Another major school shooting today ... Newtown, Conn

@Frank Apisa,

Frank wrote:

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.

Why stop there?

Cars kill far more adults and kids then guns. Surely there is a discussion we can have and a law we can pass that will put an end to these senseless deaths.

You know what else kills more kids than guns? Their parents and caregivers.

Annually between 1,500 and 2,000 kids die from abuse at the hands of parents and caregivers. Compare that to the approximately 50 per year who die from murder by handgun (and some of those are quite probably at the hands of their parents).

These other sources of childrens' deaths don't seem to generate the same outcry for solutions as do mass killings.

One reason is that they don't get the same degree of media attention as a mass murder, and, frankly, they don't have the same viceral impact on the public.

They are all equally tragic though.

The difference seems to be that when it comes to mass shootings, a lot of people think there is a quick and easy fix.

1 Reply

@Joe Nation,

Not surprisingly, you missed my point.

We don't ignore natural disasters, we do our best to predict where and when they will happen and to mitigate the damage they can cause. We will never prevent them, just as we will never prevent incidents of mass murder.

We also don't struggle so publicly to explain them.

Some form of additional gun control may indeed be a way to mitigate the extent of damage they cause, and should be considered, but not as a knee-jerk reaction because it seems the easy fix and comports with individual prejudice.

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@farmerman,

For recess and after school is dismissed, blast protection suit is the solution.

http://www.mondial-defence.com/images/Products/Bomb-Suit-3.jpg

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@Joe Nation,

Let see Joe you are going to make 200 millions guns disappear to the point where no one that neither care about breaking the law and have a thousand dollars or so will not be able to arm him or herself?

Laws had not stop the available of drugs and Mexico had strict guns laws and that had not stop or slow the drug gangs from getting weapons either.

All that is in your power is to annoy me and my wife and many millions of other legal gun owners that are zero threat.

As far as the numbers once more kids are killed on school buses and sometime in numbers as high or higher then 20 and if 20 children had been killed on their way that school in a bus/train accident if would had been a national news story but in no way comparing to what we are now seeing.

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@Region Philbis,

Region Philbis wrote:

if japan can do it, so can we...

And they can do this too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osaka_school_massacre

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@Walter Hinteler,

What no one seems to take into consideration is that when our Constitution was written was done so at a time that such an effective killing machines like an assualt rifle was/were unimaginable ro the framers of the Constitution. Rifles and handguns technology was/were single fire and s-l-o-w action arms.

People who cite the constitutional right to bear arms often ignore the differences in technology advancements of the different times. different time require different solutions. Restoring or instituting a ban an assault rifles might be somewhat of a deterrent to such mass killings.

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@McTag,

Quote:

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

So we are going for the emotional argument that guns are evil and cars are not so we will overlook the 40,000 plus deaths by cars a year and instead focus on the far lesser deaths by firearms?

1 Reply

@BillRM,

Certainly you can kill 20 kindergarten children with a car.

But the USA still seems to lead the world in school shootings.

My thoughts are with the people of Newtown at this unthinkably tragic time.

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@Walter Hinteler,

Quote:

My thoughts are with the people of Newtown at this unthinkably tragic time

Exactly! It's sad to see people (myself included) who might be using this tragedy as bait for endless debating on gun control. The victims and their families are suffering. It is them that should be kept in minds - not political footballs and agendas.

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@Walter Hinteler,

Quote:

But the USA still seems to lead the world in school shootings.

The numbers of deaths by school shooting in a nation of 300 millions are tiny compare to other causes of deaths among that age group including the children own care givers and even in school natural events such as tornadoes hitting schools.

Now comparing it to other nations well let see was not hundreds of children killed in Russian due to a terrorist attack a few years ago?

Of course I think that they mainly died by explosions not gun fired.

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@McTag,

McTag wrote:

oralloy wrote:
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.

Why does that matter? Does it make the victims of car accidents any less dead?

And only hunting weapons are designed to kill. Weapons designed for self-defense have rapid incapacitation as their primary goal. Target shooting guns are not designed to harm any living thing.

1 Reply

@Ragman,

Ragman wrote:

Restoring or instituting a ban an assault rifles might be somewhat of a deterrent to such mass killings.

Hardly. Banning harmless cosmetic features like pistol grips would not prevent any mass killings.

And more importantly, it is unconstitutional.

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@Walter Hinteler,

Quote:

But the USA still seems to lead the world in school shootings.

Russian on this one event is way ahead of the US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_hostage_crisis

Beslan school hostage crisisFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, search Beslan school hostage crisis

The Beslan school hostage crisis (also referred to as the Beslan school siege or Beslan massacre)[2][3][4] of early September 2004 lasted three days and involved the capture of over 1,100 people as hostages (including 777 children),[5] ending with the death of over 380 people. The crisis began when a group of armed Islamic separatist militants, mostly Ingush and Chechen, occupied School Number One (SNO) in the town of Beslan, North Ossetia (an autonomous republic in the North Caucasus region of the Russian Federation) on 1 September 2004. The hostage-takers were the Riyadus-Salikhin Battalion, sent by the Chechen separatist warlord Shamil Basayev, who demanded recognition of the independence of Chechnya at the UN and Russian withdrawal from Chechnya. On the third day of the standoff, Russian security forces entered the building with the use of tanks, incendiary rockets and other heavy weapons.[6] At least 334 hostages were killed as a result of the crisis, including 186 children,[7][8] with a significant number of people injured and reported missing.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

oralloy wrote:

Region Philbis wrote:
if japan can do it, so can we...

The US Constitution, the US Supreme Court, and the NRA all say you can't. Sorry.

Quote:
A Land Without Guns: How Japan Has Virtually Eliminated Shooting Deaths

Does it make them "less dead" when they are killed with knives instead?

The AUTHORITAN MINDSET has manifested discriminatory licensure
of the right to defend your life; this from the folks who gave us
the 1937 rape of Nanking, capital of China: boys & adult men separated
from females and murdered. All females of all ages and all classes
were raped by the Japs for a few months, until death.

David

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@BillRM,

School shooting@wikipedia

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@Walter Hinteler,

Quote:

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

Things left out of that picture is our not having 80,000 people killed by snakes every year or brownshirts rounding up all of our Jews at 2AM in the morning.

Also left out is that the stated purpose o the 2'nd amendment is providing the people with a degree of power over governments, which is not compatible with the idea of government regulating firearms other than keeping true WMDs out of private hands. Again there is Krauthammer's suggestion of more lunatic control...

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@Ragman,

Quote:

People who cite the constitutional right to bear arms often ignore the differences in technology advancements of the different times. different time require different solutions. Restoring or instituting a ban an assault rifles might be somewhat of a deterrent to such mass killings.

Try it, and the civil war will start the next day. Again the main stated purpose of the 2'nd amendment was/is to provide the people with a modicum of power over government; muzzle-loaders can't really do that.

1 Reply

@gungasnake,

https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/537723_527976763879973_1417475649_n.jpg

1 Reply

@Region Philbis,

Way it goes.

1 Reply

@Joe Nation,

Joe Nation wrote:

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.

I believe this fact needs to be correlated with other facts to make it meaningful. Meaning what percentage is male? What are the percentages for each ten year age bracket? What percentage is white/Black/Hispanic?

My point is that if women, that had children in their youth and are now over 40, were the individuals with concealed carry permits, I would feel quite safe.

Meaning, as I heard on NPR radio the other day, during an interview of the author that recently wrote about mass killings in Mother Jones, most of these killings are by males under 40 and white. So, society might just need to do something about testosterone as a dangerous drug. Unfortunately, perhaps, males produce this drug in great quantities often into the fifth decade of life, if not beyond. Just my opinion; however, the male penchant for violence might be the opening thoughts on the President's desire to address the concern about mass killings. This incident was the seventh this year (four or more dead in a public space qualifies), according to the author on the NPR interview.

And, let's be honest, boys are encouraged to do "boy things" (aka, physical confrontation, be it sports, or pecking order bonding), since in the U.S. a worst nightmare for many a parent is that their boy can grow up to be a sissy. So, while toy cap guns (circa, 1955) may not be seen nowadays, boys are still enouraged to forget cuddling with a teddy bear, and do "boy things." And, it's not the sugar that is making for ADHD necessarily, but the "culture" of boys learning to be physical males perhaps?

3 Replies

Another major school shooting today ... Newtown, Conn

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