The gun question they can't answer

[Tadpole Raisin]

I have been very frustrated with the questions asked of politicians by reporters that are quickly deflected. It’s BS but they fend off the questions easily.

Here is what I want at a press conference preferably asked by an older citizen and not by a reporter.

“ Regarding mass school shootings It has been said that the best defense for a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. My question is - how did law enforcement handle mass school shootings in the 50s, 60s, and 70s?”

I imagine the politician acts confused as he tries to figure out how to respond. You could leave it at that - let it hang in the air or twist the knife a little bit more.

The person could say “my grandkids do lock downs and shooter drills at school. I never had to do that. Now you want to arm teachers and put in steel doors. My grandkids will be living in a police state and you call that freedom?”

Let the networks show that!!

[elias7]

1. The "freedom" to own, carry, hump a gun makes everyone else less free.

[Bayard]

3. This

When your freedom infringes on my freedom, it can't be allowed. In this case, its my freedom to live.

Same case for abortion.

[enough]

2. Great point

[Harvey Wineburger]

4. An intriguing question to be sure

I was a teenager during the 1960s so my memory today might be a bit dim but,

How did law enforcement handle mass school shootings in the 50s, 60s, and 70s?

[Tadpole Raisin]

5. There weren't any (well I guess the Texas tower)

Not a good come back for republicans to bring up and not K through 12.

[Hieronymus Phact]

7. Right there were so few.

but here's my counter-question:
What fundamental quality about firearms themselves has changed in that time?

[Tadpole Raisin]

17. The ability to kill 30 people in 30 seconds.

If I were growing up today I would have perpetual PTSD

[Willto]

20. Well

In the 1920's and 1930's you could walk into a sporting goods store and buy a FULLY AUTOMATIC Thompson sub machine gun that had a 100 round snail drum magazine and could fire at a rate of 700 rounds per minute. No paperwork. No background check. You didn't even have to sign your name on anything. And yeah the gangsters of the day used them to shoot it out with each other and even a few confrontations with the cops. But no one ever used one to kill a whole classroom full of kids. Or wander into the local Woolworth's and kill everyone in the store. Hell the AR 15 has been available to the public since 1964. But these kind of shootings were almost unheard of back then.

Now it may seem like I am defending assault rifles. I'm not. Ban them all. But access to these kind of weapons is not the answer to the question of WHY people keep doing this. Nor is just chalking it up to crazy people. There have always been crazy people and guns of this type or even worse were easier to get back in the day. I honestly don't know the answer to the question of why. But it's a question I would love to see experts attempt to explain.

[Hieronymus Phact]

24. Willto said it well enough above

And that was my point.
The fact is in the last 100 years there has been no radical change in technology that suddenly enables this.

The change is in People, Society, Culture etc, not the hardware. Since this didn't used to happen all the time I think that just banning assault weapons, IE focusing narrowly on particular Hardware will not do anything to stop it, especially with so many not-banned substitutes available.
Personally I think a High Capacity Magazine Ban would be a lot more effective in stopping/slowing the "ability to kill 30 people in 30 seconds" situation.

[Stuart G]

26. That is it...People's attitudes about killing change. Very sad indeed.

... And banning the ..."High Capacity Magazine" ..would also be effective.

[Rhiannon12866]

27. +100

[haele]

6. Back in the 70's, when there was a school shooting on the news

It would be reported as some bullied kid (or angry bully) would bring in a parent's pistol, rifle, or shotgun into school and go after the source of his anger - a particular student or teacher.
At most, he'd have five or six rounds, and would normally be tackled or disarmed before reloading if he brought more ammo.
School shootings have happened since angry young men have been able to get ahold of firearms. Typically, it would be reported that only one or two would actually have been shot if the kid did manage to shoot his weapon after he pulled it out.

Charles Whitman was an outlier as he was able to hole up in a makeshift sniper's nest at that clocktower.

BTW, school bombings were a greater concern in the late sixties/early seventies - though those were primarily focused around Universities with a large ROTC component. We lived a few blocks from the University of Washington's administration building from 1968 to 1970; when the Admin building was bombed at 2/3 AM, the shock wave from the blast put a huge crack in our bedroom window.

Haele

[Tadpole Raisin]

11. Yup, and if those bullied kids had an AR-15 we would have

had mass shootings back then (what is the definition- 4 or more victims?) but we didn’t cuz there wasn’t - a fact I want jammed down their throat.

The republicans won’t acknowledge that because it makes the point for us.

It’s weird that I remembered the Texas tower. It freaked me out.

[Willto]

21. Ah

AR 15's have been available to the general public since 1964.

[Tadpole Raisin]

22. Then why weren't they used? More responsible NRA? Societal norms

(Other than for gangsters), lack of advertising, social media, less ability to perpetuate false news, grievances, or conspiracies?

Seriously wondering. I have to believe that the average 18 yr old (IF there was an age restriction) did not know about those weapons back then.

[Willto]

23. I wish

I knew. And I am not at all defending assault rifles. Ban them all as far I'm concerned. But access to them doesn't seem to answer the question of why tragedies like this have become so frequent.

[maddiemom]

19. Bomb THREATS were the more common disruptions in public schools for quite awhile

in the latter part of the last century. They HAD to be treated seriously and the school. evacuated and searched. Ninety-nine percent of the time they were a hoax...But still... some serious enough penalties to deter the "hoaxers" had to be put into place ( for what they were worth) until the "novelty" passed.

[IronLionZion]

8. Why does everyone else have to pay the price of freedom?

in the only country where this happens regularly. I guarantee that mentally ill murderous psychopaths exist everywhere, they just don't have the type of weapons that make it quick and easy to shoot up their schools.

[Scrivener7]

9. Yesterday, Cruz absolutely crumbled when the reporter asked him, "Why does this only happen

in the United States?"

[quakerboy]

10. My now deceased uncle

was a history professor. He kept a file. Turns out before guns became the American response to schooling, explosives were the go-to. By his research, Americans have been about that violent response to education since the days of one room school cabins.

That said.. Im glad he didnt have to see the current wave of insanity happening

[MarcA]

12. The most deadly school incident led to a national law.

cruz and his ilk would probably have filibustered that had they been
around then like they do the gun issue today. New London, TX, March 1937.

[forgotmylogin]

13. Instead of locking up kids behind steel doors...

...how about we lock the guns up behind steel doors?

[Hoosier_Progressiv]

14. Having Rights

It is said that to have our freedom and rights, we have to tolerate certain things. Like listening to someone say something, through their right of free speech, we may not like or may be offended by their comments.

So... does this mean that to have a "well-regulated militia" and the right to bear arms, we need to sacrifice the life of little children? So what if a few people are killed every day in major cities through gun violence; it is just the price we pay for that freedom of owning an assault rifle.

We should also note, there is nothing "well-regulated" about letting anyone purchase weapons of mass killing.

[calimary]

15. And what about those purported "19 good guys with guns"?

who "stood around in a hallway outside the classroom. For 48 minutes. And 100 rounds fired. Before they breached that door."

A quote from Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) on MSNBC just a few minutes ago, as I write this.

[H2O Man]

16. Recommended.

[DallasNE]

18. It Started With The Texas Tower Sniper

As others have pointed out and then it went "postal", given that name because the first few took place in postal facilities. Now it seems almost like people are doing it to make. A name for themself, attacking targets where they don't even know any of the people such as the concert in Law Vegas where bump stocks were first introduced in America. The biggest difference is in the fire power of the weapons. That was demonstrated in the statistics for the 10 years the Brady bill was in effect.

[former9thward]

25. In the 50s, 60s and the 70s guns were far, far easier to get than now.

At my high school we had a rifle club and we brought our rifles to school and tossed them into our lockers and no one thought a thing about it. We would shoot after school.

So the question becomes "What changed that we have school shootings far more often now?"