gangster. In this short bio from 2005, it is clear that she believes eliminating weapons will stop violence.
Notice how all of the blame is placed on drugs and guns and none on the human beings involved. She appeared certain that it was not his career choice that killed him but the existence of a gun. I suspect and reasonable people might assume that her denial of the role of peoples’ own actions in the consequences they face extended to her grandson’s character and potentials as well. Even if it turns out that her grandson does have serious psychiatric problems, did her apparent belief that externalities and not internally made decisions cause people to commit violence, contribute to her vulnerability?
We do not know the answer to that but we do know that when she set herself up as an advocate for how the law should protect peaceful people from violent people, she was in effect saying ‘Trust me. I know what I’m doing.’ She was setting herself up as an expert to make decisions about our safety from violence.
In this case, as you point out, she campaigned against “gun crime” and so do you. And yet I suspect you hear “gun crime” and think ‘people using guns to commit violence’. The attitude of so many anti-gun campaigners is switched. They hear “gun crime” and apparently think ‘guns using people to commit violence’.
IIRC you were once a police officer. How many of the victims you helped were in absolute denial about their own contribution to the mess they were in? I’m guessing a fairly high percentage. I suspect that an ‘it’s not my/our fault’ perspective was a major contributor to Pat Regan’s fate. But this is all admittedly speculative. I presumed when I read Guy’s comment that the schadenfreude was purely at philosophical level. It never occurred to me that he did or could find humor of any kind in the act itself.
I suspect that it is your law enforcement perspective coupled with a very proper belief in waiting for facts and evidence that put the brakes on your perception of any dark humor in this case. That and perhaps a more complete graphic awareness of what it meant. I find your reaction reassuringly cautious and appropriate to anyone thinking in the context of law enforcement. I most certainly do NOT want LEOs deciding whether anyone deserved their fate.
But in the context of politics and the passage of laws, which is Guy’s commission, uncomfortable though it is I think this article and discussion are necessary. Whether it is a perpetrator like Carl Rowan, or a victim like Pat Regan, when those who would take the rights of others fall prey to the policies they advocate, it needs to be placed front and center. And quite clearly, Pat Regan believed that safety was to be found by sanitizing environments. When she died by stabbing it put the lie to that idea. No country, city or even a house can every be cleaned of everything that could be used in that way.
“Her fault entirely that she got stabbed to death by her own grandson. Deserved it, really. A trivial matter, her murder is entirely appropriate to her circumstances and, of course, a perfectly-fit subject for all decent people to make jokes about”
An accurate assessment. I realise you are trying to be sarcastic but this is right on the money. People are making jokes because it IS ironic and she is NOT some blameless innocent old woman on the sidelines despite your PC views.
Parents are responsible for how their children turn out. Her childrens developmental psycology and their subsequent behaviour is _directly_ her responsibility. If your kids turn out to be illiterate, crimminals, rapists, maniacs and what not YOU as a parent are lagely to are to blame.
Being the mother of a drug dealing gangster alwayss has and allways will exclude you from decent society and so it should. It is these sorts of social sanctions from which civil society springs – irrespective of the PC hergemonic posture on the matter.
Choosing to acting in public to adovate disarming other is also her responsibilty. Seeking to place the blame for her sons death onto “guns” is an act which incurrs social costs, for which she is also responsible.
David, all true, but did she really deserve to die a violent death because of all those things? I have to admit that I am largely with Guy on this, but on the other hand…
Parents are responsible for how their children turn out. Her childrens developmental psycology and their subsequent behaviour is _directly_ her responsibility. If your kids turn out to be illiterate, crimminals, rapists, maniacs and what not YOU as a parent are lagely to are to blame.
I take it then you are absolving the drug dealers of any blame here seeing as it’s all their parents fault.
Being the mother of a drug dealing gangster alwayss has and allways will exclude you from decent society and so it should.
Nonsense. Being a drug-dealer yourself might, depending on your behaviour. But not being the mother of one. For someone so distressed about PC hegemony you seem to have taken on board most of the noxious psychobabble associated with it.
Would it be too much for you to comprehend that just because something is ironic doesn’t necessarily make it funny.
James,
“Demanding lengthy jail sentences for people in possession of illegal firearms (without taking into account to their motivation) is not innocent.”
Since when has it been a criminal offence to argue on either side of the firearms debate? She was innocent under the law and she was exercising her freedom of expression, a cornerstone of democracy.
The implication that she somehow ‘got what she deserved’ because she exercised her rights to freedom of expression and to campaign in a democracy is deeply disturbing. Surely, the way to counter what you regard as her unacceptable views is to argue and campaign against them in a way that influences events in your favour. That’s how democracy works.
Midwesterner wrote:
‘But in the context of politics and the passage of laws, which is Guy’s commission, uncomfortable though it is I think this article and discussion are necessary. Whether it is a perpetrator like Carl Rowan, or a victim like Pat Regan, when those who would take the rights of others fall prey to the policies they advocate, it needs to be placed front and center. And quite clearly, Pat Regan believed that safety was to be found by sanitizing environments. When she died by stabbing it put the lie to that idea. No country, city or even a house can every be cleaned of everything that could be used in that way.’
I do not disagree in any way with this sentiment. I’m a firm believer in the RTKABA for the defence of the person, and in that context I believe that Ms Regan’s views and some of her campaigning were misguided, wrong-headed and unsupported by the facts. And, as you say, when a colourable argument can be made that she became a victim because of the very policies she advocated, then it is perfectly fair to make that argument. That’s not my point.
My point is that it is highly inappropriate to use her death, and the argument that springs from it, as a jumping-off point for (at the very least) outbursts of laughter that verge upon gloating and (at the extreme) expressions such as ‘good riddance’ and sentiments along the lines of ‘she had it coming. To do so dehumanizes her and assigns her rights to life and safety a lower value than the rights of others. I thought we were all for equal rights to life and liberty, regardless of opinions? Perhaps I was mistaken.
This BBS was rightly outraged when an innocent City banker was butchered like a hog on his own doorstep on Cheyne Walk – and yet a working-class woman with family problems who’s sincerely trying to do something about violent crime (however misguided she may be) is similarly slaughtered – and the reaction is one of laughter? Or to say ‘oh, well, people like THAT, she only got her comeuppance’.
Hell of a way to express the ‘context of politics and the passage of laws’, there.
llater,
llamas
Staghounds,
“She didn’t merely “have a different opinion”. She worked hard to make sure that people other than herself were disarmed by the power of the state. That means that she did what she could to deliver the old, the weak, and the unprotected to a world where the strong and cruel make the rules.
She got the fate she demanded that others risk without having a choice. Better her than some innocent person “.
She used her freedom of expression to campaign for what she believed in. That makes her guilty of nothing. Those who oppose her can argue and campaign fervently against her views. Doing so makes them guilty of nothing.
Unless, of course, you regard freedom of expression as an offence that should be punishable under the law.
She was advocating the use of force to deny people a basic human right. That makes her an enemy mine. I don’t care in the slightest what her motivations were – deeds, not words, are what counts. Personally I rejoice when an enemy dies. Let’s hope more follow, and soon.
David Ncl
“Being the mother of a drug dealing gangster alwayss has and allways will exclude you from decent society and so it should. It is these sorts of social sanctions from which civil society springs – irrespective of the PC hergemonic posture on the matter”.
Whilst I agree that parents have a large responsibility for how their children develop, there is an age of criminal responsibilty at which people rightly become legally responsible for their own actions. To argue against this is to argue against the notion of free will and to argue in favour of ‘guilt by association’.
Ironically, you align yourself with the tenets of PC by arguing in favour of judging whole families – and communities? – as ‘innocent’ or ‘guilty’ upon the basis of some of their members’ actions.
John Pate,
“She was advocating the use of force to deny people a basic human right. That makes her an enemy mine. I don’t care in the slightest what her motivations were – deeds, not words, are what counts. Personally I rejoice when an enemy dies. Let’s hope more follow, and soon”.
As it’s clear you have no interest in using democratic conventions to further your arguments (ie trying to convert people to your way of thinking through argument ) – and I do wonder why you’re actutally bothering to post (ironic that) – I have just one question: are you comfortable in your bunker?
John Pate wrote:
‘Personally I rejoice when an enemy dies.’
I don’t often resort to profanity, or to the Insult Direct – but
Are you for real? Who do you think you are – Conan The F**king Barbarian? Shouldn’t you add something about the lamentations of their women?
‘I rejoice when an enemy dies’, indeed. Reading enough comic books, are we?
In your world, a violent, bloody murder is to be reduced to a movie cliche. Here in the real, civilized world, we sometimes consider the death of another a bit more soberly and seriously than that. It’s perfectly obvious from the perfect fatuousness of your words that you’ve never had any direct dealings with violent death – noone that I’ve ever met that has, whether soldier, doctor, policeman, paramedic, you name it – ever, ever talks like this. This is nothing but sick fantasy.
There are plenty of BBSs where you can indulge your bloodthirsty fantasies with those of a like mind. I had hoped that this was not one of them.
There. And if that gets me banned for committing the Insult Direct, then it was worth it.
llater,
llamas
Llamas you know nothing about me, further it’s clear from your comments your ignorance in general is deeply profound.
Quit whining, go read some history, and stop living in your own little fantasy world.
DavidBruno:
You really are being quite tiresome. I fely exactly the same as Guy when I heard this news. It’s not funny, but as I said, there’s a sort of grim irony about it. She tried to slough off her responsibility in producing a drug dealing gangster onto inanimate objects, namely knives and guns, and was then killed by her own grandson with a knife. Everything leads me to believe that the problems in her family were not caused by inanimate objects, and she and her kind have had a direct and negative effect on my life by depriving me of my property and the sport I used to enjoy. So there you have it. Feel free to exercise your pomposity to your heart’s content with any of the above, I don’t propose to waste any of my time arguing with you.
John K,
“You really are being quite tiresome”.
At last, omething genuinely amusing on this thread, albeit unintentionally.
llamas,
I think we are in agreement. I have followed Guy’s articles and comments for several years. I have also sought his assistance on at least one occasion (more?) in preparing my own articles. I do perhaps tend to project my own reactions and interpretations onto other people’s words. For myself I saw nothing in his words but head shaking irony.
There are people here and elsewhere on the net that appear to be gloating. I think some of that springs from not having either the imagination or knowledge to understand how she died. In the area where I live, about 20 years ago there was a knife murder. IIRC, the boy’s parents had been trying to get help for him without success. One day they came home and found he had murdered his sister. It came out that the expression of rage evidenced at that scene shook even experienced investigators. In what rarely happens in the US, he was found to be insane and placed in the state’s only facility capable of handling psychopaths. Now 20some years later the state is trying to release him to a group home. His parents are campaigning strongly against this. They believe he is only safe under maximum care and that a simple error by the subcontractors to the state running the group home would result in him being off his correct medication and a clear danger to others again.
Unlike these parents who have a strong grasp of reality, Pat Regan appeared to think everybody is good and it is only things that make them bad.
I agree very much with your statements and think that her humanness and sympathetic nature need to be featured in any discussion. Far from (like at least one commenter here) seeing this as ‘one less enemy’, I see this as a clear, rational and repeatable example of how good intentions are absolutely meaningless in the face of violence.
I have seen a similar divergence of people’s responses to Ted Kennedy’s illness. I have had four relatives with various brain injuries including Alzheimer’s, a very high childhood fever, a cluster of brain tumors and a massive stroke. I have just spent the last hour helping one of them with what should be life’s most routine activities. There is no way from my own exposure to this that I can see his illness as anything but awful.
There are people on this planet that I could easily gloat if evil came to them. The junta currently engineering the death of possible hundreds of thousands in Burma is an example. But not Kennedy’s case. While I wish him the worst of failures politically, I wish him and his family only the best in what they are facing. And perhaps I am old fashioned. I like my opponents to have their full faculties intact.
To address the context of this article and thread, humor is more than just a coping tool. It is a learning and memory mnemonic. And pointing out the tragic irony (which is all this dark humor really is) of Pat Regan’s case, assures that the folly of believing violence can be stopped by banning weapons will be better learned and remembered.
I was speaking of innocence in the moral, rather than a legal context (like Midwestener). Sorry for not making it clear.
And I suppose those who vote for a government that openly advocates, say, genocide are innocent too because they won’t personally be the ones doing the killing?
Llama:
Good intentions are a poor moral standard to judge people by. By that standard, Robert Mugabe is a hero because his intentions were “good”.
James wrote:
‘(Good) intentions are a poor moral standard to judge people by.’
and I wholeheartedly agree – which is why I find it so very offensive that some people here are passing judgement on this woman, and rejoicing in her violent death, based solely upon her intentions.
Let’s be honest. I don’t question but that the ridiculous political games of ‘gun control’ that have been played out in the UK of late must be simply maddening to all right-thinking people. Some of that shows here, and I can only imagine how I would feel if any of that sort of arrant nonsense were to try and rear its ugly head here where I live.
But this woman did not have the power to make that happen – firstly, because the vast majority of the laws in question were proposed and passed long before she came on the scene, and secondly, because she was not a legislator, and had no more power to enact these laws than you or I do. She is not responsible for the fact that your democracy is so structured that the most basic human rights can be stripped away from you by a simple majority.
What she was/is is a convenient scapegoat for those whose rights have been stolen from them to vent their spleen upon. The grim irony of the circumstances of her death has been twisted around to be made into a malicious joke, mocking her death as though to provide some sort of warm feeling of retribution. See, someone who agreed with the monstrous injustices that were done to us has died a horrible death – serves her right!
This is the politics of the schoolyard.
Perhaps all of that hatred and anger would have been better-channelled into thwarting the political process that caused this to be done to you in the first place.
David Bruno – good for you. When they call you ‘tiresome’ and announce that they will not ‘waste their time’ arguing with you, what they’re really saying is ‘I got nothing else’.
llater,
llamas
Bit really Llamas, it’s just that sometimes you end up going round and round in circles. As you have said, you don’t live in Britain and you don’t know how these shroud waving morons work to get anything they don’t like banned. The fact that this anti-gun and anti-knife busybody ends up getting killed by her own grandson with a knife isn’t funny, but it has a black sort of irony to it. She blamed inanimate objects, but all her problems were caused by members of her family. That’s her problem, but she and her allies made it mine by agitating to get my lawfully owned property confiscated. She made my life worse for no good reason, so no, I’m not going to be sanctimonious about the pathetic manner of her death. It simply proved that the cause she fought for is a load of sentimental crap.
John K – I understand your frustration, but you need to consult a calendar. The laws which deprived you of your property and your sport were passed long before Pat Regan became involved in the issue. FYI, her involvement dates to 2003, by which time (as I understand it) the total ban on handguns and the stringent restrictions on shotguns and rifles had already been in place for 5 years and more.
I agree with your thoughts about the cause she supported but she’s not personally responsible for what happened to you.
llater,
llamas
Llamas:
If only it had stopped there. Since then cartridge powered air guns have been banned, replica guns have been banned, and it looks as if deactivated guns will be banned. Many people who can no longer shoot content themselves with collecting deacts, but thanks to the Pat Regans of this world and people like her criminal offspring, we won’t be able to for much longer. Seriously, unless you have to put up with this shit every day of your life you can’t really understand why people like Guy and me would feel like we do. Recently in Manchester another of these anti-gun mums was found with a pump action shotgun in her house. She said she had been given it by an “ex” gang member who wanted it to be in a safe place. It did not seem to occur to her that she could have given it to the police. These people are as hypocritical as they are stupid and sanctimonious. All I can say is that now there is one less of them to lecture me on why it’s my property which is a threat to society rather than her criminal brood.
llamas: ” Here in the real, civilized world, we sometimes consider the death of another a bit more soberly and seriously than that”. Yes of course we do. Sometimes, when its a friend or a respect colleague or some one who has added pleasure to our lives …
But this is quite a different statement from the original expressed view in which John Pate wrote: ‘Personally I rejoice when an enemy dies.’ – I can see nothing wrong with John’s view; it certainly does not preclude grieving at the deaths of our friends and I do not think it in anyway uncivilised.
All you seem to be doing is shouting that some expressed responses (which seem to me and many other commenters) as normal or even rational are to be excoriated at your whim.
DavidNcl – well, if you consider that the following reactions to the violent homicide of a woman who did nothing more than campaign for her opinion (no matter how wrongheaded it might be)
– laughter
– ‘F**k them’
– ‘Good riddance’
– ‘Rejoici(ng)’
– ‘contempt’
are
– ‘normal’
– ‘rational’
– ‘not uncivilized’
Then we will have to disagree. I apologize if my expressing of a divergent opinion has disturbed you. Please feel free to return to your muffins, in the manner of Judge Graves.
This exchange has proven something that I have grown to suspect more-and-more of late – scratch a ‘libertarian’, and oftentimes underneath you will find a ideologue every-bit as keen to pass judgement on and dehumanize others as the worst neo-fascists of the left and right. There’s a sort of Deuteronomical zeal here to visit the sins of the child upon the mother, a Pharisaical delight in seeing the sinner getting smited.
Ugh. Like I said – makes me kind of queasy.
llater,
llamas
But it didn’t stop her from taking part it. And what’s more:
True in one sense: She was indeed just a small cog in the “disarmament machine”, but it’s the many small cogs that keep it ticking over and legitimise its existence. Personally, I could easily same bigger, more important (and far less innocent) cogs to wish this upon, but that doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with dancing on their graves when the opportunity presents itself.
Not likely. A “Tony Martin’s Law” was proposed a few years ago, to allow the use of lethal force against intruders, which recieved popular support.
It’s advocates were denounced as “bastards”.
Yes, this rot had set in years ago, but if the cause was genuine, the failure of gun control to reduce crime should have at least given it’s advocates a good reason to re-think their strategy and goals. They haven’t done anything of the sort.
A threat to libertarian values is going to produce anger from libertarians. That’s true of people of any political stripe. Only a mindless robot has no values and no emotional responses.
Not only that, you seem to have a profound misunderstanding of the nature of rights. These people have either deliberately or recklessly initiated the use of force against those who haven’t done anything to anyone (and thus expressed a desire to live and associate with others at a sub-human level). We’re not dehumanising anyone here- they’re dehumanising us and themselves too.
We can do without it.
Llamas:
As I have said, you don’t live in Britain, so unless you walk a mile in our shoes you just won’t get it. Try this one: Al Gore dies when his Learjet crashes on his way to a climate change conference in Acapulco. Can you honestly tell me your first thought would be “Oh the humanity”?
James wrote (of me):
‘Not only that, you seem to have a profound misunderstanding of the nature of rights. These people have either deliberately or recklessly initiated the use of force against those who haven’t done anything to anyone (and thus expressed a desire to live and associate with others at a sub-human level). We’re not dehumanising anyone here- they’re dehumanising us and themselves too.’
I don’t think so. This woman/’these people’ did not initiate the use of force (&c, &c, &c) against anyone – she/they did not have the power to do that. That was done to you by your legislators. All that she/they did was to persuade your legislators to her/their way of thinking more-successfully than you were able to.
And whose fault is that?
As I said – the grave-dancing going on here is mostly the fortuitous finding of a convenient, visible scapegoat on which frustrations may be vented. IOW, the politics of the schoolyard.
JohnK wrote (of me)
‘As I have said, you don’t live in Britain, so unless you walk a mile in our shoes you just won’t get it. Try this one: Al Gore dies when his Learjet crashes on his way to a climate change conference in Acapulco. Can you honestly tell me your first thought would be “Oh the humanity”?’
I accept that I may not be able to grasp the full and complete measure of your frustration, but I do grasp your frustration in principle.
Regarding your Al Gore example – false analogy. In your example, Gore would perish while engaged in the very activity he says we should all eschew for the good of the plant. That is indeed an irony-rich situation – but even so, while I think Al Gore is wrong, wrong-headed, deceptive and a world-class hypocrite, I still don’t wish him dead and would take no pleasure in his demise for any reason.
By contrast, Ms Regan died as the result of the very activity – criminal violence – that she was trying (in her own, misguided way, perhaps) to reduce. There’s no question that she was the innocent victim of violence – and if it is true that her killer attacked her because he suffers from a mental illness, then I am even-harder-pressed to see any connection between her death and her campaigning. Her killer is likely-not even criminally responsible for his actions, and it’s actually kind-of silly to suggest that she would/should have been able to defend herself against him if it wasn’t for the fact that she actively camapigned against violent crime and was therefore somehow self-deprived of a means of defence. What should she have done – held her grandson at gunpoint at all times, just in case his psychosis overcame him and he attacked her?
Her case might be better analogized like this – consider a campaigner against drunken driving who is killed in a traffic accident with a drunk driver.
Now, maybe you don’t have the obnoxious moral crusaders against drunk driving in the UK that we have in the US – although I’m pretty-sure that you do, maybe just different ones – but the ones we have (MADD and their ilk) often try and ride rough-shod over civil rights and civil liberties in their zeal for their cause, and they often succeed in getting laws passed and procedures imposed which are disproportionate, irrational and highly-corrosive of the rights of the innocent.
Now – even if you knew that my fictitious dead campaigner had pressed for random sobriety checks, zero-tolerance BAC limits, asset forfeiture or any of the other assaults on the civil rights of the innocent to which these folks are partial – would you chortle with glee when you found out that he/she had been killed at the hands of a drunk driver?
Think about it.
llater,
llamas
Llamas:
Fair enough, you are a better person than I am. If Al Gore’s Learjet went down I know I wouldn’t be mourning the fat fraud. I must be a bad person.
Incidentally, someone here mentioned a case of anti-gun campaigner who was found to be illegally in possession of a firearm.
We have had such cases in the US also, including Carl Rowan (passim), Ted Kennedy (by proxy – not him, but his armed bodyguard), as well as soi-disant ‘grass-roots’ campaigners.
And in each case, yes, I laughed – at the combination of irony and hypocrisy. But those cases are rather-different than the one being discussed here.
Ted Kennedy, we are told, is dying of an inoperable brain tumour. I think he’s a lying, deceptive hypocrite and a Democrat (but I repeat myself) – but that still doesn’t mean that I wish him dead or that I will ‘rejoice’ when he passes. I’ll be glad that his political influence is gone, but he himself – no. Let he among us that is without sin cast the first stone.
llater,
llamas
As I said Llamas, you’re obviously a better person than I am. I’ve been wishing Ted Kennedy dead for as long as I can remember.
“Let he among us that is without sin cast the first stone”.
I actually laughed out loud at this gem. Coffee, nostrils, all over the keyboard.
I had begun to suspect that llamas was a superior moral being than this mere mortal, now I realise he’s Jesus.
John K wrote:
‘As I said Llamas, you’re obviously a better person than I am.’
No, it’s absolutely the other way about. I feel as I do precisely because I know how fallible and defective I am, and therefore that I am in a very poor position to pass absolute judgement upon others.
As are we all.
Contrary to the rhino-caffeic outburst of fellow-contributor DavidNcl, I am not Jesus – but Jesus was right when he said what I quoted. We are all weak, fallible creatures, easily-led and easily-persuaded and capable of great error. If anyone here is assuming a messianic mantle, it is those who will freely pass absolute judgement upon others – those who simply pass final judgement and declaim ‘F**k them’ or ‘good riddance . . . ‘, and move on.
llater,
llamas
Okay, so it is my fault- I’m a freak. You see, I’m one of these old-fashioned weirdos who thinks as well as feels, which puts me out of touch with the government, and perhaps the zeitgeist in general.
Even if we were to ignore that fact, the dice is already loaded in favour of what the government believes in anyway, which is: disarmanent = good. It’s evident in everything they say and do. The death of her son was a cause for celebration as far as the government was concerned, not because there was one less gangster on the streets, but because an opportunity to push through more anti-gun legslation presented itself.
If Regan has taken a different stance- for instance, that she wanted people to have access to arms to prevent and deter deaths under similar circumstances, she would have been questioned why she wanted to murder babies in their beds or something similarly absurd- and then told to bugger off and stop being paranoid.
“We are all weak, fallible creatures, easily-led and easily-persuaded and capable of great error. ”
Kind of like sheep in the flock?
As I said Llamas, you’re obviously a better person than I am. I’ve been wishing Ted Kennedy dead for as long as I can remember. — John K
Second. TK has caused enough harm for four lifetimes. Although I would prefer that he die drowning, trapped in a car.