Ok, so now for a reality check:

Based on real world experience, if you allow everyone to arm themselves, then the threat will escalate. Instead of using a firearm, Mr. Psycho will switch from a directed attack to something with an area effect, such as a car bomb. These are impossible to detect, impossible to stop, and relatively potent for mass killing. Let me repeat myself from yesterday; Baghdad is under Martial law, we have hundreds of thousands patrolling that city continuously, and yet almost daily we have multiple suicide attacks killing at least as many as died at Virgina Tech, this amongst a well armed population as well. I've driven through the streets of Baghdad and through the markets and the number of civilians openly carrying automatic firearms is astonishing. You see cops and soldiers in almost any direction you look, and yet still the bombings continue. There's no reason to think that it would be any different here, so changing the defensive posture of the populace will only force the insane to alter their M.O.

That said, I think the element of surprise is something to be capitalized on. It is one thing for a would be gunman to know he is likely going to face an armed and able crowd, quite another for him to attempt ambush and receive unexpected return fire at point blank. Thus, given that a lot of schools out there have not instituted mandatory searches yet, my recommendation would be to pack heat to class anyways, and be prepared to use it, and don't let other idiots attempt to impede your objective of self-defense.

I still accept that firearms possession by the law abiding public is a fundamental right. However, I would not want to compel or encourage individuals who are not pro-active about the use of lethal force in a self defense situation into carrying a firearm on their person or where it can be easily deployed. Right now I would say that the majority of our citizenry has no business carrying a firearm with the intent to use it for self defense, as they lack the necessary skill, maturity, and will to use one properly.

I still say that the worst is yet to come, and it will be horror on a scale that will dwarf 9-11. So far we've only faced reckless crazy people with little or no planning or access to the right munitions. There will come a time when the public will face a well organized, well armed, and fully capable and willful assailant(s) that will truly break our hearts. While this current situation and the many before it were all grievous, really they pale in comparison to what remains probable to occur.

What really peeves me is how our media is reacting to this event, like it is such a greater calamity than what is happening to people elsewhere. The location of the event ought not make any difference. Just shows how truly out of touch we are with the reality of present day events.

With all due respect Micah, not exactly an accurate cause and effect argument.

1) how many actual hijack attempts have occured since 9-11?

2) Of those, how many were thwarted by armed pilots? (BTW how does this number compare to the number of pilots busted for flying while intoxicated?)

3) How many hijack attempts were thwarted by increased on board security (sky marshalls)?.

The variables can go on ad nauseum (also include the fact that anyone who attempted to hijack a plane would be stomped into a greasy spot by the passengers before the pilot even got out of his/her seat to shoot).

Ben, you and I don't always completely agree, but this time, 100% with you on this one.

33 people is chump change.

More people between 18 and 21 will kill themselves with narcotics and alcohol in manners that don't involve vehicles today, but no one reports it. More will be perminantly injured.

More than that will be killed or maimed because they decided to drive too fast given the condition of the road and their vehicles. It's nothing.

That isn't someplace else, that isn't happening to some different group. This is what is happening in this country, right now, and it is self inflicted.

I agree. Sadly, to the media this is little more than a ratings bonanza. Do we really need a thousand talking bubbleheads giving us their interpretaion of the incident on 100 different channels when they all say the same thing? Here's an interesting take on the reactions and media coverage by mid-east specialist Juan Cole.



http://www.juancole.com/

Unfortunately what will happen is this will be used to ban more guns and make them harder to obtain so the exact same outcome will happen when the bad guy can't get a gun he will just turn to something like a bomb.

Still as pro-common-sense-gun-laws as before.

Gun control is not a black/white, either/or proposition.

That's a scare tactic (unfortunately that works very well).

If someone wants to imagine what would happen if a professor or another student was packing a fire arm to class, also imagine what would happen if it had been harder for the disturbed young man to have gotten a gun in the first place or if he had to wait longer.

I wish I had a penny for every "what-if".

I have dreaded this reaction almost as much as the non-stop media hype and politician posturing that follows this sort of thing that makes a reasonable assessement and fixing of problems impossible.

I felt the same way after 9-11. I feared that we Americans would turn on ourselves and abandon patience and reasoned action and my fears were realized.

I want everyone to engage in a little exercise during tomorrow's commute to and from work.

At each traffic light, imagine the people in the cars next to you or sitting on the bus with you carrying a gun.

Which one of you employees/coworkers do you NOT want to be having a gun on their person?

Are you comfortable with that thought?

And before you think "as long as I have my gun, bring 'em on!!" , look around you at how many people are really around you, out of your line of sight for any given second.

How many other people around you are intended targets in which you are just in the way?

How many of them are around your children, or spouse when you and your trusty side arm are not there to protect them.

Do you really want every person in resturant armed including the obnoxious jerk screaming at waitress at the table across the way?

When you were in school, how many of your teachers would you trust carrying a gun to class (honestly).

For those reading and posting in these forums that have actually been shot, how many saw it coming?

I don't want guns outlawed.

I do want some restrictions on what kind of fire arms are available to the general public and some restrictions on who can purchase a fire arm and where it can be carried. (Do you really want the alcoholic down the street or next door to have a stock pile of fully automatic weapons in his house when he loses his job?)

I want these restrictions to be based on careful, reasoned thought, not bumper sticker slogans ("from my cold dead fingers...").

We left that part of the American Old West behind for a reason.

I understand the anger and fear behind the arguement.

I feel it too.

Especially when I look at my daughter dancing in the living room behind me while watching "Dancing with the Stars".

It sits in my stomach like a sickening rock and it will be there for some time to come. It's why I didn't sleep last night, won't sleep much tonight, and am tearing up as I write this.

But we don't solve this (safety of those we love) or any other problems by abandoning our reason and act out of fear and anger.


Sorry for the rant gang, but too many people have been killed because of those that feed and manipulate the fears and anger of others (historically and recently).

Ben,

How much training (official and cultural) did these 18 and 19 year olds get before they were forged into someone you trusted with a weapon?

These men and women have earned that trust.

The spoiled son of a city councilman with connections and money hasn't, but if one can legally CC on campus so can the other.

I'm seeing a lot of folks posting using the best possible example (or themselves) as who should be allowed to CC, but if it's a right for one, it is a right for the other.

Check the violent crime rate for Kenesaw Georgia. They passed a law requiring all home owners to possess & know how to use a firearm. Their rate dropped to 1/4 the national average for their population range when I looked it up (it's been a while). The way it was written there are enough loopholes that someone who was strongly against it could find a way not to.

Ironraven,

I think our differing viewpoints at times are a good thing. It would not be nearly as enlightening if we all shared the same opinion all the time. Our way stimulates thought better.

Samhain,

Having been on the streets in Iraq during rush hour or at the checkpoints, I don't have to imagine what it is like to consider anyone pulling up alongside as someone with his finger on the trigger ready to send both of us to see Allah. Let me assure you and the rest, it is most unsettling and frustrating, but still a reality. Yours is a good point made. As for the right to keep and bear vs being actually qualified to do so, I think I distinguished the difference and acknowledged both the comprehensive right of all law abiding citizens and the necessary desire that they be both willing and able to use the tool as intended. The Kenesaw GA example cited by UTAlumnus would support my position, in that the law both acknowledges the right and requires competency. There will always be "Conscientious Objectors" in every crowd, and the law ought to allow an exception for them to waive their rights at any time.

A responsibly free society will allow the law abiding citizen to exercise his right to defend himself and expect him to do so responsibly. To do otherwise is ultimately counter-productive for the individual and the society, and has always proven to be so. To attempt to disarm the general public is always an exercise in futility and ultimately leads to a social failure.

Unfortunately in Iraq, there are a lot of really irresponsible and immature gun owners who do foolish things. Then again, we have our gangs as well, don't we?

And they are a suburb of Atlanta, which for a long time was one of the ten deadliest cities.