Tragedies in Two Schools

Originally posted by normbenign
No concrete suggestions? You do realize that there are millions of guns, and gun owners who are going to resist. What do you propose, and how?

If Ireland could ban smoking in its pubs, anything is possible.

Why do I have to sit here and produce legislation for you? Look up the proposals yourself, you lazy sod. There are all sorts of constructive proposals to be found on this newfangled Inter-net thingy. And if you have doubts as to the workability of the proposals, look at countries that serve as working models.

Originally posted by Soothfast
Greater gun controls is the practical suggestion. Kind of obvious, though, so I didn't think it needed explicit mention.

EDIT: Imbecile. 😉

2nd EDIT: No straw men here. Eladar did suggest putting guns into schools (i.e. into the hands of the teachers) as a solution.

Greater gun controls, but you hardly know what gun controls are already in effect. A college kid name caller. Real mature.

Wait until you actually stare down the barrel of a gun held by a criminal, or a government goon who hates you. What are you going to do then? What name are you going to call that person? Or will you quietly piss your pants and beg for your life?

Originally posted by normbenign
Greater gun controls, but you hardly know what gun controls are already in effect. A college kid name caller. Real mature.

Wait until you actually stare down the barrel of a gun held by a criminal, or a government goon who hates you. What are you going to do then? What name are you going to call that person? Or will you quietly piss your pants and beg for your life?

Your second paragraph is pure piss and hysterical, so I'll ignore it.

As to greater gun controls, I already mentioned on this forum today a couple. Ban semi-automatic weapons for starters, and also ban magazines that can hold more than 20 rounds of ammunition. There you go. Your latest issue of Soldier of Fortune magazine you can keep.

Originally posted by Soothfast
Your second paragraph is pure piss and hysterical, so I'll ignore it.

As to greater gun controls, I already mentioned on this forum today a couple. Ban semi-automatic weapons for starters, and also ban magazines that can hold more than 20 rounds of ammunition. There you go. Your latest issue of Soldier of Fortune magazine you can keep.

I'll take it you've never enjoyed the privilege of being assaulted or threatened. OK. Naivety is great.

So you actually think that semi automatic weapons are the boogie man. I can get very close to as many shots downrange aimed, with a nice smooth lever gun, and a six shooter revolver as you can with a semi auto. I might beat you if you're the nerd I think you are.

Not only that, but the lever gun can be "topped off" before running dry.
If you must have a magazine fed weapon, 15 round magazines will do fine. Makes the rifle more maneuverable, lighter, more reliable, and more accurate.

Next suggestion. And enjoy Camp Fema.

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

The post that was quoted here has been removed

The trouble is that "shoulds" don't always apply. We should not need to worry about criminal assaults, but I recently read that much of the Washington, DC Metro is off limits for white people who don't wish to be assaulted.

More or better trained cops, doesn't seem to be a very good answer. Some of the most heavily policed cities in the world also have very high crime rates, and it doesn't matter much if you get bludgeoned or stabbed to death or shot.

Where I live in a Detroit suburb, a call to police about a barking dog gets a response in less than five minutes. In the city proper, a shooting or man with a gun report may get responded to in 45 minutes.

Many places in rural America, the county sheriff's office may be 30-40 miles away. At night, sometimes on officer is on duty. In some places on this planet, there is no law enforcement or government, or that government is what you fear may be rolling your way when you hear the sound of a motorized convoy.

Originally posted by Soothfast
Fortunately the educated public disagrees.

Some of the educated public. And as you lefties like to say, the educated majority used to approve of slavery.

Originally posted by normbenign
No concrete suggestions? You do realize that there are millions of guns, and gun owners who are going to resist. What do you propose, and how?

for a start one could try outlawing the manufacture and importing of weapons and ammunition not for use by the military, law enforcement or people who can demonstrate they have a need to hunt animals for their own survival. Also tax the living daylights out of any re-seller of gun types not mentioned in the above - motivate them to find a more profitable business. I.e. stem the inflow of more guns/ammunition into a system that has too many of them already.

Dealing with the existing guns would too require harsh clamp downs but the above is probably easier to start with.

Originally posted by normbenign
Some of the educated public. And as you lefties like to say, the educated majority used to approve of slavery.

You're firing blanks tonight, Norm.

There's an even older saying: "Those who live by the sword die by the sword."

In the Wild West people carried guns around all the time. Quite a few of them died young. Personally I don't give a rat's ass how good you are with your pop guns or whatever else passes for a hobby in Normistan. If you're packin' whilst walking down the street one day and someone comes up behind you and demands your wallet, you know what you're going to do? You're going to reach in your pocket....and pull out....

....your freakin' wallet. And hand it over.

Because in the real world a criminal is going to come at you from out of nowhere and get the drop on you. You won't have time to do your Conservative Superman Quick Draw. You won't.

Originally posted by normbenign

So you actually think that semi automatic weapons are the boogie man. I can get very close to as many shots downrange aimed, with a nice smooth lever gun, and a six shooter revolver as you can with a semi auto. I might beat you if you're the nerd I think you are.

Semi-automatic weapons make it easy for the disgruntled Goth kid to make world headlines on a whim. Without them available, it would take someone obsessed with guns -- say, someone who practices with guns as often as Norm drinks at Cheers -- to make as much headway in a shooting spree.

So yes, removing semi-automatics from the picture would raise the bar for the aspiring mass shooter. You shouldn't need them to hunt, right? And they're surely not necessary to defend a home. And if the U.S. government was gunning for you, you could have a tank on a hill in Idaho and you'd fail to carry the day. So ban them. Absolutely.

Originally posted by Soothfast
Your second paragraph is pure piss and hysterical, so I'll ignore it.

As to greater gun controls, I already mentioned on this forum today a couple. Ban semi-automatic weapons for starters, and also ban magazines that can hold more than 20 rounds of ammunition. There you go. Your latest issue of Soldier of Fortune magazine you can keep.

And your hypothetical 13-year-old daughter being raped and forced to have a child is not?

You're not the person to be calling anyone hysterical.

Originally posted by Soothfast
Semi-automatic weapons make it easy for the disgruntled Goth kid to make world headlines on a whim. Without them available, it would take someone obsessed with guns -- say, someone who practices with guns as often as Norm drinks at Cheers -- to make as much headway in a shooting spree.

So yes, removing semi-automatics from the picture would raise the b ...[text shortened]... ld have a tank on a hill in Idaho and you'd fail to carry the day. So ban them. Absolutely.

So you'll ban semiautomatic weapons, but you'll leave in place a double-barreled shotgun, which I can saw off. And then load .00 buck into - which, let's be clear - is 18 .32 caliber pellets going downrange with one trigger pull. The spread pattern on a sawed off shotgun is 9 feet at 9 feet, don't have my calculator but something like 22 feet at 15 feet. One trigger pull, and just as concealable. By the way, .00 buck will go through two walls. With a pump action shotgun, perfectly legal for hunting, most guns can store 5 rounds. With .00 buck, that's 45 rounds going downrange in a matter of seconds.

Far more devestating and effective. You'll leave me my shotgun though, right?

Don't you get it? Sometimes evil people do evil things. Anybody can walk into a supermarket, spend about $7, and make enough mustard gas to kill or maim hundreds of people. It's a lot cheaper than a gun, untraceable, and hell, you stand a 50-50 chance of getting away with it. Guns are a convenient excuse, and people who support the 2Nd Amendment are easily derided as warmongers. The fact is, this country could be gun free and that psychopath would have figured out a way to do what he did.

Originally posted by moon1969
Hopefully, one good thing that will come out of this is increased gun control and bans on guns.

That won't help -- literally it would do nothing. Someone who is willing to die and wants to take others with them will find a way. If you ban guns, then these maniacs will strap bombs to their bodies and blow themselves up in a classroom. What will you ban then that isn't already banned?

Rather than using a tragedy to advance a political agenda wrt guns, the real question is, what psychological profile is on the rise such that these incidents -- though rare -- are becoming more common? We need to be discussing earlier diagnosis of mental illness, not gun bans.

Originally posted by sasquatch672
And your hypothetical 13-year-old daughter being raped and forced to have a child is not?

You're not the person to be calling anyone hysterical.

You're confused again, grandpa. Take it up with Moon.

But I happen to agree with Moon's position on the issue you mention, so I'll take up the gauntlet. If a 13-year-old is raped, gets pregnant, and does not want the child, then it is the right of the 13-year-old to obtain an abortion. By getting that abortion no living person is harmed. (The zygote, meanwhile, has no personality and therefore is not a person.) This is not hysterical, it's just being on the side of personal choice.

As to Norm's NRA Fantasia of my being confronted by The Boogeyman and not having a boom-stick that I can whip out of my pantaloons and employ to blow away The Forces Of Evil in a hailstorm of hot lead (is that what we're talking about here?), I honestly don't know what the issue is. If I don't feel the need to pack everywhere I go (which isn't legal anyway), so what? My decision, and so once again I'm on the side of personal choice. As for Norm and his choices, I'm not taking the position that all firearms must be banned. I repeat: I'm not after Norm's right to have a gun. But I am advocating banning any weapons that clearly only have military applications, as opposed to hunting, home defense, and skeet shootin' 'round about the ol' trailer park.

Actually, what is your point?

Originally posted by sasquatch672
So you'll ban semiautomatic weapons, but you'll leave in place a double-barreled shotgun, which I can saw off. And then load .00 buck into - which, let's be clear - is 18 .32 caliber pellets going downrange with one trigger pull. The spread pattern on a sawed off shotgun is 9 feet at 9 feet, don't have my calculator but something like 22 feet at 15 fe ...[text shortened]... ry could be gun free and that psychopath would have figured out a way to do what he did.

What is it with gun nuts and Elementary Reading Comprehension 001? You really don't get it? It's all integral signs and double summations that just seem like so much Greek to you? Semiautomatic weapons have a much greater capacity for prolonged mass mayhem than, yes, even a sawed-off shotgun. After 5 rounds, then, you have to reload, whereas with semiautomatics you can pop off 50 or 100 rounds with precision. If sawed-off shotguns were better for mass shootings you'd think mass shooters would choose them over the alternatives, and you'd think the military would use them instead of what they got.

So here's the point: banning semiautomatic weapons and other weapons designed for military applications stands a very good chance of reducing the number of deaths from mass shootings in the U.S. It won't fix the problem, but it will reduce the problem -- and all while letting gun nuts still have their bloody guns. A lot of mayhem can still be done with a regular handgun or modified rifle, which is why it's recognized that banning military weaponry is not going to completely eliminate the problem of mass killing sprees, but attaining utopia is not the goal. Basic household chemicals can be used to make some very potent explosives, but clearly we cannot ban ammonia, bleach, and other products.

There is no good reason for military weapons to be legal in the U.S. It's as simple as that.

Originally posted by spruce112358
That won't help -- literally it would do nothing. Someone who is willing to die and wants to take others with them will find a way.

Maybe. And maybe not. A lot of people who go on killing sprees are mentally ill or loners, and may not quite have the marbles to arrange for an illegal shipment from the underworld. Or during their efforts to requisition an illegal semiautomatic firearm they may reconsider their plan or get nabbed by the authorities. Unless they're ex-military they'll have a harder time training adequately with the firearm since presumably reputable firing ranges wouldn't permit the use of illegal weapons on their property. Seeing as weapons made specially for military purposes have no useful purpose in civilian life, it sure can't hurt to put a ban in effect.