Gun Control

Gun control, not unlike stupid control, is impossible.  The crazy young man that shot his mom and then shot the kids at school knew he had committed a crime and that there would be consequences ..... that's why he shot himself.  It was a penance.

The rifle is very fashionable, and they are cheap, so they are easy to get.  The rifle puts a man in the cool and bad ass status.  It is a killing machine and that is what it was designed to do.  The rifle is light, has a mechanism on the stock that absorbs the recoil , fires a straight trajectory, high velocity weapon, that makes it easy to kill a target.  A soldier can carry 1000 rounds of ammunition, while his enemy can carry one-hundred.

So if you are a simpleton, it cost you nothing to fire the weapon.  If the weapon had been an M1 or M14, the recoil would have knocked the boy on his ass, and it would have left a bruise on his shoulder.  It is not likely that he would have enjoyed firing the 30 rounds so he might have switched to the pistols.

The weapon and the round were designed to transfer energy, the formula Kenergy = 1/2 mv2 shows that if you increase the mass of the bullet, the energy increases but if you increase the velocity, the bullet will transfer more energy.  If you hit a person on the torso, the bullet will inflict a lot of damage because of the speed and because it will tumble.  The rate of fire is very fast but you have to reload.  If all of the thirty round magazines were removed it would not changed the speed at which a person can reload.  You push a button and insert a new one.  Firing at those speeds has its disadvantages .....  you run out of ammo, the weapon heats up and the rounds get stuck, that's why people carry a towel to hold it.  The barrel gets so hot that if you touch it you will get a severe burn.   The other thing is that the weapon has to be, OILED, when it isnt it gets stuck.  A pro knows all these things and so has to compensate for the inherent weakness of the weapon.   That said the weapon is a very good weapon and it does the job.

So the young man got the weapons by default, they were handy.  If he had thought about it, he would have taken a 12 gauge shot gun.   A pump action shot gun, sawed off, could have hurt a lot more people.

Now here is the thing, taking the magazines will not make any difference!  Everyone that has any knowledge of guns knows that the fastest way to reload is to have a backup loaded gun.  Of the two 9mm pistols that he had, the Glock is over $1000 dollars and he could have bought a cheaper gun, or more rifles, more ammunition.

Had the crime been premeditated and in the absence of the default weapons, he could have used explosives, molotov cocktails, TNT, and the carnage would have been worse.

When the rifle had the stoppage, he was unable to correct it to continue shooting, so he had to stop and then he was able to think, it was then that he opted for suicide.

Arming the teachers would require training and repeat familiarization to maintain proficiency.  Now I personally dont think that it is a good idea to put guns in the hands of the teachers.  Amateurs get nervous and will miss the target, maybe hitting the students.  Blood pressure goes up, adrenaline goes up, fear goes up and running away will be the outcome.  Shooting another person requires that you be a cool, calculating, and accurate.

Like the army, you can carry an automatic or semiautomatic, that will give you more firepower, but if you miss the shooter, you will now be in a gun battle and you will have collateral damage.  Some of these bullets will go through the walls, the doors, the glass.  If you build a bunker to teach in, that would be expensive.  The best thing is to build it like a fortress, the windows inside.  A simple buzzer will allow people to open the door from within and a speaker will allow communication.  Otherwise the doors are closed.

I know that emotions are running high but the fact is that guns are necessary.  They are the only thing that keep the government at bay.  Look at Syria, the dictator, refuses to give up control and is willing and able to kill thousands of his citizens, and that includes kids.  He shells cities, and drops bombs, and now is considering using serine gas.  This gas is very deadly and a couple of shells or bombs will kill lots of people.  Look at Egypt, the new guy gets elected, but he turns out to be worse that the guy they kicked out.  

On the flip side of this is law enforcement, they have a poor record.  Ruby ridge comes to mind, they had to arrest three people and someone manage to get 400 federal agents put them in combat gear and assault the home.  The crazy sniper shot through the mom, killed the kid, and got his target.  The other agents ran into the kid in the woods, he had a 22 rifle and he was hunting, the dog attacked the agents, they shot the dog, the kid ran, they shot him in the back.  These agents were suppose to deliver a warrant, how is this event different from the soldier that killed all the people in Afganistan.

In the Branch Dividian event in Waco the federal agents thought they were bullet proof, so they got on top of the roof, the crazies shot through the roof and killed them.

Here in El Paso we have to send our judges to jail, our police officers for stealing.  In one case the officer was playing security at a wedding and stole the money box, they chased him but he took off in his car.  We had another cop that was sodomizing and raping women, he never even passed the test.  And in New York and Boston the police are notorious for emptying their guns on black people that are minding their own business and have no criminal record.  

This is why we need guns .... to keep from becoming victims.  Oh and dont go hunting with Vice President Dick Chaney ..... he shoots his friends.

The homeland was not attacked by the Japanese during WWII because at least one person knew that there was a gun behind every blade of grass.