Florida school shooting

i was the watching the Florida events on TV before the gunman was captured …..watching the HS kids being escorted from school with their hands up, some were crying in panic and I thought back to a day when I was in 2nd grade during recess in school, a furnace blew up in a classroom that eventually caught fire to a classroom in a different wing….

I remember the firetrucks, kids crying in panic even though we were in no real danger… no injuries to anyone…. (friends from FB from my elementary school still bring that fire up today about how stressful they felt about that mild event)

what also came to mind was when i’d get call from my kid’s elementary school, or middle school or high school of a lock down notice… my kids would come home and tell us the details of their teacher locking and blocking the doors with a desk or chairs as the kids hunched under their desks to protect themselves from a trespasser on school campus or whatever triggered the event.

I then remembered about seeing a REAL SPORTS HBO story about a Sandy Hook first grade kid who survived the attack and described his escape from the classroom where the gun attack took place, ……. drywall chalk was on his face from bullets that ricocheted off the classroom walls. he slipped and fell on a pool of blood on the class room linoleum floor as he frantically ran out of the classroom, his clothes covered in a dead classmates blood . for years, that surviving kid didn’t not want to go anywhere in public…..that shouldn’t happen to anyone, let alone a 1st grade kid….

I then talked to a co-worker about these events, and he told me that his cousin was in the Columbine HS during the Columbine tragedy and she was never the same after the event…… She is getting better, but has relaps when events like what happened in Florida, in Orlando, in Vegas, in Kentucky, et al… she reverts back to fear…..

18 school shooting thus far this years… It’s Feb 16, that’s 47 calendar days….. that’s approximately 32 school days this years… almost 1 shooting every other day.

Did you guys ever see “Who killed the Electric Car: documentary?. (The EV1) in the 1990’s the oil lobby encouraged the recall and repossession of these cars… GM went to each registered car owner, repossessed the cars and smashed them… think there’s maybe 1 or 2 left (Jay Leno has 1)

why not do the same for these AR-15s? Stop selling them, find the registered owners, buy them back, if the registered owners claim it’s lost fine them $100K

This shit is getting old. It’s not only affecting the dead kids and their families, it’s affects everyone.

The other day, I was at a traffic light, the light turned green and the guy in front of us didn’t move as he was checking his phone. I honked my horn as a reminder to move……., my wife then said “don’t do that, he might have a gun and shoot us”

Fuck that….

God is dead.
Hell on Earth.

NewMexicoRam wrote:

So, wv, how do you explain why jerks with guns never shoot up a police station?

Key: https://www.npr.org/2017/10/13/557433452/poll-majorities-of-both-parties-favor-increased-gun-restrictions

Eight-in-10 Americans told the pollsters they favor bans on assault weapons, high-capacity ammunition magazines and “bump stocks,” an accessory used by the Las Vegas shooter that allows a semi-automatic rifle to fire like an automatic weapon.

Eight-in-10 likewise said they favor a federal database to track all gun sales. On each of these questions, majorities of Democrats, independents and Republicans all were in favor of the restrictions to some degree.

But the share who were in favor, as well as the intensity of their agreement, varied by party — sometimes widely. For example, 91 percent of Democrats, along with 76 percent of independents and 70 percent of Republicans, said they are for banning assault-style weapons.

Now to me. NM…that is a painfully bad argument.

You would arm an entire society rather than cut back on the availability of automatic and semi-automatic weapons?

Meanwhile all the societies that DID control those weapons do not have the shootings we do.

You will ignore that of course. BUT while ignoring it you will also be unable to name a single country in the world that arms teachers as a method of preventing mass assaults. So many many advanced 1st world countries regulate guns and do NOT have mass shootings anywhere near the percentage we do, but no one arms teachers.

Why is that?

Oh that’s simple. Reason. <

No one attacks a police station because it is staffed with large numbers of trained professionals who are used to dealing with violence. To become a trained officer you have to meet certain physical specifications (and as I mentioned, undergo training).

The idea of arming poor underpaid teachers, which includes large numbers of people who could never physically qualify to be cops and who do not have the time to do regular training and so forth, strikes me as one of the lowpoints in the surreality of what has become of american society. It’s like something out of a dark comic dystopian movie.

I could absolutely give a crap if you feel the need to have those weapons widely available and the more NRA kooks whine about it the more I do not care.

Others in this thread, I am sure, will be more calmly reasonable than me, but whether they say so or not, none will think there’s even a fraction of rational thinking in that point of view.

“Fuck you, I like guns.”

“Fuck you, I like guns.”

America, can we talk? Let’s just cut the shit for once and actually talk about what’s going on without blustering and pretending we’re actually doing a good job at adulting as a country right now. We’re not. We’re really screwing this whole society thing up, and we have to do better. We don’t have a choice. People are dying. At this rate, it’s not if your kids, or mine, are involved in a school shooting, it’s when. One of these happens every 60 hours on average in the US. If you think it can’t affect you, you’re wrong. Dead wrong. So let’s talk.

I’ll start. I’m an Army veteran. I like M-4’s, which are, for all practical purposes, an AR-15, just with a few extra features that people almost never use anyway. I’d say at least 70% of my formal weapons training is on that exact rifle, with the other 30% being split between various and sundry machineguns and grenade launchers. My experience is pretty representative of soldiers of my era. Most of us are really good with an M-4, and most of us like it at least reasonably well, because it is an objectively good rifle. I was good with an M-4, really good. I earned the Expert badge every time I went to the range, starting in Basic Training. This isn’t uncommon. I can name dozens of other soldiers/veterans I know personally who can say the exact same thing. This rifle is surprisingly easy to use, completely idiot-proof really, has next to no recoil, comes apart and cleans up like a dream, and is light to carry around. I’m probably more accurate with it than I would be with pretty much any other weapon in existence. I like this rifle a lot. I like marksmanship as a sport. When I was in the military, I enjoyed combining these two things as often as they’d let me.

With all that said, enough is enough. My knee jerk reaction is to consider weapons like the AR-15 no big deal because it is my default setting. It’s where my training lies. It is my normal, because I learned how to fire a rifle IN THE ARMY. You know, while I may only have shot plastic targets on the ranges of Texas, Georgia, and Missouri, that’s not what those weapons were designed for, and those targets weren’t shaped like deer. They were shaped like people. Sometimes we even put little hats on them. You learn to take a gut shot, “center mass”, because it’s a bigger target than the head, and also because if you maim the enemy soldier rather than killing him cleanly, more of his buddies will come out and get him, and you can shoot them, too. He’ll die of those injuries, but it’ll take him a while, giving you the chance to pick off as many of his compadres as you can. That’s how my Drill Sergeant explained it anyway. I’m sure there are many schools of thought on it. The fact is, though, when I went through my marksmanship training in the US Army, I was not learning how to be a competition shooter in the Olympics, or a good hunter. I was being taught how to kill people as efficiently as possible, and that was never a secret.

As an avowed pacifist now, it turns my stomach to even type the above words, but can you refute them? I can’t. Every weapon that a US Army soldier uses has the express purpose of killing human beings. That is what they are made for. The choice rifle for years has been some variant of what civilians are sold as an AR-15. Whether it was an M-4 or an M-16 matters little. The function is the same, and so is the purpose. These are not deer rifles. They are not target rifles. They are people killing rifles. Let’s stop pretending they’re not.

With this in mind, is anybody surprised that nearly every mass shooter in recent US history has used an AR-15 to commit their crime? And why wouldn’t they? High capacity magazine, ease of loading and unloading, almost no recoil, really accurate even without a scope, but numerous scopes available for high precision, great from a distance or up close, easy to carry, and readily available. You can buy one at Wal-Mart, or just about any sports store, and since they’re long guns, I don’t believe you have to be any more than 18 years old with a valid ID. This rifle was made for the modern mass shooter, especially the young one. If he could custom design a weapon to suit his sinister purposes, he couldn’t do a better job than Armalite did with this one already.

This rifle is so deadly and so easy to use that no civilian should be able to get their hands on one. We simply don’t need these things in society at large. I always find it interesting that when I was in the Army, and part of my job was to be incredibly proficient with this exact weapon, I never carried one at any point in garrison other than at the range. Our rifles lived in the arms room, cleaned and oiled, ready for the next range day or deployment. We didn’t carry them around just because we liked them. We didn’t bluster on about barracks defense and our second amendment rights. We tucked our rifles away in the arms room until the next time we needed them, just as it had been done since the Army’s inception. The military police protected us from threats in garrison. They had 9 mm Berettas to carry. They were the only soldiers who carry weapons in garrison. We trusted them to protect us, and they delivered. With notably rare exceptions, this system has worked well. There are fewer shootings on Army posts than in society in general, probably because soldiers are actively discouraged from walking around with rifles, despite being impeccably well trained with them. Perchance, we could have the largely untrained civilian population take a page from that book?

I understand that people want to be able to own guns. That’s ok. We just need to really think about how we’re managing this. Yes, we have to manage it, just as we manage car ownership. People have to get a license to operate a car, and if you operate a car without a license, you’re going to get in trouble for that. We manage all things in society that can pose a danger to other people by their misuse. In addition to cars, we manage drugs, alcohol, exotic animals (there are certain zip codes where you can’t own Serval cats, for example), and fireworks, among other things. We restrict what types of businesses can operate in which zones of the city or county. We have a whole system of permitting for just about any activity a person wants to conduct since those activities could affect others, and we realize, as a society, that we need to try to minimize the risk to other people that comes from the chosen activities of those around them in which they have no say. Gun ownership is the one thing our country collectively refuses to manage, and the result is a lot of dead people.

I can’t drive a Formula One car to work. It would be really cool to be able to do that, and I could probably cut my commute time by a lot. Hey, I’m a good driver, a responsible Formula One owner. You shouldn’t be scared to be on the freeway next to me as I zip around you at 140 MPH, leaving your Mazda in a cloud of dust! Why are you scared? Cars don’t kill people. People kill people. Doesn’t this sound like bullshit? It is bullshit, and everybody knows. Not one person I know would argue non-ironically that Formula One cars on the freeway are a good idea. Yet, these same people will say it’s totally ok to own the firearm equivalent because, in the words of comedian Jim Jeffries, “fuck you, I like guns”.

Yes, yes, I hear you now. We have a second amendment to the constitution, which must be held sacrosanct over all other amendments. Dude. No. The constitution was made to be a malleable document. It’s intentionally vague. We can enact gun control without infringing on the right to bear arms. You can have your deer rifle. You can have your shotgun that you love to shoot clay pigeons with. You can have your target pistol. Get a license. Get a training course. Recertify at a predetermined interval. You do not need a military grade rifle. You don’t. There’s no excuse.

“But we’re supposed to protect against tyranny! I need the same weapons the military would come at me with!” Dude. You know where I can get an Apache helicopter and a Paladin?! Hook a girl up! Seriously, though, do you really think you’d be able to hold off the government with an individual level weapon? Because you wouldn’t. One grenade, and you’re toast. Don’t have these illusions of standing up to the government, and needing military style rifles for that purpose. You’re not going to stand up to the government with this thing. They’d take you out in about half a second.

Let’s be honest. You just want a cool toy, and for the vast majority of people, that’s all an AR-15 is. It’s something fun to take to the range and put some really wicked holes in a piece of paper. Good for you. I know how enjoyable that is. I’m sure for a certain percentage of people, they might not kill anyone driving a Formula One car down the freeway, or owning a Cheetah as a pet, or setting off professional grade fireworks without a permit. Some people are good with this stuff, and some people are lucky, but those cases don’t negate the overall rule. Military style rifles have been the choice du jour in the incidents that have made our country the mass shootings capitol of the world. Formula One cars aren’t good for commuting. Cheetahs are bitey. Professional grade fireworks will probably take your hand off. All but one of these are common sense to the average American. Let’s fix that. Be honest, you don’t need that AR-15. Nobody does. Society needs them gone, no matter how good you may be with yours. Kids are dying, and it’s time to stop fucking around.

My own view is that we should bypass all of the usual battles over jargon and semantics, and make it impossible for gun nuts to play that game. Don’t just ban “assault weapons.” Ban all guns that can use, in any way, shape or form, external ammo containers (and those containers) — again, of any shape or form.

Make it illegal to possess, trade, gift, import, export, sell, buy, collect any weapon that can use, or be modified to use, external ammo containers. Limit guns to internal chambers only, with six bullets max. Six bullets that must be hand-loaded due to the physics of the internal chambers themselves.

To me, this is the “sweet spot” between radically reducing the carnage and still adhering to the 2nd amendment, an amendment with literally the blood of millions of Americans on its hands, and not one iota of good to counter that. But since we have to work with it, this is, to me, the best “middle ground.” Eliminating all external ammo containers, and restricting legal guns to those with internal chambers only, adheres to “keep and bear arms” AND saves lives.

To me, in my book of life, anyone who says their desire to play with AR-15s should trump public safety, including the lives of school children, to be very, very generous, needs to do some major soul-searching about priorities. Anyone who actually creates policy that puts playing with guns ahead of public safety is an absolute monster with massive amounts of blood on their hands.

PA Ram wrote:

Well, this school had two cops. It did not matter.

They never saw the shooter.

And in the confusion of a fire drill with kids running around with shooting and smoke bombs I’m not sure what good armed teachers–who are not professional security personnel by the way–would do other than to get more kids killed.

The “arm everyone” argument is scary and dangerous. Let’s just arm all the students while we’re at it. The janitors. The lunchlady. Everyone gets a gun. Is that where we REALLY want society to go all in the name of keeping semi automatics(that can be made to fire like automatics)guns used for the purpose of hunting humans? Is that where we are now?

The majority of Americans do not own guns. They are owned by gun hoarders. The ones who own them own a lot of them.

But no one wants to take away hunting rifles, or most guns really. Mostly people want sanity in how they are regulated. But the terrorist organization known as the NRA won’t allow it.

They could not even outlaw bump stocks after Las Vegas!

And now the right has hopped on the blame the FBI bandwagon for missing this guy. Really?

They want to blame video games, movies, the FBI and anyone BUT the gun lobby.

We have more guns than any nation on earth. We have far more massacres. This isn’t hard.

The nation feels lost.

We have roughly 4.4% of the world’s population, and roughly 42% of its guns. That we dwarf all other nations in gun violence isn’t at all surprising.

Also, roughly 75% of Americans don’t own guns. A minority do. And a minority within that minority — just 3% — own half of the guns.

Your mention of “arm everyone”? Could that be any more obvious as a ploy to sell more and more and more guns? It’s corporate greed, and gun sellers and makers are merchants of death. We need to go after them like we did Big Tobacco. We also need to make membership in the NRA as socially unacceptable as membership in the KKK. The post-1977 NRA is nothing but the marketing wing of the gun industry.

These things don’t happen with anywhere near the frequency in places where guns are controlled with much stronger, tougher laws than here. And I am referring to 1st world democracies that have stricter controls than we do.

Apparently 8 out of 10 Americans want that and I am with them.

And I grew up with guns. My father was not only a hunter when I was growing up in Canada, he earned money in college by being a guide on very deep backwoods hunting expeditions in western Ontario.

…

Gun deaths as a public health issue…

Link: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org

I don’t know how the gun lobby has succeeded in convincing so many people it isn’t the guns.

Of course it’s the guns.

No guns = no shootings. I don’t know how much more straightforward an equation could possibly be.

And the idea that if it weren’t for guns, these crazies would just do something else is also blatantly false.

Now, I will grant that the vast majority of gun owners are responsible. And I understand that they feel like they are being unfairly deprived of something because of the misbehavior of other people, and that isn’t fair.

But we all suffer these unfair rules every day of our lives. We are all bound by restrictions, red tape, and laws that shouldn’t apply to us, but do, all because other people cheat, steal, whatever. I can’t take bottles into a ball game because some assholes threw their bottles at the field. I had to throw away my fingernail clippers and a bottle of shampoo at the airport before boarding a plane.

And…sorry…you need to live without an AR-15.