Define “something”

[GW]

Exactly. Explosives are illegal too. We live in a world where bad people do bad things. Removing free citizens' rights to defend themselves is not the solution to the problem.

Amen!

[L84CABO]

First and foremost gun owners are not responsible for this problem and it isn't our obligation to solve it in order to keep our rights. We are, however, concerned citizens and parents so we're happy to discuss and do what we can. But our rights are non negotiable and not up for subjugation because of what some evil idiots do.

With that said, this is an enormous and deeply complex problem. But guns are damn sure not the reason that this nut job went in and shot up that school. What are the reasons?

1) Decades worth of decay of our family structures and values

2) Significant rise in single parent families and particularly that many boys are growing up without fathers.

3) Whatever is left of our families, they are doing everything they can to insulate their children from all forms of stress, anxiety, hard work, failure, etc. Kids are being taught that all they have to do to succeed is to show up and collect their trophy. They are poorly equipped to deal with the harsh realities that life throws at them.

4) Increase in technology. Use of technology (devices) have replaced our relationships. We're more connected now than we ever have been but we're more alone and more isolated than we ever have been. We have no sense of tribe, no sense of community, no investment in those communities, and very poor support systems. This isn't just technology related but it's certainly a big part of it.

5) The antidepressant drugs we're giving our children

6) Our schools are trying to raise our little boys like they do our little girls. We need a lot of discussion around what our boys need to grow up emotionally strong and healthy and how that differs from what our girls need.

7) Lack of quality mental health care

Each one of the above issues is ENORMOUS and complex. And it didn't get to it's current state overnight. It's taken decades to get where we are today so it's going to take a lot of time to clean up this mess. And I don't have any easy solutions on how to do that. These are deeply complex socio an cultural problems that need to be fixed.

What will help? Honestly, the easiest thing to do (and it's still a monumental task) and the thing that will help the most is hardening our schools. There are four facets to this...

1) Increase the physical security of schools. Strong fences, gates and doors. Badged identification for all students. Doors remain locked at all times and you need a badge to move through sections. Outer doors needs to be stout and locked while kids are on campus. Ideally main doors should be guarded but if there are too many then there should at least be a camera on them. The only way onto campus when school is in session is through the office...but that remains locked down too. You have to be buzzed in. All classroom doors should be capable of being barricaded. Various sections of the school can be locked down electronically like some hospitals have. Every school is different and will likely have it's own set of unique challenges but I think you get the idea here. This should be priority one for all administrators and their teams. NOTHING is more important. Most everything else should be dropped until the school is secure.

2) High quality trained armed guards. I'm not talking about rent-a-cops. I'm talking about highly skilled individuals that are capable of dealing with something like this. They are the first line of defense. They are the hunters. When things go south, they converge on the threat and try to eliminate it.

3) Arm and train any teacher who wants it. They are the last line of defense. They don't go looking for the shooter. They stay with their students, hunkered down in their classrooms. The kids are behind the teacher. The teacher is between the kids and the door. Gun drawn at the low ready, pointed toward the door. Also, every teacher, administrator and the hunters carry a radio. EVERYONE.

4) Trauma kits in every class room. Train every teacher, administrator and kid from fourth grade on up basic gunshot trauma first aid...how to apply a tourniquet, compression bandages, chest seals, etc.

The idea here is to make it like your home security. The goal is to make your home the least attractive one to break into so that the burglar goes elsewhere. Hopefully shooters bypass our schools in favor of easier targets...like a theater. As messed up as that still is.

[JackEllis]

It's not "something". It's a bunch of things.

At Parkdale there were a number of failures but there were no similar failures in Las Vegas and arguably the only similarity between Parkdale and Orlando was the armed guard who wasn't able (or didn't try) to take out the shooter.

It's impossible to reduce the incidence of gun-related homicides to zero. Hasn't happened in countries with far stricter limitations on gun ownership and it wont happen here. Moreover there is no single, magic solution that will reduce gun deaths, but that's not an excuse for doing more to limit the damage.

Step one is to find out why people do this, and it's not as simple as "mental illness" or "they're nuts". In the case of kids, violent TV shows, movies and video games and inadequate parenting probably have something to do with it. In adults, probably some of the same but I'm speculating because I really don't know. Finding out should be the CDC's job. If you don't like the CDC, then let's borrow some folks from the NTSB, which has excellent investigators.

Step 2 is to identify and keep weapons out of the hands of people who should not have them. We attempt to do this with convicted felons and now it appears we need to do the same for other people who are a threat for one reason or another. Data that's supposed to be sent to NICS needs to get there but making the timely submittal of that data a priority for LE, the military and others is also easier said than done. If you want a semiautomatic rifle, *I* would require buyers to undergo a more stringent background check. The gun show loophole would be closed.

Third, the guns that are in circulation have to be secured better. Someone somewhere wrote that gangs in Chicago were arming themselves in part by stealing guns out of freight yards in Chicago when they broke into a car that happened to have some. I have no way to verify that story but it if's true, either the shipper or the manufacturer should be liable. If a minor child uses a parent's gun to commit a crime, the parents should be held liable for failing to secure that weapon.

Fourth, for school districts and teachers who are so inclined, allow concealed carry BY teachers. Not students, not the janitors and not parents. CBS ran a segment on a rural school district in Colorado that set up a program along these lines and it turned me from an opponent to a proponent. Teachers have to volunteer, they undergo an evaluation (extreme vetting), they receive initial and recurrent training. However just because someone close to the scene of a shooting is armed doesn't mean they can or will take out the shooter.

Each of these measures has strengths and weaknesses, which is why they can't be cherry-picked. Cars aren't safer just because they have seat belts (and a requirement that people wear them whether they like it or not, even if it "infringes"). They also have air bags (which aren't perfect), collapsible steering wheels, and windshields that shatter safely instead of turning into sharp splinters. Automakers groused about the cost but today we're all a lot safer because of them in spite of occasional failures.

There might be a better way to organize this and there might be some other steps that could be taken without going so far as banning semiautos or "taking away people's guns". My point is, once a shooter has a gun it's probably too late to stop a determined shooter, and anyone who is prepared to commit mass murder is determined. They have to be identified and dealt with before they get a gun.

Some of you are going to point out that you're giving up a lot and not getting anything in return. Well we may be past that point.

Some will argue that any limitation on gun or accessory ownership infringes on your 2A rights. For people who lost loved ones in Orlando, San Bernardino, Parkdale and Las Vegas, that rings pretty hollow. Nobody has taken away your guns (yet), but a gunman took away their lives. In Las Vegas, a loophole in the law allowed Paddock to use a device that appears to have no value other than a) a one-time adrenaline rush, b) bragging rights that someone could devise the workaround.

Some will argue it's the shooter, not the gun. I agree in part and disagree in part. In the four cases I cited above the choice of weapon mattered a lot. If it didn't, we'd continue to fight wars with muskets. Instead, anyone who passes a cursory background check can get a pretty powerful weapon. As far as I know there was nothing illegal about Cruz's purchase under current law and I believe the same holds true for the shooters in Orlando, San Bernardino and Las Vegas.

The OP asked and I've offered my two cents.

[Ford8N]

First, start off with the premises that I am not a criminal and my firearms will not jump up and kill anyone. Second, deal with mental illness, lock them away until they are 100% cured. Third, if they have a history of being a criminal, keep them locked up until such time as someone will vouch that the criminal will 100% never do crime again. IF NOT, DON'T RELEASE THEM.


Of course, I know this will never be accepted because we as a society are wimps and cowards. So crime will continue and I, as a gun owner, will keep on being treated like a potential criminal.

[Quiet]

Not 1988. Began 1967 with the Mulford act. Governor Ronald Reagan signed it.
It has been a logical domino effect from there.

Began in 1923.

When CA passed "may issue" CCW system, implemented a waiting period for handguns, and handgun registration.

[nedro]

Fix our broken home issues.
Mentor our young Men.
Denounce movies which promote criminals and give back stories about how you should understand the criminal and legitimize their crimes.
Denounce actors who make public statements. Make sure everyone is reminded that actors are professional liers. The better the actor, the better the lier.
Just for starters.

[rugershooter]

As a few have already pointed out, it's a combination of things.
Fist, we need to reject the premise that gun control is a viable option. It's not. The FL shooting is a good example. The fact is that every level of government failed in doing anything that would've prevented the shooting. But gun control advocates would have me believe that the same governments that just failed need to restrict my rights to compensate for their failure. That argument is even more ridiculous when the police willfully allowed children to be killed through their inaction. The estimates I've seen say that there are over 360 million guns in the US, and my personal guess would add about 100 million more to that number. Even if people implemented all the gun laws and bans they wanted, it still wouldn't do anything unless they also implemented confiscation, which isn't going to happen any time soon...at least mass confiscations. People who want guns will get them. Period. There is no way to stop it. They'll buy and sell them illegally, make them, steal them from gun owners or gun stores; I've even heard of military personnel stealing M240Bs from National Guard armories on a couple occasions.
Second, the responsibility for protection needs to be clearly stated. What I mean by that is that the government can't have it both ways. Either I am responsible for my own safety and should be able to carry effective means of self defense, or the government is completely and totally responsible for my safety. The government needs to be held liable. If they insist on schools being "gun free" zones and insist that everyone who enters is unarmed, then the government needs to be criminally and civilly liable for damages when someone does attack. They shouldn't be able to say that you are not allowed to carry effective means for self defense and at the same time totally absolve themselves of any responsibility for your safety.

Whether the root cause is a breakdown in the moral fabric of the country, or mental illness, or callousness to violence, or something else, the fact of the matter is that guns have existed in abundance in this country since before we were a country and mass shootings are a pretty new phenomenon.

Personally, I think there are several causes to it. For one, there's a general loathing of anything male or masculine in the country. Boys are taught to be more like girls in schools. There are plenty of programs and people specifically aimed at helping girls succeed in society or academically, but boys seem to be relegated to figuring out things on their own. They're not taught how to express emotions in a healthy way. Boys are seen as rapists waiting to happen. They "have to be taught to not rape". They're automatically seen as guilty when they're accused of sexual assault; nobody really gives a damn anymore about learning the truth. Even if they didn't do it, the public accusation can be enough to screw up their lives. Sexual consent is not applied evenly.
I think there are a lot of other reasons these things are happening but I'm too lazy to type them out right now.

[therealnickb]

Anything=something

[USMCM16A2]

Nick,



Riddle me this. Anything is something, but if anything means something anything has to be made-up of something. Does this mean anything? A2

[Red-Osier]

As a few have already pointed out, it's a combination of things.
Fist, we need to reject the premise that gun control is a viable option. It's not. The FL shooting is a good example. The fact is that every level of government failed in doing anything that would've prevented the shooting. But gun control advocates would have me believe that the same governments that just failed need to restrict my rights to compensate for their failure. That argument is even more ridiculous when the police willfully allowed children to be killed through their inaction. The estimates I've seen say that there are over 360 million guns in the US, and my personal guess would add about 100 million more to that number. Even if people implemented all the gun laws and bans they wanted, it still wouldn't do anything unless they also implemented confiscation, which isn't going to happen any time soon...at least mass confiscations. People who want guns will get them. Period. There is no way to stop it. They'll buy and sell them illegally, make them, steal them from gun owners or gun stores; I've even heard of military personnel stealing M240Bs from National Guard armories on a couple occasions.
Second, the responsibility for protection needs to be clearly stated. What I mean by that is that the government can't have it both ways. Either I am responsible for my own safety and should be able to carry effective means of self defense, or the government is completely and totally responsible for my safety. The government needs to be held liable. If they insist on schools being "gun free" zones and insist that everyone who enters is unarmed, then the government needs to be criminally and civilly liable for damages when someone does attack. They shouldn't be able to say that you are not allowed to carry effective means for self defense and at the same time totally absolve themselves of any responsibility for your safety.

Whether the root cause is a breakdown in the moral fabric of the country, or mental illness, or callousness to violence, or something else, the fact of the matter is that guns have existed in abundance in this country since before we were a country and mass shootings are a pretty new phenomenon.

Personally, I think there are several causes to it. For one, there's a general loathing of anything male or masculine in the country. Boys are taught to be more like girls in schools. There are plenty of programs and people specifically aimed at helping girls succeed in society or academically, but boys seem to be relegated to figuring out things on their own. They're not taught how to express emotions in a healthy way. Boys are seen as rapists waiting to happen. They "have to be taught to not rape". They're automatically seen as guilty when they're accused of sexual assault; nobody really gives a damn anymore about learning the truth. Even if they didn't do it, the public accusation can be enough to screw up their lives. Sexual consent is not applied evenly.
I think there are a lot of other reasons these things are happening but I'm too lazy to type them out right now.

Great post Brother.

[randomBytes]

The enemy wants to ban anything at Fed level - anything, they don't care what, because it will just be a first step, and the next will be easier to achieve.

That was the plan some overconfident activist admitted to on TV perhaps a decade ago.

If anything we need to be more militant.
The Donald needs to fill the Fed courts with people who respect the consitution and our country.

[RandyD]

As a few have already pointed out, it's a combination of things.
Fist, we need to reject the premise that gun control is a viable option. It's not. The FL shooting is a good example. The fact is that every level of government failed in doing anything that would've prevented the shooting. But gun control advocates would have me believe that the same governments that just failed need to restrict my rights to compensate for their failure. That argument is even more ridiculous when the police willfully allowed children to be killed through their inaction. The estimates I've seen say that there are over 360 million guns in the US, and my personal guess would add about 100 million more to that number. Even if people implemented all the gun laws and bans they wanted, it still wouldn't do anything unless they also implemented confiscation, which isn't going to happen any time soon...at least mass confiscations. People who want guns will get them. Period. There is no way to stop it. They'll buy and sell them illegally, make them, steal them from gun owners or gun stores; I've even heard of military personnel stealing M240Bs from National Guard armories on a couple occasions.
Second, the responsibility for protection needs to be clearly stated. What I mean by that is that the government can't have it both ways. Either I am responsible for my own safety and should be able to carry effective means of self defense, or the government is completely and totally responsible for my safety. The government needs to be held liable. If they insist on schools being "gun free" zones and insist that everyone who enters is unarmed, then the government needs to be criminally and civilly liable for damages when someone does attack. They shouldn't be able to say that you are not allowed to carry effective means for self defense and at the same time totally absolve themselves of any responsibility for your safety.

Whether the root cause is a breakdown in the moral fabric of the country, or mental illness, or callousness to violence, or something else, the fact of the matter is that guns have existed in abundance in this country since before we were a country and mass shootings are a pretty new phenomenon.

Personally, I think there are several causes to it. For one, there's a general loathing of anything male or masculine in the country. Boys are taught to be more like girls in schools. There are plenty of programs and people specifically aimed at helping girls succeed in society or academically, but boys seem to be relegated to figuring out things on their own. They're not taught how to express emotions in a healthy way. Boys are seen as rapists waiting to happen. They "have to be taught to not rape". They're automatically seen as guilty when they're accused of sexual assault; nobody really gives a damn anymore about learning the truth. Even if they didn't do it, the public accusation can be enough to screw up their lives. Sexual consent is not applied evenly.
I think there are a lot of other reasons these things are happening but I'm too lazy to type them out right now.

You make excellent points.

Another topic that has not been discussed is another change that has taken place in our society. The concept of personal responsibility, and being self governed is lost. Our society is ignorant about our constitution and form of government. When people demand our president do something about a local problem, it demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of our form of government.

[rugershooter]

You make excellent points.

Another topic that has not been discussed is another change that has taken place in our society. The concept of personal responsibility, and being self governed is lost. Our society is ignorant about our constitution and form of government. When people demand our president do something about a local problem, it demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of our form of government.

I think the support for upping the age to buy guns to 21 years old underscores that. Instead of recognizing that kids and young adults are less mature now than in decades past and forcing them to become more responsible, they want to coddle their irresponsibility.

[ARDude]

Restrictions on firearms=NO

Restrictions on people who can obtain firearms=YES to a degree.
Mental illness/criminal reporting needs to be fixed.

Age for purchasing a firearm should be the same as voting/military service.

If people think that an 18 year old is too young for a firearm, then raise the age of voting/military to 21.

[Jimi Jah]

Something = talk.