Connecticut (et al)

[FBM]

That whole "comparing apples and oranges" argument is just a way to separate richer white people from poorer brown people. People are people. We're run by the same emotions. Most firearms deaths happen in the lower economic class, anyway, iirc.

LOLWUT

What is it about the proposition that firearms cause firearms deaths do you not understand? Take your time.

What is it about cultural arrogance and elitism that you don't understand? Take your time.

LOLWUT, again. I understand your cultural arrogance and elitism all too well. They are why you're not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Shorter FBM "poorer people of colour are more likely to be shot to death therefore guns are a good thing for poorer people of colour to own rather than seek to meliorate the social inequalities between rich and poor. Therefore white people should keep as many guns as possible." You're a twofer: a racist and a gun nutz. Well done.

With an aim like that, it's a good thing that you don't have a gun, that's for sure.

[Jason]

That whole "comparing apples and oranges" argument is just a way to separate richer white people from poorer brown people. People are people. We're run by the same emotions. Most firearms deaths happen in the lower economic class, anyway, iirc.

LOLWUT

What is it about the proposition that firearms cause firearms deaths do you not understand? Take your time.

What is it about cultural arrogance and elitism that you don't understand? Take your time.

LOLWUT, again. I understand your cultural arrogance and elitism all too well. They are why you're not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Shorter FBM "poorer people of colour are more likely to be shot to death therefore guns are a good thing for poorer people of colour to own rather than seek to meliorate the social inequalities between rich and poor. Therefore white people should keep as many guns as possible." You're a twofer: a racist and a gun nutz. Well done.

Shorter FMB is Longer FBM in aspireworld! Everything spawkle spackle in aspireworld!

Shorter aspire: Me smart, you dumb, me make summary of "you dumb - me smart"! Derp! You like? Say me Smart! No say me smart? You dumb! Shorter you: Dumb! Me so smart!

[orpheus]

Gun deaths since Newtown

[Blind groper]

I think there is a bit of a risk that a few of those posts were descending towards ad hom attacks. Let's not go there.

However, I think the apples versus oranges bit is a valid point. Russia has a much larger murder rate than the USA, but comparing those nations is not really a valid comparison. There are just too many major differences. Everything from the history, to the Russian Mafia, to the massive misuse of alcohol (vodka anyone?), to the climate, to........

I have quoted before the statistic that, out of the 24 richest nations, all put together, the USA has 80% of the firearms murders. The USA has 5 times the per capita murder rate of my country, despite the fact that my country has all the same problems - drugs, gangs, large numbers of ethnic minorities etc.

It does not reflect well on the pro-gun lobby to simply deny reality. The USA does have a major problem with gun violence. In this discussion, let's accept that and not argue by denying reality.

[Jason]

I think the apples versus oranges bit is a valid point.

Of course you do.

[Robert_S]

We have some areas in the US that aren't particularly rich at all.

[Blind groper]

We have some areas in the US that aren't particularly rich at all.

That is true for all of us, Robert. My country ditto.

[macdoc]

Yes and oddly in America it's mostly the red states......not working out so well for them I guess..

[Gawdzilla Sama]

A little extra information.
http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/111263/me ... carry-guns#

I quote :

“In America alone, gun massacres, most often of children, happen with hideous regularity.” Mother Jones calculates that there have been 62 mass shootings in the U.S. in the past three decades alone. Of the 25 worst mass shootings worldwide in the last half-century, 15 occurred in the U.S.—no other country had more than two—and this year was our deadliest.

The land of the gun is also the land of the gun victim. You cannot have one without the other. More guns mean more gun crime. More murders. More suicides. More massacres. More maimings.

"worldwide"? Bullshit. Uganda anyone? Yugoslavia? Mother Jones is trying too hard, even for a lefty publication.

Apples and oranges? I think you'll find a state of war existed in those three countries. Unless you're implying that the US is a uniquely evil country where fewer guns would lead to more gun massacres?

Really? Fucking really?

[Blind groper]

If you look at the history of violence and killings, as documented by Prof. Stephen Pinker
( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ramBFRt1Uzk ) you will note that, as society gets more 'civilised', it also becomes less violent.

In today's world, there are many different societies at different points on that 'civilisation' continuum. 'Primitive' societies like Papua New Guinea and a number of African nations, are very violent. However, the wealthiest and most 'civilised' nations, which includes the USA, should be very low on that continuum of violence.

In fact, the USA, in terms of murders committed per capita, is substantially more violent than its peers. As I said, the murder rate is five times as high as in my country, and four times as high as the UK. Yet the USA should be just as 'civilised'. What makes the difference? Two things. The availability of guns, and the prevailing gun culture.

To deny that the USA has a problem with gun violence is the proverbial ostrich with its head in the sand.

[Jason]

If you look at the history of violence and killings, as documented by Prof. Stephen Pinker
( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ramBFRt1Uzk ) you will note that, as society gets more 'civilised', it also becomes less violent.

If we are to take that as Gospel, then the USA must be considered uncivilized and your comparisons to 'civilized' countries is 'apples and oranges'. You can't have your apples and orange juice too.

[Seth]

The NRA proposal might or might not be considered pure evil, but there is no doubt it is stupid.
The armed guard idea would cost over $ 7 billion per year, and has already been tried in various places and failed.

No, it hasn't, and of all the billions of dollars of wasted federal money we pay every year, seven billion is a drop in the bucket, particularly if it keeps our children safe.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/de ... ds-schools

I quote :

"The Violence Policy Centre said that Columbine High School in Colorado had armed law enforcement agents on call when two teenagers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, embarked on a shooting spree in 1999. The agents were unable to prevent the deaths of 12 students and one teacher. They were "outgunned by the assault weapons wielded by the two teens", the VPC said.

Which is a flat-out fucking lie. I was there, at Columbine, two hours after the attack and I extensively interviewed students and staff who were in the building. The Guardian doesn't know what the fuck it's talking about. Columbine had one School Resource Officer, a Jefferson County Deputy Sheriff assigned to the school, but he was NOT IN THE SCHOOL when the killers attacked. He was at least three minutes away from the school by car, about the same amount of time police were away.

There was NO ONE in the school who had a gun other than the killers, and there were teachers using fire extinguishers as defensive weapons.

The killers at Columbine were able to kill at their leisure because at the time the incident happened, law enforcement policy was "contain and negotiate." This was based on the presumption that attacks on schools would be like other hostage takings, in that the police assumed that the attackers would have a message or complaint of some kind to air, and thus would not immediately begin killing everyone in sight, but would wait to tell their story, using the hostages as human shields.

It was Columbine that completely changed the tactics of police all over the word when it comes to school shootings. In the years that followed the "active shooter protocol" was developed all across the US by law enforcement agencies and the federal government.

The Blackwater Training Center in Moyock, North Carolina, built an entire shoot-house training facility called "RU Ready High School" specifically to train police and federal agents in active shooter intervention. I know, I was there and spent time at the training center interviewing staff and trainees.

The Violence Policy Center flacks are lying sacks of shit. The School Resource Officer engaged one of the shooters with his handgun from OUTSIDE THE BUILDING, but did not make entry because protocol forbade him to do so. He waited until the tactical teams arrived and a perimeter was set, and by that time the killers had finished killing and had committed suicide. It took HOURS for the tactical teams to search the school AFTER the shooting stopped because of the way the teams were trained. Communications failures were key in slowing the response to the event, because none of the participating police departments had interoperable radio systems with the others. That too was changed by the State of Colorado, which has since created a state-wide radio network that every agency can access.

Was the School Resource Officer "outgunned?" Yes, I suppose he was, given the fact that the only weapon he had was his service pistol and about 30 rounds of ammunition. He didn't have a semi-automatic "assault weapon" patrol rifle in his car, not did he have Level IV body armor or a helmet available to him. Today, many if not most police departments supply street patrol officers with exactly the kind of rifle that the Connecticut killer used precisely so that they will have adequate long-range firepower to take on heavily armed suspects.

But the most important aspect of Columbine that needs change is that if there is no School Resource Officer available to engage a killer and hopefully delay him on duty and in the school at the time the attack begins, by the time anyone who DOES have a gun (besides the killer) is able to reach the school, make entry and find the killer, the killing spree is over and most times the suspect has committed suicide.

At Virginia Tech, the killer chained the doors to the building closed to delay the tactical team response, which worked well for him.

Only someone, or several someones inside the building at the moment the attack begins has any hope of stopping, delaying or minimizing casualties.

That is a simple fact of physics. In the three to six minutes that it ALWAYS takes to dispatch police, even presuming that street patrol officers form a "hasty assault team" as they are now trained to do (because of Columbine) it's still going to be 10 to 15 minutes before that team can effectively enter the building and locate the killer.

And by that time most of the killing, if not ALL of it, has already been done...and the killer is dead of his own hand.

As the New Life Church episode in Colorado Springs proves, the first 30 seconds to one minute of such an attack are extremely critical to the survival of persons in the building. If the killer is not engaged in that critical period, so as to divert his attention away from slaughter and to survival, the chances that the massacre can be stopped, or even minimized is substantially reduced. At NLC, it was Jeanne Assam, a civilian (former police officer) volunteer security guard (one of several on duty during worship services at the church) who engaged the killer immediately inside the front door which prevented the killer from reaching the sanctuary where more than a thousand people were seated.

Her response was within less than 30 seconds. She heard the shots from the parking lot and was in a barricade cover position when the killer entered the hallway. She and another guard immediately engaged the shooter, and Assam left her cover position and walked down the hallway methodically firing at the killer with her handgun, despite being fired upon (inaccurately) by him. She succeeded in severely wounding him, which foiled his plan, and he pulled out a pistol and shot himself seconds later.

Compare the two incidents:

At Columbine, no one in the school except the killers had a gun, and no one was able to engage the killers and deflect them from their killing spree. Law enforcement waited for hours before entering the building with tactical teams under existing protocols, and by that time the killers had committed suicide, after killing everyone they wanted to kill.

At NLC, Two armed citizen volunteers stopped the heavily armed killer in his tracks and prevented a massacre because they were there when the attacker entered the building.

And in Connecticut, the Columbine model was followed in the critical first seconds because no one in the school was able to engage the killer in a gunfight. The police arrived and made a hasty-tac-team entry as they are now trained to do, but it was fully 10 minutes before they did so, and the killer had already done his business and killed himself by the time they made entry.

Similarly, Virginia Tech had armed police on campus who were unable to prevent the deaths of 32 people in a mass shooting in 2007.

Another lie. Virginia Tech, like most universities, had a police department with a response time no different from any community police department: 3 to 6 minutes to arrive on the scene, and at least 10 to 15 minutes before a hasty tactical team can be assembled and make entry.

What was missing at Virginia Tech, as at Columbine and Sandy Hook Elementary were armed citizens inside the building, in unknown numbers and unknown locations who would at least theoretically be in a position and able to engage the killer long enough to allow others to escape and the police to arrive and deploy.

The NRA plan "has already been tried and it didn't work", said the VPC's executive director, Josh Sugarmann.

Sugarmann is a lying douchebag. The NRA's plan has NOT been tried and failed, it's been made standard policy at many school districts, where armed police officers are on duty during school hours and no such attacks have taken place at any school so guarded.

Even John Lott Jr, the author of More Guns Less Crime and a Fox News columnist, was dismissive:"

[/quote]

Nice that you elided what he actually said.

Anyone who can't figure out that in a school shooting the first 30 to 60 seconds are the critical period during which an intervention by someone who is armed (better yet several people) has a chance of preventing a massacre is simply too stupid to live, or, like Obama, Pelosi and Biden, are coldly calculating scumbags who rub their hands with glee at such massacres so they can forward their REAL agenda, which is complete civilian disarmament.

Which are you?

[Seth]

LOLWUT Armed guards in every school?

Yup. And armed teachers, administrators and staff too. Just like Israel, where they haven't had a mass casualty shooting in a school since the 1970s.

And when the next massacre occurs on a school bus,

The "next" massacre? You want to illustrate the FIRST mass killing on a school bus first? I only know of a couple of hostage-taking school bus hijackings, and the kids survived those.

or on (insert lication) you place armed guards there?

Well, now you see why it is only armed citizens who are able to be where they might be needed in such situations. There aren't enough police officers or guards to be everywhere, but then again since each individual is responsible for his or her own personal safety, and for performing "the duties incumbent on all citizens in the interests of community safety and existence," we don't need "armed guards" if the people themselves are armed and are prepared to do what's needed whenever someone attacks the community.

The killing in Norway is yet another prime example of a killer selecting a known to be unarmed group precisely because the tactical situation on the island favored his attack. What if a dozen people on that island had been armed with concealed handguns? Nobody knows, but it couldn't be any WORSE than it was.

The same is true of every US school massacre that's ever happened. Guns in the hands of teachers and staff couldn't make things WORSE than they already are.

Seth's vision sounds more like Soviet Russia.

Horseshit.

Take the responsibility for self defence away from the individual citizen and place it in the hands of a state appointed individual. I'm begining to think that young Seth is a Soviet sleeper planted in the USA to undermine the sacred Constitution.

I'd much rather teachers, administrators, staff and armed civilian volunteers do the job, but in the immediate term, every community can afford to put police in their schools to prevent copycat attacks. Then begin the process of finding volunteers among teachers, administrators and citizens who are willing to take on the responsibility of carrying firearms in the schools. Citizen volunteers can be found and trained who will guard on a rotating basis, so no one person is burdened with the duty for too long.

What's unbelievable (or all too believable from gun-hating hoplophobes) is that they would object to deployment of police officers into schools to protect children. This just shows that they don't give a fuck about children, they just want to dance on the graves of the dead in their quest for the larger objective of civilian disarmament.

Idiots.

[Seth]

If you have a town with an infestation of rattlesnakes, you do not fix it by bringing in more snakes. You kill snakes or remove them.

If you have a nation with an infestation of firearms, firearm users, and firearm crime, you do not fix it with more guns. You remove guns to reduce the problem.

The problem is not the guns, it's those nutbags who wield them for evil purposes. Reduce them and you reduce the problem.

[Ian]

And after we get armed personnel in every school (just like Columbine had, not to mention how Virginia Tech had its own police force), we'll get armed personnel on every school bus, in every supermarket, at every daycare center, in every movie theater, etc. That'll take care of it. And it won't cost too much to do that, I'm sure.

The US has by far more guns per capita than any other country. By pure coincidence, it also has by far more gun homicides than any other advanced nation on earth. Therefore, we need more guns in more places. Makes perfect sense! Analytically irrefutable.