The NRA press conference yesterday was a perfect example of how out of touch the Right is these days. "Only a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun."
Really?
I'll set the aside the Jack Bauer fantasy here that the gun rights folks seem to think can be replicated in reality and focus on the word mentioned twice in this quote: gun. Why does it have to be a gun? There are plenty of other ways to disable intruders that school, mall and movie theater staff could use. Using a taser is one option although that could prove difficult. A more obvious solution is to stash some tear gas or something similar and simply throw it down the hallway and knockout the intruder. You might end up knocking out some staff or students but the intruder would be disabled.
Think of that would have worked in this situation. The principal would hear the commotion and grab the gas canister that they have stored in the room they were in. She throws it out in the hallway and Lanza passes out. At least then, we would have known why he was going on a rampage.
Honestly, this is a more realistic solution. I don't think the Right realizes how juvenile they sound when they start talking about arming everyone. More importantly, it strikes me as odd that they want armed security personnel everywhere. Isn't that the same thing as a police state (something they are vehemently opposed to)?
But this is what I mean when I say they are closet fascists. In so many ways, that's what the NRA and their supporters are all about. Do they even realize it?
25 comments:
Honestly, this is a more realistic solution.
No, it is just as stupid and slightly less realistic.
But thanks for perpetuating the media-driven fear frenzy. How quickly you forget your own denunciations of such.
This is a joke right? Right? I hope so.
Otherwise, add tasers and tear gas to your growing list of topics that you ignorantly try to authoritatively speak about.
I'm afraid Mark's fantasy about the efficacy of tasers and tear gas grenades is as delusional as the NRA's fantasy about putting armed old men with poor vision and slow reaction times in schools to protect children (never mind the blowback the first time one of those geezers is caught molesting a six-year-old child: perverts will be only too glad to volunteer to "protect" the children).
The fact is, a security guard at Red Lake was the first to die. The similarities between Sandy Hook and Red Lake are striking: the shooter was staying with his grandfather, who was a police office. The kid shot the old man while he was sleeping. The shooter took his grandfather's weapons, bullet-proof vest and squad car to the school. There he shot one unarmed security guard at the metal detector; the other guard fled.
Had the guards been armed it might not have been any different. At Columbine the two shooters engaged with a sheriff's deputy who arrived on the scene five minutes after the shooting started. The deputy fired 10 shots without hitting the shooters, who had killed a couple of kids outside on the lawn, wounded others and thrown some pipe bombs, most of which didn't explode. After one of the shooters ran out of ammo they disengaged from the deputy and entered the school, and proceeded to kill the majority of the victims in the library, ultimately committing simultaneous suicide after 40 minutes or so.
The Red Lake shooter asked some of the kids he shot whether they believed in god, something the Columbine shooters did. The Columbine shooters originally planned to detonate bombs in the school cafeteria and shoot classmates as they fled the building. The bombs failed to explode so they had to change their plan.
These details matter because the kids didn't just commit these acts on a whim. They apparently did research on other mass killings, bomb building, etc. They conducted detailed planning and preparation. Adam Lanza seems to have prepared as well; apparently he destroyed his hard drive to hide his tracks.
The point is, these kids will have prior access to the facilities and intimate knowledge of the routines and procedures. They will have plenty of time to plan their attack, and possibly the ability to smuggle weapons into the facility during off-hours or through other entrances such as loading docks. They will likely have either the trust or the familiarity of the guards, who are used to having them pass by every day without incident. Which is to say that guards are likely to be taken by surprise.
In reality school shootings are relatively rare, and the chance of kids dying this way is still one in a million. It's much more likely that they'll commit suicide using their parent's handgun, or accidentally shooting a sibling, or get shot by dad cleaning a loaded gun, or getting shot in a drive-by, or getting murdered by a parent going through a nasty divorce, than becoming a victim of someone like Adam Lanza.
Yeah, we could devise school entrances that have total video surveillance and metal detectors and airlocks and backscatter X-ray machines and anesthetic gas and the whole nine yards. It would cost us a trillion dollars, and hundreds of kids would still die from gunshots every year in all the mundane ways I mentioned above, just so a small segment of NRA members can plink away at targets of Barack Obama (yes, I agree that not all NRA members are fanatical morons).
The only sure-fire way to prevent kids from getting shot is to keep guns out of the hands of the incompetent and unstable people who shoot kids. Considering that those people are generally the kids themselves and their family, the solution should be self-evident.
Putting more guns in more hands will only result in more people getting shot. It's just simple arithmetic.
Putting more guns in more hands will only result in more people getting shot. It's just simple arithmetic.
Sorry, it isn't. Historical statistics prove that out.
So, tear gas can repel crowds of unruly people but can't stop one guy? Sorry, Nikto, but it does have real world application and has been proven to work. I'm simply trying to find a solution for defense at schools other than guns.
it does have real world application and has been proven to work.
But not against people with guns.
Sorry Mark, but you are that stupid.
Tear gas or a concussive grenade does not work against people with guns. Why?
Because the effects of them do not 'knock them out' or cause any other effect that would keep them from pointing the gun and pulling the trigger.
So, tear gas can repel crowds of unruly people but can't stop one guy?
Tear gas is only effective against people that aren't equipped for it. Nor does it make them fall over - generally they turn and run to get away from it. That isn't exactly what you want an active shooter to do, is it?
cause any other effect that would keep them from pointing the gun and pulling the trigger.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnwoImblCI0
So, a bunch of Marines being deliberately trained to deal with it is your example of how effective it would be against a shooter?
Yes. They were marines and they couldn't even move. Adam Lanza was a 20 year old skinny kid and you're saying he could still shoot?
You idiot. The Marines were not allowed to move away from it - they were being forced to move into it. Yes - that hurts, but going 30 or 40 feet out of the way means you aren't effected. Tear gas is used to force people out of the position they are in - to presumably a point where the counter-force (military or police) has an advantage rather than vice-versa. Or it forces a crowd to disperse - which is exactly the command the police have given before deploying it.
This is not even mentioning that EVERYONE in the path of the tear gas (who doesn't have a mask) is going to suffer. Is that what you want in a school - to gas the kids and faculty as well as the shooter? Of all of those, who is the most likely to have a gas mask if this was a standard police response?
Mark's pure, 200-proof stupidity on this point is fascinating to watch. Kind of like what I imagine it would be like to watch someone step in front of a train. Too horrifying to actually watch, but it's impossible to turn away.
Mark, when even Nikto says you're lost in a fantasy world, you are lost!
They were marines and they couldn't even move. Adam Lanza was a 20 year old skinny kid and you're saying he could still shoot
Your 'proof' to me is to show a bunch of 20 year old skinny kids carrying 200 pound dummies around, talking, walking and carrying guns.
You think that this somehow proves a 20 year old skinny kid can't move a 7 pound gun and pull a 3 pound trigger? You really are delusional.
They were marines and they couldn't even move.
So your "solution" is to pop that stuff off in a building full of children?!?!?!?!?
Tear Gas / Riot Control Agents
Long-lasting exposure (over an hour) or exposure to a large dose of tear gas, especially in an enclosed setting, may cause severe effects such as:
• Blindness
• Glaucoma (a serious eye condition that can lead to blindness)
• Death due to serious chemical burns to the throat and lungs
• Respiratory (breathing) failure possibly resulting in death [in very extreme cases]
…
Children and seniors exposed to tear gas are likely to experience the same harmful effects as those experienced by exposed adults. Both groups are generally more vulnerable than adults to the effects of any harmful chemical, so it may take longer for symptoms to clear up.
A dizzying intellect indeed. Like one spinning around with his forehead on a bat 16 hours a day!
Wow...a whole lot of sour grapes. Sounds to me that I must have hit a nerve and that was just with one example. I supposed I'm 200 proof stupid for thinking that all schools could have tasers instead of guns.
It has to be a gun...it has to be a gun...we must not be proved wrong....it has to be a gun...
Crap...I forgot...it has to be a "good guy" with a gun...
It needs to be:
1) EFFECTIVE at stopping a goblin; i.e., ending the fight.
2) Sufficient RANGE to reach a goblin; especially when he's using a rifle.
3) DIRECTED. In other words, not unnecessarily dangerous to the innocent.
4) SECURABLE. In other words, the children should not be able to access whatever it is and harm themselves, while still allowing quick access by the teacher in an emergency.
5) NOT EASILY DEFEATABLE. A single armed (or worse, unarmed) guard is not able to protect the school if they are the first victim while the goblin still has the element of surprise.
6) HUMANE. If your defensive system abuses the students, then the "cure" is worse than the "disease".
7) AFFORDABLE. While it is certainly not the most important criteria, it cannot be ignored. If you come up with the Perfect system, but it costs $500 Million per school, it would simply not be possible to put it into place.
Find us something which fits these criteria better than using guns, and we will be THRILLED! (You'll also likely wind up very wealthy.) And no, we can't use Star Trek phasers set on stun, as much as I'd like to. It seems that they don't actually exist.
Wow...a whole lot of sour grapes.
Truly remarkable - your capacity to resist facts that don't conform to what you want to believe.
Just to be clear, we don't need armed personnel (police as per the NRA or National Guard as per Sen. Boxer) in our schools. These incidents are too rare to impact every school in the land - unless people react out of irrational and unreasonable fear. I recall someone complaining about the media feeding that - someone familiar.
Pointing out that you are ignorant is not sour grapes.
Having to point out that you are ignorant more than once regarding the very same idiotic idea proves that you are a blithering idiot.
I supposed I'm 200 proof stupid for thinking that all schools could have tasers instead of guns.
Why yes you are. Do you want to know why - or would pointing out your ignorance again make me a big meanie who only wants to win the argument?
Why are they standard issue with police these days if they are so dangerous?
Didn't say they were dangerous. Quit putting words in my mouth.
Quit putting words in my mouth.
He is quite prolific in that regard - always trying to tell us what we said, rather than actually listen to what we did say.
Incredibly childish and dishonest.
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