The Smallest Minority

So, are you advocating allowing guns in schools?

Yes.

Some significant snark in that video. B-)

I will only allow guns in school if they are loaded and of sufficient caliber.

Mark,

My own jumping-off point on this question is Israel's law that all teachers must be armed, and all school field trips must be accompanied by a bodyguard with an M-1 rifle.

You'll not be surprised to learn that both laws were put in place after terrorist attacks. Since the laws, there have only been a few more attacks against schools, many of which are ended by the armed teachers.

Also, not a single teacher has shot a student.

I must say that when I was there for a year, I felt very safe on a college campus where I was surrounded by armed men and women.

Another gun-free zone shooting in Missouri today.

Keep guns out of schools or someone might get hurt! oh, wait.

Uh, Bruce, not really a gun free zone in Kirkwood City Hall. Police in the building at all times as well as armed security and plain clothes detectives. This one really hits home for me as my parents were born in Kirkwood, grandparents still live there, and I have family all across St Louis. We are still waiting to see if one of our dear friends, a city council member, is alive or dead.

So, there were guns there and nothing could be done to stop it. Having people armed in schools will prevent nothing. While I think that if many people here were armed in a school would be responsible, most Americans, unlike Israelis, are fucking morons who jump at their own shadow and would probably shoot someone by accident. Simply put, I don't trust most American and I don't think you do either, Kevin, as evidenced by your writings.

Until you face the root of the problem ,which is the fear and anxiety our society purposefully creates (as well as the overuse of SSRIs which I am sure this guy was on in Ohio), guns will not prevent these rampages in the same way the death penalty doesn't prevent murder.

Mark, you are correct that nothing PREVENTS these things - at least neither an abundance or absence or gun control.

However, once an incident starts, someone responsible with a gun can stop it. Re: Kirkwood City Hall, why couldn't the city council members return fire?

Fact is, police aren't the solution either. Even if they are around, they aren't legally responsible for ensuring your safety.

So, given all, that, it remains that the best way to deal with such an incident is to allow responsible individuals to fend for themselves and others. Rather than restrict freedoms with useless firearm restrictions.

Wouldn't you agree? :-)

Btw, I disagree that fear and anxiety are the source of the problems. But that's a whole diffent conversation.

Another way to look at the Kirkwood City Hall shooting is that they guy managed to kill 5 people and severely injure another one before being shot.

But it's reasonable to suppose he'd have killed more if someone had not shoot him.

True, Fabio, and I am sad to report that our family friend, Ken Yost, the public works director, was one of the people killed.

Here is something I pulled from STL Post Dispatch

"Charles Lee "Cookie" Thornton carried a large-caliber revolver that he used to shoot and kill Kirkwood Police Sgt. William Biggs outside City Hall about 7 p.m. Thursday. Then, he grabbed Biggs' .40-caliber handgun and walked into the council chambers with both guns.

Within minutes, he had killed five people -- Biggs, Police Officer Tom Ballman, Councilwoman Connie Karr, Councilman Mike Lynch and Public Works Director Kenneth Yost -- before Kirkwood officers shot and killed Thornton.

Neither slain officer had had time to draw his weapon to fight back, police say."

Basically, no one had time to do anything..even the armed ones who were at least three in number. So, no Ach, I don't agree. You can arm all everyone in this country and we will still have problems like this until we address the problem.

We're not going to "address the problem," silly rabbit.

We're going to blame the NRA and gun owners!

From the Reuters story on the Louisiana shootings:

Mass shootings are not particularly rare in the United States, where the gun-ownership lobby is politically influential and gun control is far less strict than in many countries.

The Kirkwood City Hall incident emphasizes something that many of the instructors I have trained with over the years have said, and that is sometimes all the training and preparedness is for not. The situation will happen and there won't be a damn thing you can do about it, and sometimes this means that good guys get killed.

This does NOT mean that one should take the mentality that since sometimes S*** happens, that is no use preparing or planning for it.

Armed teachers in schools is still a good idea, even though sometimes they might not be able to do anything before tragedy strikes. Israel teaches us that it works, in a far more pervasive threat environment than we have here in the U.S., and all it would take is a changing of the laws to allow teachers with permits to carry.

But that still doesn't address the problem of why there are school shootings. Why so many now and not when I was a kid? No one was worried about then like they are now. I still say it is a combination of the fear our culture creates and SSRIs.

Kev -- I've got SayUncle beat by a couple years. ;-)

The Plan for Peace™