Is the answer to the gun control issue more guns? Should it be mandatory for every high school and college...?

Question

student to be armed while at school? Would this help curb the violence in our schools? After all it is our right to protect ourselves.

Answer 1

I don't think the issue over the school shootings is one of gun control. I believe it to be an issue of mental health treatment in the USA.
20 years ago or so, people with mental health problems were released from institutions and turned loose on society. It became a matter of their civil rights. They did nothing wrong, so they shouldn't be locked up against their will.
This presents the attitude that mental decease is the problem of the sufferer, as if they had some choice about it.
This kid, who did the shootings, needed to be put in a rubber room. It was evident to everyone who knew him. People with mental disorders don't think there is anything wrong with them. They think it's the world that's wrong.
I don't believe people who are not in their right minds should be given the same freedoms and liberties as sane people. They need care and attention either until their minds clears or for their entire life, if need be.
Until the issue of mental health is addressed, we are continuously going to have problems like this school shooting.

Answer 2

Let's just for a moment imagine that we do legally arm high school and college students. I live a couple of blocks from a high school in a Southern state. I go outside almost every day to pick up the trash students throw on my lawn from their cars. I'd really hate to be picking up bodies, although perhaps we could teach evolution that way...survival of the fittest and most violent. We might cut down on our population significantly if a large proportion of teens killed each other off.

NO, stupid! This is NOT the answer. Grow up and read your history. The Second Amendment was written by men who had just made good use of the Colonial militias to win independence from England. The 1700's were a time when people actually had to hunt to keep from starving. The framers of the Constitution were not about to disarm a populace dependent upon firearms to survive. We are no longer so dependent, are we? The Second Amendment is an anachronism (look it up). We can do with a little rethinking here.

Answer 3

No, and no thinking people have ever suggested that.

Edit - Skeptic That's a great stat except for you need to look at it in the broad context. It is such a small chance that you will ever actually use a gun to stop an intruder in your home that even at 37 times greater chance you still will more likely get hit by lightning in your lifetime before you will accidentally shoot a family member with a legal gun.

Answer 4

I wonder how many people have considered what the scene would have been like with a bunch of armed youngsters running around with loaded weapons after the shooting broke out.

Imagine - you hear the shooting, you pull out your glock and run into the hallway where you see another student running towards you pointing a gun at you. Is that the shooter or another would-be vigilante? A bunch more people with guns emerge into the hall - everyone pointing guns at each other, no one knowing who the good guys are or who the bad guys are.

What happens?

Answer 5

that's not what I meant if you are referring to that last answer I gave to your last question... If the second amendment were in tact, the likely hood of a Cho or any other would be cowardly assassin acting out would be diminished substantially.. an armed public is a safe public, bad people take advantage of those they perceive as weaker than they... nothing more empowering than to stroll into a room with a hand gun when you know that no one else has one.. if he thought that a teacher or student for that matter was likely to fire back... he would not have acted as he did,,, that;s just my belief..
But I also would like to disconnect myself from the Comrade obermans in this room... The reality is that there are plenty of places in the world that have much less stringent gun laws than the US and have much lower gun violence stats... I think this is an American issue...

Answer 6

If colleges like VT had not suppressed the 2nd Amendment on their campus, things might have been different. A year ago, they punished a student who had a legal permit for carrying a concealed weapon on campus. If just one student had had their gun with them, the death toll could have been much smaller.

But that is not all that needs to happen, they need actually flag these people out and not worry about violating their civil rights.

Answer 7

NO, and empahtically NO. Did you know that by keeping a firearm in your home you are 37 times more likely to kill a member of your family than you are an intruder?

Regardless of security and locks, adding guns to schools and colleges will inevitably result in more deaths. It seems like the gun lobby is working overtime.

There is an expression called "fighting fire with fire", however, the fire department normally uses water.

Answer 8

I don't think so. I'd hate, as a teacher, to have to deal with a 13 yr old who pulled a gun cuz they didn't like it when I asked them to sit down. Or working in a dorm. How many people want their daughter on a co-ed floor walking down the hall in a towel after a shower to find a drunken guy with a pistol?

Answer 9

No, even though there is a possiblity more guns may reduce massacres like the VT one. More guns would mean more gun accidents, and more killing of people, not all at once, but over time.

Answer 10

If every ADULT with a 'shooter's license' were carrying, it WOULD curb violence greatly. I think a revokable license, similar to a driver's license, is the only way to win the war on terror anyway. Stop them fast and hard.