With yet another school shooting in south Florida by yet another coward, my mind goes to watching all of those traumatized children just trying to stay alive. I am wondering if an entire generation of anti-gunners is being created by this ongoing trauma. As I am an avid hunter and gun owner, my hypocracy would be boundless if I did not admit that it is hard to blame them. If all you have ever witnessed is violence with a firearm, it has to be difficult to stay objective.
Gun Haters
- Thread starter Steve S.
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Hokie_PhD
Member
I’ve been there done that. Been associated with two campus shootings.
The only solution is education and eliminating “gun free zones”. In my case if I’d have been carrying I would have shot the gunman in the second shooting.
The only solution is education and eliminating “gun free zones”. In my case if I’d have been carrying I would have shot the gunman in the second shooting.
Armored farmer
Member
Another horrendous murder by another Godless coward preying upon the innocent.
Prayers for all the victims.
Prayers for all the victims.
Good point George P; that begs another question. I would guess that the majority of cradle rockers are females (mothers) - if the cradle rockers carry the influence, then why so many overly aggressive males if influenced my the genteel female?????
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You must not be married. Females have plenty of fire.
Navy_Chief
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We are dealing with multiple generations that lack the ability to differentiate between human actions and the tools used to accomplish those actions, this has grown worse over the years as the last generation raises a new one and adds to the deficiency. We have created a feel good society where there is no blame or accountability for a persons actions, as a part of this they lack the ability to blame the person who committed the crime and instead blame the gun. They scream to outlaw guns instead of addressing the cultural issues we have where bloody violence is normal and accepted as "entertainment" in video games, television, movies, and music combined with absolutely no personal accountability.
Armored farmer
Member
...or morality
Navy_Chief
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Very true.
Sadly we seem to be dealing with a large group of people who look at 1984 as being an instruction manual instead of a warning.
bikerdoc
Moderator In Memoriam
Repeat after me,
Crazy people control not gun control
Crazy people control not gun control
AlexanderA
Member
Easier said than done. There have been proposals recently that anyone who has ever seen a psychiatrist -- for any reason -- should be disqualified from owning a gun. All this would mean would be that people who need treatment will stop seeing psychiatrists. Besides that, the vast majority of mentally ill people are not violent. They are more likely to be victims than perpetrators.
It would be easy for the antigunners to design a "mental health solution" to the gun problem that would disqualify practically everyone. Anyone in your household ever seen a psychiatrist? You are disqualified.
It could even get to the point where, to own a gun, you had to get a positive clean bill of mental health from a psychiatrist. Of course, to get this affidavit, you would have to see a psychiatrist -- which in itself would disqualify you! And wanting to own a gun would be defined as evidence of mental illness! Now we're getting into a surreal Kafkaesque world.
This path is actually an Achilles' Heel for gun owners.
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Telekinesis
Member
My understanding is that a fire alarm was pulled (or otherwise forced to go off). Pretty hard to keep the doors locked and people contained when you're telling them to get out of the building because of a fire (or a training "fire").
It just happened that the alarm/evacuation was a ruse to get people into the kill zone. It's not the first time that a fire alarm has been used to get students into a vulnerable area so that they could be more easily targeted but thankfully it hasn't been too prevalent.
AlexanderA
Member
Incidents like this cannot be prevented. That's just a fact of life. The horse is out of the barn on guns (millions of AR-15's and the like extant) and the horse is also out of the barn regarding crazy people. We're just going to have to live with X number of incidents annually. Anyone who says otherwise is trying to crassly make political hay out of the situation. They're either hopelessly naive or hopelessly hypocritical.
entropy
Member
Yes, and the only way to mitigate it is to eliminate killing fields, er, 'gun-free zones' , stop glorifying these nutjobs, and start glorifying those individuals who stop them, particularly when it isn't in their job description.
When I was in ROTC many years ago, I was taught how to respond to an ambush. Attack with speed and violence of action, because it is the only possible way to get out of it alive. Sadly, the company i work for has a strategy that is passive in nature, until the very last second. (ADD, Avoid, Deny, Defend, used by many businesses) I will be fired if in such a situation, if I am not killed, because the training will take over; to me ADD means Attack, Defeat, Destroy.
Perhaps such training as I received in ROTC should be taught, maybe 5:15 to Paris should be shown in schools as an example of how to react. It won't turn all the kids into would-be John Waynes, but it just might tip the balance enough so that the next 'big tragedy' becomes a blip on the radar, with the perp captured or dead, and a kid who's reaction was 'I was dead for sure if I hadn't rushed him...'
When I was in ROTC many years ago, I was taught how to respond to an ambush. Attack with speed and violence of action, because it is the only possible way to get out of it alive. Sadly, the company i work for has a strategy that is passive in nature, until the very last second. (ADD, Avoid, Deny, Defend, used by many businesses) I will be fired if in such a situation, if I am not killed, because the training will take over; to me ADD means Attack, Defeat, Destroy.
Perhaps such training as I received in ROTC should be taught, maybe 5:15 to Paris should be shown in schools as an example of how to react. It won't turn all the kids into would-be John Waynes, but it just might tip the balance enough so that the next 'big tragedy' becomes a blip on the radar, with the perp captured or dead, and a kid who's reaction was 'I was dead for sure if I hadn't rushed him...'
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Then I hope none of them ever gets drafted and is forced to go to war. Talk about trauma.
AlexanderA
Member
I agree with this. The answer, at this point in time, is more guns in private hands, not fewer. The time to eliminate AR-15's would have been in 1963, when they first became available to civilians. But, the government didn't have the legal authority (and in any case chose not to do so) at that time. I was frankly surprised that they were available when I bought my first one in 1968. It's waay too late to do anything about them now.
Note: The government does have the authority now, under the GCA '68, to outlaw AR-15's on the ground that they are "readily convertible" to full automatic. And, based on the dicta in the Heller case, the Supreme Court would probably uphold such a move. But, it would be hard to overturn some 55 years of administrative precedent, plus there are just too many of them.
LocoGringo
Member
Yes, a generation or two of traumatized victims is being created by the actions of cowardly psychos, but what has caused that shift in the first place?
Two very important things...1. the removal of a father figure from the nuclear family 2. the removal of God from education and society. Both of those relate to accountability and a higher power so that the child thinks he/she can do whatever it wants without consequence. Couple that with the increase of violence seen absolutely everywhere (TV, radio, video games) that act as substitutes for actual parenting, what the hell do you expect would happen? Monsters are being created in our society...and it doesn't take many to traumatize our society nowadays.
Two very important things...1. the removal of a father figure from the nuclear family 2. the removal of God from education and society. Both of those relate to accountability and a higher power so that the child thinks he/she can do whatever it wants without consequence. Couple that with the increase of violence seen absolutely everywhere (TV, radio, video games) that act as substitutes for actual parenting, what the hell do you expect would happen? Monsters are being created in our society...and it doesn't take many to traumatize our society nowadays.
AlexanderA
Member
I have to disagree with the premise. School shootings, like other acts of terrorism, are statistically insignificant. Very few people are directly involved, and therefore traumatized. Certainly not a whole generation. What is happening is that these incidents are being magnified by the media. If there's trauma, it's vicarious trauma. I'm not sure if vicarious trauma is a real thing. Do you get Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome by watching the first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan?
Hell, I was there at the Whitman University of Texas tower shooting in 1966. I can't say that I was lastingly traumatized by the experience.
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Armybrat
Member
I was there too in 1966. After finishing my #5 Flameburger at the Holiday House on the Drag, I & my roommate walked back to my car in the lot on 21st (where the Dobie dorm tower now stands) just west of Littlefield Fountain. We had seen & heard all the ambulances roaring up the Drag & wondered what was going on.
When we got to the lot we saw some students crouched behind cars and were warned that someone was shooting off the top of the Tower. Then I heard the "boom" of Whitman's rifle, so it took no further prompting for us to duck down too. We could clearly see him leaning over the parapet firing down, then when people started shooting back, he disappeared out of sight and began shooting through the drain spouts.
Afterwards, we milled around on the Mall in front of the Tower, avoiding the pools of blood. A Dark day in Austin history for sure, but it didn't make me desirous of any gun control or bans.
FWIW, I had taken my girlfriend up to the observation deck a month or two earlier to see the sights, and recall Mrs. Townsley the receptionist in the anteroom. Very pleasant & friendly lady she was.
When we got to the lot we saw some students crouched behind cars and were warned that someone was shooting off the top of the Tower. Then I heard the "boom" of Whitman's rifle, so it took no further prompting for us to duck down too. We could clearly see him leaning over the parapet firing down, then when people started shooting back, he disappeared out of sight and began shooting through the drain spouts.
Afterwards, we milled around on the Mall in front of the Tower, avoiding the pools of blood. A Dark day in Austin history for sure, but it didn't make me desirous of any gun control or bans.
FWIW, I had taken my girlfriend up to the observation deck a month or two earlier to see the sights, and recall Mrs. Townsley the receptionist in the anteroom. Very pleasant & friendly lady she was.
I'm forced to ask, why don't any of these shooters go after celebrities, or the president? Why don't they try to shoot people
at a gun range, or a police station? The obvious answer is they know they will be met with equal force, and shot down like rabid dogs.
They obviously choose gun free zones on purpose. Which raises the question, why are parents so blind to the obvious danger
to their children of making schools "gun free zones" ?
If you want to talk about "doing it for the safety of the children", which do you think is
a better sign to put on the entry door of a school:
"This Is A Gun Free Zone"
"This Area Is Patrolled By Federal Marshals"
at a gun range, or a police station? The obvious answer is they know they will be met with equal force, and shot down like rabid dogs.
They obviously choose gun free zones on purpose. Which raises the question, why are parents so blind to the obvious danger
to their children of making schools "gun free zones" ?
If you want to talk about "doing it for the safety of the children", which do you think is
a better sign to put on the entry door of a school:
"This Is A Gun Free Zone"
"This Area Is Patrolled By Federal Marshals"
LocoGringo
Member
Ok, AlexanderA, I will agree that lasting trauma for an entire generation is wrong. However, because of the incidents happening fairly regularly with protracted media coverage and constant calls for "more gun control", what IS being created is an attitude and fear against guns for a generation or more. It doesn't go to the level of full on trauma, but the frequency and coverage does create a lasting impression as well as a potential permanent mentality or attitude against guns.
Do you agree with the second part of the post?
Do you agree with the second part of the post?
TomJ
Contributing Member
The issue we run into is that these types of shootings flush out two distinct goals. The first is keeping the public as safe as possible. The second is the desire of anti's to do away with private gun ownership. When these types of shootings occur, the anti's use them as an opportunity to promote their gun control agenda. There was a politician from Florida, I don't remember if he was a Senator or Congressman on tv yesterday while things were still occurring calling for gun control. If they were serious about protecting the public, they would look at the two things that these shootings have in common and address them. The first is that with very few exceptions, they occur in gun free zones. Those should be banned. The second is that the shooting most often stops when the shooter is confronted by someone with a gun, either by the shooter taking their own life or by them being shot by the other person. Posting armed security at our schools will address this. It's hypocritical for politicians protected by armed security to object to our kids also being protected by armed security, but that doesn't fit their agenda. I'd really like to see pro2A politicians be as vocal about these solutions as the anti's are about taking away our 2A rights.
AlexanderA
Member
One reason there wasn't a big push for gun control was that the "good guys with guns" mitigated the casualties by shooting back. This is an aspect of the incident that's uncomfortable for the gun control crowd.
It wasn't until a couple of years later, with the shootings of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, that gun control really got on a roll -- but even then (with the GCA '68) the idea of gun control was but a pale shadow of what it is today. Remember that the country wasn't nearly as polarized or "tribal" as it is today. Conservative Democrats controlled Texas and much of the South, for one thing. (So the national Democratic party had to downplay gun control. There were also Republicans in favor of gun control back then -- it wasn't strictly a partisan issue. And the NRA was mainly a sport shooting organization -- it wasn't nearly as political.)
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