It's a good thing teachers didn't pack heat when I was in High School. I'd'a been toast.
It's a good thing teachers didn't pack heat when I was in High School. I'd'a been toast.
Uhhhh...
Despite all this grim discussion, Merry Christmas everyone.
Before sunlight can shine through a window, the blinds must be raised - American Proverb
And a very merry Christmas to you, Delta, and Happy Holidays, everybody, from Atlanta, Georgia - actually a rural area 40 or so miles south of the city of Atlanta. Down here Christmas is a time to spend time with family and friends, exchange gifts, overindulge on a Christmas feast, reflect upon our good fortune and remember those we lost last year.
It's a lovely winter day in Dixieland - foggy, rainy, cool. A cold front is about to pass. Kids are out anyway, bombing around on their new bikes, shooting hoop with their new basketballs, and terrorizing Sancho's cat. A gentle breeze is rustling the pine trees. A flock of black birds just exploded out of Sancho's back pasture. And the air is filled with the sharp report of gunfire. I'm not kidding. It's a hillbilly tradition down south. My neighbors are all half lit and sighting in their brand new high-powered rifles. I think I just heard the distinctive crack/echo of a Wetherby 7mm mag from over at Duane's house. It's what he's always wanted. And I know it's what Brenda got him for Christmas because she's had it hidden at my house for the past few months.
Emil, you won't be surprised to know that there aren't a lot of burglaries in my area. It's assumed that everybody is well armed. A popular yard sign amongst the rednecks is: This Doublewide is Protected by Smith & Wesson. I don't even need a gun. I mean, if everybody else has gotten the small pox vaccination, why should I bother?
Uhhhh...
Well, not really a very good argument, Sancho, as there is a rise in the number of children getting whooping cough and some other serious illnesses because their parents are afraid of the vaccines , but point taken, nevertheless.
I'm watching my favorite Christmas movie, "The Christmas Story." It's not about the birth of Jesus, but about a little boy who wants a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas, and his attempts to convince his parents to get him one.
He almost, but not quite, shoots his eye out toward the end of the movie.
"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its' own reason for existing." ~ Albert Einstein
"Remember, no matter where you go, there you are." Buckaroo Bonzai "Some people say I done alright for a girl." Melanie Safka
It's Boxing Day here now and the streets are still dead like they were yesterday. That's the sad part of Xmas in Perth because the mercury goes through the ceiling so I didn't hear or see one child yesterday. Everyone was indoors with their air-con. In the evening though, the barbies were going at full bore and the air smelled delicious!
I enjoyed some Christmas programs on tv, including A Moody Christmas which is about an Australian guy who lives and works in London but flies home to Australia each year to be with his dysfunctional family at Christmas. It's quite funny, no guns and a gradual digging up of the backyard with each year to put in a pool.
My resolution is to spend at least one Xmas in the Northern Hemisphere and have a snowball fight.
Before sunlight can shine through a window, the blinds must be raised - American Proverb
We are having a white Christmas here in Texas, Delta! I don't know that the snow would make very good snowballs since it's the first (and probably the last) snow of the season, but your welcome, anyway!
"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its' own reason for existing." ~ Albert Einstein
"Remember, no matter where you go, there you are." Buckaroo Bonzai "Some people say I done alright for a girl." Melanie Safka
-_- My mother looked over my shoulder as I was reading this comment and then we had a huge argument over gun policy. We aren't even American. God I hate Christmas.Originally Posted by Sancho
Nuh uh, there was this icicle and it fell off the garage and it hit him.
Last edited by JuniperWoolf; 12-25-2012 at 07:59 PM.
__________________
"Personal note: When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun. So once when I was six, I did. At first the brightness was overwhelming, but I had seen that before. I kept looking, forcing myself not to blink, and then the brightness began to dissolve. My pupils shrunk to pinholes and everything came into focus and for a moment I understood. The doctors didn't know if my eyes would ever heal."
-Pi
In spite of the horror in Connecticut... or perhaps I should say in addition to the horror of that single day of carnage we might also consider this:
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-pol...are-tears-them
As someone who has had more than a few current and former students witnesses to or victims of shootings (most of my students know what a drive by shooting looks and sounds like and what to do) I question just how knee-jerk a reaction it is to call for an end of easy access to guns... especially to automatic and semi-automatic weapons.
Beware of the man with just one book. -Ovid
The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.- Mark Twain
My Blog: Of Delicious Recoil
http://stlukesguild.tumblr.com/
We had guy who just moved from Detroit start middle school in my town. Once in the parking lot a car backfired and he hit the pavement. First it was confusing, then it was funny, then it was sad.
__________________
"Personal note: When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun. So once when I was six, I did. At first the brightness was overwhelming, but I had seen that before. I kept looking, forcing myself not to blink, and then the brightness began to dissolve. My pupils shrunk to pinholes and everything came into focus and for a moment I understood. The doctors didn't know if my eyes would ever heal."
-Pi
Well, it is kind of a knee-jerk reaction, but it's also a place to start.
Juniper, this is from Wikipedia:
Ralphie goes out to test his new gun, shooting at a paper target perched on top of a metal sign, and predictably gets a ricochet from the metal sign. This ricochet ends up hitting his cheek and glasses, sending them flying and knocking out a lens. While searching for the glasses, Ralphie inadvertently steps on and crushes the other side. He concocts a story about an icicle falling on him and breaking his glasses, which his mother believes, thanks in part to Ralphie's realistic sobbing.
"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its' own reason for existing." ~ Albert Einstein
"Remember, no matter where you go, there you are." Buckaroo Bonzai "Some people say I done alright for a girl." Melanie Safka
I cannot believe the idea of teachers being encouraged to take guns to school. In a civilised country a teacher doing that would be sacked at once. Any teacher doing that would also have proved he/she was unfit to keep a weapon at home. Guns are for killing people. There are gun owners who are on the outer fringes of sanity and actually long for the opportunity to shoot someone... anyone. The argument that I've heard that it's not guns but people that kill people is a pointless statement since nobody disputes that it is the human being who pulls the trigger . Most mass killings are not carried out with the jawbones of asses but most gun lovers are asses. And frankly I suspect there is more than a little sexual deviancy in the gun lover.
This article says the ban on assault weapons was effective:
http://www.salon.com/2012/12/26/bann...weapons_works/
Well, Eiseabhal, I don't know what to say to you. I can only hope and hope and hope that the people in the United States see the NRA's suggestion for the insanity that it is. Unfortunately, I suspect things will get worse before they get better. People who are for gun control are extremely vociferous. Even though the first words of the 2nd amendment refer to a "well-regulated militia," people insist that it has a personal meaning beyond that, an idea that has, most unfortunately, been upheld by our Supreme Court.
You'd think the cry of the people would overwhelmingly be "Never again!" but such is not the case. I have never understood why the NRA is so intent on it's mission. I think in large part the idea is simply to better regulate guns, not get rid of them entirely.
"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its' own reason for existing." ~ Albert Einstein
"Remember, no matter where you go, there you are." Buckaroo Bonzai "Some people say I done alright for a girl." Melanie Safka
One quote from this article I found interesting:
An October 2012 study from Johns Hopkins, which looked at newer data than Koper’s, concluded that that “easy access to firearms with large-capacity magazines facilitates higher casualties in mass shootings.”
Guns with "large-capacity magazines" may be the best ones to target for a ban.
My blog: https://frankhubeny.blog/
I would have to say that's another poor, misleading article. All it shows is that with stricter laws there will be less high-capacity magazines in circulation (that the police know about). In Australia it says 'Gun-related homicide plummeted by 59 percent between 1995 and 2006, with no corresponding increase in non-firearm-related homicides' but it says nothing about the total violence and crime levels.
'Following implementation of the ban, the share of gun crimes involving AWs [assault weapons] declined by 17 percent to 72 percent across the localities examined for this study' - it declined from 17 percent... to 72 percent?
I think another problem with the entire debate, is that the pro-gun and anti-gun people both twist statistics and meanings so that they fit their view - both the NRA and the anti-gun lobby are guilty of this. If a study were to be published that actually contained all the statistics, and gave reasoning for both sides of the argument, it would be much easier to come to a conclusion.
The problem is to make the environment safer for children. I don't think a ban on guns entirely will succeed in the USA, but perhaps a ban on guns with large capacity magazines is possible.
My blog: https://frankhubeny.blog/
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