Another school shooting.

[dalesql]

Information is sketchy as yet. Another mass shooting in a place where the victims are disarmed by law. How long before the gun control activists will be out there metaphorically dancing in the blood to show how this proves we need more laws against guns?

Comments

[tabbiewolf.livejournal.com]

So, because I like poking wasps' nests, I have to ask: How is requiring training of the entirety of humanity in gun safety more reliable than, say, removing guns from the market entirely?

And please do not bring up the "Well, cars kill people too, and everyone gets trained in those," argument. Cars are not designed to kill people. Guns are. A gun's only use is to kill things. I'd say "only intended use" but I honestly can't think of another thing that guns are useful for. Hunting? That's killing. Defending your country? Also killing. I guess maybe "threatening/scaring everyone" might be a use, but that's not really USING the gun.

Keep in mind: I know gun owners. I know gun owners who carry, and I know people who hunt as well. If removing their guns saves a classroom of elementary/middle/high (geezus, how sad is it that I can say ALL of those have had shootings) school students, church goers, shoppers at malls, etc., from therapy for the rest of their lives -- or, in the case of far too many kids, LIVING the rest of their lives -- frankly? I'm totally okay with that.

The Second Amendment wasn't written with modern day guns in mind. You'd have to try REALLY HARD to kill someone with a gun in 1776.

[dalesql.livejournal.com]

And the first amendment wasn't written with the internet and the Heaven's Gate cult in mind either.

Well, until someone invents a magic wand that can be waved to turn all the guns in the world into salt water taffy, your first question is a false choice. Guns are being smuggled into prisons, which have far more stringent measures against smuggling than we would ever voluntarily tolerate. So creating a gun free world is an impossibility. Removing guns from legal trade just drives that to the black market. Guns in the hands of ordinary private citizens in mexico has been largely illegal during it's entire history as a nation, and prior to that as a colony. Doesn't seem to have worked there either.
Here in america, we have a bunch of different sub-societies in the country. Out in rural areas, guns are in pretty much every home, and shooting skills are taught as one of the necessary skills of life. Protecting ones crops and livestock from wild animals, be it deer eating the corn crop, to a mountain lion killing one's cattle, is needful. Not to mentions defending oneself from dangerous critters coming after you.

In the urban areas, you have the concentration of criminals that by definition, ignore any laws they care to break. The illegal trade in drugs (And please don't go off on the war on drugs, which is a whole nother can of worms) drives the drug dealers to arm themselves to defend themselves from other criminals. Drug dealers have lots of cash and desirable commodities on them. And they can't call the police to file a complaint about the guy who mugged them for all their drugs and cash, nor can they sue another drug dealer for interfering with their drug dealing business, nor sue their supplier for selling them fake drugs instead of real drugs. So all disputes generally reduce to one party backing down to threat of violence from the other. Thus the drug dealers want to have lots of guns. Not because they want to kill everyone on the street, but because they have to be perceived to be able to defend themselves against their competitors and their predators. This psychology is what drives the extreme violent reactions to disrespect from others in their subculture.

So the drug dealer subculture is awash in illegal guns. The bigger and badder, the better. Because the guns are not just dangerous tools, but they are talismans of power. This plethora of guns spreads out to all the other criminal subcultures for much the same reasons. Although the psychological effects of chronic illegal drug use make the use of these guns in fights more common. paranoia, rage attacks, nihilistic traits, and depressed higher brain functions all feed into this mess.

[dalesql.livejournal.com]

Children growing up in the poverty and crime stricken portions of our cities are constantly exposed to guns. guns in the hands of people who are often intoxicated and violent. Guns are also constantly being stashed in public areas. The drug dealer doesn't want to have the gun on their person, in case the cops come along to arrest him or her. They know that the firearm possession charges are being used by prosecuters to put them in jail for long periods of time, far longer than the drug dealing charges. But they do want the gun to be readily at hand, in case another criminal comes along to attack him. So the guns are stuck into all sorts of hideaways. One of the parks in Boston that is near the nightclubs, the police have made it a habit to go look through it every friday and saturday night. they often find guns stashed in the bushes. Because the criminals know there is a metal detector at the doors to clubs that are popular with the criminals. Kids playing in the park the next day find guns the cops missed and the criminal was too drunk or stoned to remember where they hid it.

Guns also find their way out into the affluent suburbs. Many say they are against guns in the hands of ordinary people, but don't practice what they preach, and arm themselves, or if wealthy enough, hire armed guards to protect them. Sarah Brady had a concealed handgun license, back when Virginia only issued them to police and very few others. Yes, they are less common, but they are out there too.

So just like kids in health class are taught to recognize what a hypodermic syringe looks like, and to not touch it and call an adult to take care of it, kids should be taught to recognize what a gun looks like and to call an adult to take care of it. But there is that pesky curiosity trait that humans have, and kids even more so. If a kid finds something new, they pick it up and start playing with it to see what happens. If this happens to be a loaded gun or a used syringe, lethal results can happen with both. So by teaching the kids what it is, telling them the correct thing to do, and reducing the temptation to play with it since it is a known thing, you save more lives of children. Child development folks have done the research. Kids will home in on any new object first. They have specifically done the research with what kids will do when they are put into an apparently unsupervised environment that contains among other things, a firearm. Kids who have not had any kind of teaching on guns, except what they see on TV, go and play with it. and they copy what they saw on TV, they point it at their playmates and pull the trigger. Kids who have had one of the gun safety training programs in their school, or had a parent who taught them about responsible gun ownership. They don't touch it, and they call an adult to deal with it safely. Any adult that the child calls to deal with a gun, they should know enough to handle it and unload it safely, and remove it or remove the kids from the area while they call for appropriate assistance.

I've probably gone over the comment length limit again.