THE DANGER OF GUN-FREE SCHOOL ZONES

OK. You are clearly a lunatic. I mean....jesus tapdancing christ. You are completely f@cking insane. 5-year-olds carrying guns. Wow. I wouldn't have believed this insanity unless I actually read it for myself.

holy crap

Quite an understatement!

I agree, Holy Crap!

I do think that anyone over the age of 18 should have an unequiviocal right to carry a gun pretty much anwhere they want though,

Halfback wrote
Damned interesting question, isn't it? A related question but one with a simpler answer is...which nation produces and exports more weaponry (by which we mean shiny and profitable people-killers) than any other throughout the rest of the world?

re omsig's dream of kiddies arriving at kindergarten with cute little glocks in their lunchboxes...well, to paraphrase Goldwater, extremism in the cause of extremism is tautologically predictable.

U distort my position.

I reiterate that I wish to return to the status quo ante
before the early 20th Century, when there existed no
legislation in this area. The same as parents finance
kids' clothing, thay 'd attend to their security concerns.
( I attended to mine. )

I also desire training in schools qua competence
in defensive gunnery, at the earliest possible age,
as everyone deserves to survive predatory attack.

The essence of your position
is that the death penalty shud apply to being young;
( in the discretion of violent predators ). From that, I dissent.
David

P.S.:
I don 't advise Glocks,
because automatics jam too much.

People shud start with revolvers.
Thay are more reliable.

Think back over your own life.
If u had been attacked by animals
or by criminals, under 18,
shud u have been able to survive to over 18 ?

I think u shud
David


or if u were walking with your mother
when u were 12, and attacked by animals or criminals,
shud u have been able to defend her ?

I think u shud

Because of I am a practical person at heart- I do NOT- I repeat DO NOT- agree that David's plan to arm and train five year olds in the use of deadly weapons to apply deadly force against another person is at all feasible and a solution to this problem.

I have never owned a gun and will never have a gun in my home and I never would- because I have children. If I didn't have children living in or coming into my home on a regular basis- and depending on the reality around safety wherever it was I chose to live- I would rethink that. If I felt I needed one- I might..

But I think that men should stop and think for a minute about who the most vulnerable members of our society are- and psychologically- how they might be feeling everytime they hear of another rape or murder or abduction.
And I know that, as a woman, there have been instances when I had wished I'd had a gun or another weapon with which to protect myself- because I've been aware that if I were to match my brute strength against that of almost any man (I'm a small woman)- I WOULD lose- bigtime- perhaps even my life.
And, in this society we're living in today, I bet alot of children walk around feeling the same way- at school, on the streets of their neighborhoods, anywhere and everywhere they go.
I know I don't let my daughter go anywhere alone. And everytime I take a walk in the woods across from my very peaceful neighborhood, I think to myself, "You're taking a chance". I choose to do it anyway- because I refuse to be held hostage- and so far, so good, but I do always think- "You're taking a chance".

Do men have to live that way?

What a mess our country is. I don't know what the answer is. I think David's is misguided-because I think he overestimates the level of abstract cognitive thought as well as physical and emotional control the majority of five year old children possess- but I understand the impetus behind what he's saying: he wants those who are vulnerable to have a chance against those who choose to prey upon them.

Just 20 years ago if a kid brought his hunting rifle to school in his truck so he could get a jump start on deer season, the principal would have admired the gun and swapped hunting stories.

Today, the school would go on lockdown, the kid suspended and sent to counseling, and his parents would be fined or worse.

Liberal PC efftards in charge!

i was 7 when i first shot a gun, and in fact my dad gave me that peice of ****, lol. .22 rifle

I wont get into the 12 gauge, thats embarassing (you can probablly guess what happened hahahahaha)

is that wierd? i never thought much of it, 5 seems way TOO young, id aim for middle-school age children at the least.

Dave and cj seem to be living in the distant past. Wake up, we are in the 21st century, and the world is different.

Dave, for one, would allow ex-cons and the mentally diseased to have guns, even automatic weapons. Are there not enough shoot-outs now?

No one proposes taking guns from normal citizens, or unduly restricting purchase by such people. Even the NRA is for some gun control. However, our resident gun nuts would endanger all of us.

from wikipedia

FBI estimates that there are 215 million weapons in the hands of gun owners. The stat did not mention if that figure included guns in the hands of the criminal element, which would be a WAG (Wild A**ed Guess) anyway.

For those of you who believe our Army is too small..... the Militia seems alive and well, at any rate.

I did a little "looking up" from stats of the National Safety Council ('03 figs) and found some interesting comparisons:

The deaths from accidental discharge of weapons: 730
The deaths from accidental falls down stairs: 1588

The deaths from assault by weapon (murder): 11,920
The deaths from all falls: 17,229

Death by motor vehicle: 44,757

If one wants to be facitious one could say that stairs are more dangerous than murderers by a considerable margin. If saving lives is the sole criteria, one might consider the ban on stairs before the ban on guns. I won't even go into the potential lives to be saved by banning motor vehicles.

Of course, the above is crap statistical analysis and conclusions. But that is used with considerable frequency by and for one side or the other.

I fully believe the reason we have more "shooter wackos" in this country is a result of our educational emphasis. Many children are not taught the concept of responsibility (personal or fiscal), nor do they seem to be taught acceptable public behavior, nor are they taught the concept of delayed gratification, nor do they understand the meaning of "NO!". I see this all the time, repeatedly. I surmise it is somewhat widespread.

In short, we develop a pack of nasty, spoiled brats. They take these "lessons" into the adult world and realize that they are not necessarily going to get their way all the time. Some accept it, with the grace of maturity. Some don't accept it in total and will fight via all legal means possible to "get their way".(Contributes to the lawsuit "business", to the great glee of Lawyers ) Some don't get it at all and snap. For many the weapon of opportunity is a gun. If no guns, it would be something else.... there is no limit to the imagination of man's choice of weaponry. This is the reason people with a history of mental problems are not allowed to buy weapons. Unfortunately, one is rarely forewarned of who is going to "snap".

One could say, "I never saw a crazy gun toting wacko, but I'd recognize one if I did."

As a rhetorical question: How many lives could have been saved at Virginia Tech if one or more of the victims had "been packing"?

Halfback

That's a problem I have with the NRA. Pure canibalism.

The world has changed in that feel good laws have become the norm. We should be teaching kids to shoot in school, not teaching them that guns are bad. No such thing as a bad gun.

Guns are not bad, but they help killers quite a bit.

nor a bad grenade
nor a bad bazooka
nor a bad IED
nor a bad nuke

Half, regarding your question, had a lot of students been packing, there may have been many other killings at VT over the years.

In fact, I bet there were! What a dumb statement.

If a couple kids were packing the day the shooter showed up, my guess is a lot fewer people get shot.

how many dead this time?