18 Children Dead From Reports

Walberger county Texas arms their teachers. 103 schools with "guardians ". They interview and pick certain teachers and allow them to conceal carry. They also send them through accuracy training and recquire them to use fragmentation bullets.

 

The primary areas that need to be addressed as it relates to shootings like the ones in Newtown, Aurora, Virginia Tech, etc. is fourfold in my opinion (not necessarily in this order):

1 - Funding mental health has to be a national priority. My wife is a therapist and I can tell you first hand that the very first thing that gets cut from federal, state and local funding is mental health when budget cuts are necessary. The reason for this is that there are no political ramifications for either party to cut funding to such services. Further, the mental health system cannot be run privately. I have born witness to the ramifications of a privately run mental health system here in NC and it is a cluster fuck and a half.

2 - Hollywood. Hollywood likes to jump on the "anti-gun" bandwagon any time they get the chance yet year after year they produce more and more violent movies with more and more graphic detail. This doesn't just relate to the movies and television but also to video games. I play video games with my son quite often but I also monitor how much violence is involved and never let him play games that are not rated appropriately for his age.

3 - Parents. Parents have an obligation to know what is going on with their kids and to exercise some common sense. It is hard to blame a victim like the shooters mother in this case but she knew he was a troubled young man but never locked up those guns. That was stupid. Of course, hindsight is always 20-20.

4 - Common sense gun and ammo laws. I am a proud gun owner and hunter and an avid supporter of the 2nd amendment. Never in a million years would I relinquish my gun rights. That said, never once have I ever needed an armor piercing round to kill wild game nor have I needed an automatic rifle. Having served in the military and used said weopons on regular occasion I can attest to the fact that when placed on the automatic setting they are not accurate......at all. So when someone claims that they use an AR-15 for hunting I laugh and call them a liar.

 

I agree with you NC. If you need a thirty round clip for deer hunting you need to spend more time at the range practicing and time in the woods scouting. My Rifles hold 4 in the clip. Only twice in 30 yrs have I emptied the clips. That was when running deer dogs.

 

Exactly.

 

all of that may happen, but when the next shooting happens, nothing will have really changed. the guns may or may not be legal, and the kids will be just as dead.

i realize i am not really offering solutions. sorry about that, i have nothing

 

There aren't many solutions out there, don't apologize.

 

I never mean it when I apologize

 

I understand what you are saying, but I also agree with Martin. The things you listed may very well happen, but when the next shooting happens the victims will be just as dead. I can all but guarantee you that there will be other mass killings of this nature with or without an "assault" weapons ban. I mean sure, you can make these things harder to get, but eventually these types of people will still get them and still use them in the same fashion.

Also, a guy like this knew exactly what he was doing in choosing who the victims were going to be. He didn't go to a public place where there were bunches of adults. This little scrawny punk knew that there would be very little resistance, and I wager could have done the same amount of damage with handguns and 10-round clips as with an AR-15 and 30 round clips.. Even if he had to reload more often, scared children aren't going to rush you when you're reloading, which takes about 2 seconds if you've got pre-loaded magazines like he had. Not to mention he had 2 handguns, so if they were limited to 10-round clips, that's still 20 rounds he could pop off before having to reload. He could practically clear out the classroom and the teacher, reload, and move on to the next. I think he put enough thought and planning into it that even had high capacity magazines been outlawed he would have caused a similar number of fatalities. Where there's a will, there's a way and he demonstrated that he certainly had the will. This kid was evil, and evil people will find a way to do evil things in my opinion, especially if they know their victims can't defend themselves or other potential victims. This is why I think the gun-control issue is futile.

All that said, do I see a problem with more thorough background checks, maybe required training, and that sort of thing, etc? Sure, do it.. why not? It's a great responsibility to own a firearm and shouldn't be trivialized. But in the end, I don't feel it will make a great deal of difference, with the exception that maybe someone that is carrying will have the skills needed to actually stop someone from doing something similar.

As far as armor piercing rounds, I agree with you there. I don't see much need to have them in my stash. I've (thankfully) never been in the situation where I had to shoot anyone and hope I never am, but I practice shooting routinely at the range. That includes drills of 2 to the chest, one to the head. If you're successful in that, then I don't care what kind of rounds you use, you'll stop whoever is coming at you, vest or not.

 

While I am sickened by what happened, I do not see how banning an AR-15 is going to stop anything. Like Swerved just said, you can put enough training into your plan with a simple handgun and kill just as many people. I think the key thing is background checks and with that check, mental issues should come up during this. I also think that the only real solution is having mandatory protection at public functions, however much that may cost. It can be paid for by gun tax IMO.


One of Americas strengths is that it has armed citizens.