Connecticut Shootings

Just listening to and watching this story. No words can describe how tragic it is. How many shootings have there been in recent times in the US now?

I want to hear from the Americans on this site. I know Obama has hinted it's time for action concerning gun control now. But what do you guys think? What is the solution to stop these mass shootings and killings of innocent children and adults?

( Edited 14.12.2012 20:57 by Azuardo )

This is the sixth this year. We had a shooting at a mall on Tuesday, I think two people died.

I think it's a conglomeration of problems. We have health problems, and especially there's a stigma against needing help, and a worse stigma against needing mental help.

It's also extremely easy to obtain weapons. It's harder to get a driver's license than an assault rifle in America.

And we have a dialogue problem. Everywhere we turn in America we hear about how you can solve just about anything by shooting it. (I'm exaggerating, but not by much). Guns are idolized, they're put on a pedestal. And then whenever something goes wrong, we refuse to talk about it. We say "now is not the time" and we say it until we don't say anything anymore. Then the next shooting happens, and again we talk about how it's not the time to talk about it.

I don't live anywhere near Connecticut, and I don't know anyone involved in this personally. But my heart is heavy and my head hurts and I can't stop crying. This is one of those days where I have no faith and no hope, for my country or my people or humanity in general. I know we'll pull through and we'll rise stronger and maybe, just maybe we'll actually take steps toward making sure this never happens again. But for right now, it just hurts. It all just hurts so much.

It's horrible no matter who is hurt as a result of these incidents, but the fact these were mostly children from what, 4 to 10 years old, makes it doubly heartbreaking. It is the same sorry story of no action until it happens, just like for any of these kinds of tragedies.

I'll never understand why so many Americans think guns should be obtainable like they are. If it were up to me, every country would ban them. Since I'm not American, though, I'm ignorant as to why guns should be legal. But in my eyes, they should be banned outright. I don't believe that hundreds of years old book of constitutions rubbish that says you should have the right to bear arms. It's time to think for ourselves in times like this and do away with such toss.

Because for some stupid reason America as a whole is convinced that if we put even remotely slight restrictions on anything gun-related, we'll suddenly descend into tyranny and the government will come and round people up and kill them in droves and turn the rest into slaves and yadda yadda yadda.

My friend was in lockdown at CSU Fullerton yesterday for six hours, thankfully that incident didn't end in deaths, but it was still very traumatic for her, and all her F & F.. The terrorists America should fear the most, are the many within it's own borders. I can guarantee you these incidents will only increase in coming years, organized by various hate groups, not lone twisted individuals like this.

I think America will destroy itself eventually, leaving the Han Chinese with their beautifully rich culture which includes Buddhism and Confucianism, to pacify the Earth once again.

It disturbs me how any nation can revere a weapon so symbolic of death and destruction, as much as Americans do. The right to bear arms, doesn't bring about freedom in this modern age, it only brings death and little respect for human life. Live by the gun, die by the gun, truer words have rarely been spoken.

The sad fact is, Obama has killed far more little kids than this sicko, America is all about remote killing these days, guns are soooo last decade for them.

As the BBC's Panorama revealed only last week, President Obama is "Bush on steroids", a drone killer of many innocent children around the globe, the nobel peace prize winner of 2010! (lol) What a joke!, it begs belief what American presidents can buy with power.

"The US has killed up to 3,378 people in 350 drone strikes in the past eight years. And that's just in Pakistan. The US also orchestrates drone strikes in Yemen and Somalia from a base in the tiny African state of Djibouti (which nobody is supposed to know about). But does the White House want to talk about this? Not unless it really has to. And not even then."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/shortcuts/2012/nov/12/dronestagram-website-us-drone-war

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2012/11/dronestagram-locations-behind-americas-secret-drone-war

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/02/drone-wars-secrecy-barack-obama

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/08/somalia-drones/

BBC Panorama:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01pcyfc 

America has long been the prime purveyor of death and suffering around the globe, so perhaps it's no wonder why the gun plays a heavy role in their culture and global identity. 

Have you SEEN your signature?

In all seriousness, we do seem to worship violence in this country. I think when Obama won the peace prize it was because the world felt a wave of relief that Bush was out. Nobody knew yet that Obama was going to keep Bush's military appointees and keep doing everything Bush was already doing.

We're already out of one war and working on the other. And that drone figure is total dead, not civilian casualties (not saying that makes it okay by any means, especially since the civilian number is also really fucking high) but yeah, that peace prize is a joke.

I think the right wing over here is holding us in the stone age. We're too beholden to the past, too afraid of the future. We spend all our time arguing that something should be done and in the meantime nothing is done.

I don't want to see America fall. I want to see America change. And it will, but at this rate, it's too little, too slow, way too fucking late.

I haven't commented for a while on the site but just had to reply to this. (By the way, still like the new look guys!)

I have a good friend who is a card carrying member of the NRA and even he thinks something needs to be done about the way guns are handled in this country. Assault weapons like the ones this shooter used should be banned. end of discussion. I am all for the right to own a handgun for protection or even a shotgun, but you do not need an M4 to protect your house from a burglar.

Also, earlier in the year I went around to a lot of garage sales in my local area looking for video games. At one house in particular they had a a whole card table full of rifles. I could have walked away with a handful of guns, thrown 'em in the trunk of my car and nobody would have questioned it. It was one of the most irresponsible things I've ever seen. I could have bought a real rifle for $15. 

On the more human side of this issue, I am fearful. The amount of shootings this year has been many. And while I feel nothing will happen to me personally, I think it's becoming more and more likely that something could. All of these shooters seem to be around my age and I just don't understand what drives somebody to do something so heinousness, so evil. As Justone stated there is a stigma against getting help in this country. We also have a lot of mental illness. Something in the water I guess... I don't know, but that's what we have.

Anybody happen to have the statistics for metal illness per capita? I'm certain the U.S. has the highest rate. And thanks for making the topic Az, good to see people willing to start the disscussion. This shooting has been on my mind all day.

( Edited 15.12.2012 08:59 by Duggler657 )

SOURCE.

It is a bit ridiculous, folks. Ganja is illegal, but assault rifles aren't? Come on, now.

That graph says it all. Btw, recreational use in Washington and Colorado is now legal.

@justonesp00lturn:

"Nobody knew yet that Obama was going to keep Bush's military appointees and keep doing everything Bush was already doing."

Anyone that thinks what he's doing is on par with the Bush regime, is severely mistaken, what Obama has done in these ensuing years, has been far far worse than what Bush managed, you only have to ask the innocent people from the countries effected to find this out. The situation in these places is far worse today.

"We're surprised by the last designations by the Nobel committee, in the case of Obama, Al Gore, and now the European Union, when these are countries at war. They are part of NATO. They invade, plunder, kill. We've seen it in Libya, Syria, we see it all over the world. The military bases they have in the Malvinas Islands. So, we're worried a prize like the Nobel, which has to be for contributing to peace, can be used in this way."

- Adolfo Perez Esquivel, the 1980 Nobel winner

Hong Kong (CNN) -- On Friday morning, a man walked through the entrance of an elementary school and, without warning, began ruthlessly cutting down children at the school. Before he was subdued, nearly two dozen were hit.While it sounds like the horrific massacre in Connecticut, this attack took place about 8,000 miles away in central China. And while several of the victims were reported in critical condition, none of the 22 children were killed. The 36-year-old suspect in China -- which has strict gun control laws -- attacked the children with a knife,according to local reports."The huge difference between this case and the U.S. is not the suspect, nor the situation, but the simple fact he did not have an effective weapon," said Dr. Ding Xueliang, a Harvard-educated sociologist at the University of Science and Technology in Hong Kong.As the world shares in the horror of the attack that left at least 28 dead, including 20 school children, the attack has rekindled the gun-control debate in the U.S. and international wonder at the propensity of gun-related deaths in America."In terms of the U.S., there's much easier availability of killing instruments -- rifles, machine guns, explosives -- than in nearly every other developed country," Dr. Ding said."In the United States, we had 9,000 people killed with guns last year, in similar countries like Germany 170 (killed with guns), in Canada 150. There's a reason for that," Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-New York, told CNN's Piers Morgan."The proof in the pudding is that in every other industrialized nation except the United States, they have reasonable gun control laws, and they have hundreds of people killed each year -- not 9,000 or 10,000 a year -- killed by guns."

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/15/world/asia/china-us-school-attack/index.html

( Edited 27.12.2012 23:52 by Linkyshinks )

Linkyshinks- you won't believe how many times that story from Hong Kong came up on my facebook as "man in China kills 22 kids with a knife" by pro-gun people as reasoning for why we should have MORE guns.

Of course, when you point out to them that it was 22 INJURED, they simply ignored it or deleted your post and continued to spread that nonsense. And there was one guy who told me that 22 injured was actually worse than 30 killed because now the kids have to live with severe mental trauma and fear of knives and other such bullshit.

The gun culture in America is sickening.

I've seen some on fb saying all teachers should be armed, lol...

I even saw some saying all students should be armed. Clearly, giving guns to every kindergartener in America is the only way to make sure nobody gets hurt 

Well since the shooting sales of armored bullet proof bacpacks and guns have soared.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/20/16045212-armored-backpacks-and-a-rush-on-guns-after-connecticut-school-shooting?lite

Obama, Time Magazines person of the year lol

http://celebrate.today.com/_news/2012/12/19/15998318-time-person-of-the-year-is-president-obama?lite

Linkyshinks, you can never resist an opportunity for an anti-American tangent, even if that means hijacking a tragedy such as this...Come on man.

Even as a gun-owner myself and a supporter of the right to bear arms, it is ridiculous how easy it is for someone to acquire a weapon and then turn it on other citizens. Some weapons are exceptionally useful for home defense; some are good for hunting, and others seem to serve little purpose except to harm other people. The assault rifles, for one, need to go and the system needs a lot of reform.

I've seen some on fb saying all teachers should be armed, lol...

I fail to see why that's 'lol' worthy. Don't you think if every teacher at a school was trained and armed a man would think twice before attacking? As it is now we might as well be hanging a sign on the front door saying "We're utterly defenseless and vulnerable. Come and get us."

I'm not advocating this approach, just wondering why a possible solution (one that's far more practical than trying to disarm the entire nation - good luck with that) is so easily thrown aside.

Some Americans won't understand, because they've never lived in a country where gun control is strict, like ours. To us, the whole idea of guns being easily available to anyone in the US is a joke and so stupid. It comes across as if the US is all about power and revenge. The less guns there are in existence, the lower number of deaths there will be by guns. You only need to look at the stats of death by gun in each country and see that the US is amongst the highest.

( Edited 21.12.2012 17:38 by Marzy )

Marzy said:
Some Americans won't understand, because they've never lived in a country where gun control is strict, like ours. To us, the whole idea of guns being easily available to anyone in the US is a joke and so stupid.

To be fair, the opposite viewpoint can be said to exist. Many Americans see Europeans' fear of guns as irrational (a joke, so stupid). The saying here is frequently that guns are only as dangerous as the people wielding them -- the idea being that the gun isn't the problem. Mentally ill people will always find ways to harm other people. Whether they use a gun, a knife, or a baseball bat is irrelevant. At least if guns are legal, law-abiding and mentally sound people have the opportunity to defend themselves. Laws only apply to the law-abiding.

This was a popular meme on Facebook during the last shooting:

(the idea being, for those unfamiliar with American laws, that Marijuana is illegal and yet that doesn't stop it from being readily available and consumed)

But of course events like these, where mentally ill people take advantage of legal guns to inflict mass damage, certainly upset the status quo. Even the "gun nuts" so to speak are having to re-evaluate their general beliefs on the prudence of having such weapons.

I'm not speaking in terms of my own opinions on the issue -- because frankly I'm conflicted. In this post I'm only trying to present the 'other sides' view that guns aren't really the root of the issue, and outlawing them isn't going to solve the real problem.

( Edited 21.12.2012 17:54 by Jacob4000 )

I think the general consensus is that, yes, whilst it is down to the individual that wields the weapon, if guns weren't so readily available to people then the chances of mass murder incidents like this one would be reduced dramatically. A nutter without a gun has less of a chance of killing so many people than one with a gun. You'll always get people going on sprees and whatnot, but how many incidents have we had in the UK and surrounding countries like this, and when was the last one? Apart from Norway, I can't even recall. Yet the number of mass murder incidents with guns in the US is huge.

I don't think you can compare the legalisation of guns to people going on sprees with knives or baseball bats, because they are never going to inflict as many deaths in one or as many incidents as guns do. Nor can you really bring up marijuana. We're talking about a weapon that can easily take away the lives of children and adults quickly. Weed doesn't do that.

( Edited 21.12.2012 18:09 by Azuardo )

We're talking about a weapon that can easily take away the lives of children and adults quickly. Weed doesn't do that.

I think you're missing the point of the meme -- it's not that weed is a mass murder tool. It's that strict laws, billions of dollars, and large-scale drug wars haven't prevented drugs from being so easy to find and use.

So if we outlaw guns, are they magically going to disappear? Or by outlawing them are you only going to take them away from the law-abiding people who wouldn't commit crimes?

There's no doubting whatsoever that a sick person with a gun is more dangerous than a sick person with a baseball bat. The question is whether legislation will actually stop the sick man from getting his gun -- or will it just disarm the citizen who might have been able to stop the whole affair from happening?

These are the sort of questions that I think aren't so easy to answer. (one way or the other)

( Edited 21.12.2012 18:18 by Jacob4000 )

I see your point. But I believe that it still would drastically reduce the chances of just any old fucker getting a gun and killing someone.

Azuardo said:
I see your point. But I believe that it still would drastically reduce the chances of just any old fucker getting a gun and killing someone.

Sure -- and we certainly shouldn't give up on trying to stop people like this from getting weapons. Hell, if we want to be ambivalent about the whole thing, we should just put revolvers in vending machines and say "bad guys will get 'em anyway, might as well spread 'em far and wide". 

That's definitely not what I'm saying. I just don't see the "outlaw guns" movement as the "off" switch for violence some people expect it to be. It's not so simple.

And certainly even if firearms were banned outright tomorrow, the amount of them that exist in the country would still be there for people to get a hold of underground. It would take years before they disappeared, even if the country was forced to hand them all in. However, it would still be the beginning of a safer America, in my opinion.

( Edited 21.12.2012 18:56 by Azuardo )

Well, it's just one of those things. The American government simply doesn't have the manpower to go around every home in America to audit for firearms. And that's probably why the gun laws won't change significantly. It's simply too late.

In England, I could get a gun. It wouldn't be easy, or cheap. I would have to go to a certain person I know, and I'd have two options. £400-600 for a used pistol, or £1000+ for a new one. The main difference being if I get caught with the used one, I'd go down for all the shootings it had ever been used in. The new one obviously wouldn't carry that penalty with it, which is the main reason why it's so expensive.

We're talking the kind of gun you'd get for $200 new in a shop in America. A cheap piece of crap, and you'd get a handful of bullets with it. You wouldn't be going on any mass shootings with it, and it'd been very hard for you to get it, and would have cost you a bomb. £1000+ is a lot of money, especially in USD.

I think that's maybe $1,500-1,800 in USD? With that money in America you could buy a much bigger, more powerful gun, much easier. And if you couldn't, your neighbour, your dad, brother, your uncle has got one. There's just no comparison.

You're both right that something has to be done. It's just too late to criminalize gun owners in America. That should have been done a hundred years ago. So what if it's part of your constitution? We all have laws and long-standing legislation in our countries that are changes over years to keep up with the needs of the times. To say "It's our right to bare arms because of the constitution" simply isn't good enough.

That's all been and gone, now. It's 2012, and many homes in America have firearms. What can actually be done that would be effective? It's all well and good to make gun ownership illegal outright, but would that be effective at this point? How many rednecks would just go "yeah, yeah.." fill out the requisite forms and just keep their guns anyway? I'd say many/most.

It's a troubling situation. America is the Mass-Shooting Capitol of the World, and at this point I don't see what she can do about that.

Jacob4000 said:
Linkyshinks, you can never resist an opportunity for an anti-American tangent, even if that means hijacking a tragedy such as this...Come on man.

Even as a gun-owner myself and a supporter of the right to bear arms, it is ridiculous how easy it is for someone to acquire a weapon and then turn it on other citizens. Some weapons are exceptionally useful for home defense; some are good for hunting, and others seem to serve little purpose except to harm other people. The assault rifles, for one, need to go and the system needs a lot of reform.

I've seen some on fb saying all teachers should be armed, lol...

I fail to see why that's 'lol' worthy. Don't you think if every teacher at a school was trained and armed a man would think twice before attacking? As it is now we might as well be hanging a sign on the front door saying "We're utterly defenseless and vulnerable. Come and get us."

I'm not advocating this approach, just wondering why a possible solution (one that's far more practical than trying to disarm the entire nation - good luck with that) is so easily thrown aside.

Wake up, there are many people around the globe that are incapable of saying anything less under the circumstances, Your drone killer scumbag of a President went on TV around the globe to shed fake tears and commiserate at the loss of twenty or so kids. In the eyes of all but Americans, this could only be seen as astoundingly hypocritical given what we know about his drone killing exploits in Arabia and Africa, exploits which have seen far more innocent children die:

http://dronestagram.tumblr.com/

It was truly grotesque to see someone who has directly caused the death of so many children around the globe, lamenting so few, simply because they're American.

Why, because the many children in Arabia and Africa that have been murdered at the hands of Obama and his evil regime, won't even be formally acknowledged, in any way, shape or form. The lives of these children have no worth to Americans.

The White house refuses to produce any numbers relating to how many children have been remotely and brutally killed via drone attacks, forcing those on the ground to salvage accounts, for a day in the future when justice can prevail. If there is any justice in the world, that c**t will find himself in the Hague, the best place for the mass killer scum of his kind.

The National Rifle Association (NRA) Chief Executive Wayne LaPierre has said that what is needed to protect US school children is "a plan of absolute protection" (lol)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/dec/21/nra-full-statement-lapierre-newtown

Speech:
The National Rifle Association's 4 million mothers, fathers, sons and daughters join the nation in horror, outrage, grief and earnest prayer for the families of Newtown, Connecticut ... who suffered such incomprehensible loss as a result of this unspeakable crime.Out of respect for those grieving families, and until the facts are known, the NRA has refrained from comment. While some have tried to exploit tragedy for political gain, we have remained respectfully silent.Now, we must speak ... for the safety of our nation's children. Because for all the noise and anger directed at us over the past week, no one — nobody — has addressed the most important, pressing and immediate question we face: How do we protect our children right now, starting today, in a way that we know works?The only way to answer that question is to face up to the truth. Politicians pass laws for Gun-Free School Zones. They issue press releases bragging about them. They post signs advertising them.And in so doing, they tell every insane killer in America that schools are their safest place to inflict maximum mayhem with minimum risk.How have our nation's priorities gotten so far out of order? Think about it. We care about our money, so we protect our banks with armed guards. American airports, office buildings, power plants, courthouses — even sports stadiums — are all protected by armed security.We care about the President, so we protect him with armed Secret Service agents. Members of Congress work in offices surrounded by armed Capitol Police officers.Yet when it comes to the most beloved, innocent and vulnerable members of the American family — our children — we as a society leave them utterly defenseless, and the monsters and predators of this world know it and exploit it. That must change now!The truth is that our society is populated by an unknown number of genuine monsters — people so deranged, so evil, so possessed by voices and driven by demons that no sane person can possibly ever comprehend them. They walk among us every day. And does anybody really believe that the next Adam Lanza isn't planning his attack on a school he's already identified at this very moment?How many more copycats are waiting in the wings for their moment of fame — from a national media machine that rewards them with the wall-to-wall attention and sense of identity that they crave — while provoking others to try to make their mark?A dozen more killers? A hundred? More? How can we possibly even guess how many, given our nation's refusal to create an active national database of the mentally ill?And the fact is, that wouldn't even begin to address the much larger and more lethal criminal class: Killers, robbers, rapists and drug gang members who have spread like cancer in every community in this country. Meanwhile, federal gun prosecutions have decreased by 40% — to the lowest levels in a decade.So now, due to a declining willingness to prosecute dangerous criminals, violent crime is increasing again for the first time in 19 years! Add another hurricane, terrorist attack or some other natural or man-made disaster, and you've got a recipe for a national nightmare of violence and victimization.And here's another dirty little truth that the media try their best to conceal: There exists in this country a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people.Through vicious, violent video games with names like Bulletstorm, Grand Theft Auto, Mortal Kombat and Splatterhouse. And here's one: it's called Kindergarten Killers. It's been online for 10 years. How come 
my research department could find it and all of yours either couldn't or didn't want anyone to know you had found it?Then there's the blood-soaked slasher films like "American Psycho" and "Natural Born Killers" that are aired like propaganda loops on "Splatterdays" and every day, and a thousand music videos that portray life as a joke and murder as a way of life. And then they have the nerve to call it "entertainment."But is that what it really is? Isn't fantasizing about killing people as a way to get your kicks really the filthiest form of pornography?In a race to the bottom, media conglomerates compete with one another to shock, violate and offend every standard of civilized society by bringing an ever-more-toxic mix of reckless behavior and criminal cruelty into our homes — every minute of every day of every month of every year.A child growing up in America witnesses 16,000 murders and 200,000 acts of violence by the time he or she reaches the ripe old age of 18.And throughout it all, too many in our national media ... their corporate owners ... and their stockholders ... act as silent enablers, if not complicit co-conspirators. Rather than face their own moral failings, the media demonize lawful gun owners, amplify their cries for more laws and fill the national debate with misinformation and dishonest thinking that only delay meaningful action and all but guarantee that the next atrocity is only a news cycle away.The media call semi-automatic firearms "machine guns" — they claim these civilian semi-automatic firearms are used by the military, and they tell us that the .223 round is one of the most powerful rifle calibers ... when all of these claims are factually untrue. They don't know what they're talking about!Worse, they perpetuate the dangerous notion that one more gun ban — or one more law imposed on peaceful, lawful people — will protect us where 20,000 others have failed!As brave, heroic and self-sacrificing as those teachers were in those classrooms, and as prompt, professional and well-trained as those police were when they responded, they were unable — through no fault of their own — to stop it.As parents, we do everything we can to keep our children safe. It is now time for us to assume responsibility for their safety at school. The only way to stop a monster from killing our kids is to be personally involved and invested in a plan of absolute protection. The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. Would you rather have your 911 call bring a good guy with a gun from a mile away ... or a minute away?Now, I can imagine the shocking headlines you'll print tomorrow morning: "More guns," you'll claim, "are the NRA's answer to everything!" Your implication will be that guns are evil and have no place in society, much less in our schools. But since when did the word "gun" automatically become a bad word?A gun in the hands of a Secret Service agent protecting the President isn't a bad word. A gun in the hands of a soldier protecting the United Statesisn't a bad word. And when you hear the glass breaking in your living room at 3 a.m. and call 911, you won't be able to pray hard enough for a gun in the hands of a good guy to get there fast enough to protect you.So why is the idea of a gun good when it's used to protect our President or our country or our police, but bad when it's used to protect our children in their schools?They're our kids. They're our responsibility. And it's not just our duty to protect them — it's our right to protect them.You know, five years ago, after the Virginia Tech tragedy, when I said we should put armed security in every school, the media called me crazy. But what if, when Adam Lanza started shooting his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School last Friday, he had been confronted by qualified, armed security?Will you at least admit it's possible that 26 innocent lives might have been spared? Is that so abhorrent to you that you would rather continue to risk the alternative?Is the press and political class here in Washington so consumed by fear and hatred of the NRA and America's gun owners that you're willing to accept a world where real resistance to evil monsters is a lone, unarmed school principal left to surrender her life to shield the children in her care? No one — regardless of personal political prejudice — has the right to impose that sacrifice.Ladies and gentlemen, there is no national, one-size-fits-all solution to protecting our children. But do know this President zeroed out school emergency planning grants in last year's budget, and scrapped "Secure Our Schools" policing grants in next year's budget.With all the foreign aid, with all the money in the federal budget, we can't afford to put a police officer in every school? Even if they did that, politicians have no business — and no authority — denying us the right, the ability, or the moral imperative to protect ourselves and our loved ones from harm.Now, the National Rifle Association knows that there are millions of qualified active and retired police; active, reserve and retired military; security professionals; certified firefighters and rescue personnel; and an extraordinary corps of patriotic, trained qualified citizens to join with local school officials and police in devising a protection plan for every school. We can deploy them to protect our kids now. We can immediately make America's schools safer — relying on the brave men and women of America's police force.The budget of our local police departments are strained and resources are limited, but their dedication and courage are second to none and they can be deployed right now.I call on Congress today to act immediately, to appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed police officers in every school — and to do it now, to make sure that blanket of safety is in place when our children return to school in January.Before Congress reconvenes, before we engage in any lengthy debate over legislation, regulation or anything else, as soon as our kids return to school after the holiday break, we need to have every single school in America immediately deploy a protection program proven to work — and by that I mean armed security.Right now, today, every school in the United States should plan meetings with parents, school administrators, teachers and local authorities — and draw upon every resource available — to erect a cordon of protection around our kids right now. Every school will have a different solution based on its own unique situation.Every school in America needs to immediately identify, dedicate and deploy the resources necessary to put these security forces in place right now. And the National Rifle Association, as America's preeminent trainer of law enforcement and security personnel for the past 50 years, is ready, willing and uniquely qualified to help.Our training programs are the most advanced in the world. That expertise must be brought to bear to protect our schools and our children now. We did it for the nation's defense industries and military installations during World War II, and we'll do it for our schools today.The NRA is going to bring all of its knowledge, dedication and resources to develop a model National School Shield Emergency Response Program for every school that wants it. From armed security to building design and access control to information technology to student and teacher training, this multi-faceted program will be developed by the very best experts in their fields.Former Congressman Asa Hutchinson will lead this effort as National Director of the National School Shield Program, with a budget provided by the NRA of whatever scope the task requires. His experience as a U.S. Attorney, Director of the Drug Enforcement Agency and Undersecretary of the Department of Homeland Security will give him the knowledge and expertise to hire the most knowledgeable and credentialed experts available anywhere, to get this program up and running from the first day forward.If we truly cherish our kids more than our money or our celebrities, we must give them the greatest level of protection possible and the security that is only available with a properly trained — armed — good guy.Under Asa's leadership, our team of security experts will make this the best program in the world for protecting our children at school, and we will make that program available to every school in America free of charge.That's a plan of action that can, and will, make a real, positive and indisputable difference in the safety of our children — starting right now.There'll be time for talk and debate later. This is the time, this is the day for decisive action.We can't wait for the next unspeakable crime to happen before we act. We can't lose precious time debating legislation that won't work. We mustn't allow politics or personal prejudice to divide us. We must act now.For the sake of the safety of every child in America, I call on every parent, every teacher, every school administrator and every law enforcement officer in this country to join us in the National School Shield Program and protect our children with the only line of positive defense that's tested and proven to work.

( Edited 21.12.2012 22:03 by Linkyshinks )

Then start a thread about the ethics of drone warfare. It's certainly a legitimate debate. Start a thread discussing the crimes of the Obama administration. Go do that. But your effort to turn every American event into a soap box from which to smear the rest of the country is revolting.

Are we not allowed to mourn our losses because of other travesties? Sorry ma'am, the death of your child shouldn't be a tragedy because Obama is waging a drone war. You see, mourning the death of your own children makes you a hypocrite. Carry on now, stiff upper lip.

There is certainly room for examination on whether the drone war is just, and what level of casualties -- if any -- are allowable in the pursuit of terrorists. Is that debate really appropriate right here? I don't mind having it, but for Christ's sake this topic is about the dead in Connecticut and what measures would prevent such things from happening again.

The lives of these children have no worth to Americans.

I see you have no intention of holding back as you paint with the broadest strokes imaginable.

.....

Full quote in context:

"It was truly grotesque to see someone who has directly caused the death of so many children around the globe, lamenting so few, simply because they're American. Why?, because the many children in Arabia and Africa that have been murdered at the hands of Obama and his evil regime, won't even be formally acknowledged, in any way, shape or form. The lives of these children have no worth to Americans."

When you choose not acknowledge someone, in this case numerous dead children, you are in effect saying they have no worth, what so ever.

American Policy to Avert War Crimes: 
No names, No numbers, No details.

No worth.

The value of any child's life should be equal across the globe.

( Edited 21.12.2012 22:40 by Linkyshinks )