zapatos

I didn't say it was ridiculous. My point was that the person can arrive naked, clothed, in body armour, or even better protected. He can fire a long distance round, or set the school on fire, or blow it up. He can poison the food in the kitchen. My point was that just because some scenarios will make an armed guard less effective does not mean that you do not have an armed guard. We'd all look pretty stupid if we chose not to have an armed guard because the attacker might be wearing body armour, and then the attacker shows up in shorts with a machete. Obviously. But why are you assuming the armed guard will be ineffective and considerably more harmful? The articles you link to in no way supports your assertion that "It is therefore likely that significantly increasing the number of guns in schools will increase the risk of gun deaths in schools." Unless of course you are talking about arming the students. Obviously. But why are you assuming the risk outweighs the likelihood of the armed guard stopping the attacker? Just because it doesn't make you feel safer, doesn't mean you aren't actually safer.

Yeah, and what if he comes in a tank?Clearly this situation would be more likely to result in higher casualties. On the other hand it is no reason to give up. If a shooter comes into the building the outcomes range from a)He sees the armed teacher and takes off running, to b)The number of deaths is reduced, to c)Total destruction I think though that taking some action is better than taking no action, and by taking action the average result is better. Probably the collateral damage will be higher than if the teacher charges the shooter with a hockey stick. On the other hand, if you can kill the attacker with a gun, the damage from him will be lower. There will always be risks in self defense. What should be done though is to do the risk mitigation and reduce the likelihood of an attack, and reduce the impact if an attack does occur. IMO the mistake would be to do nothing for self defense because of the inherent risks. Of course it will be difficult and there is a reasonable chance that fighting back will not help, and indeed cause some casualties on its own. On the other hand, what is the impact if you don't fight back and allow the attacker to keep on shooting?

You made a claim; the onus is on you to provide the evidence. It is not my job to prove it wrong.

For the most part, one giant strawman. More unsubstantiated, off topic, pronouncements.

It is foolish to say "It is foolish to say what you found has less than a 3 in a million chance of being something different" when your very next sentence is "I would not even know how to arrive a that answer." Claiming something is 'loony' based on personal incredulity and an admitted ignorance of the process does not make a compelling argument.

How is the math loony?

According to Wikipedia... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Osama_bin_Laden

If this was supposed to be a response to my post, it failed to answer any of my questions. Other than that it appears you have one anecdote about what one person saw from one perspective regarding a correlation between police presence and crime. I am unsure why you seem to think the police were the cause of the crime, rather than the police being concentrated in an area because it contains high crime.

Huh? So in other words, you think we'd be better off with no laws and everyone having to defend themselves individually. Something tells me this is not going to turn out well for the old, the minorities, and the weak. Would you please suppy a citation for this fact? Huh? Can you give some names and what they've done?

It is kind of a nonsensical question. No one is saying NASA is more important than feeding starving people. Our world does not work linearly. We have hospitals for people but choose to help animals at the same time. Your friends have probably decided to go on vacation at the expense of donating money to cancer research. We even spend money making remote control cars when the money could be spent instead on making automobiles safer. No one is suggesting one is more worthy than the other, and even if they were, we'd still do multiple things at once.

What is the 'leading edge of ST'? Do you have a citation of anything that discusses this? Do you have a citation for someone who is arguing that this can move mass at a rate greated that c? Citation?

The fact that a federal law was able to ban assault weapsons indicates that a state law banning assault weapons would not be unconstitutional under the second amendment. If it was, the federal law would have also been unconstitutional. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Assault_Weapons_Ban

The relative ease with which you believe something has no bearing on its existence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_gravity

You seem for some reason to have a bias against currently accepted science, choosing alternatives simply because they are not part of the consensus. An indicator of your bias is your use of the word dogma and the insinuation that acceptance of a particularly well supported theory is done out of convenience.

The best minds certainly don't know that for a fact, and don't make such a claim. They could be wrong and there are people who disagree. However, the evidence and the interpretation of the evidence makes a very solid case that this is indeed what is happening. And I wouldn't worry about efforts being stopped to confirm whether or not it is true. There would be no greater glory and discovery in a scientist's career than to find a major problem with a generally accepted theory. Scientists who have a vested interest in the current theory hold no sway over the research of others.

You might want to try this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_expansion_of_space

Actually these two statements are not at odds with each other. The Big Bang is not similar to an explosion where debris is thrown out from the center. The Big Bang started everywhere at once and the universe grew in size.

Can you elaborate a bit on what you are getting at please? It sounds like you are responding to a rather nuanced comment by yelling 'racism!'. I assume you are not but can't really tell what it is you do want to say.

They actually do that now in California. One of the biggest issues seems to be the rather poor choice of names, which is "toilet-to-tap". http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/us/jan-june08/water_2-11.html I understand that they have been taking sewage water, treating to levels stringent enough for drinking water, then pumping it back into the groundwater. It is clean enough to drink but difficult to get over the idea that it is recycled. Seems that now they may be skipping the groundwater step.

I usually find myself on the side of people who want to limit firearms, but I must admit that lately I've come to see merit in some arguments of 2nd amendment supporters (not that we don't all support it at some level). As a first world nation that peacefully hands over power every four to eight year, and has not in recent history had a president ignore a Supreme Court ruling, I don't forsee a need for arms against the government. However, guns are a deterrent at many levels. For the local sheriff who tries to rule with impunity, I think that knowing the citizens are armed will tend to keep him honest.

Your first two paragraphs seem to be at odds with your last paragraph.

I think even this gets overblown. All guns 'are only inteded to kill', unless of course they are for something else such as target shooting or collecting. The round from a .22 will also kill you, and the round from an AR-15 is just higher on the scale. I imagine a slug from a 12 guage shotgun would also do a significant amount of damage but no one seems to be talking about banning them.

Yes, we are just a bunch of ignorant peons being led around by the nose.

The problem with gun control based on lethality, or magazine size, or description, is that it is all subjective and arbitrary. What is an unnecessary deadly weapon to one is a good target rifle to another. I believe if the objective is to increase limits on gun control, the way to go about it is to simply implement what can be passed into law, regardless of what type of weapon that is being limited. If lawmakers will not accept a ban on, say, assault type weapons, then do not try to limit them and move on to something that is palatable to a majority. While I feel it is unlikely that we will see the population at war with the government, I believe that the thought of an armed group of individuals does give government pause when considering a heavy handed use of power. As far as the legal ramifications, I imagine they would be similar to what would happen if a teacher responded with a cricket bat if similar damage was done. It is unlikely that any teacher would be forced to carry a gun. Who in their right mind would force a gun on a teacher who is, say, afraid of it?