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[Mercury Fred]

Have you done the math on how much it would cost to attempt to remove every single firearm from every single legal and illegal person in this country? Not just in terms of financial cost, but in bloodshed also?

Worth it, no matter the cost.

 

[CrankyJay]

I've heard of somebody getting killed with a pencil before. So you're saying there's no difference between pencils and guns? This is seriously the stupidest argument out there. There's a massive distinction between something that CAN be used to kill somebody(which is almost anything) and one that was specifically designed for it.

I'm really tired of hearing this crap. THIS sort of attitude is the problem in this country. Its gun culture, plain and simple. People here are raised to think this sort of thinking is normal, when it shouldn't be.

Wow...talk about putting words in my mouth and jumping to some illogical conclusions.

 

[gutterboy44]

LOL

Neal Brennan ‏@nealbrennan
Why not have a supervising child molester in every school to ward off other child molesters? "I got this." they'll say. #NRA

 

[ericexpo]

I demand a armed guard every where, mall, school, bakery, the cleaners every where their our people we should have a guard. I think the real solution is for each person to have their own security guard that follows them around.

 

[Seanspeed]

Wow...talk about putting words in my mouth and jumping to some illogical conclusions.

You used the old 'Guns dont kill people, people do' bullshit. I dont think I said anything that didn't fit in with that. Just pointing out(or trying to) how stupid that line of thinking is.

 

[Hari Seldon]

Worth it, no matter the cost.

Lmao.

 

[Jezbollah]

..meanwhile, over in PA...

http://gawker.com/5970497/while-the...d-down-a-road-in-pennsylvania-shooting-people

 

[Account Attempt #4]

I demand a armed guard every where, mall, school, bakery, the cleaners every where their our people we should have a guard. I think the real solution is for each person to have their own security guard that follows them around.

#FREEDOM

 

[ZZMitch]

Worth it, no matter the cost.

I'd prefer not to have an armed uprising in this country. That is not the answer.

 

[WedgeX]

There have been worse ideas than the NRA's current solution.

I just can't remember them.

 

[Mammoth Jones]

Every gun owner is law-abiding until they're suddenly a criminal. Some of us are sick and tired of this country being completely reactionary, only acting after the fact.

Every driver is law-abiding until they down a fifth of vodka and drive. What do you want? Them to just assume everyone is going to be bad and what? They're still reacting only now they're reacting incorrectly because they're assuming.

There have been worse ideas than the NRA's current solution.

I just can't remember them.

I did like his point that we're willing to use armed men to protect our money....why not our kids? Don't get me wrong I still believe dealing with the drug war and mental illness will reduce gun violence across the board.

 

[Nokagi]

I demand a armed guard every where, mall, school, bakery, the cleaners every where their our people we should have a guard. I think the real solution is for each person to have their own security guard that follows them around.

Do the security guards get guards of their own?

 

[commish]

Worth it, no matter the cost.

Oh brother. And we're done here.

 

[User 100115]

You ever tried to blast a bunny with a rifle? Unless you got some mad quick-scope skills you're not going to hit shit. It's pretty much a given that most folks will need something that's fully automatic or has burst fire. And the extended clips are necessary so I can avoid re-loading when hunting.

This is an odd argument. It sounds like you can't shoot. I can't play basketball, but that doesn't mean I get to get specialized equipment with 2 foot high giant hoops so I never miss a basket.

Hunting is supposed to be a sport right? Get better at it.

 

[Mercury Fred]

I'd prefer not to have an armed uprising in this country. That is not the answer.

I'd prefer not to have daily shoot 'em ups of innocent people.

 

[Replicant]

Breaking news: NRA chief blames Hollywood, media, music, and more for culture of violence

Well, that's rich. Yeah, just blame everything else but your gun-owning obsession. I guess they just blank over the fact that people outside the US are doing more than fine without guns?

 

[RDreamer]

The 2nd Amendment isn't subject to your arbitrary view of what someone "needs".

Sure it is. Well, not him specifically, but our society in general. Obviously you cannot have any 'arm' you want. Even Scalia agrees with this. There's a line there. We decide where that is.

 

[Dead Man]

This is an odd argument. It sounds like you can't shoot. I can't play basketball, but that doesn't mean I get to get specialized equipment with 2 foot high giant hoops so I never miss a basket.

Hunting is supposed to be a sport right? Get better at it.

I have to believe he was taking the piss. That post was too ridiculous to be honest.

 

[ZZMitch]

I'd prefer not to have daily shoot 'em ups of innocent people.

Well trying to round up 280 million guns is only going to cause a lot more of that, don't you think?

 

[CrankyJay]

You used the old 'Guns dont kill people, people do' bullshit. I dont think I said anything that didn't fit in with that. Just pointing out(or trying to) how stupid that line of thinking is.

I'm not for anything that will create an imbalance between civilians and the government. Removing guns from society, even high powered ones, gives a distinct advantage to a government to do whatever the fuck it pleases.

 

[Kai Dracon]

Why is it so crazy to want to prevent crimes instead of only reacting to crimes after they've happened?

One problem with preventing crime is that it can require admitting that there's a structural problem with your society. It may require acknowledging that no, the world isn't "just the way it is, deal with it" - that it's a result of our actions and our inactions. Plus it gets into complex questions of how to balance fixing society's structural problems with preserving the more important personal freedoms.

For a lot of people, it's just too much to deal with and they want no part of it. It's easier, in a certain sense, to just believe the world is intrinsically a horrible murderous and awful place. And say put armed guards with sub machine guns at the entrance to every playground so that the children's learn rightwise how horrible and scary the world is. And grow up to perpetuate the same worldview, believing it is impossible to change anything.

In a sense, certain attitudes that feed these perspectives feel similar to blaming the poor for being poor - "he didn't work hard enough, it's his fault he's poor and was born in a ghetto". Rather than stopping and asking why there is a ghetto there in the first place. It's why the NRA is whining about movies and video games rather than issues like mental illness - because if we take (as one example) mental illness seriously then we have to begin the extremely uncomfortable process of examining just why so many people are fucked up. Because we may not like what some of the answers are.

 

[venne]

I'm not for anything that will create an imbalance between civilians and the government. Removing guns from society, even high powered ones, gives a distinct advantage to a government to do whatever the fuck it pleases.

LOL

Good luck with your 2nd amendment rifle against a predator drone.

 

[JackEtc]

There was a police officer at my high school every day by the main stairwell. I never had a problem with it, personally.

 

[CrankyJay]

LOL

Good luck with your 2nd amendment rifle against a predator drone.

You want to imbalance it even further? Okay...

 

[ZZMitch]

I'm not for anything that will create an imbalance between civilians and the government. Removing guns from society, even high powered ones, gives a distinct advantage to a government to do whatever the fuck it pleases.

Do you really think that relaxed gun ownership laws helps regulate the government? What?

It's not like every country in Europe is a police state because gun ownership laws are harsh...

 

[genjiZERO]

The idea is absurd. Simply as a matter of statistics the more guns there are in society the more likely they are to be used to kill people. It's strange to me that the pro-gun crowd wants to live in such a confrontational society that they want more people being armed. It's a slippery slope, I know, but I think their logical conclusion would be for everyone to carry a gun. Imagine that, we would live in a society that is so Hobbesian and so filled with fear and distrust that we must arm ourselves against our fellow citizens. At that point I'd wonder what the point of society actually was.

 

[Mercury Fred]

Well trying to round up 280 million guns is only going to cause a lot more of that, don't you think?

I certainly don't want anyone to get hurt, but yes I think it would be worth it in the long run. This country's relationship to guns is totally poisonous and unsustainable. So, yeah, if I had to choose between the two, I'd choose going through an uprising if it meant at the other end of it firearms were no longer available.

 

[Garrett 2U]

It is time to launch the Spy Kids initiative.

 

[Kinyou]

NRA’s Wayne LaPierre: Put ‘armed police officers’ in every school


Washington Post

This really doesn't address the problem of gun-related murders elsewhere in the nation...like the movie theater shooting in Colorado.

Obviously do movie theaters need armed guards as well.

...and bakeries...

...and bookstores...

...and libraries...

 

[Doc Holliday]

Can we have an actual debate here instead of sarcastic comments? So far only a couple folks have said ANYTHING of worth about why we shouldn't have guns in school: cost prohibitive, and risk of the protector being mentally unstable.

The fact of the matter is that we do have armed security in banks. In airports. In stadium events. In some larger shopping malls. In government buildings. Even on some college campuses.

After a lot of violence in my high school, they started posting a police officer there, who would either be out in the parking lot, or by the front doors. While there has still been outbursts of violence there, it hasn't escalated to needing squads of police, and tear gas being deployed.

Why would you not want a trained armed security patrol or police officer on elementary or high school grounds?

because it's an elementary school! call me an idealist but fuck man what kind of country do we live when we cant even have a grade schools without guns? Why can the rest of the world have schools without armed guards?

 

[RDreamer]

Obviously do movie theaters need armed guards as well.

...and bakeries...

...and bookstores...

...and libraries...

So what we need is millions and millions more cops? Sounds like a good stimulus plan to me.

 

[ZZMitch]

I certainly don't want anyone to get hurt, but yes I think it would be worth it in the long run. This country's relationship to guns is totally poisonous and unsustainable. So, yeah, if I had to choose between the two, I'd choose going through an uprising if it meant at the other end of it firearms were no longer available.

Alright. I just think that there are better ways to go about this that don't involve civil war.

 

[Kai Dracon]

I'm not for anything that will create an imbalance between civilians and the government. Removing guns from society, even high powered ones, gives a distinct advantage to a government to do whatever the fuck it pleases.

The government has cruise missiles, predator drones, assault choppers, and SEALS.

Is a militiaman with a pile of assault rifles in his basement just sucking on a placebo, when we get down to it?

 

[Bisnic]

Yeah, sure... nice solution. Until one of those armed guards happen to be one of the insane gun killers. And this time, we gave him the guns and easy opportunity!

I'm not for anything that will create an imbalance between civilians and the government. Removing guns from society, even high powered ones, gives a distinct advantage to a government to do whatever the fuck it pleases.

What do you mean by that? There is plenty of countries out there where people don't have such an easy access to guns like the USA, yet their government isn't ruling them with a tyrant leader and military force in the streets.

 

[CrankyJay]

So what we need is millions and millions more cops? Sounds like a good stimulus plan to me.

There aren't milllions and millions of schools in the US...

 

[ivysaur12]

Why don't we just put fucking turrets in every class room so no one has to operate the guns besides some guy in a back room while we're at it, NRA?

 

[Kinyou]

There aren't milllions and millions of schools in the US...

But there are millions and millions of places where mass shootings could happen

 

[Mercury Fred]

Alright. I just think that there are better ways to go about this that don't involve civil war.

I do too. That's why I'm in favor of buy backs rather than having to forcefully seize guns. But in your scenario, whether or not there would be a civil war would be at the sole discretion of gun crazies.

 

[LordCanti]

Yeah, sure... nice solution. Until one of those armed guards happen to be one of the insane gun killers. And this time, we gave him the guns and easy opportunity!

This is pretty much true of any teacher. They aren't screened going into schools, so it's not as if they couldn't do something like this if they wanted to.

There are huge problems with their "solution" but that really isn't one of them.

 

[CrankyJay]

But there are millions and millions of places where mass shootings could happen

Isn't this thread about schools?

 

[commish]

I do too. That's why I'm in favor of buy backs rather than having to forcefully seize guns. But in your scenario, whether or not there would be a civil war would be at the sole discretion of gun crazies.

Have you seriously never read a history book?

 

[ZZMitch]

I do too. That's why I'm in favor of buy backs rather than having to forcefully seize guns. But in your scenario, whether or not there would be a civil war would be at the sole discretion of gun crazies.

I also think that taking away all the guns from civilians is the wrong answer too, even if it is a mostly peaceful transition. Even in the most peaceful European societies civilians can own guns in some capacity. They have uses such as for hunting. I do think that if a civilan wants to use a gun for recreation (eg shooting targets) than guns for that purpose should stay and be locked up at the firing range and not brought back home.

 

[Sobriquet]

"A dozen more killers, a hundred more? How can we possibly even guess how many, given our nation's refusal to create an active national database of the mentally ill?"

WTF

 

[rac]

But there are millions and millions of places where mass shootings could happen

But kids are only in schools, always.

 

[CrankyJay]

I do too. That's why I'm in favor of buy backs rather than having to forcefully seize guns. But in your scenario, whether or not there would be a civil war would be at the sole discretion of gun crazies.

The only people selling their guns back are people who most likely don't want or need the weapons...how many of those people do you think are violent criminals?

 

[RDreamer]

There aren't milllions and millions of schools in the US...

He said schools, movie theaters, bookstores, etc. and some of these are large and will need more than just one, two, or even 3 cops.

 

[Flo_Evans]

I thought the gun owners where paranoid?

Now you think teachers are going to shoot up the school? What was stoping crazy teachers from doing this before?

 

[Mammoth Jones]

Sure it is. Well, not him specifically, but our society in general. Obviously you cannot have any 'arm' you want. Even Scalia agrees with this. There's a line there. We decide where that is.

Which is exactly what I was referring to. Problem is those with an anti-gun agenda want to continue to move the line. Just look at the arguments used. All this is despite the fact that pistols are where the crime is coming from. And no one addresses that point. I've said it at least 50 times since we've been talking gun crime on GAF. All I get is "B-But we have to start somewhere!"

Pistols is where the gun crime is coming from.

 

[CrankyJay]

He said schools, movie theaters, bookstores, etc. and some of these are large and will need more than just one, two, or even 3 cops.

Alright, that's dumb then.

 

[Mercury Fred]

I also think that taking away all the guns from civilians is the wrong answer too, even if it is a mostly peaceful transition. Even in the most peaceful European societies civilians can own guns in some capacity. They have uses such as for hunting. I do think that if a civilan wants to use a gun for recreation (eg shooting targets) than guns for that purpose should stay and be locked up at the firing range and not brought back home.

Well, we've proven over and over again that, as a society, we're violent, short tempered children who obviously can't handle the responsibility of access to firearms. They need to go. All of 'em.