logo Sign In

Politics 2: Electric Boogaloo — Page 651

This topic has been locked by a moderator.

Author
Time

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/02/what-i-saw-treating-the-victims-from-parkland-should-change-the-debate-on-guns/553937/

As I opened the CT scan last week to read the next case, I was baffled. The history simply read “gunshot wound.” I have been a radiologist in one of the busiest trauma centers in the nation for 13 years, and have diagnosed thousands of handgun injuries to the brain, lung, liver, spleen, bowel, and other vital organs. I thought that I knew all that I needed to know about gunshot wounds, but the specific pattern of injury on my computer screen was one that I had seen only once before.

In a typical handgun injury that I diagnose almost daily, a bullet leaves a laceration through an organ like the liver. To a radiologist, it appears as a linear, thin, grey bullet track through the organ. There may be bleeding and some bullet fragments.

I was looking at a CT scan of one of the victims of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, who had been brought to the trauma center during my call shift. The organ looked like an overripe melon smashed by a sledgehammer, with extensive bleeding. How could a gunshot wound have caused this much damage?

The reaction in the emergency room was the same. One of the trauma surgeons opened a young victim in the operating room, and found only shreds of the organ that had been hit by a bullet from an AR-15, a semi-automatic rifle which delivers a devastatingly lethal, high-velocity bullet to the victim. There was nothing left to repair, and utterly, devastatingly, nothing that could be done to fix the problem. The injury was fatal.

Author
Time

From the new Manafort/Gates indictments:

In total, more than $75,000,000 flowed through the offshore accounts. MANAFORT, with the assistance of GATES, laundered more than $30,000,000, income that he concealed from the United States Department of the Treasury (Treasury), the Department of Justice, and others. GATES obtained more than $3,000,000 from the offshore accounts, income that he too concealed from the Treasury, the Department of Justice, and others.

For those of you wondering when we were going to stop seeing these “carrot” indictments (one count of lying to investigators, etc), this is a “stick” indictment for sure.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)

Author
Time

Jeebus said:

Warbler said:

Jeebus said:

Warbler said:

Jeebus said:

Warbler said:

Jeebus said:

Warbler said:

Also, I don’t think I’d feel very safe around an armed guard, I’d probably feel less safe then I would without a guard. People with guns make me nervous, not because I’m afraid of guns, but because I can never know if they’re going to use them or what they’re going to use them for.

Ok, I will give this a real response.

Thank you, I appreciate it.

I don’t know why an armed cop would make you nervous. He/she has the gun in case the worst happened. As long as you behave yourself, you don’t need to worry.

I don’t trust that all cops will be totally sane/rational. If the guards were “extremely well trained and extensively background checked,” as you said, I think I’d be less averse to the idea. That said, I think “trained and background checked” is too vague to really have a discussion about, and it seems to me that it’s rooted in a ‘perfect world’ ideal without really considering how it would be done and how feasible it is.

obviously, a lot more details would need to be ironed out before going ahead with this.

I’m not saying that a cop is going to shoot a student (though I don’t doubt that it would happen), just that people with guns put me on edge.

And when you say “behave yourself,” what does that mean?

Obey direct orders from cops

Kids? Obeying direct orders? Doesn’t compute. And again, what happens if they don’t?

Depends on the situation. What I talking about was obeying direct orders in an emergency situation, like an active shooter.

When not in an active shooter situation, what would you have the guard doing?

Just be on normal guard duty, ready in case an active shoot situation occurred.

I don’t know if you read the article I posted, but it said that often, teachers would pawn off that responsibility of dealing with rowdy students over to the police.

I don’t think that is what should be done. The cops are there as a last resort in a dire situation.

The teachers don’t want to deal with the rowdy kids, but that absolutely shouldn’t be the job of an armed guard; what’s the solution?

teachers should be told to deal with normal kind of rowdy. When it is not not normal is when the cops should intervene.

What is “not normal?”

Not exactly sure, but basically when violence goes beyond the normal kind of violence that kids do in schools. Certainly if kids start fighting with deadly weapons like knives or guns, it is time for the cop to intervene.

What about a fistfight?

depends on how bad the fistfight get. I don’t think cops should let some big senior beat a small freshman to death.

And, to add onto that, should the police be arresting kids?

It depends if they committed an offense the merits arrest. I would hope you agree that if kid enters school with a gun with the intent to shoot other kids that it merits arrest.

Will they be shot? What if the guard feels threatened by a student?

unlikely.

It’s still something that should be addressed.

So should a nut trying to come in and murder doubt digit numbers of kids. But instead, the right blocks banning of guns, and it seems the left is unwilling to allow armed guards. So nothing will happen and more kids will die.

Those aren’t the only two options.

I’d like to know a third.

Regulation. Name any regulation, and that’s another option beyond just banning guns or having armed guards.

What regulation? like I said, banning guns isn’t going to happen. So what regulation would you suggest?

Best case scenario, I think, if guards were absolutely necessary and there was no way they weren’t gonna happen; would be that they never interact with the students. Lock them in a room or something, have them watch the security cameras. They’d be solely reserved for dealing with an active threat. Even then, it would still be colossally expensive, and for what? How many of these guards will actually get the chance to do their job? How many will be successful at their job?

The knowledge that they are there itself might prevent a shooting. You don’t see these nuts trying their rampages at a police station do you? Ever wonder why?

Because their trauma is school-related? They weren’t forced to go to a police station nearly every day for 13 years. They weren’t (presumably) bullied at a police station.

or maybe they known they wouldn’t be able to murder people in the double digits there before being stopped, isn’t that a possibility?

Sure, that’s probably part of the reason; but on the other hand, I don’t think these shooters are very familiar with rational thought or survival instinct.

all I know is that they don’t seem to attack places where armed people known to congregate.

Author
Time

Warbler said:

Jeebus said:

And, to add onto that, should the police be arresting kids?

It depends if they committed an offense the merits arrest. I would hope you agree that if kid enters school with a gun with the intent to shoot other kids that it merits arrest.

Of course, I’m more worried about minor infractions. Here’s a relevant excerpt from the aforementioned article.


Putting more people with guns in schools is not the answer. By increasing police presence in school, we are guaranteeing that more students will be arrested – perhaps unnecessarily. Increasing police in schools will contribute to the school-to-prison pipeline. According to the ACLU(pdf):

“In practice, most school police spend a significant portion of their time responding to minor, nonviolent infractions – children who have drawn on desks or talked back to teachers, for example – rather than behaviors that seriously threaten school safety.”

Minor issues such as these that used to be dealt with by school officials are now being dealt with by police officers who will arrest students for such minor misbehavior. Students who bring weapons to school or who commit violent crimes on school grounds should be arrested, of course, but not those who write on desks or talk back to teachers. One arrest dramatically decreases the likelihood that a student will graduate from high school, and can create a host of other issues down the line.


Regulation. Name any regulation, and that’s another option beyond just banning guns or having armed guards.

What regulation? like I said, banning guns isn’t going to happen. So what regulation would you suggest?

I’m not an expert on the issue, but some things that sound good to me on a surface level are; raising the minimum age to 21, a ban on high-capacity magazines, more extensive background checks on a national level, and maybe a mental health examination but it may have the potential to be problematic.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Jeebus said:

Warbler said:

Jeebus said:

And, to add onto that, should the police be arresting kids?

It depends if they committed an offense the merits arrest. I would hope you agree that if kid enters school with a gun with the intent to shoot other kids that it merits arrest.

Of course, I’m more worried about minor infractions. Here’s a relevant excerpt from the aforementioned article.


Putting more people with guns in schools is not the answer. By increasing police presence in school, we are guaranteeing that more students will be arrested – perhaps unnecessarily. Increasing police in schools will contribute to the school-to-prison pipeline. According to the ACLU(pdf):

“In practice, most school police spend a significant portion of their time responding to minor, nonviolent infractions – children who have drawn on desks or talked back to teachers, for example – rather than behaviors that seriously threaten school safety.”

Minor issues such as these that used to be dealt with by school officials are now being dealt with by police officers who will arrest students for such minor misbehavior. Students who bring weapons to school or who commit violent crimes on school grounds should be arrested, of course, but not those who write on desks or talk back to teachers. One arrest dramatically decreases the likelihood that a student will graduate from high school, and can create a host of other issues down the line.

I agree those that write on desks and talk back to teachers should be handled the normal way, not by cops.


Regulation. Name any regulation, and that’s another option beyond just banning guns or having armed guards.

What regulation? like I said, banning guns isn’t going to happen. So what regulation would you suggest?

I’m not an expert on the issue, but some things that sound good to me on a surface level are; raising the minimum age to 21,

probably not going to happen, too much opposition. Also kids could still get them from their parents. I think that is what happened with Columbine.

a ban on high-capacity magazines, more extensive background checks on a national level,

not going to happen, too much opposition.

and maybe a mental health examination but it may have the potential to be problematic.

you mean for buying a gun? would be could good idea, but I doubt the NRA would allow it.

Author
Time

Warbler said:

Jeebus said:

Warbler said:

Jeebus said:

Regulation. Name any regulation, and that’s another option beyond just banning guns or having armed guards.

What regulation? like I said, banning guns isn’t going to happen. So what regulation would you suggest?

I’m not an expert on the issue, but some things that sound good to me on a surface level are; raising the minimum age to 21,

probably not going to happen, too much opposition. Also kids could still get them from their parents. I think that is what happened with Columbine.

a ban on high-capacity magazines, more extensive background checks on a national level,

not going to happen, too much opposition.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/966662241977360384

I will be strongly pushing Comprehensive Background Checks with an emphasis on Mental Health. Raise age to 21 and end sale of Bump Stocks! Congress is in a mood to finally do something on this issue - I hope!

Author
Time

Jeebus said:

Warbler said:

Jeebus said:

Warbler said:

Jeebus said:

Regulation. Name any regulation, and that’s another option beyond just banning guns or having armed guards.

What regulation? like I said, banning guns isn’t going to happen. So what regulation would you suggest?

I’m not an expert on the issue, but some things that sound good to me on a surface level are; raising the minimum age to 21,

probably not going to happen, too much opposition. Also kids could still get them from their parents. I think that is what happened with Columbine.

a ban on high-capacity magazines, more extensive background checks on a national level,

not going to happen, too much opposition.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/966662241977360384

I will be strongly pushing Comprehensive Background Checks with an emphasis on Mental Health. Raise age to 21 and end sale of Bump Stocks! Congress is in a mood to finally do something on this issue - I hope!

I’ll believe it when I see it. You’ll forgive me if don’t take Trump at his word.

These things will help, but I don’t think them alone will be enough.

Author
Time

Warbler said:

Jeebus said:

Warbler said:

Jeebus said:

Warbler said:

Jeebus said:

Regulation. Name any regulation, and that’s another option beyond just banning guns or having armed guards.

What regulation? like I said, banning guns isn’t going to happen. So what regulation would you suggest?

I’m not an expert on the issue, but some things that sound good to me on a surface level are; raising the minimum age to 21,

probably not going to happen, too much opposition. Also kids could still get them from their parents. I think that is what happened with Columbine.

a ban on high-capacity magazines, more extensive background checks on a national level,

not going to happen, too much opposition.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/966662241977360384

I will be strongly pushing Comprehensive Background Checks with an emphasis on Mental Health. Raise age to 21 and end sale of Bump Stocks! Congress is in a mood to finally do something on this issue - I hope!

I’ll believe it when I see it. You’ll forgive me if don’t take Trump at his word.

These things will help, but I don’t think them alone will be enough.

For sure, but I think Trump’s support of the ideas is a step in the right direction.

Author
Time

time will tell.

Author
Time

Collipso said:

darthrush said:

I have grappled with the gun issue a while and see no reason not to implement intensive restrictions and ban assault rifles and such. I think I lean more towards the gun-control side of things as of right now and for those of you who agree, I am curious how you respond to the following argument from gun activists. I hear it often and don’t really have an adequate response and am curious what your thoughts are. The basic idea is the following:

“No matter what gun laws are put in place, it will not change the fact that criminals and people who wish to do harm will always be able to illegally acquire guns.”

It doesn’t really change my views all that much but it seems like a good point. Is there any form of gun control that would help make it more difficult for criminals to illegally attain guns?

Looking forward to some responses as it’s definitely an important discussion to be having as a country right now.

There is no short term solution. Gun activists and some republicans keep claiming that if we restrict gun access it won’t solve anything right now and that is true. Because of how easily accessible weapons are nowadays it’s going to be hard to take it out of both illegal and legal market in the near future. but you have to start somewhere. If we don’t restrict/regulate guns now, a problem that could be solved in the next 5-10 years will only be solved in the next 20-25 years because of pure inaction.

There’s also the side that Ash pointed out: why the heck have laws in the first place? If the criminals are going to break them anyway. That for me is the ultimate argument against the argument you’re pointing out and there’s no way to counter it.


We have to start somewhere though. I don’t think most mass shooters would go completely out of their ways to acquire guns. I think some of them just did it because of how easy it is to acquire such guns and the amount of exposition they probably had to weapons in general at an early age.

Think of the John Lennon murderer. He basically was so obsessed with him that he decided to kill him. If he had no gun that wouldn’t have happened, for example. And I’m pretty sure he legally acquired that gun.

I’d like to get back at this. Legal guns turn into illegal guns through various channels and the more legal guns there are, the more of them flow through these channels and turn illegal. Illegal guns are cheap and easy to aquire because legal guns are cheap and easy to aquire. If the number of legal guns is reduced, the number of illegal guns will go down over time, too and prices will go up. Take for example the last mass shooting in Germany, two years ago. The shooter killed five people with a glock handgun, which he bought on the darknet for more than 5000 dollars (he was presumably scammed a few times, which would drive the overall cost further up). What kind of gun could he have bought in the US with that much money and how many people would he have killed?

Ceci n’est pas une signature.

Author
Time

Frank your Majesty said:

Collipso said:

darthrush said:

I have grappled with the gun issue a while and see no reason not to implement intensive restrictions and ban assault rifles and such. I think I lean more towards the gun-control side of things as of right now and for those of you who agree, I am curious how you respond to the following argument from gun activists. I hear it often and don’t really have an adequate response and am curious what your thoughts are. The basic idea is the following:

“No matter what gun laws are put in place, it will not change the fact that criminals and people who wish to do harm will always be able to illegally acquire guns.”

It doesn’t really change my views all that much but it seems like a good point. Is there any form of gun control that would help make it more difficult for criminals to illegally attain guns?

Looking forward to some responses as it’s definitely an important discussion to be having as a country right now.

There is no short term solution. Gun activists and some republicans keep claiming that if we restrict gun access it won’t solve anything right now and that is true. Because of how easily accessible weapons are nowadays it’s going to be hard to take it out of both illegal and legal market in the near future. but you have to start somewhere. If we don’t restrict/regulate guns now, a problem that could be solved in the next 5-10 years will only be solved in the next 20-25 years because of pure inaction.

There’s also the side that Ash pointed out: why the heck have laws in the first place? If the criminals are going to break them anyway. That for me is the ultimate argument against the argument you’re pointing out and there’s no way to counter it.


We have to start somewhere though. I don’t think most mass shooters would go completely out of their ways to acquire guns. I think some of them just did it because of how easy it is to acquire such guns and the amount of exposition they probably had to weapons in general at an early age.

Think of the John Lennon murderer. He basically was so obsessed with him that he decided to kill him. If he had no gun that wouldn’t have happened, for example. And I’m pretty sure he legally acquired that gun.

I’d like to get back at this. Legal guns turn into illegal guns through various channels and the more legal guns there are, the more of them flow through these channels and turn illegal. Illegal guns are cheap and easy to aquire because legal guns are cheap and easy to aquire. If the number of legal guns is reduced, the number of illegal guns will go down over time, too and prices will go up. Take for example the last mass shooting in Germany, two years ago. The shooter killed five people with a glock handgun, which he bought on the darknet for more than 5000 dollars (he was presumably scammed a few times, which would drive the overall cost further up). What kind of gun could he have bought in the US with that much money and how many people would he have killed?

Also some great points here. Thank you for all the thoughts. The comment on how legal guns get channeled into the illegal market is something I never considered.

Return of the Jedi: Remastered

Lord of the Rings: The Darth Rush Definitives

Author
Time

Jeebus said:

Warbler said:

Jeebus said:

Warbler said:

Jeebus said:

Warbler said:

Jeebus said:

Regulation. Name any regulation, and that’s another option beyond just banning guns or having armed guards.

What regulation? like I said, banning guns isn’t going to happen. So what regulation would you suggest?

I’m not an expert on the issue, but some things that sound good to me on a surface level are; raising the minimum age to 21,

probably not going to happen, too much opposition. Also kids could still get them from their parents. I think that is what happened with Columbine.

a ban on high-capacity magazines, more extensive background checks on a national level,

not going to happen, too much opposition.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/966662241977360384

I will be strongly pushing Comprehensive Background Checks with an emphasis on Mental Health. Raise age to 21 and end sale of Bump Stocks! Congress is in a mood to finally do something on this issue - I hope!

I’ll believe it when I see it. You’ll forgive me if don’t take Trump at his word.

These things will help, but I don’t think them alone will be enough.

For sure, but I think Trump’s support of the ideas is a step in the right direction.

He also supported the dreamers.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Trump’s support of anything means less than nothing.

Author
Time

I’ll admit I only skimmed a bit but I’ve still not heard a single argument why a civilian should be able to buy an assault weapon like an AR-15.

Oh, and speaking of which

https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/22/us/rifle-raffle-kentucky-trnd/index.html

A raffle currently underway in Kentucky is raising funds for the Central Kentucky Batcats, a girls’ softball team. Buy a $10 ticket and you could win a semiautomatic pistol or an AR-15-style rifle kit.

While some people have complained about the raffle – which began before the Florida shooting – the store has mostly received calls of support, said Kenny Barnett, owner of Fully Loaded Inc., an outdoor and sporting goods store in Lawrenceburg that’s providing the guns for the raffle.

“I’ve had calls both ways,” Barnett told CNN. “For every one against, I’ve probably had 10 more asking where can they buy tickets?”

As a country, we are dumb as fuck.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Warbler said:

moviefreakedmind said:

Jeebus said:

Warbler said:

Jeebus said:

Warbler said:

Also, I don’t think I’d feel very safe around an armed guard, I’d probably feel less safe then I would without a guard. People with guns make me nervous, not because I’m afraid of guns, but because I can never know if they’re going to use them or what they’re going to use them for.

Ok, I will give this a real response.

Thank you, I appreciate it.

I don’t know why an armed cop would make you nervous. He/she has the gun in case the worst happened. As long as you behave yourself, you don’t need to worry.

I don’t trust that all cops will be totally sane/rational. If the guards were “extremely well trained and extensively background checked,” as you said, I think I’d be less averse to the idea. That said, I think “trained and background checked” is too vague to really have a discussion about, and it seems to me that it’s rooted in a ‘perfect world’ ideal without really considering how it would be done and how feasible it is.

obviously, a lot more details would need to be ironed out before going ahead with this.

I’m not saying that a cop is going to shoot a student (though I don’t doubt that it would happen), just that people with guns put me on edge.

And when you say “behave yourself,” what does that mean?

Obey direct orders from cops

Kids? Obeying direct orders? Doesn’t compute. And again, what happens if they don’t?

I’ll tell you what happens. They get detained, pepper-sprayed, arrested, or have the shit beat out of them. At worst they may get shot to death. Every year there is a far too high number of school-aged kids that get shot to death by police.

Oh brother. You’re so prejudice against the cops, there is no point talking to you about this.

Warbler said:

Don’t try to kill any students, teachers or others

Obviously the dangerous people aren’t going to follow this rule.

Well if someone tries to kill a student or teacher or someone else, don’t you think the cop should stop that? Or should the cop just stand there and let them kill the student or teacher or someone else.

Of course I don’t think that.

Don’t carry deadly weapons

Again, the dangerous people won’t follow this rule,

no kidding. But but someone carries a deadly weapon into school, don’t you want to cops to intervene?

Yes. I don’t want them standing by every second of every day waiting for it.

but that doesn’t even matter since cops treat everybody as though they’re potentially carrying dangerous weapons.

well they could be. Small guns are easy to conceal. I once saw video where that looked normal, started pulling out guns that he had concealed. Turns out he had like 6 of them or so.

Most aren’t carrying concealed weapons.

That’s why so many unarmed people get shot to death by police. The excuse is always, “He could’ve been armed.”

and of of course it has nothing to do with ignoring repeated orders and warning from cops, right?

I didn’t know that was a capital offense these days.

It has nothing to do with people acting stupidly in an encounter and making a sudden motion like they are pulling a weapon right?

You’re right, better shoot him twenty-five times.

Yeah, you’ll say they should wait and make sure it is a gun. Trouble is they do that, and if it is a gun, they can’t stop it in time and you get a dead cop.

Here’s the thing: they signed up for this job, we didn’t. I know that sounds heartless, but I thought cops were signing up for a dangerous job in order to potentially sacrifice themselves in order to protect the innocent. The best cops have that mindset. But when you have cops with guns in your face screaming at you at the top of their lungs (ironically sounding much more like a deranged criminal than most deranged criminals do) it’s hard to know exactly how to move and what to do. I don’t like that I have to be treated like an armed and dangerous person just because someone else might be armed and dangerous, and if I get shot to death because I moved wrong, it’s my fault for provoking the cop. When a cop shoots a surrendering, unarmed person, that cop should be tried for manslaughter at least. If I pull a gun and shoot someone to death because I think they’re armed even though they aren’t, I would not get the special treatment that cops get. My poor judgement would’ve killed the unarmed person, so I should be held responsible. I don’t understand why people don’t feel the same way about cops, but since they aren’t held to the same standard I don’t want to stationed around each and every school.

Obey direct orders from cops

Why?

Because they cops giving lawful orders? Because sometimes they are giving orders in order to protect you and others? Because sometimes they know what they are doing in a dire situation where you the untrained civilian does not?

I have little faith in the training of cops. “Sometimes they know what they are doing” isn’t enough for me to just assume that they’re right no matter what.

So they don’t shoot me to death? If I’m obeying the law then their direct orders can go to hell.

What about emergency situation like an active shooter?

That’s a special circumstance that doesn’t happen often enough to justify putting an armed police officer in every school.

Sometime in such situations a cop doesn’t have time to explain why he wants you do something.

In extremely intense situations, yes. In every other situation, they do. Cops are often very intimidating, so it’s too scary to ask them for explanations.

I’m a law-abiding taxpayer.

that doesn’t exempt you from having to obey lawfully given orders.

Not all orders are lawful and not all lawfully given orders are reasonable.

The cops theoretically are here to serve people like me.

How will they serve you best? by people refusing to do what they are told in an emergency? or doing what the cops tell them and thus help the cops keep everyone safe.

Who said anything about an emergency? I understand that emergencies are different, but since most schools go through entire academic years without any emergencies, I’m assuming that most interactions with the cops won’t be during emergencies.

A lot of direct orders from cops are violations of your rights.

In your opinion. btw, such can be sorted out in a court of law.

Yep, and I’d have to go tens of thousands of dollars in debt to fight them in that court of law. And the court would most likely side with the cops anyway.

You don’t have to let them search you or your car or your property (assuming they don’t have a warrant),

actually sometimes you do. like if they hear someone screaming for help from the trunk of your car. Or if they hear shooting and then realize you smell of gun power.

That’s probable cause. They don’t usually have that.

you don’t have to answer their questions if you don’t want to, etc. etc. I don’t like this idea that the cops are our overlords that we just need to obey if we don’t want to be harmed by them.

oh ffs.

I’m right.

I don’t want cops in schools. If I had kids then I would not send them to a school that was under this police-state form of martial law, even if that meant I had to home-school them. This nonsense cannot be allowed to happen.

No, what can’t allowed to happen is more shooting like the one in Florida. But please continue to let your prejudice of cops get in the way of saving kids lives.

I desperately want to save kids’ lives. I just can tell that this is horrible idea that won’t work. Schools are huge. The shooter could just go to the part of the school where the cop isn’t stationed and do plenty of damage before the cop got there.

We need to solve this country’s gun problem the right way rather than fight it with more guns.

If the right way is to ban guns, its not going to happen. Too much opposition from the right.

Then the right is the problem. They must be defeated.

Don’t let anyone use these tragedies to turn the US into a police state.

having cops in our schools does not equal a police state.

Having them stationed throughout all of our daily life locations is, and your mindset that their use of deadly force is justified even if the suspect is unarmed is dangerously close.

The Person in Question

Author
Time

I think the biggest problem with the whole “arm the school” idea, is the sheer numbers involved. Sure it sounds great to have a highly-trained SWAT team in every school, fully vetted psychologically, with angelic mindsets ready to protect the kids. But we can barely staff our regular police forces, let alone ensure that all of them are psychological saints. There are approximately 140,000 schools in the U.S. Are we seriously going to find, train, and pay 800,000 armed guards permanently stationed in these schools?

Furthermore, if we are wrong about only .01% of those, such that 1 out of every 10,000 of these supposed new hires ends up having a psychological issue, that’s 80 potential NEW school shootings because of the introduction of guns into the schools.

Worse, the thought of simply giving such weaponry to volunteer teachers is considerably more scary, and I’m a teacher! If I had to teach in such an environment, I’d quit.

"Close the blast doors!"
Puggo’s website | Rescuing Star Wars

Author
Time

LOL I misread as “rick gates guilty plea murder investigation.”

Author
Time
 (Edited)

TV’s Frink said:

I’ll admit I only skimmed a bit but I’ve still not heard a single argument why a civilian should be able to buy an assault weapon like an AR-15.

Well, here’s how I’ve seen the argument go in the past. First off, they’d say the “assault weapon” terminology is a meaningless term invented by the anti-gun crowd to make guns seem scary and dangerous. And they’re half right on that front. The “assault weapon” terminology is a meaningless term designed to make guns seem scary and dangerous, but it was invented by the gun industry as a way of selling more guns because “scary and dangerous” makes them more appealing to certain target audiences.

So, rather than defining guns you can’t buy based on meaningless marketing copy, you come up with arguments for guns you can buy, and that’s activity-based. There’s some categories:

  1. Hunting. These days, this is mostly a form of entertainment, but this is still utilitarian for a handful of people.
  2. Varmints. Seriously, coyotes suck, and guns are a pretty effective way to keep them at bay.
  3. Fantasy fulfillment. This is where your “protection from government”, and “protecting your family” come in. None of this is real, but if you close your eyes and wish real hard, you become fantasy Dirty Harry.
  4. Culture/heirlooms. Dad gave me this gun, it’s been in my family since great grandpa James used it to rob a train. It has intense personal value.

So, going at the list from easy to hard.

#4 is easy. Heirlooms have no need to be functional. Fill it with epoxy and you can keep your family heirloom gun forever.
#3 is easy too. Protecting your family in a fantasy world is not worth endangering your family in the real world. If you fill your gun with epoxy, it still works just as well in your fantasies and doesn’t endanger your family anymore.
#1 is mostly easy. For the entertainment angle, there’s a big arcade cabinet version of Big Buck Hunter down at the bowling alley. You’ll probably do better at this version anyway.

So we’re down to utility hunting and varmints. You don’t need an AR-15 for either of these activities (although it’s common for both). For these activities, you do not need semiauto, you do not need concealable, you do not need lightweight, you do not need large clips, you do not need rapid reload. Frankly, bow-hunters will tell you you don’t even need a gun, but bow-hunters are crazy so we don’t listen to them. An old-west-style Winchester rifle works fine for both. You have to cock it every time because it’s not semiauto. You need to stop and reload it frequently. It’s not particularly fun to shoot. Luckily none of this matters for those utilitarian purposes. Could one still be used in a crime? Absolutely. A less common, less deadly crime. And if it’s still too deadly, we can still weigh the right to varmint control against the right to remain breathing and decide which one we, as a society, value more.

So while you’ve still not heard a single argument why a civilian should be able to buy an assault weapon like an AR-15, I haven’t heard a credible argument why a civilian should be able to buy a handgun.

Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)