The NRA posed lots of solutions. Many of them I agree with. A police officer in every school would be great. But who will pay for it? In PWC, there are over 90 schools. Let’s say one officer, when all was said and done, with a car, equipment, salary, benefits, and pension would cost in the neighborhood of $100,000. That’s no small chunk of change. Is the NRA going to help with the cost? Didn’t think so. I think I am low balling that figure anyway. It sounds like we are taling $10 million.
The NRA suggested we get tougher on the mentally ill. I am all in favor of that also. What I haven’t heard is how the NRA is going to change. Are they going to decide that the man on the street doesn’t need military type weapons? How many rounds do we need to fire a minute? The NRA assumed no responsibility in any of this and I have a problem with that.
We tax cigarettes, booze, gambling and use some of those funds to fixing the problems those things cause. Perhaps we need to start taxing guns sales and ammunition sales to apply towards fixing some of the problems that America’s gun pastime is producing.
I can already hear the howling. Let’s put it another way, I don’t want to buy guns and ammo. Why should I pay for someone else’s hobby that leaves a very expensive foot print? As long as 2A rights involve high powered weapons that can inflict untold damage on those caught in the crossfire, those who insist on no restrictions can just help pay for it.
Why should the NRA change or assume any responsibility? They have done nothing wrong. I’m sorry that you “have a problem with that” but collective guilt is not the American way.
As stated elsewhere, “What is the gun community going to do about this tragedy? I dunno, what is the gay community going to do about Penn State?”- From Ann Althouse’s blog and Instapundit
The gun community and the NRA have no responsibility over the act of a mad man. Since the “pastime” is NOT producing the problem, then there is no reason to single it out. The majority of the gun crime is between fellow criminals, usually involved in the drug trade. Murder is already illegal. 99.996% of guns were not used in a murder. Anywhere from 200,000 to 800,000 defensive uses happen per year. If you’re going to tax them with “sin” taxes, better be ready with some tax credits because guns saves lives.
I have a huge problem with the fact that they have lobbied for toys I think are unsafe, especially in the hands of the mentally ill.
We will have to sit back and wait and see who is really SOL on this one.
I think many Americans share my opinion.
Pull in the toys. There are too many toys out there that cause harm to others.
I’ve seen the quote I used many places but I pulled it from here.
http://www.texasgopvote.com/issues/restore-families/irrational-manipulation-004946
Heh….if you think that you didn’t like the press conference….you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!
http://booksbikesboomsticks.blogspot.com/2012/12/oh-my-gawd.html
The comments are great!
See.. this is the funny part…the NRA does not drive the discussion. It hasn’t in years. But the media love to hate them, the NRA loves to be the target because it makes them look powerful. But other pro-rights organizations have done the heavy lifting in recent years. The one good political thing that the NRA has is its size…..
Columbine Shows Why NRA’s “School Shield” Likely Wouldn’t Work
Columbine Shows Why NRA’s “School Shield” Likely Wouldn’t Work
By Josh Levin
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Posted Friday, Dec. 21, 2012, at 1:54 PM ET
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A sign wishes the band good luck in front of Columbine High School in Littleton, CO, 22 April, 1999, the site where fourteen students and one teacher were killed 20 April, 1999
Photo by Jeff Haynes/AFP/Getty Images.
In today’s NRA press conference, the group’s executive vice president Wayne LaPierre called for “armed security in every school”:
What if, when Adam Lanza started shooting his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School last Friday, he had been confronted by qualified, armed security? Will you at least admit it’s possible that 26 innocent lives might have been spared? Is that so abhorrent to you that you would rather continue to risk the alternative?
LaPierre is right—it’s possible that an armed guard could have stopped Adam Lanza. But is it likely? Consider the case of Columbine High School.
On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 12 students and one teacher at Columbine. On the scene that day was Neil Gardner, an armed sheriff’s deputy who had been policing the school for almost two years.
As a CNN report describes, Gardner was eating lunch when he got a call from a custodian that he was needed in the school’s back parking lot. A few minutes later, he encountered Harris and the two exchanged gunfire. Harris was not hit and ran back inside the school. At that point, “Gardner called for additional units to respond to the south parking lot of Columbine High School. … While he was on the radio calling for assistance, five other Jefferson County deputies already were on their way, arriving only minutes after the first report of a ‘female down’ at Columbine High School.” Later, Gardner saw Harris again, through a broken window. Once again, he fired. Once again, he didn’t hit him.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2012/12/21/columbine_armed_guard_colorado_shooting_shows_that_nra_s_shield_program.html
The NRA’s recommendation has already been tried at places like Columbine and failed miserably.
@Starryflights
So, then… if we follow the logic that one time failed….don’t know why…. then need more protectors….so…armed teachers or more than one guard. Perhaps a different routine or training.
Are there any cases of potential school shooters getting stopped before they could kill? In a recent Explainer, Forrest Wickman cited a case in which two men “confronted a Columbine-obsessed attacker in North Carolina who was firing at cars outside the school and had killed his father that day. Armed with his pistol, Ivey ordered the student to drop his weapons, and LeBlanc (who was unarmed) put him in handcuffs.”
But there is evidence of teachers with access to weapons have stopped shooters.
A different route of training? So are these people training as teachers or as guards?
There is evidence? Anything is possible. It is such a shallow argument. Again, prepare to pay for it.
So 5 people per school are carrying a weapon. How do we determine who takes their class while a lone wolf preditor is being tracked down? If the gunman went into the armed teachers classroom it would be great. What if they went into someone else’s?
The people who are all trying to arm the teachers really don’t understand the school day from a teacher’s perspective.
That is one random case.
I would retrofit a building so it was a fortress and post an armed LEO at the entrance. I would then not let anyone in while kids were in the building. That includes parents or deliverymen. People like teachers and custodians would have to take annual polygraphs and psych profiles. Is that what we want to pay for ?
How about the sycholtic parents who want to come shoot the place up because little Johnny got an F? (or little J’s mother got custody, or Little J didnt take the garbage out? or Little J impregnated the girl down the street?)
Evidence schmedividence. No one is saying that a teacher with a gun can’t stop gun violence. That really isn’t the issue. It’s iffy at best. It’s not the answer to past gun violence at schools.
I am surprised there isn’t more of it. Kids get their hands on guns and bring them to school. Maybe the answer is something more basic. Maybe we need to just put heavy see through plastic on all the lockers. so we can see into the things. Hire a cop for each school. So it costs 12 million bucks a year. Isn’t that worth it if we don’t have a school full of dead kids? how much did a couple of terrorists wars cost us?
Its a social cost. Stop spending really doesn’t fit into the plan does it? We want wars for these things. The wars cost a billion a week. What were those wars for? What did they get us? A bunch of dead Americans and a huge deficit. Stop spending Stop spending.
This is insanity. We are going to have to spend. So now we spend more because we go off the cliff. The big bad Republicans went home for Christmas. Stop spending stop spending.
i would hold back their damn pay checks. But its those on medicare’s fault. Of course, people have paid in to medicare their entire lives. It could never be those wars. Stop spending Stop spending.
@Cargosquid Cargo, you’re thinking about this all wrong. We need to mandate “Gun-Free Zones” absolutely everywhere. There should be more signs posted and flyers printed so everyone knows that there are no weapons anywhere at those sites. When criminals see those signs, they will go elsewhere. I think I read of one case in the HuffPo where a criminal saw a “Gun-Free Zone” sign at his local organic-food market and immediately went to his local police department and turned in his weapon. He was then able to go in and just ask the clerk politely to empty out the cash drawer. Those signs really work!
Doh, slapping head. Deer X-ing moment. Its for law enforcement. In a gun free zone, anyone seen with a weapon is assumed to be a criminal. You know what you are dealing with. Law-abiding citizens won’t have guns in gun free zones.
You don’t want to deal with friendly and unfriendly fire in that setting. With a gun free zone, you can assume all weapons are unfriendly.
@Emma
Boo! A raspberry for you!
@Moon-howler
The GOP went home. And why shouldn’t they? The no show Senate stated that nothing would be done and Reid said, “We’re outta here.”
The entire Congress needed to stay right where they were until they reached an agreement.
They weren’t finished their work. Get over the Senate. OCD.
@Moon-howler
Actually, I’m going to agree with you here. I’d have no problem paying an excise tax on guns and ammo provided the money went to school security. That’s a perfectly reasonable compromise.
Senator Manchin had a really thoughtful and comprehensive op-ed in the Wash Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/sen-joe-manchin-between-obama-and-the-nra-another-path-to-stopping-mass-violence/2012/12/21/181d4e94-4adc-11e2-9a42-d1ce6d0ed278_story.html?hpid=z9
He touches on ALL the issues that surround gun violence. I hope he has an impact on creating real change.
I learned something today – Columbine High School had an armed security guard on duty the day of the Columbine shooting. We can all see how that turned out.
So far we have a massive sample of two incidents where the armed guard didn’t work out. I guess that speaks to just disarming everyone, because it’s safer in the long run when confronted by murderers, and the police can usually deploy in nanoseconds.
Fort Hood, Texas could hardly be called a gun free zone. There were plenty of “good guys with a gun” around, yet the shooter there managed to kill 13 people and wound 30 before being apprehended.
Except the shooter wasn’t some outsider breaking in. He was in the ranks there, presumably one of the “good guys with a gun. And it wasn’t some random act of violence–it was a planned act of terrorism. You should get your facts straight, Starry. You present many good reasons why policy should not be based on knee-jerk emotion and a paucity of facts.
You know as well as I do being prior service that weapons are a lot more regulated on base than in Fair Oaks Mall. You’re being silly.
Back to Cargo’s early reaction. The NRA took a week of contemplation, saying that it would come forward on Friday with a meaningful response to the tragedy in Connecticut. What they game forward with was an extraordinary head-in-the-sand display of arrogance and insensitivity to the gravity of the crime. They do have a responsibility in that they have, over approximately two decades, transformed themselves from a hunter/sportsman education group into an aggressive advocacy arm of the arms industry. They take in millions of dollars from the manufacturers and have actively championed a policy stance designed to put guns of all types in as many hands as possible. they have never, to my knowledge, made any effort in recent times to significantly filter out who can get or use a firearm or to restrict firearms to those best suited to hunting and target shooting. That there are 300 million firearms in the hands of the population (a fact, by the way, that makes me believe this problem is essentially un-solveable) is very much attributable to the NRA. That’s why they have a responsibility, one that they completely kicked aside yesterday. To call the NRA, what it has done, and what it represents a “pastime” as in your proffered quote, misses the central role of the NRA in our country having become a heavily armed camp.
So the NRA pulled the trigger at Sandy Hook, McDonalds applied the hot coffee to a woman’s groin area, Philip Morris put the cigarettes in people’s mouths so they would get cancer, Twinkies killed Harvey Milk and George Moscone. I see a lot of banning potential.
Emmna, do you believe any civilian needs to have multiple rounds that can kill 26 people in under 2 minutes?
@Emma
My local high school is a sprawling complex. I don’t know where the armed guard ought to be stationed. Should s/he be a roving guard? Out by the front door with a metal detector?
Any suggestions?
Mark Kelly: The Time For NRA’s ‘Extreme Rhetoric Is Over’
DAVID TAINTOR 2:47 PM EST, FRIDAY DECEMBER 21, 2012
Mark Kelly, husband of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, said in a statement Friday the National Rifle Association “chose narrow partisan concerns over the safety of our families and communities” during a press conference earlier in the day:
Gabby and I are extremely disappointed by the NRA’s defiant and delayed response to the massacre of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The NRA could have chosen to be a voice for the vast majority of its own members who want common sense, reasonable safeguards on deadly firearms, but instead it chose to defend extreme pro-gun positions that aren’t even popular among the law abiding gun owners it represents. Today, the NRA chose narrow partisan concerns over the safety of our families and communities. The time for this kind of extreme rhetoric is over. We must have a real conversation about preventing gun violence, because when it comes to protecting our children, families, and neighbors, we can’t wait any longer.
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/mark-kelly-time-for-nras-extreme-rhetoric-is
@Starryflights
That’s absolutely untrue. Soldiers in-garrison are required to be unarmed due to Army Regulation 190-14. The soldiers at Fort Hood were probably as defenseless as an elementary school at the time of the attack.
http://www.morningjournal.com/articles/2009/11/08/opinion/mj1856795.txt
I’ve come to notice in modern discourse that clauses that begin with “so . . . ” usually are followed by something utterly irrational. Emma’s comment at 1109 is one of a rapidly accumulating heap of examples.
I didn’t say everyone on base was armed. Undeniably, however, military bases are hardly unsecured or vulnerable. There is plenty of srmed security around. They are some of the safest places one can be. Yet these incidents still happen even there.
BTW: there probably are very good reasons for military regulations that prohibit them from toting around their weapons. If we don’t trust soldiers on base with their weapons, why should we trust teachers in schools”
Complicated problems require complicated solutions. If gun violence in this country were as simple as bannning specific gun and magazine clips there would be the political will to do. The reality is that the answer is not a simple fix. It will require a societal transformation, one that I am not sure we can accomplish in the current climate of us vs them mentality. I really wish those strident voices suggesting nothing can change but arm teachers would read the op ed by Senator Manchin.
The solution will require the will of not just our elected officials but regular ole citizens. Eli lost most of his violent games and I am not swayed by his pleading. I don’t care that his friends watch certain movies or play violent video games. I have chosen to start the change right here in my house.
But I can’t do it alone, it will require a collective effort, all the way from the NRA, to our government, to our mental health system, to the the media. We are a nation that rewards money, we value the influence of money over the influence of simply living an authentic life, not based on who is famous, who has the most power through the almight dollars, but instead, we should be rewarding who is the most decent human being. We are lost and now its time to find our way.
Lets tax guns like cigarettes.
Perhaps the best comment of this thread, and I agree with a lot of what Manchin said.
As someone who is firmly in the pro-gun camp, I’ll tell you what it would take to get me out of the “us vs. them” mentality and reach across the aisle, so to speak. Stop talking about the outright banning of the so-called assault weapon and the high capacity magazines. This doesn’t mean that we can’t discuss additional taxes or required safeguards to possess such hardware, but stop agitating for an outright ban.
I’m a combat vet and FFL holder. I’ve passed every federal background investigation and polygraph under the sun, at one time or another. I probably have a lot of things in my arsenal that wouldn’t make sense to your readers, everything from a civil war era Springfield musket to a WWI Vickers to an M60. The aggregate value of the collection since the mid 90s has risen almost 500%. They sit in a large, closet-sized safe 364 days out of the year. I have regular, in-home compliance inspections from BATF agents.
I said all that to say this – don’t try to tell law-abiding, responsible, always play-by-the-rules gun owners what they can and can’t have, because if you do that a whole lot of 2A people of good will are just going to completely shut down and the odds are good that nothing will get done.
Excise taxes are worth a discussion. More strident background checks and regulations in order to purchase certain types of weapons are certainly worth discussion. Hardening our schools may have some merit, as every time one of these massacres occurs it’s almost always a soft target. Thinking about how we as a society stop glorifying warfare, murder and fame for the sake of fame is a no-brainer.
If your side stops trying to tell law abiding, regulations-complying 2A conservatives what they can and can’t have I think you’d be surprised at how many of us would join your cause.
@Cato the Elder
Stop telling them our weaknesses! 🙂
My reflex is to shut down any talk of a ‘tax’. For me less govt is better. But, you make a point that is at least worthy of discussion (if anything resembling a ban were off the table)
Your collection makes me drool. Want a son in law? I can ditch the current wife to upgrade. 🙂
BTW, if the NRA weren’t so liberal I’d think of joining them. I’m much happier with the work done by the SAF and GOA.
How do you expect less government whilst arming schools with officers?
The NRA’s position is that living with universal firearms possession is a good thing that has, at the margins, infrequent undesirable results. Their proposal is that the taxpayors foot the bill for defending kids against the world all of us have created, with energetic support and advocacy from the NRA. I would have felt it a more heartfelt “constructive” response if the NRA had offered to channel the millions it has received from retailers and manufacturers of weapon toward funding the extra police officers. However, in the near term at least, their solution (leaving aside who pays for it) may be the most sensible, immediate response to this predicament we have elected to live in.
@Lyssa
Arming schools with officers is one choice and pricey and as you point out increases the scope of govt.
Using contracted security like BlackWater would get around the murky govt issue but still bring good guys with guns on deck.
Lastly, allowing teachers to voluntarily bring in firearms assuming they have a CHP and not paying them for doing so would probably be my best option if cost is a factor.
@marinm
What makes you think BlackWater guards would be cheaper? You realize that BlackWater gets a big cut. I’ve seen data saying that they charged $950/day for a guard after Katrina but the guard only got $350 of that money.
@Censored bybvbl
Contractors are usually cheaper than civilians or in this case government civilian law enforcement. But, I don’t mind comparing the numbers if we ever get that far!
You do realize this would cost in the neighborhood of $15-20 billion nationwide. And mental health issues haven’t been addressed. Well, if we cut the $35k for the Bluebird Bus in PWC, we’re well on our way. And the PWC flat tax bill will only fund four cops. Yep, there’s a solution.
Actually the cost for Blackhawk contractors is more than for officers. At least here in Northern Va. Should we keep comparing?
@Lyssa
Sure. I haven’t seen any bids go out but I’m game. Show me the numbers.
@Cato the Elder
How many “sides” are out there? What is Elena’s “side?” She is a gun owner. She wants some sensible gun laws that set tighter parameters around gun ownership and gun usage.
You are talking about her as though she wants to go around in an armed car and round up everyone’s weapons.
So in other words, agree with us who own uzis and want to fire them in the state parks on Sunday or we will really shut you down?
You might not have numbers on your side this time.
@marinm
Would you want a teacher who would be willing to do that around your kids? I sure wouldn’t.
Also, regardless of who cuts the pay check, if the govt is employing your company, you are government. It might do some defense contractors some good to remember it, before they get all high and mighty like some I know.
I’m not sure why a teacher is in any way less “government” than a police officer.
Me either. It seems they all get paid out of the same public coffers.
@Moon-howler
“Would you want a teacher who would be willing to do that around your kids? I sure wouldn’t.”
Willing to do what around the kids?
“Also, regardless of who cuts the pay check, if the govt is employing your company, you are government.”
If only I could score government benefits like sleeping on the job, not showing up for years and getting paid or of course a fan favorite — not being able to be fired for any reason linked to competence… Sometimes I wish I was a govie. 😉
It’s kinda odd that the article’s discussion seems to hover around what the NRA did or didn’t say… as if what they say has any impact on some SOB who decides to kill people. The main (only?) reason the NRA exists is to maintain the 2nd Amendment. They can’t stop someone from killing others any more than you or I can stop them. If for some reason you think they can, I got some beachfront property in Florida I’d like to show ya.
Do we get on a bandwagon and say all guns should be outlawed? Okay, fine, we pass such a law. But will that law keep a gun from getting into the hands of someone who wants a gun? If you think that law will prevent that person from getting a gun, I got another beachfront property in Florida I’d like to show ya.
Among their first mandates, Hitler, Stalin and plenty of other totalitarian leaders made sure guns were outlawed and kept out of the hands of the population. They knew people might one day decide to use those guns to defend themselves if laws became too unjust. And that’s exactly why it’s in the Constitution.
From my perspective, this tragedy isn’t about, nor can it prevented in the future by, condemning the NRA or trying to dismantle the Constition. I recently watched 9500 Liberty and I have a great deal of respect for what you’ve done and accomplished… yet I think these distinctions woulda been kinda obvious after what you’ve been through and experienced.
This tragedy was a manifestation, an aspect, of the kind of society we’ve become. What kinda society have we become? Well, kids weren’t killing kids when I grew up in the 60’s; it wasn’t thought of or even considered… it just didn’t happen. Seems to me, a discussion about what changed between then and now might provide some insight. Nope, I haven’t figured it out but putting some common-sense heads together and thinking it through might be a good start.
After all, both the NRA and the 2nd Amendment were around in the 60’s when kids weren’t killing kids, and neither has changed much in the last 50 years. Perhaps a discussion about prevention lies in another direction.
How about Charles Whitman? (belltower sniper) I think kids killed kids, adults killed kids, adults killed adults. However, I agree that it didn’t seem as common place as it is today. We did discuss what I felt were some contributing factors. Feel free to add to them. You will have to scroll down and even back a page as there are a lot of articles up.
As for criticizing the sacred NRA, why not? They are a strong lobby for absolutely no restrictions on any kind of guns at all. If they have restrictions on ammo I am unaware of it.
Back in the 60’s war was always sanitized. We never saw the real horrors of war out of Hollywood. Perhaps its a good thing that we are more open about that kind of horror. What do you think about that? Also, would you let your kids play some of these video games that depict maiming and killing in such graphic detail? How would you put the brakes on some of that and still not stomp on 1A rights?
@Moon-howler
Then get over the House. Your statement is the first time that you mentioned the entire Congress.
Get over the house? Are you nuts? Where did the talks stop?
The House of Representatives. They need to get back here and finish their work.
@Starryflights
There ISN’T plenty of armed security around on bases. At the gate and in police cars. That’s it.
Yep, US Navy ships have one person standing the quarterdeck watch with an unloaded 45 pistol strapped to their side with clips in a belt pouch. I’ve stood a few myself. It may be different today, but with only that a nut case could have walked on board an done in a number of people before anyone could stop them. A ship full of weapons, and only one in the open to prevent a possible tragedy. Why then no tragedies? Times and people were different then I believe. That can’t be fixed easily no matter what the laws.
@marinm
Other than that isnt really the way it is…..only in your dreams.
@Second Alamo
Well…it was supposed to be unloaded…..it always seemed to magically become loaded while standing watch, on my ship. I have NO idea how that happened……
Nevertheless, the NRA’s proposed solution to Newtown has been shown to be a failure.
@Starryflights
Really? Then I guess that my daughter’s school should get rid of the resource officer.
You better hold on to the SRO. PWC stupidly took them out of middle school to save money.
I have no respect for that kind of stupidity on the part of our local politicians.
@Moon-howler
It’s Starry’s idea to remove them because the Columbine guard decided not to engage them.
Starry is entitled to his own opinion.
We have 91 schools and 15 RSOs. Some of those officers share middle schools and high schools. The county promises more and then these positions become the low hanging fruit every time some supervisor wants to appear fiscally spartan.
Let’s see how that flies now.
@Moon-howler
Hmm…if there was only a way to get competent armed people inside a school at low cost…..
I’m sure that solution will come to mind any minute now……
There isn’t so lets use the slave labor already there. Let’s make all the teachers pack heat.
Is that where that was supposed to go?
No. The public will have to be taxed to pay for it. Or…here’s an idea…let’s tax gun sales and ammo. Let’s give them a special tax like a revenuers tax. Then let’s apply all that money taken in to paying cops in schools.
We are talking about a hobby. There are boat taxes, cigarette taxes, booze taxes, gambling taxes. All ammo and guns that are for a job would be exempt from that special tax. Anything that was strictly avocational would be subject to a tax.