Cajungal
Staff member
Good read, and something I see every day. I teach a kid like this, and when he gets angry I just keep thinking 'this kid is going to hurt someone soon.' I'm so sad for kids like this, and their parents too.
[News] Several killed in Connecticut Elementary School Shooting
- Thread starter Charlie Don't Surf
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The "assault weapons ban" that you bring up wasn't really. They banned weapons based on looks. You can have two guns that are exactly the sane and you're saying you want to one banned because it looks scary and the other is ok because it doesn't look scary. Even so with the ban you want I believe so ewhere in the neighborhood of 99 percent of firearm related crimes are with handguns and not rifles.
Also guns don't go off by being bumped into and they go through various testing to make sure that even if they are dropped on the ground that an accidental discharge won't occur. And if properly holstered and child bumping into it won't discharge a firearm either because the trigger is covered and unacessable unless taken out of a holster.
If the problem is that you think that the child may disarm you they have holsters that you have to move the fitarm a certain way in order to unholster it (ask OC as I'm sure he has this type in the field)
Sorry this is jumbled I'm writing from my phone
Zappit
Staff member
Fair enough. But it still comes down to the people. My district had a bit of a controversy a few years back; I don't want to go into details, but it involved people being very irresponsible with firearms. The more people with guns, the better the odds for accidents.
I wouldn't mind a licensing system to be able to purchase a firearm. I often feel that proper education, not outright banning, is the way. You could say I grew up in the 'gun culture'. I fired my first gun when I was 7, and was taught how to use them pretty much all my life. Of course, I wasn't 7 years old toting a gun, it was 7 years old holding a shotgun that my dad was also holding, and only after being taught the importance of safety, care, and be able to recite to him the rules of gun operation (keep pointed towards the ground, finger off the trigger, safety on, etc).
Just like a car, guns can be safe or dangerous depending on how they're operated, and how responsible the person using it is. Living in north Florida, I see plenty of idiots that don't know these things, and usually end up in the hospital after shooting themselves in the leg.
Just like a car, guns can be safe or dangerous depending on how they're operated, and how responsible the person using it is. Living in north Florida, I see plenty of idiots that don't know these things, and usually end up in the hospital after shooting themselves in the leg.
This is an interesting article arguing that White Male Privilege is causing these mass shooting events.
http://www.examiner.com/article/connecticut-shooting-white-males-and-mass-murder
http://www.examiner.com/article/connecticut-shooting-white-males-and-mass-murder
That's quite a stretch.
North_Ranger
Staff member
Wait... there are people out there who seriously, adult seriously think it would be a good idea to arm teachers? I'm sorry, but what the fuck is wrong with you people?
And before you go into a tirade about a liberal European wussy not knowing anything about firearms, consider this: I have received firearms training on a national level, as part of my basic training in the army. I know how to assemble, disassemble, maintain and operate an assault rifle, and have fired live ammunition during drills. I was a "bronze pin", which means I was about an average marksman. I have not discharged a weapon since I left the army, but I know the basic safety rules, what a firearm is capable of and what it is not. So let's have that completely clear: I am no stranger to firearms.
And the idea that I, as an educator, would be expected or encouraged to take a gun into a school, let alone my class room... it just makes me sick, even thinking about it. Because no matter how you disect the issue, a firearm's most basic function is the same: to cause grievous bodily harm to another living being. Okay, you can shoot at the wall or use it as a tool of intimidation, but you are still talking about a piece of machinery that was made to cause injury or death. And somebody wants teachers to be packing heat? What's next? Should waiters carry handguns while at work? Or how about movie theater ushers? Or the pizza guy? Where do you draw the goddamn limit? Or is everyone supposed to pack heat, so everybody will be constantly scared shitless that the next person you rub the wrong way will draw and give you an extra breathing hole?
What the hell kind of a world do some people want to live in?
And before you go into a tirade about a liberal European wussy not knowing anything about firearms, consider this: I have received firearms training on a national level, as part of my basic training in the army. I know how to assemble, disassemble, maintain and operate an assault rifle, and have fired live ammunition during drills. I was a "bronze pin", which means I was about an average marksman. I have not discharged a weapon since I left the army, but I know the basic safety rules, what a firearm is capable of and what it is not. So let's have that completely clear: I am no stranger to firearms.
And the idea that I, as an educator, would be expected or encouraged to take a gun into a school, let alone my class room... it just makes me sick, even thinking about it. Because no matter how you disect the issue, a firearm's most basic function is the same: to cause grievous bodily harm to another living being. Okay, you can shoot at the wall or use it as a tool of intimidation, but you are still talking about a piece of machinery that was made to cause injury or death. And somebody wants teachers to be packing heat? What's next? Should waiters carry handguns while at work? Or how about movie theater ushers? Or the pizza guy? Where do you draw the goddamn limit? Or is everyone supposed to pack heat, so everybody will be constantly scared shitless that the next person you rub the wrong way will draw and give you an extra breathing hole?
What the hell kind of a world do some people want to live in?
Even more sick now, because all those kids were my daughter's age. (she is in first grade and is turning 7 next month) 
Also, even though we are across the country from this, there was an increased police patrol on Friday, which will continue to Christmas break. We already had increased police after that stuff in Westminster.
Also, even though we are across the country from this, there was an increased police patrol on Friday, which will continue to Christmas break. We already had increased police after that stuff in Westminster.
Why is Morgan Freeman suddenly the foremost authority on everything? Is it because he played God that people believe every little blurb attributed to him on the internet (which usually he did not say in the first place)?
North_Ranger
Staff member
Huh? What does Morgan Freeman have to do with this? He's a cool guy, okay, but... context, please?
It is your seeming belief that everyone walks around with a gun cocked and loaded just primed for accidental discharge. If you have never fired a gun you don't know all the basics though. That's just a simple fact. You've mentioned several times that being "bumped" and having an accidental discharge, and those things don't happen when proper gun safety is being followed.
I understand being emotional about the subject, and I've not said anything about that at all.
Pizza guys in my area already work in pairs, with one of them always carrying a gun. They do it because pizza guys kept getting mugged and more than a few were killed when they refused to hand over their money.
So yeah... we're already IN that kind of world. A world where a man gets shot for a hundred bucks and free pizza.
Yeah delivery guys have a for real dangerous job because of shit like that
North_Ranger
Staff member
There's a facebook meme going around in America with some "wise thoughts on the tragedy" being attributed to him
He was quoted in telling the media to stop focusing on the shooters' of these events and focus on the victims instead.
He's right. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are household names. Can you name one victim from Columbine without Google?
I can't even tell you any of the shooters names. Give me a week and I'll forget that idiots name too
I have seen this floating around the "tubes" in the last day or so. It's not the first time he has been "quoted" as having some profound insight onto whatever the most recent issue is. And, as in the past, Morgan Freeman has actually said nothing of the sort.
We also need idiot control. Several brain-deads thought football was more important than last night's memorial service, and said so publicly in extremely vulgar terms. One award winner tweeted himself right off his college football team.
(Not posting a link due to net issues on my end, but see Deadspin or my twitter.)
(Not posting a link due to net issues on my end, but see Deadspin or my twitter.)
This is nothing new. Kids have been killing each other for jackets and shoes for decades now. Not always with guns, either. They kill each other for drugs. Adults kill kids for crying. Kids kill adults for not letting them see their girlfriend/boyfriend.
I live about 30 minutes drive from downtown Detroit (technically I'm in Ypsilanti, between Detroit and Ann Arbor), but my pizza drivers don't have these issues. I'd hate to have people living outside the US under the impression that every pizza driver is armed and our children are in significant daily danger. http://www.trulia.com/crime/ is an interesting site to spend some time on, showing crime in a heat map format, so you can find out which areas of a given city have high levels of reported crime, and even drill down to violent or nonviolent crimes (mugging vs shoplifting, for instance). In a country of 300 million people, this isn't so much crime that one need fear for their life.
Death and destruction has always been a part of the human race. The things they fight over, and the tools they use to kill may have evolved, but the basic greed/power/jealousy/pride/anger/etc has not changed.
It's still rare.
It's sensationalized, and it's important to look at what we can do to limit it, but we're hardly living in a dystopia.
The counter argument against gun control reform all over the place:
It's my right, I should have a gun for fun if I want to!
It's like I can almost understand it (Cigarettes/Alcohol is my fun and I should have my rights to it regardless of whether some drunk asshole runs over a child or second hand smoke gives a child cancer) etc. It's such a slippery slope.
It's my right, I should have a gun for fun if I want to!
It's like I can almost understand it (Cigarettes/Alcohol is my fun and I should have my rights to it regardless of whether some drunk asshole runs over a child or second hand smoke gives a child cancer) etc. It's such a slippery slope.
There has been an uptick in crime recently, but that uptick comes on the heels of record lows in crime.
I just wish our media would quit treating serial killers and mass shooters like rock-star, world record holders. While this one guy holds the record for killing college students, this shooter holds the record for killing 1st graders...
I just wish our media would quit treating serial killers and mass shooters like rock-star, world record holders. While this one guy holds the record for killing college students, this shooter holds the record for killing 1st graders...
Dave
Staff member
Hopefully really far. I wouldn't mind being close to the book version, though. The movie version was bullshit.Personally I keep wondering how far we're from the:
future...
Fun fact, I met everyone from that movie except Arnold. I was bartending in Fargo when there was a health expo that featured the actors. So Friday night we looped the movie in the bar non-stop as a promotion. Saturday night the actors came and bartended with us while the movie continued to loop. So not only have I seen this movie more times than I care to admit, but trying to bartend with this guy was a huge pain in the ass.
The worst part was that they moved the game to another channel during the speech, so he didn't actually have to miss any of it.
GasBandit
Staff member
Good morning. You already have it. It doesn't help.
I haven't read the thread since I signed off Friday. But over the weekend, I have of course been slowly mentally preparing my first post here for Monday, because I promised I'd be back to discuss it. So here goes.
What happened in Connecticut was a terrible tragedy, the scope of which words falter to encompass as a monster in human shape took the lives of 26 people including 20 children. There's a lot of people asking, "why?" as if there is a sane, understandable reason to commit this sort of atrocity, and for many of those asking that question there will never be a satisfactory answer because the reasoning process of someone who commits such an act is broken beyond mere derangement.
It's apparent to anyone who takes a subjective inventory of their own recent memory that mass shooting events have been increasing in number. Naturally, there are going to be a lot of people whose first (perhaps even only) impulse will be to blame the tools by which these murders are perpetrated - firearms. But the fact is, access to firearms, indeed firearm ownership is at or near an all time low according to gallup. We've had gun control laws in place longer than most of us have been alive. Yes, the so called "assault weapons ban" expired, but it was based less upon a gun's ability to deal death rapidly and more concerned with how scary they looked - if they had a hole in the stock or one that folded, for example.
But let's get the Charlie argument out of the way right off the bat - you can't ban all guns. Not from a practical, logistical, political or even moral standpoint. Not only is it impossible to put the genie back in the bottle, it would be wrong to try - by definition, making guns illegal means that only those who follow the law will not have guns, and that criminals will still do as they please, perhaps even with less impediment. Furthermore, I know you're getting sick of me saying it, but the 2nd Amendment is not about hunting or home defense, it is about making every American able to outfit himself as a soldier - or resistance fighter - at the drop of a hat with similar effectiveness to that of a regular soldier. That's why the "but... but... muskets!" argument is completely invalid. And even if a total ban was possible, consider that the same week as the CT shootings, a man in China murdered 22 children in school at once with a blade.
Furthermore, in all the statistic droppings about tragedies involving guns, nobody's eager to talk about the hundreds of times per day firearms are used to prevent or lessen crime. A few days ago a mall shooting was cut short when the criminal was confronted by someone who was carrying (legally, with permit) a concealed weapon. Switzerland and Israel also have a large number of guns per capita, and have safer records than most countries that do not. The common saying goes, that when seconds count, the police are only minutes away. Not only that, but the supreme court has actually ruled (by 7-2 in 2005) that, no matter what's painted on the side of the squad car, the police have no duty to defend or protect. The police are not there to guard you from harm, they are there to punish those that harm after the fact. That's cold comfort to the victims and their families, especially when the harmer has taken even that away from them by killing himself at the end.
So what has also been on the rise the past 20, 30 years to coincide with the degradation of society we have witnessed? I put to you that it is the death of personal responsibility. From grade school up through adulthood, we are being told, taught and reinforced that what happens to us is beyond our control, and our worth as an individual is far below the worth of the collective. You're supposed to feel self-esteem without any actual reason behind it. You're supposed to get a participation ribbon even if you lose. Think of how an unbalanced person, growing up hearing that nothing they do really matters in the outcome of what happens to them, feels when they're an adult and haven't achieved the shallow dreams that such teachings of easy self-esteem put in their heads. Why aren't they a rock star? Why aren't they president? Why aren't they an astronaut? It can't possibly be their fault. Everybody knows that when you fail it is because of somebody else, right? It's just a roll of the dice (and the dice are rolled by a faceless somebody-else) that says that Snookie is a famous millionaire and you aren't. It becomes an easy leap from "nothing that happens to me is my fault" to "nothing I do is my fault" because your actions are only reacting to the injustices perpetrated upon you by an injust society and world - it's their fault you're not a supermodel-banging CEO. And so some start thinking about how they can hurt this faceless society most. And the media has been very kind in glorifying and trumpeting the last acts of folks just like this to the world, and made them immortal. We go to "guns" because it's an easy and fast explanation that prevents us from having to deal with the reality of what has become of our society, our selves.
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