School shooting Florida

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smartcooky said:
Arming teachers will get them killed, and could end up being a total disaster.
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They are already getting killed, if you haven't noticed.

Problem with good guy with a gun is, it happens very rarely. I know about 2 cases. In both the good guy stopped the shooting. One was the Canadian parliament shooting. The other one is Sutherland Springs church shooting.

Yes, in both cases the armed 'good guy' appeared quite late. Earlier than police though, in both cases. And in both cases it is estimated there would be more victims, if they didn't appear.

I don't know about any case, where armed person tried to step in, but was killed. But then, only small percentage of cases is publicized, I certainly think it is possible. But even from confrontation with police it is clear, that many times the shooter is not prepared for opposition. Not secure enough to get shot at. They either run, or most often, kill themselves.

I think at the moment of the shooting, armed response, even from civilian, is only thing which can stop it. I also know I would want to have a gun on me in case like that. Especially if I was responsible for class of kids.

But then I also realize, it's hardly realistic countermeasure. There is not enough armed, trained, and willing civilians to make any difference. You would need 100 times of what we have now. Impossible. Also it's clearly just a derail from gun lobby. Indeed, availability of the guns is the main issue. There are other issues, as in this case especially, largely neglected upbringing of troubled boy, who needed help years ago. But for sure, he should have not in any case get hands on guns. Much less to be able to obtain them legally.

But then currently the schools are typically gun free zones. Teacher are not even allowed to have guns. Just makes you a sitting duck. IMHO gun free zone must be enforced and secured. If you ask somebody to give up on his self defense options, you should be able to provide the protection.

Sure, when US changes gun law, manages to substantially limit access to guns, and make it virtually impossible for troubled youth to get hands on them, and after the number of shooting declines to levels common elsewhere .. well then you can declare gun free zones. Or you just wouldn't have to. But declaring something you can't assure is just naive. Criminally naive.
 
William Parcher said:
What is the correct way to say that you are skeptical of the claim that bullets passed through walls?

Teach me how to do skepticism correctly for that.
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Well there are a couple few things.

One, you are digging your hole deeper the more you dig in, rarely the best position to hold.

Two, you are ignoring one first hand contemporary eye witness who texted that bullets were coming through the walls.

Three, you have absolutely no evidence or reason to think the walls were stopping the bullets. So where do you think all those rounds were going that weren't stopped by bodies?

Four, the standard of evidence you are applying, "an official report", is no more reliable than said contemporary eye witness account.

And what quadraginta said.
 
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Arming the teachers is an "ambulance at the bottom of the cliff" solution. I'd rather see a "fence at the top of the cliff" solution.... stop the shootings in the first place.
 
My boss is a former Marine and he and this NRA guy at my workplace are pretty much the only two men I trust to stop a potential rampage killer should he attack. But how many other workplaces or schools have that kind of quality marksmanship and experience?
 
smartcooky said:
Arming the teachers is an "ambulance at the bottom of the cliff" solution. I'd rather see a "fence at the top of the cliff" solution.... stop the shootings in the first place.
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No system is perfect. Both solutions should be utilized.
 
Myriad said:
There's a generational shift going on here. That's why the anti-gun backlash "feels different" this time. It may or may not have any different immediate results, but it's the trend for the foreseeable future.

Despite all the talk about the Founding Fathers, there's an aspect of the present gun control issue in the U.S. that's largely rooted in 20th century European and Asian history; specifically, its genocides of relatively unarmed populations. My father's generation was acutely aware of it; many of the immigrants of that generation and the previous one came to the U.S. to flee it. That represented, not necessarily a bloc of gun owners or enthusiasts, but people on the sidelines of that generation and the next, who felt they had, and in some cases still feel they have, an adequate reason to accept the costs and risks of having a well-armed citizenry.

A case in point: the only firearm my own father ever owned was a collector's piece that he inherited late in his life, and he kept it disassembled and never attempted to fire it. Yet I heard him say this, more than once: "If every Jew in Europe had met the Gestapo at the front door with a gun in his hand..."

He didn't finish that sentence. The implication was that the extremes of the Holocaust might have been prevented, although surely such armed resistance would still have been suicidal and there would still have been a bloodbath of some sort. But then, it's plausible that if such a massacre occurred in one neighborhood, the next neighborhood due to be visited might organize a more effective form of armed resistance. As people have pointed out in this thread, such resistance wouldn't be effective in a straight battle against a country's armed forces, but in this case, and as will often be the case in such times of civil upheaval, those forces were busy elsewhere. Ultimately, a genocide (or invasion, occupation, coup, etc.) might be made too costly to sustain, or to contemplate in the first place.

Now we’re seeing a generational shift. To the kids in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the menace of NKVD or Gestapo agents with uniforms and pistols pounding on every front door on your block in the middle of the night is nearly as historically remote as the menace of Napoleon’s armies marching in formation across your farms with muskets and cavalry would have been to my parents’ generation. Understandably, they see instead the risks and costs of an armed citizenry, that have played out right before their eyes.

Sooner or later it will be their choice to make. All we can do is help make sure they have the knowledge to make that choice an informed one.
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Interestingly the Gestapo weren't classically part of the government. The more I read on the rise of the Nazis the more it becomes clear that an American equivalent wouldn't be perpetrated by the government but by a paramilitary organization composed of largely uneducated, underemployed men that drink up conspiracy theories.

Basically the NRA.
 
I heard Wayne Lapierre talking about how "the left" is exploiting this situation to take away guns.

The thinking is just so bizarre. It's the idea that the gun is what is of primary importance, that somehow, we hate guns so much that we are willing to take advantage of dead teenagers in our quest to get rid of them.

No, Wayne. That's not it. We hate dead teenagers. That's what we hate. The guns are just a tool, but they are a necessary tool if you want to kill teenagers. We don't hate the guns. We just think that if there were fewer guns, there would be fewer dead young people. It's not like we are saying "Ahh....now we can get rid of guns." We are saying, "Screw it. We're tired of yet another round of funerals. And, as for your various slogans, 'We call B. S.' "
 
ServiceSoon said:
No system is perfect. Both solutions should be utilized.
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Lawrence O'Donnell tonight suggested Trump has seen too many Clint Eastwood movies. I agree with him.

Arming teachers and putting more armed guards in schools is fantasy solution. Know what one stage of grief in cases like this shooting is, especially if you lost someone dear? "If only..."
If only I had been there.
If only a good guy with a gun stopped him.
If only the FBI or the Broward Police had done more before this happened.​
That's all well and good when it helps people cope with loss to have these imaginary if onlys. But fantasy solutions are not evidence based.
 
Meadmaker said:
I heard Wayne Lapierre talking about how "the left" is exploiting this situation to take away guns.

The thinking is just so bizarre. It's the idea that the gun is what is of primary importance, that somehow, we hate guns so much that we are willing to take advantage of dead teenagers in our quest to get rid of them.

No, Wayne. That's not it. We hate dead teenagers. That's what we hate. The guns are just a tool, but they are a necessary tool if you want to kill teenagers. We don't hate the guns. We just think that if there were fewer guns, there would be fewer dead young people. It's not like we are saying "Ahh....now we can get rid of guns." We are saying, "Screw it. We're tired of yet another round of funerals. And, as for your various slogans, 'We call B. S.' "
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I'm pondering starting a thread in the CT forum. LaPierre's comments were that bizarre. Straightforward McCarthyism.
 
And apparently there was a "good guy with a gun", an armed security guard, actually present at the school. He didn't stop the bad guy with a gun.

He did lose his job.
 
crescent said:
There is a theory going around that they only keep him around so that the rest of them look sane by comparison.
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I doubt that. LaPierre is extremely successful growing the membership and the donor base.

Of course it will be interesting to see what happens as this Russians donating to the NRA shakes out.

But mostly the NRA (which is really an arm of gun manufacturers) is no doubt still very pleased at the NRA's political power using LaPierre's fear-mongering. Until it stops working he'll continue to be their very high-paid guy.
 
Reheat said:
Evidence?
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http://www.businessinsider.com/gun-industry-funds-nra-2013-1

Since 2005, the gun industry and its corporate allies have given between $20 million and $52.6 million to it through the NRA Ring of Freedom sponsor program. Donors include firearm companies like Midway USA, Springfield Armory Inc, Pierce Bullet Seal Target Systems, and Beretta USA Corporation. Other supporters from the gun industry include Cabala's, Sturm Rugar & Co, and Smith & Wesson.

The NRA also made $20.9 million - about 10 percent of its revenue - from selling advertising to industry companies marketing products in its many publications in 2010, according to the IRS Form 990.

Additionally, some companies donate portions of sales directly to the NRA. Crimson Trace, which makes laser sights, donates 10 percent of each sale to the NRA. Taurus buys an NRA membership for everyone who buys one of their guns. Sturm Rugar gives $1 to the NRA for each gun sold, which amounts to millions. The NRA's revenues are intrinsically linked to the success of the gun business.
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I think we need to be relentless with the NRA. I'm talking TV ads where we shame any politician that has taken their money and always, always make sure to superimpose "child killers" in dripping blood over the NRA logo.
 
BobTheCoward said:
Less than 2% of England and Wales residents own a firearm (mostly shotguns). 20-30% of Americans own guns, mostly not shotguns. When you live in 20% land, 2% sure feels like a de facto ban.
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It "sure feels" like a ban, eh? We can't have that can we?
 
smartcooky said:
Secure classroom doors would not have done much good. Cruz set off the fire alarms to get the kids out into the corridors so that he had a bigger target to aim at. You can't really have the entry doors secure because kids have to use them regularly, and having those doors unsecured means that a school kid shooter can still gain entrance to the building.

Using gas/chemicals won't work because the shooter can just use a simple activated carbon spray mask; which can be bought for about $50 at the local garden shop.
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Won't stop 3 molar HCl or H2SO4 or NaOH or the glass they are contained in.
And the person would not likely know it if an outsider to the school nor would they likely think of the possibility.
 
crescent said:
http://www.businessinsider.com/gun-industry-funds-nra-2013-1
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Duh, the firearms and sporting goods industry gives $$ to the NRA for both advertising and other activities they support. What a shock that an industry would promote it's products via $$ and donates to an organization that members of the NRA purchase and support said products. That does not make them an "arm" of the gun industry. In addition, much of the information in that article comes from the Violence Policy Center better known as the Brady Bunch. I trust their word less than that of "Bagdad Bob".

The NRA is more than a political organization. They support training and recreation program for many youth programs to include gun safety and marksmanship training.

Contrary to the crap that is being spread here the NRA's real power stems from VOTES.
 
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But the fact is that with only its membership fees the NRA couldn't do much political campaigning.

So Cresenet is right.
 
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