The ignorant arguments from the left and the right are why our kids keep getting killed. How long are we going to tolerate this ridiculousness.
Okay, we have all heard it, “We need common sense gun control!” First of all, there is no such thing. Unless you are willing to ban all firearms, including hunting weapons, you have no gun control. If you think you can just ban just AR-15s, it doesn’t really work that way. It is a zero sum proposition…all or nothing. If that is where you want to go, fine. Good luck with that.
If you decide you what to keep “some guns”, then like an alcoholic you have to first admit you have a problem, and you have to take steps.
First step, realize there is a threat. Second, how to stop or mitigate the threat. Rather than the boring and typical drooling bleeding heart response (More gun laws!), the problem needs to be attacked like an engineer or tactician. You already have three million (or more, not to mention the black market) or so guns on the street and several thousand disturbed or angry people that have access to them. You understand you can’t stop the threat due to contingent unknowns, so what steps to you take to mitigate it?
What steps are you going to take to make the public spaces safe? Okay, baby steps. Schools seem to be very soft targets, and innocent kids are dying. What concrete steps are you going to take to mitigate that threat? I’m sure every school says it can’t happen here (statistically that is probably true). The Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida probably felt the same way. But it did. So what do you do?
First, lock the school up tight as a drum. Treat it like top secret information.
As case study, I would offer our own Northampton High School. All students are issued smart cards (I would take that a step further and have them clearly visible at all times, worn around the neck with lanyards). They can’t get into the main building without swiping in. The card is also their official school id. I would also recommend breaking the school up into sectors that require card access. If they lose it, they don’t get back in until the lost one is disabled and a new one is activated.
Sheriffs deputies are on duty during school hours. I would take it another step and post police at the main entry and exit points when school starts and ends, spot check ids randomly. Visitors are not allowed to loiter on campus, period. I would require the police to investigate all strangers. As it stands now, visitors remain outside until it is verified that they have a reason to be there. I would also issue a temporary visitor pass smart card, which can be tracked and disabled at any time.
Another step would be for the Schools to engage in full blown Active Shooter drills once per quarter. We have fire drills all time, why not teach kids what to do if there is an Active Shooter?
It all seems pretty basic, something all schools should be doing.
I can hear it now, “Where are we going to get the money for that?” Here’s a clue. Just skimming from massive government sanctioned fraud, abuse and waste, even just 10% of it would free up billions.
I get angry when these things happen at Sandy Hook or this latest in Florida. Selfishly, I think it could be my kids, or my nieces and nephews or my theater kids that I love like my own. I get so angry when I hear nothing but more vapid rhetoric and empty platitudes instead of problem solving. Are there any adults left out there?
Oh, I forgot, it’s Russian involvement again. How could I forget…the brilliant FBI couldn’t follow up on real actionable intelligence because resources had to be used to stop the awful Russian hacking of our elections.
Keep on Rocking in the Free World…fools.
Paul Plante says
Adults?
Here in America?
Are you kidding?
We do not have adults in Washington, D.C., despite their ages, so why would anyone think that there were adults left in America, given that those immature idiots in Washington were put there by the American people.
Why would adults put immature idiots into positions of power above them?
Only idiots more immature than those in Washington would vote to put those immature idiots in Washington in power.
As to “lock-down” drills, there is presently a MoveOn petition making its way through the internet which reads as follows:
I am a teacher and practice “lockdown” drills now on what to do in the event of a school shooting.
I should not have to make my students imagine a deranged gunman hunting them through the hallways of their place of learning and community.
Every time a tragedy such as Parkland occurs, we wring our hands, debate online, then forget about it, fail to take action, and it happens all over again while too many politicians are lining their pockets with tainted money from an evil organization that cares more about profits from gun and ammunition sales than it does about the lives of innocent men, women, and children.
end quotes
Right here, it should be noted that the very politically powerful teacher’s unions have themselves owned gun stocks to fund their lavish retirement systems with, so the self-righteous teachers are also having their pockets lined with tainted money from an evil organization that cares more about profits from gun and ammunition sales than it does about the lives of innocent men, women, and children, but hey, it is never about them, is it?
Getting back to the petition:
That’s why I started a petition demanding that politicians reject funding and campaign support from the National Rifle Association (NRA).
Stop taking money from the NRA.
After the Sandy Hook massacre of first graders and their teachers, more than 400 people have been shot in more than 200 school shootings.
This doesn’t even count churches, concerts, and other public spaces where people who have had too easy access to weapons specifically designed to kill people en masse have used them.
Politicians who take NRA money are complicit in gun violence.
It’s time that all politicians reject the NRA.
Thanks.
—Jody Hill
end quotes
Let me say here that I am a grandfather, and this crap going on in this country today makes me quite angry, as well.
My answer to this petition was that it is ridiculous, and it seeks to shift the blame over onto the NRA (no, I am not and never have been a member, nor am I any kind of gun nut) as if it were the NRA, and not our failed school systems and communities and society itself, that was producing these WHACK-JOBS (OMG, I bet I just upset a whole passel of bleeding heart liberals there, calling a WHACK-JOB a WHACK-JOB) who think it is alright to get a gun and use it to kill anyone with let alone children.
What kind of very sick society is producing these WHACK-JOBS, anyway?
How is it that no one in the school district knew they were producing a dangerous WHACK-JOB in the case of this Florida shooter?
And how does someone simply waltz down the street and into a school armed with an AR-15, not a weapon you can conceal in your back pocket, without anyone even noticing?
That is what defies belief.
So what we really need here is a kind of Nuremburg proceeding, where literally everyone who had any kind of hand in raising this MONSTER would be put in the dock with the WHACK-JOB, to answer how it was they failed civilized society by producing this WHACK-JOB MONSTER.
That would include his parents, who today are saying “we had this monster living under our roof and we didn’t know,” and his relatives, and his school teachers, and their principal, and his minister or priest, and his Boy Scout leader if he had one.
Put them all in the dock and hold them all accountable unless they can put up a valid defense as to why they should not be in there.
Otherwise, this is all just a great big joke, and all the politicians will continue to do is to point fingers at each other.
As to “guns,” every gun made is designed to kill things, whether it is the old-fashioned “zip gun” made with a piece of tubing firing a .22 short round which can kill at close range, or a Sharps buffalo gun.
In that, the AR-15 is no different.
So if the AR-15 is banned, then another gun will become the weapon of choice, a sawed-off “street sweeper” 12-guage shotgun, for example, and when all guns are banned, of course, the criminals and WHACK-JOBS will go back to doing what they did back when, which is to produce their own, as they did with the “zip gun.”
So then, to prevent that, all ammo of every kind has to be banned, as well, but in that case, people will do as they did back when and produce their own.
And who exactly is it that is going to do all this confiscating?
When progressive Democrat Young Andy Cuomo of New York state rammed through his SAFE Act several years ago, the NYS Police let him know that they were not going, to go around trying to take guns away from honest American citizens and put their lives in danger in the process.
So who is going to do the job then?
The Army?
The Marines?
So until we get a straight answer as to that, this talk of confiscating guns is nothing more than a huge exercise in futility staring us in the face.
Therefore, until American society and our school systems stop producing these WHACK-JOBS, this problem is not going away.
Laurie says
First, lock the school up tight as a drum. Treat it like top secret information.
You have sports teams, parents, teachers, and students coming in and out of schools. They aren’t all going to have issued smart cards. Secondly, the students are going to lose, forget, and misplace those cards (typical teenagers). So now you are printing a bunch of extra cards? With the government “waste money”? Doubtful. Third, if the shooter is himself a student or can get access to a card, it’s not helpful.
Face it, the problem is highly automatic weapons that no 19 year old needs to have, period. People who like guns don’t want to hear this. But it’s true. If you want to be part of the solution, then spend more time thinking about how to craft meaningful gun reform, and less on pretending that other things are the problem (mental health! a sick society! video games!). Let’s see people try to kill other people with a knife. I can guarantee it will be less bloody.
Note: I know it’s a lot to ask, but read again. NH High School has already implemented most of these measures. The kids rarely lose the cards. At the basketball games, parents and visitors walk through a metal detector with sheriffs deputies right there. Will this stop everyone? Of course not, but it does harden the target. But face it, if Northampton can do it with our limited funding, does anyone really have an excuse? Browning, Ruger, Remington, and others make semi-automatic “hunting” rifles that many would argue are far superior AR type guns. Not to mention Baretta, Taurus, Remington, Smith and Wesson,Glock and others make semi-automatic handguns that are also quite lethal. You do not need a gun that happens to look like a ‘military’ or assault rifle to do quite a bit of damage. Face it, unless you are going ban and round up or buy back all the guns in the world, you need to accept and adjust to the threat.
Laurie says
It’s not a lot to ask. I read quite a bit and I’m quite intelligent. I also worked at the high school, so please don’t tell me about my experience. We regularly had kids who wouldn’t bring pencils, let alone lanyards for different sections of the school.
This sort of selective “just accept and resign” only comes into play when it’s guns shot by Americans at other Americans. If it was a foreign terrorist who did it, Trump (and Breitbart) would have calls for a bigly wall and lifetime ban on brown people . When the will is there, solutions seem to appear. We are the only industrialized country in the Western world that puts up with this nonsense, so no, it’s not crazy to start thinking maybe we could something about people’s access to weapons.
Note: Unless you implement 100% ban on all guns, than you are just sticking your head in the sand, and kicking the can (as usual). Does it really matter whether someone uses an AR-15 or a Glock 30s, or a Browning semi-automatic “hunting rifle”? Does it? Until you ban all guns, at least, as first steps, harden the target. Not sure which High School you worked at, but at Northampton High you don’t get in the school without your smart card. Not the same as a pencil.
Laurie says
No, the solution is not necessarily ban all guns, unless it’s a black and white issue. Take prudent measures to start limiting access to weapons that have the potential to cause the most damage in the hands of an active shooter. We don’t ban planes or cars because they crash.
Paul Plante says
The AR-15 is semi-automatic, not highly automatic.
And it is an “assault-style” weapon, which means modeled on a military assault rifle, with happens to be a different weapon, not the civilian weapon that looks like it.
The military version is a fully automatic weapon.
Many rifles beyond the AR-15 are also chambered for the same round the AR-15 uses.
So if the AR-15, a semi-automatic rifle firing a .223 round, is to be banned, for whatever reason, then every other semi-automatic rifle firing that same round should also be banned for the same reason the AR-15 is to be banned, whatever that reason is to be.
Stop making them, stop selling them, stop supplying the ammo for them, and the problem goes away.
Simple as that.
Mike Kuzma says
A teacher too stupid to realize how asinine a statement she made.
“Highly automatic
Derp.
tkenny says
A commentator too stupid to realize how asinine a statement he made when she never said she was a teacher….
Derp!
Mike Kuzma says
“I also worked at the high school”
Sigh……
tkenny says
Age catching up to Mike? One can work at a high school and not be a teacher.
Sigh…..
Laurie says
Hey, I don’t know much about weapons and will be the first to admit it. My mother’s brother was shot and killed as a child as a result of her irresponsible father leaving a gun around for his children to play with. For obvious reasons, my mother hated them and we didn’t grow up using them.
My misstatement regarding semi vs. highly automatic doesn’t change my original argument, nor do personal insults add anything to this conversation. Do you have a solution to school shootings?
Paul Plante says
Do you, Laurie?
Have you got a solution to school shootings?
If you don’t, then why do you think anyone else does?
Do you think that outlawing guns will accomplish anything at all, if all the guns now in existence aren’t all confiscated and destroyed?
And do you think a bunch of children out there screaming and hollering unintelligible gibberish like they are today is going to accomplish anything?
On the news this afternoon, I heard some high school student calling the civilian AR-15 a “military” weapon.
It is not.
It is a COPY of a military weapon.
It is semi-automatic, which means each time you want to shoot a bullet, you have to pull the trigger.
A true military assault weapon is fully automatic, which means when you pull the trigger, it will keep firing,
And there is no “highly” automatic weapon.
They are either automatic, or semi-automatic.
And when there are no bullets left in the magazine, they don’t work anymore.
But this whole conversation (not you, Laurie, the national dialogue) has become ridiculous because of all the hype being thrown around by people who are absolutely clueless as to what they are talking about, and instead, are leading with hysteria.
You can’t have a rational conversation with hysterical people, at all.
And it is interesting how shamelessly the anti-gun people are in exploiting this shooting for all it is worth, and how they are exploiting these children, making them sound like ignorant fools on the national news who know absolutely nothing about our form of government, who is responsible for what, how laws are made, and what laws are on the books already regulating guns.
All they know is how to chant and scream and holler.
Chanting over and over and over and over “HEY, HEY, HO, HO, THE NRA HAS GOT TO GO” isn’t really doing all that much to advance the dialogue, in my estimation.
Laurie says
Eh, I have ideas, but I think solution is probably too strong of a word. I just think if someone says you’re stupid, then they should offer an idea of their own.
Paul Plante says
Or if someone says you are stupid, the alternative tack is to demonstrate to them and the candid world that you are not.
If you have ideas, Laurie, float them out there.
If they get rationally shot down, LEARN something from it.
Not saying you are doing it, but all too often on the internet, especially a dynamic venue such as this which is not a soundbox for any ideology, liberal or conservative, when people have an unsound idea critically examined and rejected, instead of learning something they get all in a pout and go off in a snit, as if they were still adolescents in a grown-up body.
And what good does that do for anyone?
Laurie says
While the term “assault weapon” is vague, we’ll define it as a semi-automatic rifle with cosmetic features similar to military weapons. They’re typically paired with high-capacity magazines.
Perhaps this is the right phrase.
Paul Plante says
Thanks for posting that, Laurie.
Indeed, the appellation “assault weapon” is very vague, and it is an invented term,
I was in the U.S. Army in Viet Nam, and used the M-16 RIFLE as my primary weapon.
They were “rifles,” not “assault weapons.”
I never heard the term “assault weapon” in the military because it is a stupid term that means absolutely nothing at all.
As to the term “assault weapon,” Wikipedia tells us it is a term used in the United States to define some types of firearms.
The definition varies among regulating jurisdictions, but usually includes semi-automatic firearms with a detachable magazine and a pistol grip, and sometimes other features such as a flash suppressor or barrel shroud.
end quotes
Semi-automatic firearms with detachable magazines include .22 rifles that you would shoot squirrels with out in the countryside, and the .22 is hardly an “assault” weapon, although to be truthful, you can use virtually anything as an “assault” weapon, including rocks and the thigh bone of a big animal, as was demonstrated in the movie “2001, A Space Odyssey.”
How a flash suppresser makes something an “assault” weapon eludes me, starting with the fact that the so-called “flash suppresser” does not make the flash go away.
That is why the Viet Cong liked to hit us at night, because they could then pinpoint is by the muzzle flash of our weapons.
And every rifle has a “barrel shroud” of some sort to support the barrel, so that is another meaningless term.
Getting back to Wikipedia:
Some firearms are specified by name.
At the time that the now-defunct Federal Assault Weapons Ban passed in 1994, the U.S. Department of Justice said, “In general, assault weapons are semiautomatic firearms with a large magazine of ammunition that were designed and configured for rapid fire and combat use.”
The origin of the term has been attributed to legislators, gun control groups, the media, and the firearms industry itself.
It is sometimes conflated with the term “assault rifle”, which refers to selective-fire military rifles that can fire in automatic and / or burst mode.
After the December 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, many news organizations ran stories about assault weapons, explaining their varying definitions and presenting varying opinions about whether or not they should be banned again on the federal level.
Drawing from federal and state law definitions, the term assault weapon refers primarily to semi-automatic rifles, pistols, and shotguns that are able to accept detachable magazines and possess one or more other features.
end quotes
Why there is this fascination with “detachable magazines” frankly eludes me.
Why is a detachable magazine that holds five or ten rounds any different than a magazine that holds five or ten rounds fixed to the weapon itself?
Getting back to Wikipedia:
Some jurisdictions define revolving cylinder shotguns as assault weapons.
Legislative definitions do not include fully automatic weapons, which are regulated separately as Title II weapons under federal law.
Common attributes used in legislative definitions of assault weapons include:
* Semi-automatic firearm capable of accepting a detachable magazine
* Folding or telescoping (collapsible) stock, which reduces the overall length of the firearm
* A pistol grip that protrudes conspicuously beneath the action of the weapon
* Bayonet lug, which allows the mounting of a bayonet
* Threaded barrel, which can accept devices such as a flash suppressor, Suppressor, compensator or muzzle brake
Grenade launcher
* Barrel shroud, which prevents burning of shooter’s arm or hand as a safety device.
Dictionary definitions vary from legal definitions.
Dictionary.com defines “assault weapon” as “any of various automatic and semiautomatic military firearms utilizing an intermediate-power cartridge, designed for individual use.”
Merriam-Webster’s online definition is “any of various automatic or semiautomatic firearms; especially: assault rifle.”
In the past, the names of certain military weapons used the phrase, such as the Rifleman’s Assault Weapon, a grenade launcher developed in 1977 for use with the M16 assault rifle, or the Shoulder-launched Multipurpose Assault Weapon, a rocket launcher introduced in 1984.
In April 1985, Art Agnos introduced in the California State Assembly a bill to ban semi-automatic “assault firearms” capable of using detachable magazines of 20 rounds or more.
Speaking to the Assembly Public Safety Committee, Agnos said, “The only use for assault weapons is to shoot people.”
The measure did not pass when it came up for a vote.
In 2013, The Washington Post wrote of the term: “Many attribute its popularization to a 1988 paper written by gun-control activist and Violence Policy Center founder Josh Sugarmann and the later reaction to the Cleveland School massacre in Stockton, California, in January 1989.”
Sugarmann had written:
Assault weapons—just like armor-piercing bullets, machine guns, and plastic firearms—are a new topic.
The weapons’ menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons—anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun—can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons.
In addition, few people can envision a practical use for these weapons.
end quotes
The fact of the matter is that the AR-15 is actually used by many people in the countryside in this nation to hunt varmints such as coyotes, woodchucks, etc, and yes, they are used for deer hunting, as well, given that in dense woods, a carbine type weapon is easier to get through the brush with, but these hysterical people who think their only purpose is to shoot people are in capable of understanding that, because they are hysterical, not rational.
That is why this national discussion is so ridiculous.
And according to Wikipedia, the firearms industry itself introduced the term “assault weapon” to build interest in new product lines.
Phillip Peterson, the author of Gun Digest Buyer’s Guide to Assault Weapons (2008) wrote:
The popularly held idea that the term ‘assault weapon’ originated with anti-gun activists is wrong.
The term was first adopted by manufacturers, wholesalers, importers and dealers in the American firearms industry to stimulate sales of certain firearms that did not have an appearance that was familiar to many firearms owners.
The manufacturers and gun writers of the day needed a catchy name to identify this new type of gun.
Conservative writer Rich Lowry said that assault weapon is a “manufactured term.”
Joseph P. Tartaro of the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) wrote in 1994: “One of the key elements of the anti-gun strategy to gull the public into supporting bans on the so-called ‘assault weapons’ is to foster confusion.”
“As stated previously, the public does not know the difference between a full automatic and a semi-automatic firearm.”
Robert Crook, executive director of the Coalition of Connecticut Sportsmen, said “the term ‘assault weapon,’ as used by the media, is a media invention.”
end quotes
So, everybody, work your way through all of that and try to make sense of it, if you can, and then tell us: What is “assault weapon?”
Metty says
Your solution is like the proverbial pollution/poisoning of the water from upstream that people use downstream . You can clean up downstream, educate the people how to make the water safe, protect the water from harmful elements, etc, but unless you stop the poisoning at the source upstream, the poison will continue and harm people downstream because they have to use the water. Semi-s and automatic rifles are the cause of mass killings,, we have to take them out to stop the masssacre. Outlaw these type of guns and you will quickly reduce the mass killings. It is the most implementable approach that can impact the problem directly and quickly.
Metty
Note: Does it really matter whether someone uses an AR-15 or a Glock 30s, or a Browning semi-automatic “hunting rifle”? Does it? Until you ban all guns, at least, as first steps, harden the target.
Donna Bozza says
While including valid points on school security, the basis of this piece ALL GUNS or NO GUNS feeds paralysis -taking no action on safer gun laws. There are some who will push this division just so no gun laws are enacted.
The adults – the folks with common sense will keep speaking the truth that a civilized society does not put weapons of warfare in the hands of civilians, that protecting our children includes both school security and strict background checks, that a compassionate people pulls together in times of crisis -rather than further divide its citizenry.
Note: Does it really matter whether someone uses an AR-15 or a Glock 30s, or a Browning semi-automatic “hunting rifle”? Does it? Until you ban all guns, at least, as first steps, harden the target.
Donna Bozza says
Again this is polarizing the gun safety issue so no action will be taken. It seems to be your objective here. Not acceptable if one really cares about saving lives.
Note: Time to stop promoting fallacy. People are somehow under the impression that AR-15 type weapons are the only ones that can kill people. Nonsense, and dangerous. Every single handgun in world is only meant to kill people. Guns are guns, trying to draw a distinction that this type is safe and good, while this type is not, is a very faulty argument. Also, the main gist of the article is about at least taking steps to make the schools safer….at least until only safe guns are out there.
Donna Bozza says
I agree that AR-15 are not the only semiautomatic firearms out there. Point taken. All such weapons need to be curtailed.
Yes, all guns can kill, point again taken. But that doesn’t mean a hunter going out to shoot deer to feed his family should be lumped in the same category as wanting to pull the most dangerous guns off the market. These guns many of which were initially developed for the military to kill lots of people at a time -quickly– during a war.
I see no compassionate reason to NOT to want to pull these off the market.
That’s all I have to say here.
Note: Thanks Donna, we may not agree 100%, but I think we want the same thing. The Mirror appreciates and respects differing opinions, and the willingness to debate them.
Slide Easy says
‘Yes, all guns can kill’…..Really???
What a liberal loon you appear. Gun don’t kill People….People kill people.
Paul Plante says
Well, maybe the gun didn’t actually kill this dude, but we had a town clown (local cop) up this way who got shot in his own *** by his own gun which apparently was being stuffed down the wasteband of his pants when somehow, it decided to go off.
Paul Plante says
The famous 30.06 hunting rifle round pronounced “thirty-aught-six” or “thirty-oh-six”, and called “.30 Gov’t ’06” by Winchester, was initially developed for the military to kill people.
Notice that I didn’t use your additional terms, “lot’s of,” since when the military develops a weapon to kill lots of people, it is a bomb or rocket or artillery round, not a rifle, no matter how highly automatic it might be.
As an infantryman in Viet Nam in real combat, not the computer simulated kind, I used the M-16 as a rifle, and as a “assault” rifle, to be truthful, I always thought it to be inadequate, especially in bamboo.
But people over here need to call it an “assault” rifle in its AR-15 variant to fulfill some inner need of theirs, so an “assault” rifle in America it has become.
So ban the ******* things.
Where’s the problem?
Getting back to the 30.06 round, which was designed to kill people, it was introduced to the United States Army in 1906 and later standardized and it remained in use until the early 1980s.
It remains a very popular sporting round, with ammunition produced by all major manufacturers.
Up here where I live, out in the country, where real people who aren’t rich city people use real bullets to kill a deer with to feed their families, as the law allows them to do, the 30.06 is a very common and popular rifle, and as common as they are, you don’t hear of people up here actually using them to go out and kill groups of people with, but hey, it was designed as an assault weapon by the military to kill people with, so it should be banned along with all other assault weapons.
And then there is the M14 rifle, officially the United States Rifle, 7.62 mm, M14, an American selective fire automatic rifle that fires 7.62×51mm NATO (commercial .308 Winchester) ammunition, which I trained on in the United States Army and used as a sniper rifle in Viet Nam.
That is another popular hunting rifle up this way in a semi-automatic version, but again, it was designed by the United States military to kill people with, so it too should be banned.
And on and on and on the hysterical arguments now go.
And let me say here that personally, I do not like guns, period.
However, I live in the country, not some gated community or seaside condo complex, and out here the gun is as much a tool as is the chainsaw and axe and shovel, a point I don’t expect the pampered among us who don’t think there should be any guns to comprehend or understand, but there it is, nonetheless.
And as much as I do not like guns, I would see them all gone, but living in the country, I am not stupid.
If there were no guns to control the continual onslaught of nature, which it is, even if the rich folks in their condo complexes where everything is designed by the hand of man have no clue about it, we would be overrun with woodchucks, coyotes, crows, and on and on and on, not to mention the deer which are becoming a nuisance as their former habitat is paved over to create paradise.
So up here, the gun is a tool, not a weapon.
A gun is a weapon when someone decides to use it as such.
And because some WHACK-JOB in Florida used a gun as a weapon to kill people with, my neighbors in New York state should not be disarmed and deprived of their legal weapons, as a result.
If they are, then can we depend on all these liberals to come up here and kill the nuisance varmints with rocks to protect us from them?
So, Donna Bozza, you can see that yes, a hunter going out to shoot deer to feed his family should NOT be lumped in the same category as wanting to pull the most dangerous guns off the market.
But what are the most dangerous guns?
The Thompson sub-machine gun?
But that is already illegal, isn’t it.
So we obviously have a lawful mechanism for pulling weapons like the AR-15 clean off the market, just like the outlawed Thompson sub-machine gun.
Why isn’t Alcohol and Firearms using it?
It is they who have the authority to act.
Why haven’t they?
Because they are captive to the NRA and its president Wayne LaPierre, a 1969 Siena graduate who went on to Boston College for grad school, allegedly to avoid being drafted?
Does the NRA own Alcohol and Firearms?
It is said by some, since Siena is a Franciscan college, that Wayne LaPierre seems to forgotten the teachings of St. Francis about serving others and not causing harm, in that he took an organization that stressed gun safety and turned into an organization that buys Congress and spews propaganda about how he is preserving the right to bear arms.
If that is true, then of course, instead of going after the NRA, go after Wayne LaPierre.
If he is against universal background checks, ask him, as a graduate of a Franciscan college, why is that?
Is St. Francis against background checks then on some kind of religious grounds?
As to this, Donna Bozza, not to lecture you on sentence structure when using the English language, but you truly have me stumped with the double negatives in this, your concluding sentence:
I see no compassionate reason to NOT to want to pull these off the market.
end quote
I know you said “That’s all I have to say here,” but could you come back one last time and tell us what you actually meant there?
The candid world would appreciate it and I would, as well.
Stuart Bell says
Michigan’s Bath School massacre remains deadliest of its kind in US history……..and the culprit was?
Dynamite, not guns.
The second amendment will not be revoked. This country does not have enough morgues or walk in refrigerators/freezers to hold the dead bodies that would occur if it were tried. Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.
I’d rather die on my feet, than live on my knees and
I don’t ask for anyone’s permission to be free.
Laurie says
So having guns= freedom and if you take my guns = I’ll kill you. This is the emotional, “freedom or die” rhetoric that neglects the realities of life for the romanticism of a noble cause. No one is actually threatening your life or attacking you in any way. Most of us just want children to stop being shot at in schools.
Paul Plante says
Then the nation and the society that is the nation needs to stop producing MONSTERS and WHACK-JOBS who think there is any kind of honor in shooting children.
As to knives, a knife attack would be very bloody, indeed, and obviously, Laurie, you don’t read the news, because indeed, knife rampages do occur in the world, so they certainly could occur here where knives are readily available and are as common as dirt.
And this is something you learn in the military as an infantryman, or used to anyway – knives are far more dangerous than guns because knives do not misfire, and knives don’t need to be reloaded to be dangerous.
So beware of what you are wishing for.
Some WHACK-JOB running amuck with a knife in a crowd could cause a lot of damage, as well.
Take the 2014 Kunming attack, for example, which occurred in the evening of 1 March 2014 when a terrorist attack occurred inside the Kunming Railway Station in Kunming, Yunnan, China.
At around 21:20, a group of eight knife-wielding men and women attacked passengers at the city’s railway station when both male and female attackers pulled out long-bladed knives and stabbed and slashed passengers.
The incident, targeted against civilians, left 31 civilians and 4 perpetrators dead with more than 140 others injured.
Do you consider that not bloody?
Slide Easy says
That would be the reality of an attempt to disarm America.
How would one protect their homes and loved ones?
Look at what happened to the American Indian when he failed to do so. When I went to high school in the eighties it was not uncommon to see pickups on school grounds, unlocked, with a shotgun and a rifle in a rack. It told me that they were going hunting before or after school. You may do well to look to the people who raised and educated these Cowards who commit these crimes against society…their guns are not at fault.
Molon Labe
Laurie says
Living with the view that you are constantly going to be besieged by enemies, is quite honestly, not a healthy one. Have you ever been attacked? Or are you more afraid of the idea?
Slide Easy says
Yes, I consider Liberals enemies of our constitution and way of life. What is unhealthy is your support of the obamas, clintons, and all their minions.
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when liberals are afraid of the light.
Laurie says
That’s right-you caught me! I’m secretly funneling money to the Clintons, Obamas, and their minions while burning the Constitution. Thank goodness there’s quick witted people out there like you to catch on and stop me before I overthrow America.
Paul Plante says
I am well acquainted with a police detective in a nearby big city with a very liberal Democrat power structure, including its judges, and we have had many talks about the “gun problem” over the years in this big city, which also happens to be the capital city of this corrupt third-world ****hole called New York state.
In that city, whose politics are a reflection of the “BOO HOO HOO, don’t make them feel bad about themselves” liberal politics in this ****hole, kids with guns seem as common as dirt, and what happens when a cop arrests a kid with a gun?
The liberal judges wrap their arms around them and they have a group cry and hug each other and that is pretty much it.
Don’t want to break their spirit and make them feel bad about themselves, afterall.
So much for the usefulness of gun laws in America.
Speaking of which, according to historian Saul Cornell, states passed some of the first gun control laws, beginning with Kentucky’s law to “curb the practice of carrying concealed weapons in 1813.”
Let’s see – how long ago now was 1813?
Oh, right, 205 years.
The first major federal firearms law passed in the 20th century was the National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934, passed after Prohibition-era gangsterism peaked with the Saint Valentine’s Day massacre of 1929, an era that was famous for criminal use of firearms such as the Thompson submachine gun (Tommy gun) and sawed-off shotgun.
Under the NFA, machine guns, short-barreled rifles and shotguns, and other weapons fall under the regulation and jurisdiction of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) as described by Title II.
The Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA) was passed after the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert Kennedy, and African-American activists Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. in the 1960s.
The GCA focuses on regulating interstate commerce in firearms by generally prohibiting interstate firearms transfers except among licensed manufacturers, dealers, and importers.
It also prohibits selling firearms to certain categories of individuals defined as “prohibited persons.”
The murder of musician John Lennon in 1980 and an assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan in 1981 led to enactment of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (Brady Law) in 1993 which established the national background check system to prevent certain restricted individuals from owning, purchasing, or transporting firearms.
Then a Stockton, California, schoolyard shooting in 1989 led to passage of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban of 1994 (AWB or AWB 1994), which defined and banned the manufacture and transfer of “semiautomatic assault weapons” and “large capacity ammunition feeding devices.”
So my goodness, people, what do we really need?
Twenty more ******* useless gun control laws?
Or how about 50 more?
That is a big number, afterall, and if some WHACK-JOB LUNATIC knew he was going to be charged with violating fifty different laws if he was to take an “assault weapon” and shoot people with it, I bet that would scare the be-jaysus out of him and deter him from shooting those people, just as all the other laws against killing people deter them from killing the people they actually kill.
So let’s make it 200 new laws, or maybe a thousand then, some real big number to make WHACK-JOBS think twice before assaulting someone with an assault weapon like a ballpoint pen or ashtray or letter opener, all of which are effective assault weapons.
As to guns, it has been estimated that U.S. civilians own 270 million to 310 million firearms, and that 35% to 42% of the households in the country have at least one gun.
So when gun ownership is criminalized, that is how many new criminals in America that is going to create.
That should be a real boon to the corporate prison stocks our politicians and maybe teachers’ unions own, so that would be a financial windfall for them as those prison stocks skyrocket.
And peace will then once again reign supreme in the land.
Ray Otton says
Do yourselves a favor before demanding a ban on semi-auto guns or placing a limit on magazine capacity.
Go to Youtube and type in the following terms “Quick firing bolt action”, “Quick firing lever action” and “Quick magazine loader”.
Watch just one video of each of those.
As you see, a dedicated person can turn any gun into a rapid fire weapon.
So in the end, as the author keeps stating, you would have to ban ALL guns. And since we already have 100 million gun owners, 300 million guns and a couple of trillion rounds of ammo out there that’s just not going to happen.
I mean, if you can’t round up 15 million illegal aliens, as the same crowd insists, how are you going to round up 300 million weapons from folks who don’t want you to take them?
Slide Easy says
Who is going to do the collecting? Cops? National Guard? Are they willing to shoot their fellow americans who refuse to comply? It would be a blood bath.
Paul Plante says
There are some in this country who for political reasons, would like to see exactly that happen.
Paul Plante says
Talking about all the laws we already have on the books to protect schools and students and teachers which are meaningless because they quite obviously do not work, we have:
Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Section 1702(b)(5) of Pub. L. 101-647 states: “Federal, State, and local authorities are encouraged to cause signs to be posted around school zones giving warning of prohibition of the possession of firearms in a school zone.”
The Gun-Free School Zones Act (GFSZA) is an act of the U.S. Congress prohibiting any unauthorized individual from knowingly possessing a loaded or unsecured firearm at a place that the individual knows, or has reasonable cause to believe, is a school zone as defined by 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(25).
The law applies to public, private, and parochial elementary schools and high schools, and to non-private property within 1000 feet of them.
It provides that the states and their political subdivisions may issue licenses that exempt the licensed individuals from the prohibition.
It was introduced in the U.S. Senate in October 1990 by Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware and was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush.
The Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 was originally passed as section 1702 of the Crime Control Act of 1990.
It added 18 U.S.C. § 922(q); 18 U.S.C. § 922 itself was added by the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968.
The Supreme Court of the United States subsequently held that the Act was an unconstitutional exercise of Congressional authority under the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution in United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995).
This was the first time in over half a century that the Supreme Court limited Congressional authority to legislate under the Commerce Clause.
Following the Lopez decision, U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno proposed changes to 18 U.S.C. § 922(q) that were adopted in section 657 of the Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Act of 1997, Pub.L. 104–208, 110 Stat. 3009, enacted September 30, 1996.
These changes required that the firearm in question “has moved in or otherwise affects interstate commerce.”
As nearly all firearms have moved in interstate commerce at some point in their existence, critics assert this was merely a legislative tactic to circumvent the Supreme Court’s ruling.
Although the amended GFSZA has yet to be challenged in the U.S. Supreme Court, it has been reviewed and upheld by several federal Circuit Courts.
In a 2005 Appellate case, United States v. Dorsey, the minor changes of the revised law were specifically challenged.
In Dorsey, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the minor changes were indeed sufficient to correct the issues that had caused the original 1990 law to be struck down in Lopez, and they upheld Dorsey’s conviction under the revised version of the law.
A 2000 ruling made by the Eleventh Circuit in United States v. Tait overturned a conviction for firearm possession in a school zone because the defendant was licensed to do so by the state in which the school zone is located.
18 U.S.C. § 922(q)(2)(A) states: It shall be unlawful for any individual knowingly to possess a firearm that has moved in or that otherwise affects interstate or foreign commerce at a place that the individual knows, or has reasonable cause to believe, is a school zone.
18 U.S.C. § 922(q)(3)(A) states: Except as provided in subparagraph (B), it shall be unlawful for any person, knowingly or with reckless disregard for the safety of another, to discharge or attempt to discharge a firearm that has moved in or that otherwise affects interstate or foreign commerce at a place that the person knows is a school zone.
18 U.S.C. § 924(a)(4) establishes the penalty for violating GFSZA:
Whoever violates the Act shall be fined not more than $5,000, imprisoned for not more than 5 years, or both.
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the term of imprisonment imposed under this paragraph shall not run concurrently with any other term of imprisonment imposed under any other provision of law.
A conviction under the GFSZA will cause an individual to become a “prohibited person” under the Gun Control Act of 1968.
It is unlawful for a “prohibited person” to own, purchase, or possess “firearms” as defined by US federal law.
A US presidential pardon may remove this civil disability.
Individuals traveling on public sidewalks, roads, and highways within 1000 feet of defined schools are subject to the law’s legal restrictions.
The First Circuit Court of Appeals sustained a GFSZA conviction in the 2007 case of United States v Nieves-Castaño for a firearm kept in a woman’s apartment, which was part of a public housing project within 1000 feet of a school.
In 2012, ATF informed the town of Stratham, New Hampshire, that hunters would be violating GFSZA by hunting on locally approved public hunting land, a town forest, which fell within 1000 feet of a local school.
GFSZA generally prohibits anyone from discharging a firearm on public property within a school zone.
Paul Plante says
And then there is this, as well:
Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994 (GFSA) was part of the Improving America’s Schools Act of 1994 (IASA).
The Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994 also amends the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.
In 1994, Congress introduced the Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994, which encouraged each state receiving federal funds for education to follow suit and introduce their own laws, now known as zero tolerance laws.
President Bill Clinton signed the Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994 into law on March 31, 1994.
The Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994 requires each state receiving federal funds to have a state law in effect requiring local educational agencies to expel, for at least one year, any student who is determined to have brought a weapon to school.
The one-year expulsion is mandatory, except when a chief administering officer of such local education agency may modify it on a case-by-case basis.
In addition, schools are directed to develop policies requiring referral to the criminal justice or juvenile delinquency system for any student who brings a firearm or weapon to school.
The Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994 and the state laws passed in pursuance thereof “zero tolerance” laws, must afford the maximum amount of procedural due process to the student who are expelled for bringing a weapon to school.
The Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994 makes no mention or provision for procedural due process, except to make a provision for adherence to the Individual with Disabilities Education Act.
States lack uniformity in the procedural process prior to the one-year expulsion.
Some states, such as West Virginia, offer formal procedural due process procedures, while others, such as Utah, offer limited procedural due process.
Procedural due process further requires that orderly and legally defensible procedural steps be employed in depriving students.
The U.S. Supreme Court determined in Goss v. Lopez that students facing suspensions of up to 10 days or less were entitled to oral or written notice of charges, an explanation of evidence to be used against them and an opportunity to present their side of the issue.
Another concern expressed was that it would fail to reach private schools that do not receive federal support and would therefore fail to achieve its goal.
These laws have the potential of imposing strict and harsh punishment upon school children that are not dangerous and will only suffer detrimental results from a full year expulsion.
In addition, these laws do not prevent school violence.
The shield for students offered by the Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994 stops the moment the line between school property and public property is crossed.
And in fact, there is no “shield” offered by the Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994, as the Act does nothing to prevent a student or person who is committed to perpetuating a violent attack from bringing a weapon to a school with which to commit said violent attack.
The act is not preventive but merely punitive.
To violate the act, the weapon must be brought on to the schools grounds.
tkenny says
Paul, since you never offer any constructive criticism from up there on your throne, I’ll challenge you
Federal Regulations
1. Background check on all sales
2. 7 Day waiting period on all sales
3. Must be 21 to purchase a weapon
4. No clips more than 10 bullets
5. All weapons must be registered
6. Any stolen weapon must be reported to law enforcement
That’s a start. I’m sure you’ll tell me whats wrong with the above.
Paul Plante says
“Constructive criticism,” tkenny?
Do tell, dude.
Constructive criticism is the process of offering valid and well-reasoned opinions about the work of others, usually involving both positive and negative comments, in a friendly manner rather than an oppositional one.
That is exactly what I do in here, dear very good friend and protagonist tkenny, dude.
I am constantly offering valid and well-reasoned opinions about the work of yourself, usually involving both positive and negative comments, in a friendly manner rather than an oppositional one, and how could you possibly say otherwise?
And tkenny, dude, while we are on the subject of “constructive criticism,” exactly what was it you challenged me with?
I don’t understand the question, if question it was.
What response are you fishing for there?
Would you like me to extol to the candid world the virtues of your mind, or something: “Hey, people, look at that tkenny dude, isn’t he just great or what!”
And now that we have taken care of that, consider this, tkenny, dude:
“The SAFE Act stops criminals and the dangerously mentally ill from buying a gun by requiring universal background checks on gun purchases, increases penalties for people who use illegal guns, mandates life in prison without parole for anyone who murders a first responder, and imposes the toughest assault weapons ban in the country.”
“For hunters, sportsmen, and law abiding gun owners, this new law preserves and protects your right to buy, sell, keep or use your guns.”
– Governor Andrew Cuomo
We’re way out ahead of every other state in the nation on that score.
So what was the point you were trying to make?
That it was Trump’s fault that a WHACK-JOB in Florida used a gun to kill people with?
tkenny says
Paul, you are nothing more than an empty bag. Your generation lead us into this problem, you would think they could recognize that fact and maybe try to help resolve the issue.
Gun control needs to be federally controlled and not under state control. What stops a person from purchasing a gun in one state and bringing it to another?
And please, can you stop it with the WHACK-JOB? Why? You do realize that your little Pysch Eval puts you in the same category? I’m sure the kid decided that he wanted to go through life F’d up. (that’s sarcasm, if you didn’t read it that way) I don’t think he had much of a choice between being normal and having a mental health issue.
Slide Easy says
They say no one needs a gun that can fire hundreds of rounds per minute and they should be banned.
I say no one needs a car that can run at speeds of hundreds of miles an hour. Let’s ban them. In fact automobiles kill more humans than guns each year.
tkenny says
What a silly argument Slide and I can’t believe I’m responding to you.
The main purpose of an automobile is for transportation. The main purpose of a gun is ….?
There are laws that limit the speed of driving to 80mph. There are no laws limiting the number of bullets in a clip.
Misuse of an automobile can cause death. Misuse of a gun more than likely will lead to death.
.
Paul Plante says
Okay.
Paul Plante says
Oh, PUH-LEESE, tkenny, with your inane comment “Your generation lead us into this problem, you would think they could recognize that fact and maybe try to help resolve the issue.”
That is absurd all the way around and every which way you look at it.
My generation had nothing to do with creating a WHACK-JOB down in Florida, but I will tell you this, tkenny, and I know you will agree – this smells like MKULTRA all over again, doesn’t it?
You remember MKULTRA, don’t you?
But of course you do – what am I saying.
For the rest, HISTORY.com tells us MK-Ultra was a top-secret CIA project in which the agency conducted hundreds of clandestine experiments—sometimes on unwitting U.S. citizens—to assess the potential use of LSD and other drugs for mind control, information gathering and psychological torture.
Though Project MK-Ultra lasted from 1953 until about 1973, details of the illicit program didn’t become public until 1975, during a congressional investigation into widespread illegal CIA activities within the United States and around the world.
end quotes
And we have no proof nor any kind of guarantee that they didn’t simply take the program underground.
In the 1950s and 1960s—the height of the Cold War—the United States government feared that Soviet, Chinese and North Korean agents were using mind control to brainwash U.S. prisoners of war in Korea.
In response, Allan Dulles, director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), approved Project MK-Ultra in 1953.
The covert operation aimed to develop techniques that could be used against Soviet bloc enemies to control human behavior with drugs and other psychological manipulators.
end quotes
Now, doesn’t that last sentence about “The covert operation aimed to develop techniques that could be used against Soviet bloc enemies to control human behavior with drugs and other psychological manipulators” just make you wonder?
Without human testing, how can they ever really know?
Getting back to MKULTRA:
The program involved more than 150 human experiments involving psychedelic drugs, paralytics and electroshock therapy.
Sometimes the test subjects knew they were participating in a study—but at other times, they had no idea, even when the hallucinogens started taking effect.
end quotes
If they knew, it would skew the experiment.
And back to MKULTRA:
Many of the tests were conducted at universities, hospitals or prisons in the United States and Canada.
Most of these took place between 1953 and 1964, but it’s not clear how many people were involved in the tests—the agency kept notoriously poor records and destroyed most MK-Ultra documents when the program was officially halted in 1973.
The CIA began to experiment with LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) under the direction of agency chemist and poison expert Sidney Gottlieb.
He believed the agency could harness the drug’s mind-altering properties for brainwashing or psychological torture.
Under the auspices of Project MK-Ultra, the CIA began to fund studies at Columbia University, Stanford University and other colleges on the effects of the drug.
end quotes
Whatever really did happen to those programs?
MK-Ultra also included experiments with MDMA (ecstasy), mescaline, heroin, barbiturates, methamphetamine and psilocybin (“magic mushrooms”).
And then there was Operation Midnight Climax, which was an MK-Ultra project in which government-employed prostitutes lured unsuspecting men to CIA “safe houses” where drug experiments took place.
The CIA dosed the men with LSD and then—while at times drinking cocktails behind a two-way mirror—watched the drug’s effects on the men’s behavior.
Recording devices were installed in the prostitutes’ rooms, disguised as electrical outlets.
end quotes
As an aside, one wonders how many politicians they got caught up in that.
Most of the Operation Midnight Climax experiments took place in San Francisco and Marin County, California, and in New York City.
The program had little oversight and the CIA agents involved admitted that a freewheeling, party-like atmosphere prevailed.
An agent named George White wrote to Gottlieb in 1971: “Of course I was a very minor missionary, actually a heretic, but I toiled wholeheartedly in the vineyards because it was fun, fun, fun.”
“Where else could a red-blooded American boy lie, kill and cheat, steal, deceive, rape and pillage with the sanction and blessing of the All-Highest?”
end quote
Where else indeed, people?
How many of you have a “BETTER DEAL” like that deal?
I bet not many.
And then we have this: Paul, you are nothing more than an empty bag.
tkenny, dude, I have to tell you in all sincerity, that had them rolling in the aisles up here and it had your fan club, and they are many, sayin g what a droll sense of humor you have, which they see as one of your many endearing qualities.
As to your statement “Gun control needs to be federally controlled and not under state control,” okay.
Make it happen.
Then you say: What stops a person from purchasing a gun in one state and bringing it to another?
Generally nothing that I know of.
What do you suggest?
As to your “And please, can you stop it with the WHACK-JOB?,” no.
And no, tkenny, I do not realize my little Pysch Eval puts me in the same category as someone who took a projectile weapon into a school to kill people with?
And as to your statement, “I’m sure the kid decided that he wanted to go through life F’d up,” I would respond, how would anyone ever really know, tkenny?
WHY ARE MASS MURDERERS MASS MURDERERS, tkenny?
What is your theory?
And tkenny, it is probably true as you admit that you don’t think he had much of a choice between being normal and having a mental health issue.
Maybe in the end, he didn’t.
Fate and destiny chose him as their agent, and so the act was done.
How will a federal law keep that from happening again, tkenny?
Have you a clue?
tkenny says
MKULTRA? Paul, the men in the white coats are at your door! I’ll just ignore that whole section.
It’s not absurd to point out that your generation lead us up to this point. Look at the number of mass shootings from 1982 to now vs. the number of mass shootings from 1949 to 1982? They’ve increased with your generation at the wheel.
Your generations lack of addressing the problem is/was the problem. No gun control ,no mental health polices or funding. Just kick the can down the road. Well, looks like the road is coming to an end. Knee-jerk regulations are always awful.
If you don’t understand why Federal Laws on gun control would be better than State laws, I don’t know what to tell you. I can easily buy a gun in Florida where maybe in my State or another State it would be much harder. Don’t you think that’s a problem?
Paul Plante says
You say it is, so it is.
Paul Plante says
MKULTRA was real, tkenny.
Why are you in denial about that?
Does the truth hurt you, tkenny?
Or do you believe that it never happened?
And obviously, tkenny, dude, as nice a dude as you are, and you do rank high in the standing of persistent characters to be found on the internet, you are very dense, perhaps purposefully so.
I’m talking about MKULTRA because I just got done talking about psych drugs like Wellbutrin, tkenny, and psych drugs were what MKULTRA was all about.
Surely you haven’t forgotten that, have you, tkenny?
A case of selective memory, perhaps?
And you have to ask yourself, if you are a sane and rational thinking American citizen, what kind of psychopathic mad scientist would get kids hooked on that ****?
And that question made me think of MKULTRA, tkenny.
Who do you come up with, besides the “government” working hand-in-hand with BIG PHARM to develop these drugs?
What is your equation to explain their existence?
Have you never bothered to google “Wellbutrin” to see what the side effects are, tkenny?
Wellbutrin, or bupropion, is a drug that is mainly used to treat depression.
According to the Mayo Clinic, Bupropion may cause some people to be agitated, irritable, or display other abnormal behaviors.
It may also cause some people to have suicidal thoughts and tendencies or to become more depressed.
end quotes
MKULTRA, tkenny, just with a new set of initials.
And let me ask you again, tkenny, as you so vigorously blame-cast in here with your terrible swift sword, what kind of lunatic would force PHARM with those side effects onto children?
Make sure the doctor knows if you have trouble sleeping, get upset easily, have a big increase in energy, or start to act reckless, they tell us, as though someone acting reckless because of the PHARM is going to have a rational, lucid moment in the midst of that and realize, “OMG, I’m acting reckless, I better call my doctor.”
They also tell us to tell the doctor if you have sudden or strong feelings, such as feeling nervous, angry, restless, violent, or scared.
And of course, someone who is feeling violent because of the PHARM is going to take a moment to breathe, and check their pulse, and breathe a little more, maybe do a yoga pose or two to chill, and realize, “hey, wow, I’m like feeling really violent here, so I better call the doctor.”
Who makes a drug that makes children violent or scared, tkenny?
What kind of depraved monster does that?
And here is the other side, tkenny, where the kids end up addicted to this stuff:
Do not stop taking this medicine without checking first with your doctor.
Your doctor may want you to gradually reduce the amount you are taking before stopping it completely.
This is to decrease the chance of having certain side effects when you stop the medicine, such as agitation, anxiety, dizziness, a feeling of constant movement of self or surroundings, headaches, increased sweating, nausea, trembling or shaking, trouble with sleeping or walking, or unusual tiredness.
end quotes
Talking with younger people up this way, tkenny, it comes across that this Wellbutrin is being pushed on children up here by the SCHOOL SYSTEMS and CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES without the parents being able to do anything about it.
And when the children then get ”suicidal ideation,” and think they are going crazy, they are taken into custody and put in involuntary psychiatric confinement, which is paid for by the taxpayers.
So all in all, for the PHARM people, and the HOSPITALS, that is a real good gig.
What say you, tkenny, beyond “WOW, it really is MKULTRA all over again!”
Slide Easy says
11 teenagers die each day from texting while driving. No state has a strong enough penalty to deter it. Save your liberal breath to cool your soup.
Molon Labe
tkenny says
Tragic as it is, if you can’t see the difference between dying at your own hands and dying at the hand of another, you are the problem.
Molon Labe – that’s cute, shows you’re a real gun supporter, eh? Real man, is it to compensate for something else? Did anyone talk about taking your guns away?
Slide Easy says
Yes, 100% pure, undiluted, Alpha Male. Old School.
Slide Easy says
I often wonder, as I read your comments, if you would be man enough to repeat them in person. My guess is that your computer gives you a false sense of security.
tkenny says
LOL, nice swagger you have going there but this isn’t about swagger. It’s about rational thought. Not copying and pasting something from the internet, not rehashing someone words. No little catch phrases.
Slide Easy, the false bravado fits you well. Since you haven’t made any statements that actually make any sense. Let’s see if you can string together more than two sentences on why or why not there is any need for additional gun control measures?
By the way, anyone who has to say they are an Alpha male usually aren’t. Just saying.
Slide Easy says
Bless Your Heart…
Paul Plante says
And why are we focusing solely on guns here?
Why aren’t we focusing on the SHOOTER?
And psych drugs like Wellbutrin?
According to the CBS NEWS article “Host dad who took in accused Fla. shooter: “It’s his right” to have an AR-15″ on 20 February 2018, the SHOOTER had a history of violence and interactions with both the Florida Department of Children and Families and the Broward County sheriff, to wit:
The family that took in the Florida school shooting suspect says they knew Nikolas Cruz was depressed, but had no idea how troubled he really was.
Cruz had been living with the Snead family for about three months when the 19-year-old allegedly carried out the deadliest school shooting in Florida history.
According to a Florida Department of Children and Families report, Cruz suffered from depression, ADHD and autism.
Between 2011 and 2016, Broward County sheriff deputies were called to Cruz’s mother’s home 39 times, several of them allegedly due to Cruz’s violent outbursts.
end quotes
So what psych drugs was he on, if any?
And what role did the Florida Department of Children and Families play there?
Has anyone bothered to google “Wellbutrin” to see what the sire effects are?
Wellbutrin, or bupropion, is a drug that is mainly used to treat depression.
According to the Mayo Clinic, Bupropion may cause some people to be agitated, irritable, or display other abnormal behaviors.
It may also cause some people to have suicidal thoughts and tendencies or to become more depressed.
They tell us to make sure the doctor knows if you have trouble sleeping, get upset easily, have a big increase in energy, or start to act reckless, and also tell the doctor if you have sudden or strong feelings, such as feeling nervous, angry, restless, violent, or scared.
If you or your caregiver notice any of these side effects, tell your doctor right away.
Do not stop taking this medicine without checking first with your doctor.
Your doctor may want you to gradually reduce the amount you are taking before stopping it completely.
This is to decrease the chance of having certain side effects when you stop the medicine, such as agitation, anxiety, dizziness, a feeling of constant movement of self or surroundings, headaches, increased sweating, nausea, trembling or shaking, trouble with sleeping or walking, or unusual tiredness.
end quotes
Talking with younger people up this way, it comes across that this Wellbutrin is being pushed on children up here by the SCHOOL SYSTEMS and CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES without the parents being able to do anything about it.
And when the children then get “suicidal ideation,” and think they are going crazy, they are taken into custody and put in involuntary psychiatric confinement, which is paid for by the taxpayers.
So all in all, for the PHARM people, and the HOSPITALS, that is a real good gig.
But of course, if this SHOOTER was drugged up by the “system,” that information is going to be confidential, isn’t it, so we are never going to know.
Instead, we are going to keep our focus on the GUN, not the finger that pulled the trigger, or why the brain caused that finger to flex on the trigger to fire those rounds, because aiming a weap0n at children is not in any way a rational act.
But my goodness, look at me here, pinning blame on the SHOOTER instead of blaming the GUN.
How silly, how un-American, what on earth could I have been thinking.
Laurie Wolpert says
Mental health has become a “catch all” term to address a wide range of psychological problems people experience. Unfortunately, most of the school shooters ( who are overwhelmingly male and white) are probably not mentally treatable. Personality problems such as rage, entitlement, and grandiose ideas of their own importance aren’t mental illnesses in the same way as depression, anxiety, bipolar or even schizophrenia. Furthermore, most mentally ill people are not dangerous. I lived in Phoenix and attended church with a number of homeless men, none of whom ever shot anybody as far as I know.
Even if you can “identify” the truly dangerous among us, and there are definitely a few bad apples in every bunch, it’s not easy to get people to be involuntarily committed/treated at a mental health facility. If you have ever known someone with mental health problems, sometimes they decide to stop taking their medication and/or drop out of society and there’s often not a lot you can do about it. Limit access to powerful weapons to people who have jumped through a lot of hoops. Period.
Slide Easy says
You need to do no more than look at the picture of the coward that shot up that school. He looks just like what he is. This is the case 95% of the time. Profiling works, until political correctness is inserted. That is the root to most all problems this country suffers…..political correctness, now that should be banned ASAP.
Mike Kuzma says
%40 of mass shootings in America were by 1st and second generation immigrants brought here by the Swimmers (Ted Kennedy) 1965 immigration act.
NOT white males.
But hey blame the gun when it is more likely a combination of pharmaceuticals, a lack of respect for American traditions like personal responsibility and family values(NOT liberal values) and removing God from the schools.
But blame metal, it’s soo much easier.
Paul Plante says
I am not a gun nut, nor do I fondle guns, and in fact, having used them for their intended purpose in VEET NAM, I am against them, as I am all projectile weapons, so yes, if someone is KOOK-A-DOOK, or a WHACK-JOB, they should have no access to weapons of any kind, especially bladed edge weapons.
Take away their access totally.
As an aside, the ultimate “assault weapon” for an infantryman is called a bayonet, not a rifle.
That is why you hear the term, “made a bayonet charge,” and I believe that in “We Were Soldiers Once and Young,” the NVA were using bayonets in close-in fighting.
And many of the older people around me when I was young were veterans of a Japanese Banzai attack on Saipan, and there, the Japanese were using Samurai swords, which is another devastating infantry “assault weapon.”
But that would violate their civil rights and that would have the ACLU howling, so I’m not sure we will see that happen in our lives.
But it wouldn’t confront me as a grandfather if it did.
As to your comment “it’s not easy to get people to be involuntarily committed/treated at a mental health facility,” that is true in the case of a real mentally ill person, their civil rights are sacrosanct, and up here, they have state-sponsored lawyers to make sure their civil rights are not violated, but on the other hand, if you were someone like me in New York State, a licensed engineer investigating public corruption involving other licensed engineers who happened to be politically connected and politically protected, you would find that a Mental Hygiene Law 9.45 involuntary psychiatric commitment order had been issued by a political doctor who had never even seen you, that as you were being taken into custody by the armed police at the Stratton VA Hospital in Albany, so you can see, if you have the right connections and a lawyer as your bagman, they are surprisingly easy to get, at least in New York state.
tkenny says
Funny, Paul if he didn’t have access to a gun we wouldn’t be talking about a shooter now, would we?
Paul Plante says
You would think that off the top of your head, wouldn’t you, tkenny.
It does make sense the way you put it.
Would he then have resorted to a knife or machete, do you think, to fulfill his rage?
Chris Willis says
Against my better judgment, I will make a few comments. I doubt they will be received well, but this is my contribution to Wayne’s original question of what can be done aside from the gun debate. Let me first say that my comments are in no way a justification for the shooter’s actions, merely an attempt at understanding the conditions that allowed this tragedy to occur. If we want to fix a problem, we need to understand it fully. Full understanding requires painful honesty. I also believe that a failure like this, and it is a failure of society in my opinion, is not the result of a single factor. There are many points over the course of events where proper intervention can prevent something like what happened in Parkland, FL.
For starters, the students and teachers at the school need to think about their personal responsibility in this tragedy. I’ve been watching all of these kids on the news demanding that somebody do something, and I can’t help but think that some of those kids personally took part in bullying the shooter. Many other kids in that school witnessed the bullying, but did nothing. I also don’t think it’s plausible that such bullying could have occurred without being noticed by teachers. What did they do about it? Maybe they were secretly thrilled to see him get a little back from the other kids. After all, he was a difficult student that made his teacher’s lives hell. I can imagine that they looked the other way occasionally. This may seem like “blaming the victim”, but lets be honest, this rage didn’t develop out of the ether. He didn’t go shoot up the place he worked, the mall, or some random target. He directed his rage at the people who had hurt him. In his mind, his fellow students and teachers had inflicted pain on him in dozens of ways, big and small, over a course of years, and he was going to make them pay. So, the first point of failure was a failure to be kind. You can make an argument that children should be able to mentally torture other children for years on end without threat of retribution or consequence, which seems to me what these kids on tv are asking for, but in reality, there are always consequences for our actions. Be kind to others. (Yes, I realize that the actual victims of the shooting were probably not the kids who had done the bullying. Again, I’m not justifying what he did, just trying to understand it.) Here’s a quote from a kid with a little bit of self awareness “Someone could have approached a faculty member, a guidance counselor, a teacher and said, ‘This kid gets bullied a lot, someone should do something,’ ” said student Manolo Alvarez, 17, who had history class with Cruz. “I regret definitely not saying anything.”
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/broward/article200754714.html#storylink=cpy
Second, if school children are going to be unkind to one another, and we know that they will, it falls to our school administration with its disciplinarians, counselors, and mental health professionals to intervene. It may be that a kid has mental health problems from birth, and that is why he is targeted for bullying. It may be that there is just something different about him that leads to bullying, which then leads to mental health issues. I don’t know what it was in this particular case. Here is a link to an article in the Miami Herald that gives a brief overview of Cruz’s twisting path through the Florida education system –
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article201216104.html
The quote that caught my attention was from the Broward County Schools Superintendent, who said “Based on what’s reported in the media, here’s a kid who’s lost both parents, he’s obviously got some mental health challenges,” Runcie said. “Let me just say if we provided every service that we could and did all that in exemplary fashion, if he can still get access to guns what’s the point of all this?” Which to me sounds like, “Hey, we checked all the boxes. Don’t blame us. It’s the guns!” To answer the Supervisor’s own question, the point of all of those services, and providing them in an exemplary fashion, is to intervene in a child’s situation before his pain becomes so great that marching into his school and killing his classmates and teachers seems to him to be his best option. That sir, is the point. Here is our second point of failure, which is the failure of the school administration to take their responsibilities seriously.
We’re not out of luck yet. Even if kids bully a fellow student to the point that he is filled with a murderous desire for revenge, and even if the school administration fails to fulfill their duty to that child and his classmates; we still have the safety net of law enforcement to save us from ourselves. In this particular case, the failure of law enforcement to protect innocent life is one of the most glaring of any mass shooting that I can recall. From a law enforcement perspective, it really doesn’t get any easier than this. The local police had had 39 interactions with this young man in the last couple years. People on social media were reporting this person as a threat. A personal acquaintance of the shooter called the FBI and told them that kid had weapons, was filled with rage, and was threatening to kill people at his school. What else do you need? Citizens fulfilled their responsibility in this case. They saw something, and they reported it to the proper authorities. The person responsible for this failure at the FBI should be fired immediately. In my opinion, this person is an accomplice to the shooting, guilty of 17 counts of homicide. I am speaking here of the specific person that received the tip and failed to forward it or act on it. We should know his or her name as well as we know the shooter’s. We know that children will be unkind and bully other children. We know that public schools are giant bureaucracies that rarely function as well as they should. But we should still be able to expect that our top law enforcement officials will take their responsibilities seriously, especially in such crystal clear circumstances. This final failure is totally unacceptable. People should lose their jobs over this.
Thinking about all of that, my answer to Wayne is that the simplest, and most effective thing we can do right now to prevent the next school shooting is take our personal responsibilities seriously. Parents need to remind their children to be kind, not just because it is the right thing to do, but also as a matter of self preservation. If you see someone suffering, do what you can to help them. Our school administrations need to be reminded of their responsibilities. They aren’t there to shuffle kids around until they graduate or age out. If a kid is in trouble, they are duty bound to intercede. If they respond that they don’t have the proper tools or capabilities, then that’s on us, as a society, to give them what they need. Who would oppose that? Finally, we need to demand accountability from Law Enforcement. People are awake to the concept of See Something, Say Something. Now we need to demand that Law Enforcement take our warnings seriously.
I didn’t even touch on Paul’s point about the Pharmaceutical Industry’s involvement in all of this, which does need to be explored. As to Laurie’s point about the school shooters all being boys, I would say that is to be expected. Girls who are bullied to this degree commit suicide. There have been several recent cases. I guess you can say that is a somewhat less tragic outcome, since they only harm themselves, but we should try to save everybody.
Mike Kuzma says
Beautiful comment.
Paul Plante says
What an excellent and thoughtful post.
Paul Plante says
And with respect to tkenny’s post @ February 22, 2018 at 2:30 pm, where he says “Gun control needs to be federally controlled and not under state control,” I would like to bring forth the story of Albany Police Lieutenant John Finn, as told in the news article “Duty’s call leaves lives in balance – Albany — Police Lt. John Finn and suspected shooter Keshon Everett both in critical condition after fateful encounter” by Brendan Lyons, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union, published Thursday, December 25, 2003, as follows
Lt. John Finn was less than an hour away from finishing his late shift patrolling some of Albany’s roughest neighborhoods.
Then he could return home, where he expected to celebrate Christmas with his wife and two young daughters this morning.
But shortly after 11 p.m. Tuesday, police radios crackled as an armed robbery unfolded at a neighborhood convenience store on the edge of the city’s South End.
Moments later, the 37-year-old patrol supervisor was pulled into a gun battle that has left him clinging to life and the robbery suspect gravely wounded.
end quotes
For the record, Lt. Finn subsequently died of his gunshot wounds.
Getting back to the story:
Finn was shot in the leg, chest and lower back.
A body-armor vest stopped the 9 mm bullet that struck Finn’s chest, but the one that pierced his lower right side tore through his torso and caused significant and life-threatening injuries, authorities said.
Finn needed almost 50 units of blood during a nine-hour surgery at Albany Medical Center Hospital.
He emerged from the operation early Wednesday afternoon and was listed in critical condition in the hospital’s intensive care unit.
Later Wednesday, Finn underwent a second surgery as doctors sought to stem serious internal bleeding, authorities said.
“It’s been very, very difficult,” said Mayor Jerry Jennings.
“I’ve known him for years, and he’s a great representative of this department.”
end quotes
So that is Lt. Finn.
But what about the shooter?
Who was he?
Well, good question, so let’s take a look, to wit:
The 26-year-old man who allegedly exchanged gunfire with Finn, Keshon Everett of Albany, is an ex-convict with a lengthy criminal history and who is currently on federal probation for a 1996 drug conviction.
end quotes
Ah, yes, the same FEDERAL GOVERNMENT that our dear friend and fellow American patriot wants to put in charge of GUN CONTROL!
As to the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT and GUN CONTROL, the Times Union article continues as follows:
He allegedly fired 12 shots at Finn with an outlawed rapid-fire pistol — a knockoff of the banned TEC-9 assault pistol.
The gun holds 20 rounds and can fire a spray of bullets.
end quotes
WHOA!
Wait a minute, let’s have a read-back here if we can: oh, yes, the FEDERAL PAROLEE was armed with a BANNED TEC-9 ASSAULT PISTOL!
But of course he would be – he is a criminal, afterall, and so, as a criminal, he knows where to get an illegal gun, and since he is a criminal, it doesn’t bother him that the gun is illegal, nor would using it for illegal purposes like robbing a convenient store and killing a cop trouble his conscience all that much, because he is a criminal.
(Sorry, tkenny, I didn’t mean to upset you by calling him that)
Now, you would think that of all people, a FEDERAL PAROLEE, because of all these federal laws that tkenny thinks prevent crimes like this Keshon Everett of Albany, an ex-convict with a lengthy criminal history and who is currently on federal probation for a 1996 drug conviction, wouldn’t be able to commit those crimes, because he would know they are against the law, or you would think that anyway.
But it is not true, as the death of Lt. Finn is a testament to.
And that is not all, of course, when it comes to criminals having the guns civilians can’t have because they are illegal, except to the criminal element, of course, aided in the endeavor by the United States Department of Justice and its own gun-running operations to supply criminals with guns when Eric Himpton Holder, Jr. and Hussein Obama were in charge of things in this country, to wit:
The last time Albany police officers were wounded in a shooting was on Nov. 13, 1999.
In that Arbor Hill incident, Tracy Grady, then 33, shot officers Thomas Shea and Stanley Nadoraski.
end quotes
But, I thought shooting cops was against the law, tkenny!
Getting back to the story of the death of Lt. Finn at the hands of a FEDERAL PAROLEE armed with an ILLEGAL WEAPON, we have:
Tuesday’s incident started when police say Everett strolled into the South Pearl Market on South Pearl Street wearing a red bandanna across the lower half of his face and with a hood pulled down over his long dreadlocks.
Inside the busy neighborhood store that’s operated by two Sudanese immigrant brothers, Joe and Alaaeldin Osman, Everett allegedly waited with his gun hidden as a customer purchased two telephone calling cards.
Another man, a friend of the store’s owners, was standing near the back of the store watching.
Everett apparently grew impatient and rushed to the counter, allegedly jamming the barrel of his pistol into the side of Joe Osman and ordering him to hand over the money in the register.
The man who was at the counter purchasing phone cards, and who did not want to give his name, said he backed away slowly and watched for several tense minutes as Osman tried to stall the robbery.
The customer described the robber as “calm and cool. …”
“He said: ‘Relax, everybody.'”
“‘It’s Christmas and a mother(expletive) gotta eat.'”
end quotes
Hey, people, who can argue with that logic?
Getting back to the story:
“When he first came in, I thought he was just a tough gang member, and he looked at me a couple of times.”
While the robbery unfolded, Osman reached to the right of the register and pressed a silent alarm that alerted police as the store’s video security cameras captured the heist on film.
“I refused to give him the money,” Osman said, adding that he thought about trying to grab the suspect’s gun.
“I said: ‘I don’t have any money.'”
“He said: ‘I’m going to kill you.'”
end quotes
Now, isn’t that something you would expect a criminal to say when he is pointing an illegal weapon at somebody?
Wouldn’t it be more surprising if all the criminal wanted to do was give a good hug to his robbery victim at gun point, and then tell him they were now buddies?
And back to the story:
As police raced toward the store, Osman finally handed over $300 to the suspect and he ran north on South Pearl Street.
The unidentified man who was in the back of the store ran outside and pointed arriving officers toward the suspect as he ran west on Westerlo Street toward Trinity Place.
At the time of the robbery, Finn was in the South Station headquarters a couple blocks from the store.
He ran to his car and raced north toward Trinity Place as a handful of officers swarmed the neighborhood.
Finn leaped from his squad car near the corner of Westerlo Street and began running south on Trinity looking for the suspect.
Cars were parked on both sides of the darkened street and Finn was vulnerable because he was running down the middle of the street, police said.
Detectives say Everett ducked between two parked cars and allegedly opened fire on Finn as the officer approached.
Finn pulled his .40-caliber Smith & Wesson pistol and returned fire, striking Everett in the left leg, lower chest and twice in his right leg.
Witnesses said the gunshots resonated across the neighborhood like fireworks.
Both men crumpled to the ground with grave injuries, and arriving paramedics quickly whisked them to the hospital.
Authorities said their preliminary investigation indicates Finn fired in self-defense.
They expect to charge Everett with robbery, attempted first-degree murder and various felony weapons charges.
end quotes
Now focus on that last sentence, people – the dude is going to be charged with various felony weapons charges, where the word “various” means “different from one another; of different kinds or sorts,” or “more than one; individual and separate.”
So how many different felony gun laws are already on the books, besides a ton of them?
And what good are they when they obviously do not work?
Back to you. tkenny, for that answer.