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Topic ClosedAs gun control is not possible...

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Poll Question: Is it time to fortify schools in the US?
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Blacksword View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Topic: As gun control is not possible...
    Posted: February 15 2018 at 01:49
On the back of yet another slaughter in a US high school, and on the understanding that there will never be the political will or means to implemement any kind of gun control, has the time now come to at least take the protection of school children seriously?

Should schools in the US be fortifed, with armed guards at the gates, checkpoints, razorwire perimeters, searches for all students, teachers, parents etc upon entering the premises?

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 15 2018 at 02:13
Are you from the US? The sad part is this sh*t is becoming normal. The toothpaste can't go back into the tube IMHO. We're absolutely screwed either way at this point. Restricting freedom for safety doesn't really work here because crazy people will still do crazy sh*t. That's not a statement to do nothing at all about it, of course.

Lock the schools down, someone will still get a bomb in and turn it into a whole new situation. There is no good solution at this point IMHO. By that, I mean I can't see any solution actually working long-term before someone figures out a new way to get through the layers of fortification.

I'm also a cynical/libertarian anarchist, so there's that.

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 15 2018 at 02:48
I'd just written a long reply, but it was destroyed by Captcha...

I don't have time to re-write it, but in essence I just posed the question. Does the argument that someone may eventually figure out how to ge a bomb through really justify doing nothing at all in the short term to prevent shootings? You have to consider who is carrying out these attacks. They are lone individuals and not members of sophisticated terrorist organisations with contacts on the 'inside' They are far less likely to be able to get bombs through fortifications.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 15 2018 at 03:11
Originally posted by Blacksword Blacksword wrote:

I'd just written a long reply, but it was destroyed by Captcha...

I don't have time to re-write it, but in essence I just posed the question. Does the argument that someone may eventually figure out how to ge a bomb through really justify doing nothing at all in the short term to prevent shootings? You have to consider who is carrying out these attacks. They are lone individuals and not members of sophisticated terrorist organisations with contacts on the 'inside' They are far less likely to be able to get bombs through fortifications.

No, it doesn't justify doing nothing, and I thought I made that point clear in my above post? I'm just cynical/jaded, living in USA and seeing it happen all the time now.

Also, I'm failing to understand how all you PA veterans are getting defeated so often by CAPTCHA? Doesn't everyone CTRL+C their comment before hitting "Reply"?


Edited by Frenetic Zetetic - February 15 2018 at 03:12

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 15 2018 at 03:17
Originally posted by Frenetic Zetetic Frenetic Zetetic wrote:

Originally posted by Blacksword Blacksword wrote:

I'd just written a long reply, but it was destroyed by Captcha...

I don't have time to re-write it, but in essence I just posed the question. Does the argument that someone may eventually figure out how to ge a bomb through really justify doing nothing at all in the short term to prevent shootings? You have to consider who is carrying out these attacks. They are lone individuals and not members of sophisticated terrorist organisations with contacts on the 'inside' They are far less likely to be able to get bombs through fortifications.


No, it doesn't justify doing nothing, and I thought I made that point clear in my above post? I'm just cynical/jaded, living in USA and seeing it happen all the time now.

Also, I'm failing to understand how all you PA veterans are getting defeated so often by CAPTCHA? Doesn't everyone CTRL+C their comment before hitting "Reply"?



Yeah, sometimes I do. Sometimes I forget. Also, I tend to only get Captcha when using my work PC running Win7 and IE 12, without adblocking software. When I run Firefox at home on Win10 with adblocker I never get Captcha. Why that should make a difference I don't know.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 15 2018 at 04:14
The best theoretic solution I can think of is some new tech in guns that prevents them from being used unless it's a legitimate reason.

When personal liberty includes access to military weapons, that's taking it too far.   I will say this: up until a few years ago it was illegal to sell, buy, or carry a switchblade knife in most states including California.   Consequently those knives were extremely scarce and only available in places like Mexico.   That law was changed, those knives are now legal to own but not carry, and luckily there has been no notable increase in knife violence as far as I know.   The point is when you make something strictly illegal to sell or buy, it does make a difference in availability and access .   Gun laws need to be changed to reflect an attitude of balance between gun rights and public safety wherein guns are manufactured in smaller quantities and only those of non-military grade.


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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 15 2018 at 04:23
Originally posted by Atavachron Atavachron wrote:

The best theoretic solution I can think of is some new tech in guns that prevents them from being used unless it's a legitimate reason.

When personal liberty includes access to military weapons, that's taking it too far.   I will say this: up until a few years ago it was illegal to sell, buy, or carry a switchblade knife in most states including California.   Consequently those knives were extremely scarce and only available in places like Mexico.   That law was changed, those knives are now legal to own but not carry, and luckily there has been no notable increase in knife violence as far as I know.   The point is when you make something strictly illegal to sell or buy, it does make a difference in availability and access .   Gun laws need to be changed to reflect an attitude of balance between gun rights and public safety wherein guns are manufactured in smaller quantities and only those of non-military grade.



I agree completely, but what do we do when people start "illegally" 3D printing weapons, and manage to do damage before they are detained, etc? You can say legislation all day, but that honestly does very little when mental health is the cause. People are crazy. The weapons are merely a means to an end.

Again, I'm not arguing against any form of legislation or protective measures; it's just honestly hard for me to accept that that's going to slow down these massacres. We laugh, but I can see someone figuring out a way to make explosives will perfectly legal stuff even if gun laws are upgraded/made less available.

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 15 2018 at 04:29
Sure but are people really crazier now than at any other time?   It seems highly unlikely.   American culture has gone through civil and world war, race riots, assassinations, economic catastrophe, topsoil destruction, terrorism and suddenly in the past ten to twenty years people are more crazy than they ever were?   I mean it ain't Trump's fault this time.


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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 15 2018 at 05:49
Mental health is an important consideration, but is there any reason why mental health problems should be more prevelant in the US than in Western Europe, Canada or Australia? Even taking guns out of the equation, the US seems a more violent place anyway, than the aforementioned countries. Would you agree, and if so why would that be the case?
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 15 2018 at 05:53
This is a subject that highly fascinates me yet at the same time feels so incredibly absurd. Then again I was not brought up in a culture, where guns were available to the general public. We actually never see them unless something very grave happens. They simply look out of place here outside of military ranks and the rare instances where the police is forced to use them.

With the amount of people ending up dead on the wrong side of the gun it truly baffles the foreign mind how the US can continue to stick to its guns. If something is called the amendment it is surely by its very definition subject to change? Especially when it is of great danger to the people.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 15 2018 at 06:12
Originally posted by Guldbamsen Guldbamsen wrote:

This is a subject that highly fascinates me yet at the same time feels so incredibly absurd. Then again I was not brought up in a culture, where guns were available to the general public. We actually never see them unless something very grave happens. They simply look out of place here outside of military ranks and the rare instances where the police is forced to use them.

With the amount of people ending up dead on the wrong side of the gun it truly baffles the foreign mind how the US can continue to stick to its guns. If something is called the amendment it is surely by its very definition subject to change? Especially when it is of great danger to the people.


I think the problem stems from the belief that if something is a right, then whether or not there is an actual need for it, is irrelevant. It's about a centuries old principle, that the citizenry should be allowed to not only own these weapons, but form into militias to overthrow government if necesssary.

I'm surprised there's not been another civil war yet, but that will most certainly happen if any administration announces strict controls by executive order. The hardline crazies even believe that is an infrigement of their liberties to be subject to perfectly sensible background checks when buying assualt rifles.

When up against that level of psychosis, the debate is hardly worth having.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 15 2018 at 06:37
Wasn't it Kevin Hart or someone equally random who said that they should just restrict the sales of ammo to the small amount you need to protect yourself in case of emergency? I can't say much against that...
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 15 2018 at 06:46
As an ex UK shooter who is now an opponent of firearms in private hands.....

Gun control IS possible. 
The US is the only country in the world where this happens. 
US gun legislation refers back to a situation in the 18th century and is no longer valid. 
Private ownership of firearms is not a freedom when that freedom creates a climate of fear. 
The cost of not having gun control is, frankly, dead children. 





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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 15 2018 at 06:54
A bit of a daft analogy here but nevertheless here goes: one of my old friends from Senegal is muslim. He has been one all of his life yet was complerely ostrasized by his community, when he stopped obeying one "law". He eats pork. No real revolution or grand scheme behind this other than he likes the taste of it. Anyway he said to me, that this law surely made sense back in a time, when there were no refridgerators. In such a warm climate pork quickly turns and can become poisenous. Ergo make a public health announcement diguised as divine "law".

My point though, however conveluted it may appear, is that laws in general have to be looked at again and again and measured up against society and how they indeed govern the very same. If the opposite seems to be the case, then it either needs to be abolished or indeed amended.
The whole thing about overthrowing an evil government is by today's standards ridiculus to say the least. Today the US government owns remote controlled missile launching fighter planes, tanks, helicopters and just about everything else you care to think of in terms of weaponry. Back then things were a little more even.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 15 2018 at 07:13
Absolutely, David. 

I am failing in my public duty to be armed with a sword today. In certain towns in England, you are supposedly able to kill Welshmen who come over the border after dark. Both were laws which were, until recently, still on the UK Statute Lists. 

Societies change, laws change. For example, try lighting up a cigarette in the US nowadays. The climate has changed completely. Obviously cigarettes are more dangerous than a 7.62x39. 



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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 15 2018 at 07:28
Hah that sounds like something off a Monty Python sketch.

There is of course also the whole trust debacle. Do most Americans, or indeed most westeners, trust their governments these days? The amount of misinformation and media nonsense dressed up as "news" often sway people to distrust.
I remember when Japan was hit by that tsunami a couple of years back. Thousands of people were saved because they trusted the Japanese governments's instructions. Now I don't for one second believe that Japan is any less susceptible to dirty politicians and being lied to in general, yet there seems to be an underlying belief in the powers that be, at the end of the day, wants the best for its people and generally knows what it's doing.
I shudder to think if this catastrophe happens in societies where such trust is lost.

So what happens if the US government decides to change the second amendment?

Edited by Guldbamsen - February 15 2018 at 07:33
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 15 2018 at 08:24
I think the only way to do it is via referendum.... but.... I don't think it's constitutionally possible. Some US reader can confirm the details, but I strongly suspect it would have to come from the US Government. And that will simply not happen. 

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 15 2018 at 08:42
I'm really not trying to be a downer here, but I honestly cannot see a viable solution that will actually work.

I'm not a gun owner or enthusiast, despite living in the "Live Free or Die" state.

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 15 2018 at 09:02
If I said what I really think of this issue (or others for that matter), I'd make most US people furious with me. What I can say, however, is that nothing is going to happen - except that more and more innocent people will die without a reason. If the right to bear arms is considered to be more important than people's right to live to a reasonably ripe old age - or just to go about their everyday lives without being afraid of being killed or maimed - then there is absolutely nothing that can be done. It's a question of priorities.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 15 2018 at 09:02
Originally posted by Frenetic Zetetic Frenetic Zetetic wrote:

I'm really not trying to be a downer here, but I honestly cannot see a viable solution that will actually work.

I'm not a gun owner or enthusiast, despite living in the "Live Free or Die" state.


The solution is an outright ban, but as you suggest, that's not a 'viable' solution.
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