Gun Control - The Debate, Argument Or Whatever ...

[Mr. 16 gauge]

Here's the only issue I see with the "come and take it" mentality. Most guys imagine a bunch of Americans running guerilla tactics and a war of attrition with their small arms... how many of these GI Joe's do you think will actually stand their ground when their house, their families lives and everything they hold dear is on the line. I'm not saying its wrong to want to hold the government in check, I just think the idea of doing it with a rabble of citizens toting small arms nowadays is a romantic fantasy. When they show up at your house with a Bradley assault vehicle, and your response is to pop off 25 rounds at them, what do you think their response will be? 3 25mm rounds out of that chain gun that pepper your entire house with frag from the inside out. How many times does that have to happen to before people give in? It works everytime. overwhelming force is a pretty good motivator to get in line. If you don't think our government would ever do that, look at Waco Texas. How many women and children were killed because a couple armed guys thought they were an "army".
You can't take out a sentry and dissolve into a mass of trees anymore. Technology is so advanced in tracking and infrared,with surveillance everywhere, there really isn't anywhere left to hide. I'm not trying to sound leftist because I really am not. I am just a realist and I really don't see how the right to bear arms is keeping the government from doing anything. If they think you're a threat, a missile fired from a drone at 35,000 ft. is supersonic, you would never hear or see it coming and your house would be a heaping pile of wreckage with the mangled remains of everyone inside it buried beneath.

Death is a choice.......sometimes a preferable one, esp. when tyranny is involved.

 

[Shootist43]

I jumped to the last page so I apologize if my comment has already been posted. I recently read a statement by a County Sherriff related to the training of armed teachers in his "district." He said that the average policeman fires 25 rounds a year. The teachers in his program fire a minimum of 600 rounds per year. BTW the teachers have to pass the same psychological profile necessary to become a police officer. When seconds count the Police are generally minutes away at best. Currently 10 states permit armed teachers, I'd like to see that increased to 50.

 

[Jfet]

What type of firearm should police (I use the word police because our school district employs its own police force.) or teachers have access to? The police officer in my school carries a Glock 40 and has an AR-15 locked in his office.

If a shooter is at the far end of our 200 hallway with an AR type rifle and the police officer is at the other end, the police officer is not going to run to his office to get his rifle. He will draw his pistol and start closing the 270 feet that separates him from the shooter. As a teacher in the school I would like the person with the best training to carry a firearm that will allow him to engage a bad guy with extremely accurate fire at the soonest possible moment.

Things to consider.

 

[Jfet]

The teachers in his program fire a minimum of 600 rounds per year.

What a great teacher inservice. Sign me up.

 

[sestoppelman]

You would have to consider that you have no real idea how that officer will respond in any given situation. Look at what happened in Parkland. 4 cops stood outside the building while the shooting continued and did nothing. Were it me I think given that scenario, I would run to get my rifle and save myself some running. But who knows?

 

[Jfet]

I would run to get my rifle and save myself some running.

Let me not be so subtle. In the U. S. are we ready to have police in the school openly carrying an AR-15 rifle? A police officer that is in the school on a full time basis to prevent or stop a school shooting will be able to engage the bad guy faster and with more accurate fire than a police officer who is only carrying his pistol.

 

[sestoppelman]

Your post is confusing. I think you are making my point. That is why I said go for the rifle. A handgun is best used to fight your way to your rifle. Now obviously in some cases, its going to be pistol or nothing. But in your scenario you said the officer had an AR in his office, and that is where I would go if possible to retrieve said AR so as better engage the perp at distance.

 

[Red Leg]

An AR is not exactly the ideal weapon for any hallway firefight. Particularly a concrete hallway - Particularly with a lot of potential innocents down range where limiting collateral casualties might be useful goal. Using suppressive fire - as in volume of fire - really shouldn't be an option in that environment. As the Army has learned and relearned, it is an almost an irresistible option to poorly trained folks under stress with thirty-rounds at their immediate disposal.

Unfortunately, very few of our police - particularly those typically assigned to school duty - have had extensive training in how to manage an actual engagement. SWAT teams yes - but the average policeman - not very much. Witness Florida. In the military, we get a kid who knows how to operate his weapon when he gets out of basic. Infantry units spend the rest of his enlistment trying to get him tactically proficient.

I am inclined to let those teachers who have qualified for concealed carry do so (as a number of districts now do). They represent a potential immediate response option when the situation begins, and when a handgun is likely to do the most good in the hands of a relatively untrained combatant. It also represents a meaningful defensive option in a locked classroom during the event. I also suspect - though there is no way to prove it - such licensed carry represents a deterrent as well.

A problem, obviously, will be those districts where concealed carry is made difficult or impossible.

We need to figure this out. The number of nut cases are increasing. Whether from broken homes, internet induced desensitization, or for all I know - global warming - there are more of these characters and they are able to cause enormous mayhem when they have access to a semi-automatic weapon and lots of ammunition. Denying them access and protecting due process seems to be all but impossible. It is in our collective interests to help solve this or the public will demand ever more draconian measures to "fix" it. I am guessing the NRA (of which I am an endowment member) won't be invited to that eventual discussion.

 

[Jfet]

Your post is confusing. I think you are making my point. That is why I said go for the rifle. A handgun is best used to fight your way to your rifle. Now obviously in some cases, its going to be pistol or nothing. But in your scenario you said the officer had an AR in his office, and that is where I would go if possible to retrieve said AR so as better engage the perp at distance.

Damn, you are giving me the same look my students do. Now I am starting to think it’s me.

I don’t want his AR in the office. I want him carrying the rifle full time. My question is are we ready to have a police officer with an AR on his person standing in the hall during the passing period?

Am I doing better on my point?

 

[sestoppelman]

Yeah, I got ya now. I don't know to your question whether the presence of an AR in schools is palatable to most or not, certainly it wouldn't be right now, since it has such bad press every day. Still for the best chance of getting hits on target, any rifle is preferred over any pistol for all but the most highly trained.

 

[Tam Dl]

I don’t want his AR in the office. I want him carrying the rifle full time. My question is are we ready to have a police officer with an AR on his person standing in the hall during the passing period?

Am I doing better on my point?

No. I would suspect that any rational analysis of that proposition would show it to be uneconomic. With nearly 100000 public schools, imagine 2 officers per school 75000 each plus an additional 100% in training, gear, benefits (they may need to be part of the school union if any). You are looking at in the order of 3 with 9 zeros. Now you have to ask yourself will this stop the shooting, have some effect on them, and will the effect be positive or negative. Seems like a bad way to spend money.

Putting guards of that type in schools has many potentially negative additional effects, and few if any that are positive.

 

[Tam Dl]

I think the police probably did the right thing by not going in. Basically that is their stick. When there is an active shooter with a assault rifle (yeah, yeah) you usually wait till things quiet down, or you get back-up, and that applies to SWAT in many cases. The exceptional point here is that there is some reason to believe the individual may not be a master technician, but he might be up to it, for one thing, he is presumably looking for collateral damage, and possibly death by cop.

That is where teachers have an advantage. Right at the moment, when the fight comes to them, they often interpose their bodies. To be cynical, they may get shot anyway, might as well try to do some good. In that situation if they hold their ground and stay with the kids, if the fight shows up, how does it get worse. I am not sure you need 600 rounds and a lot of tactical nonsense, just shoot to survive, and lest something virtuous happen.

While I am not as confident on this point... I wonder whether parents who show up boiling for a fight, might not carry the fight. Obviously they want to. No health insurance, or survivor's benefits.

 

[Tam Dl]

What a lot of these situations call for are grenades. Not the really nasty ones, but gas, or concussion? This kind of deal seems a lot more like trench warfare, and grenades were king in those operations.

 

[Tam Dl]

But a couple of things to note in your post. The Ruger is not an assault rifle, its a semi auto rifle.

On the other hand, semi auto fire is more effective than full auto from the platform in question. You don't need suppressive fire in the kindergarten. Front sight, trigger, repeat.

That old assault rifle gotcha is actually working against us these days, because the "expert" who has googled beyond the basic definitions, as he recovers from your kind of slap down, will realize that: Gun ninjas are basically lying to him, and then that they are wrong. Allowing us to loose the argument for semi autos, and our credibility, all in one act.

 

[Dragan N.]

I will add to what the four posts above say about the "why", to me there is one major problem to add also. That is lack of God, or in other words pure evil. People that let the devil influence them through the world, ie drugs, video games, peer pressure, alcohol, lack of respect, etc..

If the lack of religion is the primary cause, then according to this study/poll: http://www.pewglobal.org/2002/12/19/among-wealthy-nations/ Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and many other wealthy and irreligious western nations (which are a valid comparison to the US) should have far far more mass shootings than the US does- yet this isn't the case. Yet the US is far more religious than any of them.

Saying that a lack of religion is primarily to blame for mass shootings is as erroneous as blaming this problem on guns. Two different sides of the same coin jmo...

 

[Tam Dl]

The thing about ARs is, contrary to the propaganda, they are actually the most gun grabber friendly gun there is. The only actual downside, from the grabber perspective, is high rate of fire. But that goes along with many guns that aren't even guns under US definitions and are not controlled in any way at all. It goes along with designs from the 1860s onward, and certainly from the post WWII period. Getting rid of high rates of fire means rolling back most guns since the 1860s.

On the positive side there are things that would please "common sense" anti gun types:

1) It has probably the highest installed base of professionally trained users, whether trained by the military, law enforcement, government agencies, the many professional trainers, or through competition. And many of these users required some kind of vetting.

2) The guns are modular allowing them to be continually refined and upgraded, which ensures that diverse populations can use them, woman friendly for instance. And also ensuring that safety and efficiency improvements are constantly upgraded. Making for a gun that is saffer and more inclusive.

3) Though currently american shooters have access to multiple guns, in countries with restrictions, AR platforms can be upgraded rather than multiplying units in distribution;

4) Multi barrel options make the AR potentially a bit like the Blaser R8, a one lower armory. There is even a crossbow upper. That usually pleases the pencil pushers.

5) The .223 while being a whole lot of nothing I want to be hit with, is still in the lower ranks of power among bottleneck cartridges.

 

[sestoppelman]

On the other hand, semi auto fire is more effective than full auto from the platform in question. You don't need suppressive fire in the kindergarten. Front sight, trigger, repeat.

That old assault rifle gotcha is actually working against us these days, because the "expert" who has googled beyond the basic definitions, as he recovers from your kind of slap down, will realize that: Gun ninjas are basically lying to him, and then that they are wrong. Allowing us to loose the argument for semi autos, and our credibility, all in one act.

Wasn't really going for the "slap down" or "gotcha" on anyone, more a tongue in cheek reprisal for being non specific about terminology. I suspect he knows pretty well the difference but sometimes we get a little sloppy in our haste to post things, and spelling, grammar sometimes suffer, like your "loose" the argument instead of lose it. But I wont point that out as that might be perceived by some of the more philosophically minded of our intellectual membership as being rude, wouldn't want that to happen. LOL.

 

[cmnhunt]

The problem with the gun debate is that it does cloud the real question - what makes people kill scores of innocent, unarmed strangers. Seriously, how freaking weird is that?

The shooter back in the 60's at the University of Texas had a brain tumor (I think). Thats is an answer. There are other countries where civilians have access to firearms without this level of violence. When did it become a fad to massacre strangers? They need to take more of these deranged people alive so we can learn what is making them tick. I just can't comprehend it. I don't watch tv because I find is morally repugnant for the most part. I don't know, is there a link there?

I am praying you folks in the USA find a solution to this tragic problem. Seriously, it's just too sad for words. God bless.

Unfortunately, there is no answer. An atheist professor asked on a pro atheist news network where was God during this shooting. The only answer I have is He was not in the school due to being kicked out in the 60's by a group of judges who don't have the peoples best interest in place. The first mass shooting I remember, that was super publicized with assault weapons, was in the 80's at a McDonald s in California and it has been worse ever since. As, far as I can tell, the vast majority of mass shooters in schools, restaurants, etc. are atheists and believe that no morals exist and are just man made lies. When our leaders promote marijuana legalization, drug and alcohol abuse, pornography, perversions of the mind such as faces of death and every satanic video game on the market all described as personal freedoms, than there is no hope. Families are discouraged, good( is touted as backwards, intolerant, and evil) and abortion is perfectly normal than you have a pretty slim chance of success. Especially when it is taught from day one in most American schools. Sad, but we do need your prayers more now than ever.

 

[cmnhunt]

Let me not be so subtle. In the U. S. are we ready to have police in the school openly carrying an AR-15 rifle? A police officer that is in the school on a full time basis to prevent or stop a school shooting will be able to engage the bad guy faster and with more accurate fire than a police officer who is only carrying his pistol.

I'd go further. I would rather have our tax dollars pay for police full time in schools with AR's instead of having them on the corner pulling over old ladies for doing rolling stops. Maybe even be innovative and make the police headquarters at schools with precincts and such incorporated with the school building. We not only need that but all school campuses should have the immediate school grounds high fenced and no body allowed on campus with out checking into a gate. Also make it where school attendance is not mandatory. If trouble makers don't want to attend...buy...see ya. School is a privilege not a daycare for" troubled youths". Sorry to sound so drastic, but "leave it to beaver days are over" sadly.

 

[Jfet]

I would rather have our tax dollars pay for police full time in schools with AR's instead of having them on the corner pulling over old ladies for doing rolling stops.

You are on the mark.

In our school district we have our own police force complete with our own police chief and four officers. Each officer is assigned a school. They are in that school full time. They develop relationships with the students and the teachers. These officers are not security officers. All of them are police officers with previous experience in the more traditional police departments. The police officer at my school is a former SWAT officer.

President's Day weekend, the students had a three day weekend and the teachers had inservice training. While we teachers were being trained to administer our End Of Course exams. Our school districts police officers were at their gun range going through fire arm drills. I tried to get my principle to let me go because it would be a good experience as an Outdoor Adventure teacher. He reminded me that I do teach ONE biology class and that it has an EOC.