Assault weopen carnage agian?

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Originally Posted by carlmaloschneider

Yeah, Mick, and I do agree about the Biker laws, there's a line and they have crossed it with that one. I just wish for a more loving, safer community for all. Of course I'm simply stating my opinion, and I'm not that arrogant to think I'm always right. In fact, generally, I'm often wrong... I just hate the idea that kids are killed, and i hate the idea that killers can be given an easy way to do it. I know those who want to will find a way, but I'm prepared to give up some tools to make it easy for them...

[ANOTHER EDIT] Also, I like the fact that two guys who I have a bunch of respect for on this forum (Mick and Birnando) 'liked' my post. Thanks. I think it's important to let people know I truly respect them...

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I agree with your opinion, and without actually trying to argue with you here, as you may not have had this tidbit of news down your way, in (unintentional) support of the 'Crims will always get guns' line. Recently we had an incident here, where a man walked up to a protective service officer (They stand out the front of court houses and also act as personal protection agents for dignitaries and such amongst other things), pulled out a claw hammer and clubbed the Officer down to the ground, took the officers gun and decamped. The offender was found a kilometre away, having taken his own life. It could have been so much worse.
As a parent, I really feel for the loss of those young lives, but the focus seems to be on the tool used to take those lives, rather than the 'Tool' who took them, and what is worse still, is that the coward took his own life, denying those grieving parents any sense of justice. It makes me sick at heart that people can do this sort of thing to each other.


Mick

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Originally Posted by pixelfixed

Go to any gun show Glen,hang in the parking lot,deal out of the back of pickups and buy all the full auto AKs,M16s,and uzis your wallet can afford,are all there for the money.

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C'Mon Pixel......This is copy and pasted from the last "discussion" we had here after the Movie theater shooting. It is word for word almost.

IF we're going to debate, it pays to consider what we want to argue :)

In this particular case, the calibres didn't matter. Anything is lethal at that range. Esp when it concerns children.
The type of gun don't matter. if you have a group of childre, that's like shooting fish in a barrel. Not much discussion there.
They weren't his own guns, so gun ownership and gun permits are irrelevant for the point of this discussion.

The major question in my opinion is this: why was a man with known mental problems able to get to his mothers weapons and ammo. Either he knew the combination to the gun safe, or the guns were not in the safe. Either way is a big lapse in judgement on the part of the mother if so.

The man would have had a mental breakdown sooner or later.
The fact that he got his hands on a bunch of weapons and a pile of ammo turned this from a small tragedy into a huge tragedy.

In 1997 there was a school shooting in Pearl MS. I lived in MS at the time. I was stationed in Gulfport. Luke Woodham carried a gun to a middle school and commenced to shoot students. He knew who he was going after. He beat and stabbed his mom to death before he took her car to the school. He stole her car and when he got to the school he shot his x girlfriend and her friend. He used a lever action 30-30. That was it. The vice principal of the school who was also in the MS National Guard at the time recalled that he had a 1911 .45 in his car from a weekend of target practice. He promptly retrieved the pistol and stopped Luke when he was trying to travel to the next target...His high school. The pricipal's question was "why did you shoot my kids?" Luke replied "the world has wronged me Sir". He had more ammo and more targets and the vice principal stopped his murderous rampage. When mass shooting cowards are confronted they stop what they are doing. They more often than not are "nerdy" kids who are exceptionally smart and crazy as a rabid skunk. Look at Columbine, VT, Colo theater shooting, Gabby Giffords shooting, this shooting. There is a link. I think the strongest link is parental involvement. Kids who don't interact with their parents are kids headed for trouble. Klebold and Harris had very wealthy and well to do parents who were detached chasing their career successes. They were not "bullied" they were unattended. The link of this whole "goth" foolishness is there as well. Look at VT, Columbine, CT, theater shooting etc. When your child dresses like a corpse and fascinates themselves with death and self mutilation it may be time to be a parent for crying out loud!!! I believe in allowing kids to express themselves and be individuals trust me. (I grew up as a punk rocker with the associated mohawks and DMs and later moved on to being a skinhead for many years) I am not saying smother and suppress. I am saying be involved. Your children are more important than your career/golf game/country club/kiwanis/rotary club etc!!!!!!!!

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Originally Posted by Bruno

The major question in my opinion is this: why was a man with known mental problems able to get to his mothers weapons and ammo. Either he knew the combination to the gun safe, or the guns were not in the safe. Either way is a big lapse in judgement on the part of the mother if so. .

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A tractor driver from the occupied part of east Jerusalem has launched an attacked on Jaffa Street killing at least 4 people. The man drove the tractor into a bus packed with commuters and then proceeded to drive over a number of vehicles.

More than 36 were injured in the attack. The bus was pushed onto its side in the incident which is being treated as a terrorist attack by Israeli police. One woman was killed when the Toyota car she was driving was completely crushed by the tractor. The driver was shot dead by an off duty soldier.

According to Fox News he held an Israeli identity card despite being of Arab descent and had been an employee of a building site. The death toll is not clear with most TV broadcasters saying 3 were killed while Israeli TV reports have said 4 died in the attack. The incident was brought to TV screens very quickly as it occurred directly outside a building housing most of the international media

Newswatch: Israel - 4 dead after tractor attack

I've been reading this thread and both sides have put up some good arguments but I'd like to chime in with my outsider point of view.

I live in a country with strict gun laws and I think it's crazy that automatic weapons and weapons in general are so relatively easy to obtain in the states.

The law here says that you can only get a firearm if you've got a legitimate use for it, so most weapons here are for hunting and competitive target practice.
Collectors have to deactivate their guns.
Even if you fit this criteria, it's still not easy to get a license.

Fully automatic rifles are overkill for hunting and they're not the best suited for target shooting(even though it'd be fun), so they are very rare outside police and military beacause it's only in extreme special circumstances that a civilian can get one.

Not surprisingly we don't have a lot of gun violence here.


The second amendment was written during a very different era, right after the american revolution and I personally fail to see how it's relevant to modern USA.

The argument that criminals will always get guns is a half true one if you ask me.
If you limit the availability of guns and heavily regulate who can have them with strict rules about safekeeping and use, it will get harder for criminals to get them(it's hard to steal a gun from someone who keeps it locked up in a gun-safe) and I sure as hell don't think you should make it easier for them.

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Originally Posted by EMC45

The vice principal of the school who was also in the MS National Guard at the time recalled that he had a 1911 .45 in his car from a weekend of target practice. He promptly retrieved the pistol and stopped Luke when he was trying to travel to the next target..

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Say it is a sad state of affairs and that is true but if teachers were armed these incidents would have different outcomes ...... if they happened at all.

As a Brit I know that gun control can't stop it, people can get illegal firearms here and would be able to there. However it would make it less likely to happen as they cease being readily available, so when someone flips and goes on a spree they wouldn't have them to hand. Over in the US about 2.98 people per 100,000of the population will be a victim of a gun related murder, per annum, which is about 100 greater than it is in the UK.

Sure its not the gun its the person and there are other ways to attack, but there is a lot less damage that you can do with a kitchen knife, hammer, baseball bat or can of petrol (gas) before you are taken down by members of the public. Anyone seeking to build a bomb, in a premeditated fashion, is also a lot more likely to get caught before the event, as the anti terror police here do a lot more to stop that kind of thing than most of the public are aware of.

The easy availability of guns means that they are available to the good, the bad and the mad. Personally I am glad that I live where they are scarce and I really can't fathom why modern America hasn't moved on in over 2 centuries.

EDIT: I almost forgot the most important bit, my heart goes out to the families of those killed in this horrendous attack. They are in my thoughts and prayers, RIP.

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Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

Say it is a sad state of affairs and that is true but if teachers were armed these incidents would have different outcomes ...... if they happened at all.

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Ummm, well I can also see the time when a teacher is pushed too far and instead of being dismissed for punching a student is prosecuted for shooting them........:rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by scap99

Gun free school zones are targets.
Train and arm the teachers; problem solved.

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I don't usually get involved in these kinds of discussions, but as an actual teacher (and gun owner), I think I need to correct some misconceptions here. Frankly, I get tired of hearing simplistic, uninformed opinions about how to fix education from people who haven't been in a classroom in decades; no offense, gentlemen, it's just a touchy issue for me. I teach 90 seniors a day in a very big suburban high school (just like Columbine, really). Many are bigger (and certainly tougher) than me, which I guess is irrelevant when some nut-job brings a gun into the equation. I'm not saying I know what "the answer" is; in any case, out here in the real world these simplistic platitudes never solve ANY of our country's complex and overwhelming problems...

What I DO know is that if you arm teachers, then they are no longer trusted teachers who have earned a child's respect, but more like prison wardens. Arm teachers, and that hard-earned, often grudgingly-given cooperation will change (especially from teenagers), I guarantee you, into a type of rebellious submission based on fear. I can just hear a student saying: "What are you going to do, shoot me?"

The teacher/student relationship is a complex, ever-changing negotiation based on many subtle factors. Speaking from experience (my 1st 3 years in a very tough school), a teacher who tries to play King of the Hill and runs a class based on fear will rarely if ever be successful. Years ago, after reading (and teaching) Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees, I completely changed the way I manage a classroom (and deal with other people) based on a quote from that book which changed my life: "When you really need something from someone, find a way to have that person give it to you." My discipline problems have almost dropped to nothing since. Dedicated, professional teachers spend years gaining classroom management experience and honing their "reps" as the real deal. In my case (and with most teachers I know), students' grudging respect for me is based on them knowing that I am that "real deal" who knows and loves his subject, is ALWAYS honest and fair (but firm) with them, and am enthusiastically dedicated to their success. Most of my colleagues work this way, and I feel that our school's relative lack of discipline issues (in the type of school that should be overwhelmed by them!) is a direct result of that philosophy. You don't need a degree in psychology to know intuitively that a gun on my hip would negate ALL of that dynamic, and reduce it to that. gun. on. my. hip.

I am not a cop, don't try to make me one! God help me, if this ever happens, I am done teaching. I know from discussing this with my colleagues that many great, conscientious teachers would also refuse to do this. I say that as someone who is a pretty good shot, and who would (I hope) be able to perform under fire if I actually were armed-ironic, isn't it? I'm just certain it would end education as we currently know it, and change it into something I wouldn't want to be a part of...

I know this stance doesn't take us one iota closer to solving the problem of school shootings, but I just think that my favorite on-line community of well-intentioned, thoughtful, and compassionate gentlemen needs to hear from teachers how wrong-headed this line of thinking is. Like many of you, I have watched the story unfolding in horror, thinking of my own boys who used to attend the excellent (and safe?) elementary school down the street.

Thanks for indulging the long post, guys, and I hope I didn't offend. I just got my feathers ruffled about a subject that is very important to me personally. May the residents of NewTown, CT find peace and grace, if possible, this Christmas. Aaron