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Wait until one of the teachers has a meltdown. Then they'll decide to give the kids a selection of firearms - maybe Smith & Wesson can launch a new 'junior' range in bright colours.
"Thank you for supporting Queens Park Rangers Steep Staircase"... and I thought I'd signed up for a rollercoaster.
Coincidentally at the pub yesterday lunchtime us oldies were discussing punishments at school when we ere kids. Canes and belts and slaps round the head and how some teachers couldn’t get through a lesson without some form violence. Arm the teachers ? Not bloody likely
Strong and stable my arse.
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Arm the teachers on 09:25 - Feb 22 with 6126 views
Monty Python was funny. The USA isn't. Just a very rich screwball nation. The gun issue has been lost on all presidents, past, present and no doubt future. Guns are a massive industry there. Any bans and it will go underground, the black market etc. Lots of money to be made there. The USA created a monster it can't control.
There aint half been some clever bastards.
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Arm the teachers on 09:27 - Feb 22 with 6121 views
Wouldn't feel safe visiting that lace currently. Trump and co have lost it indeed. Any society seeking to justify the murder of children has completely lost it. They are more a threat to themselves than any Islamist extremist .
So if someone walks into a school with a machine gun the teacher is now expected to get the kids to safety. unlock the gun cupboard, get the gun and best case scenario kill the shooter and end up being scarred for life or worse case get killed themself by the shooter or the swat team. Genius idea
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Arm the teachers on 09:33 - Feb 22 with 6110 views
They don't even have to ban all guns, the 2nd amendment was written when guns at most fired 4 or 5 bullets at a time, if they want to stick to that they have the right to own one of those guns but not any weapon which fires more bullets. Thats probably too simplistic though to require someone to need a licence to get one of the automatic weapons for "hunting"
[Post edited 22 Feb 2018 9:34]
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Arm the teachers on 09:36 - Feb 22 with 6099 views
Banning guns or at least limiting sale somehow through background checks probably wouldn't make a huge difference - but it would make some. Something like 95% of Americans actually want more checks according to polls, so it's astonishing not more is done. But the reality is it's a deep-seated psychosis over there. There's a fetishisation of guns and a belief in violence and a lot of paranoia. School shootings are a 'thing' now and that's less about access to guns than some kind of horrific 'tradition' or culture. Get angry, get a gun, shoot up a school, become famous. To stop that, a fundamental change in culture is needed - both in terms of the fetishisation of guns and trying to understand and combat why so many people choose to go on shooting sprees. This kind of thing does not happen with anything like the same kind of regularity in any other first world nation - maybe in any nation at all, barring ones ravaged by war.
Bare bones.
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Arm the teachers on 10:01 - Feb 22 with 6043 views
Teachers are some of the most stressed out, mentally unstable group of workers on the planet - I should know, I'm married to one!
Giving them weapons is a complete and utter recipe for disaster.
American politicians just don't have the balls to stand up to the NRA, their influence and their money.
Mind you, if they DID manage to 'ban' guns, whole communities would refuse to hand them over, armed militia would form (if they haven't already) and there'd be a virtual civil war on the cards.
57,000 people have been killed by guns in the USA in the last 3 years.
In 2018, there have already been nearly 2,000 gun deaths in the USA, and there have been 34 mass shootings (ie, 4 or more killed or injured, excluding the shooter).
46% of American gun owners who live with children do not keep their firearms locked. 30% said their weapons were kept loaded at all times and stored in an easily accessible location.
F***ing nuts!
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Arm the teachers on 10:03 - Feb 22 with 6040 views
Even worse is Fox News' idea of arming veterans and putting them in schools as kind of security people. Now I'm sure most vets are great well-adjusted patriots. But some... aren't the most stable of people. Nuts.
Bare bones.
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Arm the teachers on 10:27 - Feb 22 with 5997 views
Does sound crazy, not least as most of the killings are carried out quickly and amongst the mayhem hard to imagine a teacher will be in the right place at the right time.
That said, and somebody has to play devils advocate here, has ANY US President done anything ever about the gun problem out there? It may be a mad idea but at least it's an idea.
Believe Trump has also talked about some method of stopping guns being instantly converted into automatics, again has any other President?
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Arm the teachers on 10:42 - Feb 22 with 5945 views
Does sound crazy, not least as most of the killings are carried out quickly and amongst the mayhem hard to imagine a teacher will be in the right place at the right time.
That said, and somebody has to play devils advocate here, has ANY US President done anything ever about the gun problem out there? It may be a mad idea but at least it's an idea.
Believe Trump has also talked about some method of stopping guns being instantly converted into automatics, again has any other President?
Obama tried repeatedly but got blocked by Congress.
There's a huge cultural difference now between pro-gun Americans and the rest of the U.S. and the rest of the World.
I had a chat with a friend of a friend on facebook yesterday. This man was a pro-gun U.S. citizen. He maintained that the Second Amendment existed to protect the First Amendment, whereas any reading of it illustrates that it is given no such power or obligation, and he also rejected my point that the courts protected the Constitution and that if it was to be protected by guns, it would be stated so in the Constitution.
He gave up on those points after a while and changed tack, claiming that the Second Amendment was written to fight tyrannical governments and that the U.S. presently had one - basically they now need 300 million guns to fight Trump.
I left him at it. Not my monkeys, not my circus.
"The opposite of love, after all, is not hate, but indifference."
As already mentioned above, what happens when a teacher goes on the rampage, arm the students? Where do they draw the line?
It's baffling that Presidents are willing to allow guns considering that guns have been used to kill Presidents in the past...
Even more baffling is the people that still think joe public should be armed on the basis that they could stage an uprising against the government if necessary. That May gave worked 100+ years ago, but I can't see a bunch of tubby rednecks overpowering the biggest military force in the world.
Thing is, this isn't just on the President. Any reform needs Congress and the Senate's approval. Both are controlled by the Republicans.
A huge number of Senators receive vast donations from the NRA. How much of this ends up directly in their pocket is debatable. However, it certainly does go towards to campaigns, paying their staff, kitting out their offices, funding projects they want undertaken, etc.
Some of the numbers are eye watering.
There is a great lady of twitter (I'm not on Twitter myself, but I've read about her) who, every time their is a mass shooting, and these Repunlican Senators tweet their "thoughts and prayers", tweets them back with the NRA donation they accepted. $4,236,178. $857,936. $1,32,617. That sort of thing. All donations have to be registered, so the data is available.
Basically, the NRA own the hill.
These American politicians aren't illogical morons. They are just doing things in the interest of money rather than civilians. Same goes for most issues in the country.
And that's why it's a screwball country.
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Arm the teachers on 11:06 - Feb 22 with 5873 views
Obama tried repeatedly but got blocked by Congress.
There's a huge cultural difference now between pro-gun Americans and the rest of the U.S. and the rest of the World.
I had a chat with a friend of a friend on facebook yesterday. This man was a pro-gun U.S. citizen. He maintained that the Second Amendment existed to protect the First Amendment, whereas any reading of it illustrates that it is given no such power or obligation, and he also rejected my point that the courts protected the Constitution and that if it was to be protected by guns, it would be stated so in the Constitution.
He gave up on those points after a while and changed tack, claiming that the Second Amendment was written to fight tyrannical governments and that the U.S. presently had one - basically they now need 300 million guns to fight Trump.
I left him at it. Not my monkeys, not my circus.
That's right. Many of the Bill of Rights in the Constitution were created in a backdrop of fear of English monarchy and strong central government.
The second amendment preserved the right to bear arms so that civilian uprising could happen if the government became tyrannous. The forgotten third amendment enshrines the rights of citizens to not have the army quarter in their property. Obviously, though, these risks and constitutional safeguards are not relevant in 2018.
Back to the real world in 2018, though, and a defense of America's fascination with guns: one thing that the rest of the world does not understand, or at least doesn't appreciate, about America is its massive landmass that is sparsely populated in areas. I have an uncle who lives in Houston, Texas. If you drive an hour outside his house, you will find houses where people don't have neighbors for miles and miles. A lot of Americans have guns as a form of home safety, because if some breaks in, you cant call to your neighbors and the cops are probably 20 minutes away. For people who live in sparsely populated areas, it makes some sense.
having a handgun as home protection is obviously very different than having an automatic weapon meant for military usage
What really bothers me is how f***ng stupid so many Americans are. The First Amendment provides the right to free speech, but there are restrictions on it (i.e., you cant yell Fire in a crowded theatre). The second amendment provides the right to bear arms, but the Supreme Court has ruled that the second amendment does not prohibit reasonable regulation of guns, so a reasonable regulation such as preventing bump stocks or background checks should not be deemed an encroachment on the 2nd am.
Interestingly, the same morons who cry about the second amendment know FA about the other amendments of the constitution- the same constitution, by the way, which says that black people are 3/5ths of a person. Those same morons also seem to have no issue with violations of the constitution when theyre trying to block women from having abortions (protected by the fourteenth amendment), or when police unjustly stop and frisk colored people (protected by the fourth/fourteenth amendment).
ultimately, it has nothing to do with the constitution or safety. the NRA has waged a decades long PR campaign to brainwash the insular morons who largely make up trumps base, and to bankroll politicians who are afraid to stand up to it... and it has worked
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Arm the teachers on 11:12 - Feb 22 with 5850 views
They don't even have to ban all guns, the 2nd amendment was written when guns at most fired 4 or 5 bullets at a time, if they want to stick to that they have the right to own one of those guns but not any weapon which fires more bullets. Thats probably too simplistic though to require someone to need a licence to get one of the automatic weapons for "hunting"
[Post edited 22 Feb 2018 9:34]
When the 2nd amendment was written guns only fired a single shot before requiring reloading
Cartridges and revolvers came later
back in the day it used to be postal workers making the headlines by going on shooting sprees, hence the expression "going Postal" .
Strict gun control seems an obvious solution to most of us but its a tangled web for a myriad of reasons, social, political and historical.
I am completely staggered that they have not completely outlawed assault rifles. That would be a good start at least
As far as arming teachers is concerned, not many would have made it through my school in the 70's if our teachers had been armed, that is a really stupid idea, I thought these schools had security now anyway!
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Arm the teachers on 11:13 - Feb 22 with 5846 views
Obama tried repeatedly but got blocked by Congress.
There's a huge cultural difference now between pro-gun Americans and the rest of the U.S. and the rest of the World.
I had a chat with a friend of a friend on facebook yesterday. This man was a pro-gun U.S. citizen. He maintained that the Second Amendment existed to protect the First Amendment, whereas any reading of it illustrates that it is given no such power or obligation, and he also rejected my point that the courts protected the Constitution and that if it was to be protected by guns, it would be stated so in the Constitution.
He gave up on those points after a while and changed tack, claiming that the Second Amendment was written to fight tyrannical governments and that the U.S. presently had one - basically they now need 300 million guns to fight Trump.
I left him at it. Not my monkeys, not my circus.
The reality is that the US twice failed to invade Canada and want to stay heavily armed because they hope to succeed sometime in the future.