Another school shooting

[kelpdiver 2]

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He brought 500 bullets and used about 70 of them, according to a Swedish news source.

that makes sense - .22s are sold in 500 packs for $10-15, and are not very heavy. But they're harder to load, so I wonder if he ran out of magazines.

[kelpdiver 2]

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Would you like to compare the frequency and death toll from christian abortion clinic bombers with that of muslim suicide bombers?

You were arguing about their motivation, not their frequency. And if it's frequency, the Christians win in the US. But if you don't want to answer my question, that's fine.

[Andy9o8 2]

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You are making the standard false assumption in presuming that some gun law could have prevented a murderous-minded adult from acquiring a gun. And you admitted that yourself, above. Yet, then you go on to tell a story as if some gun law would require him to commit his act with nothing more than a knife.

John, you're extrapolating far more from what I said than is there, or was intended. I'm simply trying to analyze this clinically (see more on this process, below). Not everyone who responds to your points with something other than complete validation is necessarily your enemy, or an advocate for your enemy (see more on this, too, below).

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Gun-control folks live in a fantasy world.

I'm not sure if you're referring to me or just a certain category of people generally. But consider:

I suggest it's fantasy to break the Western world down into but 2 categories: Gun-rights ALLIES and gun-o-phobe ENEMIES.

You discount a huge part of the population that occupies a 3rd category, which lies more or less in the middle. It consists of reasonable people, with open minds, who are trying to educate themselves and analyze the merits and drawbacks of each side's more compelling arguments, the better to craft a sensible social policy. I'm in that category. We do our best to analyze this issue with our heads, and not our hearts. I can tell you this: we're generally not swayed by stridency or demonizing of, or from, either side.

By the way, have you read any of my fairly recent posts on 2nd Amendment analysis or proposed gun statutes dealing with assault weapons? I'm presuming you have.

[NCclimber 0]

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Would you like to compare the frequency and death toll from christian abortion clinic bombers with that of muslim suicide bombers?

You were arguing about their motivation, not their frequency. And if it's frequency, the Christians win in the US.

Let's see - seven people have died at the hands of abortion clinic bombers. How does that compare to the events of 9/11/01?

Why limit it to just the US? Let's compare all abortion clinic bombings that had fatalities to all suicide bombings that had fatalities for the planet over the last 20 years or so.

[warpedskydiver 0]

By the way, have you read any of my fairly recent posts on 2nd Amendment analysis or proposed gun statutes dealing with assault weapons? I'm presuming you have.

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Andy maybe you should state exactly how you feel about the issue in one clear, concise, and brief statement.

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[kelpdiver 2]

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You were arguing about their motivation, not their frequency. And if it's frequency, the Christians win in the US.

Let's see - seven people have died at the hands of abortion clinic bombers. How does that compare to the events of 9/11/01?

How many clinics were bombed for that 7? Was it more than 1?

[ernokaikkonen 0]

Replies to several posters:

Esquilax:

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The relevance was that if Finland has typical Euro gun laws, it'd show that they're indeed ineffective in the prevention of these attacks.

I disagree. I think the Finnish laws do a rather good job of keeping the amount of such attacks low. My reasoning goes like this:

- No gun control: Lots of guns around, every yahoo has a gun laying around, so going on a killing spree is easy, and requires little or no advance planning. I don't believe in the "The whole country would get armed to the teeth and kill the whackos"-theory. The whackos come from the same pool of people that are supposed to stop them.

- Permit required, background checks, hunting permit or shooting club membership required: Anyone who has no criminal record can get a gun, but it takes some effort. Your average neighbourhood whacko just can't be bothered going through all the trouble. Determined whackos can and will get a gun, as we just saw.

- Guns banned: In order for our whacko with determination to get a gun, he'd need to go to the black market. Doing that has a higher threshold than doing it by the books, and let's face it; most people wouldn't know where to start looking. Of course, even a total ban won't stop a very determined whacko. A gun ban may have prevented or delayed this latest shooting, we'll never know. Maybe he would've built bombs instead.

I like the current laws here. I don't want a total ban just for the admittedly selfish reason that I like to go shoot a gun every now and then.

kelpdiver:

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What stopped him, anyway? (News articles rarely say) Was he running low on bullets and saved the last for himself?

He had around 400 rounds, and he fired about 60 or 70 of them. I think he ran out of people to shoot, as everyone ran away. He'd shot himself in the head in a bathroom.

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But they're harder to load, so I wonder if he ran out of magazines.

He only had one. He would have had to reload seven times.

JohnRich:

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Third point:

We're lucky he wasn't using a larger caliber gun, or the other 12 people he only injured, could have been fatalities.

Only one of the injured had gunshot wounds. The rest were injured escaping by jumping through second story windows.

[Richards 0]

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Yeah, bullies again. I wonder why no one ever wants to ban school bullies?

[SkyDekker 1,465]

Shhhhhhhh

This is Speaker's Corner...facts only confuse things!!!!!!

[kelpdiver 2]

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Shhhhhhhh

This is Speaker's Corner...facts only confuse things!!!!!!

the facts are that several people died and the rest got hurt trying to escape because they had no other options.

[JohnRich 4]

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Yeah, bullies again. I wonder why no one ever wants to ban school bullies?

Because there is better political capital in banning guns

[martin-o 0]

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So the bullies just keep right on bullying other kids, and everyone is afraid to step in and do something about it. And that plants the seeds for revenge in the victims, against both the bullies and those who do nothing to stop it, which has led to so many of these shootings...

The problem with this statement is that scientific evidence suggests that beating up kids only makes them more prone to bully. Where I live all physical punishment of children is forbidden and I'm pretty sure there is not more physical abuse in schools here then where you live.

/Martin

[billvon 2,989]

>And if some schoolteacher grabbed a bully by the nape of the neck and
> gave him a good spanking, they would be sued for violating his civil
>rights, and get fired from their job.

>So the bullies just keep right on bullying other kids . . .

I can tell you from personal experience that if you spank bullies (or, in our case, slap them, punch them out and break their jaws) bullying does not decline; it just becomes harder for teachers to see.

[JohnRich 4]

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I can tell you from personal experience that if you spank bullies (or, in our case, slap them, punch them out and break their jaws) bullying does not decline; it just becomes harder for teachers to see.

Oh, so the billvon judo flip won't deter bullies? Drat.

Okay, so what is your solution to stop bullies from picking on other kids at school?

[billvon 2,989]

>Oh, so the billvon judo flip won't deter bullies? Drat.

?? I am referring to what TEACHERS did, not to what students did. (I went to one of those conservative catholic schools.) There were plenty of fights that happened in the park across the street, and that had far more to do with who picked on who than what any teacher did.

>Okay, so what is your solution to stop bullies from picking on other kids at school?

Clearly it is to arm all students! Dead bullys beat up no one.

Seriously, this issue has been around for a few thousand years at least. There's nothing new in kids bullying each other, and nothing new in the solutions to it.

[Andy9o8 2]

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By the way, have you read any of my fairly recent posts on 2nd Amendment analysis or proposed gun statutes dealing with assault weapons? I'm presuming you have.

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Andy maybe you should state exactly how you feel about the issue in one clear, concise, and brief statement.

I simply can't. First, my thoughts feelings are a bit complex, and even somewhat conflicted, so concise and brief isn't gonna happen. Also, my personal analysis is far from complete; it's very much a work in progress. The best I can do, so far, is study and parse it a bit at a time.

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[Richards 0]

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Yep. And if some schoolteacher grabbed a bully by the nape of the neck and gave him a good spanking, they would be sued for violating his civil rights, and get fired from their job.

Probably.

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So the bullies just keep right on bullying other kids, and everyone is afraid to step in and do something about it. And that plants the seeds for revenge in the victims, against both the bullies and those who do nothing to stop it, which has led to so many of these shootings...

They tried something like a zero tolerance policy in Toronto with respect to bullying and violence. THe idea was that any bullying was dealt with swiftly via suspensions but it fell apart. Parents of black kids were screaming that this policy targetted their kids unfairly as they were suspended at a higher rate than other kids. I honestly don't know if it was because black kids did it more or if they were simply being punished more harshly than other kids. That debate went on for awhile and then the law seemed to die off. But yes, that cycle will lead to more violence with or without guns

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Yeah, let's blame the guns: they're inanimate objects and can't sue us.

[Andy9o8 2]

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So the bullies just keep right on bullying other kids, and everyone is afraid to step in and do something about it. And that plants the seeds for revenge in the victims, against both the bullies and those who do nothing to stop it, which has led to so many of these shootings...

I thnk this is a very important issue, and I'm not at all satisfied with any of the answers given to it in this thread, so I've spun-off a new thread:

School Bullies: What to do about them?

http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=3010713;#3010713