School shooting Florida

[smartcooky]

I started to write something else. You know, the typical response that says, "Hey, that's not what we're doing and...."

But it occurred to me that was the wrong answer. The correct answer is

Hell, yes!

Our kids are growing up doing "active shooter" drills, being taught that one day a bad man might show up show up with a gun and they have to be taught to hide in the closet in the hopes that if they are very, very, quiet, the bad man will kill their friends instead of them.

Here's a group of people who are standing up and saying that's messed up and we ought to do something about it. They're right. We should. It's messed up. As for the specific policy suggestions, of course we shouldn't listen to emotional teenagers who aren't thinking straight because they just went to a bunch of funerals. However, as it turns out, what those kids are saying is what a lot of people have been saying for a very long time, but the socially acceptable thing to do for the last few decades is to not make a big fuss about it.

Well, the times they are a changing. We don't want active shooter drills anymore, and the rest of the world seems to get by without them. Let's do what they do.

"active shooter drill", "school security officer" and "armed schoolteacher" are phrases that are not even in our vocabulary, or our psyche. Schools here don't even have security officers during the school day, nor do they have metal detectors.

How is this possible? Well, its really simple really. Joe Public doesn't have access to high-powered weapons without a licence (and all the checks and balances they entail) and they have NO access to assault weapons at all.

 

[tyr_13]

No, that is not the case. From your writing, it would seem that if Nikolas Cruz had run down seventeen students in a Buick Regal, you believe that banning the Buick Regal would be an effective way to prevent further automobile fatalities.

Is that the case?

Cruz couldn't drive, maybe even incapable of it. He had to take a taxi to the attack.

It's easier to kill with the rifle. They also kill with different mechanisms, and thus different limitations. Therefore, what is effective at mitigating harm from each would obviously be different, even if there is some overlap.

 

[Thermal]

Threatening with a toy gun is just as serious as doing so with a real one.

If you try holding up a bank while brandishing a toy gun, you are just as likely to be shot as you would be if you were carrying a real one.

Of course, but that is not the point. The point is that although he clearly valued handguns, some light regulation prevented the little sicko from getting one. Not so for the very lethal AR. Its why a lot of us favor regs, not to get rid of guns, but to keep them away from guys like Cruz

 

[Matthew Best]

Emma Gonzalez didn't say the word bully. She said "Those talking about how we should have not ostracized him, YOU DIDN'T KNOW THIS KID. WE DID!!"

If a murder suspect told the police that 'we shouldn't have stabbed that kid to death' the police would reasonably conclude that this individual was talking about something he and others did. They would consider that enough of a confession to arrest the person.

So, by saying "we", Emma was describing what she and other students did. What they did was "ostracize" Cruz.

Ostracizing somebody can fall under the larger umbrella of bullying. I've never seen a definition of ostracize that is completely incompatible with bullying. Other students have said the word bullying to describe how Cruz was treated at school. A student said Cruz complained about being bullied. A neighbor said Cruz was bullied. His brother said he was bullied.

Any reasonable person who doesn't wear tinfoil hats in public would conclude she admitted to being a part of group of people who bullied Cruz. I don't know exactly what they did to bully Cruz or if their behavior was actually bullying. But multiple people said Cruz was bullied.

If Emma's fee fees are hurt because people think she's a bully, she can go on camera and explain what she meant.

Sounds to me like he was quite the bully, what with threatening other students with guns and promising to kill them. Well, that and the shooting them of course. Maybe he shouldn't have bullied all those other kids?

 

[pgwenthold]

Here's a group of people who are standing up and saying that's messed up and we ought to do something about it. They're right. We should. It's messed up.

Exactly. I mean, who thinks we SHOULDN'T listen to the kids when they say, "We are scared at school, do something about it!"? What's the alternative to listening to them? Telling them, "**** you, just deal with it. There are grownups here who want to shoot things and if they come after you, well that's the price we pay."?

As I said, when students complain that they have too much homework, I'm happy to say "Yeah, but it's good for you." But when students say, "This is wrong, we shouldn't have to worry about being shot at school" can you really answer, "Sorry, but it's good for you to be scared about being shot"?

As for the specific policy suggestions, of course we shouldn't listen to emotional teenagers who aren't thinking straight because they just went to a bunch of funerals. However, as it turns out, what those kids are saying is what a lot of people have been saying for a very long time, but the socially acceptable thing to do for the last few decades is to not make a big fuss about it.

And even if you don't like those solutions, come up with something else? I mean, they came up with this nonsense about arming teachers, which isn't making the kids feel all that better, but at least that is doing something. Now do something to actually make us all safer for real.

 

[jimbob]

I started to write something else. You know, the typical response that says, "Hey, that's not what we're doing and...."

But it occurred to me that was the wrong answer. The correct answer is

Hell, yes!

Our kids are growing up doing "active shooter" drills, being taught that one day a bad man might show up show up with a gun and they have to be taught to hide in the closet in the hopes that if they are very, very, quiet, the bad man will kill their friends instead of them.

Here's a group of people who are standing up and saying that's messed up and we ought to do something about it. They're right. We should. It's messed up. As for the specific policy suggestions, of course we shouldn't listen to emotional teenagers who aren't thinking straight because they just went to a bunch of funerals. However, as it turns out, what those kids are saying is what a lot of people have been saying for a very long time, but the socially acceptable thing to do for the last few decades is to not make a big fuss about it.

Well, the times they are a changing. We don't want active shooter drills anymore, and the rest of the world seems to get by without them. Let's do what they do.

Yes, I have said several times that anger is an appropriate emotion in response to school shootings. And that emotion is fine, as long as you verify it with reason.

 

[William Parcher]

Schools here don't even have security officers during the school day, nor do they have metal detectors.

How is this possible? Well, its really simple really. Joe Public doesn't have access to high-powered weapons without a licence (and all the checks and balances they entail) and they have NO access to assault weapons at all.

It was like that here in America when I was a kid. No police at the schools and no metal detectors. There were guns galore back then. It's always been that way here. But something changed here. I saw it change in my lifetime.

Maybe those old days was when America was great.

 

[MikeG]

Are you saying that we should make public policy decisions based on the emotional outbursts of children who don't even have any expertise in the subject?

No, you should make it public policy to not have schoolkids shot.

 

[MikeG]

Emma Gonzalez didn't say the word bully. She said "Those talking about how we should have not ostracized him, YOU DIDN'T KNOW THIS KID. WE DID!!"

If a murder suspect told the police that 'we shouldn't have stabbed that kid to death' the police would reasonably conclude that this individual was talking about something he and others did. They would consider that enough of a confession to arrest the person.

So, by saying "we", Emma was describing what she and other students did. What they did was "ostracize" Cruz.

Ostracizing somebody can fall under the larger umbrella of bullying. I've never seen a definition of ostracize that is completely incompatible with bullying. Other students have said the word bullying to describe how Cruz was treated at school. A student said Cruz complained about being bullied. A neighbor said Cruz was bullied. His brother said he was bullied.

Any reasonable person who doesn't wear tinfoil hats in public would conclude she admitted to being a part of group of people who bullied Cruz. I don't know exactly what they did to bully Cruz or if their behavior was actually bullying. But multiple people said Cruz was bullied.

If Emma's fee fees are hurt because people think she's a bully, she can go on camera and explain what she meant.

Are you still whittering on about this?

Why are you trying to excuse a mass murderer?

 

[jimbob]

Are you still whittering on about this?

Why are you trying to excuse a mass murderer?

... Well he likes Nazi imagery, which would probably be considered a bonus.

 

[jimbob]

"active shooter drill", "school security officer" and "armed schoolteacher" are phrases that are not even in our vocabulary, or our psyche. Schools here don't even have security officers during the school day, nor do they have metal detectors.

How is this possible? Well, its really simple really. Joe Public doesn't have access to high-powered weapons without a licence (and all the checks and balances they entail) and they have NO access to assault weapons at all.

Yes, some of my local schools may have metal detectors, but they would be for the hobby of metal detectoring.

New Zealand is probably a better model for the US than the UK, because whilst neither country has a severe gun crime problem, hunting is bigger in New Zealand.

 

[bruto]

All this talk about poor Cruz being bullied by his high school colleagues seems not to be taking into account the abundant evidence (which some here have pointed to) that he had already engaged in behavior that many people would consider intolerably violent and nasty in middle school, and the decision of his high school peers to keep their distance was done, not as some spontaneous expression of dislike, but as a reaction to a history of bad behavior. At what point does a student have your permission to tell a person who has expressed hatred of them and all they value, and threatened to kill them, "go away" without being considered a big bad bully?

CullenNZ, I realize you are arguing somewhat differently, but I think you should back up a bit and realize that whatever you think you're arguing here, you've hitched your wagon to the ugly and mendacious attempts of the far right to discredit the demonstrators not only by belittling their opinion and making it out to be radically unamerican and constitutionally ignorant, but by insinuating that the massacre is their fault.

 

[Andy_Ross]

"active shooter drill", "school security officer" and "armed schoolteacher" are phrases that are not even in our vocabulary, or our psyche. Schools here don't even have security officers during the school day, nor do they have metal detectors.

How is this possible? Well, its really simple really. Joe Public doesn't have access to high-powered weapons without a licence (and all the checks and balances they entail) and they have NO access to assault weapons at all.

You are pissing against the wind. guns are the religion of a large minority of very vocal and influential Americans.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Are you still whittering on about this?

Why are you trying to excuse a mass murderer?

Because the mass murderer used a gun and ther can be no restriction on guns. God says so.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Yes, some of my local schools may have metal detectors, but they would be for the hobby of metal detectoring.

New Zealand is probably a better model for the US than the UK, because whilst neither country has a severe gun crime problem, hunting is bigger in New Zealand.

Are you sure? it's pretty big in my part of North Yorkshire. Everyone and his mother has a shotgun.

 

[CaptainHowdy]

I can't blame you for trying. After all, it often works. Really, for many years now these discussions of machetes or swimming pools or Buick Regals have been met with near silence, so why not keep using them? They appear to be working.


You know the difference between a machete and a revolver, and a revolver and an AR-15. You know the difference in their effectiveness as killing tools. You know how to employ them effectively in different circumstances, and why a person who really wants to kill a bunch of people would use an AR-15 instead of a Mauser or a machete. You know all this, so there's really no point in going any further.

If you want a serious discussion about why some handguns ought to be allowed, but semi-auto rifles like the AR-15 ought to be banned, I can go along with that discussion. Throw machetes into the mix and its clear you're just trying to create a diversion.

We got to machetes when you claimed that a knife couldn't kill seventeen people and didn't like it when I showed that you could. That was the departure for this diversion.

I'd be interested in knowing why you think banning the AR-15 would be enough to stop school shootings if you didn't ban every other semi-automatic rifle. Or why some handguns should be allowed. A handgun doesn't really have any sporting value and they're alot easier to conceal than any rifle or even a machete.

 

[CaptainHowdy]

Of course, but that is not the point. The point is that although he clearly valued handguns, some light regulation prevented the little sicko from getting one. Not so for the very lethal AR. Its why a lot of us favor regs, not to get rid of guns, but to keep them away from guys like Cruz

But there are regulations that would've prevented him from getting a gun if law enforcement had done their job.

 

[CaptainHowdy]

Are you still whittering on about this?

Why are you trying to excuse a mass murderer?

Because people keep asking the same question over and over.

 

[cullennz]

CullenNZ, I realize you are arguing somewhat differently, but I think you should back up a bit and realize that whatever you think you're arguing here, you've hitched your wagon to the ugly and mendacious attempts of the far right to discredit the demonstrators not only by belittling their opinion and making it out to be radically unamerican and constitutionally ignorant, but by insinuating that the massacre is their fault.

Yeah

I have realised this

Probably a bit too late unfortunately

I probably won't comment again on this side of the issue unless I get accused of saying something I haven't

Cheers though

 

[Meadmaker]

I'd be interested in knowing why you think banning the AR-15 would be enough to stop school shootings if you didn't ban every other semi-automatic rifle.

As noted earlier, I would ban all weapons that are capable of firing lots of bullets very fast, and I will leave it to legislative staffs to define those terms. Does that mean every semi-automatic rifle? Could be. I'm ok with that. I just don't want to get into a technical discussion about the exact characteristics that make a gun ban-worthy.

Or why some handguns should be allowed. A handgun doesn't really have any sporting value and they're alot easier to conceal than any rifle or even a machete.

Primarily, the Heller decision. The Supreme Court has ruled that the ban on all handguns rendered the 2nd amendment meaningless. I agree with the reasoning expressed in that opinion. I won't quote from it, because it has been a long time since I read it, but when I read it, it made sense to me.