[Stu from NYC]

Originally Posted by MrFlorida

Maybe we should not let our children play violent video games that gives them the idea that it's ok to kill people ?

When we were kids had pea shooters, carpet guns and cap pistols and we all carried around pocket knives even to school.

Had fish fights and noone even thought of taking out their knives.

Had all kind of cowboy and war movies and rather violent cartoons so we were also exposed to violence and we all survived.

There are over 400 million guns in this country how in the world would you get rid of them?

Have no clue how to fix this problem but defunding the police will not help.

[jebartle]

Locking all school doors, apparently this didn't happen here.

[BigSteph]

I'll not defend guns or prisons, but just know that Japan has it own problems -- they are not shooting each other, but they have extreme mental health issues. I watched several recent documentaries on Japan's low birth rate, the lack of desire for intimacy among young adults, the extreme loner syndrome, these are just a few issues they have -- along with a large aging population.

Originally Posted by jebartle

19 innocent children, 2 dedicated teachers, lives lost, solution????? More guns, bigger prisons, NOT. Japan, no guns unless police and military, murder rate .3 percent per 100,000, America, 4.7 per 100,000. Mental health wake up call.

[BigSteph]

I'll not defend or debate guns, but I would posit if you took all the guns away right this moment, there would still be rage and loneliness and hate and desperation.

Guns make hate and rage easy to manifest, profoundly. They are rarely the cause of rage, but they are, too often, the tools to express it.

I have no answers, only observations and opinions......

Originally Posted by Stu from NYC

When we were kids had pea shooters, carpet guns and cap pistols and we all carried around pocket knives even to school.

Had fish fights and noone even thought of taking out their knives.

Had all kind of cowboy and war movies and rather violent cartoons so we were also exposed to violence and we all survived.

There are over 400 million guns in this country how in the world would you get rid of them?

Have no clue how to fix this problem but defunding the police will not help.

[tvbound]

Even as a gun owner, I just want to live in a country where everyone loves children - more than a lot of people love guns.

[MrFlorida]

How about installing metal detectors? It works for the airports.

[BigSteph]

I think we do have too many guns in America. I own guns but can be realistic about it.

The thing is, it is not the entirety of the issue.

Google acid attacks in London. Knife attacks in the UK.

If you want to hear about mass casualty, Google Bow and Arrow killer in Norway.

I would agree that guns do enable mentally ill people to commit mass casualty events more broadly and severely.

Originally Posted by ThirdOfFive

Bingo.

[MartinSE]

Originally Posted by tophcfa

Guns have been around forever, but mass shootings are up during recent years. What’s different than before, social media and violent video games that are streamed online through sites like twitch. How come every time there is a violent shooting it becomes about guns, but when some whack job mows down a crowd of people with a car it’s not about vehicles? Whack jobs will always find a way, especially when they can become immediate social media click bait.

350 million guns have not been around forever. And it is growing at historic rates, just like school shootings - coincidence? Number of guns has tripled since 2000. You remember 2000? The year after the first school shooting - Columbine.

Yeah, another thing that has changed, concerning what has changed, just a week ago wasn't it that the crazy quoted Replacement theory for killing 10 people.

Whack jobs are everywhere, in every country in every society. Only the US has mass shootings in school - constantly. Only in the US. What does the US have that no other country in the world has? 350 MILLION guns in circulation.

I have NOTHING against responsible gun owners or gun ownership. I can't think of ANY way 350 million guns can be collected. It is NOT going to happen.

So, how about we all get together and figure out a way to keep responsible gun owners happy and armed, while at the same time creating fewer mourning parents. 231 school shootings in the 22 years since Columbine.

Or, would everyone like to just keep calling each other naming and spewing "facts" like guns don't kill people. Yeah guns do nothing until a person picks it up, the gun is used to kill 21 people in under 2 minutes.

I have heard someone say crazies will find a way, like using a car to drive into a crowd. Yeah, true, and when was the last time a crazy drove a car into a crowded class room and killed 19 children?

[MartinSE]

Originally Posted by Trayderjoe

Unfortunately the same lazy rhetoric of "more gun laws" reappears. How about enforcing current laws? For example, it is a criminal offense to lie on the background check form when purchasing a gun from a Federal Firearm Licensee (FFL), yet how many people fail the background check but are not arrested or tried? Note that an FFL will not legally sell a gun to someone who fails a background check. Why are people who commit violent crimes allowed out of jail with little or no bail? Perhaps there needs to be more calls for getting to the root cause of "why" the attack occurred versus implementing more laws that CRIMINALS don't care to follow anyway?

The US Secret Service conducted a threat assessment in 2021 entitled "Averting Targeted School Violence" (link). The assessment included "an analysis of 67 averted school attack plots" which also indicated that "Students who plotted school attacks shared many similarities with students who perpetrated school attacks". There is a section entitled "Key Findings and Implications" on pages 4 and 5 that talks about these characteristics.

Maybe more studies like these need to be conducted, if they don't already exist, and then a NONPARTISAN discussion about how to implement "fixes" can be had.

Sorry, this shooter did not lie on the background check, Texas doesn’t require one. He just turned 18 and legally purchased 2 ar15s a day later and then killed 21 people.

It’s hard to enforce laws that don’t exist.

[Keefelane66]

Today is the 144th day of 2022.

The Uvalde shooting is the 212th mass shooting of 2022.

Gun violence is a public health crisis.

[jimbomaybe]

Originally Posted by Stu from NYC

When we were kids had pea shooters, carpet guns and cap pistols and we all carried around pocket knives even to school.

Had fish fights and noone even thought of taking out their knives.

Had all kind of cowboy and war movies and rather violent cartoons so we were also exposed to violence and we all survived.

There are over 400 million guns in this country how in the world would you get rid of them?

Have no clue how to fix this problem but defunding the police will not help.

Could it be the direction we have been given by our social scientists , people feel the need for guns to protect themselves from those around us that the laws now cant seem to with the improvements made, have mental problems ?, cant abridge your freedoms, much like the results of defunding the police,

[MartinSE]

Originally Posted by MrFlorida

How about installing metal detectors? It works for the airports.

In other words, "hardening" the schools.

Seriously, okay, and let's replace all the school buses with armored personal transports, and we can replace PE in school with firing range practice, and issue every student a firearm for personal protection when they arrive at school.

Yeah, that sound like the country I want my grand kids to grow up in. At this point I am starting to worry about whether my grandkids will just grow up.

[MartinSE]

Originally Posted by BigSteph

I'll not defend or debate guns, but I would posit if you took all the guns away right this moment, there would still be rage and loneliness and hate and desperation.

Guns make hate and rage easy to manifest, profoundly. They are rarely the cause of rage, but they are, too often, the tools to express it.

I have no answers, only observations and opinions......

Guns facilitate it. All the way back to the Campus tower in Texas, he could have thrown bats and rocks at the people walking around below him, b ut guns were more effective.

I have a solution, but I am not naive enough to think it has a chance. Stop fighting and arguing and come to a compromise to protect our children (grand and great grand) at School. Something both sides can agree on. I here one side calling for bipartisan work, and I hear the other side talking about all the reasons we can't do anything - you know, god given 2nd amendment.

Well, somehow we managed to free slaves, and give women the vote and the country didn't end. Maybe we can. Find an amendment that both responsible gun owners and responsible anti-gun owners can agree on.

BTW, where is the pro-life outrage? Are these 19 children not worth protecting?

[billethkid]

Locking the school doors requires enforcement. Our society has become one that does not do/accept enforcement very well.

Those charged with enforcement do so with selectivity....hence weakening enforcement.

Enforcement, at times generates inconvenience......which we all know will again get watered down.

And so on!! Nothing new, unfortunately.

If the "need" for change/control/etc is as great as being professed by some...... where was it before this shooting?

[Caymus]

The deadliest murder of school children was done without guns.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/histo...ssacre-uvalde/