Possibly another school shooting

"Why do fireworks at a time like this? [It just] doesn't make sense," said Diane Semchek, a Highline College student.

An armed sheriff's deputy tasked with protecting students at a Florida high school waited outside during last week's shooting massacre that killed 17 people inside, law enforcement officials said Thursday.

Scot Peterson, who was assigned to the school as a resource officer, did not enter Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School during the shooting, but instead decided to take position outside the school as the gunman walked the halls, Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said at a news conference.

"He never went in," Israel said.

Does a guy with a pistol stand a chance against a guy with a semi-automatic rifle?

But I thought we were only supposed to do 100% solutions?

both think that some kid would eventually use a school gun for harm rather than good.

Charles

Also a nightmare thinking about getting to the guns in a crisis situation.

. Put metal detectors at all schools that automatically lock the perp inside.

I don't care what law you pass, it will not make a difference in our lifetime and surely won't help the kid I still have in school.

"We have an opportunity in this country not to go down the American path."

...Less than two weeks after the Port Arthur massacre, all six Australian states agreed to enact the same sweeping gun laws banning semi-automatic rifles and shotguns - weapons that can kill many people quickly.

They also put more hurdles between prospective gun owners and their weapons.

Australia has 28-day waiting periods, thorough background checks, and a requirement to present a "justifiable reason" to own a gun.

Unlike in the US, self-protection is not accepted as a justifiable reason to own a gun.

In the 21 years since the laws were passed, about one million semi-automatic weapons - roughly one third of the country's firearms - were sold back to the government and destroyed, nearly halving the number of gun-owning households in Australia.

Although the laws were designed specifically to reduce mass shootings, the rates of homicide and suicide have also come down since 1996.

Philip Alpers, a professor at Sydney School of Public Health, has done studies showing that aside from the victims of the Port Arthur shooting, 69 gun homicides were recorded in 1996 compared with 30 in 2012.

Despite the reduction in incidence though, gun violence has not disappeared in Australia.

Many outlawed firearms have been replaced with legal ones. And nearly 26,000 unregistered guns have been handed back this year in the first national amnesty since the Port Arthur killings.

I can just imagine 23 right-47-left-36 right "click". Meanwhile an AR-15 being discharged at what 100 bullets per minute?

More ink and paper won't change a thing.

These little f*#king turds like the sandy hook and this columbines and the Florida kid need to see real punishments. Not the PC TYPE cell for life sh#t. I’m talking walking the yard everyday getting your ass beat on a regular basis followed up by showers full of ass pounding criminals using them for the ass toy they will always be.

I can just imagine 23 right-47-left-36 right "click". Meanwhile an AR-15 being discharged at what 100 bullets per minute?

Damn, people, WTFU!!!

Interpret the Second Amendment as it was originally intended.

Banning all semi-auto weapons is a non-starter. There are probably over 100 million semi-auto weapons in this country--pistols, shotguns, rifles. I think the total # of guns is over 300 million, so that 100 mill could easily be low. Semi-auto is probably the most popular design. And, of course, the overwhelming majority are never used in crimes.

I disagree with Norton's opinion to remove the semi automatic rifle from American society

I bet most of the paranoid assault gun owners that fantasize about a big shoot out with the US government are painty waists to begin with and dont have the stomach to die defending their 2nd amendment rights...Pussy's...!!!

I don't know this Norton guy but he comes across like an angry , whacked out libtard....? rj

If you want to get guns off the street do not go and demand them. Just offer 500 to 1000 dollars a gun. They will flood in.

. Well, that kind of weakens the Good Guy with a Gun takes care of Bad Guy with Gun theme

What makes those cowards "good guys"?

BTW was out shooting a full auto-erotic today. Too much fun.

My wife: if a kid is hitting other kids with a stick, you take the stick away. You don't give the teachers a bigger stick.

Krugman ends his piece on a distinctly philosophical note:

"In short, you might want to think of our madness over guns as just one aspect of the drive to turn us into what Thomas Hobbes described long ago: a society 'wherein men live without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them.' And Hobbes famously told us what life in such a society is like: 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.'"

MB is merely trying to suggest using a unemotional objective
cost/benefit analysis process. I know that isn’t as much fun as making smarmy retorts
but it can actually produce results, at least until the day the unicorns take over.

Nobody moans and snivels

He is also being derogatory and superior

good or bad, get lost in his tone

more a protection of all others rights to safety

You seem to have no problem with the "tone" of the more insulting libtards around here. I haven't seen you call one of them out about tone once. Not once.

He tried to paint your post in a light which wasn't true.

Sensible to any but you Effen gun nuts.

See ya ,fruitcakes.

You do not deserve civil discourse ,really.

But I will at times point out things that aren't true. Which is what I did with Reilly's post.

How should what is clearly at most a limited constitutional right to bear arms be balanced against other rights? MB1?

so MB's post wan't insulting.

Just wondering. Any data about a change in collateral damage from police shootings as the power and capacity of their weapons increased?

A shootout with assault rifles on a playground with kids scrambling for cover could be "problematic".

This ain't the 18th Century any more. There is no way they could anticipate the readily available killing power we have today.

I would like to see significant gun control enacted.

MB2 has it wrong with respect to the original idea of the potential superiority of the militias over the federal forces,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_No._46

made the case that the militias would very likely be a force much larger than those of the federal authorities, and thus prevent a tyrannical federal take over.

We seemed to have checked the federal powers by way of voting, and the tradition of peaceful transition. Additionally, the checks and balances seem to have largely worked.

First, there is no guarantee that the military would fire on any significant proportion of American citizens that could make a solid argument that the government had become tyrannical; rebels would have to make the philosophical case long prior to taking up arms!

Of course. There is a fantasy that the American military is somehow immune to being used as a tool of repression. Comes from watching too much Hollywood, reading too much Tom Clancy, perusing too many right wing blogs, and not checking out enough actual US history.

News flash: the US military has seldom hesitated to shoot or otherwise use violence against US civilians when ordered to do so. Last major instance I know of was the Kent State Massacre , gunning down protesting students in an Ohio university campus.

The Ludlow Massacre , when the Colorado National Guard opened fire on an encampment of striking coal miners, killing over two dozen people, including women and children, before destroying the encampment.

The Pullman Strike , when 12,000 men from the US Army were sent in to break the strike. 30 strikers were shot dead in the process, and about another 60 injured.

US cavalry, supported by tanks and led by George Patton under orders from Douglas MacArthur (whose aide at the time was Dwight Eisenhower - all in all, an inglorious day in the careers of some of America’s greatest soldiers), charging at the protesters of the Bonus Army in Washington, DC, and burning out their shacks. 50+ protesters and their family members were injured, some of whom later died.

Not by force of militia, but by the political will of the people, peacefully.

I’m not used to you straying so far from reality, as to join in the slight insanity of thinking that U.S. troops will not fire on U.S. citizens in rebellion. We enjoy a rich history of U.S. troops dealing firmly with rebellion, starting with the Whiskey Rebellion in PA in 1891.

Of course, you also ignore the Civil War.

The MAJORITY of people in this country want stricter laws for the ownership of guns, and reduced if not eliminated access to the types of weapons that can maim and kill in volume.

In fact, a well regulated Militia has never been necessary to the security of a free State.

And where the country goes, as dictated by the polity, was not predetermined by the Constitution, part of its genius. It goes where the people want it to.

I'm dubious that you have your finger on the pulse of "the majority" with any level of granularity. It's more likely that you are projecting your own emotional responses to such events upon the majority,...

Or, just maybe it is you that hasn't got your finger on the pulse of the majority of the people in this country.

It's only a very vocal minority, as well-exemplified by MB1, well-organized and financed by things like the NRA, that oppose this.

The protections provided by the 2nd Amendment turn out to be irrelevant, as demonstrated by history.

The cites DO say the majority don't want "assault type weapons."

You are scary, with your insistence you are right when the facts show otherwise.

Hey M.B. don't ya know, if you've ever so much as sniffed a gun you're automatically classified by this crowd as not only being in bed with the NRA, but technically classified as it's dirty 4th street whore!

A weapon isn't even a weapon if it can't be used to assault someone.

what possible argument is there to legally allow any gun to have a magazine and/or intrinsic capability for larger than 6-10 bullets outside of a “well-regulated militia” [ie. outside of a swiss style regulated oversight of a well-armed civilian “military”]?

So I am not anti gun, but I am for finding a way to slow down these people who are intent on harming many others. If banning semi auto rifles might help, then I have no problem with trying it.

MB1 maintains that no balance is possible. His solution is that those children be armed so that they could defend themselves, using defenses they feel should be enough.

I've heard that before... and I'm still here.

game, set, and match

Norton

Feb 26, 2018 - 10:06am PT
game, set, and match

I'm starting to believe that the gun-control advocates don't want to accept this OBVIOUS solution because they relish further incidents to help froth up their (what is really completely unrelated) agenda.

Suggesting that I (or others) that advocate for some type of gun/ammo/extensive background licensing/training or whatever makes sense “relish further incidents” is just plain sickening.

MB1...I know that's a trick question but yeah....Majority rule...

While SURROUNDED by 20 or so of the most highly trained gunmen in the history of the world, Ronald Reagan got shot. Gerald Ford was nearly shot.

It didn't stop them from trying, and it wouldn't, when it is Barney Fife you are trying to overcome with overwhelming firepower.

MB, your fake questions are funny.

You are asking questions of ethics, not of law.

The majority can pass any law they want.

Whether it stands depends upon whether it is constitutional, because the Constitution provides a framework for legality and balancing of rights.

So yes, the majority can pass a law to harvest organs of jews, but the Courts will not uphold it.

I think when people are seriously arguing that teachers need to be armed it's time to reconsider where we are as a society. Clearly the status quo is not working. If it is the second amendment that has led to this it should be repealed.

3. People arrested for violence cannot buy/own guns.

Let's get some cops (that won't just hide behind their cars) in EVERY school, so that EVERY school is no longer a "gun free zone," and we'll immediately find that the nut-jobs move on to other "gun free zones" in their search for soft-targets. At least then the kids will be safer at school.

I'm starting to believe that the gun-control advocates don't want to accept this OBVIOUS solution because they relish further incidents to help froth up their (what is really completely unrelated) agenda. So, I'd say this: FIRST, let's secure the kids at school, THEN let's talk about what really are REASONABLE gun-control measures.

One, how would you like to be a teacher standing there in the school hallway, wearing civilian clothes with a gun in your hand when swat comes running into the active shooter situation?

Hands up, all those who believe that Crooked Donald would have attempted (unarmed) to stop the Florida murderer?

Can anyone here say they didn’t know who was going to be a violent madman after first grade, or during the next 10 or 11 years of avoiding them at school?

Who is going to pay for this? Multiply that cost for a single school the number of schools in the whole country and you have a total cost of hundreds of millions or BILLIONS of dollars!

Because you can buy an AR-15 practically from corner vending machines and we sell bump stocks too to make it even more fun to mow down innocents...

But the rest of the entire developed world has all the same movies and games....they just don't sell AR-15s to anyone with money.