[science_guy (OP)]

last friday, I got out of school because of a security threat.  apparently, some kid took his parent's guns and ammo and ran off.  They found him, though, cause I'm back!

[elegantlywasted]

Thats rough...Very glad nothing bad happened, yet I will bite my tounge about American Gun Laws

[neilep]

This is well scary !!....It could have just been a prank and if so one in extreme poor taste !!.....just glad all is well !!

[Karen W.]

That is so frightening. I don't know how parents can allow this kind of thing to continue to happen, whatever happened to keeping things well locked and hidden away.. This tells me it's not just the kids it's also a lack of responsibility on this particular child's parents, granted I know there have been cases where kids have been able to break into cases ect. or illegally purchase or get a weapon of this caliber off the black market so I really no that is not always the case, but certainly in some cases, and it is very sad.

[science_guy (OP)]

yeah.

I'm glad i dont have much of a taste for guns!

[paul.fr]

Not quite the same, well nothing like really.

But, when i was 14 me and a friend were returning to school from dinner break and we found a gun in some bushes. being slightly less imature than i am now we had great fun with it playing cops and robbers.

until the headmaster learned of our antics. the police were called and it turned out the firing pin was removed...or something.

we did not have much fun when the headmaster got his cane out and started beating us with it, kids just need more punishment at school. it served me right and made me a honest citizen.

and never did me no harm, well not once i could actually sit down and walk without a limp.

[Ben6789]

Everyone's really on edge now about guns and security. As it is always after catastrophe.

But sooner or later it will die down and everything will go back to normal.

Problem is..no-one's taking any blame. Blame security, blame the kids, blame the president, the only person to blame is the man who pulled the trigger.

[elegantlywasted]

We could blame the media but its kind of a cop out

[Ben6789]

"cop out"?

[Carolyn]

The boy that shot me had easy access to his Dad's guns.  They were not kept locked away and he was not taught properly about hunting rules and gun safety.  It was an accident, but his parents were just as responsible as him, if not moreso.

[Ben6789]

You were shot?! Whoa, that's scary... hopefully you weren't serioulsy hurt!

[Karen W.]

Not quite the same, well nothing like really.

But, when i was 14 me and a friend were returning to school from dinner break and we found a gun in some bushes. being slightly less imature than i am now we had great fun with it playing cops and robbers.

until the headmaster learned of our antics. the police were called and it turned out the firing pin was removed...or something.

we did not have much fun when the headmaster got his cane out and started beating us with it, kids just need more punishment at school. it served me right and made me a honest citizen.

and never did me no harm, well not once i could actually sit down and walk without a limp.

Yikes Paul.. Sorry about how that was handled. I do not like corpral punishment per say as I believe people take it to the extreme when it is not nessacary.. but I have had an abusive childhood and that is where my opinions were formed.

Dicipline was always extreme nothing in between and absolutely no problem solving or talks.
Guns are scary..

Now On the fun side I like to target practice and have done so many times. It is fun, but done in a controlled enviorment at a shooting range. Although as a younger personwe would shoot cans at the river and younger I mean a young married women not a teen. We have a shooting range her which one can use that is safe and all. Ear covers safety walls etc. targets.. the whole nine yards..It is good for those wishing to target practice.

If you are going to own a gun or keep one in your home you must be a responsible gun owner. for instance I had a friend who took and had a bonded security specialist build him a special hidden gun safe in the floor boards of his home. he has a hidden control panel that is under his floor boards, it is not visible to the naked eye, he has to remember which board and there is a routine to opening the floor panel and then once he has acess to the panel. he punches in his code and then it lowers and slides the floor open to reveal his gun safe which is also locked up with a key and acess code. He is maybe over cautios , but They are safe away from children teenagers or strangers that may access the home. This is good. he has everything in a safety deposit box should he pass on. This for his wife and kids. His kids are mostly adults and they do not know where it is or how to access it! LOL.I think it is great! But it was very very expensive and not everyone has that luxury!

[Karen W.]

So scary Carolyn.. I am glad you are safe now and I agree with you about needing to teach the kids about gun safety etc.

[another_someone]

I was given the slipper twice when at school.  What it taught me was that while the threat of corporal punishment can be effective, once that threat is translated into action, the continued threat dissapates.  It is rather like the issue of MAD with nuclear weapons - it is only effective because nobody has actually thrown the switch, but should anybody ever throw the switch, people will somehow learn to live with the consequences (or not - in which case the issue is moot anyway), and the fear of the event is mitigated by the need to learn to survive with the event, and worse still, by the normalisation of the thing you so feared in the past.

This is the trouble with rising prison populations - people can be terrified of prison so long as it is a fear of the unknown, but once a person has to normalise prison life, and becomes institutionalised by it, then it can be the outside world that becomes terrifying.

I agree that one can learn that corporal punishment does no harm, but that lesson, once learnt, undermines the fear of corporal punishment, and merely has the effect of normalising that hightened level of violence, and requiring a ratcheting up of the level of threat in order to continue to instill the same level of fear.

[another_someone]

I do believe that the current British position with regard to firearms is an overreaction, that has not achieved anything positive; but I do believe that the past position that the British held with regard firearms is closer to the right balance.

The trouble with the American situation is not that people are allowed to own firearms, but that they are allowed to own firearms with less training and less supervision than they require to own and use a motor car.

[paul.fr]

To some extent, i agree with you George. But, i do think it's down to the individual. When i was at school, on more than one occasion i received the cane, slipper, chalk board rubber to the head (that explains many things) and a full punch off the teachers and headmaster for various offences.

The threat of such punishment did not, for me, dissipate with each one i received. I was always petrified that i would be called in. I think we always hoped we would never get cought, but never that we did not care because we could take the punishment.

And these we for minor offences, i never stepped out of line too much. just silly boyhood pranks. The punishment i received at school for silly little things, certainly made me never want to experiance what you got for something more serious.

[another_someone]

There are two issues that are probably personal, and will vary from person to person.

Firstly, as a child (and to some extent, still so) I had a fairly high tolerance to pain (don't forget that there are sportsmen, soldiers, and many others, who must willingly tolerate pain to function in their chosen field).  Thus, the threat of pain itself must, at least for these people, if not for everone, be highly qualified.

Secondly, there were times when we stepped out of line, when my mother would give us a short slap; but if we had done something serious, then there would be no physical punishment, but a good talking to, and a demand for an explanation of our actions, and that was in an emotional way far more painful than any physical pain could ever achieve.  This is also something that I noticed as my nephew was growing up - he was far more frightened of having to explain himself for his actions than he ever was of physical pain.

[Ben6789]

My parents aren't big on corporal punishment.

[tony6789]

friday night when i was at a dance with g/f there were bullet sheells found and the police came

[Ben6789]

wait..you mean to tell me..at the dance..you had a g/f?! lol just kidding.

The bullet shells could be nothing though..right?