Latest School Shooting

[Domo]

I think we can all agree that something needs to change, the problem is agreeing on what that something is as a whole nation.
Right now we are too polarized, one side wants X and won't tolerate any Y, the other side wants Y and won't tolerate any X. Maybe we should all be working together for Z.

I so agree with this.

 

[UncleMike101]

Yes there are two groups congress will not touch. Guns and Pharma, gee guess who gives the most money.

Apparently you haven't bothered to research your wild claims.

Forbes doesn't list the NRA in the top ten lobbyists.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksh...ngress-and-agencies-in-3-months/#67c6a31f352c

Money and Career Cheatsheet. doesn't list the NRA in their top twenty list of business's that corrupt Congress.
https://www.cheatsheet.com/money-career/special-interest-government-corruption.html/?a=viewall

Open Secrets.org doesn't list the NRA in their top twenty lobbyists list
https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2017&indexType=s

In fact according to Open Secrets.org the NRA only spent a paltry $5,122,000 on lobbying in 2017.
https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000000082&year=2017

 

[Domo]

$5,122,000

That is a LOT of money. But then again, my country and it's finances are drastically smaller!

 

[UncleMike101]

That is a LOT of money. But then again, my country and it's finances are drastically smaller!

It is surely a lot of money when compared to my income.
But;
In the area of Political spending in the U.S. the amount spent by the NRA is hardly worth mentioning.

US Chamber of Commerce $82,190,000
National Assn of Realtors $54,530,861
Business Roundtable $27,380,000
Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America $25,847,500
Blue Cross/Blue Shield $24,330,306
American Hospital Assn $22,094,214
American Medical Assn $21,535,000
Alphabet Inc $18,150,000
AT&T Inc $16,780,000
Boeing Co $16,740,000
Open Society Policy Center $16,110,000
DowDuPont $15,877,520
National Assn of Broadcasters $15,460,000
Comcast Corp $15,310,000
Lockheed Martin $14,464,290
Amazon.com $13,000,000
Southern Co $12,970,000
National Retail Federation $12,890,000
NCTA The Internet & Television Assn $12,790,000
Oracle Corp $12,385,000

 

[Domo]

It is surely a lot of money when compared to my income.
But;
In the area of Political spending in the U.S. the amount spent by the NRA is hardly worth mentioning.

US Chamber of Commerce $82,190,000
National Assn of Realtors $54,530,861
Business Roundtable $27,380,000
Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America $25,847,500
Blue Cross/Blue Shield $24,330,306
American Hospital Assn $22,094,214
American Medical Assn $21,535,000
Alphabet Inc $18,150,000
AT&T Inc $16,780,000
Boeing Co $16,740,000
Open Society Policy Center $16,110,000
DowDuPont $15,877,520
National Assn of Broadcasters $15,460,000
Comcast Corp $15,310,000
Lockheed Martin $14,464,290
Amazon.com $13,000,000
Southern Co $12,970,000
National Retail Federation $12,890,000
NCTA The Internet & Television Assn $12,790,000
Oracle Corp $12,385,000

I'm not sure how I feel about a private institution holding power over Government through financial means.

As an aside, I would have thought Apple would be made it into that list.

 

[UncleMike101]

I'm not sure how I feel about a private institution holding power over Government through financial means.

As an aside, I would have thought Apple would be made it into that list.

Nothing new...........
Ancient Greece and The Roman Empire were awash in "political intrigue" and special interests.
And I'll bet Apple is filtering money to their favorite political causes.

 

[3 MEN AND A BOAT]

Another example (for those that like to say it never happens) of multiple intruders attempting to break into an occupied home
http://mynbc15.com/news/local/two-shot-in-west-mobile-subdivision

 

[Domo]

Nothing new...........
Ancient Greece and The Roman Empire were awash in "political intrigue" and special interests.
And I'll bet Apple is filtering money to their favorite political causes.

Doesn't make it right

The best I can say for it is, it's the status quo. Those with the money get the votes.

 

[Domo]

Huur I am Gun Man

 

[lifesavacation]

Eventually, enough will be enough will be enough. Something will change. What that change will be and when it happens is all up in the hour and varies from nation to nation. And there's nothing wrong with that.

I just wonder what the tipping point will be. Next year, if 1000 children and teachers die in school shootings, will we still do nothing? What if we have a school shooting every week? How bad are we going to let this get before we decide to work together.

 

[Hikergirl]

I just wonder what the tipping point will be. Next year, if 1000 children and teachers die in school shootings, will we still do nothing? What if we have a school shooting every week? How bad are we going to let this get before we decide to work together.

Innocent people including kids are killed every day in the US, but nobody seems to care because they aren't sitting in a classroom at the time.
We should have been doing things long ago to keep guns out of the wrong hands, 1000's have already been killed through the years.

 

[lifesavacation]

Innocent people including kids are killed every day in the US, but nobody seems to care because they aren't sitting in a classroom at the time.
We should have been doing things long ago to keep guns out of the wrong hands, 1000's have already been killed through the years.

Yes, innocent children can be killed in a myriad of ways. It shouldn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t do something about school related shootings. I think maybe I’m misunderstanding your response.

We regulate window blinds to keep children safe. We make sure pajamas are made with fire retardant fabrics. We regulate child safety seats. We have laws and regulations to keep children safe, but yet we cannot work together to keep our children safe at school from gun violence.

And I think most people care when innocent people are killed. I believe it’s a bit dramatic to say nobody cares.

 

[Hikergirl]

Yes, innocent children can be killed in a myriad of ways. It shouldn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t do something about school related shootings. I think maybe I’m misunderstanding your response.

We regulate window blinds to keep children safe. We make sure pajamas are made with fire retardant fabrics. We regulate child safety seats. We have laws and regulations to keep children safe, but yet we cannot work together to keep our children safe at school from gun violence.

And I think most people care when innocent people are killed. I believe it’s a bit dramatic to say nobody cares.

I meant innocent people are killed everyday by gun violence and I don’t see their stories all over the news. I don’t see protests and calls for gun control every time it happens. That is what I meant, we should have been doing something long ago maybe if we did we wouldn’t have a school shooting problem. But like I said nobody cared until the gun violence started creeping in to classrooms.
Maybe I should have said the media doesn’t care and since they like to control what we should care about they never bother to report about what goes on on a daily basis.

 

[tex1989]

I think people care, they care about themselves. I don't mean to be crass but my wife and had this discussion today and it was centered on much more than school shootings. Take for instance a thread here on the community board about sending your kid to school on the last day of school that occured on the Tuesday after Memorial Day because cancelled school days in the year had to be made up. I commented my wife worked in a Middle School for many years and the attendance requirements are indeed screwed up. But here is the salient point, many people my wife dealt with over the years and numerous posters on that thread said that "they don't do anything that day", "my kids would be bored", "we already had our vacation booked", etc. Okay so in other words the state education board, council or whatever they are in your state set the rules. These are the days you have to send your child to school. Now we all know that during the last week of school not much is done and the last couple might even be half days. I went to school in the 60's and 70's and by god no one questioned if you were going till the last day because the rules said you were and so you did. Parents did not make a judgement as to whether it was worth their kid going or not, the school said be there, and you were. Our world through the internet, social media, cable news, and unlimited access to information 24/7 have now made us all authorities on every subject. We question authority and think that the rules don't apply to us and our families. Now don't take this wrong, I agree within reason we should question things but at the same time we need to be aware of the limitations of the system and the fact that we are not the parents of snowflakes.


I am being long winded but I hope your starting to get the idea of where I am going. Folks today raise their kids with the belief that no one, even adult teachers, other parents, or any adult in an authority position has a right to tell them what they can and cannot do. So sure lets have rules for gun free zones, rules for where you can and cannot have weapons of any kind, and what you will find is that kids think those rules don't apply to them either. As young minds grow it takes a tremendous amount of parental nurturing, guidance, and explaination to make kids understand things. If all the rules about going to school are all subject to being questioned then why can't they question other rules as well?

Finally, when you introduce politics into the mix it gets really screwed up. For the same reasons mentioned above, internet, social media, etc we have developed a much broader political spectrum than we have ever had before in this country. Legislation used to happen in the middle. From Moderate to Conservative Democrats working with Moderate to more liberal Republicans things happened. Not everything was good or right, but it was action and an attempt to solve the issues. Today the more right or left you are the better.

Even in a thread like this when you are from either side and want to talk about real solutions someone always wants to paint you in broad brushstrokes because in the world we live in today it is so much easier to dismiss you that way. And dismissing you merely makes them believe that much more about how right they are. You can find a web sight that voices your opinion regardless of how non mainstream your ideas are. You read only that site and tell anyone who challenges your thoughts how wrong they are and run back to your site which strokes your brain and continues to feed your beliefs whether they are right or wrong. It is almost like cults by internet.

Rules and laws are only effective if people adhere to them and what I am saying is if people will challenge and question the minor ones how do you expect them to follow the rest maybe more important ones?

 

[Gumbo4x4]

Yes, innocent children can be killed in a myriad of ways. It shouldn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t do something about school related shootings. I think maybe I’m misunderstanding your response.

We regulate window blinds to keep children safe. We make sure pajamas are made with fire retardant fabrics. We regulate child safety seats. We have laws and regulations to keep children safe, but yet we cannot work together to keep our children safe at school from gun violence.

And I think most people care when innocent people are killed. I believe it’s a bit dramatic to say nobody cares.

Comparing fire retardant fabrics to murder is really apples & oranges. We lose 15,000 people a year to drunk driving. This isn’t caused by unsafe cars.

 

[lifesavacation]

Comparing fire retardant fabrics to murder is really apples & oranges. We lose 15,000 people a year to drunk driving. This isn’t caused by unsafe cars.

Yes, of course it is apples to oranges. We can and do legislate everything to protect our children, but we can’t do that when the medium is a gun due to it’s second amendment protection.

So will there ever be a point at which people are willing to give up some of their gun ownership rights? How many children have to die due to gun violence before we come together and change? I think the responses here are representative of the US as a whole. I get the argument that guns don’t kill people—people kill people. But if we continue to have mass shootings in school and our children continue to die, will people ever decide that the right to bear arms to protect itself from the State isn’t worth the violence and death that comes with it?

 

[PollyannaMom]

I meant innocent people are killed everyday by gun violence and I don’t see their stories all over the news. I don’t see protests and calls for gun control every time it happens. That is what I meant, we should have been doing something long ago maybe if we did we wouldn’t have a school shooting problem. But like I said nobody cared until the gun violence started creeping in to classrooms.

I think it's because they stopped feeling like they could control their own level of risk. When gun violence happened in places they already considered unsafe, they first saw it as just between "bad guys" on both sides. When someone innocent got caught in the crossfire, they still felt safe, because they wouldn't go there. Now it's happening in schools, where most of them have to send their children, and that sense of personal safety is eroded.

I think people care, they care about themselves. I don't mean to be crass but my wife and had this discussion today and it was centered on much more than school shootings. Take for instance a thread here on the community board about sending your kid to school on the last day of school that occured on the Tuesday after Memorial Day because cancelled school days in the year had to be made up. I commented my wife worked in a Middle School for many years and the attendance requirements are indeed screwed up. But here is the salient point, many people my wife dealt with over the years and numerous posters on that thread said that "they don't do anything that day", "my kids would be bored", "we already had our vacation booked", etc. Okay so in other words the state education board, council or whatever they are in your state set the rules. These are the days you have to send your child to school. Now we all know that during the last week of school not much is done and the last couple might even be half days. I went to school in the 60's and 70's and by god no one questioned if you were going till the last day because the rules said you were and so you did. Parents did not make a judgement as to whether it was worth their kid going or not, the school said be there, and you were. Our world through the internet, social media, cable news, and unlimited access to information 24/7 have now made us all authorities on every subject. We question authority and think that the rules don't apply to us and our families. Now don't take this wrong, I agree within reason we should question things but at the same time we need to be aware of the limitations of the system and the fact that we are not the parents of snowflakes.

Excellent topic of discussion!

...will people ever decide that the right to bear arms to protect itself from the State isn’t worth the violence and death that comes with it?

Eventually, yes - because people vote for (or vote for the people who will vote for) the laws that they, personally, are least afraid of. When our country was founded, we were more afraid of corrupt government. Today's children are growing up more afraid of school shootings. Eventually, they will be the voters, and (right or wrong) the priorities will change.

 

[Gumbo4x4]

Yes, of course it is apples to oranges. We can and do legislate everything to protect our children, but we can’t do that when the medium is a gun due to it’s second amendment protection.

So will there ever be a point at which people are willing to give up some of their gun ownership rights? How many children have to die due to gun violence before we come together and change? I think the responses here are representative of the US as a whole. I get the argument that guns don’t kill people—people kill people. But if we continue to have mass shootings in school and our children continue to die, will people ever decide that the right to bear arms to protect itself from the State isn’t worth the violence and death that comes with it?

At the end of the day though, you’re really attempting to legislate a behavior modification.

And let’s be honest, once the genie is out of the bottle, you can’t stuff it back in. Even if we were to outlaw all firearms today, there would be millions upon millions still “out there”

 

[3 MEN AND A BOAT]

At the end of the day though, you’re really attempting to legislate a behavior modification.

And let’s be honest, once the genie is out of the bottle, you can’t stuff it back in. Even if we were to outlaw all firearms today, there would be millions upon millions still “out there”

Add to that the ones that will be stolen from police and military to be sold on the black market. Not sure about the rest of the country but here I’ve been seeing it reported on the news lately police vehicles are being targeted to steal the guns locked up inside.

 

[tex1989]

Yes, of course it is apples to oranges. We can and do legislate everything to protect our children, but we can’t do that when the medium is a gun due to it’s second amendment protection.

So will there ever be a point at which people are willing to give up some of their gun ownership rights? How many children have to die due to gun violence before we come together and change? I think the responses here are representative of the US as a whole. I get the argument that guns don’t kill people—people kill people. But if we continue to have mass shootings in school and our children continue to die, will people ever decide that the right to bear arms to protect itself from the State isn’t worth the violence and death that comes with it?

As a gun owner if I think that giving up some of my rights regarding gun ownership would stop this violence, I would do it today. Problem is no one can tell me which if any of my rights I need to give up to make this happen. I don't own any weapons that are of the kind most folks want to get rid of. In incorrect but currently in vouge terminoligy I do not own any assault rifles. I own shotguns maximum capacity 5 shots with the plug out. I own hunting rifles, maximum capacity 5 rounds, I own target / plinking rifles (.22's) that can hold up to 14 rounds but are a very small cartridge and not even allowed to hunt anything bigger than a rabbit because it will only wound and not kill anything much larger. I own some handguns but one fire shotgun rounds specifically for snakes and has an effective range of 20 feet. So my point is what rights do I need to give up?

The Santa Fe shooter used a shotgun meant to shoot birds, and a handgun with six shots that the US Army abandoned in 1912 because it was ineffective in battle and was carried by most police officers until the 60's but abandoned by them because criminals had more firepower and they needed to match them. So while some gun control might effect the issue the bigger picture is that we need to do so much more than limit gun owners. People point to the Clinton Assault weapon ban as having been effective but that is false. All that law did was say if a gun had two of certain things then it was banned for sale. One of the things listed was a bayonet lug! Are you kidding me? How many deaths or injuries in all the incidents you can think of were caused by the shooter using a bayonet? Another feature was it could not have a pistol grip at the trigger. Another was it could not have rails for mounting accesories like forward grips or flashlights. None of these features made the gun anymore deadly. The features that did that were not regulated. But people will point to statistics that say there were less shootings while this law was in effect. That is not a logical outcome. Less shootings happened because less crazies decided during that period to shoot up a school.

So when people who don't understand guns rant about more gun laws and more control to fix the issue, a law abidding gun owner like myself asks a simple question, what do you want? Tell me how more regulations fix the problem. From this point the logical inference of a gun owner like myself is well then they must want to take my guns away. I am not alone, there are literally millions of people just like me who are law abidding citizens who lock up their guns seperate from their ammo and abid by all the laws and all I hear from the anti gun crowd is we are coming to take your guns. Sure that could happen and it is a slippery slope argument that people dismiss, but if they can come and take my legal, safe, guns away from me in the name of saftey then what can they come and take next in the name of saftey?

I had to add this. I am not a member of the NRA. I don't agree with a lot of what they say. But, I do understand this and they have stated it before, when you are dealing with a group or organization that is meaning to take every gun in America away from citizens then the response is push for the right of every American to own a machine gun, then as a comprimise you can settle somewhere in the middle. This is the fundamental problem with this topic and many others today. Two sides as far apart on the issue as they can be and neither side willing to move to the middle.