Santa Fe High School: 'Multiple fatalities' reported in shooting

[MI5]

Multiple fatalities are being reported in a shooting at a Texas high school, which is on lockdown.

Yet again..... When will this stop!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-44173954

[Anonymous]

It's not just the NRA, ultimately (along with a lot of other things wrong in the world) it's a direct if unitended consequence of the aftermath of Britain's role as ruler of the colonies  that were to become the USA. 

Which enshrined from English common law, and the fallout fom the Revolutionary War in the Second Amendment, the need for

a well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

In case the Brits or anyone else ever decided to come back and try again.

The main argument against the 'right to bear arms' line is as follows.

 Guns and rifles and other powder based projectile weapons do not kill people, but they allow people to kill people far more quickly and efficiently than other handheld weapons. Surface to Air missiles are far more efficient than handguns in this regard especially when taking out a helicopter but are illegal in every US State.

Any thing can be used as a weapon, even a rolled up newspaper, and classified as an armament. So the legality of otherwise of a particular armament does not impinge on the general right to bear arms, just the right to bear all arms. Otherwise owning a ground to air missile would be legal, which it isn't, so it doesn't.

QED.

[Glory1]

Yes @Anonymous that about sums it up.

The image in @Bambino's post is the sickening truth; it's a vicious circle.

[Cleoriff]

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@Glory1 wrote:
Yes @Anonymous that about sums it up.

The image in @Bambino's post is the sickening truth; it's a vicious circle.

---

And things will never change, ever. Not whilst the NRA put so much money into electoral campaigns and subsidise so many things.

A particularly nasty image yesterday was watching a member of the NRA with gun in his back pocket, at the scene of the massacre stating 'he was here to help'

When the commentator asked if he thought it was in bad taste to have a gun on show when there were distraught kids and families running around in shock and disbelief...he replied 'it's my right to bear arms'

Sickening

[Glory1]

Yes @Cleoriff that's the NRA mentality. Turn up to a school where a mass shooting has just taken place with a gun 👿

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

It's not just the NRA, ultimately (along with a lot of other things wrong in the world) it's a direct if unitended consequence of the aftermath of Britain's role as ruler of the colonies  that were to become the USA. 

Which enshrined from English common law, and the fallout fom the Revolutionary War in the Second Amendment, the need for

a well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

In case the Brits or anyone else ever decided to come back and try again.

The main argument against the 'right to bear arms' line is as follows.

 Guns and rifles and other powder based projectile weapons do not kill people, but they allow people to kill people far more quickly and efficiently than other handheld weapons. Surface to Air missiles are far more efficient than handguns in this regard especially when taking out a helicopter but are illegal in every US State.

Any thing can be used as a weapon, even a rolled up newspaper, and classified as an armament. So the legality of otherwise of a particular armament does not impinge on the general right to bear arms, just the right to bear all arms. Otherwise owning a ground to air missile would be legal, which it isn't, so it doesn't.

QED.

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I think it's actually the lack of restrictions which is at least exacerbating the problem, and it's ridiculous that someone in the United States can legally buy an assault rifle which is fully automatic. And why are there no background checks on those individuals being carried out, to determine their suitability to own such a weapon? In some states it's probably easier to buy a gun, than it is to buy alcohol.

[Cleoriff]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I think it's actually the lack of restrictions which is at least exacerbating the problem, and it's ridiculous that someone in the United States can legally buy an assault rifle which is fully automatic. And why are there no background checks on those individuals being carried out, to determine their suitability to own such a weapon? In some states it's probably easier to buy a gun, than it is to buy alcohol

I think that's proven in this case @Anonymous

The murderer with a gun was 17. You can't buy alcohol in the US until you are 21

Their priorities are all so very wrong...

[jonsie]

The number of registered weapons

https://www.statista.com/statistics/215655/number-of-registered-weapons-in-the-us-by-state/

God knows how many unregistered there are...

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:
Ithink it's actually the lack of restrictions which is at least exacerbating the problem, and it's ridiculous that someone in the United States can legally buy an assault rifle which is fully automatic. And why are there no background checks on those individuals being carried out, to determine their suitability to own such a weapon? In some states it's probably easier to buy a gun, than it is to buy alcohol.

I think my point was that if certain arms are totally illegal, but the 2nd amendment is still in place, then the 2nd amendment doesn't give a universal right to bear arms, just a qualified right. It's surprising how many gun advocates don't get this. And gun control advocates for that matter. Too many State laws exist allowing certain types of automatic weapon but not others to use that as an example; And there have been many cases where the definition of bear, bearable, arms and well regulated militia, and what applied in 1791 and today, have been ruled upon. Tanks and landmines are not bearable, but under extreme circumstances legal to own, but surface to air missiles are both bearable and totally illegal. As even the most extreme adminstration would baulk at legalising weapons designed to blow aircraft out of the sky.

And an almost total lack of restriction on small firearm purchase & ownership is a major part of the problem, so is the number of illegally held weapons and weapons which are currently held which once were legal to buy but now are not. Tho legally held arms are statistically most like to cause the death of their owner or thier family and rarely criminals or home invaders.; Whilst illegally held arms kill a lot of innocent bystanders as well as other criminals and police officers, but not usually the owners. And who when it comes to it, are a lot more effective at using their weapons than legal owners are, cos they get a lot more practice, are weeded out by natural selection, and have a lot less to lose and a lot more to gain. Gun advocates and the NRA are as against illegal gun ownership, as they are for legal gun ownership. 

However the reality is that the  NRA lobbies for the weapons industry, who don't ultimately care who ends up with their weapons nor how they obtain them so long as they turn a healthy profit. Being in the arms trade doesn't allow for a lot of moral relativism - if you manufacture and sell guns it shouldn't come as a surprise when people use them.

The problem with blaming Congress or the NRA or the Weapons Trade or the Second Amendment Is that it's too simplistic. The USA is a big place and large parts are completely undeveloped. Most of the land here has been cultivated for centuries  and is very tame by comparison,. It was only till fairly recently that owning and using weapons meant the difference between survival and death in the US, and probably still does in rural areas. You are not going to turn round the 'from my cold dead hands' mentality easily or the 2nd amendment ever.

So focusing on what type of arms people have a right to bear, and which people don't have a right to bear them, is probably as good as you are ever going to get. And of course the mass shooting continues...

[Cleoriff]

The police chief of Houston says he has hit "rock bottom" over failure to enact gun reforms after a school shooting in nearby Santa Fe left 10 dead on Friday.

Chief Art Acevedo wrote on Facebook that he had "shed tears of sadness, pain and anger" over the shooting.

He condemned elected officials who "called for prayers, and will once again do absolutely nothing".

The shooting was the latest in a series of deadly incidents across the US that has reignited debate about gun control.

Chief Acevedo runs the police department of America's fourth most populous city, Houston, which lies nearly 40 miles (64 km) north-west of Santa Fe

.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-44187718

This is a picture of him joining the 'March for our Lives' two months before the latest horror

[Glory1]

I sympathise with Chief Acevedo's views and understand his anger and pain which I'm sure is shared by all law enforcement. Because those in power will do nothing to prevent another such tragedy occurring in another sxhool, in another city in the US.