If you insist. You’re the one who says the proximity of someone else’s guns made you “feel” safer. I’m glad to hear that your friend (and his “little friends”) provided you a measure of comfort.

For your own safety, stay off the streets. You never know when some law-abiding motorist might snap and run you down.

I go out on the streets quite often. No one has ever tried to run me down. So I don’t worry about that.

Avoid restaurants. Someone might take a steak knife and go all Freddie Krueger on the spot.

I like restaurants (though I don’t frequent the ones that serve steak). No one has ever gone “all Freddie Krueger” on me or anyone else. I don’t worry about that either.

Do I have to even mention post offices? They have (shudder) POSTAL WORKERS.

I go to the post office occasionally. Every time I do, I enjoy the prompt, courteous service I receive from the employees there.

Don’t go to a health club. Some bruiser might go into ‘roid rage and bludgeon you to death with a dumbbell. (That one would be especially ironic.)

Now I have to admit, I do avoid health clubs, but not because I fear being bludgeoned with a dumbell. (That would be a fratricidal attack, wouldn’t it?) No, it’s just because I prefer a nice stroll outdoors–on the streets with the polite motorists. I do often pass by a health club, though, without worry.

Don’t go into the subway. Some whackjob could shove you in front of a train.

Not really a problem where I live. We don’t have subways. I have been a bus commuter in the past. Once again, I found my fellow passengers to be friendly and accomodating.

Given all this, maybe you can figure out that I don’t feel threatened by the great majority of my fellow citizens. However, I do, from time to time, see one of them become quite angry–often over a triviality. Usually, they get over it. Until they do, though, I’d prefer they didn’t have a firearm within easy reach.

Contrary to your pompous attitude, you’d be hard pressed to find a person with a CCW that carries because they want to feel ‘significant.’ In fact, depending upon where you live, I would suspect that you’ve come into contact with somebody that was carrying a concealed weapon and didn’t even know it.

And it’s all about feelings, isn’t it, Quaker? Never mind the actual 2nd Amendment and other inconvenient things, it’s all about how you FEEL.

J.

You mean like in New York City where the murder rate is skyrocketing?

What a sad world you live in, Quaker, where you’re so terrified and mistrusting of your fellwo citizens.

Not at all, Mr. Tea. Mostly I hang with other folks who don’t need to tote around an equalizer to make ‘em feel as signifigant as the rest of us. It’s not sad at all.

For your own safety, stay off the streets. You never know when some law-abiding motorist might snap and run you down.

Avoid restaurants. Someone might take a steak knife and go all Freddie Krueger on the spot.

Do I have to even mention post offices? They have (shudder) POSTAL WORKERS.

Don’t go to a health club. Some bruiser might go into ‘roid rage and bludgeon you to death with a dumbbell. (That one would be especially ironic.)

Don’t go into the subway. Some whackjob could shove you in front of a train.

What a sad world you live in, Quaker, where you’re so terrified and mistrusting of your fellwo citizens. I’m so glad I live in the United States of America instead.

J.

And Einstein Jr. still can’t grasp it. Because, Mr. Tea, what you propose ALSO makes it more likely that we’ll have more like Mr. Kazmierczak. Every one of the crazies is “law abiding.”

Until he isn’t.

That’s poor reading, even allowing the usual leeway for you, Jay.

No, Quaker thinks the second student is just as likely as the first to be a crazy. That’s why the threat is doubled, Mr. Wizard.

Why are you continuing to say this? I’ve not said otherwise.

If you don’t think that the right to carry concealed weapons can be impinged because “guns make people nervous” just consider it a public safety issue.

No, see…you’re rebutting something I never said. I didn’t say there was a right to carry concealed weapons. YOU SAID that people have a right “not to be in a space where someone might have a concealed weapon.” That’s just not true.

Gun laws, including gun free zones, are Constitutional based on the same principle. It’s as simple as that.

Yes and laws that permit CCW holders to carry in areas previously designated as gun free zones are Constitutional as well.

As to whether I “used a crystal ball” to suggest that the shooting incidents you cited were “over,” both the articles you linked to stated clearly that the criminals were stopped by armed civilians as they were leaving the scene of the shooting. That is not the same thing as an armed citizen standing up in classroom and firing at someone who is firing back. It just isn’t.

It does not matter. It is an example of an armed citizen stopping a shooter from shooting anybody else. What makes you think that somebody necessarily has to shoot in order for the scenario to be valid? A person does not have to fire their weapon to get somebody else to stop shooting. You’ve whittled the scenario down to where it has to fit this ultra-specific set of criteria in order for it to “count.”

And for the umpteenth time, it is relevant that people in other incidents had previous police training in apprehending or firing on an armed suspect.

No it is NOT relevant. The only thing that matters is that they were private citizens when these incidents occurred. Once again, you’re attempting to narrow the criteria down so that it fits the neat little scenario you want. Otherwise, you continue to disingenuously claim that “it doesn’t count.” As I said before, the landscape of college is changing. Many people, not just recent high school graduates are attending college. In the college shooting at Appalachian Law School in 2002, the guy who killed 3 and injured three others was apprehended by two students who ran to their cars to get their guns. Those students also were law enforcement officers, but they were not acting in an official capacity, just as students who had the capability to help. Yet your contention is that CCW holders are all incompetents with itchy trigger fingers who are merely going to make matters worse. You cannot provide any evidence to substantiate this claim, but you keep making it anyway.

How else is one supposed to gauge the effectiveness of a law, unless one knows what the laws intended purpose is?

Sure, but the intended purpose should have had some thought put into it. It’s painfully obvious that gun free zones were put in place through knee-jerk reactionary thinking. It was part and parcel of the “wild west” nonsense spouted by the likes of the Brady Campaign when more and more states started to allow citizens to obtain a CCW permit. A rule created not with any kind of rational thought, but of irrational fear. You said so yourself. People think guns are ‘scary.’

To gauge whether or not gun free zones are good policy, one would have to look at the percentage of CCW holders that have been convicted of any violent crimes. You can look up the numbers, but the fact of the matter is, CCW holders are far less likely to commit violent crimes than non-CCW holders. Again, gun free zones may make people feel safe. But feeling safer is not the same as being safe.

While you clearly enjoy making hay of the tragic irony that mass shootings can occur in gun free zones

Oh please. First of all, Oliver is the one that posted this entry. He’s apparently the one that ‘enjoys’ making hay of the availability of guns so people can go out and commit mass killings. I’m merely stating that gun free zones make innocent, law abiding citizens sitting ducks in the case of a mass shooting.

Again, you have yet to make a compelling argument for keeping gun free zones in place.

In fact, I’d love to see the alcohol model applied to guns. I’ve often suggested a sliding scale of tougher penalties for using a gun in a crime, kind of like the “aggravated DWI” laws:

Possess a gun during a crime: +1 year.
Display a gun during a crime: +2 years.
Aim a gun at someone during a crime: +3 years.
Fire a gun during a crime: +5 years.
Wound someone with a gun during a crime: +10 years.
Kill someone with a gun during a crime: Death. (Or life without parole, if you prefer.)

Thanks for helping me clarify my point, fafaroo. I doubt you intended to do so, but you did anyway.

Are you kidding me? There is so much wrong with this statement i don’t even know where to start.

I’ll just take the alcohol thing. Where the fuck have you been the last thirty years? Drunk driving penalties have gotten harsher and harsher while the legal definition of impairment has gotten lower and lower. Drunk driving laws are so harsh because we DO NOT trust citizens to act responsibly when it comes to alcohol. This did not happen over night. It actually took years for M.A.D.D. and other organizations to make the case that drunk driving was a serious public safety issue requiring stiffer penalties. It took even longer for drunk driving to become the cultural stigma that it is today.

I’ve said it before and i’ll say it again. Stop. Think. Then write. Jesus …

We’ve tried it your way for a very long time — more and more restrictions on law-abiding gun-owners, in the hopes of discouraging those who often (but not exclusively) use illegal guns. And the result has been higher and higher body counts.

Why not try the other approach — make the laws tougher on those who break gun laws, and NOT punish those who have been obeying the laws all along?

In pretty much every case where concealed-carry laws are relaxed (and, in some cases, every household is required to possess a gun), the crime rate has DROPPED and there haven’t been mass outbreaks of shoot-em-ups.

I say TRUST the American people to act responsibly, and give them the CHOICE on whether they want to personally exercise their right to defend themselves, instead of requiring them to trust the same authorities that declared Virginia Tech a gun-free zone and brought us such stunning demonstrations of respect for human lives as in Waco and Ruby Ridge.

I’d be surprised if any of these mass shootings had been committed by someone with legally-owned guns, possessing a valid concealed-carry permit, and in an area where guns were not specifically banned. All the ones I know of have been committed by people who’ve already broken at least one law before they started shooting.

If you are so freaked out by the thought that your fellow American might be carrying a loaded weapon, after undergoing the screening processes for first obtaining the weapon legally and then getting a concealed-carry permit, then you got bigger issues than I am prepared to deal with.

I’m willing to trust my fellow Americans, at least on a trial basis, and see how it works out. I’ll put my faith in my fellow citizens to act responsibly, if given the chance to prove it. After all, we trust them to act responsibly in a bunch of other cases, from driving multi-ton vehicles on the streets to abortion to using alcohol responsibly (just to name three areas where there are laws banning the abuse of an action, not the action itself). And none of those are specifically cited by the Constitution as rights.

Why won’t you?

I guess this isn’t operational any more.

As to your final (?) points, how many more times do you need me to repeat myself?

People have a right to self-defense but they do not have a right to carry concealed weapons. That’s a privilege regulated by the state. Part of that regulation includes an allowance for businesses or public institutions to prohibit the carrying of concealed weapons on their property. Schools, in particular, originally declared themselves gun free zones as a means of adding additional deterrence to students who, for one reason or another, brought guns to campus. At the same time, institutions public and private declared themselves gun free zones for the additional reason of putting their patrons at ease that there weren’t concealed weapons in their midst. In this instance, gun free zones were a response to concealed carry laws that recognized the right for citizens to feel safe in their person. If you don’t think that the right to carry concealed weapons can be impinged because “guns make people nervous” just consider it a public safety issue. Free speech is regulated if the speech would threaten public safety. Gun laws, including gun free zones, are Constitutional based on the same principle. It’s as simple as that.

As to whether I “used a crystal ball” to suggest that the shooting incidents you cited were “over,” both the articles you linked to stated clearly that the criminals were stopped by armed civilians as they were leaving the scene of the shooting. That is not the same thing as an armed citizen standing up in classroom and firing at someone who is firing back. It just isn’t. Read the post above about pistol fighting. Your argument is and always has been that an average person with a concealed weapon in a classroom could stop a killer during the shooting spree itself. You have yet to find an example of this actually happening. And for the umpteenth time, it is relevant that people in other incidents had previous police training in apprehending or firing on an armed suspect. I don’t see why that’s so hard to understand.

As to the question whether gun free zones are practical or not, their initial purpose is entirely relevant to that question. How else is one supposed to gauge the effectiveness of a law, unless one knows what the laws intended purpose is? While you clearly enjoy making hay of the tragic irony that mass shootings can occur in gun free zones, gun free zones were not designed to protect against psychotic mass killers. Neither are mass killings a consequence of gun free zones. Mass killings occurred before gun free zones, and they will continue if they are ever done away with.

One student firing at unarmed students, hoping to kill as many as possible. The other attempting to stop only the crazed shooter. Yet Quaker thinks the threat to the other students is doubled.

Yeah. That makes a lot of sense.

You have 100 students in a room. One student (let’s say number 58 out of 100) takes his legally purchased guns and shoots up a couple of dozen of his classmates.

Your hypothetical answer is to make it easier for another student (number 17 out of 100) to buy guns–and bring them to class.

Now will number 17 and number 58 cancel each other out? Or will they double the threat to the remaining students?

Let’s gamble with their lives, shall we?

Little chance. Maybe. Right now? NO CHANCE.

Students and professors who don’t want guns in their classes have to give up that right

Gun free zones are not a right.

Gun free zones are a restriction on that privilege because most people don’t like to be around guns. It makes them nervous.

Well, people in Utah don’t seem to mind. And once again, not being nervous is not a right. If state legislatures allow people with CCW licenses to carry on college campuses and in malls, the nervous people are just going to have to deal with it. Unless of course you believe “My right not to be nervous” will hold up in court.

I’m not sure how you can make a statement like this when, as you yourself have stated, removing a gun free zone doesn’t mean that there will be anyone on hand with a gun to protect people against school shootings.

Actually, you’ve been given examples of situations where there was people on hand with a gun did protect other people. You’ve dismissed said examples for your own convenience because the people in question in two such circumstances had more training than the average person and the two other examples, you claimed with your crystal ball that the crimes in question were “over.” You can deny deny deny all you want, use all the pretzel logic you want, but at the end of the day all are examples of regular citizens using their own firearms to stop and/or apprehend shooting suspects.

You don’t care why they were created, you just want what you want regardless. I think that just about sums up why this whole discussion was pointless.

No, what’s pointless is you turning the debate into a tiring semantical exercise about why gun free zones were created as if that is completely relevant. The only question that matters is:

Are gun free zones practical or not? You’ve not made a compelling case that they are.

Um, would care to explain how you arrived at this construction? Abstract concepts are now actively killing people? Really? And here i thought it was flesh and blood psychopaths with guns who were racking up the body counts.

Doesn’t your stunning awkwardness ever give you pause?

Current gun-free zones have racked up a hefty body count, and tighter gun controls have repeatedly led to more and more gun crimes.

If we keep making tougher and tougher gun laws, taking more and more guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens, sooner or later it’ll actually do what the gun control advocates say and decreases the number of gun crimes. Just please don’t pay attention to Washington, DC, Virginia Tech, and other places where we already ban all guns.

Have I got it right, Quaker?

J.

Current gun laws allowed a crazy killer to buy weapons.
If we loosen gun laws, the NEXT guy that buys guns won’t be a crazy killer, we promise.

Is that how it is, boys?