Gun laws, armed guards in schools, etc.
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Since the recent tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, CT, there has been a national and international debate about gun laws and such in the US, as well as a few suggestions to either arm teachers or have armed guards in every school. This is the thread to talk about these issues, so have at it, folks!
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Jim Boeheim, basketball coach for Syracuse University in New York, used part of his press conference about his 900th win to talk about the recent shooting and about gun control:
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The college basketball coach at Winthrop did the same during his press conference before his team faces one of the top 10 teams in the US:
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@ SurSteven, in response to your comment in the other thread, 'if every student had their own personal guard this would still only be a 50/50 proposition'... I wholeheartedly disagree. I think 1 or 2 armed guards at each school would completely change the game and deter 95% of these nut jobs from even trying. They'd probably just off themselves in the confines of their own home. But even I they did decide to attack a school on a suicidal mission, I believe 1 or 2 armed guards would help. It's already working at public schools in Chicago an LA and elsewhere. And Audi, no there were definitely no armed guards at Sandy Hook. At an elementary school? no. My belief is had there been casualties would have been less, an possibly none. I hate guns, but they exist, as do crazy people with them. So we can be the sheep getting slaughtered or we can protect ourselves and our children. Don't forget, and perhaps I never mentioned this, but in my mind the most important aspect of the changes that must occur is the outlawing of 99% of guns in the private sector. No gun solves the problem, I get that. However, I don't see it as a reality. Drugs are illegal and they are all over the place.. I'm with John, Imagine. But I think he was a dreamer. And apparently he's not the only one. For teachers calling for no guards... I hope your ready and willing to take a bullet for our kids. and im sure most would be.. but That's the sad seriousness of our world. Really sad.
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kapoo:
For teachers calling for no guards... I hope your ready and willing to take a bullet for our kids. and im sure most would be.. but That's the sad seriousness of our world. Really sad.
Gee, I wonder who that comment is aimed at...
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walliebaby:
kapoo:
For teachers calling for no guards... I hope your ready and willing to take a bullet for our kids. and im sure most would be.. but That's the sad seriousness of our world. Really sad.
Gee, I wonder who that comment is aimed at...
Hey I worry for you teachers, believe me. I didn't mean any disrespect, it's just how I'm feeling. I have a 3, 5 and 7 yr old and I want them protected at school and I just think it's got out of hand and something needs to be done immediately. And it needs to be more than just 'start talking to our kids about their problems.'
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kapoo:
walliebaby:
kapoo:
For teachers calling for no guards... I hope your ready and willing to take a bullet for our kids. and im sure most would be.. but That's the sad seriousness of our world. Really sad.
Gee, I wonder who that comment is aimed at...
Hey I worry for you teachers, believe me. I didn't mean any disrespect, it's just how I'm feeling. I have a 3, 5 and 7 yr old and I want them protected at school and I just think it's got out of hand and something needs to be done immediately. And it needs to be more than just 'start talking to our kids about their problems.'
I get your concern, and believe me when I say that there isn't a teacher out there who doesn't also want schools to be safe for their students. What I find interesting is that it's only after a tragedy that people become concerned. It's that reactive approach that I worry about. I am not aiming this at you, by the way. I've had way too many conversations in the past week about this very topic. The armed security guard, for instance, has come up at my school for about 10 years now, since Columbine. Why wouldn't it work at my school? We have three floors with at least 10 different entrances and exits. Are all the doors locked during the school day? Yes. Could someone break into the building if they wanted to anyway? Of course. The idiot at Sandy Hook School shot his way in with an assault rifle. Could they do that at my school? Of course. Do I feel safe at my school? About as safe as I feel anywhere else. Would an armed guard in each school prevent a shooting? Maybe, maybe not. His presence at Columbine didn't. By the time the SRO (School Resource Officer) found and started to exchange gunfire with the shooters, they'd already shot and killed some students. The shooters then went to the library where the bulk of the killings happened. Did the shooters disarm, shoot, or kill the SRO? No. He was still in the building contacting the police, etc. He didn't stop the tragedy from happening in the slightest. He barely slowed down the shooters, actually. I've been a member of our school's Crisis Team for years, discussing and thinking about these very issues, so I'm not just having an emotional response here. We have our town's police department and a member of the state police on the team. We work in cooperation with these departments to make sure that should something happen, we'll have a quick response time. Believe me, though, when I tell you that having an armed guard in each school building is not going to prevent these things from happening.
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and what about when it happens at the movie theater...or the library...or the.............. and now I think the other thread will die & we will forget again.
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For what it's worth, the Deputy assigned to Columbine wasn't at the school at the time. He returned after those two dipsh!ts had already started firing...
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kapoo:
@ SurSteven, in response to your comment in the other thread, 'if every student had their own personal guard this would still only be a 50/50 proposition'... I wholeheartedly disagree. I think 1 or 2 armed guards at each school would completely change the game and deter 95% of these nut jobs from even trying. They'd probably just off themselves in the confines of their own home. But even I they did decide to attack a school on a suicidal mission, I believe 1 or 2 armed guards would help. It's already working at public schools in Chicago an LA and elsewhere. And Audi, no there were definitely no armed guards at Sandy Hook. At an elementary school? no. My belief is had there been casualties would have been less, an possibly none. I hate guns, but they exist, as do crazy people with them. So we can be the sheep getting slaughtered or we can protect ourselves and our children. Don't forget, and perhaps I never mentioned this, but in my mind the most important aspect of the changes that must occur is the outlawing of 99% of guns in the private sector. No gun solves the problem, I get that. However, I don't see it as a reality. Drugs are illegal and they are all over the place.. I'm with John, Imagine. But I think he was a dreamer. And apparently he's not the only one. For teachers calling for no guards... I hope your ready and willing to take a bullet for our kids. and im sure most would be.. but That's the sad seriousness of our world. Really sad.
You saw only what you wanted to see in my post...and you will undoubtedly only see what you want to see in this video. The men who were shot...were immediately surrounded by dozens of the most well trained bodyguards on earth.
You just don't get it...do you? -
kapoo:
...And Audi, no there were definitely no armed guards at Sandy Hook. At an elementary school? no...
I worked as a principal's assistant ten years ago at a K-8 school, and there were two armed deputy sheriffs who reported daily -- full-time. The school where Rod currently teaches has full-time, armed officers everyday. His school starts at fifth grade. For what it's worth: One of the main reasons I left that profession was that I got tired of dealing with students whose parents didn't do their job, sending dysfunctional kids to our school, making things stressful for me, my colleagues, other students, and, of course, the teachers. But the main reason I left was my fear that some dumb-ass would come in do something tragic.
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Truthfully, I'm not wild about the message that posting armed guards outside of our schools sends to children, but it is an added layer of security so I wouldn't be terribly upset if this happened. That being said, a couple of thoughts: 1) Who's going to pay for these guards? The NRA? Or should we use taxpayer money? Anathema for the conservatives that primarily make up the NRA. 2) Why does the gun lobby think armed security and sensible gun-control laws are mutually exclusive? And the fight over sensible gun control is the thing that drives me batty about this whole thing (I live in a rural, conservative area, so when I see acquaintances on Facebook lashing out at gun-control advocates for not using "facts and logic" when by most every statistical measure pro-gun arguments fall flat, I find myself thinking of this:
). In light of this tragedy, it would seem that if one side were going to be bullish and the other frantically searching for some middle ground, it would be the gun-control advocates with the advantage over the gun lobby. Virtually every argument that the NRA could muster (after their cowardly silence, of course) was exposed: *More guns means less crime - Should we arm our elementary school children? *Then we should arm teachers - The shooter wore extensive body armor; who pays for the teacher's training, assuming that we aren't just handing them guns to figure out for themselves; what happens when there's a substitute teacher *Armed guards would prevent this from happening - Well, there was an armed officer at Columbine; As the NRA held its press conference, four were killed and three police officers (presumably armed) were injured by a shooter in Pennsylvania. *These psychos will find another way to kill - A man attacked school children in China with a knife during the same week as the Sandy Hook shooting...ZERO deaths. What's more, no liberal I know is arguing for a ban on all guns, which is what you'd be led to believe if you followed gun enthusiasts' arguments, all centered on their flawed understanding of the 2nd amendment. It's ironic that conservative judges stymie progress all the time with constrictionist, no-interpretation-allowed reading of the constitution, yet they utilize the broad phrasing of the "right to bear arms" to rationalize ownership for any weapon that their over-compensating minds can conceive. I recently had a run-in with a former classmate, who shook off my contention that the framers couldn't even fathom automatic weaponry when the constitution was written, which undermines the 2nd amendment even if you believe it's meant to give free rein to gun enthusiasts. His response: "David, they could literally see the future, I'm sure they had an idea." He feebly responded to my questions about why they didn't have the foresight to abolish slavery or grant women the right to vote, said my request to find constitutional provisions about the Internet was "unfair," but totally ignored my final question, which asked that since their could be no limits to the weaponry I desire, should I be allowed to assemble and own my own nuclear warhead should I ever have the resources to do so? I also had another Facebook friend who claimed she was just "testing me," when I pointed out that her conservative spam about the little-known Pearl River shootings, which claimed that the media didn't report it because an asst. principal with a gun stopped the shooter, was highly misleading. The man stopped the shooter from leaving the grounds, but the shooting had already taken place, with two deaths and five injuries. I've had another friend demand that all of his "true friends" boycott businesses, such as Dick's Sporting Goods, which have suspended the sales of weapons like the rifle used in the Sandy Hook shooting. I've had yet another friend attempt to debunk my various sources and statistics by a single Web site, which exclusively cites John Lott Jr.'s works. He's ignored my repeated attempts to educate him on Lott, whose greatest hits include being funded by the educational arm of a pro-gun lobbyist group, repeatedly citing a survey he conducted proving that more guns equals less crime even though he has no written record of such a survey and claims he had it all on a hard drive that was destroyed (two men have come forward to substantiate his claims...both gun lobby members), and getting busted for impersonating a student online to write glowing reviews of his studies, books, and classes. I apologize for the length of this post. But I began with a simple response and continued to add thought after thought. I just wanted to cram as many of my thoughts and critiques in as I could, while also demonstrating the irrationality of gun enthusiasts by highlighting the ignorance of many of my rural area Facebook friends. I guess, the abridged version of my message is this: Common sense and even the slightest shred of decency demands tighter restrictions on gun sales and a ban on assault weapons. In my view, arguing against this in the face of overwhelming evidence to support the need for it is either ignorant, stupid, evil, or a combination of the three. -
SurSteven:
kapoo:
@ SurSteven, in response to your comment in the other thread, 'if every student had their own personal guard this would still only be a 50/50 proposition'... I wholeheartedly disagree. I think 1 or 2 armed guards at each school would completely change the game and deter 95% of these nut jobs from even trying. They'd probably just off themselves in the confines of their own home. But even I they did decide to attack a school on a suicidal mission, I believe 1 or 2 armed guards would help. It's already working at public schools in Chicago an LA and elsewhere. And Audi, no there were definitely no armed guards at Sandy Hook. At an elementary school? no. My belief is had there been casualties would have been less, an possibly none. I hate guns, but they exist, as do crazy people with them. So we can be the sheep getting slaughtered or we can protect ourselves and our children. Don't forget, and perhaps I never mentioned this, but in my mind the most important aspect of the changes that must occur is the outlawing of 99% of guns in the private sector. No gun solves the problem, I get that. However, I don't see it as a reality. Drugs are illegal and they are all over the place.. I'm with John, Imagine. But I think he was a dreamer. And apparently he's not the only one. For teachers calling for no guards... I hope your ready and willing to take a bullet for our kids. and im sure most would be.. but That's the sad seriousness of our world. Really sad.
You saw only what you wanted to see in my post...and you will undoubtedly only see what you want to see in this video. The men who were shot...were immediately surrounded by dozens of the most well trained bodyguards on earth.
You just don't get it...do you?I definitely don't get it. But whatever. I respect you all so let the chips fall where they may. Lets talk rock n roll. Or better yet, lets make rock n roll
at least that's what I'll be doing. For all those that have gone before, I shall rock on for U. Peace and love -
So if we change the gun laws we need to change the way of handling problems to go with it. The material used to manufacture weapons could be channeled in a different direction to make other things that might help heal our problems instead of distroy them love doris
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I do not understand America's fascination with guns. What purpose do they serve, other than to kill? If they are weapons of war, why do Americans need them to feel safe? Are any of these shooters ever members of a well-regulated militia?
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This sad phenomenon is something that occurs in many many countries including yours...not just america.
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Now its martial law in the schools love doris
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This man had hoped for a chance to be a hero via being armed, yet... Gun Enthusiast & Expert Shot to Death:
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al Sabah:
I do not understand America's fascination with guns. What purpose do they serve, other than to kill? If they are weapons of war, why do Americans need them to feel safe? Are any of these shooters ever members of a well-regulated militia?
Is there such a thing as a "well-regulated militia"? Oh, and I'd be careful about painting all Americans with a broad stroke. I hate guns, have never owned, fired, or even touched one. I'm not the only American who feels this way, either.
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A home is 30% more likely to have a domestic fatality by just having a gun in it.
