# The tree of liberty needs to be watered with the blood of school children **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 15, 2018, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tree-of-liberty-needs-to-be-watered-with-the-blood-of-school-children/808854 "2018-02-15T02:32:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2018, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tree-of-liberty-needs-to-be-watered-with-the-blood-of-school-children/808854/261 "2018-02-17T22:38:58Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Are you people purposely avoiding the point, or is it just reflex? The point is that guns are a lot more deadly than knives. If they weren’t, then a Roman legion would have a chance to defeat a modern US Marine regiment. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2018, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tree-of-liberty-needs-to-be-watered-with-the-blood-of-school-children/808854/262 "2018-02-17T22:42:40Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Are you people purposely avoiding the point, or is it just reflex? I don’t know, but _you_ people sure are dumb as shit! ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2018, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tree-of-liberty-needs-to-be-watered-with-the-blood-of-school-children/808854/263 "2018-02-17T22:45:21Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > The point is that guns are a lot more deadly than knives. If they weren’t, then a Roman legion would have a chance to defeat a modern US Marine regiment. “We force the Marines to use rifles so that the enemy feels like they have a fair fight!” CMC fnord! ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2018, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tree-of-liberty-needs-to-be-watered-with-the-blood-of-school-children/808854/264 "2018-02-17T23:13:28Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > The point is that guns are a lot more deadly than knives. Lots of things are more deadly than knives. But the problem is society, not guns. As I said, guns were everywhere in 1960 but this stuff wasn’t going on then. As people have been pointing out lately, it was common in 1960 high schools to see guns in gun racks in pickup trucks and no one freaked out about it because there was no need because for the most part people were brought up properly and they behaved. Again, guns aren’t the problem, people in the society that exists today are. And now, having created the dangers all this fuckupery has generated, liberals seek to take away people’s ability to defend themselves from them. So typical. And now I’m out for the night. My words aren’t necessarily aimed at you, **andy** , but at the liberal mindset in general. Your post just happened to be the one at the bottom of the page when I decided to respond. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2018, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tree-of-liberty-needs-to-be-watered-with-the-blood-of-school-children/808854/265 "2018-02-17T23:25:16Z")
Out for the night. That means you’re not coming back tonight? I won’t hold my breath. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2018, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tree-of-liberty-needs-to-be-watered-with-the-blood-of-school-children/808854/266 "2018-02-17T23:43:19Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > Jesus Fucking Christ, are you trying to pull a Creotard “How do you know? Were you there?” gambit to cover for your own lack of basic historical knowledge? Do you even read the threads you participate in? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2018, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tree-of-liberty-needs-to-be-watered-with-the-blood-of-school-children/808854/267 "2018-02-17T23:56:07Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Lots of things are more deadly than knives. But the problem is society, not guns. > > As I said, guns were everywhere in 1960 but this stuff wasn’t going on then. As people have been pointing out lately, it was common in 1960 high schools to see guns in gun racks in pickup trucks and no one freaked out about it because there was no need because for the most part people were brought up properly and they behaved. > > Again, guns aren’t the problem, people in the society that exists today are. And now, having created the dangers all this fuckupery has generated, liberals seek to take away people’s ability to defend themselves from them. So typical. > > And now I’m out for the night. My words aren’t necessarily aimed at you, **andy** , but at the liberal mindset in general. Your post just happened to be the one at the bottom of the page when I decided to respond. Society and culture are undoubtedly part of the problem. But they’re not the only problem. Fully automatic weapons are generally illegal and actually difficult to acquire, as are grenades and rocket launchers. Thankfully! If they were easy to acquire, school shooters could kill a lot more people. So the availability of dangerous weapons plays a role in how many people disturbed individuals can injure and kill. I’m not saying this is an easy problem or anything, but if you think that an America with the exact same culture, but zero guns (which is a fantasy, but one useful for illustrating this point), would have as many dead kids in schools, then you’re deluding yourself. Easy to acquire guns makes it easier to kill lots of people, full stop. I’d love to change culture so that fewer people thought violence was useful to solve psychological or social issues. But that’s just half of the issue – the other half is how easy it is, physically, to kill lots of people – and that’s a hardware issue. In a way, this problem has software issues (culture and psychological issues) and hardware issues (ease of acquiring deadly weaponry). If we want to be serious about lessening the harm, we can and should attack both ends of this problem. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tree-of-liberty-needs-to-be-watered-with-the-blood-of-school-children/808854/268 "2018-02-18T00:03:16Z")
I’m pretty sure we’ve had this same discussion before, **Starving Artist**. That’s one of the ways I find it so frustrating discussing things with you – some of these things aren’t based on liberal/conservative or other opinion differences, it’s just very simple common sense. Guns make it easier to kill people. That’s part of the issue – not the whole issue, but it really is a part of it. You might, like a lot of conservatives, believe that gun control is ineffective, and/or that the right to own guns is more important than trying to reduce the ability of criminals to shoot people, but the availability of guns is, factually, a part of the issue of why mass gun violence is so common and so deadly in America. ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tree-of-liberty-needs-to-be-watered-with-the-blood-of-school-children/808854/269 "2018-02-18T00:33:38Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Again, guns aren’t the problem, people in the society that exists today are. And now, having created the dangers all this fuckupery has generated, liberals seek to take away people’s ability to defend themselves from them. So typical. Jesus Fucking Christ, do you realize how flawed your logic gets in your zeal to blame everything on liberal boogeymen? You’re saying that liberals didn’t properly condition society to accept guns as as necessary for survival. You want to try telling that to the families of the Florida victims? ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Economist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Evil\_Economist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Economist)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tree-of-liberty-needs-to-be-watered-with-the-blood-of-school-children/808854/270 "2018-02-18T01:59:31Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Do you even read the threads you participate in? \*\*octopus \*\*is trying to pretend that him accidently revealing that he’s a sock is in some way equivalent to someone knowing who Sherman was. Does that sound fucking stupid? It is. He should have thought his desperate last-minute sophistry a little better. **octopus** , should we give you a minute? ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tree-of-liberty-needs-to-be-watered-with-the-blood-of-school-children/808854/271 "2018-02-18T02:11:12Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Do you even read the threads you participate in? Yes, which puts me at a signal disadvantage when attempting to figure out what the fuck you’re saying. ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tree-of-liberty-needs-to-be-watered-with-the-blood-of-school-children/808854/272 "2018-02-18T02:12:50Z")
[Trump: Dems could have passed gun control under Obama](http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/374411-trump-dems-could-have-passed-gun-control-under-obama) > [@](#): > > ``` > Just like they don’t want to solve the DACA problem, why didn’t the Democrats pass gun control legislation when they had both the House & Senate during the Obama Administration. Because they didn’t want to, and now they just talk! > — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 17, 2018 > > ``` It’s one of those moments when history doesn’t exactly repeat itself, but rhymes. Remember after the bombing of Pearl Harbor when Roosevelt declared, “The day the Republicans didn’t do anything about the Japanese when they were in power will live in infamy”? Remember Churchill’s famous speech? “If it weren’t for the damn Labour Party, we would not have to fight them in the hills and in the valleys…” Remember W after 9/11? “The Democrats could totally have taken out Al Qaeda and saved us all this trouble?” Surely you remember the most famous one of all, “The buck stops with the other guys”? Yeah, me neither. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tree-of-liberty-needs-to-be-watered-with-the-blood-of-school-children/808854/273 "2018-02-18T02:26:13Z")
> [@Evil\_Economist](#): > > \*\*octopus \*\*is trying to pretend that him accidently revealing that he’s a sock is in some way equivalent to someone knowing who Sherman was. Does that sound fucking stupid? It is. He should have thought his desperate last-minute sophistry a little better. > > **octopus** , should we give you a minute? The odd thing is, he’s free to walk away from the board at any time and not have to deal with any of this ever again. Anyone who takes any kind of beating on any message board can do so. The Internet is a funny place. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tree-of-liberty-needs-to-be-watered-with-the-blood-of-school-children/808854/274 "2018-02-18T02:36:14Z")
> [@Noborry](#): > > "The problem is not the easy access to firearms, it is in the underlying psyche of the american people. Access to firepower just makes the events more noisy, more spectacular, and yes _easier_ for those that want to strike out. It sure does, doesn’t it? And that’s why I’m quite willing to see the symptom treated first, and deal with the alleged underlying disease later. Because _people shouldn’t have to worry about being mowed down like grass_ while we wait for a cure for the underlying disease. When the ‘symptom’ is sudden massacre out of the blue, pardon me, but I’m all for treating the symptom. A belief that it makes more sense to let people be slaughtered while we try to solve the ‘real’ problem, is a pretty fucked-up belief, if you ask me. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tree-of-liberty-needs-to-be-watered-with-the-blood-of-school-children/808854/275 "2018-02-18T02:38:37Z")
> [@Evil\_Economist](#): > > \*\*octopus \*\*is trying to pretend that him accidently revealing that he’s a sock is in some way equivalent to someone knowing who Sherman was. Does that sound fucking stupid? It is. He should have thought his desperate last-minute sophistry a little better. > > **octopus** , should we give you a minute? Again, you daft fool, if you had any sense of logical consistency you’d realize you sound retarded. You do realize that several of the mods and one of the former mods don’t particularly care for me? If there was any evidence your illogical assertion were true it would have been acted on. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_stamos_left_ear/32/3198_2.png) [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Stamos_Left_Ear)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tree-of-liberty-needs-to-be-watered-with-the-blood-of-school-children/808854/276 "2018-02-18T02:41:28Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > The problem there is that the usual retarded “patriotic” gun nuts are typically on side with that particular tyranny rather than opposed to it… This is definitely true. They claim that they need guns in case an agent of the government overreaches his authority. But the Venn Diagram of them and the people who post #BlueLivesMatter hashtags and think that black people wouldn’t get into problems if they just respected that cop who profiled him is damn near a circle. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tree-of-liberty-needs-to-be-watered-with-the-blood-of-school-children/808854/277 "2018-02-18T02:41:53Z")
> [@anomalous1](#): > > Blame the person, not the tool. Guns are not inherently evil, it is only in that hands of those that are when they become the problem. Oh, fuck that shit. There is no ‘good’ use by civilians for weapons of mass slaughter. Whether the weapons themselves are ‘evil’ is a bit of sophistry that I don’t care about in the least. Their availability to civilians is evil. End of story. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tree-of-liberty-needs-to-be-watered-with-the-blood-of-school-children/808854/278 "2018-02-18T02:48:46Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Lots of things are more deadly than knives. But the problem is society, not guns. > > As I said, guns were everywhere in 1960 but this stuff wasn’t going on then. And as I responded in the other thread: > [@Another School Shooting \[Stoneman Douglas\] (2/14/2018)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-school-shooting-stoneman-douglas-2-14-2018/808843/247): > > You know _why_ they didn’t happen? Because while there were handguns and hunting rifles back then, high-capacity semi-autos like AK-47s and AR-15s were pretty much unknown in civilian life. > > Shootings could and did happen, but mass shootings almost never happened because of the great difficulty in committing one. Take the [University of Texas tower shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Texas_tower_shooting) back in 1966. The shooter had been a Marine sharpshooter, and he was picking people off from a vantage point 230 feet above the ground. Over the course of 90 minutes, he killed 14 people. > > How long did it take the Newtown shooter to mow down 20 kids and 6 adults 46 years later? It was [less than five minutes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Hook_Elementary_School_shooting#Mass_shooting_begins) between the time he used his Bushmaster to blow out a window next to the school’s locked entrance, and the time he killed himself. And he hardly needed any special skillz to slaughter a couple dozen people in just a few minutes. > > _There’s_ what’s rotten with the culture: _that we allow the presence of weapons in civilian life whose only use is to kill a shitload of people in a hurry._ It’s a moral sickness, and it’s [overwhelmingly a Republican sickness](https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=113&session=1&vote=00101). I’m sure you had a great response to this, but got distracted by this thread and never posted it. I’m looking forward to reading it. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tree-of-liberty-needs-to-be-watered-with-the-blood-of-school-children/808854/279 "2018-02-18T02:48:52Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Oh, fuck that shit. There is no ‘good’ use by civilians for weapons of mass slaughter. Whether the weapons themselves are ‘evil’ is a bit of sophistry that I don’t care about in the least. Their availability to civilians is evil. End of story. Governments have killed far more than civilians. Shouldn’t we disarm them as well? ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tree-of-liberty-needs-to-be-watered-with-the-blood-of-school-children/808854/280 "2018-02-18T02:49:16Z")
The same way that flies cause garbage. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tree-of-liberty-needs-to-be-watered-with-the-blood-of-school-children/808854.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tree-of-liberty-needs-to-be-watered-with-the-blood-of-school-children/808854.md?page=15)