Guns as "Protection"

An 11-year-old Utah boy who said he brought a gun to school to protect himself from a Newtown-style attack, then brandished the pistol at three classmates during recess, has been detained on assault and weapons charges, a school spokesman said on Tuesday.

The boy, a Utah sixth-grader, took the unloaded .22-caliber handgun to his school south of Salt Lake City in his backpack on Monday, a spokesman for the Granite School District said.

Some ammunition was also found in the backpack, but it did not appear to go with the gun, said the spokesman, Ben Horsley.

No one was injured in the incident, which occurred as jittery parents, teachers and students around the country faced their first day back at school since 20 children and six adult staffers at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, were shot to death by a lone gunman last Friday.

The 11-year-old student at Utah's West Kearns Elementary, who was not publicly identified, has insisted he brought the gun to school to "protect himself and his friends from a Connecticut-style incident," Horsley said.

Sounds remarkably like some of the juvenile rhetoric spouted by the pro-gun advocates on this forum.

Originally posted by ThinkOfOne
[quote]An 11-year-old Utah boy who said he brought a gun to school to protect himself from a Newtown-style attack, then brandished the pistol at three classmates during recess, has been detained on assault and weapons charges, a school spokesman said on Tuesday.

The boy, a Utah sixth-grader, took the unloaded .22-caliber handgun to his school south of ...[text shortened]... remarkably like some of the juvenile rhetoric spouted by the pro-gun advocates on this forum.

The grownups refuse to protect the kids, so I don't blame the kid for wanting to do it. Unfortunately, the kid apparently did not understand how. It is a shame that these fools that claim they want to protect the children keep blaming guns for the problem.

Originally posted by RJHinds
The grownups refuse to protect the kids, so I don't blame the kid for wanting to do it. Unfortunately, the kid apparently did not understand how. It is a shame that these fools that claim they want to protect the children keep blaming guns for the problem.

How did guns protect the kids at Sandy Hill?

Originally posted by divegeester
How did guns protect the kids at Sandy Hill?

When the police arrived with guns, the kids were protected. There were no guns to protect the kids until then, dummy. All the teachers had were their bare hands. Think for once in your life!

Originally posted by RJHinds
When the police arrived with guns, the kids were protected.

You mean, once the police eventually arrived with their guns, to protect the already dead kids, from the already dead gunman, who had already shot himself with his own gun...?

Sounds like guns for protection really worked there RJ.

Originally posted by divegeester
You mean, once the police eventually arrived with their guns, to protect the already dead kids, from the already dead gunman, who had already shot himself with his own gun...?

Sounds like guns for protection really worked there RJ.

You are mistaken, the gunman did not shoot himself until after the police arrived. It is most likely he would have killed many more children if the police had not arrived with their guns, because he had plenty of ammo. He may not have killed any children if at least one armed guard had been at the school. But trying to ban guns is definitely not the solution.

Originally posted by RJHinds
You are mistaken, the gunman did not shoot himself until after the police arrived. It is most likely he would have killed many more children if the police had not arrived with their guns, because he had plenty of ammo. He may not have killed any children if at least one armed guard had been at the school. But trying to ban guns is definitely not the solution.

But have you stopped to think...





Actually, that's it.

Originally posted by RJHinds
You are mistaken, the gunman did not shoot himself until after the police arrived. It is most likely he would have killed many more children if the police had not arrived with their guns, because he had plenty of ammo. He may not have killed any children if at least one armed guard had been at the school. But trying to ban guns is definitely not the solution.

so rather than remove guns( through laws, education etc) and the psycho not killing anyone, your grand solution was to arm everyone so that only half of the kids get killed until a teacher manages to shoot the disturbed. assuming of course he doesn't miss and kills someone himself accidentally.



shootings do not happen in europe (not nearly as much as in the states) because guns are harder to come by, that the culture doesn't place so much emphasis on guns, that we are simply better educated or for some other reasons we don't see yet. not because the psychos that wish to kill as many people and then themselves fear the armed law enforcers standing by. they are already willing to die themselves, why would they fear someone else carrying a gun. they would simply shoot the ones in uniforms with guns showing first.



it isn't the guns that prevent us from going on killing sprees. it is conscience, a desire to not do evil or simply fear of the consequences. if you remove those, you have someone who WILL kill a number of people. You wish to make it easier for him to purchase a weapon with the insane notion that regular citizens will manage to kill him eventually with their own guns. Everybody knows you are bordering on insanity, but please, at least act like there is something left in that skull of yours.

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
so rather than remove guns( through laws, education etc) and the psycho not killing anyone, your grand solution was to arm everyone so that only half of the kids get killed until a teacher manages to shoot the disturbed. assuming of course he doesn't miss and kills someone himself accidentally.



shootings do not happen in europe (not nearly as much a ...[text shortened]... g on insanity, but please, at least act like there is something left in that skull of yours.

"it isn't the guns that prevent us from going on killing sprees. it is conscience, a desire to not do evil or simply fear of the consequences. "

This statement is a good reason for discussing this topic in Spirituality. The reason that humans DO establish systems of morality, even to the extent of recognizing in those rules a divine authority, is that we can have all the laws and law enforcement we want, but we must have internalized motives to follow the rules, motives like avoiding one's own feelings of guilt or shame, and like engendering in oneself a feeling of value and worthiness of love and respect of one's fellow, peaceful humans. Simple fear of punishment is not enough by itself, to overcome a lack of such empathy. If the shooter was driven by these motivations, the killings might well not have happened. Of course there may be genetic reasons why they were absent. But at least this kind of analysis can lead to ways to detect and treat deficiencies in moral development, which is PART of the solution.

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
so rather than remove guns( through laws, education etc) and the psycho not killing anyone, your grand solution was to arm everyone so that only half of the kids get killed until a teacher manages to shoot the disturbed. assuming of course he doesn't miss and kills someone himself accidentally.



shootings do not happen in europe (not nearly as much a ...[text shortened]... g on insanity, but please, at least act like there is something left in that skull of yours.

I think you have been sucked in by the left-wing Liberal media. I hope one day you see the light. Right now you appear to be looking through very dark glasses with a biased attitude against the gun owners.

Originally posted by RJHinds
I think you have been sucked in by the left-wing Liberal media. I hope one day you see the light. Right now you appear to be looking through very dark glasses with a biased attitude against the gun owners.

Why do you insist on being such a nit-wit?

He (nor anyone else) is biased toward gun owners; the simple premise that you seem to be unable to grasp is that limiting gun availability will limit gun crime.

Originally posted by divegeester
How did guns protect the kids at Sandy Hill?

They didn't because they were not allowed to.
Kelly

Originally posted by divegeester
Why do you insist on being such a nit-wit?

He (nor anyone else) is biased toward gun owners; the simple premise that you seem to be unable to grasp is that limiting gun availability will limit gun crime.

The gunman in the Connecticut shooting rampage was carrying an arsenal of hundreds of rounds of especially deadly ammunition — enough to kill just about every student in the school if given enough time, authorities said Sunday, raising the chilling possibility that the bloodbath could have been even worse.

The gunman, Adam Lanza, shot himself in the head just as he heard police drawing near to the classroom where he was slaughtering helpless children, but he had more ammunition at the ready in the form of multiple, high-capacity clips each capable of holding 30 bullets.

“There was a lot of ammo, a lot of clips,” said state police Lt. Paul Vance. “Certainly a lot of lives were potentially saved.”

The chief medical examiner has said the ammunition was a type designed to expend its energy in the victim’s tissues and stay inside the body to inflict the maximum amount of damage.

The rifle used in Friday’s attack was a Bushmaster .223-caliber, a civilian version of the military’s M-16 and a model commonly seen at marksmanship competitions. It’s similar to the weapon used in the 2002 sniper killings in the Washington, D.C., area and in a recent shopping mall shooting in Oregon.

At least one law enforcement official has said Lanza had been diagnosed with Asperger’s, a mild form of autism often characterized by social awkwardness.

People with the disorder are often highly intelligent. While they can become frustrated more easily, there is no evidence of a link between Asperger’s and violent behavior, experts say.

http://www.myrecordjournal.com/state/article_8e449e86-4809-11e2-bbe2-001a4bcf887a.html

Originally posted by divegeester
Why do you insist on being such a nit-wit?

He (nor anyone else) is biased toward gun owners; the simple premise that you seem to be unable to grasp is that limiting gun availability will limit gun crime.

NO it simply limits those that normally could defend themselves from being
able too, Chicago again has very powerful gun laws and its a war zone. People
who do not obey the law will not care that those they want to do harm to can
no longer defend themselves it simple takes away the doubt that they could.
Kelly

Originally posted by RJHinds
The grownups refuse to protect the kids, so I don't blame the kid for wanting to do it. Unfortunately, the kid apparently did not understand how. It is a shame that these fools that claim they want to protect the children keep blaming guns for the problem.

Unfortunately, the kid apparently did not understand how.

Yeah, it would have been much better if the kid understood enough to have taken bullets that went with the gun to school.