DEZOAT wrote:
Again Doors are lock to keep people from getting in but they not lock from getting out. So kids can get out with no problem. Its getting back in you have go to the front door where office is.

Mario wrote:

Spoiler:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:At the end of the day I don't blame people who don't care about school shootings enough to give up their guns. In the past 6 years since Sandy Hook there been 239 school shootings resulting in 138 deaths.

That *sounds* horrible, but by my quick maths/googling there's 77 million students in the USA, 56 million of which are between kindergarten and 12th grade. That's only 1 in every 2.4 million on a yearly basis.

Is it terrible when a kid dies? Of course. But I don't blame anyone for feeling it's not a big enough number to give up the right to own guns. Compare that to car accidents, which I believe is about 1000 dead kids a year, which rounds out to about 1 in 70k.

Can those people who don't care also add up the injured, permanently disabled, property damage (always a big one when protestors destroy a few windows and thrash can), mental trauma, and so on. How about the medical cost of it all and how it impacts the victims?

People also insist that guns are there for their own safety but burglaries and home invasions also only happen to a tiny number of househulds, that's why having a gun in the house is overall more dangerous than not having one. Because more accidents with guns happen in those houses than people get killed by invaders. Turn the argument around onto the whole self-defence and home protection argument and you could as well say that the 2nd amendment is not really needed because it only affects such a small number of people.

I'm really curious where everyone would put the number: At which point would it be worth considering doing something, besides: nothing at all and never? What's the number of injured/disabled/dead people (or percentage of the population), or overall damage to the GDP and other "externalities".

According to Wikipedia on 9/11 "2,996 people were killed (including 19 terrorists) and more than 6,000 others wounded" and that was enough for the USA to start a war (with even more civilian deaths), suspend civil liberties in interesting ways, add more and more invasive searches on airports and find creative ways to describe all of this as not conflicting with the constitution. Trillions of dollars for feel safe from terrorists while destabilising the middle east even more and fostering an breeding ground for more radicalisation.

What would be the number where people could look at other developed countries and maybe imagine that life is possible without so many guns and that those people over there are not living in some dystopian hellhole with a tyrant on top. That's a completely hypothetical question because we've already heard (in older threads) all the arguments about how nearly impossible it would be to get rid of the 2nd amendment.

People worry about (islamic) terrorism, which kills an even smaller amount of people in the US, and are willing to give up all kinds of rights to fight that (and spend billions). What's the number of gun deaths that would be needed concede that some gun rights restrictions might actually work?

Prestor Jon wrote:

Mario wrote:

Spoiler:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:At the end of the day I don't blame people who don't care about school shootings enough to give up their guns. In the past 6 years since Sandy Hook there been 239 school shootings resulting in 138 deaths.

That *sounds* horrible, but by my quick maths/googling there's 77 million students in the USA, 56 million of which are between kindergarten and 12th grade. That's only 1 in every 2.4 million on a yearly basis.

Is it terrible when a kid dies? Of course. But I don't blame anyone for feeling it's not a big enough number to give up the right to own guns. Compare that to car accidents, which I believe is about 1000 dead kids a year, which rounds out to about 1 in 70k.

Can those people who don't care also add up the injured, permanently disabled, property damage (always a big one when protestors destroy a few windows and thrash can), mental trauma, and so on. How about the medical cost of it all and how it impacts the victims?

People also insist that guns are there for their own safety but burglaries and home invasions also only happen to a tiny number of househulds, that's why having a gun in the house is overall more dangerous than not having one. Because more accidents with guns happen in those houses than people get killed by invaders. Turn the argument around onto the whole self-defence and home protection argument and you could as well say that the 2nd amendment is not really needed because it only affects such a small number of people.

I'm really curious where everyone would put the number: At which point would it be worth considering doing something, besides: nothing at all and never? What's the number of injured/disabled/dead people (or percentage of the population), or overall damage to the GDP and other "externalities".

According to Wikipedia on 9/11 "2,996 people were killed (including 19 terrorists) and more than 6,000 others wounded" and that was enough for the USA to start a war (with even more civilian deaths), suspend civil liberties in interesting ways, add more and more invasive searches on airports and find creative ways to describe all of this as not conflicting with the constitution. Trillions of dollars for feel safe from terrorists while destabilising the middle east even more and fostering an breeding ground for more radicalisation.

What would be the number where people could look at other developed countries and maybe imagine that life is possible without so many guns and that those people over there are not living in some dystopian hellhole with a tyrant on top. That's a completely hypothetical question because we've already heard (in older threads) all the arguments about how nearly impossible it would be to get rid of the 2nd amendment.

People worry about (islamic) terrorism, which kills an even smaller amount of people in the US, and are willing to give up all kinds of rights to fight that (and spend billions). What's the number of gun deaths that would be needed concede that some gun rights restrictions might actually work?

If additional Federal regulations on gun ownership that I thought were reasonable were proposed I’d support them regardless of the number of deaths attributed to gun violence. If extreme impractical unreasonable pie in the sky wishlisting is what is proposed then I’m not going to agree with it no matter the circumstances.

There isn’t a scenario that could happen that’s going to convince me that gun ownership is bad. I’m always going to support our 2A rights. There could be a shooting in the schools our kids go to, or if any or all of our kids died in a school shooting I’m not going to stop owning firearms and I’m not going to demand that my friends, neighbors and fellow citizens give up their guns either. I don’t understand this obsession with the people who aren’t the problem.

I’d also be happy if Congress repealed a good 90% or more of the Patriot Act but that’s just like my opinion man.

Prestor Jon wrote:
If additional Federal regulations on gun ownership that I thought were reasonable were proposed I’d support them regardless of the number of deaths attributed to gun violence. If extreme impractical unreasonable pie in the sky wishlisting is what is proposed then I’m not going to agree with it no matter the circumstances.

Prestor Jon wrote:
There could be a shooting in the schools our kids go to, or if any or all of our kids died in a school shooting I’m not going to stop owning firearms and I’m not going to demand that my friends, neighbors and fellow citizens give up their guns either. I don’t understand this obsession with the people who aren’t the problem.

 -Loki- wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:
There could be a shooting in the schools our kids go to, or if any or all of our kids died in a school shooting I’m not going to stop owning firearms and I’m not going to demand that my friends, neighbors and fellow citizens give up their guns either. I don’t understand this obsession with the people who aren’t the problem.

Wow.

 AdeptSister wrote:
The survivors are starting to get political:

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/02/parkland-shooting-teen-survivor-tweets-righteous-anger/553634/

Spoiler:

The Righteous Anger of the Parkland Shooting’s Teen Survivors
Students have mourned and rallied the public after the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High that left 17 dead.
ROBINSON MEYER

Something was different about the mass shooting this week in Parkland, Florida, in which 14 students and three adults were killed.
It was not only the death toll. The mass murder at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High became the deadliest high-school shooting in American history (edging out Columbine, which killed 13 in 1999).
What made Parkland different were the people who stepped forward to describe it. High-school students—the survivors of the calamity themselves—became the voice of the tragedy. Tweets that were widely reported as coming from the students expressed grief for the victims, pushed against false reports, and demanded accountability.

Javi @Javier_Lovera__
We are too young to be losing friends like this.
12:02 PM - Feb 15, 2018

On television, on social media, they were unignorable. Many of them called for legislation to address the violence.
“We are children. You guys are the adults. Work together, come over your politics, and get something done,” David Hogg, a student who survived the killing, told CNN.

Another student was more pithy:

mieke eoyang
✔@MiekeEoyang
OMG, teen from #MarjoryStonemanDouglas on @npr just now, “I’m not a Russian computer, so I can’t vote” but will push elected officials on gun control.
5:13 PM - Feb 16, 2018

As the death toll rose, survivors leapt into the debate. When President Trump tweeted his condolences to the victims, and then said that neighbors and classmates should always report “bad and erratic behavior ... to authorities,” one student responded directly to him:

She later deleted that tweet and said:

sarah // #NEVERAGAIN@sarahchad_
@realDonaldTrump hello I’m the 16 year old girl who tweeted you that I didn’t want your condolences, I wanted gun control, and went viral because of it. I heard you are coming to my community soon. I would love for you to hear my opinions on gun control in person.

- a survivor
1:46 PM - Feb 16, 2018

When the conservative pundit Tomi Lahren demanded that “the left ... let the families grieve for even 24 hours before they push their anti-gun and anti-gun-owner agenda,” the same survivors, who knew the victims, responded in kind:

kyra@longlivekcx
A gun has killed 17 of my fellow classmates. A gun has traumatized my friends. My entire school, traumatized from this tragedy. This could have been prevented. Please stfu tomi https://twitter.com/tomilahren/status/963978544295505922 …
12:48 AM - Feb 15, 2018


carly@car_nove
I was hiding in a closet for 2 hours. It was about guns. You weren't there, you don't know how it felt. Guns give these disgusting people the ability to kill other human beings. This IS about guns and this is about all the people who had their life abruptly ended because of guns. https://twitter.com/tomilahren/status/963978544295505922 …
8:00 AM - Feb 15, 2018


nikki@nikta04
it is actually about guns you witch from hell https://twitter.com/tomilahren/status/963978544295505922 …
8:02 AM - Feb 15, 2018

It all seems like a new phenomenon. After Sandy Hook, the victims’ parents became their de facto advocates, a role they still hold. And in the wake of a mass shootings that targets adults, usually victims’ husbands, wives, parents, or adult children speak for them. But this is the largest high-school shooting in the social-media age—so it centers on adolescents, who can discuss and understand the tragedy as adults but who are as blameless for it as children.

Of course, not all teens may get the same hearing. Stoneman Douglas is a mostly white school in a mostly upper-middle-class area. From John Hughes on down, the white suburban teenager is a cherished figure in American culture, and that may give their pleas heightened visibility—even, perhaps, across party lines. That’s not a cut against the Douglas kids at all, but merely a note that the press and the public may not regard all high schoolers rallying against gun violencewith the same seriousness.
It’s easy to look at the conversation over the past few days and conclude that teens must be getting savvier about the news. The televised political culture ofCrossfire and Meet the Press is basically Deep History for many of today’s high schoolers, who would likely cite the election of Barack Obama as one of their earliest historical memories.

The current cohort came to heightened political awareness during the 2016 election, meaning they have watched the logic of Twitter absorb the presidency while adopting and adjusting the language of Twitter—and Snapchat and Instagram—for themselves. They bicker about the intersectional politics of young-adult novels on Tumblr; they trade in a constantly shifting visual culture of memes and half-remembered Vines.

Their lives have been drenched in media, and they have made much of that media themselves. They are used to telling their story. And when their story suffered a catastrophe, they told it.
But media savvy alone doesn’t explain what the kids have done. Hogg, the Douglas student who talked to CNN, is also a student journalist. With keen reportorial instinct, he interviewed his fellow students while the shooting was taking place—in a closet, in a classroom, while the school remained on lockdown. In the brief video he captured, a female student whose name was not given appeared to see the shooting as a political event—even before it ended.
“I don’t really think there’s anything new to say, but there shouldn’t have to be,”she told Hogg. “Because if you looked around this closet and saw everyone just hiding together, you would know that this shouldn’t be happening anymore, and that it doesn’t deserve to happen to anyone.”
This is what astonished and confronted me while watching Stoneman Douglas High’s speakers for the dead. Even as the shooting was happening, many of them talked about it not as an inexplicable catastrophe, not as an unforeseeable tragedy, but as something that just happens. A car crash, not an earthquake. It was something they had trained for, something they had perhaps visualized in their head once or twice before. And since it was almost normal, it was preventable—and thus political.
Those students understand that they live in a country that they have very little power to change—a country where, several times a year, a school for children becomes a charnel house. So when that hideous transformation struck their school, they already knew what they wanted to do. That girl in the closet, talking to her classmate, anticipated the next several days of talking points without knowing whether she would get to see those days at all. These assorted Florida teenagers knew the contours of the gun debate so well that they were rebutting NRA talking points just after emerging from their safe zones. Now, a few days later, their insistence on their own authority has gummed up the works of the otherwise clichéd national debate. Their calls for action may not lead to any imminent change in policy. But they have given the country a striking symbol of what—and who—we’re really talking about when we have these debates. And they will not be the last victims to face a loaded assault rifle and think: This is preventable. I must politicize this.

Which is a tragedy. Even as they endure the restrictions of childhood, these high schoolers have adopted the frustrated and realist politics of adults. And it’s clear that was true before the first shot went off, before the first ambulance arrived, before the first newspaper listed their friends on its front page. They are teenagers in the United States in 2018, which means that they have been preconditioned to grow up fast.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/02/florida-shooting-survivor-emma-gonzalez-to-trump-we-call-bs.html?via=recirc_recent

Spoiler:

Florida Shooting Survivor Emma Gonzalez to Trump: “We Call BS”
By MATTHEW DESSEM

Emma Gonzalez, a senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School who survived Wednesday’s mass shooting, gave a blistering speech at an anti-gun rally on Saturday about the politicians complicit in the murder of her classmates. It was yet another reminder that the teenagers and children who grew up in the shadow of school shootings (and the 150,000 who survived one) are more practical—and less tolerant of empty rhetoric—than the adults who are supposed to protect them. Gonzalez had no use for crocodile tears from President Trump, who was in Florida on Friday to offer his condolences (and, reportedly, to drop by a Studio 54 theme party at Mar-a-Lago):

If the president wants to come up to me and tell me to my face that it was a terrible tragedy, and how it should never have happened, and maintain telling us how nothing is going to be done about it, I’m going to happily ask him how much money he received from the National Rifle Association. But hey, you want to know something? It doesn’t matter, because I already know: $30 million. … To every politician who is taking donations from the NRA, shame on you!

Gonzalez’s grief and righteous fury electrified the crowd, which broke into chants of “Shame on you.” She was especially incensed at Trump’s attempts to attribute the shooting to mental illness, given that the president specifically acted to make it easier for mentally ill people to purchase guns:

In February of 2017, one year ago, President Trump repealed an Obama-era regulation that would have made it easier to block the sale of firearms to people with certain mental illnesses. … I don’t need to be a psychologist to know that repealing that regulation was a really dumb idea. Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa was the sole sponsor of this bill to stop the FBI from performing background checks on people adjudicated to be mentally ill, and now he’s stating for the record, “Well, it’s a shame that the FBI isn’t doing background checks on these mentally ill people.” Well, duh: You took that opportunity away last year! The people in government who we voted into power are lying to us. And us kids seem to be the only ones who notice and are prepared to call BS.

Gonzalez then led the crowd in a spirited call and response, running through a pretty comprehensive list of lies and excuses from the gun lobby and their lackeys.

Companies trying to make caricatures of the teenagers nowadays, saying that all we are is self-involved and trend-obsessed, and hushing us into submission when our message doesn’t reach the ears of the nation? We are prepared to call BS!
Politicians who sit in their gilded House and Senate seats funded by the NRA, telling us nothing could have ever been done to prevent this: We call BS!
They say that tougher gun laws do not decrease gun violence: We call BS!
They say a good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun: We call BS!
They say guns are just tools like knives and are as dangerous as cars: We call BS!
They say that no laws could have been able to prevent the hundreds of senseless tragedies that have occurred: We call BS!
That us kids don’t know what we’re talking about, that we’re too young to understand how the government works: We call BS!

It’s easy for adults to use a speech like this as an excuse for complacency: Any version of “the kids will save us” that doesn’t end with “from the gun-loving death cult we tolerated and nurtured for decades and thus bear special responsibility for confronting,” is, well, BS. But it’s heartening to see that the old lies aren’t working.

Brandon Minoff, a student at a Florida high school shooting on Wednesday, was interviewed by MSNBC's Brian Williams from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Williams asked the kid what he would do about school shooting if he were a lawmaker.

Minoff instantly replied, "gun-wise, I don't think there's any way to prevent it. You outlaw guns, just creates higher demand for it."

"So what was your reaction when you heard that it was him?" Williams asked.

"I wasn't surprised, but it was kind of unfortunate to hear," the high school senior answered.

"If you were a lawmaker, an adult in a decision-making position, how would you stop, do you think, the kind of thing that happened today? A kid who had been thrown out, comes back with a weapon, and takes out whatever grievance he's been walking around with in his head?" Williams asked.

"Gun-wise, I don't think there's any way to prevent it," Minoff said. "You outlaw guns, just creates higher demand for it."

"I think it has to do with mental health, though," he said. "If he's been expelled three different times, from three different schools, I think he should be helped out."

 CptJake wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 CptJake wrote:

sirlynchmob wrote:

people are willing to go to war, killing more people to protect their guns, yet will do absolutely nothing and even argue againt doing anything to save children.

sure it's easy to pick apary my idea, but I also noticed no one answered my question directly, but they answered none the less. their guns mean more than the lives of children and thus I hold all gun owners as being complicit in all school shootings.

I hold you and your ilk as complacent in every school shooting because you put these poor kids into environments where there are few people trained and equipped to protect them.

There was an armed deputy on the compass at the Florida shooting. He purportedly had said he never actually encountered the shooter.

The idea that you need to have armed security guards in school is ridiculous.

Look at Israeli schools...

I can't tell whether or not your original post was meant to be sarcastic/snarky, but if it was meant to be serious and you think this is legitimately a compelling argument...you're wrong on so many levels.

Only 1 guard? Makes my point there were few (in this case exactly 1) people trained and equipped, doesn't it.

And my point is exactly as serious as sirlynchmob blaming all gun owners for each school shooting. If folks like him didn't force our kids into unsafe environments it wouldn't be an issue.

Relapse wrote:

Mario wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:At the end of the day I don't blame people who don't care about school shootings enough to give up their guns. In the past 6 years since Sandy Hook there been 239 school shootings resulting in 138 deaths.

That *sounds* horrible, but by my quick maths/googling there's 77 million students in the USA, 56 million of which are between kindergarten and 12th grade. That's only 1 in every 2.4 million on a yearly basis.

Is it terrible when a kid dies? Of course. But I don't blame anyone for feeling it's not a big enough number to give up the right to own guns. Compare that to car accidents, which I believe is about 1000 dead kids a year, which rounds out to about 1 in 70k.

Can those people who don't care also add up the injured, permanently disabled, property damage (always a big one when protestors destroy a few windows and thrash can), mental trauma, and so on. How about the medical cost of it all and how it impacts the victims?

People also insist that guns are there for their own safety but burglaries and home invasions also only happen to a tiny number of househulds, that's why having a gun in the house is overall more dangerous than not having one. Because more accidents with guns happen in those houses than people get killed by invaders. Turn the argument around onto the whole self-defence and home protection argument and you could as well say that the 2nd amendment is not really needed because it only affects such a small number of people.

I'm really curious where everyone would put the number: At which point would it be worth considering doing something, besides: nothing at all and never? What's the number of injured/disabled/dead people (or percentage of the population), or overall damage to the GDP and other "externalities".

According to Wikipedia on 9/11 "2,996 people were killed (including 19 terrorists) and more than 6,000 others wounded" and that was enough for the USA to start a war (with even more civilian deaths), suspend civil liberties in interesting ways, add more and more invasive searches on airports and find creative ways to describe all of this as not conflicting with the constitution. Trillions of dollars for feel safe from terrorists while destabilising the middle east even more and fostering an breeding ground for more radicalisation.

What would be the number where people could look at other developed countries and maybe imagine that life is possible without so many guns and that those people over there are not living in some dystopian hellhole with a tyrant on top. That's a completely hypothetical question because we've already heard (in older threads) all the arguments about how nearly impossible it would be to get rid of the 2nd amendment.

People worry about (islamic) terrorism, which kills an even smaller amount of people in the US, and are willing to give up all kinds of rights to fight that (and spend billions). What's the number of gun deaths that would be needed concede that some gun rights restrictions might actually work?

According to the CDC, 88,000 people a year die from alcohol related causes. About 11,000 of these are from drunk drivers, which is just about the number of people killed in gun related crime. 2 out of three domestic abuse cases are alcohol related, and when you add in divorces, physical and mental debilities cased by alcohol along with job loss and other miscellaneous problems, gun violence is pretty much dwarfed.
Why is it then that the news media harps on about guns and pretty much by comparison ignores alcohol?

sirlynchmob wrote:

Spoiler:

Relapse wrote:

Mario wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:At the end of the day I don't blame people who don't care about school shootings enough to give up their guns. In the past 6 years since Sandy Hook there been 239 school shootings resulting in 138 deaths.

That *sounds* horrible, but by my quick maths/googling there's 77 million students in the USA, 56 million of which are between kindergarten and 12th grade. That's only 1 in every 2.4 million on a yearly basis.

Is it terrible when a kid dies? Of course. But I don't blame anyone for feeling it's not a big enough number to give up the right to own guns. Compare that to car accidents, which I believe is about 1000 dead kids a year, which rounds out to about 1 in 70k.

Can those people who don't care also add up the injured, permanently disabled, property damage (always a big one when protestors destroy a few windows and thrash can), mental trauma, and so on. How about the medical cost of it all and how it impacts the victims?

People also insist that guns are there for their own safety but burglaries and home invasions also only happen to a tiny number of househulds, that's why having a gun in the house is overall more dangerous than not having one. Because more accidents with guns happen in those houses than people get killed by invaders. Turn the argument around onto the whole self-defence and home protection argument and you could as well say that the 2nd amendment is not really needed because it only affects such a small number of people.

I'm really curious where everyone would put the number: At which point would it be worth considering doing something, besides: nothing at all and never? What's the number of injured/disabled/dead people (or percentage of the population), or overall damage to the GDP and other "externalities".

According to Wikipedia on 9/11 "2,996 people were killed (including 19 terrorists) and more than 6,000 others wounded" and that was enough for the USA to start a war (with even more civilian deaths), suspend civil liberties in interesting ways, add more and more invasive searches on airports and find creative ways to describe all of this as not conflicting with the constitution. Trillions of dollars for feel safe from terrorists while destabilising the middle east even more and fostering an breeding ground for more radicalisation.

What would be the number where people could look at other developed countries and maybe imagine that life is possible without so many guns and that those people over there are not living in some dystopian hellhole with a tyrant on top. That's a completely hypothetical question because we've already heard (in older threads) all the arguments about how nearly impossible it would be to get rid of the 2nd amendment.

People worry about (islamic) terrorism, which kills an even smaller amount of people in the US, and are willing to give up all kinds of rights to fight that (and spend billions). What's the number of gun deaths that would be needed concede that some gun rights restrictions might actually work?

According to the CDC, 88,000 people a year die from alcohol related causes. About 11,000 of these are from drunk drivers, which is just about the number of people killed in gun related crime. 2 out of three domestic abuse cases are alcohol related, and when you add in divorces, physical and mental debilities cased by alcohol along with job loss and other miscellaneous problems, gun violence is pretty much dwarfed.
Why is it then that the news media harps on about guns and pretty much by comparison ignores alcohol?

Prestor Jon wrote:

Mario wrote:

Spoiler:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:At the end of the day I don't blame people who don't care about school shootings enough to give up their guns. In the past 6 years since Sandy Hook there been 239 school shootings resulting in 138 deaths.

That *sounds* horrible, but by my quick maths/googling there's 77 million students in the USA, 56 million of which are between kindergarten and 12th grade. That's only 1 in every 2.4 million on a yearly basis.

Is it terrible when a kid dies? Of course. But I don't blame anyone for feeling it's not a big enough number to give up the right to own guns. Compare that to car accidents, which I believe is about 1000 dead kids a year, which rounds out to about 1 in 70k.

Can those people who don't care also add up the injured, permanently disabled, property damage (always a big one when protestors destroy a few windows and thrash can), mental trauma, and so on. How about the medical cost of it all and how it impacts the victims?

People also insist that guns are there for their own safety but burglaries and home invasions also only happen to a tiny number of househulds, that's why having a gun in the house is overall more dangerous than not having one. Because more accidents with guns happen in those houses than people get killed by invaders. Turn the argument around onto the whole self-defence and home protection argument and you could as well say that the 2nd amendment is not really needed because it only affects such a small number of people.

I'm really curious where everyone would put the number: At which point would it be worth considering doing something, besides: nothing at all and never? What's the number of injured/disabled/dead people (or percentage of the population), or overall damage to the GDP and other "externalities".

According to Wikipedia on 9/11 "2,996 people were killed (including 19 terrorists) and more than 6,000 others wounded" and that was enough for the USA to start a war (with even more civilian deaths), suspend civil liberties in interesting ways, add more and more invasive searches on airports and find creative ways to describe all of this as not conflicting with the constitution. Trillions of dollars for feel safe from terrorists while destabilising the middle east even more and fostering an breeding ground for more radicalisation.

What would be the number where people could look at other developed countries and maybe imagine that life is possible without so many guns and that those people over there are not living in some dystopian hellhole with a tyrant on top. That's a completely hypothetical question because we've already heard (in older threads) all the arguments about how nearly impossible it would be to get rid of the 2nd amendment.

People worry about (islamic) terrorism, which kills an even smaller amount of people in the US, and are willing to give up all kinds of rights to fight that (and spend billions). What's the number of gun deaths that would be needed concede that some gun rights restrictions might actually work?

If additional Federal regulations on gun ownership that I thought were reasonable were proposed I’d support them regardless of the number of deaths attributed to gun violence. If extreme impractical unreasonable pie in the sky wishlisting is what is proposed then I’m not going to agree with it no matter the circumstances.

There isn’t a scenario that could happen that’s going to convince me that gun ownership is bad. I’m always going to support our 2A rights. There could be a shooting in the schools our kids go to, or if any or all of our kids died in a school shooting I’m not going to stop owning firearms and I’m not going to demand that my friends, neighbors and fellow citizens give up their guns either. I don’t understand this obsession with the people who aren’t the problem.

I’d also be happy if Congress repealed a good 90% or more of the Patriot Act but that’s just like my opinion man.

 Ouze wrote:
Thoughts and prayers, obviously.

 Breotan wrote:
Feth like this NEVER happened when I was growing up.

Yes it did. It was less common, and you were less aware of it because 24 hour news didn't report it in realtime, but there have been school shootings in this country since the 1800s. If you're 42, then there have been about 85 school shootings from when you were born until you turned 18.

Mitochondria wrote:
All of those measures are rife with opportunities for someone to have their civil rights trampled.

Sheesh, even having a registration list is asking for it to be abused.

I do think it is nice that some people are asking for a thread lock when no one breaking any rules or being rude.

Guns and gun ownership are not the problem.

We are all living in the safest time period ever in recorded history.

Resorting to hysterics will not change that.

As gunshots echoed through the high school, a geography teacher, Scott Beigel, 35, paused to usher stragglers into his classroom before locking the door, only to be shot and killed himself as the shooter strode by.

A parent, Jennifer Zeif, credited Mr. Beigel for saving her son’s life. Her son, Matthew, 14, had been the last one to slip inside the class, just ahead of Mr. Beigel. Seconds later, the room filled with a smoky haze, Matthew said, and he turned to see his teacher lying near the door, pale and bleeding.

“Mr. Beigel could have passed Matthew up and gone in the classroom first,” Ms. Zeif said. “In that case, Matthew would have been the one in the doorway.”

On Thursday, as officials identified 17 people killed in the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., some of the victims, like Mr. Beigel, were remembered for having tried to spare others in the moments of chaos that unfolded inside the school.
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Scott Beigel.

Aaron Feis, a popular football coach who was killed, also had tried to protect students, officials said. “He was that kind of guy,” said Jack Fris, a former football player at the school.

Friends said they were not surprised that Mr. Beigel, a much-beloved figure at a Pennsylvania summer camp that he attended and later helped to run, had put his students’ safety above his own.

“Thousands of people at Camp Starlight looked up to Scott,” said Grant Williams, 33, an emergency room nurse who worked with Mr. Beigel at the camp for several summers and was mourning long-distance with former camp counselors and campers on Thursday. “He was someone you strive to be like,” said another former Starlight counselor.

At the Florida high school, teachers and students were among the dead. There was a soccer player, a student nicknamed Guac and a trombonist in the marching band. Eight of the victims were girls and young women; nine were boys and men. They ranged from 14 years old to 49.

These are some of their stories.
Alyssa Alhadeff
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Alyssa Alhadeff.

Alyssa Alhadeff, 14, had played competitive soccer since she was 3 years old. Like any athlete, she had her ups and downs. But when her club, Parkland, faced off against the rival team from Coral Springs on Feb. 13, she was at the top of her game.

“Her passing was on, her shooting was on, her decision-making was on,” her mother, Lori Alhadeff, recalled. With her outgoing personality, Alyssa had a wide circle of friends at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. She placed first in a debate tournament, was taking Algebra 2 and Spanish 3, and was honing her skills as an attacking midfielder. The score at what was to be her last time on the soccer field was 1-0, Parkland.

“I was so proud of her,” her mother said. “I told her it was the best game of her life.”
Martin Duque Anguiano
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Martin Duque Anguiano.

Martin Duque Anguiano, a 14-year-old freshman, was “a very funny kid, outgoing and sometimes really quiet,” his brother, Miguel Duque, wrote on a GoFundMe page for funeral expenses.

“He was sweet and caring and loved by all his family,” Miguel wrote. “Most of all he was my baby brother.”
Nicholas Dworet

Nicholas Dworet, a promising high school swimmer, took a recruiting visit to the University of Indianapolis a few weeks ago. After a group dinner, he pulled the coach aside and said he wanted to compete there after he graduated this spring.

“He was an instant part of our family,” said Jason Hite, the university’s swim coach. Mr. Hite said Nicholas, 17, had received an academic scholarship and planned to study physical therapy.
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Nicholas Dworet. Credit via Reuters

University officials and a youth swim team in Florida said Nicholas was among those killed on Wednesday. A post on the Facebook page for TS Aquatics, the Florida club where he swam, described Nicholas as an amazing person who had been “on a major upswing in his life.”

Nicholas had improved academically and athletically since starting high school, Mr. Hite said, and his mentors in Florida “felt like the best was still to come for him.”

“We were going to continue to groom him to be a future leader for our team,” Mr. Hite said.

Mr. Hite said he sent Nicholas a text message on Wednesday afternoon after hearing about the shooting at his school. He got no response.

“The saddest thing to me is how much life this kid had and how hard he had worked to change directions and change paths,” Mr. Hite said. “He was really going in the right direction and he had really created some opportunities for himself.”
Aaron Feis
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Aaron Feis.

At Stoneman Douglas, Mr. Feis was known to all — an assistant football coach and a security monitor. But he too had graduated from the school, played on the football team, and knew exactly what it was like to be a student in these halls.

So he was seen as someone who looked out for students who got in trouble, those who were struggling, those without fathers at home. “They said he was like another father,” Mr. Feis’s grandfather, Raymond, recalled. “He’d go out of his way to help anybody.”

School officials said that Mr. Feis, 37, did the same on Wednesday. When there were signs of trouble, they said, he responded immediately to help. “When Aaron Feis died, when he was killed — tragically, inhumanely — he did it protecting others; you can guarantee that,” said Scott Israel, the sheriff of Broward County.

“I don’t know when Aaron’s funeral is,” Sheriff Israel said. “I don’t know how many adults are going to go, but you’ll get 2,000 kids there.”

In Parkland, Austin Lazar, a student, recalled his former coach as cheery and selfless. “He always put everybody before himself.”

Mr. Feis was married, his family said, and had a daughter, Arielle.
Jaime Guttenberg
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Jaime Guttenberg. Credit via Associated Press

Jaime Guttenberg, 14, danced nonstop. Sometimes she went on for hours, her aunt, Ellyn Guttenberg, said. Jaime was warm, too, always taking Ms. Guttenberg’s son, who has special needs, under her wing.

Jaime’s Facebook page, now memorialized, shows photos of her dancing, hanging out with friends, enjoying the beach and snuggling a dog.

Her father, Fred Guttenberg, posted this on Facebook: “I am broken as I write this trying to figure out how my family gets through this.”
Christopher Hixon
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Christopher Hixon. Credit Susan Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel

Christopher Hixon, 49, the school’s athletic director, was a well-known figure in Florida high school sports. One man, Jose Roman, posted on social media that Mr. Hixon was “a great coach and an awesome motivator” when he was a freshman athlete years ago.

Mr. Hixon was named athletic director of the year in 2017 by the Broward County Athletics Association.
Luke Hoyer
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Luke Hoyer.

Luke Hoyer, 15, spent last Christmas with his extended family in South Carolina, where he bowled, joined in a big holiday meal and swapped stories with relatives.

A cousin, Grant Cox, who was at the Christmas gathering said the family had been told by the police that Luke, a freshman at Stoneman Douglas, was among those killed on Wednesday.

Mr. Cox said Luke was a basketball player who was ambitious about the sport and admired N.B.A. stars like LeBron James and Stephen Curry.

“I know Luke loved his family,” Mr. Cox said. “I know he did. He had a huge heart.”

“He was quiet, but a very happy individual,” he said.
Cara Loughran
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Cara Loughran

Cara Loughran, 14, loved the beach. She adored her cousins. And she was an excellent student, her family said.

“We are absolutely gutted,” by her death, her aunt, Lindsay Fontana, wrote in a Facebook post. “While your thoughts are appreciated, I beg you to DO SOMETHING. This should not have happened to our niece Cara and it cannot happen to other people’s families.”
Gina Montalto

Gina Montalto, 14, was identified in local news accounts as a member of her school’s winter color guard team.
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Gina Montalto. Credit via Associated Press

Andy Mroczek, who has worked as a choreographer at Stoneman Douglas, posted a tribute to Gina on Facebook. “We lost a beautiful soul tonight,” he wrote.
Joaquin Oliver
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Joaquin Oliver.

People often spelled Joaquin Oliver’s first name wrong, so he went with a snappy nickname: Guac.

He played basketball in the city recreational league — his jersey number was 2 — and he loved to write, filling a notebook with poetry, said Julien Decoste, a close friend of Joaquin’s and a fellow senior at Stoneman Douglas.

“Guac and I always wanted to graduate together and prove everyone wrong, that we would be successful together,” Julien said.

On Tuesday, Joaquin, 17, asked Julien to help out at his next basketball game, which was scheduled for Thursday.

“I’ll be there,” Julien texted his friend. “Good looks brotha,” Joaquin responded.

On Wednesday, as he hid inside a closet during the shooting, Julien texted Joaquin to check in.

“You good?” Julien texted. “Bro I need you to answer me please.”
Alaina Petty
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Alaina Petty.

Alaina Petty, 14, had helped do cleanup work in Florida after Hurricane Irma, her family said in a statement, and she was an active member of a volunteer group with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

“Her selfless service brought peace and joy to those that had lost everything during the storm,” the family’s statement said. “While we will not have the opportunity to watch her grow up and become the amazing woman we know she would become, we are keeping an eternal perspective.”

Alaina was also a member of the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps, her family said.
Meadow Pollack
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Meadow Pollack.

Meadow Pollack, 18, was a senior at the high school who was planning to go to Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla., next year, according to her father, Andrew Pollack, who said his daughter was among the dead.

“She was just unbelievable,” Mr. Pollack said. “She was a very strong-willed young girl who had everything going for her.”

Mr. Pollack described his daughter as smart, beautiful and caring. She worked at her boyfriend’s family’s motorcycle repair business.

“She just knew how to get what she wanted all the time,” Mr. Pollack said. “Nothing could ever stop her from what she wanted to achieve.”
Helena Ramsay
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Helena Ramsay.

Helena Ramsay, 17, was smart, kindhearted and thoughtful, her relative, Curtis Page, wrote on Facebook.

“Though she was somewhat reserved, she had a relentless motivation towards her academic studies, and her soft warm demeanor brought the best out in all who knew her,” he said, later adding: “She would have started college next year.”
Alex Schachter
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Alex Schachter.

Alex Schachter, 14, played the trombone in the Stoneman Douglas marching band, and was proud to have participated in winning a state championship last year. A freshman at the high school, he often played basketball with friends and was “a sweetheart of a kid,” his father, Max Schachter, said. Earlier this week, the two had discussed which classes Alex would take next semester.

Mr. Schachter said Alex had loved his mother, who died when he was five years old. His older brother also attends Stoneman Douglas and survived the shooting. Alex “just wanted to do well and make his parents happy,” his father said.
Carmen Schentrup
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Carmen Schentrup

Carmen Schentrup, a 2018 National Merit Scholarship semifinalist, was the smartest 16-year-old that her cousin, Matt Brandow, had ever met, he said in a Facebook post.

“I’m in a daze right now,” he wrote.
Peter Wang
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Peter Wang.

Peter Wang, 15, a freshman, helped his cousin, Aaron Chen, adjust when he settled in Florida.

“He was always so nice and so generous,” Aaron, 16, said, adding that even though Peter was younger he had worked to be sure Aaron didn’t get bullied when he first arrived.

Peter was last seen in his gray uniform for the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps, or J.R.O.T.C., on Wednesday. On Thursday, Aaron and another cousin said the authorities had informed the family that Peter was among those killed in the shooting.

“He was the kid in school who would be friends with anyone,” said the other cousin, Lin Chen, 24. “He didn’t care about popularity.”

statistically insignificant.

Then right on to the appeal to emotion. Bravo sir.

The killer was caught, he will be punished. That is justice.

sirlynchmob wrote:

Relapse wrote:

Mario wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:At the end of the day I don't blame people who don't care about school shootings enough to give up their guns. In the past 6 years since Sandy Hook there been 239 school shootings resulting in 138 deaths.

That *sounds* horrible, but by my quick maths/googling there's 77 million students in the USA, 56 million of which are between kindergarten and 12th grade. That's only 1 in every 2.4 million on a yearly basis.

Is it terrible when a kid dies? Of course. But I don't blame anyone for feeling it's not a big enough number to give up the right to own guns. Compare that to car accidents, which I believe is about 1000 dead kids a year, which rounds out to about 1 in 70k.

Can those people who don't care also add up the injured, permanently disabled, property damage (always a big one when protestors destroy a few windows and thrash can), mental trauma, and so on. How about the medical cost of it all and how it impacts the victims?

People also insist that guns are there for their own safety but burglaries and home invasions also only happen to a tiny number of househulds, that's why having a gun in the house is overall more dangerous than not having one. Because more accidents with guns happen in those houses than people get killed by invaders. Turn the argument around onto the whole self-defence and home protection argument and you could as well say that the 2nd amendment is not really needed because it only affects such a small number of people.

I'm really curious where everyone would put the number: At which point would it be worth considering doing something, besides: nothing at all and never? What's the number of injured/disabled/dead people (or percentage of the population), or overall damage to the GDP and other "externalities".

According to Wikipedia on 9/11 "2,996 people were killed (including 19 terrorists) and more than 6,000 others wounded" and that was enough for the USA to start a war (with even more civilian deaths), suspend civil liberties in interesting ways, add more and more invasive searches on airports and find creative ways to describe all of this as not conflicting with the constitution. Trillions of dollars for feel safe from terrorists while destabilising the middle east even more and fostering an breeding ground for more radicalisation.

What would be the number where people could look at other developed countries and maybe imagine that life is possible without so many guns and that those people over there are not living in some dystopian hellhole with a tyrant on top. That's a completely hypothetical question because we've already heard (in older threads) all the arguments about how nearly impossible it would be to get rid of the 2nd amendment.

People worry about (islamic) terrorism, which kills an even smaller amount of people in the US, and are willing to give up all kinds of rights to fight that (and spend billions). What's the number of gun deaths that would be needed concede that some gun rights restrictions might actually work?

According to the CDC, 88,000 people a year die from alcohol related causes. About 11,000 of these are from drunk drivers, which is just about the number of people killed in gun related crime. 2 out of three domestic abuse cases are alcohol related, and when you add in divorces, physical and mental debilities cased by alcohol along with job loss and other miscellaneous problems, gun violence is pretty much dwarfed.
Why is it then that the news media harps on about guns and pretty much by comparison ignores alcohol?

Who's ignoring the alchohol? new laws are still being passed and car fatalities are trending downwards because of it. the newest law to be passed is if your bartender lets you drive off knowing you're drunk, he's also liable. gun related crimes relate to 30,000 deaths yearly, and no one adds in all the accidental shootings that just wound someone which comes in at 80,000 a year.

people who commit domestic abuse are also magnitudes more likely to kill their partner, hence why they need to be stripped of their guns. Guns and alcohol don't mix, we put breathalysers on cars to keep them from starting, we should take the guns away from people arresting for alcohol related crimes as well.

But Americas is a large country, they can tackle more than one issue at a time, they research diseases that only affect 1 person after all, yet for some reason those who are pro gun sales also tend to be against studies into gun related issues.

Mitochondria wrote:
All of those measures are rife with opportunities for someone to have their civil rights trampled.

Sheesh, even having a registration list is asking for it to be abused.

 Dreadwinter wrote:

Mitochondria wrote:
All of those measures are rife with opportunities for someone to have their civil rights trampled.

Sheesh, even having a registration list is asking for it to be abused.

Explain how being on a list can be abused. I am on many governments lists. Registration for my vehicle, voting registration, licenses and certificates.

At what point does the abuse begin?

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:

Mitochondria wrote:
All of those measures are rife with opportunities for someone to have their civil rights trampled.

Sheesh, even having a registration list is asking for it to be abused.

Explain how being on a list can be abused. I am on many governments lists. Registration for my vehicle, voting registration, licenses and certificates.

At what point does the abuse begin?

A while ago, and it sparked outrage.

https://www.cnn.com/2012/12/25/us/new-york-gun-permit-map/index.html

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:

Mitochondria wrote:
All of those measures are rife with opportunities for someone to have their civil rights trampled.

Sheesh, even having a registration list is asking for it to be abused.

Explain how being on a list can be abused. I am on many governments lists. Registration for my vehicle, voting registration, licenses and certificates.

At what point does the abuse begin?

A while ago, and it sparked outrage.

https://www.cnn.com/2012/12/25/us/new-york-gun-permit-map/index.html

 Dreadwinter wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:

Mitochondria wrote:
All of those measures are rife with opportunities for someone to have their civil rights trampled.

Sheesh, even having a registration list is asking for it to be abused.

Explain how being on a list can be abused. I am on many governments lists. Registration for my vehicle, voting registration, licenses and certificates.

At what point does the abuse begin?

A while ago, and it sparked outrage.

https://www.cnn.com/2012/12/25/us/new-york-gun-permit-map/index.html

An outside source being idiots has what to do with the government abusing lists?

Relapse wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:

Mitochondria wrote:
All of those measures are rife with opportunities for someone to have their civil rights trampled.

Sheesh, even having a registration list is asking for it to be abused.

Explain how being on a list can be abused. I am on many governments lists. Registration for my vehicle, voting registration, licenses and certificates.

At what point does the abuse begin?

A while ago, and it sparked outrage.

https://www.cnn.com/2012/12/25/us/new-york-gun-permit-map/index.html

An outside source being idiots has what to do with the government abusing lists?

Perhaps because the government had a list put together that ended up making people targets, regardless of who misused it? It's not really hard to see that.

Relapse wrote:
Perhaps because the government had a list put together that ended up making people targets, regardless of who misused it? It's not really hard to see that.

 LordofHats wrote:


That's an issue of implementation, not of existence. It's not really hard to see that.

Relapse wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:

Mitochondria wrote:
All of those measures are rife with opportunities for someone to have their civil rights trampled.

Sheesh, even having a registration list is asking for it to be abused.

Explain how being on a list can be abused. I am on many governments lists. Registration for my vehicle, voting registration, licenses and certificates.

At what point does the abuse begin?

A while ago, and it sparked outrage.

https://www.cnn.com/2012/12/25/us/new-york-gun-permit-map/index.html

An outside source being idiots has what to do with the government abusing lists?

Perhaps because the government had a list put together that ended up making people targets, regardless of who misused it? It's not really hard to see that.