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Children return to school in Newtown, Conn., on Tuesday.
When Monday morning came — the first day back after a gunman killed 20 first-graders in Connecticut — Texas school teacher Kelly Froemming found herself looking at her classroom for its prospects as a bunker.
There was perhaps enough room for kids to hide under her desk and under a table. Her classroom door can be locked from the inside and she has an oversized filing cabinet that she could use as an additional barricade.
"We do have intruder drills," said Froemming, who teaches gifted students at a grade school in Plano, Texas. The mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary on Friday "makes it more real. It makes it scarier. You think about the logistics of what might happen and how you could protect the kids."
If the emotional toll for teachers was not enough, many are also reviewing security — racking their brains for ways to safeguard students, wondering whether the school is doing enough to deter intruders, pondering whether carrying weapons could help, hoping they would be heroic in the face of a threat, and wondering if any of it would make any difference in the face of a perpetrator determined to cause bloodshed.
"I've had some pretty dark thoughts as I’m standing there" in the classroom, said Benno Lyon, a sixth-grade science teacher at a school in Portland.
Fierce debate after Newtown school shootings: Where was God?
In the past four to five days, he says, he’s thought through everything on the safety spectrum — from "just hoping that it’s not us next time," to arming the whole staff. "What is in between those two extremes that might make sense?" he muses.
Many U.S. schools, public and private, have "lock-down" drills — like the intruder drills that Froemming mentioned — just as they have fire drills, and drills for natural disasters such as earthquakes and tornadoes. In general, this means classroom doors are locked, kids shelter in place — preferably away from windows, and if possible, out of sight — in storage rooms, closets, bathrooms.
After Friday’s devastating shootings, a national discussion board for teachers lit up with grief -- and discussions of "what if" the worst-case scenario unfolded in their own schools.
There is no standard for school security in this country, but in the wake of the tragic Sandy Hook shooting, there is plenty of talk on what changes schools can make to ensure the safety of their students. NBC's Erica Hill reports.
Like 'fish in an aquarium'
One telling thread started with a "safety survey" of four questions: "Do you have only one entry way to your campus? Can you close your classroom curtains and completely cover your windows? Does your classroom door have an inside locking mechanism? When was the last time you practiced a lockdown drill?"
"Wide open back campus with a fence anyone could jump," wrote one participant. "A gate in back fence, often left just open with a chain on it that small person could squeeze through. Houses on one side where people could hide, use something to climb on to jump the fence."
Watch the Top Videos on NBCNews.com
"No way to cover many huge, low windows," wrote another. "My room is in the middle of a quad so we would be trapped and it would be like shooting fish in an aquarium."
"I keep (my door) locked and shut during the day, but the teacher in the room next to me, never locks his door or refuses to shut it," one teacher complained. "We share a hallway with bathrooms so, anyone going into his room has complete access to mine via the connecting bathrooms. The doors going to the bathrooms cannot be locked."
"No, my door doesn't have an inside locking mechanism, it can only be locked from the outside," wrote another. "We practice lockdowns regularly but … Nothing would have prepared us for what happened in Conn. There are 32 kids in my small room — no place to hide children."
Missy Dodds, a teacher in Maplewood, Minn., survived a school shooting in 2005 and has ever since been urging school officials to replace glass in and near classroom doors. A gunman entered her classroom by breaking the glass panel next to her locked door, then killed five of her students and a teacher. According to a report from NBC station KARE of Minneapolis, Dodds was horrified to learn that Adam Lanza, the gunman in the Connecticut school had reportedly used the same means to gain entrance to Sandy Hook Elementary.
A North Texas superintendent defends his district's policy that allows teachers and staff to carry concealed handguns. KFDX reporter Melissa Foy has the story.
Allow guns in schools?
There are some teachers — though none of those who spoke to NBC News for this report — who believe that teachers should be allowed to carry weapons to deter or halt school intruders.
"I am all for it," wrote a participant on the Texas section of the national teachers discussion forum. "That is, teachers with a concealed carry license to be able to exercise the same right to protect themselves and their charges that they do anywhere else. The reason mass killers target schools is because they know full well no one will be able to stop them … I hope Texas leads the way in recognizing reality and implementing common sense."
In Texas, a state representative-elect has proposed legislation that would allow Texas public schools to appoint trained and certified faculty members to carry a concealed firearm and to use the weapon in the event of an attack, according to a report from the Dallas Morning News. Similar legislation is being considered in Michigan.
Nervous parents send kids back to school in Newtown
"In today's world, I'm a firm believer in an armed and properly trained teacher," wrote another forum participant who said their job was as a special education advocate. "It's unfortunate to say, but had there been an armed teacher in that building today, some of those people may have been saved."
But the teachers who agreed to interviews were adamant that teachers should not be armed, though some thought the idea of armed and trained security personnel in schools would be acceptable. The threat of accidental shootings or guns getting into a student's hands was too great, several said. Others said that wearing a gun sends the wrong message from people whose job is to educate and nurture students.
David Friedman / NBC News
A nation mourns after the second deadliest school shooting in U.S. history at Sandy Hook Elementary, which left 20 children and six staff members dead.
"How many teachers would shield their children with their bodies?" said Lyon of his fellow teachers. "All of them. How many would keep teaching if they had to carry a weapon?" He would not, he said, nor, he guessed, would many — if any — of his fellow teachers at the school.
"There is no reason whatsoever that a teacher should ever, ever bring a gun into school," said Joni Schultheiss, who teaches 11th grade in a New York City public school. "We are already acting as psychologists and counselors and teaching manners ... Please don’t make us soldiers also."
Video: Mental health bigger issue than guns, says congressman
"The (New York City) school district does a good job with security. But really, to protect everybody at all times, it would be like a prison," she said. "You can lock down the school, put bars on the windows. But you have to be realistic about what the school is for in the first place, and strike a balance."
Lyon warns of an "arms race" in school security and wonders what would happen "if you took all the resources it would take to lock down schools, and redirected that to comprehensive effort on handling people with mental health issues, and some reasonable gun regulations."
In Michigan, Republican Gov. Rick Snyder on Tuesday vetoed a bill that would have let some gun owners to bring concealed weapons to schools and day care centers, among other places, his office said. The bill passed the legislature the day before the Newton shootings, Reuters reported.
'Hyper-vigilant around the kids'
Noble Monyei, who works with a K-5 after-school program in Seattle, also questions whether there is a security approach that could really address the problem of a determined assailant and said the Connecticut tragedy will not change his outlook day-to-day.
"I think for me I’m always hyper-vigilant around the kids. I want to get them back to their parents in one piece," he said.
He thinks studying broader issues — like easy access to weapons, and gaps in mental health care — could lead to solutions. Short of that, and reasonable security precautions, Monyei says, it seems to be a matter of chance.
"I think there’s something out there, and it can happen anywhere. If that kind of craziness chooses you, there’s not much you can do."
Gene Rosen was finishing up his morning routine this past Friday when he noticed six small children sitting at the end of his driveway. He soon discovered they were some of the lucky ones to escape gunfire alive. He talks about taking them into his home and learning that their teacher, Victoria Soto, had been killed.
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Leave a Comment:
Ban handguns and semi-automatic weapons now.
150,000 years of "modern" humans' supposed progress....only to be turning institutions of learning into virtual military compounds over the past decade or two.
Heck of a job NRA.
How is that the Nra's fault?
Ban prozac
Joe mama....
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2012/12/jeffrey-toobin-second-amendment.html
The NRA holds the safety of the Public hostage to fear....typcal conservatism.
Additionally, the Second Amendment is one of the only amendments where Conservatives hold a "living" interpretation of the Constitution rather than a "strict constructionist" viewpoint.
But, Conservatives are not known for consistency, thinking, or protecting anything/one other than themselves.
Lets just turn all our schools into windowless bunkers so the gun nuts can have everything they want while they look at all their ammo and go jck off in the corner thinking about how manly they are.
How many teachers were packing their Smith & Wesson .38 today??? It should not be a shock and I doubt the no gun rule was obeyed today.
The Second Amendment:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Would someone please be so kind as to decipher?
No we try to protect you.
look at yourself and your liberal friends before claiming conservatives are inconsistent.
Alan, in regards to your post of the second amendment, it would sound to me like a well regulated militia for internal security of the state would be considered law enforcement, national guard, and similar, and not everyone who wants a gun. Everyone owning a gun is not a "well regulated Militia."
takenaka,
Go ahead. And the next day someone will perpetrate a school shooting with a revolver and they will kill just as many innocent people because every grown up at the school would rather lay down and die than fight against a known/armed invader.
I am no stranger to guns and shoot often. Based on reading I know I train much more often than police officers. I know for a fact that if I were a teacher and heard gunshots in the next room, there is no way the bad guy would come through my classroom door and have any success at all. All you have to do is stand/crouch up against the wall and shoot him point blank as he walks in. One or two body shots from within 10 feet would do the trick.
The propose of the 2nd Amendment it to make sure that the PEOPLE have the means necessary to defend themselves from an oppressive and overbearing government be it local, state or federal. Maybe you loons need to understand that. As it has been said a thousand time before it has nothing to do with personal protection or hunting. In order to accomplish this it would be very necessary to have military style weapons. Once you libs understand that (which I believe is impossible) then and only then will things change for the good.
Section 311 of US Code Title 10, entitled, "Militia: composition
and classes" in its entirety:
"(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied
males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title
32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention
to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United
States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are —
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard
and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the
militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia."
banning guns wont help ...banning mentally ill people will...
Ban Liberals and Taxes
compromise, you are right in banning liberals. They do have a brain defect that makes them mentally unstable.
Truth said...even back in the 80s...all us teachers knew that the principal at the school I worked at carried a piece. Made us all feel better, but nobody told.
That's all we need! A bunch more children getting killed in the crossfire while the teachers and bad guys shoot it out! All you redneck gun packers need to crawl back in bed with your sisters.
your an intelligent person randy great post. (he will probably think I agree with him)
Your sister is calling rmc
@denver bill 2, NONE of what you wrote regarding militias makes any practical difference. Although I support the right to own guns, I actually disagree with the U.S. Supreme Court decision, District of Columbia v. Heller, which basically said the militia clause in the Second Amendment doesn't affect gun ownership by private citizens. I disagree because I take the Constitution very literally.
The decision held that: "The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home."
On another note: The teachers in the article, who are opposed to guns in school, seem to be giving the sense that they think they would be forced to carry, and that is a BIG leap, and one that is very doubtful at best. I think that any teacher, who can legally carry concealed, and who wants to carry concealed, should be allowed to carry concealed in light of what took place last Friday.
I know that many of you would love to ban all guns, but even if you didn't have that little thing called "The Constitution" (and that above-mentioned ruling) against you, there is no way you are going to get the owners of the 300,000,000+ guns to give them up...at least not without a major fight, and I do mean fire fight. Many are die-hard enthusiasts, and they are VERY fond of their weapons. Many of them will not give their guns up peacefully, and that will result in many more deaths than you are trying to prevent in schools.
randy, na actually its your mother
This is a new world, a much more deadly one than even a few years ago. We have to change, not bury our heads in sand. It would be nice to be able to pet the nice, pretty tiger, but chances he is going to bite of our hands. Guns are out there, people. They cannot be called back, any more than drugs can be. Now is the time to be smart, smarter than those who kill, who deal. You know all the unemployed combat veterans? Well, hire them as security personnel for all the schools. They can handle weapons like you have never before seen, and they know how to deal with the enemy. It's a win-win situation.
When I was a kid, about the worst thing I had to worry about was getting kicked in the face by a soccer ball, which I never even thought about until it happened to me.
I read today where an 11 year old in Utah was caught with a .22 and when asked why he had it, he said to protect himself from being killed at school.
Really? REALLY? Is this what we want our children thinking about every day they go to school instead of concentrating on getting an education and enjoying their childhood?
What are we now as a country? Is school to become an armed camp? WTF are we allowing/encouraging/telling our children if we don't change our ways?
Some people better get a clue our country is under attack by mental nutjobs. Sitting back criticizing others about guns is not saving our kids or anybody else.
Unfortunately this is a reality and we better have some kind of defense strategy implimented in our schools before it happens again and stop pissin an moaning. Start with a real solution
What happened and what is happening is terrible for sure. And some people will always have some off reason to do something insane.
The answer is two fold.
Better protection at the schools, and better healthcare for Mental disorders. Guns are not the only answer. Really normal people are starting to sound like typical Gangbangers protecting their homies.
Wanting to walk around strapped looking at everyone in paranoia.
Hire an officer for the school or two for a larger school. Let your local police get involved as a campus officer. Not only will it deter would be shooters. It would do some good for the schools. Better community police relations. There is a high school out here that was BAD. They started a on campus training class to gear some students toward criminal justice. Once there was a constant Police presence for the class the school became better. While we should not turn the classrooms into prisons. A known officer to the kids would not be scary or terrible.
Don't let what that sick kid did. Turn you into a fearful or hateful person. Look to how Most Americans are rising above themselves. To comfort and come to Aid Newtown. I refuse to think that the death of 26 innocents should turn political.
ACTUALLY...... There's a school district here in Texas, where the trained teachers carry, they have since 2005, there's never been an incident. To be fair they carry because their nearest police station is more then 30 minutes away.
My school district has two armed policemen (for each school) that patrole while school is in session, the only incident we've had is some dumbasses who keep calling in bomb threats. (ages of said dumbasses are 13-17 and so far 9 of them have been arrested)
A couple of our local gun ranges are offering teachers gun safety courses and some hand to hand combat skills for free, (the classes are already full)
Guns are not the problem, the problem lies in the lack of mental health care, instead of bailing out banks and auto industries let's dump thaht money into the gutted mental health system so that these people can get the help they so desperately need.
Until we have armed security at each an every school we should not be disarming the public. the criminals will not care about gun control. We should be following the Swiss Model not the UK model.
More people (adult or child) die from bathtubs every year in America (about 300 deaths) than die in mass shootings. Why are these teachers being so irrational? This is a minor threat that gets blown out of proportion by media, pattern seeking human psychology, and fear. I understand the kneejerk reaction to be fearful, but I expect teachers to rational and logical human beings capable of critical thinking and understanding risk factors as related to other risk factors. They should be more afraid of swimming pool safety than gun murders (because more kids are killed by them every year).
I know this about a political agenda for you and not ACTUALLY stopping the CAUSE of gun murders, but in case you are really interested in stopping gun murder I'll make the following attempt to identify the cause:
A Mathematical Approach to What Causes Gun Murder in America
Mass murder shootings happen 20 times a year in the USA on average...but that is less than 2% of all gun murders. It isn't the big threat in terms of annual gun murders. It is also one of the least preventable causes (because crazy people use cars, knives, rope, fire, fists, bombs, etc., to murder people). So what are the causes of the vast majority of gun murders (which would matter to those interested in actually reducing gun murder)?
Some wish to have gun control and gun bans in the wake of our last few mass shooting tragedies.
At what cost? Childproof society because a SMALL number (per capita) abuse the right? There are 200,000,000 guns in the USA, and 40-60 million people own those guns. Until this last year, which the FBI will have no official stats for until 2 years from now BTW, the crime rates, including violent crime and gun crime, had been falling for 30-50 years (moreso in the last 30). And this year there was only a slight uptick (several years into a recession no less, where people turn to drug "crime" for supplemental income). The population growth and guns in circulation, not to mention legal permits to carry guns, over that 30 years has far outpaced the gun murder growth. So even though the total gun murders probably went up this year, we still have a declining rate overall in the last 3 decades. I'll overestimate and say we had 13,000 gun murders, and do a little math for you.
Let's say the 40-60 million gun owners are 50 million owners...right in the middle (the average estimate).
200 million guns / 50 million = 4 guns per owner on average.
200 million guns / 13,000 gun murders = 15,384.62 guns per murder (that's a lot of guns not killing people)
Percentage chance a gun in the USA will murder = .0065% (or 6.5 in every 1000 guns...that's 993.5 guns in every 1000 guns not murdering people)
50 million gun owners / 13,000 gun murders = 3,846.15 gun owners not murdering for every 1 gun murder (that's a lot of gun owners not murdering anyone)
Percentage chance a gun owner will murder with a gun = .026% (or 26 in every 1,000...that's 974 gun owners in every 1,000 not murdering anyone)
315,000,000 American people / 13,000 gun murders = 24,230.77 Americans per 1 gun murder victim
Percentage chance you as an American will be murdered by a gun = .0041% (that's 4.1 in every 1,000...or a tiny threat for the mathematically challenged. You have a better chance at dying of the flu - 33,000 flu deaths per year in the USA)
Permits to carry guns and total guns in circulation in the USA has never been higher (which is not the same as ownership rate, which is actually down)...and yet the threat is very, very low. Still think all those other people should give up their rights for a threat less than the flu? Please recall that almost 70% of gun murders are commited by criminals, not law abiding citizens. No gun ban or gun control logically affects them, as they already don't abide laws, and we aren't on an island where getting guns is hard when they are banned (it's easier in say England or Australia, because of geography, to ban guns).
Now let's compare to the Holy Grail of gun control advocates (Canada and England) who value freedom so low as to want "to purchase temporary safety at the expense of liberty", as Ben Franklin put it (he said you will "get neither" when you do that, and I'll add "you deserve neither"). BTW, I'd point out Canada didn't outlaw guns at all in reality :
Canada's population 35.5 million / 126 gun murders = 281,746 citizens per gun murder
Percentage chance of being murdered by a gun as a Canadian = .0004% (4 in every 10,000)
Gun owners in Canada is 10.934 million / 126 gun murders = 86,777.78 gun owners per gun murder
Percentage chance a gun owner in Canada murders you with a gun = .0012% (1.2 in every 1,000)
Now let's look at England's gun ban paradise:
England's population 53 million / 39 gun murders = 1,358,974 citizens per gun murder
Percentage chance of being murdered by a gun in England = .0001% (or 1 in 10,000)
Gun owners in England 1.8 million / 39 gun murders = 46,153.85 gun owners per 1 murder by gun
Percentage chance a English gun owner murders you with a gun = .0022% (2.2 in every 1,000)
I'd point out gun CRIMES (not just murders) in England have soared upward 35% since the gun bans. Criminals used handguns in 46% more crimes, and it was the fourth consecutive year to see a rise...there were more than 2,200 more gun crimes last year, the most since the previous peak in 1993.
Stats show the number of crimes involving handguns have more than doubled since the post-Dunblane massacre, which brought about the ban on the weapons, from 2,636 in 1997-1998 to 5,871.
So England's gun bans may have lowered total murders, and even the rate of murders, but the violent crime rates are soaring. Guns are a game theory mathematical deterent to crime, especially violent crime, believe it or not.
So what can we get from all these stats?
Population matters, as does other factors besides guns themselves:
The whole story is told in the percentage chance a gun owner will murder with a gun - USA is .026%, Canada is .0012%, and England's is .0022%.
As you can see, Canada has a higher rate of ownership of guns and more total guns than England, and yet has a LOWER gun owner murder rate than England! That means it isn't guns that are the factor making England murder more. So why is Canada so low, while England is nearly double that? Why is the USA more than 10 times higher than England? All of this is adjusted for population and total guns in society...so what is the factor making us so much more prone to murder (even if it is a tiny threat overall to life) here in the USA?
THE DRUG WAR.
In England they have a drug war, but they do not focus on possession. Meanwhile we lock up nonviolent criminals at the almost the exact same rate as violent ones in America. Canada has legal marijuana in some areas, and has for years, and takes a very relaxed attitude toward drug use in general (although they have laws which are largely unenforced).
Just like during the Prohibition of alcohol, murder rates have soared under the Drug War. So has our incarcerations and incarceration rates...we now lock up more people in total than any other country in the world (yes, even the vastly more populated China and India)! That's total and per capita! "Land of the Free"? Think again. "Land of the prisoner" is more accurate. We arrested more than 750,000 people last year for just marijuana! 86% of those arrests were for small amounts; simple possession charges. It's not only tyrannical, it's a waste of resources which fuels a black market run by criminal sociopaths, and takes resources away from fighting actual violent crime like theft, property damage, assault, rape, child abuse, and murder.
This War on Drugs (and personal adult freedom) has given us the street gang phenomenon on the scales we see today. Chicago alone has dozens of separate drug gangs. They also have a high murder rate to go along with super-strict gun control in comparison to other cities...because guns aren't the problem, the Drug War is. Many of their gangs can trace their roots to either the beginning of Prohibition, or the beginning of the modern Drug War.
In Honduras where gun murders are most common and horribly frequent, they have gun rights...but they also have a country which is a main thoroughfaire for the illegal drug trade. By comparison, Uruguay has almost the same gun ownership rates as the USA and the same gun rights as well, yet they have a lower gun murder rate because they have no war on drugs. In fact, their govt is seriously considering selling marijuana to its citizens to get the drug trade completely above-board!
If you want our rate of murder to decrease via guns you don't take away guns, you end the Drug War. If you have any doubts about this go look at the murder rates after alcohol Prohibition began, and then after it ended. Also look at countries that have already ended their Drug Wars.
Crime rates in Prohibition rose immediately 78%, 24% in just one year from 1920-1921 (the first year)
http://library.thinkquest.org/04oct/0049...e_Rate.htm
The murder rate was cut in nearly half (40% decline), from 10 per 100,000 to 6 per 100,000 when Prohibition ended. This was directly caused by the repeal of Prohibition in 1933.
http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-...as-failure
If we want to half our gun murders, legalize drugs. If you want to further bring it down address the next major cause; domestic violence. Spanking children leads to many issues surrounding violence, but especially domestic violence. If domestic violence is how you raise children, then expect them to use it themselves as adults. A small number of those people will kill a domestic relative or partner. The gun simply facilitates it.
The final point I'll make is that if only .026% of gun owners murder someone with a gun, then 99.974% of gun owners don't kill someone with a gun. It's hard to argue we need to punish the 99.974% for what the .026% do. That kind of illogic is used in schools to punish classrooms full of kids for what one anonymous child has done...and it leads to bullying, because children then ostracize their peers who are guilty (and they don't know how to ostracize responsibly, so it ends up in bullying). We should use a more logical approach on adults. In a nation of 315 million people, with a Drug War raging and domestic violence against kids being the norm, a 99.974% responsible gun owner rate is unbelievably good. Perspective, instead of irrational fear and knee-jerk reaction, is what helps here.
ADDED:
Someone said they thought we could half gun murder by ending the drug war, but the we'd double the drunk/drugged driving deaths...but that is illogical. No one has any problem getting drugs now, and they already drive on them now. Also, when drugs were legalized across the board in other nations the usage only went up slightly, and in some nations actually decreased. Plus, when we re-legalized alcohol the usage here only went up slightly, while alcoholism went down (especially among minors), and the murder rate fell in that first year (1933) 40%. THINK through why your criticisms might not be logical...and Bing or Google them to see people have already answered these illogical and/or irrational reservations.
Lastly, someone else said they would never change their mind about being anti-gun no matter the evidence...but again, that is irrational. There are irrational people who won't fly even though they ADMIT cars are more likely to kill them. They drive but won't fly...that is irrational. Guns are less likely to kill a kid than swimming pools. How afraid are you of swimming pools? Cars kill more people than guns...how afraid are you of cars? Gun murder is almost 3 times less likely to kill you than the normal flu virus...how afraid are you of guns vs the flu? Being rational means fearing things based on thr actual RATIONAL chance they have to kill you, not the IRRATIONAL fear of HOW it might kill you. Guns are not nearly as dangerous as the media and most anti-gun people think they are.
In fact, more lives are saved in the USA every year than are taken by guns every year. They are in reality, indisputably, a NET GAIN of life. If only 2% of the 750,000 crimes prevented by private guns (FBI stat) save one life (or 1% saves 2 lives, etc.), then more lives are saved than taken. BTW...sutdies show many more than that are saved by guns...the estimate by Clinton Administration study was 2 million lives per year...which might be high...and other more intensive studies show the number to be in the tens of thousands, up to 200,000, per year. But EVEN IF the number was only 15,000 as I suggested with my 2% number, we're still looking at more lives saved than murdered.
FURTHER ADDED:
A study done by the Harvard Jounal of Law and Public Policy reports some interesting statistics.
The study, which appeared in Volume 30, Number 2 of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy (pp. 649-694), set out to answer the question in its title: "Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? A Review of International and Some Domestic Evidence." Contrary to conventional wisdom, and the sniffs of our more sophisticated and generally anti-gun counterparts across the pond, the answer is "no." And not just no, as in there is no correlation between gun ownership and violent crime, but an emphatic no, showing a negative correlation: as gun ownership increases, murder and suicide decreases.
The findings of two criminologists - Prof. Don Kates and Prof. Gary Mauser - in their exhaustive study of American and European gun laws and violence rates, are telling:
Nations with stringent anti-gun laws generally have substantially higher murder rates than those that do not. The study found that the nine European nations with the lowest rates of gun ownership (5,000 or fewer guns per 100,000 population) have a combined murder rate three times higher than that of the nine nations with the highest rates of gun ownership (at least 15,000 guns per 100,000 population).
For example, Norway has the highest rate of gun ownership in Western Europe, yet possesses the lowest murder rate. In contrast, Holland's murder rate is nearly the worst, despite having the lowest gun ownership rate in Western Europe. Sweden and Denmark are two more examples of nations with high murder rates but few guns. As the study's authors write in the report:
If the mantra "more guns equal more death and fewer guns equal less death" were true, broad cross-national comparisons should show that nations with higher gun ownership per capita consistently have more death. Nations with higher gun ownership rates, however, do not have higher murder or suicide rates than those with lower gun ownership. Indeed many high gun ownership nations have much lower murder rates. (p. 661)
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs...online.pdf
STILL FURTHER ADDED:
It appears there is also NO correlation between single parenthood, violent video games, movies, TV shows, music, one religion or another (or lack thereof), etc.
Like guns, those are just NOT causal to high gun murder rates, despite the illogic used to say they are. (To be clear, it is intuitive to think guns and these other things cause the problem...but there is NO factual basis for it, and the factual nature of things is often deductively logical, and counter-intuitive.)
The problem the liberals want to use any tradegy to their advantage. Obama instead of offerring support and sympathy tried to turn this into a political campagin. We all know that he is anti gun. that has worked well in Chicago. In Utah and off duty Game and Fish Warden took out a shooter at the local school in the 1990'. I am sure that the anti gun anti American revolution wackos would have liked to have him been prosecuted for abruptly ending the criminal career of a 17 year druggie.
If Obama, or any other politician left or right, wanted to seriously decrease gun murder they'd legalize drugs. That (drug Prohibition and the crime it creates) is what is causal directly to 40%-70% of gun murder. Mass shootings make up less than 2% of all gun murder deaths...and some mass shootings are drug related!
our city added a few patrol police and every school has a uniform officer on site and a patrol car out front whenever students are in session....
that's a serious deterrent... it doesn't require an act of Congress... and everyone in the US can show up at their next city council meeting, demand it... and woe and betide the council member that votes against it...
if everyone gets up and does it today... before the shock wears off... you all can make a major difference in school security
John Q Public-6353273--oh, please, and conservatives do not use tragedies to promote their own agendas? I won't insult the intelligence of people on this board by listing out the many, many examples. President Obama showed up and spent most of his time commiserating with the families and makes one tiny comment about how we cannot tolerate such things any more and need to do something to stop them . . . and he's "using" a tragedy. Don't you think the families want someone to do something to make sure that something is done?
Oh, and for the fellow who wants the Second Amendment interpreted--try taking out that extraneous comma. I know that it was in there at one time in committee--but it was corrected before it was ratified. The Founding Fathers were very good with grammar and would never have stuck a single comma in a sentence like that one, mucking up the meaning.
The first clause--"a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state"--is a modifying clause. Putting it first means that it is being emphasized and also that it qualifies the remaining independent clause. It means that only because we need a militia are the people able to keep and bear arms. The Founding Fathers were very, very, very hostile to the idea of a standing army (they did not like the idea that we would get a military/industrial complex). When they said "keep and bear arms," they did not mean only guns--they meant cannons as well as muskets and flintlocks. The word "arms" doesn't mean "guns"--it means all kinds of weaponry: from nuclear arms to biological weapons to fighter jets.
Let's just say right now that I really don't want "the people" to have access to nuclear arms. I really don't. We have a standing army now, and we don't need a "militia" (though, technically, the various state national guards are our "militia"--and they do have access to various sorts of arms).
The right for an individual to self-protection has been read into the Constitution by an activist court. Now, personally, I think it is in the spirit of the Constitution very much like the right to privacy and the right for a person to decide what to do with his/her own body (which is part of the right to privacy). I don't have a problem with the fact that it was read in--but if you don't understand simple English, and you don't understand how an introductory modifying clause works, then maybe you need to stop voting.
What bothers me about this whole conversation is that people leap directly to "guns" when they think about giving school personnel equipment for protection. There are such things as pepper spray, Tasers, and many other non-lethal weapons which are fairly safe to use in close quarters with lots and lots of bystanders who can be injured by conventional weapons. Even tear gas would be useful. Anything that is okay for crowd control might be a good idea.
Why must we always leap to the idea that you have to have a gun to combat a person with a gun? This is simply not the case. If someone had been able to get behind this fellow and shoot him with a Taser, he'd have gone down. There would have been time to disarm him. The second "shooter" wouldn't have put children in additional danger of a gun battle. I don't think that necessarily it is a bad idea to give pepper spray to teachers, to arm quite a few people with Tasers, and for perhaps the school security guard and a couple of administrators to have a gun available.
Anyone who thinks that all teachers wouldn't be required to have a gun in the classroom doesn't know a heck of a lot about how schools work. If they decide to allow weapons for teachers, all teachers will have to have training for and be issued weapons--that's the way public school administrator mentality works. If the students are in a classroom with one teacher who has a gun, they are "safer." Students killed in a room where the teacher didn't have a gun will sue. All teachers of the same ranking do the same thing because that's the way the mentality works.
A tear gas canister rolled down the hallway would have impeded this young man long enough to get the first responders there. Why can't we talk about non-lethal alternatives to be tried first? The principal had nothing but her body to use--and clearly, that wasn't sufficient against an automatic weapon.
The question should be: Where is the MONEY comig from to arm and protect all teachers and students in the country? Thankfully, the "businessman"Romney will not be in charge.
START by banning the most useless and most human killing capable garbage pushed on us by the NRA:
alan_static wrote:
Alan, I realize that your question was just rhetorical, but I believe in the context of this discussion thread it deserves some response.
In the years following the American Revolutionary War our fledgling and infant new United States of American had no permanent standing Army, nor the means to stand-up a permanent Army. The country was broke, and the Continental Army had been disbanded.
Our nation had fought an enormously costly war for independence against what was then a great and powerful Empire, and we won that war only because every American male who was old enough to hold and load a single-shot muzzle-loading flintlock organized into local militias in the newly declared independent states, and turned out to throw off the oppressive British Empire; with the help of our French Allies.
According to Wikipedia: "After the war, though, the Continental Army was quickly given land certificates and disbanded in a reflection of the republican distrust of standing armies. State militias became the new nation's sole ground army, with the exception of a regiment to guard the Western Frontier and one battery of artillery guarding West Point's arsenal. However, because of continuing conflict with Native Americans, it was soon realized that it was necessary to field a trained standing army. The first of these, the Legion of the United States, was established in 1791 but disbanded in 1796"
At the time of ratification of the Second Amendment in 1791 the authors of that amendment had concluded that if Great Britain should invade again in an attempt to reclaim their colonial possessions, our nations only salvation in the absence of a permanent standing National Army would be the several states organizing and maintaining, at their own expense, well-regulated States' Militias; and that the citizens of the several states would be responsible to keep firearms in their possession, and at the ready to muster-to-arms if called upon by the state to defend its territory or to repel an invasion of our United States republic.
The Second Amendment proved very wise and visionary for its day, as it was soon tested by the British invasions of 1812, and the 32-month conflict which followed. Only by the creation of those the well-regulated States' Militias was our fledgling American independence saved, and the well-regulated States' Militias secured the free states and our Republic.
But here's the rub: The United States of America today has a permanent standing Army of 561,984 Active personnel and 567,299 Reserve and National Guard personnel; 1,129,283 total.
Private citizens purchasing, keeping and bearing semi-automatic handguns and semi-automatic civilian versions of military assault rifles are neither well-regulated, nor members of federal or state militias.
They are merely individual citizens wishing for their own reasons to keep and bear firearms, but demanding no regulation of their ownership.
rmc357 wrote:
Your comment above is utter nonsense without a particle of truth, without facts upon which to support your statement. You are parroting extremist anti-government dogma which is without substance. Believe it if you wish, you are of course entitled to make up your own mind, but you are not entitled to make up your own facts.
Nice try, though. Paranoid much?
No doubt in my mind: if Newtown had at least a handful of school staffers trained in tactical shooting, Lanza would have been stopped in his tracks with few to no dead/injured. You need to have them positioned near what would be considered the most likely entry points for a shooter.
What I find interesting in this story is how many teachers notice the obvious flaws with "lockdown" or "shelter in place". They know the layout of the classroom, they know how many doors the classroom has, and they know how the doors lock. They know that if a shooter takes the doorway, everyone in the classroom is a dead duck.
You need a complete overhaul of floor layout and intruder drills that make sense. A single door at the front of the room near the teacher's desk does not cut it. You need another door on the same wall toward the back of the classroom and two doors on the back wall which open into the next classroom. You would now have multiple exit points and walls for cover. Windows on first floor classrooms need to be redesigned so they can be knocked down from the inside. You create more exit points. The more exit points you have, the more adjustments a shooter has to make; every adjustment means the shooter wastes time and ammo, which gives you more time to escape.
Intruder drills need to be an all-day event done no less than twice per month. This is the only way you're going to teach people their quickest way out of the building, depending on their location in the building. This is the only way everyone will be able to get the hands-on experience they need to knock down the first floor windows. It's also an opportunity to make everyone familiar with the maintainance, service, and locker room doors, all of which are least likely to be in the path of gunfire. The emphasis of the drills should be how to break off into small, organized packs and evacuate quickly; it's the only way to prevent the "fish in a barrel" scenario that is glaringly obvious with lockdown. My belief is that if you can train a kid to wave an orange flag in a crosswalk, you can train him to lead a pack of kids out of a building; you start by looking toward the older students or students with Scouts/martial arts backgrounds. Everything you need to know is rather simple: stay low, keep your eyes up, and move quickly. And, most important, stay low in open space in case there are multiple shooters. This was one of the most obvious deficiencies in Newtown, where you had kids holding hands, walking upright across a parking lot; if there were multiple shooters, every one of those kids along with responders who were with them would have been dead.
What's the most obvious indicator that intruder procedures need to change? The teachers and staffers are vocalizing the potential failure points. They're finally paying attention to the little details that add up to someone being able to turn their classroom into a kill box. The question now becomes whether school department bureaucrats will actually pay attention.
'rodentwarrior', on first read I thought you were offering farce, satire to point out the absurdity of bringing more guns into our schools. But I think you may actually be serious, are you?
You are describing the neighborhoods of Damascus, Syria of today, and Beirut Lebanon of the 1980's. Is that what you want our public schools in America to be? War zones in the waiting?
And with twice-a-month all-day training, weapons, martial arts, etc., when are the teachers going to have time to ...teach?
And how do you propose to finance a complete overhaul of the floor plans of tens of thousands of existing school buildings? School districts in America are broke!
Surely there must be a better solution than creating a false impression of safety and security simply because now EVERYONE is packing? I mean, what could go wrong with THAT scenario?
PS. Your scenario seems incomplete. You have forgotten to also arm all of the children!
Robert,
Way to go. Good job providing no solutions whatsoever. The only sane choice when you are confronted with a person actively shooting innocent people is to have others on hand in the IMMEDIATE vicinity with a gun to shoot and stop the perpetrator.
What a bunch of false revisionist history Robert is spewing.
Also, from Justice Story (appointed under Madison...the author of the Constitution, and Jefferson's protege'):
And he addresses people like Robert who would use the militia clause to undermine our natural indivudal rights that predate the state:
Story laments the people's lack of enthusiasm for maintaining a well-regulated militia. However, some anti-gun rights advocates misinterpret this entire passage as being "consistent with the theory that the Second Amendment guarantees a right of the people to be armed only when in service of an organized militia." (See http://www.gunlawsuits.org/defend/second/articles/anarchy.php">Arms, Anarchy and the Second Amendment for an example of reaching that conclusion by committing a non-sequitur.)
http://www.gunlawsuits.org/defend/second/articles/anarchy.php">http://www.gunlawsuits.org/defend/second/articles/anarchy.php">http://www.gunlawsuits.org/defend/second/articles/anarchy.php">http://www.gunlawsuits.org/defend/second/articles/anarchy.php">http://www.gunlawsuits.org/defend/second/articles/anarchy.php">http://web.archive.org/web/20080212130913/http://www.gunlawsuits.org/defend/second/articles/anarchy.php
The above link is the non sequitur article.
Again, only Adams wanted the 2nd Amendment to be about self defense, the rest of the Founders wanted it to exist to guard against tyrannical govt HERE, and invaders SECOND. But even Adams wanted everyone armed if they chose to be, not just militias.
http://guncite.com/gc2ndpur.html
Great, lets hire unemployed combat vets to patrol schools. But who's going to pay them? School districts are already struggling to make ends meet and provide a good education. How are they going to afford these new salaries? By laying off an equal number of teachers?
And what about malls, movie theaters, places of worship?
As for the idea of arming teachers, having non-uniformed people joining a gunfight is a seriously bad idea. How many directions would you like the bullets to be flying in when the police arrive? How many of the shooters aren't they going to take down?
Ron,
The idea is to protect innocent children when they are forced to be defenseless by the Federal government.
You can't pony up some extra tax money to hire guards for schools? And you don't want teachers with guns because you think bullets would be flying everywhere?
You are sad. I guess your solution would be total gun ban and confiscation.
Ron,
The idea is to protect innocent children when they are forced to be defenseless by the Federal government.
You can't pony up some extra tax money to hire guards for schools? And you don't want teachers with guns because you think bullets would be flying everywhere?
You are sad. I guess your solution would be total gun ban and confiscation.
Banning them won't do a bit of good. Remember criminals don't follow laws.
I think we should train and arm our teachers.
Yes instead of making schools fortresses, arm the teachers. Arm the ones confident and willing to handle a gun.
They did this in Israel, and it apparently worked.
Too funny!
Surely, y'all blog for the Onion!
Clearly, if possessing guns for self-defense worked, Nancy Lanza would have eliminated her son before he eliminated her.
After all, y'all fantasize about living in the Wild West rather than civilization.
The pre-frontal deficits of the Reichwing are legendary.
You must live in Arizona? Why don't you ask a question?
I see why your moniker includes "static."
Take a deep breath and let go of the 19th century, don't you think?
The 21st century can be a wonderful place.
Nice try. But no one knows what happened before he got to the school.
'Static' is derived from the 20th century origination of the name of the band Static-X.
The lunatic-pandering, right wing whacko politicians are crawling out of the woodwork. A dozen insane state legislatures will have pro-gun-nut laws passed, before Congress can begin hearings! That anybody seriously thinks the answer to too many guns, floating around our streets, is more guns, is irrational!
Our problems are varied, and complex (from too many easily acquired rapid-fire people-killing guns, and mega-round magazines, to poor mental health practices, to our national fairy-tale view of our history, and traditions, to wanting to do everything on the cheap, and more), it won't be quick or easy to set things straight. If we are actually up to it!
If we are going to have a chance to keep these massacres from becoming monthly occurances, we need to do some deep soul searching, stop listening to anybody voicing the idea that the world is a bang-bang wild west story, where you just have to be a quicker, and more accurate shot than the other guy. We are a grown up nation now, time we started acting like it!
don't try alan he or she is so convince they are correct it is not possible to have an intelligent conversation with any lib.
I hate to say it, but you may be right.
@Never You really think a mother is going to be eager to kill her own son, even to save her own life?
Never,
It is one thing to be caught by surprise and shot by a loved one while in the comfort of your own home. It is quite another when you are in a classroom and begin to hear shooting in the next room and people screaming and dying. Believe what you want but it is possible to act. What do you think a cop would do if he was in the next room talking to 1st graders on career day?
I guess you think of yourself as one of the dumbest, incompetent people on the planet and would just sit and wait your turn to be executed.
I think this argument is overused and it doesn't make much sense. Yes, criminals don't follow laws. But if there was more regulation, it would be more difficult for him to have a weapon, do you agree about that? Instead of just buying a gun legally and/or grabbing it from his parents, he would have to go to the black market to find a gun, since they wouldn't be readily available. Getting it through the black market means more hurdles, more time for authorities to monitor his activities, and in general its just more difficult to obtain a weapon.
arming more moron's wont help either ...its and institution ...lock it down !!!
visitors should be watched or in a waiting room ONLY!!
I will go one step further. Anyone who is against guns in the hands of teachers and other school administrators might as well assist the insane in carrying out their killings. You know, as do I, with certainty that there will always be guns. You know that a person doesn't need months of police training on how to drive a cop car during a high speed pursuit, or how to perform a pit maneuver. A person doesn't need extensive training on various laws and/or traffic codes. All a teacher or administrator needs to be able to do is use their eyes and ears. If you can clearly see a person openly shooting innocent people (children in this case) then it doesn't take much training to recognize the threat and shoot.
We already trust our teachers everyday not to kidnap, rape, or kill our children. I have never heard two teachers lamenting the end of summer vacation and planning a murder spree so they can have a few extra days of school closings.
gofishus, call it what you will, but drugs are illegal and you still can get them anywhere(by the way you libs what to now legalize drugs go figure). How is it you libs cannot understand is a very basic fact CRIMINALS DO NOT FOLLOW THE LAWS! Making drugs illegal(I am not for legalizing drugs) or banning guns does NOT make it harder to get either one. Again criminals do not follow the law hence the reason they are called criminals.
By the way drugs illegal or not cost the tax payer more than guns ever have or will, but like a I said you morons think that legalizing them is a good thing.
Hey Gofishus....try telling that to LA, NY, Chicago, DC? The crimminals have guns and the victims don't...what happens? Try that here where I live in Texas and see what you get...in my case...you will get lead poisening!
Ya'll folks talking about arming the teachers. Who says all teachers are sane? Who says one day a teacher won't snap? Everybody with these silly knee jerk reactions!!! The truth of the matter is there is very little that can be done and we are truly at the mercy of our fellow citizens. What I find interesting is there was no outcry this summer when Chicago was in the news everyday about children being killed by drive bys. Also, have ya'll heard that Ms. Mexico was used as a human shield and killed by a gun that was in the Fast and Furious debacle? Everybody take a deep breath and think this through logically without all the emotions and drama!!!!
Some, not all, given the number of sexual assaults of varied kinds that occur from teachers. That's the first point. The second point is this is ridiculously over simplistic, but I think you already know that. One missing point from this inane sentence is that you have to worry about the KIDS accidentally gaining access to the guns and harming themselves or someone else.
I'm sick of the intentionally simplistic, juvenile "I got rights" baloney being spouted by people who willfully ignore the nuance and complexity of REALITY. Don't you know that your rights stop where another person's start? Example, you have the right to swing your arm out in front of you all day long until it connects with someone else's body, then you've infringed on their rights. The second amendment does not guarantee the right to types of weapons and certainly not the types of ammunition that have no purpose but to kill PEOPLE in large quantities. Also, read the 2nd and 3rd words of the amendment "A well regulated militia..." Every Joe Blow is not the militia and the right is within the Federal govt to make it WELL REGULATED.
So many conservatives are 100% willing to sacrifice my rights to privacy and protection against false search at the airport in order to theoretically provide more protection against the possibility of crazed people with a violent desire to kill. Why the heck are you so unwilling to get rid of some of the worst offenders (assault weapons and high volume/high velocity ammunition) in order to provide protection against the possibility of a crazed citizen? WHAT is the difference in your rationale?
Anyone ever think of asking the question, How do criminals obtain guns? Yes they get them from the black market but where do you think they get them? They STEAL THEM FROM YOU!! If you right wing morons would learn to lock them up it would be alot harder to obtain them. If you look it up you would see that OVER 80% of crimes commited with guns are done with STOLEN GUNS. LOOK IT UP if you know how.
VERY well put DrB. I think you answered your own question, they can't(or won't ) think.
I have two boys and one is the same age as those poor children whose lives were taken away from them by a sick individual. I never thought I would have to talk to my boys about this kinda of tragic incident, but because of this I had to. When your a parent and you have to look in your children's eyes and answer questions like did any of the kids survived or am I safe at my school, your heart breaks. I don't know what the answer is but it is not just throw our hands in the air and say oh well. When I was in school we had a cop assigned to every school in the district and I never felt unsafe. Yes we need to do something about mental health and yes we need our gun laws to be stricter but we can also beef up security at our schools. Someone in a previous post talked about hiring unemployed vets to be school security officers and having someone like that patrolling the schools would deter these sickos. They do not want a gun fight they just want to go out taking as many with as they can and they know that they will be sensationalized in the media for doing just that. Somethings got to give and by the way some people in this forum talked as if these teachers just laid down and allowed this horrific event to happen and that's not true they died trying to save these kids and they should be honored for their heroism!! Bottom line no parent should ever have to endure this kind of senseless tragedy and saying "well bad things happen" is not the answer!
Actually they aren't morons. Legalizing drugs would decrease crime and gun murders. 40-70% of gun murders are caused directly by drug Prohibition. After Prohibition ended in 1933 the murder rate fell 40% in just one year. Crime rose from 1920-1921 (the firsy year of Prohibition) 24%, and 78% over the 13 years of the failed war on alcohol. When Prohibition ended the usage went up slightly, but alcoholism fell (plummeted among children who suddenly couldn't buy aclhol from any dealer/speakeasy). In some countries that ended the drug war, usage even fell.
I'm pro-gun, and I know what causes most gun murder...and it's drug Prohibition. The left and right are usually wrong, and this is just another example. You can save thousands of lives a year from gun murder without causing drug related deaths to markedly rise by legalizing drugs. People that want drugs, drive on drigs, etc. are already doing them. No one has any problem buying illegal drugs if they want them right now.
They rob houses, and drive off with heavy ATM machines attached to chains...and you think locking them up is the problem? They'll steal the gun safe and crack it...and they do just that all the time. Stop blaming the 99.974% of gun owners who kill no one, and start blaming the cause of the .026% that do murder people...the drug war. These mass shootings will always occur, but they are super rare (less than 2% of gun murder victims are from mass shootings), but 40%-70% of gun murders are directly caused by drug Prohibition and the black market run by sociopaths and gangs that it produces. We should focus rationally and logically on the things we can prevent, not the things we can't. You simply aren't doing that right now.
"They" drag off heavy ATM machines because the ATM machines are out in the wide open. Typically, a robber will grab what is easily available and then run, especially if an alarm has gone off. A gun safe in a wall or in the floor or securely attached to a surface is going to give a burglar enough of a pause that s/he won't bother with it.
That the vast majority of gun owners don't commit crimes begs the question. The question is where do the guns used for crimes come from. Well, in general, they don't actually come from gun owners. They typically come from states like Virginia in which anyone (including the mentally ill and former criminals) can obtain a gun as easily as they can obtain aspirin. Stolen guns account for only 10-15% of gun crimes. Most guns are actually obtained more-or-less legally in localities where guns are sold in WalMarts.
Not all states have adequate gun control laws--as long as a few states refuse to have them (or refuse to have meaningful ones, or refuse to enforce them), the people who supply criminals will just go there, get guns, and sell them at a steep profit in localities where there is gun control.
So, while I don't think that the guns used to commit crimes are mostly stolen--they are made available easily in states where "right wing gun nuts" see to it that there is very little, if any, gun control. The "drug war" is also a red-herring--while it does have a lot to do with gun deaths, those deaths are going to happen with or without guns and with or without gun control. The problems of the underclass aren't what we are discussing here.
What we are discussing is the mentally ill getting access to guns. This mentally ill person got access to guns because his "gun nut" mother did not keep the danged things secured. There are too many cases of mentally ill people getting guns from those who don't want to be sensible with their weapons or from those who sell weapons to just anybody because they think they are being "rebels."
If we can't discuss gun control in a logical way--could we perhaps discuss the mentally ill? I would be just as happy to address this particular tragedy by discussing what we can do for families who have a mentally ill relative. Right now, there is virtually nothing done for them. The institutions were dismantled--at the request of do-gooders--by people like Reagan. But, he then did not put up the other kinds of social service nets that the do-gooders thought would be erected. He put nothing up--there is pretty much nothing now.
If you won't do your part to keep guns away from the mentally ill--could we maybe talk about keeping the mentally ill away from guns and not running around out in the community where they endanger small children? How about that?
and gun control would have prevented what happened in a Chinese school which led to 22 kids being stabbed to death how?
Joe Mamma is right. Banning Assault Style Weapons will not change a thing. I have read the entire report after the weapons ban lapsed in 2004, and the percentage of assault style weapons being used before the ban, during the ban, and following the ban remained the same at 1.7%. Get that. Only 1.7% of all shootings involved assault style weapons. The number of ATF investigations in to firearms of the assault style type remained constant staying around 3,000 cases per year from 1993-2004. Meanwhile, since 2001 when we saw an uptick in gun ownership crime rates have continued to decline and murders have been declining. Is there a correlation? I'm not sure, but it makes you wonder if there is.
What about the installation of weapons lockers in key areas
of schools that require at least 2 trained faculty members to open. (Retinal or
palm scanners) The risk of accidental shooting is virtually nill, and they can
be hidden away somewhat so students don’t even know they exist.
Another plus with secure lockers is access to larger rifles. Because if you are dukeing it out with a guy
armed with an AR at 50 yards and you only have a 9mm, you will most likely
lose.
My .45 will do 1.5" grouping at 50 yards. Lockers are useless, once the shooting starts the criminal will first head right for it and kill anyone trying to access it. Worse yet he could force an official to open it so HE had access to the arsenal.
A major point is being missed, just the possibility that school officials will be armed is a major deterrent. The whole draw of schools is that the "Gun free school zone" guarantees by law the victims will be defenseless. Arming teachers removes this draw.
Not all need to be armed, just those that volunteer. They can go through special training and screening to assure stability and effectiveness. Also, by definition, when it is concealed on person it can't be gotten to by students and students won't be alarmed since it's not visible.
I would suggest multiple lockers, thus any gunman cannot make more than one a
priority. I would also suggest installing cameras around the area connecting to
a secure control area that can monitor what’s going on in the hallways near
them.
If you can get a 1.5" grouping from 50 yards you are a very good shot. But
most would not be able to match you unless they trained extensively for a long
time. A rifle vs. another rifle evens the odds greatly.
Also, if properly located/ sufficiently hidden, a gunman would have difficulty
locating these stashes unless he found out through a faculty member. I think
they could work...
So we have armed guards at banks but not schools, therefore we care more for our money than our children’s lives. Are armed guards effective? When was the last mass murder at a bank? Going postal: the term came from an UNARMED group. I noticed that they didn’t call it going bankal!!! And I bet there are plenty of people who would like to go bankal. Therefore being armed is both a deterrent and a safety edge. The term over educated idiots comes to mind when I think of our schools.
NOTE TO POLITICIANS: If you pass a law that makes my new $1500 assault rifle illegal I will make a note of your name and vote for anybody else in November. Also note, there are 300 million guns in the US; that is a lot of votes. The term political suicide comes to mind.
Because our government refuses to protect our children I can’t help but get the feeling that they are using our feelings for our children’s safety to get us to give up our 2nd amendment rights???
Gun laws are effective?? Look at Canada: In America 80% of the prison population is black, and about the rest are Hispanic. I don’t see blacks and Hispanics in Canada, so I expect that they would have a lower crime rate. Apples and oranges comparison. Look at Mexico: Hispanic population, whole towns getting wiped out by illegal gun toting gangs. Their government threw the population to the wolves with gun control.
Why is our government loading up on ammunition while at the same time trying to pass gun laws??
Why Does The U.S. Government Need So Much Ammunition?
In my previous article, I also noted that the U.S. government appears to be very rapidly making preparations for something really big.
This week, it was revealed that the Social Security Administration plans to buy 174,000 hollow point bullets which will be delivered to 41 different locations all over America.
Now why in the world does the Social Security Administration need 174,000 bullets?
And why do they need hollow point bullets? Those bullets are designed to cause as much damage to internal organs as possible.
But of course this is only the latest in a series of very large purchases of ammunition by U.S. government agencies. The following is from a recent article by Paul Joseph Watson....
Back in March, Homeland Security purchased 450 million rounds of .40-caliber hollow point bullets that are designed to expand upon entry and cause maximum organ damage, prompting questions as to why the DHS needed such a large amount of powerful bullets merely for training purposes.
This was followed by another DHS solicitation asking for a further 750 million rounds of assorted bullets, including 357 mag rounds that are able to penetrate walls.
Now why in the world would the government need over a billion rounds of ammunition?
If it was the U.S. military I could understand this. You can burn through a whole lot of ammunition fighting wars.
But this makes no sense - unless they believe that big trouble is coming.
George Soros:
Perhaps even more disturbing is what he believes is coming after the financial collapse....
As anger rises, riots on the streets of American cities are inevitable. “Yes, yes, yes,” he says, almost gleefully. The response to the unrest could be more damaging than the violence itself. “It will be an excuse for cracking down and using strong-arm tactics to maintain law and order, which, carried to an extreme, could bring about a repressive political system, a society where individual liberty is much more constrained, which would be a break with the tradition of the United States.”
Let implement armed/uniformed guards at the schools and the additional cost can be covered by the Teacher's Union.
Such a hateful person! Dragging your hateful anti-union comments into a discussion about how to keep lunatics with guns from making massacres into monthly occurances!
well, sure... teachers should have to foot the bill for a pin head mentality like yours... lets turn those kindergartens into military compounds... so derelicts like you can own AK 47's. IDIOT!
Can't teach an inbread much Leftward other than to shoot beer cans
Have armed security guards, hire our veterans who need a job, build safe rooms in each classroom, and install bulletproof glass funded by taxing all guns and ammunition. I'd be willing to pay and would still get to keep my guns and provide a little extra security for our children. And my own family.
It wouldn't hurt to have a better health system for those who are mentally ill who need treatment. But none of the above will do any good, if we don't pay attention to the warning signs of trouble.
Big Ed kiss my A$$, in all of your posts you insult anyone who doesn't have you narrow little minded take on things. You are the hateful person, and probably a pretty impotent person in your life that you have a name like that. Does your mom yell "Big Ed" turn off that computer and come upstairs for dinner"
Teachers and school systems have always worried about everything. Growing up I remember being scared of bicycling, using the phone, computer, aids, eating peanut butter. My teachers did a good job teaching us what a big, bad, scary world it was and to take few if any chances. Talking to strangers was verboten, because if you do you would likely be abducted, raped, and murdered.
All of the gun nuts' arguments always boil down to this:
I really, really WANT that gun!
Its not a want its a right.
If someone broke into your house would you want a gun? If you could have any gun what would it be?
A shotgun is your best bet for home defense. Don't need to be a marksman, just point and click like a computer mouse. The distinctive sound of a shell being chambered is usually enough to scare off most intruders.
Yes, the shotgun, and no one wants to ban it.
well not until some moron uses it to kill a bunch of people.
All of the anti-gun nuts' arguments always boil down to this:
I really, really don't want you to have that gun!
There is a logical reason that anti-gun-nuts want to reduce the number of murders, and mass murders, by reducing the easy availability of guns, and the quick resort to guns, in our culture. The only reason that gun-nuts want guns is that they are afraid to face the world without them! Which, alone, in my opinion, should disqualify those individuals from having contact with guns. If a man is afraid of the world, unless he's armed, then he is mentally unstable, and thus a danger to anyone nearby.
The Second Amendment was NOT PART of the Constitution. It was an amendment, and while it may once have had some basis in reality, it no longer does. We are no longer a frontier culture in this country, where every person needs to be armed for their, (or anybody's) safety. Its a dangerous Amendment, and should be repealed, as was that other failed Amendment, the 18th!
The issue is complex, as will be the solutions. But, adding more guns to the pot, is an irrational idea, that will just make the NRA, and the gun lobby richer, and the rest of less safe! Grow up, guys. Put away your guns, and join the civilized world, (and start taking your meds!)
big ed they felt it was important enough to make it the 2ND Amendment to the constitution, the 1ST is freedom of speech. I would say that it makes them both two of the MOST important ones. I do not even care how you feel that it is not based in the reality of today, ask those in the middle east who are trying to make their lives better, try and dying for the freedoms you have BECAUSE of those two amendments.
OMG, rmc. do you think the 1rst and 2nd amendment to OUR constitution applies to the middle east? I didn't realize they have the same constitution as the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. and who dies because of OUR first amendment? hmmmm.....
Another mindless liberal with poor reading skills, a product of the liberal public school system. sam if you cannot understand what I was saying then it will do no good for anyone to explain it to you. To answer one question millions have died for YOUR right of freedom of speech!
RMC...so if you want to stick to the original intent of the 2nd amendment (as opposed to making it more reality based for today's culture), then you would have to agree that the only "arms" people have the right to bear are those that existed when the Amendment was written. It is said that an excellent shot in those days could shoot 4 rounds per minute. Anything beyond that capacity doesn't fit with what they intended at that time. Can't have it both ways.
How do you feel that the original intent was to keep the people only armed with muskets? Do you feel that the founders were not smart enough to think that firearms would not get more advanced and therefore more deadly? If so don't you think they would have made the wording very specific only including a list of the weapons available at that time? I can have it both ways and if you lib were smart enough to think for yourself and not what the liberal pundits tell you think you would see that it was written this way to keep the government from limiting what firearms the people could have. AND the original INTENT was as said a thousand times before it is to give the people a way to fight against and oppressive government, that applies to any time not just the past. Try to educate yourself.
rmc,
Dude, I'm already educated WAY beyond your ability.
Then how can you make the statements you are making? You have absolutely no idea who I am so you show how stupid you are to assume that you are WAY beyond my ability. Does it make you feel better to say those words? You are a typical liberal and self importance is a classic trait of liberals.
Give me a 12 gauge double barreled shotgun any day. Kicks like a mule, but gets the point across real quick.
That doesn't make any sense. The intent of the 2nd Amendment was NOT self defense, hunting, or sports shooting, it was to overthrow the govt if it ever became tyrannical. Read your history and the Founders' quotes for yourself. Not one Founder said otherwise...except Adams, but he also thought you should go to jail over things you say that were disparaging of the govt. He did support the 2nd Amendment, but he thought the militias should just follow the law and never go against the military or govt. That didn't work out well for Nazi Germany. But other than him, the 2nd Amendments intent was clear...tyrannical govt overthrow.
So unless you want to return police and military to the guns they had back then, there is no way you can do it to the populace. And I think we both know how dumb that would be.
The Founders knew very well England once made the mistake of having a standing army with a largely unarmed populace, and the result was coup and dictatorship. They wanted to balance a standing army, militias, and an armed populace to keep the govt from becoming tyrannical to the people. It hasn't worked really well, but we haven't had a military takeover of our streets like they did in Mexico or England.
elBig Ed,
re: post 5.7
You say gun owners are afraid to face the world? Meaning the USA and it's reported 2-300,000,000 guns...and each one with a gun nut behind it?
You anti-gun cultists need to get your arguments straight. Either there is 2-300,000,000 guns in America- a large number of which must be in criminal or dangerous hands and presenting a danger to all citizens which can be fought....or else there are 2-300,000,000 guns in the USA with many in criminal or dangerous hands and our role should only be that of a victim. All I see you guys saying is "Be the Victim and don't fight back. Let them kill or rape your family members while you stand there powerless. Shut your mouth" and "toe the line when your government becomes overbearing or tyrannical". It is cowardice to expect others to take a bullet for your loved ones while you do nothing for them yourself. It can't always be somebody else's responsibility, and isn't.
And by the way- it was guns and their use that enabled you and everyone else in the US to enjoy our "civilized world" by killing or supressing it's dangerous elements. That means world-wide dangers too. Idealism is fine to a point, then it becomes silly, then stupid, and finally dangerous when it becomes anti-survival.
Most of the victims in Aurora were killed by a 12 gauge and a .40cal handgun. The 100 round mag the shooter had in the AR jammed less than thirty rounds into it being used and he didn't use it again.
Stop blaming the guns and start blaming the person. Every single one of the mass shooters in the past 10-15 years all had mental problems. Wether it be depression, bullying, or just plain pyschopaths. Only a medical expert can diagnose someone as having a mental problem, and they are responsible for reporting those individuals to the FBI's list of at risk people. But people that refuse to get help or don't think they need help, or don't know they need help will never be caught up by background checks. And please don't suggest that the govt conduct mental tests on anyone buying a gun, because the last thing we need the govt to do is decide who is mentally capable of doing anything, when the govt can barely do anything themselves.
Assault weapons are a zero issue. First they are rarely used, second if they weren't available the shooter would just have used a garden variety gun like the vast majority do. Ditto with high capacity magazines.
There is laminated glass (or wire embedded) available that could be used in vulnerable areas, and is barely noticeable so that our children do not feel imprisoned.
Most middle and high schools have a resource officer that is provided by the local police department. Is it time to start putting them in grade schools also?
I was thinking along those lines. Why not put a police officer or two in every school, not just middle & high schools? If nothing ever happens, great. If something does, you have a better chance of stopping a lunatic.
I'd much rather see a police/resource officer than an armed teacher who may/may not be competent and/or mentally sound. Not perfect, but better.
Just what we need, everyone in the school to be armed. Because then everyone would be safe. **sarcasm there**
Edit - AND make sure all classrooms can be locked from the inside. With better doors...
Jonathan, The original reason for the resoucr officer was to protect the kids from other kids but, you do have a very good idea.
As stated above, better doors and ability to be locked from the inside. And some type of safe room couldn't hurt.
this is the ultimate disgrace for the US... to have failed our children and their teachers by letting the NRA have its terrible way... it must end!
What way is that? To help allow you to defend yourself?
The only ones we need protected from are people like you joe mamma
As long as these weapons are legal we will all live in fear. Ban these weapons now. No more children should have to die.
Wow you are right. The felons and mentally deficient will obey those laws. You people are clueless.
I own firearms. None of them are assault weapons. I don't live in fear.
Arm the schools! It will take years to abolish guns, maybe never. Yes, there a chance that the armed guard could go nuts, but what else can you do?
Provide teachers and faculty with tasers and taser training courses before this happens again. Put signs upon the school doors that say: "Faculty and staff are armed for your protection."
They should install steel doors that can be bolted shut from the inside.
It should be simple, retrofit any windows that can allow access to a room with wired glass, ensure all rooms can lock from the inside (but still be accessible with a key if necessary or in an emergency), hire on security as part of the staff. Nothing outrageously expensive or "bunkerish." Offer training for teachers that want it, to learn what they need to know in any scenario such as this.
Banning guns isn't the answer because the criminals don't follow the laws, they will still get them. But I also don't want them easily accessed by students, or teachers that are daily harrangued by little hooligan kids... may cause more incidents. Especially if it is a substitute teacher. Teachers are there to nurture and teach, leave security to security professionals.
Look for more parents to having their children be home schooled after the shooting carnage in Newtown, CT. We already had a mass shooting at an Amish School in Pennsylvania back in 2006, and another school shooting in Newtown, CT.
Forget worrying if you have enough filing cabinets to hide behind! Have the teachers trusted with the lives of our kids have a freaking gun for protection! At minimum a couple people in each school should be trained and assigned the gun for the day. This stupid mentality going around now is totally asinine. You could remove every gun and still wackos will find guns or box cutters, base ball bats or something to attack with. Besides this rash of mass killing is clearly being caused by the psych drugs. A whole industry is raking in the money selling these drugs left and right and just like a school kids bombed and killed in Aghganistan is just "collateral" damage to the U.S. well your kids dead are just "collateral" damage to the psych drug industry. Almost every time these freaks kill it turns out they are on a prescribed psych drug.
Many of the Religious and the Political Right believes wars of guns and
bombs are Holy and of a Holy God,and influence others in this belief,but God
ends all wars,says Isaiah 2:4,and God doesn't end what is Holy.So wars are not
Holy,and so not of a Holy God,who has no beginning and no end.
The only religion that I know of that believes in what you saying is the muslim (I should say the radical muslim) religion. I cannot say that of any other religion. If you can please show us all. Other than that your post is just stupid. Call them as I see them.
rmc, the more I read the more I see that you are a paranoid mental case.
I don't get into a pissing contest with morons and guess what, I won't now. Makes me look as unintelligent as the other person. (hint-hint)
The only morons are the ones that think guns solve all the problems and are jealous that they lost the elections. I , as well as DrB, have forgotten more than you'lle ever know rmc. I feel sorry for the zombies of the republican party. And as for the comment about my mother, She was the wife of my father. Squeel like a pig for me rmc. your lucky I won't stoop to the level of a in-bread redneck hillbilly such as yourself. Time for your meds, go to bed.
Hey Randy, I am a middle aged white man that makes 6 figures with 2 degrees and I voted for the president, twice now. I am not you, I have guns and I pay taxes and I don't live in my mothers basement like you. Grow up, people have different opinions in life. The extreme left is no different than the extreme right, you both are little men that like to yell a lot, I guess to compensate for other deficiencies. You are every bit as much a zombie of the left as they are of the right.
Dear White House,
I speak to you with a heavy heart, about a subject that has plagued our nation for decades. A killer among us only rears its head when the time is right. It knows no boundaries. It transcends age, race, creed, political affiliation, and religion.
I call upon you as the greatest power in the free world to immediately ban the repeated use of Knives, forks and spoons. These three killers are responsible for the obesity that has cost the lives of tens of thousands of people each year. Our healthcare system is overwhelmed with caring for the collateral damage that these utensils, these evil tools of food, have caused.
I urge you and the congress to immediately ban the use and distribution of high capacity spoons and over sized forks because they allow the maximum amount of food to be delivered to the target in the least amount of time. We as a society demand that the regulation of these killers be enforced with maximum prejudice. The industry that manufactures these utensils have known for years of the effects they have on society, yet they continue, almost mockingly produce them instead passing the blame to other areas of society. Perhaps the greatest evil of all comes from the plastic utensils. They are lighter and allow the user to operate them with less fatigue. We must ban utensils now.
As stupid as this sounds, it makes as much sense as trying to ban guns. By the way New York is trying to do just that, remember that idiot mayor. sarcasm as it is, good post made me laugh.
Believe it or not, that actually makes sense and gets the point across.
I once worked at a not-so-safe school where our principal demanded that we keep our doors locked. Part of it was to deter tardiness (kids who were late for class were rounded up by the administration), but the biggest reason behind it was safety. We actually got in trouble if our doors were unlocked.
The next principal I had after him demanded that our doors be unlocked. After weeks of silent protest (I kept my door locked anyways), he finally sent me a written reprimand. When I tried to talk to him about it, he quite briskly told me it was not up for discussion and walked away.
Part of me is so tempted to call that guy up and say "I told you so."
The biggest danger in the public schools where I live are the students or the parents of the students. I think we also need to ask ourselves why this one is having such an effect. Lets be honest, there are some 8,500 gun deaths each year, 90% is black on black or brown on brown you don't hear the outcry like now. Don't get me wrong, the extreme right is nuts but the extreme left is just phony. I will keep my guns not to protect me from the tyranny of the govt. but to protect me from the nuts on the right and the left. Pass a law, pass a law but when the president says he is not going to enforce immigration law that is good, two states legalized a drug that is against federal law, and 17 others have similar laws. Don't pass laws you can't enforce, it just makes you look impotent and any respect for the law just further decreases.
I am a substitute teacher and have a concealed weapons permit. I would never under any circumstances bring a weapon to school. A loaded unlock gun is never safe around children. I was working at a middle school last Friday and first thing I did was look to where to put the kids if I needed and today when I walked into a kindergarten class.
Three issues needed to be addressed in this country: background checks for ALL gun purchases, the lack of mental health coverage, and enforce that gun laws we already have in place. Anytime there is a tragedy in this country we seem to have a knee jerk reaction to make new regulations that still won't fix the problem.
Excellent post.
Spot on about the three issues that need to be addressed and the idea that another regulation or law will significantly affect this. However, I do believe that a locked and loaded hand gun can be carried on a persons body safely in any environment. It does require training and discipline but it can be done.
I understand the misguided rhetoric that gun-lovers and the NRA are talking about when they demand automatic weapons to 'protect us from a corrupt government' . . . BUT . . . WHO will protect us from the NRA idiots!?!?!?!?
"My gun makes me feel powerful so that's why I REALLY need a gun . . . to make me feel powerful"
Gun lovers are simply murder-supporters . . . there's no spinning it.
Do you really believe the absolutely idiotic BS that you give reason for supporting these weapons of mass destruction!?!?!?!
Seriously!?!?!?!?!
So much so that you allow yourselves to be supporters of child murders!?!?!?!
REALLY!?!?!?!?
God Bless your soul!
Since banning guns probably won't work, start training willing teachers & staff in their use and allow them to carry. Hire armed security for each and every school out there. One way or the other we are going to have to combat this kind of thing. We can't sit around with our jaws in the dropped position on this any longer.
Were all of the schools safety procedures followed? It just doesn't seem possible that anyone can just walk into a school.
Try reading an article! The school was locked... he was armed to the max... he got in... there have been countless articles on this story. What, now we have to turn all schools into military compounds... JESUS!
The outer doors were locked. He shot out the window to gain access into the school.
Here are a few things that should make everyone understand who your dealing with in the gun debate:
1. Those with the least education are most likely to own a gun
2. Southerners are most likely to own a gun and easterners least likely, which is ironic, since the least amount of large population centers are in the south (large cities are where the majority of crime occurs). So, are uneducated gun owners protecting themselves from each other?
3. Middle-aged, white males are the most likely subgroup to own a gun.
Remember, for those looking to CONTROL guns (not BAN them), you are most likely trying to reason with a Southern, conservative, middle-aged white male with nothing more than a high-school degree. Good luck.
Source of data: Gallup poll
1. not true
2. not true
3. and to leave them unlocked so younger people can get them and use them... with 30 round clips... we want that carnage to be big, you know!
The answer is more guns, no controls... larger clip rounds and burying our heads in the sand!
Your post is nothing more than flawed spin!
you can deny the statistics all you want. Do a search yourself - the numbers don't lie.
misinformation!
I don't think I'd go for it, but, to begin at the beginning, I believe it's worth asking: "Why not repeal the 2nd amendment and ban all gun ownership by private persons or organizations?" How do we justify a proposed right or show that it's not a valid right? What is a right anyway? It must be remembered too, that, just because some people abuse a right, that is not reason enough to take it away from everyone. If we use the argument from abuse consistently, I doubt we'd have any rights left. I don't know what to do and I see almost nobody putting a concrete proposal on the table. If someone wants to repeal the 2nd amendment, let them say so and provide an argument about why gun ownership is not a right. Same thing for retaining the 2nd amendment with or without restrictions. I'm rather stuck for good arguments; hopefully, others can do better. I'm not challenging what you're saying, I'm just throwing out some issues that have been on my mind.
frequent male flyer,
Do you have a link(s)? The web is great because it allows links to primary sources. People can see for themselves without having to take one's word for it. I've seen posts where the data in the provided link actually ended up being distorted in the main post. I save a lot of links just to provide backup for what I write. BTW, leftward bound is pulling your chain.
All false.
1. I do have a college education.
2. I live in one of the plains states.
3. I'm a white FEMALE.
Victoria, may I add that you are one bad sister too! Mr. Man bought me a .12 gauge shotgun for Christmas last year and I have yet to go out shooting with it. I must confess just handling it kind of intimidated me! We plan to go shooting it as well as my .38s and his various guns. By the way, like you, I have a college education, but I live in the southwest and am a Black FEMALE. You go ahead with your bad self!!!!!!!
agree victoria and pandy....
1. I have 4 different degrees, I'm highly educated (I have my BA in business and my AA in accounting)
2. I'll give you that I live in Tx, but I'm originally from California
3. I'm a 30 year old white FEMALE.
Pandy my ex-husband bought me a shot gun for Valentine's Day one year, needless to say when we divorced he took it :( They take a little getting used to but once you get the feel for it you'll be good to go!
Of my guns my favorite one is my Taurus .357 it's a 5 round revolver, my daughter and I do competition shooting, but this one is my personal carry weapon and the one I use the most.
Yes, I am a white middle aged male. I live in Houston, Texas one of, what are evidently statically small cities in the southern US like Dallas, San Antonio, Atlanta, Miami, and Phoenix just to name a few.
I have two degrees, and work as a consulting engineer both nationally and internationally. I am a gun owner and a concealed carry permit holder. I know that the FBI statistics show that there is a correlation between the decline in the violent crime rate and increased gun ownership during the last decade. I know, from working in Mexico, that when you deny citizens the tools to provide for their protection criminals rule the streets. I know that Chicago has higher violent crime rate and more restrictive gun laws than any of the cities of larger size in the south.
So yes statistics don't lie, but statisticians and the people who commission them have agendas.
I grew up hunting, had my first rifle when I was about 8, a small 22, shot elk at 12 and still have several guns, one pistol that was a gift from my sister when my brother-in-law passed away. A rarity in this country, a middle aged white man making 6 figures that has voted for Obama twice now. Don't own an assault rifle but I am thinking of buying one which I guess is common because gun sales are going through the roof right now.
Don't make judgements lets just be honest. Not one of those kids in Colombine, Aurrora, Virginia, Conn., Oregon came from a hunting background and had any type of hunter safety type of classes, all from broken homes, all had identifiable mental issues prior to the shootings, but we don't talk about that. For my job, I travel all over the world and been in Australia several times as well as recently in China, you are comparing apples to oranges. Culturally and socially we are different. Now China has the toughest gun laws but they can enforce them, we can't. If we could we would have enforced our existing laws, immigration laws and our drug laws. I am not afraid of the tyranny of the govt, it is to incompetent, we are at a fiscal cliff they created and now they are going to jump off it, the feds don't scare me. I will keep my guns to protect myself from the nut cases, the tea party/KKK or the Christian Taliban or the nuts on the extreme left wich are no different than those on the right. Both of you think the same, pass laws, pass laws and pass some more laws, then both sides choose which ones they want to follow. Why do I say we are different than other countries because the response is so predictable. "Do something", "pass a law" or "we have to do something". Looking for magical miracle solutions to really complex problems. It is so American. There are no comprimise positions for either side. One thing I do see is that the anti-gun people are every bit the same as the NRA, unable to process anything that doesn't fit their little narrow little minds. Look at the words you are using, “gun nuts," etc the left is not different than the right.
Saw that someone asked where God was?
God was tossed out of schools many years ago because of folks like Ms. Ohair.
As a nation, we have to ask ourselves what do we really want?
If you spit in the face of God, can you really expect a different outcome?
We are a God-fearing nation. That is what we started several hundred years ago.
We can exist with those who choose not to believe or decline not to believe in God. Whether atheist or agnostic, they have a right to their belief system. The rest of us that believe in God need to stand up, tell our leaders we want God back in our schools and make it happen.
On the practical side, we need mental health system that can alert and help the twisted souls who commit these acts of terror.
Restricting my right to own a fire arm neither brings back one dead child nor does it condemn another child. It is just a " Look constituents, I did something!"
When we had less Government intrusion into our lives, I do believe we had less incidents such as these. Right now, if you are a crazed killer, hit a mall, a theatre, a school because folks there cannot protect themselves. Crazed killers are crazy but not stupid. They do not hit an NRA convention or a gunshow. Just my two cents
Hmm. Large plate glass windows and lots of glass right beside doors. I've been thinking about that too. I think window frame structures could be made such that someone would have a very hard time getting through small openings. In new buildings, maybe some designed features could help even more -- perhaps some kind of internal "panic corridors" would work. I'd think some innovative designers could provide plenty of great ideas. Even if we were to repeal the 2nd amendment and ban all guns in private hands, they'd still be available from organized crime which would be the only source. So, there's still need for improved school security. Any town can have someone going off the rails and deciding to go for mass murder.
Sure, we should have to turn every school into a military compound... and keep our heads buried deep in the sand... do nothing... because the right to own AK 47's and large round clips should always take prescedence over the lives of children.
I'm not talking about a military compound; I'm thinking of some simple changes that are going to be needed no matter what is done with gun control. Also, I'm concerned that the weapon(s) of choice for these monsters could change to something far more lethal than what can be done with the number of guns and bullets they can carry. Note that, according to reports, Lanza had lots of bullets left over; the fast response of police may have seriously aborted what he intended to do. Expect the monsters to adapt to this new law enforcement environment. I didn't say anything about what should be in a new gun law. I think a ban on the assault type weapons is a good idea and I don't see how to avoid background checks. No matter though, the schools need security improvements and, I really expect that they'll get them. Teachers, administrators, and police are certainly going to be looking at what can be done without putting a complete panic room off every classroom. I don't think there's a right to own an AK 47 now. Lanza used a semi-automatic which is often called an "assault type weapon"; I believe this is what I've read anyway.
Perhaps they should rack their shotguns instead.