Our Teachers Should Be Allowed To Arm Themselves

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There was an excellent article up on Most Wanted last week discussing the gun control debate, it’s a must read. In it the author, Larry Correia, argues that armed teachers should be allowed in our schools.

The single best way to respond to a mass shooter is with an immediate, violent response. The vast majority of the time, as soon as a mass shooter meets serious resistance, it bursts their fantasy world bubble. Then they kill themselves or surrender. This has happened over and over again.

Police are awesome. I love working with cops. However any honest cop will tell you that when seconds count they are only minutes away. After Colombine law enforcement changed their methods in dealing with active shooters. It used to be that you took up a perimeter and waited for overwhelming force before going in. Now usually as soon as you have two officers on scene you go in to confront the shooter (often one in rural areas or if help is going to take another minute, because there are a lot of very sound tactical reasons for using two, mostly because your success/survival rates jump dramatically when you put two guys through a door at once. The shooter’s brain takes a moment to decide between targets). The reason they go fast is because they know that every second counts. The longer the shooter has to operate, the more innocents die.

However, cops can’t be everywhere. There are at best only a couple hundred thousand on duty at any given time patrolling the entire country. Excellent response time is in the three-five minute range. We’ve seen what bad guys can do in three minutes, but sometimes it is far worse. They simply can’t teleport. So in some cases that means the bad guys can have ten, fifteen, even twenty minutes to do horrible things with nobody effectively fighting back.

So if we can’t have cops there, what can we do?

The average number of people shot in a mass shooting event when the shooter is stopped by law enforcement: 14. The average number of people shot in a mass shooting event when the shooter is stopped by civilians: 2.5. The reason is simple. The armed civilians are there when it started.

The teachers are there already. The school staff is there already. Their reaction time is measured in seconds, not minutes. They can serve as your immediate violent response. Best case scenario, they engage and stop the attacker, or it bursts his fantasy bubble and he commits suicide. Worst case scenario, the armed staff provides a distraction, and while he’s concentrating on killing them, he’s not killing more children.

But teachers aren’t as trained as police officers! True, yet totally irrelevant. The teacher doesn’t need to be a SWAT cop or Navy SEAL. They need to be speed bumps.

But this leads to the inevitable shrieking and straw man arguments about guns in the classroom, and then the pacifistic minded who simply can’t comprehend themselves being mandated to carry a gun, or those that believe teachers are all too incompetent and can’t be trusted. Let me address both at one time.

Don’t make it mandatory. In my experience, the only people who are worth a darn with a gun are the ones who wish to take responsibility and carry a gun. Make it voluntary. It is rather simple. Just make it so that your state’s concealed weapons laws trump the Federal Gun Free School Zones act. All that means is that teachers who voluntarily decide to get a concealed weapons permit are capable of carrying their guns at work. Easy. Simple. Cheap. Available now.

Take it from a cop….we can’t be everywhere. In South Central there are many of us, but by the time we get the call it still takes us minutes to get to a scene. Shootings, stabbings, murders and everything in between happen in seconds. In a low crime, rural area, it could be quite awhile for the nearest cops to arrive.

One armed teacher would delay and/or stop the threat to young children.

Contrary to the hyperventilating liberals, no one is advocating that teachers should be mandated to carry a gun. As Larry argues above, make it voluntary. One state that does has concealed carry classrooms filled to capacity with teachers:

More than 200 Utah teachers are expected to pack a convention hall on Thursday for six hours of concealed-weapons training as organizers seek to arm more educators in the aftermath of the Connecticut school shooting.

The Utah Shooting Sports Council said it normally gathers a dozen teachers every year for instruction that’s required to legally carry a concealed weapon in public places. The state’s leading gun lobby decided to offer teachers the training at no charge to encourage turnout, and it worked.

Organizers who initially capped attendance at 200 were exceeding that number by Wednesday and scrambling to accommodate an overflow crowd.

And as the scumbag Piers Morgan blabbers about changing our Constitution (and the Bible) we have newspapers printing the addresses of gun owners (while simultaneously printing the addresses of those who DONT have a gun to defend themselves…friggin idiots).

Jack Dunphy:

Based on what we’ve heard so far, this “conversation” amounts to little more than an attempt by one side to shame the other into silence and acquiescence. If you refuse to admit that you, the gun owner, are part of the problem; if you dare to suggest that the public at large would not be less safe but safer if more law-abiding citizens were allowed to carry concealed handguns; if you refuse to acknowledge what is so patently obvious to your enlightened betters living in colonies along both coasts — which is that firearms are inherently evil and have no place in a civilized society — then you are an abettor in the slaughter of children and deserving of public scorn if not imprisonment and even death.

Indeed, this “conversation” has been marked by ignorance and emotionalism on the part of those who would see Americans surrender their guns in advancement of the utopia envisioned in such places as the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Manifesting this ignorance and emotionalism for all to see was CNN’s Soledad O’Brien, who, while engaging in what was purported to be a “conversation on guns” with economist John Lott, seemed gobsmacked when Mr. Lott presented an argument in favor of fewer restrictions on citizens carrying concealed weapons — an argument based on his own extensive research. “I have to say,” stammered Ms. O’Brien, “your position, your position completely boggles me, honestly. I just do not understand it.”

That she did not understand Mr. Lott’s position was obvious, as she was so completely boggled that she failed to address even a single one of the points he made, instead veering off on tangents that did little more than reveal her own lack of knowledge on the subject at hand.

…All the heated rhetoric that has followed the horrors of Sandy Hook obscures the legitimate questions we so yearn to have answered: could the gunman have been stopped, and can future madmen be prevented from carrying out similar crimes? Is there a law that might have been passed, are there steps that might have been taken, could anything have been done to protect those precious children and those who cared for them?

I suspect that those who seek a legislative solution to crimes such as this one are on a fool’s errand. It would be difficult to tabulate the number of laws the gunman broke in the course of his murderous spree that morning; to think the enactment of one or a dozen more would deter such a man is to engage in childish fantasy. And talk of banning “assault weapons” is equally naive, not least for the fact that the very term has no real definition other than to describe rifles that some people find scary-looking.

Could he have been stopped? Yes. By someone armed and ready to take the shooter out or at least draw his attention away. Can future madmen be prevented from doing this again? No. There is evil in this world, always has been and always will be. Even putting away hundreds of thousands into mental institutions against their will, as we did in the past, didn’t stop it. Take away the guns?

Meat Cleaver: A man charged into a kindergarten in northwestern China with a cleaver Wednesday and hacked to death seven children and two adults.
knife: a man used a knife to kill eight children and seriously wound five others in the city of Nanping.
Hammer: Wang Yonglai used a hammer to cause head injury to preschool children.
Box Cutter: a female worker slashed eight children with a box-cutter at a daycare center for migrant workers.
Axe; two young girls and four adults taking their children to nursery school were killed with an axe.

And as we all know 2,996 people were killed by those only armed with box cutters on 9/11.

No, we can stop them by allowing teachers to be armed. Preventing them from ever happening again is fodder for liberal hippies who believe the world can be rainbows and unicorns someday if only there was enough hashish to go around.

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@Randy:

18? Heck, I want the “assault drink”. 32oz!

You have to understand the brainwashing New Yorkers are subject to. I have met at least 4 who said that anyone who carries a gun is looking for trouble!

Massad Ayoob talks about a case where a woman being held at gunpoint while being forced to a dark corner of an underground garage, pulled out a snubnose .44 magnum and shot the scumbag. A witness in a vehicle shouted, “I’m from NY and I saw everything. Get out of here!” He then promptly sped off rather than stay and help her with a police statement.

@Cary: Maybe if you had been in Iraq with me, you might see things differently. I have been there and done that. You obviously do not under stand smoke not gas, gas masks and protective vests.All you can do is devalue the experiences of others when you have not had them yourself. You really would have been a crawler in that Aurora theater.

@Randy:

Interesting how those who like to insist they are the intelligent and creative ones cannot imagine an average Joe responding effectively to such an incident. As you stated, because cary would not be able to respond coherently, no one else could either. I agree. He would be a crawler…and a puddle maker.

@Hard Right: here is a good example of a new yorker using his concealed permit effectively. http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/12/three_in_the_head.html

@Randy:

Very nice.
The sad thing is that today, that raw talk would get you in trouble if you actually had to shoot someone.

@Randy, #51:

I’ve never understood the modern infatuation with semi-automatic handguns. They’re mechanically less reliable, often inherently more dangerous to their owners, and generally more expensive. Plus they’re generally ugly as hell. Why not get something purty for your 800 bucks?

You can find some genuinely lovely handguns here, and they’re no less effective for it. They’re single action revolvers, requiring greater presence of mind and deliberation than a semi-automatic.

@Randy:

Thank you for your service. Of course I know the difference between gas and smoke, my description is of what happened. Still, I’m sure you’ll admit that every situation is different. You may be military, even special ops, but I still don’t believe it’s possible to contain the situations such as I described here, which are NOT war zones, without any collateral damage of innocent bystanders, but even if you could… that’s nothing to support what you’re arguing. It’s something entirely different. Just more strawman. If only military special ops trained people were allowed to carry, I wouldn’t care what they were packing. We have armed National Guard all over Times Square and the Stock Exchange and even the most liberal left here don’t blink, but that’s not what you’re advocating at all. None of this is about what you can or I can’t personally do. And that’s all I’ll say to you. Thank you again for your service.

@Hard Right:

Go fuck yourself.

@Cary: I appreciate your thank you, but you still cannot bring yourself to appreciate that 32 years of military service with hundreds of thousands of rounds fired through many types of weapons and more than 3 years in a combat zone provides me with a perspective that has merit. If you could, just maybe we could find a way to protect our children in schools instead of allowing them to be sheep ready for slaughter.

@Randy:

I do appreciate it, more than you know. But we’re not talking about arming people who are like you. Not every carrier is mentally fit and trained like you, yet the law allows them to have guns. I have a very good friend who is a 20+ year Navy Veteran now teaching a public school here in NYC. He teaches special education, and these troubled kids love, respect and emulate him. (he’s has us come perform Shakespeare for them, so I’ve seen him interact with them first hand) He would NEVER want them to see him with a holstered gun under his jacket. My stance is not about you or him personally, it’s about public policy that governs everyone. So please stop making it about you. It’s not about you. Nor is it about how I would react if I were to find myself in a situation, though I’m sure some people here might like to find out.

Yes, the shooter in Newtown’s mom had them legally. Why on Earth, if she was a responsible gun owner who knew her son was mentally ill, and was even in the process of having him committed, would he have access to her guns in the same house he lived in? Yes, she was a victim (actually not counted as among the 26 by the media, so it’s actually 27) so I’ll stop here with that.

Perspective from Israel. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4324194,00.html

National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre comes under fire after falsely claiming that Israel placed armed guards outside schools to battle school shootings
….
“Israel had a whole lot of school shootings until they did one thing: They said, ‘We’re going to stop it,’ and they put armed security in every school and they have not had a problem since then,” he said.

The statements were quickly proven to be false. Israeli guards were not placed in schools to tackle mass shootings. Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor told the Daily News that the situation in Israel was “fundamentally different” from that in the United States.

“We didn’t have a series of school shootings, and they had nothing to do with the issue at hand in the United States. We had to deal with terrorism,” said Palmor.

“There is no comparison between maniacs with psychological problems opening fire at random to kill innocent people and trained terrorists trying to murder Israeli children,” said Reuven Berko, a retired Israeli Army colonel and senior police officer.

He further remarked that restrictions on gun ownership in Israel have been tightened in recent years, not relaxed.

“Israeli citizens are not allowed to carry guns unless they are serving in the army or working in security-related jobs that require them to use a weapon,” he said.

Yesterday, I was in the middle of crossing the street when the light changed. The car I was walking in front of hit the gas to before looking up and came towards me what seemed pretty damned fast. Luckily, my stage combat training has also provided me with a little bit of stunt skills, so my reaction was to propel myself towards the car to land on the hood on the cushioned part of my hip, and roll off the side, rather than let the car hit me and go under it. THEN I gave the driver an earful. “LOOK BEFORE YOU HIT THE GAS!!!” Now, this person had a license to drive. I’d hate to see what they’d do with a gun license. Background check, mental and physical exams, written and practical tests that have to be renewed regularly. A person needs all of this to almost run a person over with a vehicle.

@Tom

Thanks Tom. It’s pretty clear that if they need to make up stuff to support their argument, they don’t actually have one.

@Wordsmith:

If mass shootings are rare, doesn’t that go to my point that arming teachers is a dangerous over-reaction?

The Right seems to want to have it both ways: unfettered access to guns for everyone (their interpretation of the Second Amendment), and spinning that access as somehow making our country safer for everyone. The problem with that is there is no way to spin the data on gun violence in the US when compared to other similar nations with tighter gun control. The reigning interpretation of the Second Amendment on the Right has a huge, measurable cost that no one on the Right wants to acknowledge. This is why these self-serving proposals seem so disingenuous. The Right won’t even admit that guns play a part in gun violence (guns don’t kill people…), yet every proposal on reducing gun violence happens to include guns as its centerpiece. Until the Right is willing to acknowledge the cost of guns to our society, rather than just the alleged benefits, they will never be seen by the rest of America as honest, reasonable brokers to a solution.

@Cary:

Discussing guns and gun violence with some people feels difficult because its more than policy or the effect on society. It’s almost like discussing religion; actually it is for some, exactly the same as religion.

@Tom: If guns were the only weapon that was used for murder, you would have some credability. Unfortunately they are not. Maybe the issue is that we should out law murder and rape. Then there would be no need for anyone to protect themselves.

@Hard Right: It’s called aiming fluid and it works!!

@Randy:

I highly doubt that someone could enter a school or a movie theatre and even wound more than twenty people at once with a box cutter. I say this every time someone makes that same point over and over again. At least make a crossbow your reference. Even then we wouldn’t see the same kind of damage as an AR-15.

@Tom: Discussing abortion with wacho liberals is similar. Abortion is a tool that always murders children but the sickos will hide behind a right to choose as an excuse for murder. Disgusting!!

@Tom: @Cary:

Are you making the claim that in your state, Background checks and physical and mental exams are required in order to obtain a driver’s license? Why don’t you tell us what state that is, Cary?

@Tom:

Why don’t we compare your “what-ifs” to actual stats? There are already a number of schools in the United States that allows for teachers to carry. So let’s compare the number of children harmed by a teacher who is a CCW holder and the number of children sexually abused by teachers, shall we? I know that being so informed on all subjects regarding teachers, you will have that information readily available, right Tommy Troll?

Heck!
A few nights ago in Los Angeles some black guy walked into a liquor store and bought a bottle of alcohol (don’t know it is was medicinal or drinking).
He took it out to the bus bench and poured it onto a woman sitting there.
He then lit her on fire.
She is burned over 100% of her body.
Are Liberals going to ban alcohol too???

@Greg: It’s called freedom to choose. American’s have fought and died for this freedom. I don’t buy the same care as you, shop at the same stores, and certainly don’t have the wacho liberal attitudes you have. If it where abortion the freedom to choose from your side would be clear. Murder the child because of this freedom!!

@Randy:

If guns aren’t exponentially more deadly than most other murder weapons, then why do we go to war with guns? Why not go with rocks and sticks? Your attitude is precisely what I am referring to, this lame attempt to downplay guns. Yet you can’t live without them.

@retire05:

You’re right, not all of those things are required for a DL. My point is you jump through many more hoops in many places to drive a car than acquire a gun. I’m quite confident you got that point, in spite of my admittedly lack of clarity in making it.

@Common Sense:

When you have nothing left for the discussion you’re having, change the topic to something else. Good tactic!

@Tom: Actually, guns are not responsible for the highest casualities of mass murder in the world to include the US. Explosives are. We do go to war with explosives. Guns are used to mop up.

@Nan G:

Actually, after reading your comment, I could use a drink.

@Randy:

I will defer to your expertise. So why exactly do we need guns, considering their impotence?

@Cary:

So you spun in order to make a point? Why did you feel the need to do that?

And since vehicular deaths in the U.S. are almost four times the number of murder by firearm deaths, what new rules do you propose to lower that stat? How many children are murdered every year by someone driving, yet, it is only gun owners, and not vehicle owners, that you want to place more restrictions on. I guess killing a kid with a car is just not as bad as killing a kid with a gun in your book.

@retire05:

If the sole purpose for a car was to do forceful damage, you’d have a very strong point. But since it’s not, you don’t.

I did what I did to control the force coming at me, rather than let the car hit me and knock me into the road. Luckily, it wasn’t going any faster. Like a bullet.

@Cary:
I hope you’re on the East Coast, Cary.
It’s only 9:30-ish where I am.

@Tom: In war, we are concerned with our personal protection against enemies with similar weapons who want to do us harm. At home, I have the same reason: to protect me and my family from those who want to do us harm. Get rid of those who want to do us harm and we do not need weapons to protect ourselves. We can just use them for target shooting and hunting. Can you do that! Get rid of those who want to do me harm?

@Cary: So, you see no other use for guns except to do forceful damage? Now we are getting to the core of the argument. You totally disreguard the ability to use a gun to deter crime and attacks. It is a tool that has many purposes just like your car, your rat poison, drain cleaner and many other items.

@Randy:

I don’t discount “bad guys”. But there are two variables: bad guy + gun = tragedy. Do you acknowledge both variables as worthy of consideration, or only the first?

@Tom: Tom, you make a valid point about how we have to ”get rid of bad guys.”

In CA we have a 3 strike law that our liberal judges are doing their level best to get around.
Really dumb bad guys ended up behind bars 25-to-life.
Really smart bad guys left CA.
The shooter in the case of the firemen was a really bad guy who got out of prison AFTER he had mercilessly murdered his own grandmother….with a hammer!
No amount of law can stop a person like him from getting what he needs to do what he loves; kill people.
If no guns had been available, he might have used booby traps in the fire.
He might have used a hammer, again.
Laws about guns don’t stop criminals from getting weapons.
The Liberal solution is always more law, more government.
But it will not work in these kinds of cases.
Think of how the ”underwear bomber” was thwarted.
Fellow passengers acted.
That’s why schools should be places where guns can legally be.
Level the playing field.

@Cary:

Well, obviously the sole purpose for a firearm is not to kill someone. Yet, you and Tommy the Troll seem to think it is. And when it comes to hand guns, I promise you, I can take down a mule deer with a Colt Python 357.

How many times have you read “Gun collector commits mass shooting?” You see, Cary, what you don’t understand is that a gun, to those of us who own them, is nothing more than a tool to accomplish a job that doesn’t including killing other human beings, be it deer/elk/moose/hog/dove/pheasant/duck hunting, or providing security for our families and our homes.

A few years ago there was a guy in my small town that was a crack head. He would rob people while they were sleeping, including me. He stood, in the rain no less, for hours in the alley behind my house. He waited there until the lights went out and he figured we were asleep. This guy was determined. He had a glass cutter with him and sliced the glass in our back window to gain entry. A pretty silent action.

At the time I had a yellow lab that wouldn’t bite her own fleas, she was that gentle. So I guess she just tried to get him to pet her while he robbed us. What did he take? Anything small that was in the back of the house that he could fence for his drug habit. And my wallet where he got lucky and got 20 bucks.

He did this all over town. Breaking into cars was also a favorite past time of his. This guy had been in jail so many times his rap sheet was as long as your arm. He would get caught, go to court, the judge (a Democrat) would give him six months in county, and he would be out in three getting two days for good behavior for each day served. Only his problem was he didn’t count on a young widow in our town who had five kids. She caught him in her living room in the middle of the night going through her purse and she put a slug in his leg. He finally went to a state prison for five years.

It was learned that when he robbed her he was high on crack and had just beat the shit out of his girlfriend. He would have had no problems harming the young widow, but she got to him first. Good on her. Crack addicts are crazy and fearless.

You are just like all gun grabbers I know. You don’t understand firearms, are afraid of them, and so you don’t want anyone to own them, if you can force daconian laws on the law abiding citizens of this country. You won’t address the number of people who die in traffic accidents because you are not going to go after the auto industry (considering that is a favorite industry of Obama’s), and will never demand more strigent laws for drivers. Yeah, you managed to avoid being harmed by a driver, but what about the little kid who cannot?

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/336529/regulating-militia-kevin-d-williamson#

This is a very good explaination of why there is a need for military type guns.

This is the second time in a month where someone was murdered by being pushed in front of a subway train. we need to legislate more subway laws.

@Randy: Randy,
Thanks for linking that.
Keven Williamson found an absolutely fantastic quote about the 2nd Amendment from a Supreme Court Justice appointed by the writer of the US Constitution:

The importance of this article will scarcely be doubted by any persons, who have duly reflected upon the subject.
The militia is the natural defence of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers.
It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace, both from the enormous expenses, with which they are attended, and the facile means, which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled rulers, to subvert the government, or trample upon the rights of the people.
The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.

OUCH!
Yes!
The 2nd Amendment is there so that we can resist and triumph over our own leaders should they usurp or express arbitrary power!
For that we need assault-type weapons.

Check out this web site. There is an interactive map that is very informative, too. http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/interactive/2012/jul/22/gun-ownership-homicides-map

@Tom:

If mass shootings are rare, doesn’t that go to my point that arming teachers is a dangerous over-reaction?

It might be an over-reaction response, in the same manner in which TSA conducts airport screenings of our shoes, belts, gels & liquids, tweezers, etc. What are the chances? Miniscule. Your chances of being a victim of a terror attack are extremely slim. Yet, if heightened security didn’t happen….it’s not like al Qaeda hasn’t considered more airplane hijackings or shoe-bombs.

Likewise, how can you accuse the proposal to arm teachers as a “dangerous over-reaction” and not claim the same from anti-gun zealots who are calling for more gun-control laws due to a misperception (thanks to our media oversaturation) that we have an epidemic problem on our hands of rising gun violence/mass shootings?

The problem with that is there is no way to spin the data on gun violence in the US when compared to other similar nations with tighter gun control.

Sure there is. I haven’t looked at recent stats, but comparisons between countries can be like apples to oranges when you look at what the gun violence is based upon (gang violence? Citizens protecting themselves? Accidental? Homicides? Police shootings?), size population, homogenous culture vs. multiethnic, cultural values, etc.

What happened in Britain and Australia with increased gun laws? What happened to violent crimes? Did they go up or down? What is the trade-off of less gun-related deaths? Is the trade off worth it?

The Right won’t even admit that guns play a part in gun violence (guns don’t kill people…), yet every proposal on reducing gun violence happens to include guns as its centerpiece. Until the Right is willing to acknowledge the cost of guns to our society, rather than just the alleged benefits, they will never be seen by the rest of America as honest, reasonable brokers to a solution.

I do agree that the greater the capacity a weapon has in its ability to kill, the greater the capacity to kill.

tom the troll and cary the panty soiler are still at it.
I am glad to see them engaged by so many which allows others to see what is really behind their hatred of firearms and their owners.

Cary, I suggest you take some of that anti-psychotic medication you seem to be very familiar with.

@Randy:

Stiffer consequences deter criminals from breaking the law and harming other people. Your argument that guns are anything but tools to do physical damage with is bullshit. You sound smart enough to know that. That’s what they were made for.

@retire05:

When the subject is gun control, that’s what I address. Other crimes (such as insurance rackets) are different discussions. Your argument is just more Strawman. Ease on Down the Road…

@Hard Right:

Did you finish fucking yourself already? Man, for a blovating asshole, you sure lack stamina. You never have anything to offer any discussion save personally attacking the people you disagree with. So, consider the response to anything you have to say to or about me henceforth to be the same…. go fuck yourself. I trust I don’t have to keep typing it.

It becomes “old” explaining to anti-gun people the reason for the 2nd Amendment. Unfortunately, pundits and educational institutions have done a poor job of explaining the Founders reasoning for the 2nd Amendment. The result is an uninformed America which believes it is for hunting or even protection from criminals. If such people believe that the 2nd Amendment does not apply in a day of modern weapons then I would say that since the Founders only knew about print journalism, the 1st Amendment’s freedom of the press does not apply to cable TV and television journalism. The courts have ruled it does, therefor the basis of the 2nd Amendment to have citizens armed, meaning weapons comparable to those of troops is valid. That includes semi-automatic AR-15 rifles. One could make a case for having automatic firearms on that basis as well.

After the experience with England, the Founders recognized the need for citizens in our new county to have the ability to defend themselves from government as was done during the Battle of Athens (TN), also known as the McMinn County War on August 1, 1946.
************************************************************************
As Eleanor Roosevelt wrote at the time:

We in the U.S.A., who have long boasted that, in our political life, freedom in the use of the secret ballot made it possible for us to register the will of the people without the use of force, have had a rude awakening as we read of conditions in McMinn County, Tennessee, which brought about the use of force in the recent primary. If a political machine does not allow the people free expression, then freedom-loving people lose their faith in the machinery under which their government functions.

In this particular case, a group of young veterans organized to oust the local machine and elect their own slate in the primary. We may deplore the use of force but we must also recognize the lesson which this incident points for us all. When the majority of the people know what they want, they will obtain it.

Any local, state or national government, or any political machine, in order to live, must give the people assurance that they can express their will freely and that their votes will be counted. The most powerful machine cannot exist without the support of the people. Political bosses and political machinery can be good, but the minute they cease to express the will of the people, their days are numbered.

This is a lesson which wise political leaders learn young, and you can be pretty sure that, when a boss stays in power, he gives the majority of the people what they think they want. If he is bad and indulges in practices which are dishonest, or if he acts for his own interests alone, the people are unwilling to condone these practices.

When the people decide that conditions in their town, county, state or country must change, they will change them. If the leadership has been wise, they will be able to do it peacefully through a secret ballot which is honestly counted, but if the leader has become inflated and too sure of his own importance, he may bring about the kind of action which was taken in Tennessee.
***********************************************************************

I have always known enough US and world history to understand why the Founders placed the 2nd Amendment in the Constitution, but Mr. Theodore L. Johnson in this 1996 missive, I found, seems to have done his homework on why the 2nd Amendment was added to the Constitution and why it was written as it was.

Mr. Johnson wrote that in the ratification letter from New Hampshire, the delegation recommended a provision that “Congress shall never disarm any Citizen unless such as are or have been in Actual Rebellion.” The Virginia, North Carolina, Rhode Island and New York letters are almost identical to each other on this subject. Virginia wrote in part, “That the people have a right to keep and bear arms; that a well regulated Militia composed of the body of the people trained to arms is the proper, natural and safe defence of a free State.” As Mr. Johnson stated, “Note also that the term “arms” then and now implies military weapons.” On that basis, individuals in America must have available so called assault weapons, for the greater good.

http://adams.patriot.net/~tlj/xplaindp.htm

@Randy:

we need to legislate more subway laws.

In spite of your facetiousness, you’re right. Both from a safety and a service perspective. Subways in Seoul and other places have partitions between the platforms and the tracks that only open when the train is in the station. This prevents people from falling or being pushed onto the tracks. Here in the USA, we should be able to do the same.

We’re a great country not because things are perfect as they are. We’re a great country because we work to make it better. Whether it be what type of guns should be available and to whom, the state of health care -including mental health-, or safe public transportation, when there’s a problem we fix it.

I’m quite confident that you’re a responsible gun owner, but laws are not made for you. They apply to everyone. If everyone did right by others, and were responsible on their own volition, there wouldn’t be a problem and we’d never need laws or anyone to enforce them. So don’t blame the people calling for change, blame the people who made changes necessary.

@Randy:

And the MTA hasn’t changed in many years, while the public sector union holds us hostage the entire time, except for fare hikes…

http://caryscolumn.blogspot.com/search?q=worm+in+the+big+apple (old article, but unfortunately still relevant.)

So, yes… legalities do come into play and regulations need to be placed.

Very much like what is needed for the gun lobby. Thanks for the comparison.

@Cary:

I’m quite confident that you’re a responsible gun owner, but laws are not made for you. They apply to everyone.

That has to be the dumbest thing anyone has said in this entire debate. Yes, Cary, gun laws are designed to affect the law abiding gun owner. Why? Because criminals (there is a reason people are called “criminals”, you know) do not pay attention to gun laws, or any other laws. More restrictive gun laws affect only those who are willing to abide them.

Ever head of a Saturday Night Special? It was a pistol of any caliber that was obtained illegally.

Now, perhaps you can tell me how gun laws have been so effective in eliminating murder by firearm. Obviously, in California, they are not working since that states own Dianne Feinstein holds a CCW permit. Why don’t you show us what a great job gun laws have done in getting illegal weapons out of the hands of criminals? How many of those weapons that Eric Holder’s DOJ allowed to walk across the Mexican border do you think have found their way back into the U.S.? Perhaps you could ask Brian Terry’s family about that since Eric Holder is hiding under his desk when those questions are asked.

No amount of gun laws will EVER prevent the criminally minded from getting their hands on firearms. But one thing is for sure; if the nation goes to sh!t, as I think it will, by making law abiding citizens register their firearms under the threat of jail time, the government will know just where to go when it wants to disarm this nation. Just like Hitler did.

@retire05:

147 comments till the Hitler reference. That’s gotta be a record!

@Cary:

So what? What exactly do you disagree with that analogy? Hilter first required all citizens to register their firearms, no matter the make or style. Then, when he wanted to do his evil deeds, his first action was to confiscate all firearms from the Jews. He wasn’t the first dictator to do that and he won’t be the last. History is repetitive, and there is nothing to prevent history from repeating itself in the United States.

Now, tell me how well the current guns laws have worked to prevent criminals from getting illegal weapons, and you might have an argument. As it stands now, you are just another idealistic liberal who thinks that fewer guns in the hands of law abiding citizens will make you safer.

@retire05:

As it stands now, you are just another idealistic liberal who thinks that fewer guns in the hands of law abiding citizens will make you safer.

Wrong. You should actually pay attention to what is being called for. The call for tighter gun control, not gun elimation, has been extremely clear. That’s the problem with conservatives, it’s all or nothing, no matter the price. I don’t know where we should draw the line, but as long as you make our stance into something it isn’t, we’ll never make it to that discussion. I doubt you’ll be happy no matter what we come up with. Sorry ’bout that, but you’ll cope I’m sure.