No, the problem is crazy people with automatic weapons in this case. That guy shot 27 people with the .223. He didn't shoot them with a .22 target pistol. He shot them with a high powered semi-automatic rifle. There's no reducing this thing down to if we can just control crazy people we can put anything we want out there on the streets. It just doesn't work. You can't control crazy people well, you can't figure out who is about to go crazy and you can't control who will be in their path when that happens. The one thing you can control is what weapons are likely to be available to them when they start killing. It's not an easy job but it is one that civilizations have eventually managed every time they tried to do it. If tactical nukes were widely available I'll guarantee you that both the criminal element and crazy people would get their hands on them when they wanted them and cities would go up in mushroom clouds now and then. Controlling the crazy people wouldn't stop that.
So you take away all the high powered rifles in the world and then the crazies can only use hand guns like the VA Tech shooter who killed 32 and injured 17 with 2 hand guns. Sounds like a great solution. :up: And I am also in complete agreement that their needs to be a line drawn somewhere as to what types of weapons are available. I said so much in the post you quoted - so the whole nuke thing was just ridiculously silly.
the problem,is nobody is wrong. this is like trying to put a completely crumbled house that fell long ago back together without a tool box
What about pissed off people? Just on my subway train today in Times square these three loud guys were bragging to each other about how they beat the shit out of various people, kicked them in the head, etc etc. Put a gun in the hands of one of those guys in the wrong situation and you have dead victims instead of bruised victims
So this week has been impossible for many, many people. Traffic in town has been a nightmare due to all the funerals. Theres been an average of 3 a day all week. Theres only one funeral hall in town and I hitnk they had 12 or 13 of the funerals. The processions have actually criss crossed through town. Ive seen about 8 or 9 hearses. The crowds of people outside Trinity church and St Rose have been amazing. But so sad to see. There have been some AWESOME displays of humanity from people all across the country. We have a huge facility in town, a youth academy that has baseball and soccer and volley ball, health club with fitness classes etc. They charge for all the activities but this week its been completly free for all kids in Newtown to come and play. I took my kids two nights. It was tremendous. The kids loved it. Random people donated pizzas, soda, snadwiches, cookies, cakes you name it to the academy. As all the kids played, delivery guys came in by the dozens, loading the place with food. Poeple were caling pizza places and delis in town and giving their credit card numbers over teh phone to get food to everyone. There was a pie truck, yep a pie truck that drove from Iowa. They make home made pies. They have been parked in front of town hall all week handing out free pies to people. They must have given out 42 billion pies. Every cost of every funeral has been covered by donations. Caskets, flowers, everything you can imagine was donated or paid for by other people. Today at the general store, all "hot beverages" are free because of a random credit card given over the phone. A lot of the media has gone so its a little better in that regard but the funerals and memorial sites are still being covered by press. I think today will be the last day for most of the press. Its been an absolutely impossible week in Newtown and for this whole country. Hopefully, something positive will come from this whole ordeal so these kids don't die in vain. But regardless of that, Ive seen first hand how kind people can be. From teh donations to the phone calls, letters, emails, hugs in the street from strangers. Maybe there is some hope. Please continue to pray for the families of Newtown
So you'd agree with me about the utter futility of preventing this kind of tragedy by implementing a government program designed to isolate dangerous people from their pet firearms then? I say the millenium has come. It's always about food with you, isn't it?
This a a fantastic post and reminder that this was a horrendously tragic event, but overall people are good and caring. There are some evil, sick people in the world, but we outnumber them by millions.
Very true. It's always good to hear about a community coming together to help people in the event of a tragedy. Unfortunately it seems that it requires a tragedy for stuff like this to happen but that's a completely different discussion. It's obviously going to be a long greiving period for the families of the victimes and the community as a whole, but if they can gather even the slightest sliver of relief from the actions of people like this...well, you can't put a dollar amount on something like that. Still can't believe it was a week ago. It still makes me feel sick to think about it. Not that it will erase the damage done but I hope that some good can come of this that will prevent future situations like this from happening again. Whether that's stricter gun laws, better in-school security or whatever doesn't really matter, all that matters is that another community doesn't have to bury their children.
I support this plan so long as the expense associated with it is paid out of the NRA's operating budget. I also expect them to fund the placement of armed law enforcement around the clock in all shopping malls, post offices, nightclubs and places of worship. Sounds about right.
Did you happen to catch their comments on the situation? They blamed everybody from the media to Hollywood to the government but not once did they say anything about the types of weapons the common citizen can get their hands on. Their position is nope...no problem with guns... it's everybody elses fault, in fact lets have more guns"... fucking ridiculous.
The average security guard makes about $28K in the US. They're not typically well trained and often couldn't cut it for the military or police forces. And half the security guards I see in business look like they're long time members of the AARP or the dunkin donuts rewards club. My point is, a crazed gunman with a semiautomatic bushmaster bursts into a quiet school in the suburbs - who do you think he's going to shoot first?
I don't think it's feasible to put armed guards everywhere but I also think these cowards would be a lot less likely to even try if they knew their was an armed guard.
