27 dead at Connecticut school, including 14 kids

[Seth]

The reason why sawed-off shotguns are not openly legal (but are instead NFA weapons like machine guns) is arcane, and has to do with court procedure and the specifics of the case involved, not because such shotguns were not and are not currently used by soldiers. It's likely that US v Miller would be overturned today because the scholarship on the applicability and use of short shotguns and short rifles (like the M4) has advanced quite a bit since then, and proving that they are both suitable arms for the soldier is today child's play.

So, once again you're wrong.

It's because Miller was dead and his side of the case was never actually heard by the Court. They made their ruling entirely based upon a one-sided argument.

Yup, and because his side was never heard, none of the voluminous evidence on the use of short-barreled shotguns and rifles by the military was presented to the Court, something which the Court explicitly noted in it's ruling, saying "in the absence of any evidence..." This means that should such a case get before the court again, Miller could be reversed easily if sufficient evidence of the military utility of such arms were presented.

Of course, the government conspired to get the Court to hear the case when no one was available to argue Miller's side, and it's been conspiring with the Court ever since to keep the issue from being reconsidered by the Court.

[Kristie]

Everything's a conspiracy! We're all out to get you!

[Seth]

Future job announcement:

"Wanted: Elementary school teacher. Must have extensive weapons training and complete regular refresher courses."

Funny how many of the same people decrying public school teachers as irresponsible, lazy, and uncaring (only in it for the bennies, money, and time off) are now arguing for them to pack heat in classrooms.

So will teachers now be eligible for hazard pay?

Why not? Extra pay for the extra duties sounds eminently reasonable.

Several school districts here in Colorado have armed guards on campus at all times, including at the entryway. Perhaps that's why they haven't had a shooting.

[Svartalf]

Future job announcement:

"Wanted: Elementary school teacher. Must have extensive weapons training and complete regular refresher courses."

Funny how many of the same people decrying public school teachers as irresponsible, lazy, and uncaring (only in it for the bennies, money, and time off) are now arguing for them to pack heat in classrooms.

So will teachers now be eligible for hazard pay?

If US schools are half as hazardous to teachers as ours, they should.

[Svartalf]

Everything's a conspiracy! We're all out to get you!

I'd much rather get YOU.

[Kristie]

Everything's a conspiracy! We're all out to get you!

I'd much rather get YOU.

[Blind groper]

To Coito

Re gun murders in cities versus the country.
it might be good to get your facts straight before you start pontificating.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1448529/

The conclusion of this is :

"Firearm suicide in rural counties is as important a public health problem as firearm homicide in urban counties. Policymakers should become aware that intentional firearm deaths affect all types of communities in the United States."

[Audley Strange]

Rather than arm teachers, why not ban schools? After all they seem to be the thing attracting psychos.

[Seth]

I also think we need to have a serious analysis of the kinds of guns out there, because there is a difference between full-auto stuff and a trap shooting rifle.

Indeed, since there is no such thing as a "trap shooting rifle." Trap shooting uses a shotgun. And do you know how many legally-owned machine guns have been used in a crime since the NFA was enacted?

One.

A deputy sheriff used his personally-owned machine gun (which he carried on duty) to kill his wife in a domestic dispute.

That's it. Just one.

I think there can be reasonable regulation of type and features and functionality of guns and it would still be within the "well-regulated militia" portion of the 2nd amendment.

Um, why? What do features and functionality have to do with anything? And since the "features and functionality" that are protected by the "militia clause" particularly include exactly the sort of aesthetic and functional components that were "banned" the last time around (detachable high-capacity magazines, bayonet lugs, pistol grips, etc.) ...a ban that was demonstrated to have ZERO effect on gun crime, why would we want to once again go after "ugly, scary guns?" If the "look-alike" semi-auto versions of actual military battle rifles are "dehorned" by such a ban, the manufacturers will do exactly what they did the last time...change the appearance to comply with the law without changing the way in which the rifle functions, which is the same for every single semi-automatic firearm on the planet. Self-loading, one trigger pull, one shot.

You can't "regulate" that functioning and feature without completely banning semi-automatic firearms entirely, and you can't do that because they are arms of military utility that are protected by the 2nd Amendment.

[Gerald McGrew]

Rather than arm teachers, why not ban schools? After all they seem to be the thing attracting psychos.

Homeschool!! Fundamentalists will love it.

What stands out to me is how most of us seem to agree that we have a society saturated in violence and weapons. Within that society we have schools, churches, parks, and other places that are supposed to be "islands" of peace.

In response to incidents like Friday's, the thinking breaks down into two general concepts. Either we 1) allow the violent, armed saturation into those islands (by arming people within them), or 2) attempt to reduce the saturation of said society, the idea being that a less violent and armed society will produce fewer incidents.

Interesting study in human behavior.

[Audley Strange]

Problem is though we could wrap the world in kevlar, ban all weapons and blunt instruments, send our kids to schools by tank but as I have said before, our lives would still be subject to the whims of madmen.

The problem is they're mad you see. Arming teachers only means teachers going off the rails are likely to be the culprits.

Not that flinging guns at all and sundry makes matters any better.

[Audley Strange]

Problem is though we could wrap the world in kevlar, ban all weapons and blunt instruments, send our kids to schools by tank but as I have said before, our lives would still be subject to the whims of madmen.

The problem is they're mad you see. Arming teachers only means teachers going off the rails are likely to be the culprits.

Not that flinging guns at all and sundry makes matters any better.

[Blind groper]

No one, even me, is suggesting removing all guns. Most of the world's advanced nations permit some level of gun ownership. However, there is a big difference between a few people with a real need (hunters, or farmers eliminating vermin) having a suitable rifle or shotgun, and allowing 100 million people to own guns, including a vast number of concealable and portable hand guns, when those hand guns have no function other than killing humans.

[JimC]

To reiterate what is invariably the comment in response to any American criticism of what goes on in other countries -- why do you care? Mind your own business.

Anyone who thinks that complete gun bans are good is an idiot, too. As is fairly common, either of the extremes is unworkable. In the US, some action needs to be taken to reduce the violence perpetrated with and without guns. What is forgotten by folks commenting from afar, though, is the vast majority of gun violence is committed in inner cities and involve the drug and other criminal rackets. So, a lot could be done to reduce gun crime if we would decriminalize and commercialize the currently illegal drugs, such that gun violence would not be necessary to defend the trade in drugs.

Banning guns from farmers, hunters, etc., however, would not do anything to significantly reduce gun violence. There are states in the US with loose gun laws and France level gun deaths -- these states also happen to have low drug crime levels.

I also think we need to have a serious analysis of the kinds of guns out there, because there is a difference between full-auto stuff and a trap shooting rifle. I think there can be reasonable regulation of type and features and functionality of guns and it would still be within the "well-regulated militia" portion of the 2nd amendment.

Virtually everybody, either from within the US or from the outside, who have been arguing for more gun control, have not gone that far. If you read carefully, for most of us, it's not guns per se, but the existence of military style assault rifles in large numbers. These are perfectly designed for killing a large number of people as rapidly as possible, and have little use in serious hunting. Then, there are the large numbers of handguns around in the US, which makes it much easier for unbalanced people to get hold of them.

I fully support hunting and target practice, both in Oz and the US.

I think you are probably right about the drug thing - if there were no longer vast criminal profits to be made, that area of gun crime would almost certainly drop considerably, with many flow-on benefits...

One thing is certain - something should change, if the US wants to reduce the chances of such massacres happening again and again...

[Jason]

Handguns are effective for home defence and so have a defensible use. Assault weapons (gun nutters really hate it when you call them that ), however, do not. They are not suitable for home defence, they are not suitable for hunting (the .223 is not high powered enough for hunting anything bigger than coyotes), they have no defensible purpose in the hands of civilians.