“I just kept running into it…”
Running into it, not away from it.
Also, “Everybody has a mother who’s going to cry tonight.”
[NOTE: In line with Zamudio’s prediction about crying mothers, a neighbor of Loughton’s parents is quoted as saying that “Jared Loughner’s mother has been in bed, crying nonstop since Saturday…” Not surprising.]
Here it is Tuesday noon and this is the first I have heard of Mr. Zamudio’s heroic action in person.
That he was armed at the time and had the presence of mind to take in the situation and act in the right way speaks very well for whoever trained him.
The MSM accounts mentioned two men held him down while a woman grabbed a magazine. No word that one was an armed citizen. Wonder why?
As a member of the bereaved parents club, I know only too well what happens when a child dies. It is as if the world has been turned upside down and the whole purpose of your life has died. Yes, mothers are crying and fathers are choking back tears in Tucson, and though the world will move on, the tears will linger much longer than most can imagine. The pain for bereaved parents is nearly unbearable. It feels as if your heart is literally broken. Even though life goes on, as it must, life for bereaved parents is never quite the same again. As time passes you learn to adapt much as an amputee learns to walk again. You adapt, you do your best to carry on because that is what your son or daughter would want you to do, but it’s never the same again. Thirty-one years since our son died and I still think of him every day.
N Charles: the media accounts have been somewhat confused on this. It turns out the other two men were the ones who initially subdued Loughner (one a 74-year-old retired colonel, and the other who seems to be shirking the limelight so far; not much about him is known so far). I highlight Zamudio because the others were already on the scene, highly threatened, and right next to the shooter (one was actually shot, grazed in the head). They are heroes also, but I am impressed by Zamudio running towards the scene rather than away, and holding his fire as well.
A huge part of my anger at the leftist elite for what they have done is their robbing the nation of an appropriate response. At a time when we should be thinking of how to help the victims and restore calm, we are tasked, and necessarily so, to take up a defense against a nefarious and gutter minded attack. Can there be anything more sacred than respecting and providing protection and comfort around those with legitimate grief?
Neo
Thank you for the clarification. It’s been surprisingly hard to find the facts on the situation. Maybe it is too early. No doubt the scene must have been pure chaos and sorting out what happened to who and in what time during those few tens of seconds will take time and may never be known for sure.
One thing for sure. I have not seen any MSM story reading (in so many words), “One of the men who brought down the assailant was an armed citizen who held fire to protect bystanders.”
Guy takes the big talkers to school.
J.J., I am so sorry — but please know that you have done a service for the rest of us by expressing what happened to you when you lost your son so vividly and honestly. When a friend of mine lost her baby to SIDS, she had the additional pain of having to endure the misguided comments of too many friends and relatives who — perhaps in part trying to protect themselves — could not seem to grasp the enormity and permanence of her loss. Thinking they were comforting her, they’d urge her to move on, remind her she could always have another, or wonder out loud why she and her husband weren’t “over it” yet. I doubt anyone who reads and takes to heart what you wrote here will make such mistakes when this happens close to them.
Neo, you are the first person I’ve read who’s talked about Loughner’s parents. There are probably others, but I’ve missed them. My heart aches for his parents, along with all the others in this. You have a child, a son, and you raise him as well as you can, and then you stand gradually back, help when you think you need to, and so on. The plain truth is that you never know what your kids are going to do–and their son did this. Uuhhh.
No one else in your life will ever have you by the heart-strings the way your kids do. No one else can ever bring you the same joy, and no one else can ever break you, shatter you into two, in the same way your kids can. I think of his mother, weeping in her bed for days, and I ache for her.
I’m having a hard time caring at all about whatever pain Loughner’s parents might feel. I think instead of little Christina Taylor Green, and all that she had added to the world at only 9 years of age, and my heart breaks for her parents.
Loughner’s parents surely knew their son was seriously unbalanced. He lived in their house, taking drugs, getting kicked out of community college, getting in trouble with the law. They couldn’t predict he’d kill, but they surely knew very well after 22 years with him how disturbed and dysfunctional he was. I can’t imagine how much guilt they must feel, but I do believe it’s deserved.
Dealing with a mentally disturbed child isn’t just a matter of “raising them as well as you can and then standing gradually back;” you owe it to your child and society in general to make certain they get the help they need, are kept safe, and are not a danger to others.
A kid as narcissistic and paranoid as Jared Loughner clearly was? Inpatient treatment comes immediately to mind.
I agree, mostly, with your assessment, Random Thoughts, as well as your comprehensive and insightful, “When the Signs are There.”
Nonetheless, given the atomized nature of our society, which has been reached, ironically, by an “it takes a village,” ideology shattering our old bonds and taboos, parents have less influence, and your strength and mind of civic duty belongs to a foregone time. Our society and culture destroy the bonds that tie, destroy meaning and purpose, and destroy the will to know. Jared could well have been just as unknown to his parents as a stranger they rented a room to.
There was an audio of an interview with the 9 year girl’s father on Breitbart.tv yesterday that put a softball in my throat as I unsuccessfully tried to hold back tears.
The deep sorrow and grief the man was feeling as he talked about the little girl he lost made me sad. Between his sobs, he expressed his opinion that this devastating tragedy was basically a random act that did not requre further restrictions on our freedoms.
I would certainly understand if he suddenly became an advocate for banning guns or severly restrcting guns given the tragedy that befell him. But when the time came to test his resolve for freedom, he chose freedom. I always like to think that I would make his choice. But I’ve never been asked the question while in his extreme emotional state. I worry that I’d be so concernd that nobody else experience the same sense of loss that I may come down on the side of safety vs. freedom in that emotional state.
He did not. I am extremely grateful for his courage to come down on the right side. He’s obviously a true lover of liberty. He gives me hope. It was the combination of the sadness I felt for his loss, together with the bravery he displayed for choosing freedom, that brought the tears to my eyes.
Every member of Congress should be made to listen to that audio. So far, I’ve heard of at least 3 different pieces of legislation they want to introduce to legislate away our freedom to create a false sense of security in response to this horrible tragedy.
Random Thoughts, we don’t know nearly enough yet to judge Loughren’s parents so harshly. I agree that they must have known that he was deeply troubled, but beyond that, we do not know anything yet about what they did or didn’t do with that knowledge — and if other incidents like this are any guide, we may never know. If his mental illness was apparent when he was a child, the parents would probably have been able to keep him safe and make sure he was treated, took his medication, and such. But as mentally ill people approach and reach adulthood, all bets of that kind are off. See if you can make some young, angry, irrational man who outweighs you by 50 or 60 pounds take medication he doesn’t want and doesn’t think he needs. See if you can talk him into consenting to counseling or institutionalization. I have never been in that position — thank God, thank God — but I know parents of adult schizophrenics who spend all of their time, between occasional brief interludes where the illness recedes or the person complies for a little while with treatment, struggling to find programs for their children and to talk them into participating, searching for them when they go missing in strange cities, homeless shelters and under bridges, and lying awake worrying about them, waiting for the day when the phone rings with the inevitable bad news. Forcing treatment on an adult mentally ill person who does not want it is no simple matter in this society, especially before the person’s illness reaches the level of inevitable harm to self or others — nor should it be. Blaming parents for being unable to control their sick sons and daughters is not fair — especially where, as here, we know nothing at all about what they did or didn’t do or tried to do for their child.
Random Thoughts: we have no idea what the parents tried and didn’t try, what they did and didn’t do.
Even parents cannot cure a sick child. By all accounts, this “child” was over 18 when he really became out of touch and bizarre. After 18, there is almost nothing parents can do except help out with providing shelter, etc., or throw the kid out on the streets. Medical privacy laws for “children” over 18 are quite strict.
One thing they apparently could have done, however (and again, we have no information about whether they contemplated this or even knew about the possibility), is try to get an involuntary psych evaluation for him under the Arizona law. Whether that would have mattered in the end is unknown. Many schizophrenics refuse to take their meds despite treatment.
Mrs Whatsit: just saw your comment now. We’re on the same page.
Joe is the epitome of the CC brotherhood; vigilant, prepared and comitted to act lethally as long as it doesn’t endanger innocents.
My brother sheepdog.
J.J., I have a beautiful 25 year old son. I’m going to hug him harder because of what you wrote sir.
Oh crap, I didn’t code it right. I wish there was an “edit” feature.
Neo-neocon, I was quoting your bit, “Even parents cannot cure a sick child. By all accounts, this “child” was over 18 when he really became out of touch and bizarre. After 18, there is almost nothing parents can do except help out with providing shelter, etc., or throw the kid out on the streets. Medical privacy laws for “children” over 18 are quite strict.”
Thanks, JJ for those words.
I think the issue is that it’s very hard to get someone committed for more than 3 days.
When I hear of the death of anyone, unless they are aged, I know there are parents grieving. I know the enormity of their loss and the road they will have to travel. We can help by honoring their loved ones, and if we can, letting them know of our sorrow too.
Joe Zamudio is typical of the type of young men who volunteer for our military. Straight thinking, responsible, with more concern for other’s safety than his own. Thank God we live in a nation that, inspite of the occasional Jared Loughgren, raises up many men of this caliber. Proud to be an American!
My first born son died in my arms. There is nothing you can do to stop the grief. Mine too, would be 31 now.
I think there’s a recipe for making Joe Zamudio’s. You make a kid and spend lots of time getting to know who he is from a baby. Miraculous adults are made out of such simple circumstances. And this world is full of over achievers like this a google search can never reveal.
br549.
I hear you and know the road you have traveled. It is the deepest love we can know and the greatest loss. Hang in there and take care.
JuliaB: If someone is an actively psychotic paranoid schizophrenic they can be observed, evaluated, at least be stabilized on meds, which sometimes do a fairly good job of controlling the deulsions. The problem is keeping them on the meds.
I think that it was Sigmund Carl &Alfred who pointed out that paranoid schizophrenics have great difficulty holding their thoughts together sufficiently to plan and carry out such an attack. Even Dr. Sanity fell into that “distant-diagnosis” trap. I do not know what ailed Loughner. I do read that he’d had several arrests, but never any dispositions. There were, it appears, no involuntary hospitalizations, nor evaluations. I know some parents of Failures to Launch who really struggle to get the kid out of the house. They do not, however, supply the kids with drug money. I also think that they would usually notice a skull-altar in the back yard.
Nevertheless, I am in no position to judge them, nor the Loughners. My son started crawling the day he was six months old and has been on the race to maturity in the twenty five years and five months since then. Now he’s married, father of two, college graduate, good job, deacon in his church, none of which are to my credit. (OK So, I taught his Sunday School class.) He is just that way, so I have never faced such a test. Still, that skull-altar, did they think that was just normal? Maybe growing pains?
Some paranoid schizophrenics have rather high IQ and their illness does not prevent them from meticulous planning and methodical implementation. Unabomber was mathematical genius, Jim Jones could create a church and run a community of around 1000 people in wilderness. “Satana” Manson also created a cult and planned successfully murder of several people. And the most successful paranoid schizophrenic in history, Prophet Mukhammad, found a religion with 2 bln followers now.
This WSJ article supports more involuntary outpatient care:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703779704576073973345594508.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_carousel_1
Also, check out the author’s Wiki page for an overview of the whole treatment debate.
Sergey, I also think it’s possible that a high IQ can help mislead the parents about their child’s problem until it is too late. For instance, if a kid does really well in math and science, it becomes easy to throw boredom into the denial repetoire. Or to blame the kid’s lack of normal friendships on some sort of misunderstood genius meme.
I know a smart woman who is unsucccessful as a scientist, partly because of dumb career moves and partly because she thinks she knows it all. She is, as far as I can tell, not anywhere near schizophrenic, but I bet she gets a lot of people to buy her excuses for not succeeding and swallow her next-big-thing scientific project. It’s only because I’ve worked around doctors and scientists for most of my life (also married to a biologist) that I recognize her BS. The average layman or anxious parent may swallow it. Most people are comfortable in dealing with normal, but are not that good at figuring out what to do with the abnormal, whether the abnormality is pathological or not. Add to that society’s current prohibition on being judgemental, and you destroy our ability to apply common sense.
Now we have a Republican congressman, Peter King, who wants to introduce legislation outlawing the carrying of a firearm within 1000 feet of a member of Congress.
Peter King’s silly gun ban idea
As pointed out in the article, this would make Joe Zamudio a criminal.
I don’t know if everyone here saw this yet, but I wanted to make sure there was a link:
http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/205800.php
It’s more related to the “hypocrisy of the left” theme we discussed yesterday; I just figured no one would be searching that thread anymore.
For the record, the tweets in the above montage make for hair-raising viewing. I simply don’t know how to respond to such stuff – i.e., people who excoriate someone like Palin for using “extreme, hate-filled” rhetoric literally in the same breath that they are openly praying that she dies of cancer.
There really is no depth to which human beings cannot sink. It was the realization of that that made me conservative, and it is the daily reminders of it that keeps me so.
Kolnai,
Even more:
http://dailycaller.com/2011/01/12/dozens-of-twitter-users-call-for-palins-death/
Calling for her assasination, etc
So Zamudio’s gun helped exactly how? Loughner was already subdued. According to Zamudio himself, he nearly shot an innocent man. See this:
http://www.slate.com/id/2280794/
Arizona is a perfect example of what gun advocates generally want (i.e. concealed weapons are legal), and we indeed had an armed citizen mere steps from the shooting, and yet it still didn’t help in any way. What will it take to convince people that this notion of the righteous citizen taking down the shooter with their handgun is, in almost all circumstances, a fiction?
Alex: I never suggested that Zamudio’s being armed had any effect on the outcome. I was praising his bravery for running towards the scene rather than away, and for taking in the situation and rightly holding his fire. He acted as a responsible gun owner. And then he helped by assisting the other two men in holding down the struggling perpetrator.
I wasn’t taking any issue with what you had written. It sounds like Zamudio is a courageous and level-headed guy. I was more responding to your commenter N Charles, and others outside this thread, who seem to imply that the fact Zamudio was armed helped in some way. It didn’t help; it very nearly hurt. I thought that Slate article I linked to made some fairly compelling arguments for why, in a situation like this one, armed citizens are at least as likely to hurt as to help.
Why was it that this guy wasn’t sitting up front with the O Show? Could it be the same factor that made this a major media event and the Ft. Hood massacre a mere blip??