Friday, April 8, 2011

School Shooting in Brazil

Yahoo News reports

A gunman roamed the halls of an elementary school in Rio de Janeiro on Thursday and killed 12 children, lining them up against a wall and shooting them in the head at point-blank range as he shouted, "I'm going to kill you all!"

It was the worst school shooting in Brazil — and would have been deadlier if the gunman had not been shot in the legs by a police officer, who said the man then fell down some stairs and shot himself in the head.
It can happen anywhere. One response is to encourage more good people to carry guns in order to intervene quicker. Another response is to make it harder for dangerous people to get guns in the first place.

Which one do you think is the right approach?

Please leave a comment.

12 comments:

  1. you really fail to realize that no matter how restrictive gun control is, criminals will always get a hold of them.

    What if in this scenario all the teachers of the school had been armed? ALOT less children would be dead.

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  2. It's doesn't make sense that "criminals will always get a hold of them."

    The reason is criminals get their guns from the law abiding gun owners. All guns start out with the law abiding. Stricter controls can help to keep them there.

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    1. Mike, you only need to look to some countries that have extreme gun control from its citizens. Gun crimes are STILL committed by criminals. Only difference is no LAW ABIDING citizens will likely have them to defend themselves.

      Taking guns away from people that follow the law does NOT stop gun crime, no matter how much you want it to.

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    2. Anonymous, I'm not talking about taking guns away from anybody. I'm talking about gun control laws, that will directly affect the law abiding gun owners and help them to hang onto their property. Truly law abiding guys will continue to own and use guns, but it'll be harder for those guns to slip into the criminal world.

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    3. Ok, so what laws would YOU like to see on the books. Specifically, and also how would you enforce them?

      Keep in mind with your proposition, that state budgets are already tight...so it cant include something like hiring a bunch more officers and go around search everyones house to make sure they are storing their firearms correctly.

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    4. Are you brand new around here? You should know what I propose, if not keep reading.

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    5. hmm you have hundreds of posts. Why not give me a quick run down of a couple things?

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    6. The Mikeb world view:

      http://mikeb302000.blogspot.com/2012/03/famous-10-reposted-by-popular-demand.html

      http://mikeb302000.blogspot.com/2012/02/guns-and-women.html

      http://mikeb302000.blogspot.com/2011/08/my-official-goal.html

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    7. Ok mike, thanks for the links.

      I will go ahead and actually AGREE with the first link. I can see how 10% of people 'shouldn't' be allowed to have firearms. I don't believe alcoholics should have them, among many, many other people. The sad thing is, the only way to prevent this would be to deeply infringe rights of everyone else. Perhaps lower the criminal offense to which after you get it you cant own a firearm? Right now its a felony i believe? Perhaps if that was lowered to include more misdemeanors that would lower it. So i can somewhat see what your saying, there are a lot of "unsafe" people that have guns that i would be more comfortable that didn't. Im surprised you got alot of negative feedback from gun owners on this one, as i can easily see 10% of gun owners as being irresponsible.

      Second link. The states picked are picked solely for the numbers they provide. They cherry pick exactly what they want the outcome to be. Its really not accurate representation at all. There are high control/ low gun states...that have very very high gun death. They choose not to include those for a reason. So no i dont think the second link has much validity.

      Third link. You really just say you want to have much more strict law to lower the number of owners. you don't say what those laws are. Im assuming laws banning mental illness...or drug problems. Anything else?

      Also, i have seen somewhere on your site an article about some states that limit the number of purchases to 1 gun a month? do you agree with this? If you do agree i would like you to tell me what effect you think that really has on anything? It doesn't limit who gets them, just how many. So in 5 years i can still have 60 firearms. I'm curious to know why anti gun people think that limiting it to 1 gun a month is effective at all at doing anything.

      Thanks.

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    8. I had another link with the laws I'd like to see, but basically it's this.

      Licensing of all gun owners
      Registration of all guns
      Background checks on all transfers

      These are the main ones, but a number of others make sense and would have my approval, for example the one-gun-a-month law you mentioned.

      The reason I like that one is simple. Straw purchasers who buy guns for criminals would be slowed down. This is so obvious I wonder why you even ask. Straw buyers who do a favor for their boyfriends who are disqualified as well as the "professional" straw buyers who work for gun traffickers, whose numbers are impossible to estimate but a little common sense tells us are vast, should be limited in any way possible.

      The inconvenience to lawful buyers is minimal, so why oppose it?

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    9. I oppose it because i can legally own and take care of my firearms well, and i buy more then 1 gun a month :)

      Why not just severally increase the penalty for straw buyers and focus/crack down on that part? I feel like if the penalty was increased, at some point it would deter many people who do it.

      Aren't all guns already registered? I know every time i purchase they call in the gun, with serial number and all that. So the government has a record of the exact firearm i have. That isn't considered registration to you?

      To be honest i could get on board with background checks on transfering firearms to other individuals. All they would have to do is make it so you need a ffl transfer, just like if you are buying from another gunshop across the country and have your gun shipped here. Would cost the person buying and extra 20-50 dollars, but i don't see that as a deal breaker. Every gun i buy has went through a ffl so all my guns are on the books. I know there are a lot that aren't.

      By licensing do you mean a test to take before you can own guns? Like a drivers license? If it was a simple test, SIMPLE as in as east getting a drivers license, then i wouldn't be against this. But i already know it wouldn't be simple if implemented, they would purposely make it complicated and time consuming. Just like it is to get a concealed carry permit. Which im in the process of, and its likely going to end up taking a minimum of 6 month when its all said it done to get the permits i want. I don't think something like that is neccesary just for owning guns.

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    10. Thanks Jory, you sound pretty reasonable - for a gun owner :-).

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