Another major school shooting today ... Newtown, Conn

@oralloy,

Quote:

A small arsenal? Don't be silly.

LOL I missed the small arsenal comment as if two hands guns and a rifle would be consider a small arsenal.

I have friends who are into hunting that have large gun cabinets full of tens of thousands dollars worth of high power rifles that amaze me but a few guns as a arsenal you got to be kidding me as by that standard both my wife and I have small arsenals.

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@parados,

parados wrote:

No, but it does make for less of them being dead.

Unlikely. People kill regardless of technology.

parados wrote:

A man in China attacks children at a school with a knife. 22 children and 1 adult. No one is reported to have died.
A man in USA attack children at a school with guns. 20 children died and 6 adults died.

Which group is "less dead"?

Most murders are not the result of a mass killing, so anything that might prevent a mass killing will not necessarily prevent the typical murder.

And if someone dedicated to carrying out a mass killing were deprived of guns, all they would need to do is build some bombs.

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@McTag,

McTag wrote:

Good comment from Gopnik:

" So let’s state the plain facts one more time, so that they can’t be mistaken: Gun massacres have happened many times in many countries, and in every other country, gun laws have been tightened to reflect the tragedy and the tragic knowledge of its citizens afterward. In every other country, gun massacres have subsequently become rare. In America alone, gun massacres, most often of children, happen with hideous regularity, and they happen with hideous regularity because guns are hideously and regularly available.

The people who fight and lobby and legislate to make guns regularly available are complicit in the murder of those children."

The responsibility for these children's deaths can be laid at the feet of the gun lobby, the "cold, dead hands" fraternity.

Aside from the fact that banning guns will never prevent people from making bombs, even if banning guns actually did make a real difference in saving lives, freedom would still be more important.

We Americans are not serfs. And we're not gonna become serfs. Period.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

so, in your view, freedom is more important than saving lives?

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@Joe Nation,

Quote:

Quote:
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Maybe we are better off treating them as natural catastrophes, unavoidable and fortunately quite rare.

Sorry, this to me sounds too much like a shrug, an easier reaction to take than one which faces what happened and asks: "Why?" To describe the murder of twenty children and their teachers as 'natural' 'unavoidable' is escapism of the most unfeeling kind.

I think we have allowed a small segment of our society to foist really bad ideas into the fabric of this nation:
-the idea that the use of a gun is a permissible, justifiable solution to personal problems-
-the idea that, if you ever feel slightly threatened, lethal action isn't proscribed, it's necessary-
-the idea that the more armed we are as a people, the safer we will be- .

I think we need to question these assertions and several others about how we as a people deal with each other. We need to have real conversations about whether we will allow fear of our fellow citizens be the guiding point of our interactions.

Three days ago the State of Florida issued its one millionth concealed carry permit; that means that one in 18 people there feels the need to be armed when in public.
Where have we come as a nation if we still think we need to arm ourselves as if we were living on the edges of the frontier of two hundred years ago? Really, no more security in our lives in this, the land of the Free?

Joe(Only unavoidable if we do and say nothing.)Nation

Maybe you are right, Joe.

But if we start these conversations...and set up the legislation we want passed to stop these problems guns cause...we ought not to limit it to guns. We ought to include hurricanes and earthquakes also, because they do even more damage (although admittedly not as much killing).

Sure, we can legislate limits on guns, hurricanes and earthquakes...and who knows where that will lead. With a start like this could be, our sterling leaders may eventually be able to legislate a Utopia.

1 Reply

@Region Philbis,

Region Philbis wrote:

so, in your view, freedom is more important than saving lives?

Well, that is one of my points. I also noted the fact that gun bans don't save all that many lives.

But, yes. Even if gun bans would actually save a lot of lives, freedom would still take precedence.

If you want to save lives, try banning cars. That would save a lot of lives. And you wouldn't violate anyone's civil rights in the process.

1 Reply

@Region Philbis,

Let see school buses are a very safe mean of transporting millions of children every year and yet more deaths occur on school buses then by school shotting by far and yet I do not hear the idea of banning school buses.

There would hardly be 24/7 news coverage if 20 children had been killed on the way to that school by a school bus being hit by a train for example.

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@firefly,

Also my keen memory recalls at one point many schools implemented use of a metal dectector on all entrances to schools. Was this school so equipped on ALL entrances? If it was, why didn't the killer get detected? If it had no such equipment installed on all entrances, why didn't it?

Metal detectors are already implemented by every airport and travel center and commercial establishment in US. Why not ALL the schools? Yes, I'm aware that they are not 100% effective but it does increase the chance of advance warning and detection of an armed intruder. They do this at all of our airports, right? Are the schools any less worthy of such protection?

Yes, I know that would levy an added huge cost to an already overburdened taxpaying public, but is the alternative to doing this at all palatable...any more?

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@Ragman,

Quote:

Also my keen memory recalls at one point many schools implemented use of a metal dectector on all entrances to schools. Was this school so equipped on ALL entrances? If it was, why didn't the killer get detected? If it had no such equipment installed on all entrances, why didn't it?

In this case metal detectors would had been worthless as by the latest news accounts is that he forced himself into the school at gun point.

Only if there was arm security backing up metal detectors would they had any possible meaning in similar cases.

The metal detectors threat model in schools had been to stop kids from bringing guns into the schools not stop an adult shooter and at the age of these kids that hardly seems to be a large threat.

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@Ragman,

Metal detectors are mainly to deter students from bringing weapons into a school. The high school in that district is equipped with a metal detector for that reason, and, I believe, has a security guard as well.

Who would even think you'd need a metal detector in a school for grades K-4? Just locking the doors should be sufficient, in most instances, to keep out intruders.

You'd also need someone manning the metal detector all the time.

The doors to this school were locked, it's not clear how he gained access the day of the shooting--he may have shot out the glass of the door. He may also have been at the school the day before the shooting. Details are still unclear.

1 Reply

@firefly,

Well well will wonders never end as we both are in total agreements that metal detectors are not design to deal with what happen at that school.

Only arm security at site would have had any chance of dealing with the gunman and given arm security on campus he could had attacked the school buses on their way to the school or children waiting at school bus pick up sites for that matter.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

"Belts and suspenders"

A metal detector, as an additional piece of device that is armed and only records to the prinipal and main office is available. You dont need someone to be on call. You can enter a gauss factor (Such as someone bringing in a dense piece of metal like a gun or a lunch box and there are those with arrays that can spot sizes differences and woul automatically lock and deadbolt a door (Door, of course would need to be ratwire framed). Its getting so that schools MUST think about these kinds of extreme gizmos.

We have 20 kids and 6 teachers killed, whats that worth to the budget? No, if we aint doin anything about guns then we damn well better make our schools more impregnable.

(I am clueless about what we do at recess and during that time when school is dismissed)

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@tsarstepan,

tsarstepan wrote:

At Least 27 Killed, Including Children, in Connecticut Elementary
School Shooting [Updating]
http://gawker.com/5968442/shooting-reported-at-connecticut-elementary-school-%5Bupdating%5D

No. It's not too soon in fact it's far too late to start discussing gun control.

That's like discussing opinion control:
put beyond the reach of jurisdiction,
by the Founders in the Bill of Rights.

David

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@Region Philbis,

Quote:

...so, in your view, freedom is more important than saving lives?...

Yes, particularly when we've seen that lacking the freedom in question tends to get lives lost at rates greater than a million per year per country. Some questions actually do have simple answers.

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@farmerman,

Now Famrerman if the school could had some kind of double doors where someone would be lock in between them if carrying metals might had been of some use.

But that would means that the school would have to had been design not to have outside facing windows or other openings that would allow someone to break into the school.

Hell even with a school design for security what to stop someone from driving a pick up truck through your security doors and so on.

An then if y0u had such tight security the attacked could attack the children as they was arriving or leaving the school.

Other then arm security on site I do not see anything that might be of real help.

1 Reply

@ehBeth,

ehBeth wrote:

H20man has previously posted pix of small children at some sort of weapons' introduction class. I don't think it's a surprise to anyone that there is a segment of the population that thinks children with weapons is good/appropriate/necessary.

I grew up that way in Arizona, from age 8;
we had no problems for the 5 years that I observed.
We were happy. The kids were well armed, in their own defense.

David

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@Region Philbis,

Region Philbis wrote:

so, in your view, freedom is more important than saving lives?

I gotta say YES.
Life without freedom is worse than hell,
e.g. nazism or communism.

David

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

Carolyn McCarthy: "The Second Amendment is the law of the land but it was never intended to allow murderers to take the lives of innocent kids."

Actually, the USA is the most armed country in the modern world ... and has the most problems with gun violence.

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@BillRM,

Is this really the country you want, Bill?
Elementary schools with the same security tools as Prisons?

What other nation on this earth that is not involved in a shooting war needs to do this?

Joe(sweet land of where you going with that gun in your hand?)Nation

1 Reply

@oralloy,

Quote:

If you want to save lives, try banning cars. That would save a lot of lives.

Worth considering though, what these products are designed for:
Cars for transport.
Guns to kill.

2 Replies

Another major school shooting today ... Newtown, Conn

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