Mental illness is thrown around so much these days, as well as the pills that are prescribed for each diagnosis. I truly don't know what to think other than this has never happened before the 90's. I can't blame it on a single thing, neither can anyone else. You can have all the guesstimations in the world, but none will tell you the entire story. What are the ingredients for a killer? The 'profiling' class example are the kids who are loners, bullied or awkward in some way. If an outcasted kid is that depressed, would he even care about his own life? And if he doesn't care about his own life, will he care about yours? Will he care about your children's lives? Of course not. And to top this guesstimation off -- add a dash of revenge into the pot. In today's world, kids aren't only suicidal - they're
homicidal as well. It's not just 'oh woe is me' - it's more like, 'woe is me and I'll get you back for your happiness and joy in life'. So plop a ton of anger onto the loneliness, depression, the awkwardness and the bullying. That's explosive. Can it get worse? Sure. Add the media coverage of all the shootings from day till night emphasizing that "this was the biggest massacre yet". The loner thinks, "Well I can think of a better and bigger massacre." Those are the ingredients in my unprofessional guesstimation.
The NRA wants to place armed guards in every school. Didn't help Columbine High School all that much. It may have slowed the killer down, but not only did he shoot people, he shot the guard as well. The killer isn't necessarily going to walk into the school as an outsider. He's most likely inside, from within. So how is a guard supposed to stop a premeditated killer who has already plotted and schemed his massacre? He already knows the guard is there, so wouldn't he have a backup plan for him too? I wonder if the NRA thinks about this much. Their logic is questionable. While I'm all for the right to bear arms to protect your home and for sportsmen and hunters, I'm also concerned about the lack of background checks and semiautomatic weapons. If you're protecting your home, you do not need a semiautomatic. One shot will do. If you're not good at shooting, then you should not own a gun. It's that simple. I don't understand how placing a guard in every school is going to help. While we all want to keep our kids safe, there is nothing that will protect them from an unpredictable kid with a plan, not even a guard. And how much more do we have to pay for guards "protecting" our kids?
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5 comments:
Even if schools could afford armed guards (which they certainly cannot), it wouldn't have helped the people at the Portland mall two weeks ago. We would need armed guards everywhere there were large crowds. Their suggestion is about as appalling as most of what I hear from conservatives--trickle-down-economics, for example.
I find it interesting that the Second Amendment says "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." It does not say the right of the people to have a militia.
To the NRA is a business,too interesting in selling arms. It sure took them a while to come up with a statement and finally they came out with one that seemed to be pulled out of their...bleep.
I have also seen stories suggesting that every teacher should be able to carry concealed - and would then have the ability to take out a perpetrator. Unless of course the teacher/guard is the lonely, angry, resentful one.
I don't know what the answers are. I know what has pretty much succeeded here - but our cultures are different.
I would like to know at what age these mass murders were started on brain chemistry altering drugs. it is a slippery slope when you start to change the brains chemistry long before the brain is fully developed.
There are studies done about serial killers that give pointers and clues to what kind of child possibly would turn in that direction starting at age 10 but the one time mass murderer who knows maybe we drug the markers out of them.
Possibly we should look to the nation with the least amount of murders and find what modality they use to determine prescribed drug use for them under 21/22 and follow that method.
The NRA are a bunch of idiots when it comes to answering for these kinds of blips in the gun rights debate. If we are going to maintain our right to bear arms with very little scrutiny for safety or preventitive care, then all bets are off and Sandy Hook is one of those events that was a long time coming. You can't stop mass murder in places where lone gunman prey upon those who least expect to be murdered--children at school, people going to movies, shoppers, churchgoers. So if the NRA want things to stay the same, this is what is going to happen.
I should add that the NRA are not representative of many gun owners who want a weapon for self defense. You can still accept the mandate of the 2nd amendment and think that the NRA are full of crap.
If we enforced the laws we already had, we wouldn't need to make any more laws or get armed guards in schools that can't afford new textbooks.
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