You have lax gun laws and a gun culture, then y ou get mad psycho's shooting places up. Sort it out America, stamp this kind of crap out!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5404144.stm

The White House has said it plans to host a conference on gun-related violence in schools on Tuesday following the bloodshed. The White House is listening to you, Barmy. I expect everything will be sorted out soon. They're hosting a conference about it, after all. Well, planning to host one anyway.

theyll host it, but they wont do anything

Barmy, Presidential Advisor. What a job! :D

Barmy, Presidential Advisor. What a job! I feel safer already! :D

I'm glad you find the murder and rape of innocent young girls so risible, personally it makes me sick to the stomach, but hey, we're all different...

Barmy Army does have a point. The man's own family, and the families of the girls who were killed, are all in incredible shock and grief over the whole thing so shortly after the fact.

This is the Alley of Dangerous Angles guys, lets post like it shall we? Especially over something like this.

It'll never happen, America will never take out the right to bear arms or arm bears or whatever in the constitution because too many people would oppose it due to it being 'unconstitutional'... whatever that means but it's reason enough to not change the constitution.

Till they do sort this mess out they should get used to holding funerals for children gunned down at schools, or make schools into forts... So three choices and I bet they'll take the 'fort' option.

It'll never happen, America will never take out the right to bear arms or arm bears or whatever in the constitution because too many people would oppose it due to it being 'unconstitutional'... whatever that means but it's reason enough to not change the constitution. Not quite. People oppose changing the laws because it's unconstitutional, and oppose changing the Constitution because...well, just because.

And apparently your 'fort' cynicism is well-founded. I just heard on one of those "Tonight at six" prenews things that someone's proposed making it legal for the teachers to carry guns in schools. Yeah, that's a great idea. :rolleyes:

if i remember correctly, its not constitutional for any american to bare arms.

the amendment states something along the lines of "it is the right bare arms as part of an organised malitia"

Well, I guess they would be right to call it unconstitutional, as it is part of the 2nd Amendment. "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." From my understanding it was as a reaction after the British attempted to disarm the colonialists during the American Revolution. The exact meaning can be debated. Does it refer to individuals rights to own weapons, or does it refer to the states rights to form an armed milita? Just reading through the wikipedia article on the 2nd Amendment, it says that a court has ruled (back in 1840 (Aymette v. State), that the phrasing 'to bear arms' was refering to a military sense.

They are starting to ban the Harry Potter books in schools over there though. I guess that will go a long way to fix things.................

bare armsYep, and no ankles can show either!

No, but seriously, the contstitution doesn't say that civilians can have arms unless they are part of a standing militia. But no government would dare change the law because the NRA is one of the biggest lobbyists there is. Would you stop taking bribes to change a law that would save even a few lives? If you're humane, yes, but if you're human, no. Or rather, if you're a corrupt person in power, no way in hell.

We need stricter laws on guns and ammunition (Chris Rock's theory is a good one - make every bullet cost five thousand dollars. Then no one would shoot anybody :D ). Make guns only legal for hunting, and the tests to get permits for either extremely challenging. Both mental and physical tests should be made. Ban the selling of most handguns and semi-auto or fully automatic weapons.

It would probably reduce at least some violence.

And to help prove Barmy's Point:

Comparison of U.S. gun homicides to other industrialized countries:
In 1998 (the most recent year for which this data has been compiled), handguns murdered:


373 people in Germany
151 people in Canada
57 people in Australia
19 people in Japan
54 people in England and Wales, and
11,789 people in the United States
(*Please note that these 1998 numbers account only for HOMICIDES, and do not include suicides, which comprise and even greater number of gun deaths, or unintentional shootings).
Yeah, thats 1998, but in 2003, there were 11,920 homicides, more than in 1998. And there were 30,136 gun deaths total.

Source: http://www.ichv.org/Statistics.htm

Note: There are other sources, but this had a pretty well put together list. The same information about the 2003 deaths can be found at the NRA website: http://www.vpc.org/nrainfo/phil.html

It is truly sad. Today we got a notice from Little Snook's school that they are going to practice "lock down" drills. To me that seems like the stupidest thing in the world. If they had any brains and courage the policy should change that all teachers should be armed.

I may be misinformed, but these types of things always seem to happen in "gun fearing" parts of the country. You never hear about it in Texas.

As an aside, I don't believe it is fair to blame the actions of these sickos on the guns themselves. The case in PA involves a pedophile, not a gun-nut.

Yeah, but he could have ended as just a pedophile, not a pedophilic murderer. If he couldn't have access to guns, it would have been more difficult for him to do what he did. Although, reading about it, he seemed pretty obsessed with his actions, and I think he would have found a way no matter what.

But perhaps if he had tried to get guns and there was a gun-awareness program (anyone without a license trying to buy a gun is tagged and tracked)...

the policy should change that all teachers should be armed. You've GOT to be joking, surely.

Sadly, I doubt that he is joking. (There's a bigger issue here regarding weaponry escalation, but that's probably better left for another topic.)

Making teachers carry guns has got to be the craziest idea I have EVER heard on these Boards. And there have been some crazy ideas spouted here over the years. There's no way in this galaxy that I would ever send my children to a school where the teachers were armed.

Use common sense here. How many nutcase teachers have you met? I've met far too many. If we allow teachers to have guns in schools we will have far more dead children and teachers.

If the cities want to spend additional funds on police, put a police officer or two in every school. Have those police officers trained in securing a school (lockdown). That is much safer than teachers with guns.

I'm afraid we will have a knee jerk reaction to a horrific event followed by a psycho copycat. The real solution is to reduce the number of guns available, not put them in the schools (unfortunately the former will never happen).

I'm with Snook, except for the armed teachers.

The gun did not kill these kids it was the psycho who killed the kids. Yes, the gun made it easier, but how hard would it be to acquire a gun if they were outlawed...I would be willing to bet not very. If I'm not mistaken, fully automatic rifles are illegal but they seem to pop up from time to time in the hands of some idiot or another. Instead of armed teachers there should be armed guards on the payroll of every school. I had them at my highschool 15 years ago, I'm surprised that it is not more common now.

It's unrealistic to think that guns will ever be banned here in the U.S.

I'm with Snook, except for the armed teachers. Umm, that would actually make you against Snook.

Making teachers carry guns has got to be the craziest idea I have EVER heard on these Boards. You need to pay more attention to the extremist gun-lobby nutjobs so prevalent in the US (I'm not saying that any of those lobbyists are SP'ers). Thank goodness for more reasonable people like T2Bruno.

[ October 05, 2006, 04:37: Message edited by: Splunge ]

First of all, yes I was being slightly sarcastic. There is no way they should arm everyone, however I see no problem with people who are familar with guns having them for their own protection and the protection of their fellow teachers and students.

I also resent the opinion that gun lobby people are nutjobs. They are just like everyone else. They just happen to believe that relying on others for their own protection is foolishness. If someone is in danger, expecting the authorities to bail them out is never going to happen. I completely understand how people feel the need to protect themselves, and I respect them for it.

I hate to say it, but schools are a natural target for people who want to commit violence. They are full of children who pose little or no threat to an adult and the adults in the school tend to be female (in my son's elementary school the only two males were a janitor and one teacher).

For the record I do not own a gun, have never owned a gun, and never plan to own a gun. That being said I am a firm believer that the second amendment was a wise choice by the founding fathers. A people who are unwilling to protect themselves are a people who are willing to be controlled. If you look at the history of massacres and genocide, the first step is always to disarm the people you want to kill. I'm not saying that our government wants to kill us (if they did they would have come for the liberals, who are unarmed, a long time ago :) ), but it is a very important safeguard.

well i don't see them removing the right to have guns doing any good in the short term at least. It is far too easy to get guns right now, and how would the get all the guns that people already own? and hunting would be difficult too.

With the amount of people in this country that have guns, licsenced or not, it would be damn near impossible to effectively enforce that.

The only thing I could see them doing is cracking down on unliscensed guns and then make the people who get guns go through a stricter liscensing process.

i.e any mental problems=no gun.

@ nuns yes auto's are fairly easy to obtain. I can honestly say that if i really wanted one i could get it in probably 30 minutes if i had the money.

I can accept that the USA treats its constitutional rights very preciously and is unlikely to change its gun worship policies in any way.

Bottom line is that I am very happy that I live in a country where people seem to be completely unfazed by not having an undeniable right to have a gun.

But, given that the American situation is what it is, I am sure that arming teachers is not the answer. If schools are seen as being such an insecure place then maybe having reliable armed guards might be the preferred option.

If schools are seen as being such an insecure place then maybe having reliable armed guards might be the preferred option. Armed guards who are professional security personell are far better than giving teachers guns and most probably some half-arsed firearms useage training.

Better to have specialists with guns than educators with guns. But even then all one has to do is kill the guards and a person determined to go on a killing spree won't hesitate to remove the obstacles in his path.

The answer to this is properly trained and equipped security and the equipment to keep this in line. Make it a criminal offence for anyone other than police and security to have a firearm on school property. Have checkpoints with metal detectors at every entrance. If they aren't students, then find out why they are there. I'd even go one further and have drug dogs there to catch drug dealers too. It's about protecting our children and giving them a chance to learn...

Why would you need police on school property? I thought the metal detectors were OTT.

Here is something that disturbed me. Why do some Americans (civillians) want automatic weapons? If you really want to use such weapons, then join the military!

In the US, do you need a background check before you can purchase arms? In N.Ireland we need permission from our local police before we can even think about purchasing weapons.

In theory I'm all for everyone having the right to bear arms - however, America is insane.
I'm inclined to think that in the right cultural climate everyone being able to have a gun could be very useful - a way of defending oneself in the probably quite rare occasion that such would be needed. America doesn't have this though. The solution to your problems in America seems to be 'I'll shoot it!'.

I'm thinking especially of something that happened ... a week ago now? Some kid murdered his principal because of something-or-other. Going to school and shooting people seems to be a part of American culture now...

This is revolting.

If it's between the right to bear arms and the shooting of children at school, what are they waiting for? IMO there is no excuse. Democracy can function without weapons. :rolleyes: It's not because it's a deep-rooted element of the American mentality that it is right.

As for all the metal detectors and dogs and police at school, how sad a scenario is that?

Clearly, the way to deal with this is to make the carrying of firearms (note the plural) to schools mandatory for all students and teachers alike.

What could go wrong?

At least nerds wouldn't get beat up for their lunch money anymore...

In my opinion, the only way forward is tighter control on the sale and ownership of guns.

the only reason to have a gun for self protection is if other people have guns....and guns dont kill people, people kill people. sure but they use the gun, again take away the gun and its much harder to kill a lot of people. somehow i wonder how this can be hard for some to grasp.

I also resent the opinion that gun lobby people are nutjobs I think perhaps I didn’t word my comment very well. I didn’t mean to suggest that all gun lobbyists are nutjobs, but there are fringe elements (“extremists”) that are. I can, however, see how my comment could have been misinterpreted.

If anyone outside of the U.S. wants to get an idea of how entrenched guns (and weaponry in general) are in American society, all you have to do is walk into a typical U.S. sporting goods store. In Canada, if a sporting goods store even has a gun section, it’s probably just a five foot long counter tucked away at the back of the store. In the U.S., the weapons section can take up to ¼ of the total floor space of the whole store (and no, I’m not exaggerating here). It doesn’t matter how big there store is. Imagine a 20,000 square foot store with up to 5,000 square feet dedicated to rifles, shotguns, handguns, bows, knives, bazookas (well OK, maybe not that last one) – it’s really astonishing if you’ve never witnessed that before.

I think perhaps I didn’t word my comment very well. I didn’t mean to suggest that all gun lobbyists are nutjobs, but there are fringe elements (“extremists”) that are. I can, however, see how my comment could have been misinterpreted.
You would be surprised to find out how many times the "extremists" are used to define a people. I'm as guilty as anyone.

The real problem here isn't the guns, or the accessibility to guns, it is the culture America has developed. Fifty years ago, kids still got beaten up for their lunch money and teased every day, and plenty of their parents had guns that the kids could access, but there weren't rashes of school shootings at the time. The random psycho (and I mean actually mentally unhinged) that wants to kill a lot of people will always have a tool, though some may be more effective than others, but when kids take guns to school because they get bullied or teased (and I'm not even talking about the kids that end up shooting people) we have a problem, and it's a problem with society, not the guns. I would be just as concerned over our society were these hunting knives, or kitchen knives, or bats with long nails in them.

When did it become cool to kill people? When did it become an acceptable solution to any problem? What happened to parental responsability? To teacher responsability? I'll tell you. Parental responsability went out when the teachers started raising the kids, so the parents forgot how. Teacher responsability went out when the few parents that knew how to raise their kids wanted to, or maybe when parents that didn't know how to raise their kids wanted to, but either way, teachers aren't allowed to raise our kids anymore (no complaints on that one here), but now most of the parents have forgotten how, because they never needed to know before, because they were raised by teachers more than parents themselves. That's where the problem came from, and that's why America is in such a mess now.

Thank goodness for more reasonable people like T2Bruno I think that's the only time I've ever seen my name associated with 'reasonable people'....

In my country we are starting to see similar events. One of the reasons of this is neither teachers nor parents know how to raise kids anymore here too. Children are given an infinite freedom. Their parents do everything they want. When they grow up they expect other people to obey them too. When others don't obey them they shoot others.