[CNN] The insanity that Donald Trump embodies in his unique dash for the White House became all-too-obvious this past weekend when he suggested that teachers at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, should have been armed and waiting. He complained that this college was "a gun-free zone." At a campaign stop in Tennessee, he added: "Let me tell you, if you had a couple teachers with guns in that room, you would have been a hell of a lot better off."Hard to argue against that, but Jay here is going to give it a shot.
We can hope this his shoot-from-the-lip nonsense will accomplish two things: Put a stop to this man's political pretensions and, more importantly, draw attention to the madness of guns in this country.
Yep. Just the other day I asked Olga, my Russian bolt action rifle, if she was still mad, and she was silent. Two things I can take from this: 1) She's really, REALLY mad. 2) She's thinking about it.
How many more lives have to be ruined by guns before we finally take them away? And how often do we have to listen to crazy people (including members of the Supreme Court) telling us that the Second Amendment grants every American citizen the right to carry a weapon?
Actually, it doesn't grant that. Americans already have that right. The 2nd Amendment only says that the government can't take firearms away from the people.
I'm tired of hearing about this "well-regulated militia" that is so necessary for American freedom.
The phrase "a well regulated militia", to my mind is separate from keeping and bearing arms. What is necessary for American freedom is for the government to limit itself as to laws and regulations on the American people.
OK, if you want a "well-regulated" militia, get some strong regulations in place. I don't myself mind if, in addition to the police and the military, there are some self-appointed militias in old-fashioned breeches carrying muskets -- that's the sort of firearm our Founding Fathers knew about. But let's regulate them.
Jay wants more government, which runs counter to the very spirit of the Constitution. He cracks wise over the issue of muskets, when in fact, as has been pointed out repeatedly, today's semiautomatic rifles are today's muskets.
I suspect that the framers of the Bill of Rights have long since rolled over in their graves. They never meant that ordinary citizens, including crackpots, should be able to buy weapons meant for battlefields. The only people who should be carrying military-style weapons are soldiers and police officers.
Coz nothing says freedom for the American people than restricting firearms to thugs paid by the politicians.
And Donald Trump is dead wrong: Teachers should not carry weapons.
I've been teaching full-time for 41 years at small colleges, and I can't imagine what it would mean for me or my colleagues to be armed with handguns or rifles instead of books and a thorough knowledge of our chosen disciplines. In my view, an educational institution is the last place on Earth where anyone should ever dream of having a weapon on hand just in case a madman turns up.
Madmen the world over agree. That is why when a mad man comes to a campuses, they know that will make the biggest last gasp for fame because they will take the lies of large numbers of their fellow citizens with them.
Do we really want our campuses turned into armed camps?
Jay, consider arming teachers as a roach motel for armed mad men. You can walk in with the intention of committing mayhem, but no way you will walk out. That is a very powerful incentive not to do it and to seek other forms of self expression.
Colleges and classrooms should be havens of tranquility, places where thoughtful discussions occur, where students work together with their teachers to acquire knowledge of the arts and sciences. A campus should be peaceful and peace-loving, and they should be places where arguments are made and defended rationally, with evidence.
That won't change with allowing firearms, and arguably it will allow debate to become more vigorous.
The fact that Christopher Harper-Mercer was legally able to acquire so many guns was decried by his own father, Ian Mercer. "How was he able to compile that kind of arsenal?" he wondered aloud, decrying our lack of gun laws. Good for him to say that! It's been the same problem again and again: madmen get their hands on dangerous weapons. And, too often, they do so legally.
I heard that Harper-Mercer blamed Christian wimmins coz he couldn't get laid. With the wampum required to buy 13 firearms, he could have had a pretty good time in 'Vegas with hookers and blow.
Let me dream for a moment: I would much prefer to live in a country where only hunters who pass appropriately strict tests for mental competence and a knowledge of gun safety can still acquire rifles that are appropriate for hunting. Handguns and assault rifles would be banned, period.
Dream on.
And no, guns do not make you safer, as countless studies have shown. A household with guns is a dozen times more likely to have someone in that house killed by an intruder.
Makes sense, but if public safety was the only issue, we would be like Australia and Great Britain. Freedom is the only measure for owning a firearm, not governmental dicta.
It's also obvious that handgun ownership, in particular, wildly increases the chances that somebody will die from suicide by using that gun. It's harder to kill yourself with a knife or razor blade, as studies have shown again and again. And more police officers are killed in areas where there are more weapons around. The facts are not up for grabs here.
No, facts aren't up for grabs, it is true, just how they're displayed. And Jay, here has completely ignored the rights of the other 100 million plus gun owners, by making them responsible for the actions of a tiny minority.
There is no safety in gun ownership. Only threat.
So far, the main threat is more writers such as Jay, who wants to increase government so they can take money, guns and lives just so Jay won't soil his knickers over the next massacre.
So let's get rid of guns in this country, once and for all, making it a felony to possess a handgun or assault rifle. Over a period of years, illegal guns will gradually disappear. Guns don't kill people, as they say. People who acquire guns -- legally or illegally -- do. And we should make it extremely difficult for them to get their hands on these weapons.
As I have said repeatedly, the first step in the registration/confiscation two step that has been tried thus far in New York and Connecticut, has been a failure of legendary proportions. Trying that at the national level will most certainly be at least one of the causes for another civil war. And this time, Jay, you won't be able to hide behind the police or any security detail while claiming this isn't what you wanted. Especially if that same security force decides they'd rather go home and be with their own families than protect you. Or they have caught the flu, or they resign. In those instances, things will start to go very bad for you. My suggestion: Get a gun. Now.
In the meantime, let's send Donald Trump back to the world of skyscrapers and casinos, where he belongs.
If you were a Republican, I would suggest you vote him out. But since you are a leftist, I suggest you get a gun.