Florida High School Shooting

[Dulanic]

Are you against armed guards at banks? I can't seem to find any posts from you about how entirely ridiculous it is to guard money with guns. But allow people with guns to guard children and your shit flips. Why?

• Most Banks actually don't have 1.
• Protecting a bank is a whole fuck ton of shit different than guarding a building full of children.
• A bank at any point has a few innocent bystandards maybe even a dozen, uncommonly, in the building at any one point.
• A school has hundreds sometimes thousands.
• A bank is privately owned, a school is typically public.
• A bank has stuff to steal, a school is purely a rage act with no benefit to the shooter.

How can these 2 be compared in any way?

 

[Svnla]

Another pathetic loser with anger management problem and mental issues (Adam Lanza anyone?) and then the Fed (FBI) and local law enforcement agencies ignored repeating warnings of the loser - https://www.yahoo.com/gma/student-s...-him-sent-224804021--abc-news-topstories.html

Of course, a lot easier to blame those evil guns.

 

[Pens1566]

Are you against armed guards at banks? I can't seem to find any posts from you about how entirely ridiculous it is to guard money with guns. But allow people with guns to guard children and your shit flips. Why?

Not particularly, but I can't remember the last time I was in a bank where a guard was present. Also, there are striking differences between a bank and a school. Banks typically have only one or two entrances, cover a much smaller amount of real estate, have drastically fewer people to protect/observe, don't tend to have suicidal shootouts (robbers tend to want to live after they've stolen the cash). I'm sure I could go on and on, but that was just off the top of my head.

 

[fskimospy]

Another pathetic loser with anger management problem and mental issues (Adam Lanza anyone?) and then the Fed (FBI) and local law enforcement agencies ignored repeating warnings of the loser - https://www.yahoo.com/gma/student-s...-him-sent-224804021--abc-news-topstories.html

Of course, a lot easier to blame those evil guns.

It’s always interesting to see you try and find reasons why tools of mass murder aren’t relevant in mass murders. Lol.

 

[MomentsofSanity]

A teachers perspective on arming teachers in the school.

A letter from a furious teacher
Dear every elected official,

Nowhere in my contract does it state that if the need arises, I have to shield students from gunfire with my own body. If it did, I wouldn’t have signed it. I love my job. I love my students. I am also a mother with 2 amazing daughters. I am a wife of a wonderful man. I have a dog that I adore. I don’t want to die defending other people’s children; I want to teach kindness and responsibility…and Art History. That’s what I am supposed to do each day. Blocking bullets? I am not supposed to do that. I imagine that if someone was trying to kill my students, that I would try to save them with all my being. I probably would jump on top of a child to save her life. And yes, I might be one of those heroic teachers that the media writes tributes to after their death. But I am furious that I would have to make this sacrifice. I am incensed that my own children would lose their mother because I chose to be a teacher.

I chose to be a teacher knowing that on most days I would not be able to use the bathroom until 4 pm. I chose teaching knowing that I would be grading papers all weekend and working far beyond the hours of my contract. I chose to teach even though it meant that I would miss every awards assembly and field trip that my daughters asked me to attend. I even signed up to sit in a counselor’s office with a teenager on my lap, holding her as she sobbed through an anxiety attack. I signed up to ask a child if they were considering committing suicide and then relaying this terrifying information to a parent. It seems like a lot to agree to, but truly I knew what I was getting into.

I did not sign up to be ripped apart by a spray of bullets that came from a semi-automatic rifle. At the end of my teaching contract, it says that I will perform “other duties to be assigned”. I do not interpret these words “as bleeding to death on the floor of my classroom”. The anger that courses through my body after a school shooting in this country is accompanied by pure panic. I am terrified of my own children dying in school, first and foremost, but I am also terrified that the responsibility that sits on my shoulders as a teacher is far greater than I can rationally accept. On Back to School Night, I look out at the gazes of the parents in front of me as we silently make a pact. “I am giving you the most precious part of me with the knowledge that you will shield my child’s body with your own when the need arises.” They say this with their eyes. I agree to this responsibility and make a silent unbreakable oath before them. As I am telling them about the 20,000 years of global art history that I will be teaching their child, I am also agreeing to die. When I am in the parent’s place at my daughter’s school, I am asking the same of her teacher. This teacher may end up being the only thing blocking a bullet aimed for my daughter’s head.

I am furious. How dare you force me to choose between my own children and those that I teach. How dare you allow powerful adults who love guns to be more important than a generation of children growing up in fear. I don’t want to spend mornings memorizing my children’s clothing so I can identify them later. I don’t want to spend professional development hours learning how to save a few more lives by setting up barricades. Sometimes when a kid is driving me crazy in class I think to myself: “Would I die for you? Would I lose everything to save you from harm?” I have my moments when I shake my head NO.

Instead of making dead teachers into saints, make them safer when they are still alive. Make it possible for schools to have smaller class sizes so that we can get to know our students and look out for the ones who need help. Hire more counselors and school nurses and social workers and psychologists so that many people are caring for each child. HELP us prevent this. Take away guns from people who will murder us. Stop taking money from the NRA and proving how soulless you are. Keep us safe so I can do my job. How dare you put me into constant danger so that you can be reelected. How dare you make me choose between saving children or making my own children motherless. How dare you make me into a hero when I just want to teach.

 

[fskimospy]

I am glad that if nothing else comes of this tragedy the fact that conservative arguments against gun control have finally been exposed as being basically ‘but I like guns!’

 

[realibrad]

I am glad that if nothing else comes of this tragedy the fact that conservative arguments against gun control have finally been exposed as being basically ‘but I like guns!’

I like guns and banning them is not the most effective way of reducing mass murder. Further, some adult things are dangerous and sometimes bad people will do bad things so lets not ban something just for that reason.

Well, that is if you want to be accurate.

 

[glenn1]

I am glad that if nothing else comes of this tragedy the fact that conservative arguments against gun control have finally been exposed as being basically ‘but I like guns!’

Yes, that's a perfectly good reason. It's the same reason we no longer restrict gay marriage because we don't think "but I like men" is a good enough reason to deny them. "But I like it" is the basis for a whole bunch of our freedoms, not that you really give a shit about freedom as both progressives and conservatives feel free to let their authoritarian freak flag fly when seeking to ban others from enjoying something they feel "isn't good for them."

 

[fskimospy]

Yes, that's a perfectly good reason. It's the same reason we no longer restrict gay marriage because we don't think "but I like men" is a good enough reason to deny them. "But I like it" is the basis for a whole bunch of our freedoms, not that you really give a shit about freedom as both progressives and conservatives feel free to let their authoritarian freak flag fly when seeking to ban others from enjoying something they feel "isn't good for them."

'but I like it' is not the reason why gay marriage is legal. Gay marriage is legal because 'but I don't like it' wasn't a good enough reason to ban it.

Thanks for so clearly proving my point, lol.

 

[HomerJS]

I heard today local police were called because pointed a gun at someones head on more then one occasion. He should have been arrested and had his guns taken away. Chance of Trump criticizing local police like he did the FBI?

Zero?
<Zero?
<<Zero?
Absolute Zero?

 

[K1052]

Yes, that's a perfectly good reason. It's the same reason we no longer restrict gay marriage because we don't think "but I like men" is a good enough reason to deny them. "But I like it" is the basis for a whole bunch of our freedoms, not that you really give a shit about freedom as both progressives and conservatives feel free to let their authoritarian freak flag fly when seeking to ban others from enjoying something they feel "isn't good for them."

The same Supreme Court that gave you Heller also gave you Obergfell.

 

[realibrad]

'but I like it' is not the reason why gay marriage is legal. Gay marriage is legal because 'but I don't like it' wasn't a good enough reason to ban it.

Thanks for so clearly proving my point, lol.

Abstraction problem again.

We now do it because people want to do it. If people did not want to do it, then it would not change. It literally has to have people wanting to do it, and then an argument needs to be formed as to why they cant.

 

[fskimospy]

Abstraction problem again.

We now do it because people want to do it. If people did not want to do it, then it would not change. It literally has to have people wanting to do it, and then an argument needs to be formed as to why they cant.

Stop trying to argue about things you don't understand. The default for all actions is that they are legal unless prohibited. What people want or don't want is irrelevant.

It was interesting to see woolfe reach the same level of frustration with you that I did by the way, haha. It very much validated my decision to not engage with you when you are making transparently stupid arguments. I hope you learned something from this, although I'm nearly certain you did not.

 

[yllus]

I like guns and banning them is not the most effective way of reducing mass murder. Further, some adult things are dangerous and sometimes bad people will do bad things so lets not ban something just for that reason.

Well, that is if you want to be accurate.

It's 100% the most effective way to reduce mass murder. To think otherwise is to wilfully be ignorant of the data and studies on this subject.

Vox - I’ve covered gun violence for years; the solutions aren’t a big mystery

Supporters of gun rights look at America’s high levels of gun violence and argue that guns are not the problem. They point to other issues, from violence in video games and movies to the breakdown of the traditional family.

Most recently, they’ve focused particularly on mental health. This is the only policy issue that Trump mentioned in his speech following the Florida shooting.

But as Dylan Matthews explained for Vox, people with mental illnesses are more likely to be victims, not perpetrators, of violence. And Michael Stone, a psychiatrist at Columbia University who maintains a database of mass shooters, wrote in a 2015 analysis that only 52 out of the 235 killers in the database, or about 22 percent, had mental illnesses. “The mentally ill should not bear the burden of being regarded as the ‘chief’ perpetrators of mass murder,” he concluded. Other research has backed this up.

The problem, instead, is guns — and America’s abundance of them.

As a breakthrough analysis by UC Berkeley’s Franklin Zimring and Gordon Hawkins in 1999 found, it’s not even that the US has more crime than other developed countries. This chart, from Jeffrey Swanson at Duke University, shows that the US is not an outlier when it comes to overall crime:

Instead, the US appears to have more lethal violence — and that’s driven in large part by the prevalence of guns.

”A series of specific comparisons of the death rates from property crime and assault in New York City and London show how enormous differences in death risk can be explained even while general patterns are similar,” Zimring and Hawkins wrote. “A preference for crimes of personal force and the willingness and ability to use guns in robbery make similar levels of property crime 54 times as deadly in New York City as in London.”

This is in many ways intuitive: People of every country get into arguments and fights with friends, family, and peers. But in the US, it’s much more likely that someone will get angry at an argument and be able to pull out a gun and kill someone.​

Even without reading the actual science on this it's really fucking obvious that gun culture in America is why violent crime there is far in excess of norms in the West.

 

[realibrad]

Stop trying to argue about things you don't understand. The default for all actions is that they are legal unless prohibited. What people want or don't want is irrelevant.

Nice deflection. There literally had to be people that wanted it to cause the change. Nobody flipped the law because it was the right thing to do, but nobody wanted it.

It was interesting to see woolfe reach the same level of frustration with you that I did by the way, haha. It very much validated my decision to not engage with you when you are making transparently stupid arguments. I hope you learned something from this, although I'm nearly certain you did not.

That frustration came from the person not being able to understand things. It seems reasonable to think that you both would end up at the same place. The difference was that the person actually did talk with me and you can clearly see a shift in the discussion from the misunderstanding to being mostly in agreement and not being frustrated with the original issue.

But again, you misunderstood that too.

 

[fskimospy]

Nice deflection. There literally had to be people that wanted it to cause the change. Nobody flipped the law because it was the right thing to do, but nobody wanted it.

I'm sorry that you consider basic logic to be a deflection. Again I will suggest you don't talk about things you don't understand.

That frustration came from the person not being able to understand things. It seems reasonable to think that you both would end up at the same place. The difference was that the person actually did talk with me and you can clearly see a shift in the discussion from the misunderstanding to being mostly in agreement and not being frustrated with the original issue.

But again, you misunderstood that too.

Yes, it's clearly everyone not understanding your genius. lol.

 

[realibrad]

It's 100% the most effective way to reduce mass murder. To think otherwise is to wilfully be ignorant of the data and studies on this subject.

Vox - I’ve covered gun violence for years; the solutions aren’t a big mystery

Supporters of gun rights look at America’s high levels of gun violence and argue that guns are not the problem. They point to other issues, from violence in video games and movies to the breakdown of the traditional family.

Most recently, they’ve focused particularly on mental health. This is the only policy issue that Trump mentioned in his speech following the Florida shooting.

But as Dylan Matthews explained for Vox, people with mental illnesses are more likely to be victims, not perpetrators, of violence. And Michael Stone, a psychiatrist at Columbia University who maintains a database of mass shooters, wrote in a 2015 analysis that only 52 out of the 235 killers in the database, or about 22 percent, had mental illnesses. “The mentally ill should not bear the burden of being regarded as the ‘chief’ perpetrators of mass murder,” he concluded. Other research has backed this up.

The problem, instead, is guns — and America’s abundance of them.

As a breakthrough analysis by UC Berkeley’s Franklin Zimring and Gordon Hawkins in 1999 found, it’s not even that the US has more crime than other developed countries. This chart, from Jeffrey Swanson at Duke University, shows that the US is not an outlier when it comes to overall crime:

Instead, the US appears to have more lethal violence — and that’s driven in large part by the prevalence of guns.

”A series of specific comparisons of the death rates from property crime and assault in New York City and London show how enormous differences in death risk can be explained even while general patterns are similar,” Zimring and Hawkins wrote. “A preference for crimes of personal force and the willingness and ability to use guns in robbery make similar levels of property crime 54 times as deadly in New York City as in London.”

This is in many ways intuitive: People of every country get into arguments and fights with friends, family, and peers. But in the US, it’s much more likely that someone will get angry at an argument and be able to pull out a gun and kill someone.​

Even without reading the actual science on this it's really fucking obvious that gun culture in America is why violent crime there is far in excess of norms in the West.

So explain this?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3828709/

Results of Final Model for Significant Predictors of Age-Adjusted Firearm Homicide Rate: United States, 1981–2010
Gun ownership 1.009 (1.004, 1.014) .001 For each 1 percentage point increase in proportion of household gun ownership, firearm homicide rate increased by 0.9%

Percentage Black 1.052 (1.037, 1.068) .001 For each 1 percentage point increase in proportion of Black population, firearm homicide rate increased by 5.2%

Gini coefficient 1.046 (1.003, 1.092) .037 For each 0.01 increase in Gini coefficient, firearm homicide rate increased by 4.6%

Violent crime rate 1.048 (1.010, 1.087) .013 For each increase of 1/1000 in violent crime rate, firearm homicide rate increased by 4.8%

Nonviolent crime rate 1.008 (1.003, 1.013) .002 For each increase of 1/1000 in nonviolent crime rate, firearm homicide rate increased by 0.8%

Incarceration rate 0.995 (0.991, 0.999) .027 For each increase of 1/10 000 in incarceration rate, firearm homicide rate decreased by 0.5%

Results of Final Model for Significant Predictors of Age-Adjusted Firearm Homicide Rate, Using Standardized Predictor Variables: United States, 1981–2010
Gun ownership 1.129 (1.061, 1.201) .001 For each 1-SD increase in proportion of household gun ownership, firearm homicide rate increased by 12.9%

Percentage Black 1.828 (1.536, 2.176) .001 For each 1-SD increase in proportion of black population, firearm homicide rate increased by 82.8%

Gini coefficient 1.129 (1.007, 1.266) .037 For each 1-SD increase in Gini coefficient, firearm homicide rate increased by 12.9%

Violent crime rate 1.154 (1.031, 1.291) .013 For each 1-SD increase in violent crime rate, firearm homicide rate increased by 15.4%

Nonviolent crime rate 1.100 (1.036, 1.168) .002 For each 1-SD increase in nonviolent crime rate, firearm homicide rate increased by 10.0%

Incarceration rate 0.928 (0.868, 0.992) .027 For each 1-SD increase in incarceration rate, firearm homicide rate decreased by 7.8%.


Sure looks like we could get better results if we focused on other things. Weird right?

 

[realibrad]

I'm sorry that you consider basic logic to be a deflection. Again I will suggest you don't talk about things you don't understand.

Then explain where it breaks down. Why would anyone change a law that nobody cares about?

Yes, it's clearly everyone not understanding your genius. lol.

Except only a few disagree with me.

 

[yllus]

Ah I did some reading of other posts in this thread; I get you now realibrad, you're doing a faux scientific and faux caring about the problem thing while desperately avoiding any changes to the status quo. I'll step outta here since I've really no interest in convincing anyone not willing to accept reality.

 

[UNCjigga]

I heard today local police were called because pointed a gun at someones head on more then one occasion. He should have been arrested and had his guns taken away. Chance of Trump criticizing local police like he did the FBI?

Zero?
<Zero?
<<Zero?
Absolute Zero?

So I keep hearing about this "Baker Act" which was in effect in Florida and should've allowed authorities to seize the shooter's guns. But AFAIK the Baker Act only covers involuntary commitment to a mental health facility. Is there any law that would have allowed local authorities to seize weapons? Has law enforcement even been trained on how to Baker Act someone?

 

[realibrad]

Ah I did some reading of other posts in this thread; I get you now realibrad, you're doing a faux scientific and faux caring about the problem thing while desperately avoiding any changes to the status quo. I'll step outta here since I've really no interest in convincing anyone not willing to accept reality.

Oh, so you read the part where I support more gun control and regulation, which is literally changing the status quo? Wait, how did you read that, and then think I did not want change? You sure you read my posts?

 

[brandonbull]

Another pathetic loser with anger management problem and mental issues (Adam Lanza anyone?) and then the Fed (FBI) and local law enforcement agencies ignored repeating warnings of the loser - https://www.yahoo.com/gma/student-s...-him-sent-224804021--abc-news-topstories.html

Of course, a lot easier to blame those evil guns.

The "gun grabbers" on P&N want no part in hearing about how multiple levels of infrastructure failed to identify this kid and basically rendered gun laws/control null and void. Grabbing guns makes headlines and ratings. Telling people that we have a lot of hard work to correct our society that allows and ferments poisoned individuals to plan and carry out mass executions is not a headline maker.

 

[realibrad]

So I keep hearing about this "Baker Act" which was in effect in Florida and should've allowed authorities to seize the shooter's guns. But AFAIK the Baker Act only covers involuntary commitment to a mental health facility. Is there any law that would have allowed local authorities to seize weapons? Has law enforcement even been trained on how to Baker Act someone?

Baker Act allows for a psychological evaluation. If that person is deemed to be mentally unhealthy, they can be held and treated taking them away from their guns. It does not allow for taking away guns directly. If anyone thinks that they do not understand what it is.

 

[fskimospy]

Then explain where it breaks down. Why would anyone change a law that nobody cares about?

Except only a few disagree with me.

Laws that restrict people have to prove their usefulness, not the other way around. This is basic, basic stuff. I have no desire to descend into pedantry with you on this issue.

 

[brandonbull]

So I keep hearing about this "Baker Act" which was in effect in Florida and should've allowed authorities to seize the shooter's guns. But AFAIK the Baker Act only covers involuntary commitment to a mental health facility. Is there any law that would have allowed local authorities to seize weapons? Has law enforcement even been trained on how to Baker Act someone?

Looks like outside of a felony convictions, involuntary commitment, or age, they can't really seize or bar someone from owning a firearm in FL. I'll support expanded laws to remove firearms from people.