//If a school teacher and her charges were in imminent danger of being shot and it was in your power to give her a pistol, would you do so//

Nah, still too many things that can go wrong - poor aim, slow reflexes on the part of the teacher, stray ricochets etc.

I would use my powers to pre-emptively 'disarm' the would-be murderer (i.e. not allow him to have the gun in the first place) so that he could not threaten anybody's life with it.

And the nice thing is, it doesn't require the intervention of some super-being who has been granted supernatural abilities for the purpose of a hypothetical exercise to do that. Governments can pass laws that do the same thing. A lot of them have, right across the globe. It seems to have worked well for the fortunate citizens of those countries. God bless Australia.

America could too - there's nothing stopping them, the 2nd Amendment isn't inviolate (they repealed the 18th Amendment, so it can certainly be done). Unfortunately they make the mistake of allowing the agenda to be set by crazies so far gone in their obsession with guns that they are simply incapable of countenancing any proposal which might mean fewer guns. Their belief that the more guns, the better is such a deeply ingrained and fundamental part of their identity that they regard proposals to remove guns as nonsensical, and will only give consideration to those which are at least gun-neutral.

And the danger with that is that once they've got passed their bills to arm teachers or open new mental health wards or whatever (as long as it doesn't mean less guns), they'll say to themselves 'right, well that's all sorted now' and pat themselves on the back for job well done, and nothing will be done to keep guns out of the hands of the sort of people that shoot up schools... and in time, it will happen again.

Australia, don't become America.

Dear Toni,

Absolutely spot on.
You're right -

Why not just ban guns and when people are upset
about it, just send them "thoughts and prayers?"

If "thoughts and prayers" are good enough for people
who've lost their families - then it's good enough
for people who've lost their guns.

cont'd ...

Oh that's right - gun control doesn't work...

Except in Canada, Japan, England, Spain, Australia, Sweden,
Iceland, Italy, Israel, Denmark, Germany ...

We should arm every teacher...
The bastards won't even buy them pencils and printer ink...
now they've got the budget for Glocks?

cont'd ...

If children are slaughtered in their school and
your reaction is "Don't you dare think about taking
my guns," rather than "How do we stop this from
ever happening again?"

Then we don't have a difference in opinion.

We have a difference in morality.

Foxy,

"Australia is by far a safer place today than it was before we took
action to limit the availability of guns:"

Just how did we limit the availability of guns,
there are now more guns in Australia than before the buyback.

But there are fewer murders and less crime, which poses the question,

Do more guns mean less crime?

Toni,

Are you quite happy that a US teacher in the future when facing and trying to protect children from an armed murderer, should be prevented from having any effective means of defence?

Only a coward or a deviant would answer 'Yes".

Sorry, made a mistake before.

//as long as it doesn't mean less guns//

Should have been:

\\as long as it doesn't mean fewer guns\\

My bad.

Now, as for the rantings of Mr. Iceberg lettuce.

//Are you quite happy that a US teacher in the future when facing and trying to protect children from an armed murderer, should be prevented from having any effective means of defence?

Only a coward or a deviant would answer 'Yes".//

No. We've been over this already. I am fully in support of an emergency tiger in every classroom.