# I will never, ever understand my fellow man. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 2, 2006, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-will-never-ever-understand-my-fellow-man/374993 "2006-10-02T16:38:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ltfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ea924/32.png) [@ltfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ltfire)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2006, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-will-never-ever-understand-my-fellow-man/374993/21 "2006-10-03T00:46:41Z")
[QUOTE=E-Sabbath] Arm the teachers. It’s the only thing I can think of. [/QUOTE] Then the teacher would be the first to go. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2006, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-will-never-ever-understand-my-fellow-man/374993/22 "2006-10-03T00:48:19Z")
[QUOTE=E-Sabbath] Arm the teachers. It’s the only thing I can think of. [/QUOTE] Probably not applicable in this particular case, though… ☹ ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2006, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-will-never-ever-understand-my-fellow-man/374993/23 "2006-10-03T00:59:57Z")
[QUOTE=ltfire] Then the teacher would be the first to go. [/QUOTE] Yeah, but I’d go down returning fire, protecting my charges to my last dying breath. ---
**Author:** ![Terrifel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c68b51/32.png) [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2006, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-will-never-ever-understand-my-fellow-man/374993/24 "2006-10-03T01:05:01Z")
[QUOTE=E-Sabbath] Arm the teachers. It’s the only thing I can think of. [/QUOTE] Weirdly enough, the Amish avoid firearms. Evidently the practice ties into their cult’s bizarre tradition of taking the teachings of Jesus seriously-- even the stuff about not killing other human beings, believe it or not. It’s hard to believe these people are even Americans. If any good comes out of this tragedy, maybe it will encourage the Amish to finally wake up and join the modern world. Once they’re all toting guns like sensible people, soon Lancaster PA will be as free of shooting deaths as the rest of the country. ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2006, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-will-never-ever-understand-my-fellow-man/374993/25 "2006-10-03T01:09:07Z")
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan] I’m soooo going to hell for this, but I can’t shake the image of flintlock weilding Amish doing a driveby in a horse and buggy. [/QUOTE] _clop_ _clop_ _clop_ BANG! _clop_ _clop_ BANG! _clop_ _clop_ _clop_ _clop_ _clop_ ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2006, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-will-never-ever-understand-my-fellow-man/374993/26 "2006-10-03T01:15:44Z")
[QUOTE=E-Sabbath] Arm the teachers. It’s the only thing I can think of. [/QUOTE] You fool! Having a gun within 200 yards of a school will lead to people being killed! That’s why “gun-free school zones” are such an ingenius idea! If it’s illegal to bring a gun within 200 yards of a school, people can’t be shot! The guns like dematerialize when they get within 200 yards or something. ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2006, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-will-never-ever-understand-my-fellow-man/374993/27 "2006-10-03T01:33:22Z")
[QUOTE=rjung] Not to make light of this shooting in any way, but in the interest of fighting ignorance, I’m compelled to point out that the Amish aren’t entirely “simple, humble people”. Apparently some have a tradition of _Rumspringa,_ where Amish teens spend [several years with loose rein](http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/entertainment/columnists/carlin_romano/15237455.htm) to do whatever they may want to try. [/QUOTE] Yeah, they are allowed to experience what everybody else experiences and then they are allowed to determine whether they want to come back to the fold or not. Some don’t and they are simply assimilated into society. The ones that return live a simple life. How exactly does that make their lifestyle less simple? ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2006, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-will-never-ever-understand-my-fellow-man/374993/28 "2006-10-03T02:24:41Z")
I would say that they are not “simple, humble” people because that has overtones of the noble savage or a sentimentalizing of them. The Amish are just like you and me, with the same frustrations, mental illness, social diseases etc–most even use some sort of technology (ok, the phone may be in the barn, but they have a phone). There are many different types of Amish as well, so who is to say which sect is more humble or simple? I have a friend who used to work in Lancaster PA, in an ER there (as a nurse). Amish kids came in often, with stories like this one: “can Saran wrap and a rubber band work as a rubber?” Sad. I don’t see them as simple and humble. I see them as ignorant. I admire their attempts to live close to the earth, but it comes at a price. Simple or humble or ignorant-none deserve this hateful thing that has happened. ☹ I dont’ see how banning guns in schools is bad? ---
**Author:** ![Rysdad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7cd45c/32.png) [@Rysdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysdad)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2006, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-will-never-ever-understand-my-fellow-man/374993/29 "2006-10-03T02:33:42Z")
[QUOTE=lisacurl] Apparently, one of the little girls died in the arms of rescuers as they attempted to get her out of the school. I am in awe of any first responder – police officers, firefighters, and emergency medical personnel – who can do their jobs and manage to live a somewhat productive life without waking up screaming every night. [/QUOTE] Me, too. And especially with kids. I can deal with adults, but seriously ill or injured kids tear my heart out. Man, I can see how some of those folks end up being treated for PTSD. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2006, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-will-never-ever-understand-my-fellow-man/374993/30 "2006-10-03T02:45:56Z")
[QUOTE=silenus] Yeah, but I’d go down returning fire, protecting my charges to my last dying breath. [/QUOTE] “Classroom of seven year olds shot by madman” “Classroom of seven years olds and teacher shot by madman” Yep, the latter is just so much less upsetting. Crap about armed teachers making any difference is just twaddle. There’s a shooting at a school about what, a couple of times a year. That means that for 99.9% of teachers, they are never going to experience such a thing their entire career. Those that do, it’s going to happen once at most. What are the chances of them remaining alert enough to get their hand on their weapon and actually do something with it, when a gunman ambushes them? Zip, is the answer. And silenus, this isn’t the movies. The ambushed schoolteacher doesn’t clutch their shoulder, reaching for the weapon and heroically returning fire as they fall. They just die, first shot probably. If they don’t, all but the dumbest gunman (knowing Teach is armed) is going to make damn sure the 2nd or 3rd shot is through Teach’s brain from six inches away. And yes, armed teachers would mean their may be other armed persons around who come running when they hear shots. Might take them a minute or two to realise what’s happening and what they have to do. How long do you think it takes to kill a bunch of cowering seven year old’s with a semi-automatic? You’re living in fucking dreamland. ---
**Author:** ![Nic2004](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/4491bb/32.png) [@Nic2004](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nic2004)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2006, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-will-never-ever-understand-my-fellow-man/374993/31 "2006-10-03T03:07:59Z")
[QUOTE=Princhester] “Classroom of seven year olds shot by madman” “Classroom of seven years olds and teacher shot by madman” Yep, the latter is just so much less upsetting. Crap about armed teachers making any difference is just twaddle. There’s a shooting at a school about what, a couple of times a year. That means that for 99.9% of teachers, they are never going to experience such a thing their entire career. Those that do, it’s going to happen once at most. What are the chances of them remaining alert enough to get their hand on their weapon and actually do something with it, when a gunman ambushes them? Zip, is the answer. And silenus, this isn’t the movies. The ambushed schoolteacher doesn’t clutch their shoulder, reaching for the weapon and heroically returning fire as they fall. They just die, first shot probably. If they don’t, all but the dumbest gunman (knowing Teach is armed) is going to make damn sure the 2nd or 3rd shot is through Teach’s brain from six inches away. And yes, armed teachers would mean their may be other armed persons around who come running when they hear shots. Might take them a minute or two to realise what’s happening and what they have to do. How long do you think it takes to kill a bunch of cowering seven year old’s with a semi-automatic? You’re living in fucking dreamland. [/QUOTE] Jesus. Someone’s innocent baby was murdered. You think we can focus here and drop the personal ax grinding for a moment. This event and the soap-boxing makes me ill. ---
**Author:** ![Caridwen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c89c15/32.png) [@Caridwen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caridwen)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2006, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-will-never-ever-understand-my-fellow-man/374993/32 "2006-10-03T03:08:11Z")
Aw, I think seeing an teacher packing would be kinda cute. Maybe get her a cute little holster with a pocket for her reading glasses. Fark would have a field day with the headlines about teachers dropping the guns and shooting someone, or kids stealing the gun from the teacher. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2006, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-will-never-ever-understand-my-fellow-man/374993/33 "2006-10-03T03:08:19Z")
Actually, I wouldn’t expect to. I wouldn’t carry at school even if I could. But I would defend my students with my life, if necessary. Life isn’t a movie, and the odds are overwhelming against anything like that ever happening at my school. But I like to think I would at least go down swinging, if I had the chance. Honor may be an out-dated concept, but I’m an old-fashioned guy. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2006, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-will-never-ever-understand-my-fellow-man/374993/34 "2006-10-03T03:34:05Z")
[QUOTE=silenus] Actually, I wouldn’t expect to. I wouldn’t carry at school even if I could. But I would defend my students with my life, if necessary. Life isn’t a movie, and the odds are overwhelming against anything like that ever happening at my school. But I like to think I would at least go down swinging, if I had the chance. Honor may be an out-dated concept, but I’m an old-fashioned guy. [/QUOTE] I just can’t imagine being a parent or teacher standing outside one of these standoffs and not breaking the fucking door down. How the police are even able to keep people away is bewildering. Those are my babies in there! I don’t care if I and every adult there gets shot to pieces, I’m going to do something to try and protect my babies. I know, the rational part of my mind says there’s nothing this middle aged, out of shape mama could do, and any sudden moves are more likely to get more people hurt than helped. But damn, that Mama Bear thing is strong, and I’d rather get myself killed than go to my kid’s funeral. Maybe all these years of “negotiating” with hostage takers is what’s gotten us here - everyone too fucking scared to move while they murder our babies, and the crazy people know they’ll have an hour to live out their twisted fucking fantasies before they safely off themselves. Fuck, bring back John Wayne and the Marlboro Man, please! ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2006, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-will-never-ever-understand-my-fellow-man/374993/35 "2006-10-03T03:57:31Z")
[QUOTE=Nic2004] Jesus. Someone’s innocent baby was murdered. You think we can focus here and drop the personal ax grinding for a moment. This event and the soap-boxing makes me ill. [/QUOTE] What precisely would have you us “focus” on? That it is appalling that innocents were killed? I think we all know that. Given that my post was in \*response \* to seeing “let’s arm people so no one gets shot” posts, is there any particular reason why it was _my_ post that you chose to criticize on this basis, or is your illness dependant upon whose ox is being gored? ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2006, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-will-never-ever-understand-my-fellow-man/374993/36 "2006-10-03T04:12:20Z")
> [@](#): > > **WhyNot** : Fuck, bring back John Wayne and the Marlboro Man, please! Fantasies from film lots? Schools can’t afford to pay for the guns and the training. And certainly they can’t pay teachers to be armed guards. > [@](#): > > **Princhester** : That means that for 99.9% of teachers, they are never going to experience such a thing their entire career. Those that do, it’s going to happen once at most. I never had a shootout in my classroom, but there were loaded guns in my classroom at least twice. Those were the ones that were discovered. In another situation, I had a student who left my classroom and shot to death a fellow student an hour later. And still another of my students was shot and killed by a classmate graduation night. One on one violence doesn’t make the national headlines. The teachers that I worked with would resign rather than carry a gun. ---
**Author:** ![Mehitabel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@Mehitabel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mehitabel)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2006, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-will-never-ever-understand-my-fellow-man/374993/37 "2006-10-03T04:43:25Z")
I know this is the Pit, but goddamit, let’s keep focus here, huh? As you all know, I’m from the Bronx and proud of it, and I always grit my teeth when smug people say “Well, (blank) couldn’t happen HERE!” It implies that those sort of things happen only in communities like mine. We’ve never had a school shooting, although occasionally students show up outside schools and shoot another kid they’re mad at because they know they’ll be there, not because of the school. But my parents and I vacationed in Strasburg, the township northwest of Paradise (which despite the name is a gritty little town with lots of factories and the siding where the Strasburg Railroad changes ends) since 1970. There’s nasty stuff can go on in those neat farmhouses–incest, suicides, domestic violence, cruelty to animals like puppy mills, inbred populations with startling handicaps. But I can honestly say, not something like this. I can’t imagine what it was like for those little girls. I’ve been messed up all week thinking about that drifter that molested and tried to kill all those girls in Colorado, and now this. I’m glad both shooters dispatched themselves to Hell, but that’s somehow unsatisfying too, since the parents will never be able to look him in the face and tell them what they did. Of course, they were disgusting moral cripples who’d probably get off on it. :mad: I want to resign from the human race sometimes too. ---
**Author:** ![Rubystreak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Rubystreak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rubystreak)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2006, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-will-never-ever-understand-my-fellow-man/374993/38 "2006-10-03T04:47:13Z")
What I want to know is, what was the grudge this guy was carrying for all these years? Obviously he was mentally disturbed, but there was a secret eating away at him that made him do this horrendous thing. Maybe it’s macabre for me to want to know, but I do. Maybe it’s just that I want to have the slightest sliver of insight into what would make someone do that to a bunch of little girls. My god. ---
**Author:** ![threemae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f9b8f/32.png) [@threemae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/threemae)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2006, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-will-never-ever-understand-my-fellow-man/374993/39 "2006-10-03T05:19:29Z")
[QUOTE=silenus] Actually, I wouldn’t expect to. I wouldn’t carry at school even if I could. But I would defend my students with my life, if necessary. Life isn’t a movie, and the odds are overwhelming against anything like that ever happening at my school. But I like to think I would at least go down swinging, if I had the chance. Honor may be an out-dated concept, but I’m an old-fashioned guy. [/QUOTE] And how exactly would you feel if one of your students managed to obtain your weapon and kill either yourself or another student with it. Pretty fucking stupid is how I guess you might feel. In American law enforcement, officers are typically advised to wear a ballistic vest with a protection rating equal to that of their own firearm because officers are attacked with their own firearm in around a third of police shootings. If cops cannot keep ahold of their own guns, how do you expect teachers to? Will you keep your gun holstered at all times? Do you think that will help you to teach, to have a loaded gun on your hip at all times? How about in your drawer? What if you leave the classroom for five seconds and someone grabs it? What if they use it to shoot five of their classmates in the face? Will you feel that much better about it because the teacher next door can come in and start shooting at that person with their own gun? And what about the kids that get killed in the crossfire? All of it’s worth it so that you can have the satisfaction of “honor” and “going down swinging?” Guns are dangerous things. I predict that the presence of more guns within the classroom environment will do nothing for improving the safety of students from the rare madman yielding an automatic pistol and a sawed off shotgun. I consider myself to be a perfectly well adjusted young man at the age of 21. Between the ages of 11 and 15 I think there’s a 15% chance that I would have chosen to use a firearm against fellow students or teachers if I had one immediately available to myself. And I can think of a number of other situations where I honestly felt that others would have done so against me as well. So thank god I didn’t, right? Gun control is a long debate that I won’t engage with in this thread. There are reasonable arguments against gun-control that don’t revolve around reducing violence related deaths. But using guns as a means of combating gun-related fatalities within our schools? That’s fucking retarded. ---
**Author:** ![Wile\_E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c37758/32.png) [@Wile\_E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wile_E)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2006, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-will-never-ever-understand-my-fellow-man/374993/40 "2006-10-03T06:13:37Z")
[QUOTE=eleanorigby] I would say that they are not “simple, humble” people because that has overtones of the noble savage or a sentimentalizing of them. The Amish are just like you and me, with the same frustrations, mental illness, social diseases etc–most even use some sort of technology (ok, the phone may be in the barn, but they have a phone). There are many different types of Amish as well, so who is to say which sect is more humble or simple? … [/QUOTE] Recent reports seem to suggest that the only reason the Amish were targeted is because they were “easy-pickings”, which adds a whole new level of digusting to this whole thing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-will-never-ever-understand-my-fellow-man/374993.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-will-never-ever-understand-my-fellow-man/374993.md?page=3)