Crap! A "Gun Control Task Force"

Knives, candlesticks and penises don't exactly have the mass killing advantage of automatic weapons and hundreds of rounds.

 

A kitchen knife was designed to be used in the kitchen to aid in the preparation of food and that has been the main function of knives throughout human history, they can be used to kill but they are not especially efficient often depending on the strength and skill of the wielder.

A candlestick was designed to be a holder of candles. They can be used to kill but they are not especially efficient being dependent on strength and probably luck, if you don’t incapacitate with the first blow the person attacked or someone else is liable to take it off you.

Guns were designed for war - to specifically kill or maim other human beings (the hunting aspect only came later and has always been secondary) one of the reasons was because it wasn’t dependent on the strength and skill of the wielder (there was little accuracy in the first guns it was just pointed into a crowd of the enemy) but was a great way of killing and maiming people. Handguns are very much an example of this being specifically driven by military requirements, to kill or maim other human beings. As such they are very efficient at killing or maiming multiple people in very quick succession.

 

This is exactly what I’ve tried to highlight in past gun threads - the view of many Americans of their fellow citizens - that they’re so violent and murderous that they just want to kill, kill, kill. That its not guns that count for the high level of murders but the murderous nature of Americans, that the same amount of carnage would go on because Americans are so bloodthirsty that they would use anything to kill, kill, kill.

When you think your fellow citizens are like that it is no wonder that so many Americans are so frightened.

But why do they think that is it true?

Are Americans truly that different than other people, so much more violent and murderous?

Now if things are looked at in those terms (that Americans are murderous savages that are just waiting to kill people) then when crime figures are looked at they seem to back up that view.

For example

I live in London it has a population of around 7.5 million and it only had 175 homicides between Apr-2005 to Apr-2006. In fact in 2009 there were only 651 murders in the whole of England and Wales with a population of around 55 million.

But let us take an American city - Philadelphia – it I believe has a population of around 6.1 million yet it had 406 homicides in that same year. So two Philadelphia’s with only 12.2 million people would create 812 murders, more than what is produced by 55 million Brits.

But if you take out gun related homicides from the US crime figures they are not that much different from those of many European countries that have gun restrictions (although it is incredible difficult to compare any crime statistics other than homicide).

So the question is are Americans more murderous or is it just that Americans have easier access to much more lethal weapons.

 

When I hear words like ALWAYS and NEVER used to describe people, it kind of points out where someone is coming from.
Making that statement about the 2nd amendment is like being a bible fundamentalist. Yes, it was written to guarantee a militia. So to start you could read up on the history of militia in those days.
But to say that is the only purpose of the 2nd amendment is to pick and choose what you feel like in order to make a point. If you read the federalist papers and the debate of those times, the second amendment was written to accomplish several things. As wiki summarizes well...

Todays equivilent to the militia is often compared to the national guard. That covers #2,3 and 5. #4 is what most people think of with right to bear arms but it's only one aspect.
#1 is rendered moot anymore. My rifle isn't going to protect me from C-130 gunships or Apache helicopters.
But to state that the only intention of the 2nd is for militia purposes only is not historically accurate.

On the other hand prohibition never has nor never will work. It is insanity to think that someone intent on breaking the law (harming or murdering another person) is going to be stopped by having a law restricting or banning weapons or ammo.
Surely one doesn't have to look at all the other prohibitions to realize that more than any, writing another law aimed at law breakers is not going to accomplish shit.

Screaming "FUCK" as loud as one can on their keyboard is much easier than seeking understanding.

 

My illustration is a whole parallel discussion to your suggestion of a mandatory militia. But to try and address a few points:

"must enroll in a milita"....well, no is what many people will decide. Those that want guns without joining milita will conceal the fact they hav them. Also, it is just one more reason people will break more laws, and just more law(s) to fund and to enforce, and just one more way to crowd our jails, and burden our judicial system.

"trigger lock" can be a mandatory requirement at purchase. Making a person use them is impossible.

The sequence of events that came together for this terrible incident to be carried out, cannot be prevented. It's an emotional reaction for everyone to "do something" because otherwise we would feel helpless. Picture an armchair quarterback that jumps up from his recliner when a play goes bad. That is what this nation does following a senseless tradgedy.

For those that don't understand my armed air marshall comparison. People go to airports, and board planes where loaded guns reside. So how is exposing yourself and your children to that setting any different than if you were to expose them to a classroom with an armed teacher?

Roo, you cried? wow.

 

You know how much they charge for ammo at the ranges???!!!!

You can use the cheap all lead alloy rounds many ranges will offer, but I really don't want to be exposed to that much vaporized lead and have you ever tried to clean a gun barrel after firing a bunch of non-jacketed rounds through it....you got 3 hours????

@Voyage, I'm not missing a thing, just pointing ludicrous ideas.

 

^^^ This.

Air marshals are trained law enforcement officers and as that wiki link showed, they are the best of the best of sharpshooters.
Teachers are not.

Prohibition ludicrous? Surely you jest Sir !

 

I saw on tv yesterday a guy at the NRA meeting, wearing a button that said, "GUNS SAVE LIVES". Conclusive proof that the nut jobs are firmly in control.
Any sane rational person would admit that guns only kill. Only a twisted mind would believe otherwise.

 

Oh well forget all about it then. Clearly no way to change how ranges operate and paying more for ammo is certainly not worth the lives of 3000 children killed each year. How silly of me!

 

Calgirl - an air Marshall is highly trained to defend a plane against a hijacking using a firearm.

A teacher is trained to teach children.

Do you see the difference?

A more accurate comparison would be if flight attendants carried guns.

 

You would be better off putting something in the paper asking fellow citizens, not cops, to stand guard at schools or outside of school zones, if it was really a concern. Then put a sigh saying "armed civilians" or something at the first entrance from the road.

Guns should never be in schools, and teachers should never have to worry about such responsibility. Children run to there teacher for help and security, you don't want that same person pulling out a .45 or shotgun saying, its ok now kids...

Cities are a problem in general though, because their are just too many damn people...

 

government agencies have to keep a tally on what people buy at gun shops. Making guns illegal would just add to the problem. Our crazy people would sit down and think of an actual plan to make people suffer with other weapons like knives or homemade chemicals.
Plus now a days, it is very simple to make a homemade pistol using nails as bullets, so I see no point in getting more gun control laws passed

 

Some teachers have served in branches of the military, so some of them are trained as well as the air marshalls, hell, maybe trained a bit better depending on their mos they had in the military

 

There is a way to prevent it: a gun free society!

 

One lives in a sad society, when the gun seems to be the only way to protect yourself. What should change then? You, your children, or maybe,..the society?

 

Ah. Critical thinking skills in action. Well done.

homemade guns in 2013 = homemade bathtub gin in 1923

 

You can make a small caliber pistol or a shotgun easily at home, both of them single shot and inaccurate.

I understand that people can make guns, and I think that outlawing all guns is silly, but at the same time, you can't pretend that this guy, who didn't even own the guns, could have whipped up an assault rifle at home, and that he could have pulled off any sort of shooting, he would have killed or wounded one person, and been overpowered. He didn't shoot anyone once, and a home made gun would have made it very challenging to shoot someone more than once.

If gangs all had single shot .22 pistols? Pitched gang wars would resemble the US civil war.

 

Of course people will decide not to join. I never said anything about putting them in jail. When you learn someone has a gun and is not in the militia, you give them a summons, they have 30 days to register or they will be considered a draft dodger, they may join and sell their guns and then exit the guard, or they may have their guns impounded and sold to legal owners. Disposing of the guns illegally instead of through one of those routes would be the only way to earn jail time. All you have to do is record gun sales, and they will trickle into the system. Not every single one, but this is about changing probability, nothing can be absolute.

Of course you can't make someone use a trigger lock, but they shold still have them. You can't make people use seatbelts (and a law that tries to for adults is misguided) but they still come in every new car, and it saves millions of lives. And if someone failed to secure their gun properly and it was hijacked by a criminal element, they should be held responsible..

It's not about doing "anything" to "prevent" a tragedy, it's about doing things to make it less likely that something bad can happen, and less likely that bad things that do happen will be as severe. Your attitude seems to be "if we can't outright stop them all, we shouldn't try at all"

The air marshal's job is to be an armed guard. The pilot is not the one with the gun. It's nowhere near the same as forcing teachers, who should never have to worry about that sort of thing, to carry lethal weapons. And even then, I am not comfortable with the fascistic nature of airports, and avoid them.

Yes, I cried when I read the part about the little girl who told her mother that she was fine, but all her friends where dead.

Perhaps you're a sociopath, if that's particularly suprising to you.

 

No, but I bet he could have whipped up an ammonium nitrate/diesel fuel bomb.

Mental illness.

 

I think this whole thing can be written off to his mother teaching a mentally ill child with aspergers (not that aspergers causes this sort of thing, but having an affliction that makes social norms less important and allows fixated thought could obviouly mix very badly with personality disorders and a gun nut mother who tells you that they're all out to get you) to shoot guns and be paranoid. It seems that she removed him from public school, and probably spent years saying nasty things about public school to him, while teaching him to shoot.

(I do not mean to say that basic gun safety on her part could not still have prevented it)

A bomb would not walk through the school shooting people in different rooms. He might not have even made it past the locked front door that he shot out.