What can be done to stop school shooters?
I went to a good public school in a suburb of Memphis, Tennessee where we had a school police officer from the Sheriff Department. I dont know, but wouldnt doubt that our principal who was a Conservative man didnt probably have a pistol in his desk. Neither one of them could have stopped someone with some high firepower to shoot up a school or would even have the will to fight against it.
America is awash with guns. There is no way to make guns illegal because many people dont care about the laws. The best we can do in America is for many people to be armed. Because this is where we are right now.
[removed - under review]
For me, this is not freedom, to have to carry a gun to be able to go to the store or just going out. How is this freedom? The pro-gun people would scoff at this, because every idiot has or can get a gun. So here we are. I dont want to carry a gun to be able to leave my doorstep. But how do we change the dynamic? Making guns illegal means only that criminals have guns. So we have what we have now.
It's the Republicans that made this country "awash with guns". And then, because there's so many guns your family and friends feel they need to have guns. It's a right-wing circle jerk.
Europe was awash with guns in 1945. They mostly went away. The US could do the same with ease.
Obtaining an unregistered firearm remains fairly easy in most European countries; The difference is that having a gun is too risky for most criminals to consider going armed as a matter of routine.
In Europe, carrying a gun without a license, or storing, carrying, or using it in contravention of the conditions of that license, is a massive big deal. It's a serious crime in its own right.
A petty criminal who doesn't carry a gun is a part of the crowd. There's no particular reason why anyone would call the cops on him if he's not currently committing a crime, and if the cops do stop him, they are not going to have anything concrete to charge him with anyway.
In the USA, adding a gun to this scenario changes nothing; The 'off duty' criminal who happens to have a gun isn't readily distinguishable from the law-abiding citizen who happens to have a gun. Even if his home is searched, and a gun is found in a drawer somewhere, that's nothing that the cops would care much about.
In Europe, it's a completely different story. Adding a gun changes everything. If a member of the public suspects that a person has a gun, they call the cops, and the cops turn up in force. If the cops find a gun on your person, or in your home, you are fucked if you don't have a license; And in big trouble if you do have a license, unless you're in perfect compliance with the storage and safety requirements.
For a European petty criminal, a gun is the exact opposite of a "Get out of Jail Free" card - it's a "Put me in Jail without having to prove any other crime" card.
Criminals in Europe don't habitually have guns for this reason. Not because guns are hard to get, but because having them makes you a super easy target for the cops, and lands you in deep shit. Like an undercover cop who is dumb enough to carry his badge, a European criminal who carries a gun is making himself hugely vulnerable. So they don't do it.
The phrase "If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns" is not incorrect; But the implication that this is a bad thing is nonsensical. If only outlaws have guns, that gives the cops a clear and straightforward way to identify the outlaws. Cops love having a clear and straightforward way to identify outlaws. It makes policing easier, and makes communities safer.
European armed robbers don't typically own any guns. They have specialist criminal armorers who rent or sell guns to them for specific heists, and who take on the risks and difficulties of concealing the guns from the authorities and the general public.
