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Tuesday, Dec. 25, 2012 | 2:01 a.m.
Another view?
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I recently watched the National Rifle Association’s executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre, advocating for an armed security unit for every school in America.
I know this is a bit controversial, but to be honest, I think it is a good idea.
Watch or read what he said with an open mind and see if it makes sense to you.
This is only one part of the equation; the horrible state of mental health services in the United States must be revamped and properly funded. And, yes, I did leave out more gun control; let us just say, opinions vary.
Mark Kagan wrote:
"Watch or read what he said with an open mind and see if it makes sense to you."
I say:
I watched his presser, and watched him on Meet The Press.
I can say I have an open mind about evaluating peoples mental health, and LaPierre's is okay as far as not needing institutional residence in an insane hospital, but his dis-ingenuousness about everyone else needed to clean up their act, except gun owners is in itself a sickness, the NRA can either lead, follow, or get kicked to the curb.
We don't need people putting up roadblocks to their portion of problem solving, especially when their product is lethal.
People like myself do not want your guns, we know you are big tough macho scaredy pants types who need a bullet in every pocket and dresser drawer, but it is time you helped out.
If you want the right to kill us if we wander onto your property when we are looking for directions or are hurt it means we want something from you. That is, to stop your ability to shoot us more than 4-5 times.
If you can't kill us with that, get a knife...
LaPierre is high paid propagandist without a moral compass. He's loyal only to the gun makers who put money in his pockets and words in his mouth that he dutifully regurgitates with a sincere, straight face. It's filthy job that any weasel could do.
Obama sends his own kids to a private school with 11 armed guards who are not part of a secret service detail. I guess Obama has an open mind to the NRA proposal. The rest of our kids are certainly as good as Obama's and deserve the same protection. Also Senators in DC including all the dems are protected by guns with 30 round clips.I am pretty certain that the rest of us are just as worthy of such protection.
National Rifle Association chief Wayne LaPierre has stayed too long. His ideas are dated, out of touch. His approach is to escalate the problem. This is called being without sound mind. A better term would be insane.
In additional, anyone advocating Mr. LaPierre ideas need immediately physical and mental attention from a highly qualified physician.
Don't fight the truth, it will prevail in the end.
Merry Christmas.
I watched. I noted the leader of a right-wing organization calling for yet more government regulation to be financed by yet more government spending to profit quite a select group of corporations. I noted the leader of a right-wing organization calling for us to go start down yet another slippery slope - We already have armed guards at the entrances of most government facilities. Next stop, the schools, then the shopping malls, then the theaters, then the the churches. . .
The right-wing shows its stripes yet again. We MUST cut government spending and intrusion into our lives. . . unless it is for a right-wing-approved idea.
He is 100% correct and needs to start developing a school guardian training program right now! The sooner we can get some protection for our kids the better!
I don't want to create a police state around our schools but I do want to make our kids, educators feel and be safe. We don't want folks with mental problems buying guns but we also don't want folks being unfairly targeted and incarcerated in institutions.
This is a difficult situation that I don't think anyone has a good solution for at this point. A strong supporter of the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights I am. I'm also sympathetic to the need to do everything we can to prevent future tragedies like this. I see a big fight coming and that is unfortunate, a nation further divided is a bad thing for everyone.
There are now close to a hundred million gun owners in America and 99% or more are law abiding. We don't want to abrogate their rights in order to disarm a tiny fraction of criminals. Remembering that human behavior is the root of the cause, if we could wave a magic wand and make every single firearm in America vanish we would not do the same for violent crime.
Just reported - a man in China rammed his car into a school. Anders Breivik of Norway killed 77 in April this year. Much of Europe is reeling from knife crime. Where the human intellect can combine with the will to take a life there will be violent crime.
It's an awful state of affairs existing world wide. No countries are immune regardless of legal restrictions and laws. Our economic status I believe is a catalyst for the seeming increase in these public attacks. My reading has detected similar results in past economic downturns and in most countries.
Increased psychological profiling may be warranted and increased supervision are two of the methods that can be helpful. See something, say something has proven to be invaluable and we all need to use it with an open mind and no malice. Can we justify increased restrictions on firearms? Yes, if done carefully and without the usual partisan ideological bent for punishment and destruction.
Unfortunately both sides have dug in too deep. The anti-gun forces have created a false language of exaggeration and outright lies which is successful with the unknowing. Some pro-Second Amendment forces have been too closed minded to hear and participate in constructive discussions. Actually both sides have.
I don't see leaders in the Congress as any help at the moment and the president is trying to see if the administration can circumvent the Congress altogether by using Presidential edict, an unwise act. This increasingly used tactic will only inflame differences between the two sides surely resulting in constitutional battles and Supreme Court cases.
Too bad emotion can't be replaced by a Spock like logic and factual process that leaves out the harmful seeds of the fight.
Mark.......
First things first.
We need a full and complete BAN ON ASSAULT RIFLES.
Right now!
I must disagree, Teamster. "Assault rifles" are defined as being fully automatic and have been controlled since 1938. The ban of 1994, since expired and not renewed, created a new category - assault weapons - which included semi-automatic rifles, shotguns, and pistols. meeting certain criteria. For rifles, it prohibited "...newly-manufactured magazines holding more than ten rounds of ammunition."
What we need, as a start, is a rewrite of the 1994 regulation, banning possession of assault weapons regardless of when they were manufactured.
Mental health treatment in this country was decimated by that Republican God, Ronald Reagan.
When Blood-on-his-hands Wayne LaPierre just one time suggests ANY restrictions on guns, ammunition, magazines, etc. his suggestions will be considered. Otherwise, forget it. As far as I am concerned, he has brought a LOT of bloodshed to the American people. He is the opposite of a patriot.
The NRA and conservative position is that we should NOT ban semi-automatic assault style weapons, large ammo clips, body armor, and ballistic helmets. They also insist that there is NO cooling off period or background checks performed on the secondary market. Those two, in combination, are a horribly combustible combination, but then they also want to defund mental health services that the 'takers', the 47%, of society would use. Now, after multiple mass shootings, these same conservatives inform us that our children are no longer safe due to the conditions they have insisted upon. Their solution? Government spending (that they claim to oppose) so that they can preserve (increase!) the guns, ammo, and armor that put us and our children at risk in the first place. Unfortunately, now our children ARE at risk. Any solutions implemented to protect kids should be supplemented with a ban. Republicans need to step aside and let the adults fix this.
The Constitutionality of any firearm used today must be EQUAL to the fire power of the gun used at the time the Constitution was approved 1789. Those weapons were flintlocks. It took an average of 45 seconds to reload after each shot. The assault rifle elevates the the shooter to 50-70 colonial riflemen. No weapon like this would have ever passed the Constitutional definition of defensive arms.
The NRA's objectives are money first. Their budget is 250 million a year. Big bucks, money first. They say "keep an open mind" but their minds are closed to any objective except profits from guns.
This qualifies as a religion and they get the same tax advantages of being a religious organization, i.e. a cult.
The bullet hole in the argument for an armed guard in every school is that the guard can't be everywhere at the same time.
The guard is only going to be effective if s/he is in the right place at the right time.
However, the guard might just be the first target to be taken out by an assault weapon before s/he can do any protecting.
Or, it just might be a way for the assailant to be a suicide by guard, after doing some killing.
Look, its not just schools. Its everywhere that people gather! Thats why we need to address the gun issue in a rational balanced way. Drop a little fetishism about the guns, and we will be a whole lot more secure. Limit magazine sizes, close the gun show loophole. These will have little effect on gun owner, only the fetishists will complain. Also, gun insurance for each gun, to compensate a victim of a particular gun might also be a good idea. Maybe this should be tied to the production of the gun.