Just a nit, but this is technically incorrect. In most states, I believe, it’s legal for a teen to own a hand gun, just not buy one. For instance, a teen could inherit a handgun.
But he certainly can’t legally carry it.
Uh… Cite? So teacher in those countries carry firearms? In class?
Here’s a cite for Israel. Not too surprising given near perpetual war there.
I have no idea what portion of the teacher population 5000 represents. But not as bug a chunk as the security guy would like. One might also interpret it to mean that many Israeli teachers think it’s a bad idea.
I’m not ready to concede that we need to model ourselves after Israel in terms of homeland security.
Correct. There is no gun control law that could have prevented this crime. Shit happens. And we learn to deal with it.
Let’s look at another example: Susan Smith. She’s the who drowned her two young sons. No law could have prevented that crime. Shit happens.
The most we can do is protect ourselves from the people who choose to do evil. That’s why I am a strong advocate of CCWs. Everyone should be armed with a high-quality handgun at all times, along with the training to know how to use it.
There’s something that I find odd about this story: the Mr. Roberts ordered a bunch of people out of the schoolhouse before he murdered the girls, including several adults. Apparently none of these adults tried to fight him. Yea, I *know * they’re Amish. But I don’t care… those adults should have attacked him. Shame on them.
Let me guess: You guarantee we’ll have a safer society.
BTW, how much money do you think it would cost to arm and train the entire adult population? Seems a pretty nutty idea, regardless.
I’m pro-choice when it comes to CCW - if you don’t want to arm yourself, that’s your choice. But if you decide to not arm yourself, you must live with the consequences.
Like that’s a difficult one, at all. Hmmm whatever could it be that is different in the US from other first world countries where high school kids don’t pack spare ammo with lunch?
This is always a fun debate to observe. Never a fun one to participate in. It is just like the creationism debates. The anti-evidence side has such an enormous investment in poisoning the well of rational debate that the most preposterous things are said and accepted as tolerably sane positions.
There are even professional and funded well-poisoning organisations.
The peculiar thing is that these occur only in the US. Creationism, guns and flat earth, just do not pass the laugh test in another single piece of territory on this earth. But the US is the home and hearth of these sorts of nuttiness.
To elevate this a tad: The positions of people like Crafter-Man and your generic creationist are voiced axiomatically. There is no addressing these positions with argument.
I don’t get the Susan Smith tie-in. The only way that could have been prevented by being armed with a high-quality handgun is if her two sons, age 1 and 3 had guns.
For the vast majority of people those consequences are nill. Further, since more people are accidentally killed or injured with guns than are killed during the commision of a crime, you are the one more likely to have consequences to live with.
The only Devil’s Due Transformers comic I’m aware of are the various G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers miniseries, and none of them feature Megatron-as-a-tank… so I’m confused. 
</hijack>
This is perception bias. Yes, you’re right - a school shooting a year in a country with hundreds of thousands of schools indicates that we’re a warzone where people can expect to die suddenly at any time.
This is smug, assholish arrogance on your part.
Anti-evolutionary arguments are indefensible, they’re just silly. People don’t come to their viewpoints on a rational analysis.
However, there certainly are rational, intelligent pro-gun rights arguments. The evidence is not conclusively in favor of gun control - not even remotely close.
Likening the two debates is simple minded on your part, and lets you jerk off while feeling superior to people who have arguments that very well may be superior to yours.
Firstly, gun accident deaths are quite low. As a ratio to gun owners, it’s exceedingly low.
Secondly, does a criminal have to die of a gun shot in commission of a crime for a gun to have proved useful?
I heard they were pregnant women and women with infants. Yes, shame on them for not using their infants to beat that man about the head and shoulders to subdue him! :rolleyes:
My wife is 5’ 0" and weighs 110 lbs. I just asked her, “Let’s say you’re pregnant. What if a 6’ 2” male, armed with 3 guns, broke into our house while I wasn’t here? Furthermore, he orders you out of the house, while telling our 3 young children to stay inside. What would you do?" She replied, “I would use whatever means I have to stop him, including biting and kicking. I would do everything possible to stop him. Any other mother would do the same.”
SenorBeef, your first point doesn’t really address my point at all. Having a gun in your home makes it more dangerous, simple as that. Just like having a band saw or a trampoline does. Arguing against that fact is silly.
Your second point is more wishful thinking than anything quantifiable. I could just as easily say “Does a gun actually have to kill an innocent to be considered harmful?”
I was actually the one who posted about Pearl, Edinboro and the Appalachian Law School.
Some of the largest mass murders ever committed have been pulled off entirely without guns.
It’s an absolute fact that if you want to go for sheer numbers of dead, you use bombs, not guns.
Because I had the mistaken impression that you were thinking all firearms owners believe that firearms make them invincible.
How many of those accidental or ‘bored teen’ shootings happen every year where both the shooter and the victim are 18 or under? How many of those have happened in a school?
I was under the impression that suicide followed by homicide topped the list of firearms deaths. Do you have a cite?
(Brain messed up. G2 GI Joe lead-in with Megatron rebuilt as a tank and the railgun cannon)
For the vast majority of people, the consequences of not having a smoke alarm in the house is nil. But most people have them, anyway.
I guess all my guns are defective, then. Our home is very safe.
If 1 person per year dies from having a picture frame fall on their head, then picture frames makes your home more dangerous. It then becomes a cost/benefit analysis.
The danger of having guns in one’s home is often exaggerated or flat out lied about (see other threads for discussion of the “A gun in your home is 43 times more likely to kill someone you know than a burglar!” bad science).
In an ideal scenario, a gun can prevent a crime without being used. You’re attempting to criticize the defensive usefulness of guns - and you’re only using the undesirable, minority case - that it’s used, and that it’s used to kill - in analyzing their usefulness. Defensive gun uses without a shooting are, indeed, hard to quantify, but it certainly doesn’t make them invalid.