Jophiel wrote:
Put very simply, and I'm sure Gbaji will scramble to insist this wasn't the case, Gbaji tried to imply that "Armed guards in every school!" was some marginalized and minority opinion from a couple "idiot pundits".
My opposition to the idea that armed security in schools is a good answer to mass shootings at school has nothing to do with how many or how few other people happen to promote it.
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In reality, it's a majority opinion among the pro-gun sect.
Again. Irrelevant to what I said. While you may agree or disagree with something based on how many other people hold said position, I don't. Part of being a free thinker, I guess.
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One being promoted by one of the largest and most powerful lobbying organizations in the country. It's not some fringe idea or concept held by "idiots", it's what a whole lot of people promote.
Still wrong.
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In fact, when the NRA announced it, they tried to get ahead of the blowback with the usual ham-handed conservative remarks of "Oh, I know the media will say..." but then offered a full-throated defense of the idea including details about including armed volunteers and retired law-enforcement and military in every school. This is their plan.
Uh huh. Not seeing where the backpedaling on my part supposedly comes from.
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Gbaji almost certainly had no idea of this which is why he implied it was some fringe concept. Upon learning that the NRA is promoting it, he's trying to reframe it. That's fine but the initial posts speak for themselves.
No. You leaped ahead of the issue, made an assumption about how I would react, and then proceeded as though your assumption was true. You then interpreted everything I said after that point as though your assumption was true, even after I repeatedly told you it was not. If the NRA actually believes that putting armed security guards in schools is the only and best way to reduce the number of mass shootings, I disagree with them. Just as I disagree with pundits on the radio and TV who repeat just that one proposal as the one thing we should do. Happy?
The difference which you are conveniently skipping over is that the NRA did *not* propose this as the sole course of action. You are correct that I had not read (or even really been aware) of the NRA response, yet I was still more on target (haha!) than you. The first portion of their response:
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The only way to answer that question is to face up to the truth. Politicians pass laws for Gun-Free School Zones. They issue press releases bragging about them. They post signs advertising them.
And in so doing, they tell every insane killer in America that schools are their safest place to inflict maximum mayhem with minimum risk.
Huh. That's exactly what I was saying. A week before the NRA said it. Sure, they also talk about putting armed security in schools (and I'm not saying that's not a good idea for other reasons, just not "this is how to stop mass shootings"). And they also talk about violent video games and films too. I think that's the wrong direction as well. Point is that they talked about a lot of different aspect of the issue, but you choose to zero in on the one that I mentioned as though somehow because the NRA said it, I must change my position or something. If you recall, my response was that this wasn't the only thing they proposed. And when I said that, I had not yet read the transcript of their statement.
Amazing how I managed to correctly guess that this was the case. The point I was making, which you appear to have missed entirely in your haste to find some silly "gotcha" response, was that what made those conservative pundits idiots wasn't that they suggest putting armed guards in schools. As I've said several times, I have no problem with that since there are a number of good reasons for doing this. My statement was that it's idiotic when presented as the correct and only solution to the problem of mass shootings. As several people have pointed out (including myself, which is ironic given how many people have tried to use this as an argument against me), the mere presence of armed security at a school doesn't seem to affect the decision or outcome of a mass shooting much at all. Columbine had an armed security guard. They just choose to start shooting at a time/place where he wasn't.
My argument all through this thread (and the previous one) has been very consistent: The best way to prevent a potential mass shooting from becoming a mass shooting is if there are non-uniformed people in the area who are armed. Since it's not obvious to a potential shooter that they're armed (or capable of arming themselves quickly), he can't choose to avoid them prior to making his presence known. Thus, they will always have the best chance to stop a shooting in the very early stages. Certainly far far faster than any armed/uniformed response can occur. The only variable is the odds that there is such a person in the vicinity when the shooting starts. So I believe we should be looking at legal changes which maximize the odds of a non-uniformed person being armed and in the immediate vicinity of the start of a shooting. But what our current laws do is minimize those odds instead.
That's where our focus should be. Removing the gun-free zone restrictions around schools would be a great start. The degree to which someone argues for armed security guards in school in preference to this (or instead of this), I will absolutely label as "idiotic". And I've heard a number of conservative pundits doing just that. IMO, that just serves to distract the issue from what really needs to be done to a meaningless placebo. I get why they propose this (it's easier to argue for, and less likely to be opposed), but I don't think it'll actually solve the problem. Hence my disagreement with it.
BTW. I *also* think people who argue for increased gun control, including restrictions on cosmetic features of guns and magazine sizes, are idiotic. But I'll note that you didn't make any attempt to compare this to the NRA and make some broad conclusion about my motivations in that case. Bit selective, don't you think?
Edited, Jan 14th 2013 5:15pm by gbaji