Get The Funk Out

Extreme. Nice little funk'n'roll tune.

This will be a fisking. Just cause. & h/t to Say Uncle (who already took down one of the arguments made in the article).

Get the guns out of your homes by Mary Sanchez.

Personally I try to get the guns out of my homes every month if not more often. They like the fresh air & open spaces of the ranges I sue. Course I always bring them right back. Wouldn't want them hanging out on the streets now would I?

"But one thing urban folks can tell their scared suburban friends right now is that a good part of the horrendous violence in their communities is due to the proliferation of guns."

See the link to Say Uncle at the top of this post.

"Sometimes it seems like everyone is packing. Someone disrespects your girl? Shoot 'em. Someone looks at you wrong? Shoot 'em. Someone mouths off to you at a party? Shoot 'em."

Honestly that'd make more sense than walking into a school full of kids & seeing how many one could shoot before the SWAT team shows up. if it's an "either/or" question I'd take my chances that most folks would think I wasn't ill mannered.

"So for once, maybe the suburbs and rural America can take a cue from the cities: 'Get the guns out of your homes.”

Hmm. I thought I recall hearing someplace that the cities have generally higher rates & incidences of violent confrontational crime than the suburbs. & the cities that have effectively gotten the guns out of their homes? D.C. & Chicago come to mind. & they're models for improvement? We're supposed to emulate them? Isn't that like building a ship & exactly following the Titanic's course?

"Because while much of America lulled itself into believing that these things “do not happen here,” they were also stockpiling.

Where they live guns are used for hunting, for target practice and for a misplaced sense of security. I get that, my mother's family has those references."

It's a shame isn't it? You try to raise a kid right...

"Mother's stories about growing up on the Kansas farm often involve guns.

There was the time when grandfather's favorite dog turned up rabid. 'Get the gun!' grandpa shouted from the field, knowing he had to shoot his dog before it bit his family."

Really I cracked up the first time I read that. In a post about school shootings she doesn't see the irony of the rabid dog analogy.

A school shooter is exactly like her grandpa's rabid dog. Reason won't work with it. Only brute force. & no matter how much you love the dog if you don't kill it it'll cause you or your family serious harm. It just so happens that firearms, like the one her grandpa hollered for, are a very effective means of putting down rabid animals as well as homicidal humans.

"There are stories about hunting rabbits and duck for dinner and shooting coyotes so they wouldn't kill the livestock."

Coyotes & livestock. Ayup.

"But mother gave up fetching food from the woods long ago. She goes to the grocery now. She feels safe with good locks on the house. Grandfather's guns have been passed down as family heirlooms, not loaded weapons.

She has no use for a gun."

I have no use for a spare tire. Until I have a flat that is. Like a spare tire when you need a firearm there's really just no substitute.

"More people who live in these “couldn't happen here” communities need to come to the same revelation."

& when they do the Emperor's plans will be complete.

Again I see something unintended. While talking about the folks who think something terrible "couldn't happen here" Ms. Sanchez is belittling the idea of being prepared in case something terrible "does happen here". That's contradictory enough that in some cases it could constitute verbal abuse. It'd be akin to telling a kid to drop his irrational fascination with wearing a coat on a cold day then telling him he shouldn't be surprised when he gets hypothermia.

"Because for all the recent head scratching about how to prevent more school shootings, studies have made several things clear:
School shooters almost always are boys. The shootings are planned attacks, not spur of the moment. And the guns come from the shooters' homes."

So if we ban boys, planning & guns we'll all be safe?

"We need to quit dancing around these facts, starting with the president. George Bush's recent summit should have been titled 'Gun violence in schools.'
Apparently that would have been too to-the-point. So it was proclaimed the less accurate but more benevolent, 'Conference on School Safety.”

Ah. it's Bush's fault. Not that I like the guy much but come-freakin-on. The name of a "conference" really matters? I could see arguing what was discussed in the conference but just picking on the name is a bit weak.

"The little political commentary about guns in schools has been insane commentary. Wisconsin Rep. Frank Lasee proposes teachers carry guns. Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt made the same suggestion until smarter heads backed him away from the idea.
Arm the teachers? How about disarm the kids?"

Arming the teachers is a much better solution than disarming folks who can't legally be armed in schools anyway.

I still get kinda amazed by this "logic" 9for lack of a better word. If we make it illegal for the bad people to have guns then they'll stop shooting us. That worked on the Germans in the 30's didn't it?

A dictate simply will not stop school shootings. There are laws that could implement a deterrent effect & put in place the means necessary for stopping anyone who is not deterred by the law, but since Ms. Sanchez can't understand the need for a gun to shoot a rapid dog - er, I mean homicidal gunman then I doubt she'd understand what that law would consist of. (Hint: Rep. Lasee had it right as did Gov. Blunt until less smart heads prevailed).

"The best way to do that would be to address where school shooters get their guns — from their homes. Oh I know, people will talk about their right to bear arms, the need for self-protection, that they like to hunt wild game. All are understandable replies."

That means that she doesn't want to 'discount" the feelings that cause those replies even though she intends to discount those replies as being "valid".

"But anyone giving these answers should also honestly address two questions: Do you really need a gun in the house, and if so, how secure is it? And, how well do you know your son?"

Um, isn't that 3 questions?

But I'd add a 4th to be asked by anyone who is asked those 2 3 questions or anything similar; why exactly is it any of your damn business?

"I can hear the refrain now: 'Guns don't kill people, people kill people.' Nice slogan."

Here’s another nice slogan: "lambs to the slaughter". It's most appropriate for what she seems to be proposing.

"Here's the truth: Troubled boys with access to their parents' guns have killed their classmates, their teachers and quite often, themselves."

Truth? Well at least she spelled it correctly. It's also true that girls with access to their parents’ car have had premarital sex with their classmates & in some cases themselves. Banning cars won't stop that particular practice & neither will ridding the home of guns stop those bent on homicide.

But laying the blame solely on troubled boys who use their parents’ firearms seems an underhanded strategy. Most school homicides have been committed by males. Most have involved firearms that the murderer possessed prior to the murders. But a noticeable number have been adults, not boys. In addition to that I'd point out that most school shootings have been committed by people that were old enough to know better. In other words they should have been accountable for their actions.

Course then we can get into a ridiculous argument - how old does one have to be to realize that shooting classmates in school with a real firearm is wrong? I'd say past 10 or so but most would agree that by 16 it's not an arguable question. I have not went through the lists but I would assume that most if not all of the school shootings were committed by people old enough to know better. & I'm not trying to dismiss those with sincere mental stability problems but from what I've seen most school shooters were legally sane - just morally bankrupt.

"And yes, it can happen anywhere."

No it can't happen anywhere. It can be attempted anywhere but in a school with kids who didn't line up under their desks like obedient known distance targets & teachers who had the means of defending themselves & their students it will not happen - at least not to the degree it has happened so far in too many places.

What Ms. Sanchez wants is not anything new. I'm certain someone heard about Attila the Hun's attacks on a village & thought "if we only got rid of those damned Hun bows...". I'm also certain that such ideas were just as effective then as their modern day counterparts would be now.

Taking guns from the home will not stop school shootings. A better instillation of values & morals might but every now & then someone just does something very badly. It doesn't matter how they're raised or how good their parents were at thier job. What will stop school shootings is having armed teachers & students who are uncooperative victims. It won't end it immediately but it will end it, or at least dramatically decrease the frequency & damage of school shootings.

Just like a rabid dog it does not matter so much how school shooters came to be in that state. That's something that should be sorted out later. Like after they've been stopped.

By all means contemplate the causes & preventions concerning those who would murder in our schools. But you wouldn't sit there & ponder how the dog got rabies instead of stopping the thing from biting & infecting your family would ya? Likewise we should concentrate on the task at hand - which is keeping school shooters from killing our kids. & platitudes about gun free homes just won't do that. What it will do if followed through on is to make our homes less safe. After all if "it" ("it" being someone trying to kill your kids) can happen “anywhere” wouldn’t that include someone’s home as well?

Posted by Publicola at October 17, 2006 03:49 AM | TrackBack