A Sane Discussion About Gun Violence

[Sparko]

It serves as a place to keep my weapons, AND a place for my wife to go and hide if somebody breaks into the house when I'm not home. There are guns and ammo in there, along with flashlights... she just needs to grab her cell phone and lock herself in. That door is a solid core door on purpose, and the handle "turns freely" when not 'engaged', so it's pretty durn difficult to get that door open. PLUS, that 2'0" closet door is behind the 3'0' bathroom door, so, unless you're looking for it, you don't even know it's there.

A view inside CP's closet:

[Cow Poke]

A view inside CP's closet:

That's the foyer to the closet! On the first floor.

[TheWall]

I think that ignorance about guns is part of the problem. The old hoke that if an Ar-15 was wood liberals would leave it alone comes to mind for instance.

Shouldnt we know as much as we can about guns?

[Cow Poke]

I actually DO teach that class...

I certified... um... 10 or 12 years ago, so... I'm sure I'm way behind.. but I can subnet with the best of them, and still have several routers I used to configure just for fun!

[TheWall]

That's the foyer to the closet! On the first floor.

No gadsen flag?

[Cow Poke]

I think that ignorance about guns is part of the problem. The old hoke that if an Ar-15 was wood liberals would leave it alone comes to mind for instance.

Shouldnt we know as much as we can about guns?

If a news reporter is going to do a story about guns, he REALLY should do some homework. Reminds me of when liberals were covering Desert Storm, and they knew squat about military hardware, calling APCs "tanks" and stuff like that, or referring to a "cobra helicopter" when they were showing an Apache....

[Cow Poke]

No gadsen flag?

Only the stars and bars, and.....

2000px-Flag_of_Texas.svg.png

[Sparko]

Agreed.



I wish it were that easy. Unfortunately, before the event, knowing that someone will actually harm is a massively difficult thing to do. So I will share a personal story. My youngest son was the apple of Dad's eye. We did everything together. Fished. Took trips. Biked. When he had a problem, he always came to Dad. When I traveled, he would call me in the evening, after I had finished teaching, and we would keep the phone line open until I could hear him snoring. The phone bill got so bad, I got him a computer and setup Skype so we could connect. He didn't need to talk to me - he just needed to know I was there. Then some devil came into our home and stole the soul of that child. He turned into the ugly teenager. He was moody. He was angry. When he got angry, he broke things. They were always his things. I told him, several times, that I was not going to stand in the way of him breaking his own things, but if he ever crossed the line to breaking things that did not belong to him, we would have a problem. In hindsight, maybe that was not a good choice. Maybe I should have jumped on his tendency to break even his own things. I don't know. All I know is that his breaking escalated from small toys to $200 guitars to his $2500 drum set. Eventually, he did over $2000 of damage to our home and I fund myself standing in front of a very angry, very physically powerful, 17 year old with an axe in his hand. My authority won the day, buit when he started again the next day, I told him to stand down or I would call the cops. He didn't, and I did. Today, he is back in school, struggling to pull it together, but the anger is gone and we can talk again.

Each moment, I kept saying to myself, "but this is my son - the child I held - the one who had to have me on the phone for 3-5 hours each evening." Each day I told myself, "there is no way that child could truly harm anyone - he is just acting out. Today I look back and realize that, if he actually had harmed someone, I would have become one of those parents pilloried by the press and the world at large for "ignoring the signs." At each step, I took the course I believed wa sin the best interests of my son, my family, and the community. At each step, I could have been wrong.

I will NEVER stand in judgment of another set of parents, or a local community, that is trying to figure out what is the best way to deal with one of these people. We do the best we can to figure it out. Sometimes we get it right. Sometimes we get it wrong. It's "best guess" at any moment. I could just as easily have awakened to find my entire family killed - or never awakened at all.

I have to believe most of us take the warning seriously. We just don't always know exactly what to DO about them. And sometimes, there is not a lot we CAN do.



Agreed to the fomer. We (of course) part company on the latter.

Wow. Sorry you had to go through that.

A girlfriend of mine's son was the best kid you could imagine until he became a teenager. Then something snapped and he became angry and hit his mom and sister. Eventually they had to call the police and had him arrested and sent to Juvie. He was OK for a while but as he got older, he started into drugs (heroin I think) and hanging out with a bad crowd. His mom came home one day and found him shot dead in the basement. They never did catch the killer. So I hate what guns can do too. I loved that kid despite his problems. I knew him since he was 8. He was 19 when he died. And sometimes even when you know there is a problem there is nothing you can do. He had some sort of bipolar or borderline personality disorder. His mom was taking him to see a therapist but nothing helped.

I am glad you still have a chance with your son.

[Mountain Man]

That's the foyer to the closet! On the first floor.

[Mountain Man]

I wish it were that easy. Unfortunately, before the event, knowing that someone will actually harm is a massively difficult thing to do. So I will share a personal story. My youngest son was the apple of Dad's eye. We did everything together. Fished. Took trips. Biked. When he had a problem, he always came to Dad. When I traveled, he would call me in the evening, after I had finished teaching, and we would keep the phone line open until I could hear him snoring. The phone bill got so bad, I got him a computer and setup Skype so we could connect. He didn't need to talk to me - he just needed to know I was there. Then some devil came into our home and stole the soul of that child. He turned into the ugly teenager. He was moody. He was angry. When he got angry, he broke things. They were always his things. I told him, several times, that I was not going to stand in the way of him breaking his own things, but if he ever crossed the line to breaking things that did not belong to him, we would have a problem. In hindsight, maybe that was not a good choice. Maybe I should have jumped on his tendency to break even his own things. I don't know. All I know is that his breaking escalated from small toys to $200 guitars to his $2500 drum set. Eventually, he did over $2000 of damage to our home and I fund myself standing in front of a very angry, very physically powerful, 17 year old with an axe in his hand. My authority won the day, buit when he started again the next day, I told him to stand down or I would call the cops. He didn't, and I did. Today, he is back in school, struggling to pull it together, but the anger is gone and we can talk again.

Each moment, I kept saying to myself, "but this is my son - the child I held - the one who had to have me on the phone for 3-5 hours each evening." Each day I told myself, "there is no way that child could truly harm anyone - he is just acting out. Today I look back and realize that, if he actually had harmed someone, I would have become one of those parents pilloried by the press and the world at large for "ignoring the signs." At each step, I took the course I believed wa sin the best interests of my son, my family, and the community. At each step, I could have been wrong.

I will NEVER stand in judgment of another set of parents, or a local community, that is trying to figure out what is the best way to deal with one of these people. We do the best we can to figure it out. Sometimes we get it right. Sometimes we get it wrong. It's "best guess" at any moment. I could just as easily have awakened to find my entire family killed - or never awakened at all.

I have to believe most of us take the warning seriously. We just don't always know exactly what to DO about them. And sometimes, there is not a lot we CAN do.

If the worst had ever happened, I don't think you would have been accused of ignoring the warning signs. Someone who says, "I saw what was happening, and I did the best I could, but I didn't realize I was out of my league trying to deal with it on my own," is a heck of a lot different than those parents who stand there and defiantly say, "He's a good boy! He didn't do nothin'!"

[Cow Poke]

I did not distort your position. The word "teachers", by itself, does in no way suggest "all teachers".

CP - Hey Adrift, gather the teachers together, I have a couple $100 gift cards to hand out to some specific teachers who excelled this month.
Adrift - OK... HEY, TEACHERS, CP is passing out gift cards to teachers!
Teachers - YAY!!!!!!
CP - OK, Teacher A, and Teacher B - great job, here is a $100 gift card for each of you.
Teachers -- Hey, WAIT!!!! Adrift said TEACHERS, not "two teachers"!

But, I'm sure that little exercise was a waste of time.

[Adrift]

But, I'm sure that little exercise was a waste of time.

It was. "You've previously suggested that teachers be allowed to be armed" is standard English language usage that does not in any way, shape, or form, specify all teachers everywhere. Again, you're making much ado about nothing.

[RumTumTugger]

Yes.

Adrift a criminal by nature cares how do you plan to stop a criminal from doing what is in his nature going against the law and getting a gun anyway. You can't so. No it will not deter a criminal from getting his hands on a gun if he wants one to think otherwise is I'm sorry to say you being naive to a fault

[Jedidiah]

I think mostly because it doesn't sound like a reasonable response. Sentencing a first time offender to life, or threatening them with capital punishment for brandishing a weapon in which no one was harmed and no lives were taken would probably seem to the majority of US citizens as an unjust punishment. As well, there's lots of debate on whether or not there is any actual correlation between the length of a sentence and the deterrence of crime. Plenty of experts think there is not.

But taking guns away from law abiding citizens, and/or blaming them for the problem is completely fair, eh?

[Adrift]

Adrift a criminal by nature cares how do you plan to stop a criminal from doing what is in his nature going against the law and getting a gun anyway. You can't so. No it will not deter a criminal from getting his hands on a gun if he wants one to think otherwise is I'm sorry to say you being naive to a fault

Then I'm naive.

Like I said, eventually something will happen that will turn gun legislation on its head. It's only a matter of time and lives.