Again, in the current environment climate policy is dictated by self interested fossil fuel interests. Tax policy is dictated by self interested wealthy interests. Gun policy is dictated by self interested gun dealing interests.
Wanna compare it to drugs? It is at least to some degree the same situation. The overdose deaths are primarily from heroin- 64,000 last year, almost a Vietnam War’s worth of deaths. 4/5 of heroin addicts become addicted because their doctor prescribed them opiate painkillers for legitimate complaints.
These opiate painkillers are legal because self-interested drug companies dictate drug policy. They get political cover from people like Trump, “The Law and Order President”, who implies the problem is Mexican smugglers and black guys on corners dealing drugs, and the answer is a wall and a police crackdown on these black guys.
But the drug lords of the opiate crisis are wearing suits in corporate boardrooms, and they give large donations to political campaigns for cover. Same as taxes, climate, and guns.
So, find a way to insert the public interest into policymaking and we will solve a lot of problems. Repeal the Dickey Amendment, license and register guns.
For the schools where teachers are allowed to carry, I think there should be very strict guidelines where they can use it, such as an active shooter or other situation where there is an obvious risk to life. I wouldn’t want it to be like a typical CCW holder, where they can shoot if they feel threatened. No doubt teachers are assaulted by students all the time, but rarely is it the case that the teacher’s life is at risk. I wouldn’t want every teacher that feels they could be harmed to react with deadly force. It’s not justified for a teacher to be injured, but fear of injury doesn’t justify a teacher shooting a student.
Also, there should not be a “stand your ground” policy. If a teacher shoots someone, it should be because there was literally no other option. Running away is a perfectly good option. If the teacher and the kids can flee from the room, then that’s what should be done.
My understanding is that there are schools that allow teachers to have guns, but the guns are locked throughout the day, NOT carried around the room.
At the high school level, there are plenty of high school students who could easily overpower their teacher and take their gun. I’d be pretty amazed if anyone thought it was a good idea to have teachers carrying when there is no active threat.
Narcan isn’t a drug? Who knew. I thought it was. We need to make sure Narcan isn’t available to students.
If he drove up in an SUV I’m going with how ever many bodies to the gallon it’s capable of. At 5,000 lbs I’m going with 5 bodies per gallon. So a nice round 100 with 20 gallons of fuel that would be 100.
what gun law do you thnk would have stopped Cruz from acquiring a gun in advance. What magazine reduction do you think would have lessened the body count? If it’s a 10 round magazine then you count to 9 and change mags with one in the chamber. It’s not difficult to carry extra mags and shoot live continuously while swapping out. What insurance policy, licensing or other legislature do you think will stop a mass murderer from killing people?
Are you seriously suggesting that we not administer treatment to those having serious reactions to drugs?
Your car thing is juvenile. Let’s take this topic seriously.
Just one example: Legal requirements on storage and responsibility for chain of possession/use of guns could have made it clear to the FL perp’s foster folks that they needed to lock up that gun.
Were the 8 people killed in the truck attack in New York less dead because it didn’t involve a gun? Should there be a 3 day waiting period on rental cars? What part of “guns don’t kill people” do you not clearly understand? You keep blaming an inanimate object for the crimes committed by a person. A person who could just as easily drivin a vehicle from school to school to school running kids over. What tool do you think the police are going to use to stop a driver? Take your time. It’s the same tool used to stop a shooter. It’s the same tool a teacher would use in the minutes it takes for a response from the police.
How is it not true? What’s stopping that from happening considering it’s been demonstrated to be quite effective. 8 dead per mile in a vehicle that can drive for hours seems like a pretty successful spree. That’s on a bike path that is not going to be as dense as a school letting out. the efficiency goes up with density.
Seriously, tell me how it’s not possible to run children over who are grouped together at a school.
It’s certainly possible. And if we somehow fetishize cars’ ability to do so and it results in car attacks being a regular thing, I expect we will need to do some serious thinking about how best to crack down on it. Until then, let’s stay on task, shall we?
I’m pretty sure that we agreed upthread that all of those who commit mass murders in schools have mental health issues. And a quick Google search showed that about 60% of American households do not have guns.
If we assume that the percentage of people with mental health issues is the same in the gun-owning population as in the non-gun-owning population, then it should follow that those who show a proclivity to commit a mass murder in a school should exist in both populations. And so, some goodly percentage of the school mass murders should have been committed by people without ready access to firearms, but instead using some other tool, such as a machete, bomb, or an SUV.
But all school mass murders have been committed by individuals using firearms. Thus, the conclusion can be drawn that if an individual who committed a school shooting did not have access to guns, the mass murder may very well not have happened. Either that, or we can conclude that those who have a proclivity to commit mass murder in schools exist only in the gun-owning population.
No one’s blaming objects – they’re blaming policies; policies that make it extremely easy to acquire certain very deadly weapons.
Because of government policy, it’s very rare for shootings to be committed with full auto weapons. Full auto weapons aren’t impossible to acquire legally, but they are very difficult, as well as rare enough to be very difficult to acquire illegally. This is due to government policy. Government policy makes it very easy to acquire short-barrelled semi-auto rifles like the AR-15 and similar, along with large magazines, which are perfect for school shootings.
Maybe we should consider trying to make it harder to acquire these weapons. Just a thought.
And by introducing even more firearms into the public school, the chances are you’ve made the school more, not less, dangerous. You’ve made it more, not less likely, that a single person on the school premises will be killed by a firearm, if for no other reason than misuses of the person who brings it to school in the first place.
Look, the last 20 years have favored the gun rights advocates in terms of policy. The United States has seen a major expansion of firearms ownership and at no time has it been easier for the average person to carry a firearm around on his person. We have reversed what was a 10-year ban on assault weapons. We’ve had record sales of firearms. Our country has seen more mass shootings, and in some cities we’re now seeing a reversal of what had been near historically-low violent crime and murder rates. Guns may be inanimate objects, but the fact is that they are the instrument of choice for people who want to commit the ultimate crime - and that’s because guns were designed for that purpose, unlike cars or other inanimate objects. Guns are the problem, and increasingly, we’re fed up with it, and we’re going to demand that lawmakers do something about it.
Fine post overall, but you seem to have gotten confused in this bit. SBR’s are not what I’d call “very easy to acquire”. It’s significantly simpler to acquire a regular-length rifle, including a regular-length AR-15, than a short-barrel version.
In my understanding, the vast majority of “regular” AR-15 style rifles are carbine length (16-18 inches or less) compared to most deer-caliber hunting rifles (24 inches or more). If “short-barreled rifle” is a technical term (preliminary googling indicates it means barrel length under 16 inches) and conflicts with this, then substitute “carbine-sized rifle”.
Fair enough. Just an FYI, your preliminary googling was basically correct. “Short-Barrel Rifle” (or SBR) is a class of weapons with barrels less than 16" or an overall length of less than 26". To legally acquire one requires a $200 tax stamp, ATF Form 1, CLEO notification, and a months-long wait while the ATF processes the paperwork. None of that is required to purchase a ‘regular rifle’ like a 16"+ AR-15.
The simplest, cheapest and most effective corrective method is to establish a chain of responsibility from manufacturer to shooter. This method is within the power of the Congress to enact and does not conflict with the 2nd amendment.
This method would have prevented most of the school shootings to date.
A chain of responsibility would make everyone in the chain liable for the act of the shooter. If the weapons used were stolen then their previous owners would have been prosecuted as contributory. In some cases the manufacturer would be liable for selling weapons that are dangerous to the public.
In the Columbine case the girl who provided the weapons would have been prosecuted and jailed - as would the gun show dealer that sold the weapons to the girl. The prosecution is Prima Facie.
Those prosecutions and litigations would have changed the behavior of those around potential shooters thus preventing the incidents.