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4 Calif. Students Arrested For Alleged Mass-Killing Plot
The New York Times reports that four high school students in the small California town of Tuolumne, about 120 miles east of San Francisco, have been arrested, but not yet charged, for planning an attack on their school, Summerville High School. According to the Times, three of the four were overheard discussing this plot, and a fourth conspirator was later identified. Their goal, according to Toulumne sheriff James Mele, was "to shoot and kill as many people as possible at the campus"; they had not however been able yet to obtain the weapons they wanted to carry out the attack. From NBC News' version of the story:
"Detectives located evidence verifying a plot to shoot staff and students at Summerville High School," Mele said. "The suspects' plan was very detailed in nature and included names of would-be victims, locations and the methods in which the plan was to be carried out."
I come here for geek/tech news. I read stuff like this on real news sites.
Are you trying to cleverly imply that since the presence of the law doesn't stop people from breaking it, the law should go away?
I mean, we have laws against murder, but murder still happens, so I guess we should do away with the law. People drive over the speed limit, and speed in school zones, I guess we should get rid of those laws too.
There might be reasons to get rid of that law, but this reason is stupid.
The school was designated a gun-free zone.
That totally misses the point. Planned massacres, like terrorism, make up only a very small proportion of gun deaths. The reason for keeping weapons such as knives out of schools (or anywhere else) is to reduce the chance of fights escalating and becoming deadly. It has nothing to do with the lesser problem of killing sprees.
And the idea that schools in the US even need "gun-free zone" signs is bat-shit crazy. On the other side of the world, I did not need any sign or rule to know that if I sneaked my dad's shotgun into school, I'd be facing certain suspension. (That was before secure gun safes were mandatory.)
You tried to do your blame Obama bit
No, I'm not blaming Obama for what these kids wanted to do. I'm pointing out that his speech blaming the NRA for it was completely off base.
Even as the kids are dead you still tried to turn it political
You obviously didn't watch his speech. He came right out and said he thought the issue should be made political. His words. On the same day the students were killed. Try to get your rant at least aligned with current events and Obama's own words, OK?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I think a sensible requirement for gun ownership would be that you can't live with your parents and you can't have an adolescent child living with you where you keep a gun. Because teens are idiots. If you're paying rent then you're responsible enough to have a gun, otherwise tough luck.
So you'd obviously be in favor of adults not being allowed to own cars if they have teenagers in the house, right? Because teenagers kill WAY more people with cars than they do with weapons of any kind.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Let's not forget that much of public education (or culture for that matter) has become a cesspool of incompetence, questionable agendas, and dehumanization. Even if kids lack the emotional maturity to name exactly what is being done to them, they are certainly aware the authority over them is lacking in mutual respect.
Add in a surge of hormones, and you've got a wicked circumstance.
"When inward life dries up, when feeling decreases and apathy increases, when one cannot affect or even genuinely touch another person, violence flares up as a daimonic necessity for contact, a mad drive forcing touch in the most direct way possible." -Rollo May
There might be reasons to get rid of that law, but this reason is stupid.
I'm certainly with you there. But to solve the problem, I think one has to look at the deeper causes and find out why it is that so many people become outsiders, who then end up hating the world and their society enough to want to kill indiscriminately. And I think it is necessary to have an open-minded discussion about *ALL* the issues, even gun ownership and -control, as well as issues like the increasing inequality, disenfranchisement and hopelessness that too many people feel trapped in. If people would talk to each other with an honest view to solve the problems, it would without a doubt be solved; what keeps this from happening must be nothing better than narrow, abysmal egotism. I think that is deeply shameful.
no evidence that arming the victims prevents mass shootings.
What's your next guess? Read and learn.
Besides Volokh's very informative research, I'll ask if you've ever hear of a country called "Israel"? There's a reason why the Palestinian terrorists gave up on trying to shoot up shopping malls and switched to half-assed rocketry.
1 in 5 chance that a mass shooting will use weapons the killer didn't own but obtained from gun owners on site.
Bullshit.
Why is it that when you leftards pull a number out of your ass, you always go for 20%? That's just like the bogus claim that one in five women will get raped in college.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
So the law was intended to make someone already guilty of breaking the law also guilty of breaking another law. It doesn't take a genius to see the inherently flawed logic there. If the criminal didnt particularly give a shit about the first, why would they give a shit about the second? It doesn't prevent there being crime at or near a school. It just makes the punishment for getting caught greater. Or do you mean to say you need an excuse to bust gang members who weren't actually caught doing something criminal?
In the meantime you have criminalized not only a legal act, but more importantly a Constitutionally protected right.
The law solves nothing while taking rights from people not guilty of anything.
It adds more harsh punishment to existing criminal activity, yes. But the very same people trumpeting the fact that gun free schools laws are great are also trumpeting the unfairness and racism inherent in the judicial system which puts 1000's of minority and underprivileged young people in prison at a starkly incongruous rate to others.
So which is it? Is it incumbent upon us to more harshly punish these gang members and make it more easy to imprison then and for longer? Or is the judicial system unfairly attacking and too harshly punishing them?
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi