How many more times?

[Andy Peters]

One more thing.

There have been many suggestions from the usual sources that "the damage could have been minimized if only the teachers had been armed."

Forgetting for the moment that the teachers at my son's pre-school are not the type who would even want to HOLD a gun, much less wield it in a life-threatening situation, let's delve into this, using real-world numbers.

The Tucson Unified School District is facing a $17 million budget shortfall for the 2013-2014 school year. As one would expect, the solutions to the problem are all on the spending side and never on the revenue side, and as such, at least ten schools are slated for closure. Naturally this will also involve loss of some three-digit number of jobs, and will increase class size. Also slated for cuts are the usual victims: afterschool programs, various electives, etc. Equipment purchases and physical-plant improvements get pushed back until "next time."

So given the utter lack of available funds, pray tell where would the district get funding for equipment and training? Or would the teachers be told to bring their own guns, like they're told when teaching supplies are requested?

This is a serious question.

-a

 

[JohnRoberts]

I appreciate the lower fear levels I have felt and witnessed in the parts of Europe I've visited.

Seeing the El Al guards carrying loaded Uzis inside the Frankfurt airport made me feel a little safer...

JR

El Al guards are part of the state security apparatus -- they are not private citizens carrying weapons.

-a

I never said they were anything but. I said seeing them made me feel a little safer. 

JR

 

[DaveP]

Depends on the individual state requirements. Some states are quite strict, limiting both the number of weapons one can purchase at a time (basically, you get a permit to purchase a gun, and you also need a separate permit to own the gun, and a third if you wish to carry concealed). Other states (like here in Arizona), you can just walk into one of the many gun shows at the fairgrounds, hand over cash, and walk away.

-a

That almost beggars belief!

And there are no customs/border guards on the stateline I guess, so your whole country is basically porous and awash with firearms....OMG!
DaveP

 

[DaveP]

One more thing.

There have been many suggestions from the usual sources that "the damage could have been minimized if only the teachers had been armed."

This is a serious question.

-a

Can you guys hear yourselves?  Teachers armed?  What kind of world are you willing to construct in order to hold on to the 2nd amendment?

If your founding fathers back in 1776 had been told that 236 years later their 2nd amendment would lead to serious talk about arming of teachers to protect their kids from gun toting maniacs, I think they may have preferred king George.

Come to think of it, what would your grandparents have made of that kind of talk?  I'm pretty sure they would have been totally horrified at the kind of world their grandchildren would inhabit.

Responsible governments around the world are trying to restrict nuclear technology because it could fall into the crazies hands, exactly the same logic applies to firearms.
DaveP

 

[emrr]

Just imagine how many times a student would shoot a teacher if the teachers had to keep track of firearms in the classroom; secure, but available enough in a theoretical emergency with seconds to spare.  A bizarre formula. 

 

[DaveP]

Exactly
DaveP

 

[Ptownkid]

http://www.armslist.com/

Need I say more...

 

[JohnRoberts]

One more thing.

There have been many suggestions from the usual sources that "the damage could have been minimized if only the teachers had been armed."

This is a serious question.

-a

Can you guys hear yourselves?  Teachers armed?  What kind of world are you willing to construct in order to hold on to the 2nd amendment?

If your founding fathers back in 1776 had been told that 236 years later their 2nd amendment would lead to serious talk about arming of teachers to protect their kids from gun toting maniacs, I think they may have preferred king George.

Come to think of it, what would your grandparents have made of that kind of talk?  I'm pretty sure they would have been totally horrified at the kind of world their grandchildren would inhabit.

Responsible governments around the world are trying to restrict nuclear technology because it could fall into the crazies hands, exactly the same logic applies to firearms.
DaveP

Come on folks...  This is why I stopped watching the coverage a few days ago, and advise others to try meditation.

I had to google this because it sounded so bizarre..  Sure enough at least one republican legislator (from TX)  said on TV that "had" the teachers been armed they could have prevented the massacre, a logical speculation, however the headline for the story morphed into "GOP Rep suggests teachers should be armed with assault rifles".  Another headline claims he said "the principal should have a machine gun". This is exactly the kind of hyperbole I try to avoid. 

This is not "serious talk"  and nobody here is endorsing it (I hope).

But maybe we can keep scare some tourists away... Some of whom seem ready to believe the worst about us. 

Hmmm.

JR

 

[tchgtr]

,,,and see, we are having a very polite and well-informed discussion about these issues, even at a time of great emotion. We all deserve a pat on the back for something I don't see happen much elsewhere on the web.
Too many xlnt comments from all parties and all sides. Can't respond to all, but a few points come to mind:

1. This particular incident really ticks me off because it's a terrorist attack on our public school system, even if that was not the original intent of the perpetrator who came from the very same neighborhood. This alone is what makes it deserving of press attention, but now we are looking at a revamp of school security all the way down to elementary level. Costly, and disruptive. It's a complete distraction to the already impossible job of teaching those kids with the limited resources available now. When was Columbine... 1998? This has been happening for over 14 years.
  Maybe some of those people who are so keen to patrol the US/Mexico border might want to join their neighborhood watch and tend to their local schools---without any guns, please. If done properly, it could help to keep the costs down.

2. It's hard to argue gun control in the US, because it's a given that most pro gun people are gun owners, and we don't want to get things too heated. You know..."...my cold, dead, hands..." and all that. Civility on both sides is key here.

3. One reason I like having folks from overseas commenting is that they point out things that are not obvious to those of us living in the bubble of gun-land, and show that it's possible to live in places where the un-armed are not 2nd class citizens. Incidents DO happen overseas, but not with the frequency and per capita casualties we have here. And after wards, they do something about it.

4. The 1st amendment is SO MUCH MORE important than the 2nd, which is there to assure EVERY person's right to the 1st. It's a huge responsibility that I believe most current gun owners fail to comprehend. The 2nd amendment is very short and clear to me, and it does not guarantee every 20 year-old the right to arm themselves to the teeth with the intent to commit terrorism. We are allowed to enforce laws to limit those kind of things, state-to-state, as John mentioned, but also by federal law.

5. Gun owners need to be responsible for the weapons they own. I guarantee that your child knows where you hide it, and where you hide the ammo. It's up to you to know who handles the guns and why. Availability is key when someone is emotionally charged, and too many gun incidents are caused by rage. These are the most destructive and damaging uses for a weapon, and far too common in the US. Maybe someone can come up with the statistics of how many times guns are used to defend someone successfully, and how many times to cause family/relation/civil tragedy. Is it worth it?
 
6. Each state has the right to enact gun laws as it sees fit, and we have seen success in the past from limiting gun use, especially in heavily populated areas. we also enacted a national ban on assault weapons, and it was allowed to expire under the W. administration, and a Republican congress, in 2004 without much outcry from the Dems.

7. The one industry that is prospering in the US right now is the gun industry. What a joyful sign that is for our future...

8. When someone used airliners to attack our country, we changed our habits to be safer, and it hurt the industry badly. When they went to exploding tennis shoes, we found ways to counter that, and suffered thru shoe checks when we flew. Then came the underwear bomber, and we dealt with that. Then no liquids, etc.
  Why can't we deal with this? It's our children and their education at stake here. Do we want a country full of dummies who think a gun is the answer to every problem?

 

[mulletchuck]

let's make it about statistics, since people have a hard time disputing raw data:

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/339130

Today, gun licensing is required and is heavily regulated by Japan's National Police Agency, :
* No-one in Japan shall possess a fire-arm or fire-arms or a sword or swords, and very few exceptions are allowed.
* The only types of firearms which a Japanese citizen may acquire are rifles or shotguns.
* Sportsmen are permitted to possess rifles or shotguns for hunting and for skeet and trap shooting, but only after submitting to a lengthy licensing procedure.
* Without a license, a Japanese citizen may not even hold a gun in his or her hands.
* Shotguns and rifles for hunting or sports may be possessed upon completion of a licensing procedure that requires a police background check, successful completion of a safety course, passing of shooting, written, and psychological tests, and police verification of secure storage, prior to approval being granted by the police to purchase a firearm.
* Fully automatic weapons are restricted to military and police. Gun owners must take a class once a year and pass a written test.
The Japanese homicide rate, for example, in 1988 was only 1.2 per 100,000 people while America's was a horrifying 8.4. Handgun Control, Inc. attributes Japan's low homicide rate to their outlawing the civilian ownership of handguns and rifles, and severely controlling shotguns.

You just can NOT argue with "In 2008, Japan had only 11 homicides as compared to 9,484 in the United States".

those numbers speak for themselves, folks.

 

[sodderboy]

HCI has an agenda- can you believe that they find numbers to support it?  Using cherry-picked numbers like that is the same as saying "green tea is the secret to their longevity".  Seems that troubled Japanese citizens kill only themselves in quiet statistics. 

I would definitely pack at least a telescope baton if I lived in urban UK.  Those numbers are from the EC and UN so I take them with some skepticism.  Many innocent, helpless people in the US protect themselves from home invaders, often times their own relatives, because they have heat in the house.  Yet you never hear about the stats and those lives saved on the freevee programs.

A kid in LA just killed grandma with a BBQ fork.  If there is hate and a spiritual void in society, and someone is violently lost in themselves, for whatever reason, anything is a weapon.  I thought of two local schools where someone can drive a vehicle onto the playgrounds during recess and wipe CT off the freevees.  Or how about pulling into any of the 20 or so at grade LIRR crossings in front of a train doing 60 mph.

The gnashing of teeth is inappropriate at this time of grief.
Mike

 

[emrr]

I prefer the idea that if the shooter had only had a 6 shot revolver, or other similar low count magazine, someone might have hit him with a chair in between loading. I fail to see civilian purpose for high capacity quick firing weapons.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I prefer the idea that if the shooter had only had a 6 shot revolver, or other similar low count magazine, someone might have hit him with a chair in between loading. I fail to see civilian purpose for high capacity quick firing weapons.

The sale of full automatic weapons with high capacity magazines is already restricted.

Further the sale of high capacity magazines for semi-automatic handguns is also restricted.

Again looking at this statistically we seem to be addressing the "mass" aspect of mass murder while ignoring the murder part.

Note: I have no use for a full automatic rifle since getting out of the army, and have no need for a high capacity magazine for simple self defense.  If I run out of shots, I got my self into a very bad situation. That was something I always disliked about the M-16. Our clip only held something like 18 rounds, but could fire them all in about 2 seconds...  I never quite understood the logic of that.

JR

 

[JohnRoberts]

let's make it about statistics, since people have a hard time disputing raw data:

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/339130

Today, gun licensing is required and is heavily regulated by Japan's National Police Agency, :
* No-one in Japan shall possess a fire-arm or fire-arms or a sword or swords, and very few exceptions are allowed.
* The only types of firearms which a Japanese citizen may acquire are rifles or shotguns.
* Sportsmen are permitted to possess rifles or shotguns for hunting and for skeet and trap shooting, but only after submitting to a lengthy licensing procedure.
* Without a license, a Japanese citizen may not even hold a gun in his or her hands.
* Shotguns and rifles for hunting or sports may be possessed upon completion of a licensing procedure that requires a police background check, successful completion of a safety course, passing of shooting, written, and psychological tests, and police verification of secure storage, prior to approval being granted by the police to purchase a firearm.
* Fully automatic weapons are restricted to military and police. Gun owners must take a class once a year and pass a written test.
The Japanese homicide rate, for example, in 1988 was only 1.2 per 100,000 people while America's was a horrifying 8.4. Handgun Control, Inc. attributes Japan's low homicide rate to their outlawing the civilian ownership of handguns and rifles, and severely controlling shotguns.

You just can NOT argue with "In 2008, Japan had only 11 homicides as compared to 9,484 in the United States".

those numbers speak for themselves, folks.

Japan is interesting... IIRC the "empty hand" martial arts were created in response to an earlier version of gun control (blade control).

I am not sure I want to live where organized crime (Yakuza) practice their craft openly. 

Sorry this may be apples and oranges, but IMO there are other things to be concerned about in our world.

JR

 

[DaveP]

HCI has an agenda- can you believe that they find numbers to support it?  Using cherry-picked numbers like that is the same as saying "green tea is the secret to their longevity".  Seems that troubled Japanese citizens kill only themselves in quiet statistics. 

I would definitely pack at least a telescope baton if I lived in urban UK.  Those numbers are from the EC and UN so I take them with some skepticism.  Many innocent, helpless people in the US protect themselves from home invaders, often times their own relatives, because they have heat in the house.  Yet you never hear about the stats and those lives saved on the freevee programs.

A kid in LA just killed grandma with a BBQ fork.  If there is hate and a spiritual void in society, and someone is violently lost in themselves, for whatever reason, anything is a weapon.  I thought of two local schools where someone can drive a vehicle onto the playgrounds during recess and wipe CT off the freevees.  Or how about pulling into any of the 20 or so at grade LIRR crossings in front of a train doing 60 mph.

The gnashing of teeth is inappropriate at this time of grief.
Mike

So the NRA does not have an agenda?  A powerless benign organisation dedicated to skeet shooting?

You would be ill advised to go into gang controlled areas of the UK like any similar area around the world.  Best not to confuse "violence" stats with gun crime and murder, two entirely different things.  Violence includes a handbag snatch over here.

Crazy people could kill others in all those ways you mention but on the whole they don't do they?  They nearly always choose guns because of the instant overwhelming control it gives.  Interesting to note that as soon as armed response arrives they lose that control and take the quick way out.

I don't think anyone is gnashing teeth, but surely those poor kids and their parents earned the right to some action?  Do you have the same saying over there "strike while the iron is hot"?  Maybe some people want to wait until it all cools down so that it can be kicked into the long grass again until next time.  By the way things are going down, it looks like you won't have long to wait, these type of crimes get copycatted by similar minded loners.
DaveP

 

[JohnRoberts]

,,,and see, we are having a very polite and well-informed discussion about these issues, even at a time of great emotion. We all deserve a pat on the back for something I don't see happen much elsewhere on the web.
Too many xlnt comments from all parties and all sides. Can't respond to all, but a few points come to mind:

1. This particular incident really ticks me off because it's a terrorist attack on our public school system, even if that was not the original intent of the perpetrator who came from the very same neighborhood. This alone is what makes it deserving of press attention, but now we are looking at a revamp of school security all the way down to elementary level. Costly, and disruptive. It's a complete distraction to the already impossible job of teaching those kids with the limited resources available now. When was Columbine... 1998? This has been happening for over 14 years.

While I have tried to avoid the news coverage, this sounds like an out of control kid, who killed family members, and innocents that happened to be in their workplace. If she wasn't a school teacher he might have attacked some office building.  So the death of school children is coincident to the mental meltdown of this individual, while i hate to think that he was motivated by other high profile events.

Trying to manage against such rare outlier events would be a huge and IMO largely wasted expense. This was not terrorism, but there has long been a dialog between gun owners and gun control proponents, who will milk this event for all it is worth.

IMO we need better targeting of individuals who are mentally imbalanced, while I expect this will swing the pendulum on gun control as it is playing out.

In case nobody noticed, however tragic this event, we have other real problems to consider and fix right now. 

  Maybe some of those people who are so keen to patrol the US/Mexico border might want to join their neighborhood watch and tend to their local schools---without any guns, please. If done properly, it could help to keep the costs down.

It seems unarmed guards here, would just increase the body count. While a visible security presence might affect imbalanced individuals.  Our porous border is a different problem and a symptom of another failure by government to craft an effective immigration policy.

Martin/Zimmerman, is a self-help neighborhood watch that ended with a death.  Most police carry weapons for a reason. Force multiplication is good when in the correct hands.

2. It's hard to argue gun control in the US, because it's a given that most pro gun people are gun owners, and we don't want to get things too heated. You know..."...my cold, dead, hands..." and all that. Civility on both sides is key here.

Agreed, we need to look at this unemotionally. Emotionally, event like this cause spikes in gun ownership, which is happening right now. Not to mention people fearful they might not be able to buy a gun if they wait. I don't think gun ownership is right for most people or should be entered into casually. 

3. One reason I like having folks from overseas commenting is that they point out things that are not obvious to those of us living in the bubble of gun-land, and show that it's possible to live in places where the un-armed are not 2nd class citizens. Incidents DO happen overseas, but not with the frequency and per capita casualties we have here. And after wards, they do something about it.

It is very useful to study all nations (our founders did extensively). There are rarely simple answers to complex questions and gun ownership is part of our culture for now... I would love to see firearms displaced by some non-lethal approach for personal security, but this all takes time and technology.

4. The 1st amendment is SO MUCH MORE important than the 2nd, which is there to assure EVERY person's right to the 1st. It's a huge responsibility that I believe most current gun owners fail to comprehend. The 2nd amendment is very short and clear to me, and it does not guarantee every 20 year-old the right to arm themselves to the teeth with the intent to commit terrorism. We are allowed to enforce laws to limit those kind of things, state-to-state, as John mentioned, but also by federal law.

the 2nd has recently been reviewed by the SCOTUS, but I expect this will lead to another review. I doubt the founders envisioned many modern changes, but they designed flexibility into our constitution (that's what amendments are... changes).

At the moment I am more concerned about an attack on the 4th amendment (illegal search) as the government is assembling a data base on innocent civilians. Our freedom and constitution seems to be constantly under attack.

I kind of like the entire constitution, but might add a new amendment of my own (no not gun control... think federal borrowing and spending). 

5. Gun owners need to be responsible for the weapons they own. I guarantee that your child knows where you hide it, and where you hide the ammo. It's up to you to know who handles the guns and why. Availability is key when someone is emotionally charged, and too many gun incidents are caused by rage. These are the most destructive and damaging uses for a weapon, and far too common in the US. Maybe someone can come up with the statistics of how many times guns are used to defend someone successfully, and how many times to cause family/relation/civil tragedy. Is it worth it?
 

And cars, and chainsaws, and .... we need to hold these all in perspective.

AFAIK there is nobody (here)  being made to own or carry a weapon. I think in switzerland there was 100% conscription into military/home guard. You can keep you home here gun-free if you want.

6. Each state has the right to enact gun laws as it sees fit, and we have seen success in the past from limiting gun use, especially in heavily populated areas. we also enacted a national ban on assault weapons, and it was allowed to expire under the W. administration, and a Republican congress, in 2004 without much outcry from the Dems.

7. The one industry that is prospering in the US right now is the gun industry. What a joyful sign that is for our future...

prospered under Clinton too... go figure.

8. When someone used airliners to attack our country, we changed our habits to be safer, and it hurt the industry badly. When they went to exploding tennis shoes, we found ways to counter that, and suffered thru shoe checks when we flew. Then came the underwear bomber, and we dealt with that. Then no liquids, etc.
  Why can't we deal with this? It's our children and their education at stake here. Do we want a country full of dummies who think a gun is the answer to every problem?

It appears we differ on what to fix... I see this as a failure of identifying mentally imbalanced individuals who need to be identified and helped. Not a school/education issue, while that certainly needs plenty of attention for other reasons. I just saw an editorial linking economic success to vocabulary (really). Kids today don't read much or write more than 140 characters at a time, so this seems problematic if valid. 

I don't expect this crisis to be wasted by those in power....  unfortunately once again I don't expect to be in the mainstream of popular opinion.

JR

 

[sodderboy]

Interesting to note that as soon as armed response arrives they lose that control and take the quick way out.

Hmm.  That's the NRA's main talking point!  Let the huge overwhelming majority of law abiding citizens make the decision of armed response, not legislators and local law enforcement.  If there is an increase of nuts on the loose, then even people in Chicago and DC have the ability, albeit limited, to legally posses the same force as the criminals and nuts.

The action needed to be taken now is to bury the dead!

Not proffer some baloney feel-good legislation, in the thousands of pages no doubt, where the negative consequences are more numerous than the supposed solutions.  I reference our stupid evolving PPACA and all the exemptions given.  Politicians are the last people to "prevent this from happening".  Their actions just make it even worse.

There is no "action" that will stop this or make the families involved feel any better.  You don't see that?
Mike

 

[emrr]

The sale of full automatic weapons with high capacity magazines is already restricted.

Further the sale of high capacity magazines for semi-automatic handguns is also restricted.

Again looking at this statistically we seem to be addressing the "mass" aspect of mass murder while ignoring the murder part.

I'm not up to speed on the threshold of restriction for various weaponry, but in this case I am hearing reference to 30 shot quick change magazines, which fits the description of that which makes no sense to me.  I'm not sure civilians need any sort of quick change magazine at all, even if only 6-12 shots. 

 

[living sounds]

...gun control proponents, who will milk this event for all it is worth.

You really don't get it. When it's about one of your pet ideas - like neoliberal ideology - proponents are fighting for a worthy goal. But those gun-control advocates obviously just want to tell other people how to live their lifes, because that's what they like to do...

In reality this is about people getting killed and wounded unecessarily every day in exchange for a false sense of security, the numbers tell the true story. And because many big boys like owning and playing with guns. All the way up to parliament and the supreme court, unfortunately.

 

[pucho812]

Whenever something really bad happens the mass public outcries to the government for more protection and safety. The government in returns with a little more restriction on civil liberties