Here's what I think....as if it matters.... (Page 2)

I don't see anything there I wouldn't agree with.....I have been close to proposing mandatory sentences as well.

Hear this.....that will be expensive.....we have to all agree to pay more.

You live in a country where someone can walk into a school and kill 20 kids. That's is an established fact.

To quote: "that is the kind of country you'd like to live in? Not me."

Nothing you can do. You work from here on forward. Anyone with a gun, mandatory, TOUGH training. Anyone who wants a gun, and is allowed one, the same. Go over each license, verify that this person has no justifiable reason to have his gun taken away. Renew training every set period.

The security I outlined is to deal with the rest.

Your post is a great one.  Moms are the best!  

How do you propose we proceed in light of 400,000,000 guns in our society....many available to almost anyone?

I'm sorry to keep bringing up the same stat.....400,000,000.....but there it is, the elephant in the room.

In light of the available guns, there HAS to be security/protection......how do you stop what just happened without it?

I know you probably realize this.....nothing you proposed would have stopped what happened on Friday.

Incorrect. The guy reaches security, is found to have guns, but no license. Stopped.

The guns were his mom's. He was too young for a license.

Is it foolproof? No. Nothing to say that a legal gun owner cannot go bonkers. Or stand outside and shoot them during recess. But these types of incidents? Yes, it will stop them.

I'll keep my thought pithy.

Air marshals work on planes.   Why not a school marshal in each school district?

Yes, then we agree.

Would anyone not agree to an armed presence......at every school.....to protect our kids?  I'm talking about a presence that doesn't scare our children, but one that becomes as much a positive force as any teacher.  I work with guys who are willing to provide that protection in a positive light.

I'm no bleeding heart, but if we can't protect the most innocent among us, we are a failed society.

We do that now, for the most part.....but we don't reach every school.  We have concentrated on high schools and middle schools.  We'll need more bodies to keep each school safe.

Has this worked for high school and middle school - if so then it's a no brainer.  Just do it.

It seems to have worked so far for the most part.....but we can do more.  I agree it's a no brainer.....but it costs money.  In my mind we have no choice.

That's my point with that... everyone keeps saying tough mandatory training... what, so they can be better shooters? These are mentally unstable people. Columbine, WV, Aurora, the mall, Newtown... all people that went off the deep end. A few of them people "knew" they were capable of what they did. Parents did nothing. This guy, we don't know yet. Perhaps as a gun owner there needs to be more responsibility with the freedom. I would follow what ever law put in from of me. Heck, if I had to give mine up.. I would probably hand it to you... and my life would not change much.

If you start taking rights away from the mentally ill... then they just won't seek treatment... the exact opposite of what we want. Perhaps more intervention is needed. I have no idea why the mom would have guns and take him shooting if he was unstable. I do not know if she felt he was capable of violence. He seemed pretty meek. I don't know.

Criminals are criminals. They will do what they are going to do. Track guns, get rid of the strawmen and corrupt FFLs. The law abiding gun owners don't need "tough training". 500 accidental shootings happen a year and result in death... that is sooo small potatoes compared to the 188,000 accidental deaths a year from poison, cars, falls and drownings. Children are not dying because owners are not "trained".

Keeping mentally unstable people capable of violence from snapping in todays society when everyone wants their 5 minutes on TV and all the violence we are exposed to in every day life and nobody actually cares or gets much face time... Mass killers immortalized in media for the next 30 years because by God they have freedom of speech and freedom of press which we know are none negotiable. I don't know. People living in so much pain and have so much rage they want to take it out on the world... I don't know. I do know they need help. And I do know that we as a society can intervene if they are a danger to themselves or others.

If our children are our most precious commodity... then they need to be protected. It just is what it is... do you want to be right and win some silly debate on gun control, or do you actually want to protect children from being killed? This school just installed security, but it was inadequate. We do know how to secure a school right?

What about it?  I'm not sure what you are saying.

Yes, we do.  But currently we do not secure elementary schools with armed officers. (I can't speak for the country, but that's pretty much the norm from what I know of speaking with others)

This is a work in progress.  We have, to date, and for the most part, looked at school shootings as "disgruntled" or "unstable" students of that school.....because that has been the "profile".

Now, that's changed....and we will adapt if that's what society wants.  I think it HAS to happen.  

Left Brain, you are obviously passionate about this, as we all should be. The thought of someone shooting my child whilst at school is unimaginable.

I live in Australia. We had one of the worst mass shootings at Port Arthur where 35 people were killed and another 23 injured by 1 man (Martin Bryant) who had numerous assault rifles and handguns. The then Prime Minister, John Howard, legislated to remove these types of guns from the average person. He was pretty succesful in getting that done and since then Australia has not had a similar incident.

We were able to achieve that because of a couple of different reasons.

1. The population at the time as only about 20 million and gun ownership was low. Not sure on the exact stats but i'd be surprised if it was more than a couple of percent.

2. The right to bare arms is not engrained in our psychy the way it is in the U.S. It's not part of out constitution.

3. The Australian gun lobby is limited in it's presence in parliament.

I don't have a answer for you how you are going to fix this in the U.S. The thought of 400,000,000 firearms legally owned by the people, well honestly, it scares the out of me. I know people will say it makes things safer etc but as you have rightly said numerous times already, something needs to change as shooting children, or anybody else for that matter, is beyond comprehension.

It's just sad. Very sad!

I'm not opposed to your idea and I respect your perspective as a father and police officer.

A few questions,

What about recess, when children are walking to/from school, baseball games, track meets, soccer games? So we keep the criminals out of the school, what happens when the children are not in the school?

I hate to bring this up, it sounds petty and personally I would support the cost but who is going to pay for this? Our school districts in IL are getting less and less funds from the state every year. Programs and teachers are cut every year. Educators are happy to keep their job forget about asking for a raise. There is NO MONEY. Ideally I would say you can not put a price on the safety of our children, and I believe that, but that does not answer the question of where the money is going to come from.

I'm not going to respond to the part of the thread talking about keeping the guns and putting police in the grade schools (our local HS and middle school do NOT have an officer on the campus, BTW, nor are there metal detectors at the door. Just the locked doors after a certain time).

But since I work in mental health, I thought I would respond to this and ask how draconian do you want the mental health laws to become? We moved tens of thousands of people from state hospitals and shut them down because at one time, you could be committed for pretty much anything. I have heard the horror stories of the wives committed by their husbands in order to then have a free hand to run around with another woman, and of the elderly woman who spent a couple of decades locked up in a state hospital when she got lost and was speaking "gibberish" (which someone on the staff finally recognized as the language their grandmother spoke - I think it might have been something like Armenian).

We have reformed the laws to reflect the need to limit commitment to people who (a) have a mental illness that is (b) treatable and (c) causing demonstrably dangerous behaviors within a specific time period (here in PA, it is the last 30 days). 

I am also troubled by the implication that all mental illness is the issue. I would love to see all illness get treated, but I also would not want to see all people with some history become relegated to second class citizenship.

You say we are not going to be getting rid of the guns. I tell you we are not going to be rebuilding the state hospital system. We have still not really settled the idea of providing basic medical coverage to all of our citizens (look at all the states still not putting anything in place for the ACA/Obamacare) - what makes you (or anyone) think we are going to be providing it to the mentally ill who already are at the bottom of the barrel as far as things go?

I agree with the observation that mental illness is the common thread in a lot of these cases. I don't agree that it is the only part of the equation that needs to be addressed. And this editorial cartoon I ran into illustrates part of the reason why:

What all these shootings have in common is that they are at soft targets in a highly concentrated area with limited escape. If you have anything to choose from, you are going to go where there is lots of opportunity, no protection, and little escape. That isn't recess, or walking to and from.

Compared to solving the violently mentally ill, dealing with the 2A and effective gun control, securing our children where they gather for these events is by far the easiest problem to solve. The money comes from people voting for mill levies, tax measures, and bond initiatives in their local governments to pay for it. If a measure hit the ballot today, it would be approved.

So what CAN be done? And I am sincerely asking. I do what to hear what you have to say on the subject. I agree with what you said, and it isn't the "only" part of the problem, but it is in fact "a" part of the problem of these mass shootings. Mental illness already has such a stigma and isn't understood by most... now we are going to lock everyone up and hold them because they make someone "nervous"? Scary thought for those that deal with these issues.

First off, I don't have the answer.  But I did have a trying time with my in-laws and parents this weekend, and it was interesting to hear the different perspectives.  My father is a Child Psychiatrist.  My father in-law was a competitive shooter and makes holsters and leather goods.  (Great combo for this discussion).

My father keeps talking about how we need to improve the mental health system, but admits that one problem, is that even when a person is identified as mentally ill and could pose a danger, there is nothing we can do unless they have proved "TO BE" a danger.  Of course this is too late.

My father in-law keeps talking about the fact that the people that responsibly own guns are not the problem, and that the assault weapons are actually not the problem.  If you take away one stick, they bad people will just choose another.

Both provide true facts.  The problem is neither can provide an answer to the problem that is not financially destructive to our society.  You can not start a war on guns, when compared to the war on drugs, you have even a less likely chance of success.  And you can not start a war on mental health, when labeling people is not PC.

I lean to the side that at some point we will have to make some tough choices and many people will be upset by those choices.  It may mean that a group of people will feel like their rights are being taken from them, but in the end it will make our society better and safer.  (Now you choose the group)

I will say my wife had an interesting idea.  Why not provide opportunities for the service men and women coming back from the wars and those leaving the military (of course having checked their well being) to provide security in the schools.  We hear there are no jobs for them, and it could provide them an opportunity to continue to serve and possibly find interest in education.  They would not be put there strictly as security, but would be involved throughout the school, maybe finding skills or interests that they could persue as a career later on.  Kind of a security/career/internship.

O.k. rant off.