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The "Gun Free School Zone Act" was crafted to harass lawful, peaceable gun owners under the guise of "protecting our schoolchildren". It has been proven to have the opposite effect of the announced intent, and protect the homicidal/suicidal maniac who wants to mass-murder the innocent. He is assured he will have the only gun within 1,000 feet.
The gun-haters responsible for that perverse law ignore the blood on their hands, and project their guilt for what was -- at best, gross stupidity, on anyone who owns a gun.

CW3 Harvey K. - Spot on!!

Harvey. When you say, "It has been proven to have the opposite effect to the announced intent..." can you please provide the source for this assertion? Thank you.

PO3 Peter Clough - The perverse failure of the GFSZA is proven everytime there is a school shooting. It's a pity you don't realize that.

Harvey. You are advocating what? An attack on people who are having mental distress? Most of these mass killings are done with firearms that have no other purpose but to kill people. It is unfortunate that vehicles may be used to attack crowds of people, but it is pretty hard to drive a pickup truck into a classroom. Are you blind to that fact?

PO3 Peter Clough - Peter, you have no basis whatever for your suggestion that I am in any way “advocating … an attack on people who are having mental distress”. That's a textbook “straw argument”. I do however, advocate that anyone – in “mental distress” or “well adjusted” -- who opens fire on schoolchildren receive immediate return fire.

It is unfortunate that the most popular firearm in this country is used in “Gun Free School Zones” to commit mass-murder, but a simple analysis tells us to expect such horrors in such places, with such firearms.

Many years ago, a study was done on the most frequent type of weapon used by criminals. It was found to be a .38 Special double-action revolver with a 4 inch barrel. That was also the type of sidearm carried by nearly all police officers in the USA, and the most popular handgun among “civilians” as well. It should come as no great surprise that AR-15 type rifles, and 9 mm pistols are as popular among the violent criminals, including mass-murderers, as they are among the peaceable citizens.

The “Gun Free School Zone Act”, assured the homicidal/suicidal maniacs (a rather infinitesimal fraction of the “mentally distressed” you mentioned) who commit such mass-murder, that they would have the only gun within 1,000 feet of the school, and could kill with impunity until police finally arrived. The GFSZA has served only to endanger our children, and give safety to mass-murderers. A most perverse result, repeatedly proving the GFSZA to be a deadly failure.

Yes Peter, as you so keenly observed, ”It is pretty hard to drive a pickup truck into a classroom “. It seems that you never considered the possibility of getting the children out of the classroom --- a tactic that occurred to several school mass-murderers, including a 13 and 11 year old pair of killers, who were fiendishly smarter than you.

It seems you are blind to the fact that pulling a fire alarm empties those classrooms into the school yard. Nothing like a nice tight formation of schoolchildren out in the open as a target of any weapon; firearm, vehicle, incendiary, or explosive.

I think it would be eye-opening for you to learn that the worst school mass-murder in our history was the Bath Consolidated School bombing, which killed 45 people in 1927. The Columbine killers attempted to emulate that use of explosives in a school attack, using a propane tank and gasoline bomb in the school cafeteria. That bomb was set to detonate when the cafe was most crowded. If the detonator had not failed, an estimated 800 deaths would have resulted, instead of the 13 dead when the killers had to drop back to “Plan B” and rely on firearms and pipe bombs.

Harvey. Thanks for responding. All I am saying is that the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is the reason negative behavior can be so terribly devastating in civil society. If guns are not available, people who are suffering from mental distress will be less capable of destroying innocent lives. In my opinion, trying to reduce the terrible violence we are experiencing by setting up the system of "background checks" will always be like carrying water in a sieve, AND will end up persecuting people whose lives suffer from episodes of aggressive behavior own to mental illness. I know it seems round about to you that we should restrict certain weapons and materials from civilian access to prevent their being used to do serious damage and carnage, but it would be the most direct response, as we have seen in the case of Australia.

I am well aware that insane and unstable people will always be able to hurt innocent people using other means than firearms, explosives, drugs, poisons, automobiles, and fire axes. But surely you understand the reason that soldiers are specially equipped with terrible weapons while occupied in war zones. But should they be allowed in schools, churches, synagogues, shopping centers, theaters, and dance halls?

Sorry to go on at length, but I did want to make the point more clear to you.

PO3 Peter Clough - What “weapons of mass destruction” do you find proliferating in our civil society? The term “WMD” was originally a reference to “nuclear, biological, and chemical” weapons. Do you wish to cheapen WMD to now include e.g. semi-auto rifles of the AR-15 pattern? How about those 12 ga. shotguns that fire a dozen .30 caliber bullets with every shot? The Kaiser's army of WWI complained that our 12 ga. “trench guns” were a barbaric weapon. They didn't mind using chlorine to gas people to death.

I know full well what your point was, and my previous post should have explained why I find that you are advocating a senseless and dangerous solution to what you term “negative behavior”. That's the kindest, gentlest, description I have ever heard for the wholesale slaughter of the innocent.

You seem to think that we should adapt our society, and limit our liberty, to achieve your noble goal of a “safer society”, no matter what sacrifice of our rights may be entailed:

“If guns are not available, people who are suffering from mental distress will be less capable of destroying innocent lives.”

I consider that the equivalent of turning our civil society into one massive insane asylum, with rules for free, sane citizens that are justifiable only to control the insane. All that loss of freedom to accommodate the threat of a minuscule, though dangerous, segment of our population. It is a far more rational solution to remove those dangerous people from our civil society, and get them where they can be both controlled and treated for their “mental distress” (as you so euphemistically refer to homicidal maniacs) .

It appears you have failed to note the far greater destruction of innocent life by the alternative weapons available to mass-murderers, even though you claim “ I am well aware that insane and unstable people will always be able to hurt innocent people using other means than firearms, explosives, drugs, poisons, automobiles, and fire axes”.

It's ironic, but from the casualties that result from mass-shootings compared with available alternatives, such as improvised explosives and the ubiquitous motor vehicles in our society, we would be safer if mass-murderers restricted their weaponry to firearms.

Your dream of a “gun free” society is no more than that, a dream. It is no more practical than the “Gun Free School Zone Act”, which has served only to assure the safety of the homicidal maniacs who kill our children. You will have no success dealing with reality until you stop denying it.