School safety/Gun control now???

[Mattemma]

Been reading in the news about the continued gun laws coming into effect.About the parents of Ben(Sandy Hook victim) reading the weekly presidential address,and last night about the URI incident through the eyes of a student(supposidly) via a TAG article....

http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/20...d-loathing-at-the-university-of-rhode-island/

I am not against useful laws being put into place,but I do not see safety improving due to these laws,which are being passed due to the emotions we have when thinking about the Sandy Hook murders.

Will these new gun restrictions prevent further mass child killings in schools? I just don't see it helping.Slow things down yes,but not stop them.Even if there was the TOTAL removal of guns it would not stop killings.People find a way.

I don't see any law activity when it comes to mental health.Isn't that often the issue? Don't we often say," That person has to be insane to kill all those people for no reason."
Forcing health services,paying for it,stricter punishment/treatment for those in obvious need. The way things are now is a bigger problem than the guns.

I don't see any activity when it comes to the schools. Has your school done anything? Have they trained their staff to handle a person with a gun,bat,knife? Is it still just lock down,hide,and call for help? Schools get upset if you make suggestions.Like somehow if you are thinking about these thing then maybe YOU are a risk.Heck,look at the parents arrested across the country when they prove to their local schools how EASY it is to get at the kids.THEY get arrested,but the school does nothing to change.

The only thing I have seen the governments gun control laws doing is jack up my local gun and ammo prices.Shelves are empty of ammo every week I check.

Honestly I am frustrated.Even if the guns disappear we still have to deal with A LOT of ill and angry people among us who will hurt others.In the end you have to prepare yours children for this.How do you prepare a child when the adults won't prepare for it?

 

[newfoundland]

I wish you could be in my shoes and see this from the position of an outsider. To talk of children being prepared for a possible gun attack on their school is as unreal to me as watching those poor little mites in places like Syria, cowering from the guns and acts of violence that are a daily part of their lives. Surely this is not the future that the people of the US want for their children? It doesn't have to be like this, things can change and be better. Stricter gun control may help. It won't stop every last loser from getting his hands on a gun but it might save even one life. Reducing the showing of violent TV programs, videos and games might help. The refusal of neighbourhoods to accept 'no go' areas and street violence might help. There may be no quick fixes and instant answers but in the fight to secure safety for children as well as other innocent people surely no stone should be left unturned?

 

[Mike Winters]

2 people have been shot dead in new haven, CT like 3 days apart from gang activity last week ... not a **** is given
4 year old kills his 6 year old friend with pistol because his parents were not watching him... media uproar

Gang-bangers drop each other left and right no one sheds a tear, harm the mayor and all of the sudden it's raining fire and brimstone and the world screams for justice. --- Joker, The Dark Knight

i don't remember if that's the quote but its something like that. Pretty much if you harm some one society finds inferior no one cares but hurt or threaten to hurt one person of importance president, mayor, child, police, solider all the sudden the world is on fire

 

[cupman]

I guess this is the daily BYC gun control thread. Is there really anything left to be discussed? Lots are going to beat their chests in anger, a few will disagree, and in a couple days it'll be locked.

 

[Mike Winters]

Standing by never fixes anything ether

 

[conny63malies]

Guns wont dissappear because of gun control. They will still be sold on the streets. Even if the Sandy Hook shooter didnt have gun, what would have kept him from driving his car into a crowd of people or build a bomb. If you want to murder someone there will always be a way....As an example. In Carrollton Ky a drunk guy with a Toyota Hilux drove onto the wrong side of the Interstate, hit a bus and killed 27 people, hurt 34. no gun involved.

 

[russellfarm1]

I agree gun control is going to do nothing

 

[Bear Foot Farm]

Quote: It's been proven many times that "gun control" does not stop crime, any more than "drug control"

Why punish 70 million innocent people because of ONE fool?

 

[Q9]

Here's my own hypothesis regarding gun laws and their effect on violence:

No matter what form gun laws take, they change nothing. Great Britain banned handguns, and its crime went up - but that crime had been going up already. Australia banned guns, and its crime rate went down - but that crime was already on a downward trend. In the U.S., we've had an assault weapons ban (1994), the end of said AWB (2004) and a huge number of changes to gun laws both ways. Crime has been going down consistently the whole time.

Or how about this: Russia, Mexico, and Japan all have total gun bans. Russia and Mexico's crime rates are sky high, Japan's is almost nonexistent.

Half of Switzerland's population owns a gun, but their crime is also almost nonexistent. Even when Great Britain's gun laws were effectively the same as the U.S., my understanding is that they still had a far lower homicide rate as well (Arthur Conan Doyle noted the cultural differences in one of the Sherlock Holmes stories, in fact).

The issue is culture, in my humble opinion, as it seems quite obvious that

a) gun restrictions have no effect on crime, and
b) there is no definitive proof that the presence of guns deters it.

Leaving all Constitutional and rights-based arguments to the side, here are the solely practical reasons I believe that further restrictions won't help.

First - an assault weapons ban would cover weapons used in about one percent of all homicides, give or take a tiny bit. Pistols are the overwhelming weapon of choice for homicides, especially little, low-capacity .22s that almost nobody talks about banning. In other words, it would have no effect on homicides at all.

Second - magazine restrictions would do nothing; AR and AK magazines are quick to change, and pistol magazines can be swapped in about a second with a little practice. Also, at Newtown we know the shooter changed magazines multiple times when they were only half empty.

Third - Chicago, NYC, and Washington, DC. All of them have absurdly high homicide rates, yet they have for all practical purposes banned guns.

Fourth - the border. The cartels do not get their automatics from the U.S., I can assure you. Those folks in NM, TX, and AZ down by the border have an immediate need for weapons like AR-15s and AK-47s.

Fifth - universal background checks are completely unenforceable. Let's say they were required. Then let's say I sell my .30-30 to a friend without doing it. Nobody knows. Criminals and their contacts will certainly not care about adding one more felony (it's already a crime to sell to someone who's not allowed to own a firearm).

Sixth - the "if it saves just one life" argument doesn't hold water. We could also save lives by mechanically restricting civilian vehicles to 40 mph, but nobody suggests that. We could save lives by implementing a blatant surveillance state, too - cameras everywhere, scans and searches at the entrance to every building, and so on.


An interesting historical footnote - two major decisions regarding arms were made in the 17th and 18th centuries. In Japan, the Tokugawa Shogunate decided to confiscate and destroy all firearms, leading to a totalitarian police state. In the American colonies some time later, the British Empire decided to confiscate the militia's firearms. This triggered a successful revolution in favor of freedom. I cannot think of a single instance in which a nation has banned firearms yet otherwise consistently increased freedom. It's not all about tyranny, it's also about values - independence, personal responsibility, and freedom or dependence, nanny-statism, and stifling regulation. What a nation says about guns translates into what it says about other freedoms.

"Those who would give up a little liberty for a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Ben Franklin

 

[Bear Foot Farm]