"If one of teachers had been carrying a concealed gun ..."

[LearnedHand]

"... and had killed the shooter, this tragedy wouldn't have happened."

This was the comment a shopkeeper offered me today (he brought it up unbidden by me). He went on to do a small rant about how complacent we Americans are and how soon we forget September 11 and how if we don't fight them over there, we'll be fighting them over here. I was flummoxed by his running together all these issues as if they were one thing, but more than that, I've been thinking ever since about how MUCH the freeps (and sometimes, even Dems) reduce every issue to black/white, good/evil, yes/no, in/out -- whatever. No complexity allowed. Ambiguity is the refuge of girly men. We know god's mind on absolutely EVERY issue.

I think what I'm getting at here is that the pukes seem always to NEED an immediate response -- an answer, a solution, an opinion -- something. Nothing can EVER be complex or completely unrelated to someone's pet issue. They have to immediately identify which of their opinions or beliefs this {{whatever}} offends and then serve up an aphorism du jour that, if we idiots would just do the right thing, would SOLVE the {{whatever}} issue.

Back to the shopkeeper: I rarely respond to people's hot-button issues -- in his case, the NRA solution to the VT tragedy -- because I refuse to engage in a Capital Gang style of "debate" in which neither side moves a nanometer off their original "position." But I did say that there obviously are problems with concealed guns ending up in the possession of disturbed people (something the NRA types completely overlook -- I guess they think that simply obtaining the permit also serves as a psychological profile) and that these types of issues are so much more complex than the public "debate" about them allows.

Whatever might be possible answers to preventing school shootings, I'm pretty sure they do NOT include such things as arming professors.

[Ignacio Upton]

1. What the hell do these school shootings have to do with Islamic terrorism?

Cho wasn't connected to Al Qaida in any way. The normal RW talking points for defending this travesty of a war don't apply. Makes about as much sense as if I were to link the 1966 University of Texas clock tower shooting to Vietnam.

[LearnedHand]

4. Exactly. I can't keep up with the speed of their linking one issue to the other. nt

[villager]

2. Let's give every science teacher fissible material! Just in case...

n/t

[LearnedHand]

5. ROTFL!

Oh, that's perfect! What an image.

[Blashyrkh]

3. But...

Surely the answer to stopping gun violence is more guns. :sarcasm:

[LearnedHand]

6. ... and OBVIOUSLY ...

to shoot the shooter. :sarcasm:

[silverojo]

22. So how do we stop gun violence, then?

By not defending ourselves? By allowing 32 kids to be slaughtered, just because some gun-grabbing idiots can't grasp the concept of armed security guards?

It's amazing...nobody blinks at the concept of using armed guards to protect their money (at banks, etc.), yet they don't want to offer precious human beings that same protection.

[LearnedHand]

24. Oh, I think armed security guards EXACTLY might have helped in this shooting

I just don't think in general that arming the professors and maybe even the students with concealed-carry guns would prevent these kinds of situations. And as for your greater question, stopping gun violence, I have no answers for that. It's a very large, very complex situation to which there is no one answer. Have you seen "Bowling for Columbine"? Moore tries to address your very issue, and the documentary is surprisingly truthful. He admits there are no good reasons the US is more prone to gun violence and no easy answers.

(clarified response)

[Blashyrkh]

27. Is this the new buzzword: "gun-grabbing".

At any rate, I see your point. Let's just arm everyone. So every man, woman and child is carrying a concealed weapons. So when someone drawers their gun in anger, there's a dozen people ready to shoot him dead. Much better.

[The_Casual_Observer]

7. Vigilante justice is the answer to all of our security problems.

According to some nitwit shopkeeper.

[aikoaiko]

14. Self-defense (or defense of others) is not vigilante justice.

I'm surprised you would imply so.

[The_Casual_Observer]

17. You're right, I should have said animal justice.

Everybody ought to carry a gun to protect themselves from the other animals with guns.

[aikoaiko]

31. Fixed it for you...

"Everybody ought to carry a gun to protect themselves from the other animals with guns anyone who poses a significant threat to the life or health of innocent people whether the deadly weapon be guns, knives, or even their bare hands.

[The_Casual_Observer]

32. Gun nuts all have a fantasy that they are going to be transformed

from Barney Fyfe to Dirty Harry during an invasion of their home. Go ahead, make my day. Ha Ha Ha.
That fantasy keeps the gun dealers in business. Chances are, they would take your gun out of your hands and use it on you.

[TomInTib]

8. I have not met many too many professors who might prove profficient...

with a handgun.

I just wish that more of those young men would have taken a little more action.

He was lining them up and shooting them, that is why there is such a high killed/wounded ratio.

Someone should have made a move.

[aikoaiko]

12. I'm good at 35-yards with my concealed carry. :-)

Psychology professor. :-)

[LearnedHand]

13. I was in a little cafe once

where a woman pulled a pistol on a man with her. It terrified me so much that I ran out without even thinking, stopping, anything. I just ran. It felt as if my feet weren't even touching the ground, but it was from abject terror.

Now granted, my fight/flight response is DEFINITELY flight, but it makes me wonder how people could have even thought to rush a blazing semiautomatic weapon? I'm thinking the fear/horror factor would have been so extreme. I'm not saying you're wrong; I'm just putting myself in that situation. I think I would have been paralyzed with fear.

[TomInTib]

20. Maybe it is a personal stance of mine...

I have experienced a good bit of close-quarters combat.

But I do believe that if I had been in these kids' situation, I would have moved into the shooter.

Hard to kill a moving target at close range.

[LearnedHand]

25. As is my own urge to flee

I've not been in combat situations, so I can't imagine what it is like having people shooting at me. For the kids' situation, I wish some of them could have done something to distract or disarm the shooter. I don't know why they didn't, but from the reports I've heard, they were all so terrified that some of them didn't even move on the floor. One said the shooter even shot into the bodies lying on the floor. Whew.

[KharmaTrain]

9. Arming Doesn't Mean Trained Doesn't Mean Squat

Gotta love these Rambos who figure that the killer had telegraphed his intentions to allow his victims to think out reactions. The gunman had the biggest thing in a gun fight...the element of surprise and the upper hand. Unless someone could draw a gun like Gene Wilder in Blazing Saddles and have the presence of mind to aim cleanly what the hell would you do? Sheesh.

Someone in another thread painted the picture of having everyone in the classroom armed...in comes a killer and out come all these weapons. Yeah, that would sure take care of the problem...and then imagine the fun that would ensue once the police arrived...allowing the real gunman to escape in all the mayhem. This person also pointed out the VT security staff was not suited for anything of this scale...security couldn't have responded to that much firepower.

The problem with these kind of tragedies is that there isn't one cause but many that roll into one explosion. There's the problem with having such a powerful weapon so easily available...but then there's also the mental problems this killer was showing that went ignored or avoided, the society that he felt alienated from and felt this was his way of "getting even", the excessive violence in our culture that sees killing as a means of the ultimate justice and a political landscape where special interests already are exploiting this tragedy to score points.

[LearnedHand]

18. Precisely!

That's exactly what I was trying to say. The situation is SO much more complex than vigilante justice. Thanks for putting it so eloquently.

(eduted speling)

[rocktivity]

10. And if one of the students had forgotten his homework...?

By the way, he shot the teachers FIRST.

:evilgrin:
rocknation

[Erika]

11. 1,000 students commit suicide, 2000 die from alcohol poisoning

Thanks to BullWinkle for the stats. Did the evil Islamists do this also as an extension of 9/11?

[LearnedHand]

16. You didn't know campus alcoholism was an al Qaida plot? nt

[Erika]

21. Maybe Coulter and Savage did mention it

Or possibly Hannity or Dick Cheney?

[Not a robought]

15. if we idiots would just do the right thing...

yeah, not to weave 9.11 in, but I remember a week after in LA stepping inside an In n Out Burger for lunch as a couple of buddies were leaving and overhearing , "...just nuke the place and turn it all to glass."

When I think about the right to bear arms and the culture of violence, I have to question the legitimacy of a right that costs other personal freedoms in so many ways.

[LearnedHand]

23. Whoa, I just heard that very thing this week

Some wingnuts are STILL saying that. What do you suppose they are imagining the outcome to be of such an act ("turn it all to glass")?

I know what you mean about a right costing other freedoms. The 2nd Amendment is troubling to me because it seems to be both very clear and very ambiguous. I grew up with guns, and I was taught extreme safety, etc. So I have no fear of guns or of reasonable gun ownership. But I'm very troubled by the implication by the NRA and by gun fanatics that if someone has a LEGALLY REGISTERED gun, then de facto, that person is OKAY, a good citizen, not someone inclined to commit mass murder, etc.

[Not a robought]

28. Turn it all to glass

comes from the sense of security of being armed and threatening destruction solves all. An acquirable empowerment to defend mistrust and paranoia.

[TahitiNut]

19. Next, we'll hear about putting Federal Marshalls in the classrooms.

Hell, if it works(?) for airplanes ...? :eyes:

[LearnedHand]

26. Hey, you might be onto something (??) nt

[piedmont]

29. Oh boy! Story-time! Story-time! Tell us the one about the Straw Man! nt

[radfringe]

30. what a "wonderful and peace loving" nation we would be

if everyone packed guns ... it says alot about the state of our nation and culture and our confidence with local/state/federal officials ability to adequately create and maintain a safe community.

have we come to that point where we feel the need to carry guns as we go about our everyday life? What does it say about about safe are our streets, our work places, our schools, our roads and shopping areas?

Should we require our cars and trucks to be armored? Let's build barricades around our homes. How about a fashion line of Kevlar clothing? Hire Security guards to escort our kids?