Seriously though, either:

- school shootings are a statistically significant threat, in which case, arming teachers who wish to be armed seems reasonable

or

- school shootings aren't statistically significant, in which case, enough with the fear-mongering already

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=32232990

You can't point to other countries with no guns and just wish it were like that where you are. It isn't, it won't be for a very long time, and to pretend otherwise is just wishful thinking.

That seems a little silly to me - especially considering the rate of non-compliance with previous registration schemes. In California more "assault weapons" were sold in the state in the three months prior to the registration deadline than were registered. In Connecticut there are people calling for armed conflict over a similar registration scheme, and the reports I've seen say that there are about 100k unregistered weapons there.

Regardless of how you feel about guns, to believe that America could be disarmed in 5 years is exceedingly naïve.

Seems like the best plan is to give weapons to those most responsible, rather than only those who would use them for bad.

It's not like all guns are just going to disappear into thin air.

That's the old Charlton Heston argument. There are "good" people and "bad" people. How likely is it that a teacher is going to flip and kill Andy, 16, next time he shoots his mouth off?

> It's not like all guns are just going to disappear into thin air.

The UK essentially legislated away private gun ownership years ago. But of course, it's a society choice. I'd rather live in a society where my kid can go to school safely, with no guns on the premises.

It's true though. Even better, we can in practice select "good people" (defined as "won't murder somebody with a gun") from the general public with an exceedingly low false positive rate (although with a high false negative rate).

The combination of having to fill out stacks of paperwork for the ATF, go through their background checks, pay a $200 per-gun tax, and pay several thousands of dollars for the gun itself makes for a very effective "good people" filter.

Furthermore, people purchasing semi-automatic weapons are not subjected to the scrutiny that I described. What I described is the process that you go through if you want to buy an automatic weapon. The high price of semi-automatic rifles such as AR-15's discourage use by people who would abuse them, but the even higher price of automatic weapons is even more effective. Only two people have been murdered with legally owned automatic weapons since the 1930s.