A mother's response to a school shootings question

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AlanM
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Joined: Mon Jul 04, 2005 1:38 am
Location: Was Stow, OH now Charlottesville, VA

A mother's response to a school shootings question

Post by AlanM »

I've mentioned it here before that I frequent quite a few different sites gleaning information and insights on things that interest me.
One site that I spend a lot of time on reading, responding to, and answering questions and posts is Quora.

Here's a question and one of MANY answers to it. This one delved even farther into history than most.

The Question: To anyone who strongly supports the NRA and the largely unrestricted right to bear arms, are you not concerned about school shootings? What would be your solution to reduce that?

The answer by Kate Dee, Mom:
Are you familiar with Thucydides? He wrote the History of the Peloponnesian Wars. If you want to understand democracy, this work is good to read.

Here's a quote from Thucydides that I think is particularly relevant at this time in America: "So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." (Book 1, 1.21-[3].

Any time a life ends, it is a great loss. It is particularly tragic when young lives are lost…and the injustice of violence done to them is particularly appalling.

And therein lies the crux of the matter.

Regardless of the means of violence, it is the loss of innocent life that is egregious. It is the fact that a man of violence went into a school and murdered children.

Unfortunately, as the Bard and the Good Book say, there is nothing new under the sun. And this phenomenon of mad men murdering innocent children while they are at school is not new, either.

In the Peloponesian Wars, what is regarded as the worst atrocity is when the Thracians were returning from fighting with the Athenians, they came upon the town of Mycalessuss, an undefended city. The most heinous part of this atrocity was committed at a boys school where every child was mercilessly slaughtered.

This occurred in the 5th Century BC.

Gun powder was invented during the T'ang Dynasty in 900 A.D. But it wasn't used until the Song Dynasty 1100 AD. That's some 1, 400 -1,600 years later. It was first used in warfare in the 13th Century, as fire arrows, bombs and fire sticks and guns took off around 1320AD. So, that's 1,800 years later? I think you probably get where I'm going with this and that is to say we are speaking about two separate issues. Violence predates the gun, considerably. And even the slaughter of children at the school in Mycalessuss predates the gun by almost 2,000 years.

So the real problem is the man of violence, who would commit such acts. We need to protect our children from such fiends. We do not accomplish that by disarming law abiding citizens.

This is a lot to absorb…so I will leave it at that.

Suffice it to say, the NRA, 2A and the supporters of both have nothing to do with the price of tea in China…..

One final word from old Thucydides:

"When one is deprived of one's liberty, one is right in blaming not so much the man who puts the shackles on as the one who had the power to prevent him, but did not use it." (Book 1, 69)
H. Scott Plouse commented:
How can one NOT “upvote” a discussion of a current issue which quotes Thucydides in support of its position? Thank you for raising the level of discourse.

Of course, more timely, if not more germanely, is the fact that, on the same day as the Sandy Hook massacre, a single individual, in China (where private ownership of guns is not merely outlawed but enforced by a summarily administered shot to the head - the cost of the bullet being charged to the malefactor’s family) wandered into what would be a mixed kindergarten/first grade class over here and slashed and stabbed to death 30 children - more, btw, than died at Sandy Hook. Or one might point out that, in the week following the Marjorie Stoneman HS/Parkland, Florida school shooting and preceding the shooting at the Great Mills School in Maryland, a group of 10 knife armed individuals, in China, set upon a group of folks (I cannot recall if they were shopping or waiting for a train), killing at least 30 initially and wounding over 130 (many grievously - it’s not sure how many thereafter died). Both incidents would suggest that the availability of firearms is irrelevant to people determined to murder. Intent of the perpetrators and the disparity in the armament of the participants (perpetrators and victims alike) is a more significant determinant of outcomes than the instrumentality used.
Kate Dee responded:
I remember hearing about those events in Asia. Good point!

FULL DISCLOSURE: I stole that argument from my 16 year old daughter….I steal her jokes too. They are much funnier than mine….and it irritates the heck out of her…..BONUS!

There is hope for the world in the hands of the next generation!
BTW: The reason I quoted this instead of providing a link is because I can't link to only one answer to a question.
Here's the question's link: https://www.quora.com/To-anyone-who-str ... educe-that

There are currently 78 answers listed. Many of them longer than this one.
AlanM
There are no dangerous weapons; there are only dangerous men. - RAH
Four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo - use in that order.
If you aren't part of the solution, then you obviously weren't properly dissolved.
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