Should schools teach students how not to be killed by police?

"Gun Free Zones" The vast majority of the mass shootings were done in these areas where the perpetrator was assured he would be the only one with a gun until the police arrived.

 

If you mean that semi automatic rifle, the automatic is the mil spec.

 

More data on rifles
Knives kill far more people in the United States than rifles do every year.

In the wake of the horrific school shooting in Florida last week, the debate over guns in America has surged again to the forefront oft the political conversation. Seventeen students were killed when a deranged gunman rampaged through the Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida. Many are calling now for stricter gun laws in the wake of the shooting, specifically targeting the AR-15 rifle and promoting the reinstatement of the assault weapons ban.

However, recent statistics from 2016 show that knives actually kill nearly five times as many people as rifles that year.

According to the FBI, 1,604 people were killed by “knives and cutting instruments” and 374 were killed by “rifles” in 2016.

This leads me to believe that knives and not rifles are what the Democrats actually aim for. I mean surely they do want to see less killed by weapons?

 

I don't go along with that argument although in some countries it's technically illegal to buy a serious knife until you're 18. Plenty of knife crime in that particular country, but it's usually one-on-one, or five-on-one. You don't often read about someone with a knife killing a dozen people at a time. (Okay, not talking about hopped-up members of a certain religious group who have their victims nicely tied up.)

The thing about a well-tooled-up maniac with a semi-automatic rifle and a dozen 15 or 20 round magazines, aiming to kill a lot of people, is that it's pretty easy for him to do it. Just go to any place where a lot of people are gathered and start shooting.

If it's the kind of public place where some reprehensible nasty right-wing Republicans are liable to be, exercising their right to concealed carry, then wear a flak vest, and take up a concealed or semi-concealed position (or, following good doctrine, find a place with two or three such positions and move around among them every couple of minutes).

And if you can arrange one with cover as well as concealment, so much the better, especially if you barricade yourself in. See the Texas Tower shooter, to whom I lost a distant acquaintance. He did everything right -- but then he was a former Marine and knew his business. (He started his killing spree with knives, too, which I suppose lends some weight to the argument that they should all be banned.)

The thing is, right now in the US, it's dangerous (not statistically, but psychologically) to be anywhere where there are a lot of people. Just as it's dangerous (not statistically, but psychologically) to be anywhere with a lot of people where there has been mass Muslim immigration, although Islamist killers also use homemade explosives and cars to carry out their Holy Mission. (Yes, yes, I know .. it's just a tiny minority, repudiated by all the others ... sort of like gun-owners, come to think of it.)

But with knives ... you mainly just need to stay out of ... er... how shall I put this? 'certain' neighborhoods, or proximity to them, or cities where the young males from these sorts of neighborhoods can easily access the common areas, and you're probably pretty safe.

Although I suppose a flak vest wouldn't be out of the question for going outdoors nowadays in the US.

 

I was in the US army and was an expert marksman with particular weapons. I recall when the TX tower killer was killing students.

I see republicans as much less likely to murder. We have a philosophy such that our main efforts are in leaving others alone and rejecting the idea that all others need is more and more hands on government. We understand government and it uses force. They don't mess around and have some serious weapons. I will never own an aircraft carrier with it's complement of airplanes or weapons. But largely due to the principles held by our domestic democrats, other nations do cause this country to own aircraft carriers and keep on hand some well trained men with all kinds of weapons. We want defense but to not go all out on offense.

I pointed out that per the FBI, more die due to the knife than to the rifle. That included automatic weapons.

Most of us with our guns have them not so much to hunt with and for many who don't shoot regularly, not even for target shooting. We own a gun like we own a lawnmower or maybe a swimming pool. We want to enjoy them. We find it fun to shoot at ranges. We are trained so we do not find it fun to shoot at schools nor inside the city.

We practice safety. I find of the criminal population, due to differences in personal philosophies, the Democrats tend to take up prison space more than republicans take it up. Democrats are by nature takers and not givers. This I think is why there are more democrats in jail than republicans there.

 

Although I suspect I am in large agreement with your political views, I don't think the supposed political views of criminals is a very interesting statistic, even if it's true.

It compresses a complex reality into just one thing, which inevitably distorts our view.

You say 'Democrats are by nature takers and not givers'. Well, my parents were Democrats for all of their lives. Never on welfare, always worked for a living. But they came of age during the Great Depression, when it was the Democrats who proposed things that they thought gave some advantages to the working class, as opposed to people who were wealthy. Were they 'takers'? In their view, the 'takers' were the people who had crashed the economy, but who you never saw in the breadlines.

My mother was on a WPA project... paid for I suppose by someone else's tax money, but she didn't have anything to pay taxes to start with. The whole idea -- whether or not it's right is another question -- is that people who 'take' from such things are then put into a position where they can 'give' later. That's one of the rationals for free-at-the-point-of-consumption education: your taxes pay to educate someone else's children, and their taxes later will pay to support you in your old age, should you meet some personal disaster and have your own savings wiped out.

Yes, of course there are people who are just takers. They want a hand-out, not a hand up. But not all people who at the moment are receiving government money -- your money -- are in this category.

I don't know whether criminals can be said to have a 'personal philosophy', but I suspect most of them agree with Republicans re. gun control.

Or, if you don't buy that, how about this: very few genuine racists (I mean real racists, not people who make snowflakes cry, I mean neo-Nazis and Klansmen) voted for Hillary. Most of them voted for Trump. I've seen Lefties brandish this fact as some proof positive of how evil Republicans are, but it's just a substitute for thought.

Or you could say Republican criminals are white collar criminals and don't get caught as much. (I won't go so far as to say, with Bertoldt Brecht, 'What is the robbing of a bank, as a crime, compared to the founding of a bank?', but he wasn't entirely wrong.)

Anyway, you can be a Republican, or a Democrat, for a lot of different reasons, some of them perfectly valid. My whole family in Texas were Democrats up to some time in the 1970s. (Many were ex-military, by the way.) Now they're Republicans (although some went for Ross Perot). And some have been in jail, although for the sort of thing young working class men tend to get in trouble for, like DWI.

And how about Jim Webb? Once a Republican, then a Democrat, always a very admirable man. I'd much rather have him running DOD than some Republicans I can name.

It's not a good argument, and it won't persuade the sensible Democratic voter that we need to reach.

 

In the UK the use of a AR rifle on deer is illegal. You would have to get a bigger gun.
I can have an AR, but not for deer.

Nobody in their right minds believes you if you say I bought my assault rifle to hunt deer.
Sure.... you can hunt deer with it. But a deer rifle is cheaper and better for hunting deer. And we aren't stupid.

 

I don't know about deer-hunting, but the name "AR-15" is now applied to many different types of rifle, some of which are chambered for heavier rounds than the 5.56 mm. Here's an interesting essay by someone who seems to know what he's talking about, at least with respect to the AR-15 (I don't agree with his analysis of the problems of America at the end, though.)

Cries to 'Ban the AR-15' Based on Ignorance and Hysteria

Yet another mass shooting has taken place in America – followed by all too predictable cries to ban the AR-15 rifle.

The pure ignorance of the people bleating for a ban on America's most popular rifle is appalling. With few exceptions, most of the calls to ban the AR-15 come from liberal, urban women and metrosexual men whose knowledge of firearms comes entirely from watching Rambo movies or playing "Call of Duty."

Even some in professional law enforcement know not of what they speak. A local radio station interviewed a retired FBI agent who stated that he "could not understand" why people would want such a rifle.

I've shot service rifle competitions for nearly 20 years and held the classification of "Master" for nearly eleven. I've probably put 20,000 rounds through AR-15 rifles. Though I've never been in the military, I have more familiarity and proficiency with the weapon than most active-duty soldiers. So I think I am as qualified as anybody to dispel the common myths about the AR-15.

First, the AR-15 is not a machine-gun or an "assault weapon." The AR-15 is a semi-automatic version of the M-16, which is a machine gun. However, in Vietnam, the military found that troops with early versions of the M-16 were using fully-automatic "spray and pray" fire – and often failing to hit the

enemy. So when the M-16 was redesigned in the early 1980s, its fully automatic rate of fire was reduced to three-shot bursts, forcing troops to actually aim rather than hip-fire. But any fully-automatic fire is simply not an option for the civilian AR-15.

Second, the idea that the AR-15 is some kind of horrifically powerful weapon is absurd. In its most common chambering, the 5.56 NATO, the AR-15 is actually underpowered compared to traditional American battle rifles like the M1873 "Trapdoor" in .45-70 or the M1903 Springfield in .30-06. The AR-15 is a .22-caliber centerfire. When its M-16 counterpart was introduced in Vietnam, it was derided as a "mouse gun" and a "poodle-shooter." Many troops were dismayed when their .30-caliber M-14s were replaced with the new rifle.

Indeed, the M-16 and AR-15 rifle suffered a poor reputation for a couple of decades after its introduction in Vietnam, in part because ammunition issued by the Army resulted in malfunctions and jams, causing the deaths of a number of troops during firefights with the Viet Cong.

Like most technologies, however, the AR-15 has evolved significantly over time. Its popularity today exists for a number of reasons. The AR platform uses space-age materials, such as forged aluminum and plastic, which make it lightweight, durable, and weather-resistant. Today's AR-15 is reliable,

ergonomic, and user-friendly. It's easy to maintain, and unlike traditional wood-stocked rifles, which often require custom fitting, it allows an infinite variety of aftermarket options and configurations without expensive professional gunsmithing. To use an analogy that will be understandable to red-state males (but probably unfamiliar to urban blue-staters), the AR-15 has become the "small-block Chevy" of the shooting world. Barrel assemblies (called "uppers") can be switched out in ten seconds or less, and stocks can be easily customized to fit an individual shooter – such as a small-statured female.

Because of its inherent accuracy, the AR-15 has been a boon to target shooters, and its low recoil has enabled females to rank among the top competitors in the nation. One female competitor scored two perfect "cleans" in the most difficult position – 200-yard standing – at the National Rifle Matches. Such a feat would have been difficult to impossible with a .30-caliber bolt-action, the recoil of which can be literally teeth-rattling.

Third, those who contend that "no one goes hunting with an assault rifle" have betrayed the fact that they are probably not hunters themselves, or, if they are hunters, they're decades out of date. The modular nature of the AR-15 makes it easily adaptable for a variety of hunts in numerous

calibers. Short-barreled AR-15s in .450 Bushmaster or 7.62x39 have become the number-one choice for Southern hog-hunters, while Western prairie dog hunters can install a 26" "varmint" barrel in .204 Ruger or .223 Remington for unparalleled long-distance accuracy. And calibers such as .223, .300 Blackout, and 6.8 SPC are perfect for Texas deer or medium-sized eastern whitetails. The AR-15 platform is so ideally suited for hunting that in 2015, Remington, the oldest maker of sporting arms in the U.S., discontinued its inferior 7400/750 series of semi-automatics after sixty years in production. The only semi-autos it manufactures for the hunting market today are AR platforms. (By the way... nobody uses a 30-round magazine to hunt; most states limit capacity to four or five rounds while hunting.)

Banning the AR-15 to stop school shooters would be like banning Boeing 757s to stop terrorist attacks after 9/11. You've never heard anyone say, "Nobody needs to fly through the air at 600 mph. Look at how many people died because of those dangerous jetliners!" Would liberal journalists, who advocate repealing the Second Amendment and banning guns, agree to a repeal of the First Amendment and impose a ban on computers, digital cameras, and video cameras because child pornographers use them? I doubt it.

Banning AR-15s is not the answer to school shootings. Neither the Columbine killers nor Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho, nor University of Texas shooter Charles Whitman, used AR-15s, and all of them managed to commit terrible crimes.

It would have been entirely possible in, say, 1875 to murder 17 school children with 19th-century technology, such as a brace of Colt revolvers and a Winchester lever-action rifle – or, for that matter, with a broadsword or double-bladed axe. Why didn't it happen then? Probably a couple of reasons. As the Supreme Court ruled in 1892, back then, the U.S. was a Christian nation. It isn't any longer, and today we're dealing with the negative consequences of our 21st-century neo-paganism. And back in 1875, children were not compelled under penalty of law to attend government schools (where self-defense is legally forbidden, ensuring that they will be sitting ducks) until late adolescence.

School shootings are absolutely unacceptable. But banning modern firearms is equally unacceptable. Nor would it be effective: Norway's stringent gun control failed to stop Anders Breivik from killing 77 people; France's ban on "assault weapons" didn't stop the Bataclan shooters from killing 130; and Egypt's rifle ban didn't stop the massacre of 305 worshipers at a Sinai mosque last year. Britain's total confiscation of handguns and semi-automatic rifles failed to prevent Derrick Bird from shooting 23 people (12 fatally) with a bolt action .22 in 2010.

In Federalist #10, James Madison warned us about the tyranny of the majority, in which a faction "united ... by some common impulse of passion ... adverse to the rights of other citizens" vies for power and control. That is exactly what we are seeing today, with emotionally charged teenagers, skillfully manipulated and amplified by the liberal media, braying for a majority of the public to acquiesce to the abridgment of the gun rights of the sane and the decent.

Sorry, I'm not buying it. And anybody who does is a fool. What we need instead is a cool-headed and sober analysis to find out why so many people, in the prime of life, in the wealthiest and most prosperous society in history, are willing to casually murder scores of strangers – and usually kill themselves in the process.

Until we answer that question, massacres are going to continue, with or without AR-15s. So long as they do continue, the rest of us need all the self protection – and freedom to defend ourselves – that we can get.​

 

For those interested in the wide variety of weapons available, should the AR15 be banned, here are some of your alternatives. A salutary example of East/West co-operation.

 

Ever notice there is a correlation between men with small fingers and big guns?

 

Now c'mon! You don't really mean "fingers" do you?

But of course it's true.

Big, tough, masculine men with large...er... fingers ... absolutely eschew guns and weapons of all sorts, and are kind and gentle and utterly uncoercive in their romantic relationships ... which are just as likely to be with other men, nothing wrong with that!!!! ... Their concerns are with climate change and opposing racism and fighting the Rape Culture and getting equality for Transgenders.

It's the wimpy little timid guys with small ... fingers ... who join the Marines, go Airborne, are in the Special Forces ... and whom you see out at the shooting ranges, or bringing back a poor little dead deer in the back of their Chevy 350.

And women just loathe that type of horrible male beast.

Yep, I've noticed that.

 

How can you have an AR in the UK, I thought guns weren't allowed there? What makes anyone think an AR is an assault rifle? There are deer rifles with the same calibers and working actions but just look like normal rifles. Is it the way they look that makes them assault rifles? Assault rifles for the military are switchable to full auto ARs are not.

 

Why does anyone need a gun that can kill so many people in such a short time? Obviously you love guns more than you care about children

 

Oddly, I have noticed that when you go out to the American countryside and small towns, where everyone has a gun or two and where they 'love' them ... they tend to have bigger families, ie more children, Deplorable as that may be.

But when you go to the sophisticated urban areas where there are lots of people who are repelled by the idea of a gun, not so many children. This is especially true among college-educated women.

Obviously they love their lifestyle more than they care about children. Well, it's a free country ... for a while longer.

 

Police do get a bit jumpy, especially when dealing with those demographics that have a very high violent crime rate.

Could this be why?

2016 -- Police Officers killed in the line of duty by gunfire.
Death Name Department Cause of death
2016-01-17 Officer Thomas W. Cottrell, Jr.[909] Danville Police Department, OH Gunfire
2016-01-17 Officer Douglas Barney[910] Unified Police Department Salt Lake City, UT Gunfire
2016-02-05 Sergeant Jason Goodding[912] Seaside Police Department, OR Gunfire
2016-02-10 Deputy Derek Geer[914] Mesa County Sheriff's Office, CO Gunfire
2016-02-10 Deputy Mark Logsdon[915] Harford County Sheriff's Office, MD Gunfire
2016-02-10 Deputy Patrick Dailey[916] Harford County Sheriff's Office, MD Gunfire
2016-02-11 Major Gregory E. "Lem" Barney[917] Riverdale Police Department, GA Gunfire
2016-02-11 Officer Jason Moszer[918] Fargo Police Department, ND Gunfire
2016-02-27 Officer Ashley Marie Guindon[919] Prince William County Police Department, VA Gunfire
2016-03-18 Officer David Stefan Hofer[922] Euless Police Department, TX Gunfire
2016-03-18 Officer Allen Jacobs[923] Greenville Police Department, SC Gunfire
2016-03-20 Deputy Carl A. Koontz[924] Howard County Sherriffs Office, IN Gunfire
2016-04-12 Officer Steven M. Smith[925] Columbus Division of Police, OH Gunfire
2016-05-09 Detective Brad Lancaster[926] Kansas City Police Department, KS Gunfire
2016-05-18 Officer David Glasser[927][928] Phoenix Police Department, AZ Gunfire
2016-07-07 Officer Brent Thompson[932][933] Dallas Area Rapid Transit, TX Gunfire
2016-07-07 Sergeant Michael Smith[933][934] Dallas Police Department, TX Gunfire
2016-07-07 Officer Patrick Zamarripa[933][935] Dallas Police Department, TX Gunfire
2016-07-07 Officer Michael Krol[933][936] Dallas Police Department, TX Gunfire
2016-07-07 Officer Lorne Ahrens[933][937] Dallas Police Department, TX Gunfire
2016-07-11 Security Supervisor Joseph Zangaro[938] Berrien County Courthouse Security, MI Gunfire
2016-07-11 Court Officer Ronald Kienzle[939] Berrien County Courthouse Security, MI Gunfire
2016-07-17 Deputy Brad Garafola[940] East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office, LA Gunfire
2016-07-17 Officer Matthew Gerald[941] Baton Rouge Police Department, LA Gunfire
2016-07-17 Corporal Montrell Jackson[942] Baton Rouge Police Department, LA Gunfire
2016-07-19 Captain Robert Melton[943][944] Kansas City Police Department, KS Gunfire
2016-07-28 Officer Jonathan DeGuzman[945] San Diego Police Department, CA Gunfire
2016-10-05 Sergeant Steve Owen[946] Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, CA Gunfire
2016-10-08 Officer Lesley Zerebny[947][948] Palm Springs Police Department, CA Gunfire
2016-10-08 Police Officer Jose Gilbert Vega[949] Palm Springs Police Department, CA Gunfire
2016-10-10 Police Officer Scott Leslie Bashioum[950] Canonsburg Borough Police Department, PA Gunfire
2016-10-12 Sergeant Luis A. Meléndez-Maldonado[951] Puerto Rico Police Department, PR Gunfire
2016-10-19 Deputy Sheriff Jack Hopkins[953] Modoc County Sheriff's Office, CA Gunfire
2016-11-02 Officer Justin Martin Urbandale Police Department, IA Gunfire
2016-11-02 Sergeant Anthony Beminio Des Moines Police Department, IA Gunfire
2016-11-04 Sergeant Paul Tuozzolo[954] New York City Police Department, NY Gunfire
2016-11-13 Deputy Dennis Wallace[955] Stanislaus County Sheriff's Office, CA Gunfire
2016-11-20 Detective Benjamin Marconi San Antonio Police Department, TX Gunfire
2016-11-22 Police Officer Collin Rose[956] Wayne State University Police Department, MI Gunfire


And yet ...

Police use of force is rare, as are significant injuries to suspects
February 24, 2018


Police officers rarely use force in apprehending suspects, and when they do they seldom cause significant injuries to those arrested, according to a multi-site study published in the March issue of the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery.

“The use of force by police can result in serious injuries and fatalities, but the risk of significant injuries associated with different types of force is poorly defined,” said the study’s lead author, William P. Bozeman, M.D., professor of emergency medicine at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. “We sought to determine the incidence of use of force by police and compare the rates of significant injury among the different methods that police officers employ.”

In reviewing 1.04 million calls for service received by three mid-size police departments in three states over a two-year period, the researchers found 893 use-of-force incidents, which represented 0.086 percent (1 in 1,167) of all calls and 0.78 percent (1 in 12 of the 114,064 calls that resulted in criminal arrests.

Among the 914 suspects affected in the 893 use-of-force incidents, 355 incurred mild injuries such as abrasions and contusions, a rate of 39 percent. But only 16 of the suspects suffered moderate or severe physical injuries, a rate of 1.8 percent. One of those 16 cases was a fatality, from a gunshot wound.

Unarmed physical force (51 percent) and conducted electrical weapons such as Tasers (36 percent) were the most common methods used by police, followed by chemical agents such as pepper spray (6.3 percent), and dogs (3.4 percent). Handheld impact weapons such as batons, impact projectiles such as plastic bullets and firearms were less commonly used (each less than 1 percent).

Analysis showed that most of the 16 significant injuries were associated with firearms and dogs while none were incurred in the 504 uses of conducted electrical weapons (Tasers).

Of the 355 suspects who were transported to medical facilities, 277 (78 percent) were released and 78 (22 percent) were hospitalized, but only 19 of those hospital admissions (5 percent of those taken for evaluation and 2 percent of all suspects after use of force) were due to injuries related to police use of force.

The suspects were primarily male (89 percent) with a mean age of 31. No data on race or ethnicity was available to the researchers.

“A remarkable finding in the study is how infrequently police use force at all – less than 1 in 1100 calls for service and less than 1 in 120 criminal arrests is surprisingly low, and contrary to many perceptions that police commonly use violence in their interactions with the public,” Bozeman said.

 

I am trying to figure out how people having fewer children has anything to do about caring about children. Sounds to me like you are threatened by the sophisticated urban educated people especially women. Don’t be afraid we’re not going to hurt you

 

Thanks, Renee. I was getting worried.

Them-there city gals make me uneasy, what with their big IQs and eddy-kashun and all them big words what we Deplorables can't not make no heads or tails of.

And on the other hand ... was this fellow on to something?


The Female of the Species

WHEN the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride,
He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside.
But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

When Nag the basking cobra hears the careless foot of man,
He will sometimes wriggle sideways and avoid it if he can.
But his mate makes no such motion where she camps beside the trail.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

When the early Jesuit fathers preached to Hurons and Choctaws,
They prayed to be delivered from the vengeance of the squaws.
'Twas the women, not the warriors, turned those stark enthusiasts pale.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

Man's timid heart is bursting with the things he must not say,
For the Woman that God gave him isn't his to give away;
But when hunter meets with husbands, each confirms the other's tale—
The female of the species is more deadly than the male.

Man, a bear in most relations—worm and savage otherwise,—
Man propounds negotiations, Man accepts the compromise.
Very rarely will he squarely push the logic of a fact
To its ultimate conclusion in unmitigated act.

Fear, or foolishness, impels him, ere he lay the wicked low,
To concede some form of trial even to his fiercest foe.
Mirth obscene diverts his anger—Doubt and Pity oft perplex
Him in dealing with an issue—to the scandal of The Sex!

But the Woman that God gave him, every fibre of her frame
Proves her launched for one sole issue, armed and engined for the same;
And to serve that single issue, lest the generations fail,
The female of the species must be deadlier than the male.

She who faces Death by torture for each life beneath her breast
May not deal in doubt or pity—must not swerve for fact or jest.
These be purely male diversions—not in these her honour dwells—
She the Other Law we live by, is that Law and nothing else.

She can bring no more to living than the powers that make her great
As the Mother of the Infant and the Mistress of the Mate.
And when Babe and Man are lacking and she strides unclaimed to claim
Her right as femme (and baron), her equipment is the same.

She is wedded to convictions—in default of grosser ties;
Her contentions are her children, Heaven help him who denies!—
He will meet no suave discussion, but the instant, white-hot, wild,
Wakened female of the species warring as for spouse and child.

Unprovoked and awful charges—even so the she-bear fights,
Speech that drips, corrodes, and poisons—even so the cobra bites,
Scientific vivisection of one nerve till it is raw
And the victim writhes in anguish—like the Jesuit with the squaw!

So it comes that Man, the coward, when he gathers to confer
With his fellow-braves in council, dare not leave a place for her
Where, at war with Life and Conscience, he uplifts his erring hands
To some God of Abstract Justice—which no woman understands.

And Man knows it! Knows, moreover, that the Woman that God gave him
Must command but may not govern—shall enthral but not enslave him.
And She knows, because She warns him, and Her instincts never fail,
That the Female of Her Species is more deadly than the Male.

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

And as for liberal women loving children in the abstract, but wanting to stay as far away from them as possible in the flesh ... well, that's sort of like the liberal attitude to racial minorities, so I guess I can understand it. Just a matter of taste, or, as we say to each other in the rural trailer parks as we're drunkenly starting to quarrel over which trashy TV program to watch and start reaching for our firearms, de gustibus non disputandem est.

 

There are many reasons why some would want to own an AR 15 an none of them would be to kill children. So why bring emotion into the discussion.

 

And I am sure that wasn’t the intent of the shooters who have killed so many people ..when they first bought the guns, why do we need them?

 

Not necessarily need but want. People want them for various reasons one might be to use in case we have a tyranical government or if we were invaded. I know you dont think it can happen but it is possible. Its less likely because of all the guns we corrently own, take them away and who knows.

 

I don't need or want one but I support those who fight the constant battle to keep the rights guaranteed by the 2nd. We lose our rights and freedoms one perfectly reasonable step at a time. Truth is the AR rifle or even the AK are not the weapons that are killing so many Americans, they are just a soft target after one of these horrific events. All of us are hert broken by the deaths of these children but we should find some serious protective measures instead of getting distracted by an emotion driven political campaign.

 

It is an emotionally driven issue. 17 people were just slaughtered because how easy it is to get a gun that is capable of doing that. You are not losing your rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment. We are just regulating guns. The same way we regulate cars, the same way we regulate safety when we get on a plane etc. Why do we need guns that can kill so many people in a matter of a couple of minutes. Remember the night club shooting? That killed many more and that was a gun that was a more glorified A.R. 15...make these guns harder to get!
You are not part of the militia and if you were you would have one of these death guns to hunt human beings

 

Yeah, in case we are invaded or the tyrannical government...you’re joking. I hope I have my gun when those planes above drop bombs. Yeah, I can take on the military. By the way we aren’t talking about taking away all guns just guns that can kill 30 people in two minutes
Sorry but I think you are a coward who is petrified and lives in fear.

 

Time would be better spent teaching children respect for their teachers, parents and elders.

Those who act up and get the police called on them are going to be at fault almost 100% of the time. People who act like ladies and gentlemen are unlikely to ever be confronted by a cop holding a gun on them. But thugs will be thugs.

 

That is a lot of emotional hyperbole that really doesn't address anything but your own feelings. Those kids didn't die because of how easy it is to buy a gun, they died because of how easy it was to use it in that school. Banning one type of firearm won't end the threat, it will just be one more ***** in the armor of the 2nd. We should be discussing security measures, how to harden these soft targets our schools provide rather than expending our energy on useless gun control measures.