7 ms·

It's beyond ridiculous; teachers are being put in charge of classrooms of minors, while being denied the right to carry arms to protect them effectively. It li

It's beyond ridiculous; teachers are being put in charge of classrooms of minors, while being denied the right to carry arms to protect them effectively. It literally boggles my mind that people make this suggestion with any sincerity.

duncan_bayne 12y ago
What does a mind look like when it's literally boggling? :) Seriously though, either: - school shootings are a statistically significant threat, in which case, arming teachers who wish to be armed seems reasonable or - school shootings aren't statistically significant, in which case, enough with the fear-mongering already
- adamnemecek 12y ago
  It really is too bad that there are only those two options. /s
  - duncan_bayne 12y ago
    How long would you say it'd take to disarm America? To a point that had an effect on school shootings? What do you plan to do in the intervening, say, century or so? You can't point to other countries with no guns and just wish it were like that where you are. It isn't, it won't be for a very long time, and to pretend otherwise is just wishful thinking.
    - adamnemecek 12y ago
      Why would it take a century? Idk, 2-3 years? Like 5 tops.
      - duncan_bayne 12y ago
        Really? You genuinely believe that you could usefully reduce the number of guns in the US in 5 years?
        dllthomas 12y ago
        "usefully" to what purpose?
      - LyndsySimon 12y ago
        How many functional firearms do you think there are in the US?
        adamnemecek 12y ago
        Like 1 per person.
        LyndsySimon 12y ago
        You know there are about 300 million firearms in the US, and you think the government would be able to confiscate them all in 5 years? That seems a little silly to me - especially considering the rate of non-compliance with previous registration schemes. In California more "assault weapons" were sold in the state in the three months prior to the registration deadline than were registered. In Connecticut there are people calling for armed conflict over a similar registration scheme, and the reports I've seen say that there are about 100k unregistered weapons there. Regardless of how you feel about guns, to believe that America could be disarmed in 5 years is exceedingly naïve.
        adamnemecek 12y ago
        Logistically non-trivial? Sure. Impossible? I don't think so. For example the IRS manages to do an operation of similar scale every year, in a couple of months.
- voltagex_ 12y ago
  http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-12/us-teacher-shoots-herself-in-the-leg-with-concealed-weapon/5739122 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-12/us-teacher-shoots-hers... http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=32232990 http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=32232990
ars 12y ago
Makes sense to me. What's strange about it to you? Seems like the best plan is to give weapons to those most responsible, rather than only those who would use them for bad. It's not like all guns are just going to disappear into thin air.
- mercurial 12y ago
  > Seems like the best plan is to give weapons to those most responsible, rather than only those who would use them for bad. That's the old Charlton Heston argument. There are "good" people and "bad" people. How likely is it that a teacher is going to flip and kill Andy, 16, next time he shoots his mouth off? > It's not like all guns are just going to disappear into thin air. The UK essentially legislated away private gun ownership years ago. But of course, it's a society choice. I'd rather live in a society where my kid can go to school safely, with no guns on the premises.
  - Crito 12y ago
    > "That's the old Charlton Heston argument. There are "good" people and "bad" people." It's true though. Even better, we can in practice select "good people" (defined as "won't murder somebody with a gun") from the general public with an exceedingly low false positive rate (although with a high false negative rate). The combination of having to fill out stacks of paperwork for the ATF, go through their background checks, pay a $200 per-gun tax, and pay several thousands of dollars for the gun itself makes for a very effective "good people" filter.
    - mercurial 12y ago
      It makes for an unconvincing argument when you consider that the guns involved in the Lanza shooting were legally held, for instance. Same thing for Breivik. The fact is, it's disproportionally easy to kill a large number of people with semi-automatic weapons. One false positive means a lot of dead people. Not to mention the risk of theft by less savoury characters, assuming the filter did work in the first place.

duncan_bayne 12y ago

What does a mind look like when it's literally boggling? :) Seriously though, either: - school shootings are a statistically significant threat, in which case, arming teachers who wish to be armed seems reasonable or - school shootings aren't statistically significant, in which case, enough with the fear-mongering already

adamnemecek 12y ago
It really is too bad that there are only those two options. /s
- duncan_bayne 12y ago
  How long would you say it'd take to disarm America? To a point that had an effect on school shootings? What do you plan to do in the intervening, say, century or so? You can't point to other countries with no guns and just wish it were like that where you are. It isn't, it won't be for a very long time, and to pretend otherwise is just wishful thinking.
  - adamnemecek 12y ago
    Why would it take a century? Idk, 2-3 years? Like 5 tops.
    - duncan_bayne 12y ago
      Really? You genuinely believe that you could usefully reduce the number of guns in the US in 5 years?
      - dllthomas 12y ago
        "usefully" to what purpose?
    - LyndsySimon 12y ago
      How many functional firearms do you think there are in the US?
      - adamnemecek 12y ago
        Like 1 per person.
        LyndsySimon 12y ago
        You know there are about 300 million firearms in the US, and you think the government would be able to confiscate them all in 5 years? That seems a little silly to me - especially considering the rate of non-compliance with previous registration schemes. In California more "assault weapons" were sold in the state in the three months prior to the registration deadline than were registered. In Connecticut there are people calling for armed conflict over a similar registration scheme, and the reports I've seen say that there are about 100k unregistered weapons there. Regardless of how you feel about guns, to believe that America could be disarmed in 5 years is exceedingly naïve.
        adamnemecek 12y ago
        Logistically non-trivial? Sure. Impossible? I don't think so. For example the IRS manages to do an operation of similar scale every year, in a couple of months.
voltagex_ 12y ago
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-12/us-teacher-shoots-herself-in-the-leg-with-concealed-weapon/5739122 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-12/us-teacher-shoots-hers... http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=32232990 http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=32232990

ars 12y ago

Makes sense to me. What's strange about it to you? Seems like the best plan is to give weapons to those most responsible, rather than only those who would use them for bad. It's not like all guns are just going to disappear into thin air.

mercurial 12y ago
> Seems like the best plan is to give weapons to those most responsible, rather than only those who would use them for bad. That's the old Charlton Heston argument. There are "good" people and "bad" people. How likely is it that a teacher is going to flip and kill Andy, 16, next time he shoots his mouth off? > It's not like all guns are just going to disappear into thin air. The UK essentially legislated away private gun ownership years ago. But of course, it's a society choice. I'd rather live in a society where my kid can go to school safely, with no guns on the premises.
- Crito 12y ago
  > "That's the old Charlton Heston argument. There are "good" people and "bad" people." It's true though. Even better, we can in practice select "good people" (defined as "won't murder somebody with a gun") from the general public with an exceedingly low false positive rate (although with a high false negative rate). The combination of having to fill out stacks of paperwork for the ATF, go through their background checks, pay a $200 per-gun tax, and pay several thousands of dollars for the gun itself makes for a very effective "good people" filter.
  - mercurial 12y ago
    It makes for an unconvincing argument when you consider that the guns involved in the Lanza shooting were legally held, for instance. Same thing for Breivik. The fact is, it's disproportionally easy to kill a large number of people with semi-automatic weapons. One false positive means a lot of dead people. Not to mention the risk of theft by less savoury characters, assuming the filter did work in the first place.