Guns, The NRA And Politics, What Do We Do?

1. 69

   crazyhorsesghostposted 11 years ago

   
   
   Yesterday Thursday January 10th we had yet another school shooting. Where will it end and what comes next. It's sad that we've come to this point in America.
   
   I know the old saying, I will give up my guns when they pry my cold dead fingers from them but is that realistic in today's world. People may not know it or even want to admit it but we have a serious problem in America and gun violence and school shootings are a big part of it.
   
   I watch a lot of CNN and every time during the day when they say BREAKING NEWS I cringe and draw up. I'm always afraid I'm going to hear of another school shooting just like yesterday.
   
   It is being alleged that bullying is what caused the latest school shooting incident in California. Bullying is a real problem in America's school system. Teachers and other school staff are not doing what they can to stop school house bullying. I really thing we need to have a nationwide policy on bullying. We need a three strike your out system for school bullies. I know that may sound tough to some but if bullying is the cause and we all know it is then we have to put a stop to school bullying.
   
   I really think if a school student is caught bullying over and over three times they should be kicked out of school for a year and made to repeat that particular grade. That wouldn't cut out all school bullying but it would cut out a lot. If it happens again the next year when the bullying student goes back to school then they need to go to court and be tried and if convicted sentenced to Juvenile Detention.
   
   School Uniforms
   
   I think every school student in America needs to be wearing a uniform. Yes they all need to be dressed alike. This would cut out a great deal of peer pressure problems that are currently in America's School systems.
   
   We need to make students go to school to learn and be educated. School needs to be for learning not for playing bullying, who's parent has more money, or whose parent is a member of the good old boys in that town. All of this needs to be taken out of it and then I really believe our schools would be a lot safer.
   
   As a retired US Naval Officer and a Native American I once felt like the government had no business messing with my guns or taking them but I'm no longer sure how I feel. I don't see any reason for assault weapons. I don't see any reason for boys under 18 to own many guns. I know that there are many underage boys here in NC who own many guns. Why is there a reason for this.
   
   We are going to have to take some serious looks at changing America or we are going to keep having more school shootings. I fear we will have one or more before this school year is out. We must do something to stop this or we will have more dead children. You should be writing to your Senator or Congressman at least once a week about this issue.
   
   America its really up to you. What we do and how we react may well save a child's life in the future.
   
   Okay lets see how many people have something to say about this issue. What are your thoughts and concerns. What should we do to protect our children.

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      gmwilliamsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      First of all, bullying is an insidious crime.   Many schools purportedly have a zero tolerance policy regarding bullying.   However, many teachers maintain the attitude that children will be children and that bullying is an undeniable part of childhood.     That attitude must change and change immediately.
      
      If a child is caught bullying once, he/she must be reprimanded by either the teacher or the principal and the act must be documented.   The bully must undergo some type of counselling and/or psychological intervention with the premise that if he continues to bully, there will be direr consequences down the road.   If the child is caught bullying for a 3rd or 4th time, he/she is to be expelled with documentation regarding his/her bullying history following him/her.     
      
      Many serial bullies are in I.S. i.e. schools designated for bullies.    If the bullies does not improve, he/she is often a casualty of the juvenile or other criminal systems.    I totally agree with you, crazyhorseghost, that bullying is a criminal act akin to harassment.    Bullying has to be stopped; however, many people are afraid to be tough with bullies.   However, I figure that if a child is bad enough to be a bully, he/she should be able to face the consequences at hand.

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   2. 57

      lifegamerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Kind of frustrating, isn't it?  The 'events' that make us 'think', that call us to 'redefine' our Selfs & ourselves, those Awareness screamers...Not exactly what one would imagine Seeing walking in Beauty.  Puts Fear right in one's face, yes?
      
      And you are Who when Fear gets in your grill?  As a military veteran, you did not See your Self as 'bully', ready with the punch onto whomever your superior 'held down' for you to do so?  Did you not See your Self as 'bullied' into becoming this?  A link in a tow chain of continuance, perhaps?
      
      We, as Bigs, are supposed to reflect wiser unto our Littles, yet are we not being quite contradictory in this task...and expecting other-'wise' of them?  Obviously, our educational foundation is in need of re-thinking.
      
      Guns are not the problem, they are a symptom.  Bullying is not the problem, it is a symptom.  Cure/Solution is not borne of symptom suppression...rather it comes when seeking to heal the Source of the problem...Perspective--How We See our world...whether that world is Home ground or All ground, yes?
      
      What to do?  Is this not as good a time as any to look first at Self...Are You a reflection of what you want to See in your world?  Are you a responsible & stealthful user, & guider of Littles, with regard to tools...whether of gun, knife, hammer, or hands?  Are you a human with brains, or one with brains that use them?  Do Littles See you walking in Beauty?  If Yes, then you are, as well, a healer in your own rite, yes?  Problem is being solved...no worries.
      
      "Freedom is the grandest gift of Love, and Love always seeks to give the grandest gift."  Laws & bandwagons stifle Freedom...and it's responsibilities.  And they are motivated by Fear, are they not?  And is Fear not the choice that runs along side of Love on this journey?
      
      There's some brain food, Beloved...Eat heart-fully.  And Good Journey!

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      1. 69

         crazyhorsesghostposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         You do give food for thought. I also don't believe that guns are the problem it is the situation and what America has become.
         
         Many children are raising themselves and the TV is used as a babysitter.
         
         Bullying is a serious problem that must be addressed or we are going to have more dead children.
         
         I travel quite a bit and schools even in some of the poorer European countries are much better than the schools here in America. America should have the best schools in the world.
         
         But you did give food for thought and thanks for your post.
         
         I really don't know how to stop the school shootings but we must stop them.
         
         If severely limiting access to guns is the solution I am willing to go along with it.
         
         There is no reason for assault weapons and maybe Americans under 21 should be prevented from ever owning or having access to a gun.
         
         Bullying is a serious problem in this country. If a child is fat or nerdy they go through a living hell. Working with the poor and homeless on a daily basis I see it over and over. Why does this have to be a part of school life.

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         1. 57

            lifegamerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            If one observes the Nature of here, Life sorts toward its balances in not so seemingly 'nice' ways...but they are swift, effective, & functional, with obvious sustainability of a Whole-ness.
            
            You observed precisely, a direction that the majority allowed our detour toward...the defilement of Family.  We now know that this is a priceless connect...sacred to quality of life...as it is held with most 'other' Life-forms here.  Presently, All are 'paying the price' of such ignorant choices, yet, as well, are being opportuned to move with wisdom gained.  Unless, of course, we don't...which is a choice that is ever-available...and we do have tendency "to suffer that which is sufferable" because humans have an insufferable need to be 'right' in the moment...at any cost to any other.
            
            Yes! Most definitely!  Schools...All Schools...should be no less than reflective of the grand conglomeration of minds & spirit of a specie that holds interest in futures...That well-created body vehicles with heartful minds, & a fab place to drive it around, are left available for All to experience of..."a gift that keeps on giving", so to speak.
            
            The education system management team has not had a listening ear for youth for an 'awful long time'...this has conditioned youth not to listen to youth, even as they grow.  The results...Yep, there's another tow chain addin' on linkage!
            
            I See the bullying thing really tugs your heart strings. But, Hon, it's not just children experiencing this stuff...It's a thing for All size kids, all types, to become of.  Small business, Senior citizens...Heck, our judicial system runs on this behavior, & examples it sooo well...Wars, tyrants, the IRS, are epitomes of BullyBrutes!
            
            To understand & survive, youth must learn & know how to deal best with the circumstances offered them by their society...and we define our Selfs thru experience.  Hmmm...? 
            On one hand, you have a group of once-bullied nerds who got together & came up with Facebook...on the other, a group of bullys got together & became "The Dirty Dozen"...While a bunch of fat kids got together & redressed the 'look' of XLarge...Put a few of each together, sit 'em on a motorcycle or put same colored-bandanas on them, and you have a gang.
            
            See?  Often living in Hell, makes one start their trail to Heaven...Whatever that Heaven happens to be.  This is not an 'always' thing...Not All make wise choices, not All See opportunity, not All 'give a hoot' one way or another...Such is Life.  And OMG! I had no idea this went on so long...Nice hangin' with ya, though...Sorry for the space-take.

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2. 95

   wildernessposted 11 years ago

   Question - I think you've probably found the problem, in bullying and the results of bullying.  Why then do you show a picture of (all black, scary looking) weapons and agree to give up your guns in general?  The shooting yesterday was with a shotgun, was not a general mass killing nor intended to be.  School shootings by kids are totally the fault of parents - why the attack on guns?
   
   Second question(s).  I do agree about bullying. but have concerns.  We are seeing a continual increase in teen suicide from "bullying" type actions even as we crack down on bullying.  Yet, millions upon millions of prior generations grew up with the same bullying and survived without real problems.
   
   By isolating our young children from any and all forms of bullying are we creating a generation of people that can't handle any form of it?  That will suicide when someone posts something bad on FB about them?  That will go "postal" when their first boss chews them out?  Should we instead train our kids how to handle such things, bullying that does not progress to the physical harm (personal or property) stage?
   
   I certainly have no answer, but I do know that we have raised a country of people that can't handle the idea that they are responsible for their actions - we've made everything so safe that the immediate reaction to personal stupidity is to sue somebody else.  Will we end up producing the same kind of reaction by protecting our kids from bullying as well?  A complete inability to handle something that they will run into sometime in their lives?  We already see millions that can't work through a simple boyfriend/girlfriend breakup without psychological help - are we making it worse by denying our kids the experience necessary to deal with their hurt emotions?
   
   As I say, I have no answer but would be interested in hearing opinions of others.
   
   *edit* I might add that if the kid yesterday was able and competent to handle hurt emotions the shooting wouldn't have happened.

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   1. 57

      lifegamerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      wilderness...good observes!  Funny how when stuff happens to our Littles it grabs our heartstrings so deeply...They light up Bigs' mirrors like nothing else.
      
      In the times ahead, many of our youth will be such lights...How many will it take until We See?  As many as it takes.
      
      What are we to See?  Perhaps that there is little difference in legal/illegal drug dealing...Perhaps that where, how, & of what character, we choose our Leaders from is not producing folks who can do this job well...Perhaps that if laws worked, we wouldn't be building more prisons...if education was not so regimented Bigs & Littles would be more involved in the process...if our medical wonders were true healers, much dis-ease would not be...and perhaps if All who showed up for a war simply said "No, not today." Hmmm... "If" is one of the longest defs in the dictionary, isn't it?
      
      Solution to all this stuff?  See these events for what they truly are...Opportunity to adapt & create of Change...then use it...Become grander for it!  Else our Little lights come & go in vain.
      
      Check one's consumerism...What continuances your dollar supports.  Check one's body vehicle condition...do you treat it like a '69 Z28 Amazing machine, or a get me to point B on a prayer jalopy?  What do you teach youth about the well-care of their bod & brain?  Are we 'guiding' each other into a new time of being, or putting up de-fences at every turn?  Is Fear the big motivator, or is Love?
      
      I have found wonderful & positive movement in a single message: "Freedom is the grandest gift of Love...and Love always seeks to give the grandest gift."  Through this do I See leaders, with this do I example what I speak, and This is what I gift to the children who come to me...no matter their age.  Move Self with this intent...You will See no less than Amazing...always & all ways.  Sooo works!!!
      Good Journey!

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   2. 80

      LiamBeanposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I don't think Adam Lanza's attack was Nancy's fault. She did not have the resources to help her son because they aren't there anymore. You can be the best parent in the world and still end up with a criminal or misfit for a child. No one has a hard and fast answer to why this is, but it is true.
      
      
      
      I think this is the drug question again wilderness. How many kids are on anti-psychotic drugs?
      
      
      
      I can't think of a single case where the worker or employee was not later found to have some sort of emotional or psychological problem.
      
      
      
      I don't think this is quite true either. There are plenty of kids out there raised to fend for themselves and congratulated or encouraged when they work things out without parental help. This is our job after all.
      
      
      
      Another aspect of this shooting that isn't getting a lot of attention. The teacher who was shot and later refused treatment talked this kid into putting down the shot-gun. The teacher wasn't armed.

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         wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         No, Lanza's attack wasn't Nancy's fault, but then neither was Lanza just a kid.  With our current setup there was nothing Nancy could have done to prevent it except maybe kick him out of her life a year ago, and I don't expect any parent to do that.
         
         Not sure what anti-psychotics have to do with this, though I absolutely we have crossed any reasonable line in prescribing them.
         
         The point was are we creating vastly more of this kind of thing.  Right now it is rare; if we don't teach our kids to handle their emotions are we making a huge problem down the road?
         
         There are kids that handle it, sure, but there are millions more that will never get the experience.  Again, are we creating a problem for the future?  I don't know.
         
         The kid just the other day wasn't a killer out to murder as many as possible.  He wasn't particularly insane, he was just mad and didn't know any other method.  He wasn't a Lanza, not at all - no one in the world could have "talked" Lanza down.

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            LiamBeanposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Many of the anti-psychotics have "black box" warnings stating that they are linked with increased rates of suicide, especially in teens and young adults. It is not out of the realm of possibility that a suicde will decide to take someone with him.
            
            
            
            I've got a link to a local news site called LAist. It's part of a large site for cities all across the U.S. This is what they have so far on the Kern County shooting.
            
            http://laist.com/2013/01/11/kern_county … d_fire.php
            
            From the article he did have a list so he might have gone on had the teacher, Ryan Heber and campus supervisor, Kim Fields not talked him into surrendering the shot-gun. Darned brave in my opinion.
            
            Also, once again, students being interviewed are saying they weren't surprised to hear who the shooter was as he'd been making threats for over a year. Reminds me of Virginia Tech and Columbine.

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               wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               To me, the most important paragraph in your post is the last one.  We nearly always have some indication that a killer is on the loose before they crack - what is that we do nothing? 
               
               We don't believe it?  We don't want to pay for the help they need?  We're too concerned about their rights?  We don't want to acknowledge they have a real problem?  We just don't care - let someone else handle it syndrome?

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                  LiamBeanposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  Man, I don't know. This just keeps popping up though. It's gotten to the point where I'm not surprised when someone who knows the shooter says something like "I wasn't surprised to learn it was him" or "he's been saying he wanted to kill someone for a long time."
                  
                  I hope this is one of those things that's addressed in some positive way.

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3. 59

   movingoutposted 11 years ago

   When I went to school, bullying was around as much as it is today. Difference being, if a bullyied kid retaliated the worse could happen is detention or possibly feelings hurt. Today, these kids that retaliate are arrested and in many cases this results in a criminal charges. So the bullyied child does nothing but take it and it festers into some of these shootings! Kids will be kids and bullying will always be there. In my day, the bully and the bullied were given boxing gloves and told to work it out in the gym. Under the  supervision of a principal or vice principal and gym teacher. Perhaps the old way was a better way?

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      LiamBeanposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I'm in my sixties. When I was in grade and middle school (called Jr. High then) I was bullied because I came from the "wrong side" of the tracks. It didn't take long to make connections to others like me and band together. The bullying didn't last long, but did, in a few cases, require physical retaliation.
      
      "Work it out in the gym" sounds like a stellar idea to me.

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4. 80

   LiamBeanposted 11 years ago

   This is a long read in the Atlantic, but well worth it.
   
   "In the 1960s, the NRA once again supported the push for new federal gun laws. After the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 by Lee Harvey Oswald, who had bought his gun through a mail-order ad in the NRA’s American Rifleman magazine, Franklin Orth, then the NRA’s executive vice president, testified in favor of banning mail-order rifle sales. “We do not think that any sane American, who calls himself an American, can object to placing into this bill the instrument which killed the president of the United States.” Orth and the NRA didn’t favor stricter proposals, like national gun registration, but when the final version of the Gun Control Act was adopted in 1968, Orth stood behind the legislation. While certain features of the law, he said, “appear unduly restrictive and unjustified in their application to law-abiding citizens, the measure as a whole appears to be one that the sportsmen of America can live with.”
   
   http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc … _page=true

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5. 60

   SpanStarposted 11 years ago

   Many good comments pertaining to social issues here in America.
   
   Personally for me I see the problem is much deeper than the school bullying. As American citizens we seem not to be able to get away from this macho ideology of being Americans. Just look at the NRA, defenseless children being gunned down constantly but what they are most concerned with is that there killing weapons be taken from them, in short "they would rather fight than switch!"
   
   That guy who did the killing at the movie theater did so I believe because he felt comfortable in an environment that supports violence. America loves its violence. Who doesn't want to see a mixed martial arts event, how about pugilism-boxing. Has anybody heard of Hiroshima or Nagasaki. How about "Walk Softly and Carry a Big Stick!"
   
   There has to be a breeding ground for violence barring any medical condition.

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   1. 69

      crazyhorsesghostposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Great reply. Thanks much.

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6. 60

   SoManyPathsposted 11 years ago

   I agree a lot with Wilderness and working it out in the gym ( in the 60s? ) . We did it in the school yard.
   
   Afterwards, there would be a suspension and everybody was cool with it except for last day of school when a fight usually broke out with those same kids or friends of theirs.
   
   Now kids don't wait long and just snap with a gun their parent showed them. Even if the bullied kid actually beat the bully , maybe the bully would retaliate with deadly force in the next few days for being embarrassed.
   Their mind may have been subjected to weekly dosages of a collaboration of desensitizing video game killings, violent movies, violent music passages, and/or parents not there. Even if the parents are responsive, the kid can still snap. We never had what medical professionals call as bi-polar back then. It was just moody or pissed off.
   
   how to stop it, I am not sure? maybe a sophisticated safety switch on the gun, big brother TSA body scanners at the entrance, train teachers to observe bullying or kids who need emotional help and work it out in the gym. There will always be bullies just as there are drug traffickers.

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7. 59

   movingoutposted 11 years ago

   Seems to me the idiot box (television for you younger readers!lol) has become nothing but a violence cinema for the most part. What happened to good shows like Little House on the Prairie or perhaps the Waltons? Instead we have violence on tv, music and video games. Kids today don't go outside and play! Imagine outside using one's imagination! What a concept! No, instead they sit for hours in front of the idiot box or monitor. And we wonder why this country is so messed up? Not hard to figure out from where I'm sitting!

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      LiamBeanposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      There are still some good shows out there. Try PBS, The History Channel, The Science Channel and The Discovery Channel. There are also some channels out there that are bringing back some of those older shows like AntennaTV.

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