Do you really think that posting hundreds of times on a community forum is going to change anything? It might make you feel better but it accomplishes nothing. If you truly want to make a difference and do more than just preach, why aren’t you standing in the doorway of your representative’s office? Maybe start a foundation for the elimination of gun violence and lobby the powers that be. But no, you’d rather be here lecturing us.

Nothing else is working, have to start somewhere, congress is doing nothing, how many mass shootings will it take, yipsters.

Agree with all, but in the mean time, secure our schools.

Nothing else is working, have to start somewhere, congress is doing nothing, how many mass shootings will it take, yipsters. Vote these congressman OUT.

I can't help but wonder how you KNOW for CERTAINTY what I am doing. If I mention ANYTHING I do, they you and others jump p up and scream virtual signaling.

I do NOT ever initiate hundreds of posts. I am answering or responding to hundreds of posts that I disagree with. I know it seriously upsets you to have someone post something you disagree with . I am sorry my posts upset you so much, maybe you would be happier if you blocked me?

I believe conversation can help people come to an understand of each other, but I do know that with some people they are so invested in their beliefs that don't bother to try to understand the other persons beliefs. I for one have changed a lot of my views on this topic. One for example, is I have come to believe that banning AR-15s will not significantly change the situation. My coming to that change is thanks in part to posters here that take the time to actually address the issue and say why it doesn't and won't work. I am still willing to accept banning AR-15s as a test/attempt to see how it works, but I personally no longer believe it will make a significant difference. See, that is how discussions work. If you are totally not interested in anything that anyone says that might disagree with what you believe to be true. Then why do you continue to post your one liner zingers? Just to get all the cheering from others that believe as you do? That would be sad, posting to get approval clicks while children are dying.

I see very few contributions from you that suggest what can be done, but a LOT of posts from you dis'ing other posters for quality, quality, and accuracy. Lots of "negative vibes".

Thank you, I posted the same thing, but as usual with my I took 20 times as many words as you posted so well and succinctly.

No other 1st world country has had over 20 mass shootings in past two weeks since the Texas school shooting. That is why the selective. The G-7 are most like us. Every country is different but comparing NYNY to a village in the Amazon, is not going to produce many insights into OUR problems.

Numerous studies have shown the incidence of mental illness in shooters is no higher than the general population. So, 11% of 300 million people is 33 million. Let's round it down to 15 million to element toddlers, a feeble oldsters. So, why is it that only a little over 200 of them are involved in mass shooting? I am all in favor of helping the mentally ill. I would NEVER suggest locking them away in an insane asylum (disgusting term) but would vote for funding to building state of the art mental health facilities. I would also agree to a mental health exam for fire arm licensing.

No one has said they NEVER occur in other countries. I am others have said, they do not happen at the frequency in other countries that they do here. 20 in the past 10 days. 2 School shootings per month on average. And on and on. It brings nothing to an argument to go all black and white. Everything or nothing, everyone does, or no one does.

I am 100% in favor of strongly enforced universal background checks. It will NOT solve the problem, it will help.

I am 100% in favor of cool down delays. It will NOT solve the problem, it will help.

I am 100% in favor of more stringent domestic violence punishment and being convicted of it being a reason to deny ownership of guns.

Lots of things we can do, but one party refuses to do anything.
Lots of things we can do, But one party refuses to offer any legislation.

Lots of things we CAN do, but for 20 years we have DONE nothing that has helped. It is just getting worst.

So, is arming the teacher going to help.

Let's see, if a shooter is going into a class room and knows the teacher might be packing, who are they going to unload a whole clip on before the teacher can demonstrate their precise quick draw. Of course we all know teachers would NEVER miss and hit a student. And a teacher will never have their back to the door while writing on a blackboard.

But, if that is what enough people want to try, then let's try it. I am ALL in on coming up with things that we can try. Are you?

And before we do I think it would be wise to define some criteria for success - things like how many teachers lose the quick draw contest, how many innocent students are teachers allowed to shoot before we change our minds. Just asking.

Hate to say this but it kinda sounds like a lecture.

Sadly your detractors are right,,, there are people who believe that alien abduction is a reasonable explanation disappearance of that air liner in the Pacific some time back, people who believe that a Zombie Apocalypses is possible, single digits but still, an even larger percentage think you can change your gender even switch back and forth, normal behavior, the mental state of our society is such that we can no longer be trusted with weapons

I'm in favor of bringing back the Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act. Never should have elapsed.

YES, YES, YES, exactly what ElDiabloJoe said!

Hmmm. Not sure what rebutting that a 5 round bolt action rifle is adequate for home protection has to do with arming teachers.

My thoughts on arming teachers are mixed. Do I think you should take the average teacher, send them through a firearms class and give them a gun? No I don’t. Do I feel that if someone has life experience with firearms in a stressful environment, such as former LEO or military, which there are some who left those professions to become teachers? Then I think it’s something to consider.

I think hardening the target is something concrete that we can do now. Where we moved from they had converted the schools to single entry. They also had a Resource Officer(s) that was basically a Deputy Sheriff with a different patch on his/her uniform.

So yes there are things we can do now and many school districts have already taken action.

I guess it does. :1rotfl:

Media...stop glorifying the shooter!
 

It seems like the shooters all want their 15-minutes of fame and the media caters to them. First thing they do is to interview all his friends, family, classmates, we learn about his interests, social media posts, red flags that were missed, where he lives, his manifesto if he had one...MAKES THEM FAMOUS!

STOP IT! Just say there was an unidentified shooter and keep him anonymous until it's time for their trial (or identifying their body).

(putting my soapbox away now, thanks for listening to my rant, I feel better)

Clint

Nobody is going after firearms that are used for hunting or home defense unless you believe some Entertainers on television. It was Eisenhower (I liked Ike) who was quoted “I dislike those on the far right and left who throw rocks at those of us in the middle.”

Nicely put. WE working together need to take practical steps to stop these shootings from happening again and again. My former Villages' neighbors lost their granddaughter in the Parkland shooting. She was the last student murdered. He shot through another student to kill her-- ending both their lives. They moved to be closer to one of their kids. Losing their granddaughter tore them apart and still does probably with each of these new tragedies. And we just keep creating more victim families to deal with this trauma. PRACTICAL solutions. Whatever works while keeping with the values of the US Constitution. I do not think that the Founding Fathers would have wanted a weapon of war in anyone's hands except for those fighting in wars.

School Security
 

Which school, A or B, is attacked by a deranged, cowardly, gunman?
School A: Gun Free Zone, unlocked doors, random security presence, no armed teachers allowed
School B: One point of entry – door locked, armed security on regular staff, some teachers armed (if trained and comfortable to carry)

Sorry, my reply got onto the wrong post, I guess I need more practice :)

I can 100% agree with this position. I am concerned that arming teachers will result in the shooter targeting the teachers first in ALL cases regardless of if the teacher is armed. But, I can certainly compromise and go along with a test of that and see how it works.

I can completely agree with this one with out hesitation. I do not believe it will solve the root cause, but it will almost certain result in a major reduction of school shootings.

I completely agree with you on this one also.

So, as we can see there are things we can do now that both sides can agree on (most of my liberal friends also agree with your list. These are the same things we could have done 20 years ago, and haven't. These are the same things we could do now and aren't.

I also expect we can both agree that banning one specific weapon or type won't work. And banning an entire class or all weapons are not going to happen. There is no practical or workable way to do that. And suggesting it just results in a distraction from doing what we can.

Maybe we need to get our electors to listen to you and me or throw them out and replace them with someone that does. From where I stand neither side (electors) is interested in doing these things.

Thank you for you post, it was constructive and pointed out a mistake I made. I appreciate your reply.

Me or him?

If me, I am simply posting my position on other peoples posts. It's called a conversation. I certainly do not want to sound like a lecture, but I also don't want to do drive by one liner posts that contribute nothing related to the topic of the thread.

I KNOW I sometimes wonder off topic, we all do at times.

I usually say, "this is my opinion" or something to that effect, and I do not claim to have knowledge without specifying the provenance of that information.

If you feel I am "lecturing" please PM me with an example of why. If it is simply because I posted 100 replies to posts that I disagree the position or the content, well, that is called a discussion in my world.

No need to apologize. I am sure most people can agree with most of what you said.

Media, sadly, is in it for the money. Back "in the day" news was a public service. Today it is a major money making profit center for each and every media outlet.

Since there is no longer a publicly funded media - like the BBS in Britain or PBS used to be here, we are left with for profit media (news). And well, it shows. Money is God to almost all for profit companies. How what they do impacts peoples lives is of little importance to them, only what makes the most money. If they are public companies they are required by law to do/say what makes the most money, or they can be sued by stock holders. There is no law allowing stock holders to sue them for lying just to make money.

I don't know how to solve that.

We could go to a socialist society and heavily regulate or completely control news media, or we can live with what capitalism gives us and vote with our dollars. Or the last option (it seems to me) is a Democratic Socialism that regulates all for profit companies to some degree depending on how their actions impact society.

We seem to need to make a decision ... or not.

Excellent question, even though I don't think you posted it as a question.

Here is a study by Rand (link below) that shows there is not enough evidence to say if gun-free zones help or not.

It does point out that gun-free zones do help control access with guns, by providing (generally) entry screening to keep bad guys with guns from getting in to the area.

But your two options are not the only two. I suggest a third.

3. Locked doors (auto lock in closing), Trained and armed security guards at single point of entry, locked class rooms with supervisor overrides, and possibly some armed teachers, no unauthorized guns allowed in the area.

Letting "others" come in with guns is more likely, in my opinion, to cause more problems in an active shooter situation than they will help. Since "others" are not required in many states to be qualified and trained to use their weapons in active shooter situations. there is no way to know if the "other" is trained and capable of dealing with finding themselves in that situation.

The Effects of Gun-Free Zones | RAND

(Metaphor: Would you be in favor of letting anyone bring their car into a NASCAR race? Or is it a good idea to have races be a consumer car/driver free zone?)

EDIT: If the school was NOT gun-free, then the shooter in Texas could have just walked into the front door with two AR-15s. He has a right to open carry. So, All the locked docks and security could not legally stop him from entering unless they had credible evidence that he was a danger. How do you KNOW which open carrying citizen is not crazy?

Thank you, I think this is one of the more concise and practical posts here. Better than mine for sure.

PREE---cisely! It has been demonstrated time and again that the majority of these shootings are copycat.

And man! Are those AR-15s SCARY lookin'! You tote one of those into a school and you're gonna get INSTANT respect, not to mention your name and face on every major news medium in the country for at LEAST two weeks. Gotta use the gun that is getting the most negative attention to guarantee that type of "coverage".

So go ahead, media. Pour on the breathless outrage and over-the-top hysteria. Motivate even more of these loonytune kids to do the same thing. Because that is EXACTLY what is happening.

Deleted.

Actually, I don't think I have seen the Texas school shooters face on TV. Maybe, once, but I am not sure. I see. LOT of the children that died faces.

I guess we watch different media.

So, what do you suggest to solve it? Do we put more regulations on the media? How does that fit with the constitution?

Not arguing, I am interested in your thoughts on those.

Teachers are not being paid to shoot intruders. It's not their job. If you want them to serve as bodyguards to their students then you need to pay them accordingly. Your taxes will go up, also accordingly. Maybe even enough that the state will need to impose a state income tax. Which of course will mean janitors and nurses and other non-teacher employees in those schools will also need a raise, because now some of their income is being sucked into taxes.

Giving teachers guns and requiring that they teach less, protect more, is not the answer.

The answer is not simple. But the solution would be to reduce the risk. To reduce the risk of a teacher ever having to decide whether or not to draw their gun on someone. A teacher shouldn't ever be held responsible for that. So how about reducing the risk that they would be.

The police, trained to do their jobs and protect the public, weren't able to prevent these shootings. Teachers should not be responsible to do what the police weren't able to do.

I pretty much agree with everything you said. I would go along with arming teachers, assuming they receive the same training as police officers are given for active shooter situations. And other shooting training. Of course we would have to pay for that training, which is not teaching.

But, whether they are armed or not, anything we do at the school will impact the teachers to some degree. Any lock down procedures. And active shooter situation procedures the teachers have to be trained for to protect the children, etc.

But, until we have a real solution, I am willing to meet the "other side" half way in trying to implement things that might/should help. This is one they feel strongly about. As long as the teachers are not required to carry weapons I can see letting it happen.

BUT, Not the way Ohio is. 24 hours of training? Not with my child in that teachers class. With 24 hours of training that teacher is more likely a danger to the children. Give them the same training that any one else is given for these situations.

I watched an ex CIA/FBI agent yesterday discussing this. She has had 4,000 hours of situational training and is now a teacher in a public school. She said she would rather NOT be put into that situation.

Agreed, lots of lies...........on the media that I don't watch.

I think the problem is that media is being used for social engineering purposes, which is flat-out wrong. Kids being shot and killed in school, insofar as overall gun deaths go, aren't even a blip on the radar. America averages something like 33,000 gun deaths each year from all causes. This year 24 kids have been killed by gunfire at school and this year is a sad exception--numbers year by year since the late 1990's are usually far lower, often in the single digits. It is a fact that a school kid is statistically in more danger of being killed by lightning than killed at school. By far the greatest number of gun deaths, 58% on average per year, is suicide. Homicides are at 37.2% per year (numbers provided by Brittanica ProCon) and it is a safe bet to assume that the overwhelming number of those are criminal-related, drug and gang disputes mainly. Legal intervention and unintentional deaths come in at 1.2% and 1.3%.

Every student killed is a tragedy. I get that. But what we are seeing is shameless. It is my belief (borne out by several studies) that media overhype is the primary cause of copycat killings, and it is anyone's guess just how many of these dead kids would still be alive if it wasn't for what media is doing.

Let's be honest. This is about GUNS, not kids. We have elected senators and representatives who represent us. Using media to try to force an issue via over-the-top emotion instead of the legislative system is doing no one any favors, least of all our kids.

What can be done? Nothing, until we can be honest with ourselves. The gun "debate" solves nothing: people are entrenched on one side or the other and no statistic, or argument, is going to change that. On a personal level I try to avoid media that pushes the emotional hyperbole but that is nearly impossible: we are saturated with it. The irony is that school deaths by gunfire are actually DOWN since the 1990s, but you'd never know that from what we see, hear and read today.

We can all start by being honest, with ourselves at least. Far too few of us are.

Deleted by writer (duplicate post)

Note that I used the word "enough". Meaning, that IF the SEMI-AUTO MAN-KILLERS and high capacity pistols were not sold to Civilians, then in general, the US would have fewer MASS MURDERS. Home invasion would probably depend more on how FAST a homeowner woke up than the action or caliber of his weapon.

Australia banned a certain class of weapon....semi-autos and it worked for them. And they are a democracy much like the US

Thank you. That was very insightful.

I will take issue partially with the media is doing the social engineering. The media, in my opinion, is simply focused on running stories that will make them money. Sadly, they have to fill 24x7 streaming. Used to only have to fill 3 or 4 hours a day, now they have to come up with 168 hours of "news". sigh. So, they put out snippets with inflammatory headlines - all trying to get your attention to click. They get paid by the click and how long you stay to watch. They appear to have little regard for the consequences of their streaming, as long as they make money.

Keep in mind that to maximize profit, they need to focus their articles on THEIR base. Sort of like politicians. The Media picked a base to market to and have to feed that base articles the base will click to see and watch. It is a vicious cycle. I expect CNN has no business plan to try to take Fox watchers, and Fox has no plan to try and take CNN watchers. Each focuses on doing everything possible to capture their views attention.

That said, I feel it is a safe bet that some articles are "encouraged" by various outside (not part of the media company) interests. This is true of all media Fox and CNN. I am fairly sure it is a safe bet that some politicians have contacts that they "suggest" stories to, and the media runs with them so they can get "insider" stories in return.

In addition, even back in the day when Howard K Smith et al, actually had NEWS shows, that told the NEWS. politicians "played" the media - things like releasing bad news on Fridays. etc.

I get a lot of my new from BBC and other world news sources, for exactly those reasons.

Now, is social engineering being pushed. I don't know, could be. But, I doubt seriously that any of the major news outlets (CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, FOX, OAN, NewsMax, et all) would put a social engineering piece over profit. But, I am also sure they will "fill" in that extra 144 hours they have to fill with social engineering that their particular audience wants to hear.

Well, gun violence went down after they were banned. There is no doubt correlation. I am not sure if it was causation. Might be. Hard to say, there are too many unknown variables.

I have no problem trying it, but I don't feel we should stop trying anything else until we can get everyone onboard for that too. That is a poison pill in any bill proposed.

My suggestion (one sent to my congress critter) is to only propose single topic legislation for addressing the "gun violence" issues. Start with the shoe-in's. Universal Background checks (70% to 90% of Americans can/do support that) That should be a single topic bill and passed into law. Also, school hardening - some forms. That is not as big a shoe-in as background checks, but generally acceptable.

The omnibus laws to cover everything are doomed. And the worse part is the politicians promoting them KNOW they are not going to pass, so to me the only reason to ever submit them instead of single topic bills is to score political points.

Let's do what we can do. Let's leave the things we can't do on the table and continue to try to find compromises that will get them passed. But, an old saying in program management is "Don't let perfection be the enemy of good enough", I would say in this topic, that could be changed to "Don't let perfection be the enemy of doing ANYTHING for 20 years".

The reason why the Robb Elementary Massacre has gotten so much media attention is that it involves high numbers of very young children. This increases the emotions and the need to analyze the details of how and why it happened. It shatters the idea that children are SAFE in school. Parents of young children want to make a calculation as to how safe or unsafe THEIR children are at their school. They are getting that information from the main TV channels.
..........Another reason why the Robb Elementary shooting captured a large audience is that there were so many mistakes committed by those in charge of the situation. And the local and Texas State spokespeople kept changing their stories and even stating incorrect facts early on in the investigation. Incorrect following of KNOWN Police procedures may have caused excessive, unnecessary children's deaths. So many mistakes were made and people across the US demanded that those MISTAKES be acknowledged to help prevent future mistakes in future mass murder events. So, the bottom line is that in this case maximum media attention was WARRANTED.
........ The main difference with the Tulsa shooting is that it was resolved QUICKLY by police, without mistakes.

[QUOTE=ThirdOfFive;2102251]I think the problem is that media is being used for social engineering purposes, which is flat-out wrong. Kids being shot and killed in school, insofar as overall gun deaths go, aren't

Using Australia as the example is a bad idea. Their social system is different from ours, as is their culture. Americans suffer from Tall Poppy Syndrome - where we are taught that standing out in a crowd is a good thing. Attention-seeking is celebrated. In Australia, people want to just be, and not focus their energy on being noticed.

Australians are more likely to experience first-hand other parts of the globe. Americans generally don't leave their own hemisphere. Only 1/6 of Americans have ever travelled abroad. 1/3 of Australians have.

Australian culture embraces the concept of fair play, while Americans will likely "do whatever it takes" to get a jump on their competition.

These cultural differences are significant enough to have an impact on the acceptability of stricter gun control measures.

double-posted, n/t