Why School Shootings?

The anology is a false one. A pyscho without a killing machine cannot kill numerous people in a short space of time.

 

Soft target.

 

The shooting in Conn didn't involve assault weapons.

 

Only a matter of time before someone mentions bombs..

 

He had an assault rifle.

 

That is the risk we take by giving the people,as a whole, the right to own firearms.

 

Therein lies the problem, despite the wishes "to do something".

 

No, he didn't. An assault rifle is fully automatic, and the shooter's assault style weapon was a semi-automatic, like virtually every firearm in this country.

 

I may have to retract this. The gun he used, the "Bushmaster .223" rifle, may not be technically classified as an assault rifle according to the definition offered here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_rifle according to which:

The term assault rifle is a translation of the German word Sturmgewehr (literally "storm rifle", as in "to storm a position"). The name was coined by Adolf Hitler[3] as a new name for the Maschinenpistole 43,[nb 1] subsequently known as the Sturmgewehr 44, the firearm generally considered the first assault rifle that served to popularise the concept and form the basis for today's modern assault rifles.

The translation assault rifle gradually became the common term for similar firearms sharing the same technical definition as the StG 44. In a strict definition, a firearm must have at least the following characteristics to be considered an assault rifle:

It must be an individual weapon with provision to fire from the shoulder (i.e. a buttstock);
It must be capable of selective fire;
It must have an intermediate-power cartridge: more power than a pistol but less than a standard rifle or battle rifle;
Its ammunition must be supplied from a detachable magazine rather than a feed-belt.
And it should at least have a firing range of 300 meters (1000 feet)

Rifles that meet most of these criteria, but not all, are technically not assault rifles despite frequently being considered as such. For example, semi-automatic-only rifles like the AR-15 (which the M16 rifle is based on) that share designs with assault rifles are not assault rifles, as they are not capable of switching to automatic fire and thus are not selective fire capable. Belt-fed weapons or rifles with fixed magazines are likewise not assault rifles because they do not have detachable box magazines.

The term "assault rifle" is often more loosely used for commercial or political reasons to include other types of arms, particularly arms that fall under a strict definition of the battle rifle, or semi-automatic variant of military rifles such as AR-15s.

The US Army defines assault rifles as "short, compact, selective-fire weapons that fire a cartridge intermediate in power between submachinegun and rifle cartridges."

At any rate, though, what he had was way more than anyone needed to have lying around the house. Even the pistols he had are more than one needs for simple home defense. All such weapons need to be restricted, clearly. They're used not only in spectacular attacks like this one, but by criminals of all stripes. We accept gang gun violence as a matter of course in the US, for instance. Somehow, it's OK as long as they're only shooting one another.. Ick.

 

This is a total misnomer anyways.

God was NOT kicked out of the schools. It is now instead the responsibility of each individual to bring their own god with them where ever they are on their own.

If a child wants to pray in school, no one is going to stop him. He can pray as much and as hard as he wants to. No one is going to stop him.

That child does NOT have the right to force others to partake in his religious viewpoint however.


Its a lie of the right that god has been removed from schools. God is still there in plenty. They just hate the fact that schools can no longer PROMOTE god, and so, they feel threatened.

 

junobet,
I know that in New Jersey you need a psych eval for a gun permit. Whether or not other states require them is beyond me.
This the only safe guard available because if you have a past negative eval you will be denied the permit. Heck, even if a person does pass the eval, it does not say that in the future said person will not have a psychological breakdown and go on a rampage. Reality is that you cannot really safe guard against mass murder or mass shootings. The only thing that can be done is to eval gun owners as well as would-be gun owners and leave it at that. The way that the systems f governance are set-up in the United States is that all states have their own laws and by-laws. To institute federal mandate is only asking for despotism in this country and I am not willing to live under any more despotism than I already am living under.

 

Yeah, I heard he had an AR-15, which is the same weapon.

Well, his mother was a gun collector and liked to target-shoot. There's nothing wrong with that.

I don't see why such a rifle (which is semi-automatic) should be restricted - it's no different, and less powerful in many cases, than many of the rifles that hunters use. Heck, in a close-range fight, I bet my 12 gauge shotgun is a much more deadly weapon.

PS. In the interest of full disclosure, I agree that fully automatic assault rifles should be restricted, as they are today.

 

Which is fine, but what about the rights of those kids not to be gunned down?

 

Was he caught smoking a crack pipe?

 

NO IT IS NOT! God has been removed from the hearts or minds of the school boards, the Boards of Education, from most of the teachers, etc. God has been removed and replaced with insanity that brings forth more insanity which culminates in the UFTs and other teacher's unions mis-educating the children, federal mandates that really mess up the thinking of the children by being performance oriented, hostilities from teachers and other administrators, child rape through the schooling systems, etc. I say that God (Allah) has been removed because morality has been tossed to the curb and now the children are not right.

 

Talk about clutching at bleedin' straws...

 

How many lives is freedom of Speech worth to you? How many lives is freedom of assembly worth to you? How many lives is freedom of religion worth to you? How many lives is freedom from unreasonable search and seizures worth to you?

These tragedies happen, but even though some kids had to die our right to be armed outweighs the death of 20 kids. It may sound ignorant, but if all you had to do was kill 20 people to take certain rights away from people we would have no rights.

 

It is not about free speech.

It is about the right of a parent to send their kids to school, knowing that them being massacred that day isn't on the radar.

 

More kids die on their way to school in cars then by guns.

 

A silly analogy.

 

No it's not. As an American I have more of a chance dying in a car wreck then getting shot.

 

Of course it is.

Seriously, by your reasoning, there would have to be even more mass murder of kids, before this was enough of an issue for you to consider changing your ways, because you want to retain your right to be stuck in the past, and retain your right to be selfish.

Cars are not designed with lethal force in mind, guns are.

Again, by your reasoning, since less people die from crack, than both guns and cars, kids should be on crack.

 

What do you mean change our ways? Psychopaths will always be psychopaths, regardless of legislation.

 

Stop killing people en masse with guns, and thinking everything comes down to shooting your way to an answer..?

 

Again jack psychopaths will be psychopaths there's nothing we can do about it.