NYT Reporter: 1:47 PM Is Not The Time To Begin Discussing The Politics Of The Killing. It's Sick.
The Correct Time To Begin Discussing the Politics of This Is 4:47 PM.

Please note it for your records.

Incidentally, the gun-rights people "politicizing" this are doing so pre-emptively, because they've seen this play six hundred times before and they know what happens in the Second Act.

I mean, it's not like we're as stupid as you claim. We are able to remember things that happened more than a week ago.

This is also why we now immediately search for a gunman's political affiliation-- because we know that's the first thing you do.

Adam Lansa Was Autistic, Had Asperger's, and Had a Personality Disorder: So says his surviving brother.

4:52 p.m: Ryan Lanza, 24, brother of gunman Adam Lanza, 20, tells authorities that his younger brother is autistic, or has Asperger syndrome and a “personality disorder.” Neighbors described the younger man to ABC as “odd” and displaying characteristics associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Which, of course, will hopefully not demean other people with autism or Asperger's.

This is a very sticky question for any society. What we have here, it seems, was a Strange Young Man.

What do you do about Strange Young Men? The state can attempt an intervention, but that's a nice, euphemistic way to say "interfere with their lives for no better reason than the fact that they act oddly." Most people who act oddly or are socially inept are perfectly nice and law-abiding. (I'm one of them.)

On the other hand, you can strictly observe their freedom to be odd ducks, and suffer the occasional calamity when it turns out that this particular odd duck was the one you should have checked on.

posted by Ace at 05:05 PM

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