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The Los Angeles Times reports
After their teacher fires a gun at school, Georgia students use opportunity to challenge Trump's proposal
Jesse Randall Davidson wasn't a stranger, some mysterious threat from the outside. He was a bearded, bespectacled, 53-year-old social studies teacher and the play-by-play announcer for the football games at Dalton High School in northwest Georgia.
But when the teacher brought a gun to school, barricaded himself in his classroom [February 28], and fired a single shot, students quickly recognized that this wasn't just a sad local incident.
Amid national outrage over school shootings--and suggestions by President Trump that schools would be safer if some teachers packed guns--it was a political event.
"my favorite teacher at Dalton high school just blockaded his door and proceeded to shoot", a 16-year-old student named Chondi Chastain tweeted at the National Rifle Assn., earning more than 17,000 retweets. "We had to run out The back of the school in the rain. Students were being trampled and screaming. I dare you to tell me arming teachers will make us safe."
[...] When students came to his door at room 413 during third period--a time his classroom is normally empty--it was locked, and Davidson wouldn't let them in, police said later.
"My brother, who was one door down from the teacher, said he was yelling at his students to 'get the [expletive] out of here'", junior Henry Hansen, 17, wrote in a private message on Twitter.
The principal, Steve Bartoo, tried to unlock the door with a key, but Davidson "slammed the door before I could open it and said, 'Don't come in here, I have a gun'", Bartoo said at a televised news conference.
Bartoo put the school into lockdown mode, and soon after, Davidson "apparently fired a shot from a handgun through an exterior window of the classroom", Dalton police spokesman Bruce Frazier said at a separate news conference. "It did not appear that it was aimed at anybody."
[...] Dalton police, the Whitfield County Sheriff's Office, the Georgia State Patrol, and federal law enforcement agencies all responded to the emergency. "More or less everybody with a badge in the area came running", Frazier said.
After about half an hour, Davidson surrendered and was taken into custody
[...] The Dalton students immediately turned to social media to take issue with Trump's calls to arm teachers.
Heavy.com adds
Records show Davidson has been charged with aggravated assault with a gun, terroristic threats and acts, carrying a weapon in a school safety zone without a license, reckless conduct, disrupting public school, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. He is being held without bail at the Whitfield County Jail.
[...] Davidson has a history of bizarre medical episodes both at school and outside of school, The Chattanoogan reports.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 03 2018, @08:42AM (87 children)
You know what changed? The Republican party changed. They got scared, they started thinking guns were for "self-defense" like the Coward Zimmerman. The NRA changed, from an organization concerned with marksmanship and safety to a near jmorris level of paranoia about the "Second Amendment" as some kind of "God given right". Yep, American went insane. Exhibit one: jmorris. Curiously, even he seems vaguely aware of the mind he has lost.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Arik on Saturday March 03 2018, @09:45AM (73 children)
Maybe, to a degree, but I think the RNC has probably held saturation levels of corruption for my entire lifetime, and I'm probably older than most readers.
"They got scared, they started thinking guns were for "self-defense" like the Coward Zimmerman."
They've always been for self-defense. Zimmerman, according to the story the jury wound up buying after hearing all the expert testimony in detail, was flat on the concrete getting his brainpan bashed in before he used a weapon. You sound misinformed.
"The NRA changed, from an organization concerned with marksmanship and safety to a near jmorris level of paranoia about the "Second Amendment" as some kind of "God given right"."
Very misinformed. The NRA are authoritarians, both in origin and current form, they're the best allies you gun-grabbers have, and the best you'll ever get, so please do continue bashing them, bash them right out of existence if you can.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 5, Informative) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Saturday March 03 2018, @10:13AM (72 children)
What I don't get is that you guys have been having some kind of gun massacre on what seems like a weekly basis for years now, and every time you have the same debate over and over with no change to the status quo, but nobody is ever saying what everyone, deep down, knows to be true:
That for all their pontification, for all the righteous arguments about self defence and freedoms and constitutional rights and defending against oppression and all the rest of it... the gun nuts are only really fighting this hard for their guns because they like guns. Guns make them feel all manly and tough and they enjoy shooting them and waving them around, and they don't want anybody to take their toys away.
Go ahead: Deny it. Downmod me. Call me names. But you know there's a kernel of truth in there.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Arik on Saturday March 03 2018, @11:12AM (9 children)
No, there really is not.
Not the tiniest bit of truth.
I'm actually the one getting modded down as flamebait for telling the truth that we all know.
The man who thinks he is somehow allowed to prohibit you from arming yourself, he is not your friend. He believes, at least, that he is your master, your owner.
This is a society in a state which, if not technically civil war, is a hairs breadth from it. One group believes perennially that if they can just shoot up one more school, the other group will finally accede to what the first group sees as 'reason' and disarm themselves. Trading a genuinely tiny, though still unreasonably and unnecessarily high, risk of being flat out murdered for a certainty of slavery for generations.
The other group isn't going for that, and is getting really sick and tired of seeing schools shot up by brainwashed assholes.
And yes, I'm dramatically oversimplifying, to the point of parodying your ridiculous position. That is intentional.
You need to look a little deeper instead of settling on the first half-plausible talking point you hear from someone that thinks like you and duckspeaking it night and day forever after.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Saturday March 03 2018, @12:17PM (8 children)
Hold on, are you saying that all these school shootings are being deliberately perpetrated by anti-gun folks in order to drive public opinion towards their position?
Because if you are that's some quality paranoia right there.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Arik on Saturday March 03 2018, @12:23PM (5 children)
But I will say it's certainly not *pro-gun folks* doing this.
The shooters themselves, in every case, appear to be motivated more by narcissism and drama-llama than any real political goal.
But what encourages them? The media coverage, the notoriety, the idea that *relevance* can be seized by force.
These are not things they're learning on the farm.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1) by speederaser on Saturday March 03 2018, @02:15PM (1 child)
Mass shootings, school or otherwise, are perpetrated by people under enormous emotional distress, coupled with a lack of empathy with their fellow human beings.
People with these emotional problems don't fall in one politic direction or another. Every group you can think of is represented. Politics has nothing to do with it.
(Score: 2, Informative) by west on Saturday March 03 2018, @08:12PM
correlations amoung school shooters:
SSRI prescriptions
socially isolated
democrats
not saying causation. democrats probably because democratic cities have much higher gun crime rate.
(Score: 1, Troll) by FatPhil on Saturday March 03 2018, @10:41PM (2 children)
... gun nuts.
If you don't understand that, then you won't understand the posts to which you are responding, which have way more than a kernel of truth to them.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @03:39PM (1 child)
ad hominem has such a wonderful track record of changing minds
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by FatPhil on Monday March 05 2018, @06:46AM
Neither's that.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 4, Informative) by jmorris on Saturday March 03 2018, @07:06PM
What i believe is the operators were sick and damned tired of taking reports on the Parkland shooter, more than likely muttering something like, "If this kid is going to shoot up that school he better stop talking and get on with it, we can't bury many more of these reports." as they hung up. Lots of people saw something, most of them apparently said something. The very people the Progs insist should be the only ones with the right to bear arms did nothing. When they had ample reports before that this loser was about to go off they did nothing. As he did his deed they did nothing. After the only things they are doing is covering their asses, politicizing it to grab more power and planning to demolish the building and build a fucking shrine to the shooter in an obvious attempt to encourage more shooters.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @08:49AM
The authorities knew they has a live one with this Nikolas de Jesus Cruz. They also like to shadow and cultivate a person like that and get them roped into some scheme where they pull the trigger on a phoney bomb or something.
Stopping a guy like Nikolas de Jesus Cruz is not their goal - not at least until they can rack up more charges to make it look like they keep us safe. Not exactly a false flag, not exactly incompetence - they simply have different markers for success which have nothing to do with keeping us safe. If nobody was murdered in a given year, would police (state & fed) resources increase or decrease?
Logically, they ought to decrease or at least not increase. Logically, we ought to then focus on disease or accidents and more likely causes of death. These shootings, they have as much incentive to stop as the DEA has incentive to stop drugs. I.e., none whatsoever.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 03 2018, @11:14AM (8 children)
I don't own a single gun and never have, but I believe all forms of gun control are, at present, unconstitutional. The only way to change that would be to amend the Constitution.
Also, speculating that it's all because 'they like guns' isn't an argument anyway.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Saturday March 03 2018, @07:32PM
The "they like guns" is like defending "hate speech" laws with "They just like rustling everyone's jimmies with those memes anyway." And wouldn't ya know it, almost every gun grabber also wants to eliminate the 1st Amendment too.
Give them nothing. The only response required to either is scorn and abuse.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 03 2018, @07:39PM (1 child)
You mis-read the argument. They don't just 'like' guns, they LOVE guns! They 'know' guns, in the Biblical sense. They are, in fact, ammosexuals. They keep guns right next to their body all day, EDC, they call it. They take their guns to bed, in case there is "some action". They use their guns to sever relations with significant others, family members, congregations, or classmates, so obvoiusly they love their guns more. This is why they oppose restrictions on their love life, even if it costs others their very right to life.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday March 03 2018, @10:07PM
[citation] [abc.net.au]
[citation] [theguardian.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @01:50AM (4 children)
The Constitution does not say "You have the right to an AR-15", "You have the right to Military Ammunition", nor "You have the right to high capacity gun magazines". "Arms" to the Founding Fathers were single shot flintlock rifles and cannons. They would be horrified at the level of slaughter we can achieve today. These nutbags in the NRA want everyone to carry belt fed M60s to make everything "safe". That is just insane.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @03:48AM (2 children)
You are flat wrong. The stated purpose of the 2nd amendment was to give the people the ability to resist tyranny. That implies equality of arms.
They were not stupid men, and they knew that weapons were improving even during their own lifetimes. They may not have expected Abrahms tanks and nuclear aircraft carriers but if they had intended to limit the people's arms to what was current they would have done so.
Any reasonable reading of the US constitution says that any limitation on keeping and bearing weapons is prohibited. The people have the right to keep and bear hydrogen bombs if they want.
If you don't like that, then you need to work to amend the constitution, not undermine it.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Sunday March 04 2018, @06:53AM (1 child)
No, no nukes. We signed a treaty regulating weapons of mass destruction. Even most of the military can't use them. If an army general can't bear an arm I can live with barring some dude from having an ICBM in a silo in their back yard.
And I'm even in favor of some "common sense regulations" on weapons. I'd go for a rule that says crew served weapons in private hands have to be kept in the custody of a regulated militia company, stored in a secure (but no more secure than the regs specify for a National Guard armory holding similar classes of weapons) armory except when being used for training purposes, etc. But all personal arms should be legal for any citizen allowed to vote. Especially any personal arm issued by ANY branch of the U.S. Government to military or law enforcement personnel. If you are declaring someone unfit to bear arms for whatever reason it better be important enough to yank their voter registration card too. That will tend to limit the overuse of mental defect judgements, vets with PTSD, minor crimes and accusations (but not convictions) of domestic violence from being leveraged by evil Democrats into lifetime bans.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @08:17AM
You could make a fair argument that that treaty limits the US government, but that the right of the people is not abridged.
Not saying I am in favor of it, but that's what the constitution says. Instead of increasingly ridiculous assertions about what words mean, they need to amend the 2nd amendment.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @05:31AM
The Constitution does not say "You have the right to a blog", "You have the right to lighted signs", nor "You have the right to high capacity printing presses". "Speech" to the Founding Fathers were single impression printing presses and quill pens. They would be horrified at the level of communication we can achieve today. These nutbags in the EFF want everyone to carry smart phones to make everything "selfies". That is just insane.
(Score: 2) by black6host on Saturday March 03 2018, @11:23AM (2 children)
Let's not forget that a whole lot of folks just don't like being told what to do. I'm one of them.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday March 03 2018, @10:44PM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @12:06AM
Anarchy: the radical concept that while I do not own you, neither do you own me.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by theCoder on Saturday March 03 2018, @11:36AM (28 children)
True, most of the second amendment proponents like guns. And most of the gun prohibitionists do not like guns. They also tend not to like the people who like guns, and often make fun of them ("rednecks" and the like).
More people die from car accidents than from guns, but there's no push to ban cars (note: guns are probably more dangerous on a per-item basis than cars, but more people use cars than guns). Distracted driving is even more dangerous, but there's no push to ban cell phones, even though there are laws about using phones and driving at the same time.
While not directly responsible, the media's almost glorification of mass shootings may be encouraging some of these deranged killers. Who knows if the teacher in this story was influenced by that. But there's no push for gutting the first amendment and heavily regulating the media, either.
Why are none of those things being pushed? Because lots of people like cars, cell phones, and their free speech rights. So, shocker, they don't want to take those away. But many people don't have, and likely fear, guns, so banning guns doesn't affect them negatively.
Personally, I'm not a fan of guns in the specific. I've never held one, never shot one. Only in video games, and that doesn't count. But I do worry about banning guns, for a number of reasons. First is that we have a horrible track record with bans. Alcohol, drugs, gambling -- bans just never seem to work. Crime rises as people find ways to get the banned items regardless of the law. You could point to other countries banning guns working, but I could point to other countries banning alcohol (many Middle Eastern countries) also working. But Prohibition did not work in the U.S. all that well. Though, maybe that's because we also had guns :)
Second, I also worry that more bans just take us further down the path to authoritarianism. Telling everyone what they can and cannot do, own, say, and think. There are many people who see that as a utopia, but it's not for me. I value my freedom. I hope it never comes to pass that we really need an armed resistance in the U.S., but if it does, I want it to be an option.
btw, all those gun massacres are reported in the news because they are rare. They don't report the thousands of car accidents or millions of heart attacks because they are common. That said, only the "big" rare events are really reported -- there are many more events like the story above where no one is hurt that aren't reported more than locally.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Saturday March 03 2018, @12:07PM (5 children)
You make a lot of reasonable points. But you do realize that there are possible other positions other than "allow all possible guns to be acquired without regulation, training, etc. by all possible people" vs. just "banning guns" completely?
While there are some people who want to ban all ownership of firearms, a large number of people calling for regulation want to create more reasonable limits on what types of guns can be acquired easily, where they can be reasonably carried, what sort of training we might reasonably ask people to have to own or carry a gun (drivers require licenses...), etc.
Obviously many people disagree about what is "reasonable" here. But while few are calling for BANNING cell phone or cars or whatever, there are plenty of folks who wonder if we should have reasonable limits on when they can be used, training (for driving), etc. I'm not taking sides in the debate here -- just noting that this is one of those issues where false dichotomies are common. (Oh, and yes, there are slippery slope arguments too...)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 03 2018, @04:12PM
We already have one of those other positions. Didn't stop the shootings in the news.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Sunday March 04 2018, @08:27AM (3 children)
Much like the two party system in the USA, the gun debate is now so polarized that no rational compromise is possible.
The anti-gunners have made the pro-gunners so wary of progressive changes that they will never allow the second amendment to be altered.
Without altering the second amendment, control of weapons is very limited.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 04 2018, @04:37PM (2 children)
"rational compromise" is a fallacy to begin with when you're speaking of removing someone's fundamental rights for your sense of comfort.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Sunday March 04 2018, @08:09PM (1 child)
QED.
A rational compromise might be to add a few exceptions to the 2ndA. No remote weapons, no crew served weapons, nutcases not included, maximum rate of fire/magazine size, etc. This list should be debateable, but it is not.
Anti-gunners want much more restriction, pro-gunners don't trust them to touch the 2ndA at all.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 04 2018, @11:23PM
Given the primary purpose of the 2A, any regulations applied to ordinary citizens that are not also applied to all branches of government are prima facie unreasonable.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Arik on Saturday March 03 2018, @12:17PM
May be? May be? Really? You think? Just a sort of a vague possibility is it?
This is exactly why people do this. They're people who are simply inconsequential and can't stand knowing that fact, but they know that if they go shoot up a school then the media will talk about them for days and wikipedia will consider them "notable."
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Informative) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Saturday March 03 2018, @12:19PM (5 children)
(reposting this in the correct place)
I think it's more that those things are useful. Yeah, cars kill lots of people every year. But they save way more lives than they take - I'm not just talking about direct life-savings like ambulances and fire-engines and so on, I'm talking about all the efficiency that cars bring to society and the economy. Without cars or something similar, it would be about impossible for people to collaborate the the extent that they do to create, distribute and enjoy the myriad other technologies and goods that make our lives longer, safer and happier. Cars cost lives, but that is the cost of not living with Victorian-level industry, healthcare and society. Phones, to a far lesser extent, do the same (and their cost in lives is proportionally less as well).
Guns in the hands of civilians are useful for hunting (only really good for recreation these days), for shooting agricultural pests, and that's about their total contribution to society. You can't compare guns to cars.
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Saturday March 03 2018, @04:18PM (1 child)
And of course, the big one, self-defense! It's like listing several minor advantages of cars, but failing to mention their primary value as point to point transportation.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 04 2018, @12:31AM
Exactly - and we all need to remember that the second amendment was never about hunting.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Saturday March 03 2018, @05:15PM
A couple weeks ago, a few blocks from my house, an armed passer by saved the lives of people trapped in their crashed cars by shooting the knife wielding road rager that was trying to break in and stab them. This is a good thing, and I'm very glad my state is shall issue for carry permits.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PinkyGigglebrain on Saturday March 03 2018, @06:35PM (1 child)
Just a quick question.
If your home gets broken into while you are there what will you do during the 15-30 minutes it will take for police to arrive after your call them?
Assuming that the police even show up [freerepublic.com] that is.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Sunday March 04 2018, @11:13AM
Really not an issue for me since I don't live in a violent dystopia where the ubiquity of guns has escalated every confrontation into a shoot out. I mean two posts up from here there's a guy who saw a traffic dispute escalate into a hostage situation and gun battle. That's damn near unthinkable in any sane society.
The chances of an armed, violent intruder breaking into my home are non-zero, but negligible enough that I don't need to bring a weapon into my home. It would be like getting some kind of highly-dangerous electrocution machine to protect me against lightning strikes.
Life comes with risks. Live with it.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday March 03 2018, @03:22PM (12 children)
But cars are regulated, in that you are not allowed to drive a car if you don't have a driving license, which you only get after making a test showing that you know something about correctly and responsibly operating a car, and if you are later found to show unacceptable behaviour with your car, you can get that driving license revoked.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Saturday March 03 2018, @04:19PM (9 children)
(Score: 2) by Eristone on Saturday March 03 2018, @11:54PM (8 children)
So -- being we keep up with this whole firearms are regulated bit...
Are you required to get a license (or permit) before you purchase any firearm?
Are you required to register each firearm purchased with the state at time of purchase and pay a fee based on the type of firearm it is?
Are you required to re-register your firearm each year with the state, and pay a fee each year?
Are you required to purchase insurance for each firearm and keep it current as long as you own the firearm?
Can your firearm license/permit be restricted or revoked because of actions you may have done that do not directly involve the firearm?
Are you required to have your firearm inspected every few years for operations and safety?
Are you required to renew your firearm permit/license every few years?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 04 2018, @12:33AM (4 children)
None of the above.
Owning a firearm is a right, guaranteed by the second amendment.
Owning a vehicle is a privilege, with no guarantees.
(Score: 2) by Eristone on Sunday March 04 2018, @01:24AM (3 children)
Noting even in the text of the Constitution, there is nothing preventing regulating the ownership of firearms. It is not an absolute right.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 04 2018, @06:22AM (2 children)
The regulation was well understood, when the amendment was written. The "well regulated militia" consisted of all able bodied males, between the ages of 18 and 40 (I think that was the age cutoff, it has changed over the years). The militia was intended to drill together, and to understand troop movements, formations, and small unit tactics. That was the "regulation".
If we were to go back to universal conscription, company commanders would quickly learn to recognize reliable militia members, and unreliable. Those company commander's reports would become part of the member's records. Those unreliable members could be prevented from owning firearms, or participating in company maneuvers. And, best of all - those reliable members would also be aware of who the unreliables are. That is - if a crazy went over the edge, any reliable member of the militia would be in a much better position to DO SOMETHING.
Yes, please, let us return to the concept of a well regulated militia.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 04 2018, @06:37AM (1 child)
Why would that be valuable to us? Those company commanders could have real jobs instead. And when you have people involved in the make-work of conscription, they're not contributing to society.
My view instead is that people who have a lot of experience with the sort of firearms an infantry squad would use (and that includes firearms that look cool, aka "assault weapons"), would be far better able to contribute to the "well-regulated militia" should the need for one arise. And that's as far as the Second Amendment goes. It doesn't, for example, actually mandate the existence of any well-regulated militia nor require someone to belong to one before they can own firearms.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 04 2018, @08:35AM
The company commanders have real jobs. He might run the dollar store, or he might be a lawyer, or he might be your banker. "All able bodied men". And, "militia" isn't a full time job. It's kind of an extracurricular activity, mandated for all of those "able bodied men". One weekend a month is set aside - pretty much the same as our current setup for reservists. One weekend each month, and maybe a week each summer, possibly two to four weeks. And, they come home from maneuvers at camp, and go back to work again.
It would take a small change to existing law to mandate universal conscription. It would be a much smaller change than trying to write myriad laws about who is allowed to own which weapons.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 04 2018, @12:55AM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday March 04 2018, @05:49AM
It means that the car analogy is flawed.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Sunday March 04 2018, @07:14AM
Mind if I reject your premise? I don't agree with the legitimate need for the government to regulate cars to the extent they do either. Requiring a proficiency test of drivers is probably serving a legitimate purpose since you can cause a lot of harm to others. But the constant fees? And moving to no-fault insurance eliminates the need to mandate auto insurance... which is why the industry hates it, they love a government enforced monopoly. The registration fees is merely another tax, always love eliminating taxes. And guess what, even the NRA doesn't object to the concept of requiring a test of proficiency and the laws regarding firearm use before issuing a CCW.
Note that is for a CCW, not basic possession. But optimally it wouldn't be required as every school should return to teaching such things. Every child should learn how to safely use a pistol and a basic rifle, the basics of marksmanship and the law regarding self defense (with a gun, knife, even fists). Then we could forget licenses all together and adopt Constitutional Carry. With harsh penalties for those barred from possession being caught with one.
What we will not accept is registration of our weapons, every single time that happens a confiscation attempt comes within a few years. Every time, every country that has did one. So what part of NEVER AGAIN do the gun banners miss after we have told them a thousand times now?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @02:06AM (1 child)
Well in California the govt had to give in and allow illegals to get drivers licenses. The
system couldn't deal with all the rule breakers.
Also we still must have insurance for uninsured drivers.
So just because there are rules does not mean that a problem is solved.
I could easily go drive without a license and without insurance and without registration and
it is not certain that I would get caught. I've driven without registration and with an expired
license (because of CA DMV BS), but with insurance and can say it is possible.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday March 04 2018, @05:57AM
The question of illegals is a red herring because whether you're legally or illegally in the US is in no way related to whether you are able to safely and responsibly operate a car.
On the other points: Yes, it is possible to violate a law, and it is possible that you are never caught. There are murderers who are never caught (indeed, almost certainly some murders are never even recognized as such). So would you say that the laws against murder don't work, and therefore should be abolished?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 03 2018, @04:52PM (1 child)
How ISN'T it an option to have an armed resistance, regardless the existence of the second amendment? The only thing you're resisting is government, which by definition is sedition/treason ANYWAY. The second amendment does NOT protect you from the illegalities perpetrated by armed resistance in the event such resistance fails to overthrow the current government.
The whole "you can't tell me what to do" thing is part of the root of your countries' problems, aka narcissism.
Greed created the situation where both parents HAD to work, the result being kids aren't being raised properly.
The politically correct, like always, knee-jerk reacts to children being disciplined in a corporal manner, and now we have three generations of western humanity that doesn't respect, or have any empathy for fellow people.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Sunday March 04 2018, @11:17AM
I was with you until you said that beating children teaches them empathy. Might want to work on that bit.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Arik on Saturday March 03 2018, @12:06PM (3 children)
I say simplistic, rather than simply wrong, because of course no one can deny that this is large part of politics.
But I'm happy to be able to say it isn't quite all of it.
And no matter how many schools you shoot up there's a significant portion of the country that isn't going to be panicked into begging you to become dictator in response. Because they see how this logic works, how it has worked consistently.
This is the 'dialogue,' the 'compromise' when it comes to rights.
We start with a big cake, let's call it 'second amendment rights.'
Then along come the victim-disarmament activists. They say "Give us the cake!"
"No. It's my cake. I like it. You can't have it. Don't come any closer!"
VDA: "Ok, ok, don't shoot! Be reasonable. Let's compromise. Just give me half."
US: "What? Give you half? And what do I get out of it?"
VDA: "Well, you get to keep the other half! Plus less cake violence, who doesn't want that?"
US: "Well, OK, I guess you convinced me.
*Enter various unconstitutional restrictions culminating in the National Firearms Act of 1934*
VDA: "Hey, give me that cake!"
US: "No, this is my cake. What's left of it, at least, you! Go away!"
VDA: "Hey, hey, don't shoot! Be reasonable. Let's compromise. Give me half of that."
US: "Compromise? Again? What's in it for me?"
VDA: "You can keep the other half! And less cake violence, who doesn't want that?"
(In fact there does not appear to have been any actual decrease in cake violence due to the earlier compromises, but reliable statistics really hadn't begun to be kept and so this fact was not noted as it should have been.)
*Enter Gun Control Act of 1968*
US: "Hmm, well, I only have a quarter of the pie left, but they promised they'd never bother us again, so I guess it's worth it. Let's go to the range!"
US: "Uhoh, what's *that one* doing here again?"
*VDA does not bother to ask or argue, simply grabs the cake, inserts it orally, and rips off several bites which are swallowed whole.*
*Enter Clinton Executive Orders.*
US: "Ermagerd! I can't believe she just did that!"
*VDA, having choked down the majority of the initial bites, has started slowly sucking/slurping up icing around the edge of the remaining cake.*
*Enter Lautenberg Act, HUD/Smith, Wesson agreement, School Safety and Law Enforcment Improvement Act*
US: "HOW RUDE!"
*US stalks off and the camera fades, to return to a view of US and VDA once again facing off*
VDA: "Give us cake! Why won't you be reasonable? Why won't you compromise? Extremist! Hate! Hate!! HATRED!!!"
US: "Go away, we're wise to you. We started out with a nice big cake we could share with everyone and now we're hording a few fragments and crumbs. And half of them have your spit on them. Enough. Go away!"
*Enter Columbine, etc.*
VDA: "See? It's a big problem. GIVE US CAKE! HOW MANY OF YOUR KIDS DO WE HAVE TO KILL TO GET A LITTLE CAKE YOU ASSHOLES?"
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Saturday March 03 2018, @12:26PM (1 child)
You're kidding, right? You Americans are wandering about with military-level armaments and you call that fragments and crumbs?
Again, you seem to be implying that the anti-gun people are carrying out the murders.
Tell me, do you also believe that Greenpeace are hunting whales, the Vegan Society runs McDonalds and CND has a nuclear weapons program?
(Score: 1, Troll) by Arik on Saturday March 03 2018, @12:45PM
Please, tell me about the "military grade armament" that we wander freely about with?
Do you have any idea what you have to do in order to legally acquire and possess any actual "military grade armaments" in the US today?
Clearly you do not.
"Again, you seem to be implying that the anti-gun people are carrying out the murders."
see the other reply, but;
"Tell me, do you also believe that Greenpeace are hunting whales"
IIRC they have been implicated in the torture of kangaroos, is that close enough for you?
"the Vegan Society runs McDonalds"
That's a new one to me so I have no comment, but again it seems to remind me of something similar.
There's a long-standing legend that 'the Mormons forbid Coke but they own it!"
Now that's not totally true, but it's not totally false either.
First, the LDDS Church won't kick you out for drinking a coke, that parts false. But it's sort of a recognizable exaggeration of the truth nonetheless. Caffeine, any sort of stimulant use, is frowned upon, not forbidden. Many, probably most LDDS members are 'Jack Mormons' and they often do many things that are frowned upon regularly. As long as they send in their dues and aren't looking to move up in the hierarchy it doesn't matter. I'm sure they are not the only religion to work that way.
So, caffeine is frowned upon, not actually forbidden, let's call that exaggeration, possibly misunderstanding. But does the CJC-LDS own Coke? Well, no, that doesn't seem to be exactly true either, Coke is even bigger than you can imagine and has lots and lots of owners and I've seen no indication that CJC-LDS is a particularly large stockholder.
But again, probably not so much false as exaggeration/distortion/misunderstanding. Because they own a LOT of stock, very diversified, I don't know they own Coke stock but I shouldn't be surprised if they do.
And you know what they DO own, or at least did own some years ago when this rumor was common? Regional bottlers. Where the Coke comes from. Where the local businesses send the money to pay for the Coke they sell to all the Jack Mormons that get a thrill out of the little 'sin' of drinking some caffeine.
So you ask me, "is the Vegan Society tied in some way or another to McDonalds?"
*Shrug* Wouldn't surprise me.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday March 03 2018, @10:24PM
Nice imagery you painted there.
To complement those bits of cake, do you also have, as a side, a chart on how many firearms got in the hands of population over time?
Latest number floated says there are about 300M of them, one for every person in US, kids included.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 03 2018, @03:09PM (10 children)
So what? What should be the frequency of gun massacres before we compromise the freedom of 340 million people? I think it should be a lot more frequent than a measly once a weeks or fewer.
And that's good enough. We don't live in a world where people have rights only when their motives and interests are the Best Really.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Saturday March 03 2018, @05:21PM (9 children)
It's also completely false, unless you count non-injurious accidental discharge by a police officer on school grounds as a "School Shooting", which for the purposes of statistics the media does.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Insightful) by dry on Saturday March 03 2018, @05:45PM (8 children)
How the fuck is a police officer accidentally firing their weapon anywhere?
I'd expect police to have firearms training as part of their job and a trained person not to be playing with their weapon, especially on school grounds.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Saturday March 03 2018, @08:37PM (5 children)
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday March 03 2018, @08:48PM (4 children)
Well, I'd think most people would agree that regulations requiring a safety is a bare minimum and even seems to be fine with the 2nd and having cops (or anyone) armed with such an unsafe weapon seems wrong to me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 03 2018, @09:14PM (3 children)
Rights - such as the right to keep and carry weapons - are not subject to government approval nor to majority opinion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 03 2018, @10:37PM (2 children)
To most of the "progressives," rights are not inalienable nor granted by birthright, they are privileges bestowed by the government and only when it deems them as such. That's why we see so many lefties like the New York losers promoting sanctions for misgendering trannies, which clearly violates the 1st. It is very unfortunate that they are so goddamn stupid as to not see the obvious problems inherent when they themselves are eventually staring down the barrel of laws they won't like that are modeled after shit like this. The idiots never realize until it's too late that authoritarianism is a bad road to follow. Sooner or later, it takes a turn that you won't like.
(Score: 2) by dry on Sunday March 04 2018, @03:37AM (1 child)
Rights are not absolute. The famous example is how the right to swing your fist ends at my face. For speech, generally you are not allowed to scream all night in a residential area or put up signs in a dangerous way.
Having basic safety measures in a weapons design protects other peoples right to not be accidentally shot. Perhaps you don't consider that a right since it is not written down somewhere.
Rights are always a balance due to conflict between different rights.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @03:51PM
Rights are absolute. The only limit is the boundary of another human's rights, and there must be an actual trespass before a crime can be said to have occurred. Prior restraint is a crime.
Don't pay too much attention to the idiots in black robes - they're much more concerned about their pensions and long lives than they are the fundamental principles of human interactions with regards to rights.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 04 2018, @12:43AM (1 child)
First, training doesn't preclude stupid acts. Training only tends to decrease the likelihood f stupid acts.
Second, unlike most gunowners, a cop ALWAYS has a weapon at hand, vastly increasing the chances of a stupid act.
Third, we've all read the story of the guy who wanted to be a cop, and he was rejected because he was to smart.
Add that all up, and you have a metric butt load of less intelligent people who have a weapon at hand 24/7, just waiting for an excuse to have an accident.
(Score: 2) by dry on Sunday March 04 2018, @03:23AM
Still seems crazy to me, especially the part about cops using weapons with no safety. At that I'm somewhat surprised that weapons without a safety are allowed to be sold, little well allowed to be used by people who are always armed and hired for their stupidity.
Most dangerous tools are at least partially regulated for safety reasons. Buy a chainsaw and it will come with a chainbrake as well as a couple of defences against a broken chain (which can wrap around really quick and cause the lose of a hand).
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Saturday March 03 2018, @04:35PM (4 children)
Guns are liked less now, carried less now, with less of the population (as a percentage) than they were fifty or a hundred years ago, yet in the past ten years we have seen something never seen before in our history in regards to school shootings.
Gun laws are stricter than they have been in the past (with exception of the short period of the awb that was more strict) and more shootings are happening. Overall crime I down but school crime is up. All the stats show that everything is getting better except for violence at schools. This is an issue that is happening because something is wrong with gen z and the millennials.
So why? Those two generations will have a lower standard of living than the xers and boomers. When my dad bought the family house it cost him 1/4th is his income from working as maintenance at a cereal factory, it costs 3/4 my salary for the same house as an accountant. Cash for clunkers means there are fewer cheap cars out there to allow me to save money there. Jobs go overseas, become obsolite, or you have to compete with h1b, and then on top of all of this we have 70+k of school debt so we can get a job because nobody appears willing to hire without a degree. Then this god damn boomer meme about shaking a guys hand to get a job instead of being fucked by some hr department because they would rather not hire instead of accept someone without four years experience on an entry level job.
Ritilin because parents and teachers were too lazy to raise us. Xanex and other benzos because its too much work to be a fuckin role model and want us to just shut up. Schools teaching us that we arent allowed to be proud of our history because we are all literal slave owners and nazis for things done by custer, jackson, lee, etc. That our system is corrupt and that we should try communism because its better than our republic and stalin was misunderstood.
Boomers fucked our education, fucked us with meds, fucked us with our sense of person, and fucked our future. Maybe all the nihilism and deaths at schools are on the hands of our elders for being fucking worthless and failing their only role in society.
Forgot about the national debt, thans for that too you skum.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 03 2018, @06:24PM
So what? When it's your turn to be the oldsters, the younger generations are going to complain. The key question will then be, will they have a valid reason for complaining? It's not looking so good. Your generation's only claim to morality is that it was born at the wrong time.
Then live where it doesn't cost that much, if home ownership is that important to you. Most of the US has really cheap real estate. Sure, you're not given the opportunities that the boomers (mostly the elder half) had, but it's still not that bad. Take advantage of that and adapt to the crap.
I'll note here that this real estate mess probably has as much to do with income and wealth inequality as rich's peoples' capital doing better in a time of developing world labor competition. You get a pile of people in the wealthier urban areas restricting access to home ownership, then of course you're going to end up with a younger generation that has to either go without a home, spend an unusually high share of their income on home ownership, or live in a poorer region of the US. Mobility was one of the equalizers of human wealth, and it's in trouble [ssrn.com].
(Score: 1) by tftp on Saturday March 03 2018, @08:55PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 03 2018, @11:02PM (1 child)
Well maybe when you grow up a bit and a few more of your millennial brethren start voting for someone besides Hillary, you might stand a chance to fix the income inequality problem. I'll even help you a bit. It's not about giving McDonald's burger flippers $15 an hour. Tax the living fuck out of the uber rich like fifty years ago. Bring back 90% marginal rates on the highest incomes. Pass income limits on publicly traded companies as a ratio of max to mins. Tax stock options value as income payable when it vests. Tax capital gains as ordinary income. That'll fix your national debt problem too. Get your lazy emo asses out and vote for Bernie or someone like him. Don't whine like a pussy and bemoan your shitty existence.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 04 2018, @04:07AM
It's too late for an income tax to fix it. The wealth disparity is already there and is not going away at any rate of income tax.
The only way to reduce it now is to tax assets. Some n% of everything over $x million, every year.
n and x are open to debate but that, or pitchforks and torches, are the only ways you are going to reduce the gini coefficient now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 03 2018, @05:54PM
OK I will deny it. I own exactly 0 guns. No need for them in my life. Yet I want people to own them. The constitution does not give rights. It holds back the government. THAT is its design. Go read the thing. It is pretty clear on all points telling how to leave the people alone.
Want to reduce gun violence? It is dead easy. Hell it is even IN the constitution how to do so. You arm people and show them how to use the things. How to respect the weapons. Notice the 2a also calls out a well regulated militia. Regulated in this context means training as prescribed by congress and the states, as called out in the section that declares what congress is supposed to do. Our congress has abdicated its role. It has instead decided regulated means how many bullets are in a magazine and weather the grip should be plastic or wood.
People always ask what is your zombie plan. For 99.9999% of the population it is 'brainz'. A good portion of the population have no idea how to use a gun and what it means to own one. They are scared of them because the news tells them to be OMG HELL AND DAMNATION IS COMING FOR YOU BECAUSE OF THE BLACK SCARY GUNS. When the truth is our politicians want to disarm us. Yet somehow they are magically exempt from that. Take 2016 presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. She has a cadre of very well armed people around her at all times. Yet the rest of us can 'eat cake'.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday March 03 2018, @12:08PM (11 children)
Did that clear it up or do you need someone to explain to you that you also have a fundamental right to protect the above rights when necessary? I mean, I'd think that would be so blindingly obvious that nobody could fail to understand it but hey...
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday March 03 2018, @05:50PM (10 children)
So you agree that to protect life, arms should be regulated. Hard to have the liberty to pursue happiness without life.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 03 2018, @06:25PM (9 children)
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday March 03 2018, @07:01PM (8 children)
The discussion on this page.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 03 2018, @07:15PM (7 children)
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday March 03 2018, @07:46PM
Truly, friend khallow, you are an idiot.
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday March 03 2018, @07:52PM (5 children)
Where did I say that arms aren't currently well enough regulated? I did say, "arms should be regulated" without any comment on how much and whether the current regulations are enough.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 04 2018, @12:47AM (4 children)
Sorry, that's heavily implied. Nobody in the discussion was speaking of removing most or all firearm regulation - so why bring it up? After all, rules against murdering people should exist as well, but no one ever needs to point it out except when employing high levels of snark.
(Score: 2) by dry on Sunday March 04 2018, @04:06AM (3 children)
I just had an AC scream at me for suggesting that a reasonable regulation is firearms having a safety as the right to be armed is absolute and overrides all other rights. So yes, there are people who are not fine with any regulations on firearms.
I'm not American and don't consider owning and using a firearm to be any more then a right then owning and driving an automobile. To me it is reasonable expecting people to have some understanding of firearm safety (first time I owned a rifle, I got the neighbour, a WWII/Korean war vet, to give me a few hours instruction as I knew very little). Some arms shouldn't be sold and it should take a judge to remove that privilege.
What really scares me about the land of the free is regulations removing the right of owning a firearm from whole chunks of the population, basically using laws, aka letters of attainment. Accused of certain crimes, no arms for you. Any chance of mental instability, no arms for you. Went to jail for something unrelated to firearm violence or even any type of violence, no arms ever for you. That's insane regulations, not having a safety or requiring a couple of ounces of pressure to fire a weapon seems sane.
If you're going to have a Constitutional right for people to be armed, honour it. Other then a court order, and not a rubber stamp either, all people are allowed to be armed.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 04 2018, @05:38AM (2 children)
Not in this thread you didn't. I'm not that AC, I don't answer for it. Plus I read through your posts and don't see this alleged AC in reply to any of those posts. Let us also keep in mind that safeties are not perfect nor are the people who use firearms. If one treats a firearm as always loaded with a round in the chamber and the safety off or broken, then one is far less likely to be unpleasantly surprised by the firearm accidentally going off.
I agree that is a problem. It is also an indication that gun control advocates often have ulterior motives.
(Score: 2) by dry on Sunday March 04 2018, @06:52AM (1 child)
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=24366&page=1&cid=647270#commentwrap [soylentnews.org] read the parent as well.
You're right about safeties not being perfect, but they're better then the alternative and to me seem a reasonable regulation along with strongly encouraging never having a bullet in the chamber.
The thread was originally about a cop accidentally discharging his weapon in a school, not good for police to be using weapons without safeties and not a good representation of their training or presuming no meaningful punishment, the whole culture.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 04 2018, @07:29AM
And what would be the enforcement mechanisms for this regulation? We can already show a high degree of negligence in court, for example, if someone causes damage or injury from accidentally firing a weapon because they had the safety off and a bullet chambered. Regulation isn't required for that.
But if we're going to stop people on the street or go into their homes, in order to inspect their firearms, that's a very intrusive step which I don't agree is justified.
Insistence on safety equipment is also being exploited as a means to suppress firearm ownership, for example, mandating trigger-locks, excessive gun safe standards, DNA bullets, and other frivolous but costly safety devices and procedures. That incidentally is another reason gun rights advocates often oppose even simple-sounding safety procedures. Because it is a pretext to insert more costly and intrusive obstacles later on. All such safety equipment and procedures needs to be bypassed in order to use the firearm. Not much of a problem if one is merely shooting for entertainment, but a very big deal, if one is using that firearm in self-defense.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 04 2018, @12:22AM
Ahhhhhh - I see. And, the democrats haven't changed, of course. Democrats epitomize stability, rationality, and reason, right?
You are just another stinky partisan shit, with nothing of value to add to the conversation.