On the topic of carrying concealed weapons on campus...

[pyat]

There's a movement in the U.S. to permit students to carry concealed weapons on college campuses, in order to defend themselves against school shooters. One problem with this idea was raised by the police chief at the University of Cincinnati:

"I shoot everybody with a gun, who doesn't have a uniform on."

Comments

[paka.livejournal.com]

Gun control is one of those irrational American issues. We scream very loudly about anything that looks remotely like gun control - for instance, the idea that concealing your firearm makes you look like a criminal. It's very easy to go from there right into ranting about police states, the Odessa octopus, and concentration camps.

It must seem so alien as to be ludicrous to Canucks (not to mention Brits, Kiwis, Danes, Germans, and other people living in First World countries).

[pyat.livejournal.com]

It must seem so alien as to be ludicrous to Canucks (not to mention Brits, Kiwis, Danes, Germans, and other people living in First World countries).

It sort of does. The Right to Bear Arms is more or less equivalent, in my mind, with the Right to Own a Submarine. :)

[madmanofprague.livejournal.com]

There's a difference?

[dagoski.livejournal.com]

The MI State police really hated me for a bit. Michigan passed a very liberal conceal/carry law some years ago that didn't specify "guns". It said "weapons". So I called up the hotline they set up with questions about what constituted a weapon. Martial weapons? No prob. That was a relief because I was starting to learn the sai and those were really illegal prior to the new law. Then I wondered...
"What about a.50 cal machine gun sawed off and mounted in a baritone sax case? Can I do that?"
"No."
"How about a .30 cal browning machine gun in a tenor sax case?"
"No. No machine guns in any instrument case. Those are category 3 weapons."
"What about a tesla coil with a wave guide?"
"What?"
"Or, what about a microwave cannon? These guys at Worcester University built one and the set stuff in their lab on fire from across the room!"
"Can you put it in a holster?"
"Won't know til I try."
"Okay, but you'll need to get a letter from BATF."

[koogrr.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I take my right to own a submarine pretty seriously. Just saving up...

[heron61.livejournal.com]

The Right to Bear Arms is more or less equivalent, in my mind, with the Right to Own a Submarine.

Dear gods it's refreshing to hear people say things like that. Of course, I'd be happier if more of those people didn't live in other nations.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

The widespread reaction to gun control is one of many ways that the US is indeed a nation of the mad.

preaching choirwise

[paka.livejournal.com]

I'm all in favor of the right to bear arms to some small extent. I mean, people hunt, people collect guns as hobbies, and shooting is fun, who'm I to disagree? Your average gun rights person will talk about it though like it's our only and ultimate method of keeping the government in line.

Feh. Ultimately the power of the media to distract and neglect and lie is matched only by the sheer firepower available to those whose job it is to beat heads. Or perhaps the ability of organized religion to tell you how to vote. Or perhaps an ability to tamper voting machines. Or heck, having a workload steep enough and financial worries great enough that about the last thing on your mind is grassroots advocacy, let alone violent revolution. Joe Average's percentle chance to resist the government by dint of martial prowess is somewhere in the imaginary numbers.

It's such a hot button. Instituting Canadian or British styled gun control here would be political suicide and political impossibility. We have more chance of openly Queer senators or completely ditching the electoral college as an institution. Yet to hear gun rights folks talk, we're just one step away from the eeeeevil Democrats taking all the guns and throwing good loyal gun-toting Americans into camps.

The thing that gets me is the American attitude towards taxes. It's as though we don't understand that;

1. The government's ability to function relies on tax revenue. This includes the ability to provide services most people will tell you are good, like public education, school lunch, levees which can withstand stress, or helping you when you are sick.
2. Since taxes are proportionate to income, members of the dwindling middle class are theoretically not the people most badly hit by an increase in tax. Working class folks have even less to worry about and more to gain.

But we are desperately scared of taxes increasing. Ohhhhhhkay, then.

Re: preaching choirwise

[pyat.livejournal.com]

But we are desperately scared of taxes increasing.

And, of course, the DoD is the single largest expense and the single largest drain on taxes in the US...

Re: preaching choirwise

[heron61.livejournal.com]

The thing that gets me is the American attitude towards taxes. It's as though we don't understand that;...

This is not an accident, this has been a deliberate 25+ year effort by "starve the beast" libertarians and neocons high up in government to spread these attitudes. This attitude largely didn't exist before the mid 1970s - the vast majority of people complained about taxes, but didn't consider them to be evil or unnecessary. The most ludicrous extension of this was the late 80s phrase "tax & spend Democrats" - I remember my dad's comment on that "Isn't taxing and spending what the government should be doing?" We've had 25+ years of people deliberately attempting to destroy the entire idea of progressive government - from the supposed evils of "activist judges" (I don't want any other kind), to "tax revolts" to similar sorts of equally vile nonsense. I'm hoping that the current economic problems (which show every sign of getting worse), combined with the equally disastrous war will help turn people away from this madness.