Gun Carrying Catholics Armed

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mrsdizzyd said:
I’d advocate a 2-pronged approach:

Increased counseling and mental health services on school campuses coupled with effective training and continuing education to help teachers spot kids in crisis. This will have far and away the greatest impact on the school shooter problem.

Thankfully I have some crisis training from work as a peer counselor in college. I sent many many students to counselors who were in crisis. Unfortunately, the counselors weren’t always equipped to handle these situations.

Because you need another layer of protection for those who fall through the cracks…

Hardening schools (within reason ie not arming teachers) and implementing common sense reforms that preserve the second amendment while also protecting society against overwrought kids, the chronically mentally ill, and psychopaths.

This is a tall order, but we can start with age requirements, universal background checks, allowing police to temporarily disarm those who pose an immediate threat.
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The problem with mental health services is that adolescence is a mentally-unmoored, impulsive and catastrophizing age to begin with. You know as well as I do that vastly more high school students are mortal dangers to themselves than the ones who pose a mortal threat to anyone else. There is also this idea that their whole lives are riding on their “success” in high school. The level of anxiety is astonishing and heartbreaking. Yes, we absolutely need help to keep students out of crisis and that goes beyond the professional description of a typical high school teacher. In other words, mental health care is extremely important, but it can only do so much. High school students are notorious for hiding their problems.

Because staging attacks at schools has unfortunately become a “glamour” impulsive act, I agree that schools have to have much better security than in the past. That is another professional area that lies outside the vocation of high school teachers. It is possible that some teachers might be trained (and paid) to add to their professional resume by also providing security for their wing of a building, but that is not going to become the rule. The teachers will not stand for that except on a voluntary basis, any more than they could all be drafted to all take a turn at driving the long bus.

There is nothing wrong with a Catholic taking a job in which they are trained to protect defenseless people of any age from ambush by an armed attacker. Working as in security or police work in which one is trained to carry and (if needed) use deadly force is not immoral. I don’t think the death penalty has much of a deterrent effect, but I do think the knowledge that an armed attack is likely to be thwarted will deter some would-be assailants, not only saving lives but saving them from committing a gravely immoral act, which is an act of charity towards them even if they would have attacked under circumstances where they weren’t morally culpable. (At least, I would think it an act of charity to deter me from commiting some awful crime while I was temporarily out of my mind…)
 
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boclucky14 said:
The only problem I have with raising the age of adulthood is that we simply delay the aging process. As a society, we’re not transitioning kids to adults. We’re just becoming bigger kids. Raising age requirements add to the problem, as we’re delaying even more the age we’re telling kids when they can be an adult. 16? 18? 21? 26? 30? 55? 65? 70? If we move things up to 18 -if we expect kids to be adults, then that’ll help fight the trend before we have a bunch of 30 year Olds living in their parents’ basements on suboptimal jobs.
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The more the neurologists and neuroscientists study the maturation of the brain, the more it looks as if a very large fraction of the population is not remotely mature at 18 years of age. The military can take 18 years olds and decide to wash out those who haven’t matured enough yet. It doesn’t work like that when everyone everywhere gets the same privileges at 18 years old, whether they are mature or not. That doesn’t get anyone out of anyone’s basement.
 
Pup7 said:
I am currently in Washington, though thankfully not a legal resident. Thank God for active military status.

You have my empathy.

I hate to tell your genius governor (and I feel fairly certain you know this already), but the President can conscript the National Guard into Federal service over her ruling. Imma pop popcorn and a cork and watch this one on the northern sidelines.
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I don’t think the President is too concerned with losing any votes in oh-so-blue Oregon, nor do I think he is even concerned what his actions might do to what is left standing of the Republican Party in this state. Having said that, I don’t think the Posse Comitatis Act allows federal troops to be deployed by the President himself to enforce domestic laws. Only governors can do that. Since Oregon does not technically share a border with any foreign country (because California does not count), I don’t see a great deal of public sentiment rising to send Oregon’s National Guard down to the border. Our governor will refuse to do it, and there won’t be any political price paid. There may even be some hay in it. (I feel fairly sure that Oregon’s GOP does not want Brown to be asked.)
 
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The President can conscript the National Guard into Federal Service. It’s how the Guard is in Afghanistan, in Iraq, was deployed with me in Doha, in Saudi Arabia…

Posse comitatus is domestic law - not Federal law, which is what border enforcement is. Posse comitatus says the military can’t be sent in to restore domestic order if the state government unravels and anarchy ensues. It’s why George Bush had to have the law changed after Katrina to ensure that the National Guard can be used to assist in restoring order in the wake of natural disaster or an act of terrorism.

Also, as a military working dog handler, I worked with Customs and Border Patrol. It’s a Federal enforcement, not domestic/state. We weren’t defending the border of Texas or California or New Mexico or Arizona, or keeping Arizonians (??) out of New Mexico or Californians out of Arizona. We were working the border of the entire nation. Not a sovereign state.

I don’t see how PC applies here, and Oregon will have no choice. National border enforcement is a FEDERAL issue, not a state issue. The nation has a right to secure her borders, and the National Guard can be conscripted into Federal service to do so.
 
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Wanted to add it has nothing to do with politics. It has to do with authority and need. It’s within his legal power to do so. Thanks to recent drawdowns as carried out under the 2015 and 2016 NDAAs (both under the Obama administration), the US military is drastically undermanned. Guess who gets pulled into greater deployments when the active services have no bodies? The Reserves and the National Guard/Air National Guard. The Reserves are already pulled to their manning limits across all three branches (the Marine Corps isn’t a branch, technically; they fall under the Department of the Navy). The National Guard is already seeing an uptick in deployments. The US military - as I’ve said from my own experiences when I was an enlisted dog handler with the Air Force - augments the border patrol services and always has; therefore, the National Guard can follow suit.

If I’m wrong, I will unashamedly eat crow…but I don’t believe I am.
 
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This was all VERY COOL to read - and the video - lol -
and the free advertisements -
I honestly didn’t think I’d get these reactions.
My brother’s been a police officer, for 30 years almost, in our small town.
 
I respect the Second Amendment, as I deeply honor the U.S. Constitution in general.

But I cannot understand gun culture. Crime (both violent and otherwise) has generally decreased significantly in the past fifty years. We often romanticize about a more peaceful past – but that past is now in terms of statistics. I’ll admit that it doesn’t help that we are bombarded with social media posts and news stories about crime.

Yes, but what about “tyranny?” Several advanced democracies have limited firearms ownership without devolving into authoritarian states. The rise of a dictator has to do with atrophied political institutions and a fragmented public – not with the presence of guns. And protesting injustice does not require arms, Recall that Gandhi led a peaceful revolution without much violence.

Note that I’m not advocating for gun bans because I respect the law of the land. And I know that “it’s none of my business” what people do in their personal lives. That doesn’t mean I can’t have problems with the arguments folks use to defend firearms.
 
Would retired veterans be subjected to your supposed AR-15 ban or merely those civilians who’ve never served? What about the semi-auto AK platform? Would that still be fine to buy?
 
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Technically, you’re living under the rule of a few Elites which is classified as an Oligarchy.
 
No and no, imo.

I’m a veteran and I own several guns, but I generally roll my eyes at people who regularly concealed carry. They almost always seem like middle aged dudes with Call of Duty fantasies to me as opposed to people with legitimate safety concerns.
 
Lol you don’t know many people then. Or you live in a blue state.

I’m 26, me and all my friends carry.

Probably half the people in my office do.

It’s not a paranoia or a fantasy thing, it’s a precautionary thing. I keep a first aid kit in truck for the same reason I keep a gun on my hip.

Just in case.
 
I find wearing a good pair of running shoes makes me feel safer. 😎
 
Hey, you can do it. I’m just going to snicker at you, particularly if have a lot of cheesy quotes about being a sheepdog and the blood of tyrants plastered all over your car.
 
Read, read, read, read.

Join NRA and read, read, read, read.

[I keep fire extinguishers at home and in the car glove compartment.]
TheOldColonel said:
Would retired veterans be subjected to your supposed AR-15 ban or merely those civilians who’ve never served? What about the semi-auto AK platform? Would that still be fine to buy?
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What causes the AR-15 to be singled out? Because it looks “funny”?
 
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I will agree that those guys are tools.

My car has no bumper stickers. I don’t like to wave flags that say “LOOK AT ME I HAVE A GUN”
 
I hear, Colonel, one of the benefits of being old…
that in a hostage situation…they let you go, before others.
So that’s kind of nice of them - lol
 
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otjm said:
I have seen repeatedly that the Clinton semi-auto rifle ban was and is still considered ineffective. Not to mention that Columbine occurred during the ban, and that the boyos had one semi-auto rifle, on pistol, a double barreled shotgun and a pump shotgun. And 95 homemade bombs. As there were 37 expended shotgun shells and 151 expended 9mm shells, all four weapons were used (the carbine was 9mm, and I would leave it to forensics as to whether a 9mm or a .223 is a more “dangerous” round).

And from the Center for Disease Control, their study of defensive use of weapons pegs it between 500,000 and 2,000,000 times per year. that, and the CDC is not exactly known as a pro-gun organization.
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EXCELLENT points to bring up.
 
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