I can see why the most vocal among them focus on their perception of the mental health issues of others.
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My brother has been an RCMP for almost 10 years. He has fired his gun once - at a moose that had been hit by a truck on the highway and was dying. He cried while doing it. He was emotionally traumatized by having to do that.
I hate to think of what it would be like to think you have to shoot a person to do your job.
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an issue so thorny we have traditionally maintained a parallel health system (the VA) to that available to the public, whose job it ISN’T.
There appear to be people trying, systematically, to dismantle all the best ideas we have collectively had since about the 12th century, and nothing less will do for them.
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If the first responders have been trained to hold a position and wait for the shooter to come out before apprehending them, then it’s the Die Hard action movie script that calls for them to go above and beyond, and do what moviegoers expect them to.
Calling the first responders cowards absolutely reinforces the action movie narrative. In the real world (Europe and Asia) the kid never would have gotten the weapon in the first place.
Framing matters.
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Outside of his gun delusion, he’s quite possibly a nice rational guy. And within it, he probably takes gun safety (as he sees it) very seriously. He might be someone who finds the idea of killing someone distasteful, rather than itching for his magic moment of justified homicide.
It’s hard to tell with these functional ammoholics.
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Situations like this, apparently.
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To me, this raises the question of why we’re bothering to have armed police at schools, if the guns they’re carrying / allowed to carry are basically useless against an armed intruder. I’m not advocating having school cops carry riot gear and heavy assault weaponry, but this situation does seem like the point is to give the illusion of safety, the illusion of doing something worthwhile and effective.
Just a thought.
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Dang. And I expect there are other Boingers out there who could give a similar story.
Is there a solution?
It should be easy to automatically spot some showboating shooter. Suppose Boston Dynamics could make one of their walking dog things that could attack anyone apparently holding a gun. If you know one of those things is about, you stand with your palms open and everything would be fine.
I hope that would change not only the outcome of using a gun, but also the public perception of the gun user. They would be no longer the scary-sexy ‘lone wolf’ figure, but a prat that gets swiftly and routinely taken down by the creepy dog-thing.
I feel many of you are letting cops off the hook too easily.
You know how they portray themselves, and are all too happy to take the benefits society heaps on them for being self-sacrificing “heroes” who keep everyone safe. Get out of DUIs, parking tickets, drive and park however they want, shoot dogs, shoot and torture poor people, basically do whatever and someone will apologize for it with “oh, but their job is so difficult! We have to support our heroes in blue protecting us every day”.
Finally some cops had a chance to show that they are worth the accolades and special treatments and double dipping pensions. And they showed they don’t live up to it. They showed they are just like everyone else, no better but no worse- and everyone should remember that they be treated that way come negotiation time, or trial time, or…
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This made me think of that scene with the tiger 
in the second season of “Vice Principals.”
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Waiting for backup is certainly the right thing to do in many situations and was probably what they were trained to do. I am not ex-military or police, I am not a fighter or particularly brave, but sometimes you just “gotta do what you gotta do”, whether or not you die in the process. If you even slow down the shooter enough to let one more kid out, that’s a bonus. I am not saying you should go in guns blazing, or even shooting, but there’s kids in there, and I couldn’t stand around when there are already officers there assessing the situation.
But then they might get treated like a civilian, and they know how the cops treat civilians.
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My opinions are always supported when I live in a hypothetical reality of my own creation!
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Doesn’t sound like a solution that scales well.
Or, or – and stay with me on this one, because it’s a bit of a long walk…
Just stop selling guns to people.
It has the benefit of being easy to implement, completely foolproof, and doesn’t require investing millions of dollars in advanced image recognition software and robotics that would then have to be deployed to hundreds of thousands of schools throughout the country.
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I’m not certain where you live but perhaps ifwe know the “devil in the details” we can all do something to undo Americans recent (the last twenty-five years) complete love affair with guns, all guns,including assault rifles and military grade ammunition? A now seventy-eight year old lobbyist, Marion Hammer, is responsible for the legislation, specifically in Florida, that is the cancer that masquerades as Second Amendment gun rights. “Stand Your Ground” laws were masterminded by this woman as well as the concealed carry laws that are sweeping the nation.
If this woman’s agenda and many of the lives lost, many of them children and other innocents, and the politicians that allowed and continue to allow her to literally write legislation that affects all of or lives, it is clear that we need to act and unmask this individual, remove her toxic political reach and consign her to grazing on a farm.
It’s a long read but well worth it!
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It’s not just range. It’d be easier to hold the AR-15 on target during multiple shots, penetration of cover, and bullet damage.
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There is a disappointingly significant faction of Americans who, when faced with a problem they can’t find a way out of, seem to instinctively seek a way further in.
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Guns are both the ultimate tools for self defense and arbitrary objects interchangeable with bats and knives, depending on the disposition of the person wielding them. Seriously though, who benefits more from having a gun in their hand…a person intent on doing harm or a person intent on stopping harm? The person intending harm has every possible advantage, while the person trying to stop them are at every possible disadvantage. A gun is a force multiplier, so it can’t NOT skew the power imbalance between an equally armed and trained attacker and defender exponentially in the attacker’s favor.
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