This is where the conversation needs to start

[TwoWalks Baldridge]

Well said PJ

And if things are not divided enough in this country, there is also a little division between "Federal Supremacy" and "State Rights".   Some like Bugscuffle make it obvious they believe the Federal Government is the savior of America and others like myself believe in State rights.

[c.o.jones]

BUGSCUFFLE, I THINK YOU SHOULD CONCENTRATE ALL YOUR TIME TO ANOTHER WEB SITE. BOWLING COMES TO MIND. YOU CAN EXPLAIN THE ADVANTAGES OF A SQUARE BALL VERSUS A ROUND BALL.

[Bugscuffle]

O.K. you don't like the idea. Well you just can't immagine how crushed I am. I told you at the beginning, in my original post, that you wouldn't. I thought that it would generate some adult discussion on what alternatives there are to this. Apparently I was wrong, so O.K. Other than the "arm the teachers" plan, there have been ZERO suggestions for how to remove the guns from the bad guy's hands and keep them in the good guy's hands. You want to bash my iseas, but how about your's, And, come on now, "ARM THE TEACHERS"?

[Advertising]

[PJ Hardtack]

Give it up, guys, the man is incorrigible. I think he spent too much time in Russia. Guess he forgot that after the collapse of the USSR, they had to disarm the Militia (Russian Police) as they were being killed on the street for their guns. And in Britain, they had to arm their previously unarmed Bobbies. So much for the effectiveness of 'gun control' measures.

There is no way of keeping guns out of the hands of the bad guys. They will ALWAYS  be able to get their guns, even if they have to kill you to get them. The logic of this escapes the minds of some, and virtually ALL politicians and pie-in-the-sky left wingers.

Two Walks - wasn't there a little dust up once before over 'states rights' in US history, the brouhaha that went from 1861 to '65? The way your country is set up, allowing individual states to run their own affairs is a way of preventing an all-powerful government of cramming things down their throats - IF the system is allowed to work.

[RickB]

We do NOT have a federal law with mandatory sentencing that says that it is unlawful to be in possession of a gun that is not registered to you. If there were a law that states that you may not be in possession of a gun that is not registered to YOU, then you would be a criminal by definition if you are in possession of that gun and you would NOT be an innocent person, YOU WOULD BE A CRIMINAL. Today if a police officer comes across a gun in the course of an investigation, even if he is absolutely sure that the gun is not registered to anyone in that premises or if nobody claims it, he cannot confiscate the gun or in any way prevent access to that gun by anyone. He has no recourse; he must just leave it there. Some cities and states have very strict gun laws, others do not. In the cities and states that do not, there is no or very little mandatory sentencing of people found to be unlawfully in possession of firearms.

Bugs, yes we do have a law that gives a mandatory sentence for a felon having a gun in their possession. There is supposed to be a 20 year sentence for any felon who is caught with a gun in their possession since it is also a felony for a felon to even handle a gun. Problem is, most lawyers plea deal these charges away. Very few times have this law been used to put away felons for having a gun. It's always a barganing chip for lawyers to deal with in court cases.

It is also a law saying that if you are mentally ill you can not own or posses a gun.

There are over 22,000 gun laws on the books as it is. The problem isn't that we need more laws. The problem is that we need to enforce the ones we have.

Obama and his libtard troop of flying monkies in the senate and congress want to reinstate the Assault Weapon Ban. Why? How did an assault weapon come into play in this latest shooting? From the accounts I read the AR15 rifle was left in the guys car and he used handguns to commit the murders. Guns that he couldn't legally own due to his mental illness and his age. He tried to buy a rifle prior to his crime and was denied. The law worked as intended. Problem is, he had a criminal state of mind and figured out a way to get his guns by murder and illegal acts. You see, a criminal will always figure out a way to get a gun regardless of laws. The best way to deal with them is lock them up and throw away the key.

The problem is liberals and the ACLU keep criminals free and victimizing society. The ACLU has fought hard to keep the medical records of mentally ill people from being used in Federal background checks. So if you lie on your 4473 form and say you aren't mentally ill (it asks that on the federal form) and the doctors are barred from sharing that information with the federal or state police agencies, then there is no way to stop them from getting a gun.

[Cliff Fendley]

Give it up guys, you can't argue with a liberal because they can't reason.

I knew better but was tricked since I was on a gun related site.

[RickB]

Oh, by the way, not all states require you to register your guns to own them. None of my guns are registered other than my having filled out the 4473 form. And that is not something that the federal government is supposed to log. You see, it is against the law for the government (any government state or federal) to keep a database of gun owners. To do so would be breaking the law.

You should read up on what laws we have before you comment on them.

[Camille Eonich]

I believe that the topic of this post was mental health.

Bugs, PJ and anyone else here has the right to post their opinion.

[Camille Eonich]

Many are women now, most from what I can tell, even the bus drivers.

What bearing does this have on either topic that has been discussed in this thread?

[Stu Kettle]

What bearing does this have on either topic that has been discussed in this thread?

He was implying that one of the reasons that teachers are too stupid to be armed is because so many of them are women. I was too offended to post a reply right away. I'm not a woman, but I am a teacher.  It has always irked me that my chosen profession requires that I forfeit the right to defend myself and those in my care while at work.

By the way, of the few other teachers I work with that I would consider an asset in an armed confrontation, the majority are women.

[Camille Eonich]

He was implying that one of the reasons that teachers are too stupid to be armed is because so many of them are women. I was too offended to post a reply right away. I'm not a woman, but I am a teacher.  It has always irked me that my chosen profession requires that I forfeit the right to defend myself and those in my care while at work.

By the way, of the few other teachers I work with that I would consider an asset in an armed confrontation, the majority are women.

He doesn't think that we can drive either.   

[Sir Charles deMouton-Black]

The law will not make honest citizens into criminals. It will designate which are the honest citizens and which are the criminals. If you are an "honest citizen" why are you carrying that unregistered gun?

The fact is that it did make criminals of gun owners.  You could only own guns under strict conditions, and the onus was on the owner to prove he was properly papered up. A widow could be a criminal the moment her properly legal gun owning mate passed on.  If she didn't react right away, or didn't find all his guns, there could be difficulties.  Not always, but it depended on the whim of the officer who encountered the situation.  And as PJ said, many quietly refused to obtain registration.  Most of these were elderly, often Vets, and otherwise model citizens.

Years ago at a gunshow in a town near Montreal the Quebec Provincial Police brought professional grade video cameras into the building and taped everything and everybody.  I heard that they recorded every licence plate within several blocks of the show!  In the newspapers the following day it was announced proudly that they had laid 27 criminal charges at the show.  One charge was an antique medieval "morning glory" chain mace that was now prohibited, as it fit the definition intended to prohibit Nunchuks. The other 26 were laid against the wife of an exibiter who watched over her husbands pistol display case while he went to the concession to get a hotdog. he was licenced, but not the little lady!

Licencing schemes have a major flaw, in that they provide the police arbitrary powers.

[Shotgun Franklin]

The goal of every Liberal scheme is to disarm someone, anyone for any reason they can come up with.
When we left the Melting Pot system, introduced the Welfare State and let the Federal Gov't start working their way into local Law Enforcement and into Education things went to crap. It might take a collapse to get things kick started again.
It ought to be obvious to even an idiot that Liberalism is nothing but a Black Hole sucking the good things out of this country.

[Cliff Fendley]

He doesn't think that we can drive either.  

Just how do you conclude I was saying women can't drive? Most of our bus drivers are women nowadays, that's just a fact just like most teachers are. No one said they can't drive, I know better than that, my wife has logged a many mile with a 48 foot trailer behind her. I am far from a male chauvinist if that's what your trying to lead to.

The point I was making is that women on average are far more less likely to be open to confrontation than a man, the percentages are there, whether you like them or not. I have a son in fifth grade, I go to the school, many of the teachers are sheep, yet I personally know some women in that school that can hold their own against any man. Some of them with or without a gun

Of the people I know in the education field that are conservative, especially ones into gun related activities will all tell you they are few among there co workers.  

I'm all for any faculty (women or men) that are capable to carry a gun and protect the kids.

The point I was making is you can't just come out and say we are going to train a certain percentage of faculty members to do that when you don't know how many would be willing to do so.

My wife happened to be standing here while making this post, she shoots, started cowboy action shooting this past year, she doesn't see anything wrong with my post. She agrees with the reasoning. We are still puzzled how you can conclude I was saying women can't drive when I point out they are the ones driving our buses.

[Camille Eonich]

Gender did not need to come out at all.  There are just as many men out there that will turn from a confrontation as there are women.  Some people may even say that females have a motherly instinct that may kick in to protect children more readily than men.  Notice that I said some people, I would not be one of them because I don't believe that it is a gender issue.

I'll apologize for the statement about women driving but taken within the whole context of the sentence in which it was used in and from my perspective you seemed to be concerned by that.

Physically women are weaker than men but much of that is due to size alone.  An untrained male of the same size as an untrained female will more than likely be stronger than the female still but the difference will not be that great.

[Cliff Fendley]

My thoughts on that post were more geared toward Professors suggestion of train at least 30% of the school personnel. I was merely trying to explain with reasoning that there may not be sufficient numbers wanting to do that to meet the 30% number in all schools.

There was a meeting for our school system last week to discuss what we can do here to prevent anything like this. The sheepish attitude among the school system employees was overwhelming.

Of the few school employees that would like to be able to carry their gun (men and women) the rest (mostly women) have the fear of god in their eyes when the idea is mentioned. They don't even want a couple substitute teachers that are retired police officers to carry a concealed weapon.

I meant nothing demeaning about women but merely basing my statement on stats that I've seen and heard. Most statistics that I've ever read on the subject say that even though women are 30-40% more likely to get attacked than a man, men are 2.5 times more likely to carry a weapon.

[PJ Hardtack]

Incapable women? It is to laugh .....

Some of you might have missed the point I made about the men abandoning the female engineering students at L'Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal, Quebec.
The shooter ordered them out of the room at gunpoint and instead of rushing him, they went. What did they think was going to happen next? I wonder how they are living with the knowledge that they bear responsibility for 16 deaths.

Navel gazing afterwards determined that these young 'men' had been sensitized/feminized, inculcated with the PC non-specific gender crap of the feminist movement. The male psyche had all but been erased in them, attributed to conditioning that essentially emasculated them. An earlier generation would have acted differently.

The female teachers at Newtown were examples of loving, capable women, willing to step into harm's way for their charges. Anyone familiar with the ire of a mother bear protecting her cubs will understand.

Give me a motivated woman, with or without a gun over a sensitive, liberal minded male any day of the week!

[Cliff Fendley]

You guys are definitely taking things the wrong way. NO ONE SAID WOMEN ARE INCAPABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A poster stated we need to train and arm at least 30% of the teachers.

My point was that would be a stretch. Not from any negativity towards women or teachers.

The stats back up what I said. I haven't done any research on this but to my understanding the highest concealed carry states by percentage have something like 25% of their citizens with a CCW. Stats also show men are 2.5 times more likely to carry a weapon than a man.

So if most teachers are women you may be hard pressed to find a school with 30% of the faculty carrying a gun.

Anyone that can't solve that simple math problem may have very well had an incapable teacher.

[Bugscuffle]

Me: P.J. There is just too much fertile ground here for me not to plow. I’ll take these one At a time.

You:

Give it up, guys, the man is incorrigible. I think he spent too much time in Russia. Guess he forgot that after the collapse of the USSR, they had to disarm the Militia (Russian Police) as they were being killed on the street for their guns. And in Britain, they had to arm their previously unarmed Bobbies. So much for the effectiveness of 'gun control' measures.

Me: Yes, you might as well give it up. Yes, I am incorrigible. No, I didn’t spend too much time in Russia, but I spent enough, 7 years. I see my time over there as a great learning experience. I learned that the Soviet government was just as bad as it was depicted to be. I learned that the Russian people were no different from us in most ways. Your statement about the Militsia is more than just wrong. It is reminicent of CIA propoganda. There are two national civil police forces in Russia. One is the Militsia, now called the Federal Police. The Militsia investigates civil crime. The other is the Guyee, sorry it is an acronym in the Cyrillic alphabet and that’s as close as I can come to it in the Latin alphabet, but the Guyee take care of traffic relayed problems and violations. Both forces are Armed and In the seven years that I was there, all of 1993 and 1995 through 2001, I never heard of an officer of either force being disarmed by either the government or the Brati (that's what the mafia calls themselves).

You: There is no way of keeping guns out of the hands of the bad guys. They will ALWAYS  be able to get their guns, even if they have to kill you to get them. The logic of this escapes the minds of some, and virtually ALL politicians and pie-in-the-sky left wingers.

Me: Once again you have restated the problem and NOT OFFERED A SOLUTION. Is it because there isn’t one or because you don’t like the only workable solutions?

Two Walks - wasn't there a little dust up once before over 'states rights' in US history, the brouhaha that went from 1861 to '65? The way your country is set up, allowing individual states to run their own affairs is a way of preventing an all-powerful government of cramming things down their throats - IF the system is allowed to work.

Your trivialization of the Civil War is despicable. It is estimated that 700,000+ Americans lost their lives in that war. Show some respect. There were only two States Rights that were in dispute during this period. One is the question of slavery and the other is the question of, do the states have the right to ceded from the union? The first question was answered by the 13th Amendment and the second question was resolved at Appomattox. In case you had not noticed THE SOUTH LOST THE WAR. It’s over and there is nothing that you can do about it.

[TwoWalks Baldridge]

THE SOUTH LOST THE WAR. It’s over and there is nothing that you can do about it.

Stand Watie signed a cease-fire agreement with Union representatives but did not surrender.

My Great Grand pappy did not surrender and I have not surrendered. 

And yes each day there are things that I and others can do about it, creating laws and changing laws that return rights to the States and limit the growth and power of the Federalist Government.