GUNS?

I know this is a very old, tired subject, but how long can we afford to allow gun ownership?

What is more important, our gun ownership rights, or our children's lives?

Maybe we need to give up a few rights for the sake of our children.

We who? Why do I need to give up a Constitutional right because of someone else's actions?

LC,

I have guns! I don't need them. I don't want someone stealing my guns
and shooting people.

What is so sacred about gun ownership? We have proved over and over that the wrong people have them.

So give them to your local PD! They'll take 'em!

I will do that.

12/14/2012

Since this morning I couldn't stop crying over these 20

children who died in Conn. School plus 6 adults, plus now

they said his parents were found shot to death and his girl

friend is missing in NJ along with a friend, this nut job that did

this is 20 yrs old, why , why in God's name would someone hurt

little children ? My prayers go out to the children's family and to the

families of the adults that were murdered ...

Joe

This does not happen in the UK--they have sense, common sense.

It has happened in the UK, Alice - not all that long ago - in Scotland.

Unfortunately, Alice, it does:

It was midmorning when the telephone rang. As I answered, I recognised my brother-in-law’s voice saying, “Beth, are you okay? Bad news, I’m afraid. One of the girls in the office, Shona, has just returned from her morning break. She was in a bit of a state so I said, ‘What’s up?’ She told me something terrible has occurred at a local nursery school.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know much but … apparently, a man walked into a nursery in Barloch and shot some of the children … and their teacher.”

“Barloch!” I gasped.

Barloch was just a few miles away, so my brother-in-law knew I would be upset and he said as much. “I knew you would be upset and I wanted to warn you before you heard it on the news,” the concern showing in his voice as he spoke.

I was silent.

Then, my voice barely audible, I said, “How many children?”

“I don’t know,” he replied.

“Who told Shona?”

“She was in the canteen … someone who’d heard the news on the radio was telling everyone. She didn’t say much … if you can bear to listen to the midday news, you’ll find out more.”

There was no point in asking any further questions, and to say thank you for calling seemed inappropriate, so I mumbled, “Yes, I will.”

Lost in my thoughts at this dreadful news, it took several minutes before I realised that Will had phoned me first and not my sister. He wanted to be there with her to comfort her when she found out, but he also needed to share the news as an emotional outlet.

In the silence that followed the telephone conversation, my own emotions were on hold. I was too stunned and found this startling news difficult to take on board. A grown man using a firearm against small children seemed unbelievable; as though I’d misinterpreted the conversation and it was all in my imagination, but I knew that such a dreadful and heinous crime was beyond the limits of my thought processes.

In a stupor, I turned and stared at the television screen, accepting that such a horrible event would not have been broadcast on radio without it being true. The dull, grey rectangle staring back at me looked as lifeless as those tiny bodies now lying on the floor of a nursery in a quiet Scottish town. With the click of a switch, the screen would burst into life. Who, at this moment, would not press a button to see the flicker of life re-enter those innocent victims?

Without another thought, I aimed the remote control at the television set and looked on in amazement as I saw young women rushing along a main road. Some pushed prams, paying no heed to the unusual appearance of men with outside broadcast cameras on their shoulders, running along beside them. All their faces were the same: totally focused. No one spoke, and every single one of them, pram or no pram, babe in arms or carrying cameras, ran. The distraught mothers raced as fast as they could without knowing what might be in store for them at the end of the short journey from the doors of their homes to the door of the nursery. As I watched, the silent screen screamed for every mother of every child: let it not be my child; please, God, let it not be my child.

Like thousands of people I spent the rest of the day watching the terrible events unfold. As the hours passed, I became so tense my arms began to ache to such an extent that I could barely move them. The tension seemed to have reduced the blood flow, and in order to improve the circulation I needed to move around, but my attention was fixed on the screen like super glue.

Why I became so absorbed in what was obviously someone else’s pain didn’t occur to me at the time. I realise now that the anguish I felt was directly linked to the perpetrator of such a wicked act.

The gunman had shot himself, and it took several hours before the police released his name. For most of those hours, I remained racked with guilt at the thought that I might be able to identify the dead man and could have helped to prevent this wickedness. Of course, this was irrational but, within every community throughout the British Isles, there are known and unknown paedophiles, who have harmed children in the past and are a threat to children in the future.

My eyes remained focused on the screen, while my over-active mind concentrated on sifting and sorting the stored faces of men who lived, or had lived, within a thirty-mile radius of Barloch. A list formed and, one by one, I mentally crossed off them all. None of the men, even the ones I knew by name only, fitted my own inadequate image of a child molester.

All of a sudden and without warning, the name of someone I worked with years ago came into my mind. When he left the area, after his marriage broke up, I knew he’d had difficulty gaining access to his young daughter. Would this be enough to turn a quiet, gentle, young man into a multiple murderer in order to wreak revenge on those fathers who were allowed to spend time with their children? The idea was preposterous, but the relief was palpable by the time they announced the name of the killer because, by then, my temples had begun to throb.

Extensive coverage of this unprecedented event appeared in the newspapers over the next few weeks. Everyone connected to the various media was affected by this tragedy and it took several weeks before the newspaper coverage returned to normal.

Ownership of guns, pistols and firearms came under media scrutiny. The parents of those children who had suffered wanted public support to ban the sale of hand guns for private use. The public response, strongly in favour of the ban, put tremendous pressure on the government to change the law on the legality of owning certain types of firearms. Every week, some reference to the Barloch campaign to ban hand guns appeared in local and national newspapers.

With their livelihood threatened, numerous gun clubs around the country responded immediately, but the tide of public opinion against them was overwhelming and it was simply a matter of time before an inevitable change in the law. The people had expressed their outrage so vociferously the government had no choice but to respond. Nobody denied the argument that killers kill, and if you removed one kind of weapon, they would replace it with another, but the message was unequivocal: people who harm children will not be tolerated by a civilised society.

Children are the future, and we must not lose sight of our main purpose in life: to ensure the survival of the species, we have to protect the young until they can produce their own off-spring. Forgiving child murderers is not an option. A society that allows this kind of abhorrent behaviour devours itself.

The media responded to the public outcry and, every week, the message was the same: hand guns must go.

Chapter Three "My Worst Nightmare" The Power of Persuasion Copyright © 2008 Shelagh Watkins

All right, Yes, but the frequency is far less!

Our country needs to change.

I wouldn't miss my guns. There is no place to target practice.

Freedom from fear of being shot by a whacko is important.

WE don't need our kids and teachers to be killed.

12/14/2012

I'm still shaking over this horrible incident, 20 young

innocent lives gone in seconds. I agree with Alice

guns have to go, but we know that won't happen,

guns alwas get into the wrong hands ! I would love

to know how did England ban guns all these decades ?

I do know The police/ Bobbies are only allowed to have

one when there on a manhunt..

Joe

What we determine to do, we do. Planes are no longer hijacked.
Can't never does anything.

And so is the population, Alice. One, of course, is too many. Every incident is horrendous, and we remember each of them.

Still, we can almost count them on one hand, even stretching back two or more decades.

What's especially hard with this one is the young ages and the high numbers.

Of course, guns have to go, but it is also imperative that mental health care is available for children and parents alike, and that we have a society where such illness is recognized and treated.

What a heavy responsibility teachers have!

After the Dunblane massacre, the parents of the children started a campaign that couldn't fail because the whole country was traumatised. We watched it unfold on television and it broke our hearts. One of the parents was a widower in his forties. His wife had died when their daughter was very young, and she was all he had. Father and daughter were inseparable and went everywhere together. She was only five years old. He will never get over this. The scars will be with him for the rest of his life.

One of the doctors at the hospital in nearby Stirling heard that they were bringing in children from her daughter's primary school. She didn't know if her daughter would arrive injured or dead. You can't imagine how she felt.

It just tore everyone apart to see such pain inflicted on doting parents and grandparents. I have tears streaming down my face at the memory of that day, March 13th, 1996.

I can't bear to read about the families of the children in the Connecticut killings. It hurts to even think about the pain they are suffering.

We have to stop it. it is ridiculous that we have tolerated such atrocities.

Congress and gun rights would not be missed by me.

12/14/2012

Congress wouldn't pay attention !

Joe

People who do these terible things have festered. Like a big boil, they have come to a head and erupted their internal pus upon whom ever was there. They have nursed their sore and enjoyed and anticipated the eruption. It has not one thing to do with sanity, hope, redemption. It has all to do with revenge....revenge for stuff you and I would never have a second thought about....your mom telling you you need to study and brush your teeth...

I wish there was a simple thing that someone could say...."when you have a child, you need to teach them ....what? And they will forever be ....not a person who goes out to shoot little children willy nilly for no reason at all....

My heart is broken for these children, for their parents, for their families, for their friends.

How does a person hear that terrible news after sending a child off to school? How does one live beyond those words.

Love,

Betty

I am afraid for my grandchildren. I want them to be safe.

joefrank wrote:

12/14/2012

Congress wouldn't pay attention !

Joe

They work for us--presumably

I am afraid that I would be a dangerous person, given the death of my children by a lunatic. I am afraid that I would never be able to rest unless the lunatic died, not caring what their psycological excuse might be, they would not live if my children did not.

Perhaps I am a lunatic my own self, but I could boil up that much hate and revenge....yes, yes, I could.

12/14/2012

I may not have a psychiatric license but I thought of this all

day, I think he hated his mother because she paid so much

attention to her class and not him, because in the report they

said it was her class of 18 that was slaughtered ! His revenge

was to make parents suffer, he did. I feel so sad and want to

hug these parents and tell them their little babies are in heaven

where no one can hurt them. It's a horrble thought that in nine

days it'll be Christmas, these dear parents won't have their

children to hug, to kiss, to see the beautiful wonderment in their

eyes when they should have been there to open there gifts, I pray

their in God's arms protected for all eternity....God Bless the children.

Joe

Brain chemistry is a mystery. This country has a violent history and remains violent. I don't hold out much hope for change. Too many people love their guns more than those that are killed every day in our cities. Gang violence is made possible by the power of guns.

I have always maintained that private ownership of guns should not be allowed except in the most unusual of circumstances. I hold that position still. "No," say the gun lovers, "it's not the gun but the user." Well, if there are no guns, the users won't matter.

12/14/2012

I think we should put a petition on the internet, then once

we have 1 million signatures sendit to congress ? Banning

all weapons , I cant name them all here....

Joe

Betty, I hear you loud and clear. Revenge I think is inherent in all of us and given the right circumstances, will use it.
DK, I agree with what you said. Joe, I think everyone is seeking answers and drawing a blank.
As for guns, it seems to me that the gun issue is akin to the environment issue. There are those who oppose anything that will change their way of life even if it means saving/destroying lives. We can blame mental illness and at the same time deny people medical help. Something definitely wrong. How to solve the problem is something we must all think about.
Is the problem guns?
Is the problem the influence of violence on TV?
Is the problem in the home?
Is the problem in the schools?

What is the core of the problem? Who knows?

Wasn't going to comment anymore. There has been so much misinformation on this story, I don't want to say much until they figure it all out. Maybe that will help me to figure it out. Only I can't seem to get to sleep, so here I sit, and I suppose I should say something.

First, this isn't about gun control. I know that's going to raise hackles. I am not opposed to gun control; it is an important part of the solution. But there is so much more going on than that.

When people feel powerless, they revert to the most primitive means for gaining power - and that is violence. The need to feel a sense of power is at the root of the problem. The reasons for a twenty-year-old male to feel so powerless that he is willing to kill so many children are hard to fathom. So far, we don't know enough about him or his situation to even begin to go there.

Generally speaking, such a position has roots in childhood. This is an individual who has probably never had the means to develop personal power - no sense of self-esteem, no sense of being able to cope with the world he perceives to be real. (I should say he or she, but for some reason, this "answer" is seldom chosen by women.)

I agree with Betty when she says that she would probably have to take revenge herself, but the thing is, these guys nearly take care of that job themselves, cheating us as mothers from exacting our rightful vengeance.

I'm making a lot of guesses here, but I'm thinking, in this instance, that his mother was the primary target. I'm going to get very graphic here. The later reports indicate that he shot her in the face. Something is telling me he had to silence her -he had toshut her up - to silence her voice. A neighbor strongly suggested that the mother was extremely exacting, and demanded very high expectations. He clearly could not live up to those expectations. She had to be silenced first, so that he could take the steps he took afterwards.

Later reports say she was not a teacher. She either was currently, or had been in the past, employed by the school in some capacity. Somehow, he felt justified in taking the lives of those particular students. We do not yet know enough to get a clearer picture. Getting inside the head of an insane individual is next to impossible, and maybe it isn't necessary.

We want to know why. That's natural, to assume there is a rational reason. But the perpetrator was not rational.

And if we have an answer, it would maybe be to help develop a world where all children have the means to grow into rational adults. If we could do that, we could get beyond the need for violent solutions - irrational or otherwise.

We would need to end the whole winner/loser mindset by focusing on compassion and cooperation over aggressive competition. We would have to stop giving power to the individuals who control the wealth of the world. What a risk we will have to take in order to do that. How frightening is our belief in scarcity - the belief that there is not enough stuff to go around. We would have to let go of our fear of being losers.

Because, I'm betting, that in the long run, this guy saw himself as a loser, and figured that this was the only way he had left to win - just once.