I'll readily admit that the president's children are in more danger than the general public and deserving of protection. That being said, did the parent's of the dead Sandy Hook children not love or care for their children as much as the president does his? Should our children receive a lesser amount of protection simply because they are the general public? If Sandy Hook proves anything, it proves that the general public can be at just as high of a risk as a public official. Would someone target the president's children because he is president? Of course. Did the Sandy Hook shooter shoot people at random.......or did he target specific classrooms? The truth is, we never know when any one of us might be a "target" of a mentally ill person or criminal. I'm sorry, but I have a hard time being upset with the NRA over this. I love my son. I'd die for my son. There is nothing more important to me than the health and safety of my family. I do find it hypocritical for our president to suggest that trained guards in schools are a bad idea when his children are protected. As a scouter, I firmly believe in leading by example. To say that we are equal, but some of us are more equal than others is hypocritical. There are 100,000 schools in the US. Almost 24,000 of them already provide armed guards as a local option and no cost to the federal government. When I was a high school student in the mid 70's, we had armed guards in my white bread, subburban school. It just makes sense.(This message has been edited by sr540beaver)

What did Gov. Christie say about all the children that wrote to the White House about the issue and then surrounded the president when he signed his useless executive directive?

Both sides are equally reprehensible with their ploys that use children as political pawns.

Stosh

Should our children receive a lesser amount of protection simply because they are the general public?

ABSOLUTELY YES.

Absolutely my kids should receive a lesser amount of protection because they are the general public.

For one thing, havin' an armed security detail is an enormous inconvenience and burden to the President's kids, eh? It's not somethin' most of us would wish upon our children. I really feel for 'em.

Those kids and Barack and Michelle Obama put up with it because they know that the kids are a high-value target for bad guys and enemies of da country.

For da same reason, funding the Secret Service detail is a good investment of our tax dollars, eh?

Requiring our children to live that way when they aren't at high risk is not somethin' many of us would desire. Asking our friends and neighbors to contribute by way of higher taxes in order to give armed guards to our kids who are very low probability targets is completely irresponsible. It'd be like upping taxes to build electric fences around every town to guard against bear attacks. It's laughable.

I'm likin' Chris Christie more and more. He has da good sense to call stupid stupid.

Beavah
(This message has been edited by Beavah)

Hmmm, that kinda runs counter to Obama's claim that all children's lives are important. I'm sure that any protection is better than the Sandy Hook children who had no protection whatsoever.

Stosh

"I do find it hypocritical for our president to suggest that trained guards in schools are a bad idea when his children are protected."

It's easy to call a person a hypocrite if you lie about his position in the first place. President Obama never said have trained and armed guards in schools was a bad idea. There are folks from the left side of the aisle, and therefore presumed supporters of President Obama who have suggested that, but neither President Obama, nor his administration, has ever come out and said guards in schools is a bad idea.

What President Obama said was the having armed guards in schools is not the ONLY solution. That recognizes that having armed guards in the schools is A solution or could be part of the solution, but it does not say that having armed guards in the school is a bad idea. He then backed that up with a proposal to fund 1,000 police resource officers (guards) for school districts that wanted them, without forcing school districts to take them.

The NRA ad lied about President Obama's position - that alone should be enough for people to call them out on their BS. That folks believe it without doing a basic amount of research to see if what the ad says is true is just sad. As for the question they ponder, the answer is, yes, your kids deserve that same level of protection if you or they are receiving death threats every day of your lives, but if you're not? Then no, you don't need 24 hour a day secret service protection and stop being so paranoid.

Sorry Beavah, but you are dead wrong. I hope as a scouter, you've never told a parent that their child won't be treated with the same care and respect because they aren't as important as another child in the troop. Sandy Hook wasn't high risk......until it was. Tomorrow, it could be the school, church, theater, etc. around the corner from you. We have an armed guard down in the lobby of my downtown building. Most other buildings do too. It isn't an inconvenience. Be prepared. It's the smart thing to do.

Hmmm, that kinda runs counter to Obama's claim that all children's lives are important.

No, not at all. All children's lives are important, but not all children experience da same risks. Some children with certain medical conditions (like being cancer survivors) receive regular MRI scans because they are at high risk for recurrence. That doesn't mean that taxpayers and insurers should spend the money required to regularly MRI scan every child, even though such a regular scan may catch a rare condition earlier.

So we tailor our response to da level of risk. Kids' lives are important, and it's hard to imagine anything as disruptive to a teenager's life as havin' an armed Secret Service detail with 'em wherever they go.

I'm sure that any protection is better than the Sandy Hook children who had no protection whatsoever.

Da kids in Sandy Hook had a normal level of protection. They had an enhanced 911 system with professional police and EMS a short ways away.

Yeh should be careful about the "anything would be better" type of argument, though, I reckon. That "anything would be better" argument can much more readily be used to justify severely limiting firearms, which after all would be much less costly to da taxpayer than paying for armed guards.

Beavah

Sorry Beavah, but you are dead wrong. I hope as a scouter, you've never told a parent that their child won't be treated with the same care and respect because they aren't as important as another child in the troop.

Nope, I haven't, but then that's not what we're talking about here.

What I have done is told a parent that if their kid is a weak swimmer, we'll put him in a canoe with a trained lifeguard, as per Safety Afloat. We don't do that for every scout, eh? Only for a scout who is at higher risk.

I have told parents whose kid has a bee sting allergy that I will pay for additional epi-pens if their insurance won't cover, just so there are "back-ups" on outings. But I won't pay for epi-pens for kids who don't have a condition, eh? Despite da fact they are not at zero risk, they are at low risk.

In other words, to truly treat every kid as equally valued, yeh don't treat every kid the same. Yeh give to each accordin' to his or her needs; yeh protect each accordin' to his or her risks.

If yeh want to give every kid an armed guard or a personal epi-pen or a yearly MRI because of your own hang-ups, then yeh have to pay for it. Armed guards in every school is a $10 billion expense. Having multiple armed guards to be able to secure multiple entrances and actually be somewhere they can help and we're gettin' into double or triple that. Not includin' training, union wages, or da increased insurance cost for the school.

So are yeh ready to accept a $100 tax per gun per year in the U.S. to pay for that? "Because every child is as important?"

Beavah
(This message has been edited by Beavah)

Far too many strawmen to try knocking them all down.

Beavah, the 23,800 schools that currently supply armed guards today do not do so with federal funds. The local school systems determine the level of security and how to pay for it. Where you got the idea that each individual child will have to have their own personal guard is beyond me. My son's security is just as important to me as the president children are to him, regardless of the threat level they each live with. I'd venture to say you value your own child's life too and want them to be safe and protected. If Sandy Hook taught us nothing else, it taught us that we can't just accept a false sense of security because our children are part of the general public and are not at risk. Do I think it solves the problem? Of course not. But it is an immediate and easy treatment to a multi-faceted approach. One thing is certain, the symbolic gestures of the 23 Executive Orders will do nothing to stop a Sandy Hook from happening next week or next year.

Beavah, the 23,800 schools that currently supply armed guards today do not do so with federal funds.

False. Many if not most of 'em are supported through federal grants through da Community-oriented policing and drug-free-schools federal funding. That's how those resource officers first started to get hired for most schools, eh? If it weren't for federal funding, there would be very few.

My son's security is just as important to me as the president children are to him, regardless of the threat level they each live with.

Then why aren't yeh payin' for an armed security detail da way the president's children each have an armed security detail?

My kids do mean a lot to me. So do all of our scouts. So I absolutely still believe they deserve less protection than da president's children. Because yeh see, with increased security comes decreased freedom, eh? Since our kids don't need da security, I want 'em to have da freedom.

Again, you and President Obama are proposing an expanded, expensive federal program without paying for it. When yeh agree to tax yourself to fully pay for da program, then maybe it should be considered. $100 per gun per year, because as da California school shooting showed, havin' only one armed guard in a school means he might not be available when he's needed.

And in Sandy Hook yeh had a trained, mobile shooter in body armor in a crowded environment with a high-capacity semi-auto rifle. Yeh aren't really goin' to claim that a rent-a-cop with a revolver taken by surprise is goin' to be likely to stop that, are yeh? It's hardly an immediate and easy treatment, it's a hard-to-implement and expensive cosmetic treatment. Da insurance questions alone are a real problem, as most school liability policies will not cover armed guards. That's why they use local police who are paid by da police dept., not (directly by) the school district.

Beavah

Christie is correct, the children of politicians should not be used as political pawns. If Republicans use them, that doesn't make it right for Democrats. If Democrats use them, that doesn't make it right for Republicans.

It is my opinion that having armed adults at our children's schools would not make them safer. If fact, I believe it would increase the amount of gun violence.

Yeah, lots of my friends can't believe that I hold that attitude but from the evidence that I see, the proliferation of firearms in a society increases the the probability of death and injury due to firearms. I know, that seems like a crazy notion, but I'm not alone in that thought.

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and-death/

Yes, we happen to beat those bastions of freedom, Serbia (#2) and Yemen (#3) as having the most guns per capita by a wide margin - just under one per person. Switzerland, which has compulsory military service, is #4 and less than half of the USA in per capita ownership!

The USA is about #10 in the death rate due to firearms with suicide almost twice that of homicides (about 1 per 10,000). I believe, more firearm deaths are triggered by distress, as opposed to crime (suicides, Aurora, Sandyhook, etc.) Heck, if we got rid of our antiquated drug laws, crime deaths would go down even more. This easy access to guns is a public health crisis. Gun deaths due to accidents and suicide are about double those due to other gun deaths.

An interesting fact is that Americans own just slightly more guns per capita than automobiles (888 vs. 812 per 1,000). And, it's close but autos kill slightly more than guns - roughly around 30,000 to 35,000 per year. It is projected, due to the auto fatalities decreasing, and gun deaths increasing that by next year or so, gun deaths will exceed automobile deaths.

For automobiles, the government (usually the states) require licensing with written and practical tests, require a renewal every four years or so (including updated photo and cursory medical test), require special licensing and training for special products (motorcycles, commercial, trucks, etc.), require product registration and mandatory liability insurance policy, effective enforcement of product safety and use regulations, key locks and other anti-theft devices, mandated best safety features in spite of additional cost (seat belts, air bags, anti-lock brakes, etc.), age restrictions, industry or publicly funded awareness and safety campaigns and the restriction of high-performance, unsafe products to private courses/ranges.

I don't see a ground swell of emotion about the regulation of autos? Nobody is claiming that making me register my car is really an ulterior motive for getting rid of all cars. Why the fanaticism about firearms?

The USA is the only "wealthy" nation in the top ten wrt gun deaths. Americans kill each other at double the rate of Canadians, more than double of Switzerland, three times the rate of France, five times the rate of Israel, and more than ten times the gun death rate of Germany, England, or Japan. All of those societies have violent movies, (pick your poison) rock/rap/hip-hop/jazz music, violent video games and large ethnic minority populations (except for the Swiss). What is the difference? Easy access to firearms.

Christie is a bloated bag of uselessness. Who cares what he thinks.

The people of New Jersey? Thanks for those well thought out opinions.

I don't think Christie is enamoring himself with Republican insiders but I find it refreshing when a politician doesn't seem to care about that all that much.

I believe that "NO" one person is more Important than anyone else in this world..person gets armed escorts at tax payer expense we all get it.