Posted on 12/18/2012 8:19:23 AM PST by marktwain
From 1900 to the late 1990’s, there were no mass school shootings. Lest it be thought that guns were uncommon in schools, that was not the case. Guns were commonly brought to school for shooting competitions, hunting after school, for teachers to trade or show to each other or their students, or for show and tell. Guns were even made in shop class under the supervision of the shop teacher. Guns were common in gun racks in pickup trucks in the school parking lot. Even today, many schools provide special dispensation for students to take off from school for deer hunting season.
During the height of gun control fever during the Clinton Presidency, the Congress passed the Gun Free School Zones act of 1990. It was designed to make it impossible for ordinary people to carry guns most places, because it forbid the carrying of guns within a thousand feet of a school. If you overlap the 1000 foot gun free zones that surround schools in most cities and towns, no one can go about their daily business without intersecting one of these zones at some time.
The Gun Free School Zone act was quickly challenged in the courts, and found to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court under the interstate commerce clause, in U.S. v. Lopez, 1995. The reasoning was simple: If merely possessing a gun within a thousand feet of a school was interstate commerce, and therefore subject to federal regulation, what could possibly be construed as not interstate commerce? Virtually everything would then be controlled by the federal government. As the Constitution means something, the interstate commerce clause must mean something. If all of life can be controlled by the federal government, the clause means nothing.
President Clinton blew a gasket when the Gun Free School Zone act was found unconstitutional. He fiercely lobbied congress to pass a replica act, slightly modified. He threatened to keep congress from adjourning to go home to run for office if they did not pass the replica act. They passed the new Gun Free School Zone act in 1996. Since then, federal prosecutors have been very careful not to prosecute many cases under the act, not wanting to present the Supreme Court with another test case.
The results of the Gun Free School Zone act’s passage have been devastating. The first mass school shooting occurred in 1997. As prominent researcher John Lott has noted, mass shooters are attracted to defenseless victim zones. While zones that ban armed citizens are a tiny percentage of the nation’s area, according to Lott, only one of the “successful” (four or more victims) mass shootings in the past thirty years occurred outside of a defenseless victim zone (gun free zone).
Why do mass shooters chose defenseless victim zones? Because they want the fame that goes with the media attention that a mass killer gets, and to get the attention, they have to kill a lot of people. If they are stopped by an armed citizen, they lose their chance to make the “record books”, and there is no point in mass killing.
Armed citizens stop about one in ten of mass killings before they become “successful”, but they are rarely mentioned because of this fact. Most of these life saving actions occur outside of defenseless victim zones.
Mass Killings Stopped by Armed Citizens Link
We have a real world counterexample to the Gun Free School Zone act in Israel. Israelis were confronted with a similar problem after the Maalot massacre in the 1970s They responded by allowing teachers, responsible older students, and volunteer parents to be armed in their schools. They have not had a child shot in a school since.
Israeli Solution Article Link
Since the Gun Free School Zone act was passed for the second time in 1996, 13 mass school shootings have occurred. This unconstitutional law has been a disaster and should be repealed.
Dean Weingarten
My high school kept rifles in the basement for use at the target range for the Jr. ROTC. Never a problem. On my last visit to that HS about 5 years ago, they still offer Jr. ROTC and they still march with rifles. I do not know if they are in working order, or not.
In the late 1970s, the NEA began to experiment with affective education. That is the kind of education designed to change a child's natural affiliation with their parents and turn them into nice little socialists.
In the 1980s, the NEA began mass implementation.
By the late 1990s, students most affected by this particular type of education began to commit mass murder in their schools after becoming successfully disengaged from any mooring that would keep them normal.
Coincidence? I think not.
My error: The first sentence should read “mass shooting in schools” not “mass school shootings”
When I was in high-school, I made a rather large brass cannon as a Father's Day present.
Links work at the site.
Clinton was elected in 1992 and inaugurated in January 1993. Just like he should not have been credited with the economic recovery that begain in March 1991 (the Bush Recovery) we cannot blame him for the Gun Free School Zones act of 1990. Bush should have vetoed this piece of crap.
For losers like Lonza, its all about "having control." Therefore, they will go to places where people are the most defenseless, and they are assured of "having control." Any chance that they will be frustrated or humiliated even a little bit, would cause them to not consider that place.
Just ask - why do these people never attack police stations?
bookmark
My father in law actually wore a .44 mag on his hip when he taught in Alaska. Usually in the spring and fall when bears often ventured into town.
Early in my teaching career I often brought a gun in my truck during deer or turkey season. Many times I had students as to keep their gun in a closet with a lock in my room. Never a problem, a school shooter would not have lasted long.
as = ask
I can use no words to adequately express the horror of the Newton Massacer. Having said that the expected knee jerk reaction from the press the President and many in the public sector provide nothing more than that, knee jerk reaction. If laws could prevent this sort of senseless violence they would have been passed a long time ago. Laws are made by rational people and they are obeyed by rational people. The problem is not guns and it is not rational people but rather irrational individuals, who, for whatever reason, were not identified as dangerous. In retrospect the signs seem always to have been there but not responded to.
These individuals will always be in our midst and knee jerk reaction laws will not remove or eliminate them from society. It is doubtful that they can be dealt with in any
usefull manner prior to their irrantionality manifesting itself in some horrendous act. And so we placate ourselves by screaming for action, any action, productive or not but action for the sake of action. These events are predictable and some deranged individual will commit another horrendous act sometime in the future, where or when can not be known, but the event is predictable. The answer to the problem? I’m not sure there is an answer.
George H.W. Bush caused a lot of grief for America in the name of “bipartisanship”, which is simply another name for Republican surrender. His son followed suit, e.g. Medicare Part D. Daddy Bush was all for tax increases. Junior Bush was all for spending. Together they have destroyed the credibility of the GOP on the all important question of “ability to manage the economy”. Sadly, there hasn’t been a fiscal conservative in the White House for 24 year
I grew up on a farm in SD close to a small town (1200 pop.), graduated HS in 1980. Most of my friends and I always had at least one gun in our cars or pickups (back window) even on school property (gasp)! And yes, we actually used them for hunting, imagine that. We were far from perfect kids back then, but I believe with all my heart that what we are seeing with these tragedies today have to do with our morals and values as a nation. When did we stop teaching our kids right from wrong?
I took that program to an old parish priest, the kind of man whose common sense made him someone I just had to talk to. I showed him the very worst pages of the program. He read through it and put his hand on his forehead, sighed deeply and said: "You know you could have five kids go through this and four of them might end up with a few quirks, but that fifth one?" He then just shook his head.
My point is this - there have been programs just like the one I studied in place all over this country since the 80s. It was only a matter of time when those "fifth children" begin to commit acts of mass murder.
What I noticed in 1984 was that these programs were carefully constructed so that no one, not the teacher, the student, nor the parent would have any idea that anything was happening to the student. We were successful at getting the program we studied thrown out. However, we had no way of convincing others as to the danger these kind of "character" programs posed.
So, a perfect ending for the educrats who created this type of education would be for any resulting pandemonium to actually push the result in their favor, as in more gun control, more "health" education.
Yep, it has been a perfect plan.
shucks, I always had a shotgun in the trunk of the car during H.S.
I was an early riser, and would usually go out quail or dove hunting before class.
Sometimes I missed class due to the great hunting, and at times only made it to classes because I ran out of shells. I grew up in Phoenix Az.
Course, momma and papa raised us instilling right and wrong and Christian principles in us. A gun is a tool, for hunting and for protecting yourself.
“A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.” Teddy Roosevelt
that is the problem. We as a nation after years of liberal/socialist/nazi/commie teaching in our schools and in politics, have destroyed “character” in the individual and given us a society of narcissist “characters”.
They have destroyed the family, destroyed freedom, and doing their utmost to destroy the Church.
“if it makes you feel good, do it”
No absolutes, no right and wrong, liberalism creates a society of savages.
bobo
I’m surprised it took eight posts for someone to catch that.
If you want the schools to be safe, then issue firearms to every teacher. Probably ought to be a shotgun, since most liberals won’t know how to aim a rifle and shotguns will get it done.
This will be far cheaper than hiring cops and adding bureaucracy.
Thanks for the info. Just say NO to “Defenseless Victim Zones”.
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