H.R. 34: The Safe Students Act

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

Maybe figure out why they keep increasing and address the actual cause, rather than just take rights away from innocent people?

I agree. Innocent gun owners should not have rights taken away. I don't want anyone coming to take my guns, but in the same breath, I do not own military grade weaponry.

But to the cause of these slaughters that is pretty deep and at this point even though we already know the sociological and psychological reasons for it, part of the issue is that our society is riddled with gun fetishes. Even as there are movements against it, movies, tv shows and near ineffective laws, the gun as a symbol of individual liberty and masculine superiority are blasted at people on a daily basis.

''Happyness is a warm gun''. Tongue in cheek for sure, but for me it does cut to part of the core cause you mention. Gun ownership and rights are not just an intellectual response to the dangers that surround us. I own guns but do not fetishize them as I think many of the more rabid ''gun rights' advocates do.

a reply to: Shamrock6

What does this even mean? Literally any caliber can be "warfare caliber."

Come on Sham, you know what I mean here. We defend the ownership and use of single shot rifles and pistols with the same breath we justify the right to own weapons that can spray a crowd and kill dozens in seconds. That's what I refer to when I say military grade.

Your suggestion to arm grade schoolers is certainly unworkable, yes. I think you're the only one that's suggested that in this thread, but I may have missed something.

Right. What you may have missed, or not, was my hyperbolic expansion on the notion of an armed citizenry.

Not "any yahoo" can get one so....

Seems to me that past and current slaughter in our society does not agree with that. Most of these deranged yahoos got them and used them on innocent people.

Gun-free zones are the problem.
98% of all mass shootings in the US happen in them.
Every mass shooting that was stopped was done so by a good guy with a gun.
The solution to bad people with guns is good people with guns.

a reply to: TerryMcGuire

I dont own an assault weapon. I have several hunting rifles and several handguns. The only rifles i have that arent bolt or lever action are .22.

And a few shotguns that rarely get used.

They can't do nothing, people will cry havoc. So they have to do something.

Every measure they take, every law they make, not a difference will it make...

...for the peoples sake.

originally posted by: Asktheanimals
Gun-free zones are the problem.
98% of all mass shootings in the US happen in them.
Every mass shooting that was stopped was done so by a good guy with a gun.
The solution to bad people with guns is good people with guns.

Agreed, in spirit. But think about that in practical terms. Forearms locked away in school offices, or teachers desks.

How long before the only kid everyone is worried about breaks in and goes on a rampage with them?

originally posted by: Asktheanimals
Gun-free zones are the problem.
98% of all mass shootings in the US happen in them.
Every mass shooting that was stopped was done so by a good guy with a gun.
The solution to bad people with guns is good people with guns.

The question then becomes are there more good people out there than bad ? What makes a
good person and a bad person, statistically these bad people mostly live in poor areas, is there a correlation there ?

It seems that poor areas breed discontent which leads to hopelessness which leads to acting out violently. The solution then is to reduce the gap between rich and poor.

originally posted by: 3NL1GHT3N3D1
I don't disagree with the bill in theory, I believe guns are great for self defense and defending others, but what happens when these guns are then used for even more shootings? If there is an uptick in school shootings will anyone agree that it was a bad idea? It just seems like it's going to give these psychos even easier access to their weapons of choice. Not saying that's true, just a thought I'm having.

Like I said, the bill sounds good on paper but there's always downsides to almost everything.

How would the firearms wielded by off-duty police officers or ex-military be used for more heinous acts?
Ever tried to take a weapon away from former military ? I damn sure wouldn't advise it.... most likely , someone would have a bad hair day...

originally posted by: 3NL1GHT3N3D1
a reply to: Shamrock6

You may be right. Like I said, it sounds great on paper but I'm willing to bet that someone who decides to shoot up a school isn't very concerned with their own life to begin with so guns wouldn't deter them. I may be wrong and it's always good to have an extra line of defense though.

What it does is take schools off the table for a would-be shooters list of places to go where there's a 99% chance everyone is unarmed.

My thoughts if anyone cares.

The law abiding upstanding members will always be at disadvantage regardless of what laws are in place. Those who choose to follow the laws of society and play nice so that everyone can get along and live a happy life will always have to be reactionary in response. The only way to prepare for these situations is act as if it is going to happen everyday at every moment, and that kind of stress will tear you down and have greater affect on your daily life than you can even imagine. This is why PTSD is so bad, you are always on guard 24/7 waiting for the next bad thing, it wears you out makes you tired and hate everything.

Criminals have the advantage because they know when, where, and how they will commit their chosen crime. Without actually knowing their thoughts and plans the law abiding will always have to be reactionary. Understanding that will be the first step in solving the problem. Regardless if the teachers or guards at a school are armed and prepared people still may be injured or killed before the on hand defenders are able to act. Though by having the defenders in hand will greatly reduce the ammount of casualties in most cases.

So in short nothing will stop violent acts as they have been a plauge on society for the entirety of society. All we can do is prepare a better plan of reaction, the only alternative is to remove undesirables from society pre-crime and that deserves a thread of its own.

a reply to: Shamrock6

The blame clearly lies on the schoool administrators. Nothing changes until the parents rise up and DEMAND change and accountability!

a reply to: SlapMonkey

JMHO, but they seriously need to turn the schools from soft targets to hard targets. Imagine for a moment........some kid walks into and through the halls of the school with an AR-15 without anyone ever challenging him. How does that happen? The blame doesn't lie with the scrary "guns", it lies squarely on the school administrators and staff and to some extent on the designers of these school buildings. This needs to be changed and now.

a reply to: SlapMonkey

This person in Florida (choosing not to use his name) brought a firearm onto school grounds and murdered people. Laws don't stop the criminally insane from doing that which is their goal.

Laws most certainly do stop and make it difficult for the criminally insane to purchase a fire arm. Our neighbor to the north and Australia have passed laws that have greatly diminished mass shootings. You repeat the same gun argument gun owners have been using for years. How's that been working?? The only reason why strong gun legislation hasn't passed is because law makers don't want to lose campaign donations from the NRA and lose votes from obsessed gun owners. It clearly shows law makers care more about holding onto their office rather than pass legislation that can save lives!

No, because honestly, free speech is not grounds to deny someone their second-amendment rights. If what he wrote was so criminal, why did the FBI not arrest him by then?

Facebook and other social media platforms are easily hacked and easily used by people other than the actual person, as well as users don't always post as who they actually are. So, no, social media should not be used as a metric to deny someone a constitutionally protected right.

Lol, free speech doesn't give anyone the right to threaten the lives of people. More BS from gun enthusiasts like you...

The First Amendment guarantees every person the right of free speech, but that right is not absolute. Some words “by their very utterance” cause injury or incite an immediate breach of peace, and they do not receive constitutional protection.[2] Among the category of unprotected speech are “true threats,” statements in which a speaker expresses a “serious” intent “to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals.”

I'm sure you don't watch the "fake news", but if you did, you would have known the FBI admitted they dropped the ball and didn't investigate the shooter after a tip was called in. If they would have investigated the shooter and did a search of his residence and found the stash of guns he had, you can bet your last dollar he would have been arrested.

Do you not understand that medical records are protected by law, even from other government agencies without a warrant? What you are advocating is absolute overreach, plain and simple. Most of us are not willing to give up our rights to privacy for a false sense of security, which is all that would come from what you are citing.

You clearly are ignorant to the fact that law enforcement can have access to medical records if someone is a suspect in a crime or is a terrorist threat.

The HIPAA rules provide a wide variety of circumstances under which medical information can be disclosed for law enforcement-related purposes without explicitly requiring a warrant.[iii] These circumstances include (1) law enforcement requests for information to identify or locate a suspect, fugitive, witness, or missing person (2) instances where there has been a crime committed on the premises of the covered entity, and (3) in a medical emergency in connection with a crime.[iv] In other words, law enforcement is entitled to your records simply by asserting that you are a suspect or the victim of a crime.

Source

Don't openly display your ignorance for all to see. AR15s are absolutely great hunting rifles, and in my state of Kentucky (well, commonwealth), the .223/.556 round is approved for dear hunting, although the AR10 platform, shooting .308 would be a better choice, as it's more likely to put the target down better. I know more than a few people who hunt with both the AR platform and what you would consider standard hunting rifles. Most like the AR better, but generally the weather dictates which one they will use. So, some hunters surely do use these guns when they hunt--let's not generalize groups of people out of ignorance.

I stand corrected on the AR15 being used for hunting. However, I direct your attention to this quote from hunters...

"Most people don't see semi-automatic as something you need for big game," said William Broderick, a worker at Dunkleburger's Sports Outfitters.

Many of the hunters we spoke to are in agreement with the Game Commission's decision to remove large game from the list. Some other hunters we spoke to don't think semi-automatic rifles and hunting mix at all.

Robert Wetmore from Stroudsburg doesn't think the state should mess with tradition at all. He believes the use of semi-automatic rifles on any animal takes away from the experience.

"Where is the fun in just being able to shoot and you're going to get it. You're losing the whole thing. It's supposed to be a seek and destroy mission here. Where are you going? You're just going to destroy here. You're going to just destroy. It just doesn't make any sense, especially small animals. What are you going to eat after you shoot it?" said Wetmore.

Source

Sure does sound like using an AR-15 for hunting is ridiculous. I admit I'm not a gun owner, but I would surely come to the same conclusion as these hunters. It's like taking all the fun and experience out of fishing with a rod and reel and instead troll for fish. You sure can't claim you're great at fishing if all you do is get on a boat drop a net into the water, start trolling and scooping up fish, lol.

So really, I doubt the AR-15 is really a necessity for hunting rather than just the enjoyment of using it and engaging in overkill.

I guess you also think "bump stocks" should also be legal too? If the AR-15 doesn't give someone enough enjoyment of shredding up your kill, I guess "bump stocks" are the next best thing, huh? We don't live in a perfect world, so we can't expect everyone in society to be responsible. Anything can be used as a weapon. However, the AR-15 has had a track record of being the weapon of choice. Do you really think this guy could have killed 17 and injured more if he had to stop and reload a handgun? What purpose does a magazine clip that holds multiple bullets have a reason to be accessible to the general public? The same reason we don't allow grenades, and other mass killing machines to be sold.

a reply to: WeRpeons

Laws most certainly do stop and make it difficult for the criminally insane to purchase a fire arm.

They do, but that wasn't the point that SM was making. And your entire speech is irrelevant, since we have laws to prevent "the criminally insane" from purchasing firearms. The dickhead in question wasn't declared criminally insane though.

Lol, free speech doesn't give anyone the right to threaten the lives of people. More BS from gun enthusiasts like you...

Sure it does. If it didn't, then every 12 year old on Xbox Live would've been arrested and put into juvenile detention for threatening to kill others. It has to be deemed a true threat for it to be excluded from 1st Amendment protection.

You clearly are ignorant to the fact that law enforcement can have access to medical records if someone is a suspect in a crime or is a terrorist threat.

Yes, they can. And, as SM said, they need a warrant, or an administrative request, to do so. Your copy and paste is cute and all, but "you clearly are ignorant to the fact that law enfrocement" needs a warrant for all the things you copied and pasted, or an administrative request, and can't simply walk in and ask for it just because they suspect somebody of a crime. Which, again, is what SM said to begin with.

I admit I'm not a gun owner, but I would surely come to the same conclusion as these hunters.

Then your opinion on what you would do if you were is irrelevant. You can find ten guys that say hunting with a semi-auto is stupid and I can find ten guys who say it's the only way to go.

Seems like you're arguing for the sake of arguing at this point.

a reply to: Shamrock6

Your opinions and deflection on this issue is like every gun owner who doesn't want to lose their AR-15 rifle. You side step the main fact that AR-15's is the gun of choice being used in the majority of mass shootings. The last thing I or any other decent human being would do is fight for the right of owning a weapon that is being used to wipe out innocent lives just for a selfish reason to enjoy owning it!

I and many other Americans should put lives ahead of materialistic things. This gun argument is not denying your right to own a hand gun or hunting rifle. It's recognizing that semi-automatic weapons are being used time and time again to kill innocent lives with the maximum head count! Where is yours or your fellow gun obsessed owners sense of decency and sympathetic concern for the amount of lives being taken with this weapon?? I can guarantee your perspective would change overnight if your child was among those who lost their lives in this recent school shooting. Many gun owners continue to make light of these recent shootings which is unconscionable.

You and others can try to justify owning an AR-15 until the cows come home. It's par for the course when the same people who support this president's issues on guns, also defend his blatant lies and immoral behavior. I'm not even a religious person, yet I can still see the difference between right and wrong! Where is the moral outrage and preservation for life that many conservative gun owners like to dictate to liberals? We've seen a lot of hypocrisy in that just this past year! The issue of making this weapon illegal along with tougher gun legislation and background checks is really clear-cut in the minds of many Americans including some gun owners.

Arguing and defending the right to have such a weapon, is simply placing selfish wants above human lives. The only reason AR-15's are still legal is because the NRA is influencing our elected officials with campaign contributions, lobbying and threats by gun voters in districts where representatives will lose their self-centered political careers. Doing the right thing takes a lot of soul searching and toughness. Concerns for country and not party, and a basic concern for the lives of it's citizens is something all our self-serving elected officials clearly lack.

I would say to all gun owners who own an AR-15. Put yourself in the place of having your son, daughter, spouse or another loved one being killed, and in some cases their dead bodies unrecognizable due to the use of an AR-15 in a mass shooting. Would you still defend owning this gun? Would you still defend owning a "bump stock?" If you were absolutely honest with yourself and had respect for human life, the answer would be a resounding NO!

a reply to: WeRpeons

A rebuttal of claims and statements you make is not a deflection, it’s a response. Just because you don’t like my response doesn’t make it a deflection.

The only one deflecting here is you, and you’ve done it again. You’re attacking points I didn’t make and getting all emotional about things.

Oh, and for what it’s worth: I don’t even own an AR platform.

originally posted by: TonyS
a reply to: SlapMonkey

JMHO, but they seriously need to turn the schools from soft targets to hard targets. Imagine for a moment........some kid walks into and through the halls of the school with an AR-15 without anyone ever challenging him. How does that happen? The blame doesn't lie with the scrary "guns", it lies squarely on the school administrators and staff and to some extent on the designers of these school buildings. This needs to be changed and now.

I agree with that, too, but while the design of many schools has a lot to be desired concerning security, the known presence of people with firearms willing to protect the students at all costs is a pretty big deterrent as well.

Redesigning schools takes a lot of time and money. Training willing volunteers to protect themselves and the students could be a nearly immediate step.

I always here stories of teachers giving their lives trying to protect their kids with their bare hands, then think how many would have been saved if that firs teacher encountered had a CCW.

I'm late to the game of responses, here, but let's play:

originally posted by: WeRpeons

Laws most certainly do stop and make it difficult for the criminally insane to purchase a fire arm.

I didn't say that laws don't make it difficult for criminals to do anything, my point was that there are already laws against carrying firearms on the school's grounds and against murder--you can't deny that, so you deflect on to something else.

Read the FBI's NICS page--there are a lot of reasons to be denied a firearm during a legal purchase. Your whining about the NRA is irrelevant to my comment.

Lol, free speech doesn't give anyone the right to threaten the lives of people. More BS from gun enthusiasts like you...

Again, you ignorantly misinterpreted what I said. I've seen what was said on the YouTube video--saying that you want to be a professional school shooter is not the same as communicating a threat. If I write on my Facebook wall, for example, that I want to be a professional assassin, that does not mean that the FBI can come arrest me for communicating threats to people.


See, we don't like in the movie "Minority Report"--people in this country actually have to break laws in order to be directly bothered by law enforcement, and by writing what he did on the YouTube video, he did not break any law.

His comment at the time would not have been considered a "true threat;" the phrase (with my own emphasis) "in which a speaker expresses a 'serious' intent 'to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals" matters, and without specifics, his statement was not a crime.

Please don't try to lecture me on the law and be wrong when you're doing it.

I'm sure you don't watch the "fake news", but if you did, you would have known the FBI admitted they dropped the ball and didn't investigate the shooter after a tip was called in. If they would have investigated the shooter and did a search of his residence and found the stash of guns he had, you can bet your last dollar he would have been arrested.

I did know this, and I wouldn't bet my last dollar on it. Again, what he said on YouTube was not enough allow any search of his residence. Now, if the FBI had done a thorough investigation, where they would have interviewed students and friends and faculty and the family who was housing him, then maybe, just maybe they could have compiled enough evidence for a judge to sign a warrant to confiscate his weapons.

You are missing a lot of letters when you jump from A to Z, which is your tactic a lot of the time. It feels like a how-to lesson on baking a cake from you would be two steps:

1. Crack open two eggs.

2. Apply frosting and you're done!

You clearly are ignorant to the fact that law enforcement can have access to medical records if someone is a suspect in a crime or is a terrorist threat.

You fail to understand that you neat copy/paste job does not allow law enforcement to peruse and use the medical data against the suspect--if they wanted to do that, they would need a warrant 99 times out of 100, if not 100. There are always minute exceptions, but let's focus on the 99% of the time, shall we? Cherry-picking, especially when you do so and misunderstand and misrepresent what you're quoting, has no place is a logical discussion.

I stand corrected on the AR15 being used for hunting.

Sure does sound like using an AR-15 for hunting is ridiculous. I admit I'm not a gun owner, but I would surely come to the same conclusion as these hunters. It's like taking all the fun and experience out of fishing with a rod and reel and instead troll for fish. You sure can't claim you're great at fishing if all you do is get on a boat drop a net into the water, start trolling and scooping up fish, lol.

So really, I doubt the AR-15 is really a necessity for hunting rather than just the enjoyment of using it and engaging in overkill.

Oh, so you're misconstruing, yet again, what I said and forming a conclusions that doesn't even address it. That silly quote that you provided could be negated by many, many other hunters. Again, you're cherry-picking to try to sound intelligent and back up your stance when all you're doing is digging yourself deeper.

I never said that the AR platform is a necessity for hunting, I said that it is a great platform for it and is used by many people who prefer its design and function over traditional hunting rifles. Of course, anything can be abused, and that is what's being assumed by these few hunters with whom the media source spoke, citing concerns that people will just keep shooting and shooting until they get the animal. It's all conjecture, and I'd love to be privy to the reason why they reversed their preliminary decision to allow semi-autos.

I'll be interested in the backlash from this and how it affects their decisions to allow semi-autos next year, but everything said in that article sounds like it was muttered from the mouths of people who have never shot an AR-15.

And something glaringly missing from that article is any quote from or blurb about those arguing FOR the use of semi-autos. I wonder why...

I guess you also think "bump stocks" should also be legal too? If the AR-15 doesn't give someone enough enjoyment of shredding up your kill, I guess "bump stocks" are the next best thing, huh? We don't live in a perfect world, so we can't expect everyone in society to be responsible. Anything can be used as a weapon. However, the AR-15 has had a track record of being the weapon of choice. Do you really think this guy could have killed 17 and injured more if he had to stop and reload a handgun?

That's right, you guess...that's all that you do, because you are not a gun owner and you try to speak with authority about a topic on which you are woefully ignorant. I'm not deriding you for not owning guns--that's your choice--but you know what? I don't argue with astronomers about astronomy, because my knowledge on the topic doesn't hold a candle to theirs, even if I disagree with some idea or theory that they propose.

The effect from a bump stock can be created with one's belt. Using inflammatory language like "shredding up your kill" increases how ignorant you sound concerning AR-15s. You don't own one and I bet that you've never shot one or have never been trained in their use--if not, do yourself a favor and stop sounding ridiculous.

If AR-15s weren't around (and they were first created in 1956...it's been a while), any other number of guns could be used with the same effect. And yes, he could have killed 17 (or more) people if he had to reload a handgun, because nobody was willing to stop him and he just slipped into the crowd of students to escape. But if he had to stop to reload (which he probably did with the AR also) and someone had a firearm in the classroom, he could have been stopped at some point.

What purpose does a magazine clip that holds multiple bullets have a reason to be accessible to the general public?

Many reasons, none of which you will ever seemingly concede.

originally posted by: WeRpeons
a reply to: Shamrock6

I and many other Americans should put lives ahead of materialistic things. This gun argument is not denying your right to own a hand gun or hunting rifle.

More silliness: The right isn't to only own handguns or hunting rifles, the right is to keep and bear arms (a right that "shall not be infringed"), not just specific arms that people who don't own firearms but pretend that they know what they're talking about say you should own based on their own subjective opinions on the topic.