Guns In School
I have already talked about the shooting in Newtown Connecticut with a bit of depth, This is a follow-up to that article and the repercussions that are taking place across the country because of that shooting. The news has been filled since last Friday with talks about the shooting in Connecticut. Since then their have been 5 more shootings across the US on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Amongst these shootings is one at a mall, stopped by a man with a concealed carry permit, sadly not before at least 1 person died. Another incident was at a church outside of Atlanta Georgia. One took place in a hospital in Birmingham Alabama. The death toll in the last week from gun violence is now more than 35 lives taken.
In response to this rising rate of shootings and attempted shootings Oklahoma and several other states are considering legislation that would require school teachers to be armed by their respective school systems. Many of you after reading that are probably jumping for joy. But keep in mind that most of these states, including Oklahoma, have just taken away the teachers right to unionize. The thought of arming a group of already aggravated and underpaid teachers with deadly force doesn’t seem like a smart idea to me. Many of these teachers are already at their breaking points with long hours, little pay, and even less respect. Teachers have one of the most stressful jobs on the planet. Oklahoma’s teachers don’t think this bill would be a wonderful idea saying “Schools can be emotional places at times. Kids can get emotional. Teachers can get emotional. Parents come in emotional. Throw weapons into that mix, and it can be dangerous.” You also have an increased risk that someone will take a gun that is already in the school and start shooting, be that a student, teacher, or janitor.
The answer does not lie in arming more people, more weapons and better weapons does equate to more violence. It is more complex than that. One should also not arm someone, thus giving them the means, who already has more than enough reason to go postal. Automatic weapons and semi-automatic weapons can throw a lot of lead out in a very short amount of time. Our founding fathers never even imagined such a creation when the 2nd Amendment was ratified. I am not suggesting that the 2nd amendment be repealed, Im not saying banning guns, so don’t jump to that conclusion.
Yes, its possible to kill someone with a knife. It’s possible to kill someone with a baseball bat. It’s possible to kill someone with a rock or even your bare hands. However, in any of those situations, your lethal range is much smaller than if you have a gun. The number of people you can kill in a given time is also drastically lowered. Inversely the odds that someone will have the balls to kick your ass before you can do too much damage and successfully stop you is greatly increased. However, if you take an automatic or even semi-automatic weapon in with a fully loaded 200 round clip, there honestly won’t be much anyone can do in the hail fire of bullets. The death toll would be much higher and the odds of being stopped are minimal.
A logical way to deal with this is limited clip size for semi automatic weapons. No one needs to be able to walk around with 100-500 rounds ready to go without reloading. No one needs a fully automatic weapon. If you say you need them for hunting you are sadly mistaken, Bambi doesn’t wear Kevlar and can go down with 1 well placed shot, no need to riddle him full of lead. In addition, proper training before you can buy a gun. Extensive background checks and mental health checks. These things will help. If someone who is homicidal can’t get a gun, it will help. If the person applying or someone in the home that could potentially have access to the guns has a mental condition that could make them unstable, then they should not have a gun or access to a gun.
Im not saying guns kill people, I agree, people kill people. But people can kill people a hell of a lot faster with a fully automatic weapon with 200 rounds at the ready than with a knife, stick, or single shot pistol.
Related articles
- CNN Anchor: It Doesn’t Matter That Gun Violence is Down – Katie Pavlich (gds44.wordpress.com)
- RivCo lawmaker challenges arming teachers with guns (swrnn.com)
- Gun Rights Advocates: A Little Less Conversation A Little More Action Please (thetruthaboutguns.com)
- Proposals for gun control (arthurdobrin.wordpress.com)
- Bob Costas On Dan Patrick Show: “Why Do You Need A Semi-Automatic Weapon?” [VIDEO] (bustedcoverage.com)
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ddabney2112
Way cool! Some extremely valid points! I appreciate you penning this post plus the rest of the website is also very good.|
[...] Thoughts on Guns, Violence and the Law (allthatsevil.wordpress.com) [...]
[...] all over the US that have followed over the last 3 days have sparked a huge uptrend in talks about Gun Violence and what to do to prevent it and protect against it. While I agree that there are certain things [...]
America is the best armed country in the world: 90 guns for every 100 people. They claim it is their right to defend democracy. Yet when you look at the most democratic countries in the world (Scandinavian countries) they are the least armed countries around. If you look at the second best armed country, you will find Jemen…not exacly the safest place to be. I can’t possibly understand the ‘Amercan way’ as a European, but seems to me that every pro the NRA or other pro gun associations put forward are either dumb one liners that don’t make any scence if you would spend more than 3 seconds thinking about them or indeed arguments dating back to the time of the founding fathers, which obviously didn’t take in account modern military weapons. Why not ban these automatic assault rifles and heavy arms from the public. Make it possible to buy them only after extensive background checks and only allow people to keep them in a safe at their local gun range, but never outside of it. Nobody needs a FAL or SCAR in their houshold.