Michigan passes bill allowing concealed weapons in schools, day care centers, stadiums, churches

[Wetcoaster]

Wetcoaster, it's just conservative media doing what it does best...namely scaring the s**t out of people and as we all know, Fear is the great mind killer. Once you've been scared long enough and often enough by the same people you begin to believe without any question whatever they say about anything.

[Scott Hartnell's Mane]

I must not fear.

Fear is the mind-killer.

Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

I will face my fear.

I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.

Only I will remain

Litany against Fear - an incantation used by the Bene Gesserit throughout the series to focus their minds and calm themselves in times of peril as set out in Frank Herbert's classic series of Dune novels. Lady Jessica teaches it to her son Paul Atreides, who uses it in Dune when faced with Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam's test of his ability to withstand excruciating pain.

[Electro Rock]

BTW this case seems to be the best argument against arming untrained civilians with handguns and carry permits to go up against mass shooters. Here trained military personnel were no match for the gunman being caught off guard by the suddenness of the attack. BTW this area of the base was for military veterans returning from overseas combat.

[Scott Hartnell's Mane]

I actually mentioned this either in this thread or in the Connecticut shooting one.. that media influence and celebrity 24/7 attention they give to the shooter just might placate to someone who wants to go out in infamy, to be known and talked about for a long time.

There's a lot that needs to be addressed about the psyche of people that would do these things and what can be done to spot and prevent before it happens. Kinda hard to when all of this attention is focused on typical wedge issues politicians and the media help make sure to perpetuate like gun control.

[Tearloch7]

The Fort Hood guys weren't armed as per regulation.

The U.S. doesn't like nonspecified troops to be armed on base to the point where even troops in a combat zone have not been given ammo for their guns, or if they have, told not to load it.

The 1983 Beirut mission and barracks bombing is a good example of this policy in effect.

So yeah, no soldier had a gun, or at least one with ammo available, in Fort Hood.

[Tearloch7]

Agree with you...if they really want to start making a difference, maybe they ought to start by focusing attention on and re-examining the failing mental health system.

[stawns]

Wow .. but any mouth breathing cretin who can afford to go to Wally World and buy a semi-automatic, a 100 round clip and a few thousand rounds of sabre-tipped bullets can walk the streets and stalk the alleys? .. America IS exceptional .. .. exceptional "what" is the question ..

[Electro Rock]

Wow .. but any mouth breathing cretin who can afford to go to Wally World and buy a semi-automatic, a 100 round clip and a few thousand rounds of sabre-tipped bullets can walk the streets and stalk the alleys? .. America IS exceptional .. .. exceptional "what" is the question ..

[Tearloch7]

I'd much rather have that than have to live in the other extreme.

[Monteeun]

Most police officers outside of SWAT and soldiers outside of combat infantry units are not well trained with firearms, to the point where it'd be hard for a civilian to not be at least as competent with even a minimal amount of proper instruction and practice.

It's like the case with hand-to-training, all else being equal, a civilian who trains even occasionally in martial arts almost can't help but be better at what he does than most cops or soldiers who typically receive not much in the way of initial and follow-up hand-to-hand training.

[EmployeeoftheMonth]

I'd much rather have that than have to live in the other extreme.

[Monteeun]

However what gun control usually involves is the banning of some types of guns as well as other controls on safe storage.

That occurred in Heller case and as result SCOTUS used a ban on handguns proposed in DC law along with legislation for safe storage and trigger lock mechanisms in the home to find a constitutional right to possess handguns for individual unrelated to service in the militia.

In Canada handguns are restricted weapons (and many are prohibited). All firearms in a home must be secured either in a locked cabinet and /or a trigger lock mechanism and ammunition must be stored separately.

In the US that sort of gun control was rejected in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008) by SCOTUS. Under the challenged law handgun possession was banned by District of Columbia. The law prohibited the registration of handguns and made it a crime to carry an unregistered firearm. Furthermore all lawfully owned firearms were required to be kept unloaded and dissembled or bound by a trigger lock unless they are being used for lawful recreational activities or located in a place of business.

This was found to be unconstitutional and the Court ruled that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual's right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defence within the home.

The handgun ban and the trigger-lock requirement (as applied to self-defence) violate the Second Amendment. The total ban on handgun possession in the home amounts to a prohibition on an entire class of arms that Americans overwhelmingly choose for the lawful purpose of self-defense. This prohibition would fail constitutional muster under any standard of scrutiny. Similarly, the requirement that any lawful firearm in the home be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock makes it impossible for citizens to use arms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and is therefore unconstitutional.

http://www.lawnix.co.../dc-heller.html

The Heller holding which was based on a federal law was extended to the states in McDonald v. Chicago, 561 US 3025 (2010). That case held that the right of an individual to "keep and bear arms" protected by the Second Amendment is incorporated by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and applies to the states. The decision cleared up the uncertainty left in the wake of District of Columbia v. Heller as to the scope of gun rights in regard to the states.

[Electro Rock]

So you acknowledge the the US of A has reached an extreme .. what do you consider the opposite extreme? .. the death rate in YOUR current extreme is exactly that .. extreme .. extreme violence, grief , greed and ambivalence to your fellow Citizen ..

[Tearloch7]

The opposite extreme would be a oligarchic police state like North Korea. Anyway, what you're seeing now is not the traditional United States but a society that has been undermined and manipulated from within and without for a long time.

[Electro Rock]

So the "traditional" United States, with slavery and lumber barons and child labor and women shoeless and pregnant? .. or the USA that dropped nuclear warheads on innocent civilians? .. or the America that carpet bombed innocent women and children in the Nam? .. you know .. that "police action" where McCain became a "prisoner-of-war-hero" for bombing innocents? ..

Ah yes .. let us harken back to an America of traditional values .. please .. continue the enlightenment ..

[Pouria]

The opposite extreme would be a oligarchic police state like North Korea. Anyway, what you're seeing now is not the traditional United States but a society that has been undermined and manipulated from within and without for a long time.

[Pouria]

Despite your regurgitated Cold War era propaganda, they as a system and society were a LOT better than the alternative models.

[Tearloch7]

Despite your regurgitated Cold War era propaganda, they as a system and society were a LOT better than the alternative models.

[Electro Rock]

There are a variety of alternative models. It isn't like you have either this model or that model. What do you call the Canadian model?

[Tearloch7]

Canada and the rest of the Western world have largely patterned themselves to varying degree after the U.S. model.

Competing models would be that of the Soviet Union, National Socialist Germany, The Empire of Japan, China, modern Russia, various religeous and tribal societies, etc.