• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

School shooting: but don't mention guns!

Kestrel said:
A query of the CDC Wonder database shows that 4,818 children ages 0 to 14 died as a result of firearms from 1999 to 2010. Swimming pool deaths for this same period and age groups totaled 3,885.

This isn't to say that swimming pools do not pose a risk to children. It just isn't the topic of this thread.
Click to expand...

How many red herrings contribute to the death of children?
 
I for one would not respond to a report of a "man with a gun" or any similar such call were I not armed, and hopefully with a backup as well.
There is a long history of shooting at police officers in this country, and individuals who intend to actually ambush police or "go out in a blaze of glory" have been known to call themselves and then simply wait for the police to arrive to start shooting.
Other countries who do not respond in such fashion likely do not have the high incidence of assaults on police we do.
 
Quad4_72 said:
Personally, I don't see the big deal about a concealed carry permit holder carrying into a school with a holstered weapon. I know that sounds outrageous, but what harm does it cause? Obviously the law of no guns in schools does not deter criminals, so what purpose does it serve?
Click to expand...

Multivac said:
No, that doesn't sound outrageous at all. It sounds bat-**** crazy!
Click to expand...

joesixpack said:
Can you explain why you feel that way? Other than your irrational fear of people who are statistically the least likely to shoot up a school.
Click to expand...

Multivac said:
Ok, I'll try.

1) I do not have an irrational fear of teachers, or anyone else.
2) I do not want my kids to be taught by someone wearing a gun as it sends the message that guns are necessary to be safe, and an ordinary everyday item.
3) If the best way to protect kids from being shot at school is to arm the teachers, then society has failed
4) Everyone gets angry, and it is much easier to hurt someone when angry with a gun than if you are unarmed.
Click to expand...

1) Quad wasn't actually talking about teachers and neither was I when I said "people who are statistically least likely to shoot up a school". People in the US with permits to carry a concealed weapon are the least likely to commit a crime. I don't understand why allowing a permitted weapon holder to walk through the doors of a school sounds bat **** crazy unless you feel that there would be some horrifying consequence. I can't see that there is any evidence for that conclusion, and in some municipalities, teachers with concealed carry permits are allowed to carry in their workplace (i.e., the classroom)

2) Again, Quad wasn't talking about teachers in the post to which you responded, but "school staff" is in the discussion so I'll address it; It is highly unlikely that your child would even be aware of the presence of an armed staff member in the school. "Concealed" means concealed. People with permits are required to keep the weapon hidden.

3) One might just as easily say that kids being shot at school was a sign of society's failure. But statistically speaking, the number of children killed at school is far lower than the number of children killed in their own homes. According to ChildHelp, at least five children die every day due to abuse and neglect. Almost none of them with a firearm, by the way. Mass shootings like this are exceptionally rare, And if a magic wand could be waved that would in some way eliminate all mass shootings, the per capita homicide rate wouldn't even budge.

There are a lot of things I would point to as evidence of the "failure" of US society. I could probably fill a couple of pages before I even got to "gun culture". The most glaring failures would be lack of access to healthcare, the outrageous income disparity, and concentration of wealth. If you look at the demography of typical gun violence, you will see that it is concentrated among the very poor. Poverty has more to do with violent crime and homicide than the presence of guns. Other than the emotional content you ascribe to it, allowing a licensed weapon into a school is a non-issue.

4) Everyone gets angry, yet the millions of people licensed to carry concealed weapons aren't shooting people who are rude to them, As I said above, they are the most law abiding demographic in the country. In fact, every weapon holder I've known personally does everything in their power to de-escalate any situation in which they find themselves. It seems like legally permitted gun owners don't seem to get so angry. There's a reason for that.

So again I ask, in light of the information above, what rational reason do you have for banning permitted weapon holders from a school? Keep in mind, I'm not suggesting that this will prevent any future school killing, all I'm asking is what is the issue you have with lifting that ban?
 
Belz... said:
Don't bother. This isn't the first time Zeggman claims not to understand human emotion.
Click to expand...

I'm certain he understands emotion just fine. The question is why emotion is what we should base our laws on. Shouldn't there be a rational basis instead?
 
joesixpack said:
I'm certain he understands emotion just fine. The question is why emotion is what we should base our laws on. Shouldn't there be a rational basis instead?
Click to expand...

What zeggman apparently is saying is that we shouldn't feel grief towards people we can put a face on or on a few children because more people die every day. That doesn't seem to have any relation to lawmaking at all. It's just a way to get people riled up.
 
DJW said:
What use does human emotion have in a rational argument?
Click to expand...

Aside from the fact that your post has literally nothing to do with mine, emotions can't be the basis of an argument, but you can make an argument that acknowledges the existence of emotion and its impact.
 
zeggman said:
I wouldn't oppose additional requirements for responsible gun owners, including harsher (criminal) penalties if a gun owner's negligence contributed to a crime or an accident.
Click to expand...

We have laws that cover that, already. The only thing I am pointing out is that it is dishonest to claim that no one reacts to drownings.

People get very upset, even complete strangers, when innocent people die as a result of someone else's decisions, whether it be leaving a child alone in the bath tub, sitting them on the fence at a zoo, reckless driving, or some crazed individual who decides to shoot up a public place. As a species, we survived and advanced because of trial and error, recognizing patterns and adjusting our behavior accordingly. Since I do not have access to all the crimes in America, I really have no idea if the recent surge in reportings of attempted mass shootings is a real trend or if the news is just scouring local reports for anything even remotely related because of recent events. In the past two years, we've had three mass shootings because mentally unstable people had access to guns. Grant it, the number of people that are killed as a result of these incidents pale in comparison to the number of children who drown, per year. The difference, to me, is not that drowning is any less tragic, it's how I feel in the aftermath. The world doesn't feel less safe because a child drowned in the neighbor's pool. There are proactive responses to that. I can adjust my behavior accordingly to reduce the risk to my own children by keeping an eye on them near water, teaching them how to swim, making sure my neighbor adheres to laws regarding pools. No amount of adjusting my behavior will make my children bulletproof. No amount of teaching my children gun safety prevents them from being the next victim of an armed and crazed individual.
 
Belz... said:
What zeggman apparently is saying is that we shouldn't feel grief towards people we can put a face on or on a few children because more people die every day. That doesn't seem to have any relation to lawmaking at all. It's just a way to get people riled up.
Click to expand...
Please quote the post in which I said we shouldn't feel grief towards people we can put a face on or on a few children. I think that claim is an outright lie, but if there is any evidence that I actually wrote the words you are putting in my mouth, I'd like to see it. Produce it.

The whole point is lawmaking. People are calling for changes to the laws based on THESE deaths, based on THIS grief. Other deaths and other grief is not prompting them to make similar calls for changes in other areas.

If anyone is ignoring human emotion, it's the people who shrug off drowning deaths, while insisting that this once-in-a-lifetime tragedy should lead to permanent policy changes.
 
Belz... said:
What zeggman apparently is saying is that we shouldn't feel grief towards people we can put a face on or on a few children because more people die every day. That doesn't seem to have any relation to lawmaking at all. It's just a way to get people riled up.
Click to expand...

If that's what you think he's saying, I suppose it wouldn't be surprising that that is the reaction. But that's actually not at all what he's saying, and a less emotional re-reading would relieve you of that delusion.
 
Belz... said:
Aside from the fact that your post has literally nothing to do with mine, emotions can't be the basis of an argument, but you can make an argument that acknowledges the existence of emotion and its impact.
Click to expand...

You very plainly made an ad hominum attack on Zeggman when you admonished Dcdrac to not bother engaging with Zeggman. That's what my post had to "literally" do with your post.

Acknowledging emotion explains to me why irrational ideas can gain traction in any discussion, but Zeggman's suppposed lack of understanding of human emotion by you doesn't have any business in the debate.
 
It would appear America needs to sort out its swimming pools as well as its guns. As for the other equivalent mentioned, road crashes, they have been dropping steadily

http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s1103.pdf

From 46,800 deaths in 1990 to 35,900 in 2009. But the number of accidents has not declined as much from 11.5 million to 10.8 million.

Drownings have pretty much remained stable at an average of 3,880 from 2005 to 2009.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6119a4.htm

Firearms homicides have been pretty stable 1998 9,275 and 2009 9,146

http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/united-states

So the one area where safety has had an impact is with cars and that is more down to built in safety, airbags etc than anything else. That suggests built in safety would have an impact on gun deaths. So a massive safety campaign to properly secure guns away from children and theft and unauthorised access. Maybe look at better safety switches and trigger guards. Better gun safety and security programmes.

Since people want to look at other death rates, why not instead of arguing over there equivalency why not look at what works else where and try and apply it to other problems. Treat guns like cars and look at ways to make them safer.
 
Nessie said:
It would appear America needs to sort out its swimming pools as well as its guns. As for the other equivalent mentioned, road crashes, they have been dropping steadily

http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s1103.pdf

From 46,800 deaths in 1990 to 35,900 in 2009. But the number of accidents has not declined as much from 11.5 million to 10.8 million.

Drownings have pretty much remained stable at an average of 3,880 from 2005 to 2009.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6119a4.htm

Firearms homicides have been pretty stable 1998 9,275 and 2009 9,146

http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/united-states

So the one area where safety has had an impact is with cars and that is more down to built in safety, airbags etc than anything else. That suggests built in safety would have an impact on gun deaths. So a massive safety campaign to properly secure guns away from children and theft and unauthorised access. Maybe look at better safety switches and trigger guards. Better gun safety and security programmes.

Since people want to look at other death rates, why not instead of arguing over there equivalency why not look at what works else where and try and apply it to other problems. Treat guns like cars and look at ways to make them safer.
Click to expand...
+1.

When we address drowning deaths, we look for ways to makes pools inaccessible to unsupervised non-swimmers, and to educate people in how to be safe in the water.

When we address auto deaths, we have education campaigns against drunk, drowsy, and distracted driving. We add features like seat belts and crumple zones to make cars safer. We develop laws for the road, and pay to enforce them.

I'd support similar strategies for dealing with gun violence. I think they could be just as effective in decreasing gun deaths as they have been in decreasing drowning deaths and auto deaths, without infringing on the rights of responsible gun owners (who make up the vast majority of gun owners).
 
Hey, Nessie, thanks for at least trying to back your thoughts up. The effort is appreciated.

Sorry about the big "but", but:

Homicides aren't accidents, and you seem to be claiming that they are.

I did a simple google search and found this Univ. of Michigan link with some numbers that I hope you'll take a look at, link.

Some of the figures to glance at for those not interested in following the link: Bolding indicates copy/paste from the link

In 1999, 3,385 children and youth ages 0-19 years were killed with a gun. This includes homicides, suicides, and unintentional injuries.

And another that I wanted to point out:

214 unintentional

One more that really caught my eye:

Of the total firearms-related deaths: 73 were of children under five years old
416 were children 5-14 years old
2,896 were 15-19 years old
 
I understand homicides are different from all the rest in that they are not accidents. But I think that the principle of looking to improve safety will have a positive affect on homicides.

I see there is a lot of academic public health studies about guns, from John Hopkins Bloomberg Uni to Harvard to privately funded work by the likes of Public Health Law Research.

I don't know if the public health lot are regarded as anti-gun or not, but their appliance of study and science to firearms and overall public health and safety measures to reduce deaths makes more sense to me than anything else I have read so far.

So amongst the solutions I have read so far are increased police crackdowns on illegal guns

http://publichealthlawresearch.org/taxonomy/term/31/all

Restriction of high risk individuals for getting guns

http://www.jhsph.edu/research/cente...ublications/WhitePaper102512_PressRelease.pdf

Gun use and self defence

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/research/hicrc/firearms-research/public-opinion/index.html

There is even more on general safety and maybe a huge campaign, which I am sure would have popular support at the moment, on the likes of safe storage and child mortality

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9315767

would be of benefit. The aim would try and make the Sandy Hook shooting a tipping point where US society decides it needs to fear the sheer number of guns in its country more than anything else.
 
DJW said:
One more that really caught my eye:

Of the total firearms-related deaths: 73 were of children under five years old
416 were children 5-14 years old
2,896 were 15-19 years old
Click to expand...

And a further note on 15-19 year-old gun deaths... these are often crime related. From a survey in Boston:

"Between 1990 and 1994, 75% of all homicide victims age 21 and younger in the city of Boston had a prior criminal record."
 
zooterkin said:
Well, who'd've guessed? The answer, according to the NRA, is more guns.
Click to expand...

His scapegoating of violent movies and video games is idiotic, as is his call for a national mental health registry. That doesn't make him wrong about everything:

Now, I can imagine the shocking headlines you'll print tomorrow morning: "More guns," you'll claim, "are the NRA's answer to everything!" Your implication will be that guns are evil and have no place in society, much less in our schools. But since when did the word "gun" automatically become a bad word?

A gun in the hands of a Secret Service agent protecting the President isn't a bad word. A gun in the hands of a soldier protecting the United States isn't a bad word. And when you hear the glass breaking in your living room at 3 a.m. and call 911, you won't be able to pray hard enough for a gun in the hands of a good guy to get there fast enough to protect you.

So why is the idea of a gun good when it's used to protect our President or our country or our police, but bad when it's used to protect our children in their schools? They're our kids. They're our responsibility. And it's not just our duty to protect them — it's our right to protect them.
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom