13 Yr Old Fires AK-47 in Missouri School, Persuaded to Leave, No One Hurt

[Termagant]

CNN Link

A 13-year-old student fired an AK-47 inside his middle school Monday morning after confronting two others students and his principal, but no one was injured, authorities said.

and said again, "Please don't make me do this."

It seems like this is becoming a favorite of every deranged pre-teen copy cat. But I don't think arming everyone in schools is the answer. That just opens the door to students taking those guns and using them. Is everyone going to keep handguns in holster on their person at all times? Even then guns can be pulled from holsters. I think it is analogous to the North Korea nuclear situation. Everyone having access to more deadly weapons does not make the world safer, because not everyone can be counted on for rationality. Often it is those who say we should all be armed who crave the weapons for power, due to their own phychological problems.

Rather we should confront the mental health problems facing some of America's children. I think it can be attributed to bad parenting and a society increasingly hostile and withdrawn, locked up in the room doing who knows what on the computer (posting to this forum???). Providing children with instruction that violence is an absolute last resort, and they have other routes to "cry out for help" would be a good start. Any new level of danger in this Age of Terrarrrr can be undone without racheting up proliferation of deadly weaponry.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: Termagant

Is everyone going to keep handguns in holster on their person at all times?

Yes, that is only way to combat nuts and criminals.

 

[Tom]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: Termagant

Is everyone going to keep handguns in holster on their person at all times?

Yes, that is only way to combat nuts and criminals.

Or we could have a rational mental healthcare system.

 

[3chordcharlie]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: Termagant

Is everyone going to keep handguns in holster on their person at all times?

Yes, that is only way to combat nuts and criminals.

And people call you a liberal

 

[Todd33]

What do you expect from a country in which the NRA has bought a majority of the politicians off?

You reap what you sow...

 

[EagleKeeper]

Originally posted by: Todd33
What do you expect from a country in which the NRA has bought a majority of the politicians off?

You reap what you sow...

Proof of bolded section of your statement.

 

[Todd33]

If lawmakers are guilty of tiptoeing around gun control issues, it is because the NRA and other gun rights groups wield an enormous amount of influence in Washington. The source of that influence is money. Gun rights groups have given more than $17 million in individual, PAC and soft money contributions to federal candidates and party committees since 1989. Nearly $15 million, or 85 percent of the total, has gone to Republicans. The National Rifle Association is by far the gun rights lobby's biggest donor, having contributed more than $14 million over the past 15 years. Gun control advocates, meanwhile, contribute far less money than their rivals -- a total of nearly $1.7 million since 1989, of which 94 percent went to Democrats. The leading contributor among gun control advocates is the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, formerly known as Handgun Control, which has given $1.5 million over the past 15 years.

If gun rights groups have a substantial advantage in campaign contributions, they dominate gun control advocates in the area of lobbying. The NRA alone spent nearly $11 million lobbying elected and government officials from 1997 to 2003. But it wasn't the gun rights lobby's biggest spender. That was Gun Owners of America, which spent more than $18 million on lobbing over the same period. By contrast, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence spent under $2 million on lobbying from 1997 to 2003, and the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence spent $580,000.

The National Rifle Association has an additional advantage over all other groups in the debate. As a membership organization, the NRA can spend unlimited funds on communications to its 4 million members that identify pro-gun candidates. Those members also contribute millions of dollars in limited donations to the NRA's political action committee, which runs ads aimed at the general public that expressly advocate the election or defeat of a federal candidate. Since 1989, the NRA has spent more than $22 million on communications costs and independent expenditures, with more than $18 million spent in support of Republican candidates.

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/guns/

I didn't think it was a secret that the NRA donates so much money to mostly republicans that they never vote for anything the NRA doesn't support. The NRA is a very power and vocal minority. Gun control advocates have the backing of a much larger but less involved pool of Americans.

 

[Schadenfroh]

I wish I had an AK-47 when I was 13

 

[BaliBabyDoc]

Clinton era LATimes

President Clinton, decrying the "crazy" way guns have been permitted to proliferate in the United States, has declared that he is prepared to challenge the powerful National Rifle Association lobby and introduce major new gun control measures.

The U.S. people "are way ahead of Congress" on the gun control issue, Clinton said in extraordinarily candid and at times heated remarks made in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine. Gun violence has created enough public concern to support a ban on certain kinds of guns and "a lot of other reasonable regulations."

Fortunately, the Republican 'revolution' saved America from the plague of restrictions on the number and type of firearms one could amass.

I wonder how the NRA wanted its paid contractors to vote when the Assault Weapons Ban came up in 2004?

 

[harrkev]

Originally posted by: Todd33
What do you expect from a country in which the NRA has continuted to fight for the rights that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson gave us.
You reap what you sow...

Corrected

 

[Whoozyerdaddy]

Originally posted by: Tom

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: Termagant

Is everyone going to keep handguns in holster on their person at all times?

Yes, that is only way to combat nuts and criminals.

Or we could have a rational mental healthcare system.

Or we could all hold hands and sing Kumbaya.

Same difference. And just as realistic.

 

[mackle]

Blame on the parents......Any going wrong with the child...blame on the parents and put them in jail.

 

[Todd33]

Originally posted by: harrkev

Originally posted by: Todd33
What do you expect from a country in which the NRA has continuted to fight for the rights that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson gave us.
You reap what you sow...

Corrected

Might as well throw Jesus in the group, he loved a good AK-47 too!

 

[PrinceofWands]

Guns very seldom get taken from someone who is wearing them, especially out of a retention holster. The only way a student is reasonably taking a gun off a trained ccw person is if he beats them unconscious first. So let's drop all the 'availability' stupidity. Guns are already widely available (300 million in America), no one is going to try to take one off of someone else.

That being said you are correct that it is a societal issue, and not a gun issue. Until the societal problems are fixed, however, I have a right to carry to defend myself and would greatly prefer the option to use my exceptional experience and skills to protect the children given into my care - instead of standing idly by while they're molested and murdered because scared, ignorant people think a person who is a teacher cannot also be a guardian.

 

[BlancoNino]

Using guns as self defense is a last resort. It doesn't stop the reason for school shootings, but it sure as HELL could save a lot of innocent people's lives. The police can't be everywhere at once...

 

[getbush]

The fun/weird part of being independent and more or less in the middle is that some threads i'm thinking stupid holy rollers and in others i'm thinking stupid hippies. There are guns in America, it's a fact. The constitution makes it so. Blaming the NRA (i think they're kooky too, it's an extreme group but nontheless that's how things work) every time a deranged individual uses a gun in an illegal fashion is like beating down the door of your local wine tasting club whenever a drunk driver kills someone. Or maybe we should gripe to the Sports Car Club of America instead, it would make as much sense. So it was an AK-47. If it was fully automatic, which I doubt but I honestly don't know - then it was an illegal weapon anyway. If it wasn't, then I don't see a huge difference between it and a semi automatic hunting rifle. You could argue that all day long but at the end of the day they both are capable of killing. So do you want to ban all weapons in America? If you make owning weapons criminal, only criminals will have weapons.
It's a societal problem, it's not the gun's problem or the NRA's problem. - and it doesn't have much to do with a possible nuclear arms race in Asia, I think that's a stretch of an analogy.
You can't strip a constitutional right from the nation every time someone abuses that right.

 

[getbush]

Originally posted by: Todd33

Originally posted by: harrkev

Originally posted by: Todd33
What do you expect from a country in which the NRA has continuted to fight for the rights that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson gave us.
You reap what you sow...

Corrected

Might as well throw Jesus in the group, he loved a good AK-47 too!

Todd, your asinine post shows you are blinded by your leftness just as much as those you criticize for being extreme right. Jefferson, and to a debatable extent Washington, were deists.
Get off the Ak-47 stint. Would you feel better if a child walked into a school with a Ruger 10/22? Or are you in favor of banning all guns?
Do you differentiate between a drunk driver who kills someone with a Suburban, vs. one who drives a Civic?

 

[Fingolfin269]

Originally posted by: Tom

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: Termagant

Is everyone going to keep handguns in holster on their person at all times?

Yes, that is only way to combat nuts and criminals.

Or we could have a rational mental healthcare system.

Do you put the 13 year old in the 'rational mental healthcare system' before or after he goes nuts with an AK? How do you decide?

 

[Fingolfin269]

Originally posted by: Todd33
What do you expect from a country in which the NRA has bought a majority of the politicians off?

You reap what you sow...

Can you elaborate on the 'what do you expect' part? Are you saying the reason that kid had an AK is because the NRA bought a majority of politicians off? Or that the handgun portion is a product of the NRA?

 

[Tom]

Originally posted by: Fingolfin269

Originally posted by: Tom

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: Termagant

Is everyone going to keep handguns in holster on their person at all times?

Yes, that is only way to combat nuts and criminals.

Or we could have a rational mental healthcare system.

Do you put the 13 year old in the 'rational mental healthcare system' before or after he goes nuts with an AK? How do you decide?

I wasn't responding to a comment about this particular incident. Additionally, I am not knowledgeable on the diagnosis and treatment of mental health issues, but I do think there are people who are qualified.

My own belief is if we had mental healthcare for anyone who needs it, and there was no stigma attached to seeking out treatment, that we could reduce the incidence of irrational behavior. Not eliminate it, but reduce it.

And I also believe that just like other kinds of healthcare, treatment saves money in the long run, but because the costs of inadequate care are complex and harder to identify, than the premiums we would pay for a more complete kind of healthcare system, we don't make rational choices as a society, and some people in their despair, or folly, go so far as to think there isn't anything we can do except shoot it out.

 

[DrPizza]

Hmmm... I think that freedom of the press is one of our most important freedoms. However, I often question that if these stories didn't make the headlines, how many of these kids in recent years would have even thought about taking a gun to school and shooting the place up? I guess, at the level of maturity that many of these kids are at, they see it as a sensational way to get attention or go out in a blaze of glory, or whatever... Some kids are just not able to handle this type of news.