NRA: If only a teacher had had a gun ... Well, asswipes, one of the teachers had SEVERAL guns ...

[caseymoz]

82. About bans . . .

It seems that states that have the most gun regulations tend to be the ones with the lowest gun death rates. Now, it isn't proof, but it is indicative.

Who's arguing for bans? I'm saying you're looking at having a ban imposed whether it works or not. See the War on Drugs for an example. Parents tend to get hysterical when their children are threatened, and when it's happened, the measures taken have not been the most rational. Really, if spree shootings like this keep happening, especially in schools, it won't matter when you point out bans don't work. Also, if the War on Drugs is an example, telling people the ban doesn't work doesn't get rid of the ban. So, you better think of a way to spare yourself from having one.

About your example of armed groups, first, 9/11 notwithstanding, how common were skyjackings and such crimes before we armed pilots? What are the crime statistics there since? And don't we screen baggage and passengers to extremely minimize weapons being brought on a plane? Is the pilot being armed the first line of defense?

You're comparing apples to oranges with your other example. First, nobody is really going to care if jewelry or money is caught in cross fire, unlike we would in, say, children in a school. Arming employees has a completely different risk assessment.

Moreover, the armed guards are in those places to stop, or discourage a completely different class of crimes: theft. You could discourage a thief by threatening his life. However, how well did our armed troops do in Iraq against suicide bombers and IED's? If somebody is trying to kill as many people as possible, they wouldn't go to a jewelry store. They wouldn't go to a bank. The risk/award assessment they're doing is totally different than what a thief will do.

And I'll remind you: banks and jewelry stores still get robbed. The guns don't always protect against the crime they're supposed to prevent. There have been exchanges of gunfire there, even though thieves are less likely than suicidal killers to risk their lives. So, I could argue, with progunner absurdity, that having guns in those places really doesn't "work" since it isn't perfect.

We'd have to know more about the minds of spree killers to find out how they make choices of where to shoot, but I'm presuming that if they thought they could do enough damage before they're brought down by shooting up a bank as they would a school, they would choose the bank. Judging by their suicide rate, it's not the fear of getting shot that keeps them from shooting up banks instead. It's the "lower success rate."

You've really convinced yourself that arming teachers and doing away with gun free zones is going to fix the problem.

I'll ask you again: say it's adopted. What would you have to see before you'd believe it's a failure? Kids getting shot because teachers had the gun taken away from them? Teachers having gun accidents that wound themselves or the students? Teachers using their guns on students (because kids can get maddening) or parents, or perhaps even going on shooting sprees? Because we do underpay them and demand more of them. What if it doesn't thwart any shootings even though everything above happens? Then would you be able to say you're wrong?

You're presuming that there's an inner Clint Eastwood that we just need to release here. (And it has to be government that's in his way.) You're thinking that guns are so effective at thwarting crime, that there must be something stopping it from happening, like the gun-free school zone. I'm sorry, anyone with the balls to go for a gun and return fire in a shooting spree would have the cajones to carry a piece into a gun free zone with impunity (and as you said, bans don't work, so we should presume this happens all the time.) When you tell me you don't carry a pistol into a gun free zone, though children need to be protected, you're pretty much telling me you won't return fire, which carries far more risk. No wonder none of these have been thwarted.

The problem is not that we haven't released the inner Clint Eastwood. The problem is he's a myth, or he's too damn rare. The actual statistics on the number of crimes of all sorts thwarted by an armed victim or bystander is far lower what the pro-gunners believe. It doesn't happen that often. This fact of human psychology is not going to be fixed by arming teachers or doing away with gun free zones. Period.

Really, knowing the teachers I do, and knowing the stress they're under, and the poor pay, I anticipate that if they're expected to arm themselves, for many, that would be the last straw. They would get out of their profession. Therefore, what you're going to have to replace them with is a person who can't teach but can swagger and carry a gun, and they're willing to be violent. If that happened, would you change your mind? Or, like the War on Drugs, will you still stick the rest of us with your solution?

Really, I want to hear it. What negative developments would tell you your policy proposal is a failure? And do they match any examples I've given?

My next question is, why can I imagine all these things going wrong while you can't? It seems to me that if the Apollo Project calculated risk and came up with schemes to fix technically unfeasible claims the way you do, it would be a hoax.