"Pupils were all shot multiple times with a semiautomatic, officials say." New York Times Sunday edition (December 16, 2012). Guardian artist Louis Dunn comments. Click on the artwork to view the full-size image.
Are you suggesting that it makes zero sense for a designated staff member or security officer in each school to consider the same policy that we deem prudent for our air safety?
Pilots who are adequately trained can be armed, but their decision to carry a gun is voluntary, and if the TSA projected that only 16.5% of eligible pilots were armed in 2011, it is unlikely that the pilot of every plane carries a gun now.
If Anonymous has different information, I hope he will share it to back up his statement.
locked and stowed on the flight, to be used in an emergancy. AFAIK, it's never happened. Planes also carry emergency cash and other items in case the plane is diverted or unforeseen event occur.
That said, it may have changed since armed marshalls started flying on selected routes.
Do we post armed security guards at every movie theater, every school, every shopping area, every law office, every post office, every possible place there can ever be a mass shooting? That would be ridiculous, undesireable, and not even possible.
Not to mention ineffective. There was armed security at VA Tech, but it didn't stop the shooter there. And the local Newton police came out with a statement yesterday in response to the NRA's absurd suggestion, saying that the shooter was so heavily armed that they wouldn't have been able to stop him... at least not before he killed a lot of people.
Much better and simpler would be just to get rid of the military-style assault weapons.
out of the hands of criminals. In fact, CT has a ban on assault weapons and it was totally ineffective in this case.
And in case you haven't noticed, we do have a lot of security guards - armed and not - in many places including government offices whoich of course the politicians vote for themselves. As if they're the most vital people to protect??!!
Violent crime is actually down in america, and much of that is attributable to the 3-strikes laws that keep so many violent felons off our streets. But having armed protection for our weakest and most vulnerable targets is natural and appropriate. When government and corporate offices all have security, why not our schools?
Yes there is a lot of indication that gun control works. Go and read the KPFA piece I linked to on the other thread. You probably never bothered to read it the first time, which is a real shame, because they spelled out exactly how brilliantly it worked in Australia. They addressed all the talking points you raise, including how weak gun control states undermine strong gun control states (like Connecticut). Australia had the exact same problem, and imposing one, strict, national standard worked brilliantly.
I just finished watching BBC news doing a segment on Leonard Cohen 's "Halleluia"--each of the singers holding up a name of one of Newtown Victims and the age.
Without a picture of that child--it's like we want to run away from the true horror, the true dimension of the event. We want to run away from the true horror, the true dimension of the event. We run/deny the true horror of the event...
I have been following the discussion of the violence and the gun debate on Yahoo comments. Someone would post a heart wrenching comment about the tragedy and there would be 30, 40, 50, 60 thumbs down--suggesting a sizable segment of people cynical regarding the death of 20 children between the ages of 6 and 7... I can only conclude that the gun nuts are a bunch of psychos, callous to the enormity of the crime...
This cynicism is unconscionable...
The 2nd Amendment was not intended to make convenient murder by gunfire...
The heart go out to the families--mothers/father, brothers/sisters, aunts/uncles, grandparents, neighbors, the community of Newtown, the world community affected by this tragedy... May their souls and all the souls of the faithfully departed rest in peace...
With your logic in only 30 years, America will become like Assyria: claches of right-wing fanatics attempting to overthrow the American Federal Government with assault weapons... America becoming ruled by the 2nd Amendment and not by the Rule of Law established by the Constitution,and Supreme Court Rulings...
And those gun nuts prove themselves over and over again on the comments as a bunch of psychotics...
Government taking away our guns. Or would you prefer to cherry-pick only those parts of the Bill of Rights that you personally approve of?
We maintain arms to protect ourselves, to repel foreign invaders, and for sport. But we also hold arms as a counter-balance and restraint against any future government that might seek to impose a police state or otherwise tear up the constitution and deprive us of our rights.
The founding fathers understood the abuses of government power, which is why they gave us the freedoms and rights to protect us against abuses of power.
government is tearing up the constitution and depriving us of our rights.
See Patriot Act, NDAA, warrantless wiretapping, data mining and retention, entrapment to fuel a terrorism scare, stop and frisk, torture of prisoners in SHU's...
What about the other amendments, like the 1st, 4th, 5th and 6th, in addition to your vaunted 2nd?
because you share the same concerns about "big government" that many of us hold.
What I think about individual amendments doesn't matter here. The issue is the 2nd and it stands as valid now as when the framers of the Bill of Rights originally deemed it so important that only the right to free speech came before it.
The Second Amendment holds value as the rebellion clause of the constitution, I agree.
That contemporary liberals have been politically denatured to the extent that they see all problems as fixable by a political system that is designed to perpetuate those problems, resist solutions and serve as a bulwark of the positions of established power and wealth should not be my problem.
And you just made my point of reactionary right wing clatches replacing the Constitution with the tyranny of the 2nd Amendment. That undercurrent of far right thinking permeates America. That government is too intrusive, too much the nanny state, too many regulations re what can be done with private matters, taking too much of hard earned income in taxes to pay for those not willing to work their way in life; sending money overseas in foreign aide, etc...
The NRA is a NEO-NAZI organization filled with right wing gun nut psychos that would replace Constitutional law with the tyranny of the 2nd amendment...
freedoms - they all need to be protected from a government that will always try and take them away from you. The sole purpose of government is to pass laws that restrict your freedoms and rights, The bill of rights exists to put limits on that.
Sounds to me that you just want to cherry pick the Constitution. You'll support the 14th A if you think it will lead to gays being able to marry but then whine about the 2nd because it is generally rural working-class guys that like to shoot, not efffete urban liberals like you.
Hey, if you don't like the 2nd, then pass a new Amendment annulling it, just like prohibition. The founding fathers thought of that too, and provided a process to change the Constitution.
your remark clearly isn't aligned with the facts. The government is a massive redistributor of wealth, taking from the winners and handing it out to the losers.
and pay only 36% of income taxes, clearly the other 99% subsidize their economic success, or better said, largesse.
Most government spending programs see funds flow upwards towards wealthier people. The biggest example is military spending. Obamacare will continue this trend as it subsidizes the profits of the drug and insurance industries. At least the drug companies can claim some usefulness with their products, the medical insurance industry exists merely as parasites on the economic system.
The right wing narrative on taxes and redistribution is a big lie; propaganda to insure its audience works against its economic interest and props up the pyramid scheme that is late stage financial capitalism.
policy and every nation on the planet does it. The goal is not an equal distribution of wealth regardless of one's contribution, but rather creating a climate and an incentive for creating wealth and prosperity so that everyone is better off.
By focussing too much on what you don't have, you overlook and undervalue what you do have. Compensation is structured accordingly and those who aren't rewarded are little troubled by taxes, since the wealthy pay the lion's share anyway.
those who are better rewarded can be said to have "won". What's more important than such labels is the fact that remuneration decisions are made based on the perception of value that that employee adds. And that is ultimately up to the shareholders and those who are risking their capital in the venture.
The point isn't so much that workers don't produce, but rather that the value they add is widely perceived as being lower than those who organize their efforts and make the higher-level decisions.
Unless you want a supremem soviet committee of bureaucrats making those decisions, it's the ebst system we've got. And we all know the rules.
is no game, since it leaves so many people poor, living under warfare, and unnecessarily shortens so many lives.
Your imagery, however, belies your rising tide, prosperity benefits all theory. In a game with winners and losers, the winners beat the losers, the winners take from the losers.
And that imagery sums up free market capitalism--the exploitation of labor by capital. Capital stealing from labor.
Of course, those that benefit at the expense of others in the economic system "widely perceive" their value as greater. Doesn't make it so. They write the rules of the game.
Studies have shown (read Wilkinson and Pikett's book The Spirit Level) that after a certain level of income, it's the inequality that matters more than the absolute level of poverty. Inequality itself seems to have all sorts of pernicious psychological effects on the human psyche, leading to a variety of social ills.
there is any correlation between the two. America is quite unequal, relative to Europe anyway, and yet we enjoy greater wealth and prosperity than most of Europe.
If our incentive culture raises our GDP and wealth, then that can benefit everyone further down the ladder, as tax revenues rise and are spread about, and because of the extra jobs and opportunities created.
If you don't believe that, what are you doing here?
"We" don't exactly enjoy greater wealth than Europeans. The country's per capita GDP is higher than that of most European countries, but the paradox is that in spite of this, median net worth in countries like France and Germany is actually greater now. I'm talking median, not average. It's not really a paradox when you think about it -most Europeans get good wages, pay equal to or less in taxes if they're not in the top 10%, and get more services. So they save more, and their net worth is higher.
And even in those countries where it's not, the more equal distribution leads to fewer social problems. Essentially, you're proving my point for me -we have more wealth, but worse social problems. It's the inequality, not the wealth that matters.
As for the "America love it or leave it" bit... you don't get to tell me where I live.
from you on other comment pages and remain unconvinced since reality contradicts your ideology.
I live in the United States because I was born here and like many aspects of it. My family, friends, and life is here. I've considered moving to a place with a friendlier form of capitalism like Europe or Canada, especially where health care is a right. Too hard legally, and I think that such uprooting would be very difficult.
Similarly, I've considered moving to poorer countries that I have enjoyed visiting, like Mexico, Guatemala and Trinidad and Tobago, especially as I near retirement age. Our savings would go further there, of course, but I don't want to be a retirement imperialist, taking advantage of another country's poverty.
In reality, the ability to choose the country one can live in is a privilege enjoyed by very few. Economic and political refugees come here to try to improve their situation, but for the most part, they are unwelcomed and face many difficulties. I admire their determination.
I am American because I was born here and don't consider myself stuck here. I find San Francisco the place I most like to live.
I am proudly anti-capitalist and do not consider my social and political beliefs incompatible with living the the US, the country of my birth.
to admit that you'd move if you could. I can understand feeling powerless and not at home like that must be depressing. But why try and change a society that you cannot, when changing your location is far easier.
Moving to, say, France, may indeed be tough to do, but trying to change the US from a capitalist nation to a socialist nation is quite impossible,
and authoritarianism depressing. Of course, trying to change society is difficult. I may have some wanderlust like many people, but I am not in the wrong place. Believe me, I am perfectly at home here, especially in my beloved Mission District.
Why France? It is still a capitalist economy. I have a close friend who grew up there and just hates it, she decries its racism especially.
I'm sure some people thought moving beyond feudalism was impossible.
And your situation won't change by whining here, although it may make you feel better and more able to deal with an environment that is clearly alien to you.
In any society, there will always be a majority who are content and a minority who feel ostracized. Your choice is simple - try and change the US or move to a place "where the weather suits your clothes".
If it were me, I'd move. It's easier. And in fact, I'm from Europe and moved here to escape the insufferable socialism that so represses initiative there. It galls me when Americans claim to hate this place that so many of us made sacrifices to relocate to. You should at least try living there and then maybe you might appreicate your homeland more.
Not me. I do plenty more than comment here. You have some sort of clarivoyance to be able to conclude that I find my environment alien to me.
I started commenting here for two reasons. One, to counter the right wing propaganda that is startlingly too common for the website of a liberal/progressive publication like the SF Guardian. Two, I have enjoyed reading the contributions of some commenters and thought I might add something to the discusssion.
Just as most European economies reached natural plateaus based on population and development potential (roads, schools, housing, natural resource exploitation, etc.), the only remaining issue for them is who gets what portion of the annual economic spoils. Distribution of income and wealth from the most prosperous to the least is usually required since otherwise the governments would have rioting and fighting in the streets, or they would be tossed out of office.
The US has reached an economic stage similar to Europe so the same issuess will dominate here - transferring economic spoils from the haves to the have-nots as a result of a relatively static economy.
Fortunately for you there are hopping places where the wealthy are gathering and partying it up. Singapore, Dubai, Hong Kong, and a few other hot spots are magnets for people just like yourself who need to take their wealth far away from where the European or US governments can touch it.
Things change. The US you once knew is over. There is no two-party system here to protect your wealth since the Republican Party is dying off by the thousands every week, and the ineptitude of their leadership speaks for itself. Why waste time whining about issues you can never change when you have the wealth to locate where other like minded wealth accummulators reside. All of these new hot spots are noted for low taxes on wealth. They all have cheap local labor to exploit to meet your every need. And strict local laws against immoral "sins" don't apply to foreign elites like yourself. What's not to like?
They were written off in 2008 and came back in just 2 years to take back the House in a landslide.
And after four more years of Obama-indiced deficits, the voters will again be ready to elect a Prez who is willing to tackle the tough issues like the deficit.
But Guest is correct that HK, Singapore and Dubai are eating our lunch when it comes to the new economy. Somewhere along the way, we lost our frontier mentality and we need it back.
With capital markets at least consumers usallly get a choice whether to buy a particular good or service. We allow some people to make more money and maybe wipe out other businesses in the process because we often get less costly or better goods and services in the long run, and it allows more human consumption. (I'm not defending consumption for the sake of consumption here, only the logic in allowing relatively open capital markets where people are free to choose how to invest their savings and/or start new businesses.
What all of the commies and fat-cat capitalists fail to tell us while fighting each other, however, is that increases to output and increases to wages mainly cause higher land values, higher rents, higher housing prices, and higher fees to banks and mortgage brokers. The govenrment, private landlords, and banks seem to worktogether to make sure that regardless of our wage levels, they want bigger and bigger pieces of my total income for housing that cost a fraction to build decades ago.
I'll care about the fight of the commies verus the fat-catf free market capitalists after the feudal/salvery issue is resolved with the permanent banning of private landlords, with taxes of 50% on land rents, and with a 75% capital gain tax on all land and building sales other than a person's primary residence. Whatever taxes raised should be recylcled back to both the commies and fat-cat capitalists with reduced regressive sales and payroll, giving workers up to 30% of their income back that is curently taken by dozens of government agencies that ensure the private feudal system continues.
And if you know any Democrats Eddie, you might want to check with them on who some of their biggest donors are since you'll find many are large landlords, multi-millionare property speculators, and large developers. The incestuous relationship across the country between big-city (mostly Dem) governments and the land developers/speculators/big landlords are legion, with campaign cash aplenty to keep the whole system rolling.
commentary. Of course, I do not support the Democrats and appreciate your recognition of the financing of the party by landlords, speculators, and developers.
In this area, the Shorenstein family immediately comes to mind. And of course, Richard Blum. With minimal effort, one can easily research the control of both parties by big capital. No wonder, we are afforded so little choice when we get to vote.
you can choose any home that is available for rent and where you meet the landlord's requirements. So consumers absolutely have a choice, just like the landlord.
You may resent your landlord because he can afford to own a home and you cannot, but that doesn't make him a bad person. Resenting his success might however make you a bad person and too prone to entering into the politics of envy and class warfare.
that in tax, which then gets spread among those who can't who don't win. Everyone gains.
Compare that with a system where a central committee distribute funds ideologically, where there is no incentive to strive and create, and where the resultant pot is much smaller.
Income tax -- flat. Flat on *all* types of income; from labor-derived to capital gains; and from lottery winnings to inheritance.
Sales tax -- flat. Flat on all types of sales, from taxes on steel-toed work shoes to the shares of the corporations for which profit from the labor of factory workers
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