Ingredients for school shootings:
1. School/students
2. Crazy person (shooter)
3. Guns
Now of these 3 ingredients which can you take out so that school shootings won't happen or minimized?
1. School/students? Cannot be taken out since children need to go to school.
2. Crazy person (shooter)? No. You cannot prevent people for going crazy (snapping).
3. Guns? YES. Prohibit the selling of semi-automatic rifles. Limit access to hand guns. Record all gun owners. Constant monitoring of those private citizens with firearms.
No you cannot. You cannot prevent seasoned criminals or psycho patient nutjobs from bringing a gun (legal/illegal) to the School.
I also have questions to ask :
A gun and a maniac can come together at any place any time. But why are all these incidents happening in Gun free zones like Schools and Prayer halls? Why don't they go to Army barracks, Shooting ranges. Never ever !!
Did he or did he not know that there will be no armed resistance?
Banning Guns to stop these incidents is like banning driving on roads to stop accidents; because some drunk idiot or underage teenager drove rashly.
The current prevailing (un) cultural agents in our societies via TV, Movies, Video Games have placed many a issues amongst us.
The brutal rapes in moving buses, stabbing on open streets in broad day light and trigger happy Gun massacres like Sandy Hook; all come from the same problem area.
If we're a more lawful, organized, civilized societies today than the savage medieval ages then why these things are happening?
Aren't our generations desensitized and brainwashed on a constant basis? Are we going to look into the root cause of will we just beat around the bush by calling to burn all Guns (if that was possible I would've supported it).
By the way US has always been heavily armed. Why so many mass shootings now? Definitely we're not looking at the bigger picture.
As far as Guns are concerned, what America needs is to stop the shop-counter selling of Guns.
There should be better licensing and its sticter implementation.
If you need a weapon for self defense, you must have a license by being :
a) A bonafide citizen with absolutely clean records.
b) Physically and mentally fit to own and operate a fire-arm.
c) Trained to use the fire-arm responsibly.
d) Proved their practice/training again, when arriving for license renewal.
In many US states they don't even need a Gun safety course to own a pistol.
Treating the medium or symptoms is not the way.
A maniac hell bent on taking lives would find a Gun in black market any day. He is not begging for a license.
He'll find a sword if not a gun and knife if not a sword. Is there a way to stop him?
Yes. By guarding the school with arms.
If we don't want Guns in Schools then armed guards must be placed on gates.
It would be foolish to have the happy misunderstanding that a Gun free zone is a safe zone.
No zone remains a gun free zone, the moment a maniac brings his load in and starts playing with fire.
Believe me this is an eternal see-saw of crime and society. Disarming the people enmasse is only counter productive.
Some of us will always be there as few rotten apples, to kill the others.
Technology has made the weapons more powerful today and thus the tactical difference between being armed and disarmed is widening rapidly.
As we cannot completely eliminate illegal black markets and their Guns (much like evil, disease and death), makes it even more important now that the society - their potential target - remains armed against this threat.
People have always been so, only the weapons have developed with times .. from sharp edged stones to Guns today.
What needs to be regulated is not whether we arm or not .. but rather whom of us get to arm themselves and whom not.
That is where I am debating.
Rather then blaming that lifeless piece of metal there are more important questions to ask,
How could the man lay hands on the weapons? If he got them from home, why did the mother not restrict his access seeing his behavior?
How could he enter the School armed to the teeth?
Did he have a license for them or did he steal someone else's Guns?
A gun is dangerous Yes, but that is what it is meant to be. You don't fight a life threat by sticking carrot in its throat. You need detterrance for it.
I hear this one a lot :
What if someone snapped, what if someone went crazy .......
What if a soldier in a barrack went crazy ????
What if a soldier in a battlefield went crazy and sprayed bullets on his own????
What if a man talking to me from a feet's distance went crazy and slit my throat???
2. Crazy person (shooter)
People going crazy is a too simplistic way to put it.
People always go crazy, everday, everywhere. How crazy are we talking about?
And even then, there is a kitchen in every household and a handsome long knife in every kitchen.
I should've seen half the world kill itself in homicides by now
Do we even look at how many people die in road accidents everyday because of unlicesend, drunk or rash driving?
The US should BAN assault rifles. Hand guns maybe owned for self-defense. But assault rifles belong to battlefields not the homes of ordinary American families where 1 of the children will snap one day and get papa's or mama's M16 to start shooting at everyone just for kicks.
It would be appaling and criminal for the parents to let the kids be exposed to loaded fire-arms.
Until you're an adult you do not get exclusive access to a firearm at all. Period. No if and buts.
Learning is one thing and using is another. One may start teaching their teenager, depending upon their marutiy level. Starting with an empty gun of course.
If they show interest and have respect for the law, they will wait their turn and go through the licensing when the time comes.
Those who want shortcuts are clearly not ready for it.
Parents who want Guns in their houses better own up the responsiblity that comes along with the power of a Gun.
Regards,
Virendra