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hawkinspeter wrote:

I'd much rather encounter Don Simon driving a 4x4 than him rabidly waving a gun down the road.

Good job the Audi has gone.

FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:

Not sure if that's a straw man or some other fallacy.  But absolutely nobody says widespread legal gun ownership is the only cause of a higher incidence of gun crime, so you don't need to argue against that one.  But there is plenty of evidence that it's a major contributory factor.

 

Many things that can harm other people are already illegal.  Are you arguing that tactical nuclear weapons and heavy machine guns and biological warfare agents should all be legal and available to the public?  If not, then you've already accepted the general principle of banning things that can, in the wrong hands, harm others...and hence abandoned your own argument in advance.

 

(And I tend to think ConcordeCX's take on the roots of gun culture is a more accurate one than  the 'fear of oppressive goverment' nonsense that you seem to have swallowed uncritically)

The point is that there is no clear connection between levels of gun ownership and levels of gun crime so you need to look at other factors. Gun culture is far more important than the guns themselves.

You're welcome to your own opinion for the motivations behind gun ownership but the idea of armed citizens being a bulwark against tyranny is well established.

You might find this article on the topic interesting:
https://www.vox.com/2016/8/22/12559364/second-amendment-tyranny-militia-...

Rich_cb wrote:

FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:

Not sure if that's a straw man or some other fallacy.  But absolutely nobody says widespread legal gun ownership is the only cause of a higher incidence of gun crime, so you don't need to argue against that one.  But there is plenty of evidence that it's a major contributory factor.

 

Many things that can harm other people are already illegal.  Are you arguing that tactical nuclear weapons and heavy machine guns and biological warfare agents should all be legal and available to the public?  If not, then you've already accepted the general principle of banning things that can, in the wrong hands, harm others...and hence abandoned your own argument in advance.

 

(And I tend to think ConcordeCX's take on the roots of gun culture is a more accurate one than  the 'fear of oppressive goverment' nonsense that you seem to have swallowed uncritically)

The point is that there is no clear connection between levels of gun ownership and levels of gun crime so you need to look at other factors. Gun culture is far more important than the guns themselves. You're welcome to your own opinion for the motivations behind gun ownership but the idea of armed citizens being a bulwark against tyranny is well established. You might find this article on the topic interesting: https://www.vox.com/2016/8/22/12559364/second-amendment-tyranny-militia-...

I'm not a fan of the Cato institute, to say the least.  Have been not a fan of them since at least the mid-90s, when encountering some of their Ayn Rand fan prospective employees.  I don't have much time for libertarianism, on the whole.

Also, I'm not a fan of the almost religious-like way Americans worship their founding fathers. as if they were the source of all truth, rather than just being a group of wealthy white slave-owners (eager to avoid having to pay the bills to the Brits for defeating their enemies for them) with a limited perspective on the world.

  Hell, one of their grievences with the British was that the colonial masters stirred up the slaves to rebel against the Americans (that whinge even got into the national anthem and very nearly ended up in the declaration of independence).

But, as I say, I don't care what Americans decide about their domestic gun laws, their country, their choice.  Just as long as they don't export their attitudes to the rest of the world.  It's less their gun laws that irk me than the weak arguments they use to justify them.

For such a young country they are weridly backward-looking.

hawkinspeter wrote:

@Rich_cb - I suspect that other countries have better facilities for dealing with mental health issues and it appears that the U.S. has a very toxic high school culture. They seem to divide themselves up (e.g. jocks, popular kids, nerds etc) to a greater extent than in other countries, but I don't really know anything other than what I see in U.S. TV shows. Also, as you mention, they have a strange cultural attitude towards guns.

I remember being in a school in Wisconsin in the 70s, the story of the day was the kid who was expelled for taking a knife into school.

They seem to have progressed somewhat.

Miller wrote:

I have sympathy for the guard who 'failed'. Imagine, you're some middle-aged bloke whose job obliges you to have a gun strapped to your waist but you've had 8 peaceful years. Suddenly there's a psychotic teen with an assault rifle somewhere in the school ... and you're meant to go in and confront him, with no preparation and no backup? Frankly, you wouldn't fancy your chances. What a position to be put in.

The US has a juvenile addiction to firearms. Sorry US readers, your country is all fkced up on this issue and no amount of BS about 'freedom' can conceal that.

On the other hand, he had literally one job to do.

If you're not prepared to confront an armed maniac who's shooting children and teachers, then maybe being an armed security guard shouldn't be your career choice. (Personally, I wouldn't be confident that I would react well to being shot at which is why I'm not an armed guard).

hawkinspeter wrote:

 

On the other hand, he had literally one job to do.

If you're not prepared to confront an armed maniac who's shooting children and teachers, then maybe being an armed security guard shouldn't be your career choice. (Personally, I wouldn't be confident that I would react well to being shot at which is why I'm not an armed guard).

From the job description on BBC News ...

Employed by the local police or sheriff's office, they document incidents and can make arrests, as well as working on areas such as mentoring and education.

I don't see engaging with active shooters as part of the job description. I would suggest that engaging in close quarter building combat is very difficult & stressful and therefore requiring a high level of training. Sending in a glorified admin to 'waste' the shooter is more Hollywood/Call of Duty

kitkat wrote:

hawkinspeter wrote:

 

On the other hand, he had literally one job to do.

If you're not prepared to confront an armed maniac who's shooting children and teachers, then maybe being an armed security guard shouldn't be your career choice. (Personally, I wouldn't be confident that I would react well to being shot at which is why I'm not an armed guard).

From the job description on BBC News ...

Employed by the local police or sheriff's office, they document incidents and can make arrests, as well as working on areas such as mentoring and education.

I don't see engaging with active shooters as part of the job description. I would suggest that engaging in close quarter building combat is very difficult & stressful and therefore requiring a high level of training. Sending in a glorified admin to 'waste' the shooter is more Hollywood/Call of Duty

I stand corrected.

However, why did he have a gun? Also, why has he now resigned and everyone is disparaging him (including me)?

I would have thought a glorified admin could do the job just as well with a notebook and pen.

hawkinspeter wrote:

I stand corrected.

However, why did he have a gun? Also, why has he now resigned and everyone is disparaging him (including me)?

I would have thought a glorified admin could do the job just as well with a notebook and pen.

I would suggest he had a gun as he was recruited through the police, i doubt there is anyone related 'law enforcement' in America that doesn't carry a gun. I would imagine if he refused to carry a gun he would be out of the job!

Lets say it's symptomatic of the whole situation we're discussing and lets not forget the argument to arm teachers is gaining momentum

Regarding resignation, he probably knows the people who were murdered. The feeling of failure & remorse on his shoulders must be immense, he doesn't need to be ground into earth over it. Of course if he comes out cock-sure & arrogant after this then I am happy to adjust my view but for now he has my sympathy

kitkat wrote:

hawkinspeter wrote:

I stand corrected.

However, why did he have a gun? Also, why has he now resigned and everyone is disparaging him (including me)?

I would have thought a glorified admin could do the job just as well with a notebook and pen.

I would suggest he had a gun as he was recruited through the police, i doubt there is anyone related 'law enforcement' in America that doesn't carry a gun. I would imagine if he refused to carry a gun he would be out of the job!

Lets say it's symptomatic of the whole situation we're discussing and lets not forget the argument to arm teachers is gaining momentum

Regarding resignation, he probably knows the people who were murdered. The feeling of failure & remorse on his shoulders must be immense, he doesn't need to be ground into earth over it. Of course if he comes out cock-sure & arrogant after this then I am happy to adjust my view but for now he has my sympathy

I'd like to feel sympathetic for him, but I've run out of sympathy for Americans hiding behind guns.

There is no reason to openly carry a gun if you're not trained/prepared to use it. With the number of school shootings they have, the deputy must have realised that one day he might be forced to choose between safety and duty.

I'm not criticising his lack of courage (no-one knows how you're going to behave under stress), but his taking the job in the first place.

Also from the BBC article:

Quote:

School resource officers are sworn law enforcement officers who are responsible for safety and crime prevention in schools, although their exact roles differ from school to school and authority to authority.

I don't think it's as purely admin as you're making out.

hawkinspeter wrote:

I'd like to feel sympathetic for him, but I've run out of sympathy for Americans hiding behind guns.

And i think that's the problem [hiding behind guns]. Guns are lethal and carry that message but what if you don't have the steely resolve to enter into a situation and be prepared to kill or be killed BUT your job requires that you do. For the military, armed response, even regular police - yes. But for a police/school liaison officer?

If you say, "ah - he shouldn't have had a gun then!" the answer to that is the American culture of everyone carrying guns, especially in law enforcement. This man is at the murky line of who is armed and who is not. As mentioned before, next is school teachers and then what next? Trusted pupils?

hawkinspeter wrote:

I don't think it's as purely admin as you're making out.

I said he was 'glorified' As far as i can see it's his job to be the police/school liaison officer and unless he had specific, regular training in that type of situation I think it's a fantasy to believe he would be able to 'neutralise the target'

kitkat wrote:

hawkinspeter wrote:

I'd like to feel sympathetic for him, but I've run out of sympathy for Americans hiding behind guns.

And i think that's the problem [hiding behind guns]. Guns are lethal and carry that message but what if you don't have the steely resolve to enter into a situation and be prepared to kill or be killed BUT your job requires that you do. For the military, armed response, even regular police - yes. But for a police/school liaison officer?

If you say, "ah - he shouldn't have had a gun then!" the answer to that is the American culture of everyone carrying guns, especially in law enforcement. This man is at the murky line of who is armed and who is not. As mentioned before, next is school teachers and then what next? Trusted pupils?

hawkinspeter wrote:

I don't think it's as purely admin as you're making out.

I said he was 'glorified' As far as i can see it's his job to be the police/school liaison officer and unless he had specific, regular training in that type of situation I think it's a fantasy to believe he would be able to 'neutralise the target'

 

Alledgedly, three other Broward County Sheriff's deputies were also outside the school and had not entered: https://edition.cnn.com/2018/02/23/politics/parkland-school-shooting-bro...

hawkinspeter wrote:

kitkat wrote:

hawkinspeter wrote:

 

On the other hand, he had literally one job to do.

If you're not prepared to confront an armed maniac who's shooting children and teachers, then maybe being an armed security guard shouldn't be your career choice. (Personally, I wouldn't be confident that I would react well to being shot at which is why I'm not an armed guard).

From the job description on BBC News ...

Employed by the local police or sheriff's office, they document incidents and can make arrests, as well as working on areas such as mentoring and education.

I don't see engaging with active shooters as part of the job description. I would suggest that engaging in close quarter building combat is very difficult & stressful and therefore requiring a high level of training. Sending in a glorified admin to 'waste' the shooter is more Hollywood/Call of Duty

I stand corrected.

However, why did he have a gun? Also, why has he now resigned and everyone is disparaging him (including me)?

I would have thought a glorified admin could do the job just as well with a notebook and pen.

Poor sod has being stitched up like a kipper and that orange piece of shit has slung him under the bus big time and turned the country against him, sickening. Would a cop (on their own) have gone in blind not knowing who or what he was confronting, or even where in the school it was happening, no chance, they aren't even supposed to as touched upon up thread, even three up they'd have stayed outside and not gone into the building. 

For people to think these things happen like they do in a hollywood film/tv series are in fucking dreamworld, go ask someone who might have gone house to house in NI to find an armed IRA member/weapons and how sphincter tightening that is. And that's for guys who are training for that, proper professionals, this guy is a security officer with a gun strapped to him to frighten people off.  He is NOT an armed response unit, he's not a police officer and should never ever be expected to confront people in the situation he was in.

For trump to say that teachers could 'shoot the hell out of them' or whatever it was, was utterly stark raving mental, I've heard some fantastical shite from politicians but that is up there as the worst/most dangerous in history.

He must have been promised a lot of greenbacks to say what his puppetmasters are telling him to say! 

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

hawkinspeter wrote:

kitkat wrote:

hawkinspeter wrote:

 

On the other hand, he had literally one job to do.

If you're not prepared to confront an armed maniac who's shooting children and teachers, then maybe being an armed security guard shouldn't be your career choice. (Personally, I wouldn't be confident that I would react well to being shot at which is why I'm not an armed guard).

From the job description on BBC News ...

Employed by the local police or sheriff's office, they document incidents and can make arrests, as well as working on areas such as mentoring and education.

I don't see engaging with active shooters as part of the job description. I would suggest that engaging in close quarter building combat is very difficult & stressful and therefore requiring a high level of training. Sending in a glorified admin to 'waste' the shooter is more Hollywood/Call of Duty

I stand corrected.

However, why did he have a gun? Also, why has he now resigned and everyone is disparaging him (including me)?

I would have thought a glorified admin could do the job just as well with a notebook and pen.

Poor sod has being stitched up like a kipper and that orange piece of shit has slung him under the bus big time and turned the country against him, sickening. Would a cop (on their own) have gone in blind not knowing who or what he was confronting, or even where in the school it was happening, no chance, they aren't even supposed to as touched upon up thread, even three up they'd have stayed outside and not gone into the building. 

For people to think these things happen like they do in a hollywood film/tv series are in fucking dreamworld, go ask someone who might have gone house to house in NI to find an armed IRA member/weapons and how sphincter tightening that is. And that's for guys who are training for that, proper professionals, this guy is a security officer with a gun strapped to him to frighten people off.  He is NOT an armed response unit, he's not a police officer and should never ever be expected to confront people in the situation he was in.

For trump to say that teachers could 'shoot the hell out of them' or whatever it was, was utterly stark raving mental, I've heard some fantastical shite from politicians but that is up there as the worst/most dangerous in history.

He must have been promised a lot of greenbacks to say what his puppetmasters are telling him to say! 

well said. This poor sod is a distraction from the fact that the NRA is happy for children and other innocent people to continue to die as a direct result of their selfish, misguided obsession and venal greed.

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

For trump to say that teachers could 'shoot the hell out of them' or whatever it was, was utterly stark raving mental, I've heard some fantastical shite from politicians but that is up there as the worst/most dangerous in history.

Really?  Picture the scene: Middle aged, 5ft2", lady maths teacher,  fired her gun on the range a couple of times 8 years ago when she bought it, just to find out how it worked. Her Beretta is in her handbag tucked away behind her desk. A 6ft4" 17 year old bursts in carrying an AR15, capable of firing 800 rounds per minute. You really don't think she's going to be able to get to her handbag, get her gun from among her lipstick, purse and tissues, and take the guy down? What's unreasonable about that? 

Griff500 wrote:

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

For trump to say that teachers could 'shoot the hell out of them' or whatever it was, was utterly stark raving mental, I've heard some fantastical shite from politicians but that is up there as the worst/most dangerous in history.

Really?  Picture the scene: Middle aged, 5ft2", lady maths teacher,  fired her gun on the range a couple of times 8 years ago when she bought it, just to find out how it worked. Her Beretta is in her handbag tucked away behind her desk. A 6ft4" 17 year old bursts in carrying an AR15, capable of firing 800 rounds per minute. You really don't think she's going to be able to get to her handbag, get her gun from among her lipstick, purse and tissues, and take the guy down? What's unreasonable about that? 

Plenty of research (and examples) shows that your lady teacher is more likely to injure or self or her students, and even more likely to freeze in fear. Being on the other end of a gun in an enclosed space is literally terrifying. My brotehr in law is on the swat team, and they see it time and again, trained police officers when faced in training with gunfire and fight in tight quarters literally freezing on the spot. However, I believe that you're referring to a particular instance where this was successful, and there's another from a couple of years ago where the deputy principal chased a guy into the carpark and stopped him. However, for each one of those there are literally hundreds and hundreds of cases where it hasn't worked.

Here's a question. Have you ever seen someone on the street harassing someone else and gone and intervened? Why not? You're probably armed in the same way as they are...

madcarew wrote:

Griff500 wrote:

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

For trump to say that teachers could 'shoot the hell out of them' or whatever it was, was utterly stark raving mental, I've heard some fantastical shite from politicians but that is up there as the worst/most dangerous in history.

Really?  Picture the scene: Middle aged, 5ft2", lady maths teacher,  fired her gun on the range a couple of times 8 years ago when she bought it, just to find out how it worked. Her Beretta is in her handbag tucked away behind her desk. A 6ft4" 17 year old bursts in carrying an AR15, capable of firing 800 rounds per minute. You really don't think she's going to be able to get to her handbag, get her gun from among her lipstick, purse and tissues, and take the guy down? What's unreasonable about that? 

Plenty of research (and examples) shows that your lady teacher is more likely to injure or self or her students, and even more likely to freeze in fear. Being on the other end of a gun in an enclosed space is literally terrifying. My brotehr in law is on the swat team, and they see it time and again, trained police officers when faced in training with gunfire and fight in tight quarters literally freezing on the spot. However, I believe that you're referring to a particular instance where this was successful, and there's another from a couple of years ago where the deputy principal chased a guy into the carpark and stopped him. However, for each one of those there are literally hundreds and hundreds of cases where it hasn't worked.

Here's a question. Have you ever seen someone on the street harassing someone else and gone and intervened? Why not? You're probably armed in the same way as they are...

Dudes (all round). What’s with the ‘lady’ shit?

jlebrech wrote:

why would cyclist be against guns? they could be quite handy on the road 

I am waiting for the helmet with integrated firearm...

hawkinspeter wrote:

What really grinds my gears is that the US Constitution allows guns as a way of keeping the government in check, but they seem to be more interested in shooting each other than storming the White House.

That's my post of the week decided .