I'm interested to see where we go with smart guns... A gun that recognizes and submits only to its owner and the geographical areas that it's licensed. Just don't build it on a Windows OS.
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Time to shut down the NRA
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And what's up with all the hype about banning assault rifles? It's pretty easy to reload a pump action shotgun. Shotgun shells cause more devastating injuries than a .223 Bushmaster at close range.
Mossberg 590 pump action.....deadlier than the Bushmaster at close range:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emRtZMgIAf0
***This gun fires like a machine gun but it isn't. It's semi-automatic and because of the sliding stock design working with the recoil, it shoots just as fast as a machine gun. 100% legal to own or purchase!!!
**check it out this redneck girl doing the demo...must see:
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Yo, my comment doesn't pertain in any way to whether our nuclear attacks were strategically effective or necessary. You are not alone in your opinion, although it's not one I happen to share, and I'm hardly alone in mine, either. My argument is about violence and a strange inverse relation in awareness. A death toll of 400,000 -- in two incidents and their lingering after-effects -- is not something to be forgotten, no matter why and to what purpose it occurred. You're quite right; most Americans know little or nothing about Dresden and Tokyo in the same war, in which many thousands of (if not nearly as many) people were essentially murdered.
My point is simply that, first, about all of these incidents Americans are oddly remiss in their awareness and that, second, extraordinary violence being part and parcel of our cultural heritage, we have should have little expectancy that similar patterns of aggression wouldn't frequently, too frequently, preempt reasonability at the scale of our personal lives. Out of curiosity I just asked ten people at my local farmer's market if they could tell me what significant events happened on August 6th and 9th, 1945. None answered correctly.
That's not science, admittedly; but it is interesting. (Even more interesting is that one person to whom I gave the answer "Those were the dates of our two nuclear attacks" responded, "That's not true -- nuclear weapons have never been used in war.")
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Thank you all for posts that are largely genuinely heartfelt, thoughtful, or both. What confuses me even more is the significant drop in some kinds of violence and other crimes in states with concealed carry laws. Yes that could be a statistical fluke but unlikely as the pattern repeats in states as they adopt concealed carry. Does that mean we should arm kindergarten teachers? Makes my head spin.
The NRA is lying very, very low right now. Good move on their part. -
"I know that its cliche but if its illegal to own guns only people who shouldn't have them will have them"
yes, that is The standard canard of the gun lobby.
Of course anyone can counter that by pointing out that if you make it as hard as possible to get a gun, and make a concerted effort to confiscate many types of guns, then eventually the problem will lessen.
Here are some other standard gun lobby canards:
"It's too soon to talk about this"
Said when people want to talk about gun control after a massacre.
Of course they don't want to talk about it later either and bribe, intimidate and outright threaten anyone who tries to talk about it."If only the people at the school were armed they would have stopped him."
Said when the gun lobby promotes more guns as a solution. Of course they don't say who is going to carry the guns, who is going to train ALL the school staff in combat gun, use, and keep them trained, and who will pay for all that. Of course they don't want to talk at all about the wholesale extra carnage that would happen if suddenly multiple people were shooting all over the place - Ask anyone in law enforcement or the military how quickly things get confusing when the shooting starts - even for professionals."we need to know all the facts"
Not really. Only two - there was a shooter and he had gun(s). period.
then the only thing to talk about is how do you prevent a shooter from getting guns.
That means, in part, gun control.
Our existing gun "control" is obviously ineffective - virtually anyone can get a gun of almost any type.The method now is one of two ways:
1) Go to a dealer, fill out a form, they do a cursory background check (any convictions? No? good to go - in others words, nothing meaningful). Wait a few days 10 I think). get the gun.2) look on various types of classified ads, go to a gun show or "someone you know." Buy a gun. Done. No paperwork, no background checks.
Effective registration has to include ALL gun sales, involve a very extensive background check - including meeting with local law enforcement, contacting acquaintances, etc. Make it tough and make it exhaustive. It should be more like most states concealed weapons permits - a need to have a particular gun.
Second, many types of guns should simply not be available - like semi-auto weapons (any type). They are far to easy to use and, lets face it, have only one purpose.
"People need to protect themselves"
From what? the fact is that violence in general is going down all over.
Not only that, but MOST killers kill people they know - a relative usually.
Kids are 40X more likely to be killed by guns outside of school - by a relative or "friend."
The simple presence of a gun in the house greatly raises the probability that someone in the house will be killed by that gun.
Unlimiited access to guns makes households LESS safe, not more safe.it goes on and on but when fully explored these reasons fall apart. For the vast majority of cases it's all nonsense.
"The stone age didn't end because the earth ran out of stones, and the oil age won't end because the earth runs out of oil" -- Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute, rmi.org -
Yo Mike, you talk about the losses we might have incurred attacking the island of Japan. I've heard it might have cost us 200,000 lives, all in our military. For this country, 200,000 lives sounds unimaginable. But in the contest of world war? It's not peanuts but note: Russia lost 8,000,000 military. That was 1/3 of their total losses. I do not know the French, English or Canadian losses. China's and the southeast Asian losses were huge. And I might note, in the US collective mindset, one US death is more noteworthy than 100 deaths elsewhere at our hands.
Killing an unarmed civilian to potentially save the life of one of our military is a concept I find chilling. I know it is a standard concept in this country. We do it now on a regular basis with drones. I'm sure, if the numbers of deaths from drones were tabulated, we would see mostly civilian, a few militants and no US military deaths. And when I was draft age, we thought nothing of firebombing villages of the country we were there to protect so the sons of those village would have no home to return to. (You might remember the photo of the naked 12 year old girl fleeing napalm.)
Just in my lifetime, we have killed civilians in both North and South Vietnam, Iraq (and an Iranian airliner), Afghanistan and Pakistan. I'll grant that a citizen of a "friendly", Saudi Arabia who lived in first Afghanistan, then Pakistan did kill ~3000 US citizens. Hence I suppose we can argue the 100,000 civilian deaths and massive damage to infrastructure in Afghanistan was justifies.
The flip side of all this is that we are so prone to violence that it takes very little to push our buttons and get us to do very stupid things. Just ask that guy who is probably laughing in his watery grave right now, Mr. bin Laden. All he had to do was recruit a couple dozen young men, spend a few thousand dollars in flying lessons and buy a few airline tickets and box cutters. Because of our trigger-happy response, we now are in massive debt, are far less safe when were travel the rest of the world and can call far fewer nations friends.
I guess the positive take on all this is that we are consistent. We practice on a world level what we both preach and practice at home. Now if I could only stretch my mind into thinking that is good.
Ben
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Joe Manchin of WV appears to be taking a leadership role on the issue. We all know how wild and liberal WV is. As a life-long member of the NRA he's the only kind of voice that could initiate change on gun policy. Let's hope that he is sincere.
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436 murders in Chicago this year. Pretty sure they have strict gun control laws. Check the family structure and you will find your answers.
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A word on school security.
I work at a gov't facility. Before 9/11 I could just walk through the front doors, flash my ID and get on the elevator. One floor was "secured" because the Army has staff on that particular floor.
Post 9/11 there are three armed guards in the foyer. They must see your ID and then your ID (now chipped) is used to open electronic turn styles. Once you get to your floor, you again have to use your chipped ID to open the door to the actual work space.
I think the federal gov't could come up off of one security officer per gov't installation in order to have security at all schools. One armed guard per school it totally feasible.
It is his word versus ours. We like our word. We like where we stand and we like our credibility."--Lance Armstrong. -
KR - glad to see someone bring up school security. Not hearing the media or any of the talking heads, ours included, addressing the issue of 'soft targets'. I'm not about to divulge too much information but the term soft target is well understood in the security and defense industries.
It should be noted that all of the mass shootings being discussed herein have been soft targets for a reason. They are incredibly easy to infiltrate, numerous approach angles, little to no security or alarms to announce the threat.
Interesting too that the media and talking heads have yet to mention that the break-in did not set off an alarm. No on-site security personnel were electronically advised on the intrusion. No automatic call to the local police. Or to the school officials, one or more of whom could have been properly trained in the use of defensive / tactical weapons, like a Spas-12 or a simple Browning BPS with tactical light, who could have confronted the intruder, now shooter, well in adnvance of any LLEOs.
I do agree that it would not take much at all in the way of enhanced, read ANY, security at most schools to almost completely ellimate this threat. All without reducing anyone's constitutional rights.
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JPouchet: "...Or to the school officials, one or more of whom could have been properly trained in the use of defensive / tactical weapons, like a Spas-12 "
Yes, this is a favorite canard of the gun lobby - give teachers guns and they will stop the intruder. Maybe. Maybe not.
First, of course, you need to train someone to use it, how to be "tactical" and then keep them trained - ie, go do tactical drills on a regular basis. And it has to be more than one person and more than one gun. Probably the majority of personnel because you simply do not know the route of entry. Most schools are wide open. And where is the gun(s) kept? Locked up? In any case, by the time the get the gun(s) out, figure out what is going on, and confront the intruder, most of the damage is done. Plus someone starts firing at the intruder, where is everyone else? Probably on the other side of the inturder.
Second: Who pays for that? I suggest at LEAST 100% tax on all guns and ammo. In fact a huge tax is a good idea anyway.
Third: Try recruiting a teacher and tell them, oh, by the way we will send you to combat training, and you will be the first line of defense. Some may do it, some may not. Not sure about the "secretary" who handles the office - who is almost always the first in line when entering a building by the front door.
Fourth: if you have a security guard, that again is basically the "first killed" position. An attacker has the element of surprize and even professionals are very often the ones surprized.
Fifth: A determined attacker can always find ways around these things. The person is always local, knows the target, and most likely knows how to get around in the target. In this case the doors were locked, they specificlly refused the guy entrance and he found a way to break in. He then fired HUNDREDS of rounds in less than 20 minutes.
These are just arguments off the top of my head in about one minute. I'm sure a professional in security could come up with more problems with this scenario.
Don't get me wrong, All are suggestions to consider, but it assumes schools will become armed camps. Is that our course now?
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JP, a Spas-12...in a K-4 school? C'mon man.
C2K_Rider, I don't think a single security guard is a bad idea.
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C2K - appreciate the input, some interesting items.
Where was the alarm system? Why is it we have intrusion/burgular alarms on all manners of commercial buildings but not public buildings? Answer - the public does not have the legal right to sue the government for failure to protect.
Your commentary on the issues of a 'locked gun' are the same ones law abiding individuals must contend with as 'gun control' proponents attempt to restrict the lawful ownership, use, and access to guns for self defense.
Paying for security? Again the basic alarm system should be standard in the building design. Why hasn't the public insisted on such a simple security measure? We have them at home, the banks, most shopping malls, etc. Very low cost and part of business as usual.
Tax on ammo and guns? Plenty already in place. Would I as a shooter pay more in taxes for added school security? Perhaps. But having seen countless 'save our schools' taxes merely end up in the general fund as politicians beg, borrow, and rob our funds, I'd prefer to see another vehicle used. One that is more socially pervassive.
Trained school personnel? Show me one single school with more than 500 students in this country that does not have anyone, not a single person, on the staff with at least four-years of military experience. No doubt there may be a few. The point is we spend a lot of time and money training young men and women to protect and serve this country. We then bring them home from and kick them to the curb. Let's recapture some of that valuable experience in the form of teachers with role-model experience, a sense of leadership, ethics, and responsibility, AND the training required along with the security background check(s) to properly protect our children.
Security and military personnel(direct, para, and professional)understand the nature of soft targets. So do the bad guys. They know that it is much easier to break into a building, house, facility, business, etc. when you know that you are not likely to meet with armed resistance. Note, armed need not mean guns. Consider that you haven't seen too many mass murders in butcher shops, sporting goods stores, wood working facilities, saw mills, lumber yards, etc. Why? Because the bad guys, unless total idiots and there are theories that those who are serial and/or mass murderers or terrorists, have a reasnable if not higher than normal degree of intelligence and know how to pick their targets for 1, ease of access, 2, first two-minute certainty of no retailitory strike, and 3, maximum impact. (I'll leave this discussion there as above is generally publically available information.)
As to saving lives: in the days since this mass murder took place, at the hands of a person who was totally intent on breaking not one law but countless laws of mankind inclussive of the social contract that we just do not harm children, well more people have died at the hands of motor vehicle operators since that day and yet we have not heard a word of that from the media.
If we truly want to save lives we would all be a lot safer if we completely banned, in the following order of significance, smoking, drinking, and all motor vehicles. If we as a society are genuine in our concerns for saving lives we would start with the items that have the largest impact. Guns are way down the list according to the CDC, FBI, and WHO. Why even 'oppressive governments' kill more people each year. The media fixates on violence while almost totally ignoring more pervasive, yet somehow socially 'acceptable' loss of life.
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KR - just seeing who was paying attention. Agree - way over the top! A single BPS or auto-five, or any other shotgun with the full five-round capacity and #00 - #4 shot would have done the trick.
I'm for pulling a few of those TSA people out of the airports and repositining them within the schools. Way too many TSA people in the airports!
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I'm open to all discussion. But remember that you can't predict the next target. There is a very, very low probability any particular school would be attacked so exteme security means massive cost for little effect. But, if you can find the money, go for it. And what about movie theaters, office buildings, malls (the latter two which often HAVE armed guards already!).
Actually most schools are on alarm systems that are monitored 24/7. My wifes school is on Sonitrol and if she does not log in when she goes in after hours a cop comes out. And it is an audio system so they can hear everything going on in all the rooms at the school all the time. I have no idea what Sandy Hook school has. In fact a place I once worked in had sonitorl and I made a mistake logging in one day and only a few minutes later had a copy outside the door.
As I alluded, some school workers may be quite willing to take on the role of armed defender. But the attacker will still always have the advantage. And, of coure, after going years and years without an attack, the "defenders" will be less vigilant.
IMHO extremely strict gun control has to be a large part of the equation to severly limit the number of guns available and make it as difficult as possible for nutjobs to get guns.
In fact, there are only two parts of the equation: A killer and a gun; guns are exactly one half of the problem. If we don't tackle that half, anything else will be ineffective. That is the fatal flaw in the gun lobby arguement. The want to pretend that if EVERYONE has a gun we will all be safe. The truth is the exact opposite.
Extremely onerous registration should be the norm. not just simple arrest record check, but interviews of the registrant and people who know them. Honest people with good intentions won't be bothered by that process and will understand the value of it.
A huge tax has to be on the table. Statistically you can show that for every dollar of increased price a certain number of people will not buy the gun. I say make guns and ammo VERY VERY expensive and deter as many as possible from getting guns. Make the gun fanatics pay for the security they say they want us to have to protect us from them. I really don't care one bit about some gun fanatics gun fetish and what it would cost them to comply. They are a minority. We are the majority. We should make the rules, not them. If they truly believe that they require a gun to defend themselve then they will pay any price for it. I say take advantage of their irrational fear and charge them like crazy.
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The principal who was killed had just installed a buzzer system this school year, so something WAS in place.
Apparently the shooter got through that. Which is why I think a human whose sole job is security would have been better. There are security forces is lots of inner city schools.
It would be a better use of money than all these wars my tax dollars are paying for, that is for sure.
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JPouchet: "If we truly want to save lives we would all be a lot safer if we completely banned, in the following order of significance, smoking, drinking, and all motor vehicles. If we as a society are genuine in our concerns for saving lives we would start with the items that have the largest impact. Guns are way down the list according to the CDC, FBI, and WHO. Why even 'oppressive governments' kill more people each year. The media fixates on violence while almost totally ignoring more pervasive, yet somehow socially 'acceptable' loss of life. "
Yes, agreed, but another canard.
All those are VOLUNTARY risks taken by people who supposedly understand the risk to themselves (though not always the probability and magnitude). Plus all the medical ones are SLOW killers. And with autos mass killing is usually some accident where someone drives into a crowd accidently.
No one (well, almost no one) asks someone to shoot them (a cop I heard once said "don't tell a person with a gun to shoot you. They'll do it!").
Plus the societal damage by gun homicide is far greater than by car crashes, illness. Etc. People can accept "accidents" or illness, but they have a much harder time acceptin murder. Families breakup after murders in the family, even if it was an outsider doing the killing.
From CDC stats:
All homicides
Number of deaths: 16,799
Deaths per 100,000 population: 5.5
Cause of death rank: 15Firearm homicides
Number of deaths: 11,493
Deaths per 100,000 population: 3.7I'd bet most of those homicides by gun would not have been homicides at all if a gun was not available.
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Keith Richards: It would be a better use of money than all these wars my tax dollars are paying for, that is for sure.
+1 with a minor correction:
It would be a better use of money than all these wars my children and grandchildren's tax dollars will be paying for, that is for sure.
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"Every day eight kids under 20-years-old die from gun violence in America. That's 56 kids a week, 340 kids a month and over 3,000 kids every year. In fact you could fill Fenway Park three times over with the 110,000 children killed by guns in the U.S. over the past 30 years!
We can't continue to blame yet another horrific and all too common mass shooting of innocent children on mental illness, video games, violent films, evil in our society and every other excuse except the continued insane public policy of allowing unrestricted access to military style assault weapons with high capacity ammunition clips and easily concealed handguns.
Gun violence in America is out of control. Every day 150 Americans are shot and 83 (including eight children) are killed by firearms. Every year an average of 30,000 Americans die from firearms. Since former Congresswomen Gabby Giffords and others were shot in Tucson, AZ (Jan. 2011) there have been over 65 mass shootings in America -- three every month. Since 1970 over 1.4 million Americans have been killed with firearms -- more than all U.S. service men and women killed in all foreign wars combined."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-rosenthal/enough-dead-children-from_b_2307169.html
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There are no easy answers. For that matter the questions are not even well defined. And the law of unintended consequences is always bound to raise its ugly head. Speaking of heads, I just read where a man in Florida grabbed his hammer, walked up behind his neighbor, and struck his neighbor repeatedly in the head and neck until dead. Those intent on taking a life will always find the means. Goes back to Genesis.
Knowing our culture, demographics, and the ever changing makeup of our social fabric the US is rapidly looking more like our Americas neighbors to the South and a lot less like our cousins to the North or across the pond in the EU. Therefore we should take a look at how well gun control is working in those regions.
Mexico, a land with extremely strict gun control laws, regulations, and polices, yet a murder rate by firearms that significantly exceeds that of the US. Even the non-firearm murder rate exceeds the US murder rate for all categories.
Brazil, Columbia? Or perhaps we can look to China with total government control of firearms yet still tens of thousands of people are murdered (definition therein subject to debate) each year, statistics on firearms difficult to ascertain.
Maybe we look to Sub Sahara Africa where the murder rates greatly exceed 3 -5 X the US and weapons of choice range from guns to knives, the previously mentioned machetes, bats, pick-axes, and just about anything one can imagine grabbing, holding, and striking another human with.
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/mexico-s-violent-murder-rate-more-twice-usa
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The gun control ship has sailed. The cat is out of the bag and the bag has been recycled. There are some 3 guns out there for every man, woman and child in the US. Even if we immediately stopped selling guns, period, to anyone, there are still plenty around and available. If they're taken care of, they last for centuries- I have a 95-year old shotgun that I hunted with just Saturday.
I'm afraid the violence ship is well out to sea, too. Mass shootings are going to be a way of life for the foreseeable future.
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Sorry, *one* gun for every man, woman, child. Had my fact wrong...
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JP, Mexico and Colombia are poor examples. We subsidize cartels in both countries with our drug use. US made weapons are funneled to the Mexican cartels from US gun stores. In both those countries, law and order has been completely overwhelmed by US funded underworlds. (US as in this country's drug buying citizens, not our government.)
Ben
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A follow-up to my post on Saturday: My son and I attended the local gun & knife show here in Raleigh on Saturday. We purchased a Mossberg 702 Plinkster .22 (w/ scope), soft case and 500 rounds. Yes, it is under lock and key. The hand gun purchase will have to wait, since I have to schedule the firearms safety & training course, which I need to work around my "other" shooting schedule.
My impressions of the show are it was well-attended and attracted a cross section of the population in this area. A neighbor of mine who was a vendor (Victorinox/Swiss Army knives) at the show, had pretty good sales.
Life is too short to be small. - Disraeli
So, why not be petty? - The Short White Guy™ -
the last thing we need is to arm teachers. Grown up around guns all my life and having a gun in my classroom is an accident waiting to happen. I don't even want to think about having someone in charge of a gun in a room with kids and with less training and knowledge than me(that would be most teachers). Teachers at my school can't even keep up with their keys.
Änybody see my Glock? I think I left it by the water fountain.
Johnny, go take this to Mr. Smith. He left it in the lounge. Oh, be careful, it's loaded.
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