How can we prevent these mass shootings? If gun control is not the answer, then what is?

I am incredibly saddened by the events of today, and by the shootings in Oregon. I am personally on the side of introducing new gun control legislation, but I do believe other solutions possibly exist. Arming teachers will only cause more problems, introducing firearms into the school environment will only serve to arm deranged teenagers, who will inevitably steal the weapons and allow the cycle of violence to continue. The only real solution that does not involve gun control is programs that seek to pinpoint individuals who demonstrate egotism and psychopathy (the two most prevalent traits associated with the mass shooters). But this opens a whole new can of worms and can cause a "Minority Report" type situation.

It is a really sad that this happens. And it happens way too often. There are so many different ways people say we could solve this problem, and it's all really a matter of what you choose to believe is best for the country.

One thing that my family and I have noticed, is that with a vast majority of these shootings, they happened in gun free zones, or places where concealed carry, or the bearing of weapons was illegal except by authority such as the police. The gun control is MEANT to keep these environments safe, however, we've regrettably seen otherwise. Looking back on any one of these tragedies, think about how things could have been different if at least one other person besides the killer had been armed with a firearm. I can tell you, circumstances would have been different. Things may have been different, lives may have been changed, all because that one teacher had a gun in the right top drawer of her desk. All because one person in Arizona had a concealed carry license and was armed that day. If you look at it that way, then now ask yourself a new question.

Gun control or no? The police can't be everywhere. They cant be at every school, every day, and in every classroom. Consider that. The only way I see to fight this is to abandon gun control. By taking away our right to bear arms and protect ourselves, we are left vulnerable, and even with gun control, those deranged individuals may still find a way to get their hands on firearms. It is IMPOSSIBLE to totally cut everyone off from the things that they want. Just look at history. The industrial revolution in Europe. One of the leading countries, Great Britain, didn't want the other countries to know anything about their industrial technology so that Britain could stay ahead of the other countries in technology. Therefore, Britain made it EXTREMELY illegal to leave the country with any plans for the machines or the machines themselves. Well, that didn't work. People who wanted to make a living got out of the country with the building plans in their memories. So Britain was quickly passed in power during the industrial revolution. This instance holds the same. If censorship and control hasn't worked in the past, what makes the leaders of our country think they can pull it off? That violates our right to bear arms in the constitution. Overall its not a smart idea, at least the way I see it.

See it how you wish. Everyone here is trying to do the best for our country, but I think we all need to do our homework and see what will really do the best in the long run, because we need some long term results.

What is the common denominator among all these shootings?- Gun free zones and innocent people. Genocide?- Fear and unarmed people. I do not think arming everybody is a correct answer nor a realistic solution. It's obvious that these kind of events happen where there will be little retaliation. Killing and murder has been occurring for 1000s of years, regardless of the tool. Look at Rwanda: hundreds of thousands killed with machetes. WW2: millions killed with fire and gas. We can't eliminate tools and methods to kill; there are too many at this point. The problem and solution lies within society. Remember, murder is illegal and a high degree felony at that. Weapons in a school zone is also illegal. Look at the Prohibition era or the French Revolution or the current War on Drugs. Laws only work to a point. There is something very flawed with American society itself.

Put God back into the equation, Every since M. Murray O'Hare took Teacher led prayer out of School, Morality in this nation has gone downhill,

The teaching or Subjective ethics, Relative morality, Violence on TV, Video games, ect ect ect

All of that is the problem,

BUT people don't want to hear that, They refuse to take responsibility for their actions, and want to blame an inadequate object for it.

Criminals, by definition, do not obey laws. Psychotic mass murderers do not obey laws. With the proliferation of guns in the United States, if citizens were banned from owning guns, it would only be the good, law-abiding citizens who would obey the laws – precisely the people we want to have guns. Criminals would keep their guns. Psychotic mass-murderers would still find ways to acquire guns. There would simply be less people with the ability to stop or deter them.

The vast majority of gun owners in the United States of America have never harmed another human being, and never will. People use guns for hunting, for sport, or for an absolute last resort in self-defense. The fact that criminals use guns to commit crimes does not mean guns are the problem. Criminals are the problem. If all the guns in the world were taken away, criminals would find new ways to rob convenience stores, to commit muggings, to terrify people, and to commit horrible atrocities and mass-murders. No, gun control is not the answer.

The bad guys prefer unarmed victims!!.

When seconds matter calling 911 and asking the bad guy to wait is not a viable option.

Better to have a gun and not need it than to need it and not have it!!!

**Police do not protect you from crime, they usually just investigate the crime after it happens.**

So you are against the private ownerships of gun! Do you believe in fire extinguishers? Why, you can always call the fire department!!

No Weapons Allowed

Criminals this is a defense free zone

All law abiding people have been disarmed for you

In each mass killing the shooter broke ALL gun control laws as well as basic criminal laws.

1) They carried without permit and brandished.

2) They stole the weapons

3) They COMMITTED MURDER

4) They fired within city limits

5) They brought guns into "Gun Free" or "No Firearm" zones

6) They target people in areas where no one could fire back.

7) They killed themselves before authorities could get there.

8) They did not wait for the 3 day sale of gun policy.

9) They did not go through the security background check.

10) They did not go through ANY of the dozen hoops a LAW ABIDING citizen goes through.

Gun Control Laws are not proactive. They are punitive. That means even if you have 100,000 laws on the books they don't do any good until a crime is comitted and the bad guy is caught.

Some common sense solutions:

PRIME RULE: DO NOT TAKE THE GOVERNMENT'S WORD THAT EVERYTHING IS SECURE.

#1 ANY Adult coming to school during regular hours must go through a security check or wait in a secure area. It makes more sense than TSA searching 70 year old ladies for bombs.

#2 Metal detector at a single primary entrance for adults. Only $3000 -- skip the Ipads for the students and let the parents buy them.

#3 Protocols...if the metal detector goes off for 9oz of metal, teachers secure an $18 door stop underneath the classroom door and deadbolt. A sliding bookshelf barricade to go in front of the door to stop rounds.

#4 Have drills in the school once each quarter.

#5 If a school board member says, "We don't have enough money for these measures," make it a state statute to immediately have that board member removed and use the money from that salary and any forthcoming bonus to enact the appropriate security measure.

The mass killings may not stop, but you can certainly make your schools hardened targets. Become familiar with your local school's policies on intruder alerts. Don't take the principal's word for it -- request that the parents pool money for a SECURITY PROFESSIONAL to do an audit. Ask your kids a lot of questions. Its time for the government to become accountable for our kids safety. They force us to send our kids to their schools -- they sure as heck better be able to protect them properly. Organize the parents to become watchdogs on a daily basis. 180 parents, each take a day off to walk the hallways with a cell phone and a sharp eye. Trusting the politicians to do anything but make up useless feel good legislation is fantasy.

I actually wrote a research paper partially looking into this in 2010. Other aspects of my education since then has, at various issues, dealt with this as I'm going to school to be a teacher.

First thing I want to state is that while I believe shootings have gone up in the last few years compared to late 90s and 2000s, overall they are down compared to what they were back in the 80s and earlier. The thing is they just seem more prevalent now since the media now loves to give them so much attention. Also do politicians claiming one way or another they'll work to lower it and all that to make themselves look good, caring, what have you. Ironically there are a decent number of school shootings that actually get prevented, many times by a student or teacher that tend not to hit the national level of news coverage and only get minor local coverage. One incident happened in the mid 2000s in a Texas school. A student pulled out a gun and was tackled down by a nearby student stopping the shooting before a shot was even fired. That story and others like it just aren't news worthy sadly on the national level, so the nation tends not to hear about them.

In terms of being a future educator too, the issue of bullying and all is often discussed in my classes. Why they happen, how can we prevent them as teachers, etc. Sadly, there is no real one answer to that question. Results that can work at one school often won't at another due to different backgrounds, racial groupings, economical status, etc. More so, its really hard to notice cyber bullying both for teachers and parents, and that now is where most the bullying of students actually tends to take place. The best way to stop shootings is to make people more accepting of others, but as stated different techniques work differently depending on that area.

Research is being done behind this issue in how to decrease things like bullying and all, but not a lot. One recent study I heard about took place in Canada. Starting at kindergarten they had a mother come in with her newborn child once a month, I believe it was. The class would discuss how they thought the baby was feeling, thinking, etc. This continued on with the same class once a month until they finished 5th or 6th grade with the same mother and child. If I remember my stats right on this, even through high school that class was reporting about 35% lower bullying rates (and also less severe) compared to other schools. The thing with the baby through the years gave the students better understanding towards how others felt, and thus made them more aware and respectful of their own peers. Problem is, as far as I know its only been done once, so how effective such a thing really is, is uncertain. More so, to have all the schools out there doing something like that will be difficult to set up class time and more so finding a mother and a newborn child willing to do that for such a long duration.

Sorry I got wordy. Bottom lines are as follows. School shootings actually seem more prevalent than they really are due to mass national coverage of the events now (though they are still a problem, and sadly seem to be picking up past few years). Best way to deal with them is sensitivity training, or similar activities to really make people from a young age aware of how their actions make others feel. Just a problem of really finding a good way to accomplish that which is effective across various schools with different student populations.

This is the best option to get a background check https://tr.im/wl5en

Currently there are a lot of reasons to perform a criminal background check in today's community. These arguments vary from questions over a spouse's fidelity to misgivings regarding a recently hired sitter. There are several surprising figures out now that strengthen these doubts, and in many instances it is better to be safe than sorry. You may not realize it, but there can be quite a lot of people checking up on you. Potential employers top the list. Companies usually conduct background checks on job applicants primarily as a means to verify the credentials that you may have listed on your resume.

You realize that this recent lunatic was a rich kid? Not having access to "free healthcare" wasn't the problem. The batman shooter was seeing a psychiatrist. What may help is finding out if this guy was on any prescription drugs for mental health that have side effects like suicide, aggression, lack of empathy, paranoia.... So far all of these shooters have been on some kind of psychotropic prescription drugs.

I think part of the problem is that nobody knows the answer. Some want to focus more on prevention, others want less gun control so that everybody could carry a gun to quickly stop this from happening. Nobody has the answer.