Connecticut (et al)

[aspire1670]

Unsurprisingly enough, some teachers in Israel are trained and armed to deal with crazed gunmen. No reason why we couldn't do the same.

No one expects your sweet kindergarten teacher to be packing heat. There are plenty of law enforcement and military people that retire in their forties looking for a second career and teaching could be a good choice for some of them.

Unsurprisingly, you have failed to cite the evidence that some teachers are armed in the classroom.

Here you go:

600x4352.jpg

WEST VALLEY CITY, Utah (TheBlaze/AP) — Jessica Fiveash sees nothing wrong with arming teachers. She’s one herself, and learned Thursday how to safely use her 9 mm Ruger with a laser sight.

“If we have the ability to stop something, we should do it,” said the elementary school teacher, who along with nearly 200 other teachers in Utah took six hours of free gun training offered by the state’s leading gun lobby.

It is among the latest efforts to arm or train teachers to confront assailants after a gunman killed his mother and then went on a rampage through Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., killing 20 children and six adults before killing himself.

...Continued...

LOL

Unsurprisingly, another reading comprehension fail from Seth. Last time I looked, Seth, Utah wasn't in Israel. Never mind, better luck next time.

[Seth]

Quite right I'm not. Neither you nor a government nor anyone else is allowed to sacrifice MY life or safety (or anyone elses) on the premise that it's better for the collective that I be victimized or killed. That's the definition of tyranny of the masses. My right to defend myself effectively is absolute and not the subject for a popular vote.

To paraphrase this, Seth.
You believe that your own selfish interests outweigh those of your fellows,

No, I believe my right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (and property) outweighs the vacuous and paranoid fears of hoplophobes.

and you do not believe in democracy - the rule of the majority.

Damned right I do not. Neither do most Americans, and neither does the Supreme Court or the men who wrote the Constitution.

Yeah, two million "odd" successful defensive gun uses a year.

That spurious belief has already been debunked with good references from university papers.

Meh. Your spurious references have been debunked by facts.

That's not my problem and I'm not going to be disarmed based on your paranoid fears that someone, somewhere, sometime might murder someone.

Again we see the core of Seth's beliefs, which are a selfish concern for himself, and to hell with the rest of the world. Ditto his views on suicide.

Yup, my rights are more important than your paranoid fears. That's how it works over here.

The first rule of police work is that nobody can force a police officer to sacrifice (or for that matter endanger) his own life for the benefit of another. There is no such duty or obligation.

I have not said otherwise. However, I suspect that a policeman who ignores the lives and welfare of the citizenry when he can help would not be likely to be promoted. Indeed, I suspect he would end up as a clerk. I doubt that too many police forces (except those that were terminally corrupt) would value a coward.

Liar. You said, "Policemen, like everyone else, are not supermen and cannot protect everyone all the time. However, when they can, they have the duty to do their damnedest to provide such protection."

I showed you that they do NOT have such a duty. They may voluntarily decide to place themselves at risk, but the word "duty" implies a legal or moral obligation to take action, which they do NOT have. Nor can a policeman be fired for refusing to take unnecessary risks to his health or safety. The term "coward" is easy for you to toss around when you have absolutely no experience whatsoever in police work and therefore know absolutely nothing about what is required or expected of police officers.

On the "live coward versus dead hero" thing.
I have not suggested you die to save someone. I suggested that a brave person will accept a risk to permit non lethal action. A person who has not taken even a small risk, but shoots someone dead to prevent a small risk, is a coward. Any worthwhile person should be willing to put his/her life on the line, if the risk is not too great, to save another person's life.

Strawman argument. You claim that people that refuse to take "small" risks and use deadly force instead are cowards. This may be true, and they may be criminals as well. But we're not discussing them, we're discussing those who have legal authority to use deadly force. And if you're legally authorized to use deadly force in self defense, then ipso facto and dejure the risk you face is not a "small" one, it's a huge one that threatens your very life and health.

I have done this, myself, though not with anything involving guns. When I was 17 years old, I witnessed a young woman being ripped off the rocks and into the sea by storm waves. I dived in, and towed her to a place where the wave action was a bit less, and brought her safely ashore, at the cost of some bruising. Even at that age I was able to judge that the risk of my action was acceptable, and I saved that young woman's life.

Good for you. It's nice to be 17 and stupid. I crawled out onto an icy pond to save two young children who has broken through the ice. The difference is that, as a professional first-responder, I had adequate equipment in my vehicle so I was able to put on a life vest and use a climbing rope around my waist to ensure that other bystanders on shore could pull me and the kids out if I broke through the ice, which I did.

There's nothing wrong with taking risks sua sponte, what's wrong with your argument is that you refuse to recognize that no one has the right to FORCE you to jump into the swell or me to crawl out onto the ice. No government functionary or bureaucrat can stand on shore and say "Groper, get your ass in the water and save that woman" and have you arrested or shot for refusing that order. You are free to refuse to risk your life to save another. So is every cop, firefighter and first responder on earth. Just because they may take carefully calculated risks and expose themselves to danger greater than your average person would because they are trained and equipped to minimize those risks that they voluntarily accept does not mean they are obligated to throw themselves on the grenade. Even in the military a soldier is not REQUIRED to throw himself on the grenade.

I expect the equivalent actions from any human being who is worthy of the name.

So, having made a successful rescue at your peak of physical condition at 17, you would look down your nose at the 80 year old cripple who declines your invitation to prove his "humanity" by throwing himself into the surf?

What an idiotic notion.

If it involves restraint in the use of firearms, then that is what I expect.

Interestingly, the law expects exactly the same thing. It expects an armed person (citizen, police officer or soldier) to use deadly force as a last resort and only under the gravest of dangers. But when the law allows the use of deadly force, it does not expect the individual to wait until THEY get shot or killed before defending themselves. They get to act reasonably to the situation as presented to them, as I described. I note that you completely ignored my question. In the scenario given, would you be prosecuted or not?

Cowards will sacrifice someone else's life not just to save their own, but to prevent any risk to their own. Such cowardice is not acceptable to me.

The good news is that none of us have to give a flying fuck what's acceptable to you. And we don't, because your idea of courage is pretty damned stupid.

[Seth]

Unsurprisingly enough, some teachers in Israel are trained and armed to deal with crazed gunmen. No reason why we couldn't do the same.

No one expects your sweet kindergarten teacher to be packing heat. There are plenty of law enforcement and military people that retire in their forties looking for a second career and teaching could be a good choice for some of them.

Unsurprisingly, you have failed to cite the evidence that some teachers are armed in the classroom.

Here you go:

600x4352.jpg

WEST VALLEY CITY, Utah (TheBlaze/AP) — Jessica Fiveash sees nothing wrong with arming teachers. She’s one herself, and learned Thursday how to safely use her 9 mm Ruger with a laser sight.

“If we have the ability to stop something, we should do it,” said the elementary school teacher, who along with nearly 200 other teachers in Utah took six hours of free gun training offered by the state’s leading gun lobby.

It is among the latest efforts to arm or train teachers to confront assailants after a gunman killed his mother and then went on a rampage through Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., killing 20 children and six adults before killing himself.

...Continued...

LOL

Unsurprisingly, another reading comprehension fail from Seth. Last time I looked, Seth, Utah wasn't in Israel. Never mind, better luck next time.

I wasn't referring to Israel, I was referring to the US.

[Seth]

Yes, conscription is still available to Congress. It's also available to ANY government that has the monopoly on force whom the citizenry cannot defy. That would be YOU, Jonno my lad. On the other hand, in the US, attempts to conscript for an unjust cause or to support tyranny CAN be effectively defied by our citizenry because, well, we have arms that are every bit as effective as those held by the standing army, and there are 300 million of us and less than 10 million soldiers, guardsmen and police officers.

Yabbut, the forces opposing you won't be stationary paper targets that don't fire back, Seth. Plus the last time I looked the US military had tanks, planes, artillery, bombers, drones, cruise missiles.........good luck fighting tyranny democracy.

Tell it to the Afghans, who have fought two superpowers to a standstill so far.

Did I ever tell you about the time, back in the mid-70s, when the Army special forces held a "war game" just north of St. Augustine, Florida? They solicited volunteers from the local area to participate as the "OPFOR" (Opposing Force) to a beach landing of a battalion of SF troops who were to push inland and capture an objective near the Okeefenokee Swamp.

They outfitted the locals with MILES gear (lasers and detectors on the M-16s firing blanks) and told them to go forth and resist the invasion.

Which they did. Successfully. They wiped out the entire SF force within 72 hours of their landing, using their superior knowledge of the area and superior concealment and camouflage skills learned from generations of hunting in the area.

This incident embarrassed the living hell out of the Army, which tried hard to bury the defeat in the news, and since that time, the military has NEVER repeated that sort of exercise using civilians as OPFOR. They always use other soldiers.

So, don't try to tell your grandpa how to suck eggs when it comes to armed resistance against tyranny. You have no idea what my, or anyone else's qualifications are in that respect.

[Jason]

BUM CUSTARD!

[Blind groper]

No, I believe my right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (and property) outweighs the vacuous and paranoid fears of hoplophobes.

No you don't. You simply believe that what you want outweighs the good of other people.
Life and liberty is a joke in line with your gun views. You have no respect for life, since you support actions that lead to 20,000 unnecessary deaths each year and another 80,000 maimings.

What about the 110,000 American children who have been killed by guns over the past 30 years? What of the liberty to grow up, which is a far more important freedom than your freedom to play with lethal toys?

Your spurious references have been debunked by facts.

Well then. Why have you not presented these "facts"?
All we have had from you on this point is your assertions and opinions. No facts.

You claim that people that refuse to take "small" risks and use deadly force instead are cowards. This may be true, and they may be criminals as well. But we're not discussing them, we're discussing those who have legal authority to use deadly force. And if you're legally authorized to use deadly force in self defense, then ipso facto and dejure the risk you face is not a "small" one, it's a huge one that threatens your very life and health.

You have just narrowed down what you define as acceptable self defense. It is becoming a very small percentage of the killings that occur with a gun in the home. Suicide and murder of spouse by spouse has suddenly become a much more frequent event, as a percentage of the total. So once more you prove that having a gun at home is a way to increase the odds of a family member being killed.

It's nice to be 17 and stupid.

Actually, even at 17, I was not stupid. I made a considered decision to jump in and save a young woman. I am now 63 years old and I would do it again. The thing is that I have kept myself fit, and I am still a good swimmer. In the interim years I have not been in exactly that situation, but I have rescued people while scuba diving. A common scuba situation is running out of air, requiring special rescue methods to be applied. I have, on many occasions, rescued beginner divers who ran out of air.

[Wumbologist]

What about the 110,000 American children who have been killed by guns over the past 30 years? What of the liberty to grow up, which is a far more important freedom than your freedom to play with lethal toys?

More children have been killed in America by swimming pools than by firearms. Surely the liberty to grow up is a far more important freedom than the freedom to play Marco Polo in an inground pool, but I don't see you making a huge stink over the need for pool control.

[Blind groper]

Surely the liberty to grow up is a far more important freedom than the freedom to play Marco Polo in an inground pool, but I don't see you making a huge stink over the need for pool control.

It would be interesting to determine whether pools, and the swim training that goes with pools have killed more people than they have saved. My guess (and I admit it is a guess) is that pools have saved far more lives by teaching people to swim.

Guns that are not for hunting have no such redeeming feature. Unless you consider the atavistic pleasure of wanking yourself over your ammunition. Guns are purely devices for killing. If it is a sporting rifle or shotgun, designed to put food on the table, then I would call that a redeeming feature. But most killings of people are done with hand guns, and that no longer applies.

[Blind groper]

Interesting to note that Americans in general, since the massacre, have hardened their views, with more wanting stricter gun laws. 62% now want bans of guns that hold more than 10 bullets in the magazine.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/12/27 ... trol-poll/

[JimC]

Interesting to note that Americans in general, since the massacre, have hardened their views, with more wanting stricter gun laws. 62% now want bans of guns that hold more than 10 bullets in the magazine.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/12/27 ... trol-poll/

That's something, at least, though it's only about banning magazines with a capacity greater than 10.

No rational argument (eg. "for hunting") could be made for 30 shot magazines. If you are such a poor shot that you need a 30 round semi-automatic togo hunting, try going to a butcher's shop instead...

Cue Seth with a "when they prise them from my cold, dead hands" line...

[orpheus]

Interesting to note that Americans in general, since the massacre, have hardened their views, with more wanting stricter gun laws. 62% now want bans of guns that hold more than 10 bullets in the magazine.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/12/27 ... trol-poll/

That's something, at least, though it's only about banning magazines with a capacity greater than 10.

No rational argument (eg. "for hunting") could be made for 30 shot magazines. If you are such a poor shot that you need a 30 round semi-automatic togo hunting, try going to a butcher's shop instead...

Cue Seth with a "when they prise them from my cold, dead hands" line...

As I've said before, the guns will eventually go, because they will simply become socially unacceptable. If nothing else, their prevalence will vastly decrease, as has happened over the past decades with smoking. Guns will follow suit. It is already happening. The current noise making of the gun proponents is simply because they know that they're on the defensive now, and ultimately they will lose.

[orpheus]

By the way, Seth, it's telling that you haven't addressed how you undermined your own arguments, as you admitted, and as I pointed out, here:

Then gun owners are purposely skewing the data, making it impossible to determine if guns actually are a problem or not. This rather undermines your reliance on your "statistics".

Now why would they do that? It couldn't be because they care more about keeping their guns at all costs than they do about finding the truth - if that truth might mean that guns do harm society?

No, couldn't be that.

No, it couldn't be that. In fact, it's a matter of personal privacy and preservation of the Republic in the face of a long-standing attempt to ban and seize our firearms. As I elucidated in the New Jersey example of using gun registration lists which were never to be used for confiscations, but were only a few years later, gun owners no longer trust government to keep its word, and therefore we refuse to register our firearms knowing full well that it's the first step in the gun banner's agenda to confiscate arms.

So long as the government has no idea where the guns are or who has them, it's impotent to institute despotic tyranny because those arms will come out and be used to put down a tyrant should the need arise.

The very first thing that any tyrant does is to disarm the citizenry for precisely that reason.

That's why any sane gun owner would lie to a pollster about owning a gun. What they don't know can't hurt us.

Then you've no source of accurate statistics on which to base any of your arguments.

[JimC]

Interesting to note that Americans in general, since the massacre, have hardened their views, with more wanting stricter gun laws. 62% now want bans of guns that hold more than 10 bullets in the magazine.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/12/27 ... trol-poll/

That's something, at least, though it's only about banning magazines with a capacity greater than 10.

No rational argument (eg. "for hunting") could be made for 30 shot magazines. If you are such a poor shot that you need a 30 round semi-automatic togo hunting, try going to a butcher's shop instead...

Cue Seth with a "when they prise them from my cold, dead hands" line...

As I've said before, the guns will go, because they will simply become socially unacceptable. If nothing else, their prevalence will vastly decrease, as has happened over the pas decades with smoking. Guns will follow suit. It is already happening. The noise making of the gun proponents is simply because they know that they're on the defensive now, and ultimately they will lose.

I fear me you are far to optimistic, at least in the near/medium term in the US. If you read the report BG linked to, a very small number of people indeed wanted wide-spread gun bans. The current "pressure", such as it is, only involves modest restrictions indeed...

[Gallstones]

Quite right I'm not. Neither you nor a government nor anyone else is allowed to sacrifice MY life or safety (or anyone elses) on the premise that it's better for the collective that I be victimized or killed. That's the definition of tyranny of the masses. My right to defend myself effectively is absolute and not the subject for a popular vote.

To paraphrase this, Seth.
You believe that your own selfish interests outweigh those of your fellows,

No, I believe my right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (and property) outweighs the vacuous and paranoid fears of hoplophobes.

and you do not believe in democracy - the rule of the majority.

Damned right I do not. Neither do most Americans, and neither does the Supreme Court or the men who wrote the Constitution.

Yeah, two million "odd" successful defensive gun uses a year.

That spurious belief has already been debunked with good references from university papers.

Meh. Your spurious references have been debunked by facts.

That's not my problem and I'm not going to be disarmed based on your paranoid fears that someone, somewhere, sometime might murder someone.

Again we see the core of Seth's beliefs, which are a selfish concern for himself, and to hell with the rest of the world. Ditto his views on suicide.

Yup, my rights are more important than your paranoid fears. That's how it works over here.

The first rule of police work is that nobody can force a police officer to sacrifice (or for that matter endanger) his own life for the benefit of another. There is no such duty or obligation.

I have not said otherwise. However, I suspect that a policeman who ignores the lives and welfare of the citizenry when he can help would not be likely to be promoted. Indeed, I suspect he would end up as a clerk. I doubt that too many police forces (except those that were terminally corrupt) would value a coward.

Liar. You said, "Policemen, like everyone else, are not supermen and cannot protect everyone all the time. However, when they can, they have the duty to do their damnedest to provide such protection."

I showed you that they do NOT have such a duty. They may voluntarily decide to place themselves at risk, but the word "duty" implies a legal or moral obligation to take action, which they do NOT have. Nor can a policeman be fired for refusing to take unnecessary risks to his health or safety. The term "coward" is easy for you to toss around when you have absolutely no experience whatsoever in police work and therefore know absolutely nothing about what is required or expected of police officers.

On the "live coward versus dead hero" thing.
I have not suggested you die to save someone. I suggested that a brave person will accept a risk to permit non lethal action. A person who has not taken even a small risk, but shoots someone dead to prevent a small risk, is a coward. Any worthwhile person should be willing to put his/her life on the line, if the risk is not too great, to save another person's life.

Strawman argument. You claim that people that refuse to take "small" risks and use deadly force instead are cowards. This may be true, and they may be criminals as well. But we're not discussing them, we're discussing those who have legal authority to use deadly force. And if you're legally authorized to use deadly force in self defense, then ipso facto and dejure the risk you face is not a "small" one, it's a huge one that threatens your very life and health.

I have done this, myself, though not with anything involving guns. When I was 17 years old, I witnessed a young woman being ripped off the rocks and into the sea by storm waves. I dived in, and towed her to a place where the wave action was a bit less, and brought her safely ashore, at the cost of some bruising. Even at that age I was able to judge that the risk of my action was acceptable, and I saved that young woman's life.

Good for you. It's nice to be 17 and stupid. I crawled out onto an icy pond to save two young children who has broken through the ice. The difference is that, as a professional first-responder, I had adequate equipment in my vehicle so I was able to put on a life vest and use a climbing rope around my waist to ensure that other bystanders on shore could pull me and the kids out if I broke through the ice, which I did.

There's nothing wrong with taking risks sua sponte, what's wrong with your argument is that you refuse to recognize that no one has the right to FORCE you to jump into the swell or me to crawl out onto the ice. No government functionary or bureaucrat can stand on shore and say "Groper, get your ass in the water and save that woman" and have you arrested or shot for refusing that order. You are free to refuse to risk your life to save another. So is every cop, firefighter and first responder on earth. Just because they may take carefully calculated risks and expose themselves to danger greater than your average person would because they are trained and equipped to minimize those risks that they voluntarily accept does not mean they are obligated to throw themselves on the grenade. Even in the military a soldier is not REQUIRED to throw himself on the grenade.

I expect the equivalent actions from any human being who is worthy of the name.

So, having made a successful rescue at your peak of physical condition at 17, you would look down your nose at the 80 year old cripple who declines your invitation to prove his "humanity" by throwing himself into the surf?

What an idiotic notion.

If it involves restraint in the use of firearms, then that is what I expect.

Interestingly, the law expects exactly the same thing. It expects an armed person (citizen, police officer or soldier) to use deadly force as a last resort and only under the gravest of dangers. But when the law allows the use of deadly force, it does not expect the individual to wait until THEY get shot or killed before defending themselves. They get to act reasonably to the situation as presented to them, as I described. I note that you completely ignored my question. In the scenario given, would you be prosecuted or not?

Cowards will sacrifice someone else's life not just to save their own, but to prevent any risk to their own. Such cowardice is not acceptable to me.

The good news is that none of us have to give a flying fuck what's acceptable to you. And we don't, because your idea of courage is pretty damned stupid.

OMG that was good.

[aspire1670]

Yes, conscription is still available to Congress. It's also available to ANY government that has the monopoly on force whom the citizenry cannot defy. That would be YOU, Jonno my lad. On the other hand, in the US, attempts to conscript for an unjust cause or to support tyranny CAN be effectively defied by our citizenry because, well, we have arms that are every bit as effective as those held by the standing army, and there are 300 million of us and less than 10 million soldiers, guardsmen and police officers.

Yabbut, the forces opposing you won't be stationary paper targets that don't fire back, Seth. Plus the last time I looked the US military had tanks, planes, artillery, bombers, drones, cruise missiles.........good luck fighting tyranny democracy.

Tell it to the Afghans, who have fought two superpowers to a standstill so far.

Did I ever tell you about the time, back in the mid-70s, when the Army special forces held a "war game" just north of St. Augustine, Florida? They solicited volunteers from the local area to participate as the "OPFOR" (Opposing Force) to a beach landing of a battalion of SF troops who were to push inland and capture an objective near the Okeefenokee Swamp.

They outfitted the locals with MILES gear (lasers and detectors on the M-16s firing blanks) and told them to go forth and resist the invasion.

Which they did. Successfully. They wiped out the entire SF force within 72 hours of their landing, using their superior knowledge of the area and superior concealment and camouflage skills learned from generations of hunting in the area.

This incident embarrassed the living hell out of the Army, which tried hard to bury the defeat in the news, and since that time, the military has NEVER repeated that sort of exercise using civilians as OPFOR. They always use other soldiers.

So, don't try to tell your grandpa how to suck eggs when it comes to armed resistance against tyranny. You have no idea what my, or anyone else's qualifications are in that respect.

LOL

Yabbut,you were only just born in the mid seventies, very young Seth, and you're not Afghani nor do you have any experience of armed resistance. Is managing a ranch considered a qualification in special ops in Colorado? You really shouldn't try to bullshit an actual grandfather.

From info kindly provided by yourself including a photo of you shooting at unarmed targets you're simply a slightly overweight 38 years old ex dispatcher who spends an inordinate amount of time posting on the interwebs. And watching Red Dawn on your telly or editing gun videos doesn't qualify you as Special Forces, well not in the real world. Whereas in the 1950s I was a Boy Scout trained in the arts of British Bulldog and to kill silently using nothing more than my woggle and a sheepshank, so don't mess with me, junior.

Did I ever tell you about the time I paddled an upright canoe single handledly to the Himalayas where I proceeded to climb Mount Everest from the inside? Do you see how the interwebs work?