Politics & Current Events
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Re: NRA...
I find it interesting that you don't mind paying more to bring guns closer to children even though statistically and evidentially it's likely to do nothing but possibly put them in danger, yet you don't want to pay a tax that would definitively save lives on a daily basis.
Huh? Columbine wouldn't have happened if it weren't for the assault weapon ban?
What the hell kinds of weapons are we talking about arming these theoretical guards with, anyway? Not just 'MORE GUNS!' but also 'BIGGER GUNS!'?
And lolz that 1 security guard could magically protect a school and its hundreds or thousands of students. That's a good one.
MAYBE IF PEOPLE COULD GET GOOD HEALTH CARE, FEWER PEOPLE WOULD GO FLUCKING NUTS AND SHOOT UP SCHOOLS AND MOVIE THEATERS AND MALLS AND CHURCHES.
So there's that.
STOP TRYING TO MAKE OUR COUNTRY LOGICAL, SAFE, AND EFFECTIVELY STRATEGIC!!!!!!!11!11!11.
(seriously, ILY)
I agree with you on that one as well.
You might want to alter/spice up that argument a little if you ever try to sell this point to someone right of center.
"I pay taxes, so what's another one?" Do you remember the 2012 election and how liberals ruined the country with all their spending?
I'm kinda done with that, it's old. I have always been an independent leaning conservative, but I've voted on both sides
Remember that time the NRA wanted to put the mentally ill in a database?
Remember that?
That was funny.
You may be, but you can sure as hell bet that there are plenty of people out there now saying what a great idea the NRA presented today but would immediately turn it into an Obama nanny-state socialist conspiracy if they were expected to help foot the bill for it.
Im not talking about the partisan part. I'm talking about how many people on this board (and I believe you were one of them) was very vocal about spending more than we can afford. But now you're like, "$6 billions? Whatevs.".
When putting security guards at every school won't even do anything. As gun advocates are so fond of pointing out: people will find a way to hurt other people. A security guard at every school will cost a shiit ton of money and not actually do anything. In fact I fear for the day that one of th guards snaps, or accidentally shoots a kid, or leaves his gun where a kid can reach it.
Im not being partisan, I'm asking you to listen to yourself.
Or even just imagine- crowded cafeteria. Someone comes in firing. Security guard rushes to the scene and kids are running everywhere, screaming.
a) If he shoots, can we count of him having a clear shot of the shooter without risking collateral damage? Is collateral damage in a situation like that something we'd be willing to accept as the cost of maybe having saved other lives?
b) it still only takes one well-placed bullet from a shooter to get rid of the guard part of the equation. And then yay, one more gun in the mix!
I am listening to myself and ever since I've heard of the shooting last week, I thought it would be a good idea to have security at schools. I know it sounds crazy to you guys. I remember when I was observing teachers when i was in college getting my license to teach. 1 school in particular had metal detectors and just walking thru them kinda made me freak out. I was thinking I must be in a really bad part of town (this was back in 2001), but really the inner city schools are much safer than the public ones. Heck, even where I live (a supposed safe area) there have been break ins reported and several years ago I came home to see a very large bullet came thru all 3 rooms of my house because some stupid person tried to take a pot shot at a deer and hit my house instead. a field is behind our home but we are in city limits where shooting is illegal. I know I'm rambling, but my thought on guns have changed thru the years.
It's not that 'security at schools' sounds crazy. Plenty of schools have metal detectors and buzz-in systems and I'm guessing plenty also have a police presence throughout the day, depending where you live.
It's that this is the NRA reaction to gun violence. Playing off of the fears and emotions evoked by one shooting incident while sticking their fingers in their ears and blissfully ignoring that this is just the latest of several that did not take place in a school. Their response is incredibly tailored (and expensive, when education funding is not exactly at its best) and thus ineffective to the larger point of what should be the debate. And that debate should be about lessening the possibility of these mass, public shootings. Not lessening the possibility just of school shootings.
I certainly hear you there.
And I hate that my mind almost immediately went there, once the horror of last week fully set in. Obviously the chance of something happening is still so incredibly slim and obviously everyone must continue to live their lives. But I just had this pregnancy hormone-driven breakdown and felt guilty about bringing a child into a world like this. And I never want to feel like that again, it was terrible. And has fueled my short temper on this entire topic.
Incidents like what happened at Sandy Hook are beyond tragic but they're isolated. You put more guns in every school, there are going to be more incidents. Whether its on accidental death or 25 intentional ones, there will be more problems. To be honest, the shooting at Sandy Hook didn't make me consider homeschooling, but if we started arming teachers, I would be more likely to pull my kids out of school.
Quite frankly the fact that people are so willing to pay more for guns than for health care to help the people who commit these acts or for education for the same children they claim to want to protect really speaks volumes about what kind of person they are. Maybe when people stop caring only about themselves something can change in this country.
Remember, vlagrl, you couldn't afford a tax raise for health care. If you couldn't afford that, you can't afford the taxes for gun security in schools. To say you can makes you a liar. I'd rather you just admit that you can afford it but you just don't want to. At least that's honest.
i guess i was thinking more along the terms of the tiny taxes we pay on our cell phone bills to help welfare people get a free phone. no i can't afford a big raise in our health insurance bill. it's not that i don't want to, its that we can't. we can't afford a huge in raise going to security in our school, but we could afford a small one. but i'm sure it wouldn't be tiny. and i think we need to focus more on limiting access to guns before we add security anyways
Armed guards are not a long-term solution, costs aside. For starters, I don't believe that the only way to fight violence is with more violence. In other countries, where deaths from gun violence are lower, the solution has been more social services and fewer guns on the street. We know this.
Secondly, school shootings are so isolated that 99.9% of these guards will be sitting around playing minesweeper. If a lunatic actually did come in, guns blazing, that guard would be totally caught by surprise. Nevermind that he can't protect every corner of the school.
Plus, these guards don't have a death wish; they have families too. Their first instinct will be to call for back-up. A single guard with a gun is NOTHING against a gunman in full tactical gear shooting six bullets per second. Which brings me to my final point: police were on the scene at Sandy Hook within minutes. At Columbine, an armed guard was already on site. Virginia Tech had its own police force. And it didn't matter. Police response times are not the issue. The issue is the amount of devastation a rigged semiautomatic assault weapon can wreck in a matter of 120 seconds.
I'm not opposed to the idea of armed guards. I just don't think they'll be of much help. What if the shooter was wearing body armor (as in Aurora?)? Maybe we should be arming guards with bricks to throw. I also resent having to come up with the money to arm every school when some schools can't come up with money for toilet paper.
My DH is a teacher. He told me that if a law is ever signed in our state arming teachers he will quit his job (like VA is mulling). He is intensely uncomfortable with the idea that is just an accident waiting to happen.
i would also be a little nervous if all teachers were armed. you never know, what if one of the teachers has mental issues and shoots while in the schools.
Thank you thank you thank you.
Also, are you familiar with "friendly fire"? Professional soldiers sometimes accidentally shoot and kill each other. Professional police officers sometimes accidentally shoot and kill each other. Why do we think that this wouldn't happen with armed security guards, most of which are going to be paid a lot less and have a lot less training and experience than military members and cops.
But let's say it will work. All the schools are now safe because we've locked them down like military facilities (well, not like Ft Hood but like other military facilities where shootings can't possibly happen because there are enough people with guns around). What about shopping malls? Movie theaters? Churches and temples? Factories? Supermarket parking lots? Spas and hair salons? Hotel lobbies? Civic centers? Gas stations and roads? Cafes and restaurants?
Is our goal to lock down our entire society so that we have armed guards stationed at every public place in America?
How high of a price must we pay before we realize that guns ARE the problem here?
We haven't even talked about the other insane suggestions the NRA had ... like a registry of the mental ill. Hasn't this group ever heard of HIPAA? And what about the civil rights of people who haven't done anything wrong? Most importantly, if we are serious about improving mental healthcare in this country, I can tell you one way NOT to do it would be to stigmatize anyone seeking mental health services to the point that no one seeks help out of fear of being "registered."
I also can't believe the irony of pointing out that this country fetishizes violence (which is true) but without any self-awareness that you are supporting this culture of violence with Rambo-style exclamations that the only way to be truly safe from "bad guys" is to be more heavily armed than they are. Americans love violence because it's part of what it means to be "macho" in this country. Feel threatened? Shoot first and ask questions later. Stand your ground. Your home is your castle. This is the Wild West and we're all cowboys.