Guns in the Classroom

[tar]

Rigney,<br /><br />Hadn't thought of it that way, but now that you mention it, crime, as in break-ins and robberies are VERY often commited by people looking for goods to pawn, or money, so they can support their drug habits. And one of the reasons people might feel the need to own a firearm is so they can stop such a thief, from violating their home, or stop an intruder such as this from causing harm to a family member.<br /><br />We may not know yet, what the motivations were to Adam Lanza's beyond horrible, attack, and though drugs may not be involved, the desire to have a means to stop an intruder, with malicious intent, should not be considered evil in its self. Even if all the guns in the country were to vaporize tonight, we would still be left with malicious intent, and we would have that many fewer ways to combat it. Then we would have to ban knives, then rocks and clubs, then heavy boots and so on, until we had nothing available for a criminal to gain an advantage with. If nobody had anything they could hurt anybody with, there would be no hurting? I don't think so. Bare hands can hurt, we would have to outlaw people getting too strong or too big to fight off.<br /><br />...<br /><br />Never did build it, but my dream room, as my kids were growing up, was a playroom with a cushioned floor and cushioned walls, and cushioned steps/bleachers, with hinged tops where you could store the toys and such. The girls would be able to jump around and fall and throw things about, and there would be no sharp edges or hard surfaces to hurt them.<br /><br />Would be nice if we could design our schools so no accidents could happen. No guard with a gun. No gun locked in a drawer, would ensure no accidental bullets would fly. But such rules would also leave the school personnel with only bare hands and baseball bats to fend off any external threats that might befall the school. Whether wild animal, madman or person with malicious intent, external threats are a possibility. Not unreasonable to plan a little something, that would counter such threats. And a responsible adult, certified and trained to handle firearms and to take control of dangerous situations, being on hand, does not sound like a bad idea to me.<br /><br />I don't think there is a reasonable way to write this into law, to protect every day care center and after school program and every school and function where our children gather. But it would be a shame to write such possibilities out.<br /><br />Regards, TAR2

[Bill Angel]

Here's another take on the issue: Firefighters Shot Dead at Upstate NY Fire

 

Two firefighters were shot and killed and two others taken to a nearby hospital after a gunman opened fire on them as they responded to a house fire in Webster, N.Y., this morning, according to authorities and local media....The fire department [then waited] for police to safely evacuate nearby residents and secure the scene before battling the blaze.

 

Should all firefighters be required to carry firearms?

[tar]

I do not think that small brass containers filled with gunpowder, plugged on one end with a potential projectile, are very safe to carry in high heat situations.

[ox1111]

Reading through these posts I find most people's opinion very interesting. The most important thing of all these posts is that there are many different opinions from many different types of people. Our founding fathers realizes, they realize that no one is truly right or wrong and that with freedom everybody can get their way. Rules and laws only really help the criminal, because they only pertain to law-abiding folk. Freedom is not free in fact it has a heavy toll, it requires courage, requires tolerance, it requires belief for your fellow man. Every year more laws rules and regulations are passed and every year more criminals are made.

It is very simple, for every law rule or regulation made a certain percentage of the population will be on the losing end of the stick. The more laws the higher the percentage. This will hit a tipping point where as the losing end of the stick gets to be larger than the winning end. There is only two outcomes:1 you live in a society of hierarchy. 2 the so-called underbelly of society overthrows the hierarchy. We are not free we lacked courage we lack tolerance and we have little belief in our fellow man.

[rigney]

Just how much faith can we put in our fellow man? Thinking of the Newtown, CT massacre makes me shiver. To think that a 20 year old "young nut" literally destroys a school system after murdering his mother to steal her legally purchased firearms to accomplish such carnage is hard to believe or understand. Now an "elderly nut" gets his hands on illegal fire arm(s)? to murders a couple firemen and possibly his sister. And this, after spending 17 years in prison for the bludegoning murder of his grandmother. Are we missing something here? It seems both of these nuts were "sane enough" to kill themselves after accomplishing their gruesome deeds.

 

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/12/25/fire-trap-gunman-dead-after-killing-2-firefighters

 

What I'm asking is: Should a nation of over 300,000,000 descent people be punished o the limit for the sake of a few nuts "NUTS"?

 

http://video.foxnews.com/v/2051761779001/calls-for-mental-health-reform-grow-after-newtown-massacre/?intcmp=obnetwork

Edited December 25, 2012 by rigney

[ox1111]

We should place as much faith as we have courage. It used to be people respected each others freedom and rights because if they didn't they could be on the losing end of a fight. Now people respect each other because fear of the law. This is why the first is better. The law can't be everywhere, infact many of these shootings these days have little to do with the people and more to do with contempt for the law.

We effectively prevented the fist fights of the past by legally chopping off everyones hands. Gun laws are foolish, the stricter the law the worse the crime to escape it.

1 We made drugs illegal, people still use them, but we created drug cartels.

2 We made booze illegal and people still drank, but we created gangsters.

3 We made sex illegal and I wonder how much this increases rape?

Point, this country is safety crazy to the point we throw freedom out the window and this turns around and makes us less safe, and then we make more laws and throw out more freedom and then that back fires and make us even less safe. You would thing we would figure out this and stop, but we won't because unlike nature we let pu----ies run our country.

Edited December 26, 2012 by ox1111

[Moontanman]

Ummm when did we make sex illegal?

[ox1111]

Prostitution

Edited December 26, 2012 by ox1111

[Moontanman]

Prostitution

 

 

No, prostitution is the selling of sex...

[zapatos]

We should place as much faith as we have courage.

Huh?

It used to be people respected each others freedom and rights because if they didn't they could be on the losing end of a fight. Now people respect each other because fear of the law. This is why the first is better.

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.

The law can't be everywhere, infact many of these shootings these days have little to do with the people and more to do with contempt for the law.

Would you please suppy a citation for this fact?

We effectively prevented the fist fights of the past by legally chopping off everyones hands.

Huh?

You would thing we would figure out this and stop, but we won't because unlike nature we let pu----ies run our country.

Can you give some names and what they've done?

[ox1111]

Getting rid of most laws seems imposible and crazy. I was raise in the city of reading. Almost always in the top ten of crime and was #1 in poverty in national news. Then I moved when I was about 25yr to 20miles away to a small town 20 miles outside Reading. Was their still crime yes, but much less. The town is just as poor and people with in the town live just as close. My town has no police department. We have section 8 apartmens in town and when thugs come here to live they find out 2 things 1: with no police the people in the town are better at dealing with problems them self and 2 no police seemed great for them, but they find out much worse. 20 min drive takes you to another small town with a large police department and high crime. the police their is for the whole area but only patrol that town and only drive out when called. Most place on earth are police free living, thats not to say their are no police, just that they are far enough away to be nothing but recorders of crimes and by the time they get their if anyone or evidence is their it is because they choose to be. Their are not police in nature and it seems to run just fine.

I personal dislike police and the law, I find it gets in the way and complicates things and most of the time the police them self hate their job because they disagree with what they enforce.

 

P.S. I moved here to raise my kids, the young and old are fine.

Edited December 26, 2012 by ox1111

[zapatos]

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.

[ox1111]

You would have to read a couple of pages to understand my post. It did not directly refer to the conn. shooting.

[rigney]

Like ox1111, I grew up in a small town (coal mining) in WV. During the 17 plus years I lived there we had only one murder, (two ex GIs quarreling over a local squeeze), No suicides; but eight men died in mining accidents while one drunk suffocated, sleeping close to a gas heater in his own shower room. It may also sound strange, but in the 6th grade, three of my friends and I actually brought our shot guns to school so we could go hunting right after classes ended for the day. Even the principal thought it was a good idea since each of us lived a mile or better from the school and pot hunted to help supply Moms larder. Then there was Dukie, 9 or 10? He got killed while playing dodge 'em with a produce peddlers truck. The Shamblin boy, 11 or 12? He died of an infected appendix. And yes! We actually had people to die of natural causes. Other than turning a neighbors shit house over on Halloween, setting off a few sticks of dynamite in a tree to celebrate the New Year or 4th of July, we pretty much lived a tame and subtle life.

Edited December 26, 2012 by rigney

[overtone]

Is there currently a need for a militia in the US?

No. That is of course irrelevant – one forms militias in response to needs as they arise, by definition. By Constitutional guarantee, US citizens cannot be deprived of the capability of forming such a militia, at need – the primary necessity being of course suitable weapons.

Also, If the armed militia would care to use their handguns against their tyrannical government's standing army any time soon, I'd be very interested in the results.

Hence the resistance to government confiscation of more powerful weaponry, better suited to actual militias.

It is sad that the inhabitants of a country with a well-established democratic system should think that they feel need to maintain the option of lethal recourse against their governing body, who they chose. The US government is not some aloof, nepotistic and autocratic body,

Wouldn’t it be nice if there were some way to preserve that situation in some glass bubble, and live in it like a snow globe forever?

they are people like the voters who have been chosen to do a fixed term or two of leading them. The US armed forces is made up of their own...are they going to raise arms against them?

After Katrina, a mercenary paramilitary force (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academi) hired by “the government” moved into New Orleans coercing, imposing their idea of order, and when defied beating and shooting people.

 

The population they were abusing was a racial minority that had been, for over a century, deliberately and coercively deprived of weapons, prevented in a variety of ways from arming themselves by local government and government supported thuggery, in defiance of the Constitution. The mercenaries would not have been able to treat them like that, otherwise. And the people who did the depriving, the racial bigots and thugs who set up that vulnerability, were and are well aware of the nature of that situation – which they do not want to suffer, themselves.

 

When US redneck types assert that an unarmed people is subject to slavery at any time, they have a reality and experience based notion of exactly what that means.

 

Just saying.

Edited December 26, 2012 by overtone

[john5746]

I am pretty much a nonconfrontationalist. If there is a way to defuse a situation, or allow the situation to disperse, without causing harm or injury, I would prefer that course. Swallow my pride from time to time to accomplish this. I would probably shit in my pants if I had to fight. But if it was the only way out, or other people were relying on me to do it, I might just be able to pull that trigger. I think it very unfair of you to challenge people's manhood and intenstinal fortitude, without knowing the people that you are referring to.

Yeah, I have been suffering the winter blah's and was getting too emotional. I think all the news made me slip out of my delusion that this country wasn't a big shitpile and that the future looks bright. But, Christmas with family and avoiding the computer and TV a couple of days has allowed me to slip back into delusion once again. I have faith.

 

I especially agree with Rigney's point that it takes much more courage to not resort to using guns or violence. I fell into the stereotype that real men use violence. Actually, I think good men try to avoid or reduce violence.

 

All this taken into account, I think it right and proper that guns be in the hands of those in the public that want them, for any reasonable purpose, and what is reasonable may be different in rural areas than in suburbs and then again different in cities. Local rules and laws should hold sway over federal regulations...except in the case of weapons of war. These should be behind armoury walls, under lock and key, until we need them, for training, or use. And certain other weapons only in the hands of certified professionals or public servants.

 

To guns in school. Reasonable in the hands of those that are qualified and certified, and wish to have them in their hands, and at the bequest of the local principle, school board and surrounding community. It need not be a one size fits all policy. It probably should not be a one size fits all policy, but we need to protect our hearts, that gather together every day in school. We need somebody there with the power to stop a threat, that would take the lives of our children or the child of a friend or relative. And we need to trust people with guns, inorder to have a "good guy" there, to protect us, and take control of the situation, so that actions like Adam Lanza's cannot be successful, and will not be copied.

I agree with the local/state/federal position, if a farmer in Oklahoma needs a load of fertilizer and a rifle, that's different than if a guy from Chicago wants the same things. And all I was really advocating is adding more weapons to the list of "weapons of war". If we accept the view that citizens should be able to form militias to kill their local police or national army, then I don't see how we should ban anything.

 

Maybe if we had an agreement that in order to own these assault weapons, the people have to serve in the reserve military and be trained with the weapon and agree to be ready to serve in future conflicts at any time. Then we could keep a much smaller permanent military. At least I could see a purpose for the weapons in that case.

 

Any idea that we put on the table - police in schools, better mental healthcare, bullet tracking, etc. will work better if we limit firepower of weapons floating out in society. It just makes sense. And however difficult gun laws are, mental healthcare I think is even more difficult.

Edited December 27, 2012 by john5746

[tar]

So WE need to have accountability for allowing guns in school and WE need to take responsibility for the safety of OUR children.

 

The discussion gets complicated if it is not US making the decision.

 

If the NRA and Blackrock are to be considered OTHER than us, which I think a lot of us might do, than WE lose control, accountabilty, and responsibility, and WE don't like that.

 

If the NRA and civilian security companies like Blackrock are to be considered US which I think a lot of us might do, then we would retain control, accountability and responsibility for any security expertise that might be solicited by school officials.

 

Any of us, would rather have full control, responsibility and accountability for the safety of our children, so I am personally not quite sure which SIDE of this debate I am on.

 

Just as an aside, consider the outsourcing that occurs in many of the business enterprises in this country. My guess would be, that everybody reading this, that works for a company, can think of some aspect of their company, some part of payroll, or IT, or legal, or HR or facilities, that is outsourced, and people outside the company have control, accountability and responsibility for vital functions.

 

Best practices, and expertise in areas we personally are not expert in, is something we all look to others to provide for us, every time we hire a plummer, or a painter, or a candlestick maker.

 

It is OK, as long as the "service provider" remains accountable to us.

 

None of us would want somebody doing something at our bequest that was not accountable to us, and did not have our best interests in mind.

 

Seems in this discussion there needs to be a certain amount of blind trust put in others, to behave in the manner that we each would behave. We have a federal government of the people, by the people and for the people...we each remain accountable for its actions, and we give it the power that it has over us.

 

There is not a public official, that is not somebody's son or daughter, friend or neighbor.

I do believe we in the U.S. are in this together and a hired school guard, would be on our side.

 

Perhaps I am naive, perhaps I am insightful, but in any case, this society thing, is not something we do alone. It is not going to go exactly our way, all the time, but its always going to go the way we all together make it go.

 

Regards, TAR2

 

But I do agree that weapons of war be something we should be publically accountable for, and they should not be privately held or in the hands of anybody that is not accountable to the rest of us.

Edited December 27, 2012 by tar

[rigney]

Tar, you made this comment in post # 76. Quote: Never did build it, but my dream room, as my kids were growing up, was a playroom with a cushioned floor and cushioned walls, and cushioned steps/bleachers, with hinged tops where you could store the toys and such. The girls would be able to jump around and fall and throw things about, and there would be no sharp edges or hard surfaces to hurt them.

 

Not to make light of the dream romper room you imagined for your kids and one that you likely could never afford, but isn't it rather strange that we provide these very same facilities at tremendous cost to the unbalanced folks in our mental institutions. Funny how life works, isn't it?

Edited December 27, 2012 by rigney

[Moontanman]

 

 

Not to make light of the dream romper room you imagined for your kids and one that you likely could never afford, but isn't it rather strange that we provide these very same facilities at tremendous cost to the unbalanced folks in our mental institutions. Funny how life works, isn't it?

 

 

Funny how you would know the details of such rooms....

[rigney]

 

 

Funny how you would know the details of such rooms....

So! You don't remember me stopping by to look in on you??

Edited December 27, 2012 by rigney

[tar]

Rigney,

 

I suppose that is why I never built it. I would have been imposing an unrealistic "prison" on my children, not reflective of the actual world, which is repleat with hard surfaces and sharp corners.

They turned out fine, without the room. Sort of my point. We should not try to control our children too closely, or they will not learn how to control themselves.

 

To the Newtown horror, I heard someone that knew the family mention that the mother thought the son was brilliant and that she was very demanding of him. He was home schooled, as that he had some "difficulties" in the social setting of a school. Perhaps, in retrospect, she actually constructed my dream room, for her child, and he violently broke out, killing the prison guard, and the people he blamed for putting him in the rubber room. Just a thought.

 

And I suppose a slight indictment of people that would sit in an ivory tower, wishing to control the world, and bend it to their will...without giving proper allowance for other people to excercise their own will. And without trusting others to use good judgment, on their own.

 

Not that we don't need to guide each other toward a workable, concensus opinion on many matters, and make consessions and do stuff we would rather not have to, or as the saying goes, "lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way", but I see a need to remember not to try to control the world, all on your own. There are 7billion other wills to consider.

 

Not that I am saying it was the Mom's fault, or the fault of the children that teased and ostricized him at school, or the fault of video games that give one control of life and death over all the characters in the game, or with chemicals that may have been applied to, or missing from Adam Lanza's brain...but these things might have something to do with the horror, and underlying all these things is the idea of "control". And we should probably not strive to build a rubber room of our own design for everybody else to live in. There seems to me to be a very large amount of stuff that we just need to trust others to take care of on their own, for their own happiness, and their own self-esteem.

 

Regards, TAR2

Edited December 27, 2012 by tar

[rigney]

Unfortunately many people assign themselves these ivory tower duties and never realize the harm they do. Dad probably aimed me toward adulthood life the best way that an otherwise uneducated miner knew how by saying: Son, you get in trouble with the law and the heat's on you. Better yet, don't ever call me to get you out of jail. 'causei If you're in there, I'll know soon enough as it is. You knock up some gal, "marry her", but don't bring her home until you have a job to support her and the baby. For those grains of wisdom I can only say: "Thanks Pop."

[Arete]

We know that teachers and a principal physically intercepted the shooter at Sandy Hook. If they were armed, there may be less death - a lot less.

 

1. There's a trend of these shooters wearing tactical body armor: Aurora, Newtown, Virginia Tech, etc. So what exactly would an armed guard/armed teacher do to stop them?

 

2. When trained, armed police took down a would-be shooter outside the Empire State building, they were commended for "only" hitting nine bystanders http://news.yahoo.com/nypd-empire-st...180844387.html http://observer.com/2012/08/breaking...tate-building/ So what's the collateral damage from a teacher, or good Samaritan in a classroom/cinema going to be?

[tar]

Arete,

 

To your one, the answer would be shoot him in the head.

 

To your two, the answer would be that if persons with malicious intent knew they could not act with impunity, they might not perform the malicious act. Not quite sure however, what the thinkiing is, of people that kill and then kill themselves. It seems they are finished living anyway, and would perhaps even welcome being put out of their misery, before the dasterdly deed was done.

 

Don't remember the Empire State building situation well, but looking at some video on the news, it looked like a rather confused scene, with people pointing at the gunman and being shot at because some responders thought the pointers might be pointing weapons. In the chaos of such situations, the good guys and bad guys are not dressed in the appropiate designated colors or uniforms as they might be in the movies or in war. At least if an adult shoots his way into an elemetary school with a semi-automatic weapon, the responders would have a pretty good idea of who to shoot in the head.

 

Regards, TAR2

 

Second thought on the thinking of someone who kills and then kills themself. I think I might be wrong. If it is a final act of taking control, they would probably prefer to put the bullet in their own head, themselves.

 

 

Edited December 27, 2012 by tar

[rigney]

 

1. There's a trend of these shooters wearing tactical body armor: Aurora, Newtown, Virginia Tech, etc. So what exactly would an armed guard/armed teacher do to stop them?

 

2. When trained, armed police took down a would-be shooter outside the Empire State building, they were commended for "only" hitting nine bystanders http://news.yahoo.com/nypd-empire-st...180844387.html http://observer.com/2012/08/breaking...tate-building/ So what's the collateral damage from a teacher, or good Samaritan in a classroom/cinema going to be?

Beauty of the situation was and is: thankfully, none of the nine who were shot by the policemen died. Some day we may find a way around this impass of sanity and insanity, causing such dilemma.