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Elementary school shooting

Discussion in 'Serious' started by Sloth, 14 Dec 2012.

  1. DXR_13KE

    DXR_13KE BananaModder

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    Why?

    A gun, as small as it is, is a relatively complex destructive device that can kill at some range, if you do not know what you are doing some one will get hurt. Why not require a training course for it?
    It would be much safer for the gun owner and his family if the gun owner knows what the hell he is doing and if he has some experience working with firearms.
    Instead of fumbling around with the magazine and safety when a burglar enters his house he can react much faster and safely.
    The gun owner would also be able to better identify threats, learn proper shooting stance, proper gun maintenance, correct storage methods, safer carrying methods, etc...
     
  2. eddie_dane

    eddie_dane Used to mod pc's now I mod houses

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    Agreed, to a certain degree. But you have to concede that you are dealing with a specific facet of their life in which you have a degree of expertise. I'm sure you don't follow your patients around afterward and protect them from all physical dangers, do their banking for them at home and kiss their children goodnight for them.

    Learning about human nature and broadcasting that information into society is good IMO. But past that, it ventures into the area we've discussed before of the paternalistic role of a government overriding personal choice that I can't subscribe too and the Philosopher King scenario.
     
  3. wafflesomd

    wafflesomd What's a Dremel?

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    My girlfriends parents purchased a firearm for protection after a knife wielding lunatic broke into their house and almost killed her father.
     
  4. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    No, we have social workers for that. :p More seriously though, many people do make a hash of their lives and do seem in need of assistance if only because their children become the next generation to suffer a similar fate. We all know of social classes which appear trapped in never-ending cycles of ignorance and want. Just how to help them is a tricky issue and paternalistic approaches do not help. But neither does just leaving them to it under the guise of "personal freedom" and "personal responsibility". We also know (from e.g. aforementioned riots) what people can be like. Most can barely manage cars and credit cards responsibly --I'm not sure they should have guns.

    BTW I must admit I'm more of a Confucianist. :)

    Understandable response. I hope they now learn to own it responsibly.
     
  5. eddie_dane

    eddie_dane Used to mod pc's now I mod houses

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    Everything you say is true and is also already widely available in the US. My hesitance of "licensing" is more of a political one than practical given the history of the US using licensing to circumnavigate laws passed by congress (the will of the people) a sort of end-run regulation with no accountability. In spirit, everything you say make sense, in the real world, I have concerns based on experience. I can't honestly name one form of licensing that hasn't been perverted for political means and ultimately, I think it costs more than it helps.

    It is worth noting though in the context of the original topic, none of this does anything to avoid the school shooting. These were not the shooter's guns, from what I read, he was trained to shoot by his mother. If he had received further, mandatory training, it's reasonable to assume he may have been more lethal so the argument cuts both ways (training being the panacea). Oswald was a trained rifleman in the USMC.

    Guns are not that complicated. My remmington 870 shotgun, which would be the first thing I would grab if someone broke into my house is one of the most simple machines to operate 1000 times more simple than my car. The difference between it and other simple machines is that it is lethal.

    The most common mistake, made by even the most experienced owners to accidently shoot themselves while cleaning a weapon. Training doesn't solve every problem. The bottom line is no matter how complicated the weapon it can only harm the person it is pointed at. Even experts sometimes forget this most basic rule.
     
    Last edited: 19 Dec 2012
  6. eddie_dane

    eddie_dane Used to mod pc's now I mod houses

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    literally LOL'd
     
  7. mucgoo

    mucgoo Minimodder

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    I'd view that as the parents being lucky that the person hadn't decided to go on a rampage with some easily available gun.
    It comes down to the statistics game of a number of non criminal lives saved in those kind of situations vs deaths which may not have occurred if firearms weren't so common. The numbers seem to fall well to the right.

    Its a bit narrow to confine the debate to how we could of stopped a single instance. Murderous rampages are a fairly small blip compared to deaths caused by isolated firearms incidents.

    In regard mandatory training. It would be focused on safe handling rather than marksmanship or combat training. Think about how road safety lessons for example. They make you a safer but not better driver. The other point would be people who are completely unsuitable to be owning a gun could be identified just through spending a few hours instructing them in its use.
     
  8. DXR_13KE

    DXR_13KE BananaModder

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    On the other hand his mother would be trained to know that she should keep her weapons secured and know how to teach her child more correctly.

    I know guns are not that complicated, i have never held one but i do believe i could operate and disassemble/assemble one without much problems, when i talk about them being complex i am talking on the viewpoint of that person you know that always comes to you asking why the internet is broken on their computer and then asks you if tilting the screen will help the bar fill up...
    This kind of person will not buy a nice shotgun, they will buy a shiny cheap revolver, struggle to load it and leave it fully loaded somewhere "convenient", then, one day, he/she will forget that it is loaded, point it around, bump it against something, and accidentally shoot you as you are passing outside his/her house, oops... now you have a bullet lodged somewhere important, thank God for private health care and health insurance companies. That is, unless they file you under the pre-existing conditions or DOA.

    The sad end comes when the person that it is pointed to is a child or some innocent sod that had the bad timing of getting in the way of the stray bullet.
     
  9. wafflesomd

    wafflesomd What's a Dremel?

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    You could say that about practically any violent altercation where there wasn't a gun present.
     
  10. walle

    walle Minimodder

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    The issue here was not the lack of proper training but one of psychological problems, problems which caused him to go on a killing spree.
     
  11. mucgoo

    mucgoo Minimodder

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    Not if you compared between the US and the UK. Guns in the UK being very rare in the UK a householder being killed by a gun carrying robber would be in the papers. I'm doubting that would get mentioned beyond the local news in the US.
     
  12. eddie_dane

    eddie_dane Used to mod pc's now I mod houses

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    That's the first time I've ever been accused of staying on topic. I think it's worth noting.

    Not that we haven't talked gun-control before on these forums before but we weren't talking about it last week or last month and I think that says something about the topic. That's also an underlying point to almost all my arguments. People see a tragedy like this and scream out, and justifiably so, but then two minutes later, people are making all the same arguments they have been making for years but have no relevance to what made people want to discuss it in the first place.
     
  13. mucgoo

    mucgoo Minimodder

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    Its an issue which like most would be most effectively tackled from multiple angles.

    Improved mental healthcare would of reduced the chances but as Nexxo said a few pages back that would be a huge undertaking and slipping through the net likely.

    Restricting the weapons he had available down to UK levels of lethality as opposed to semi automatics rifles and handguns would of reduced the damage he could of done.

    Ensuring his mother (and all other gun owners) understand only she is entitled to use her guns and they must be locked away and he needs to purchase his own weapons along with a background check (which would be a nice chance for him to be identified as a bit nuts). Of course his mother could of ignored the storage and personal use only requirements but then it might of been picked up on by the police and he could of been identified as crazy.

    Nexxo can do his bit about how we don't amalgamate lots of small bit of information (the however many people an hour being killed by a gun in the US) into a reason to take action but need some big sensational incident like this to trigger a collective interest and occasionally a response to the issue.
     
    Last edited: 19 Dec 2012
  14. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    The point being, that if a gun had been present it would have been more likely to end stickily.

    The issue here was also the mother leaving guns accessible to other people in the family home --one of which had psychological problems (I would like to think that she would have been aware that junior had issues before he shot her in the chest).
     
  15. eddie_dane

    eddie_dane Used to mod pc's now I mod houses

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    I think it is reasonable to say regarding the shooter's mother is that she had these guns for legitimate purposes. No doubt, he had serious problems. Details are sketchy and emerging that she was making moves to even have him institutionalized - she may have just been in denial as many parents are when it comes to problems their kids are experiencing.

    That said, she very well could have had the guns both stored safely AND he knew how to access them.

    It is that way in my house. I have my weapons safely stored but my son has access to them for the same reasons I do. He is also well trained in firearm use and safety. That said, if I had concerns about his mental health, I would change that - for any reason fear that he may hurt himself.

    Hopefully, the millions of households that have guns are taking this opportunity to reconsider how they are storing their weapons and considering everyone who has access to them.
     
  16. KayinBlack

    KayinBlack Unrepentant Savage

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    http://minx.cc/?post=298392

    http://gizmodo.com/shotgun-revolver/

    Sure that'll stop them if you take them? I can put together a decently accurate firearm in an afternoon for off the shelf cartridges. If you want to push me to using my own everything, I could get langrage by nightfall. Fireworks have lots of gunpowder, they're legal and plentiful here. I've got a whole box of them in my spare room. Sure, I'm smart, but I've seen those people generally accused of relations with their sisters make some pretty awesome triple barrel shotguns with iron pipe. It's not rocket surgery.

    I'm not going to inject my opinions into this, not because I think you're not listening, but because other people have simply elucidated them better than I can. I simply want to call people's attention to the fact that needs must when the Devil drives, if you will. If someone has seen a gun, a loaded cartridge and a spent cartridge, they can make some approximation of a gun. This can even be done by people who have not seen a real gun-it may not fire many times, but often one time is enough.

    I am looking into building my own gun-from a kit, mind, but I rather like the idea of doing things myself, and I'm going through too many boxes of cartridges and shotgun shells trying to deal with my coyote problem (Fish & Wildlife knows about me doing this, as do the local police-they tell me so long as it's not illegal for a private citizen to own, use it-they're too dangerous to allow to proliferate and I can't poison them for fear of the dogs that people legitimately own in the area.) Also, I can move up to a much bigger projectile (so as to kill cleanly) without paying my income for the next year to do so. Incidentally, I am looking at muzzeloaders. At 20-30 feet, anything is accurate.
     
  17. eddie_dane

    eddie_dane Used to mod pc's now I mod houses

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  18. walle

    walle Minimodder

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    Nothing strange with allowing family members (of age) access to the households weapons.

    You bring up a valid point as far as his mother is concerned thou, mothers tend to be very in tune. I quickly learnt mine was living lie detector growing up. Most mothers are, I would argue.
     
  19. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    Kayin, if that scares you, have a gander at 3D printable guns. It's the future. Off the leash.

    EDIT: darn, ninja'd by eddie!

    Mine lives in another country and she still knows when I'm up to no good... :p
     
  20. walle

    walle Minimodder

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    Haha that put a smile on my face :) Yeah, one do best to behave.
     

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