While I agree every firearm owner should pursue training for competency, I disagree with adding 500 more layers and requirements to ownership. If those courses and licensing gave me a federal/law enforcement grade access, I would consider it.
Look at NYC/Chicago. Worst laws in the country and no evidence they work.
Imposing requirements does nothing to prevent criminals from laughing even harder at responsible gun owners.
I believe I have a far greater chance of some BS red flag law getting imposed that mandates confiscation before trial than I am to be the victim of non-self-imposed gun violence.
i definitely agree with getting a better understanding of who the offenders are.
i was talking to my eldest son about this today. he knew of the mental health connection and also knew that pretty much no mass shooter has a present father nor do they ever have children of their own.
restoring the family unit is obviously one thing that western society should do to address a whole host of issues, mass shootings certainly being among them, but it’s a complicated matter.
one sure-fire way to do it though, or at least to help… woman bears 2 children. 25% reduction in taxes for her household. 3rd kid, 50% reduction. 4th kid 75% reduction in household taxes.
this will keep men around for the tax breaks alone. almost worth putting up with a woman and 4 kids in fact… almost. probably?
maybe itd be the “locks are for honest” people deterrent. Sure real crims are going to smash your window and take whatever, but the average crime of opportunity is drastically reduced.
I don’t think any mass shooting is a crime of opportunity. These guys plan this stuff out, sometimes for years. The delay of having to take a class is nothing.
The cap one of the officers was wearing when he exchanged fire with this piece of shit.
PS… I’m not against the mandatory training for each class of weapon thing, probably a reasonable idea. The classes and licensing should be free and readily available though considering you’re requiring them for a constitutionally guaranteed right.
EDIT:
Read that last sentence again and really think about it. “Take and pass this class to exercise your constitutional right”. Yikes. The more I read that and think about it the less comfortable I am with it.
When I had my interview with the Amherst PD detective for my pistol permit I liked how he explained it. He said, “In my opinion having this permit is your right. What I have to do in this interview is look for some reason we need to withhold that right because it would endanger the public”. If I was a psycho planning to get the pistol to shoot up a school/office/government building I’m pretty sure I could have lied my way through that brief interview though and still been approved. In the pistol permit case though you do have to list character witnesses that the police do call and talk to, and looking at the psychological profiles of most of these mass shooters I bet it wold be tough for them to find 4 non-relatives to do that.
I have serious doubts that the delay of a 5 hour course or whatever would be a deterrent to the kind of psycho that wants to shoot innocent strangers.
If the classes are subsidized but at a cost to the participant that cost goes to cover the per diems for the ex-cops / fbi / other feds that do these classes as a side-hustle, post retirement, post injury etc.
if you make it a reasonable income you get pretty decent people doing it and i think that connection in that environment is a healthy one. The 3-4 guys that put on the courses i attended were cool. I even called one after the fact for some questions. They call him the CFO - chief firearms officer or something for the region.
Its a slippery slope, so do you need to take a test to have freedom of speech?
I’m all about doing things safely. I’d fully support anyone that has a pew to take a class on how to use it if you can’t lean on anyone to train/teach you. Should it be required? IDK
Laws don’t stop these things. Lets say that again, laws don’t stop these things.
We need to stop thinking about patching up a broken product and focusing on fixing the production line making the bad products. As an engineer, you try to engineer out the opportunity for failure.
Schools should have an engineered entry. Two sets of locked doors, question why a person is there, and have a locked outside lobby. Need to talk to someone, wait in the locked out lobby. I’m not sure how this guy got in, but I think if we are going to keep soft targets around, they need to be secured.
Mental health is an entirely other topic, which also needs help.
You’ll never make all soft targets 100% secured, but when is the last time you’ve seen a court house shot up? Airport? Sporting event?
I’m just asking for programs of prevention. Have the local PD cover all the local schools at the start and end of the day. Have schools that are fairly locked down during the day. An armed front office personal or teacher would be fine by me. Pay an employee for training and keep one secretly armed employee? IDK there has to be a way to help stop this from happening.
I’m not sure how we fix mental health. What did we do in the past? Is it an issue of the centric family collapse? Lack of religion and beliefs? Technologies integration into your life? I really don’t know.
The school where this happened was a single entry point locked down school. The problem is it was still a school. Glass doors and ground level glass windows like every other school you’ve ever seen. I read several things that said he shot out and then climbed in a classroom window. Short of making every school into a prison with barred windows and doors I’m not sure how you prevent someone from shooting their way in.
Even if you ignored the mental impact it would have on kids putting them “behind bars”, what happens the first time there’s a fire and every egress point is now blocked by prison bars?
Everyone keeps posting about putting a military veteran into a school. Someone with massive firearm training. They say to take the money out of the $50~billion we sent to Ukraine. Does anyone here know how much money most school districts PISS AWAY each year? I have an interesting story regarding a HUGE suburban school spending their (your) money every year with reckless abandon. I doubt these spending habits are isolated either. .
So police were ON SCENE as the guy entered the school, but they did nothing for 40 minutes until a border patrol tactical team arrived, entered the building and took him out.
Parents were arriving pleading with the officers to go in, but they refused to. They stood there planning while listening to gunfire inside a classroom.
McCraw commended the officers who engaged the shooter before the tactical unit entered, saying they saved lives by keeping him “pinned down” at his location.
Pinned down in a classroom full of children shooting them like fish in a barrel. Good job guys.
That is insane. They must have had a plan in advance. All schools talk about these scenarios now.
I bet one of those cops commits suicide after the magnitude of that choice hits him or her.
How about a built in tear gas system next to the sprinklers?
100% of the school occupants will suffer, but live. Provided it’s non-flammable gas.
edit: I guess it would easily be circumvented with a mask, but maybe harder to see.
