US President to push proposals to prevent further shootings

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I have to agree. If criminals were great at risk analysis or forward thinking, they wouldn't be criminals at all. Since they are, it's a safe bet that they lack the ability or interest to think through the consequences of their actions.

Thus you can't really negotiate with them, or entice them with long term rewards, or scare them off with long term penalties.

They're pretty good at hindsight, though, so a couple smoking 9mm-diameter holes in their chest will usually fix their thinking for a short while. Do with that knowledge what you please...

As someone on Yahoo Answers said: liberals: shamelessly displaying child corpses until they get their way.

They want to pass the awb. And as crazy As it sounds, even this shooting isn't enough to change my anti stance. If really want to slash mass murders, we need to move beyond legislating gun mechanics and what your firearm can or can't do and start looking at what causes people to want to murder children. I hear stories of middle and even elementary kids given anti psychotics. Maybe, it's abusive parents that makes you want to kill people. How about antisocial behavior? The recent mass shooting had one common denominator: something was wrong with the shooter, mentally or in some other way.

As much as I believe that assault rifles are protected by the 2A , I do not condone surrounding yourself with them. Take this from someone who lives in a hyper gun control city.

To me, this can only end badly. Evn a simple assault weapons ban could create a huge fissure. I guess he has no choice now but to try. He has already talked up a big game

This would promote even more stubborn headed stupidity among Republican right-wing types. It would inhibit the Republicans from developing some originality and creativity in their political thinking, which we really do need.

ruveyn

There's' nothing simple about an "assault weapons" ban.

how easy would it be for uncle sam to apply the present transfer tax on machine guns/silencers, to other weapons as well?

With enough emotional backing, it wouldn't be hard.

Things aren't banned, but you throw in paperwork and red-tape -- jury is out whether that helps anything in the end, though, as it's just adding "time" to the process with the same qualifications (mentally sound and not a former felon).

Much better than a ban to those who like shooting, of course.

About as easy as it would be to vote every Democrat out of congress after the passage of such a law. Sound worth it to you?

What if things have changed (in a way, I don't think the position now is better than back with the original AWB)? What if the majority of people support such?

This time, I just think they have the emotions* on their side. People who speak of not giving up their child killing assault death machines are put in the "extreme" side of the argument, when in reality these people are in the moderate in regards to rational discourse, yet only those who own such may see themselves as this

*Gun owners who think no one "needs" this or that
Gun owners questioning themselves and their likes due to something they didn't do
and that's from people who like shooting; the other side often want to ban everything, with the more "moderates" on that side also agreeing with the "needs" of this or that

Hopefully I'm wrong, but it doesn't look like I am.

The thing about emotional reactions is that they're fleeting, and once people settle down we can wear them down with the facts, which are that mass shootings are incredibly rare, "assault weapons" are seldom used in crime, and that we're in the middle of an unprecedented drop in violence that has occurred at the same time as record gun sales and a nationwide liberalizing of gun laws. Things look grim now, as an out of the closet Aspie gunsmith I probably know this better than anyone, but I'm cautiously optimistic about the long game here. If there's one thing politicians in this country know, it's that gun owners and advocates never forget or forgive, while gun controllers are both fewer in number and less committed to their cause; hence no one touching this subject in years. I know that I for one will *never* vote Democrat again under *any* circumstance if they succeed in pushing any restrictions through, and I'm considered fairly moderate on this issue.

^^^
so are you saying something akin to "don't just do something- stand there!"?

I'm saying "don't do something stupid", or in this case more like ineffective and needlessly burdensome to innocent citizens. I'll borrow the quote again, every time something like this happens, there's a mad rush to take the guns of everyone who didn't do it. The anti-gun people live for these things, they're literally the only things that keep their organizations going.

rather than force all teachers to "man up" and arm themselves, a simpler solution would be to make all schools have a standard security method of one entry/one exit, with metal detectors paid for via one-time property levee surcharge. otherwise most schools could not afford the metal detectors. adopt "[school] ground marshals" wearing plain clothes who may be select teachers with the temperament for the job. not all teachers [not all people in general, not singling out teachers] are fit to carry firearms. arming uniformed security guards would not be as good a solution as it would seem to most people to be.

I don't think anyone is advocating for forcing teacher to arm themselves, the closest I've seen is allowing teachers who already have CCW permits to carry at work, which given the proven history or armed intervention in cutting this attacks short and good safety and conduct records of CCW holders nationally, isn't a bad idea. I like this idea better than uniformed security or permanently stationed cops for the same reason I prefer armed civilians to a cop on every corner; when no one knows who's armed, bad guys have to treat everyone as if they're potentially armed. It works for deterring home invasions and hot burglaries, it could work for schools too.

^^^
Plus, there are ways an armed, uniformed guard (private or sworn law enforcement) can be singled out in the beginning of an attack. I can't get more detailed without advertizing stuff that can be used maliciously, but suffice to say, a high probability of an unknown number of concealed carriers scattered around a campus is a strong deterrent. they will go find a gun free safe zone instead.

By all means, have uniformed, armed security, but don't bet your life on that being guaranteed to work.

If you can't trust a teacher with a gun, why on earth are you trusting them with 20+ young children?