Elementary school shootings in CT: Principal, multiple students killed

[John Adams]

As a poster here has often said (and I won't quote him because he may not want to be quoted in this context), freedom has a price. It means tolerating ****heads who protest at military funerals. It means giving a serial pedophile a fair trial and allowing him to plead insanity. It means people will drink and drive and kill an innocent family on their way to a Christmas party. And yes, it means that there are guns available to disturbed people, who will do disturbing things with them.

 

Freedom is not always pretty and in fact, can be very ugly.

[Fezmid]

Yep. Then they get more powerful guns or other weapons.

Or just shoot through (or punch through) the walls, which are usually just drywall and easy to get through. Or wait until people are in the hallways or the lunch room or the bus stop.

 

As a poster here has often said (and I won't quote him because he may not want to be quoted in this context), freedom has a price. It means tolerating ****heads who protest at military funerals. It means giving a serial pedophile a fair trial and allowing him to plead insanity. It means people will drink and drive and kill an innocent family on their way to a Christmas party. And yes, it means that there are guns available to disturbed people, who will do disturbing things with them.

 

Freedom is not always pretty and in fact, can be very ugly.

Great post.

[NoSaint]

As a poster here has often said (and I won't quote him because he may not want to be quoted in this context), freedom has a price. It means tolerating ****heads who protest at military funerals. It means giving a serial pedophile a fair trial and allowing him to plead insanity. It means people will drink and drive and kill an innocent family on their way to a Christmas party. And yes, it means that there are guns available to disturbed people, who will do disturbing things with them.

 

Freedom is not always pretty and in fact, can be very ugly.

 

Honestly, and sadly at times, yes.

 

Not a gun owner, and like to think its because I'm a reasonable person that's been given pretty good resources to make an educated decision for myself and think that we as society should try to create more educated decision makers instead of just taking away decisions we might not like the result of some days.

Edited December 15, 2012 by NoSaint

[B-Man]

I second that it was a very good post by Mr. Adams.

 

Here is an article about where we are by Jeffery Goldberg in the Atlantic;

 

What Can We Do To Stop Massacres?

We must find a way to make it more difficult for the non-adjudicated mentally ill to come into possession of weapons.

This is crucially important, but very difficult,

because it would require the cooperation of the medical community — of psychiatrists, therapists, school counselors and the like — and the privacy issues (among other issues) are enormous. But: It has to be made more difficult for sociopaths, psychopaths and the violently mentally-ill (who, in total, make up a small portion of the mentally ill population) to buy weapons.

 

People should have the ability to defend themselves. Mass shootings take many lives in part because no one is firing back at the shooters. The shooters in recent massacres have had many minutes to complete their evil work

, while their victims cower under desks or in closets. One response to the tragic reality that we are a gun-saturated country is to understand that law-abiding, well-trained, non-criminal, wholly sane citizens who are screened by the government have a role to play in their own self-defense, and in the defense of others (read The Atlantic article to see how one armed school administrator stopped a mass shooting in Pearl Mississippi). I don’t know anything more than anyone else about the shooting in Connecticut at the moment, but it seems fairly obvious that there was no one at or near the school who could have tried to fight back.

 

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[Brandon]

While it doesn't help much to take away our second ammendment rights and lead to the culture you mention, we also don't want a vigilante culture either. What is the solution?

 

Its just my two cents, but I think one immediate solution is actually rather simple. The government needs to mandate armed security at our schools. If it takes raising a tax in order to pay for it, this conservative says: so be it. Two at each entrance and a few walking the halls. Its sad that its come to this, but I think it would be even worse to start stripping away the rights of everyone when the problem lies at the feet of a handful of lunatics.

[Adam]

 

 

Its just my two cents, but I think one immediate solution is actually rather simple. The government needs to mandate armed security at our schools. If it takes raising a tax in order to pay for it, this conservative says: so be it. Two at each entrance and a few walking the halls. Its sad that its come to this, but I think it would be even worse to start stripping away the rights of everyone when the problem lies at the feet of a handful of lunatics.

Both situations cause a problem- stripping away rights won't work, nor will leaving things as it. We are in a catch 22, as there is no perfect solution.

 

And to the other statement- if we put red security at each school, how long before a lunatic gets one of those jobs and opens fire? It would eventually happen.

[Brandon]

Both situations cause a problem- stripping away rights won't work, nor will leaving things as it. We are in a catch 22, as there is no perfect solution.

 

And to the other statement- if we put red security at each school, how long before a lunatic gets one of those jobs and opens fire? It would eventually happen.

 

I agree that there's always the possibility of a lunatic in the security positions. You'll never be able to completely eliminate that as a possibility, but I think one way to reduce the risk is to subject them to quarterly or semi-annual psychological evaluations for as long as they're employed in that position. Not only that, but we need to have fairly high standards for qualifications and also ensure that they're relatively well-paid and don't have added financial stresses in their lives.

[B-Man]

Dr. Charles Krauthammer spoke regarding the shootings today, he said “People are going to divide into three camps, there are three elements here, the psychology of the shooter, you’ve got the weapon, and you’ve got the cultural environment".

 

You can already see that here on this board. Here is a snip from an article that is more concerned with the culture;

 

 

 

Let me put it this way. If I thought that tougher gun control laws was all it took to prevent this from happening, I would be on board. But easy answers not only never solve the problem they often create more problems.

 

No gun law can ever abolish evil. Indeed, evil can rise anywhere at anytime. As Bill Hemmer of FNC pointed out there hadn’t been a major crime committed in Newtown in two years. Let us also remember that the gunman shot and killed his own mother before proceeding to the school where his mother worked and then killed all those people.

 

Sadly, the killing of schoolchildren is not unprecedented in this country. Of course, most people remember Columbine. I particularly remember the 1988 school shooting in Winnetka, Illinois which resulted in the death of eight-year old boy while four of his classmates were seriously wounded. The 2006 school shooting in the Amish community of Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania which resulted in the death of five girls also sticks out in my mind. Unfortunately, this scarcely scratches the surface of the school shootings that have taken place over the past quarter century.

 

Let’s consider that gun ownership has been part of this country’s history since its founding. The same cannot be said of massacres of this nature. What this tells me is that something has changed in the character of this country over the past 25 years. These changes in character and culture won’t be easy to diagnose as there are multiple symptoms. Even if we do manage to come to a general consensus as to the diagnosis and then somehow find some kind of cure, it will take many years before we can remedy our character. And even if we do that, evil is never far away.

 

My apologies to those posters that the mere mention of Evil sends them into illogical fits.

 

http://spectator.org/blog/2012/12/14/thoughts-on-the-ct-school-shoo

 

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[Adam]

Dr. Charles Krauthammer spoke regarding the shootings today, he said “People are going to divide into three camps, there are three elements here, the psychology of the shooter, you’ve got the weapon, and you’ve got the cultural environment".

 

You can already see that here on this board. Here is a snip from an article that is more concerned with the culture;

 

 

 

 

 

My apologies to those posters that the mere mention of Evil sends them into illogical fits.

 

http://spectator.org/blog/2012/12/14/thoughts-on-the-ct-school-shoo

 

 

The theory on good and evil is a strange one and most people don't understand it, therefore it makes them uncomfortable.

[Justice]

There is no easy answer to this dilemma. In order to cure this illness, rights will have to be taken away and most people refuse to give up those rights. Or you can take it upon yourself to self censor.

 

For example, television is far too violent. There's also way too much sex on TV. Our music, especially rap, glorifies violence. Our kids' video games are even worse. How many of you are in favor of censorship?

 

Other remedies to this problem barely get mentioned, such as, religion in schools. A healthy fear in God is a good thing. Yet we don't even consider it.

 

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm against censorship of any sort. If you don't like what's on TV, video games and in the music-don't buy any of these devices. If you do allow your family to partake in these types of things then at least educate your kids about them afterwards. Take 15 minutes to discuss it with them.

 

America is having problems for many various reasons. We mustn't ignore the signs. If you're married, stay married. Divorce is a huge issue in this country. Two parents are needed to raise children properly. Whatever happened to the stay at home mom, the backbone of every family?

 

This issue is far bigger than the 2nd amendment. Everything starts at home. No more excuses, parents, time to tighten up your game.

 

[NoSaint]

 

 

I agree that there's always the possibility of a lunatic in the security positions. You'll never be able to completely eliminate that as a possibility, but I think one way to reduce the risk is to subject them to quarterly or semi-annual psychological evaluations for as long as they're employed in that position. Not only that, but we need to have fairly high standards for qualifications and also ensure that they're relatively well-paid and don't have added financial stresses in their lives.

 

Because of 30 shootings in over a decade we need multiple well paid armed security officers at 150k schools around the country?

 

Awful.

[Brandon]

Because of 30 shootings in over a decade we need multiple well paid armed security officers at 150k schools around the country?

 

Awful.

 

Well, if you were to put even 4 or 5 armed security personnel in each school, would that reduce the number of incidents and/or the number of fatalities. I strongly suspect it would. Is that worth it? You tell me. How much is the safety of our kids worth?

 

One thing I'm fairly certain of is that our gun-free schools zones aren't working.

[NoSaint]

 

 

Well, if you were to put even 4 or 5 armed security personnel in each school, would that reduce the number of incidents and/or the number of fatalities. I strongly suspect it would. Is that worth it? You tell me. How much is the safety of our kids worth?

 

One thing I'm fairly certain of is that our gun-free schools zones aren't working.

 

Do we spend 30 billion a year (figure 4-5, well paid guys as you proposed ~200k in pay/benefits for this new group over 150k schools) in order to account for 3 shooting incidents a year? Even if you cut that number in half assuming that many schools have some security of moderate pay - does that change yesterday? A teachers son in a classroom of 5 year olds? It seems wildly inefficient.

 

In caring for the well being and safety of our kids vs worrying about the bad feelings we have seeing this on tv - it seems like a solution that caters to the latter.

Edited December 15, 2012 by NoSaint

[Brandon]

Do we spend 30 billion a year (figure 4-5, well paid guys as you proposed ~200k in pay/benefits for this new group over 150k schools) in order to account for 3 shooting incidents a year? Even if you cut that number in half assuming that many schools have some security of moderate pay - does that change yesterday? A teachers son in a classroom of 5 year olds? It seems wildly inefficient.

 

In caring for the well being and safety of our kids vs worrying about the bad feelings we have seeing this on tv - it seems like a solution that caters to the latter.

 

Its inefficient, but ask the parents of the incident yesterday what they think of that. Maybe it wouldn't have changed anything this time, maybe next time it would.

 

I fully understand what you're saying, don't get me wrong. I just think that if we can pay a small army of coaches for the junior high and high school sports teams, we can surely find the money to provide adequate on-campus security and give ourselves at least an opportunity if not to outright prevent these incidents, maybe we can mitigate the damage.

Edited December 15, 2012 by Brandon

[NoSaint]

 

 

Its inefficient, but ask the parents of the incident yesterday what they think of that. Maybe it wouldn't have changed anything this time, maybe next time it would.

 

I fully understand what you're saying, don't get me wrong. I just think that if we can pay a small army of coaches for the junior high and high school sports teams, we can surely find the money to provide adequate on-campus security and give ourselves at least an opportunity if not to outright prevent these incidents, maybe we can mitigate the damage.

 

Ill refer to the second paragraph of my last post. The money could be spent 100 ways that keep kids safer than a 4 man swat team at each school, but better mental health, outreach, education, etc... Doesn't make us feel near as in control of the situation, even if more effective.

Edited December 15, 2012 by NoSaint

[John Adams]

Well, if you were to put even 4 or 5 armed security personnel in each school, would that reduce the number of incidents and/or the number of fatalities. I strongly suspect it would. Is that worth it? You tell me. How much is the safety of our kids worth?

 

One thing I'm fairly certain of is that our gun-free schools zones aren't working.

 

So wait, your solution is to put 5 armed government employees at every school in the country? Gee, what could go wrong?

[Brandon]

So wait, your solution is to put 5 armed government employees at every school in the country? Gee, what could go wrong?

 

Well, I suppose we could always try the tried and true tactic of calling the essentially the same armed government employees on the phone and waiting 20 minutes for them to arrive.

[NoSaint]

 

 

Well, I suppose we could always try the tried and true tactic of calling the essentially the same armed government employees on the phone and waiting 20 minutes for them to arrive.

 

Put one on every street corner and we will be really safe. You finally solved crime! I hope someone can forward this to the proper authority!

[Brandon]

Put one on every street corner and we will be really safe. You finally solved crime! I hope someone can forward this to the proper authority!

 

Oh, you got really got me there! Good work, skippy!

[NoSaint]

 

 

Oh, you got really got me there! Good work, skippy!

 

Think of how safe the kids will be! Certainly this will reduce shootings, will it not? Just a matter of if you value your child's safety.

 

Sorry. It's taken just about all I've had not to yell at the people I've heard using that phrase. I know it's a tough time but that doesn't mean it's a fair or reasonable argument. In fact I'd say using that takes away from the discussion on how to increase safety, if anything,

Edited December 15, 2012 by NoSaint