Slog

News & Arts

Line Out

Music & the City
at Night

« Duff McKagan's Tips for "How to Be… | What the NRA Thought of Yesterday's… »

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Politics Gun Nut Fantasies Come True . . . Not So Much

Posted by Chicago Fan on Thu, Jan 10, 2013 at 10:29 PM

So, all I can say is thank God for the NRA's plan for having armed guards in every school. I was sure, as I heard the first news about the shooting at Taft Union High School in California's San Joaquin Valley, and that no one got killed, surely an armed guard was there to take the shooter out. Or. . . not?

An armed police officer is normally assigned to Taft Union High School but was not able to make it to work on Thursday because of snow on the roads [. . . ].

Oh, so surely some teacher was armed, and gunned the shooter down, unlike those chumps in Newtown? Or the little children gang-rushed the shooter like that one gun nut suggested? No? What? An administrator and a teacher talked the student into putting down his weapon.

The suspected shooter was arrested after a teacher and a school administrator who confronted him persuaded the boy to put his gun down, Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood told reporters at a press conference. Students fled the class while the two adults pacified the shooter, he said.

The teacher, who has not been named, was hit in the forehead by a shotgun pellet but not seriously injured.

They used their words! What a crazy idea. If there's one thing that's been made perfectly clear since Newtown, it's that words don't work on gun-wielding whackjobs.

But words are all we have on this side of the argument. We have to keep the heat on the NRA and reject its crazy ideas at every turn.

See Charles Madigan, also, in Thursday's Chicago Tribune for more argument about how the NRA is using its own words in ways that approach the "fighting words" threshold of First Amendment rights. Not that the NRA cares about any Amendment but the Second (and only the second half of that, ignoring, always, the "well-regulated" bit).

FacebookShare

Comments (15) RSS

Oldest First Unregistered On Registered On Add a comment

To play devil's advocate, as you yourself mentioned (I take you weren't being sarcastic), words wouldn't have worked on Adam Lanza, the Aurora fake-Joker guy (man, already forgot his name), or the Virginia Tec guy. Short of keeping e-z-slaughter guns away from them - or any kind of gun - or catching and treating their very poor mental health, or designing escape routes or protections into the building structures, the only way anyone was going to stop these two (or the Columbine shooters) was with another gun. Yeah, yeah, there was chaos, darkness, and smoke and innocent bystanders could very well be shot in a firefight, but my point is that words aren't a reliable protection once the shooter has fired the first bullet, or at least they wouldn't be better than firing back.

Posted by floater on January 10, 2013 at 11:16 PM

Now that we've shown that talking to the deranged shooter is effective, will the staff at The Stranger grinding their axe?

Will they stop supporting ineffective feel-good bullshit that does practically nothing to stop gun massacres while restricting the rights of law abiding citizens?

Didn't think so.

Posted by CPN on January 10, 2013 at 11:24 PM

@2 - I'm a responsible drinker, but I still think drunk driving laws are a good idea.

Posted by Pridge Wessea on January 10, 2013 at 11:50 PM

How to stop school shooting deaths ...

http://youtu.be/J-FG9ZKerGM?t=3m50s

Finally, text books are good for something!!!

Even against a 500 S&W Magnum.

Quiz: Are 5 rounds a "high capacity" magazine when one round can go through about 10 kids??

Posted by ZodWallop on January 11, 2013 at 2:58 AM

Like @1 says, words have been so effective in the past.....

The NRA advocates armed guards in schools;
this shooting happened to occur when the armed guard was absent.

And you think this makes YOUR point?

Posted by bang bang on January 11, 2013 at 4:55 AM

Words don't kill people - people who talk kill people!

Posted by JensR

on January 11, 2013 at 5:09 AM

1, 2, & 4: The fact that we even need to "talk down" a high-school shooter with a gun should be sufficiently disturbing to make you rethink your reality.

How about a world where that doesn't have to happen instead? How about instead of piling treatments on top of the symptoms, we go after some root causes for a while?

Posted by Dr_Awesome on January 11, 2013 at 6:16 AM

@ 5 - Wasn't there an armed guard on duty at Columbine? Sure did a lot of good in stopping that massacre, didn't it?

Posted by ChadK on January 11, 2013 at 7:07 AM

all the victims were armed with words, even che children.

Posted by chinaski on January 11, 2013 at 7:23 AM

@8, yes, there was. He was on break at the time it happenened, but quickly returned to duty thereafter. Which may well have been the reason why Harris and Klebold shot themselves. Your point?

Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty

on January 11, 2013 at 7:25 AM

@10 that there is a mighty handy conclusion you've leaped to. One that conveniently supports your side.

And there's absolutely no evidence to support it. One data point doesn't make a conclusion. One unverifiable data point is horseshit.

Posted by Dr_Awesome on January 11, 2013 at 7:38 AM

@1: i like your "keeping E-Z slaughter guns away from them" option. let's do that.

adam lanza
james holmes
jared loughner
seung-hui cho

Posted by Max Solomon on January 11, 2013 at 7:42 AM

@3 we have laws against shooting people and laws about crazy people owning guns already, so I'm not sure what your point is. If we're going to analogize drunk driving and shooting sprees, the alcohol isn't the gun, the car is. Nobody's arguing that people with obvious impairments should not be stopped from behaving recklessly with a weapon. What we're arguing about is whether banning cars would be an appropriate response to a drunk driving event.

It would be stupid, of course, but it's what you're apparently arguing.

Posted by Foggen on January 11, 2013 at 7:46 AM

@13: then our laws against crazy people acquiring & owning guns aren't working, and should be enhanced, with, yes, more inconvenience for the sane as a consequence.

you could make the process require a year in the active militia for all i care, since i am not buying a fucking gun. how james holmes & seung-hui cho got their arsenals was ridiculous.

Posted by Max Solomon on January 11, 2013 at 7:54 AM

@14 Some countries require anyone who wants to own a gun to pass a psychological evaluation and background investigation similar to those used to screen applicants for jobs in law enforcement. A system like that probably would have stopped James Holmes, Jared Loughner, and Seung-Hui Cho from getting guns.

Posted by Ken Mehlman on January 11, 2013 at 9:41 AM