svincent - 2015-10-02 8:55 AM

Criminals are CRIMINALS. Passing gun laws that restrict ownership for law-abiding citizens will change NOTHING, except make law-abiding citizens more vulnerable.

If even ONE person had had a concealed weapon at Umpqua Community College yesterday, like the Army veteran who was shot five times after he rushed the gunman, the death toll probably would not be what it is. If that man had had a firearm instead of his body to protect himself and his fellow students with, he probably would have stopped the shooter completely.

We need to stop trying to legislate people into behaving. It doesn't work. Criminals DON'T care, so the general population needs to be allowed to defend themselves.

As a parent, I WOULD. NOT. HESITATE. to put my children in a classroom with a TRAINED and ARMED educator. Given the choice between trained and armed or not - I would choose the trained and armed teacher EVERY TIME. As an educator, I would feel SO MUCH safer if I was allowed to be armed at school. The first thing I do when I walk into a new classroom (I work as a substitute when I can get a babysitter, I'm normally a stay-at-home-mom) is mentally go through the classroom: where can I cram the kids should an active shooter situation occur? What in this room can I use to barricade the doors? What in this room can I use as a weapon? Where is the best place for ME to stand to put MYSELF between the shooter and my students? If I were permitted to carry in the classroom, the answers to all of those questions would get significantly easier.

Should teachers and staff be allowed to just carry guns at school? No, absolutely not. Staff should undergo military-esque training, learn methods for protecting their students, methods for holding a position under fire, etc.

As a stay-at-home-mom, you can bet that I am MORE than capable and willing to protect my children by any means necessary, and when I am in a classroom I would do the same. I have been through one "threat" of a student bringing a gun to school and during our staff meeting with local police to discuss the threat, every. single. teacher besides myself and ONE other, said that they would just get into the corner with the kids and pray. Why? "Because what else are we supposed to do?" was the answer. I found it not only sad that teachers feel so helpless to stop violence, but also TERRIFIED at the thought that they didn't have the confidence to at least TRY to stop the shooter.

Not all staff needs to be armed, even just a few would help. If you were a criminal and you were planning on committing a crime like this, would you pick an armed target ready to defend itself? Or a target where you KNOW there are no weapons, and the victims have no means to defend themselves? Right. THAT is why we need to not ban guns. We need to EDUCATE people on guns and their proper use, but not ban them.

svincent - 2015-10-02 12:58 PM "This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration. Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future." - Adolf Hitler, 1935 And we all know how well that turned out. Whoever said the largest army in the world is the armed American public is 100% correct. Hitler's first step in carrying out the Holocaust was to DISARM the public.

jkrm - 2015-10-02 11:59 AM Thanks everyone for your replies and opinions and keeping it civil and respectful.   I guess what I'm trying to understand then is why does this seem to happen so often in the United States versus other countries?  Yes it does happen in other countries and has even happened here in Canada, but not near as often or as violently as the states.  Why?  I do realize compairing Canada to the U.S. is apples to oranges due to population numbers but even compared to other countries it seems to happen so much more in the states.  Does it boil down to health care, education, social economic issues?  How much does media play a roll in this with sensationalizing it?



If gun control is not the answer, what is.  We as a whole humane race need to fix this.



 

Nevertooold - 2015-10-02 12:31 PM


Because the US has a population of over 300 million. Compare the % of killings next to our population versus the % of killings in other countries to get a real comparison.

 

Nevertooold - 2015-10-02 12:31 PM


Because the US has a population of over 300 million. Compare the % of killings next to our population versus the % of killings in other countries to get a real comparison.

 

classicpotatochip - 2015-10-02 12:24 PM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=M1u0Byq5Qis I think this will help.

hoofs_in_motion - 2015-10-02 2:23 PM


 

OregonBR - 2015-10-02 3:13 PM

The word coming out is that he targeted Christians.  Asked them to stand up and say what religion they were. The ones that said Christian, he shot in the head. The ones that didn't say or said some other religion he shot in the leg.   Digest that for a moment.  

jkrm - 2015-10-02 12:00 PM

 Komet, I asked if we could please debate this topic civil. All other responses to date are that -civil. I have not felt attacked personally for my opposing view by the other posters. We may disgagree but they did not attack me, my views or my country. They disagreed and stated their views. 

I personally felt attacked by your comment.  And felt like my country was being attacked.

OregonBR - 2015-10-02 2:17 PM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pELwCqz2JfE&feature=player_embed...
Great link.

For America if you would take out the stats from Detroit, Chicago, Baltimore, New Orleans and Washington DC. We would be at the very bottom. All of these are liberal run cities with the strictest gun laws in our country.

Obama lied through his conference today and no one says a word. Of course he also said that Putin is weak...He's weak like ISIS is JV. We need to wake up.  

streakysox - 2015-10-02 7:57 PM Dr Ben Carson said it pretty well today. Gun laws are for honest people. There is nothing that terrorists like better than a bunch of unarmed targets.

streakysox - 2015-10-02 7:57 PM

Dr Ben Carson said it pretty well today. Gun laws are for honest people. There is nothing that terrorists like better than a bunch of unarmed targets.

BARRELHORSE USA - 2015-10-02 8:40 PM

I take it all in a different direction ...

Look at all the wussy juries and judges that give life in prison to all of our criminals instead of the death penalty and carrying out the death penalty in a very timely manner.

Prisoner's attorneys should not be able to hold a death row inmate for 20 and 30 years doing appeals and nonsense at the expense of the tax payers. Don't kid yourself the attorneys are making a bundle off of delaying death penalties while sitting on their butts.... i.e. I am an attorney and I get $1000/ month on each and have 10-20 inmates as their public defender ... I would delay their death anyway I could while doing as little as possible to bring them to justice ..

If quick justice was meted out to criminals and jails and prisons were self sustained by the prisoners growing their own food, making their own clothing and marching them around in military style with no perks ....... you would see a great change in the number of felons and criminals ..

Then there are the drugs for ADHD people that are coming of age that have been zombies all of their lives ...... look at the shooters we have had ... all of them have been on prescribed drugs and decided not to take them anymore ... and no one wants to nail the schools, parents, doctors, especially psychiatrist handing out drugs like they are candy when a good butt whooping is all most of these kids need ..

GUNS AREN'T THE PROBLEM ... IT IS OUR MUNDANE MENTALITY ON SEEING THAT CRIMINALS ARE DELT WITH IN A HARD AND FAST COURT AND PRISON SYSTEM TO PUT THE FEAR IN THE OTHER WANNABE CRIMINALS THAT WE TRAIN TO BE CRIMINALS WITH OUR HIDDEN JUVENILE COURT SYSTEM ...

AND .. I find it odd that our government and law enforcement always comes up with the lone wolf nonsense on every major crime committed against American citizens ...