The make up of the republican-gerrymandered House of Not-So-Representatives?

(remind me again which party had more votes for the House? ;))

And how was the GOP in position to draw some favorable districts? Gosh, I do believe that might have something to do with their elected legislatures.

But like I said, at this point, by any means necessary afaic.

Fine. You go any means necessary, and then the D's will go any means necessary (51 in the Senate?)

Texas lawmaker: Ping-pong is deadlier than guns | The Ticket - Yahoo! News

And you know what else is deadlier than guns? Hitler.

Which was a result when the Germans repealed the 1st amendment...

And it all went down hill from there. So what better? Ping-Pong control or gun control? :D

I'm not really thrilled with Plan B either, I simply have not found an acceptable justification for increasing taxes on the people that are already (over)taxed at the highest rates. It took years to create this mess, it may simply be one that has no solution that is both acceptable & capable of being implemented.

We need to go after the roots of violence in general, not guns.

Prosecutor: Teens beat homeless man to death | abc11.com

The Republican caucus can bring nothing to the table, so they will get nothing.

Boehner's Plan B fiscal cliff bill pulled amid dissension in GOP caucus - CNN.com

No negotiating with the crazies on the right wing, apparently

Edit: I'm saying that's what the D's and Obama should tell them "That was a one-time offer. All of it is now off the table. Get back to us when you can control your caucus and we'll start fresh"

You beat me to it. All that bluster and positioning (and wasted time) for nothing. I'm beginning to dislike Boehner.

Yes, I agree. Definitely no easy or quick fix, but, well worth the effort in my opinion.

Interested in knowing your thoughts on the "roots of violence".

I kindof feel for him, as much as one can for a politician. He's in such an untenable position right now: he has a clearly losing hand right now to Obama due to the structure of the tax cuts and he's trying to make the best deal he can. However, they're not letting him make a deal because there are just too many who are are starting to believe their own rhetoric rather than remembering it's all for show and all part of the game.

I think this defeat has a decent chance of ending his tenure as Speaker. If Cantor takes over, he's just a younger, slimier, less orange Boehner. But if the GOP tries to get a "real conservative", this is going to be a really long couple of years.

SI

IMO this is the likely scenario. We go over the cliff and then fix it. Question is how long to fix it.

'Plan B' Vote Postponed In House

Let's try Cantor.

Will Boehner’s speakership survive until Plan C?

Cantor as "more moderate?"

LOL

You know what would help with the violence. Men. Men that are fathers. Not boys who have kids. But men who have children and actually raise them, and teach them, and discipline them.
I see a lot about the 2nd amendment people saying how they were taught by their fathers how to be responsible with their guns. Yep. Fathers that are men.

Unfortunately, in our throw away society, we see less and less of men that are fathers. Huge issue for our country.

At least he dropped my favorite line:

"The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."

I think it usually ends with the bad guy shooting himself after he finishes killing those around him.

So it takes the NRA a week to come up with that...

And then they need 72 more hours to be able to answer a single question...

Wow. Somebody should let them know that this issue is not going away this time as it has in the past so delay tactics will not work.

It would have been funny if wasn't so sad. I did enjoy the protestors. :)

The idea that we want to create an arms race inside of schools in this country is idiotic.

Nor is anything they say going to change any minds.

The only thing that matters is whether gun owners are betrayed by their representatives.

Seriously. Then you'll just have worse carnage.

Eh. Armed security doesn't bother me. The idea we should arm teachers and administrators is beyond ridiculous. I do find it sad that we can't even provide adequate resources for actual education, and now we are going to blow more money on armed security. But then as a father, I do believe having police officers at the door of my children school would provide me "quicker" peace of mine than any gun control law would. I just don't think it should be an either/or situation.

Straight up answer me this: Would closing the gun-show loophole to prevent 40% of all guns sales being absent of background checks be a "betrayal of all gun owners?"

They're not going to start arming teachers and lunch ladies. State legislators propose a lot of stuff. We're full-on into the policy game now. Somebody proposes something that's not going to happen, and it becomes a huge news story as a way for the other side to make a point - "See how CRAZY they are?!" Picking and choosing the most extreme views to respond to so their own view can seem the most correct - like those fluff pieces passionately explaining why we need to have gun control laws - as if we don't yet. It's just run-of-the-mill stuff now. Putting down others and feeling correct will soon, if it hasn't already, be way more important than protecting children.

That's just it - I don't know for sure. But I think we need to have a discussion on the entire topic, not just "ban assault weapons and move on" like will probably happen, or we'll be right back here scratching our collective heads once again. We may help reduce these 20-30 dead massacres, but do little to stop the far more frequent 2-5 dead shootings that don't require an AR-15 to pull off (and we've had shootings like that in schools, including elementary schools, before). Let's keep in mind that in the Kentucky school shooting, the kids broke into their grandfather's safe to get the guns, and the Colombine shooters bought their guns illegally. A few years back we had an incident where an angry young man drove his SUV into a lunchtime crowd at UNC. And not a single gun was used in the violent crimes mentioned in the article above. Gun control alone will have very little impact on the incidents folks think it will.

We need to discuss our mental health system, which has swung to the far side of the pendulum from the medieval system we used to have. Now we treat it like the common cold, with some drugs and some monitoring. There is very little recourse for caregivers who have someone they can't really handle until that person actually hurts someone, for example. We need to work on a middle ground that protects EVERYONE's rights, not defund mental health hospitals and dump their occupants in the streets.

We need to discuss and fund anti-gang measures, and the roots of the problems that lead to kids getting in to gangs. The broken family unit is one aspect, let's dig in and find more, while funding police efforts to break up the gangs.

We need to have a discussion on entertainment. I don't think it will get very far (the only folks truly affected by it are those with issues to begin with), but it needs to be part of the discussion. Maybe it can help find the problem people earlier.

We need to continue the gun control discussion to reach reasonable conclusions and measures that have a shot at working. I'm all for background checks, and eliminating the exceptions for gun shows (either we need instant background checks, or pre-approved ones for private sales). I'm all for training classes, and penalties for those who don't properly secure their guns. But gun control alone won't eliminate the problems people think they want to address with it.

I'm sure we can come up with other topics to discuss, but let's discuss all of them, not take the easy-but-ineffective gun control approach that will make its advocates feel good but do very little in curbing the violence everyone is actually concerned about.

All one armed guard is going to do is make people have a team to do things and not do these things as individuals.

Which makes it harder. That is a bad thing? Slowing it down is not at least a beginning?

Doesn't even necessarily mean there will be a team. Just means the armed guard is going to get shot first.

Ok, so you put a cop in every school. That may stop this stuff from happening at schools.

What about malls?
What about office buildings?
What about hospitals?
What about stadiums?
What about museums?
What about amusement parks?
What about the subway?
What about the library?
What about the grocery store?
What about health clubs?

The problem isn't being looked at in the right way.

Who is going to pay for this? Guess we are going to raise taxes after all.

Or the kid could just go to the next school over that doesn't have a guard.

And the guard isn't just there to protect against the rare chance of a random school shooter. My old middle school had a few fights where knives were involved. It probably would have been better for an armed (and more importantly, trained) officer to break that up than the chubby middle-aged geometry teacher.

Every school doesn't need this, but it makes sense at some.

That's more of an intrusion on an even more basic principle ... that of individuals to sell their (legal) private property without government interference.

Newton school probably wouldn't have fit the profile to assign a cop but I don't have the answers yet. I do like an upswell of public opinion and grassroots campaign (e.g. like MADD) to educate everyone as a start.

This.

Let's just play suppose, shall we? The Connecticut shooter comes up to the school. The doors are locked, and he has to shoot his way in. The school police officer is sitting in the office next to the door then has warning, and is able to bring him down as he enters the building. The school shooting ends at the entrance at the building.

Seriously, people seem to act like there is no one solution to help stop/slow this stuff down, so we should just do nothing. Or, people think that only one thing can be done. Nothing should be either/or. Not one thing alone is going to make a difference. We need multiple solutions, not just one.

I'd imagine the cost of armed guards at every school would be astronomical.

True, and if a crazy kid is just looking for a body count, he's just skipping the school with the armed guard entirely.

And it's really true that there's no "solution" here. Armed guards isn't a solution any more than making it slightly more difficult for some people to legally purchase certain types of weapons. It's pretty easy to poke holes into any ideas, it just depends on what political inclination you bring to the table.

An exceptionally rare scenario in my understanding of the routine of "resource officers". They're typically on the move around the school, the odds of him being in that spot at that moment seem incredibly slim.

(Strictly for the sake of the argument) Arming every teacher/administrator greatly enhances the chances of taking the shooter down before he ever gets near the students.

I have no problem arming people in the schools that have legitimate tactical/crisis training and are range certified. But not too keen on regular type citizens brandishing a piece.

Strictly for the sake of argument each teacher/administrator armed increased the chance of a teacher/administrator losing the plot and shooting someone .... just saying ;)

Past events bear this out. In nearly every single instance where a public shooter was taken out, it was an off-duty LEO who resolved the situation, not a CHL bearing citizen.

Perhaps that training becomes part & parcel of teacher qualification. I mean, if we're going to put everything on the table & all.

Problem with that is individuals who go into that field are looking to teach. They are not looking to become a marksmen.

Just like those who go into the field to work as police officers are not looking to be around 20-30 kids for 8 hours a day teaching them the alphabet, etc.

I can't begin to imagine how a teacher especially one in an elementary school is supposed to teach 20-30 kids while trying to keep a weapon concealed for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 10 months out of the year.

And yes, my wife teaches a 1st grade class.

The idea of putting a gun in every teacher's hand and training them for this is ludicrous.

And Sandy Hook was not a very big building. At the least, it would have been most likely that an armed presence would have stunted the shooting sooner than it was. I don't have faith in an armed teacher stopping anything quicker than a trained police officer.

And what if the teacher can't or won't use a gun? Are we going to fire and turn down good teachers who have poor eyesight or a physical disability? Our education system is shitty enough without taking time away from teachers to actually teach.

Instead of the teachers, let's add a gun class.

When you kid goes of to Kindergarten, they get trained in how to use a very basic gun and they get to carry that gun. Then, as they get older, they get trained in how to use more advanced guns. By the time they're in the 12th grade, they'll all be carrying AK-47s and no one will fuck with them then.

The NRA endorsed this message!

That will be covered in the SNL version of the NRA "press conference".

Funny:

Jay Rosen ‏@jayrosen_nyu Exact quote just now from the NRA press conference. "This is the beginning of a serious conversation. We won't be taking any questions."

There are all kinds of support positions throughout the school that could be filled by appropriately trained persons. Throwing a cop in every school when they cost >100k per year each is pretty crazy. But maybe you can augment existing jobs with a bump in pay. For example, when my wife taught in Norfolk they had a retired cop who was an aid. There are probably an endless supply of guys like him that are old enough to retire from a primary career, but might still want to work in the community.

My wife is a school psychologist.. and I don't want to see her suddenly having to learn how to use a gun for the first time ever... I pay taxes for others to help keep her and the kids in that school safe.

This in my mind is kind of like saying we should have the mail man also pick up the garbage while going through a neighborhood. Just because they are there already, does not mean they are the right choice for that task.

Many of them also didn't go into the field wanting to work with computers on a daily basis, however ...


I'm going to guess that you meant "secured" here rather than "concealed".


FTR, I'm not particularly advocating an arm-them-all policy, at least not at this point. I do believe it's a more effective route in case like CT than the NRA proposal this morning or most of the ideas that have been floated about.

Truth is, nothing will be more effective than superior firepower capable of being brought to bear extremely quickly against that particular type of threat. Whether it's something that should be implemented begs the question that no one seems willing to discuss very much right now: the degree of the threat that actually exists.

I think this is what Switzerland does . Of course, they do that as an alternative to having a military at all.

But the argument seems to be that the approach in place isn't working, hence the examination of other options.

FWIW, I'm not necessarily keen on making a provision of this type mandatory for school employees. I have long favored making it an option for any school personnel who choose to carry & are otherwise legal to do so.

So, let's say for the sake of argument that we put a cop in every school.

What happens when the cop is the crazy son of a bitch that decides to go on a massacre? What then? Add another cop to watch the cop?

Some way or another we need to prevent crazy people from getting guns or help the crazy people so that they're not so crazy.

You left out the most obvious -- and effective -- solution: removing the crazies from circulation in the first place.

I'm cool with that idea. Move all of the crazies to NJ and build a wall around the place. Works for me.

How about we do all three? Any one solution is not very effective. There are multiple answers that need to be used here.

In regards to having an armed person on school grounds, Columbine had an armed guard, a sheriff's deputy, on campus.

The problem is that 'crazies' don't come with a label on their forehead, as such its not something you can largely predict or do.

(and if you mean just remove anyone with mental health issues from circulation - bear in mind that some 10% of the population will have such issues to a greater or lesser extent at some point in their life)

It'd help us get rid of Jon though, right?? ;)

If we pay for all the school security guards through taxes on firearms and ammunition, then I'd be cool with it.

A capital idea, old chum!

Just a thought. I've not read anything about what teachers think can help in situations like this. They are closest to it and it would be interesting to get their POV.

A number crunch from slate.com (I know they're pretty leftist right?). Possibly about 5.5 billion to have an armed person at each school.

Cop in every school: How much would Wayne LaPierre's proposal cost.

Also pretty interesting...Columbine had an armed guard during the massacre there.

Columbine-armed guard: Colorado shooting shows that NRA's Shield program likely won't work.

Columbine wouldn't have been prevented by another armed guard.....or by more gun control regulations.....or by better access to mental health care. The bigger picture is starting to emerge here.

Why don't we just copy the countries that don't have as many shootings? They do things better in this area.

I'm a teacher. I've never been for banning guns ever. I have guns locked up in my home. I also have a 5 and 6 year old. The Connecticut thing scared the hell out of me. I don't know that I have a POV...... I'm friends with our school resource officer. He told me flat out the Monday after, more than likely he couldn't have done much. I really don't have an answer. I think it's hard to argue banning assault rifles and larger clips at this point, if you're realistic. Arming teachers? I can think of a few teachers in my school I wouldn't want armed. Not sure I'd want to be armed, it would be another thing I'd have to worry about (as in where's my gun and is it secure).

So that would leave out Scotland, Yemen, The Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Finland, Norway and France.

Yeah, arming teachers basically means we no longer have to worry about where the nutjobs are going to get their guns. They're already in school!

Good speech. One last chance after Christmas.

Even the NRA isn't saying we should "arm every teacher." It's a non-issue.

I would take the countries with the least amount of gun violence, see what they are doing differently, and copy it the best we can. I don't know what countries fall into that category off the top of my head. I do know we aren't anywhere near the top.

Just looking at the list, I'd say we can eliminate western europe as a model for eliminating school shootings. The Chinese have had problems of their own lately so that leaves, maybe central america or africa. I omitted an incident in Argentina & one in (IIRC) Baku but those seem to be the regions that have had the fewest.

We'd have to pass some crazy legislation and have the government seriously impose its will on American culture to become Denmark or whatever. Edit: Though, is that the goal now? You used to get struck down as being paranoid if you suggested that that might be the goal. I don't think any people or culture is 100% a product of their government, though it's always exciting when governments try to have that kind influence.

Well I'm talking about reducing, not eliminating. You can't eliminate something like this completely. We've had twice as many school shootings over the last decade and a half than all other industrialized countries combined. Obviously this is a bigger problem here and we should be looking at the countries that don't have these problems on a regular basis for leadership.

Murdering people isn't culture. The goal is to reduce the number of murders, not destroy cultures.

Then reduce the number of lunatics on the street, as well as the number of known criminals roaming free (you said "murders" not "school shootings", so I'll take that expanded opportunity).

We have drastically reduced the number of murders in the U.S. over the last 20 years. There's lots of different societal and cultural theories for why that is, but I doubt you can point to a government law that's done it all.

And you WOULD have to somehow destroy the gun culture here to make us more like Denmark or Finland or whatever the goal is. People sometimes talk as if its only gun regulations that prevent people in Western Europe from going crazy and killing each other. I don't think that's the case. I don't think it's always about laws. The gun culture is very strong in the U.S., its a very popular hobby and way of life in a way that I think people who aren't a part of that have a very difficult time understanding. If assault weapons are banned (as they have been in the past), people evolve, modify the weapons (or hide them). We're not Denmark yet in that scenario. We'd have to do a lot more to snuff out that gun culture.

That's fine. I'm not advocating a particular policy, I'm just saying that we should be striving to reduce the number of school shootings, murders, everything of that sort. Murder isn't culture and we shouldn't be shrugging our shoulders and saying we can't stop it because it is our culture.

I've heard a couple unique idea bantered around lately. Perhaps the most interesting was a way to determine when a gun entered a particular area. Would require gun manufacturers to implement this technology into newer guns, and you'd still have the issue of older ones not having it (although you could require gun owners go in and have it done). But it embed RFID into the metal and a school for instance would be able to send out a signal that would detect when one enters a certain radius. Wouldn't stop everything, but if a gunman entered the grounds, it would signal an alarm to dispatch local police and could enable lockdown procedures before they can make it inside.

What exactly is gun culture? I know of hunting culture, but is there some great culture behind owning 5 high powered weapons? Is there not some way that responsible people who need a gun for hunting or home security can own it while at the same time reducing the amount of gun violence?

Their proposal was for volunteers to be doing it. Not paid professionals.

Apparently not, since most of the efforts I'm seeing mentioned will largely serve to restrict the rights of law abiding gun owners.

The liability seems to make armed volunteers a non-starter.

The problem is that the right has suggested many ways to deal with this, but the left is all for rehabilitation, cleaning the prisons out, emptying the mental health hospitals, mainstreaming everyone, etc. If the right agrees to discuss gun control, can we get the left to discuss our criminal justice system, and especially the mental health aspects of it?

I don't think it is the Left that is cutting mental health programs. And while I don't agree with rehabilitation in many cases, other countries do focus on it and their crime rate is significantly lower than ours.

This. What insurance company is going to be okay with armed volunteers wandering around schools?

Putting an armed guard at schools will solve nothing. What is to stop the murderer from killing a bunch of kids at recess? Or parking across the street and picking them off when the bell rings? Or waiting at the first bus stop and storming the bus?

The bigger issue is identifying these individuals ahead of time and not giving people access to assault weapons that the average citizen has no need for.

I don't think it's the left that cuts mental health care, but it is SOME on the left that oppose compelling mental treatment, involuntary medicating, or institutionalization when necessary, on people against their will.

Lanza's family had all the money in the world, it wasn't a resources issue.

I'm a leftist who is actually pretty sympathetic to gun rights. And I would LOVE a discussion of mental health and the criminal justice system

(1) Expand public mental health resources. Stop using the criminal justice system as a dumping ground of last resort for the violent mentally ill. Do not empty the mental health hospitals. Fill them. Then build more and fill those. Do a better job of screening at schools for mental illness.

(2) Reduce sentences for non-violent offenders. Use the freed prison beds to house violent offenders.

Two ideas that I would imagine are pretty non-controversial that would at least start trying to solve some of these problems.

I touched on this earlier in more detail, but right now, the only way to fill the mental health hospitals is through the criminal justice system. That's the only way people are being forced into treatment and institutionalization, they need that record, that "proof" that they're a danger to others. It would be great if the state health & welfare agencies had more authority to do more and it wasn't left to the criminal justice system.

I think Boehner is toast. More details in the article about using secret ballot.

House Republicans Circulate Plan to Oust Boehner from Speakership

A little bit for both camps. I think the retired state trooper is a viable option (but probably not enough for all public schools). Bullet proof glass, one point of entry etc.

The reality is a determined person is still going to get into a school and do some damage, but these may provide enough time for teachers/administrators to protect more kids.

Anyone know how the Israeli's do it. I bet they've got a state of the art system.

Armed guards, locked entryways, cameras: Schools seek security after Sandy Hook - U.S. News

Has the national attention focused on a stronger judicial system against violent crime that ensures criminals either stay locked away for life or maintain a debt to society for the rest of theirs if they are released?

Let's make criminals pay for all these defensive countermeasures.

When you indicate Scotland you might want to consider that actually caused further tightening up of gun laws in the UK - since which no further incidents have occurred (that was approximately 16 years ago).

Dunblane school massacre - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(I don't know anything about the other incidents)

I had never heard of that massacre, so I wanted to learn more. Quick research found this article Gun crime soars by 35% | Mail Online from 2003.

Gun crime (in the UK) soars by 35%

...Criminals used handguns in 46% more offences, Home Office statistics revealed...

...Firearms were used in 9,974 recorded crimes in the 12 months to last April, up from 7,362...

...It was the fourth consecutive year to see a rise and there were more than 2,200 more gun crimes last year than the previous peak in 1993...

...Figures showed the number of crimes involving handguns had more than doubled since the post-Dunblane massacre ban on the weapons, from 2,636 in 1997-1998 to 5,871...