Anyone with a heart who remembers the horror and carnage Adam Lanza inflicted on Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012 will not forget it in their lifetime. For some, those who were there or were left bereaved, the event created unfathomably deep psychological scars; injuries that will never heal. They have our prayers for a measure of peace. But the survivors’ suffering does not render their desire to disarm law-abiding citizens inviolable. In fact, they’ve got it exactly backwards: civilians with firearms are the key to protecting innocent souls from murderous monsters like Lanza. Specifically . . .
If one of the teachers or administrators at Sandy Hook had been armed, they may have prevented or at least limited the sickening loss of life. This is not empty posturing by “gun nuts” or predictable propaganda from the NRA. Last year, TTAG conducted scientific simulations to gauge the potential effectiveness of an armed teacher in an active shooter scenario. Click here for our results.
The tests do not unequivocally prove that an armed teacher or teachers at Sandy Hook could have saved the lives of 20 children. No simulation can do that. There are too many variables. That said, a proper simulation at the school could have established the likelihood of that outcome. Newtown residents are not willing to contemplate that possibility; town officials ordered Sandy Hook razed to the ground.
This blindness to common sense – the unwillingness to confront the hard truth about self-defense and spree killing – led to unnecessary gun control laws in Connecticut. Laws that will create still more bloodshed, not less. And yet those who are most deeply affected by the killing continue their crusade (chronicled by newjerseyhills.com) to “strengthen” gun control laws.
Maura Sherlach Schwartz, a Deptford music teacher out of Gloucester County, whose mother, school psychologist Mary Sherlach, was one of six staffers, along with 20 6-year-old children, gunned down by a lone psychopath at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., on Dec. 14, 2012.
Mary Sherlach had been in a conference with a second-grade student, the student’s mother and Sandy Hook Elementary School Principal Dawn Hochsprung when the intruder arrived shooting out a window of the school. Both she and Hochsprung were gunned down trying to protect the students.
Schwartz is still reeling from events in Newtown. “My heroic mother ran to the intruder to stop him,” Schwarz said minutes before Team 26 arrived at Town Hall . . .
“We should be able to walk down the street, go to work, or attend a movie, go to the mall and buy our groceries without the fear of a gun ending our life,” Schwartz told the gathering of about 70, fighting back tears the whole time.
“It’s easy to fall prey to the grief, the frustration, the anger, asking those unanswerable questions like, ‘How did this happen? Why Sandy Hook? Why my mom? What could have been done to prevent this? But the simple reality is, it did happen. And now, we as a country need to learn from it.
So close. So very close. Truth be told, it should have been a defensive gun use.
Make it in 45ACP! I’ll take two
Well, Dan, you estimate 455 armed students. If the same percentage of those students cause a problem with their firearm in the same way that 7 out of 2,000,000 license holders in FL have, that means that 0.0016 armed students per year will cause a problem. EEEEEK!!! …or another way to look at it is that once every 624 years one whole student will do something worthy of having his/her permit revoked… 😉
I just had a thought, and was wondering if it’s funny or just stupid – wouldn’t it be kind of difficult to pull off an armed robbery if the store guy doesn’t know you’re armed? Does the thief say, “Gimme your cash – I have a concealed weapon!”?
As much as i grieve for those kids and their families I can’t help but look at every lawmaker in CT who voted to pass their current ignorant gun laws, and those who decided to tear down the school building and just shake my head and ask: WTF are you doing? You’re not curing a problem!! You’re making the commission if a crime/crimes even easier now!!
It’s always true, an armed society is a polite society, Period!
It needs to be said everywhere, a conceal carrier could have ended that shooting with much less death. Simple as that.
Upon reexamination using this writing, his knowledge of self-defense is unreliable and contaminated.
Just like the Amanda Knox DNA evidence, right Prof?
I often think if there was a machine to go back in time but the limitation was you had to return one minute before the event. What could you do? Place a gun on a counter, present a choice.
Then I think of the reason those kids are gone. We have become so civilized the thought of evil cannot be endured.
I just can’t wrap my head around the logic behind the gun control crowd. Try as I might, and I’m a pretty , reasonable guy.. I just don’t get their logic.
The razing of the building is a certain sign that a lot of folks up there are in deep need of mental health services. Somehow they think the building has a curse and so they will spend tens of millions of dollars to tear down a perfectly good building and rebuild it.
So the primary question is…..
Is 2014 Newton,CT more or less delusional than the Salem,Ma crowd down the road in the 1690’s and their fascination with witches?
“Really, it’s not that hard, but since Greg seem to want to make it hard I will give him some examples of when he may (in fact, should) shoot a student:” wait wait wait…your telling me there have been times criminals carried firearms onto school property when it was illegal? My mind is blown! /end sarcasm
In how many cases has the “active shooter” been a student anyway?
I want to start by saying i have always loved steel match ammo because it is affordable and highly accurate. i went to the range today and not one of the 50 .308 rounds fired on the first strike if i re cocked the rifle the round would then fire on the second strike. the rifle fired all other ammo (Remington, federal, black hills) without a hitch. when i got home i noticed the primers on the faulty ammo were slightly recessed into the case, perhaps this was resulting in light primer strikes. i had just replaced a broken firing pin on this particular precision rifle so my first thot was that the firing pin was improperly installed and did not protrude from the bolt far enough, which pissed me the hell off because i just had it installed. its comforting to know it is not my rifle and other people have had this problem with this particular ammunition.
There is nothing better than a liberal tool revealing his utter ignorance while believing he is being clever.
It seems to me that if Walther legally exported the firearms to Finland, then that should be the end of the inquiry. Whether the Finnish importer acted illegally in exporting them to Columbia is a question of Finnish law, not German law. And if what the distributor did was legal under Finnish law, there is no case.
To even have a shot at Walther, it would seem the prosecutor would have to prove that Walther “conspired” with the Finnish distributor to ship arms to Columbia–good luck with that.
I think you are an ass wipe for using the words downrange and Air Force in the same sentence.
Yes, it is the intention that makes it dishonest. It is dishonest to intentionally conceal your weapon. Much like a white lie, you did not let her know you were armed because you knew that she would react negatively to it.
To conceal carry because you covered your open carried gun with a coat because its cold is not deceitful, the intention is to be warm. If you can carry a concealed backup to your open carried gun, it is not deceitful, you have already announced you are armed.
The greatest problem is that CC permits problems we have to remain hidden and fester. A black man, who CC, I met while I OC stated that he would not be able-to because he is black. If that is true that needs to be fixed, sadly it may be true in my state, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqMJDHDXI7U .
Not quite happy with the wording of the first two paragraphs.
Sadly, these previous posts are correct. Mental illness, in whatever form, whether knife attacks, having access to firearms, or vehicular (California driver who plowed through a crowded boardwalk last year) etc,. Anything can be weaponized by those who choose to do harm on others. An armed and trained faculty member, or resource officer, “might” have changed the outcome. Point being, restricting lawful folks from the fundamental God given right to self defense, simply doesn’t work. I don’t need the 2nd Amendment for that. Our Founders took SD as a given, and reaffirmed it. To be able to defend myself, family, and others in a life threatening encounter against murderers, rapists, thieves, poachers, and crazy people intent on harming others, is inalienable. The victims families, and politicians that are exploiting them, deserve a chance to realize that reality. But I doubt they will.
And yet, CT purchase and CCW permit apps went up after the tragedy. Some get it, some sadly will not.
(Rant off)
“We should be able to walk down the street, go to work, or attend a movie, go to the mall and buy our groceries without the fear of a gun ending our life,” — Maura Schwartz
Yes. And we should be able to walk through life without the fear of contracting a deadly bacterial or viral illness. And yet that happens all the time.
There are risks in life. Some of those risks are very messy and very ugly. Each person has to decide how to manage those risks.
We have to remember: this is not about the arguments or the logic in the gun grabbers “brain.” This is all about emotion. And when you are emotionally involved in something so tragic they find a need to punish someone, anyone.
Punishment most of the time is gun owners. “Because if we weren’t so stupid to have guns in the first place none of this would happen.” And… “We don’t have any answers, anyone to imprison, anyone to put in front of a judge or anyone to convict… except this inanimate object, the gun.”
This is all emotion. And you will NEVER win the battle of emotion with logic.
How do smart guns change anything? How long would it take to remove 300 million plus dumb guns from circulation?
A gun with ipod-like characteristics, water-wings, and hi-point build quality is what we’re looking at here. With massive price tags no less, and probably designed by college students with no firearms experience who play way too much world of warcraft.
Gun owners must make it VERY clear to all parties in the so-called “smart-gun” racket — it will be boycotted. No self-respecting person will buy it.
I hope we are all clear that the idea of “smart” guns is to allow some authority or another to turn it OFF.
Follwed the Ron Conway link. Come to find out he was the driving monetary force behind Ed Lee’s election as San Fransisco Mayor in 2011. Lee supported a ban on hollowpoint rounds in California as well as DiFi’s AWB last year. (http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?id=8927679) That kind of political affiliation tells me a lot more than any GDS press release.
This event and everything that followed – priceless!
A mentally ill MONSTER. Deal with it Greg. At 20 you’re NOT considered a “kid”. I had a wife & a son at 20. Never again did I live in my childhood home. The gun control crowd brings up Sandy Hook oh…EVERY DAY. Every mass shooting can’t be stopped but we can sure as h##l try.
This conpany doesnt have a billion dollars cash (as the offer)
Youd need big time investors.
Yes you could say Bloomy, but even he doesn’t spend more than a couple million on his gun agenda. Hed get a lot more done investing 1bn in anti gun tactics then buying out Freedom.
Not that he would do either, as they’d basically be throwing away a billion dollars, which he would be aware of.
No billionaire, whether he has 5bn or 50bn is going to throw away 1bn.
Absolutely a publicity stunt.
Your question is simple, and the answer is equally simple. No, concealed carry is not dishonest. It’s your private personal business no different than the amount of money in your wallet. Do you wear your wallet around your neck so everyone can see it? Do you walk around naked so you have zero secrets from the rest of society?
Even back in the old days, concealed carry was commonplace amongst the law-abiding. The assertion that it was otherwise is pure speculation based on hollywood movies. It might be a common thought, but there’s zero evidence to support the allegation. Women commonly had small pistols or knives tucked away. Men carried derringers in their watch pocket. Crime was no less rampant in the 1850s than it is today, and everybody realized that it was their responsibility to prepare for a possible attack.
From a tactical standpoint, it pays to not show your cards. Sure, a six-gun on a fancy-tooled rig is sexy, but it was also a tool of daily use and you couldn’t afford to have it tucked under layers of clothes. You never knew when a coyote, snake, bear or whatever was going to come out of the brush, so you had to have at least a pistol handy. It wasn’t the best tool for the job, but it was the handiest tool carried in the handiest way. And you can get that any cowboy that could afford it also had a small pistol tucked in his boot or hidden in a pocket.
In those days, common sense was the ruling body.
I’ll take two please.
Gimme.
🙂
MDA and CSGV are just butthurt about being punk’d.
This sh1t is like the creeping crud. If not stopped these fascists wil enslave us all. We may need some “Stand Strong America” T shirts.
If TTAG had reasonably-priced T-shirts, who of us here would not buy one?
Can we get some smart reps in our legislation?????
We have to remember: this is not about the arguments or the logic in the gun grabbers “brain.” This is all about emotion.
Yes, but which emotions? Somehow, the feelings that come from competently facing reality as it is aren’t permitted.
In the end, a lot of the animus toward guns is people declining to own their own power. With great power comes great responsibility. Question – in a dangerous world, does declining to grasp a great, relevant power also carry great responsibility?
How dare anyone take charge of a classroom full of kids – kids conditioned to follow their direction, and defer to their judgment – without a plan and preparation for *how* they’ll care for those kids. We have fire drills, hoses, extinguishers and more, don’t we?
So does this mean they can’t export to south Chicago?
It is not their fault. “Ve ver only filling ordurss!”
OK, I’m confused. “Fixed magazine capacity”? Don’t all those eeeeeevil AR/AK clones feature DETACHABLE magazines? And if the law makes no centerfire-rimfire distinction, pray tell why they WON’T arrest you for a 15 round .22? I’m so damn glad I don’t live in a place like NJ.
Another small victory, but still a victory!
Most of these oath keepers are not LEOs and never were. Once in a while you’ll find one of them that was an MP, but that not a LEO. The more vocal they are the less chance they have an oath to keep.