The NRA has released a statement on the Sandy Hook murders: you can read it here. Naturally, at the NRA press conference, Code Pink preferred disruption to discourse – the videos are below.
The NRA believes the best way to protect school children from murderous individuals with guns is to arm those in charge of the children. I think it’s hard to fault the logic of that position although, having grown up in the UK where the most lethal weapons I encountered in the classroom were a rack of proudly displayed canes sized to fit every behind, the necessity of gun slinging teachers in my child’s classroom is yet another example of cultural decay that I would find hard to come to terms with.
Perhaps if the canes had remained and been strenuously administered to Adam Lanza in his formative years, there would be no need to arm teachers and 28 more people would be alive in Sandy Hook school today.
In the interests not of solving the problem, but bowing to an impulse to be seen to do something, Dalton McGuinty has decided to spend $10 million for front door locks, entry buzzer systems and security cameras for every elementary school in Ontario. Someone in his cabinet should tell him that Adam Lanza shot his way through the front door of Sandy Hook.
If anyone thinks that the firearm murder rate in a country is determined solely by the percentage of its citizens who own guns – it isn’t so. From the National Post:
In 2007, the U.S. had the highest gun ownership rate in the world – an average of 88 per 100 people. But the U.S. does not have the worst firearm murder rate – that prize belongs to Honduras, El Salvador and Jamaica. In fact, the U.S. is well down the list with a rate of 2.97 per 100,000 people.
National Post is, if anything, a little bit to the left of center. So I would consider their reporting on gun ownership and firearm murder rates to be reliable. Too bad the chart does not include Canada.
But still, that only 60.0% of all murders in the USA was by firearm is interesting. Things brings a few questions to mind. What was the method in the other 40.0%? Assuming that all firearms were to be banned, what are the chances that the 60.0% of murders would simply not happen? Or would another method be used?
And before we have a knee jerk reaction here in Canada that calls for us to have ever tougher gun control laws I think we should ask ourselves this. If it had happened here would any of our existing gun control laws have been broken? But of course that is all hypothetical. But I will say this, before we impose any new/additional gun control laws it would be best if we actually enforced the laws we already have. And if we are going to change anything how about we get rid of concurrent sentancing.
Personally, I cannot think of a worse example of a western culture on how to properly raise children than the Brits. I have often heard that Brits treat their dogs better than they treat their children and from personal experiences and observations, I would tend to agree. My mother’s side of the family were English (from Wiggins) and no one in my immediate family has anything to do with them. It was bad enough that they were boring people with strange sounding accents with gross food, but they were probably the only uncles and aunts we could count on for hitting us and yelling at us at family events, often for doing nothing more than making noise.
I went to school in rural Saskatchewan and being near the end of the baby boom, we had many teachers/child beaters from the UK working at the school I attended, especially teachers from Wales and none of them are remembered fondly by me. I remember them yelling at us and hitting us for the year or two they taught at my school and then were never to be seen again (thankfully). They also had a reputation for being somewhat more promiscuous than the other teachers and were some of the first people in my little village to be opening living together in common law relationships.
As far as corporal punishment goes, it was applied when I was a student. One of the things I noticed and remember is that the kids who were getting smacked around at school by teachers were kids that were for the most part, already getting smacked around at home and on the playground, or in other words, kids who were already the victims of ongoing violence. The real problem causing kids were for the most part dealt with differently, if at all, because teachers, being people and generally cowardly will only hit those who they assume will not strike back, ever, or kids who have no one else watching out for them.
It seems to be a rather odd bit of logic to suggest that perhaps the best way to protect children from violence is to subject children to violence from their care-givers and educators and perhaps as difficult for me to grasp as the notion that arming teachers with guns will protect kids from people with guns.
For me, when you live in a society where there is relative easy access to fire-arms, it is inevitable than every once in a while, a lunatic will get hold of one and do some harm with it. If you want easy access to guns, then you have to deal with the side effect of violence. If you want private for profit mental health care, then you have to deal with the fact that some will not get any, because there is no profit in treating them.
“It seems to be a rather odd bit of logic to suggest that perhaps the best way to protect children from violence is to subject children to violence from their care-givers and educators…”
But this is not was is being suggested. The suggestion is to have the presence of Police or armed security in the school. The is very different from “…subject(ing) children to violence from their care-givers and educators…”
Personally I like the idea of having a policeman in the schools. Not only would this provide additional security, but it would also provide a great opportunity for our young people to develop a good relationship with the police, which I would hope will help to prevent many children from getting involved in gangs and crime.
Actually yes, David did suggest that, when he spoke fondly about the days of the “cane,” back when he was in school in England. I was responding to David and not you.
But why the police? Why not the military? The military tends to deal with violence better than cops. I know that from experience.
When I was in the Canadian Forces (for 19 years) we had the RCMP join us on occasion for UN peacekeeping missions. We had a nickname for the cops. We called them “gophers”… The first sign of danger they would let out a squeal and go run and hide in a hole and call for backup… And that is exactly what they did.
Hello SLF.
Ok. So we seem to be talking about two related although slightly different things.
But I do understand what the NRA is suggesting. The presence of armed security in our schools will not cause violence, but will hopefully detere it (and admittedly detering is not as complete as preventing).
As far as using the military instead of police? I am reminded of a episode of Battlestar Galactica (the most recent TV series from a few years ago). In one episode President Roslin is asking Commander Adama to provide troops for law enforecment. Adama’s response is that the military make bad police as troops are trained for a type of work that involves action against an adversary, whereas police are trained for a type of work that involves action of protecting innocent civilians. But still, why not consider the military? Whether they be retired from the regular forces or the National Guard.
And I still maintain that having uniformed police in the schools can only help to foster the foundations of a good relationship between children and police. It is anyone’s guess as to how much of a positive effect this could have and may possibly direct some children away from a life of crime.
There was an armed guard in Columbine…
The tragedy of Sandy Hook must be addressed. Unfortunately, most of what I have seen are tired wish lists of tragedies past.
So what is the state of the discussion? The big Democrat push is to reinstitute the Assault Gun Ban that the Justice Department analysis of ten years of data determined to be an abject failure and ban extended magazines.
First, of the three firearms used at Sandy Hook, none would have been eliminated by the proposed Assault Gun Ban. The Bushmaster did not have a folding stock or bayonet mount and would have been declared “State Compliant”. Neither handgun are on anyone’s list to ban, nor is the shotgun that was left in the car.
Secondly, the proposed reduction in magazine size would only prevent any NEW firearm magazines in excess of 10 rounds from being sold. The current estimate is that there is a 100 year supply of extended magazines currently in circulation. In addition, a few minutes on YouTube will show you just how long it takes to do a mag change. IPSC civilian shooters mag change an average of three times on a course and the first spent shell case hasn’t hit the ground before the next shell case is in the air.
At this point I’m not aware of any proposals to deal with the disgusting state of mental health treatment (since the ACLU won the legal right for mental health sufferers to refuse treatment).
Of course the leftist bastion of Hollywood vociferously denies any responsibility for desensitizing our kids with its mindless stream of Technicolor violence and the video games makers are hiding behind their First Amendment court victories.
Simple things might make a difference:
The teachers that locked their doors at Sandy Hook didn’t lose any kids.
Eliminate the idiocy of “gun-free” zones. All but one of the mass murder sites were in “gun free” zones. In the US concealed carry states violent crime is way down. Gun free cities like Chicago and Washington are carnage central. (The death toll in Chicago rivals Afghanistan!) Some states and school district already allow staff, who have certified conceal carry permits, to carry in schools on the recommendation of their school board.
Install metal grills over our school’s entry doors. If the glass is broken, the screening still keeps the intruder out for precious minutes. The studies prove that the death count is directly related to how long it takes for a trained shooter to arrive on scene. At Sandy Hook the police were coming up the driveway at the 4 minute mark. Los Angeles PD is putting all their schools on their regular patrol routes so that there is a random police presence. There are also suggestions of having armed security in all schools.
No one suggestion is going to work and even the promising ones will take years to bear fruit. The common sense test has to be whether proposals would have prevented Sandy Hook.
Is the US seriously going to advertise to prospective visitors “Welcome to the USA: safer than the Honduras” ? The US has five times the per-capita gun death rate of the second-worst industrialized country (Canada). It has 100 times the per-capita gun death rate of the UK.
Rather than eliminate “gun free zones” the US should make them larger – encompassing the whole country.
The US has so many problems about which it is completely incapable of having sane discussion, let alone solving, I don’t think anyone cares much about a visitor’s view of what works out to be [with suicides and gang-banger/drug-dealer numbers subtracted] roughly 6000 gun-related homicide deaths a year.
Here’re some other figures [justfacts.com via zero hedge] the prospective visitor might enjoy, however:
“Based on survey data from the U.S. Department of Justice, roughly 5,340,000 violent crimes were committed in the United States during 2008. These include simple/aggravated assaults, robberies, sexual assaults, rapes, and murders.[13] [14] [15] Of these, about 436,000 or 8% were committed by offenders visibly armed with a gun.[16]
Based on survey data from a 2000 study published in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology,[17] U.S. civilians use guns to defend themselves and others from crime at least 989,883 times per year.[18]”
Ron Paul’s commentary on the subject.
http://paul.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2037:government-security-is-just-another-kind-of-violence&catid=64:2012-texas-straight-talk&Itemid=69
The clamour over gun control, as the Code Pinker true-to-form does in the video, focuses on banning assault weapons. But, as Pat Buchanan has pointed out, no fully automatic weapon has been used in any of these massacres.
Adam Lanza and his mother also lived in a state with some of the country’s toughest gun laws. [Where did Adam Lanza’s father live?]
The common thread that seems to run through many of the recent mass shootings is they were committed by young men in their early 20′s, who were brought up on violent video games and movies, and are on prescription psychotropic drugs. http://www.cchrint.org/school-shooters/
Let’s not sugar coat what happened at Sandy Hook. The event was a tragedy for the families and victims, but it was an act of pure evil. May God have mercy on Adam Lanza’s soul.
Yes Eph.–pure evil in this kingdom of darkness that we live. My prayer and thought on this is that I need to seek more ardently The Kingdom of God in Christ Jesus, and help others do the same, until we are made complete, in His Kingdom.
Gordon,
The left wing media in the states is pushing the “armed guard at Columbine” hard. It’s an outright lie. The first officer to arrive was a school community liaison deputy who didn’t arrive on site until 14 minutes after the attack began. He immediately engaged the shooters at a range of over 60 yards but was unable to score any hits. He did , however provide the break necessary for a student to escape from between a set of exterior doors. Unfortunately the officer only carried 10 rounds of ammunition and had no long gun in his trunk.
Check out the medical treatment files for the two shooters. It will curl your hair.
It probably wouldn’t have made much difference: the shooter would have to change tactics and take out the guard first, that’s all. Don’t forget Virginia Tech, which has its own police department, and Fort Hood, which, being a military base, has guns everywhere.
I’ve checked on this, and there was an armed officer assigned to the school: he was a sheriff’s deputy called Neil Gardner. At the time of the attack he was on a lunch break in his patrol car parked nearby. He was sufficiently close to the school that Eric Harris, one of the shooters, saw him exiting his car and immediately began shooting at him.
Since the shooters both knew he would be there, their tactics included beginning the attack when he was off-site and attacking him at the first opportunity.
If someone is determined to carry out an attack like this and has the element of surprise, it is virtually impossible to stop him or her. The best ways to stop such attacks are to detect them in advance and arrest before the shooter(s) has/have an opportunity or to deny them access to the guns they need to carry out the attack.
Gordon my brother,
No and no.
The mad aren’t stupid. One thing the massacre sites have in common is that they are “gun-free” zones. The most workable proposal in the U.S. is for school staff to be licensed and trained to carry concealed firearms: no uniform, no target.
The supreme irony of Fort Hood is that it too was a “gun free” zone. Clinton disarmed the military and forced them to rely on civilian contractors and local police. There was only one weapon in the entire facility and the bad guy had it.
The first responder to that shooting was a local police sergeant who ignored her directives and went right after the jihadist. The ensuing gunfight left her badly wounded and Hassan crippled. It is estimated that her action saved nearly 40 lives because Hassan was shooting at over 50% fatal.
Gordon,
Thank you for your info on Neil Gardener. I just finished reading his 94 page deposition after the shooting. The reason he wasn’t in the cafeteria that day is because he didn’t like the teriaki they were serving.
Clarification though: armed guards are to protect from outside. Gardener and the two school “narcs” were there to keep the kids in line in a school of over 2000 kids. He was neither equipped nor trained to act in a strategic (SWAT) situation. At that point in time, it was just unthinkable.
One other correction on my part. At Fort Hood (where a pistol was used) there were 214 shots fired, 43 hits causing 13 fatalities.