Responses to school shootings noted

So much to talk about....

Alright, let's start of with recent events.  Last week, there was another school shooting.  A young man went into an elementary school, killed 20 kids and their teacher, who happened to be his mother.  They found a dead family member at his house too.  In the aftermath of this event, people had different responses.

• Gun control advocates posted a lot of comments saying that we should do something to prevent this kind of tragedy from happening again.
• People like the NRA: 
• Lashed back saying that gun control advocates were trying to take advantage of a bad situation and that it was playing politics.
• Proclaimed that if there were more guns, we'd be safer (e.g. if the principal had a rifle in his office)
• Touted the second amendment as they always do, saying that the gun control advocates were trying to curb their rights provided in the Bill of Rights.
• Others responded that we should not play politics with situations like this and we should simply show our support for the families who had lost children.

I will respond to each in turn, as each has a flaw:

• To the gun control advocates (full disclosure, I am one): There are several battles to be waged, and each one has a time and place.  I've seen a lot of discussion of generic gun control discussion going on, but whenever there's a shooting like this one, the person persecuting the crime wouldn't have been prevented from having a gun even if we had most of what we wanted.  Instead.  I would suggest focussing on the really troubling issue:  shooters often carry multiple guns, but they do most of their damage using semi-automatics with large clips of ammo.  It doesn't take long to reload, but it takes time, and that's time they're not a threatening to those who would stop them. 
• Ah... "gun rights advocates"... there's only so much of your b.s. that I'm willing to take.  First of all, yes, fine, lash back saying that gun control advocates are trying to take advantage.  That's reasonable.  Proclaiming that we're safer with more guns is ridiculous though, and the second amendment has to be twisted around in order to "protect" your rights.
• Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, South Carolina, Tennessee, any of these sound familiar?  That may be because they are the states with the highest violent crime rates of the US.  Or it may be because they also have extremely loose gun control laws.  That's right, the states with THE HIGHEST violent crimes laws have the loosest gun control laws.  Where's the benefit of having guns?  Shouldn't these states have lower crime rates if they have looser gun control laws?
• Second amendment.... oh second amendment.... all right, let's go.  "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."  Just over half of the statement agrees with your interpretation.  THE FIRST HALF DISAGREES.  A well regulated militia is no longer necessary to the security of the U.S. because we have a well trained military.  The amendment was put forth during a time when the citizens had to protect themselves because we had no standing military.  "But Peter, what about the right of citizens to protect themselves against the Government."  Are you kidding me?  Name one militia that could go up against the US Military, or really any major city's police force?  Do you think we should have militias that have rocket launchers, armor piercing bullets, and automatic military-grade machine guns? Then shut up!  The second amendment was required once upon a time but is no longer relevant.
• O.k., I understand that we should be respectful, and if I had any friends in Newtown, I'd limit what I say, because they deserve some peace.  That being said, nobody I'm friends with on Facebook is from Newtown.  Also, if responding to tragedy with pushing for improvements to regulations or suggestions that would help avoid those tragedies in the future is poor form, did you complain when people responded to various markets crashing by asking how it happened and looking to improve/rework regulations?  Did you complain when, in response to a nuclear meltdown, people eyed nuclear power plants and asked if there were better security provisions that could be made (such as not putting the waste nuclear rods in a storage tank ABOVE the main reactor)?  Yes, there's a point when we go overboard and should be reigned in, but that doesn't mean we can't have meaningful discussions in reaction to events.  If you have a problem with that, go stick your head further in the sand and stop paying attention to anybody any time anything happens that causes us to pause and reflect to see if there are better ways of doing things.

I'm sure you won't be surprised when I post more about gun control soon, but I've written my fill for the time being.  I'll probably write more before the end of the month.