<p>Well, the recent California high school shooter didn’t kill himself.</p>
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<p>that makes no sense. Wouldn’t it be better to stop them before they killed so many people? I don’t follow this logic.</p>
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<p>The reason I wish I was against this is because I want to have an idealistic view that the better alternative is to ban the guns. But, H convinced me last night that I am being naive.</p>
<p>Bay, the murder rate in the UK is far lower than ours–ours is 668 TIMES higher than theirs. Also, looking into the statistics, sentences for violent crime are much shorter in the UK than in other countries. Again, it’s not apples to apples.</p>
<p>You may not be able to deter a suicidal person, but you can stop him. If someone shoot 12 people and your child was the 13th after the gunman was killed by a security officer arriving across campus, I wonder if you would still think the armed security was unnecessary. Also, we all know guns aren’t going away, so when the rampage starts, then what? People line up to die because there is no defense? Who remembers that shooter in the Uk a couple of years ago who ran amuck for hours because no one could stop him?</p>
<p>Poetgrl, I totally respect your honesty as always. I would like to run screaming from the existence of guns, but there are so many illegal guns that legal guns are almost a non issue. The number of people killed by legally owned guns is very small. We have a huge problem in this country but it is a gang problem, not a gun problem.</p>
<p>I thought there were no guns in the UK?</p>
<p>Again, no one is suggesting that we ban all guns. But why can’t we ban military assault weapons with high-capacity magazines? No one can argue that those are necessary to defend one’s property, kill a deer, or deter a crazy school shooter. The shootings in Aurora, Newtown, etc. would have been FAR less catastrophic if the assailants had not had the ability fire off multiple rounds in such a short time. </p>
<p>And remember that the Newtown shooter got his guns from his mother, who had acquired them legally. So have most of the other mass shooters–in the 62 mass shootings in the past 30 years, more than three quarters of the weapons were obtained legally. Many of them were assault weapons and semiautomatic handguns.</p>
<p>IT IS A GUN PROBLEM and I am getting really tired of people trying to say it isn’t.</p>
<p>And by the way: none of the mass shootings had anything to do with gangs.</p>
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<p>Sally,
I don’t know where you are getting your numbers, but that does not sound right, and I don’t have time to look it up now. You may be looking at gun deaths, not murder rates. Gun deaths would include suicides and accidents, which are not murders.</p>
<p>“if we are protecting our art work and our banks with armed guards? Why would we not protect our children?”</p>
<p>I haven’t seen an armed guard or even an unarmed guard in a bank in years. </p>
<p>Are the museum guards armed?</p>
<p>The California shooter had a shotgun (his brother’s that he found). It may be that with any weapon he would have targeted the 2 students who he felt bullied him, but it also might be that he killed them and many more if he had something that did the job a bit faster and easier.</p>
<p>poetgrl: Upthread the idea had been put forward that if a percentage of teachers had concealed weapons a shooter would think twice before carrying out a plan. I was making a differentiation between the argument of deterrence vs interception/mitigation. Killing a shooter before he/she kills more people is the latter. As we have seen, however, that works best when a shooter has fewer and less sophisticated weapons at his disposal.</p>
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<p>ZM, now that I’ve had time to think about this, I think I just have an issue with teachers having weapons. I’m not opposed to having armed security guards or something of the sort. </p>
<p>I’m opposed to teachers because, frankly, I don’t think it’s fair to them for a multitude of reasons.</p>
<p>Zoosermom, I have no problem with armed police officers. My kids’ school had one. That said, not every fight was deterred because he was there and he could only be in one place at a time. Even when we had two, one was usually on the perimeter of the school and another dealing with something else. High schools are big and it would be easy for someone to walk into a classroom, lock a door and start shooting. There is nothing a police officer could do from the outside in such a scenario. As has been pointed out many times, Columbine had an armed guard. My problem is not with having police officers at high schools. It’s the idea of arming teachers - of actually keeping loaded weapons in classrooms with minors – that strikes me as foolish. Guns and kids don’t mix and classrooms can be chaotic places. It’s too easy for a teacher to put a key down or for a substitute to make a mistake and leave a cabinet unlocked.</p>
<p>Mimk, like I said earlier, even if it takes a few minutes for security to get to the scene, the lives saved upon arrival do count. You also have the benefit of someone with familiarity of the location. That is important when every second counts. I would never support forcing anyone, ever to carry a gun, but there are teachers who are former law enforcement officers who are armed of their choice. One of my d’s teachers was a former CIA agent with marksman honors. She was also a stunning, glamorous, out and proud married lesbian. When the gang troubles were raging, and I do mean raging - multiple stab binges - I was very glad that teacher was around.</p>
<p>I’m surprised to hear reference to open campuses. We don’t have that here. All doors save one are locked during school day, kids generally don’t leave the building, and there are permanent or mobile metal detectors in violent schools. So less ability to sneak it with a huge cache.</p>
<p>Mimk, Columbine’s armed guard saved at least a dozen lives and likely many more. So that argument doesn’t fly. The number of lives lost is a tragedy, but every one that was not lost is too important to ignore in service of a talking point.
I’m not sure we would ever be talking about guns in a storage locker or closet. I think, like police, a holster is probably better. And if that gun is ever drawn, the school is already in trouble.</p>
<p>Our HS is an open campus with unlocked doors all over the place on every side.</p>
<p>There are multiple buildings and areas</p>
<p>Maybe that is something that should be reconsidered if safety is a concern.</p>
<p>zoosermom, you know what would have spared more lives at Columbine? The absence of assault weapons. Would you support a ban on them?</p>
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<p>I’m not saying it isn’t a gun problem.</p>
<p>I even want to be saying what you are saying, Sally, to be honest. We almost always agree, you and I. </p>
<p>What I am saying is that I think we need to protect our kids, right now, while we work on getting rid of the guns, somehow, over time. There are so many of them out there, right now, and I know it’s not constitutional for the government to come and take your legally purchased and registered guns. Nor will it ever be, I imagine.</p>
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<p>correct me if I’m wrong, and I could be, but wasn’t there a ban on assault weapons at the time of columbine? Didn’t we used to have one that didn’t work, or something?</p>
<p>Your H sounds like a smart man Poetgirl. The bad guys already have their guns and they won’t be handing them over no matter how nicely we ask! Taking them away from the good guys doesn’t seem like the answer to me.</p>
<p>I don’t feel like safety IS a concern - we have a campus resource office on campus from the City Police Department who deals with student issues. He is likely trained for a shooter type situation but that’s not why he is there - I am not expecting a shooting rampage at our school and don’t feel like curtailing the freedoms of responsible students is the answer. If I have to limit things I would rather limit the access of kids to assault weapons than limit the freedom and mobility of the general student body.</p>
<p>Yes, there was an assault weapons ban in the US from 1994-2004. It didn’t help, from what I understand, which was why it was never renewed.</p>