"Horrific mass shootings aren’t the only sign that the world is pining under the effects of sin and darkness."

It’s getting tiresome to repeat, but I’m not seeing it in the media yet: what if just one teacher had been armed?

Or better still what if the mother had not been able to buy and keep arms?

What if the son had not been taught how to shoot?

What if the son did not have access under law to weapons?

Why was this woman in need of an assault weapon? She bought it out of fear. The fear that she and hers would be in danger. She taught her son to shoot at and kill people and I have no doubt that this became an obsession.

[Aaron Blumer]

It’s getting tiresome to repeat, but I’m not seeing it in the media yet: what if just one teacher had been armed?

Then five and six year old kids could have seen their teacher shoot someone to death.

While I’m pro gun, I don’t believe that armed teachers is the answer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MR39j1KMOsE

Then five and six year old kids could have seen their teacher shoot someone to death.

Which is somehow worse than watching a gunman shoot their classmates and teachers to death?

[Ron Bean]

[Aaron Blumer]

It’s getting tiresome to repeat, but I’m not seeing it in the media yet: what if just one teacher had been armed?

Then five and six year old kids could have seen their teacher shoot someone to death.

While I’m pro gun, I don’t believe that armed teachers is the answer.

I think nobody being shot would be the ‘most’ preferable.

Or better still what if the mother had not been able to buy and keep arms?

What if the son had not been taught how to shoot?

What if the son did not have access under law to weapons?

Yes, because gun control laws have worked so well in places like Chicago where this many people (28) die about every two and a half to three weeks (436 through Oct 30). More than 40 people a month are dying in Chicago and they have the gun control laws (or did, until the courts ruled them unconstutional, if I recall correctly). Laws against buying and owning guns didn’t stop anything there.

I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that someone intent on committing the crime of murder will not be slowed by laws against buying or owning guns. You can make laws (as they did with prohibition), but you can’t remove the guns. “Access under law” is far different than “access.” The latter is what prevails.

Out of everything we have tried to prevent these (exceedingly rare, but immensely sorrowful) events, we have yet to try arming the first responders—the people in the schools. The principal was trying to fight off a gun with her hands. How silly is that.

Right now, the people with the power and ability to fight back are 10 to 15 minutes away. You know how many people you can kill in the 10 minutes or so that it takes people with guns to get there? About 28, as we learned this weekend. And the thing that stopped it was apparently when the shooter found out the police were coming. That caused him to shoot himself.What if he had known that there were people with guns sitting right inside the only entrance to that school, and they will shoot him before he gets the first shot off? I am guessing at least a couple of dozen or so people are still alive.

If someone in the school is armed, then people probably still die, but probably fewer. We praise a principal and other teachers for their sacrifice to try to protect children.

But we (to borrow phrase) sent them to a gunfight armed with a knife (or actually only their hands). It turned out badly. They acted nobly, as nobly as they could. But they were woefully ill-equipped to protect the children.

There’s a reason we don’t send our soldiers into battle armed with laws. Laws cannot protect you when the other guy has a gun. You fight bad guys with power and force, not with congressional actions.

This is not the time to get on a soapbox about political stances, but we need a good dose of common sense in the aftermath of it, once the emotions have cooled a bit.

you will die by the sword.

Can we just agree that guns have replaced swords?

If a nation allows it’s people to live by the sword/gun then that nation is under wrath and its consequences.

In Wales we have strict gun control and I can’t remember the last time I heard of someone being shot, yes it’s that rare.

Do our gun control laws have an effect upon the lack of gun crime?

Here’s an article by John Fund that is worth reading: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/335739/facts-about-mass-shooting…

Incidents of mass murder in the U.S. declined from 42 in the 1990s to 26 in the first decade of this century.

The chances of being killed in a mass shooting are about what they are for being struck by lightning.

Until the Newtown horror, the three worst K–12 school shootings ever had taken place in either Britain or Germany.

SNIP

Gun-free zones have been the most popular response to previous mass killings. But many law-enforcement officials say they are actually counterproductive. “Guns are already banned in schools. That is why the shootings happen in schools. A school is a ‘helpless-victim zone,’” says Richard Mack, a former Arizona sheriff. “Preventing any adult at a school from having access to a firearm eliminates any chance the killer can be stopped in time to prevent a rampage,” Jim Kouri, the public-information officer of the National Association of Chiefs of Police, told me earlier this year at the time of the Aurora, Colo., Batman-movie shooting. Indeed, there have been many instances — from the high-school shooting by Luke Woodham in Mississippi, to the New Life Church shooting in Colorado Springs, Colo. — where a killer has been stopped after someone got a gun from a parked car or elsewhere and confronted the shooter.

What I quoted was the words of the Messiah by His own mouth.

Huw: As Atlantic Magazine pointed out in its December 2012 issue (which came out just days or weeks before the Newtown shooting), any idea of banning guns in the US is a waste of time because it ignores the fact that there are already something like 300 million guns in private hands. You can debate all you want about what’s the best policy before millions of people have guns, but it may be that the only realistic solution once millions do have guns is to let them protect themselves with them. Here’s the link:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/12/the-case-for-more-guns-and-more-gun-control/309161/

The subtitle of the article: “How do we reduce gun crime and Aurora-style mass shootings when Americans already own nearly 300 million firearms? Maybe by allowing more people to carry them.”

Are you are advocating that evil should be fought with evil?

My response to your question is no. My comment would only be advocating that evil be fought with evil if guns themselves are evil, which they are not. Nor is gun ownership. A country that has 300 million guns in private hands is not more evil than a country that has no guns in private hands.

But if that’s your only response to my comment, and based on your responses to other comments, it appears that there’s not much point in continuing the discussion. You apparently equate guns with evil, and as long as that’s your premise, there’s nowhere constructive the conversation can go.

For what it’s worth, I’m not a gun nut trying to justify myself — don’t own one and never have. But I’m seriously considering becoming a trained owner and obtaining a concealed carry permit. I pray that doing so would turn out to be a waste of time, but I’m beginning to think that waste of time would be preferable to the (remote) possibility of being in the Newtown school principal’s shoes, or the shoes of an Aurora theater patron, and not be able to attempt to prevent my own or some others’ deaths.