Solution to school shootings

Lots of the usual 'thoughts and prayers' hand-wringing from public officials, predictable calls for gun control from parents, calls for mental health from the Nutjob-In-Chief.

I have a better solution.

Pass a law, declare it so, have a court rule, however we have to do it: make the NRA financially culpable. Let parents sue the NRA for loss of life. Let a couple dozen $10 million lawsuits wake up Wayne LaPierre and his cozy little hunting lodge.

You'd see action then.

Hmmm, it was tried in my own back yard exactly a year ago.

Case apparently still pending.

Legal maneuvering.

Meh, reading the complaint, it alleges telemarketing calls to numbers on the Do Not Call Registry.

Maybe not the 'smoking gun' I was looking for.

Suing the NRA - as much as I would love to see it - will never happen. There are too many laws protecting so-called non-profits. You probably wouldn't get more than a dozen Democrats to vote for a bill that will piss off contributors and that they know the courts will shoot down anyway.

I'm with Chris Rock: Sell them guns, but bullets will cost $1,000 each.

Quote :

Florida shooter Nikolas Cruz used his backyard for target practice just months before he killed 17 students this week.

This video, shot in October by a neighbor, shows Cruz in his backyard shooting what appears to be a BB gun, wearing a "Make America Great Again" hat.

The neighbor says cops were called to Cruz's home a number of times for "strange and violent behavior." There's a report out that cops were called 39 times.

Kids in the neighborhood are saying Cruz was unhinged, was violent toward animals and would fly off the handle for no apparent reason.

Or maybe, don't let troubled people buy AK-15s, how about that for an idea?

What finally broke the back of the tobacco industry lobby was the 1994 agreement that they could be sued for damages.

The NRA needs to have the same awakening.  Nobody should be able to make a product that kills people without really compelling evidence that the product does more good than harm (like automobiles -- and even those have mandatory safety features).

_Howard wrote:

Suing the NRA - as much as I would love to see it - will never happen. There are too many laws protecting so-called non-profits.

Okay sue the gun manufacturers then.

Quote :

The National Rifle Association says that undoing the Tiahrt Amendment would lead to a rash of lawsuits against gun dealers.[8]

Well goll lee! I think we have the smoking gun!

Apparently, prayer isn't the universal cure-all it's being touted as.

I wish people would tackle poverty, homelessness, lack of medical care and education as sharply and swiftly as they are tackling gun control.
I swear, people's memories are like 5 seconds long.
You really want gun control? Fine, here's how you do it: In '66 the Black Panthers came out of Oakland. But '67 there was a bill ready to be passed to take away the right to open carry in California. You want gun control, let lily white congress see a bunch of angry black brothers and sisters carrying those AR-15s. It'll be done in no time flat. NRA didn't have jack to say about Castile, did they? Yup, there's a reason for that.

Personally, I think it's really fucking easy for affluent whites to holler gun control considering it's not their neighborhoods that the cops will be camped out in "stopping and frisking". But hey, when it comes down to it I'm not trying to buy any guns so what do I care? What I do care about is actually getting people the help that might prevent this shit. Which I think takes 3 things: 1) funding for health care 2) stop being so fucking mean as a system here 3) start giving a rats ass when the nutters abuse animals. This shooter, like sooooo many before him hurt animals before he went on to humans. If anyone gave a shit about the animals getting abused this fucker, and all the Woodhams and Dahmers like him, would have been locked up long before he could do harm to humans.

100% right Jenni. Why aren’t there more people like you running for office??

NoCoPilot wrote:

100% right Jenni. Why aren’t there more people like you running for office??

Good question. I signed up for something called Emily's List. It's an effort by the Dems to get more people, especially women, to run. I'd love to go out for city council or school board. I think I could actually make a positive impact. Problem is, I'm fearful that five minutes in one of the many things I've done in my life will be used to discredit me before I get there. (Technically a hs drop out, worked as a "massage" girl, owes the IRS, probably has some ex boyfriend with nekkie pics out there, currently on opioid pain killers, need I go on? On top of all that I'm not good at 3 or 4 second sound bites.)

I was thinking something related to that, just this morning as I sat in the hot tub at the recreational center.

As Americans, we're not all such a good-looking bunch.  We tend to envision ourselves as we see ourselves in the movies and on TV, as better-looking versions of ourselves.  Any time there's a TV docu-drama about a real person invariably the actor chosen to play that real person is a whole lot better looking.

But our character, if anything, is better and more generous than we are portrayed.  The people who stop at accidents, the people who contribute to charities or their neighbors in need, people who would literally give a stranger the shirt off their back...  We are a good, strong people, as a group.  We care about each other.

It's time that our leadership reflected our character, instead of our TV images.

I hope we get a million "moms in tennis shoes" running for office and we take back our country from the greedy and self-serving bastards who have made politics into a dirty word.

• term limits
  
• campaign finance reform
  
• lobbying reform
  
• limitations on ex-congressmen working for the industries they regulated

This sums it up.

I’ve covered gun violence for years. The solutions aren’t a big mystery.

So much for arming the teachers.

As has been pointed out many times, the police will respond pretty quickly to this type of incident. And when they arrive, they'll be looking for someone with a gun. So if you are there with a gun in your hand, the first thing that happens is the police shoot you, then apologize because you were "a good guy with a gun".

Unless you're black. Then they don't apologize.

This time it seems to school cop didn't even go in. So if it's a chihuahua or a first grader look out but an actual criminal nope- he'll be fine.

Another serious suggestion for stopping school shootings: stop publicizing the name & details of the shooter. Some (most?) of these shooters are seeking some kind of fame, even if it's infamy. If the shooter was announced as "a troubled 17-year old boy who shall remain anonymous for the sake of his family" it would deter quite a few of these shootings, I think.

Jenni wrote:

This time it seems to school cop didn't even go in. So if it's a chihuahua or a first grader look out but an actual criminal nope- he'll be fine.

But of course, if the math teacher had a gun, things would be different.

Another suggestion: revoke the tax-free status of nut-job churches like this.

Case in point.

He disarmed a possible church shooter — then the police arrived and shot him

Moral: avoid public gatherings.

My solitary hobby is looking better and better.

Another step toward a solution of mass shootings: bring a case to the Supreme Court that forces them to interpret the 2nd Amendment as it was, I believe, initially intended.

Quote :

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

This states, quite clearly to me, that the right to gun ownership is limited to members of a well-regulated militia, a club or amateur army who are "well regulated" by being state-licensed, passing periodic competency tests, keeping their weapons in a locked central armory, and limiting membership to people able to pass a background check and abide by the rules of the private militia.

Yes, the militias can have political agendas, even anti-government agendas.  But their gun ownership must be strictly controlled and guns cannot be taken home by members of the militia.  They can have shooting ranges with gun cabinets, and I don't care if every member has a key.  Taking a gun off the range, however, would be a felony.