NRA calls for an armed police officer at every US school

[kyledude]

The solution to guns in schools is more guns in schools. Can't anyone see that?!?

[-DLC-]

I find it hard to agree with any gun enthusiasts arguments, because they all seem to come from a place of selfishness.

They care more about their own ability to own guns than they do about the safety of the general public. That has seemed pretty apparent from listening to most of them.

Best comment I've read.

Exactly. Give us one good reason that you need to own a gun. If it is for sustenance and you eat what you kill or for protection against bears, etc. while you're in the wild, ok. But, if your gun should ever be used for anything other than that - gone. Zero tolerance, even if it's a matter of the gun falling into someone else's hands...that's part of your responsibility in owning that gun.

[Scott Hartnell's Mane]

Best comment I've read.

Exactly. Give us one good reason that you need to own a gun. If it is for sustenance and you eat what you kill or for protection against bears, etc. while you're in the wild, ok. But, if your gun should ever be used for anything other than that - gone. Zero tolerance, even if it's a matter of the gun falling into someone else's hands...that's part of your responsibility in owning that gun.

[Wetcoaster]

You gotta love the inconsistent logic from the NRA.

It is not the gun but the person who kills who is responsible.

Except if it a video game then it is the game and not the person who plays the game who is responsible.

And this despite numerous studies that show video games have no cause and effect on acts of violence such as mass shootings.

A 2009 article in the Journal of Pediatrics titled “The Public Health Risks of Media Violence: A Meta-Analytic Review” did not find “either a causal or correlational link between violent media and subsequent aggression in viewers.” The results of two peer-reviewed studies published in a 2008 issue of the journal Criminal Justice and Behavior suggest that “playing violent video games does not constitute a significant risk for future violent criminal acts.”

http://www.washingto...d278_story.html

And per Christopher J. Ferguson (associate professor of psychology and criminal justice at Texas A&M International University. He has published numerous scientific articles on the topic of video games and mental health and recently served as guest editor for an American Psychological Association’s special journal issue on the topic. Ferguson is also the editor of Violent Crime: Clinical and Social Implications and the author of The Suicide Kings.)

As a video game violence researcher and someone who has done scholarship on mass homicides, let me state very emphatically: There is no good evidence that video games or other media contributes, even in a small way, to mass homicides or any other violence among youth. Our research lab recently published new prospective results with teens in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence indicating that exposure to video game violence neither increased aggressive behaviors, nor decreased prosocial behaviors. Whitney Gunter and Kevin Daly recently published a large study of children in Computers in Human Behavior which found video game violence effects to be inconsequential with other factors controlled. And as for the notion of that violent media “desensitizes” users, recent results published by my student Raul Ramos found that exposure to violence on screen had no influence on viewer empathy for victims of real violence. (A study published by Holly Bowen and Julia Spaniol in Applied Cognitive Psychology similarly found no evidence for a desensitization effect for video games.) Finally, a review of the literature by the Swedish government in 2012 has joined the U.S. Supreme Court and the Australian government in concluding that video game research is inconsistent at best and riddled with methodological flaws.

In fact, during the years in which video games soared in popularity, youth violence has declined to 40-year lows. And while it’s natural, in such an emotional time, for people to search desperately for answers, that often results in misinformation. In 2007, after the Virginia Tech Massacre, pundits such as Dr. Phil immediately blamed video games. Only later did the official investigation reveal that the perpetrator was not a violent game player after all. In the Sandy Hook case, after the shooter was misidentified as Adam Lanza’s brother Ryan, the Facebook page of the video game Mass Effect (which Ryan “liked” on his own Facebook page) was attacked by angry hordes.

http://ideas.time.co.../#ixzz2FuqH8ZTc

[Bill Sikes]

I wish they wouldn't even report on these NRA recommendations. All they are doing is legitimizing these so-called ideas.

Any "solution" that adds to the number of weapons, rather than reducing that number, is simply a smokescreen designed to deflect attention away from the real answer, (which is something that the NRA is deathly afraid of):

Less guns. Tougher restrictions on their sale and the outright ban of certain types of weapons and the ammunition they use.

[DonLever]

Pre-1960's there were no mass shooting of students in schools. So what happened between then and now? There were just as many guns out there as now.

[Wetcoaster]

Pre-1960's there were no mass shooting of students in schools. So what happened between then and now? There were just as many guns out there as now.

[Wetcoaster]

OOPSY DP

[Electro Rock]

Firearms technology hasn't advanced all much in the last 50 years, with the possible exception of semiautomatic handguns and ammo, which are not assault weapons.

Also, if you look at things such as number of serial killers, and the gang problem, as well as groups like the KKK, over the last 100 years compared to the Western norm, it's clear that the U.S. has a lot of unique social issues.

Granted we have yet to see an equivalent to the likes of Mao, Stalin or Hitler produced by the American system as well.

[DonLever]

Firearms technology hasn't advanced all much in the last 50 years, with the possible exception of semiautomatic handguns and ammo, which are not assault weapons.

Also, if you look at things such as number of serial killers, and the gang problem, as well as groups like the KKK, over the last 100 years compared to the Western norm, it's clear that the U.S. has a lot of unique social issues.

Granted we have yet to see an equivalent to the likes of Mao, Stalin or Hitler produced by the American system as well.

[dudeone]

anyone else seeing the irony how the NRA is a "right" leaning group saying we need more armed guards in schools? Yet, the tea-party screams that Obama is a socialist trying to make us like China?

[MC Fatigue]

"I don't know if anybody here has seen somebody shot - I have," Booker said. "I don't know if anybody here has had to put their hand in somebody's chest, and try to stop the bleeding so that person doesn't die-I have. What frustrates me about this debate is that it is a false debate."

"Most of us in America including gun owners agree on things that would stop the kind of carnage that is going on in cities all across America," Booker said, adding that loopholes that allow criminals to buy guns in "secondary markets" should be closed.

[stawns]

Translation: "The only way to save humanity is to destroy it."

[dudeone]

NRA’s LaPierre slams critics of school gun plan

By Dylan Stableford, Yahoo! News | The Lookout – 7 hrs ago

http://news.yahoo.co...-165018609.html

Two days after suggesting a "good guy with a gun" be stationed at every school in the country in response to the deadly shootings in Newtown, Conn., National Rifle Association executive vice president Wayne LaPierre blasted critics of his plan.

In an interview broadcast on Sunday's "Meet The Press," LaPierre reiterated the statements he made Friday at a press conference in Washington, when he said the answer to preventing shootings like the one at Sandy Hook Elementary Sch00l is armed security in every school--in effect, protecting children with guns.

“If it’s crazy to call for putting police in and securing our schools to protect our children, then call me crazy," LaPierre said. “I think the American people think it’s crazy not to do it."

At one point during the often contentious exchange, host David Gregory held up a high-capacity magazine clip that carries 30 bullets, asking if the NRA would support a federal limit on the capacity of such clips.

"Isn't it just possible that we could reduce the carnage in a situation like Newtown?" Gregory asked.

"I don't believe that's going to make one difference," LaPierre responded.

"You're telling me that it's not a matter of common sense that if you don't have an ability to shoot off 30 rounds without reloading, that, just possibly, you could reduce the loss of life?" Gregory asked.

"I don't buy your argument for a minute," LaPierre said. "There are so many different ways to evade that, even if you had that."

“Is there no new gun regulation you would support?” an exasperated Gregory asked. LaPierre refused to answer.

At Friday's press conference, LaPierre--who did not take questions from reporters--argued that had someone at the school been armed, "innocent lives might have been spared."

"The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," he said.

[Connauton]

Most high schools have armed police officers, even in Vancouver.

[Wetcoaster]

That is what I trying to say, guns have been around for more than 200 years in the US, but shootings in US schools was a rare event when society was more conservative. Back then there was a moral code where there was a sense of right and wrong. Now everything goes. Its now a permissive society where there are few boundaries. Between the 1930s and 1960s there was a code where violence and sex was censored in the media You don't see exploding head or chopped limbs in movies and tv shows pre-1960.

[Pouria]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=RablPaIREkk

[Red Light Racicot]

I find it hard to agree with any gun enthusiasts arguments, because they all seem to come from a place of selfishness.

They care more about their own ability to own guns than they do about the safety of the general public. That has seemed pretty apparent from listening to most of them.

[Electro Rock]

That is what I trying to say, guns have been around for more than 200 years in the US, but shootings in US schools was a rare event when society was more conservative. Back then there was a moral code where there was a sense of right and wrong. Now everything goes. Its now a permissive society where there are few boundaries. Between the 1930s and 1960s there was a code where violence and sex was censored in the media You don't see exploding head or chopped limbs in movies and tv shows pre-1960.

[Electro Rock]

I find it hard to agree with any gun enthusiasts arguments, because they all seem to come from a place of selfishness.

They care more about their own ability to own guns than they do about the safety of the general public. That has seemed pretty apparent from listening to most of them.