“It is insane to think that you can protect children with nice thoughts. It takes people with guns to do that. The police are always too late to these shootings. You cannot remove guns from the universe. They are 15th century technology and have been made in homes since the beginning. Only totalitarian states can make penalties sufficently strong to decrease the number of guns available to make a difference, because you have to remove 99 percent of the guns to take them away from the small number of people who have strong motivations to do harm. Then the results of the totalitarian rule are far worse than the violence you are trying to prevent. The world is ruled by force. Better to have balancing forces, than to create disarmed victim zones.” Dean Weingarten, comment under “Give teachers guns”: US blogs awash with people calling for more people to be armed [via mirror.co.uk]
I see only 3 outcomes for this. The first, and most likely, is everyone not directly impacted will forget about it during the holidays. The second is gun ban via executive fiat, which will be fought in congress and senate, it probably won’t prevail long term and more people will buy the guns that were banned. And the third, and the best in my opinion, will be allowing armed teachers into schools. Now would be a good time for any firearms instructors to think up classes to train teachers, and what they have to face in the event of a mass shooting, and every day classes, how to handle a firearm in stressful situations and keep small hands away from them during class.
Armed guards is a must. We defend our money with armed guards, our leaders with armed guards, even our celebrities and sports stars with armed guards, but not our children. Even if it was just a single officer in the school, rotating a different officer in each day, for every day of school, it would be better then nothing. They don’t even have to look like cops, just men and women in tweed jackets and pants suits with an odd bulge in their shirts that is covering a bullet proof vest.
If the wicked Bush I banned foreign semi-autos by fiat what’s stopping the predator drone child murderer Obama from banning those made here?
The president’s executive power covers foreign relations, including what can be imported. He doesn’t have the same power over domestic production.
Right on that why he needs congress we must help the GOP House block such bans.
It’s simple, outlaw all gun free zones and since they are legally responsible for our childrens safety, mandate that a certain number of teachers and administrators at these public institutions get a CCL and get elevated training in close quarter shooting situations.
That way we teach our children that regular citizens like thier teachers are able to defend themselves and others without needing to look to government for thier protection, we don’t increase the cost of providing for the education of the children and we increase the ability of all people to provide a safer world than we had before.
So how many of our fellow citizens would support such a proposal?
Those citizens not completely neutered in thier willingness to take responsibility for thier own lives and safety of themselves and thier children.
If it wasn’t for the last twenty years of the continued regaining of our gun rights, I would have said the spirit of freedom that made America great was completely dead, but now, even with all the hyperbole being thrown around by the gun grabbers, I have hope.
The cat’s not out of the bag.
Most shootings happen with guns legally purchased in the past few years. If they were harder to buy, they would be harder to find. Not all of the shooters would have gone to the trouble of tracking down an illegal gun. Just like today not that many shooters go to the trouble of tracking down an illegal fully-automatic. See? Restrictions on purchasing firearms works.
“See? Restrictions on purchasing firearms works.”
Sure, whatever:
http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/14/world/asia/china-knife-attack/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_attacks_in_China_(2010%E2%80%932011)
“Not all of the shooters would have gone to the trouble of tracking down an illegal gun.”
There’s more than one way to skin a cat and crazy people know it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daegu_subway_fire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvestre_Matuschka
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebei_tractor_rampage
China knife attack is an example, not a logical argument. I could argue, and it’s probably true, that if he had a semi-automatic AR-15, there would be 50 dead instead of 20 hurt.
The world is a big place with lots of things going on. Just because some nut-job manages to kill many people with a knife doesn’t mean that guns should be easily available.
Logically, a person set on killing other people will do so with the most effective means at his disposal, or that require a reasonable amount of effort to obtain.
So the guy intent on slaughtering a class room full of kids and then killing himself is going to be deterred by a little xtra work to aquire a gun? Lazy lunatics are our best line of defense? Scott?
You’re forgetting Oklahoma City. That terrorist attack was done with fertilizer and diesel fuel.
People are inherently lazy. So yes, I would say that making it difficult would be effective, at least some of the time. Aurora or CT guy actually could have killed more people by using a bomb, but did they? That would have taken internet research (OMG) and a lot of work to buy fertilizer and figure out triggers and such. Obviously too much trouble so he used what he could go and buy outright.
That, plus, would your typically lunatic really be able to find, say two references that would tell an interviewer that he’s a trustworthy individual?
I’m not saying impossible to get guns, I’m saying harder. Most of the people on this site would grumble about the hassle, (just like every other dangerous item is a hassle to buy and insure) then go through with it and be fine. Your friend / co-worker would explain that yes, you’re normal, adjusted, happy at home, careful about guns, owns a safe, and you and your friends just like recreational target practice and hunting. Approved.
Yep, safer. Scott I think Santa need to give you a glass belly button so you can see where your going.
http://youtu.be/xh4oHK8Dgck
With all due respect to Scott, the Aurora shooter did make bombs. His home was booby trapped from one end to another.
He drove past other theaters which were showing the film at midnight and went all the way to Aurora. Why, because the other theaters allowed CCW.
He then gave up with out a fight, why? Because he wanted fame. He is a sick and twisted individual with known psychological issues, but just the thought of an armed movie patron made him choose his target.
As an example it is very hard for Hamas to smuggle arms into Israel, so instead they use bombs quite effectively to spread terror. Whether a gun, or knife, or bomb, the end effect is the same.
Evil will follow the path of least resistance. Simply taking away guns, will not resolve the CRIME issue. Simply look at the United Kingdom. Gun crime is on the increase, and based on per capita violent crime it is safer to live in the US, or even South Africa.
No sir. your argument is the same as saying that car wrecks involving Bugatti Veyrons are rare because the government restricts their purchase. Rather it’s b/c their astronomical price renders few of them available and those who have them drive them carefully and keep them secure b/c of their rarity and value.
In the same way, even if full-auto weapons were as easily obtained as non-NFA arms, their price and rarity makes their owners keep them under lock-and key.
The problem in the instant case is that a person with mental problems was allowed access to deadly weapons. I know whereof I speak,as my son has Autism, but I also have a safe. Only the gun on my body isn’t in it, even though my son is loving, kind, and not dangerous.
Disagree. If fully-automatic weapons were easily purchased, I believe that there would be mass shootings involving them and the casualty count would be even higher. For point of evidence, semi-auto ‘assault rifles’ are widely available, as are pistols, and we have shootings involving them. Reduce the ease of acquiring, and we might have mass shootings with fewer casualties, or mass murders using knives or other means which would likely be a net decrease in number of dead.
Scott, guns are NOT the problem! The facts to refute your thesis are cited in volumes on this site every day. If you ignore those, none of us can help you.
This is people problem. It is easily solved by armed guards provided at each school. That will deter both psychos and terrorists b/c in the end(like many criminals I’ve prosecuted) they’re crazy but they ain’t stupid!
Persist in your hysteria-induced”solution” and you’re no different from a lousy golfer who throws his 9-iron in the lake. Stop blaming the tool.
Scott,
Wrong!!!
The continued use of gun free zones and the failure to stiffen penalties on those misusing or illegally acquiring firearms and the continued negligence of cities and states such as Chicago, NYC, Detroit and Conneticut to enable and enact laws allowing their citizens to own and carry firearms as they see fit,(concealed, legally purchased,etc), to protect not only themselves but their families, those unable to defend themselves, and especially kids in school, on field trips, etc is the main and ongoing problem!!
Until such time as the Individual State Government’s and the Federal Government do away with Gun Free Zones and stop all of this AWB bullshit there will be, and God forgive me for saying it, more and more massacres and shootings with “high” body counts.
Guns are not the problem, our governments refusal to allow self protection in any and every place we are legally allowed to be, and our moral decay in society and unfortunately in our education system is the real problem!!
Your theory of gun non availability would only result in more deaths of innocent people both short and long term due simply to the fact they could not protect themselves and others!!
Just my opinion!!
Or, alternately, we could pass a law that says: “If you have a gun-free zone, then you have to provide the protection yourself.” It seems like that would make everyone happy.
Guns are part of the problem. People are the other part. Should do something about both.
You realize that with 100,000 schools, probably need 200,000 security guards with gun training? Can you have a field of 200,000 people without bad apples? Even if you could get them for $40G a piece (probably not, unions, pensions, etc), you have just created another $8 Billion dollar government staff program. Plus admin, oh the admin. This is the government you’re talking about, so say $20 Billion including admin. Hope you don’t mind the tax increase.
And then we have a situation that maybe five kids get killed in the 2 minutes it still takes the security guard to get there and intervene. Oh, he was on break! Make that 10.
Wouldn’t it be easier to just not sell the shooter a gun, and those of us that are lawful, put up with the hassle of an approvals process?
Our local sheriff has over 1800 officers. There are only 178 schools in the whole county. The county next door has 58 schools and 1000 officers, not even counting the city cops.
I know you are focusing on those black sporting rifles. In reality it is a shill game. 93% of all gun related crime does not involve long guns. This includes shot guns, flint lock, bolt action rifles, lever action rifles, etc etc….
Even if we made all sporting rifles disappear, it would do little to change gun related crime, and certainly little to reduce violent crime.
Even if we had fully automatic rifles available, have you ever shot one? You are far less accurate in full auto than in semi auto. Unless you practice a lot it is basically useless. sure it is fun on the range, but in practical application it is a waist of ammo.
Scott: 1 word. Chicago. See, firearms laws don’t work.
All that proves is that State and Local laws don’t work.
lbd, drug laws are federal. see how they work. Under bridge dwellers are welcome here. They spike up the numbers of hits on this site. Which is a progun site. More hits, more revenue and more pols afraid to act on gun control because they see raw numbers and equate that to votes.
So thank you lbd for supporting our gun rights.
Ok LBD
Here is two words:
United Kindom
Violent crime is out of control.
Gun crime has increased 85%
Your thoughts please??
Crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales fell by 6.1% between the years ending June 2011 and June 2012, according to the latest crime statistics.
The reason crime appears to be “out of control” in England is that every fistfight is considered to be a violent crime, while in the united States, it is only considered to be a violent crime if someone is injured and the injury is reported to the police.
A huge percentage of the “violent crimes” in England are the result of bar scuffles. This increased in recent years because the pubs there are now allowed to be open around the clock.
If you look at murder by gun, there were a little more than 9,000 in the United States, compared to 14 in the UK. So a 35% increase is what, five?
Scott, where do you get the stat that most shootings happen with guns purchased legally in the past few years? The only Time-to-Crime numbers I found were over 6 years and that was relating to people under 25 in California.
No sure about CT, but I know that Aurora was recently purchased. I acknowledge that my evidence is personal / anecdotal, but my point stands: SOME of the shootings will be using recently purchased fire-arms, by necessity, since not everyone already has one. Those same SOME could be mitigated if less deadly fire-arms were all that is available. Your average nut-job wouldn’t know where to begin, locating an illegal firearm.
You just don’t get it do you? Don’t you understand that certain people are going to do bad things no matter what. Banning guns because some sicko performed heinous acts will not prevent another event from occurring. All you are doing is seeking to punish law abiding citizens. The truth is that these awful events are the result of ignorant people like yourself advocating for legislation to make you feel better while creating huge problems. To regulate guns any further, you are trampling on the Constitution, which is unacceptable while also helping to flush the economy down the toilet.
So we can’t even eliminate the gun show loophole? Because that would be unconstitutional?
Well in answer to Scott’s comment.
The Connecticut shooter did not buy any firearms, he stole and murdered the owner. We can discuss about firearm storage later, but that is what we know.
The Aurora shooter purchased his guns legally. He was also under the care of a mental health professional. This is a mental health issue, and how can we improve the system so folks who might harm others are prevented from owning guns. Banning anything is not the answer.
The Okios shooter purchased his hand gun legally. It was a California compliant handgun. No law except banning all gun might have prevented this, and given his reasoning he would have more than liekly used some other method, like a bomb or something to exact his revenge on the school.
The Columbine shooters stole their guns. Besides one firearm which was a pistol sorta looking assault thingy, all of them were what you or I would consider standard firearms. They also had bombs, or at least had played with such items previous to their rampage. Again even if we ban all firearms these sickos would have found a way to their twisted ideals of fame.
Here is the flaw in your argument. We don’t see a lot of illegal fully automatics because the supply of weapons in general is plentiful. Why go through the trouble of seeking out an M-16 when an semiautomatic is readily available. However if you ban military type semi automatics you are opening up a large market that transnational criminal organizations would be happy to fill. (See illegal drugs) That’s when you are going to criminals automatic weapons. What you are doing is called first order thinking. You think “every thing held equal” terms. But every thing won’t be the same. The law of unintended consequences always operates to assist Mr. Murphy.
By the way unlike the movies full auto is less effective then deliberate aimed fire.
You’ve heard, perhaps, of smuggling? How many tons of illegal drugs and how many illegal aliens cross our borders every year? Is it so hard to imagine that guns could be added to the list?
But more than that, you want to punish millions for the actions of a tiny few. We don’t much like collective punishment here.
Scott, I can take you out today and buy a dozen illegal guns. It’s no more difficult than buying a bag of heroin. Which, by the way, is also illegal and yet readily obtainable.
This fight is going to be over stats and semantics. This morning I read that Sen. Joe Mancin who got elected as pro gun has shown his real colors. He now wants an AWB.
The only balance in forces that I see is this: One moron decided to kill some innocent kids and ANOTHER moron decided the easiest way to address this is by persecuting, and infringing on the rights of, the innocent. Way to go, Barry.
There is simply too much emotion in this fight. Yesterday, we had a very sincere President make a very sincere promise to “do something” that was “regardless of politics.” That sounds a whole lot like his politics are now anti gun, particularly my beloved AR-15’s, and that the rest of the American people will have it crammed down their throats (the $937 Billion to 2.7 Trillion “Affordable” Health Care comes to mind).
I see:
1. A push for AWB 2.0, possibly even with no grandfathering
2. UN Arms Trade Treaty
3. A new program of armed guards at schools – with possibly a new federal agency
paid for by
4. Increased general taxes, and possibly gun and ammo taxes, and / or registration fees.
My plan?
Eliminate schools as gun free zones and make them concealed carry zones. Allow CC for teachers, Principle, AP, etc. Cost? Damn near zero.
2nd Amendment Infringemnet? Less than zero.
More security would not be a bad idea. Why not use retired police and military to handle the security? Kind of like crossing guards with guns
That works also.
” That sounds a whole lot like his politics are now anti gun”
What do you mean “now”? He’s never been pro gun nor sincere.
Well perhaps now BHO has more “courage” to be anti-gun. BHO didn’t do much to restrict gun rights in his first term. That may very well be changing presently. I didn’t vote for BHO for a host of reasons that I’be posted in previous articles.
Well, to those who say compromise, remember Great Britain. I believe it was inspection of firearms, then gun safes for everyone, then they came in to inspect the gunsafe(& write down each individual weapon), then they knocked at the door & you either turned in everything on record or go to jail. Most of us here would like to work with the grabbers & hope to get something done for the kids, something sensible, thats a mistake though, because the real issue with the grabbers is protecting criminals. Bitch brady said it best, there is never any reason to shoot someone & that means criminals, mall killers, people raping your 3 year old daughter, anyone! They live in a world where there simply are no bad people, except us of course, lol. Randy
“the results of the totalitarian rule are far worse than the violence you are trying to prevent. The world is ruled by force. Better to have balancing forces, than to create disarmed victim zones”
— That was actually very well stated. Unfortunately, large numbers of people in modern western societies lack the common sense and respect for the individual to be their own first defense to understand such things.
I am waiting for the next Suzanna Hupp out of all this.
First off, I do not have any children, so what I am about to say has no Parental, emotional stake behind it.
If all the American Children are so precious and loved as these 20 little victims at Sandy Hook ES are being made out to be, how in the hell can anyone balk at the idea of providing them effective protection at their Schools? I just cannot entertain the notion that there is any argument that anyone could offer that justifies consciously choosing to leave children at risk of another Sandy Hook incident. None! None at all!
These children were US Citizens with all the Rights of US Citizens fully intact from the moment they left their Mother’s womb. Yes, certain of their Rights could not be exercised before reaching specific ages, but the Right to their lives was what was egregiously violated, and that Right is there’s from the first breath they take. Yes, as children, they cannot carry weapons to defend themselves, but their Right to Self-Defence is not diminished one bit, and that , too, was egregiously violated and denied to them.
The fact that we are having any debate at all about this is just f**king lunatic!!!
>It’s too expensive! Well what is the dollar value of a child’s life? Tell me, please…tell me!
>It’s too impractical to provide dedicated, trained armed Security personnel at every school. Oh really? We can put tens of thousands of Soldiers into that God-forsaken shithole called Afghanistan, but we can’t find enough adults who can be trained and armed to protect our own children from the armed lunatics we cannot figure-out how to stop from killing those children!
>It’s too much to ask of School Administration and Teachers to get Trained in armed response tactics and carry guns at School to protect the children. Well, has anyone asked them? Certainly, some will want no part of that, but surely across a School District there will be enough who would agree to that training and responsibility, then you just re-assign/re-distribute to cover the Schools.
>BUT…but…that would mean some States would have to agree to issue Concealed Carry Permits to “ordinary Citizens” and we cannot permit that! So Michael Bloomberg, Rahm Emanuel, Antonio Viaraigosa and other leftist tyrants are more comfortable with children’s blood on their hands than School Staff and Teachers with guns in their waistbands? There’s no curse terrible enough for those craven rats.
> The presence of armed Guards or School Staff/Teachers would damage the children’s psyche’s and scare them. Oh, yeah? Kids aren’t stupid, so let’s ask them.”Johnny/Suzy, would you rather stay alive and/or uncrippled by an attack from a stranger with a gun shooting you multiple times, or would you rather have Officer Bob or Principal Kathy at your school armed and trained to stop the bad stranger from killing and hurting you and your friends? Now take your time and think about which is more scary to you and tell us which way you would rather have it.”
For chrissake, people, it is our duty…yes. duty…to provide effective protection to our children who are too young to exercise their Right of self-protection for themselves. There is just NO rational, acceptable argument against that simple fact. We may not like what we have to do, and we can continue to look for a “better way”, as we should anyway, but for now we need to take immediate radical steps to protect our children and ensure their Rights. If we cannot do so, then God take whatever little is left of our Freedom forever because we don’t deserve it!