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America has become haunted by the specter of deadly school shootings. As we all work to prevent further tragedy, some are advocating allowing students to carry concealed firearms as a means of defense. But would such measures really make college campuses safer?
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safer way is only safer for the criminal
"Neutralizing"
I see your point, certainly, however, whether you neutralize the assailant by killing them or otherwise making it physically impossible for them to cause harm to others, neutralization is the point in any violent attack. I agree the Glock has the potential to neutralize their threat quite nicely, however, when given the choice of killing or not killing, is it your choice to kill simply because it's quick and easy to do so? Are we to kill our attackers because killing them is the most convenient approach?
I'm saying only that all life - threatening to us or not - is precious and we ought not be so casual in the taking of it. In a violent attack upon our person or property, our main goal is to end the violent attack. We can do so by any means possible without regard for any life but our own, or we can put an end to violence in an intelligent way that preserves not only our own life but the life of one's attacker.
In any violent event, you can fight savagery with more savagery or with intelligence. I'm saying we ought to choose an intelligent end to violence rather than fall to the very savagery threatening us. By doing so, we in fact advocate the very thing we wish to defend ourselves against. If we truly abhor savagery, let us not be savages to make our point.
I thoroughly disagree with the notion of fighting fire with fire. I firmly believe in fighting fire with intelligence. A gun is the lazy brute's way out. You may stop your assailant from further harming you but, you lose all the same.
- Naumadd
October 25, 2008 4:19PM
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You can't reason with everyone.
You're thinking about it wrong. I'm not advocating blowing away everyone who might be threatening. If someone can be brought down without permanently hurting them, while also keeping the person who is being threatened safe, that's fine by me. I'm not advocating the police blowing away every whackjob with a knife or a pipe. What I am saying is that if someone has a gun, and is threatening to shoot someone with it, or has already shot someone, trying to use less-than-lethal methods to neutralize him isn't a good idea. To put it simply, a gun is the best way to make bad guys go away. There is no room to be fumbling with a beanbag shotgun when someone is executing people.
Take Virginia Tech for example. The shooter was going from classroom to classroom shooting people, "execution-style", as the media likes to call it. In this case, trying to get rid of him without hurting or killing him would just allow him to kill more people, while the police try to taser him.
Back to the self-defense issue - pepper spray and tasers are for the drunk guy from the bar getting a little too friendly. Not for people who are trying to kill you. Again, I'm not advocating replacing pepper spray with a gun. Pepper spray has it's purpose - and so does a gun. If someone is trying to kill you, you want to get rid of the threat as quickly as possible. Less-lethal options will never be as effective as a gun for this purpose.
My main point is that while we should always value human life, we shouldn't be so caught up with it that we allow others, or ourselves, to harmed as a result of our inability to take decisive action.
- arrw
October 25, 2008 11:09PM
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You use what works
There is a reason the Army uses guns. . . they deal with folks trying to kill them. Peper spray and almost anything else "non lethal" is questionable at best as to if it will work. If they attacker is high on something I almost guarantee it won't work. Tasers are great but one shot maybe two. . . not good if my life is on the line - cops don't even use them if it is life or death.
Naumadd I wish we lived in a world your ideas would work in but we don't. I have spent years learning Karate and if attacked and in fear of my life I still would rather have a gun to fall back on.
Only a gun let you deal with the bigger guy, the guy attacking a small woman, drug crazed, the armed attacker or the multiple attacker issue. It also lets you stay out of reach of his knife or other weapon.
If I am in fear of my life there is no reason I should be forced to use anything less effective than a gun and risk further injury or death because what I use didn't stop the guy. For now guns are the best we have. Until something better comes along and we all get to set our phasors on stun then we should be allowed to have a gun if we pass the legal tests to do so.
- JDalco
January 23, 2009 10:53AM
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Olderman
"... when given the choice of killing or not killing, is it your choice to kill simply because its quick and easy to do so?..."
Any situation which legally and morally requires the use of a firearm is by definition a situation of desperation and last resort. I note that this situation of last resort was created and forced up one or more by an aggressor who is *at that moment* employing deadly force against one or more individuals, who played absolutely no part in this situation of desperation other than merely being there.
Now, having said that, there are always one or more factors which must be considered before you, the defender, even draws a weapon. The 'intelligent' action is that which fits the situation: education, training and calmness under (major) stress are what let you choose your path through a situation in which people have been murdered with very probably more to follow.
"...or we can put an end to violence in an intelligent way that preserves not only our own life but the life of one's attacker..."
There are those who will not engage in any form of dialogue. For "reasons" known only to them, action - meaning someone else's death - is the only course of action. There are others (unfortunately), but I point to Virginia Tech as an example.
"...I thoroughly disagree with the notion of fighting fire with fire..."
There are many degrees of this. A student does not do or turn in his homework. A zero is entered: not an "A" because he meant well or was bullied as a child. There are tens of thousands of other examples, but they *all* point to the same things: duty, obligations, agreements and consequences.
"...A gun is the lazy brute's way out..."
A gun is the lazy brute's way out for the aggressor. For he or she who will oppose the brute whose non-negotiable position is (your) death, a gun is a tool by which to survive and very possibly allow others to survive as well.
"...If we truly abhor savagery, let us not be savages to make our point..." and "...you lose all the same."
Only if you (we) employ the same reasoning(?) and approach as the aggressor.
A couple of thoughts here. In terms of responsibility and duty, carrying a firearm is every bit as weighty as having a family. Your every action has to be weighed and considered in terms of effects on others.
Before you decide to acquire a firearm, look inside yourself. If you truly believe that should the most awful happen, you won't use it, then don't get one. You will only give it to a *really* bad person.
- Olderman
January 25, 2009 2:08PM
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I was about to...
I was about to commend you for being one of the only no arguments that offered a calm, thought out statement. Then I read your Neutralizing argument and lost hope.
You see all life is not precious. Someone who wold only do harm to thier society has no place in that society. And there are those of us who would be happy to do what you are unwilling or unable to do, remove that person from our society.
To me the most intelligent choice is to arm myself equally or more than anyone who might choose to do harm to me or my loved ones. This is not lazy or brutish.
And beyond all of this your "all life is precious" argument falls flat in the fact that you support a government who murders millions of innocents through collateral damge around the world fighting unjust wars.
But the real issue is deterence. Most of the time the mere presence of an armed citizen is enough to deter any from even initiating an attack.
- jaker277
May 20, 2009 1:55PM
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Neutralizing
I sense that you have never been in a life threating situtation. When the automatic adrenaline reaction begins, most rational thought ends. The fight or flight reaction is about all you are left with and most people are not trained to react on reflex, so they simply freeze.
I have been under fire several times and I have seen even trained soldiers freeze their first time under fire.
Your assertion of "intellegent response" will get you killed.
The majority of carry permit holders train more than the majority of police officers and, in my experience, are, by far, more accurate and less likely to endanger bystanders.
- longshotM14
July 15, 2009 1:38PM
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