Another American school shooting!!

[JamesBCFC]

21 hours ago, LondonBristolian said:

Someone made an interesting point yesterday that I hadn't considered. People often deride young people in America and call them snowflakes, over-sensitive and claim they have no real problems to worry about BUT they are the only generation in the only country that I can think of that have spent their entire time in school in a culture where there is a realistic possibility that, at any moment, an irate schoolmate or local person in their community could burst in and gun them all down with an assault rifle. Which is a terrying thought.

You have to give huge credit to how articulate and confident the survivors from last week's massacre have been in speaking out, and you can only have sheer contempt for those who have tried to insinuate various conspiracy theories about them. What I found remarkable was the head of the NRA claiming elites do not care about safety in schools. He is right to a degree of course - in that he himself is a wealthy elite figure at the head of an organise spending vast fortunes lobbying and briefing against gun regulation - but it is ridiculous that the Head of NRA somehow perceives himself as not being an "elite".

Changing gun culture in America is not going to happen overnight. But change will come in time. Realistically, whatever anyone thinks about people having handguns, there is absolutely no justification why anyone should own an assault rifle and, even if you chose to license some people to use them, it would be utterly reasonable to insist they are stored only at shooting clubs and never allowed to be taken offsite. 

Arming teachers is never going to be a solution. For a start, schools in America are struggling to afford basic educational materials. Who the hell is going to pay for weapons? Secondly the shooter will always have the element of surprise and, even beyond that, all it will lead to is a culture where it is perceived to be the teacher's fault if they fail to stop a shooting and the simple outcome of that will be that nobody wants to be teachers. Plus, it is one thing asking people with military or police training to carry guns. But if you arm teachers you are basically asking civilians, who have got into education to help people to learn, to shoot to kill. Some will be terrified to do it, others will have to cope with the consequences of the fact they have had to shoot, in many cases, a child in order to save other children. And clearly they are not going to have reason to shoot until the shooting has started - perhaps less children will die but there are still likely to be some children who die each time someone tries a massacre in a school.

There is of course the argument that, if the teachers are armed, then the shooter won't try it in the first place. This is a nonsensical argument for two reasons

1) Most school shootings end with the shooter being shot. If the shooter wanted to live, they probably wouldn't do the shooting. If they don't want to live, teachers being armed is no deterrent.

2) The only other plausible scenario would be it deters said students from shooting in schools. So perhaps it will lead to a drop in school shootings but only because of a rise in shootings in cinemas or shopping malls or somewhere else instead.

Having guards at schools is going to have similar outcomes. It simply will not stop shootings and the only way you can think it will be is by abandoning logic completely. 

The bottom line is it's all very well talking about illegal guns being taken into the country but the Las Vegas shooting was done with a legally owned weapon, as far as I have seen this was done with a legally owned weapon, I think Sandy Hook was done with a legally owned weapon. Over 1000 people die each year in America from accidental shootings alone. Again, these are done with legal weapons. Restricting gun ownership is not going to solve everything but it is going to have an impact in the problem.

What's more, however you dice it up, the argument of gun ownership advocates is a simple one - "The right to own guns is so important to me that 17 dead people in a school is an acceptable price to pay for it." There is no getting around that is a morally unconscionable argument.

I'd also add that real life isn't Call of Duty.

Of course they say the armed teachers will be trained, but there's the possibility of the teacher accidentally adding to the casualties.

[Mike Hunt-Hertz]

I'm glad the teachers at my school weren't armed.....could have been carnage.

[LondonBristolian]

Whatever you think of the deputy's decision not to go into the school, these are decidedly hypocritical words from the serial draft dodger in the White House...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-43174069

[Esmond Million's Bung]

6 hours ago, LondonBristolian said:

Whatever you think of the deputy's decision not to go into the school, these are decidedly hypocritical words from the serial draft dodger in the White House...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-43174069

It really matters not because the deputy and the FBI have let him off of the hook sufficiently to be confident enough to press on with his madness of arming of teachers and to give his friends at the NRA another stick to hit back with.

[Lanterne Rouge]

News this morning that several major companies are cutting ties with the NRA due to their attitude.

Is it beginning to dawn on Americans that this can`t go on any more?

[Lrrr]

Don't think I'd want to be a teacher if part of my job description were to be able to use a gun

[cityexile]

Arming teachers is just theatre politics, to look like they are trying something, as is finding now some scapegoats.

I suspect the answer for the US is to look at Israel. Without going down that rabbit hole, there would clearly be people who would see schools as 'fair game'. However, they are not soft targets. Entry and exit are tightly controlled, and there are armed guards at those points. Equally, maybe surprisingly, it is far from easy for the general population to own arms, and those that do have been well trained through national service.

There just seems no will amougst politicians in the US to do anything however. Given their culture I can see weapons for hunting, even hand guns for self defense, if registered and you need to be trained. There is no need for a 19 year old to ever have an assault weapon.

 

[Olympian]

I can't quite see Barack Obama smiling from here but I can almost smell it.