OT: Gun Control / School Shootings what would you do if you could?

[ckDOG]

Why? Nobody except fringe is arguing for that.

Let's say we ban all guns. Now what?

That's about at useful and realistic as the other fringe take of "this calls for more weapons!"

We have to meet in the middle somewhere and get these dumbass extreme takes out of influencing mainstream debate and policy making.

 

[BossDawg78]

Has a civilian ever been helped by owning an AR 15? I just dont get what we gain there. What is the point of owning one? Has anyone ever been like “damn. Glad I had my AR 15 or I would have never made it out of there?”

What's the point of selling alcohol? Think of all the lives we could save if we banned that. What's the point of selling sports cars or crotch rockets that can go over 200 mph? We could save even more lives if we stopped selling them.

 

[8dog]

That doesn’t make any sense.

 

[BossDawg78]

That doesn’t make any sense.

Makes perfect sense. Evidently you think it doesn't "make sense" to own an AR, so what sense does it make to sell these other items that aren't "necessary" but kill thousands of people every year?

 

[dorndawg]

The countries that don’t have this problem have other problems we don’t have.

And many of those countries hold criminals accountable versus blaming objects or the environment.

We literally have the highest incarceration rate on earth

 

[Ralph Cramden]

One man with a weapon and a pair of balls coulda stopped him dead in his tracks. There was no armed guard at this school and then the cops sat outside for an hour waiting for the tactical border patrol. They even tazed some of the parents to keep them from going in. It's a disgrace and pure cowardice. They should turn in their badges. Gun free zones should be eliminated

 

[harrybollocks]

Yes we do. We have restrictions on the 1st, btw, so having restrictions on the 2nd isn't out of the ordinary. None of those amendments are absolute. We don't let 10-year-olds buy machine guns and ammo at Walmart. FYI, I own three guns.

 

[BELdog]

He bought 2, ArmaLite Rifles (AR-15). That should've registered as odd.

Why? I’ve bought three at a time. With the benefit of hindsight it is odd, it’s not a rarity. I spent a lot of years working in a gun shop and customers buying multiple firearms happens all the time. I can think of several occasions in which I bought multiple firearms at once.

 

[BELdog]

Can’t buy a beer at 18 but can buy an AR and all the ammo you want. Pretty dumb.
Universal Background checks and waiting periods are a start.

We already have background checks and waiting periods don’t do ****.

 

[grinningmule]

Weird how Australia gave up civilian assault weapon ownership and they haven’t had a high body count mass shooting since.

Pretty weird how Australians were forced into COVID internment camps too....

 

[Ernest T]

These murders broke my heart. My wife is a retired teacher and my daughter is currently teaching. This POS went to an elementary school knowing the students wouldn’t be able to stop him. According to the reports I have seen he pass a background check. I really don’t think the type of weapon used in this situation would have really mattered. I think the root cause is the broken family. Every time he pulled the trigger he knew he was breaking the law. He didn’t care. If he didn’t pass a background check why does anyone think he wouldn’t break the law and get a weapon another way.

I really hate what our society is becoming. We will find ways to harden our schools. We will teach our kids how to hide under their desk. There will always be bad people who will find other ways or venues to do bad things. Sadly we will then have to find ways to fortify these next.

The killer had no father a drug addict mother and was staying with his grandmother who I am sure couldn’t handle all his mental issues. He was not loved. He had nothing to live for. He was miserable. He decided to make as many people as miserable as himself.

How do we fix the family unit. Until we fix this these killings will continue to happen.

No law, background check, weapons ban is going to fix this.

 

[harrybollocks]

It's been studied and there's no evidence that violent video games cause people to be violent. The opposite might actually be the case.

"Teach common courtesy. People need to stop acting like animals with no care about fellow humans"
I agree and we actually do and we've had a pretty effective anti-bullying campaign across the country. But, it doesn't work for everyone. Easy access to guns is an issue. Law abiding citizens have easy access to guns and so do psychos willing to shoot up schools or just cause mayhem where they live. Maybe we should rethink that approach. I couldn't buy cold beer when I first got to Starkville. Mississippi is a state that really likes to regulate behavior. You can't even get sudofed, a really old decongestant now generic, without a script. But, there are minor inconveniences for gun purchases.

 

[Ralph Cramden]

There is the root cause

 

[grinningmule]

Has a civilian ever been helped by owning an AR 15? I just dont get what we gain there. What is the point of owning one? Has anyone ever been like “damn. Glad I had my AR 15 or I would have never made it out of there?”

Kyle Rittenhouse comes to mind. I'm sure you would have preferred he was beaten to death in the street by the pedophile and gang of anarchists.

 

[harrybollocks]

"Our windows are bullet proof" doesn't strike me as a great slogan for America's K-12 system. I think we should think of some compromises that might actually reduce the number of mass murders in America. We'll still have them because we're awash in guns and we have a lot of violent people. But, let's figure out how to reduce them and not just blame buildings for being unsafe. That strikes me as sort of similar to just blaming guns only.

 

[paindonthurt]

Yeah incarceration doesn’t necessarily equal tough on crime.

Maybe if our punishment was harsher we’d have less people incarcerated.

 

[harrybollocks]

The countries that don’t have this problem have other problems we don’t have.

And many of those countries hold criminals accountable versus blaming objects or the environment.

Can you name them and some of the specific problems along with the ones that don't blame objects or the environment for criminal behavior? We have about twice as many people in prison as the EU, which has about the same population. We do have more violent people, though.

 

[horshack.sixpack]

The puzzle is why is the AR-15 the gun of choice for mass shootings? Is suspect it is because of low recoil, looks military, has a large magazine, is accurate and easy to use to shoot a bunch of people very quickly. It’s not the look, it’s the function. I could kill with my 9mm but not as accurately or with distance. I could kill with my 22 lr but it wouldn’t be easy to reload, same with my lever action .35 or my revolvers, etc. none of that does anything to change the fact that the AR-15 is a very efficient killer and it is the choice for mass murderers so doing something about rifles of that that function, and maybe even style if that matters, would likely help. I wonder if any of these folks have been interviewed to see why they picked what they picked for the task?

 

[harrybollocks]

Easy access to guns trumps other freedoms for a lot of people

 

[missouridawg]

Im not going to pretend that I know the solution to this problem, but there is something that has rattled around in my head for several years that kinda correlates to this topic.

The most vulnerable and destructive subset of our population is young males. Particularly young males who grow up in ****** homes. We have a **** ton of resources that are specific for women. Specific for racial minorities. I personally think we need to allocate resources more towards young males to get them through high school and into work or college. It is those years between the ages of 12-18 that young males make the decisions that typically shape the rest of their lives. And we, as a society, have to figure out how to help males during this time frame. Society has to fill the gap left by absentee fathers in some way, shape, or form.

Young women, while emotional roller coasters in some instances, largely have their **** together. Their mistakes are largely less destructive in nature. But young males, particularly the ones without father figures, can spiral down quickly and make catastrophically worse decisions because of this. Resource allocation needs to lean towards the most vulnerable and destructive.

 

[horshack.sixpack]

If people begin drunkenly driving crotch rockets to schools to start shooting up children it would be a problem. As it stands I’d like to see more ideas about how to stop school shootings and less unrelated comparisons.

 

[Cooterpoot]

Kids are being told to choose their sex these days, and people wonder why they're 17'd up?

 

[harrybollocks]

Broken homes and broken families are a serious issue (not sure about STD's and their relation to violence). So what public policies should our elected officials support to reduce family instability and reduce the number of divorces and broken families. Paid family leave? Increase the child tax credit? Direct payments to families to allow moms to stay home with kids? You're not getting there by just stressing religion. FYI, God was in the schools when Jim Crow segregated the South. Religion is important, I believe, but religious people have also done some pretty shameful things in the past that we no longer believe are morally acceptable.

 

[CookieMonster.sixpack]

Ranking deaths per capita is a bad metric as the article notes:

[FONT=&quot]For example, Norway’s world-leading annual rate was due to a single devastating 2011 event, in which far-right extremist Anders Behring Breivik gunned down 69 people at a summer camp on the island of Utøya. Norway had zero mass shootings in 2009, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015.[/FONT]

No one dies from earthquakes in Haiti if you just ignore the one that killed thousands of people in 2012. That’s bad faith statistics my man.

 

[mstateglfr]

Kyle Rittenhouse comes to mind. I'm sure you would have preferred he was beaten to death in the street by the pedophile and gang of anarchists.

If he wasn't armed, do you think he would have been focused on by others? Based in so many others being left alone, I think he would have been left alone.
And since he had a large weapon to easily grab, it could be argued that a handgun would have helped keep his weapon from being wrestled with.


Regardless, your example sucks. Using Rittenhouse as a poster for gun safety and needing to carry an AR is just so on point for SPS.

 

[mstateglfr]

In the time it took to read this thread 20 Abortions were performed in the US.

Don't bring that into here. I get it- value life in all forms, but come on. You have to know it is not the same and also that it is a toxic 3rd rail. Apply either to this and just don't force it I to the conversation.
My view on abortion is going to be similar to yours, but I recognize that one is legally murder and the other isn't. For that reason, they are clearly different.

 

[mstateglfr]

Maybe we should do a back ground check on someone buying a SUV. One can kill a **** load of people during a Christmas parade. Crazies will find a way.

An SUV is not designed or intended to kill. Anything can be used as a weapon, bit that doesn't mean all things that could be weapons are equal.

 

[mstateglfr]

Could've just said this. You aren't ever going to convince someone that their family should be less safe for the sake of someone else's family. People who legally and responsibly own guns aren't going to give away the peace of mind they get from having something to protect their family. So anything like that is a non-starter. You're screaming into a hurricane.

Everyone is a legal and responsible gun owner until the moment they misuse the gun.

 

[BELdog]

Has a civilian ever been helped by owning an AR 15? I just dont get what we gain there. What is the point of owning one? Has anyone ever been like “damn. Glad I had my AR 15 or I would have never made it out of there?”

Yes. We’ve helped a lot of farmers by shooting pigs with AR-15s equipped with thermal scopes and suppressors.

 

[grinningmule]

The puzzle is why is the AR-15 the gun of choice for mass shootings? Is suspect it is because of low recoil, looks military, has a large magazine, is accurate and easy to use to shoot a bunch of people very quickly. It’s not the look, it’s the function. I could kill with my 9mm but not as accurately or with distance. I could kill with my 22 lr but it wouldn’t be easy to reload, same with my lever action .35 or my revolvers, etc. none of that does anything to change the fact that the AR-15 is a very efficient killer and it is the choice for mass murderers so doing something about rifles of that that function, and maybe even style if that matters, would likely help. I wonder if any of these folks have been interviewed to see why they picked what they picked for the task?

Probably has something to do with the fact the media and idiot politicians have advertised the AR as some magical killing machine that could have single handled taken down the Death Star.

 

[8dog]

The danger is the frequency. The number of people killed in a mass shooting is a dice roll on each one. Norway is clearly much safer than the US in this regard.

 

[harrybollocks]

"It's similar with me and guitars. I have too many. Do I need all of them and an amplifier that absolutely will make your ears bleed when I'm not even in a band?"

These are the most outrageous and obscene comments in this thread. Of course you need those things.

 

[ronpolk]

Kids are being told to choose their sex these days, and people wonder why they're 17'd up?

Was the shooter a trans kid? I’m failing to see what that has to do with this situation being discussed?

 

[Go Budaw]

But add in there school security and holding criminals responsible.

I just wanna make sure the people agreeing with you agree on both sides of the issues.

In the case of violent criminals, yes I certainly agree. Also agree on school security. I am kind of unsure if either are long term solutions for the mass shooting problem. Psychos who plan to take out a few dozen innocent people before offing themselves don’t tend to be concerned with what their prison sentence might be, and the shooting problem is bigger than just schools.

Nevertheless, both are certainly more common sense things that would do no harm, at a minimum, and would likely help. After all, mass shootings aren’t the only shootings. I’d certainly be on board with both as part of a comprehensive package of reforms in addition to the actual firearm reforms above.

 

[grinningmule]

If he wasn't armed, do you think he would have been focused on by others? Based in so many others being left alone, I think he would have been left alone.
And since he had a large weapon to easily grab, it could be argued that a handgun would have helped keep his weapon from being wrestled with.


Regardless, your example sucks. Using Rittenhouse as a poster for gun safety and needing to carry an AR is just so on point for SPS.

I simply answered the question as it was asked without bloviating. You should learn to do that. Considering everyone in that crowd was a guaranteed leftist and everyone knows that literally no one has a chance against a person armed with the overwhelming and magical firepower of an AR, you could almost say that all of those leftists were quite insane for attacking the kid.

 

[TaleofTwoDogs]

School shootings didn’t start until the mid 90s
The same weapons were available before then.

What has changed?

An absolute breakdown in morality. And you don’t have to be religious/faithful/Christian to see that.

Actually, school shootings have been happening since the 1800's in the US, but generally the shooter had a defined motive for the shooting (i.e., anger against a fellow student or teacher) and the incident was restricted to one or two killings per event. In the 1960's you had the UT Austin massacre with Whitman. In the 70's and 80's you had Stockton, CA with 5 students killed and numerous lessor killings. You are right, things all changed in the 90's with 240 children and adults killed in numerous shootings during the decade. During the 2000's 150 or so were killed during some of the most infamous shootings in our history and unfortunately it has continued to escalate ever since.

One poster mentioned that there is too much hate within these shooters. I think that is wrong, I think it is because these shooters don't feel anything. No remorse, no regret, no emotion. They are without empathy. The one thing that these shooters have in common now and in the past is that almost all of them commit suicide by their own hand or by the police at the end of their act. No regard for life or limb includes their life also. Today's mass social media "anything goes" attitude has weakened the moral fabric of our culture and those with the weakest moral strength fall easy prey and can become your next mass murderer.

Treat the symptoms, but don't forget to treat the disease.

 

[Cooterpoot]

Was the shooter a trans kid? I’m failing to see what that has to do with this situation being discussed?

No, but that kind of ******** leads more, unnecessary ******** for kids that have no business fooling with it. And I've read all these pages and I'm still waiting on a genius like you to solve the problems of the country.
Nobody has an answer for it all. And people saying it's bullying must not realize that **** has been around forever. Now it's automatically a "mental health" issue and kids need "mental health breaks".
Life is 17ing hard. You deal with or you don't and we're making it to easy not to deal with it and make excuses.
Broken homes have been around a long time too.
None of its new. Let me know when you solve it all.

 

[BossDawg78]

If people begin drunkenly driving crotch rockets to schools to start shooting up children it would be a problem. As it stands I’d like to see more ideas about how to stop school shootings and less unrelated comparisons.

Not even close to getting the point there, chief.

 

[BossDawg78]

Was the shooter a trans kid? I’m failing to see what that has to do with this situation being discussed?

There are some pics floating around that's supposed to be him dressed up in women's clothes. It does look like him, but there's no proof that it is him. Could be photoshopped, who knows. Even if it was actually him I'd expect it to be swept under the rug by the media, considering how pushing the LGBTQ agenda is so "important" now.

 

[Pookieray]

I've seen several people responding about background checks? I've purchased several firearms in the past and it seems I've always had to pass a background check. However, what I do not like about it is the fact that it relies on honesty. Maybe if someone is dishonest it pops up but I don't know. Anyway, maybe have to have 2 character witnesses that also have to pass the background check and charge a fee that is non-refundable if any of the 3 don't pass.

Also, minimum of 2 resource officers in every school, one at the only entrance and one that is constantly mobile. Exit doors in every classroom that only open from the inside and classroom doors always locked and only opens from the inside. Any doors that are opened for any reason without the permission of ? without a resource officer present is severly fined and any reoccuring offense jail time. (Does not apply in emergency situation)

And a few volunteer teachers that are armed that have to pass a rigorous competency course 4 times a year. And the teachers are unknown except by those that need to know. Obviously no open carry.