I still don't get how a red-neck with close to no education and no military background is allowed to buy a weapon any bigger then a handgun.
How can someone allow a mother, that has a child with mild autism, collect and keep weapons in a BUCKET?
What is the limit? Does a mother need a BUCKET full of weapons to PROTECT herself? What does the guy at the store do when a client walks in and says ' Yup, I'm going to buy this rifle as well. This way I have a gun for every day of the month.'
i was thinking about this last night, and was wondering... these people typically shoot themselves after shooting up a place. like, they know they either wouldn't want to live with the guilt, OR with the punishment if they came out alive.
maybe because guns are so easy to access, that's why they go on a rampage, instead of just hanging themselves? i realise hanging themselves is still sucky and it's still a problem that needs to be fixed. but i mean... have you ever heard of someone knifing people and then stabbing themselves in the face? of course not... these guys are scared of pain just like everyone else, but they know that with a gun there's no pain, it's over as soon as they pull the trigger.
so basically... if they didn't have access to the weapon, would they think twice about committing the crime when they know there's no easy way out at the end of it?
What is the limit? Does a mother need a BUCKET full of weapons to PROTECT herself? What does the guy at the store do when a client walks in and says ' Yup, I'm going to buy this rifle as well. This way I have a gun for every day of the month.'
they go "sure, here you go... and here's 500 rounds of ammo to go with it!" because that's what people are taught to think! they make money, and take no responsibility for the outcome.
And to the people who keeps saying that without homeowners having guns, only criminals would be and would use them against them...Do you know that a lot of the guns that criminals got, is actually STOLEN from homeowners? Because you see, a normal thief (smart thief) would not rob a house while someone is in it. So if the homeowner has a gun, it wouldn't help him since HE ISN'T THERE. Which makes it easier for criminals to get weapons, without all the legal stuff like licenses. :P
Spend more money on home security and a lock for your door and call the cops. :P Go look it up.
50% sale this weekend!! Buy a rifle before Xmas and you get the new Communist invasion repelling package! Also we have the new Zombie apocalypse combo for children*!
*contains small parts, not suitable under the age of 5!.
The AR-15 is a carbine that fires 5.56 nato rounds.
It's a modular rifle that can be chambered to fire most standard rounds. Here in the UK they are only legal if they are chambered to take .22 rimfire or 9mm chambers - and you have to jump through real hoops to get them.
In the case of the Connecticut shooting, the rifle was taking .223 rounds; whether the rifle was correctly chambered is another matter since these do fit 5.56 chambers.
In some US states however you can get .50 variants and god only knows what else without much difficulty. Only the lower part of the receiver is considered by most state firearm control laws, so it's quite easy to make these adjustments yourself.
Even using 5.56 NATO or .223, it's totally overkill. It may take a smaller round, but it's got ten times the effective range and three times the muzzle velocity of most civilian handguns. That smaller projectile instead hits with considerably more stopping power. Any rifle with an effective killing range in excess of half a kilometer isn't something you can realistically justify as 'protection' - that's a an target shooting enthusiasts weapon. It's a weapon that should live in a locked cabinet at a secure gun club by law and I doubt any reasonable owner could refute that. (I find it extremely worrying that in some states it's pretty easy to get hold of magazines that can hold in excess of 100 rounds since you can't even justify that as an enthusiast, but that's another story).
Regardless of the debate about whether or not to ban guns... I'm pretty sure we need to start doing more of what Switzerland does. For a nation with the largest gun to person ratio the numbers seem to show they are doing just fine.
Regardless of the debate about whether or not to ban guns... I'm pretty sure we need to start doing more of what Switzerland does. For a nation with the largest gun to person ratio the numbers seem to show they are doing just fine.
Gnutmi: I find your sarcasm rather poorly placed in this thread. Please have some respect for the situation and for others in this thread.
Too many hippie tree huggers in america for enough people to take advantage of carrying a gun for it to be positive
Switzerland probably doesnt have such big gang cultures and drug trafficking etc. But in our defense gang members tend to mostly kill other gang members and so on.
I remember in the 50s police stopped investigating mafia murders because they were only killing other mafia family members, so they didn't really see it as a threat to civilians. But thats back when the idea of a gang was more loyal.
As far as gun laws are concerned, I was actually under the impression the Swiss had a very similar system to the US.
The difference is entirely cultural.
Everyone is legally required to serve in the militia and therefore is taught how to respect and use a weapon properly. So yes it's a cultural thing. But I think we could learn a lot from the Swiss and if we educated everyone about guns and the proper way to use/store them we would be a lot better off.
i fell behind on this thread, but has anyone mentioned that the mother of this shooter was a big gun nut herself, and use to take her son to the range all the time? She basically trained him. and if he had known mental issues, then that's just horrrrrible parenting right there.
It's a modular rifle that can be chambered to fire most standard rounds. Here in the UK they are only legal if they are chambered to take .22 rimfire or 9mm chambers - and you have to jump through real hoops to get them.
In the case of the Connecticut shooting, the rifle was taking .223 rounds; whether the rifle was correctly chambered is another matter since these do fit 5.56 chambers.
In some US states however you can get .50 variants and god only knows what else without much difficulty. Only the lower part of the receiver is considered by most state firearm control laws, so it's quite easy to make these adjustments yourself.
Even using 5.56 NATO or .223, it's totally overkill. It may take a smaller round, but it's got ten times the effective range and three times the muzzle velocity of most civilian handguns. That smaller projectile instead hits with considerably more stopping power. Any rifle with an effective killing range in excess of half a kilometer isn't something you can realistically justify as 'protection' - that's a an target shooting enthusiasts weapon. It's a weapon that should live in a locked cabinet at a secure gun club by law and I doubt any reasonable owner could refute that. (I find it extremely worrying that in some states it's pretty easy to get hold of magazines that can hold in excess of 100 rounds since you can't even justify that as an enthusiast, but that's another story).
You just glossed over the fact that it is a semi-auto rifle and went on to make your point. You do know what semi-auto means don't you? There are other common as dirt rifles out there that aren't of military origins that are semi-auto and pack more lethal range than an AR-15. You're splitting hairs honestly. You're demonizing one weapon because of a tragedy and ignoring the fact that it isn't even as dangerous of a weapon as you make it out to be, not in comparison to most other semi-auto rifles on the market.
Your reaction disturbs me. It's the kind of reaction you get from people who demand legislation "for the children" and that makes me cringe because it's never reasonable nor logical. It's almost always lashing out in fear and ignorance. It's ignorant because when tragedies like this happen, people like you seem to think that we need to ban more guns and that will solve the problem, as if only certain guns kill. I can assure you, unless you can remove every gun from every citizen in this country, including criminals and police, banning the AR-15 will not prevent more tragedies like this. The AR-15 is no more dangerous than any other semi-auto rifle. I'd be more concerned with someone bringing in a select fire weapon, (like the Colt M4A1, which is a full auto carbine) which can fire many rounds per second and spray an area with lead, than a rifle that requires you to pull the trigger each time you fire a round. Your response isn't reasonable, it's reflexive.
By the way, I don't own a single firearm, but I grew up around guns as my father collected many of them, including the AR-15. I can't accept people blaming tools for the actions of some fringe people that lost their sanity. The blame rests firmly on society for not catching this person's instability before he did harm. The weapon he used is irrelevant and this whole argument about gun control is stupid because had this person gotten help, guns never would have entered the equation. The law did exactly what it was supposed to do. It was the owner's failure to secure those guns and allowing that unstable person access to them that enabled this tragedy. You can't make a law that stops people from being stupid.
Stop right there - you're making my argument out to be something that it isn't and I don't appreciate it. I'm not demonizing a single weapon (I just used the example in this thread), I'm not demonizign any weapon in particular. I'm stating that I don't believe that a semi-automatic rifle with a magazine carrying large quantities of ammunition like that is an appropriate weapon to keep at home or purchase as 'protection' - because it isn't. You're inclined to disagree, I respect that. Perhaps you should respect my opinion instead of demonizing me instead. My response isn't 'reflexive', it's the opinion I hold and it has nothing to do with recent events.
You're right that you can't make a law that stops people from being stupid. You can however make laws that help prevent stupid people from doing stupid things. The law and society are not two separate things, they define one another.
Stop right there - you're making my argument out to be something that it isn't and I don't appreciate it. I'm not demonizing a single weapon (I just used the example in this thread), I'm not demonizign any weapon in particular. I'm stating that I don't believe that a semi-automatic rifle with a magazine carrying large quantities of ammunition like that is an appropriate weapon to keep at home or purchase as 'protection' - because it isn't. You're inclined to disagree, I respect that. Perhaps you should respect my opinion instead of demonizing me instead. My response isn't 'reflexive', it's the opinion I hold and it has nothing to do with recent events.
You're right that you can't make a law that stops people from being stupid. You can however make laws that help prevent stupid people from doing stupid things. The law and society are not two separate things, they define one another.
If I recall, rifles are limited to 10 rounds per clip. If they have more, they were purchased before the law was passed and are grandfathered in.
Either way, as long as guns exist, there's no gun you can ban that will make gun violence go away than social intervention would have more effect on.
Like I said before, if you have strep, you don't treat the sore throat, cough, and fever as individual issues. You treat the infection that causes all three of them and the symptoms will all go away or at lease severely diminish, which is what so many people don't realize with a great many social problems. Most violence is caused by inequality, mental illness, or corruption. Solve those three things and you get rid of most forms of violence that we try to deal with individually. People become violent because they're either desperate/afraid, unstable/insane, or trying to hold on to power. It can even be a combination. They become irrational because of these factors and this allows them to take violent action where a rational person would see it as a bad idea.
That could be used as a tool to go to communities and find out where they need help so that they can be "vaccinated" against potential infection. If they just initiate community programs that discourage violent activity in the area, they could retard or prevent the spread of "infection" to their area. Very interesting.
Your analogy doesn't work overlord. Someone has a sore throat, they go to the doc, they get diagnosed. It has been brought to the attention of the doc. How are the authorities supposed to ascertain who is a likely mass murderer? Some kind of 'crazy' scanner? The guy who shot up the mall the other day showed no indication of strange behaviour; hell he was planning on emigrating, starting a new life. For all we know the guy in this case also exhibited no worrying behaviour.
And as for your 'what is an automatic assault rifle and what is not' strawman, well, it's very unhelpful.
This is what happens when you maintain a status quo on gun laws. If the it continues this horrific event will just keep happening in America and it saddens me deeply that some people think that's an acceptable thing as long as you keep everything the way it was.
The 2nd Amendment isn't a new thing, you run into all sorts of problems when you make something like a new country, state a rule that works for that time and then make it a tradition to keep it for the sake of tradition. If we did that with science then we could deny all findings at CERN and continue to state that the world is flat even though we know it isn't today, I'm sure there are hundreds of better examples you can make.
The problem here is that peoples excuses for upholding the status quo are getting more and more forced and desperate. Some of them say "you need to have guns to protect yourself against other people with guns". So are you really going to militarize schools "Tom don't forget your desert eagle son!". Train the teachers to kill people? store firearms in schools where they will inevitably be accessed by children?
The way I see it, America needs to make a choice, whether it wants to continue militarizing civilian life and end up with these mascaras every odd year or stuck it up, and do the right thing. Children depend on America getting this right.
Your analogy doesn't work overlord. Someone has a sore throat, they go to the doc, they get diagnosed. It has been brought to the attention of the doc. How are the authorities supposed to ascertain who is a likely mass murderer? Some kind of 'crazy' scanner? The guy who shot up the mall the other day showed no indication of strange behaviour; hell he was planning on emigrating, starting a new life. For all we know the guy in this case also exhibited no worrying behaviour.
And as for your 'what is an automatic assault rifle and what is not' strawman, well, it's very unhelpful.
What? I'm not talking about some kind of "crazy" police. I'm talking about each and every person out there taking responsibility for each other and paying attention so that when somebody is off their rocker, we notice it before they hurt other people and get them help. And if you expect me to come up with a fool-proof, iron-clad answer, then I have to disappoint you, there are none. Some crazy people will always fly under the radar, but that doesn't negate that we need to be responsible for each other's well-being.
The analogy I used is just fine, if you don't try to split hairs and miss the point. The point is you don't treat strep by dealing with is symptoms, you deal with the infection. If you don't kill the infection the sore throat, cough, and such don't go away. That was my point. Don't nit-pick irrelevant little details. The fact that strep is easy to notice is completely irrelevant.
I was responding to JO420 claiming that the AR-15 was an assault rifle, when by definition it is not. How is that a straw man? He did say that and I stated a fact in response correcting that mistake. That is very much not a straw man argument.
Well, as anti-guns as I am, Vio, even I think having a firearm in a safe in schools might not be the worst idea. On the down-low of course, passing some national law is basically advertising to kids that there is definitely one on the premises.
On the flip-side, it would be equally as likely to cause a tragedy though.
Personally, I think requiring all guns to be stored in a public vault system that requires a photo ID and key to access them would be a reasonable and effective solution, if you're allowed one bolt-action rifle, shotgun, or pistol in your home. Your choice.
i fell behind on this thread, but has anyone mentioned that the mother of this shooter was a big gun nut herself, and use to take her son to the range all the time? She basically trained him. and if he had known mental issues, then that's just horrrrrible parenting right there.
I mentioned it. I wondered if she would change her stance now, if she could. Which she can't, cause she was shot dead with her own weapon.
I find it odd that we aren't finding out much about this guy, but maybe the media is not giving these scumbags the media attention anymore, which has been cited as a possible reason why they are happening more and more frequently.
It's far from simple, tbh. And all I see in here are people wanting to prevent the next one. We should never accept these tragedies.
It's because it's far from simple that I prefer simply accepting a tragedy as a tragedy, as opposed to everyone under the sun trying to come up with some way to "prevent" the next one.
Deciding to say, "This is a tragedy" and holding the victims in your thoughts and prayers (if you're in to that sort of thing) is not a bad thing. Accepting it as a simple unfortunate occurrence - as someone who, for any number of reasons, decided to do a bad thing to innocent people - that's not a bad thing. It's an appropriate response. In a society of our size, things like this can - and will happen. Finding a million different things to blame is not, in my opinion, an appropriate response. Especially when the people attempting to make those decisions (not necessarily here on polycount, just in general) have nothing to do with the incident other than that they heard about it on the news.
I do not think attempting to change the country over every incident that happens is a sign of strength, or of a proactive societal mindset. I think it only serves to further distort the lines of what is appropriate, so far as emotional responses go. This mentality of people needing "blood" every time a crime is committed is disturbing to me. Whether it be wishing someone to rot in hell, or wishing to take freedoms away from other people, etc.
If everyone bitching about gun control and mental illness instead sent flowers to Connecticut, I think we'd be more effectively growing safer and healthier as a society.
I don't see how sending flowers creates a safer society than trying to get guns banned. Your post comes across as basically someone shrugging their shoulders and saying 'well, nothing we can do about it'. Yes, seeing pictures of those kids breaks my heart, but me wanting something done about it is not inappropriate in any way.
I've been thinking about this, how much of an illegal trade is there for USMC weapons? Where do the crims get their guns? Stimmy that flow and then the pro-gun camp would have less leg to stand on. Handing out life sentences with no chance of parole might be a good deterrent for the illegal weapons market.
Well, as anti-guns as I am, Vio, even I think having a firearm in a safe in schools might not be the worst idea. On the down-low of course, passing some national law is basically advertising to kids that there is definitely one on the premises.
On the flip-side, it would be equally as likely to cause a tragedy though.
In my post I put its an "inevitability" and I'll add that, in the thousands of schools in America, if you put guns in there, kids will get access, safes or not. So yeah I think it is one of the worst ideas. Guns are put in safes in residential housing, kids still get access and blow their friends away.
If you think this is a good idea, your part militarizing a school, not a good idea.
Yeah it does definitely have a potentially disastrous downside.
Tazers, I guess, could be an alternative. In schools and homes.
You may be onto a winner with that one. I was thinking about this awhile ago though. Any debate on this issue, draws up good ideas but its more than likely they will always remain fantasy because America is such a vast country, highly populated and this dependency on gun ownership is deeply encoded in their culture.
So sadly even if 100 children died or maybe even hundreds. a large majority of their voters would still defend the weapon that killed them.
It's because it's far from simple that I prefer simply accepting a tragedy as a tragedy, as opposed to everyone under the sun trying to come up with some way to "prevent" the next one.
Deciding to say, "This is a tragedy" and holding the victims in your thoughts and prayers (if you're in to that sort of thing) is not a bad thing. Accepting it as a simple unfortunate occurrence - as someone who, for any number of reasons, decided to do a bad thing to innocent people - that's not a bad thing. It's an appropriate response. In a society of our size, things like this can - and will happen. Finding a million different things to blame is not, in my opinion, an appropriate response. Especially when the people attempting to make those decisions (not necessarily here on polycount, just in general) have nothing to do with the incident other than that they heard about it on the news.
I do not think attempting to change the country over every incident that happens is a sign of strength, or of a proactive societal mindset. I think it only serves to further distort the lines of what is appropriate, so far as emotional responses go. This mentality of people needing "blood" every time a crime is committed is disturbing to me. Whether it be wishing someone to rot in hell, or wishing to take freedoms away from other people, etc.
If everyone bitching about gun control and mental illness instead sent flowers to Connecticut, I think we'd be more effectively growing safer and healthier as a society.
that is a common perspective among many people who are not affected what so ever by such events.
however, once you are personally affected by such an even you would take it personally and would definitely think of how it could have been avoided.
sending flowers is a always a good idea, but it doesn't address any issues what so ever. it is a passive approach to a problem that is aggressively growing in this country.
it is a matter of putting yourself in someone else shoes.
You know we've failed as species if we have to have armed persons on the premises where our children as supposed to be educated. Worse yet, armed teachers? Has it really come to this? Just the thought of it makes it sound ridiculous and depressing.
You know we've failed as species if we have to have armed persons on the premises where our children as supposed to be educated. Worse yet, armed teachers? Has it really come to this? Just the thought of it makes it sound ridiculous and depressing.
too right. Here's an interesting and eye opening fact.
In 2011 there were 8,583 murders in the US that were attributed to gun crime. Now that's just 1 year. In Afghanistan its taken 10 years for just over 1000 soldiers to lose their lives to enemy fire. Regardless of how shit the Taliban are at shooting, fact is more people die from guns on US soil than on a front line in Afghanistan, now there is something basically wrong there that is crying out for a solution.
I think you're all missing the point of my post. It's not a matter of shrugging shoulders, it's a matter of showing our children and peers that tragedies are to be met with kindness and mourning, rather than pissing matches and playing the blame game.
If I were a child and heard that some guy had walked into a nearby school killed a bunch of people, and then himself, I'd be scared shitless. And if I went home to see people arguing over gun laws, I'd be even more frightened and confused. The killer is dead, as are a bunch of other people - and all these people, these spectators, are talking about semi automatic weapons and putting guns in schools? That, to me, is silly. If on the other hand, I'd heard that the incident caused most people to come to a standstill - to do something kind such as sending flowers, that would send me a very different message about how we're supposed to respond to such unfortunate events. It would even make me feel happy about where I lived and the country that I was a part of.
As it stands, that is not the case. And yes, sending flowers is a more proactive action than bitching about guns - since 90% of the people going on about it aren't actively DOING anything. So far as my "experiences" and what I've been impacted by personally, that's not really something I want to talk about. I'll only say I think I have more experience with this sort of thing than most, my opinion doesn't come from simply watching movies or the news.
You know we've failed as species if we have to have armed persons on the premises
well, but whether we "have to" do so is arguable, isn't it?
do we have to also keep armed guards inside airplanes to prevent hijackings?
btw, since topic of armed robbery appeared here my cousin living in Paris witnessed one just yesterday.
Some black dude walked into the store, he supposedly had some smg or a rifle, started shouting, shot one bullet at ceiling and demanded money. he would also hit cashier with barrel. the register jammed at some point so guy got really pissed off. my cousin noticed that some granny managed to sneak outside unnoticed so she did the same and called cops. unsurprisingly, dude was gone before they came.
the best part - it was a store selling freaking frozen food. he got... 200 euro.
More reports are stating that the kid is mentally ill, Mildly autistic they say. Living with a mother that supposedly hoarded guns and munitions when the end times came. That is a bad mix right there.
There is no real solution to stopping this when there are probably hundreds of families with autistic children and hoarding guns. Other than the sci-fi way of ID Tagged weapons that will not fire unless the owner is using it.
I think you're all missing the point of my post. It's not a matter of shrugging shoulders, it's a matter of showing our children and peers that tragedies are to be met with kindness and mourning, rather than pissing matches and playing the blame game.
If I were a child and heard that some guy had walked into a nearby school killed a bunch of people, and then himself, I'd be scared shitless. And if I went home to see people arguing over gun laws, I'd be even more frightened and confused. The killer is dead, as are a bunch of other people - and all these people, these spectators, are talking about semi automatic weapons and putting guns in schools? That, to me, is silly. If on the other hand, I'd heard that the incident caused most people to come to a standstill - to do something kind such as sending flowers, that would send me a very different message about how we're supposed to respond to such unfortunate events. It would even make me feel happy about where I lived and the country that I was a part of.
As it stands, that is not the case. And yes, sending flowers is a more proactive action than bitching about guns - since 90% of the people going on about it aren't actively DOING anything. So far as my "experiences" and what I've been impacted by personally, that's not really something I want to talk about. I'll only say I think I have more experience with this sort of thing than most, my opinion doesn't come from simply watching movies or the news.
I don't see people missing your point because it was addressed by someone already that yes flowers are find and dandy but its also not enough and it isn't a blame game its about learning from the event and avoiding the status quo which has failed time and time again.
I don't see people missing your point because it was addressed by someone already that yes flowers are find and dandy but its also not enough and it isn't a blame game its about learning from the event and avoiding the status quo which has failed time and time again.
Hmm. It's pretty evident that I suck at communicating my thoughts, so I'll just duck out quietly and let you folks get back to it.
Your analogy doesn't work overlord. Someone has a sore throat, they go to the doc, they get diagnosed. It has been brought to the attention of the doc. How are the authorities supposed to ascertain who is a likely mass murderer? Some kind of 'crazy' scanner? The guy who shot up the mall the other day showed no indication of strange behaviour; hell he was planning on emigrating, starting a new life. For all we know the guy in this case also exhibited no worrying behaviour.
And as for your 'what is an automatic assault rifle and what is not' strawman, well, it's very unhelpful.
You have to look at it like it is an unknown contagion that needs to be stopped. No one really knows how its transmitted and a doctor would miss it if it was starring them right in the face.
The article looks at it purely on a data driven basis. If there is a murder in one neighborhood the likelihood of there being more outbreaks of violence goes up. Murder tends to happen in pockets and can spill over if certain barriers are not put in place. Looking at the data you also find that there are pockets of safety in a sea of violence and those areas need to be studied and learned from much in the same way we find people who are immune to disease. So other neighborhoods can be inoculated and made more resistant to violence.
It's an interesting idea and one that focuses on a positive community driven approach instead of a lock down everything and try to stop the crazy who hasn't snapped yet approach.
The lock down approach ends up stressing everyone out and breeding more crazies. It's America's default go to move, if lock down isn't working lock things down even more.
well, i thought that if someone risks getting caught and going to jail and draws in attention by shooting a gun then they would aim for places that could grant them more money than that.
but then again he could have reasons for choosing such place, or be just desperate as hell. i dunno, since armed robberies aren't exactly common where i live.
Even if you pass stricter gun laws, they won't stop some of these shootings. Because in the case of the more recent shootings, all or at least most of the gunmen would have passed your a-typical background checks. There was no black mark what so ever on their records that would flag them. Now, if there was a face to face or psych eval, then yeah they probably wouldn't have been given a gun. Then again, in the case of the Connecticut shooting, the gunmen's mother (however you may view her as gun-toting survivalist or not) was an upstanding citizen in the eyes of the law. Nothing said she couldn't own firearms. It's a sticky subject and I'm not sure where I stand on it.
What I can't wrap my head around is why are these mass shootings generally happening in middle to upper class areas? You'd think this would be something that would happen in the most crime ridden areas, not the places with .000000001% crime. Is it the people that live there? Is it the micro society that suburbia creates? Am I really going to be safer going to see a movie or sending my kids to school in downtown Detroit than white suburbia?
You know we've failed as species if we have to have armed persons on the premises where our children as supposed to be educated. Worse yet, armed teachers? Has it really come to this? Just the thought of it makes it sound ridiculous and depressing.
unless everyone can open carry guns on themselves, it wont do much good having your gun locked in a locker in your home when you are surprised by a shooter out in public places.
i guess it is time to pass licensed open carry nation wide.
I still don't get how a red-neck with close to no education and no military background is allowed to buy a weapon any bigger then a handgun.
How can someone allow a mother, that has a child with mild autism, collect and keep weapons in a BUCKET?
What is the limit? Does a mother need a BUCKET full of weapons to PROTECT herself? What does the guy at the store do when a client walks in and says ' Yup, I'm going to buy this rifle as well. This way I have a gun for every day of the month.'
She said she would often go target shooting with her kids.
initially i thought the same but i think it is unfair to judge the mother of the shooter like that without knowing her life story or the struggles she had to go through.
for all you know, target shooting may have been her only source of fun and family time to share with her kids in her troubled life.
not everyone is properly educated to know how something like that might have serious side effects on a person with mental problems.
I'm perplexed as to why no one has brought up the security of the school, at least in the posts that I've read. Initial reports stated that he was let into the school, had ties to the school, and that he had only used pistols, which are easily concealable. This was not the case. He marched up to the school in a fatigue and vest, toting a semi-automatic rifle and two pistols. This was first brought to my attention by MM, but at the time there were still conflicting reports. I gave myself time to think about it and make sure that that fact was correct, and it's now been solidly confirmed.
After shooting his way into the school through a window in the front lobby (from what I've read/heard), he then proceeded to the first classroom. Teachers were not notified of his entry and didn't know what was happening until he had already started shooting in the first classroom he entered, giving them little time to react. I find this deeply saddening. Why did no one notice him walk up to the school? Why did no one notice that he had shot his way through a window? Why wasn't there someone stationed near the entrances? On the other hand, I don't know exactly how the situation happened and maybe there are still many things that have yet to be discovered.
Schools where I live, at least ones that I've been to, all have offices near primary entrances with people at them at all times. All schools that I've been too also have an armed resource officer stationed at them. The high school that I attended actually has two instead of one, each with his/her own office. Larger windows in schools also have thin wire meshes woven through them. We also had drills for occasions such as this that took place twice a year. A specific alarm would sound, all doors would be locked, the lights would be shut off, children would huddle in a corner not visible through the door, and the resource officer would go around to each class giving them the all clear or the principal would give a voice announcement. I do not live in a crime-ridden area. In fact, it's a pretty peaceful, suburban setting. I feel that this tragedy would not have happened the way it happened, especially to such a catastrophic degree, in any one of the schools that I have attended in my area.
But I am in no means blaming the school, in particular the faculty and staff. I'm sure that the people there did everything that they could with the time and resources given to them, and six lost their lives for it. It's just a shame that this had to happen, and there is no best way to prepare for something crazy like this.
I'm perplexed as to why no one has brought up the security of the school, at least in the posts that I've read. Initial reports stated that he was let into the school, had ties to the school, and that he had only used pistols, which are easily concealable. This was not the case. He marched up to the school in a fatigue and vest, toting a semi-automatic rifle and two pistols. This was first brought to my attention by MM, but at the time there were still conflicting reports. I gave myself time to think about it and make sure that that fact was correct, and it's now been solidly confirmed.
After shooting his way into the school through a window in the front lobby (from what I've read/heard), he then proceeded to the first classroom. Teachers were not notified of his entry and didn't know what was happening until he had already started shooting in the first classroom he entered, giving them little time to react. I find this deeply saddening. Why did no one notice him walk up to the school? Why did no one notice that he had shot his way through a window? Why wasn't there someone stationed near the entrances? On the other hand, I don't know exactly how the situation happened and maybe there are still many things that have yet to be discovered.
Schools where I live, at least ones that I've been to, all have offices near primary entrances with people at them at all times. All schools that I've been too also have an armed resource officer stationed at them. The high school that I attended actually has two instead of one, each with his/her own office. Larger windows in schools also have thin wire meshes woven through them. We also had drills for occasions such as this that took place twice a year. A specific alarm would sound, all doors would be locked, the lights would be shut off, children would huddle in a corner not visible through the door, and the resource officer would go around to each class giving them the all clear or the principal would give a voice announcement. I do not live in a crime-ridden area. In fact, it's a pretty peaceful, suburban setting. I feel that this tragedy would not have happened the way it happened, especially to such a catastrophic degree, in any one of the schools that I have attended in my area.
But I am in no means blaming the school, in particular the faculty and staff. I'm sure that the people there did everything that they could with the time and resources given to them, and six lost their lives for it. It's just a shame that this had to happen, and there is no best way to prepare for something crazy like this.
Not all windows can have wire mesh, in fact any window classified as an egress window can't have it. There are these stupid little laws called Fire Codes that all buildings have to abide by. Next story, 1,000 school children are burned to death, but hey, the school was safe from anyone getting in. And you can't just have doors as methods of exits in case of a fire, you need to have window access for both firefighters and routes of escape. So all he has to do is find a non mesh window and shoot his way though. And no, the glass cannot be bulletproof. Again, you have to be able to break it (for fire ventilation and escape purposes). You have a delicate balance between security and getting out of the building in case of a fire.
From the reports, again most have been false or misleading, the principle heard the commotion of him entering and went to investigate. She was shot and killed on the spot, so that pretty much voids her making announcements and locking the school down. The other teachers did exactly that. They got their students protected and/or got them out of the school. It's just that by the time the gunman got to the specific classroom it was too late to do anything. He had a plan and nothing could have stopped it once it was in motion. The key is to figure out how to stop him before he gets to the school.
You are also comparing a high school to an elementary school. Do you know the chaos it takes just to get little kids to do a fire/tornado/earthquake/etc drill? Yeah, I'd hope high school students could coordinate drills, but wee kids are a different story.
If our elementary schools need armed guards, I'm going to pack up my stuff and live on the moon.
While I agree with Fuse that it's a sorry sad state of affairs when we have to post security outside schools filled with defenseless children, maybe it wouldn't be an awful idea. Just one dude per school. That's a lot of jobs that would be created. Take some cash out of the 'level the middle east' fund and do something good with that.
Replies
It's far from simple, tbh. And all I see in here are people wanting to prevent the next one. We should never accept these tragedies.
How can someone allow a mother, that has a child with mild autism, collect and keep weapons in a BUCKET?
What is the limit? Does a mother need a BUCKET full of weapons to PROTECT herself? What does the guy at the store do when a client walks in and says ' Yup, I'm going to buy this rifle as well. This way I have a gun for every day of the month.'
maybe because guns are so easy to access, that's why they go on a rampage, instead of just hanging themselves? i realise hanging themselves is still sucky and it's still a problem that needs to be fixed. but i mean... have you ever heard of someone knifing people and then stabbing themselves in the face? of course not... these guys are scared of pain just like everyone else, but they know that with a gun there's no pain, it's over as soon as they pull the trigger.
so basically... if they didn't have access to the weapon, would they think twice about committing the crime when they know there's no easy way out at the end of it?
they go "sure, here you go... and here's 500 rounds of ammo to go with it!" because that's what people are taught to think! they make money, and take no responsibility for the outcome.
Spend more money on home security and a lock for your door and call the cops. :P Go look it up.
*contains small parts, not suitable under the age of 5!.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2223346/Kevin-Krims-children-stabbed-death-bathtub-NANNY-luxury-Manhattan-apartment.html
If only the kids would had a rifle...
It's a modular rifle that can be chambered to fire most standard rounds. Here in the UK they are only legal if they are chambered to take .22 rimfire or 9mm chambers - and you have to jump through real hoops to get them.
In the case of the Connecticut shooting, the rifle was taking .223 rounds; whether the rifle was correctly chambered is another matter since these do fit 5.56 chambers.
In some US states however you can get .50 variants and god only knows what else without much difficulty. Only the lower part of the receiver is considered by most state firearm control laws, so it's quite easy to make these adjustments yourself.
Even using 5.56 NATO or .223, it's totally overkill. It may take a smaller round, but it's got ten times the effective range and three times the muzzle velocity of most civilian handguns. That smaller projectile instead hits with considerably more stopping power. Any rifle with an effective killing range in excess of half a kilometer isn't something you can realistically justify as 'protection' - that's a an target shooting enthusiasts weapon. It's a weapon that should live in a locked cabinet at a secure gun club by law and I doubt any reasonable owner could refute that. (I find it extremely worrying that in some states it's pretty easy to get hold of magazines that can hold in excess of 100 rounds since you can't even justify that as an enthusiast, but that's another story).
no but if the shooter was limited to bolt and pump action weapons only they could have easily overwhelmed him with the teachers help
http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/switzerland
Gnutmi: I find your sarcasm rather poorly placed in this thread. Please have some respect for the situation and for others in this thread.
The difference is entirely cultural.
Switzerland probably doesnt have such big gang cultures and drug trafficking etc. But in our defense gang members tend to mostly kill other gang members and so on.
I remember in the 50s police stopped investigating mafia murders because they were only killing other mafia family members, so they didn't really see it as a threat to civilians. But thats back when the idea of a gang was more loyal.
Everyone is legally required to serve in the militia and therefore is taught how to respect and use a weapon properly. So yes it's a cultural thing. But I think we could learn a lot from the Swiss and if we educated everyone about guns and the proper way to use/store them we would be a lot better off.
You just glossed over the fact that it is a semi-auto rifle and went on to make your point. You do know what semi-auto means don't you? There are other common as dirt rifles out there that aren't of military origins that are semi-auto and pack more lethal range than an AR-15. You're splitting hairs honestly. You're demonizing one weapon because of a tragedy and ignoring the fact that it isn't even as dangerous of a weapon as you make it out to be, not in comparison to most other semi-auto rifles on the market.
Your reaction disturbs me. It's the kind of reaction you get from people who demand legislation "for the children" and that makes me cringe because it's never reasonable nor logical. It's almost always lashing out in fear and ignorance. It's ignorant because when tragedies like this happen, people like you seem to think that we need to ban more guns and that will solve the problem, as if only certain guns kill. I can assure you, unless you can remove every gun from every citizen in this country, including criminals and police, banning the AR-15 will not prevent more tragedies like this. The AR-15 is no more dangerous than any other semi-auto rifle. I'd be more concerned with someone bringing in a select fire weapon, (like the Colt M4A1, which is a full auto carbine) which can fire many rounds per second and spray an area with lead, than a rifle that requires you to pull the trigger each time you fire a round. Your response isn't reasonable, it's reflexive.
By the way, I don't own a single firearm, but I grew up around guns as my father collected many of them, including the AR-15. I can't accept people blaming tools for the actions of some fringe people that lost their sanity. The blame rests firmly on society for not catching this person's instability before he did harm. The weapon he used is irrelevant and this whole argument about gun control is stupid because had this person gotten help, guns never would have entered the equation. The law did exactly what it was supposed to do. It was the owner's failure to secure those guns and allowing that unstable person access to them that enabled this tragedy. You can't make a law that stops people from being stupid.
You're right that you can't make a law that stops people from being stupid. You can however make laws that help prevent stupid people from doing stupid things. The law and society are not two separate things, they define one another.
http://www.npr.org/2012/12/06/166600403/can-murder-be-tracked-like-an-infectious-disease
If I recall, rifles are limited to 10 rounds per clip. If they have more, they were purchased before the law was passed and are grandfathered in.
Either way, as long as guns exist, there's no gun you can ban that will make gun violence go away than social intervention would have more effect on.
Like I said before, if you have strep, you don't treat the sore throat, cough, and fever as individual issues. You treat the infection that causes all three of them and the symptoms will all go away or at lease severely diminish, which is what so many people don't realize with a great many social problems. Most violence is caused by inequality, mental illness, or corruption. Solve those three things and you get rid of most forms of violence that we try to deal with individually. People become violent because they're either desperate/afraid, unstable/insane, or trying to hold on to power. It can even be a combination. They become irrational because of these factors and this allows them to take violent action where a rational person would see it as a bad idea.
That could be used as a tool to go to communities and find out where they need help so that they can be "vaccinated" against potential infection. If they just initiate community programs that discourage violent activity in the area, they could retard or prevent the spread of "infection" to their area. Very interesting.
And as for your 'what is an automatic assault rifle and what is not' strawman, well, it's very unhelpful.
The 2nd Amendment isn't a new thing, you run into all sorts of problems when you make something like a new country, state a rule that works for that time and then make it a tradition to keep it for the sake of tradition. If we did that with science then we could deny all findings at CERN and continue to state that the world is flat even though we know it isn't today, I'm sure there are hundreds of better examples you can make.
The problem here is that peoples excuses for upholding the status quo are getting more and more forced and desperate. Some of them say "you need to have guns to protect yourself against other people with guns". So are you really going to militarize schools "Tom don't forget your desert eagle son!". Train the teachers to kill people? store firearms in schools where they will inevitably be accessed by children?
The way I see it, America needs to make a choice, whether it wants to continue militarizing civilian life and end up with these mascaras every odd year or stuck it up, and do the right thing. Children depend on America getting this right.
What? I'm not talking about some kind of "crazy" police. I'm talking about each and every person out there taking responsibility for each other and paying attention so that when somebody is off their rocker, we notice it before they hurt other people and get them help. And if you expect me to come up with a fool-proof, iron-clad answer, then I have to disappoint you, there are none. Some crazy people will always fly under the radar, but that doesn't negate that we need to be responsible for each other's well-being.
The analogy I used is just fine, if you don't try to split hairs and miss the point. The point is you don't treat strep by dealing with is symptoms, you deal with the infection. If you don't kill the infection the sore throat, cough, and such don't go away. That was my point. Don't nit-pick irrelevant little details. The fact that strep is easy to notice is completely irrelevant.
I was responding to JO420 claiming that the AR-15 was an assault rifle, when by definition it is not. How is that a straw man? He did say that and I stated a fact in response correcting that mistake. That is very much not a straw man argument.
On the flip-side, it would be equally as likely to cause a tragedy though.
I mentioned it. I wondered if she would change her stance now, if she could. Which she can't, cause she was shot dead with her own weapon.
I find it odd that we aren't finding out much about this guy, but maybe the media is not giving these scumbags the media attention anymore, which has been cited as a possible reason why they are happening more and more frequently.
It's because it's far from simple that I prefer simply accepting a tragedy as a tragedy, as opposed to everyone under the sun trying to come up with some way to "prevent" the next one.
Deciding to say, "This is a tragedy" and holding the victims in your thoughts and prayers (if you're in to that sort of thing) is not a bad thing. Accepting it as a simple unfortunate occurrence - as someone who, for any number of reasons, decided to do a bad thing to innocent people - that's not a bad thing. It's an appropriate response. In a society of our size, things like this can - and will happen. Finding a million different things to blame is not, in my opinion, an appropriate response. Especially when the people attempting to make those decisions (not necessarily here on polycount, just in general) have nothing to do with the incident other than that they heard about it on the news.
I do not think attempting to change the country over every incident that happens is a sign of strength, or of a proactive societal mindset. I think it only serves to further distort the lines of what is appropriate, so far as emotional responses go. This mentality of people needing "blood" every time a crime is committed is disturbing to me. Whether it be wishing someone to rot in hell, or wishing to take freedoms away from other people, etc.
If everyone bitching about gun control and mental illness instead sent flowers to Connecticut, I think we'd be more effectively growing safer and healthier as a society.
I've been thinking about this, how much of an illegal trade is there for USMC weapons? Where do the crims get their guns? Stimmy that flow and then the pro-gun camp would have less leg to stand on. Handing out life sentences with no chance of parole might be a good deterrent for the illegal weapons market.
^ This, utterly
In my post I put its an "inevitability" and I'll add that, in the thousands of schools in America, if you put guns in there, kids will get access, safes or not. So yeah I think it is one of the worst ideas. Guns are put in safes in residential housing, kids still get access and blow their friends away.
If you think this is a good idea, your part militarizing a school, not a good idea.
Tazers, I guess, could be an alternative. In schools and homes.
You may be onto a winner with that one. I was thinking about this awhile ago though. Any debate on this issue, draws up good ideas but its more than likely they will always remain fantasy because America is such a vast country, highly populated and this dependency on gun ownership is deeply encoded in their culture.
So sadly even if 100 children died or maybe even hundreds. a large majority of their voters would still defend the weapon that killed them.
that is a common perspective among many people who are not affected what so ever by such events.
however, once you are personally affected by such an even you would take it personally and would definitely think of how it could have been avoided.
sending flowers is a always a good idea, but it doesn't address any issues what so ever. it is a passive approach to a problem that is aggressively growing in this country.
it is a matter of putting yourself in someone else shoes.
i wish someone could invent a point of view gun!
too right. Here's an interesting and eye opening fact.
In 2011 there were 8,583 murders in the US that were attributed to gun crime. Now that's just 1 year. In Afghanistan its taken 10 years for just over 1000 soldiers to lose their lives to enemy fire. Regardless of how shit the Taliban are at shooting, fact is more people die from guns on US soil than on a front line in Afghanistan, now there is something basically wrong there that is crying out for a solution.
If I were a child and heard that some guy had walked into a nearby school killed a bunch of people, and then himself, I'd be scared shitless. And if I went home to see people arguing over gun laws, I'd be even more frightened and confused. The killer is dead, as are a bunch of other people - and all these people, these spectators, are talking about semi automatic weapons and putting guns in schools? That, to me, is silly. If on the other hand, I'd heard that the incident caused most people to come to a standstill - to do something kind such as sending flowers, that would send me a very different message about how we're supposed to respond to such unfortunate events. It would even make me feel happy about where I lived and the country that I was a part of.
As it stands, that is not the case. And yes, sending flowers is a more proactive action than bitching about guns - since 90% of the people going on about it aren't actively DOING anything. So far as my "experiences" and what I've been impacted by personally, that's not really something I want to talk about. I'll only say I think I have more experience with this sort of thing than most, my opinion doesn't come from simply watching movies or the news.
do we have to also keep armed guards inside airplanes to prevent hijackings?
btw, since topic of armed robbery appeared here my cousin living in Paris witnessed one just yesterday.
Some black dude walked into the store, he supposedly had some smg or a rifle, started shouting, shot one bullet at ceiling and demanded money. he would also hit cashier with barrel. the register jammed at some point so guy got really pissed off. my cousin noticed that some granny managed to sneak outside unnoticed so she did the same and called cops. unsurprisingly, dude was gone before they came.
the best part - it was a store selling freaking frozen food. he got... 200 euro.
There is no real solution to stopping this when there are probably hundreds of families with autistic children and hoarding guns. Other than the sci-fi way of ID Tagged weapons that will not fire unless the owner is using it.
I don't see people missing your point because it was addressed by someone already that yes flowers are find and dandy but its also not enough and it isn't a blame game its about learning from the event and avoiding the status quo which has failed time and time again.
i'm kinda missing your point
Hmm. It's pretty evident that I suck at communicating my thoughts, so I'll just duck out quietly and let you folks get back to it.
The article looks at it purely on a data driven basis. If there is a murder in one neighborhood the likelihood of there being more outbreaks of violence goes up. Murder tends to happen in pockets and can spill over if certain barriers are not put in place. Looking at the data you also find that there are pockets of safety in a sea of violence and those areas need to be studied and learned from much in the same way we find people who are immune to disease. So other neighborhoods can be inoculated and made more resistant to violence.
It's an interesting idea and one that focuses on a positive community driven approach instead of a lock down everything and try to stop the crazy who hasn't snapped yet approach.
The lock down approach ends up stressing everyone out and breeding more crazies. It's America's default go to move, if lock down isn't working lock things down even more.
well, i thought that if someone risks getting caught and going to jail and draws in attention by shooting a gun then they would aim for places that could grant them more money than that.
but then again he could have reasons for choosing such place, or be just desperate as hell. i dunno, since armed robberies aren't exactly common where i live.
What I can't wrap my head around is why are these mass shootings generally happening in middle to upper class areas? You'd think this would be something that would happen in the most crime ridden areas, not the places with .000000001% crime. Is it the people that live there? Is it the micro society that suburbia creates? Am I really going to be safer going to see a movie or sending my kids to school in downtown Detroit than white suburbia?
Fuse my dear, we've been fucked for ages
unless everyone can open carry guns on themselves, it wont do much good having your gun locked in a locker in your home when you are surprised by a shooter out in public places.
i guess it is time to pass licensed open carry nation wide.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2012/12/15/nancy_lanza_school_teacher_sandy_hook_elementary_shooting.html
She said she would often go target shooting with her kids.
initially i thought the same but i think it is unfair to judge the mother of the shooter like that without knowing her life story or the struggles she had to go through.
for all you know, target shooting may have been her only source of fun and family time to share with her kids in her troubled life.
not everyone is properly educated to know how something like that might have serious side effects on a person with mental problems.
After shooting his way into the school through a window in the front lobby (from what I've read/heard), he then proceeded to the first classroom. Teachers were not notified of his entry and didn't know what was happening until he had already started shooting in the first classroom he entered, giving them little time to react. I find this deeply saddening. Why did no one notice him walk up to the school? Why did no one notice that he had shot his way through a window? Why wasn't there someone stationed near the entrances? On the other hand, I don't know exactly how the situation happened and maybe there are still many things that have yet to be discovered.
Schools where I live, at least ones that I've been to, all have offices near primary entrances with people at them at all times. All schools that I've been too also have an armed resource officer stationed at them. The high school that I attended actually has two instead of one, each with his/her own office. Larger windows in schools also have thin wire meshes woven through them. We also had drills for occasions such as this that took place twice a year. A specific alarm would sound, all doors would be locked, the lights would be shut off, children would huddle in a corner not visible through the door, and the resource officer would go around to each class giving them the all clear or the principal would give a voice announcement. I do not live in a crime-ridden area. In fact, it's a pretty peaceful, suburban setting. I feel that this tragedy would not have happened the way it happened, especially to such a catastrophic degree, in any one of the schools that I have attended in my area.
But I am in no means blaming the school, in particular the faculty and staff. I'm sure that the people there did everything that they could with the time and resources given to them, and six lost their lives for it. It's just a shame that this had to happen, and there is no best way to prepare for something crazy like this.
Not all windows can have wire mesh, in fact any window classified as an egress window can't have it. There are these stupid little laws called Fire Codes that all buildings have to abide by. Next story, 1,000 school children are burned to death, but hey, the school was safe from anyone getting in. And you can't just have doors as methods of exits in case of a fire, you need to have window access for both firefighters and routes of escape. So all he has to do is find a non mesh window and shoot his way though. And no, the glass cannot be bulletproof. Again, you have to be able to break it (for fire ventilation and escape purposes). You have a delicate balance between security and getting out of the building in case of a fire.
From the reports, again most have been false or misleading, the principle heard the commotion of him entering and went to investigate. She was shot and killed on the spot, so that pretty much voids her making announcements and locking the school down. The other teachers did exactly that. They got their students protected and/or got them out of the school. It's just that by the time the gunman got to the specific classroom it was too late to do anything. He had a plan and nothing could have stopped it once it was in motion. The key is to figure out how to stop him before he gets to the school.
You are also comparing a high school to an elementary school. Do you know the chaos it takes just to get little kids to do a fire/tornado/earthquake/etc drill? Yeah, I'd hope high school students could coordinate drills, but wee kids are a different story.
If our elementary schools need armed guards, I'm going to pack up my stuff and live on the moon.