Gun free zone

[myrkul]

You don’t need no gun control, you know what you need? We need some bullet control. Men, we need to control the bullets, that’s right. I think all bullets should cost five thousand dollars… five thousand dollars per bullet… You know why? Cause if a bullet cost five thousand dollars there would be no more innocent bystanders.
Yeah! Every time somebody get shot we’d say, ‘Damn, he must have done something ... Shit, he’s got fifty thousand dollars worth of bullets in his ass.’
And people would think before they killed somebody if a bullet cost five thousand dollars. ‘Man I would blow your fucking head off…if I could afford it.’ ‘I’m gonna get me another job, I’m going to start saving some money, and you’re a dead man.

Lead is cheap.
Brass is cheap.
Primers are cheap.
Sulfur is cheap.
Charcoal is cheap.
Salt Peter is cheap.
Reloading press is cheap.

How you going to make bullets expensive?

[jgarzik]

The fact is, country's with stricter gun controls generally have lower rates of gun crime. The idea that more guns results in less violence is simply a fallacy.

In America, gun-free localities are always high crime.  In America, that is not a fallacy.

[Charlie Prime]

> I'm curious how many dead children you consider "a marginal effect".  5 ?  10 ?  20 ?

Depends on the expected additional casualties caused by allowing guns to be in more places. If you expect a 10% success rate of an armed teacher against an assailant with a gun already drawn and that it saves 20 lives every 5 or 10 years while having a gun in each classroom don't cause as many deaths, that's a win for more guns, I'll support you. I just think it's completely unrealistic.

In the real world we see normal people who defend themselves in schools with firearms against rampage killers have a 100% success rate.

This list shows about 120 people have been killed in school rampage shootings during the last 20 years in America.

Do you honestly think more than 120 people would have been killed by having guns in schools?  In Utah where guns are allowed in schools we've seen accidental discharges happen 0 times during the same time period.

My daughter is a public high school teacher.  She carries a Sig 9mm, but not on campus because that is prohibited by policy.  In a school shooting she would employ your strategy of begging for mercy and hoping for the best.  I guarantee you she trains more than most cops.  Most people who carry do.  

[gyverlb]

Anyway even if you wanted to, not every teacher would accept to carry a handgun making some of them easy targets and thus accomplishing nothing. If you want to have to choose your teacher based on its ability to defend your child with a gun instead of its ability to educate him/her, good luck...

As I said, you don't have to arm them all. Even one or two in a school is enough to remove the welcome mat. Imagine that cartoon with "Someone in here might shoot back." in the thought bubble.

What makes you think psychopaths care about that? The last one shout himself at the end. Some might even see this as a challenge.

In Israel teachers get free guns.

Living in a state surrounded by enemies and subject to waves of terrorist attacks is desirable? Maybe you should try it.

Cool strawman, bro.
The most recent school shooting I could find (with a brief Google) in Israel was in 1974. and that's with the terrorist attacks and enemies all around.
[/quote]

I know, terrorists hit my country instead recently: 3 children were killed in France in a Jewish school in 2012 which was unprecedented in France. The current investigation seems to show that our own agencies are at least partially to blame (in 2007 we voted for a president who liked to be surrounded by morons, we shouldn't be surprised to pay the price). If you want to follow your line of thought and not look at the big picture, you should adopt our policy of no guns for civilians unless special circumstances require it. We have even less shootings in school than Israel...

But that's a simplistic view. Israel circumstances are neither our own nor yours. I bet Israel doesn't simply "give free guns" to teachers, they are most probably adequately trained too: men spend 3 years in the regular (mandatory) service and women 2 years.

Now transplant that policy to a country without the enemies at the gates.

What you don't consider is that you can't simply "transplant" a policy from a country with a totally different mindset and circumstances. This is why I proposed to go live in Israel, that was not a tongue-in-cheek remark.

[gyverlb]

The fact is, country's with stricter gun controls generally have lower rates of gun crime. The idea that more guns results in less violence is simply a fallacy.

In America, gun-free localities are always high crime.  In America, that is not a fallacy.

Unless American citizens have genes that other countries do not to explain this level of violence, if I were a citizen there, I'll study what kind of tradeoffs you are doing in your policies to get this kind of result...

[Axios]

Unless American citizens have genes that other countries do not to explain this level of violence, if I were a citizen there, I'll study what kind of tradeoffs you are doing in your policies to get this kind of result...

Actually we do.. USA doesn't have a uniform culture like Denmark for an example. Too many cultures, ethnic groups in one country, and the country is one of the largest. (3rd)

[Axios]

Absence of logic and reason. Further argument on my part is pointless.

That's an actual observation based on statistics. I don't see a lot of bombs used to rob people... It's easier to use guns than hand grenades.

[myrkul]

Anyway even if you wanted to, not every teacher would accept to carry a handgun making some of them easy targets and thus accomplishing nothing. If you want to have to choose your teacher based on its ability to defend your child with a gun instead of its ability to educate him/her, good luck...

As I said, you don't have to arm them all. Even one or two in a school is enough to remove the welcome mat. Imagine that cartoon with "Someone in here might shoot back." in the thought bubble.

What makes you think psychopaths care about that? The last one shout himself at the end. Some might even see this as a challenge.

The fact that shootings don't happen at gun ranges? They want easy targets, not a challenge. It's easier to rack up a high score in a victim-disarmament zone.

In Israel teachers get free guns.

Living in a state surrounded by enemies and subject to waves of terrorist attacks is desirable? Maybe you should try it.

Cool strawman, bro.
The most recent school shooting I could find (with a brief Google) in Israel was in 1974. and that's with the terrorist attacks and enemies all around.

I know, terrorists hit my country instead recently: 3 children were killed in France in a Jewish school in 2012 which was unprecedented in France. The current investigation seems to show that our own agencies are at least partially to blame (in 2007 we voted for a president who liked to be surrounded by morons, we shouldn't be surprised to pay the price). If you want to follow your line of thought and not look at the big picture, you should adopt our policy of no guns for civilians unless special circumstances require it. We have even less shootings in school than Israel...

But that's a simplistic view. Israel circumstances are neither our own nor yours. I bet Israel doesn't simply "give free guns" to teachers, they are most probably adequately trained too: men spend 3 years in the regular (mandatory) service and women 2 years.

I don't think anyone advocated giving untrained teachers weapons. Let the trained ones carry, though, and going into a school suddenly seems less likely to rack up a high score, doesn't it?

Now transplant that policy to a country without the enemies at the gates.

What you don't consider is that you can't simply "transplant" a policy from a country with a totally different mindset and circumstances. This is why I proposed to go live in Israel, that was not a tongue-in-cheek remark.

But it was a load of bullshit.

[gyverlb]

In the real world we see normal people who defend themselves in schools with firearms against rampage killers have a 100% success rate.

You mean that rampage killers don't kill anyone if there is some people defending themselves? That would be a nice surprise for me, source?

This list shows about 120 people have been killed in school rampage shootings during the last 20 years in America.

Do you honestly think more than 120 people would have been killed by having guns in schools?

I don't know if these 120 people would have all survived with people with guns around so I don't know how many accidents would make more guns counterproductive. From my point of view the US are the only civilized country with this kind of problem *and* the only one with a right to bear arms for civilians. This make a link between the two at the very least possible.

In Utah where guns are allowed in schools we've seen accidental discharges happen 0 times during the same time period.

I'm not sure how many teachers are carrying guns and if it's enough to have the protective effect you seek. But psychopaths don't seem to be impressed even now:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/wams/2012/02/09/school-shooting-barely-avoided-in-utah-talk-to-teacher

My daughter is a public high school teacher.  She carries a Sig 9mm, but not on campus because that is prohibited by policy.  In a school shooting she would employ your strategy of begging for mercy and hoping for the best.  I guarantee you she trains more than most cops.  Most people who carry do.  

I don't doubt that your daughter could be of help in a rampage situation but a single person is only an example however great it is, not a rule.

I don't have a strategy of begging for mercy and hoping for the best (psychopaths aren't really good listeners to mercy pleas). In a rampage, I would try to escape and help others escape, if I find myself trapped, I would gather whatever weapon I can find and hide as best as I can. If found, I'll use them until incapacitated or dead.

[salfter]

Gun Free Zones = Criminal Safe Zones.

I'm kinda partial to the moniker "victim disarmament zone," but that works too.

[myrkul]

I don't have a strategy of begging for mercy and hoping for the best (psychopaths aren't really good listeners to mercy pleas). In a rampage, I would try to escape and help others escape, if I find myself trapped, I would gather whatever weapon I can find and hide as best as I can. If found, I'll use them until incapacitated or dead.

Now, wouldn't it be nice if you didn't have to go hunting for a weapon?

[imanikin]

I dunno. I'm willing to sacrifice chewing gum in order to live in a place where my daughter can be safe on the streets at any hour of the night in any neighborhood.

I am not sure there is such a place without other adverse side effects, especially for a female child. (As you know, gum law is one of the least of Singapore's "unusual" laws.) If no one else hurts them, kids often find a way to hurt or kill themselves for no good reason...

As someone whose family had to bury a loved child as soon as he grew up, i definitely sympathies with the sentiment and the affected parents; few things are harder than burying a child for any reason, especially something senseless... 

However, with regard to the mass murders of children in America, Russia, Norway, et al,  i would settle for a couple of well-armed, ex-military or police  guards or even trained, armed parent volunteers in the school, who could put up a good fight on my child's behalf.

If that were not enough, i guess, besides crying i would just have to remember that even presidents of "strong" states are not immune from being shot, even though they spend their lives in well-protected, "gun-free zones"...   

[gyverlb]

What makes you think psychopaths care about that? The last one shout himself at the end. Some might even see this as a challenge.

The fact that shootings don't happen at gun ranges? They want easy targets, not a challenge. It's easier to rack up a high score in a victim-disarmament zone.

A gun range is a little extreme although I found out this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vPnMbLr5nc

Admittedly that was not a rampage, but the mom wasn't shot by other customers: she killed herself, that should illustrate that even if you have a gun ready, when taken by surprise you can't save yourself or another human being (the guy on the right is lucky she didn't want to take him out too...).

I don't think anyone advocated giving untrained teachers weapons. Let the trained ones carry, though, and going into a school suddenly seems less likely to rack up a high score, doesn't it?

I'm not sure, it's possible if there are enough stable people with guns in the school. But the more guns you have around, the more stable and disciplined people need to be. You'll have to get military like discipline among gun bearers in a school to keep it safe then. If you agree on that then I have no objection on the safety part but you will have made a big trade-off (both in the conditions the children will be raised and the costs to maintain an acceptable level of security). I agree the children would be safe, I'm not sure what the impact on their education would be (maybe positive, I just don't know).

[Lethn]

Why are people so fucking against people defending themselves? Doesn't it occur to you that any other rational human being out there would never use a gun on another human being unless they had no choice? Or that there are gun owners out there who don't make the news and do a perfectly acceptable job carrying armed weaponry around without causing any trouble whatsoever. I think I am actually tired of this argument, while I disagree with Obama on many of his policies it will be interesting to see his conclusion on guns if we finally see one, it may actually be one of those moments where we see some amazing rationale from political leaders like with hurricane Katrina.

I'm done arguing with people who want to take away the only defence most people have against armed psychopaths and will resort to any stupid retort just to get their way no matter what evidence is presented to them, all I want to see is innocent people protected, my final point will simply be Switzerland, there is a country that actually has mandatory training for firearms which is something I would highly recommend if you intend to have firearms for everyone to prevent any stupid accidents from happening. In fact in the very unlikely case that a political official in the USA is reading this, I seriously recommend that you talk about it and see if something can be done to educate people properly on firearms because I cannot believe the ignorance surrounding them.

When I was very young, I can't remember when exactly this was, I went to Ireland and there was a fair where some army recruiters for the Irish Army showed up and they were showing people how guns worked, now from what I could remember these looked like fully functional and working guns, so why were there no shootings or accidents there? Oh that's right, they were being handled by professional and well trained people who made sure the safeties were on and that no one could muck about with them and end up hurt.

I'm sorry, but the only thing I can think of right now is how sad this whole situation is and how only America has the ability to show off just how utterly stupid and senseless human beings can be to each other, you don't see this happening so often in other countries.

While it's only Wikipedia I can't be bothered doing more research any more to prove how stupid you all are so here's a page on Switzerland that has some crime statistics involving shootings:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Switzerland

Police statistics for the year 2006[12] records 34 killings or attempted killings involving firearms, compared to 69 cases involving bladed weapons and 16 cases of unarmed assault. Cases of assault resulting in bodily harm numbered 89 (firearms) and 526 (bladed weapons). As of 2007, Switzerland had a population of about 7,600,000. This would put the rate of killings or attempted killings with firearms at about one for every quarter million residents yearly. This represents a decline of aggravated assaults involving firearms since the early 1990s. The majority of gun crimes involving domestic violence are perpetrated with army ordnance weapons, while the majority of gun crime outside the domestic sphere involves illegally held firearms.[13]

[gyverlb]

I don't have a strategy of begging for mercy and hoping for the best (psychopaths aren't really good listeners to mercy pleas). In a rampage, I would try to escape and help others escape, if I find myself trapped, I would gather whatever weapon I can find and hide as best as I can. If found, I'll use them until incapacitated or dead.

Now, wouldn't it be nice if you didn't have to go hunting for a weapon?

You definitely don't see the big picture, do you?
I don't want to be the safest I can be in a rampage situation. I want to be safe which means not having to be in a rampage situation at all.

Where I live we don't have the right to bear guns. We have 7 murders for 1_000_000 people each year. Among these murders there are 2 by guns. In the US this is around 60 to 65 deaths with 35 by guns each year (for the same amount of people). I simply don't understand why people think having more guns is a good thing.

I can understand needing guns in some places. I might even agree that guns in the hands of trained professionals in school might be a good thing in the current US situation, but allowing nearly everyone the right to bear something designed to kill just blows my mind. If your society can't protect you just change the society don't ask for more personal destructive power. Or at least plan to have it only temporarily as a lesser of two evils until your society catches up on the safety of its members.

[myrkul]

What makes you think psychopaths care about that? The last one shout himself at the end. Some might even see this as a challenge.

The fact that shootings don't happen at gun ranges? They want easy targets, not a challenge. It's easier to rack up a high score in a victim-disarmament zone.

A gun range is a little extreme although I found out this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vPnMbLr5nc

Admittedly that was not a rampage, but the mom wasn't shot by other customers: she killed herself, that should illustrate that even if you have a gun ready, when taken by surprise you can't save yourself or another human being (the guy on the right is lucky she didn't want to take him out too...).

Two dead. That's about average for a shooting where an armed civilian stops the shooting before it gets to the "mass shooting" level. Had she gone on a rampage, it might have taken a few seconds to determine that something was wrong - gunshots, after all, being normal for a gun range - but would she have killed dozens in that time?

I don't think anyone advocated giving untrained teachers weapons. Let the trained ones carry, though, and going into a school suddenly seems less likely to rack up a high score, doesn't it?

I'm not sure, it's possible if there are enough stable people with guns in the school. But the more guns you have around, the more stable and disciplined people need to be. You'll have to get military like discipline among gun bearers in a school to keep it safe then. If you agree on that then I have no objection on the safety part but you will have made a big trade-off (both in the conditions the children will be raised and the costs to maintain an acceptable level of security). I agree the children would be safe, I'm not sure what the impact on their education would be (maybe positive, I just don't know).

The more stable and disciplined the gun-owners have to be.
Let me illustrate with an anecdote.

A few years back, I was at a Thanksgiving celebration with my girlfriend's parents. We were at their friend's house. This friend (and her parents) are avid gun owners, and her father even does a brisk side-business buying and selling firearms. While there, I noticed that the friend was wearing a pistol in a belt holster. There were numerous children running around, this was, after all, Thanksgiving. But you know what? Nobody got shot. We even took that pistol (turns out he had recently purchased it and wore it for the express purpose of showing it off to my girlfriend's father) out back and put a few rounds down-range. I'm proud to say I hit roughly where I was aiming, though we had no official target set up, so all I have to judge by is the puffs of dust that went up.

[myrkul]

I don't have a strategy of begging for mercy and hoping for the best (psychopaths aren't really good listeners to mercy pleas). In a rampage, I would try to escape and help others escape, if I find myself trapped, I would gather whatever weapon I can find and hide as best as I can. If found, I'll use them until incapacitated or dead.

Now, wouldn't it be nice if you didn't have to go hunting for a weapon?

You definitely don't see the big picture, do you?
I don't want to be the safest I can be in a rampage situation. I want to be safe which means not having to be in a rampage situation at all.

Where I live we don't have the right to bear guns. We have 7 murders for 1_000_000 people each year. Among these murders there are 2 by guns. In the US this is around 60 to 65 deaths with 35 by guns each year (for the same amount of people). I simply don't understand why people think having more guns is a good thing.

I can understand needing guns in some places. I might even agree that guns in the hands of trained professionals in school might be a good thing in the current US situation, but allowing nearly everyone the right to bear something designed to kill just blows my mind. If your society can't protect you just change the society don't ask for more personal destructive power. Or at least plan to have it only temporarily as a lesser of two evils until your society catches up on the safety of its members.

You know, for the entirety of the Renaissance, people ran around with swords. Not a lot of "School stabbings" or "sword rampages."

And if you think a sword wasn't designed specifically for killing, you need to think again.

You need to look at the big picture: taking the means of defense from law-abiding people only ensures that the criminal class (both of them, actually) have a disarmed, and therefore easier to plunder, target base.

[foggyb]

The fact is, country's with stricter gun controls generally have lower rates of gun crime. The idea that more guns results in less violence is simply a fallacy.

Statistics doesn't really provide prove of that. The only thing you would see that poorer regions have more crimes than wealthier regions.

OK, lets say I give one in three Americans a hand grenade. Do you think the rate of hand grenade crime will not go up?

That's a terrible analogy. A grenade is a offensive weapon of organized warfare for killing and maiming groups of enemy soldiers.

You could have used machetes for an example. But that's not extreme enough to suit your extremist attitude.

[gyverlb]

Why are people so fucking against people defending themselves?

Guns are not the only way to defend yourself. The problem with guns is that they can be used both for offense and defense with lethal consequences. Here's another way of thinking about this subject.
There are different levels of destructive powers available to people. From a simple fist to a nuclear bomb.

If you bring the argument that forbidding a kind of weapon to someone makes him/her an easy target to criminals that will find a mean to get such a weapon, do you support the right of any citizen to own a tank? carry an assault riffle around?

Although a tank (or a nuclear bomb for that matter) might not be a practical defensive weapon (not easy to carry around or purely offensive in the case of a bomb), an assault riffle is certainly better to make sure a killer is quickly inoffensive while still light enough to carry around.

If you don't want to allow citizens the advantage of an assault riffle vs a handgun, why would you allow handguns for defense while a taser-like weapon seems (at least to me) enough for defense while non-lethal?

If you start with the principle that you live in a society that can't protect you and you must do it yourself, why do you need to allow everyone to pack offensive power instead of insisting on defensive power? If I expected the chances of being attacked above negligible, I'll wear a kevlar suit and a taser at all times instead of a gun.

[FirstAscent]

A few years back, I was at a Thanksgiving celebration with my girlfriend's parents. We were at their friend's house. This friend (and her parents) are avid gun owners, and her father even does a brisk side-business buying and selling firearms. While there, I noticed that the friend was wearing a pistol in a belt holster. There were numerous children running around, this was, after all, Thanksgiving. But you know what? Nobody got shot. We even took that pistol (turns out he had recently purchased it and wore it for the express purpose of showing it off to my girlfriend's father) out back and put a few rounds down-range. I'm proud to say I hit roughly where I was aiming, though we had no official target set up, so all I have to judge by is the puffs of dust that went up.

You're bragging that nobody got shot at your Thanksgiving holiday? That's something to get excited about?