Connecticut Massacre

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Definitely. Culture would inevitably shift though.

 

I tear up every time I think of this. It's even worse than having a child die of a terminal illness. That's because any parent would move heaven and earth - beg, borrow or steal every penny they could - to do everything in their power to save their child. And they'd have the chance to say goodbye, which is worth a lot more than many people are willing to give credit. And, even if all that effort was in vain, the child would die by your side, in your arms, and you'd know that everything that could have been done, was done to save him/her. But to have this happen - when there is no reason anyone can come up to as to why... I don't know what these parents are going through right now, and I can only hope that I never will.

This is worse. My example is tragic. This was senseless.

 

Most Security Guards in this country make peanuts. You are trying to tell me they will be willing to lay down their lives for that? Hell no. They are working the job only because they have failed at getting a better one. If the public went to Security Guards in the schools, what do you think those guys would get paid? You wouldn't have an overwhelming list of volunteers to do it. They would have to take the guys who need the work.

 

I'm not sure where I stand yet on the idea of armed security guards being stationed in schools. My main issue is that this idea is rather reactive based on the current tragedy. You can find children in plenty of places other than schools. Do we also need to station armed guards in parks, playgrounds, Chuck-E-Cheeses (or similar children's venues)? For that matter, perhaps we need armed guards in all public locations, to protect children and adults alike? How do you police/protect all possible mass homicide locations in a country as large as the USA?

I don't think this is really the answer. It feels like a band-aid, and not a very good one at that. I think stricter gun control is needed. I think better access to mental health treatment is needed. And most painfully, I don't think we can ever completely prevent these sort of tragedies from occurring. Determined people will find a way.

Take away guns, there are still knives, make-shift explosives. Hell, what's stopping someone from driving a big ole truck into the side of a classroom? Want to kill - will find way. As a father with 3 boys under the age of 10, this is difficult to admit.

 

I am still baffled as to why USA has such a vastly different attitude around this topic to the rest of the world. Why is USA so hung up on guns? I just don't understand. Why USA?

 

Speaking as someone who doesn't own a gun (though maybe I should), I can't answer on behalf of my country, not really at least.

I do know that the Second Amendment is a very big deal to a lot of Americans, and they feel that the right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental part of what it means to be an American.

 

That's incorrect Blades, and you don't seem to have a very firm grasp of the industry as a whole. Like any other profession, their are service and pay rate tiers, and armed guards generally make significantly more money than a baseline guard - the kind you see standing around Walmart wearing a red jacket. (And that's even leaving alone people who work in 'protection' for the moment - a whole different stratum.) That's because of the associated risk and higher service requirements, training, etc. In fact, more often than not, these people are retired police officers who are indeed looking for just that type of work - people who have been-there-done-that and are generally quite capable of acting during a crisis. And while I obviously can't guarantee that random guard x would lay down his life (even some police officers won't do that), I do know one or two who have saved lives.

 

That hardly ever happens, because it's much harder to achieve and not as 'romanticized' in America as firearms. I really don't think these things would repalce guns to anywhere near the same degree - if at all.

 

HB -- it was the common men who had guns that fought and won freedom from the British in the revolutionary war. The founding fathers believed the ability to arm a militia was critical to our freedom and critical to ensuring the government would not overstep its boundries. At the time arming a militia meant guys with their own guns and gun ownership became a critical part of being able to maintain freedom.

That tradition has carried on since then (right or wrong). I personally don't believe the founding fathers could imagine how accessable guns would be in the future.

The pro-gun guys are already mounting the 'concealed carry would have stopped this' campaign. One of the congressmen in Texas acutally went on record stating he wished the principle would have had a weapon in her office and she could have shot the killer before he got to any classrooms. What an idiot.

I personnally believe if teachers start packing we'll have a lot more kids killed than with these incidents.

 

Who knows Harbs....

In Alaska, 70% of the population carries. At least, that what they stated on the Alaska State Troopers program I watching on Saturday. Legally carries that is. That is almost insane to me. I sure as hell wouldn't want to be a cop up there.

 

Crazy. You can't really reason with such people, just like that guy I quoted above - and he's a bloody congressman! I guess you just have to treat them like children - take their 'toys' away, and send them to the naughty room when they kick a stink up about it. It's got to happen. I'm not sure these half measures will bring the desired effect.

 

And just how many extra armed guards are there out there, just waiting to get hired? That's the whole point. There isn't a surplus. We are left with the lower tier to fill the gap where a lot more qualified people of a higher tier is needed... it is not a viable solution because currently, it's not possible.

I will agree that IF funding for training became available, it could be possible at a later time. But I think gun control would be more effective than adding guns to the scenario. By adding armed guards I think we are admitting as a whole that we can't control the guns.

 

It's true. I lived there a few years ago.

I have no idea why people would think there is a problem with legally carrying. Many people in Alaska legally carry because of potential problems with wildlife. For example, salmon-fishermen often carry pistols because of the grizzly bears, often in the same streams at the same time.

 

I agree that a gun is the most "convenient" method to go medieval on a group of unsuspecting victims. I was never trying to argue anything to the contrary. I was merely ruminating that even without guns being readily accessible as they are, we are still not truly safe against crazies looking to go down in a blaze of glory. There's no question that we'd see less of these incidents, as only the truly dedicated whackos are going to take the extra time build their bombs, etc (though driving a car into an area crowded with civilians sure wouldn't take much forethought).

There's no reason at all that assault rifles should be legal for civilians to own. At a minimum, there should be strict limits on how many rounds a gun can hold for civilian ownership. And frankly, I wouldn't personally get up in arms if guns were outlawed for civilians. The Revolutionary War has long since ended.

 

Tal,

Your better alternative has already been discussed here.. a.k.a. Gun Control. It's probably the only solution. I'm not against it. I'm just a realist and have an understanding of the American point of view as I have lived with it for 39 years. Unless I am readin you wrong, it seems to me that it is alien to you and you think we can just "change" things. It is not that simple. I don't disagree with you that things need to change. But I recognize and freely admit that it probably isn't going to happen anytime soon.

On a lighter note...you remind me of my older brother. We agree on most subjects but seem to argue about everything anyway... of course, I am always right and he is always wrong.

 

One can argue, counterfactually, as to what the "Founding Fathers" wanted when they approved the 2nd Amendment in 1791. But it would be a useless endeavor. What the 2nd Amendment says is that the right of citizens to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. For all I or anyone else knows, maybe Jefferson (the 2nd Amendment was approved under his term) DID want people to own cannons. Kinds of weapons, efficiency, cost, volume, etc, were never addressed in the Constitution. I am not a Constitutional scholar, so I am unversed in how it has been continually reinterpreted by the courts since then.

Good point. The problem with talking about a "culture" is that identifying what a culture is, is difficult if not impossible to empirically prove. But between cartoons, movies, television, video games, apps, books, etc, violence has become acceptable as a mode of entertainment in the U.S.

This is almost certainly irrelevant. There is no indication that the murderor's mother purchased any weapons illegally. These weapons were appropriated by the murderor after he murdered his mother (for all we know at this time, she had them locked up in a cabinet, too), or he stole them first, and then murdered her with them. Pistols or semi-automatic rifle, against shotguns or hunting rifles, there is not a significant difference in the ability to kill people with them. Bullets are highly effective when fired into the right locations in the human body.

There seems to be a belief that one can "put things back into the bottle" (almost like nuclear weapons). If you are willing to spend the money on the right tools and do a little research (and it's not onerous, it simply takes more time, effort, and money than most people want to spend on stuff like this) you can simply build your firearm in your basement. Pistol, rifle, shotgun--they are all out there and they are going to stay there. They can't simply be wished away and it's quite unlikely they are going to legislated away.

 

The NRA is more powerful than the government? Obama has only just been voted back in - surely he can force a law through now, and by the time the elections come back around, the dust might have settled a bit.