National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre tangled with NBC’s David Gregory over his Friday call to post armed security in schools, with the Meet the Press host telling LaPierre that if he was really concerned about the loss of life at Sandy Hook Elementary he should address the size of gun magazines.
“I know there’s a media machine in this country that wants to blame guns every time something happens. I know there’s an anti-2nd Amendment industry in town. I know there are political elites that for 20 years always try to say it’s because Americans own guns,” LaPierre said.
“I’m telling you what I think will make people safe. And what every mom and dad will make them feel better when they drop their kid off at school in January, is if we have a police officer in that school, a good guy, that if some horrible monster tries to do something, they’ll be there to protect them.”
“You’re talking about some of the old complaints you make against news media and such. Nobody’s actually said that it’s only about guns, so far as I’ve heard, not the president, not anyone else,” Gregory retorted, moving into a series of headlines calling the NRA chief “gun nut,” “loon,” et al. “Just your reaction to that very harsh reaction to your words?”
“If it’s crazy to call for putting police and armed security in our school to protect our children, then call me crazy. I’ll tell you what the American people — I think the American people think it’s crazy not to do it. It’s the one thing that would keep people safe, and the NRA is going to try to do that,” LaPierre said. “…Gun control — you could — you could ban all — Dianne Feinstein’s — you could do whatever she wants to with magazines, it’s not going to make any kid safer. We got to get to the real problem, the real causes, and that’s what the NRA is trying to do.”
When LaPierre said people tell him they go to bed safer each night because they own a firearm, Gregory said, “Well, a feeling is not fact. A feeling is a sense of reassurance. That’s not evidence. And I know that’s not what you’re presenting.”
There’s an argument for taking the second Amendment out of this because the PURPOSE of the 2nd Amendment was to provision our army using self-armed citizens.
But we don’t need that kind of Army, we have The Army, The Air Force, The Marines, The Navy, The National Guard.
And in more modern times (in the countries unlucky enough to actually have militias), it looks like militias are a very bad idea, they lead to failed states, to terrorism, to death squads, to sectarian war, to control by foreign powers.
So I would like to suggest that the fight over guns be made on modern grounds. People sound incoherent when trying to describe the reasoning behind the 2nd amendment because they don’t see or want to admit that it’s about an obsolete institution.
re UK”homicide RATE is about 4 times as high.”
So our deaths by automobiles is also about 4 times as high 12.3 vs. 3.5, shall we ban automobiles?
Or since since UK has 4x the number of home invasion than the US you tell the Brit’s to go live elsewhere because their usage of domiciles is at fault. As opposed to the reality that US guns stop burglars from invading when someone is present compared to UK.
/J Scholar? really and you post that for an argument?
My actual point is that while there are arguments to be made for and against gun rights, the second Amendment itself makes a very foolish argument.
The 2nd amendment makes not arguement. It states, A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
For instance if you say “guns allow weak people to defend themselves” then you’ve made a valid argument.
If you say “the 2nd amendment says we need a milita to oppose the tyranny of the government” you’ve made a stupid stupid stupid argument.
Well gee JS you just invalidated the whole Constitution and Bill of Rights which, incidently, is what progs want to do. I guess it’s that “living document” thing you lefties have going.
The 2nd was purposely made the 2nd and used that language to do what you think is now obsolete. Your dissembling of it is typical of you lefties.
Why don’t you lefties come up with a new slogan: “sic semper tyrannis” should do.
For the sake of argument can we invalidate the “general welfare” clause as well. How about the 14th…or wait how about the First. Yeah let’s start there.
Tool.
“Invalidated”?
Well that amendment is about an obsolete institution that doesn’t exist anymore, and for damn good reasons.
And some modern interpretations of that amendment are even worse than its original meaning which was appropriate for its day.
If you try to impose your stupidity on the constitution that doesn’t change the fact that you’re stupid.
Saying it three times does not make it true.
The US is headed for a 2nd Great Depression during which an armed citizenry
will be a necessary and sufficient defense against government attempts to
extend a temporary state of emergency into a permanent tyranny.
Please do not _believe_ a word of the above; _Verify_ it by watching the
economic collapse, and the government response, over the next year or two.
Every single president in my lifetime (with the exception of Gerald Ford and maybe Jimmy Carter) was rumored to be about to impose martial law and suspend elections forever and make himself king.
Only idiots believed that stuff, and I do have one friend who believed it about GWB.
I presume we now must acknowledge your superior intelligence because you used the word stupid four times in a row in a vain attempt to discredit constitutional originalism.
It is so funny to read educated idiots such as yourself completely forget George Santayana.
Vulturetx, the left will never admit that insisting that schools be ‘gun free zones’ is the reason why so many kiddies die! For when the only ones who have the ammunition are those gunning for the children, well, that gives them a distinct advantage!
But never mind logic when ideology trumps all, and never mind eviscerating the Second Amendment too, that is precisely their goal!
And the fact that it takes an armed guard, teacher or administrator to stop the carnage, that is hardly their concern – http://adinakutnicki.com/2012/12/18/what-the-msm-is-predictably-blacking-out-in-their-coverage-of-recent-shootings-brief-commentary-by-adina-kutnicki/…and the proof, as is said, is in the pudding.
If you believe this then you should work to repeal the 2nd amendment. The Constitution provides a method for this repeal process. It provides for the simple vote of 2/3rds of both houses of Congress and 2/3rds of the ststes. Better get busy.
You are clearly ignorant of the law. At the age 18 every male citizen, it should be all citizens are required under penalty of law to register in the national Militia. What do thing selective service is? It is the unorganized component of the national Militia.
Ironically that’s only been around since Jimmy Carter.
By Jimmy Carter? Really?
I registered with selective service in 1970, when Carter was a Govenor.
Maybe you should check your sources a little better,
Carter re-instituted mandatory registration for a non-existent draft. I don’t remember why he wanted to look tough, but it was dumb.
“This is a story from Paul Harvey on Gun Control
Are you considering backing gun control laws? Do you think that
because you may not own a gun, the rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment
don’t matter?
CONSIDER: In 1929 the Soviet Union established gun control. From 1929
to 1953, approximately 20 million dissidents, unable to defend
themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
In 1911, Turkey established gun control. From 1915-1917, 1.5
million Armenians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and
exterminated.
Germany established gun control in 1938 and from 1938 to 1945, 13
million Jews. gypsies, homosexuals, the mentally ill, and others who
were unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
China established gun control in 1935. From 1948 to 1952, 20 million
political dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up
and exterminated.
Guatemala established gun control in 1970. From 1971 to 1979, 300,000
Christians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
Cambodia established gun control in 1956. From 1975 to 1977, one
million “uneducated” people, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up
and exterminated.
That places total victims who lost their lives because of gun control at
approximately 56 million in the last century. Since we should learn from
the mistakes of history, the next time someone talks in favor of gun
control, find out which group of citizens they wish to have exterminated.”
Now, I know the easiest comeback from people like you when confronted with these inconvenient facts is “Well, it can’t happen here.” And I ask you, why not? The people in our government are just people, the same as the ones who did those heinous acts listed above, and just like those people listed above, I’m sure they’ll do what they do “for the greater good.” In fact, we hear a lot from the left about the good of the collective these days which is very much “for the greater good,” so don’t tell us that the 2nd Amendment is unecessary. It is one of those checks and balances that were loaded heavily into our COTUS to keep the government in its cage, and no matter what you might think, humans are still human and still subject to the same failings as they were in the days of the Founders.
So if we institute gun control then we’re due for a genocide?
…
Harvey is usually one hell of a lot smarter than that.
No one is ever going to be convinced by that argument.
Why not? Do you make a practice of studying history? I mean really studying history. Go and study what happened in Germany between the end of WWI and the beginning of WWII. Study specifically the economic conditions that led to the Weimar Republic, the rhetoric used by the Nazi (National Socialist German Workers’ Party) as it rose to power and how they used it to scapegoat entire classes of people.
If you cannot see some disturbing parallels with the economic conditions of the country and rhetoric being used in politics today, then you are being intellectually dishonest. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. I learned my history, and God willing, I won’t be here if it decides to repeat because there are definitely too many people in this country whom I know do not know the first or second thing about history.
The argument that it can never happen here is a very poor one. Of course, it can never happen here … until it does. By then, it’s too late.
Ask the Native Americans how well that argument worked for them. Maybe you should ask the German Americans and Japanese Americans about how well that worked here in America during WWII. Of course, they’ll never think to use predator combat drones against US citizens, nevermind that the USDA is even now flying said drones over the midwest farmlands, and law enforcement agencies are requesting them for city use.
Joshua Scholar
“obsolete insitution”
Sorry, but I see no reason to agree with YOUR interpatation of the 1st Amendment. Nor I suspect that you would agree to live by MY veiws on various Amendments either.
In terms of “failed states” If you want to have that discussion–look at all the harms that result when a people are disarmed.
There are some 2O MILLION people killed by the Russians in the “modern” era.
Or perhaps you would like to ask the victems of genocide in Rwanda and the Sudan if they wished they had the weapons to try and protect themselevs and their families…….my guess is that they would have a very different worldview than the “classroom” debate of Joshua Scholar.
People onboies need to stop intrepreting The Constitution in order to serve their own ends.
It means what it says and says what it means. “Shall not be infringed.” Period.
More on constitutional ‘interpretation’ from the Founders and others, here:
http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/content/american-founding-and-19th-century-quotes-constitutional-interpretation?library_node=68700
See also:
Online Library of Liberty.
Liberty Library of Constitutional Classics.
should read ‘on both sides.’
One of these days, I might have to learn how to type… (typing was for sissies when I went to school. Little did we know…that everyone would need to know how to type.)
Josh: “And in more modern times (in the countries unlucky enough to actually have militias), it looks like militias are a very bad idea, they lead to failed states, to terrorism, to death squads, to sectarian war, to control by foreign powers..
Hahaha, that’s why I avoid going to Switzerland, the most highly militiated country in the world. I don’t like seeing all those terrorists and death squads they have there.
And, Josh, a question for you. What gives you the idea, especially in our country wherein we are dominated by a Marxist regime and a far-Left, propaganda producing big media who both flaunt the Constitution, which is to flaunt the rule of law, that we don’t need a separate militia?
And can you offer any proof that courts have defined the purpose the 2nd Amendment as you have? “…the PURPOSE of the 2nd Amendment was to provision our army using self-armed citizens.” You need to change “our Army” to AN army, don’t you?
No, the militia clause was added to justify the government requiring citizens to maintain arms and supplies should a need to call up the unorganized militia arise. At the time every male citizen between 16 and 45 not otherwise serving in some official capacity was considered a member of the unorganized militia and could be required to maintain a suitable firearm, powder and ball for 40 shots, and clothing suitable for a military encounter.
The main body of the Second Amendment prohibits the government from interfering with the possession of arms by citizens. This was confirmed by a unanimous finding by the Supreme Court in the Heller case. The court then proceeded to overturn the Washington D.C. gun ban on a 5/4 split decision, but their finding that 2A referred to an individual right was unanimous.
I agree that invoking the second amendment misses the point which is how to make the world safer from gun violence. Putting armed police in schools would probably increase gun violence on children by putting scarce resources in a low risk location. Also it might backfire, not be effective or chase the mass murderers into safer locations like theaters and restaurants. Having a gun in the home increases the chance of dying by gun violence.
If guns were outlawed mass murderers would invent another perhaps more lethal method, like bacterial contamination or bombs, and gun carrying criminals could act with relative impunity.
It’s a tough problem. Calling people names and suggesting ridiculous solutions only degrades the discussion.
I’m not all that thrilled with the idea of policy dictating that armed guards be at our schools. To suggest such a thing is to slip into the liberal paradigm that there is some crisis that we “absolutely must address”. About 30 school children are killed each year with school buses. Why don’t we do something about that? (Actually fixable, seat belts).
Cooler heads must prevail on the gun issue, republicans must stand firm for our rights and weather this liberal onslaught. There’s nothing we should do because we are actually dealing with domestic terrorism. To give in to it, is to give it the victory over us.
There’s a very very small group of nutjobs that would hurt, much less murder a child. Violent street gangs cause mayhem, but they want to keep on living, psycho whites appear to be that small group. When the muslim terrorist infiltrators that live among us get the word, they will be another group we will have to contend with. Giving up our firepower in this day and age is not an option.
Which would you classify as more valuable… a couple hundred thousand dollars in a bank or a thirty children in a school house?
All banks nowadays have armed guards at the door. By not have armed guards at schools, aren’t we saying that our THINGS, our money, our possessions, are more important to us than our children? Shall we just leave our children in the school, completely unguarded and unprotected?
If you think a nutjob needs a gun to go and kill innocent, unprotected, unarmed children in a school, perhaps you should do a Google search for the latest school killings over in China where they kill people with knives. No one there is allowed to carry a gun… criminal, nutjob, teacher or student.
School guards are a state and local responsibility, wouldn’t you agree? We sure don’t need another TSA-like government agency reporting to the Education Department, which itself shouldn’t exist, do we?.
DJ gives one of the most cogent descriptions of why an open, free society must NEVER relinquish REAL means for self preservation. The hopelessly naive mindset that the collective armed authorities(civilian/military), as potent as they are, can provide for the PERSONAL safety of individual Americans v the domestic terrorists that DJ so accurately describes is folly. At its core, this is a pragamatic reality of securing one’s person. The “state” will NEVER be capable of achieving this goal. To those who choose to go unarmed, the odds are in your favor, statistically, UNTIL you become a statistic! The state has no authority or means(yet) to deprive good citizens of the real means for self securement. Please support the NRA.
By the way … homicide stats go like this:
homicide by gun is about 100 times as high in the US as in the UK.
homicide RATE is about 4 times as high.
We’re about 5 times worse than Italy despite Oriana Falacci complaining that it’s full of uncivilized Muslims..
We’re about 2 1/2 times worse than Canada.
We’re 7 times worse than the best countries, places like Austria and Japan.
Actually, homicide rates go like this.
Homicide rate in England/Wales in 1900, with no gun control laws: 0.96 per 100,000 people.
Homicide rate in England Wales in 1999, with an almost complete ban on guns: 1.45 per 100,000 people.
There’s lots of problems with gun control, the biggest problem is that passing all kinds of gun control laws doesn’t make homicide rates go down.
So much has changed in 100 years that your argument must be considered to sloppy to be valid.
What’s changed is that countries like the United States and the United Kingdom have passed thousands of gun control laws, and the homicide rates have gone UP…not down.
Sorry, if that fact doesn’t support your position, but it’s true nevertheless.
How expensive was a gun and ammo in 1900?
How long did the powder last?
How poor were the people, could they afford guns and ammo?
How far did one have to go to find a shop to buy them in.
How has the culture changed in 100 years?
How has the population changed in 100 years?
There’s all kinds of issues that could lead to a difference in 100 years.
Actually I think every single thing about society changed in the last 100 years.
I don’t think you can compare these kinds of things at all.
It a totally nuts idea to compare now to 1900
Hey, Dave, it sure looks like you’ve got a scholar here whose motto is ‘Down with History’. The ‘Scholar’ say: “It a totally nuts idea to compare now to 1900.”
Hahaha. Is this what they teach ‘scholars’ now: The Constitution and Historical accounts have a useful shelf-life of only 112 years? Sounds like somebody has been reading that young scalawag Ezra Klein.
Gun crime rates in the UK have risen 35% since Thomas Hamilton killed 16 children in the Dunblane school massacre in 1996 using 4 handguns and a ban on guns was passed.
Actually, it is over 89% higher now…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1223193/Culture-violence-Gun-crime-goes-89-decade.html
You’d think a country under extreme surveillance* in order to contain terrorism like Britain is would be able to track guns.
*(Britain seems to prefer surveillance and stopping things at the last minute to more confrontational methods like enforcing laws…)
As far as weapons go whether they be semiautomatic or even a revolver they have not really changed much as far as the operating principles. The M1911 or M1911A1 (adopted in 1925) introduced into service in the year 1911 (one hundred and one years ago) and used by the armed forces until 1985 when it was replaced by the M9 (a 9mm X 19mm) and is still in use by the Navy Seals as well as other special forces. You know very little about hand guns or how they work so it is a good thing you do not own one you would be dangerous if you did.
I have carried handguns since 1974 both as a civilian and as a member of the United States Navy and never have had an accidental discharge with any of my weapons, nor to date have I ever had to use any of these weapons. I carry concealed legally and if you were to come across me on the street you would never know that I was armed, and I plan on keeping it that way, I feel much better knowing I have the means to stop a crazed nut than to look for a place to run and hide, you on the other hand can only hope you never get in a situation confronted by a thug or crazed idiot because all you have is your legs to run and it is impossible to outrun a bullet…good luck!
And can you parse those homocide rates between crimes committed with legally-owned firearms and those committed with illegally owned firearms?
Understand that without some means of closing the southern border, you will have plenty of narco-cartels willing to add gun-running to their list of items to sell right alongside of their inventories of illegal drugs. Of course, that means that you won’t do much about lowering some of your gun crime rates because firearms will still be freely available to the criminal population who could care less that you’ve made guns illegal.
You have a point.
And even if there were gun control in the US it would be decades or a century before the number of guns would go down much.
I would be very interested to know how many guns, how much ammo there is in various countries, including those with gun control, and how much it has to do with who is on their borders.
I don’t know anything about Mexico’s problems. I would like to see an end to the drug war, but I don’t know how to turn that into a win for Mexico. No doubt one is possible.
Your hero, Chavez is documented as a major supplier of automatic weapons to the Cartels in Mexico and all of South America. Those weapons are acquired from Communist bloc nations such as China, Russia and Cuba…
There are none so blind as those who refuse to see.
Only stat i found is on average 4,000 Americans are murdered each year by illegal immigrants .
Gun use is common but they also have a high rate of drunk/ drug driving murders also. 28% of all fatal DUI deaths involve illegals. US gov stats.
You might not be aware of this but the murder rate in Canada and the UK has always been much lower than the US. What isn’t lower in the UK is general violent crime, i.e., rape, armed robbery and aggravated assault. The UK is now the most violent nation in the developed world. It’s rate of violent crime is twice that of Washington DC, the highest in the US.
Within the DC Metro area the crime rate in Northern Virginia is lower than Toronto yet we have unrestricted access to firearms. The.violent crime rate in DC and suburban Maryland is an order of magnitude greater than NOVA. Gun ownership is tightly controled in those jurisdictions.
There are three factors that determine violent crime rates and none of them involve the availability of guns. The factors aret he percentage of people on welfare, the percentage of out of wedlock births and the length of time a jurisdiction has been controled by the Democratic Party. Perhaps we would do better if we banned Democrats from holding public office than banning guns.
Lol, stupid lies.
Interesting correlation isn’t it? I wonder why people who live in the most crime ridden neighborhoods keep voting for Democrats. It seems to not do them any favors.
Worst states by homicide rate:
Louisiana (3 times worse than national average of 4.3 per 100,000)
New Mexico,Maryland (2 times worse)
Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri,Michigan, South Carolina, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Illinois (spanning from 7 per 100k down to 6 per 100k)
“Worst states by homicide rate:
Louisiana (3 times worse than national average of 4.3 per 100,000)”
And Louisiana has 3 times the national average black population.
Fail. Murder is a tiny portion of violent crime even in states highest murder rates. The anti-self defense lobby fixates on murder because it is an emotional issue. The risk of being attacked on the streets or in your home is the rational measure of safety. Getting beaten, raped or mugged is the real risk factor for all but a subset of 10% of the population.
Lousianna has the highest murder rate because of New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Both are Democratic Party strongholds with a high percentage of people on welfare and out of wedlock births. Every state you cite for above average murder rates
Has them concentrated in cities that fit the demographic and political profile. Virtually all the murders in Illinois take place on the South and West sides of Chicago. The rest of the state is like Canada.
Obviously you need to control for race and class. Find me two cities with roughly same percentage of low income blacks, one in a state with more gun control one with less gun control, and then you’ll have some useful data on the efficacy of gun control. Atlanta vs Chicago or Philly, for instance.
John Lott has already done that. I suggest you read his book.
Sometimes it seems like the definition of a “conservative” is someone who spends his time looking for books to prove that his problems can be blamed on black people and sluts.
When he can exclaim “if only those people would stop breeding!” then he’s won the game.
Messed up the HTML tags. It should have read:
Sometimes it seems like the definition of a “conservative” is someone who spends his time looking for books to prove that his problems can be blamed on black people and sluts.
When he can exclaim “if only those people would stop breeding!” then he’s won the game.
“Sometimes it seems like the definition of a “conservative” is someone who spends his time looking for books to prove that his problems can be blamed on black people and sluts.
When he can exclaim “if only those people would stop breeding!” then he’s won the game.”
Projecting again? Margaret Sanger is one of you progressives. An avowed racist and eugenicist, she founded Planned Parenthood. With 50% of black babies being aborted, looks like you folks have succeeded where the KKK could only dream.
As for blacks and hispanics being the problem with violence, not just in the USA bot worldwide. These are facts, and one is not racist for pointing them out.
No Joshua, I blame the problems in black community on Democrats and Progressives like you. Your policies have destroyed civil society in the black community and created a culture of poverty and dependence. The end result of these policies is an ultra violent society that decays into Detroit.
The Democratic Party is nothing more than crimiinal gang living off the productive people in society.
According to the UN, in 2010 the total number of violent crimes in the UK was 1,158,957.
For the same time period total violent crimes in the US was 1,246,248.
But the population of the UK was 60 million while that of the US was 314 million.
Simple math tells us that the violent crime rate for the UK is five times as high as in the US.
Sorry but there is no good way to say this so here it is. Has anyone considered where the US ranks in gun violence or education statistics if you remove the inner city ghettos from the numbers? How much do cities like Detroit or Washington DC skew the stats we are talking about more people shot in gang violence in Chicago than the Iraq war. Also some of these fine bastions of democratic cities only graduate 40 to 50 percent of their students.
All that matters is the homicide rate. Not what is used to kill with. In the U.K. that would be 1.53 in the US it would be 4.2.
However the U.K. is over 90% white. Compare the homicide rates by race and the U.S. compares quite favorably with other white populations worldwide. Even though the whites in the USA have most of the guns here.
It is not the guns producing higher homicides in the USA it is blacks and hispanics(mexicans, central and north south americans and their descendents).
If you remove a certain ethnic group from the accounting, the US crime rate drops dramatically. So it’s not a crime problem or a gun problem it’s a …
The dirty little secret is that among the White Population of America gun violence is low–as low or lower than Europe and Canada. Remember the 80 some people killed just last year in Norway by one gunman and the numerous attacks by knife wielders in China against children. No, the gun control crowd is a simple minded lot which is driven by emotion and without regard to what will work.
Ok, your argument is that with guns, US whites are on par with Canada, about half as peaceful as the average person in the Italy and 3 times worse than Japanese? And Italians and UK people aren’t all white, yet they’re beating us. So maybe we’d have 1/4 or 1/5 our current rate if we didn’t have the guns.
I’m not passionate about this topic, but I think you’re still admitting that there’s room for improvement.
And it’s ironic that we’re talking about school massacres. The only one not by a white guy was by a Korean, not a group known, overall, for gun violence.
Okay JS. Let’s confiscate all guns, but before you do there are somethings I want done. First, you go to every major urban center and get their guns first….You’re a bleeding heart white prog so go save the many, many black children in the downtown ghettos.
Second, then disarm and deport every latino member and disarm and disband every black gang-imprison them for 20 years to ensure our safety; then imprison each of these gun-toting criminals for a very, very long time with no chance of parole; then disarm every Congressional and or elite leftist security detail; have mandatory sentencing for even BEs and assaults; secure the southern border.
Lastly, for every innocent person that dies as a result of NOT being able to protect themselves because you took their guns, one prog congressperson goes to jail.
You do realize that all these other countries with lower homicide rates also have much lower incarceration rates and much shorter sentences don’t you?
So apparently it’s possible without putting everyone who scares you away forever.
You also know that you can’t really compare European nations to America, right?
It’s like trying to point to Sweden’s socialism and contending that it would work in American. It’s apples and oranges.
Why? Because you think there’s less crime in less capitalistic societies? Is that your thesis?
No, because there are marked differeces in cultures, populations, traditions and history and demographics. What’s considered a conservative German is not even remotely analogous to a conservative American due to differences in the founding of our two nations; the German wants to return to a more monarchical/hierarchical set up while the American wants something where an extremely limited federal government loosely links the state governments and individual liberties are maximized and prized. And a the conservative German, whether lower or upper class, would believe that the lower classes should not arm themselves because the upper classes have the duty of noblesse oblige.
By and large, the people in Europe who did not agree with either that sort of top down rule or a socialistic rule mind set came to America or immigrated elsewhere. And that’s not to cast aspersions on the way the people in Europe think today, but it is to illustrate that they are different enough that you can’t really compare them very well. What they accept or think is normal by way of governance or behavior is not what we accept or think is normal.
And this means that Americans need more people in prison longer in order to have the same safety, HOW?
Who said anything about prison? I was telling you why the peoples are different and not good comparisons.
But, maybe people in other countries want to avoid being in prison, and shorter sentences work better in those countries because those countries don’t bend over backwards to make their prisons nice and comfy like we do.
http://klyker.com/the-worst-prison-in-france-20-photos/
Mitchell Scott Johnson (born August 11, 1984) and Andrew Douglas Golden (born May 25, 1986) are former middle school students who on March 24, 1998 committed a massacre at Westside Middle School in unincorporated Craighead County, Arkansas, near Jonesboro.A total of five people, four female students and a teacher, were killed. Ten people, nine students and one teacher, were injured.
Johnson was released on his 21st birthday, August 11, 2005. He spent less than 2 years in prison for each murder that he committed.
Golden was released on May 25, 2007, also his 21st birthday. Golden’s precise whereabouts were unknown until he applied for a concealed weapon permit in Arkansas on October 7, 2008, under the name he now uses, Drew Douglas Grant. His application was denied by the Arkansas State Police, who noted that Golden had lied on the application about his previous residences and claimed it would be illegal for Golden to own or possess a firearm. The assumed name that Golden was using had been unknown up until this point due to a gag order, but police were able to tie Andrew Golden to Grant through fingerprint records during the background check for the permit.
On January 1, 2007, Johnson was arrested by the ATF after a traffic stop in Fayetteville, Arkansas on misdemeanor charges of carrying a weapon—a loaded 9 mm pistol—and possession of 21.2 grams of marijuana.
Though the van Johnson was riding in was registered to him, the driver was 22-year-old Justin Trammell. Trammell and Johnson reportedly met at Alexander Youth Services Correctional Facility in Alexander, Arkansas, where Trammell was incarcerated after pleading guilty to the 1999 crossbow murder of his father, a crime committed when Trammell was 15. The pair were roommates and provided officers with the same Fayetteville address.
In February 2008, just days after his conviction, Johnson was arrested again, this time for possession of marijuana at the convenience store he worked at and on suspicion of using a stolen credit card.
Illinois has the strictest gun control laws in the US.
Illinois is the only state that does not allow concealed carry in some form.
llinois does not recognize licenses issued by other states.
Open carry is also prohibited.
When a firearm is being transported, it must be unloaded and enclosed in a case.
To legally possess firearms or ammunition, Illinois residents must have a Firearm Owners Identification (FOID) card, issued by the state police.
Non-residents who may legally possess firearms in their home state are exempt from this requirement.
There is a waiting period to take possession after purchasing a firearm — 72 hours for a handgun, or 24 hours for a rifle or shotgun.
Private sales are allowed, and are subject to these same requirements.
Possession of automatic firearms, short-barreled shotguns, or short-barreled rifles is prohibited.
Illinois does not have state preemption for gun laws, and some local governments have enacted ordinances that are more restrictive than those of the state.
By 1980, several Illinois municipalities had banned the possession of handguns. Chicago required the registration of all firearms but did not allow handguns to be registered, which had the effect of outlawing their possession, unless they were grandfathered in by being registered before April 16, 1982.Additionally, several Chicago suburbs had enacted outright prohibitions on handgun possession.
In Chicago gun owners are required to have a Chicago Firearm Permit, which costs $100 and must be renewed every three years.
Before getting the permit, the resident must complete a training course that includes at least four hours of classroom training and one hour of range time.
Each gun must be registered with the Chicago Police Department at a one-time cost of $15 per gun, and an annual registration report must be filed every year.
Gun possession is permitted only inside a dwelling, not in a garage or on the outside grounds of the property. Only one gun at a time may be kept in a usable state.
So why did Chicago have almost 500 murders this year ?
Why are the odds of being the victim of a violent crime in E.St.Louis 9 on a scale of 10.
Springfield ,Peoria ,Madison,Mt. Vernon – all high crime rates.
The worst massacre was committed in Norway by Breivik.
Of the 5 worst shooting rampages, only one happened in America, and none were carried out by Americans.
Of the 5 worst massacres, two were carried out by Asians and one by an African constable. Only two were carried out by white men. The next man on the list was Latino. None were carried out by Americans.
Of the 5 major Americans shootings in the last 5 years, only 3 were carried out by Americans and only 2 were carried out by white men. None of those white men fit the “profile” of the so-called American gun culture. Both were troubled and mentally ill loners.
Anders Breivak , Norway. Killed 77. Making the likely hood of being shot durring a mass shooting by a white guy in Norway something on the order of 1 in 62,000. In the last decade in the USA, white mass shooters have claimed about 100 lives. Making the likely hood of being shot during a mass shooting by a white guy in USA something on the order 1 in 3,000,000.
I could be wrong on the 100 killed, could be more.
But the main point is that whites in the USA compare very favorably with white populations worldwide. Blacks commit about half(actually 52.6% 1975-2005)the homicides in this country about 5 times the rate of whites on average. That knocks the rate from 4.2 to 2.1. Now you take out the hispanic”whites” who commit, on average 3 times the homicides as Euro whites. Hispanics are about the same size population as blacks so we can correlate the data with a simple proportion equation. 3/5 * 2.1 which gives us 1.26. Subtract that and you get a Euro white in the USA as 0.84 per 100,000.
I challenge you to find a lower homicide rate in any large population of Euro whites.
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/homicide/race.cfm
Good stuff there, Fantom, and with a link to evidence. I’m afraid our self-described ‘scholar’ isn’t too strong on footnotes and citations.
There was an armed guard at Columbine in 1999 and that proved to be a useless security measure. There is no reason to expect it would have been different to have an armed cop at Sandy Hook.
Useless, you say??
So, that armed guard did NOTHING to stop or slow down Klebold and Harris? Obviously, he did not manage to Stop them completely but did he face up to them? Did he stall them? Delay them? Give innocent, unarmed, students and teachers a chance to get out of the school? Out of the line of fire? Or maybe just hide? No, he didn’t kill Klebold or Harris, that’s true. I guess in your opinion, that makes him useless.
Luckily that’s just YOUR opinion.
in 2000, on the one-year anniversary of the Columbine shooting (which occurred with an assault weapons ban in place), President Clinton requested $60 million in federal money to fund a fifth round of funding for a program called “COPS in School,” a program that does exactly what the NRA is proposing and the media is currently in overdrive mocking.
well armed guard vs. armed cop – yep all guys with a gun are the same right, no actual distinction based on duties? So why don’t you want to take away Cop’s private ownership of guns when you want to ban the guards’ guns?
And US policy on school violence changed after Columbine, so now they will confront ASAP, as opposed to going to phone for help.
/but hey Mongo you never bothered to actually learn about Columbine , you are just repeating the liberal falsehoods that were fed to you.
In the interest of full disclosure, Gregory should have acknowledged that there are armed security personnel at Sidwell Friends, the school his own children attend.
I agree with The Architect. How can David Gregory sit there with a straight face and argue against armed guards at schools when his OWN CHILDREN get this protection on a daily basis? Not just one armed guard, but several and additional protection from Secret Service for Obama’s children. His thinking is “good for me but not for thee”. I’m for one or two guards at each school and teachers having concealed carry permits. Would-be shooters wouldn’t know which teachers were armed and might be deterred from going to that school. I believe Illionis has the strictest gun laws in the country and look at the murder rate in the Chicago area! Criminals have a way of getting guns, laws or no laws. I wish the American people would get just as outraged at these senseless killings in large urban areas at they do about the school killings. It’s because people like David Gregory doesn’t want light to shine on these killings because many many killings continue even though they have strict gun laws in place!!!!!!
It isn’t unreasonable to speculate that if there was an armed guard at Sandy Hook, and that lunatic nutjob was aware of that fact, it could have been enough of a deterrent that he would have decided not to make the attack. Knowing that the school was a “gun-free zone” may well have played a large part in his decision to attack. We may never know but it is something to consider…
I remind you that he shot himself.
Yes he did kill himself, but I like to call that Nazi high command syndrome. The Nazis never gave a thought that they would lose that war so when they saw they would they realized there was no other recourse but suicide. I think this kid came to the conclusion that no matter how many people he killed, he would have to answer to the world for it.
He shot himself when he was confronted by armed police.
I don’t think that was the reason.
I think he killed his mother in a rage (he was mentally ill and she was trying to have him committed).
I think he was going to kill himself from the moment he killed his mother, but while he was in his rage he killed those children, which he saw as being more important to his mother than he was.
The very fact that he was so fixated on his mother makes it seem to me that he couldn’t live without her anyway.
Which means it is NOT a gun problem but a mental health problem. Geez. For Pete’s sake grow up. This is real life we are talking about; we are not in your professor’s classroom waxing left-wing utopian fantasy. He was going to kill with whatever he could find if not a gun.
Disarming the American people will not stop nutjobs or ciminals. At least my Beretta gives me a chance.
Well it’s a gun problem in that if he didn’t have access to a gun then there would not have been a problem.
Joshua, if Drunks didn’t have access to cars, thousands of people wouldn’t die because of drunk drivers each year. Shall we ban all cars too?
If we didn’t have cameras or video cameras, we wouldn’t have pornography, or child pornography. Shall we deny access to these “instruments of evil” by taking all cameras away from everyone? Should we include paint and paint brushes in there also so they can’t PAINT pornography?
Actually, since so many “evil acts” such as child porn, hacking, theft and numerous others have all been planned and or committed ON the Internet, maybe we should just ban computers?
And since Timothy McViegh used fertilizer to blow up that building in Oklahoma, we should ban…
No, that’s just silly!
Did you know that we have controls on that kind of fertilizer precisely because it can be used for explosives.
A farmer can only buy as much as he needs for a single crop and he has to document how much acreage he has and it all gets reported to the government.
“Well it’s a gun problem in that if he didn’t have access to a gun then there would not have been a problem.”
Horsecrap.
You can kill more people with a gallon of gasoline than you can with a 100 rounds of ammo, and not a single grain of fertilizer is involved..
Look up the term “FAE”…
Moron.
Sholar say: “A farmer can only buy as much as he needs for a single crop and he has to document how much acreage he has and it all gets reported to the government.”
Great, JS. So let’s allow the government to put a maximum number on how many guns private citizens and collectors can own. How does five-thousand sound to you?
In casinos there are lots and lots of security officers who carry weapons. Oh ya, that’s because we value money.
Yep, M#rk, and all those armed soldiers, sailors, marines, pilots, ships, planes, drones, and missles are because we value freedom and sovereignty. Why even our President who sports a peace prize is a stone-cold drone killer.
Just remove the gun-free signs and let it be known that the security personnel could be armed. The children never have to see the weapons which could be kept “under the table” so to speak while they are out and about. However, children see armed cops out in public all the time and we don’t get upset about it. So, why this should be an issue, I don’t know.
I humbly suggest to my fellow Conservatives stop arguing the details of policy (gun control, climate change, economics, etc.) when the issue in D.C. is power and forcing legislation through the system. Why do you think decades of “correcting the record” on gun issues hasn’t changed the efforts of “liberals?”
I humbly suggest we agitate for legislation instead of explaining why “liberal” legislation should be stopped or won’t make things better. We should always be pushing for laws that make it easier and more convenient for CCW in more places. If we always play defense and we always critique “liberal” efforts we, at best, keep things from getting worse. We never, following our current strategy, make things better.
Interesting how no so-called conservative here gives a damn how much a big government program to put guards in every school is going to cost. Also to get back to the second amendment I haven’t yet heard a gun nut explain why a law making it very very hard to purchase a semiautomatic infringes on this inalienable right but the existing law which makes it very very hard to own a fully automatic does not. if purpose of 2nd amendment is to make government tyranny over individuAls impossible, and the government HAS fully automatic weapons, isn’t that what private citizens would need to have too? Why aren’t people saying we need to make it just as easy to get a machine gun?
You can shift resources from revenue collection aka giving tickets to provide increased security in the schools without spend a single dollar more.
You make some decent, if ill-informed points. I will attempt to answer them:
Guns are almost all semi-automatic these days. You could make an argument that a double-action revolver is semi-automatic, in that it spins the cylinder and cocks itself each time you fire it, but even if you restrict yourself to the definition generally used, this would outlaw well more than half of all guns in the country. Some people have collections that are pretty large. If you simply outlaw the manufacture and sale of such guns, you’ve got the difficulty of there being so many in the country already…anything else and we’re approaching the specter of the police going door to door trying to disarm the populace. Can you seriously argue that is going to go well, or even non-violently?
You’re right, though, more or less, about automatic weapons. The original law which restricted their manufacture and sale, and the susbsequent laws which restricted their manufacture for civilian purchase after the mid-80s, are infringements on your Constitutional Rights. Hell, back in the day some rich guys owned artillery. It would be used to scare the local Indians once in awhile, or maybe fired at the British, or later the Yankees, in this or that war, but for the most part it sat on the front lawn and was mostly an ornament. Thing is, weapons got more lethal than they were when the Constitution was written, and rather than propose an amendment fixing the shortcomings of the original document, everyone decided to just ignore that part, because it was easier.
By the way, it’s worth mentioning that when the law restricting automatic weapons was passed, it grandfathered in all the existing weapons in civilian hands. You have to have a permit, and live in a State which doesn’t ban them (about a dozen Democratic strongholds do) and they’re very very expensive. Typically they’re north of $10,000 each, plus of course the ammo. In the ca. 30 years since, there has been exactly one incident involving such a weapon, and the shooter in that case was reportedly a cop who went nuts. Since cops often have better access to guns, he might even have owned the thing if the law wasn’t in place.
What no one on the left, the anti-gun crowd, can explain is why banning guns is a good idea. Nuts, criminals, and so forth will always be able to get things that are illegal, even if they have to be smuggled into the country. If it weren’t so this country wouldn’t have a cocaine and heroin problem. The idea that we could ban firearms, and make them any scarcer than dangerous narcotics is laughable. The problem would still be there…but the populace would be less able to protect itself, and more dependant on government for protection…which is of course the point.
As to who’s going to pay to put armed guards at every school, you make a decent point. The problem is that schoolteachers right now are typically prohibited from carrying a gun on school grounds, even if they are licensed to carry elsewhere. Anyone else, dropping off their child for instance, is also prohibited from being armed. The only people who can carry a gun at a school is the nut who’s going to ignore the sign saying “Gun Free Zone” because he’s there to kill as many kids as possible before the cops arrive.
You say that “gun nuts” can’t explain these things to you (btw, I don’t personally own a gun, though I’ll admit to thinking about buying one recently) but there’s one thing that no liberal gun control advocate has been able to explain, to me or anyone else. If guns are so dangerous that they shouldn’t be near our children, then why are the President’s daughters escorted to school by a Secret Service detail, armed of course? The answer will presumably be that Sasha and Malia are in more danger, by virtue of who their father is, but that can easily be answered: no President’s family has ever been attacked (as far as I know anyway) while our schools, full of non-important people’s children, get attacked regularly.
Bans on “assault weapons” don’t work, demonstrably. Columbine happened right in the middle of the last one, and the Bushmaster this Lanza scum used to kill the kids in Newtown wouldn’t have been covered by it, if it had been in force (or so I’ve read) and even if it had, a gun can be reloaded, regardless of the size of the magazine. If you restrict magazines to a certain size, then someone can just bring a bunch of revolvers, and shoot them–Civil War partisans used to carry as many as 6 6-shooters; nowadays some revolvers hold more than 6 shots. Trying to keep this sort of thing from happening by keeping people from protecting themselves is futile, with the added disadvantage of being unconstitutional and unfair to individuals in general.
Markus, do you have a “Gun Free Zone” sign on your front door? Please get one. People might think you are “one of them gun nuts”. Also, should you have a daughter that lives alone please be sure that she never considers taking NRA training and becoming a responsible gun owner so that she can, if necessary, protect herself. Better that she be robbed and/or raped than hanging out with “gun nuts”! Please be sure to let us know when your “Gun Free Zone” sign goes up. We know that you really want the world to know that you are unarmed. Good luck, Markus. Oh, and please quit hiding behind those of us who are responsible gun owners. Nuts to you, Markus.
You don’t need a giant federal program to have a few armed teachers and staff vetted by local police. Banks don’t. But I guess guarding banks is more important than guarding children in Markus’s moral universe. Gotta protect the 1%, screw the 99%, right Markus? Have the 1% take guns from the 99%, it’s not like the 99% have the same right as the 1% to defend themselves, right Markus?
Markus: “Interesting how no so-called conservative here gives a damn how much a big government program to put guards in every school is going to cost.”
Interesting how every librul seems to think school guards should be a Federal program or agency like the TSA. It should be a state/local activity, like, you know, teachers.
Left/liberals: What’s losing a few kids for the greater good of gun control– ban firearms “for the children”– you know?
Most places have armed cops patrolling schools already, so left/liberals should grow up and stop whining.
In terms of havign armed guards at schools–one has to look no further than the acts of those like President Obama.
You can argue with “us” but the school that the President sends his children to- -Sidewell Friends–is lookign to hire an SPO (Special Police Officer) that is at least capable of carrying a firearm.
So in addition to the 24/7 ARMED security provided to his children–and whatever 24/7 security is being provided to all the other children of privliage that attended school there. They are looking to hire EXTRA security.
So “smarter” and more “informed” people than most of us have looked at the problem and decided that MORE good guys with guns makes THIER kids SAFER. So I’d like the same protection for my kids.
Whom am I to argue with the President of the USA?
So the liberal argument now seems to be “let’s pass laws that limit the capacity of magazines to just a few rounds so that the next fiend can only kill just a few kids”. What an astounding and repugnant line of thought. Why are we leaving our schools unmonitored and unprotected to the extent that anyone can enter without fear of being challenged and met with force if necessary? It should be immaterial as to whether one is able to roam the halls of a school while in possession of a weapon or on a pogo stick. So the NRA advocates for the stoppage of uninvited school entry and they are “nuts” while the liberal David Gregory advocates for lowering the bag limit via legislation and he is considered the sane thinker. Unbelievable!
The Left uses murdered schoolchildren the same way Muslims use live ones: Human Shields.
Jihadis use live ones to hide from bullets and the Left uses dead ones to hide their agenda.
Which is more despicable?
People seem to have forgotten about the Rodney King riots: http://www.seraphicpress.com/jew-without-a-gun/
We don’t necessarily have to have full time guards in schools. We just have to stop advertising them as gun free zones. We can arm teachers with tasers if you somehow think they will go nuts and shoot the students.
How do we protect the President? With armed guards. Why do we think that anything less will protect our children. The first thing Adam Lanza did was kill his mother. Please explain what law you plan to pass that he would have obeyed. Somehow, criminals always seem to be armed. People like you want to disarm the law abiding citizens and turn them into victims.
Being that most teachers employed in urban and suburban school districts today are at the minimum “liberal/socialist” and a large percentage are full blown Communists (although they will deny this) I myself would prefer to arm the students instead.
I have more faith in my children to act and react properly in any given situation than the ninny prog at the head of the class.
Arming guards in schools is not something conducive to the left’s war on children. Get rid of them in the womb with chemicals or whatever, stick scissors in the base of their skulls and suck their brains out on their birthday… leave them to the mercy of the mentally ill who get their hands on guns. It all works for the left and their war on children.
Ask the left to actually do something to protect life… no way will that fly.
No one seems to bring this up, but how far would OWS zombies, or even union thugs have gone if Americans were disarmed? It’s not just the government we have to protect ourselves from.
Amazing that someone with the last name “Scholar” could be so stupid. Have a Merry Christmas.
To brighten up his Christmas send him a neon sign for his yard that says “This is a gun free zone!” along with a Tee shirt that he can proudly display that he is not armed with a gun, Merry Christmas indeed!
Armed guards in schools, like allowing school staff to be armed, has a big drawback to the left–it will reduce the number of victims. The left loves their victims and the crisis that accompanies them; it makes it easier to further their agenda.
I suppose we should be happy that the Left, so far at least, hasn’t manufactured these atrocities.
Gun-free School Zones Act was passed in 1990 by Bush Sr. administration.
You are all (repubs and dems alike)are using children as lighting rod for mass murdering wackos.
Who you calling “you all” you ass.
“Read my lips” isn’t exactly on the list of even good GOP presidents.
And I should point out, “Poppy” is of the same stripe as the man we just nominated–guy by the name of Romney, he might be remembered here.
A liberal establishment guy, don’t so much as tap the apple cart, big government type.
I have yet to see any of the Romniacs here make any case for the notion we should in 2016 just do the same thing harder. Next time around, I suggest Gingrich or someone else who’s got some kind of record for rolling back the size and scope of government. We can’t do worse than than continuing to do the same losing thing.
I did push the button for Romney, I did push the button for McCain.
If you really want me to vote for the GOP nominee next time, you’d damn well better have someone at the head of the ticket I think will make actual progress in the correct direction, or I won’t.
And yes, Romney prototyped Obamacare and never disavowed his mistake. He should never have been nominated.
When will I see the mea culpas here about that?
Making CCW permit a required credential to teach and posting signs that read “All Teachers Have CCW Permits and May Be Armed” would possibly work better than “Gun Free Zones”.
did i just hear someone argue that we no longer need fear the rise of a despot in this country? here we go again.
how do you think those thousands of fast & furious guns ‘walked’ across the border into mexican mass murderer’s hands? this u.s. progressive administration told gun dealers at certain gun shops along the border to stand down, break the laws, and sell them to known mexican drug cartel murderers. who do you think was able to convince known drug cartel murderers to cross the border and illegally purchase these weapons w/o a worry? yeah, good question. who do you think paid for all these weapons? taxpayers stimulus (shovel ready) funds. who tried like he!! to keep all this under wraps for over a year? your own left wing media still refuses to cover the truth about it (like benghazi). who refuses to this day to let anybody involved testify about all this (like benghazi)? yeah, that’s right. your president again. who felt the need to claim executive privilege to protect all his criminal handiwork and involvement in the deaths of hundreds, if not by now thousands of people, including children?
yeah, you know – mr. transparency himself. you know, the one progressives want Americans to trust not to become a despot. oops, too late.
yeah, and then let’s trust this same ‘honest abe’ to find a solution to the problem of protecting our children from mass murderers. bizarroworld.
Shhhh…Quiet with all the white noise and smoke and mirrors statistics.
It’s not about this stat or that stat.
There are more good people than bad people on the earth.
It’s as simple as, if just one of the teachers (good person) who made 1st contact with Lanza immediatley after he shot his way into the schools glass doors, was carrying a legal side arm that they’ve had basic training on, they would have emptied their magazine into him (bad person) before he made it to the class rooms.
http://mobile.wnd.com/2012/12/is-this-the-real-reason-behind-sandy-hook/
“There are more good people than bad people on the earth.”
To the tune of around 20 to 1. Somehow, for the gun-grabbers, it’s the 20 who are the problem.
Makes it reasonable to think it’s never really about the guns, it’s about controlling that 20.
Before I make my next point I want to be clear that I haven’t taken a position on guards in schools at all, I’ve just made an argument about the meaning of the 2nd amendment and about whether it applies to our modern society. My feeling about guards? Possible, would make little difference, but sorta why not? And as long as we’re significantly raising the cost of schools how about if we hired more teachers? Also I would rather that people with guns be well and constantly trained to use guns… Not sure that teachers are the best candidates for that, they have OTHER work to do, lots of it. And they’re not all physically fit nor all mentally ready for fighting.
My current point? That there’s a lot of crazy, paranoia, fear, and hysteria popping up in this comment section:
plenty of etc. could be put here.
You first talk about all the money we’re going to have spend to put an armed guard, or guards, into a school saying we should instead hire more teachers then you promptly say we shouldn’t arm teachers.
If we hired teachers, trained them, as well as some of those already teaching, in the use of handguns and allowed them to carry a gun on school grounds, we wouldn’t have to hire any guards to protect our kids.
Teachers are the ideal person to arm here. Guards may come and go. If you only have one armed guard in a school, he may call in sick and your school may be unprotected. If we arm a number of teachers in a school, they’re always there. Even if one calls in sick, you have three or four others on the job.
And then the school system may go with the lowest bidder. You don’t want 7 or 8 dollar an hour security officers. You want higher end people with above average firearms training and skills. So you are going to have to pay them more to get the kind of protection needed.
I also believe that there are plenty of teachers who are experienced with firearms, capable, and willing to assume the role or school protector.
In the first place, we need good teachers, not more teachers. We spend more money on education in this country than any other developed country in the world and yet we rank 25th in Math and 17th in Science.
In the second place, what would be the harm in having an armed and trained security guard or two patrolling the corridors and checking the exterior doors. If they had one at Sandy Hook the shooter might not have gotten into the school in the first place. And also what is the harm in having those teachers who are of a mind to have concealed carry? I notice that all the most vocal political and media proponants of yet even more gun control send their children to schools that already have armed security. Obama’s kids go to Sidwell Friends which has armed security guards in additon to their own personal Secret Service protection. David Gregory’s kids go to the same school. Rosie O’Donnell rants about taking guns away from citizens and has hired armed body guards to protect herself and her adopted children everywhere she goes. Feinstein and Boxer are threatening to introduce more legislation to ban guns and both of them carry concealed weapons. But I guess that is along the same idea as them not having to rely on Obamacare even though they are cramming down our collective throats. God, how I absolutely hate hypocrites!
I would be willing to bet if you took the inner city blacks and hispanics out of the stats that the US is number 1 or 2 in the world.
If you want to see some really crazy sxxt passing for commentary, you must go visit Daily Kos, Talking Points Memo, or the Muffington Post. Wow!
LaPierre: “We have no national database of these lunatics.”
So the NRA doesn’t want to register guns, but it wants the Federal Government to have a national database of *American citizens*, the vast majority of whom have as yet hurt no one or committed any crimes. A database whose entrants are automatically listed as mentally ill, in total violation of medical privacy.
NO THANK YOU.
Let’s not defend the Second Amendment by trashing any other part of the Bill of Rights.
One more point:
Mr. LaPierre is unaware of the possibility that Wikileaks or some other unscrupulous hackers could break into that database of mentally ill Americans and put all those millions of names out on the Internet. Their careers, their lives would be ruined.
The NRA doesn’t help its cause with ridiculous proposals like this.
sinz54 can’t help but necro out his old debunked points over and over again.
I think Mr. LaPierre’s solution, delivered with such compassionate language, for a database on the mentally ill–since it will probably be pretty encompassing, and especially given the psychological community’s preference to seemingly make everyone not behaving as the prim 14-year old girl they used to be as deviant– would be helped if we put a tattoo on their heads, or made them wear a star on their clothes, or something. I mean, if we are going to “unperson” people, let’s do it right.
This list in fact would be leaked. When has the TSA “No-Fly” list ever been wrong? When have concealed carry records ever been made public by a newspaper?
You don’t need a database. We could do what they do in Israel. When you go to purchase a gun you need to bring a form signed by a doctor which includes questions about mental illness. Anyone with certain conditions would not be able to purchase a gun.
It would not be perfect but would keep a lot of the lunatics from buying a gun.
Criminals, by definition, have no respect for the law. Passing more regulations on the sale of guns will only work on those citizens who obey the law anyway. Criminals will get them illegally, thats why they are called “Criminals”! And Julian Asange is a criminal and he belongs in jail. He has broken the law in not only this country, but others. If the media would stop portraying him as a hero and started making the same effort to show him for what he is, the chances of him publishing all those names on the internet would be drastically reduced.
True. Consider the guy in NY who the other day set fire to a house and then killed two firefighters when they responded. He was a convicted felon and was not allowed to have guns. The law did not stop him.
Or consider a friend of my brother’s who engaged in a gun battle with a burgler. The 17 times felon had stolen two handguns from other houses in the neighborhood that same night. By the way, the homeowner won the gunfight despite being armed with only a .22 single shot rifle, but lost his house when the criminal sued him due to the injuries he received.
“Mr. LaPierre is unaware of the possibility that Wikileaks or some other unscrupulous hackers could break into that database of mentally ill Americans and put all those millions of names out on the Internet”
This is already true for anyone already committed, are you suggesting their records should be destroyed to prevent this, that we should stop involuntary commitment altogether because it might embarrass people, or what? Additionally there is no need for such a database on the interface side where people are checking for eligibility to purchase a firearms, for the database to identify why a person is ineligible for a firearms purchase–maybe they once beat up on anyone who didn’t agree the ineligible person was really Ramses III, maybe they have far too many unpaid parking tickets, the number amounting to a felony, maybe they robbed a convenience store at age 19, and have been clean since but have not had there civil rights restored.
Maybe Sin54 is unable to wrap his head around any idea that doesn’t satisfy his neurosis. The hoplophobia is strong in that one.
“Maybe Sin54 is unable to wrap his head around any idea that doesn’t satisfy his neurosis”
That is an absolute cheap shot.
The stupid is strong in that one (Sin54) as well. There already exists a database containing everyone who has had their 2nd Amendment rights restricted. Expanding that database to include potentially violent mentally ill would be a simple step. That step would not have stopped the atrocity in Newton, but might well have stopped AZ.
I just think it’s perfect that in a piece on how banning high capacity magazines will solve all the problems, David Gregory holds up a high capacity magazine that’s already banned in the city that he is broadcasting from.
I quit watching Meet the Press after Tim Russert died. It is a very poor, leftist show which does not shed any light on our problems. On this issue, it just stirs the political pot, the conflict on the Second Amendment. We have a basic schism in our nation. One faction, Gregory is an example, holds that the Second Amendment is wrong. They do not have the votes to repeal it so they nibble at it to render it powerless. They are not honest.
The killer in Newtown violated 4 – 6 basic gun laws, would another one have deterred his evil? The arguments on magazine size or ugly assault weapons have no meaning.
If the show wanted to contribute, and I do not believe they do, they would discuss criminal insanity. Basically no insane killer, if an adult, can be effectively stopped until they slaughter. We have systems, on paper, but they are worthless. That poor mother has no societal help, made a fatal mistake with her weapons, and paid for it with her life. The nut, a recluse, should have been in a hospital, but they no longer exist, even for the wealthy. Thus the only two people who knew the real facts are dead. Example: Autistic people are not normally violent. What was his real problem? Why was it not defined? Who screwed up? How was her guns and ammo secured? Why was there no effective intervention by this wealthy family who knew their son was sick? What resources were available to the killers at VA Tech? Columbine? The Congresswoman? What effective steps have been taken by our leaders, since each massacre?
No one holds that the Second Amendment covers demonic killers. So why does our society fail so badly? Mental health? The effects of thousands of violent killings depicted in the games with which they are mesmerized? Why the double standard in Hollywood, zero personal ethics displayed for billions in profits(infinitely bigger than the weapons industry) but zero responsibility for sick people who do what they portray? Does any American really believe that Joe Biden will have real answers next month? Washington cant even pass a budget, which is their Constitutional job.
If you seek information from Meet the Press, wait for the commercials.
My most important point: In spite of all the hell that has transpired, and will occur in the new year, I believe there is One who can help, will help. Not because we deserve it, but because He is. Merry Christmas and peace on earth.
I have no good ideal answers or magic solutions here–or if I did, my guess is they wouldn’t generate effective action anyway. Just saying. But this I believe–you can do far more bad than good by so trying to stop a few incredibly isolated incidents that you start effectively denying life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to those who have not actually done anything wrong, and whose condition you do not have apparently the first clue, the first inkling, as to cause or remedy. You might as well just start locking people up for burglaries they might be commit based upon genetics test. Humanity does get judged on the humanity it offers to those whom it does not have to, based upon strength alone.
I am against basically every ban proposal that has been made since Newtown. I believe we do not, as a general principle, deny all freedoms due to misuse by less than, say, a dozen. I used to be a member of the NRA. I stopped mainly because I get lazy about renewals sometimes. I truly thought about rejoinng in the last week–went to the website and everything–but something stayed my hand. I’m glad I paused, because I am simply not in the mood to make life-altering “Judeten” lists for those who are doing no wrong just so Wayne LaPierre and his redneck buddies can go plinking with a Bushmaster, and need political cover, and figure this is a good way to get it. And I say this as a man who would prefer a M-16 or AR-15 in the home of anyone who wants one.
You bring up an important, vital point, individual freedom. I refine mine.
In several of the massacres, it was reported that months prior to the outrage, that family, and friends, saw it coming, went to officials, and were told that nothing could legally be done, for/to an adult, until a crime was committed. We are discussing criminally insane people. How, as a society, do we listen to loved ones, proponents of a sick individual, and get them help, while recognizing their rights, to challenge and rebut this statement, you are too nuts to hold a gun? It involves the interplay of family, minister/priest/holy men, cops, doctors, and a judicial review. It is common in temporary, or permanent restraining orders, in divorce cases. But it does not work for killers. Why?
Your point is valid (and much more so than anonymous’). In CT the ACLU defeated a measure that would have allowed involuntary medication for dangerously mentally ill. How much blood is on the hands of the ACLU?
The left is fond of saying “if it would save just one life….” Yet when it is suggested that armed officers be put in schools, to not just save one life, but many, the left is vehemently against that idea. Heaven forbid that firearms should be show to have any kind of socially redeeming value.
Absolutely loved that LaPierre stood his ground with 100% common sense points. I know that having armed guards or police officers in schools may be uncomfortable for many, but if we find it necessary for banks to have an armed guard there to protect money why wouldn’t it be logical to have an armed guard protecting our most important and vital resource, which is our children?
Because it’s a horrible idea.
If I were a gun owner I can’t imagine how I would get the time and inclination to take off in the middle of the week and stand around guarding a bunch of grade school kids. That’ll be interesting for about a month.
As a parent I want to know who is doing the volunteering. Do gun owners want to undergo additional scrutiny when they’re trying to help out? As a proposal it’s just really half-baked wishful thinking.
“As a proposal it’s just really half-baked wishful thinking.”
So was it half-baked when Clinton proposed it?
If it weren’t for double standards leftists would have no standards at all.
Clinton? You mean the President who signed the Brady bill and the assault weapons ban?
He’s not exactly an NRA poster boy.
Whether it’s the NRA or Clinton it’s a half baked knee jerk reaction to media headlines. It’s bad enough that kids can’t play dodge ball, now they have to have armed security guards?
As another poster pointed out, NYPD has 5,000 agents and 200 officers assigned to school safety. All are allowed to use deadly force.
Armed guards aren’t always required–trained and armed school staff would be equally effective. But that suggestion would probably make your head explode.
@DRUDGE_REPORT: School Obama’s Daughters Attend Has 11 Armed Guards… http://t.co/hlLA93nH
Trained and armed school staff?
Just yesterday I was reading in the Daily Snooze about another teacher in Brooklyn who was just canned for having a lesbian affair with her student. Hurray, lets give teachers guns too!
What could possibly go wrong.
According to lefty, banks and the children of the elites are worth guarding, but the children of the 99% aren’t worth guarding.
Golly, have I really forgotten the children? Maybe you’re right. What union will represent these new armed security guards? Will teachers receive an ammo stipend with their pension?
Mr. Scholar, it would still be a problem. It would just have been delayed a bit.
This argument by Wayne LaPierre is just too logical for the “Cloward-Piven/Saul Alinskyites” agenda of decimating the US Constitution, Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence.
That’s this revolutionary crowds true agenda…led by the ACLU, Democratic Socialists of America in US Congresses midst, Black Caucus, NAACP, and tattered minority groups sprinkled across these “fruited plains.”
Their agenda is four fold:1)Religion, 2) education, 3) financial system, and lastly4)goverance. Woodrow Wildon, in the 1900′s set the pace, agenda and scene for this activity which today’s New Left Progressive Activists have embraced as their “cause celebre,”i.e., total collapse of everything USA…reminder “Fiscal Cliff” anybody????HUH???? Tax and Spend until the cows come home.
Remember this New Left’s successful attack on the tobacco industry in the 1970′s? Almost drove them out of business!!! Now, today, the very same argument used against this tobacco industry (inhaling smoke is bad for all Americans), is forgotten completely when promoting “medical marijuana” and its benefits (remember, this product is inhaled).
Nah! New Left’s agenda, along with their complicit MSM and Progressive activists are all on display for their twisted reasonings and senseless proposals for decimating everything America and American.Support the NRA. Buy a weapon or make your own.
Gun Confiscation? Gun Control? Make your own.
Numerous examples of every type of fire arm possibly made by a suppressed people in all of Brazil. Make your own firing weapon, automatic, semi-automatic, single shot, buck shot, suppressed, pocket sized, extended clips with 60 rounds or more, etc.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF9CuXorkbI&feature=youtube_gdata
Or do like the Russians do:
http://sn133w.snt133.mail.live.com/default.aspx#!/mail/InboxLight.aspx?n=1470592490!n=2128753718&fid=1&fav=1&mid=31a543f0-4d55-11e2-8fe6-00215ad806e4&fv=1
Tyranny is no excuse for Americans to go unarmed. Pray. Amen.
I do not think armed police at schools are needed. Simply get rid of gun free zones and let any adult allowed to carry to well…. carry. Teachers/Janitors/Principals/Parents.
“But but..bu .bu What if one of them go nuts” stutter the non-thinkin’ class. Well, I hate to break it to them, but there is nothing to stop one if they go nuts now. Such an argument is already unreasoned to begin with.
I do think guns in classrooms need to be secured in other than a purse or holster, except when brought to and from. Each classroom should have a lockable safe for such. Principals/office should have even more powerful weapons than handguns in safes with easy availability.
If a Parent or transient visitor, authorized to be on school grounds, needs classroom access they check their iron into the office safe.
Add a community volunteer or four, properly vetted, who is armed at all times.
The cost need not be excessive. In fact there is one company already stepping up to the plate.
http://www.ignatius-piazza-front-sight.com/2012/12/14/front-sight-special-blog-when-will-we-wake-up/
One fact proven is that the only way to stop mass shootings is with armed civilians. Anders Breivek in Norway shows that an un-armed populace in an un-armed country in an un-armed collective of nations spanning most of Europe(pretty hard to get more un-armed than that) only leads to the biggest killing fields. Whereas in the USA…. we see two data points. Gun free… mass casualties, armed Citizen confronting shooter, far far less dead.
And you know what they say….. “If it saves just one Child’s Life”.
Mr. LaPierre
Of course the left realizes that this is an excellent idea. The number of police officers, armed and ready, in schools all across America demonstrates that this is an old idea that has worked. What you don’t realize is that the Left wants more atrocities like Newton. Like Islamists, they believe that any amount of death is acceptable as long as it can be twisted to further their agenda. Which is why the Left also blocks common sense initiatives that have worked in the past, such as allowing select school staffers to be armed. More atrocities=promoted agenda.
Why doesn’t he just point out that Clinton proposed this, and implemented it, after Columbine?
Is Clinton a “gun nut” also?
The NYPD has 5,000 officer dedicated to the School Safety Division. Apparently Bloomberg likes cops in schools.
Because, according to the antigunners: the banks, celebrities, ruling elites are worth guarding, but children aren’t worth guarding.
Gun control is the idea that the 1% should confiscate guns from the 99%.
Hard to do that when the fed govt is $16T in debt and 3d printers are increasingly printing out more gun parts.
Learn from history or be doomed to repeat it.
Armed good people, in excess of armed bad people, will always win.
Look to Israel for how they issue terrorist warnings to their civilian populace encouraging them to carry their side arms and be on watch for armed terrorists. Lanza was an armed terrorist bent on savage and ruthless killing of innocent, defensless women and children.
1 they would be alive if conceal carrying adults were exercising their god given right.
No gun zones by laws do not work obviously.
One full mag
One round in the chamber
Firearm on safe, on the hip.
Two back up mags ready to go.
2 somebody show me how many times in our history that a law abiding card carrying no criminal record individual with a conceal carry license just all of a sudden became a violent criminal preditor and randomly decided to kill defensless innocent women and children.
I’ve owned firearms for 4 years, no inclination to harm anyone but rather to serve and protect my family my life my beliefs, my property, and my neighbours. In not saying its never ever happened, I’m just saying that if everyone’s packing, and you have a rare case where someone does actually have a meltdown, in a crowded area there’s probably at least a few other conceal carry’s willing to take care of matters quickly.
3 also somebody on the left needs to point out balanced stats regarding how many time a gun was used to stop a murderous killing of any quantity. Funny how people only use stats to justify their opinion and stance.
I teach my kids that that is called ‘lying by omission’.
ALL the facts are nessessary in a debate.
Of course the liberal media doesn’t present these stats because it doesn’t support their left leaning narrative.
Copied and Pasted from above and bears repeating.
3 This is a story from Paul Harvey on Gun Control
Are you considering backing gun control laws? Do you think that
because you may not own a gun, the rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment
don’t matter?
CONSIDER: In 1929 the Soviet Union established gun control. From 1929
to 1953, approximately 20 million dissidents, unable to defend
themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
In 1911, Turkey established gun control. From 1915-1917, 1.5
million Armenians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and
exterminated.
Germany established gun control in 1938 and from 1938 to 1945, 13
million Jews. gypsies, homosexuals, the mentally ill, and others who
were unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
China established gun control in 1935. From 1948 to 1952, 20 million
political dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up
and exterminated.
Guatemala established gun control in 1970. From 1971 to 1979, 300,000
Christians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
Cambodia established gun control in 1956. From 1975 to 1977, one
million “uneducated” people, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up
and exterminated.
That places total victims who lost their lives because of gun control at
approximately 56 million in the last century. Since we should learn from
the mistakes of history, the next time someone talks in favor of gun
control, find out which group of citizens they wish to have exterminated.”
Now, I know the easiest comeback from people like you when confronted with these inconvenient facts is “Well, it can’t happen here.” And I ask you, why not? The people in our government are just people, the same as the ones who did those heinous acts listed above, and just like those people listed above, I’m sure they’ll do what they do “for the greater good.” In fact, we hear a lot from the left about the good of the collective these days which is very much “for the greater good,” so don’t tell us that the 2nd Amendment is unecessary. It is one of those checks and balances that were loaded heavily into our COTUS to keep the government in its cage, and no matter what you might think, humans are still human and still subject to the same failings as they were in the days of the Founders.
I am all for removing carry restrictions for schools and so allow the schools themselves to provide armed security. I am also totally against this security being provided by the government in any way shape or for.
For those few here who think the 2nd Amendment is outdated. Do you really think mankind has come so far in the past 100 years that government perpetrated genocide is no longer possible? Such fools have usually been among the first to be eliminated.
Uh ohhhh.
We’d better ban Geely Sedans and Kitchen Knives.
Or…. Maybe not.
It’s not the tools, it’s the person. Bad people will always find a way to murder if their heart desires it, they will find a way regardless of banning the weapon of choice. Are we to ban pens and pencils? I’m sure someone has used these tools to murder before! Are they now called “Assault Pens and Pencils”? Come on!!!! Give your head a serious shake.
@DRUDGE_REPORT: Man distraught over daughter’s murder mows down 23 middle-school students… http://t.co/2KKIEg47
I live in Tampa about 100 yards from a school. We’ve always had armed police on campus and for good reason. A couple of years ago, the principal or some officer of the school was arrested in his office for selling drugs. The school’s largely white minority. If you ax me, something’s not fair.