Another shooting

[Pickle]

In a lot of cases, it IS the new protocol. Just look at what happened in Canada recently, the first police on scene charged in and engaged the suspect. The guy in Pennsylvania apparently opened fire when he saw the police preparing to enter the building.

It's a tough position for law enforcement to be in, and they will always be endlessly second-guessed. The police in Colorado will catch hell for storming the room where the guy was holding two girls hostage, even though they believed they had no choice. It's just the nature of our society. God help us if we ever face a Beslan-type scenario.

Yes, it is the new protocol in many situations. In many many respects law enforcement is a reactive occupation. It is difficult for the average cop to snoop and poop, looking for stuff. Their time is spent mostly responding to calls.

As far as CO cops catching hell. For once I don't think the cops will be second guessed as much as they normally would. There was a lot and I mean A LOT of criticism of Boulder PD and how slow they were (or allegedly were) in responding to the scene and acting. Now that police in the same state have acted swiftly and quickly the same people (who tend to dislike cops anyways) can not stand up and say the exact opposite. Oh sure, there will be some but not as many.

[ahellers]

i think that the attitude should remain (or change in some situations) go in fast and soon and stop whats going on. sure there will be instinces like CO (but there always will be no matter what) but we need to set a precidince for the gun men that were not gona put up with there crap.
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[bornl33t]

I know I'm preaching to the choir here but this is EXACTLY why banning guns is foolish. Why do you think they are doing this at schools? Cause know one has a gun and no one will challenge them. If guns were banned the bad guys would still get them them. The only change would be that they would know that they weren't taking a risk by pointing a gun at some one. As it stands now bad guys are playing Russian rollet when they pull a gun in public.

I for one am with beam on this one. Protect the innocent.

[SCpoloRicker]

I know I'm preaching to the choir here but this is EXACTLY why banning guns is foolish. Why do you think they are doing this at schools? Cause know one has a gun and no one will challenge them. If guns were banned the bad guys would still get them them. The only change would be that they would know that they weren't taking a risk by pointing a gun at some one. As it stands now bad guys are playing Russian rollet when they pull a gun in public.

I for one am with beam on this one. Protect the innocent.

Uh, of course no one at a school has a gun. I'm really unclear as to what you're trying to get across here... if we ban guns, people will know that no one is armed?

/gun-owner
//NRA and ACLU for life

[Pyroboy597]

Our school has never had a problem, but then again they don't take security too seriously. They don't search lockers without the principal's signed permission, and there are no random checks, metal detectors, identification requirements or anything like that. With over 2500 kids in the school, I wish they would take more steps to prevent something horrible from portentially happening. Atleast we have security guards with kevlar and guns.

[Thordic]

What, how did he get through the metal detector?

[MANN]

This is getting out of hand

What, how did he get through the metal detector?

Im not sure which school shooting you are talking about as there have been so many the past week or two, but I know for a fact that there were no metal detectors at the amish school. I have toured an amish town before, and its nothing but wood and straw. (Not that thats bad, just not my prefrance for living conditions)

WTF are people thinking these days!?! Holding 2 girls hostage and killing 1, Holding 10 girls hostage, tieing them up, and killing 5 of them.

I dont beleive that gun control has anything to do with violence as the "bad guys" will always have guns(Im not trying to start a gun control arguement), but it makes you think what/who is responsible!? I know that we as americans always want answers, but I'm beggining to think that no matter what we do/say/impliment there are always going to be cowards who decide to kill others, and then turn the gun on themself. I am hoping that this spurt of terror is completely random, and is not "copy-cat" cases.

I know that I am just rambling on about nothing, but I am just speechless/pissed off after reading various news reports on all of the poop that is going on these days.

Heres to 5 o'clock.

[Thordic]

I know that it was an Amish school.

[MarkM]

Just to throw something else in here. We have had two schools attacked by wack jobs, one with guns (Dunblane) and the other was a machete and I think a rifle, plus we had own very own sniper in Hungerford (all of this almost 10 years ago) Recently there have been a couple of shootings, racial motivated and due to this motivation definately the bad guys had the guns, not regular people so before anyone says I am slurring racial stances...also I didn't say to which race the people were connected
Anyhow point is after Dunblane all guns above a .22 were banned (shotguns are still allowed) , so the only people with access to guns are criminals which will always happen regardless of the laws of the country. However since private ownership of guns is not allowed in the UK the kids (or adults) that have a beef with whoever have no easy access to these weapons. where as in the US as seen on AO many of you own guns which can be got at or 'borrowed', not saying AO gun owners are lax just that the simple fact you have them means others 'could' get to them. many of the school shoot ups by kids have in general turned out to be the father/mothers handgun/s. take those guns away any then they (the people with the screws loose) have to resort to criminal activity to obtain the gun, so there are greater chances for that person to be caught before they do any damage.
So ban the guns and the problem will not go away totally but it will certainly drop in so far as incidents such as this are concerned.
The main problem with a ban in the US is the sheer numbers of guns involved, plus you will get a lot of people screaming about their so called rights...sorry guys you ain't in any danger of an invasion so you don't need the guns. But if you want to think that you are, well anything I say won't change your mind. Eventually your goverment (whichever party) will call enough is enough but how many children will die before this happens.
We don't have metal detectors at our schools (though I think a couple might do in some rather rough areas, but they are looking for knives not guns) as in general we don't need them...I wonder why...oh we don't allow private ownership of guns, so our schoools don't get shot up. BTW this isn't the UK is better than the US kind of reply it is simply we have a system that works. Sure we do have shoootings in this country but by criminals NOT disgruntled teenagers or adults bearing a grudge from their school days.

I know you can make numbers say anything you want if you present them in a certain way but totals are totals however you compile them.

http://www.ichv.org/Statistics.htm it makes for some scary reading.

Comparison of U.S. gun homicides to other industrialized countries:
In 1998 (the most recent year for which this data has been compiled), handguns murdered:

373 people in Germany
151 people in Canada
57 people in Australia
19 people in Japan
54 people in England and Wales, and
11,789 people in the United States
(*Please note that these 1998 numbers account only for HOMICIDES, and do not include suicides, which comprise an even greater number of gun deaths, or unintentional shootings).

An example of how the numbers can be fudged is how other surveys state that Gun related deaths have dropped compared to previous years but the numbers of deaths are still big numbers.

Take my reply in the manner in which is has been made. I am NOT knocking people who wish to own guns but the simple fact of allowed ownership is one of the major causes of incidents that this thread was started about.

[Altimas]

[QUOTE=MarkM]
Take my reply in the manner in which is has been made. I am NOT knocking people who wish to own guns but the simple fact of allowed ownership is one of the major causes of incidents that this thread was started about.[/QUOTE]

That isn't a fact it is an opinion. The actual act of owning a gun never made anyone want to shoot someone for the heck of it. Because as you well know a gun can't MAKE a human do anything.

[punkncat]

Comparison of U.S. gun homicides to other industrialized countries:
In 1998 (the most recent year for which this data has been compiled), handguns murdered:

373 people in Germany
151 people in Canada
57 people in Australia
19 people in Japan
54 people in England and Wales, and
11,789 people in the United States
(*Please note that these 1998 numbers account only for HOMICIDES, and do not include suicides, which comprise an even greater number of gun deaths, or unintentional shootings).

An example of how the numbers can be fudged is how other surveys state that Gun related deaths have dropped compared to previous years but the numbers of deaths are still big numbers.

Not trying to knock your numbers, just as a point of reference, are those figures available calculated in shootings per 1000, or are there reliable population #'s for those years/countries?

It seems to me like (and I very easily could be wrong) but when you compare deaths in say Germany as compared to the US there is a great disparity in land mass and possibly population. Still these numbers are quite discouraging.

[MarkM]

Not trying to knock your numbers, just as a point of reference, are those figures available calculated in shootings per 1000, or are there reliable population #'s for those years/countries?

It seems to me like (and I very easily could be wrong) but when you compare deaths in say Germany as compared to the US there is a great disparity in land mass and possibly population. Still these numbers are quite discouraging.

Per head of populations is always going to skew the percentage numbers but the totals can't be argued with. Click the link in my post for the site and they 'should' show how they reached those figures.

Altimas, if you were not allowed to own a gun you would have to resort to other means to obtain one, re-read my entire reply with some kind of open mind.
More of the kids shooting up the schools is done with the parents or friends parents weapons than the disturbed teeanger going to his local shady corner gun dealer and getting his mac-10 that way.

[Altimas]

I understand your point Mark, I don't really agree with it but I understand it. Here are some other numbers to toss around with the sources:

Guns used 2.5 million times a year in self-defense. Law-abiding citizens use guns to defend themselves against criminals as many as 2.5 million times every year -- or about 6,850 times a day.1 This means that each year, firearms are used more than 60 times more often to protect the lives of honest citizens than to take lives.

Of the 2.5 million times citizens use their guns to defend themselves every year, the overwhelming majority merely brandish their gun or fire a warning shot to scare off their attackers. Less than 8% of the time, a citizen will kill or wound his/her attacker.2

1 Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz, "Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense With a Gun," 86 The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Northwestern University School of Law, 1 (Fall 1995):164.

2 Kleck and Gertz, "Armed Resistance to Crime," at 173, 185


Had to go home before I could finish but that spreads a little more light...

[SlartyBartFast]

Why do you think they are doing this at schools? Cause know one has a gun and no one will challenge them.

Actually, for the most part, I'd say schools are chosen because school is at the center of their torment.

High school particualrly is one of the most vile, nasty, and negative environment to have to endure if you're not one of the in-crowd or successfully avoid persecution by them.

The bullied are far more likely to be punished or told to modify their behaviour than those doing the bullying.

The lucky ones avoid it and enjoy high school or successfully ignore the negatives. Others endure it to varying degrees of success. Those pushed over the edge end up committing suicide or commiting one massive violent outburst to try and impose somesemblence of empowerment.

While there are genuine nut-jobs taht will take pleasure in inflicting harm on innocent lives, those are mostly serial-killer types. It takes a community to raise a monster that has the level of hatred to seekout and target their peers.

It doesn't justify the actions in anywhay. But consider that the postal shootings were as much a product of the toxic environment of the workplace as the mental stability of the shooter.

[SCpoloRicker]

SlartyBartFast: My lawn. You. Off.