Newtown, Conn. - Is this the last straw?

[Narei Mooncatt]

If we didn't have guns here, I would expect some to come from or through Mexico if the demand is there. But if you think squeezing the supply is a good thing, ask the British about that. From the article I linked several posts ago, it also talked about their handgun ban:

Within a decade of the handgun ban and the confiscation of handguns from registered owners, crime with handguns had doubled according to British government crime reports. Gun crime, not a serious problem in the past, now is. Armed street gangs have some British police carrying guns for the first time.

According to the article, that ban went into effect as a result of a mass shooting.

[Kobuk]

I just read this on my local news website here in southeastern Wisconsin tonight. I am shocked as well as against this proposal to put armed citizens in schools. 

SHOREWOOD - Lawmaker Don Pridemore is backing a controversial proposal.

It would allow citizens to arm themselves and volunteer at schools in hopes of preventing a Newtown-type attack in the future.

"I just think that's sending out the wrong message to kids," parent Shalanna Wright says.

Wright is the mother of a 2nd grader at Lake Bluff Elementary School in Shorewood. She says this isn't the way to improve school safety.

"I just think that guns teach kids the wrong message, especially in school," Wright says.

Pridemore will challenge state Superintendent Tony Evers in the upcoming spring election. He says allowing armed current and former police officers to volunteer their time protecting schools could prevent another incident like what happened in Newtown.

"If the school system had that ability and has the force available, people will think twice," Pridemore says.

"I believe it is [the solution], but it's a local decision," Pridemore says.

The images of Newtown still haunt parent Karina Rangel.

"It was just devastating, just thinking like it could have been my daughter," Rangel says.

She says Pridemore's idea would make her daughter's school safer.

"It would just be another resource where you know your kids are safe and stuff," Rangel says.

Pridemore would also support allowing teachers and administrators to arm themsevles with guns. He's in the process of getting input from several school districts.

[Narei Mooncatt]

I don't see the problem with this. Former law enforcement already has lots of training and experience with those kinds of situations. We plan to home school for now, but here's my reasoning for anyone that thinks putting armed guards in schools sends the wrong message to the kids:

We have police that patrol the streets, ready to respond as quickly as possible to threats. There is little as valuable as our kids and this keeps protection close at hand. It's also been shown that once these deranged killers have their "bubble" popped by an opposing force (i.e. cops or armed civilians firing back), they give up or end their own life a lot of the time. They look for the unarmed and gun free zones. It's fish in a barrel to them. Armed guards in a school is likely to stop a shooting before it happens.

I'm a little more cautious about arming the teachers, or anyone else without a law enforcement or military background. I'm ok with the idea, so long as they undergo thorough background checks, are properly trained on how to recognize and deal with situations (much like cops would go through, not some 30 minute lecture), and are certified capable with their weapon and regularly go to a gun range to practice. Obviously letting Jim Bob Redneck loose with a pistol and no marksmanship training/accountability would be a horrible idea.

[Alsek]

I just read this on my local news website here in southeastern Wisconsin tonight. I am shocked as well as against this proposal to put armed citizens in schools.  

     I don't understand why you would have a problem with Administrators, teachers, and police officers having access to firearms in schools.  All teachers, administrators, and police officers are background checked anyways.  If they want to have the means to protect themselves from attack,  why would you deny them that?  Most mass shooters are not trained,  or honestly very proficient with,  accurate with, or informed about firearms.  A single person who knows what they're doing could be more than a match for them.  Especially if the person is a cop,  a veteran,  or grew up in a family with a lot of veterans around.

If they want to volunteer their time for free to protect a school?  Why not?

[Mylo]

I'm tired of people using the argument that without guns, people can still kill with knives and whatever, or "Oh, we can make a bomb out of supermarket products....let's just ban those then!" and therefore, no law banning guns should be introduced.  It's ridiculous.  Why do you think guns were invented in the first place?  Great massacres occurred throughout history without guns or even somewhat modern weapons.  People can still commit mass murders without guns.  Heck, people can commit mass murders with their bare hands if they know how.  But the way some people talk about it, it's like, "Well, murders will take place anyway, and therefore there is no point in trying to make it harder."  "We can't do anything...it's just too hard."  My gosh, if we had that logic for anything throughout history, who or what would we have to look up to?

That was just a paragraph about the same lazy arguments I hear all the time regarding guns.  I am not denouncing pro-gun people's other completely valid worries and reasons, just the overused lazy arguments. 

Gun control is more than just banning guns.  It's a balance between rules and law, regulations, culture, geography, and many other factors.  Yes, Chicago's gun laws don't seem to work.  What do you expect?  It's a city with miles of accessible, non-patrolled surface area where guns can slip through.  Of course it's not going to work.  There are ways to fix it of course...just a matter of who actually wants to pursue them.  Japan, a country with less than a handful of gun murders a year and some of the strictest gun control in the world, is a small island nation with a culture that places somewhat more trust in the police than other countries.  Gun laws help, but geography and culture help more to make these particular laws effective.   

[Jacoby Quinn]

I just read this on my local news website here in southeastern Wisconsin tonight. I am shocked as well as against this proposal to put armed citizens in schools. 

SHOREWOOD - Lawmaker Don Pridemore is backing a controversial proposal.

It would allow citizens to arm themselves and volunteer at schools in hopes of preventing a Newtown-type attack in the future.

"I just think that's sending out the wrong message to kids," parent Shalanna Wright says.

Wright is the mother of a 2nd grader at Lake Bluff Elementary School in Shorewood. She says this isn't the way to improve school safety.

"I just think that guns teach kids the wrong message, especially in school," Wright says.

Pridemore will challenge state Superintendent Tony Evers in the upcoming spring election. He says allowing armed current and former police officers to volunteer their time protecting schools could prevent another incident like what happened in Newtown.

"If the school system had that ability and has the force available, people will think twice," Pridemore says.

"I believe it is [the solution], but it's a local decision," Pridemore says.

The images of Newtown still haunt parent Karina Rangel.

"It was just devastating, just thinking like it could have been my daughter," Rangel says.

She says Pridemore's idea would make her daughter's school safer.

"It would just be another resource where you know your kids are safe and stuff," Rangel says.

Pridemore would also support allowing teachers and administrators to arm themsevles with guns. He's in the process of getting input from several school districts.

i see no problem, we have student resource officers in highschools

[Old Rabbit]

If they lock doors on a school to keep intruders out. Why not
use doors that a normal firearm can't compromise. Most metal
doors used in commercial buildings with protected locks would
have kept him out.

They don't have to look like a bank vault. But tempered glass
doors offer little protection.

Guns are available around the world. Even if the public of this country
would agree to throw all their guns away. Criminals wouldn't have
any trouble getting them. We can't get rid of drugs so why think
we can do the same with guns.

We can only try to keep them from those who might use
them to hurt others

People who plan to kill other people outside the law are usually
mentally disturbed. We mist treat the disease to reduce the
violence. Or it will continue with what ever tool is available.

[Jacoby Quinn]

look, one side thinks that less guns equals less gun crime

the other side says that people will kill anyway, in my honest opinion the real issue here isn't the guns

metal detectors, they've done it in some schools, it works, and it is a hell of a lot easier than convincing the nation that we need to take away their weapons

[Varg the wanderer]

I like Israel's approach: arm the teachers. Nobody is going to shoot up a school where they know they'll get lit up the moment they try to hurt anyone.

[Jackie]

If we didn't have guns here, I would expect some to come from or through Mexico if the demand is there. But if you think squeezing the supply is a good thing, ask the British about that. From the article I linked several posts ago, it also talked about their handgun ban:

Within a decade of the handgun ban and the confiscation of handguns from registered owners, crime with handguns had doubled according to British government crime reports. Gun crime, not a serious problem in the past, now is. Armed street gangs have some British police carrying guns for the first time.

According to the article, that ban went into effect as a result of a mass shooting.

It's rather peculiar because during the mass shooting that the ban was based on, The weapon used was an assault rifle, so banning handguns seems strange to me. Forgive me if I am misinformed.

[Arashi_Calunata]

I agree witht the thought of Police Officer statement- One hundred Percent. The current Rent-a-Cops, while good at stopping targets with knifes- something that happens every once in a while around here- don't even get issued Tazers. I think that having a trained Police Officer with a gun would be a godsend, especially in inner cities, where nobody would be scared of that Baton-wielding rentacop. Even out HERE no one is.

[Rocket T. Coyote]

Professor John Lott makes compelling debate in favor of firearms ownership in his book More Guns=Less Crime. A certain adjunct professor/future President refused to discuss the subject with Prof. Lott.

In my own hometown a man was beaten to death with a golf club. Perhaps he could have dialed 911, then endured 5-10 minutes of beating, waiting for law enforcement. I doubt anyone would be willing to put up with that and be maimed or comatized, if not killed. When seconds count, the police are just minutes away.

[flatout442]

So recently I have been watching a lot of videos on YouTube about gun control and wanted your opinions on it. Personally I think we have enough laws in place controlling firearms. You hear about all these people talking about 'assault weapons' and how we should ban anything that isn't used for hunting or sport, sadly these people are very uneducated, because the definition of assault rifle is a firearm that can be switched from semi-automatic to fully automatic and is primarily used for warfare, you need a Federal Firearms License to obtain a fully automatic weapon, these are incredibly hard to get, lastly a strictly semi-automatic firearm is not considered an assault rifle. It is not an assault weapon, it is a firearm.
  Also, some people say guns kill people, if that was true then cars make people drive drunk. People kill people, a firearm is just a shortcut, plus 99% of the people that go on these shooting massacres or at least try to aren't right in the head and about half of these people steal these weapons as well. Statistically hammers kill more people per year on average than guns, so are we going to ban hammers now?
  Lastly, an law put into place that affects the 2nd amendment in any way shape or form is an unconstitutional law, therefore it is not a law.
  So what are your thoughts?

[Scion Tyven]

Personally, I don't like guns. At all. I understand their "necessity", but at the same time, there's no real need for people to have them aside from hunting. I'm not really a fan of hunting either, but I get that a lot of people like it, and I accept that. So you give people hunting rifles after they apply and you check them and what not. That part I'm fine with. But it's when you get into all the hand guns, and the assault rifles that I start having a problem.

You hear about all these people talking about 'assault weapons' and how we should ban anything that isn't used for hunting or sport, sadly these people are very uneducated, because the definition of assault rifle is a firearm that can be switched from semi-automatic to fully automatic and is primarily used for warfare, you need a Federal Firearms License to obtain a fully automatic weapon, these are incredibly hard to get, lastly a strictly semi-automatic firearm is not considered an assault rifle. It is not an assault weapon, it is a firearm.

I understand the difference between a rifle used for hunting and for killing people, but my question is just why is it that you need them in the first place?

People kill people, a firearm is just a shortcut, plus 99% of the people that go on these shooting massacres or at least try to aren't right in the head and about half of these people steal these weapons as well.

It's true that most of the people that go on shooting sprees are crazy. But the debate comes in when you ask yourself, what if they didn't have a gun. What if instead all they had was a knife, or some other kind of non firearm weapon. Sure they'd still probably try to kill, but it's a lot harder to stab up a school than it is to shoot it up. It's still a tragedy sure, but until we find out how to cure all the different mental disorders, it's unfortunately more about mitigating the problem than it is totally avoiding it.

Statistically hammers kill more people per year on average than guns, so are we going to ban hammers now?

You need to check this. From what I've researched about this, it's only counting people killed by rifles. It doesn't take into account any other type of gun.

All in all, I think that it's not a good to keep guns around. There's no need for people to have them.

[Loc]

Flatout442: I've merged your topic "your opinions on gun control" (starting at post number 62) with this one as they are discussing the same topic.

[flatout442]

Flatout442: I've merged your topic "your opinions on gun control" (starting at post number 62) with this one as they are discussing the same topic.

Hey its fine, only 2 hours of research and typing wasted...

[flatout442]

Personally, I don't like guns. At all. I understand their "necessity", but at the same time, there's no real need for people to have them aside from hunting. I'm not really a fan of hunting either, but I get that a lot of people like it, and I accept that. So you give people hunting rifles after they apply and you check them and what not. That part I'm fine with. But it's when you get into all the hand guns, and the assault rifles that I start having a problem.

I see what you mean, but at the same guns were created for sport. You then proceeded to mention assault rifles, these kinds of rifles are only mean't for warfare but that doesn't you can get your hands on them, the Aurora shooting (about 10 miles from where I live) gunman used a Remington 870 pump shotgun and an AR-15 sport rifle, the AR is a civilian version of the famous M16-A2 assault rifle. So basically guns are fun when used properly, when something like Aurora happens you have to look at the shooters mental state and how they obtained the weapon, in that case he obtained them legally.

You hear about all these people talking about 'assault weapons' and how we should ban anything that isn't used for hunting or sport, sadly these people are very uneducated, because the definition of assault rifle is a firearm that can be switched from semi-automatic to fully automatic and is primarily used for warfare, you need a Federal Firearms License to obtain a fully automatic weapon, these are incredibly hard to get, lastly a strictly semi-automatic firearm is not considered an assault rifle. It is not an assault weapon, it is a firearm.

I understand the difference between a rifle used for hunting and for killing people, but my question is just why is it that you need them in the first place?

Guns were first widely used for hunting during the 1820s-1850s during the time of the mountain man so they could get food while living harsh climates without venturing far. Why guns might you ask, because they were easier to use than bow and arrow. Guns were never intended to kill or harm people, but over the past 150 years or so some people created some versions of firearms for warfare, because they were easier to kill people with than swords.

People kill people, a firearm is just a shortcut, plus 99% of the people that go on these shooting massacres or at least try to aren't right in the head and about half of these people steal these weapons as well.

It's true that most of the people that go on shooting sprees are crazy. But the debate comes in when you ask yourself, what if they didn't have a gun. What if instead all they had was a knife, or some other kind of non firearm weapon. Sure they'd still probably try to kill, but it's a lot harder to stab up a school than it is to shoot it up. It's still a tragedy sure, but until we find out how to cure all the different mental disorders, it's unfortunately more about mitigating the problem than it is totally avoiding it.

The day Sandy Hook happened, there was a man in China who stabbed 27 people, 26 of them children, I believe 20 died (I think, don't take my word for it.)  Knifes are just as deadly when you use them to kill, and knifes are really easy to get, I have 6.

Statistically hammers kill more people per year on average than guns, so are we going to ban hammers now?

You need to check this. From what I've researched about this, it's only counting people killed by rifles. It doesn't take into account any other type of gun.

But still isn't that crazy?

All in all, I think that it's not a good to keep guns around. There's no need for people to have them.

[T-Yoshi45]

Feel the need to add my thoughts...

I'm not gonna sugarcoat my opinion. The way I see it, all gun control does is keep guns away from good honest people. I know a lot of people say good people have no need for guns but really a gun I simply a tool, an inanimate object. A gun is unable to tell right from wrong, all it knows is that when you pull the trigger, a bullet will be sent flying in the direction you are pointing it in, it's not of capable of seeing the object or person it's going through. Sandy Hook really does sadden me but I think of it this way...what if one of the teachers had a gun? There would have probably been a lot less dead people...

One story I like to tell about how guns can keep people safe...this kid in Texas who was 14 at the time I believe, he heard an intruder come in, rushed his three younger siblings upstairs and stood at the top of the stairs with his dad's rifle. He gave the guy a fair warning, but he kept going and the kid shot the man. The newscasters were worried that he was gonna be scarred for life over it...don't you think he would have been scarred worse if he saw his younger siblings hurt right in front of him when he could have stopped him?

As crazy as this may sound, i'd rather my daughter have a gun than a cell phone because if she gets cornered by some creep who wants to do awful things to her a cell phone won't do a thing for her if the nearest police office is 20 something blocks away. If it were me cornered and I had the option of shooting my attacker, I would without qualm because i'd rather stand before twelve of my peers than be carried by six of my friends if you catch my meaning.

then I hear a lot about 'if only we could get rid of all the guns' Personally, the world would be a much better place if guns weren't invented but alas they were and this is the world we live in...

Another point I feel necessary to make...begins with the definition of insanity. Which I believe was doing the same thing over and over again hoping for a different result.

Mao Zedong took away guns......see the number of people who died during his reign

Adolf Hitler took away guns......see the holocaust and world war II

Joseph Stalin took away guns......see how many died in his wake

Pol Pot took away guns.......see the Khmer rouge

America tries to take guns from her people.......you fill in the blank...

I do believe in certain precautions such as background checks but gun control has been taken to completely ridiculous levels. For example the "SAFE" act, it is unconstitutional and needs to be repealed desperately. Why? well according to the second amendment we the people have the right to form a militia in the event of tyrannical government which it sadly looks like we're getting close to...And check the examples above, there would be nothing standing in the government's way, nothing! What few guns the "SAFE" act does allow would not be sufficient to form a militia. You can't have a militia with knives and baseball bats, you just can't. Good people do in fact have reasons to own guns. I'm not trying to force anyone's arm into owning a gun but don't go trouncing all over the second amendment. 

I guess that's all I have to say for now...

[Mylo]

Mao Zedong took away guns......see the number of people who died during his reign

Adolf Hitler took away guns......see the holocaust and world war II

Joseph Stalin took away guns......see how many died in his wake

Pol Pot took away guns.......see the Khmer rouge

America tries to take guns from her people.......you fill in the blank...

Just pointing out that this comparison doesn't work...your pattern breaks in America:

Dictator took away guns.  Bad things happen.

Dictator took away guns.  Bad things happen.

Dictator took away guns.  Bad things happen.

Dictator took away guns.  Bad things happen.

Democratic nation takes away guns.  Bad things happen.

[Mylo]

Oh and as for the title of this thread....I suppose it was not the last straw after all.

[Foxpup]

Just pointing out that this comparison doesn't work...your pattern breaks in America:

Dictator took away guns.  Bad things happen.

Dictator took away guns.  Bad things happen.

Dictator took away guns.  Bad things happen.

Dictator took away guns.  Bad things happen.

Democratic nation takes away guns.  Bad things happen.

"Dictator" and "democratic nation" are not mutually exclusive. The Weimar Republic was, in fact, a democratic nation at the time of the 1932 federal elections, in which the Nazi Party gained the relative majority in the parliament, without which Hitler could never have achieved power.

[flatout442]

America is not a democracy, it's a republic. But they're similar.

[Old Rabbit]

The U.S. is a democracy in that we vote for our representatives in government. They
make the laws. If we don't like the laws we should tell them. If they won't listen to us
we vote for someone to replace them. So if you want to keep the right to have arms
you best vote for those who support your belief.

If the people were voting to make laws, there would be alot of descrimation and bad laws
due to alot of people voting emotionally and not intelligently. That's not counting those who
would use propaganda to convince the public to pass laws benefiting them.

Besides most people wouldn't have the time to be knowledgeable enough to vote
on all of the hundreds of laws, rules, and budgets that would need to be on the ballot.

Heck even our representatives are not always informed enough to vote properly.

[Yip]

Heck even our representatives are not always informed enough to vote properly.

Especially concerning areas where due to advances in science and technology, the old ways of governing simply can not be applied the same way. (for example, with the internet)

[HazardJackal]

One thing I am very tired of is people protesting restricting the use of assult rifles by claiming they are needed for home defence.  A shotgun is easier to use, causes less collateral damage (regarding anything outside of your house) and a heck of lot more unnerving when they go off.

I'm certianly not against guns, I'm actauly for them, but I wish people would give some better reasons to keep the darn things.

Sorry for the bad spelling, on an iPod.